“Pearl? Why are you in my house?”
Pearl blinks up at Bdubs from where she’s sandwiched between the wall and the waterstream, curled up on herself in the narrow space. “Somebody destroyed all the lights in my base and now it’s full of mobs,” she says bitterly.
“It wasn’t me!” Bdubs cries, raising his hands.
“Well, I didn’t think it was you, but the way you just said that’s making me think—”
“No! I’d never! I swear!”
“...I believe you,” she says after a moment, and Bdubs feels himself relax. “Can I stay with you tonight? I don’t really feel like…” She gestures in the direction of her house.
Bdubs nods. “Oh, sure, for sure,” he says. Then, “Should we invite Joel over? His house got blown up too.”
“Ah, yeah, probably. Good idea, Bdubs.” She fumbles in her pocket for her communicator, eventually fishing it out. The screen is cracked. Her fingers shake as they tap against the glass.
“Are you okay there, Pearl? You look a little…” Bdubs forces his hands to tremble.
She glances up at him, face scrunching in confusion, before she lets out a small laugh. “Just the adrenaline, y’know.” She grins. “I’m red. It’s great.”
“If it was anyone else, I’d think they were being sarcastic. But with you! With you, I’m pretty sure you’re being serious!”
She giggles, hitting send on the message and shoving her communicator away. Bdubs doesn’t feel his own buzz; it must have been a whisper. “You know,” she says after a moment, “I’m a little surprised.”
Bdubs blinks. “Surprised about what?”
“That there’s still three of us.”
He laughs. “Yeah, I’m a little surprised, too! I thought for sure Joel would die today. For sure.”
“Don’t let him hear you say that.”
“Oh, no, never. But between you and me… that guy’s kind of a loose canon!”
She snorts. “Throwing stones from glass houses, there, Bdubs?”
“Surely I don’t know what you mean.”
“Mhm.” She pauses, eyes glancing down to where her fingers pick at a stray thread on her hoodie sleeve. “That’s kinda what I mean, though. Joel doesn’t live here, and you’re making friends with half the server, I’m surprised I’m not spending tonight alone.”
“Pearl…”
“What?” She snorts. “I know how these games go, Bdubs. People don’t stay loyal. Not for long, anyway.” She glances up at him, eyes half obscured by her hair. “People like Joel, people like you? I know how this ends.”
And Bdubs—
Well, he can’t pretend he doesn’t know what she means. Can’t pretend he doesn’t remember Impulse yelling as Bdubs’ arrow had found home in his throat. Can’t pretend he doesn’t remember Etho backing away when Bdubs had tried to get just a little too close. Can’t pretend he didn’t fight when he promised he’d run. Can’t pretend he hadn’t taken advantage of his broken home.
…He can’t pretend he doesn’t remember telling Martyn about their plans, or planning to do harm to Etho. Can’t pretend he doesn’t cross his fingers behind his back every time he makes a promise, just in case.
But at the same time, he remembers—searching for Cleo in a castle she’d been too dead to return to, pushing Lizzie to her death for a life he’d never received, taking two hands in his own and vowing to face the end as four instead of two, for once, for once in his life, choosing three and being pulled apart because of it—
Bdubs lets out a breath. “Pearl, hey, no,” he says. “I told you, didn’t I? I’m your weapon.” He gets down to his knees, lowers his head before her, feels her gaze burn into the top of his head.
“Bit late for that,” she says. “I’m my own weapon now, mate. Don’t need you to attack for me anymore.”
“Well, no—but—” He looks up at her. “Pearl. I’m yours. I promise.”
“Right. And you’re Martyn and Etho’s too, huh? We can share.”
“I’m using Martyn!” he protests. “That’s—that’s all it is—I’m usin’ him because he’s the first red and he knows his stuff! And Etho—”
“I don’t mind about Etho,” Pearl interrupts. “Like I said, I know you guys have your little thing going on. I don’t care about that.”
“I set a trap in his base,” Bdubs blurts.
Pearl blinks at him. “Excuse me?”
“I set a trap in his base. Tripwire hook.” He grins. “Right outside the bedroom. I—I think I got Grian, in the end? But—could have been Etho. I coulda—could’ve been Etho.” He swallows.
“And you’d have been okay with that?” Pearl asks, smile gone from her face, expression suddenly very serious.
“I—after I set it, I went up to them. Had a chat. Lied the whole time. I coulda—coulda told him. I didn’t.”
“And you’re okay with that?” she stresses.
She sounds dubious. Bdubs can’t blame her. He feels sick, swallowing back the bile that’s building in his throat.
“I—Pearl.”
“Bdubs?”
“I learned my lesson, Pearl. I learned—don’t put all your eggs in one basket! Because—because either they die, and then you get left alone, or—or it gets you killed, and you die. You gotta—I have two hands. I can be loyal to multiple people. But then I learned—when you do that? People aren’t loyal back. They don’t trust you anymore. Nobody else…” He laughs. “I feel like I’m the only one who can trust people like that anymore!”
“So…” She frowns. “So you’re making friends with everyone so you don’t get betrayed or left alone?”
“Exactly.”
“And you know none of us are gonna trust you for doing that.”
He swallows again. “Yeah, I know.”
“And you’re doing it anyway?”
“Well, what else—what else am I supposed to do? I can’t… I can’t go back, Pearl. That’s… I can’t go back. You know how it is.”
“…Yeah,” she says quietly. “I’m—I want you to win, Bdubs,” she says. “Out of everyone—I want it to be you.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. So… You better not make me regret this.”
