#THERE'S LITERALLY SO MANY STORIES OF PEOPLE COMPLAINING ABOUT LIKE NEGLECT OR WHATEVER. BUT ITS BECASUE THE FUCKING NURSE OR DOCTOR LITERAL

[hardware-sparks]

why the FUCK are we letting business people running the fucking hospitals

[thelastpilot]

‘On GOD We Are Going to Get You a Girlfriend’- A Lovesquare Story as suffered by Nino

My last charity fic for @mlbforblm! The prompt was Aged Up College AU lovesquare, in which Adrien is struggling with his love for both Marinette and Ladybug and Nino is put in the position to be the ultimate wingman. I went a little off script with this prompt but I hope it scratches that itch nonetheless. 

The concept itself lent itself much better to 15k than 4 but I did what I could! Hope it gets a laugh out of you. 

It was twilight in Paris, the tail end of sunset slipping away as people all across campus engaged in extremely varied states of productivity. That is to say, at most 20% of the campus’ live-in population was actually getting any work done, while the rest of them were either limping along or had already given up.

It was midterms week, clearly.

In the dim space of a reasonable apartment accommodation were well -intentioned study implements of every kind. The completely average couch and carpet were covered with just enough of a layer of highlighters, pens, and printed pages to give a really studious impression at a glance, but whatever vibe it might have managed was thoroughly ruined by a young man laying face down on the floor, a game console nearly tumbling from his hands. Another, separate, but equally as unfocused young man had his back to plain white wall against which they had been meaning to put like… a chair or something at least for most of the semester now, staring idly out of the sliding glass door to his left that offered only a sliver of a view from his current position. At most he could see two lovely, but neglected, potted plants and a shoddy balcony looking off towards the main body of their college campus.

He watched the small patch of sky he could see succumb to a light coverage of clouds, and as he considered the possibility of rain, he sighed.

“Nino?” he finally spoke, looking away from his strip of sky. He waited for a response for a second or two, before reaching out with his foot and gently prodding his friend’s side to check he was alive, smirking slightly when he received a grunt for his efforts.

“Mm,” Nino answered from his curled up position, the glasses on his face a perfect reflection of his Pokemon team’s stats, which was ironic considering that Stats was exactly the thing Nino was avoiding at the minute. After a beat too long, he realized his friend was still waiting on his response. He lifted his head slightly, his hat falling free to the ground as he said, “Mm? Yeah?” He blinked slowly. “What?”

Adrien smiled down at him, chuckling a little before tossing aside a textbook he had been pretending to take notes from for the last hour. When his lap was free he leaned forward and rolled to the ground, mimicking Nino’s exact positioning on the ground a small distance away from him, sighing again (louder this time).

“What?” Nino repeated himself, laughing when Adrien leveled him with a sour look. He rolled his eyes but dutifully paused his game, shutting his Switch off and putting it on the ground out of their eyeline. “Go for it dude, what’s up.”

“You’re not going to like it.”

“Is it a girl thing?” Nino asked flatly, raising an eyebrow when all Adrien managed was a sheepish smile. “Dude.”

“Come on! You’re my friend, you’re contractually obligated. Look don’t make fun of me just help okay; I’m really stuck now.” Adrien pleaded with him, bringing his hands in front of him to cartoonishly beg for his grace. He got another eye roll for his trouble but Nino hadn’t gotten up and left yet so that was a good sign.

It wasn’t that his friend didn’t want to help him, its just that… well.

Adrien always had some kind of girl problem, pretty much off and on for the past five years. He knew it got hard to listen to and Nino had put in way more than his fair share of time into this. Especially since he had made essentially no progress whatsoever in all that time, but boy was he almost on to something here.

Nino said nothing else, making a vague hand gesture for him to continue and Adrien did as he always did.

He hesitated, carefully considering how to phrase something.

“So um, there is this girl. That uh, girl, I always talk about. The one you don’t know. And then there is another girl, one who you do know.”

“Do we HAVE to be so vague man? We’re in our own place, there is no one around. Can’t you just say it? I get so confused when we do it like this.”

Adrien tensed slightly, discomfort crawling up his back. “I uh, I can’t. Just- just listen okay? I can’t explain it.”

“We’re in our house,” Nino complained again. But Adrien ignored him, because he always ignored him when he said that.

“Just listen okay?”

Nino looked at him squarely, or at least as squarely as he could manage while laying on the ground. When Adrien patiently waited for a response Nino finally sighed, rolling on his stomach and laying his face sideways on the floor to match him, nodding stiffly for him to continue.

“It’s just, there is these two girls,” he began, “I’m losing my mind over it, I’m worried man and it’s coming to a head. I know I’ve said that before, but I mean it this time. I have never ONCE in my entire LIFE gotten the timing right Nino, I’m dead serious.” Adrien rolled around a little gripping his hair with both hands. “I get the timing wrong EVERY TIME. I have never been where I’m supposed to be! I’ve never made a move at the right time I have never done it right. I get close with one girl but she doesn’t reciprocate or she tells me to wait or she says that its complicated, then I get close to the other girl but I feel GUILTY because I still care about the first girl. But she says it isn’t right so I work on it I let go but then the other girl is gone or moves on or life gets in the way. I have been in the wrong place EVERY TIME-,”

 Adrien’s ranting continues, rolling around on their carpet as he incredibly vaguely and very stupidly details a problem that he has had for many, many years. Nino can feel himself retreating into his own thoughts, more focused on Adrien’s animated rolling than his actual words. He reaches out once to save a stack of notes from getting creased and ruined, but other than that remains completely still and lets his friend do his thing.

This happened maybe once a week or so, maybe a little less often or more often depending on the status of the girls.

The fact that Adrien literally REFUSED to say their names made this completely incoherent, but where in his love life he was inconsistent, when it came to never talking about work Adrien was true to form.

Nino blinked blearily as Adrien continued, pouring over the reasons he cared so deeply for them both and why that made him feel like a bad person. It left Nino to stew, wondering much like always why they did it like this.

The two of them were superheroes. Spoilers if you didn’t know. He didn’t feel like much of a superhero when he was sprawled out on his shared apartment floor suffering the long run up to failing his Stats midterm like any other student. But the fact remained that he was one, and so was Adrien. The problem was that Adrien was serious about keeping life and work separate. It was pretty much only hard and fast rule about this gig that Nino had picked up on when he first joined. Never talk about work as a civilian, under any circumstances. You only get to talk about work when you’re suited up, and you’re only allowed to talk about life in plain clothes.

Honestly, it was so hard to do it that way, but the rules were clear, not that anyone had actually stopped to explain them to him. Adrien froze up whenever he even so much as mentioned an akuma attack or asked about an injury. Don’t talk about work, but…

They lived together now, this was the first semester where they had done so and Nino was so hyped about it. Like FINALLY, our kwamis can relax and we can be ourselves. He had been so excited about it, but to his profound disappointment Adrien refused to relent on his rule. Their kwamis were never even out in the open except for in their rooms, like he knew Adrien was strict but surely he wasn’t that committed.

Nino understood that it was probably Ladybug’s rule but still, it’s not like she was here. He wouldn’t advocate for disobeying her but… come on man. His brain hurt.

He KNEW Adrien was talking about Ladybug/Marinette. He knew that for a fact, but Adrien would never say her name out loud, because that overlaps with work (even though they hang out with her in person like every single day.) Maybe Nino didn’t know who the heck this second girl he was talking about was, but at the very least he could be clear about one of them.

Whoever the second girl actually was sounded a lot like Marinette, so the for-sure thing was that he had a type. Honestly though he had stopped trying to figure it out years ago. If he wasn’t so exhausted from not studying he would humor him like he always did, but today… man he was kind of tired.

He waited until Adrien was done talking, undoubtably ending by asking for advice as per the usual. Then, like always, Nino said what he always did.

