#anyways all this to say i don't actually know if he's capable of being sincere without some level of evasion and redirection

[melodead]

you know from experience that hungry students will go through many, many lengths to sate that hunger—and that’s why you’ve decided to hike a mountain on a school night.

you take a cutting of berries and slide them into the glass jar. hopefully, these aren’t poisonous. they’ll need to be checked by professor crewel first, obviously, but it’s better to be safe than sorry. grim might survive eating poison. you, on the other hand? not so much. a specialist would need to vet them first.

“i wouldn’t recommend eating those, if that’s what you’re planning.”

or a very knowledgeable student.

you turn your head. jade leech smiles politely at you from the long shadow of a tree, his usual suspicious demeanor offset by a knitted yellow cap and several layers of hiking gear. his lantern casts a soft glow across his face. you wonder why he has it out at all. the sun has only just begun to set, after all.

you must be staring too much, because jade steps out of the shadow and crouches down next to you, setting the lamp on the ground. “it’s good to have one in case of any delays. the mountains can be rather perilous, as you must be aware by now,” he explains. “one reckless act, and nature’s bounty can prove fatal,”—he taps your jar—“such as these.”

you blink at him slowly. his yellow eye almost glows in the dying light of day, but they are not predatory. not today.

“right. thank you for the notice.” you screw the lid back on, put it into your basket, and push yourself from the ground. he begins to do the same. “i’ll be leaving now. i don’t want to inconvenience you any further.” yes, he did just get here. no, you will not be acknowledging that.

“not at all. on the contrary, it is lovely to see you, prefect, especially on such a pleasant day. ah, but that reminds me,”—oh, sevens. please don’t say what i think you’re going to say—“seeing as we’re both here, perhaps you wouldn’t mind a bit of a hike to the peak? the sunset is beautiful this time of year.”

you swear. internally, of course, but the idea is the same.

you really hoped to avoid octavinelle after azul’s incident. it was one thing to be riddle or leona; they hadn’t targeted you personally. moreover, riddle has relaxed on some of his rules, and leona doesn’t bother you any more than he talks to you (which is very rarely). you got over it.

octavinelle, though, had contracted your friends into forced labor (it was mostly their own fault), stolen your house (you willingly agreed to hand it over), and sabotaged you in getting it back (in a deal you knew was sketchy). it was, it was—!

oh, who are you kidding? you feel hurt. that’s the long and short of it. it is juvenile and illogical and out of character for you and you hate it, but there is no time to unpack that, and the consequences for purposeful ignorance are little to none. jade leech couldn’t possibly have cared anyways.

“-efect? prefect?” he taps you gently. “are you alright?”

but you must have forgotten how entertaining the students find you.

you step back, hands gripping the strap of your bag. “i don’t think that’s a good idea. if i went with you, the sun would be gone by the time we got there. we’ll be better off going our separate ways.”

“i beg to differ.” his eyes glance at your bag. several jars clink emptily. “you’re foraging, yes? there happens to be a berry hedge on the trail down. i could lead you there, if you so wish.”

“that’s okay. it’ll be dark.”

“then i could accompany you on the way down,” he offers, “if the dark is what worries you.”

“i’ve faced worse—and i really should be getting back to ramshackle soon. grim will be hungry.” not to mention the three other teenage boys who might be ransacking the place.

“even so, you can never be too careful.” 

you cut the pleasantries. “and what would you get out of it?”

“pardon?”

“what are you getting in return?” your eyes bore into his. “i don’t have anything to give you, but frankly, i’m not interested in any kind of exchange if that’s what you have in mind. you won’t get anything from me.”

jade leech blinks at you twice in rapid succession, eyebrows raised, before his features school themselves into something neutral. concealed, even. you’re almost comforted by the sight of normal jade.

key word: almost.

“is that what you think of me?”

“how else am i supposed to think?” your eyebrows furrow. “i could never tell with you before, but i knew you weren’t malicious at the very least. i don’t have a clue where we stand now.” excuses. truths. you hold your basket closer. “does it matter, anyways? i don’t have any business with you.”

the sun is lower on the horizon now. the lamplight flickers.

jade leech sighs—sighs!—so inaudible you might’ve thought it was the wind. his eyes fall shut for a moment. when they open again, his left one shines gold. “you’re still nursing injuries, are you not? as vice housewarden of octavinelle, it would be remiss of me to ignore someone personally hurt by the actions of our dorm. i’ll ensure your safety against anything on the way down.” his gaze meets yours. “an eye for an eye, yes?”

you scrunch your face. “i don’t want your eye. i don’t want anyone’s eyes.”

jade blinks at you—(wow, that makes it, what, three times now?)—before unexpectedly giving into chuckles. it’s breathy, and true, and a whole host of other adjectives you wouldn’t normally assign him. that must be the floyd in him, you think as you stand there awkwardly. you wonder if you should just leave.

jade gets a hold of himself soon enough though, and he ushers you down the mountain under the guise of benevolence and whatever else he tries to sell to you on the way. you ignore it the best you can.

what you don’t see is the lingering grin tugging at the corners of his mouth, the entire trip down.

[darklinaforever]

Me, blocking all the so-called Saurondriel /Haladriel fans who say we're delusional to think Sauron has sincere feelings for Galadriel, because he can apparently only love himself.

More seriously, this is typically the kind of speech I hate. A speech that a villain cannot feel sincere affection.

Yes. They can. Of course they can. It’s just twisted and toxic. And that's okay.

Because love doesn't necessarily have to be holy and pure. This is bullshit. Whether in real life or fiction.

So why on earth would it be ridiculous to think that Sauron actually had affection for Galadriel ?

Especially since it's a Maiar originally. And the Maiars can fall in love.

Even when they are corrupt.

I don't know their names anymore, but there is a love story where a Maiar corrupted by Morgoth returns to the light thanks to the woman he loves.

So being corrupt doesn't stop Sauron from being in love in his own obviously twisted and toxic way.

Especially since we see that Sauron is capable of kindness in season 1. And even a little in season 2 in terms of emotions by becoming attached to certain people. The problem is that it will never come before his need for absolute control. Not even Galadriel, the one he obviously cares about the most. And that's okay.

Once again love does not have to be pure and holy.

Especially since I feel like a lot of people forget that Sauron is not the ultimate evil that Middle-earth has known. That was Morgoth.

Just look at Sauron's goal in the first place. It is not bad in itself, but it is the methods to get there that are extremely bad.

Anyway, it's a small complaint that I have to make today, in the face of many so-called Haladriel / Saurondriel stans who allow themselves to come and preach about what is good to believe or not. not believe in the ship.

I say bullshit to all these shitty posts in my opinion.

And please don't let anyone try to argue that Sauron can't love because it will end in an automatic blockage.

And I'll be clear, it's not because we think Sauron truly loves Galadriel in his own twisted way that we think he's redeemable.

In season 1 he might have been, maybe, but not anymore.

And in any case, we never really think about it seriously, even at the end of season 1, except for fanfiction scenarios since we already know the fate of Sauron and his end !

Obviously we don't hope Saurondriel ends up in a fairy tale ! This is not what we expect.

But that doesn't stop the screenwriters from correctly writing this toxic and tragic relationship, supposed to be the heart of the show, instead of to do the minimum that the finale of season 2 gave us in my opinion, especially after all the teasing about their reunion.

I would add that above all, the Saurondriel relationship is literally the heart of this show once again and that they are literally coded as mirrors / soulmates, and they generally yearn for each other in their own way in season 2.

This kind of scenario is of no interest unless there are feelings on both sides.

That's all I would have to say.

[chekhovs-blender]

hey, to begin- your fics are amazing. “You went too far” is probably the best out there, the repression, intensity, character regression, piper’s pov-s. It’s not just a saxloch fic, it encompassed the entire family, all the three siblings. The fic based on piper’s pov in her wedding is so good, specially what Loch says at the end asking if Nick hurt her omg !!! He was defensive even if he didn’t clearly know, and the way it mirrors her projection.

I have a question too, to what extent do you think Saxon’s repression and denial goes? Does he lie to himself too or just to the world. Who is he really beneath his (ugly) person suit?

1) thanks for the kind words!!! i'm so glad you like my fics! and yeah, for the wedding fic, it was definitely my intention to write a bit of two-way projection. i love it when siblings are weird and words unspoken linger in the space between. thank you again for reading the unfocused 70k word vomit i put down lol <333

2) the thing is, this is really hard to answer because we don't really get to see it (in canon!). most of saxon's character underneath is simply manifested through what he lacks in life (and yearns for, but that's last second and partially hinted at). he's just such a perfect nothingburger of a man whose macho posturing, need for dominance (just a repeat of the other ask i received and answered) and bravado have filled the space where a healthy heart should be.

as for the awareness, short tmi(?) incoming, i can only speak from personal experience as a guy who was stuck in a macho right wing grift straight passing loop for most of my teens (and i wonder why i latch onto saxon and lochlan as characters lol). it's actually so easy to be completely aware of how much of your identity is a performance and then upping the performance so it loops back to being sincere and hoping you get attention/praise/approval from the people you admire and want to emulate (think timothy and saxon + saxon and lochlan to a lesser extent). i think for saxon, it's a refuge because it seems like the only role he's ever known how to (attempt to) occupy. so i do believe he's aware of a lot of the stuff he does (not to repeat the aforementioned linked ask) and plays it up fake it til you make it style. and again, it's a veryyyy blurry line between being and wanting to be (frank monologue again) so in the end it doesn't particularly matter.

i think there's actually close to nothing beneath the ugly person suit to be honest. just a vast ocean of emptiness and gaping insecurity and an ever shifting whirlpool of need and want to be loved and paid attention to (and obviously the bigoted residue and slimy trail his persona leaves in its wake, don't get me wrong, he's a grade a misogynist among the other bigotries). as saxon states, he has no hobbies, and i'm pretty sure he has no emotionally fulfilling relationships, family included. i think that's why it was so easy to latch onto lochlan especially as his attempts to dazzle timothy mostly failed or were lukewarm at best (again, he exhibits a keen level of self-awareness when his identity is pressed - he knows he's perceived as timothy ratliff's son and is mostly fine with, read - resigned to, being that). it's precisely because there's nothing spiritually meaningful beneath the mask that i feel sorry for him, this is a man approaching his thirties who's never let himself be an actual person worth knowing.

as for his feelings/denials i do think he loves his family to the extent he's capable of it, believing he knows and does what's best for them in his self-absorbed manner. there's a reason for why he's the eldest boy (!) and why that particular position morphs him into who he is. like, i have my own 'headcanons' as to what that looks like so if anyone wants to know....¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

i think a lot of his 'repression' comes from the fact he's never been emotionally intimate with anyone (obvious but anyway), as in, he picked up on the idea of women as simply instruments for sexual satisfaction, status and procreation so to him that is mutually exclusive with being emotionally vulnerable (i.e. he doesn't value them enough as human beings to even pretend to try, until, *very* arguably, chelsea). so that leaves only men. but, well, they're men so he can't be either of those with them. so that leaves him with nothing except weird familial pseudo-incest and the actual incestuous maelstrom building the whole season and going way back probably. like, his family are the only 'friends' he's ever had and his dad think he's a tryhard, mom's never said no to him, lochlan worships him and rarely pushes back meaningfully and piper cannot stand him most of the time. like sure, it's more complicated but... well.

so yeah, saxon lies to himself and the world but it's this feedback loop and self-preservation that make him double down on it all, i feel like (again, it's projectiom perhaps lol). at the end of the season he's just finally allowing himself to admit it and take a look inside (and possibly gauge the damage).

i might've had something clever/interesting to say but i'm the equivalent of jetlagged - think five hours of being cramped in a car with four other people in 35°C heat (with one more hour to go) so my brain's turned to jelly but i wanted to answer this ask anyway :,)

i'm typing this in that same car. nothing beats answering incest fandom asks while sitting next to family i guess... so like sorry for the most obvious of obvious half-baked takes

[inseparabiles]

@vyoongi

What was that thing that I said I'd do? Write a better comment later when I'm more coherent?

Turns out! I am not capable of being more coherent and reading your fic makes me absolutely feral and unhinged to clinically significant degrees! I am so sorry! Anyway, here's the.......... 12 000 words of... more of the same.

To anybody else who sees this, read this fic. I've never been broken by anything the way that I've been broken by this story and I have never loved one like I love this one.

(dated: 23/04/25)

So, it took me a day to actually get myself back together, and I think that's an overestimation of my current state but I really want to give this the comment it deserves, which is more than whatever incoherence came out earlier. I assume this'd take at least 5 comment forms posted on AO3 and I'm so sorry about that but brevity is not a strength I have and it is what it is. (Retrospectively, this would have taken 7 AO3 comment forms to post. So yeah, here is probably the best alternative.) Trying to cut down the rambling and actually keep it to the story, but before that, I want to say I'm really glad the initial mess of a reaction didn't come across the wrong way. I realised only way after I'd written it that while I know that as a writer I love little better than hearing the raw, real, unpolished thoughts that particularly the heavier stories can get out of people, I didn't actually know at all if you'd take it that way or if it would just come out the exact wrong way. Like… we don't know each other, that could have gone horribly wrong, and I probably should have considered that first? So - I'm sorry, and you're welcome, thankfully.

I'm sincerely afraid of going through this again but I've put aside a whole day to get my bearings after so let's just go. Let's do this. It's a great sign that just writing the Tumblr tags for the reblog earlier was enough to make me sob again so I'm sure this'll go smoothly and be just as eloquent and coherent as I want it to be.

The way this starts - with the scents, and the warm breeze - is like that split second before the rumbling tremor a volcano lets out before an eruption. Like a crack that charges through the earth and then there's that splitting silence afterwards.

"A warm breeze tangled with the perfume of lilacs, and beneath it, rot. The kind you don't notice until you breathe too deep."

