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cassnottiel · 5 years ago

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(i hope im not sending too many prompts, i have so many deke feels after tonight so im throwing them at you, if its too much ignore me!!) maybe something where deke accidently talks about his childhood a bit to fitzsimmons? like, an expansion of what we know in canon and how horrible it was. like (forgive me if im wrong my s5 memory isnt perfect lol) but im pretty sure he was a slave for a huge part of his life and that isnt spoken about much

Jemma Simmons was having as good of a day she could, having just time traveled and being a fugitive of the law, hiding in a huge underground bunker nobody knew about.

Her day got immensely worse when she entered the Lighthouse lab and saw the teams newest member, and her grandson from the future, digging a knife into his own arm.

"Deke!" Jemma rushed forward, grabbing a towel and going to take the knife away from him.

Deke Shaw looked up, breaking his concentrated grimace with a slightly curious look. "What?"

"What are you doing?" Jemma wrapped his bloody wrist with the towel.

"I'm taking my metric out." Deke set his knife down. "Is that supposed to be a big deal?"

Jemma furrowed her brow, carefully pulled the bloody towel away and inspected the cut. Sure enough, the circular metric was gone. The work was careful and delicate, and there wasn't as much blood as there should have been for an inexperienced cut.

"I thought you were hurting yourself." She said quietly. "I'm sorry."

Deke awkwardly wiped his bloody left hand on his pants. "It's fine, don't worry."

"Where did you learn to do this with such precision?" Jemma leaned down to look at the cut more carefully. It looked like it was made by an experienced surgeon.

Deke shrugged and grabbed a roll of bandages from the table next to him. "I picked it up as a kid. My mom was kind of like the doctor of the Lighthouse."

"This is amazing work." Jemma complimented. "But, doesn't it hurt?"

"Not really, no." Deke shook his head and started unrolling the bandages. "I have a high pain tolerance."

Jemma quickly grabbed the bandages and started wrapping his wrist for him. "Really?" She looked at him with concern. "Since when?"

Deke carelessly wiped the blood off the blade of his version of Fitzs multi tool with a small smile. "Oh, you know. The Kree weren't exactly benevolent leaders." He retracted the blade and put the knife in his pocket, smiling like he just made a hilarious joke.

Jemmas hands froze as she thought about the implications behind that statement. Deke took the opportunity to finish wrapping his wrist and start walking out.

"Bye, Nana!" He called cheerfully over his shoulder as he crossed the threshold of the door.

- - -

Fitz sighed and slammed his fist on the door. Locked. All the system updates that locked down the Lighthouse were getting very annoying.

"What's wrong?" Deke Shaw, Fitzs overeager grandson from the future, was leaning against the concrete wall.

"Bloody door's locked again." Fitzs frustration was abundant in his voice. "I need to get to the other end of the level." He held up a satchel full of papers he needed to get to the lab.

Deke smiled. "I can help." He walked over to the vent on the floor, slid his fingers between the grates and pulled. He set it against the wall and gestured to the new hole in the wall. "Do you have a problem with small spaces?"

Fitz stared. "You want me to crawl through the vent?"

"I know my way through the whole vent system, I can get you anywhere you need to go." Deke crouched down and looked through the dark tunnel, then up at his grandfather. "Unless you want to wait?"

Fitz sighed, pinched the bridge of his nose, then gestured to the vent. "Lead the way."

The vent shafts were larger than Fitz thought they would be, not quite wide enough for the two men to sit side by side, but tall enough for them to sit comfortably. But, they did not sit. Fitz could barely keep up with Deke, despite only being a few years older.

"Deke, slow down." Fitz called ahead, leaning back on his heals.

Deke stopped and turned around. "Sorry." He said sheepishly and crawled back to Fitz.

"Why are you in such a rush?" Fitz cracked his stiff neck.

"Force of habit, sorry." Deke apologized again. "I'm usually running when I'm in here."

That set off an alarm bell in Fitzs mind. "Running?"

"Yeah," Deke said like he wasn't talking about something important, "the Blues had some sort of vendetta against me or something. I think people made bets on how far I could go without getting caught." Fitz stared in shock. "My record is four levels."

"Were you okay when that happened?" Fitz asked carefully.

"No, of course not." Deke turned his head away. "Let's get going, you said you have something important, right?"

He did not wait for an answer, just started off in the direction that would lead to the lab. Fitz sighed, filed away that information to talk to his wife about later, and followed his grandson

- - -

"Ta-da!" Deke kicked the grate of the vent out and climbed out. He stood up and spread his arms out to show off his feat of navigation.

"Thank you, Deke." Fitz tossed his satchel to his grandson before climbing out and fixing the vent cover over the gaping hole. "I think I'll just wait next time."

Deke shrugged and handed the satchel over. "I get that. I usually only used the vents if I was in real danger."

"But you . . ." Fitz frowned, "you memorized the whole layout?"

"You've seen this place in eighty years." Deke started casually walking to the lab. "You know how often 'real danger' is."

Fitz stood frozen for a few seconds, staring at the back of his grandsons head. Then, he practically ran to the lab.

"Jemma," Fitz ran a hand through his hair and leaned against the open door, "has Deke said anything that's made you concerned in the time you've known him?"

Jemma looked up from what she was doing, worry flitting across her face. "What did he tell you?"

"Did you know that our grandson has the ventilation schematics memorized?" Fitz walked forward and lowered his voice. "Just in case he needed to run from the Kree."

Jemmas eyes widened. "Oh, my God."

"What did he tell you?" Fitz sat on one of the cots, the papers of research all but forgotten at his side.

"I found him digging his own metric out of his arm with a knife." Jemma leaned in, like this conversation was a secret to keep from the rest of the base. "But it didn't seem to hurt him, he told me he has a high pain tolerance." She sighed. "He implied the Kree would hurt him regularly, and he said it like it was no big deal."

Fitz sighed and scratched his neck. "What should we do?" He looked up his wife. "He shouldn't live in this world and expect it to be just like his."

Jemma nodded. "None of us are really qualified to act as therapists, but we should talk to him."

"I know this isn't the place I grew up in."

Both Fitz and Simmons spun around to look at the source of the voice. Deke was standing in the door.

"Deke!" Jemma stepped forward, as if to act like she wasn't just talking about him.

"I'm not naive." Deke continued. "I know this isn't the Lighthouse I'm used to."

Fitz put his hands up in a placating manor. "We never m--"

"I don't make a big deal out of my past because I don't want you guys to make a big deal out of it." Deke cut Fitz off. "I know my childhood was messed up. Believe me, I know."

"Why don't you want us to make a big deal about it?" Jemma asked. "You went through Hell."

"Yeah." Deke nodded. "I did. But this isn't the same place, and I want to move on with my life."

"Deke," Fitz started calmly, "it's not that easy."

"You can't just bottle everything away and expect to be fine." Jemma added.

"I'm very good at compartmentalizing." Deke crossed his arms.

"Compartmentalization isn't good for you." Fitz said. "Trust me, it's not."

Deke sighed. "If you knew what it was like to grow up in this place, you wouldn't want to think about it either."

Jemma walked over and placed her hand on her grandsons shoulder. "There are some things in life you have to face to move past."

"I am moving past things." Deke said stubbornly. "I'm making new, better memories where all the bad things in my life happened."

"Trauma doesn't work like that, Deke." Fitz said as gently as he could.

Deke ran both his hands through his hair with a deep sigh. "I shouldn't have said anything." He stood up and turned to the door.