“You need to communicate. If you are not crystal clear with these girls about what they want and what you want nothing with ever happen. You need to bite the bullet and TELL them, at least ONE of them, what you’re thinking.”

And like always, Adrien groaned and covered his face and said, “It’s not that easy!”

They both grumbled dejectedly into the carpet, repeating their years old platitudes until they gave up on each other. Nino usually did this a lot better but he reserved the right to tap out and Adrien usually seemed to accept that.

The only different thing Adrien actually said was when he was standing. He mumbled, “I know, I know. You’re right, as usual but… I’m maybe gonna ask someone else. See what they think.”

“I don’t know what answer you’re hoping for, but that’s all I’ve got.”

“I know,” Adrien sighed, offering a hand to help him off the ground. He smiled gently, but his eyes were sad. Enough of a gesture to explain that he wasn’t actually mad at Nino’s dismissiveness. He had a right to refrain.

 They spent an idle few minutes cleaning up their mess, consolidating their notes and books into two loose piles and neither saying much. It was only about thirty or so minutes later when Adrien announced vaguely, “I’m gonna go for a run.”

“Yeah man,” Nino answered, knowing by heart Adrien’s codeword for ‘patrol’. Didn’t know why he didn’t just say it, but that was a dead horse long beaten.

 Adrien left within a minute or two but Nino stood blearily for awhile in the living room, staring at nothing as he debated just going to bed for the day.

He was just about to head to his room to ask if Wayzz was ready for dinner when the kwami in question came flying into the room, confidently out in the open space now that Adrien was gone.

“You’re getting a call!” Wayzz piped up importantly, waving his little flippers a bit to sell the point. “It’s Cat Noir!”

“I- what?” Nino sputtered, glancing towards the apartment door in confusion. “He literally just- ugh.” Nino groaned as loudly as possible, Wayzz shaking his head a little. “Why is he LIKE THIS, he could have just TOLD ME TO COME.”

“I know he’s odd about it, but he must have his reasons. You should go, he must need you for patrol.”

Nino demanded a few more moments of frustration, which Wayzz indulged, before grabbing his keys and unlocking a window in case he didn’t feel like using them. It was Adrien’s turn tonight but okay whatever.  

 It only took him a minute or two to transform and get out onto their building’s roof, stretching a bit before raising his wrist. He forced himself to take a deep breath and remind himself of the rules while he returned Adrien’s call.

Through the hazy, green, holographic screen he saw the face of Cat Noir answer on the first ring, the feline superhero sighing in relief and smiling widely.

“There you are! I was hoping you were out. Hey, I know this is kind of sudden but… um I was wondering if you were willing to meet up with me. I want to ask you about something.”

He allowed himself to hang his head in frustration just out of the video feeds eyeline, pulling a sharp breath through his teeth before answering, “Yeah bud. Lets meet up.”

“Great!” Cat Noir answered enthusiastically, genuinely happy that he had agreed for whatever reason. “Meet me here when you get a second,” and he sent over his current location. Sure enough he was literally like, one block over.

He hung up without a goodbye, dragging his feet as he started to head that way. He was slow about it sine it was at most five seconds away for him. Adrien was so INTENSE about this charade some days it just drove him completely crazy. But rules are rules.

He waited for about a minute to distance their patterns, then with a short jump and a few corner’s turned he found Cat Noir crouched on top of the Linguistics building.

“Hey, you got here fast,” Cat greeted him happily, a little nervous looking actually. ‘Carapace’ as he was really had to resist the eye roll there, deciding instead to nod.

He went over and sat somewhat heavily, not pretending with an greeting at all and just watching him flatly. For whatever reason this made Cat Noir hesitate a little, but he quickly got over it, pushing through the weirdness and folding his hands in his lap.

“Well, listen I won’t waste your time much. I know we don’t really do this, we only ever talk about work and that’s the safe thing, I get how it is.” Cat Noir looked away, his gaze fixated on the possibility of rain, before he finally sighed.

“I just… I was wondering if I could get some… girl advice?”

Cat Noir looked to his ally, scanning his face and getting even more nervous as he more or less saw a brick wall of an expression on Carapace’s face.

Carapace blinked, saying nothing as Cat Noir began to talk unprompted, persevering despite the lack of reciprocation.

“So um, there is a girl, and you know that.  I always talk about her, and there is another girl, one that you don’t know.”

Carapace blinked.

He softly let out a “Bro…” but Cat Noir was hyping himself up now and he started rolling.

“It’s just, there is these two girls,” he began, “I’m losing my mind over it, I’m worried man and it’s coming to this point where like, I-,”

He kept going, looking down at his gloved hands and missing Carapace’s slowly warping expression. He started rambling, about how he always got the timing wrong, about how he cared about both these girls so much and he just didn’t know what to do. He started and he didn’t stop, completely unaware of Carapace starting to lose touch with reality.

Finally Carapace interrupted, stammering slightly in a tone that was wildly like…

Disbelief?

“Dude I- stop, hang on. Dude I just- I know?” He waited for a beat, watching Cat Noir blink in confusion. He scanned his face, looking for just- literally anything. After another moment that was way too long, he finally braved it. “We- we already, we already talked about this.”

Cat straightened, throwing his head back in exasperation and groaning loudly, “Okay I know I talk about girls sometimes but I honestly never bother you with this much can you humor me please?”

“No I-,” Carapace paused, his voice getting quieter. “We just… literally we-,”.

“Please man I- UGH I’m really having trouble!” He nearly shouted it, looking so genuinely unheard that Carapace was reeling. “You’re one of my only close guy friends I NEED a second opinion, I’m begging now. I already asked my other friend but he always says the exact same thing and he’s RIGHT but I need someone to say something else!” Cat suddenly mimicked his voice saying, “”You need to communicate.” That’s what he says, he’s RIGHT obviously but I just-,”

He kept talking, briefly glossing over how this ‘friend of his’ wasn’t particularly helpful with this line of questioning, so Cat Noir had chosen to seek HIM out instead.

And as he went on with his rant, Carapace slowly brought his hands to his face in intense contemplation.

Suddenly, in the middle of Cat Noir’s over the top love ranting Carapace decided to interrupt him.

“Hold up- hold on now. I need to clarify something, just cause I need to double check alright, just checkin’ something.”

Cat Noir paused, looking to him and slowly saying, “…okay?”

“You KNOW I know you’re Adrien Agreste right?”

 Silence. Cat abruptly went rigid, but Carapace just splayed his hands wide, rapidly searching his face for confirmation of the impossible.

“Like dawg you KNOW that right? You’re aware? You know that right?”

Cat Noir was frozen, holding as still as possible like Carapace was a T-Rex and if he didn’t move this problem was just gonna go away. But Carapace pressed further, getting louder as he said “DUDE you know who I AM RIGHT?!”

The feline superheroes breathing was starting to pick up, his eyes blown wide as he REALLY looked at his friend, before he nearly inaudibly squeaked, “…no?”

“ADRIEN-,”

“Shhh!” Cat Noir leapt forward, trying to grapple him as he went into full panic mode, “Wait shut up shut up!”

“IT’S BEEN FIVE YEARS!”

“SHUT UP!”

They started to wrestle, Cat Noir violently shushing his companion as he had a full melt down, saying things like “All this time-!” and “You’re an idiot!” and “I thought you were just- oh my god!”

“Please!!! This is terrible Carapace shut up!! I don’t know how you found out my identity but I-,”

“WHOSE THE SECOND GIRL-!?”

“Lower your voice!”

“WHOSE THE SECOND GIRL”

“What do you mean?!”

Carapace gripped him hard by the shoulders and threw them both until Cat Noir was flat on his back with a harsh thump against the roof tiles. The turtle hero held him tight and shook his shoulders, his eyes crazed with years of realization colliding together at once. “Who is the second girl in your ridiculous life, what’s her name?!”