He blinks at her. “Regret what?”
She bows her head to him. “I’m your weapon,” she says, an echo of his earlier words. “And a bit more of a dangerous one at that.” Her smirk leaks back into her words as she glances up and winks at him. “So use me well, alright, Bdubs? I want you to win this.”
Bdubs’ heart is in his throat. He swallows it back down. It burns.
“I’ll do my best,” he promises.
The door slams open, startling them both out of their skin.
“Hey guys—uh. What are you doing?”
“Oh, for—Judas Priest, Joel, learn to knock!”
“You invited me over! Or, Pearl did—hey Pearl.”
“Hey,” Pearl says. “Come on in! Sleepover at Bdubs’ time.”
“I can’t believe this is the last of our bases left standing. It’s, like, the worst one.”
“Hey!”
“There’s no space in here!” To punctuate his statement, Joel slumps down against one wall, kicking Bdubs in the ribs as he does so. Bdubs grunts. “See?”
“It’s definitely not the most spacious…” Pearl acquiesces.
“Anyway. What were you guys doing before I came in?”
“Swearing loyalty,” Bdubs says.
“Oh.” Joel blinks. “Do you need me to do that? Because I’m a Mounder for life. Loyal to the end.”
Bdubs and Pearl glance at each other.
“Somehow I actually believe him,” Bdubs stage-whispers, and Joel squawks in offence as Pearl barks out a laugh.
“No, I think you’re good,” she says. Leaning her head back against the wall, she says, “This is probably our final night.”
The three of them are quiet for a moment.
“Well,” says Joel. “We gotta make it to the end then, don’t we?”
He’s looking at Bdubs. They’re both looking at Bdubs.
Bdubs nods.
“May the best Mounder win,” he says solemnly.
Joel grins.
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So… last week I made a vent post about an accessibility issue I’d had with some podcasters. I really only meant for the post to be read by my followers (who to my knowledge aren’t familiar with the podcast in question) which is why I put minimal tags on it and didn’t name the show.
But… the post got legs that I wasn’t expecting, and eventually a lot of people asked for the name of the show. I hadn’t intended on creating a whole big thing, so I was kind of reluctant, but I did see the logic in what they were saying — as a disabled woman myself, I would also want to know if I were supporting podcasters whose values did not align with mine. So I told people quietly in the notes that the show had been Old Gods of Appalachia.
Things… did not stay quiet.
Frankly speaking, one of the reasons why I don’t write as many posts about disability and ableism these days is because I got tired of people writing to me and telling me that people like me should be dead. So you can imagine what kind of fucking week I’ve been having since all that blew up. It’s been a very high symptom week, too, so I’m just. Very tired and stressed rn.
Personally, I’d be happy to never talk about it again and try to get back to my everyday life, but I did think it was important to note that the creators of OGOA must have gotten wind of the post, and they did contact me.
I won’t post the whole email here, but it was a good response. Since seeing my post, they’d tried getting in contact with the venue and realized very quickly why I’d been so frustrated. They ended up needing to go through their booking agent to get any kind of answers — so like, to the people who sent me a thousand messages telling me I was an entitled idiot who just needed to contact the venue, please know that none of you were remotely helpful.
Again, I’m not going to post the entire email, but I did think it was important to be fair and use the same platform that I used to vent to tell people that they seem committed to doing better in the future. They told me that they would be making sure that they have all this information going forward and that they would no longer allow it to be such a barrier to entry for disabled fans.
They invited me back to the show and… god, I’ll admit it. I really had to think about my answer. Not to sound ungrateful, but after the week I’ve had, even thinking about the podcast, the podcasters, and that damn live show has me stressed af. I had to really consider whether I even wanted to go.
But in the months since I first contacted them, they added a show that’s a lot closer to where I live, so rather than a weekend trip, I could just take a single bus. And it’s near one of my favorite Japanese restaurants in the city, so if all else fails, I can at least have some good katsudon. So I will be going to the Philadelphia show.
(Though for fellow disabled fans, Terakawa Ramen is not wheelchair accessible. 🙃 Most days I can do the two steps into the restaurant, but not always. Philly, I love and loathe you.)
Anyway, I wanted to reply to them before I made a post here, but… yeah. We’ve worked things out, I think. Only the future can tell what they'll do going forward but they do seem committed to doing better.
To me, there are always two goals when I write about disability and ableism. The first is that disabled people will feel seen. That is always, always my primary goal. It’s so easy for us to feel invisible and unimportant, and I always want to make you all feel seen, just like I want to feel seen. The second is that able-bodied folks will listen and learn and do their best to support their disabled peers in the future.
So… I think that my post managed to fulfill both of those goals. A lot of disabled people have reblogged that post and have talked about their own experiences, and a lot of them have explicitly said how much that post makes them feel seen. And the podcasters in question seem to have really reflected on their actions and seem to want to do better going forward.
So as incredibly fucking stressed out as I’ve been, I guess I can’t regret making the post. It’s always good to know that your words can have impact. The post has long since moved out of my friends circle so I assume it’ll just keep circulating and I’ll keep getting shitty anons and chat messages, but I’m just gonna focus on what good has come from it. I’m hopeful that my post will make life tangibly better for at least a few disabled people, and I’m encouraged by the fact that podcasters who I’d formerly liked do actually seem to want to do the work needed to improve.
And uh I’m not answering any more messages from people who just wanna swear at me. I’m tired. Leave me alone.
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