"Deke, wait." Jemma grabbed his left arm. "You don't have to forget everything about your past or reinvent yourself."

"But I want to." Deke said very clearly. "Kasius owned me, and I don't want to feel like his property anymore."

Jemma made sure keep her voice calm, she didn't want to escalate this. "We've seen what he did, we know--"

"No, you don't know." Deke snapped. "He literally owned me. After my dad was sent to the surface, Kasius and Sinara wanted to groom me into one of their deaf servants."

Jemma and Fitz looked at each other, then back at their grandson.

"You know what it's like." He looked to Jemma. "Having that-- that-- that thing in my ear is one of the worst things that's ever happened to me."

"You've had it?" Jemmas voice went quiet. "How old were you?"

"I was fourteen." The fire in Dekes eyes never dampened. "So, forgive me if I want to forget that part of my life."

"Deke," Fitz said slowly, reaching out, "you don't need to keep going, we understand."

Deke sighed again, more aggressively, showing the frustration he was feeling. "Do you?" He asked. "You all were there for a few weeks, maybe. I was born there, raised there. I spent the first twenty-eight years of my life in that apocalyptic hellscape!" He gestured wildly around the room. "And I'm still here! Even when there's a rest of the world out there, I'm here, in the place I watched my whole family die."

"Deke . . ." neither grandparent knew how to handle this. It seemed that this was the first time he got to really talk about his past traumas in a serious way.

Deke sat down on one of the cots tiredly. "I watched you both die." He whispered, his eyes glassy with unshed tears.

"What?!" Jemma was at his side in seconds, Fitz not far behind.

"When I was nine, Kasius got rid of everyone who believed in the prophecy. All the smart people." Deke forced himself to steady his breath and closed his eyes. "They killed everyone in the middle of the Exchange, to make an example." He looked up at Jemma, then Fitz, then at the concrete floor. "They took my mom, and my moms parents."

"I--" Fitz clenched his fists at his side. "I'm sorry, Deke." He said quietly. He lifted his hand and carefully, comfortingly, rubbed Dekes back between the shoulder blades.

"We're going to make sure that world will never exist." Jemma promised. "So the next version of you to exist will never go through that."

Suddenly, Deke threw his arms around Jemma and Fitz. He pulled them into a tight hug and finally let the tears he had been holding in for God knows how long fall. Deke buried his face in the soft fabric of Fitz shirt as his shuddering breaths shook his whole frame. Both grandparents immediately returned the hug. It was a hug from a child who had lost his family too young, had been alone for too long.

As unconventional as this new family was, they loved each other. And this family kept their promises, no matter how far they need to go.

#agents of sheild #deke shaw #leo fitz #jemma simmons #fitzsimmons #fitzsimmons family #high class writing #high class answers #asks

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spector · 7 years ago

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im pasting my tf thinkpiece over here too, im all sweaty now

i bullied my mom into getting me iced coffee at like 9pm so here comes my thinkpiece about the state of things in idw tf universe , specifically in relation to where megatron and starscreams character """development"" has taken them

HERE'S THE THING ! we all know that megatron started the war blah blah blah okay yeah he's got shit to atone for. but what eveyone likes to forget, characters and writers included, is that the rise of decepticons was ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY for cybertron because if it wasnt gonna be decepticons, it was gonna be some other revolution, okay, cybertron was IN FUCKING SHAMBLES before the conflict broke out

cybertron before war was a capitalistic utilitarian hellscape with castes and class regime, furthermore it was on the brink of extinction given how they uh. misplaced the entire concept of natural birth and they had to resort to cold construction WHICH IN TURN CONNECTED TO THE OPPRESIVE FUNCTIONISM because the government literally built the bodies it actively needed !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and they favored building the working class bots who would never rise to any sort of power within the society controlled by the bots who had the luck to be sparked in a natural way, a way which ensured their high society status !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A REVOLUTION WAS NEEDED, decepticons were BOUND TO HAPPEN and both autobots and decepticons BENEFITTED from the war happening, like i cannot stress this enough, cybertron was on its way to societal collapse anyways !!!!!!!!!!!!! THE REVOLUTION WAS NECESSARY !!!!! the fact that megatron just happened to be the first person who managed to organize a revolt is not that important in the grand scheme of things, cybertron was DECAYING and a conflict of some sort would have happened sooner or later!!!!!!!

so this is why i REALLY dont give a flying fuck about megatron's guilt for starting the war because decepticons were initially a faction of FREEDOM FIGHTERS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THIS IS SO IMPORTANT and it keeps getting swept under the rug for the easier narrative !!! THE CONFLICT WAS INEVITABLE, its escalation is what needs to condemned not the actual breakout of violence

AND EVEN THE ESCALATION OF THE WAR like, lets look at it, the main points of all autobots vs decepticons conflicts is the war for resources and war for territory !!!!!!!! megatron kept talking about building the decepticon empire and WHY IS THAT??? BECAUSE THERE WAS NO PLACE FOR WORKING CLASS/FIGHTER BOTS ON CYBERTRON. BECAUSE THE SOCIETY CREATED ON CYBERTRON TREATED THEM LIKE TOOLS, THEY DIDNT HAVE THEIR OWN PLACE.

where megatron went wrong was idk, letting autobots know that he wasnt gonna stop at just one planet or whatever which made autobots pisst off. tbh if megatron only went for like. one unhabited planet and stayed there, everything would be relatively fine for a while, no conflict!!! but then we wouldnt have toys and comics i guess anyways, megatron’s main war-related sin is the unnecessary escalation of conflict which did cause a lot of death and involving other species in this war such as humans who will later end up getting annexed by a fucking truck anyways so like. whatever.

so no, i dont give a shit about the narrative of him being sorry that the war ever started. they needed the war to happen because it was!!! bound!!!!!!!!!!!! to!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! happen!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! because pre-war cybertron was pure shit,if only at some point megatron went like 'u know what, this is good, this is enough, we changed the way cybertronians think, we have our own place, this is good, the war is over', everything would be literally fine. but he didnt stop, he continued to make the conflict worse, it stopped being a fight for freedom and became a power quest he and that's his fault

its also his fault that even after the war was over he stomped all over cybertron like a pissbaby, demanding that everyone pays attention to him again but you know what, thats kinda relatable so im not gonna judge

my palms got so fucking sweaty but anyways. THE THINGS MEGATRON HAS TO RLY ATONE FOR ARE THE PERSONAL TRAGEDIES. a collective guilt is so unspecified and it's easy to dismiss as some vague concept that you cant even tackle, like how would u even begin to apologize, how would u make amends for letting a war escalate? it cannot be tackled in a realistic conceivable way, which lets megatron just wallow in his sin-limbo forever.

what NEEDS to be addressed instead is the abuse starscream suffered under megatron because we have PROOF that it's affecting him to this day. and okay i used to be a ride-or-die megastar girl like, i lived for those two, but the storyline idw is presenting... it is absolutely necessary, it is SO necessary to acknowledge the abuse starscream has suffered so i have respect for the writers that wrote in that plotpoint but at the same time, THEY! DO! NOT! COMMIT TO IT! THEY MAKE IT POP UP FROM TIME TO TIME BUT IT ALWAYS LEADS TO NOTHING!!!!! AND IT IS SO UNFAIR THAT MEGATRON GOT HIS REDEMPTION BUT STARSCREAM DIDNT

years after the war ended, he still suffers from what happened during his time as decepticon SIC and it is EXTREMELY UPSETTING to see because we do not get closure for that plotline, starscream acknolwedges his abuse but nobody ever comments on it, not bumblebee, not windblade, literally nobody.