Cat Noir looked wild and frightened, finally becoming so flustered that he just hissed in a whisper, “It’s Marinette okay!?”

“And?”

“And WHAT!?”

“AND?” Carapace reiterated, shaking him harder.

“And LADYBUG you MORON!” he hissed as quietly as he possibly could.

Instantly Carapace stopped, holding him in a vice like grip just above the tiles. After an incredibly still moment, he dropped him, closing his eyes and putting his hands over his face.

Cat Noir was flat on his back, panting heavily and staring up at him freaked out, but it was like Carapace had been struck by lightning and he was just sitting there, completely still.

 “Oh,” was all he finally said, curling in on himself slightly. Before suddenly, he pitched to the side and just lay there on the roof tiles, rolling onto his stomach.

“…oh?!” Cat eventually managed, twisting onto his side to look at him just laying there. “That’s all you have to say?! Of COURSE it’s Ladybug! I talk about her EVERY. DAY.”  

“This… explains… so much,” Carapace muttered, not even listening to him. With a huff Cat crawled onto all four and went over to him, his heart racing in what was nearly a panic attack at this point. But all of Carapace’s energy had been spent, and he just mumbled dejectedly with his face smooshed against the tiles.

Cat Noir’s ears twisted forward, trying to make out the words, before he just lost his patience and hissed “What are you saying?!”

“I said YOU’RE STUPID!” the turtle barked out, turning his face back into the filthy roof.

“Why am I- UGH forget it! Just forget it we have a way bigger problem here- If Ladybug finds out my identity has been compromised she’s going to-,”

“Is SHE stupid too!?” Carapace interjected, twisting just enough to look up at him incredulously. “Is everyone stupid but ME?”

“What the hell are you talking about?! Dude there is RULES! No one is allowed to know anyone elses identity!”

Carapace just gaped at him, before his eyes unfocused and he just went limp. He whispered it when he said, “So she IS stupid…”

He waited a beat, and wretchedly mumbled to himself, “Oh god you’re both so stupid.”

 Cat Noir was at a loss, looking all around him like he was desperately trying to make sense of it all, stopping only to try and sort of Carapace’s miserable breakdown.

He was about to give up and just drag Carapace to a lockable room somewhere before his friend propped himself up all at once with the most exasperated expression he had ever seen on a human person.

“So help me- someone has to do some shit about this, listen to me-,” Carapace got to his knees and lunged forward to grab him by the bell. He pulled him forward, and with all the determination of a war general he proclaimed, “On GOD I am going to get you a girlfriend, do you hear me? I am going to make this happen because I can not STAND another DAY of this. Got it?!”

“I- Carapace I-!?”

“GOT IT?!”

  Cat Noir dangled helplessly in his grip, and with his last wits he sputtered out, “Okay, okay!!! I’ll do whatever you say!”

[vanityloves]

🎫 here's a gush pass! feel free to gush about whichever f/o you want, however much you want, then send this ask to 3 other selfshippers!

oh man, thank you jsjsj ive gotten a few of these but ive been too anxious to actually go off ab my f/o but, lets fucking gooooo!

can i talk ab the actual animation of the source material is that allowed?

they gave us this but we ended up with

WHICH LISTEN- I enjoy n love regardless. I just find the contrasts in phases fascinating and funny. I loved his appearance in phases 1 and 2; what a fucking iconic character design. The animation is so endearing and amazing- the thicker lines, the fluidity, the range. Like the first gif that shows the vibrations of the vehicle in his shoulders/shirt? The simplistic art style was nice and even if hes Hard On The Eyes, I'm like 🥴 ok ugly ❤.

Not like the newer mvs are any less quality content - its nice to see the use of thick and thinner lines and there's definitely a different feel to it - more child friendly or easy going? Idk how to explain it. Murdoc as a character is still very, Not Child Friendly, and Im always like :cursed emoji: when someone says that their 14 year old watches their videos like help, his dick is out in at least 3 dif vids (censored ofc but man).

They definitely lost me after the 4th phase though and many people argue that the band/music lost its meaning, which i can honestly agree with (esp when they didnt name officially name 4, 5 and 6. Im p sure ppl refer to 4 as We Are Still Humanz).

I was never an avid/active fan of keeping up with the characters and didnt really think they had any story anyways, i was like "feel good inc is sexy. melancholy hill's a banger" so honestly, finding out that these apes actually have lore was fun.

Murdoc being the given this tragic backstory made my eyes Zoom, and ofc I was like "oh youre funny looking and sad. I want you ♡." In a weird way, I take a lot of comfort that 'we both have shit parents' and 'no one really thought we'd amount to anything'. to be fair, i haven't accomplished anything yet, and even if hes a bunch of pixels who i know doesnt really exist, its kind of motivating bc he never gave up? A literal quote from him being "If there’s a dream in your heart, never let anyone tell you you’ve got no talent. Get out there, embarrass yourself, and prove to the world you’ve got no talent." With how many failures hes faced he never stopped trying to prove himself worthy of attention and fame and love, which is ambitious and kind of intimidating with how much confidnece he has.

Hes a complete bastard of a man and not even close to being a good person. He's definitely complicated but can be boiled down to "just an abusive asshole", which, hey, fair. I hate the way he treats 2D, its so toxic and terrible. Honestly, its inexcusable and he needs to apologize, grow and learn a LOT and god knows he needs therapy.

I think the most tragic thing ab his character is that he basically ended up like his father and to some extent, he acknowledges it. His bad habits and behaviors stem from abuse and neglect which doesnt excuse his actions but, "man hands on misery to man." I feel like theres a haunting part to his whole life - we don't know much about his mother and brother but from assuming things, I know they weren't innocent, clean, or soft spoken, let alone, kind. I think he has a "It runs in the family" mentality and gives into it bc there's no use in running from something so deeply engraved within him.

But as a man of contradiction, hes shown to care, despite "hating everything, including himself". To be short, his father was a failure and a man thats never worked for his own money, so he contradicts that and escapes that part of 'failure running in the family' by forming Gorillaz. I do think theres something way more ab his character in that regard. I think theres a lot that he needs to work on but he's escaped a part of that mindset, and his 'Plastic Beach'. I wonder what theyre gonna do with valley of the pagans thing.

I guess as a band, theyre not gonna show a lot of "behind the scenes" stuff like that. We wont know if he ever gets help, or apologizes, or even feels sorry - its up to us to decide which is a safe game to play on Their Behalf.

People are upset that hes actually cleaned up a bit and is shown to be nicer bc they miss having that disgusting, cruel man which again, I understand. He has always been the antagonist to the entire band. But as someone that likes to see people happier n mellow (or, boring) rather than doing shit and compensating for their depression, its nice to see that type of development (or downgrade, depending on how you see it).

This could be Their (read: jamie and damon) way of being lazy by making him 'mellow out w/ age' or whatever it is. It definitely seems to woobify his character and intentions but well, His Main Goal, Was To Blow Up. And Act Like He Dont Know Nobodaaayyy argargarg and guess what? He's already made it- he's successful, he's rich, he's famous, he's adored. Now what? Maybe this is just his way of taking it easy from here on out - who knows.

Gorillaz definitely took a turn after all the brand deals so it lost its meaning (since one of the phases had a 'fuck capitalism' message) and with that, Murdoc is no longer allowed to be the stank bitch hes was always meant to be, no more obvious sex and drugs, for the new gen 🥴 ironically a lot of songs 'today' are always complained ab being ab sex, drugs, and whatever, but they def needed to step on the breaks when Money/Companies got involved. So here we have The Wigglez 😌💕

ANYWAYS, I LOVE HIM LOTS, HAVING MANY THOUGHTS

[sanguinarius-archive]

im not that familiar with treatsforbeats i watched like. a few videos but other than that i know nothing! but i would be glad to hear you info dump!

there is SO MUCH..... im gonna put a read more below because this turned out to be way longer than i expected. but you asked for me to infodump so here goes

okay so. treatsforbeasts, i dont know what the whole meaning behind the channel is. i cant specifically say what the goal of the channel’s content is because its all in my interpretation. but i do know that there are meanings behind each video as silly as it may seem and im just gonna list them off here (note that not all videos will be included since i may not be able to interpret every one, also this is going from earliest to most recent)

1. men with small hands carry very little treats to give to little girls with the sharpest little teethinterpretation of this video is csa/child sex trafficking. “little treats” refers to pills or some form of drug (small, makes u trip). however the “sharpest little teeth” could represent the little girl fighting back.