Which is exactly what they've been doing. This is probably literal: Rome has scents that overtone a stench that is rot, death, excrement. But it is also what is happening here and there's that tell in this very. first. paragraph. of how it'll go. Things are beautiful on the surface, but they are not underneath, and nobody here is going to be taking in a deep breath without feeling the things that they're trying to push aside.

"They said it was a comedy", and their whole lives are a comedy, to anybody else watching. No one has ever showed them compassion. They're so alone in this. In the story, in the canon, I try to avoid them in history but I cannot imagine you end up the way they did without being profoundly and fundamentally alone in a place where no amount of people surrounding you can get through. Knowing that the people around you want to laugh, and fear is the only thing that ever kept them from doing it? At your pain, at your weakness, at your isolation? A man who was supposed to be their guardian aimed arrows at them. If he did that then who is going to be kinder? Who is going to look at them and not despise them? And Geta's put it all there on display, the only beautiful things that came out of it at all. The only comforts they had, for everyone to laugh at. The single most honest expression of love that Caracalla could ever manifest for the only person he could ever feel it for - and Geta's put it there, for the entertainment of others, as a form of comedy. To be torn apart and he's watching it happen. He has to hear it happen. And he wasn't even told it was going to be there, so it all comes to him in that same moment, like it doesn't even matter that it's there.

The cold reality of nothing of them touching. The fact that the mention alone implies that Caracalla wishes they were, and how silently that longing is put into the scene. The wanting of something soft, of that comfort, to reassure him that this is loving, but it isn't, because all he has is the loneliness there in the midst of everybody, and Geta's pretending it's funny. To hurt him? Or because he just doesn't care?

The fact that they were so young when this took place. Ten, maybe younger? And the way he remembers it like everything else is flayed aside and it's just this salt on the exposed nerves. And Geta had smiled. Really smiled. That belonged to Caracalla. This whole scene is a mockery of all that was ever sacred between them. Like it doesn't matter and Geta never cared at all. Everything that he felt was just something to sneer at in the end, because he's better? than Caracalla. Never needed him the way that Caracalla needed him, and nothing he could ever give him could be meaningful in the end. It's only good for this farce, to expose to everybody in the world how stupid he was to think that it would matter.

Geta seemed not to react. Didn't even blink.

How Caracalla misses the flinching, and that means so much to him that the rest of it just wraps itself around that absence of reaction, the proof of all of his worst fears and hurts.

Knowing that it isn't like that and it wasn't meant to be like that but he doesn't know and he can't tell and Geta obviously does not have the words because if he did, they wouldn't have been sitting there to begin with. Trying to express things that can't be spoken and having the silence itself rob him of everything he was trying to say. (Geta, again, trusting others to do these things for him, because he doesn't think he's good enough to manage it. Having it thrown back at him in the worst ways.)

And then we don't get the soft breezes anymore and the rain never stops from here. It's this horrible pit in your stomach and that feeling of being washed away from hereon out where the worst things are true and time is running so short and there's no way out of it for anybody. Caracalla's dying and this is the moment he stops living, somehow. The rest is the process of struggling to comprehend that loss and everything that never was and it hurts so. Fucking. Much. How much unspoken there is left. How many things that he feared and fears and wants and wanted that just can't come out in any meaningful way at this point. Because the little things he held onto mean nothing, and never did, whatever life he ever had, whatever love he ever felt, didn't amount to anything in the end.

The black cloak clung to his arms, heavy with water and salt.

Screaming. Fucking screaming at this and how much it says about the rain that is rain but is also all of his tears and as well might be as a whole just that one thing, because has he ever let this out? Has he EVER felt these things before the way he's feeling them now? The entirety of the things he was trying to survive for his whole life, and now he's not trying to survive them anymore, because it's over and what did he even do all that for? If it never mattered.

He looked like a god gone feral because he is and I'm not taking criticism on this interpretation. Always was and always will be.

Away from Geta's stillness. That indifferent mask he wore when he didn't want to feel.

That thing that he does!!!!!!! That thing I love him for. The attempt at being unreachable, at not being human, when he is at his most human on the inside. Trying to cover it like a wounded animal.

But Caracalla felt. He always felt. Too much. And too fast.

Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!! They're so much the opposite to one another in everything. Geta's forced and stilted composure against Caracalla's immediate and inescapable and vivid and overflowing, unadultered feeling. It has to hurt so much, and he's surely spent his whole life trying to find ways out of that pain, a way to imitate the detachment that Geta manages to lie about so often.

Geta in this scene being so. Shakeable. I want to grab him by the shoulders and shake him, but what he really needs is to have that mask taken off of him so that he can connect again, somehow, because he must be just as lost as Caracalla is underneath it. Just as afraid and confused and in pain. Because he tried to speak but he just doesn't have the words but it never goes right for them, does it? And now he's lying about it, too, because ???????? if he just denies it being real then maybe all of this will go away.

They stood in a corridor of shadows, hemmed by pillars and the distant murmur of Rome pretending not to listen.

This hits me so well, the presence of that separate audience still with them. The summary of the story really hits in for this moment - all they've ever been is actors on a stage and Rome is PRETENDING not to listen to this act because the audience is separate from the actors and for fuck's sake I want to throw something. I just want them to have good things. I just want them to have the softness they've been denied but showing it and receiving it is so complicated now. Not like when they were children and everything just was as it was, desperately present and immediate, now everything is masks and pretense because the things that once were aren't things that are allowed to exist anymore. And they weren't then, either, so they're never addressed again now that they know better. But that Geta dares to put them on show like that, to be mocked? Because they were never meant to be and it's all just a farce for other people to laugh at.

Geta didn't reply. He blinked rain from his lashes.

Rain. I'm sure it is. Like all normal rain is warm and salty. Because neither of them can express themselves in a sincere form or if they do it will cause something horrible to happen, it's the environment expressing these things for them. They have no voices and have never had any voices and this is the only thing that's left to them, the allusions and the roundabout ways of expression, stageplay, lights reflected through carefully placed mirrors and special effects used to underline a point that is never voiced.

I hate this so much. I hate everything about this. I want them to have the right to be human. Even with just one another if nobody else ever thought they were entitled to it. But we can't have that, can we. We can't fucking have that. (I made it this far without breaking and thought hey maybe I was actually fit to do this but here we are again. And I just looked at the scrollbar and I've gotten through like what, 2% of this story? The fucked up thing about this is that even on the first go, it felt like I sat here for months with them. I'm chronically afraid of timeskips because of all the things left unsaid and unseen but this story does not struggle with it. Every fucking time skip is a question left unanswered and a horrific period of unbreakable silence that stretches on and I hate that, too. So fucking much.)

The next bit about names has me so fucking feral and on the walls again that I don't even know how to put it into writing. Incoherent endless fucking screaming on the inside when I try to figure out what it is. The way their distance is so vast that Geta has no names for Caracalla anymore. Is that mask stuck to his face, did he grow his skin into it? The way wounds grow around fabric if it's left in for too long.

Meanwhile, "not even brother. Not even bastard" has me in pained hysterics and I also want to throw up a lot like this is the point where I apparently start getting sick from the grief. But just the implication that this has been a thing between them and that is the most normal thing about them, how there was a time when Geta would call him a bastard, and the way that it's framed as a derogatory synonym for brother here? He's done it when he's mad, but he's also done it with a smile. It's been a name for him because Geta's been fed up with him and his antics and there was an immediacy to that between them that isn't there anymore.

"You think I don't remember what we were?"

Geta stepped back. "We were children."

Geta is making me feral, too, in general. His avoidance. That perfect lack of anything in him, but he has cracks in that shell and what's inside hurts maybe more than Caracalla does right now, which is an achievement that I think no one should ever achieve. At least Caracalla's reaching out for something, trying to connect again, and all Geta can do is step away because they don't talk about these things and it's like. It's like the fucking Chornobyl shell around the reactor core. What's inside is excruciating and impossible to contain so he's put as many fucking layers around it as he humanely can to contain it and make it go away but Caracalla's pushing his fingers and words into it because he needs to get back inside there. Because that's where Geta keeps his real self, all the love that used to be in him, that's now too painful to feel for him, and the fear and the uncertainty that he can't afford, it's the worst fucking toxic sludge of all time and Caracalla needs it like a lifeline but if it was exposed it might actually just take Geta down with it, because there's nothing for him there that he can hold onto.

"I bled for you, brother."

"You bled for control."

"Same thing."

Throwing things at walls. Just fucking throwing things at walls and screaming at this point.

Geta turned. "Go back to the palace," he said. "You're soaked."

It's these little things that threaten my remaining shreds of sanity. Is there a tone to that voice? At all? He was angry, now it's "he said" and I feel like there isn't a tone in that. It's that empty nothing but the words betray the care that is not allowed there. Go back to the palace you're soaked. For fuck's sake for FUCK'S SAKE.

"I remember."

Just fucking end me. First scene and I just. I don't know what the fuck to do with any of this fucking. Fuck.

I scrolled back up and laughed because are you fucking kidding me. I've stood here with them for 40 minutes and that was 700 words. Out of 4 000. I don't think I'll survive this and neither will whatever platform this is posted on and at this point I'm just going to have to ask you on Tumblr if you want this on Google Docs instead or something. Going to get a coffee because this is actually unsurvivable.

Okay. Everything is fine.

The rain had not stopped.

And it won't, because our two little gods in their perfect isolation are what is driving it, and they don't know how to stop it, either. You know, I think the worst part about how I ended up finding this fic was that I'd just finished a gratuitous smut and coincidentally for the first time in a month at least went to check what else is in the tag. How many people posted stories recently and what they were writing about and so on and so forth. And I was feeling really, REALLY evil and cocky and brave. Like exceptionally stable and content in every measurable way because my fic finally managed to be one where I got the boys into a situation where Caracalla could perfectly show care to Geta in his own fucked up ways without it harming either of them and the fic is themed around sunlight and warmth and hope. And I got to this and went ohhhh ohhhh could it be???? and it was and I didn't read the tags or even the summary or anything I just went in like oooohhh at the A/N and started reading and then at like. A few lines in I had to stop and go, I'm about to go to bed, right? I'm about to end the day and while it's been such a good day, I could tell at that point that this was going to be rough and like. Ask myself if I was up for it. But I had my own fic shield and I wasn't feeling particularly vulnerable in any way so I was like nah fuck it what's the worst that can happen.

And the worst that could happen is that I was in the right place for this story in all the ways that made sure it would hit me the exact right way to ensure that I'll remember it forever. And I'm sorry but that's a badge of honour to me and maybe this is unhinged but I want to carry these two with me to the grave. I want this to be a story that sticks through decades because clearly no one else loved them. No one else ever could. They had no safety and they had nothing but I've heard them and I'll take this story and I'll bury it in my heart because they deserve to be heard, they deserve to be loved, and they deserve their pain to be recognised. Somehow, this story is like the process of scarification. I want it embedded into me because that is the only way their loneliness can be honoured. They don't have the words and they never will but I've heard them, at least, and I don't judge them for anything. They were just boys. There's members in this audience who saw them at their worst and most vulnerable and did not laugh at them, but at most with them, at every sweetness that was and isn't anymore and can't ever be again in this life.

It's been one and a half hours or some such writing this comment, and I'm really glad I put aside a full day to do it. Gods know I apparently need it.

It drummed against the marble, soft and insistent, as if heaven itself remembered.

Because it does. And all about it is soft. Driving, every drop like whiplashes, but it is soft, because the things that caused all this pain are so soft, and so delicate, and silent, and perpetual and never-ending and bittersweet. How it comes over everything, paints the scenery with reminders, there's nothing left in Rome that isn't about them now.

It wasn't just the line. It was the knowing in it. That terrible intimacy. It was the sound of childhood unburied. The voice of a ten year old boy, weeping in secret, writing to his brother by lamplight while the palace trembled with their father's wrath.

The fragility of all of this will be the end of me. They were and are so tender and so vulnerable and so in need of love and care, and this, I think, is the volcano I hear, that to Caracalla is the echoing voice. I think it reverberates until it becomes that end of the world boom of foreboding and prophecy. Something falling down and breaking that hands can't hold together. It's his whole world falling apart and there is nothing that can be done about it. He can't, Geta doesn't have it in him to do it either, no one else would even think to. The memory of the most terrible thing to hear, the coming of pain and terror, equally unstoppable, in the very halls they still live in. Knowing what it means but never knowing what it brings with it this time.

Because Geta had been the quiet shield. Because Caracalla had not yet learned to be cruel. Not entirely.

Jesus Christ.

But that was before. Before nameless lovers. Before a shared empire. Before the blood between them thickened to suspicion and then to silence.

What happened to you two. Truly, what happened before this. The day between reading this for the first time and now I've been intermittently wondering about the outside of this story. It is so focused on this narrative, but they both existed in the moments between, the silences, too. There was a life around this, and there was definitely one before this. What was it like? Their everyday, the usual. Now I'm sure it's just these silences and avoidance and grief and bitterness and fear, the story speaks for itself as to what is happening between them, but so much is left outside of it, and I'm starving for the unbiased narration there. I want to know what Geta had for breakfast or if he could eat anything at all. I want to know what Caracalla did while he wasn't sleeping. I want to know about the fidgeting or the stillness and I want to know about the hot days that came before the rain, and the days that don't start from the first rumble of the impending end.

I already asked about after the end but this is me asking about the before the beginning. I want their whole lives because they should be known for themselves, in all the vibrance of colours they could never show anyone.