A MINDFUCKING BOT TAKES FORM OF MEGATRON IN STARSCREAM BRAIN AND HE KNOWS HES NOT REAL BUT ITS ENOUGH TO FUCKING MAKE HIM FREEZE ON SPOT

THIS! is the sort of shit megatron has to acknowledge, not the waaah i started the war. he needs to acknowledge the damage he’s done to individuals under his command because it continues to hurt them to this day.

BUT STARSCREAM AND MEGATRON HAVENT TALKED TO EACH OTHER EVER SINCE THE TRIAL AFTER THE EVENTS OF DARK ENERGON (a really really long time). megatron got to fuck off on a merry ride on lost light, wear glasses and write softboy poetry, while starscream gets constantly undermined as a leader for his past, suffers from mental breakdowns and attacks on his person (some of them are warranted, true but some of them are completely unfair).

MEGATRON AND STARSCREAM MUST INTERRACT AT SOME POINT and discuss the damage that has been done in order for both of them to get some sort of CLOSURE. but the tf writers KNOW theyre not competent enough to handle a plotpoint like that, they cant handle writing a victim meeting his abuser !!!!!!!! they've avoided it for so long and right now the fucking universe is gonna implode in a month or two so i can tell that they will never acknowledge the damage, the REAL sins that megatron has to atone for and thats why i feel like his redemption is fucking SHITTY like, he gets to say a few snarky comments there and there and what, suddenly everything is alright?!?!? he’s forgiven because his dialogue is sometimes funny?

no, megatron is still running away from his past and now he wont ever get to face it because the universe is about to reboot

meanwhile starscream has much less war crimes on his account but he continues to get so much shit from everyone 'and its just so unfair that megatron's redemption arc is so vague and unspecified and yet everyone accepts it, but starscream doesnt even get that chance, EVEN THOUGH!!!!!!!!!! EVEN THOUGH STARSCREAM IS THE ONE WHO ACTUALLY ADMITTED ALL OF HIS SINS IN FRONT OF CAMERAS AND LET HIS PEOPLE LOCK HIM UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

its bullshit is what it is

idw set up this plotpoint of starscream living with the burden of what megatron has done during the war and now they cant even make them confront one another. megatron is off fucking around in his dream dimension, meanwhile starscream is scrambling decepticons together to survive the unicron attack, which means they most likely will never meet and wont get to discuss the damage -- the damage that affects starscream to this day, the damage that megatron should be atoning for (not starting the war which was a legitimely good thing)

starscream has a name, has a face, he is a concrete person connected to megatron’s guilt, unlike the unidentified blob called ' the collective victims of the autobots vs decepticons war' and this is where megatron should have started, especially that WE KNOW IT WASNT ALL BAD

LIKE. ALL OF THIS IS VERY COMPLEX. but what it all essentially boils down to is:

1). megatron should not feel sorry for starting the war because it was necessary 2). it is not enough to be guilty in general, redemption should start with concrete examples, not vague concepts 3). the open plotpoint of the abusive relationship between starscream and megatron NEEDS TO BE ADDRESSED, it absolutely NEEDS to be addressed bc the repercussions of their relationship affect starscream to this day so in a way, megatron's war crimes never stopped, they continue to happen every day of his life and this is why i dont buy meg’s redemption and never will

THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION

#maccadam #I EDITED THIS A LITTLE BIT AND BROKE IT INTO SMALLER PARAGRAPHS SO MAYBE IT WILL BE EASIER TO READ #but this is pretty much just me screaming #so dont worry if ur confused

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yui-kinokawa · 7 years ago

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Cold Reception

In the cold of a Coerthas winter, a routine delivery turns into a deadly confrontation. Yui knows she can win any fight she puts her mind to, but what good is victory when when you’re fighting for the wrong reasons?

Yui Kinokawa pulled her furs closer and silently cursed whatever mad deity held reign over the cold wastes and colder fortunes that had befallen her. Even with just her eyes exposed the cold tore at her face and threatened to pierce her protective outer clothes at every seam. The Calamity had never fully left Coerthas. Five years in its wake, the Western Highlands remained a cold, bleak hellscape coated in rime, buried in fulms of snow, and infested with wild beasts, voidsent, and feral Dravanians.

Just hours before, she had departed Ishgard for the Lancegate. Whispers of a salvage team of some renown marshalling in the north of the Western Highlands surrounded the missive she had been tasked with delivering. Count Edmont de Fortemps said nothing of the missive’s contents, but his younger son and the house servants seemed to think her lack of Elezen ears made her deaf. Still, Yui knew better than to press for details. Her clients sang praises of her reliability via word of mouth, and to sink her fresh connections with House Fortemps over her own curiosity would be tantamount to career suicide. If she were to make good on her future goals, that was the sort of setback that Yui could not afford.

She reached a gloved hand forward and gently rubbed the back of her chocobo’s neck. Ever faithful, Okita had taken to the journey without complaint. Thankfully, the Ishgardians were thoughtful enough to provide proper barding and shoes for the bird that would prevent injury or illness from exposure to the elements. The pair trudged along in silence, minding the ever deepening snow.

The thought of spending her gil on a long soak in a hot bath with a bottle of mulled wine did little to ease the burden of delivery. There was but one aetheryte in the traversable areas of the Highlands and that was malms behind her now in Falcon’s Nest. Adding insult to injury, the projected forecast of partly cloudy had only turned out to be partly correct; while it was indeed cloudy, not two hours had passed before it also began snowing. Yui had expected flurries throughout the journey but now it appeared a full-blown blizzard was blowing.

Visibility continued to drop until Yui could see only the road in front of her. Even this was rapidly fading in the unending deluge of fresh powder. Reaching into her memory for maps, Yui recalled a nearby outcropping under which they could weather the storm until it had cleared enough to travel safely. It should have been just ahead.

Should.

What Yui found instead was a barrier of ice in the middle of the road. Yui’s scales itched uncomfortably beneath her furs as the tingle of adrenaline coursed through her body. Far from being natural, the wall had all the hallmarks of being man-made, being a cross-section of the permafrost below. The top was a frosty white fading to icy blue. Dirty pelagic appeared where meltwater had mingled with soil and rock before freezing solid. The heaving of such a large slice out of the ground belied malicious intent and powerful magicks. She swiveled her head left and right, searching for a culprit. The snow betrayed nothing.

“Okita, hold.” She ordered.

Yui dismounted and gingerly stepped toward the wall. That it shielded her from the wind, Yui was quick to acknowledge. That the wall was fresh based on the disturbed ground and lack of snow cover, she was equally quick to discern. She took a deep breath and steeled herself, whirling around to face whoever was responsible.

At first there was nothing. Then, Yui saw them; shadows flitting about at the edge of perception slowly materialized out of the snow, nearly a dozen in all. Okita kwehed frantically, trotting back to Yui to warn her of the encroaching forms. The bird had seen enough battle to not spook and run at the first sign of trouble, but was intelligent and well trained enough to know the odds were not good.

Yui stood motionless, her eyes darting from form to form, sizing them up and weighing her rapidly dwindling options. A retreat was out of the question. The way forward was blocked and the way back was firmly under the control of her stalkers.

That her life was not in immediate danger was nothing more than cold comfort. These highwaymen wanted something from her, likely money and goods. Indiscriminate killing attracted attention, and attention from Ishgard was bad for business. Better to walk away with gil and supplies than leave a bloody trail for the Inquisitors to follow. None of that precluded armed confrontation.