2. mom ordered ants for my birthdaychild abuse. mother forces son to watch and/or possibly engage in inappropriate activity with her husband.

3. i love jesusobviously a dark parody of christianity/catholicism. shows how blindly some fanatical christians/catholics will follow their beliefs, to the point where they no longer truly “follow” it as theyve warped the message to fit their own morbid desires (using christianity/the bible to excuse hatred and judgment upon others).

4. i me you love godanother dark parody of christianity/catholicism. i believe it mocks how fanatical christians/catholics focus only on the negative aspects of the bible instead of learning the true messages, as many of the words used are from the bible and are negative words.

5. behdsPROBABLY just a silly video but, i think it represents how people let negativity embed itself into their lives and complain about it even though it’s so easy to just let go of it.

6. jaffreymocking some sitcoms for how dumb and repetitive they can be.

7. kiss papa’s mustachepossibly child abuse, again.

8. storytimereferences/implies child abuse. storytime is also the name of one of treatsforbeasts’ songs on his Sanguinarius - Sin Nomine album.

9. hymns for him (1 + 2)just total parody albums of christian rock. vocals make you feel like youre dying but its actually kinda good to listen to in some parts

10. i screaming inside my headRoii (the character)’s first appearance. also probably symbolizes how depressing some kinds of music are

11. felines have nine livesnot sure but i feel like this is a warrior cats reference, in complete and total honesty (dont watch it if you dont like c/at d/eath though, its fictional but. yeah)

12. beastsreflection of society as a whole

then there’s. the two short films and sin nomine. so i’m gonna delve into that now and be warned, it’s fuckin long

treatsforbeasts is the self-titled short film and the first longest video on the treatsforbeasts channel. basically what i get from this is that treatsforbeasts, the channel itself, symbolizes an actual channel that chauncy (the child character in the short film, who is portrayed as a literal oral fleshlight with a body) watches. he consumes these concepts, such as internalizing misogyny (claw-paw skit), toxic masculinity (can i like balloons skit) and being exposed to a normalization of christianity (heaven and hell skit). there’s also a skit in which a spider binge eats and then proceeds to throw it up, which chauncy actually mimicks when his father brings him food.his father very much disapproves of these messages being shown on tv. he tells chauncy in regards to the claw-paw skit, when chauncy belittles the female character, “that’s not very nice, now is it”, and says “you can like ballons, you can love balloons if you want to”. his father goes on long tangents about how many institutions have normalized and inherited the concepts of christianity, and that it is one of the contributing factors of violence in the world. he references colonization, the holocaust, and in general mentions minorities.we learn that the father actually ended up being a father to chauncy in the first place due to (nsfw tw) masturbating in a sock to a picture of robert smith, and 9 months later chauncy was born. so technically there is no mother. the father talks about the meaning of life, and how everyone on the inside is a little bit of a freak, but there’s only two real ways you can accept that: 1) realize that your freakishness gives you a special lense through with you see the world and aid it in the ways the sane and happy ones probably cant, and 2) realize that real way number 1 is just lying to itself and that youre still a somewhat integral part of the lives of those you care for so deeply. he says that choosing which way to live really reverts back to the meaning of life, that you cannot live day by day believing there’s no reason to. “but whatever reason you give yourself to live, [...] you do it, because it is correct to live.”

sin nomine comes after the first short film, but i’ll delve into that after because really it touches on many many of the points and interpretations here.

the second short film, the beast is dead, was released just this year on valentines day! i think the main focus of the short film ranges from relationships to just once again a mockery of christianity/catholicism. once again it starts off with a father and his son. there is no mother figure present though she’s said to have left, due to the father watching too much “birdies”, a show, which i think is a metaphor for porn addiction. the father is implied to being prone to neglecting the son’s wants and not really caring for him, being disappointed in him, etc. etc..something important about the beast is dead is that it uses masks to portray those who are “followers” and those who are not. the father, interestingly enough, does not wear a mask. he seems to acknowledge what his son is saying when he goes on philosophical rants as well, but disregards them as nonsense and ends up leaving after bonking him with the stupid spike (metaphor for how parents will shut their children up by giving them a phone or toy to play with).the three other characters who don’t use masks in the beast is dead are Roii, Tom, and Doctor Zoughth (pronounced Zoth). Roii makes a comeback, finally! but this time he’s singing a song called “i love the sound of screaming babies”. it symbolizes how men will impregnate women and then run off, whether or not because they fantasize about pregnant women. it could also be a want of seeing a hurt child (hence the line “i know that all of you watching must think i’m insane, for loving when something so innocent is in so much pain”).however another interesting factor is that, the characters who don’t have masks, aside from Tom and the father, have red eyes at some point. this is a metaphor for how they’ve lost their humanity. Roii, at some point in the music video scene, only has one red eye whereas his other is normal. this hints at how part of him has lost his humanity while the other is still in tact.the other character that has red eyes is Dr Zoughth, but instead of him having only one red eye, both his eyes are red. this doesnt show until later though when he’s taken Tom away from the masked characters (followers). Dr Zoughth is very much self-aware. he is not blind, but simply has lost his humanity. Tom tries to reach out to him, to get him to think differently, that maybe resorting to coping with emotional struggles by worshipping something simple like flesh or something more higher than himself and forgetting his own mortality isn’t the healthiest way to live. but Dr Zoughth, having been long gone already, does not accept this and executes Tom.his own personal disciples grow tired of his tyranny and kill him and perform a ritual of some kind, disposing of his body (in the river i think, not sure). this entire ending of the film is basically the title, the beast is dead. but, i believe the beast is not dead, personally, because someone like Zoughth will always live on in other people, other beasts.there’s also a scene called grandma hespar and i think it implies how little people focus on sexual abuse towards men (when it’s from women).

anyways, with that being said, it’s time for sin nomine.

so now that i’ve explained pretty much all of treatsforbeasts to you, and whoever else is reading, it’s clear that the person behind this has issues with christianity (or catholicism), and child abuse. the person behind treatsforbeasts is Jordan Diniz, as he is also the person behind sanguinarius.

sin nomine is a very personal reflection of jordan’s life from what i gather. it depicts his struggles with how he views the world around him, whether that be due to personal experiences or not. at first i interpreted most of sin nomine to be the story of someone who is lgbt, but with jordan himself coming to me and telling me he is straight (POLITELY), it’s clear that is not the case.

so it most likely has to do with trauma. either religious or not, or both. it even says in the song storytime (remember i mentioned it earlier?), “fast hand, white hot trauma, reverberates inside the skull. innocence and intellect raped, reveals a view of a darker world. flesh on flesh, the bonds of affection - confused for the bonds of submission and fear. self-hatred and mistrust repel all beauty that comes near.” i don’t like to say that this solidifies a personal experience, but it’s highly possible.

a lot of sin nomine kind of goes over the same points in different ways, but it makes you think. i definitely feel like something happened to jordan at some point in his life but that is his story and it’s not my place to truly tell, since i don’t know him personally.