And then the rot is back because it creeps into the undertones of everything. The way everything in this story is falling apart with it. There's the surface but it's soiled wood and the core of it is full of sawdust and insects burrowing into broken-down matter. And it smells so foul and suffocating. The way Caracalla's illness just… manifests through this, like the first visible bits of that rot breaking through and you take a look at it and anticipate suddenly the full depth of what is left unseen and has been there for a long time. It's at this point I scrolled up and checked the MCD warning, and it was a kind of a heaviness to accompany the other weight from this. Not a surprise, but a kind of a letting go of, well, it's not going to get better, is it. And he knows it too and I think that's one of the worst things for him. There's no "things always get worse before they get better" because he will actually not live long enough to see them get better. It doesn't matter if everything could be fixed, because it will not be, and that is absolute. Even at this point, it's already absolute. There's too much to get to with no time whatsoever to even touch the surface.

But they do touch the surface, in the end. Fingers on the rotting wood that's like eggshells and nothing breaks through because they want to keep the impression to the end, the beautiful surface of what was and could have been, knowing that any pressure would shatter it and reveal the full extent of how bad it got in the end.

They said his hands trembled too, but that was not illness: it was fury.

I've been reading a book on syphilitic paresis and last night I fell asleep to the part of the chapter showing different examples of writing from patients and I can't… not think about it here. And the intertwined nature of his trembling, disease, and fury. Anger is a secondary emotion, it doesn't occur on its own. It feels so much like in this story, his sickness is a manifestation of everything that he's kept inside, they're the same thing, somehow. Both are ending him, because no human being was ever meant to endure this much pain.

And Caracalla, even now, could remember how safe he felt hearing that. He had believed love was something carved into flesh. Something eternal.

Now, he knew better. Love was a performance. A line in a play.

This is again a bit that carries a lifetime's worth of implication and meaning behind it, and peeks beyond the world of this story and into the others in a way that really hurts me about this story in particular. The thing is, like I said in the initial comment, I don't know these boys. But I know that for the ones I do know, it is carved into flesh. It is something eternal. It is something that persists through pain, distrust, anger, fear, and death. It is something that carries over and leaves traces of itself in places where they've been and shows in all the things that they put their hands to, not least in each other's souls. I'm sure they carry physical reminders, too. I like to draw Geta with a scar on his throat because that's what Caracalla is to him, in ways that I don't think can really be depicted in words.

And I don't know what world I'm looking into when I'm reading this bit. The fact that at this point into the story, there's really no way to tell. We only have Geta's silence and his stillness but Caracalla is the most unreliable narrator there could possibly be, and he's absolutely shattered with his own grief, and his own approaching death, and the time that he doesn't have left to fix this, or have them fixed. I don't think he wants to fix them at this point. He keeps lashing out to ask for it but the ball is so far in the other court by now, he does not want to be the one to pick it up and make things better because he can't. And Geta just won't. He just won't. Because he sees how this will end, too? Because he knows they don't have time? Or just because it fucking hurts and he can't do it? Because he's so young, too, and this is all that he can do to survive?

Geta had been nine when he wrote it.

The fact that all of this happened so long ago, and the fact that this was the last time they had words for each other. At whatever point after it was all sealed and they just don't talk anymore, because words like that were left in their letters and put away like things to be preserved for evidence to someone who in a better time might read them and know them, but not for them again. There's no conclusion to any of it, because at some time, it was put aside and silenced.

It reminds him of before. Of when they used to share breath under bedspreads and whisper kingdoms into being. When Geta still smiled.

I want this story from Geta's point of view. Because he wears that mask and won't tell us anything, just like he won't tell it to Caracalla. I don't want to break through that, because I agree with him in thinking that it would break him too. I just want to feel it with him for a moment and not have him be so alone with it all.

He wonders what Geta dreams about now.

Evidently I'm not the only one.

If he remembers how it felt, not to be afraid of the world. Only of losing each other.

Screaming and throwing things again. The fact that it is the world that made them silent, told them their words aren't safe to have. Did they grow to worry for themselves, or is it just worrying of losing each other still, just in a different, more aware form? A growing perspective into all the ways that they could endanger each other and lose each other? Even without any external judgement, they could still easily break each other all on their own, but for all that they were, if they'd kept it on display, it would be other people tearing them apart. With their father, they were very much pushed into their own world, but growing up, the rest of the world becomes a part of it. Did they lose each other for their own safety, or to try and hold onto having each other for as long as they could? Through suffocating it and letting it die slowly, rather than all at once, in a flash of the pain and fear that they already knew was a danger.

The end of this bit fucking kills me, with the slave and the robes. Oh my god. Holy fucking shit. I did not see that coming.

It sounds less like poetry now. More like a promise broken.

This fic fills me with a very unique sort of despair that is the need to intervene with this all happening. How much they deserve more time to have something better, something good, out of the hope that they used to have together.

And even the rain changes again. It's been a subdued background force and now it's tearing flesh from bone and festering like everything else. The way this story speeds up and builds force with it.

Again, I don't think my music is making this any better. Today's choice is Petricor by Ludovico Einaudi, because I listened to it yesterday by coincidence and realised it already reminded me of this story. Serendipitously named. But like. Neither is the fact that my entire body also hurts and I think I need to take a break from reading, but I mention this mostly because it's so. Ironic. And convenient. I think I'll be going through this fic for the rest of my life at this stage and isn't that just fitting.

I think I said in my tags that I want to go look up how to do book binding so I can put this story in pretty covers and have it in my bookshelf, and I'm thinking about that now probably as a distraction. I'm being totally unhinged about all of this but there's something in this story that just feels so sacred to me. About them and their love but in a broader way about people, children, and the human condition. Like I don't know what you did but I want to hold it in my hands and have it lined with gold, and I want it to be in a form that can be put between covers and shut close so that it's all whole for once. Spread on a screen feels too open and loose and if there's one thing that reigns through the narrative, it's the chaos of everything, the uncertainty of everything around the only desperate certainties that they have, the way that nothing can be held together, or held at all.

I wrote this so you'd never forget you saved me. That we are not alone. That I will never leave you, not even in fear.

This was written for this moment. For that time when it feels the most like they don't even have each other and all that they've ever been has been broken, because once, they knew that even what they were could be forgotten because that IS living. All can fade but these words are there to remind them that no matter what - no matter how it looks - there are truths that don't change. They can be buried and the words can bleed but it is true and this is the note from someplace very far away from someone who was just as desperate, trying to reach out through that darkness to say it again when all other voices have gone mute.

The actor's voice echoed in his head. Too polished. Too perfect. The words not sacred, but theatrical.

Because he doesn't know what they really mean. And the next line about how Geta might have, after all, reacted somehow. There could have been something. Because this, again, is Geta's fucked up way of trying to speak when he has no voice to himself. Using others to express what cannot be expressed. Trying to shout when he can't make a sound. And Caracalla wants to know that, but he can't figure it out. What is it. What is it.

The longing here for a soft, warm someone he used to know who is now as distant as the stars. The sheer desperation that is somehow radiating from Geta through Caracalla's own inability to reach him, how much of him is flinching in nearly every sentence of this story, even if Caracalla can't consciously recognise it, and he's so hurt that the possibilities and meanings being open leave so much more room for a worst interpretation, not the one that would still hold onto some hope. Because hope doesn't belong to him anymore.

"You shouldn't walk the halls alone," Geta said softly, stepping over a crack in the stone.

This whole bit this part them. Actually reaching - godfuckshit. I fucking. I hate this so much. Stepping over a crack in the stone like they're stepping over the first cracks in the foundations now that the earth is rocking and it's either they hold onto that silence and nothing ever gets said again or they brave it and said softly and for the love of gods it hurts so much.

Geta's silence wasn't cruel. It was cautious.

He embodies nothing but his caution and avoidance and every attempt at letting his warmth through it has him hurt again.

"You knew those words were mine. You heard them and didn't flinch."

"I did flinch," Geta said.

I think this is the thing that actually murdered whatever defenses I initially had left for going through this. It's so easy to be confused with Caracalla through the first bits and then Geta's here and it just hits you so bad in the face like. He did flinch. This fucking. This entire. I can't fucking handle it. How he's confessing to his motives - this was his way of speaking, trying to cross the wall of silence between them that they've built together and forgot which of them laid the first stones because it's been two pairs of hands on the opposite sides for years until neither of them can hear or see each other through it anymore. And I'm sure they shared looks over it while they still could and said nothing of it, just pushed in the next stone until there was nothing to see there anymore.

It is so brave of them to actually talk here. How the fuck are they even doing it. How is there so much weight to every word and every sentence and all of this vulnerability packed into their small gestures and tones and movements.

And more of that silence from both of them.

Why didn't you stop it. Because it was beautiful. Because someone's speaking the words that he wants to hear again, and wants to repeat, but can't. Someone HAD to say them, but neither of them could. I desperately wish I could break something like just straight up crush something in my fist right now.

Those words, so soft, spoken with reverence, slapped him harder than any insult.

And this is why you don't talk!!!!!!!! Because the reality of any love and softness and care and gentleness between you two is killing you both and you can't even hear it even though you desperately want to and need to, and Geta can't speak it because I'm sure he feels like he's biting his own tongue with every word, but doing it is SO brave of them both. Being honest and being real about it. BECAUSE the silence was broken to begin with and yes it has hurt so much and oh my god.

His large, dark eyes seemed to speak, but Caracalla did not understand that language.

I feel like the first read-through had me so… in Caracalla's skin that his own biases and limitations obscured it for me, but the more I'm reading through this now, the more this is about Geta and the way his whole story is just unspoken and unheard between the lines. Because Caracalla can't hear him and he doesn't know how to tell him in words and all of these ways that he tries to are just………. it is so desperate. He tries so much to explain but they don't speak the same language.

"I think you think love is like a sword. That to be known is to be broken."

I think this is both of you. Your love is that rotting wood with the eggshell skin and any touch on it might irreparably spill everything from within that can't be put back together after. In every shade of its ugliness and the beauty of things that were and the way you were when you could still be true, covered and rotted into what you have left, and there. isn't. time. to find the beauty in that. Is there.

The silence that followed was a scream in disguise.

Which is also what both of you have been doing, until both your throats and ears were shredded, for evidently at least a decade here. And there's the volcano again except it's thunder this time and not voices.

Caracalla woke with the taste of ash in his mouth. His pillow was wet. Rain, or tears. He didn't know.

The. Way. The. Rain. Keeps. Coming. Through. Into places. It has NO fucking business. Being. Inside rooms and on his pillow and being salty when it's outside. The way you turned it into this pervasive force of horror that holds every bit of their grief and the unspokenness of their feelings of every kind and the silence itself that is the noise of it that engulfs everything else and doesn't ever let up. I am feral and I am going fucking insane with this again.

He sat on the floor of his chamber, surrounded by the drenched scrolls he had torn from their shelves.

Why are the scrolls drenched!!!!!!!!!!! Where is this fucking rain coming from!!!!!!!!!!!! It haunts me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Some were his. Some were Geta's. Because of course they are. And now they're being dried in the corner as though drying words could save them.

I am fhdgkhngsjnjksdnbgkjsdgnkjsdgnkjdngkgn. At a loss. For words. This fucking thing keeps. Pushing me to the limits of the English language and all I have left is just internally screaming and all of the 5000 swearwords I'm dutifully erasing from most places here because repeating fuckpissshitassfuckshit is like taking a piss at an altar here but it's genuinely half the time the only thing that I can actually write onto the page. What the fuck is happening. Why is this story like this and how did you manage it. What the hell did you do and how did this come to be from the prompts I threw in your inbox like nothing. I feel like. Christ you know how the smallest things can change your life around. You say something or do something that doesn't mean anything at the time and then two days later you're not the same person anymore because something changed. What you did with those throwaway words changed me in a way that fucking aches. So bad. And it's ridiculous that this is "just" a fanfic. "Just" a prompt. I don't know why it hits me like this. I can't get it out of my head. I don't even understand this story. I think I could read it in ten different ways and I have no idea what's actually intended to be there. Maybe I'm making the whole thing up as I'm reading it I don't know. I don't understand them because they don't understand themselves or each other. I'm taking wild stabs in the dark about what any of it means and I feel like it could all be true and it is the STRANGEST thing to be looking at a story that feels like it opens in all different directions at once. Like you said in your reply that they're not the same ones from the movie, but they're not the same ones from history either, and what you've created here is a purgatory for where all their possibilities went to be for one moment in time and the force of that degree of grief and suffering is hacking a hole straight through my body and soul.

And this scene. What they say and what they talk about. And Geta pushing through his silence and taking the lead that Caracalla demanded of him to begin with - don't lie, and say what you mean. I'm obsessed with how he's pulling himself back together and doing this for them. He's not quietly stepping back anymore when confronted, now he's doing the confronting. Again, I want to know what he's been doing all these evenings when Caracalla doesn't see him. Did he pace? Or just sit there hugging his legs to his chest, staring at nothing, running the words through his head. Did he practice? Or just harden himself so that it wouldn't break him when he lets them out?

"Something is wrong with me, Geta."

"I know."

Absolutely. Fucking. Unbearable.

How long that confession has sat there. How Caracalla said what he said but did not want that answer. But he did say - don't lie. Not about this. And now Geta's not lying and the things he's saying are. Breaking the tiles on the wall they built.

"Do you? You always look at me like you do."

Like some kind of a monster that isn't who he once loved and took the person that he did but is, still, in some way, that person, and inescapable, and un-unloveable.

"But you never say anything."

"I'm saying it now."

And it's not too late yet. It's not too late. That surface touch that they can't have and won't have but are having, either way.

They stared at each other for a long time. Not as emperors. Not as rivals.

As brothers.

As boys who once wrote each other letters soaked in fear.

The bridging of the past into the present and the fucking words from the letter that Caracalla pulled out - I wrote this so you'd never forget that we are not alone. That I will never leave you, not even in fear.

Fuck me. Just fucking end me like. I don't. All of this. All of this. Wildly gesturing. It hurts so much and I'm so proud of them and I am so angry at the world for not allowing them to have what this is and what it could be after.