The hunters drew near enough to discern through the snow and fading light. Elezen to the last, Yui muttered to herself, her words lost to the frozen tempest escalating around her. Heretics; they must have been. Or rather whatever extremist holdouts had decided to eschew reconciliation in favor of insurgency. The tattered Dravanian-themed tabards draped over their armor and furs all but confirmed it.

A single man stepped forward from the bunch. Were his ears not clearly visible, Yui might have mistaken him for a highlander hyur. Indeed, he very closely held to the same broadness of shoulder and squared jaw that would be typical of the race. Yui’s eyes immediately fixated upon the massive axe that the man rested on his shoulder. It was an executioner’s axe of unmistakably Ishgardian design, complete with Halonic imagery engraved upon its blade.

Ironic that a heretic holdout would adopt an inquisitor’s arm.

“You know what we’re here for.” The Axeman went straight to business.

That he didn’t opt to have his mooks shoot first and not get around to asking questions gave Yui an iota of hope that parley might still have been possible. However slim the chance, avoiding needless bloodshed was preferable to drawing steel. Not that she would make it easy on them.

“Am I being detained?” She remained deadpan. “My papers are in order with the Holy See. You may contact the Vault via linkpearl if that is in question.”

“Open up those saddlebags.”

“I was not aware of any Inqisitors’ checkpoints in the northeast of the Highlands,” she pressed, “nor that they would be doing random inspections of cargo and wares.”

“Are you really going to play this game with us?” He growled.

His axe dropped from his shoulder, the blade landing with a thud in the snow at his feet. While he made no efforts to raise it yet, Yui could plainly see that his arm twitched and his legs prepared to gird him for battle.

“This is your last warning, bitch. You hand over the missives and we let you go. You keep mouthing us off and I’ll kill you where you stand.”

“The missives…” Yui’s words were lost in her hood, but what the Axeman let slip was enough to immediately draw her ire.

Missives. What use could a bandit possibly have for missives? And how in the hells did he know she’d be carrying them? No, something else was at work here.

“Take her. Get into those saddlebags, get the codes. Do with the girl what you will.”

“Okita, hide!” she shouted.

The heretic leader took a step back, surprised at the voice which lashed out from the short figure before him. Equally surprising was the sudden kick from Okita that caught him across the chest, sending him tumbling into the snow. With a loud ruffling of feathers and a mighty KWEH, the chocobo was away, flying into the sky and vanishing into the snow.

The axeman leaped to his feet, roaring in frustration as his hapless henchmen loosed arrows in vain at the fleeing bird. The bowmen visibly recoiled at their own failure, stepping backwards in an attempt to put distance between them and their enraged leader. Like a rabid wolf, he snarled at them, cursing their incompetence before turning his predatory gaze back upon Yui.

“Clever little girl, you are!” The Axeman finally sneered, a mocking laugh upon his lips. “Get her! Shake her down for everything she knows!”

Six men stepped forward through the snow, advancing toward her in a line. One reached into a belt pouch for rope. The others drew their weapons.

“That it would come to this.” She muttered.

Yui closed her eyes. Ghostly blue light sprang to life between her fingers, forming a spear in her left hand. Yui drew her foot back and raised her throwing arm into position. One of the heretics shouted a warning and raised his shield.

It was in vain. Splinters showered his comrades as the shield exploded, the aether javelin obliterating it and proceeding to skewer him to the cold ground. The others looked on in shock, then in outrage. They charged.

Yui’s hands flew to the hilt of the katana resting at her hip. With one fluid motion, she parted the furs draped over her, drew the blade, and struck. Five brilliant shards of aether shot forward from her blade, slicing through air, aether, flesh, and bone. Crimson spray stained the snow. Those who had survived the initial maiming dragged their injured comrades away.

Grabbing hold of the clasp at the front of her furs, Yui undid it, allowing the furs to slip off her shoulders and to the snowy ground below. The hood of her cloak followed closely behind. No longer smothered by furs, the tails of her white longcoat fluttered out behind her, freeing her to move. She brought her katana to high guard, anticipating the next attack from her opponent.

Instead, the Axeman paused. “You… you’re Au Ra.”

“I am.” Strange as the sudden lull was, Yui seized upon the chance to stay her blade. “Has that changed your mind?”

“Why do you serve them?” Her question was ignored outright. “They hate you and all your kind! Any that bear the marks of a dragon they hate!”

Dragon kin. She’d heard the epithet whispered around the bar when she put down at the Forgotten Knight. There were few Au Ra in Coerthas and even fewer Raen. The handful she’d met in Ishgard had all been Xaela. While House Fortemps had been most gracious, it seemed the Knight’s upper-crust clientele were less so. Auri scales, horns, and tails only reminded them of the foul beasts that had assailed Ishgard for the past thousand years. A single treaty could not undo centuries of prejudice. Still, the thought of it had weighed heavy on Yui’s heart ever since her arrival in Ishgard.

“I am no dragon!” She kept her voice neutral, hoping against hope that she could de-escalate the situation. “And you are no beast! Come! Parley would suit us better!”

“That you would refuse to hold the High Houses accountable for their crimes speaks enough to me. There is no parley with the High Houses, only death.”

Yui could not help but scowl. “And you would visit the same upon a hired messenger? You would spurn reconciliation to sate your need for violence?”

“The farce of reconciliation!” He spat. “Ishgard cares not for anyone without a high house pedigree! It is but a ruse! I will not be the fool to come back to be greeted by the gallows!”

“The war is over. Ser Aymeric offered reconciliation! Things have changed!”

“NOTHING HAS CHANGED!” He roared. “You are but another slave to the high houses. Your sentence is death!”

“I am sorry.” There was no malice in her words, only quiet resignation.

The Axeman’s roar echoed in the white, swirling void, his steps thrumming like thunder as he stampeded forward. Yui closed her eyes and breathed deeply the frigid air, her blade unwavering and her feet firmly planted. Singing steel split the air.

Yui’s eyes snapped open. Her limbal rings flared bright violet and golden flames wreathed her left arm. The axe blade crashed to a halt ilms from her own blade. Sparks leaped from the air above Yui, the surface of a golden barrier just visible below the massive axe blade. Twisting her blade subtly, Yui counterattacked, her two sword strokes catching the Axeman across the chest.

He staggered backwards, eyes wide with shock. The man was clearly no stranger to pain, but the means of Yui’s reprisal were foreign. Yui returned her blade to high guard. Snowfall traced the outline of a magicked barrier around her.

“Your sorcery cannot save you!”

Again, the Axeman charged. Again, Yui answered. Blow after blow fell upon her, flying steel like falling snow. Yui turned each strike with subtle twists of her blade and deft sweeps of her hand. Her barriers sparked and flared, but held fast against the onslaught.

Yui marked the time between strikes as she parried and riposted. Her opponent was slowing, tiring -- opening himself to a proper attack. Her opportunity came soon enough. The Axeman wound up for a big swing, slower than his prior strikes. Yui’s eyes flared brightly, the faint glow of her shield consuming her entire arm in golden flame. A blast of golden light exploded from her open palm sending her foe stumbling backwards.

Yui dashed forward, a single flash of steel the only indicator of her strike. What remained of her foe’s guard crumbled, his axe falling by the wayside, his stumbling form an easy target. Yui drew back her katana, two fingers from her other hand sweeping across the flat of the blade, her magicks infusing the metal and sheathing it in glowing aether the color of blood. A brilliant crimson flash erupted from the wound as thrust her blade into the gut of her foe. His entire body seized, his gaze locked upon the blade piercing his body.