there’s also the other channel, adrianturcher. it has videos with seemingly no real purpose except for there being two videos with the same names of two songs on sin nomine, “nex memoria” and “a fetish for psychos”. nex memoria is just a compilation of clips that seem to symbolize the process of death (nex memoria is a latin phrase which very roughly translates to “memory’s death”). a fetish for psychos is a bunch of old clips from parties and shows that possibly jordan himself attended. they’re from 2002 judging by the date in the video. the lyrics in the song “a fetish for psychos” also seem to hint at these events, so it’s possibly that it’s like looking back on happy memories that make you feel sad instead or something. the song also might possibly reference a mother at the beginning.

sanguinarius also has its own channel simply called sanguinarius. there’s the music video for divine comedy (one of the songs on sin nomine) and a cover of because you’re young by david bowie, posted on his birthday a year after his death.

anyway, that’s. pretty much all i have to say. jordan diniz is a fuckin’ mastermind, he’s really good and cool and he’s very kind from my experience talking with him a couple times. he supports the gays as well!

sooooo, treatsforbeasts does have some very creepy/unsettling moments in its content but its EXTREMELY good and i recommend getting into it if you can. 100/10

[fairygrdn]

                𝙵𝙸𝙻𝙴    :    #F41R13    //    STATS    »    magnolia kim,  (  two hundred  &  five  )  twenty three,  cis female,  she/her,  matchmaker.    ATTRIBUTES    »    enchanting,  impish,  persuasive,  deceptive.    SEEN    »    seeping teabags for too long,  trading secrets in whispers,  dotting every i and j with a heart.    DO NOT MISTAKE FOR    »    yooa  (  shiah yoo  ).

                hello  qts    !    im   xan   and   im   late   as   usual   but   that’s   just   the   way   the   cookie   crumbles   …   😔   im   22   ,   from   the   est   timezone   &   i   go   by   she   /   her   pronouns   !   i   truly   …   never   know   what   im   doing   with   intros   they   just   turn   out   super   long   &   messy   so   aha   …  are   u   ready   for   this   ?   zimzalabim   !   😋

━  ˙ ˖  ☆     QUICK  STATS  !

full  name  :   magnolia   marie   kim

nickname(s)  :   maggie   ,   lia   ,   mags     

zodiac  :   libra   sun   ,   cancer   moon   (  click   !  )

sexuality  :   bisexual   .

occupation  :   self proclaimed matchmaker   .

birthplace  :   undisclosed   magical   forest   .

current residence  :   lunehaven   ,   oregon   .

pinterest   :   (   tba  !   )  

━  ˙ ˖  ☆     BACKSTORY  !  

born   more   than   200   years   ago   to   a   family   often   referred   to   as   fae   royalty   ,   magnolia   was   the   youngest   of   four   girls   .   her   parents   were   well   respected   animal   fairies   in   the   fae   community   ,   and   because   they   were   so   efficient   at   wildlife   conservation   ,    magnolia   and   her   family   were   never   in   one   place   for   too   long   ,    always   moving   wherever   her   parent’s   services   were   needed   .      

although   her   parents   had   little   interest   in   the   business   of    humans   or   other   supernatural   beings   ,   that   wasn’t   the   case   for   maggie   and   her   sisters.   the   four   of   them   were   fascinated   with   everything   outside   the   fae   world   ,   often   neglecting   their   responsibilities   for   a   chance   to   stick   their   noses   into   situations   they   really   had   no   business   meddling   in   .

as   the   youngest   of   the   family   ,    as   well   as   the   only   weather   fairy   of   the   bunch   ,    maggie   often   felt   like   an   outsider   or   like   she   had   to   try   extra   hard   to   fit   in   and   prove   herself   .   her   sisters   eventually   gave   up   their   childish   games   in   favor   of   following   the   family   business   and   starting   serious   pursuits   as   animal   fairies   ,   which   only   left   magnolia   feeling   more   frustrated. 

when   her   parents   retire   and   settle   down   in   schiltach   ,   germany   for   a   quiet   existence   ,   maggie   tries   to   grow   up   .   at   a   little   over   a   100   years   old   ,   a   more   experienced   weather   fairy   tries   their   best   to   get   her   to   take   life   more   seriously   and   accept   the   fact   that   her   abilities   won’t   ever   line   up   with   the   rest   of   her   family’s   ,   teaching   her   the   value   in   what   she   can   do   for   plant   life   in   her   environment   .   and   for   a   while   she’s   satisfied   ,   but   there’s   a   part   of   her   that’s   still   interested   in   the   lives   of   humans   and   other   supernatural   creatures   ,    something   she’d   been   advised   against   seeing   as   fairies   often   had   bad   luck   trying   to   help   anyone   that   wasn’t   also   a   fairy   .   

like   any   stubborn   teenager   ,   though   ,    magnolia   swore   she   was   different   .   she’d   discovered   a   passion   that   had   nothing   to   do   with   her   fairy   duties  ,   and   that   was   matchmaking   .   something   about   love   had   always   just   fascinated   her   ,   and   she   thought   it   would   be   a   disservice   to    hide   her   gift   from   the   world   .   in   a   small   town   like   schiltach   ,   maggie   knew   everyone   ,    which   meant   she   knew   everyone’s   relationship   statuses   .   at   first   her   meddling   was   innocent   .   setting   two   single   people   up   on   a   date   ,   mailing   anonymous   love   letters   only   to   whisper   to   the   receiver   that   someone   else   sent   them   .   the   more   she   thought   she   was   helping   ,    the   more   confident   she   got   that   all   the  warnings   she’d   been   given   were   overreactions   .   

things   take   a   turn   when   she   tries   setting   up   a   married   woman   with   a   man   that   wasn’t   her   husband   .   maggie   really   didn’t   see   the   big   deal   ,   she   thought   her   match   was   much   better   than   the   woman’s   current   partner   but   what   she   failed   to   realize   was   that   there   were   real   consequences   to   infidelity   in   long   term   committed   human   relationships   .   it   became   the   scandal   of   the   town   ,   and   all   fingers   pointed   to   magnolia   .   her   parent’s   were   furious   with   her   ,   disappointed   that   she   hadn’t   given   up   her   childish   pursuits   and   fascination   with   all   things   outside   the   fae   world   .   not   really   knowing   how   to   handle   the   repercussions   ,   she   decided   it   was   time   to   experience   life   on   her   own   for   a   few   years   .        

mostly   going   places   were   her   ability   as   a   weather   fairy   were   needed   ,   magnolia   spent   the   next   100   years   of   her   life   balancing   her   responsibilities   as   a   fairy   with   her   passion   for   love   games   .   she   expanded   her   services   to   other   supernatural   beings   as   well   ,    which   is   how   she   ended   up   learning   about   lunehaven   ,   eventually   relocating   .   while   her   success   rate   in   matchmaking   may   be   shadowed   by   a   trail   of   sticky   situations   and   all   around   flops   ,   maggie   still   wholeheartedly   believes   she’s   helping   more   than   she’s   hurting   .   it   doesn’t   help   that   she’s   awfully   good   at   convincing   people   to   give   her   a   shot   (   even   when  it   might   be   in   their   better   interest   to   run   the   other   way   )   . 