The way Caracalla's breaking his own silence on his fear and putting names to it, that something's wrong with him, that Geta might have been the only person who cared if he died, that he feels like he's dying, and that he knows it's not happening all at once but slowly like rotting from the inside or shattering the way the vase did that they broke as boys that's been there for years but none of it is whole or will be again. That maybe he's not even human anymore.

And how the pieces that he loses are lost in such a way that they don't even recognise him before they're gone. That detachment and separation of slowly falling apart and losing himself. God I cannot fucking take this.

And Geta, soft and slow, knelt beside him and placed a hand on his shoulder. Then, he replaced it with his forehead.

The way that Geta is all the softness that Caracalla has to his world, beside the rain that is of them both somehow. And both of these things are flaying him and tearing him apart in the same way. The touches and sounds are soft but the impact is not, that is the thing that is stripping paint from him, altogether too violent to be endured if fully exposed to it.

And then it's over? Because Caracalla can't keep it up? He's put all of himself into that downpour and into them and this confrontation and the next thing is that there's just nothing to give anymore. And now Geta's there, because he has always been, even in fear like one boy promised another a long time ago and it hardly even mattered which one it was that time because the reciprocation was so desperate, and there's no way he'll leave now, regardless of whether Caracalla is the boy that he loved or something that could be or should be described as a monster, and the sky is not clear for them but it's actually, really, quiet this time because they're not using the rain to speak to each other anymore.

The way Geta will care for him for the rest of this. Every softly-spoken word, every gentle and caring touch, every gesture full of reverence, because, in this, he can speak the language that he knows and Caracalla can hear him now because he's not half-way someplace else. This is all that he has left of himself and Geta is speaking to all of that and that is everything that Caracalla has left of the world.

"Do you think this is poison? Have you come to finish what Father started?"

"Don't say such a thing."

This is both what it is and probably the first bit of banter they've had since. Ever. It is both serious and horrible and also that flicker of insult and irritation that isn't bone-deep even though it hurts. That's an echo of something that was in something that is and couldn't be further away but it is and I miss Geta calling him a bastard again. The simple shut-down of a ridiculous and hurtful thing to say, but I'm sure to Caracalla, it's very real, and to Geta, his answer is, too.

"You're not mad," Geta lies, but not unkindly.

I would sell my soul for this kind of eloquence. This is a thousand word story in eight.

And the way he keeps insisting, this isn't the end, you're not dying, I'll bring you back. I want to give him that power. I think I've written several stories now to give him back that power but it never really works. You're sick, not broken. Is there a difference?

Is there, honestly? Now I'm thinking of the amphora again. Reading this story is like willingly dipping hands into boiling water.

In the darkness, a memory: two boys hiding behind a pillar, their father's shouts echoing down the corridor. Geta's small arm thrown around his shoulders. A whisper: Stay very still. I'll take the blame.

"You always protected me," Caracalla says, voice low. "Even when I didn't deserve it."

Geta doesn't move. "You were a child, so was I."

There is NOTHING I can say to this. I can't stand this. I just cannot fucking stand this. Geta's stillness again when they breach territory, but also his staying presence, his refusal to budge now, no backing off. He's being so. So utterly, devastatingly honest now.

"I'm not anymore."

"I know that."

"So why are you still here?"

There is so much desperation in this. So much self-hate and so much blame for things that are and aren't but could be, and such a hint of gratitude that also could be, but isn't, because I don't think he trusts it. He's always waiting for the rejection that he's been feeling this whole time. And how much of the monster of him has been not just his own self twisting but to find where that final line is really drawn? Because not knowing has to be excruciating. Waiting with the potential of discovering, suddenly, that now he's not loved anymore, not even in these little pieces that remained that let him feel connected to his own humanity. Walking on ice you don't know how thick or thin it is, but it feels thin, and you just want to use something to bash through to know for sure, even with the understanding that it'll also drown you when it breaks.

"Because when you're not like this… When you're whole, you remember me. And I still remember the boy who wrote me letters. I don't care if you buried him."

And the blame in this. It's not you didn't or I don't blame you, it's I don't care that you did. You took him from me but I'll love you regardless. Is it just for the glimpses? Or because Geta has his teeth so deep in he can't let go anymore? Or is it. I'm not finishing this sentence I can't do it.

"Do you hate me?"

"No," Geta says, instantly.

Fucking end me. The "instantly" bearing so much stupid fucking weight on it. Like a stab through the chest. The instinctive full sincerity without even the potential for falseness.

"I tried. But even when you took things too far, I looked at you and saw a part of myself."

Please please for the love of gods please tell me more please explain what any of this means. This is a whole another story and all I have into it is like someone took a scalpel blade into a blackout curtain and that's the only light pouring in. I can't see what's outside but I know it's a whole world. What does ANY of this mean. What did he do to cross the lines? WHAT part of yourself did you see in him? What does that mean for anything. Why can't you hate him for that. Why is that the deciding factor. What is it. Dear god I am fucking dying what are these things that you're not saying. What happened to you two and why did that break you so bad.

Caracalla's lip twitches. A ghost of something close to grief. Or tenderness.

"You were always better than me," he whispers.

"No," Geta says. "I was just better at pretending."

I'm actually feeling physically so ill at this. The fucking grief. I can't deal with this I cannot fucking deal with it. And how true it is. Again in canon and in here, how fucking true that is. Geta isn't one bit better or more decent, but he is so stilted, so stuck in himself, that by suppressing everything human he's also suppressed his own monstrosity in the process. If you cut his shell open at this point I'm not even sure if the liquid core of rot would actually be in there or if he'd just be hollow. It'd just be nothing that kills you when you breathe it.

Later, Geta reads aloud. Some poem neither of them particularly likes, but the rhythm comforts. Caracalla dozes in and out, eyes fluttering. His hand, pale and shaking, slips from the blanket.

Geta holds it.

For the first time in years, neither flinches.

And I'm actually going to be sick I can't. First time, I read through these last bits with the same urgency a person throws themselves out of the way of an oncoming speeding car so I wouldn't have to fully feel them but now that I'm supposed to be talking about them I just have to stand there like a fucking idiot and take it as it comes. There's a whole lot here that I can't even write because nobody cares honestly and it's not real to anybody else anyway, but Geta reading to Caracalla for comfort, that being something that remains, replacing words when they're too tired to think but it's the voice that is craved, that is true, that is as honest to them as anything, that is an echo in every world for them.

And the storm is truly over. Btw. Just btw. :) Because the silence isn't even lingering anymore, the threat of things going back to being unsaid. You can't unsay these things. And Caracalla's too tired to hold the clouds there and something in Geta has loosened like a knot in silk thread.

This story is sincerely unbearable in the way that burning iron on skin is unbearable. I feel like I've drank water out of a boiling pot and it's just sitting there in the bottom of my stomach by the way that my body physically fucking hurts at all of this.

"Do you remember what you said? In the letter? That you'd never leave me. Not even in fear."

"I lied."

"No. You forgot."

I am. Going. To.

Apparently start crying again and lean my head to my hands for a while. The repetition. The exchange of parts between them for the promise. That isn't broken because they've never left each other alone, not really. The bitterness of Caracalla's words to Geta - that he only thinks of him as not a monster because he sees the boy that he was and not the man that he's become, and Geta not denying it? Like legitimately I think at this point I would rather be chewing rocks than going through this. Again not because I don't love the story if that was in the slightest unclear at this point but because I can't fucking endure this. This is violent. This is unendurably violent, in the force of all that they are for each other and were denied and the things that have replaced it and how final it all is because there's no way out and nothing to change course to. This is all it'll ever be, the best they could ever amount to.

It's fucking unbearable.

Caracalla sits up slowly. The fever is still there, quiet now, like a coiled thing waiting. His joints ache. His thoughts feel like blunt nails, but he is present. More present than he's been in days.

Fuck me over with this terminal lucidity, then. Just do it. Straight up rock in a fist against the side of the skull.

Geta is seated in the front row, alone, watching nothing. The stage is empty. No actors. No lines. Just the echo of what used to be.

Because this somehow manages to be so meta and between the worlds, and he's still the actor on his own stage and we're the audience watching him and his mirror counterpart entering the scene from the back. If this was on a real stage I would have left because I genuinely don't think I could survive watching this unfold this long, but the worst thing about a written story is that it won't leave if you get up halfway through. I've already felt everything they've felt so far and that won't leave me if I press the x because all of this is now a part of me, too. I said before that reading this feels like scarification and I want to repeat that here because this is scarification. Take off the blade but the marks are there. And I can't leave them unfinished like this, either.

Which makes the ending worse, because I hate being torn from Geta the way that Caracalla is. (And I hate, equally, not being there with him when he dies, for that matter.) Who the hell does he have left then? When the curtains close and there's just nothing after. He's never had a life that wasn't this and in the absence of anything and everyone, is he any less dead than Caracalla is? And for how long? And to what end?

I genuinely have never read a fic that is less than five thousand words long that I'm actually actively reading but that still takes me the whole fucking day somehow. I've been here for six hours. This is a full-on torture session and I don't want that to read in a blaming way, I just genuinely cannot express how deep this is biting me somehow. By this point I think it's well established that I'm not normal about this and like. I didn't read fanfic for… I'd say 15 years? At all? Because some of these things hit me worse than any other media does. Something about these stories is so absolute - mixing the love I have for these characters with the unchangeability of what is on the page. With canon, I have the power and ability to change the story. I can look at it and say well, that's fucking rude, but luckily I can write a different story that ends better. I can't do that with fanfic, because this is the dead end somebody else already made for them. The non-negotiable final destination where these people are taken from what was before and put on a line and this is where it all led. And I can't save these people. They're not mine to save.

But I want to so badly.

Caracalla walks down the aisle. Slowly. Like approaching a tomb.

The fact that he's the one who's dying here, but it's not his grave that he's walking to. And also is, in some ways, but he's not in it yet. He's the silence on the stage and the body in the tomb is everything that isn't on the stage anymore, the absence that creates the silence that he's become.

The amount of trauma that they went through in front of that bow.

And again the things they say - the confession, the non-answers - straight into a territory I can't write about because it wouldn't make any sense. But this, "I didn't know how else to feel it. It came out wrong. It always came out wrong." and the truth of it, how there was never any chance of them coming out of this any other way but bent and broken and twisted into shapes that children and men weren't meant to be. Geta's - gratitude? For Caracalla keeping to his boundaries, and never forcing him into things that are still unspeakable to them. "But I wanted to. I wanted to be close to something I trusted. Something that didn't make me afraid." Again because there was NO other way for this to be. He'll never love anybody else because he cannot. And he is so deeply human, despite everything, he needs those things, and there is no other safety, no other softness, no other care and love for him in the world but the one which was offered to him at birth. I couldn't blame him for that if I tried, because he deserved that love, every bit of it, and he still does, despite his cruelty, his inability to love a world that never loved him back. And Geta, "I was just better at pretending." That the world didn't have to be like that and they could be like others, the way people were meant to be and feel and behave, and if he put down those boundaries then it would, could, maybe just be that way one day and nothing would hold them back from embracing it then. That things which are so fundamentally broken and for which the basics of safety and security have been denied can just heal, if the wounds aren't on full dispaly.

At this point, I'm just left wondering at what it is that he ultimately denied here. Caracalla's comfort and safety and the love that he felt and wanted to feel? Was that the price of it? Or is it both of theirs, regardless of how willingly and knowingly Geta put the boundaries down for them? What is the thing that happened that made them this way? What is the thing that made them incapable of crossing the cracks in the foundation until now? How did he suffer? The same, different? Where does his pretending end, and what is the part that he saw in Caracalla that made him incapable of hating him? Is his love and forgiveness compassion, or does he feel the same way, and it's all just part of that mask he wears to deny it? What part of yourself do you see in him. The part that is broken or the part that could have been which you managed to salvage, but only part of the way through?

"You don't have to explain."

"Yes, I do." His voice shakes. "Because you never said it back."

What words did you say to him, in what place, in light or dark, in which rooms, in what voice, and how did he then leave you with it. And what happened to you after? Is that just how the wall was built, after, there was no way to make it unsaid, and it's all silence from thereon, so that,

"I was afraid of what it would mean. Afraid of losing you. This kind of reality of ours that was never theirs. I thought pretending to live in ignorance would be the best for both of us, especially for you."

Caracalla laughs. Bitter and soft. "And now look."

nothing that they might say or do would make Geta falter from that decision? Because he's still protecting them. Protecting them because the audience is watching and the others will surely destroy that last thing that they never wanted to lose - because they're not afraid of dying, but afraid of losing the other. And now look, the ends that that has left them with. Neither of them fully loved, years lost to grieving the distance and growing it worse and worse in the fear of breaking something that other people made sacred for them. And if they had abandoned it, then what? Because maybe he's right and it would have been worse. Trading that one while full of the only genuine comfort and joy that they might have ever had for something that is like their father but worse by a thousandfold and then nothing ever again. To Geta, that must be a betrayal of the same calibre that Caracalla saw in his stillness when he should have flinched, and in the laughter of the audience. Prioritising this… what would it be? One true pleasure, a minute, an hour, a day, a week, a month, a year or two or three of sincere and complete happiness and wholeness, over Caracalla's safety? After all that they endured, just taking it for what it's worth and letting the world break them after? Would that not be the worst, most selfish thing he could have ever done? Letting himself have something that wasn't meant for him, like Caracalla is something for him to consume.

But by not doing that, they've ended up here, and it's just been a slower death for the both of them, with none of what could have been, or should have, or maybe wasn't meant to be and could have been worse but probably wasn't. It was their reality that wasn't meant for anybody else. I don't think the same rules apply there as do for others. They never had another world to join, but they were held to it anyway, because they weren't meant for this one any more than other people were. They were forged into it like a prison with no doors.