Yui withdrew, pointing the tip of her blade at the face of her enemy. Only one word left her lips. “Yield.”

A beat of silence followed. Whether the Axeman was contemplating or frozen in pain, Yui could not discern. Finally, he collapsed to his knees, leaning heavily upon the haft of his weapon.

“Do it.” he rasped, his voice quavering. “I know you want to kill me. Do it and complete the will of your masters!"

She said nothing. Yui sheathed her blade, but the shield glow remained about her arm. She extended her right hand, now freed from the task of wielding her katana. The Axeman spat. Yui drew back her gloved hand, the surprise on her face immediately apparent. He would insult her even as she offered him help?

“Patronize me all you want. You're still a damn pet!” he growled. “You answer the high houses’ every beck and call, but they still think you a heretic by your very nature. Look at your own horns and tail, girl!”

Yui bristled visibly at his stubbornness, the cracks in her patience only growing as her foe prattled on. She bent down and clenched a fistful of snow to to clean off her glove, glaring at the bandit even as she dropped the soiled snowball back into the fresh powder on the ground.

Her reply was terse. “You would rather spit insults at me than reconcile with your brethren?”

“You don’t get it, do you, bitch?” he snarled. “I can’t reconcile with them! Nor can you!”

“Can’t? Or won’t?” A tinge of red crept into her cheeks at her own outburst, but it was quickly lost in the blowing snow.

“People like you disgust me!” He coughed and hacked, his wounds clearly taking their toll. The spite, however, was undulled. “You serve those who oppress you and pass their contempt onto people like me! Never have I seen greater self-loathing married with such self-delusion!”

Even in the haze of adrenaline and the din of battle -- especially in the din of battle -- Yui was never one to lash out. But this was no wild beast or foreign soldier threatening her life. Were he a mere beast, Yui would have no qualms about putting him down; indeed, any beast would have tucked its tail between its legs and run away after the sound thrashing she had given it.

But beasts did not spew verbal vitriol. Beasts did not hurl insults that cut her heart. He was not wrong. Ul’dah and Ishgard were no havens for Au Ra. No matter how upstanding her service to House Fortemps, she was an outsider among the Elezen.

Anger Yui did not know she harbored possessed her. She could not control the flaring of her limbal rings, this time a fiery crimson rather than their usual cool violet. Her foe was not cowed. In fact, he seemed to take great pleasure in her reaction, a smile creeping across his lips even as his vitality drain onto the snow at his knees.

“You would suffer death to spite me?" She growled. "Even when I am trying to help you?”

“Your help is unwanted and unneeded!" His laughing was punctuated with heaves as his lungs struggled for breath. “My death is preferable to slavery to the high houses. I pity you.”

“And I, you.” Yui turned and began walking, making for to the spot where she had dropped her furs. "Perhaps in another life you would have chosen a less miserable end."

"You're going to leave me?" His voice cracked.

Whether he was in pain or rage she could not tell. But she had made her decision. “I cannot save one who refuses to be saved.”

"You last mistake was to turn your back on me!" he choked.

Yui whirled around at the jingle of gear, her hand raised in preparation to fire another magical bolt into her foe. She refused to be caught unawares if her opponent pulled a gun or dagger with which to deliver a parting shot. It was, however, no weapon. The bandit took from his hip a flask and quickly chugged its contents. Choking and sputtering issued from his mouth, punctuated with wheezing, the vile contents of the flask exacerbating his prior injury.

Poison? Potion? No. Poison was the opposite of what he wanted. And a potion would not cause pain. Yui's blade flew again to high guard. She'd heard of this in hushed whispers in the Forgotten Knight. Heretics quaffing dragon's blood to awaken some latent magic within, transforming them into horrible twisted beasts in the process.

Laughter. Laughter without mirth, without joy, without a shred of happiness. The Axeman raved on as his body was consumed by magicked shadows erupting from every pore. Even through her barriers, Yui could feel the unearthly heat prickle her skin and scratch at her scales. The shadow flames vaporized the snow around them, carving a shallow circle of rock upon the path, continuing to grow as the heat intensified. Yui averted her gaze. The flames caused her pain to look at, not through brightness but through a strange warping of the aether Yui could feel in her bones.

She snapped her hand forward, projecting a rampart of aether in front of her. The shadow inferno exploded, the blast wave clearing a massive circle free of snow save for the slice shielded by Yui’s barrier. Where once there stood a man now stood a beast.

His already impressive physique bulged to grotesque proportions, his bloated musculature now covered by gnarled scales the texture of broken stone. From his head sprouted a dragon’s snout topped with a single large horn. Scales on his neck extended into a twisted headdress and a tangled mass of thorny protrusions erupted from his back. His limbs were tipped with massive claws that he swiped through the air, testing his new weapons before bringing them to bear.

The beast glared at Yui. An unholy roar blasted from its maw, making her wince. He lowered his head and charged.

Yui’s barrier flared brightly as the beast collided with it at breakneck speed. Snow swirled and winds roared around the thunderous impact. Yui staggered backwards, the sheer force of the strike dazzling her with magical feedback. Unfazed, the beast continued its unrelenting assault. Blow after blow rained down upon her barrier.

The circle of protection continued to shrink with each strike. Finally, all that remained was a weakly glowing disc floating in front of her hand. Yui gasped for breath and crumpled to one knee. Her shield arm trembled in fatigue.

As she glanced up at the monster looming over her, she swore she could see a predatory grin. The monster raised its fist to strike. Yui rolled out of the way, narrowly avoiding the massive claws that threatened to crush her. Dirt and snow sprayed over her from the impact. It took a moment for the dragon to realize his prey had narrowly avoided death.

It took almost all Yui had to push herself back onto her knees. It took what remained to force herself to stand. Stained in grit and matted with melted snow, the brilliant halo and pristine garb of a paladin had vanished into the grimy visage of a battered warrior.

“Mercy and succor.” She gnarled, eyeing the monster before her. “Mercy was what I swore I would live by. Succor was what I promised to bring. And this...”

Yui brandished her weapon once again. The remainder of her shield vanished, replaced instead by a dull red glow from her katana that pulsed as if a heart beat within it. Blood thundered in her head, her skull feeling like it would surely explode from the strain. Her patience was spent. Her kindness drained. Her self-control was but shackles, shackles that fell away as seething anger burst its bonds.

“... THIS is what I’m met with?” Her low grumble escalated to an angry shout. The monster cocked its head ever so slightly, as if curious about his foe’s newfound resolve.

Yui dashed forward again, her blade weaving vermillion trails of light around her, its radiance escalating until steel struck scale. Searing ribbons of crimson light erupted from her blade, blasting clean through her target. The beast reeled from the strike, the first one to truly test its defenses since its horrid transformation. Its feral grin returned, its interest in tougher prey dripping from bared fangs.

Its counterattack was swift. A storm of fang and claw lashed out at Yui. She roared in frustration, dropping all pretense of defense to get one more strike against the beast. A single claw swipe caught her across the chest, lifting her off the ground and sending her flying backward.

Her eyes snapped back to the dragon before her as she rolled back onto her feet. He reared up, the sounds issuing from his throat almost that of laughter. When he dropped back to all fours, his eyes and nostrils were aflame. The flash of light was all the warning Yui had.