━  ˙ ˖  ☆     PERSONALITY  +  TIDBITS  !

oh  boy  oh  man  ...   i   won’t   lie   to   u   she’s   kind   of   a   handful   😳🙈   think   chaotic   youngest   sibling   vibe   .   probably   the   most   irresponsible   person  (   fairy   ?   creature   ?   SDSDKWDNKW   )   u   will   ever   meet   ...   has   never   truly    been   held   accountable   for   her   actions   before   so   she’s   never    learned   how   to   own   up   to   her   mistakes   which   means   if   u   tell   her   she   did   something   wrong   she   will   ignore   u   and   maybe   make   it   drizzle   if   she   knows   u   don’t   have   an  umbrella   .         

big   im   baby   vibes   !    thinks   she   can   🥺   her   way   through   life   bc   it’s   worked   for   the   past   215   years   so   clearly   that’s   all   the   proof   she   needs   she’s   too   old   to   change   her   ways   </3   mischievous   and   way   too   nosy   curious   for   her   own   good   u   can   tell   her   to   mind   her   business   but   she   literally   won’t   .   much   like   miss   tinkerbell   she   needs   attention   to   survive   if   she  doesn’t   get   it   or   doesn’t   feel   like   she’s   getting   enough   she   does   act   out  ...   that   complex   is   high   key   because   she   misses   her   parents   though   /: 

on   the   reverse   of   all   that   she’s   an   extremely   sociable   and   friendly   girl   !   she’s   generally   easy   to   approach   and   befriend   and   she’s   a   big   sweet   talker   .   she   loves   love   😌   but   she   also   doesn’t   really   understand   it   that   well   or   at   least   she   finds   it   hard   to   be   objective   when   she’s   matchmaking   for   others   .   oftentimes   she’s   considering   her   own   preferences  when   setting   people   up   but   her   intentions   are   almost   always   good   SDJWDJWDW  

she’s   crazy   loyal   to   friends   and   the   people   she   cares   about   .   would   never   hesitate   to   be    there   when   you   need   her   to   be   ,   and   she’s   really   big   on   showing   affection   whether   it’s   through   gifts   or   physically   or   mushy   texts   you   probably   did   not   ask   for   but   better   not   complain  about   .   can   be   a   little   dramatic   and   sensitive   at   times   ,   and   yes   maybe   she   overreacts   to   criticism   and   negative   situations   ,   but   she   also   knows   how   to   have   fun   and   get   people   to   let   go   !   very   good   at   bringing   out   the   eternal   child   in   u    <3

despite   her   sometimes   successful   attempts   at   matchmaking   ,   maggie’s   own   love   life   ?   a   big   fat   mess   !   she’s   still   scared   of   serious   relationships   for   herself   so   most   of   the   time   she   finds   a   way   to   mess   things   up   before   it   gets   that   deep   .   she’s   also   a   huge   flirt   so   settling   down   is   a   difficult   concept   to   swallow   SDJBWJDBWJ   also   ...   still   has   those   lingering   childhood   feelings   of   being   different   and   needing   to   prove   herself   so   perhaps   she   feels   a   little   unworthy   of   true   love   ...   that’s   fine   </3      

she   has   the   biggest   sweet   tooth   in   the   world   .   she’s   probably   always   hanging   around   the   bakery   munching   on   pastries   .   will   eat   dessert   before   dinner   every   time   u   can’t   stop   her

always   always   surrounded   by   freshly   picked   flowers   and   she   likes   to   give   them   away   to   people   ,   however   she’s   got   a   bad   habit   of   telling   people   the   flowers   came   from   their   admirer   (    whose   identity   only   she   knows   ,   of   course   )            

has   probably   tried   to   set   everyone’s   muses   up   at   least   once

accidentally   makes   it    rain   when   she’s   extremely   upset   ,   although   it’s   rarer   now   that   she’s   had   more   experience   with   her   abilities   

still   has   a   huge   soft   spot   for   animals   even   if   she   can’t   communicate   with   them   the   way  an  animal  fairy   can

is   on   tinder   ...    get   her   some   help   pls  </3

unironically   throws  tea   parties   in   her   woodland   cottage.   if   she   invites   u   and   u   don’t   show   up   she’s   going   to   hold   that   grudge   until   the   day   she   dies   ...          

━  ˙ ˖  ☆     WANTED  CONNECTIONS  !  (  all  open  to  all  genders  )

my   brain   is   quite   literally   all   rot   rn   im   just   gonna   list   stuff   with  minimal   elaboration  please   vibe   with   me   …

people   she's   done   matchmaking   for   <3   pls   give   me   all   the   plots   where   maggie   keeps   setting   ur   muses   up   on   dates   that   don’t   work   out   but   she   refuses   to   give   up   and   ur   muse   keeps   letting   it   happen   for   whatever  reason   ...   OR   maybe   someone  she   tried   to   set   up   once   and   it   didn’t   work  out   and   they   never   let   her   play   matchmaker   again   and   maybe   they   reset   her   for   what   happened   and   she   feels   guilty   about   it   but   doesn’t   know   how   to   deal   with   that   so   she   just   decides   she’s   gonna   resent   them   back    ...   OR   mayhaps   a   success   story   o: 

ex   infatuations   that   ended   tragically   lets   get   that   angst (:<

a   best   friend   PLEASE   ...       

she’s   pretty   upbeat   so   maybe   an   unlikely   friendship   with   someone   darker   /   quieter   where   at   first   they   were   annoyed   by   her   but   slowly  through   charm   and   time   she   grew   on   them   much   like   mold   might   😋      

please   give   me   a   ridiculous   enemies   plot   just   someone   who   thinks   she’s   an   absolute   brat   and   she   does   everything   to   reaffirm   that   thought   since   the   loathing   is   mutual   and   half   the   time   they   don’t   even   know   what   they’re   fighting   about   they’re   just   always   fighting   

current   hookups   we   love   to   see   it   there’s   so   many   directions   to   go   in    maybe   its   purely   a   casual   thing   ,    maybe   it’s   casual   for   magnolia   but   not   for   them   ,   or    maybe   she’s   the   one   like   worm   maybe   i  would   like   more   than   sex   ,    maybe   it’s   like   a   we   only   hookup   when   we’re   partying   thing  ,   maybe   it’s   a   we   only   get   along   naked   thing   ,   there   r   choices    

older   sibling   relationships   !    she   also   high   key   misses   her   sisters   and   being   babied   so   i   would   love   for   her   to   have  friendships   that   mirror   that

someone   she   can   be   in   cahoots   with   …   go   absolutely   bonkers   with   knowing   they   won’t   judge   her   and   she   won’t   judge   them

a   we’re   just   friends   ...   unless   ?    plot

maybe   someone   who   tries   to   get   her   to   b    more   responsible   and   she’s   just   like   UGH   i   will   throw   up   if   u   dont   stop   but   low   key   she   appreciates   the   guidance   

ppl   whose   places   she’s   always   crashing   at   when   she   wants   to   be   in   town   and   not   in   the   damn   woods   

i   wont   lie   to   u   this  got   longer   than   i   thought   it   would   😭😭😭   im   sosososo  sorry   for   the   length   …   also   i   feel   like   my   charas   always   change   a  lil   once   i   actually   start   plotting   &   writing   so   sorry   again   if   u   see   me   finally   writing   as   magnolia   on   the   dash   and   ur   like   literally   who   is   that   …  JSDBWJBDWBDJ   PLEASE  come  message  me  on  discord  to  plot   !   if   u   prefer   im’s   that’s   perfectly   ok   im   just   warning   u   now   it’s   gonna   be   a    much   slower   process   so   if   u   want   speedier   replies   ...  u   can   message   me   @ glo lovecore ʕ´• ᴥ•̥`ʔ#8172   maybe  …   give   this   a   like   if   u   wanna   …   plot   hehehe   thank   u   for   reading   all   this   ur   so   brave   for   that   stay   sexy   x  

[mgatala]

random

why? this pandemic got me so stress than id ever thought i could, countless anxiety attacks, nobody knows. 

how? this is how the only thing i could ever think to vent things out.

what? maybe things that happened and thoughts that been on m mind lately.

  first

when the lock-down lifts up, the first thing that was my concern is my academic status, its not a good time (march) to stop the school, perhaps i didn't even redeem myself for all the quizzes and tests. then, it was suspended that they just have to based our grades to whatever we’ve done, and i know im lacking. then May came, grades are released. Ive got two failing grades, two major grades, i cannot stress enough how depressing this for me, I’m on my fourth year of college and this the first time, Ive failed on a subject. In this time of pandemic, this. I’ve been disappointed with myself, the people around me, and literally lost some support financially, scholarship. i didnt know what to do, i dont want to run to anyone, this is just a burden, i accepted it thinking that I can be better, i know I am. I dont want to think this too often I am shifting my thoughts to more uplifting and postive because my health and my family is okay and that is more than enough. 

then, 

June came, birth-month. we all thought or hoped that sooner everything will be better but guessed what the government and some people didn't take this pandemic seriously, the cases are getting worst, and more deaths are on the row, still they wanna go out. the quarantine turns to GCQ a little lighter and not that strict protocol but to observe social distancing and wearing face masks and ppe. but still the virus is still here, the employees doesn't have the choice but to get off their asses and attend their offices because apparently they wanted to open for the sake of economy, and being on this country with having a poor public transportation, the people cant focus on social distancing they all can think about is how to get on the train, the jeep and the free ride some good Samaritan offers, they risk their life not because they are stubborn but because its their natural instinct for survival not for themselves but for their families, and to all of my friends that opened their online stores, you know I can only support by liking and sharing it to others, and to all who is also have to battle with mental illness, we all can come through it and choose to move forward.