I have absolutely nothing to say for the next bit that follows. I just don't have it in me to touch that. I think I will actually just fucking die if I dwell on it more than I did here reading over it again. The almost but not and the lingering of it and the closeness and proximity that they've never fully had being there in that moment and that moment being so still and present and real to them before the world cuts into it again.

The fact that it's always been this close. And, tossing two paragraphs up from here, "and what happened to you after? Is that just how the wall was built, after, there was no way to make it unsaid, and it's all silence from thereon, so that nothing that they might say or do would make Geta falter from that decision?"

Yes. Because it was always that close. Any word might have collapsed this house of cards and I want to burn the whole world down for making them hold onto it anyway.

"You'll remember me?" Caracalla asks.

"Every version of you."

The way this again just takes a knife to the separation of worlds and tears it open. Geta means every version of Caracalla that has been for them and for him but there are so many others, too, that he'll remember, and be remembered by, because for whatever reason I cannot look at this story without it existing in that purgatory of all places and worlds and lives that they ever shared, like everything about them is concentrated into it and forced into a space that is so claustrophobic and raw and thick with what they are and all the things that they could have been.

How so many things that they say echo true through places that they've never been, like mirrors set up to reflect them, facing each other, so that the reflection never ends.

He says, his voice and soul broken.

This, too. This, too, is splitting open things that don't just belong to the here, somehow.

And the way that already here, the perspective of the story has shifted from Caracalla. He's never seen Geta enough to tell his thoughts but now we've had multiple paragraphs that tell us what Geta feels, how he sees all of this from his perspective.

Maybe, this time, he will remember to stay.

Stay with himself and be who he always was, with all the pieces that remember who they belong to, as the boy who can see his brother's thoughts and feel how he feels, too.

Per the epilogue, frankly, I think perhaps Geta should have burnt the servants instead. Fuck them asking things like that. And the rain is back because the silence and the unspeakable is back and Geta still has strength to make the heavens weep for them, but he is not strong, either.

Even on the second time, I can't get through this part without crying the same way I've only ever cried when I've lost someone I really loved. I think I said in the tags that the last time was when my dog died last spring. It comes in these ugly loud waves that fold me from the middle and I don't understand how you can put this much real grief and loss into so few words. How you can practically feed me this man's soul and put his grief and longing and loneliness into me. I want to say that I don't want it but I read this again voluntarily even if I don't think I can ever do it a third time again, but it doesn't matter, because I can't unfeel these things and I can't not let him be part of me now, because I've eaten both their grief and their love for each other and the memories of what was and everything they denied themselves and each other to protect what was never allowed to be there at all. Even if it wasn't their fault. Even if it could have been beautiful.

And his own confession to the darkness. The one thing he could never allow for himself, never let Caracalla have, because it could have ended them too early. At least this way, he had him to the end.

And in that silence, in that ruined peace, Geta whispers the only truth left behind:

"You were not unloved."

And neither are you now. Never were, and never will be. And this is the thing that I think makes me so fucking unhinged about this story as a whole - I've been through this with them and now it's my job to remember them, and love them, for all the things they could never speak out loud, and all the things that made them so weak and monstrous and bad. It's like being handed something very fragile, utterly unique in all of the worlds, without instruction: carry this or leave it behind.

And I'm taking it with me and I'm not going to let go of it. I keep repeating that I don't know what you did and I don't understand any of this but I have never felt this way about a story, or loved two boys from any tale this fiercely.

We briefly exchanged about an afterlife, and I hope they get their whole kingdom there, in every detail they wanted to paint it in, filled to an abundance with only things that are theirs and for them and which will love them and shelter them and keep them safe. A kingdom in the sky where no one ever dies, or has to cry unless they choose to. Where they can safely be broken in every way that they are, and finally heal those wounds that could never close before, and love and be loved exactly as they were meant to, in all the ways that they were capable of, but never had the chance to discover.

I don't know what to do now, or how to move on with this.

23/04/2025 PS. The universe threw me Into the West from the LotR soundtrack, and it's theirs now, I think.

24/04/2025 PPS. A question I keep having - when you say they're not the ones from history and not the ones from the movie but have elements of both, do they look the part? Are they still their pale redheaded selves, or darker, with tighter curls in their hair?

25/04/2025 PPPS. There was something else, but I forgot it, and now it really bothers me. But even reading through just my own notes to make sure this is at least part of the way to legible, I still cried, and I still feel sick, and I still want to burn the whole world down for them. Everything has reminded me of them since I read this the first time. Duolingo's Latin course is obsessed with words like stage, actor, poet, father, severus, letter. It rained for three days straight and everything smells of rot. I physically recoil from the main quote of the story and you can see that it's never repeated in this comment because I physically cannot type it down or bear to read it without averting my eyes from it. It's included so many times in the story and I can't remember how it goes because I can't endure thinking of it even long enough to actually read it into my consciousness. Water dripping down from the porch roof last night took me to an amphiteatre I've never been to before.

It's going to rain again today.

PPPPS. It's at the point where it's every song, too.

[alexandradel7]

Literally one of the last posts is "vile worm", because of what a man in Westeros wants to do to a girl who is 13 years old, who has already been married officiously since - period - according to the laws she is a woman (it's early, but it's already ok in Westeros damn) and her smile and consent is the necessary thing for a man here. Do you think I'm talking about Petyr? Tyrion here. :D It's just the fandom picking a target for their negative experiences from irl that they can spout off. Instead of understanding the character and the freaking context.

By the way I think Sanasa's consent and smile is needed for Petyr as well. But he's a jerk character, antoganistic, so he doesn't deny himself the pleasure of kissing the girl he likes, knowing that it might be uncomfortable to refuse because she depends on him so much. Sansa, in the social conscience of Westeros - a woman - who was already a bride, who was already being climbed on by a naked dwarf. I'm not saying the orders of the time are cool, I'm saying this character (I'm talking about Petyr now, well Tyrion too) isn't a grooming paedophile lol. The problematic stuff here is that he was complicit in her father's murder. But for Sanasa there are no problematic things here, she knows nothing like Jon Snow. Everyone in Westeros is problematic. Sanasa considers him as friend. She's not disgusted by him. Well I already wrote about that here. I honestly don't think Martin wants to write a story about grooming, in a world where many Lords' wives are about that age. Besides, people in the Middle Ages were a lot less infantile than they are now. (much) 13 then and 13 now are different 13s in terms of world perception and upbringing. Now at 17 is a lil kid. Before, it was already a man capable of leading an army of thousands of men. Rob is 16.

‘Romeo and Juliet’ - Juliet was 14 years old, Romeo was 16.

Instead, I'm pretty sure this is a story about the beginnings of feelings. Petyr, who probably hasn't fallen hard for anyone else besides Cat, focused on power, recalls those feelings when he almost lost his life because of it.

His heart has probably become very cold and he can only believe in lust. Brothels and whores where intimacy is sold for a few coins and feelings are simulated. Pretty ironic work for a man who has a scar all over his body from real feelings.

I wonder how Martin will show it. Maybe he won't show it as sensually as I think he might. Maybe ‘’Littlefinger‘’ will win with calculation. But Martin said no, ‘he'll never let go of Sansa,’ I believe. I think Sansa is the first person at all to touch him deeply in a dozen years.

Well, then the question then is how he will demonstrate those feelings, how careful he will be in moments of crisis. Just so you understand, I find ‘cutting off Petyr's head and killing him’ by Sanasa's hands incredibly banal and boring thing. Like any strong conflict between it is incredibly boring. What new and interesting things can be learned there? She'll scream, he'll try to calm her down, she'll turn the table over, she'll try to escape, from the castle (death and\or rape by some vagrants, ofc there could be a positive outcome), he'll lock her up. Turn into a tyrant and stop being a Limon dude. Jeez. Okay. I've been bored with angst stories for the last two years. She can cheat and escape, they'll be looking for her. Anyway… meh.

Much more interesting that Petyr will actually help Sansa survive in this world, and be sincere about it.

Petyr was involved in her father's death. Which of course is a huge elephant in the room, lol. I don't think he really cares about other people's lives, especially Stark lives. Although I think some cruelty is part of life in medieval times where people died all the time. Cat wished death on a little boy just because she was so angry about the affair. A wealthy woman who had everything, including food and warmth for her family wishes the boy dead. Psychopathy, no? No, just medieval. So Petyr's cruelty, given his scar and long time among the nobility, is understandable. But Petyr may care about those he feels are important. Giving lemons, featherbeds. By the way these signs of his attention are much deeper, he is from a poor family, the fact that he has someone important and the ability to give something to this person - I think for him it is a special thing This much more interesting dilemma is his real feelings in his cruel heart and everything around him. He is Lord Paramount of the Trident now, but he's literally flashbacked to when he was 17. I think he's greedy, he's going to treasure his feelings. After all that was one of the triggers of his path to power. I can't be with her because I didn't have power, status like Stark. When Stark inflicted his wounds, the river carried his blood away. Now he's King of the River himself. And the river princess's daughter, a little redfish, swims beside him. Anything could have gone wrong, but everything went lucky for Petyr. I wonder how Martin will kill him. And I don't want this character to die a miserable death.

At least it won't impress me much. Much more I'll feel from his death when it's so touching, so honest, that it resonates with the beginning of his story. (or not to die at all, only to die of old age in his castle looking at his grandchildren)

[mermaidsirennikita]

Have you ever shared your thoughts on the romance in Killers of the Flower Moon?

There was a viral tweet a few days ago discussing how the emphasis on the marriage was borne out of Scorsese learning that Ernest insisted until his dying that that he really loved her, and Mollie’s real-life descendants also telling him they too believe that they were truly in love.

I went into a bit of a rabbit hole reading interviews with the cast and the IRL descendants and it was so disturbing and tragic (like Ernest really did learn to speak Osage, which was apparently highly unusual for white spouses). It’s also interesting to me that neither of Mollie’s sister had children with their white husbands, but she had three with Ernest. Like theirs was sincere relationship, and not one primarily because of mutual convenience. (Yet he also named his youngest daughter after her aunt, who he helped murder.)

I’ve seen pushback to the romantic relationship in the movie (“that’s not love,” “love isn’t abuse”), which is understandable, but also IMO a bit simple and naive/childish? I guess it kind of depends on whether one thinks love is inherently good, which I don’t think it is.

Anyway, I thought the film’s depiction of Mollie/Ernest was fascinating and devastating. I thought Lily and Leo had fantastic chemistry too.

I think Ernest did love her (or believed that he did), yet his love was worthless because it didn’t protect her or make him do the right thing. I thought Scorsese was basically asserting that love actually cannot “redeem” anyone or overcome evil/greed/bigotry.

I agree with your assessment on Scorsese's intent with that relationship, for sure, and I think that there is an understandable desire to categorize feelings and relationships into one thing or the other. When it comes from the Osage today (not that there's a universal "Osage take" on this movie, but I've seen a couple Osage critics go "that was not a relationship with any love in it"), I think that's a large part of healing, and I get where it comes from, and I respect it. I think that there is sometimes a need, not a universal need, when you have experienced trauma and abuse, to put certain feelings into boxes. It's self-protective. And I speak from experience, right? I've been processing emotional abuse from someone I loved for years, and it has only been fairly recently that I've been able to unravel the relationship in a way that isn't "this person must not have loved me because otherwise how could he treat me that way".

When it comes from random twitcrits, I think it's more indicative of not only that, but some larger issues that we're dealing with societally. I think we often try to "science-ify" or pathologize feelings in a way that we really can't. Because if we can say "this person did this thing, that means they're incapable of love", "abusive behavior of any kind means that person does not ever love you", "this disorder means this person can't love", it's easier to feel like we're capable of safeguarding ourselves from threats. If we can identify it, we can protect ourselves, and when someone does X, Y, and Z, we can identify them as a wholly malevolent force and predict their behavior and prescribe behaviors in terms of how to react to them.

Personally? I think it's a lot more complicated than that. In terms of Ernest and Mollie in particular, a lot of what people who have a more personal understanding of that situation seem to say, as you've pointed out, they appear to have been in love. Now, I don't think anyone can know what was going on for Mollie except Mollie, and Ernest obviously had reason to claim he was in love with her whether or not he was. Their descendants cannot look at it clear-eyed. All of his behavior could have many motivations.

The thing is, though, that it's absolutely possible to love someone be horrible to them. HORRIBLE. Because humans are capable of being many things at once, and compartmentalization is SO real. To me, it seems impossible to say that every abusive individual, even every monstrous individual, carried no love ever for people... even the people they hurt. And it also seems to assume a lot about what we can divine about people without living in their minds.

I also think that it challenges us on several fronts. First off--we can think someone is absolutely evil and that, in a world where the law can be trusted, would deserve a fate like death (to be clear: I'm anti-death penalty, but I understand the desire to punish certain people to that extent)... But how much does it shake our sense of morality and our justness when we admit that those people are capable of love? I mean, it doesn't for me, but I think it does for many. You want to be able to say "there is nothing good in this person" because it's just easier to accept. It is much, much more horrifying to think "this person is evil and also can love" versus "this person is evil". To be evil is human, but the way our societal morality is structured makes many feel otherwise; but nobody would argue that to love is human. So acknowledging that someone can love in any way humanizes these evil individuals in a way that is DEEPLY uncomfortable.

Because, as you said, it does separate this idea of love from goodness. Love is not inherently good, it's not inherently healthy, and it's not inherently ENOUGH. Someone can genuinely love you. But why does them loving you automatically mean that they love you MORE than their greed, MORE than their desire to destroy, MORE than their wrath? There's nothing in the bylaws of love that says so. That's just a romantic concept we've put onto all types of love, imo.