She raised her barrier and gritted her teeth. Brilliant wings of aether sprouted from her back as the spell took shape, reinforcing her shields against the fiery onslaught. The wave of dragon’s breath washed over her in a tide of hellfire. On and on the torrent raged, finally engulfing Yui entirely.

The deluge of flame finally stopped. The dragon beast roared in triumph. But as the smoke and steam cleared, Yui remained.

Her eyes flared bright crimson, her blade glowed molten red, and tongues of flame leaped from her boots as she charged. Gripping her katana with both hands, she wound up for a massive attack. Yui’s strike ripped through the monster’s defenses as if a hundred blades had suddenly sprung from her katana’s edge. One cleave after another carved into the beast’s flesh, each blow sending it staggering back until finally it fell to its knees.

The dragon looked up, the light in its eyes wavering. Yui strode forward, every last shred of mercy having left her long ago. Finally in reach, she sheathed her blade, but not to walk away. Hoarfrost crawled across the hilt and saya. Motes of soft moonlight materialized around Yui’s shoulders in a ghostly dance. Wisps of aether resembling cherry blossoms whirled around her head in a majestic halo as the blade burst from its scabbard in a flash of blinding steel. Her twin strikes echoed loud as thunder across the Highlands.

The lingering blossoms from her spell combusted as its effects faded, tongues of flame consuming the delicate petals before flickering out in the storm. Soft moonlight blazed into searing sunfire, flaring brightly before just as quickly collapsing into void. The Intricate hoarfrost patterns cracked and shattered, the pieces melting and evaporating into wisps of steam from Yui’s still glowing blade.

Before her the beast lay unmoving, its vitality draining out into the snow.

Yui did not know how long she stood in front of her slain foe. Only when she felt the gently nuzzle of Okita’s beak against her face did she realize snow was beginning to accumulate on her. She shivered violently.

“Okita, heel!” She called through chattering teeth.

Shaking, Yui sheathed her blade and scrambled back along the path to where she had discarded her furs, quickly wrapping herself in them. Still trembling, she climbed on Okita’s back and hastily pointed him back toward the trail.

Tired breaths drifted from beneath Yui’s furs. Slowly, warmth began to return to her body. She wrung her tail with her fingers and left navigation to her steed. Images of battle and biting self-reflection haunted her, carrying her mind away from the road.

“Slavery to the high houses,” she mouthed, echoing the Axeman’s bitter words.

She had won. She had survived. She had even defended her cargo. But what good would her service do if none in Ishgard even saw her as a person? What good would reconciliation do if those offering it were soon overtaken by those insistent on orthodoxy? What good was law when all law did was allow the powerful to oppress the weak?

Her oaths were to mercy, to succor. But neither had been given today and neither mattered if he was right. But why would she listen to some bandit who had just tried to murder her? Why would she take his word over that of House Fortemps and First Commander Aymeric? Logically she knew better. But an uneasy feeling settled in her gut that made her wrench her tail and grit her teeth in frustration.

Yui opened her hood to allow in a blast of arctic air. The burst of cold was enough to push momentarily quell the onslaught of thoughts. It was a long walk to Lancegate. There would be time for her to organize and process all that had happened.

For the moment she had clarity. There was no quick fix to the problems that had just reared their heads. But she’d be damned if she wasn’t going to try.

Mod Notes: Sat on this for way too long. If I get the time and energy I’ll revise for a bit more coherency, but right now I just want to put it down so I can work on other projects. It’s mostly self-indulgent fight choreography, but I don’t feel right about scripting combat or sex without some kind of philosophizing bookending it. It is what it is.

Enjoy!

#ffxiv #au ra raen #ffxiv heavensward #fanfic

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sitstatic · 6 years ago

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You Wanted 10 Pages on the Meaning of Life, So I Wrote the Narrative of How I Lost My Answer

I suppose I must have discovered the question “Why?” before any other. The moment I could question anything, it was motivation. It seems to be a commonality of the normative human experience, based on the shared grievance every parent faces having to bear their child’s repetitive uttering of the inquiry. It marks a point when a child learns the complexity of language and its relation to their condition.

I spent the subsequent formative years absorbing every answer to that question like a sponge. I was constantly prompted to ask, and some people took the time to answer, and I retained each response. Despite how thoughtful or thoughtless, gentle or crass, filtered or raw as the deliverer saw fit at that moment in time, that response contributed to my definition of the world.

Specific individuals certainly carried more weight in this process of definition I was partaking in, such as my parents and siblings. My mother was a devout Catholic, who raised me with 9 o’clock Sunday morning mass and Wednesday evening catechism. A lot of her answers to my questions of “why” revolved around this narrative that I heard before any other, and in looking back, it is not unreasonable to assume she held onto the faith for that purpose. Not just for her children who asked, but to fulfill the same questions she probably asked her mother some thirty-odd years prior.

There is a moment, though I cannot remember a marked point where it occurred, that I realized not every answer to my questions of why was necessarily true. Perhaps it was when it seemed my learned definitions could not reasonably all contain truth simultaneously. This brought about a deepening of my sense of self, as I realized I had a decision to make each time information was given to me - to keep it or to throw it away. However, this perception of free will appears a fallacy to me now - how could I have had the capacity to make that decision, without understanding? I could not, but I really believed I contained the understanding, which is a naive impression some people carry through their entire lives. Something I now understand as a hindrance was my misunderstanding that people who misinformed me were doing it intentionally. This vilified the people I found to be dishonest, but also left the information (God) from people I trusted (my mother) reserved as undeniably true.

I was probably around ten years old when I began to conceive the idea that I did not know everything, and as a matter of fact would never know. Perhaps it was the introduction of infinity in Math, or space in Science, but I know I became acutely aware there were things outside of my capacity for understanding. With this newfound realization, I began to grow suspicious of every person who told me definite information. My interest in the question of “why” resurfaced, but with a new level of desired understanding. It could be asked not just of actions, but of supposed information. If someone could not adhere to my prodding, their teaching was as good as lying to me. The budding adolescent began questioning everything everyone had ever told her. This was also when I first remember experiencing panicked episodes, involving disordered eating, self-harm, and manic anger.

I went through middle school rather confused, as most remember the experience, and each memory involves sullen or anxious feeling. I kept most of my feelings from my parents, because I thought they would overreact. I attended a charter school, and there were about a hundred kids in each grade. Children took a standardized test three times per year to track their learning progress, and place them in a classroom of students within a similar scoring range. There was a huge emphasis on academic merit and competition, with frequent award ceremonies for performance. I remember agonizing over those tests, each grade, award, and ranking, which contributed to my long-term academic success, but also my need for validation.

I was an altar server at my church, got good grades in school, played the trombone and volleyball. However, I had difficulty connecting with other kids my age. Most of my peers did not seem to feel the weight of the world, and the ones who did could not understand why I was so sad even though my parents weren’t divorced and I went to church every Sunday. It seemed as though some people were sad, and some were not, but most people who were sad had a good reason.

I found solace in obsession over boy bands and actors, and engaging with other fans online. I was one of the first generations to have social media before I could drive, or even cross the main road from my neighborhood to the playground. This was where the majority of my unhealthy coping mechanisms derived. I found a whole online community of other depressed young women, which felt like a relief at the time. However, while the community was meant to validate each other and our experiences, it also normalized and even romanticized unsound means of handling those experiences. It is an interesting problem that exists, because it is impressionable minds being influenced by equally impressionable minds. Coupling that with mental illness, it is no wonder why the youth is depressed. There are facets of this community for everyone, too, because they usually naturally stem from any fanbase. This is because people use artists and influencers and other idolized individuals as a source of motivation, and sometimes to an obsessive degree. The mentally ill find one another in each fanbase, and bond over their shared stories of salvation through whatever song or video, and eventually feel comfortable sharing more personal experiences. For me, my infatuation with characters in books and movies was merely a substitute for when I would finally be old enough for a real romance. Romance was the cure for all of my sadness.