 Salute to all the front liners and to all the person that choose to risk. but to the government that is using this pandemic to abuse their power for their own goodwill, middle finger up folks. 

I forgot that I mention its my birth month, well there’s nothing special I do when its my birth-month, but for some reason this month (june), ive come to realize that my family isn't that strong. my parents been living together for the sake of their kids, I don’t have any idea that this would happen to me, I always thought that we were happy and whole. and im very thankful that we were, my papa tell me things that happened in the past that he cant seem to let go, and i cant do anything about that. he already closed his mind, and decided that he’s done with everything they been through. The house doesn't feel like home, we are all here but the strings that i thought were there was long gone. Maybe that’s why i never really see the love that I’ve wanted to feel. there were no role models, they were neglecting each other and always tell tat they didn't really love each other, before it thought they were so in denial but now, its all a missing puzzle pieces to my questions when I was a child, I am grateful that they raise us, as a good person (I wanted to think so), they were a good individuals, very humbled and a God’s follower. but ive know this before that this is just them being a decent parents. I am still healing from this, trying to ignore the words that is murmuring inside my head, after this incident im having nightmares from my childhood, repetitively. but im moving forward.

lastly, now that I’ve finally committed to someone, knowing my love language was physical touch and quality time, I AM STRUGGLING. at first phase of this pandemic, we’ve encountered a lot of misunderstanding, I cried a lot cause i felt like I am not held right. this long distance is my nightmare, fairly even before on my past potential lovers. in all fairness to my partner, he tries to understand where all my fusses are coming from, that i am just missing him and being together was all I can think about. I was frustrated, for him to understand me i really say things what I feel. sometimes also, when i felt like saying ‘i miss you’ and haven’t been able to prove myself is holding me back to say it. like i wouldn’t say things that i cant do and proved. and on his side that I think was his love language is words of affirmation, perhaps I also frustrates him. I wouldn’t say a thing if I felt  like not doing so, I wouldn’t reach out if i thought it just doesn’t make sense to say things, but for him that’s everything, he can again function to hear things from me, but me, I don’t know where to get the will to think is this gonna work out, will I let myself be my old self again, that run from things that I cant seem to fathom, from things I don’t see working, I wouldn’t force, i wouldn’t risk. but that was before, before i love with so much reservations and too much focused on myself. I tried to contemplate, is this my partner also wants, does he deserve that ive been treating him very oddly, is he not trying. and all my questions were he just keeps proving himself that I was just overthinking things, I shouldn’t worry, this all just a phase and everything will work out. he never failed to remind me that he is willing and deserve all the love I can give, even when sometimes im hard to love. And i also see that even we cant see other for now, his strong presence when im on my downtimes he’s there, always. trying to crack a joke (corny), lifts me up with his words, and listen to me when all he can hear was me sobbing and complaining why life is like this. There is just too many green flags for me to ignore it, and embrace that someone is willing to understand me, and love me unconditionally. When im having my episodes he knows what to say, he always have the right words for everything. “just have a little faith” as he would say, and i would calm as if i was wrapped in his arms, stroking my back, and me knowing, Ive got some good thing right here. I wish right now he was sending me home, we’re having our casual story time, laughing and getting him mad but still can bear me. but right now his health is still my first concern, see u soonest xx

j

[fae-fucker]

Review: Shatter Me

by Tahereh Mafi

Juliette hasn’t touched anyone in exactly 264 days.

The last time she did, it was an accident, but The Reestablishment locked her up for murder. No one knows why Juliette’s touch is fatal. As long as she doesn’t hurt anyone else, no one really cares. The world is too busy crumbling to pieces to pay attention to a 17-year-old girl. Diseases are destroying the population, food is hard to find, birds don’t fly anymore, and the clouds are the wrong color.

The Reestablishment said their way was the only way to fix things, so they threw Juliette in a cell. Now so many people are dead that the survivors are whispering war– and The Reestablishment has changed its mind. Maybe Juliette is more than a tortured soul stuffed into a poisonous body. Maybe she’s exactly what they need right now.

Juliette has to make a choice: BE A WEAPON. OR BE A WARRIOR.

*This review contains vague spoilers.*

I uh … I’m having a hard time figuring out where to even begin with this one, lads. I guess I’ll start with the absolute basics:

This book is not a dystopia. This is a superhero (supervillain?) origin story. I didn’t know this going in and it didn’t feel like it until the very end. With heavy-handed romance, heavy-handed writing, heavy-handed messages, and a plodding plot that I’m pretty sure sucked about 25 years out of my goddamn life.

*rubs hands together*

Well, with that in mind, let’s do this!

The “Writing”

Tahereh Mafi isn’t some backwater Harlequin mommy porn writer, nu-uh! She’s an Artiste, and as such, her art isn’t merely art, it’s Arté.

When a sentence could be five words, Mafi makes it a paragraph. When a metaphor could make sense, Mafi confuses your PLEBEIAN MIND with her MYSTIC WRITING POWERS, to the point where nothing fucking makes sense anymore and you’re just scratching your head, wondering how the fuck supposedly near-catatonic Juliette is able to come up with such convoluted comparisons. When other writers use pages to put words on them for people to read, Mafi puts maybe one word at the very top for four or five pages for the DRAMA of it all, except unlike when we all freaked out about Stephenie Meyer doing that, here it’s Artistic.

Jokes aside, this book is the epitome of everything I hate about purple prose. As someone who violently dislikes purple prose (because usually it’s done horribly by people who want to show off how many big words they know rather than evoke any sort of emotion), I knew going in that this book wouldn’t be for me, but I wasn’t expecting this.

Metaphors are long ang confusing, the prose and the rhythm are all off, the dialogue is atrocious and cartoonish, and Juliette’s thoughts are painfully obtuse despite her supposed “deep” personality. Except sometimes her thoughts are so convoluted and specific that it clashes with how dumb she is. Sometimes she thinks of the lackadaisical ennui of the uncaring sun, sometimes she compares her boyfriend’s eyes to buckets of water. It’s a huge, disjointed mess of word vomit.

People have defended Juliette’s narration as being a result of her solitary confinement, but those people’s opinions are bad and wrong and you shouldn’t listen to them, and I will explain to you why when I discuss Juliette’s “personality” in the character section of this review.

This book’s main “thing” is Juliette crossing out words and sentences, but it’s not consistent enough to actually mean anything or tell us anything about Juliette. It also happens in dialogue, which is fucking baffling. How do characters speak the words that are crossed out? Presumably they don’t, and I’m guessing that it’s supposed to represent what Juliette thinks people want to say but don’t, but then why the fuck would you put the crossed-out shit inside the quotes with the actual dialogue? Don’t!!!! Do that!!!! You’re clearly not equipped to ignore the rules of grammar yet, Mrs Mafi! You need to level up!!!