ALSO: perhaps scarier is the idea that someone can love and can also murder, and abuse, and do heinous things. So how can we identify a dangerous person? If someone like Ernest really loved Mollie, then someone like your dad could also be capable of murder. Someone like your husband could be capable of abuse. It's kind of a terrifying thing to think of, because I think that a lot of people like to live in this world of "Well, that would never happen to me/I would recognize the signs". Not always out of a sense of superiority, but because it feels SAFER and more comforting to think that you would pick up on these aberrant behaviors, desires, whatever.

I always think about what my mom used to say to me--"I am 99.9999999999% sure that X person would never do X thing, but you have to leave that sliver of space for them doing it". And you DO. Because if you don't, then if that thing happens, you may not catch it. That incredible, bulletproof confidence? Leads to scenarios in which you fail to recognize or even live in denial of what's going on around you.

So.... we're left to live with that sliver of ambiguity. And humans often do not like ambiguity. You live in the ambiguity that technically, someone can betray everything you think you know about them; and you live in the ambiguity that someone that hurt you horribly could also have had genuine love for you, and it wasn't healthy, and it wasn't good, and it wasn't ENOUGH, but it was there. I've lived in that second thing, and it is hard. And I've also been the person who would swear 100% that I could trust someone, only to be proven wrong.

This doesn't mean that you can't love and trust and believe in people. It just means that life is really about BELIEVING in people, and not ever knowing 100% where their mind is, what the future holds, what they'll do. I think that now more than ever, that makes people feel so unstable.

This is all very theoretical and long-winded, but yeah. I think that is what Scorsese was trying to get across. That love can exist in bad relationships and horrible people, and it's not always redemptive, and it's not always enough, and it cannot stand up to the kind of avarice and bigotry that we saw in Killers. And isn't that horrifying? Isn't it scary?

[raw-law]

My turn to be a tad bit late.. Missed me, gentlemen? I was a bit busy these past days.

Trust me, I certaintly don't mind handing out criticism if necessary in the past as well as in the future. Avoiding offense at all cost is something implemented in today's society so deeply that it really reinforces people pleaser nature and makes it so hard to find people big enough to go out of their way to understand someone else, especially someone they're not close with/they don't have to keep up harmony with. To limit out of false pride is embarrassing. However.. Being asked for it is certaintly rare. You two are something, you know? Yes.. Yes. Mhm. I understand Misa in a way, I do. The shadow of such a polite, well behaved individual must be intriguing. I must say, Light, for someone constantly performing, you're doing spectacular. Though I do admit I would like to see you slip up once in a while and reveal more of Kira, I think that'd be amusing for both me AND Ryuzaki. Keyword Ryuzaki.. keyword criticism.. Isn't it a shame, Light? Not only certain statements or your.. homoerotic poem, your entire joint blog indicates the significance of your friendship and yet your friend is new to indulging in the note of his brilliance? That doesn't sound coextensive. With analytical skills of your kind, there's no doubt you see him the way I am capable of seeing him. And others do.. No wonder he's seeking a lovely lady. Maybe you should make your friends feel a little more cherished, Light. Right, Ryuzaki? Unfortunately I can't serve with the adoration of a sweet lady, because I'm male. However as you may have noticed I'm well versed in capacity if you don't mind the masculinity.. ahem... Anyways.. Books. Words. Literature. I'm just fucking with you btw. Partly, that is. Light, those are exceptional choices. I only recently got into literature so I'm starting off with classics like Kafka, Wilde, Shakespeare etc. (though the latter is more poems which I do enjoy to read and analyze just as much) - So Light, you were quite helpful and I actually started reading Someone Who Will Love You In All Your Damaged Glory based on your recommendation because that spoke to me the most. I'm certainly liking it and I'll keep you updated. From what I have taken out of your poems, your writing style is similar to mine as well. That was a pleasant surprise. We also have the same mbti, at least based on your latest result. Anyway, Ryuzaki.. I can heavily relate. I'm an insanely fast reader and yet I'm pretty slow with reading, if that makes sense. I'm just very easily.. understimulated? I guess. English is not my native language, hahaha. So yes, scanning through word after word without being able to shift your attention comes heavy to me too. Some books and poems are absolutely worth it though. If You Give a Mouse a Cookie is an adorable choice. Not everything has to be particularly sophisticated, I feel like when you live in your head a lot (which I do, because I'm never not analyzing and observing) - it is relieving to read/watch something that isn't mentally demanding because it has zero chances of overwhelming us. I have many interests and hobbies, and when I say many I sincerely mean it, so if I used full capacity of my brain power for every single one of them I would have none left for social interaction. I do have to thank you two for the motivation to start writing poems again, btw. I will send it your way if you're interested + if it's any good.. How did you two get into poetry?

Also.. Happy belated birthday to Ryuzaki. Please keep on being your twisted, charming self. I'm also honored to know you'd let me participate in an anon debate. Maybe not a good idea though. I don't like to be careful or sensitive with my opinions and debates. Are you some kind of sadist? You couldn't possibly want that.

-🩶

L:

honestly, yes. what can i say, i like reading other people's thoughts, and it's a little hard to not notice another's absence. hopefully your busy days aren't too stressful though, and i wish you luck in whatever you have going on.

i agree about that bit of avoiding offense though. i think the world needs more people who can disagree with each other without it being seen as a personal attack. or maybe that's just my bias for debate speaking. either way i do know we could also use more of kira in the world..... (i know what you are, light..)

i don't remember ever saying i was seeking a "lovely lady"... but i do swing both ways, if that's what you're asking.

glad to know i'm not the only with that weird reading issue... understimulated probably is the best way to describe it. i can also relate to that bit about never not analyzing. that probably explains why i lean towards more casual literature. i'm glad you've been able to take up poetry again. i'd be delighted to see what you write. "any good" or not, i'd still be very interested, so long as you're comfortable sharing, of course. as for why i got interested in poetry... well.. i watched Dead Poets Society, and anybody who has seen that film should be able to put the pieces together from then on.

and thank you for the wishes, hah. but yes, i am a sadist. that is exactly what i want. you'll have a chaotic translator interpreting for you anyways. however that could either ease or augment the tensions. either way, it works for my amusement. so please do consider joining anyhow. do it "for the vine", as they say. :)

Light:

Hey, first of all I'm so sorry that I took so long to answer, this ask has been sitting in our inbox for forever. I've been really busy these past few weeks, and I wanted to save it for when I could sit down and properly think about what I wanted to say.

I suppose that the world does, like you've said, need more people who are willing to criticise and more people who are willing to accept constructive feedback without taking it to be an attack on their personal self. We've become a very...fake society, in that way, rarely giving our honest opinions on anything---this place's become so complicated to live in. It's saddening.

Anyways, on to literature. You can probably tell that I do enjoy it quite a bit, I guess. And I'm glad you're enjoying our recommendations. As I've mentioned before, English isn't my native language as well, but it is a fun language to play around with, and I'm proficient enough in it to enjoy some literature in my free time. I'm a fast reader, and so far I'm on the lookout for new books to consume, so...feel free to recommend any of your favourites or what's on your current reading list. And if you'd like, you can also share some of your writings on this blog, I'm sure we'll like it very much!

Have a good day, Silver Heart Anon. Wishing you the best for whatever you'd like to accomplish.

[asherlockstudy]

Hey there, we talked R&L theories in the past, but then I got locked out of my account and was too busy to make a new one until now. I just wanted to say I read your R&L post and the ''WHY THE CHICKEN CROSSED THE ROAD'' theory and yet again I found myself agreeing with you.

(the only thing I disagree with you it's the timeline as I think things started to get real way later than 2013)

Anyway, the way people don't seem to see the hints being dropped in these videos confuses me.

I'm left there wondering whether it's just me having an overactive imagination or if most people watching their videos are just not predisposed to recognize this level of subtlety. I really think that saying things like ''that can't be because R&L wouldn't lie to us'' like fans often do is very naive. Do people really think that they aren't capable of omitting uncomfortable truths to present a certain image that is beneficial to them? Because they definitely are.

I don't want to sound mean, but I think most of viewers aren't clever enough to pick up on recurring patterns and themes. Because there ARE recurring patterns and themes, these videos all look like random attempts at humor until you find out that there is an underlying thread uniting them.

There is NO way that all of the many puzzle pieces (metaphors, creative decisions etc…) would line up so perfectly and so perfectly match the idea we both have discussed before in DMs. It would be too big of a coincidence, and what really convinces me that this is what is actually going on, is that many of these creative choices make no sense UNLESS our at least our general assumption is correct.

People saying ''lol R&L doing things randomly just because it's funny'' and Rhett not liking the comment and ironically saying ''you get us'' is so emblematic of why there IS something deeper going on here, especially seeing how he has liked other comments that at least acknowledged that there is some depth to them (although I don't think that those commenters figured anything out).

Have you seen the happy, sincere reaction of Link when Rhett said that they're tired of asking permission to be themselves? in their '' we're done'' video? that stood out to me. What Rhett said seemed to hit him for a different more and more personal reason than most would think, it seemed like a private, genuine moment between them.

I don't know if an official coming out is what they are trying to head towards, the chicken video (when they resort to using a smart trick, in order to reach the goal when they realize the chicken isn't actually capable of crossing the road because it's too difficult) made me think that maybe THIS is their way they of coming out: outing themselves with their own creative projects and leaving it all up to interpretation. Although I am not ruling out the possibility that this is a soft launch.

The chicken video was genius if you think about it, because with a single concept (and using the chiken imagery as the linchpin), they managed to touch upon a lot of different topics all related to the same issue. The word ''chicken'' is used to describe people who are afraid to take risks, while the crossing of a busy street metaphor is perfect to describe the hardships of attempting to get from point A to point B when there are obstacles standing in between. It also gave them the chance to incorporate the ''how do you like the eggs?'' joke to talk about sex/sexuality in a way that is obvious but subtle at the same time. I would like to get to talk about some of the details in the video because I want to hear your opinions on some things. Anyway, I just wrote to say that no, you're not the only one seeing this :)

Heyyy sorry for the late reply… it’s been a little crazy.

I am always so glad to hear from a person seeing the things I see. I am just as confused about the stubborn insistence of the viewers to not pick up on the countless clues Rhett and Link have left in all those videos. I think, well, I get it to be honest butI don’t think it is that they are not clever enough but they are really not concerning themselves with these things. Let’s be honest, the vast majority of Mythical Beasts are very young or are there for lighthearted brainless content that will ease their mind off of their everyday problems. Most of them do not want to dig deeper and cause unnecessary worries to themselves. Because what is about to happen is going to be shocking for a lot of the viewers, a lot will feel betrayed or like the innocence and the childlike dynamics between these two brothers from another mother will take an unrecoverable blow. So I think they subconsciously suppress all suspicions. I have also noticed this to be part of the American culture; they still tend to have more romantic, beautified views on their celebrities. If someone appears good on screen, then they must be a “soft bean” in their real life as well. I find it funny how often Americans view their favourite celebrities as soft beans too pure for this world, despite the inconvenient fact that very few people are actually that soft and pure. So there is this image of great friends who are great husbands and great fathers. And they don’t want this image to be challenged. They choose to see everything as a meaningless joke or as a coincidence. And then of course there are the plenty ones who are determined to not think much (or at all) whenever they watch R&L content.

Yes, I noticed how disproportionately excited Link was when Rhett said they will stop asking permission to be who they are. It felt like Link had been waiting for a long time for Rhett to make a statement this clear on camera.

Link said something lately that made me lean towards what you think. He said in his spiritual deconstruction update video that the best way to reveal an uncomfortable truth is step by step, slowly slowly until it gets so evident that the recipients have started figuring it out on their own without you spelling out the thing. My theory was that they wanted to condition the viewers into accepting it with their numerous implications and suggestive images and now I think both of these are their intent.

(BTW the reason I believe it all started between late 2013 - early 2015 is because of the Puzzle video and the rest of the Sketchtober videos made in mid/late 2015. I have thorough analyses of these if you are interested. Watching these oldies around the same time as the new videos blew my mind and put everything into perspective. Also the last Christian entry in Link’s journal was one day after the newsical kiss episode was released.)

I will be happy to discuss this more. You said we used to send each other DMs, in your next ask / text please tell me your old username, I am curious hahaha ❤️

[severeearthquakebanana]

Ok! We've made it through the end of Sailor Moon SuperS. Thank goodness. Boy did I dislike that arc. My favorite part was the villains, like the Amazon Quartet were so fun! They got the McGuffins for the season by hitting a ball with a pool cue and having said ball bounce around the set until it smacks the person in the back! Absurd! yet fun. I also liked their banter with Zirconia, the step down? parallel? to the big bad. Zirconia herself too, her voice actress was excellent and I loved her exasperation with the quartet! And then the big bad, Queen Nehellenia, she had all this potential. and when they gave the big lore dump of her backstory in the last episode of the season, 166, it was a very creative and interesting backstory! I really liked it! But I feel like i didn't really get a chance to appreciate it, cause it was just a big lore dump at the end of the season.

I think the thing that really bothered me (outside the stuff i complained about last post) was the relationship between Pegasus and Chibiusa. Like, they made it romantic, which i would expect from a shojo like Sailor Moon, but it was just, kinda creepy. I know Chibiusa is like 900 years old or something, but she's portrayed as a 10 year old (ish, i think). It's a major part of her character that she is so young, but wants to grow up. And like, one of the episodes, the one amazon quartet girl 'made her and Usagi's dreams come true' by making Usagi and child and Chibiusa an adult. And then Pegasus is all like 'you're an adult, I can't live in your dream or see you or talk to you if you're an adult'. TO CHIBIUSA. THE MOST LONELY LITTLE GIRL IN THE STORY. It just, it really rubbed me the wrong way.