I was raped the day after my 14th birthday by my first boyfriend. I don’t think I even understood what had happened to me. It was the summer before I began high school, and my first romance had really betrayed me. In the months that followed my trauma, I had to endure not only how it altered my definition of the world, but also of myself. The young man who violated me found it worth bragging about. I entered the hellscape of contained adolescents which was high school with a collection of choice words to my reputation. For a long time, it felt as though the definition of myself was primarily constructed by the people around me, even though theirs did not align with mine.

At first, I felt shame. I was no longer a virgin - something I knew God was not going to be pleased with. I think about a month in, we had some sort of health lesson on sex and consent, and then I really fucking hated God. I was struck by the same inconsistencies other scholars and common people alike have found with monotheism throughout history - if God is all-powerful, how could he let this happen to me, if he is still all-good? The design surrounding my circumstances could not have come from anything with good intentions, certainly nothing worth worshipping.

I decided that God was going to hate me anyways, and so I was going to hate him, too. Instead, I focused on repairing my social status. I found that I tended to surround myself with other miserable people, and this gave me some dark, delicious satisfaction. I could find purpose in the degree of imperativeness possessed by my relationships to others. There are cultural phenomena which catered towards this sick perception, and I do view it as an illness in hindsight. I had an understanding of Adult Concepts like “right,” “love,” “just,” which was that they all called for sacrifice. This tendency led me to person after person as I prepared to use my desperation for validation through selflessness to their advantage.

I got into a relationship with a piece-of-shit-boy to prove to everyone that I was not a slut. After about a year of turmoil that continued to escalate, I enrolled in an early college program to be at a different school from him. I was taking a Global Ethics course my sophomore year of high school, and I was prepared to find a new set of rules to fasten to my existence. However, any ideology that attempted to justify the experiences I had faced, and was still facing, automatically became discredited to me. As I was in the midst of trying to flee an abusive relationships, I was learning about various divine forces that could be controlling me, such as karma, and ethical frameworks surrounding ideologies from family to greater good. The course was focused on the various definitions of morally right and wrong, and it seemed to me as though there was no set of ethics applicable to something like the human race. The more moral frameworks I read about, the less morals had any credence in my mind. My boyfriend was fucked up because of other circumstances; blame could be traced back indefinitely for why he was the way he was. Blaming myself felt more concrete, but there were other factors at play I could not recognize from my position. Who was going to tell me who to blame? Without morals, I thought I could at least cling to truth, but found doubt to be an unavoidable obstacle in searching for it.

One truth the world seemed to project back to me time and time again were states of subjectivity. I found myself becoming increasingly upset, because despite their lack of rationality, they were widely accepted. Frequently, the facts of my being a woman, a person with mental illness, in a family dangling off the edge of “middle class”, and so on, were brought to my attention through how I was treated by others. These assigned facts put me at some disadvantage, but I was well aware that there were other oppressions I would never experience. It seemed privilege could be measured in how few labels one’s assigned - but as I aged through the Obama presidency and into the Trump conniption, in a world of instantaneous globalized media, I learned that there was much more vocabulary surrounding these feelings I had. They talked about misogyny and “red flags” - and I felt as though my suffering did not have to have a reason in order for it to end. It was no longer a unique thing, but a shared experience, one of which other people had escaped.

I have to say, it felt good to know other people were seeing the same shit I was seeing, outside of myself. That was the best part of growing up. At first, it was just seeing it, and I was looking around to only see mindless participants and evil perpetrators. When I found out there were other people not just defining these phenomenon, but also combating them, I was impatient to involve myself in the process. I was not convinced, however, of moral right or wrong on a global scale, but I understood tragedy to be something I did not want around. For someone who was not sure what to do with herself, looking around and worrying about the state of the whole seemed like a productive use of energy.

In my social justice phase, finally rid of horrible men, I poured myself into public outcry, as well as education. I read academic papers, watched and read the news, went to hear experts speak. I began deconstructing all of the opinions I’d been thoughtlessly carrying without realizing, and I attempted to participate in dialogue. I had to learn my place within that as well. As more people began trying to speak over one another, I understood the importance of boundaries within where I could speak - it was only valid to discuss things personally affecting me, and do what was in my capability to further project the voices behind other necessary discussions.

There was a lapse, though, when I was violated again by a third man in my junior year of high school. After going through a transformation, and feeling grounded and confident, I still fell victim to my subjectivity. I had been sneaking around my strict parents, and the kid who was meant to take me home refused to without sex first. The fact was, I was going to have sex I didn’t want or have to answer my parent’s questions of “why”. My parents subjected me to their expectations of a socially acceptable young lady, and that boy subjected me to his expectations of a car ride recipient, apparently. It did not matter that I had endured an abusive relationship for a year and a half; he still saw slut.

It was at this moment that I decided my existence was a fucking joke. I thought if someone was making this happen he probably really enjoyed himself. If God is real, he has to be a man. I began throwing myself into surrealism, and lost any motivation to learn or expand upon myself at all. I drove up to school each day, and sat in the parking lot for however long class was supposed to be, smoking bowl after bowl. My life became narrowed to finding ten more dollars, and then fifty cents or a dollar for a cigarette or two, finding a place to nap, a parking lot where no one would mind if I sat for a while.

The funny thing was, through all of this, no one was worried about me until an entire semester had gone by and the grades came in. That’s when my mom really thought she began connecting the dots, but blamed it all on my deviation from her expectations. My lack of pride in my appearance, disinterest in things like homecoming and school spirit, and especially my absence in church, disappointed my mom. It was difficult to see her come to conclusions about me from her narrowed perspective, but also could not bring myself to communicate my side to her. Even if I did, I knew our ideologies were too distant to discuss everything productively. This deepened the divide in our relationship.

I was just passing time until I could flee. I had this notion that becoming an adult would give me the freedom to rise above all of these definitions and find my own motivations, purely because I would be able to leave the place I had remained stagnant in for my entire life. Every negative association I had to my home overshadowed any good childhood memory. I found others who were dismantling their ties with hopes to leave soon.

This is where finding motivation became a precedent. I was going to have to start trying if I really wanted to leave. My sights set everywhere; I could see myself bustling in a city in New England, or meandering through a sunny West coast campus. I even entertained the thought of studying in France, going as far as to enroll in two French courses my senior year. However, I had no concept of how my established habits would inhibit these from being possible.

The work of actually reaching these destinations loomed over me, and I ignored it. It was easy to do when I was high all the time. I fantasized about eating brie in an authentic Parisian cafe while I sat in some parking lot when my French class was in session. I longed for rigorous discourse with people in wire-rimmed glasses while my Common Application sat blank. When the deadlines popped up in my planner, I smoked more.

I could not explain what possessed me to disassociate from my life so strongly. I guess this is my attempt to find out. Obviously, it worked out. I found a college nestled in some pretty mountains in Pennsylvania that wasn’t going to make me specialize in anything right away.

I am currently in the process of rebuilding my existence which I have been unsuccessful in annihilating. Part of that is finding the motivation. There are numerous things which I could list as being motivations, and the capacities which they fulfill are diverse but have an undeniable common factor, which is that they bring me some sort of contentment. I refrain from using the word happy, because anyone who solely pursues pleasure is met with immense disappointment in such an uncomfortable and unforgiving world.

From my observation of my peers, a common theme within their motivations is some goal for the future. However, I have found that my inability to invest in any “future” is rooted in how ineffective it is to conceive it. People create an ideal future, and spend the present moment working towards it, ignoring the fact that it only has as much substance as any idea. Setting any expectation, to me, only creates infinite possibilities of failure and a singular possibility of success. Perhaps the motivation is found in enjoying that process, but I do not see how it is possible to enjoy doing something when you do not know where it is going.

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geekade · 8 years ago

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Before Their Time: The Brink

What would happen if you locked Veep, Silicon Valley, and Dr. Strangelove in the same closet? For one brief summer in 2015 HBO’s viewers found out: a satirical stew of the petty grievances, naked ambition, and snappy retorts that conspire to avert – or ensure – global nuclear annihilation. It was called The Brink, and its lone season was an uproarious (if occasionally terrifying) send-up of modern nuclear diplomacy.

Created by Roberto Benabib (formerly of Weeds) and his brother Kim, The Brink was conceived as a dark comedy that would showcase the horse trading that tweaks the Doomsday Clock’s minute hand. However, in spite of razor-sharp writing, startling plot twists, an all-star cast, and a production team that included Jay Roach and Aasif Mandvi, the series didn’t survive beyond its first season.

The Brink opens with a coup in Pakistan. When the unhinged General Zaman (Iqbal Theba) seizes control of the government and starts ranting about hormone-laced water and nuclear strikes, neighboring states and the US scramble to protect their own interests. As the situation develops, though, it becomes clear that the show’s central conflict is not between specific nations, but between the sort of people who literally salivate over nuclear warheads and the sort who would prefer not to spend the rest of their lives LARPing Fallout in a post-nuclear hellscape. So when President Navarro (Esai Morales) probes his cabinet for a response to the coup, Secretary of State Walter Larson (Tim Robbins) is dismayed to find himself the only person in the Situation Room opposed to Operation Carpet-Bomb All The Things. While the Secretary of Defense urges the president to launch a strike, Larson and his aide frantically work to organize a bloodless counter-coup.

Half the world away, two Naval officers stationed on an aircraft carrier somewhere on the Arabian Sea trade banter, pipe dreams, and banned substances between assignments. Zeke “Z-Pak” Tilson (Pablo Schreiber) is a crack pilot with a thriving pharmaceutical side gig that keeps his fellow pilots awake and his child support payments on time. He and his navigator, Glenn “Jammer” Taylor, constitute the best F-18 crew on their ship – when they’re sober. Even when they’re not, they’re still pretty damn good at their jobs, so it’s anybody’s guess how they’ll pull off the mission that may or may not kick off the end of the world.

With the president’s advisors pushing to escalate and the US Ambassador to Pakistan (John Larroquette) nursing wild-eyed fantasies of being God’s hand in the Apocalypse, the only diplomat available to help Walter defuse the situation in Pakistan is Alex Talbot (Jack Black), a low-level staffer whose qualifying diplomatic achievement was to maroon himself and his driver, Rafiq Massoud (Aasif Mandvi), outside the Embassy on an ill-timed weed run. While Alex tries to pass himself off as a deep cover CIA operative, Rafiq becomes his reluctant guide and translator, shepherding him through the schemes intended to overthrow Zaman.

An international nuclear crisis as a hot potato tossed between a womanizing Secretary of State, an Ivy League pothead, and a drug-dealing fighter pilot is exactly as wild a ride as you’d imagine, and the result is a show you can find yourself binging over a weekend because that was a terrific gag and you just have to know what happens next. It’s a testament to The Brink’s writers and cast that the byzantine network of grievances and competing ambitions responsible for our continued survival is both accessible and hilarious. Unlike Silicon Valley or Veep (which, don’t get me wrong, are great shows), The Brink’s characters are mostly likeable, and its plot twists are grounded by their ongoing (if occasionally incompetent) efforts to do the right thing and leavened by an endless supply of wicked one-liners.

Much like The Unusuals, The Brink’s real genius lay in pairing off cast members and mining their chemistry to great comedic – and occasionally dramatic – effect. Kendra Peterson (Maribeth Monroe), the aide unfazed by Walter’s sexual or political exploits, crackles with exasperated competence as she runs point for him on everything from calls to world leaders to emergency surgery. Rafiq swings between calling Alex on his self-aggrandizing bullshit and rescuing him from his own overconfidence, all the while wondering how someone so obviously unfit for the Foreign Service has managed to survive this long in Islamabad. My favorite duo by far, though, is Z-Pak and Jammer, whose class-clowning rapport would have carried a lesser show, and whose end-of-series fate seems a spectacularly inadequate conclusion to their mission.

Dark, funny, and unpredictable, The Brink never escaped comparisons to Dr. Strangelove, which may have contributed to its lukewarm critical reception. In spite of its many nods to the film (which you’d be hard pressed not to make in any comedy about imminent nuclear annihilation), The Brink was at once more modern and less absurd. No one involved ever seemed to harbor the delusion that a half-hour cable comedy would be the next Strangelove. It reads more as a sigh of plus ça change, the gallows humor of those who know the bombs are bound to fly sooner or later, and that we may as well enjoy the joke while it lasts.

HOW TO WATCH: Season 1 is streaming on HBO Now and Amazon shows a DVD available for pre-order but does not specify a release date.

MUST WATCH: “Sticky Wicket,” written by Aasif Mandvi, includes one of the biggest shocks of the series and explores how politicians’ deals play with (and play out for) ordinary people.

FAVORITE LINES: “Yes, I promise that, unlike your grandchildren, I WILL call you.”

“Ballsy.” “Or suicidal. I always get those two things confused.”

“You’re an embarrassment to the flag, the Navy, and the apes you evolved from!”

“This outfit belonged to my father. Please try not to get blood all over it.”

“Hold my catheter. Gas up the jet. We’re breaking out!”

“I’m glad the slow destruction of my country has changed the way you see yourself.”

“I can’t tell what’s real anymore, man. These British people are too good at acting.”

“F*** you!” “No, f*** Reagan!” “No, YOU f*** Reagan!”

“I thought you said we were cut from the same cloth.” “That was not a compliment!”

PAIR WITH: A lovely glass of Scotch you will never actually sit down long enough to drink. Or, if you’re in a friendly jurisdiction, some very strong weed, smoked at precisely the wrong moment to be high.

WATCH FOR: Everyone. In addition to Pablo Schreiber, who plays Mad Sweeney on American Gods and Pornstache on Orange Is the New Black, The Brink features appearances by Michelle Gomez (Missy in Dr. Who), Jaimie Alexander (Lady Sif in the MCU), Bernard White (Denpok on Silicon Valley), and Carla Gugino (Lucille in Sin City).

ODDS & ENDS: Zaman’s rants about sex hormones in the water (he stops just short of announcing the importance of protecting his purity of essence) and President Navarro’s call with Israel both echo similar scenes in Strangelove.

Kendra is so fearless, fishing Walter’s phone out of a urinal is not even the most hardcore thing she does.

The Joint Chiefs eat Chinese takeout in the Situation Room on fancy china with gold-plated forks, and it’s hard not to wonder whether all White House meals are this preposterously fancy.

AFTERWARDS: If you’re feeling pessimistic, Idiocracy; if optimistic, Dr. Strangelove.

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