And all of this gets waved away, because (spoilers) Pegasus is actually a guy who was in charge of guarding the 'Golden Crystal' for the Silver Millennium kingdom, so at the end of the day he and Chibiusa would be great for each other because they are both eons old anyway. I don't know, I still don't like it.

I think part of it comes from my original expectation of a peter pan story line, and it definitely did deliver. But my thoughts were that there is power in youth and the unbridled optimism that comes along with being young and having your whole life ahead of you. Not that Chibiusa just has the most beautiful dream and falls in love with the McGuffin 'because'. However the message of 'you don't need to give up your dream just because you grew up and are now an adult' is an excellent message to send! Because it's true! You DON'T have to give up your dreams just because you're an adult! How many times have people changed their career or life trajectory in their 50s? Happens all the time! and it's a wonderful thing! Additionally, when you can't change your situation, dreaming of something better can be incredibly helpful! So that whole concept is great! i think it's just the execution that was lacking.

Overall, I am very curious as to what the Crystal/Manga version of this is. because there was a point where Mamoru had to do a whole Prince Endymon thing, and I've read/definitely confirmed, that the 90s anime really kneecapped the guy. He does have capabilities besides throwing roses and saying cheezy one liners! So I'm curious as to what they actually were for this arc. I'm also curious to see how the relationship with Chibiusa and Pegasus actually was put together. Like Usagi and Mamoru made significantly more sense in Crystal than in the 90s anime, but both still sold it in the first season i thought.

Anyway, I try not to be too critical or negative with these, Tumblr is for fun fandom interaction, not complaining. Plus I sincerely doubt that any gripes i have here haven't already been discussed ad nauseum within the last 30 years of Sailor Moon fans anyway. It's like Phantom of the Opera. We KNOW the Phantom is bad. We KNOW there's all kinds of unhealthy going on with that relationship. However the music is pretty and who doesn't love a good garbage ship? I certainly enjoy it.

Regardless! Onto Sailor Moon Stars! The last season. I already watched the first episode of the season and my loves Haruka and Michiru have returned, complete with transformation music, attacks, and catchphrases!!! So here's hoping for a better run of it going forward.

[yanderefairyangel]

Duality in Engage

Maybe a part 1 of something idk.

Ok so the realization fall upon me thinking again about the DLC (how the heck is something so badly written have so many good things in it at the same time ?!) but remember about the twins thing ? Well, I noticed that all the siblings in Engage that are character rather important are a pair of sibling, like twins.

All pair of siblings.

And I already pointed out that Engage relies a lot on the duality theme.

Just as how Nel describes she and Nil/Rafal as "two halves of a whole", each siblings pair have personality that complement each other.

Alfred is a kind guy who let his kindness drives him and making him reckless whereas Céline is more dignified and calm.

Diamant is a stoic and confident man, brave and driven for an idea with peace whereas Alcryst is a pessimitic yet kind and brave young man who looks up to his brother despite his lack of self confidence.

Ivy is an elegant and cool princess, she is rather sweets so in short a gap moe whereas Hortensia is an extrovert girl a bit childish and who likes cute stuff.

Timerra and Fogado are both extraverted and free minded and can show themselves to be capable of being very serious when the situation asked them too.

Pandreo is a sincere priest but is overall an enthusiastic person whereas Pannette tries to speak elegantly and acts more dignified then her brother in fronts of others even if alone with her brother, she drops the acts.

Clanne and Framme are equally passionated about Alear but Framme is more extravert and openly passionate when Clanne is a bit shyer and gets easily perturbed.

Nel and Rafal are a special case because during the DLC, Nel sounded cold and distant compared to how warm and smiling and sweet Nil seemed. However, once they joined your party, Nel shows she is actually very kind, and caring even if she doesn't know how to properly explain it due to... hum reasons (cough, cough Sombron abuse) whereas Rafal acts colder and tougher even if in truth he is very kind (he will kill me for saying this)

Pretty much like Timerra and Fogado having similar personality, Alear and Veyle are both very sweets person pushing their boundaries to help those they love and ready to shield themselves when necessary.

Now you'll notice that the siblings have opposed personailties that harmonizes with each others right ? That's how the complement each other, as a half of a whole.

But guess what ? Remember when we were like "Ah, Altfred isn't evul he is just reversed personality Alfred" ? Well, turns out they actually have more of a personality swap with their siblings.

Altfred is more rational and cautious about his plan, like Céline is whereas Felline is not only an extreme version of Céline, but she is more hot blooded like Alfred is.

I don't think I need to explain it for the Brodian brothers now, do I ?

Hortensialt's personality has been affected by the trauma but ultimately, her personality ressembles more that of Ivy whereas Ivyalt is more flashy to the point of being melodramatic which is an exagerate version of Hortensia' bright personality.

Both Solmiic siblings were flipped, but Timerralt still care a lot about her brother even if Fellgado is... well, he literaly is evul and this contrast a lot compared to our caring Fogado but... chuckles, I am sorry... Each time i recall their intereactions I am... wow, Fellgado has no chill. Anyway...

and for the Fell twins, their personality is also reversed as Nel comes off as colder then she actually turns out to be, whereas Rafal, because he assumes another's identity, is the complete opposite of his true personality, but his support with Gregory explain that well already. And I think that's why their relationship as siblings seems to work way less then for our Regular royals. Their support conversations shows how the siblings actually manage to be on an harmonized relationship and able to communicate with each other. However, the Alternate siblings doesn't have that at all, even from the glimpse with have of this even though they aren't completely off the spectrum of their counterpart's personality it's still in my opinion a proof that the Royalts failed to have a deep bound as siblings relationship, the most obvious one being Ivyalt and Hortensialt, then you have Diamalt and Altcryst, Timerralt and Fellgado and Altfred and Felline. I think another example of this is that it's precisely because they showed personality that weren't their that their relationship went this bad (that and all the things I mentionned in my Rafal post). And you'll notice that in this universe, our siblings with tragic dynamic, Alear and Veyle, AREN'T even siblings in that world !! That' probably the biggest evidence i can have for my point about siblings dynamic failling. I think it's quite the deal that the 4 winds managed to have a healthy familial relationship in a world where family were unable to have an harmonized relationship or were more then separated as in this world, the links between Alear and Sombron and Veyle were literaly non existent (I mean they have a common ancestor in that universe but hum) compared to our universe where our main cast have healthy family relationship whereas the Hounds didn't (as I mentionned in my Hounds post)

I think it's also shows how duality ends up serving the family message/theme in Engage with the duality of family being illustrated with healthy harmonized family despite the difference (character on our party) and unhealthy toxic and disaharmonious family relationship (our ennemies)

[hospitalterrorizer]

diary230

5/2-3/2024

thursday - friday

work 2morrow.

the palestine thing went well. i learned some things. a lot of things i knew were said again, convictions repeated in different ways, different vantages on the destruction of what surrounds us, america's colonial force, the racism and classism of the west. what a 'free palestine' might actually mean, in the heart of a poem that, i guess speaking honestly, i did not think was 'good' (is that a stupid notion to have in my head as i am somewhere to hopefully learn of mobilizing, escalating, to something else?), it ended with a powerful turn, a declaration of the fact that a freed palestine is tethered to, an example of, the greatest fear of the colonial forces of the world. that people really become capable of liberating themselves. perhaps to make me think this, the poem is good, just not the kind of writing which moves me. which is fine, there was another poem which did, a man begging for the night to go on a little longer so his execution may grow more distant, more time in live.

the night ended with the mention of the various occupations and struggles across the country, and that the students here are currently waiting for a meeting with the president. this is the thing preventing that from taking place, that he relented to speak to them at some point. if he does, and it works out that they disclose and divest, without bringing the student body (of which i am not a part, though i would involve myself however possible. this is a promise i make to myself. i have to, i really believe that, is that strange? i don't know. i feel very bad about myself. am i a bad person? it's always on my mind in various ways and in some sense, this horrific moralism inside me, it is a bourgeois mind virus, this moralism is not political action, not material, it is not what i believe. it is something else.), to pain/suffering in any excess, it would probably be good.

to talk of guilt and then say:

here are selfies from yesterday:

is ridiculous, but here i am. is my vanity evil? i don't know. i don't know. my gf says i am not a bad person, and that the fact i care, that i try and that i have given means something, but does it. but i don't know. sincerely, it hurts my insides.

but here are my selfies from yesterday. i am thinking about geririsuto again, i must go there. i must be that. a pig came to the poetry thing, someone set an emergency alert off. how baffling. anyhow:

anyways that's me in a shirt and with my bangs that i don't hate as much right now. that is nice, to not be so dysphoric and stuff. i like that shirt, it says something funny which is "wish i was not a girl" on it which is funny for all kinds of reasons that are easy to read into in all kinds of directions.

talking to a friend i haven't spoken to in a while, it's nice to speak to people you may have not spoken to for a long time.

anyway, i need to sleep to work (in all sense of the word) and stuff + my laptop is being backed up to this external hd i got so i can put all this stuff onto the new one... so

byebye!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[yuikomorii]

Greetings, I come with late night ramblings abt diabolik lovers. Big fan of your blog, I really like the side of the fandom which discusses the characters

Sometimes i wonder what it was like for the mukami bros to turn into vampires. Since vampires look so similar to humans the fact that they are a different species really slips my mind sometimes.....

So sometimes I find myself wondering what that psychological shift was like. The mukami bros were all pretty young and had grudges against humans in some way when they were turned, so parting with their humanity wasn't on their minds I think lol.

But despite spending lot of their childhood/puberty around vampires they still do act a lot more human like than the sakamakis. Granted, the sakamakis def have a lot trauma that compromises their ability to have any type of healthy relationship. But characters like ayato suggest that vampires aren't inherently incapable of the more "human" emotions (don't rlly know a good word for it mb).

I do remember ruki saying somewhere that because he is weak he stays with his family (not the only reason ofc, but having to band together/find strength in numbers to survive is a very human-like thing), yet he and his bros abandoned being human/ hold some level of resentment for humanity.

Anyways all that to say the mukami bros have an interesting relationship with their "humanity" and I'm overanalyzing characters in an otome game of which the lore is constantly retconned. Complicating this is the fact that we don't have a "average" or "normal" vampire to compare with

Also reject totally missed an opportunity to make a character that didn't want to be turned into a vampire, and had to struggle with the changes.

// Hello, thank you for enjoying my blog!<3

Hmm… If the person who becomes a vampire is kind-hearted and mentally stable enough to avoid wishing revenge upon someone or using their newfound vampire status as an excuse to treat people badly, I sincerely doubt that the psychological transition from human to vampire would hit that hard. Trauma caused the Mukami brothers to develop such a vicious nature, exactly like Yui in HDB did at one point when, as a result of being mentally broken, she started killing people in an After story. While pure-blood vampires do have their own set of morals and they obviously need blood to survive, I wouldn’t say they are inherently evil, taking into account that in LP and VC, some vampires were nice to Yui and the Diaboys. They are indeed predators, that’s something they can’t control no matter how much they try, but not all of them are malicious.

The Mukamis got rid of their humanity but they still kept acting like humans around one another because, after all, that’s how they were initially accustomed to. As for the Sakamakis… due to trauma as well, they were pretty twisted since childhood. I mean, most of them were the main cause something bad happened to any of their brothers in the past, therefore it’s to be expected that their relationship is not a healthy one. However, vampires are actually capable of experiencing human emotions, and Ayato is the living example of this given that he is confirmed as being the most human-like out of all due to the fact that he was already capable of displaying these emotions prior to meeting Yui (for example: wanting to sacrifice himself for his brothers, ruining Karl’s blue rose so as Cordelia wouldn’t get sad, crying when Cordelia died and, most importantly, valuing his life). Additionally, a vampire will begin to experience human emotions the more Eve's blood he consumes, so... that's basically part of the plan, according to what Karl said in Ayato’s DF route.

I wouldn't say the Mukamis hate humans; they held a grudge against aristocrats, but not humans in general, because they only see them as an inferior species. As for Ruki, the reason he would feel weak without his family isn’t only due to banding together or finding strength in number but rather it’s about them as his emotional support. Kou, Yuma, Azusa respect, praise and accept Ruki with all his qualities and flaws, therefore feeling needed and appreciated is actually what makes Ruki strong.

[theomnicode]

Garou and Saitama: The potential for mutual, personal growth

Garou saga is over and I thought the mutual growth period for Saitama and Garou was just over and done. That we'd say goodbye for Garou for a long duration.

But on a second though...

I'm not ready to give up on the Saitama and Garou dynamic yet.

The more I think about it, the more I want it.

What was so "slowly and surely" becoming indispensable part of Saitama's character growth anyway when the moon fight happened instantly? Garou got drugged by monsterization and brainwashed by God. It was forced, it should not have happened normally. Then Saitama forgot everything that happened and no growth was technically achieved.

This is not it folks.

No, no, I want-

Actual, indispensable, mutual personal growth. For these characters.

It is honestly, more important than ever, that Saitama actually reach out to Garou and has that chat. Because of what Bang is about to do again.

Break his trust. Making Garou feel like he's all alone in the world again. That he really has nobody he can turn to with his problems that are something he wants to spare Tareo from.

Never forget that Garou has been pushed to the point of being suicidal. And there really is no better character to relate with this and help Garou heal than Saitama, who has so far successfully helped his own disciple Genos not feel like he wants to or has to self-destruct anymore. Saitama has one mark on his sleeve now, what is one more?

But this kind of help needs time, patience and close contact.

Essentially, Garou would have to become Saitama'd disciple and move in.

Even if Bang made a change of heart and suddenly stopped trying to make Garou into a hero in his stead and tried to do the exact same thing, Garou can no longer trust him.

Not completely.

Bang trying to order him around will only ever remind him of God who imposed his will onto him and so, it is in Garou's nature to resist, even if the intention was good. He does not like being ordered around. He is very willful character. Mind does not forget bad memories easily or the emotional connections.

Bang breaking his trust again, after trying to mend the bridges only serves to reinforce the notions that Bang can no longer be trusted with on a personal level, because he would just betray Garou again.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

The trust has unfortunately been broken on a subconscious level and will take more time and effort to mend. If it will ever mend when Bang betrays him again. It's not going to be fully Bang's fault, but its not like he knows what happened to Garou exactly and what was being used against him, his own visage.

Garou does not have time to mend this relationship. He needs help asap.

Saitama still owes Garou both Genos and King's lives. The lives Garou saved on his own volition. Saitama does not like to be indebted to anybody because he's highly independant.

I wonder if anybody has ever sincerely thanked Garou before for a job well done. Or valued something he has achieved. Or seen through him and who he really is as a person. It honestly does not look like it.

But this heartfelt thanks is enough to return some life to Garou's eyes. This sweet sentimentality, as much as he despises it, came through.

Saitama thinks Garou will be fine, but this will change when Bang does a major error again and parachutes him into the Hero roster without asking. And all the issues that arise from such a thing, like Garou being shown favouritism and taking the blame from other heroes for special treatment. It's not something Garou will be able to stand and he will just run away again.

These pictures tell me a thousand words about how badly Garou wishes he had someone to actually be a guiding, parental figure. Something Bang does not want to be or is not capable of being, because he has always shied away from that responsibility.

Garou ran away from his own parents who don't give two shits about him and disowned him and then found Bang. Who he thought could understand him and whom he thought he could emotionally connect with fully. And maybe be a parental figure unlike his own parents.

But Bang can't just seem to understand where he is coming from and what he actually needs or how he actually feels.

That's why when Bang asks of his girlfriend choices, Garou tells him a white lie. He's not sure of how Bang would react if he knew of his true orientation and so he can't trust him with his closely guarded secrets.

Very much in parallel to Saitama who is very much alike him, when he tells a white lie to not get caught, afraid of getting into trouble.

It plainly tells me that the emotional trust just is not there between Garou and Bang anymore and he can't tell him things he might be able to tell to a parental figure.

Enter Saitama, who has already forged one familial bond with a younger character, because it was what he thought Genos needed to heal.

Saitama has very deep ingrained paternal instincts, even if he is not otherwise motivated to do anything and he's great with guiding kids in general. He's hardwired in this direction. Paternal instinct is rooted in development, rearing/discipline, and overall guidance and Saitama has this down to a pat.

It would not only be a wholesome development, but a really funny one too, because Saitama and Garou can have a really hilarious dynamic.

They are both trolls. Garou is abrasive and smart and Saitama is witty. They both like to poke fun at other people. Both are tsunderes about things they care about. They complement each other well. Garou is more active and extroverted while Saitama is more passive and introverted. They would get along really well.

I can easily imagine Garou calling Saitama "Baldy baka" and Saitama losing his shit over that. Garou would just absolutely love to needle Saitama just to get a reaction and Saitama would answer back with his dry wit and murder Garou on the spot with words.

(I just want Garou to fondly call Saitama Baldy or Baka, sue me)

They both love food too.

In case Saitama actually took Garou in because Garou really needs a place to stay and so they can be in close contact and personal to work through their issues, at least for the time being. Saitama would go broke trying to feed 3 people however, so he would tell Garou to find a job. Garou would get motivated just because it would seem unfair to him that Saitama has to use his money to feed him. Especially because he can eat a ton.

Other types of scenarios I can easily imagine happening is Garou picking up on the fact that Genos is ultra jealous of other disciples or anybody trying to seemingly take his spot and if Garou lived in the household, he would easily see just how much Genos does for Saitama daily. And call it out plainly as the love language that it is that Saitama is so obtuse about.

Garou: This guy is totally jealous of me being here. Garou: Does he do all the chores here every day? He doesn't need to. Saitama: Huh? Whadduja mean? I do chores too. *sips drink* Garou: I bet he's just trying to get on your good side. He has the hots for you, it's so obvious. Saitama: *spits out drink* Garou: Wait, you didn't know? PPfffff, you really are a Baldy. Saitama: *catatonic*

(baldy is a word for stupid too in japanese)

Not just that though. It is not just a potentially hilarious dynamic, but a mutually highly beneficial one.

As much as Saitama can help Garou actually get back on his feet, motivate him find his own wants and needs like finding a job and finding himself, enjoy his life again and provide guidance and empathy and temperance, Garou can offer Saitama his unfaltering moral compass even at the peak of emotional high, teach him how to take criticism, share the lessons he knows in mindfulness like meditation for emotional regulation and most importantly, help motivate Saitama to actually seek personal growth for his own sake and not for other people's sakes.

He is so far the only person in the series who has managed to teach Saitama anything, when he is unmotivated and unwilling. Just by convincing Saitama with his own motivation and a look.

The inner drive is something Saitama really needs to learn too, lest he give too much of himself to other people and forgets his own needs. And Garou has self-motivation to share in spades.

Then we cannot forget the fact that Garou can teach Saitama martial arts. Or because he's that smart that he can do quantum physics on the fly based on feel alone, make Saitama figure out what his powers can actually do and help him become more in touch with himself.

If Saitama is to ever falter because his empathy and his extreme emotions get the best of him and cloud his moral judgement, I want Garou to be there as the inner critic and moral compass that he needs to get through those emotional upheavals.

Garou's inbuilt injustice radar can also help Saitama a long way to actually make the world a better place, because Garou can sniff out unfairness like a hound for everyone to see and hear about.

And he's not afraid of raising hell over those issues. Meanwhile Saitama is very non-confrontational. Issues won't disappear unless confronted.

Like true yin and yang, their mutual co-existence can complete each other to be their true selves.

That's why Saitama needs to find Garou and give him the table talk. Find out all the things that bother him since Saitama can read Garou so well. So he's able to help him and in return, Garou can help him as well.

Squandering this great dynamic feels like extremely wasteful, with the way they've been developed too.

It's not an easy road to raise an unruly teen-barely adult when you're just 25-years old yourself but hey, that's just another lesson in road of life.

[possessionisamyth]

Reasons to Love Ada Wong:

-Outstanding Intelligence: As seen in damnation, re4, and re6, Ada knows how to remain one step ahead. She knew the BSAA lie would fall through so she could get into the facility to access what she really needed. She immediately adjusted her plan in re4 to make her helping Leon out of tight fits appear as inconsequential tasks while she went towards her goal. She immediately figured out the "Simmons" calling her wasn't Simmons at all. She's not someone you can outsmart easily.

-Excellent Self-Preservation: Gotta look out for #1 baby, and Ada is the best embodiment of that. RE is packed with enough martyrs who will give up their entire lives "fighting for the cause". This girl is there to get her paycheck and get the fuck out so she can live her life, and I respect it. I hope she charges triple for overtime and extra hassle. We should all be doing that.

-Plays The System Like A Fiddle: Ada says fuck cops. Ada says fuck the government. Ada says fuck corporations. As long as what they're doing won't pull her into a long standing cross fire, she will work for the money they offer, but she'll go where she pleases once she's done. Is that really any different than people in real life looking for a better job when leaving an old, shitty one? I don't think it is.

-Has only one weakness: Ada knows her limits. She knows when she can save someone and when she can't. She knows when to let something lie and when to go for it. Leon is her only weakness, but everyone else she can take or leave unless they prove they'll have value for her work. If Leon died, she'd retire or go back to being ultra capable, so kill him Capcom.

-Impeccable fashion: Ignoring the dragon lady take with og re4 dress, Ada's other outfits are fire. Red is a wonderful color on her because it hides the blood, and also she's so hot.

-Emotionally Unavailable: She is the only RE woman who is not seen sincerely comforting a man or comforting a child(re2/re2r doesn't count because she's acting). This is extremely refreshing. Yes, she is the sexy femme fatale, but does she comfort Leon? No. Does she baby Sherry when she saves her? No. This isn't a moral failing. She's just not that into you, and it's not a flaw. It's an underutilized character trait with women especially.

-Hookshot User: I don't know about the people younger than me, but this was the coolest tool for people to use in cartoons when I was a kid. It's the closest a normal human can get to being Spiderman, and that automatically puts a character on the Best Design list in my opinion.

-High-risk High-reward Thinker: Working with B.O.Ws in any capacity means you're somewhat of a gambler. What does Chris get from going into enemy territory to arrest some guy? Paperwork. What does Jill get from saving Chris' life? Brainwashed into a killing machine and made blonde(the worst fate bestowed upon women). Leon fights for his country. Ew. Gross. You know what Ada gets going into death ridden zones? Her bag. Her check. Her money, and it's actually worth it.

-Espionage S-Rank: The international arrest warrant is going to make things a little more difficult, but Ada's made her career around going under the radar to get in and out of high security areas. She gets the gear, the guns, and plays her role with finesse. Her intel gathering skills must be impeccable to achieve this.

Quick Bullet Points:

Not a eugenicist. (Wesker is.)

Doesn't experiment on corpses. (Heisenberg does this.)

No god-complex. (Wesker has this.)

Against child labor? (Heisenberg wants a baby gun.)

Doesn't make viruses that kill people. Only gets paid to move them around. (Unlike some people.)

Thinks Leon is pathetic, but likes him anyway even if he's a lil ugly. Which is so nice of her. (❤️)

So there's my comprehensive list I said I'd make weeks ago but am just now getting to. If anyone has anything else to add feel free to do so in the replies. If you're here to be an Ada hater, you'll get blocked.

[who-is-page]

you shut down a transphobe at work? 👀 care to share ?? of course you dont have to, especially if it was a shitty experience but i love hearing people shut assholes down

I work in retail; my pronouns are listed on my nametag, underneath my name but above my job title, and I verbally correct people when they misgender me. I always assume ignorance over malice--retail has taught me that people legitimately cannot read and comprehend half of what's in front of them--and I'm good at my job so I'm always polite and cheery when I do it.

I was covering a loader's job with another associate, and we had an older woman show up. It's policy to sign receipts before we load customer vehicles, but when I approached her she comically started going "nuh-uh-uh! I don't believe in a women working this job!" and trying to give the receipt to the coworker standing five feet behind me, while still not getting out of her car. And I cheerily explained that that wouldn't be a problem, because I wasn't a women anyways! But the customer insisted, and aggressively gestured at my tits going, "Then what are these? Huh? You're female." And I got to go off into a spiel about how I was actually unsure of my chromosomal makeup because of an instance of colorblindness that traditionally doesn't affect people with XX chromosomes, and how I didn't personally see myself as female in that capacity because of it, but that I would still happily help her.

And she tries to huff and puff, saying that she "doesn't see color" (uh??? what??) and "doesn't believe in that stuff" and that she doesn't believe in "women doing mens' work" again.

I shrug at her, and tell her that regardless of her personal feelings, I'm still more than ready to help load her vehicle if she'd like.

My coworker's eyebrows are up SO HIGH at this point at this woman, and he's actually snatched her receipt out of her hand and signed off on it for me. He shoves it back into her car door window and she rolls the window back up, driving away from us and parking in front of the pallets of mulch that she's buying.

My coworker, chad that he is, stands behind and lets me take charge on it. Asking the woman to please open her trunk, picking up the bags two at a time to put them in the back of her car just so that I can flex, and chatting to her (non-responsive, pinched face) about what a lovely day it was. Despite her initial reactions, there's no other option she's left with other than A) Let me help her load the mulch and deal with the fact that I'm perfectly capable, or B) Go inside, find a manager, and complain until someone who is AMAB loads her. She folds and picks A, probably because from the combination of my cheerful attitude and my coworker's lack of intervention on her behalf, she knows that she'll sound absolutely out there if she tries to make demands. She blinked first. She stiffly thanked me and drove off after I finished, when I wished her a good day.

This is what I mean when I say that bigots are inherently cowardly when they get caught up in a 1v1, especially if you're acting (comparatively) like a normal fucking person. Their stakes in it are significantly lower a majority of the time, so they always lose the game of chicken they put themselves in. They might complain, might make side comments, but if you meet them head on they always flinch first. And being a trans person who often corrects pronouns and honorifics, someone who is ergo used to consistent confrontation that most other people would and do avoid, I don't know the meaning of the word "flinch" anymore.

Also, I'm fucking jacked from lifting bags of wet mulch and soil all the time, so they know I'm going to make them sincerely regret it if they throw a punch.

[skunkbrat]

i realize it's likely writers that don't know her history or aren't interested in using her to a fuller capacity in the moment (particularly the issue im referencing is more an ensemble piece and really doesn't center on anyone in particular) however, the suggestion from x/men unforgiven that rogue has not had to deal with thousands of voices in her head at once is ... objectively untrue. granted he may not have known, but her not countering this is crazy to me like .. the experience of holding 8billion lives in her head nearly ripped her mind apart ...

anyway, that's enough on its own to be funny to me, but what i actually took away from this (though with a grain of salt bc i think again it's partly bc the writer likely doesn't know her that well i suppose?) is that at this point thousands of lives being absorbed into her is literally no problem anymore bc the next panel we see her she's floating down like nothing happened and talking normally to jean 😭 which i'm fine w, i think it tracks that with all the work she's actively put into training her mind and her powers since that 8b lives situation all those years ago, she's now capable of maintaining her composure under extremes

another case in point being when she absorbs some of jean's powers in another run (i wanna say it was the x/men main comic run in 2022 but unfortunately i totally forget) and manages them rather easily, and then of course when she absorbed carol's powers in more recent history to help her from turning total supernova and she was pretty easily able to handle the physical strain of becoming functionally a small star. anw all to say even if the writers don't realize it i appreciate that there's some sincere growth in her capacity bc i think she has been putting work into making herself more resilient for decades, it's nice to see how casually it pays off for her now