Sometimes, things that are implied to be true are crossed out. Sometimes, it’s the propaganda that Juliette knows is untrue that’s crossed out. With both the truth and the lies, Juliette’s thoughts vs her feelings, being crossed out without any rhyme or reason, we can never be entirely certain what the fuck the strikethroughs are supposed to represent.

If, for example, only the lies were crossed out, it would imply Juliette was aware that they’re lies and isn’t afraid to confront the truth. If only the truth was crossed out, then it would mean Juliette is in denial, knowing something is wrong but believing it anyway.

Instead, the strikethrough bullshit is just … there. What it means changes from instance to instance, and because of that, it loses all the impact and significance it could’ve had and ends up meaning nothing.

In short: the writing in this book is a whole-ass mess and nothing you say will convince me otherwise.

The Characters

Juliette’s mind is perfectly fine at all times, characters even praise her for being able to withstand literal psychological torture unlike all the other female WEAKLINGS in the facility. Her obnoxious inner monologues are just there for show, because Juliette is Deep and Troubled but in a sexy, dramatic way that doesn’t actually impact her as a person or her life at all. She doesn’t suffer from any mental illness or trauma that would’ve been brought on by 260+ days of nonstop psychological torture and years of emotional abuse and neglect.

How do I know that? Because she doesn’t believe any of the bullshit she spouts. It’s made perfectly clear that Juliette only thinks in metaphors because that’s just her obnoxious “personality”. Sometimes one of the Boys says something and she claims that her knees shatter or something similar. Except she doesn’t react as if they were, as if she felt the pain. She only thinks that because … Idk. It’s deep. Shut the fuck up.

I think her narration is supposed to imply that Juliette is smart, but that’s hilariously contrasted by her constant, and I mean fucking CONSTANT thirst and attraction to both Adam and Warner, the latter being especially jarring considering how she keeps saying she despises him and is disgusted by him.

She ogles and fawns over these men even when she’s in pain or in danger, even when they’re the ones inflicting the pain or threatening her. That’s how fucking horny she is, that’s where Mafi’s priorities lie.

She undermines her own protagonist by having Juliette constantly act like a horny schoolgirl instead of the broken and tortured person she should be after what she’s been through. After years of isolation and discrimination, after 260 days of solitary confinement, this girl still acts just like any other normal horny teenager, and it’s fucking awful to read, because it invalidates everything Juliette has been through and once again puts sex appeal and men higher on the priority list over an honest and realistic portrayal of trauma and isolation.

Speaking of sex appeal …

Warner. Oh Warner. What wonderful potential was lost. I think he’s genuinely interesting, or at least had the potential to be. He’s damaged and he’s troubled and he’s complex, despite how edgy he is. He’s hands-down the most interesting character in the book, and I weep for Mafi’s inability to fucking pace herself because that’s what’s absolutely ruined him for me. Let me explain:

I’m all for redemption arcs, alright? And Warner? He’s … salvageable. With some work and some atonement, I can totally see him becoming a complex anti-hero type. He’s clearly fucked up and the things he does are damaging him.

You know where Mafi fails? You know where she fucking destroys the guy?

She’s constantly describing him as hot. When he’s acting like a terrifying and abusive shithead, Juliette can’t help but think of how the anger makes his green eyes flash. When he takes off his shirt, Juliette claims how disgusted she is by the sight, and then in the same breath describes his perfectly sculpted chest in careful detail.

We’re supposed to find Warner sexy.

We’re supposed to reluctantly be attracted to him, just like Juliette, despite that and sometimes even because he’s a dangerous and abusive jackass.

There’s even a makeout session between Juliette and Warner where she’s complaining about how grossed out she is, but the kissing is described in more sexy and hot detail than any Adam makeout, and Juliette can’t help her attraction to Warner despite her believing he’d just killed the man she loves in cold blood.

Do you undersand my problem? If Warner was just a tragic villain and Juliette pitied him and didn’t feel any, and I mean ANY attraction to the guy, I would 100% accept him later trying to change sides to atone or to make up for the things he did. Aka a proper redemption arc.

But here, he’s already written as attractive to us. He’s already sexy and desireable and alluring. The narrative paints him in a good light by undermining the terrible things he does through constant descriptions of his appearance and Juliette’s obvious lust for him.

And you can say that “Woe, Juliette can’t control her attraction!” and you would still be a dumbass, because guess who can control Juliette’s attraction? Tahereh Mafi. It was Mafi’s conscious decision to make Juliette attracted to Warner, to write him this way as a sexy but dangerous man we’re supposed to root for and want to fix.

And that’s just gross. So whatever excuse or justification or explanation Warner’s actions get in lieu of an actual redemption arc, it won’t matter to me, because it’s already been undermined by how sexy he’s supposed to be despite his damage, and the terrible things he does are only there to make him more “mysterious” and his eventual love interest status more unexpected.

Mafi isn’t interested in writing a redemption arc, she just can’t write a morally ambiguous or mysterious love interest without taking it up to eleven and have him be a fucking unhinged dictator, but it’s ok because he’s still hot enough to bang!

I love redemption arcs. I hate abusers who are painted as attractive.

Adam exists. And what a pointless existence it is! He’s very obviously a decoy love interest, too nice and too basic to be endgame, and just vague and nonthreatening enough to have a sinister plan.

See, girls? Boys who protect you and care about you are actually evil! The boys who abuse you and terrify you are the ones who truly love you!

Kenji is very clearly designed to be quirky and snarky and for the Tumblr fangirls to fawn over to the point where he sticks out like a sore thumb among the rest of the cast. I didn’t like him and found him to be pretty boring without any deviation from the snarky flirty guy archetype.

There are a bunch of other characters that are spoilers and who don’t really matter, but I will say that there is a Black man who’s described as chocolate, so there.

Um. Women? I’m pretty sure the only named women we actually get to see on the page are two identical twins who are basically one entity and they show up in like the last chapter?

Before one of you shouts OMG THERE ARE MORE WOMEN IN THE LATER BOOKS, yeah, probably, I fucking hope so, but I’m not reviewing those books yet, I’m reviewing this one, and it’s one fucking giant sausage fest of hot dudes and faceless mooks.

Dems the fax.

The “Plot”

If you go into this expecting an exploration of the importance of human touch and how the lack of it might impact a person, you’re a dumbass and so am I for making that mistake.

If you’re expecting a gloomy but action-filled dystopia based on some more district/caste/personality oppression, you’re wrong again but at least justified because that’s what this is marketed as.

The stakes and conflict are … are they? Are we sure they even exist? Jury’s still out because I have no idea what Juliette wants aside from sucking Adam’s dick (and Warner’s sometimes). I know what she doesn’t want, I think (?), but I don’t know why she doesn’t want it aside from the “uwu i’m too good and pure and love people too much even tho they’ve shown me nothing but hatred and rejection” crap.

I’m honestly having a hard time figuring out what this book even is about. Supposedly the major plot development is Juliette realizing how powerful she is and how nobody will get to use her anymore, but the first thing happens in the very last chapter out of fucking nowhere, while the last thing doesn’t even matter because up until this point, Juliette has already been spending the entire book refusing to be used in the first place.

Oh, and about the first thing again, where Juliette must realize her power? It’s supposed to be this big epic moment for her at the end of the book, but we see her use her powers to throw around threats to get what she wants several times before that, on people she barely knows. She threatens Kenji just because he makes a few inappropriate comments about her, which is fucking baffling because she refused to even try to hurt Warner even though he’s been nothing but an asshole to her up until that point.

The moment Juliette gets her hands on a gun, she’s suddenly super empowered and has no problem spitting badass one-liners, even though she was a sad woobie pacifist up until that point and who couldn’t even IMAGINE hurting anyone, not even supposed monster Warner. The whole gun thing is weird and vaguely gross tbh, because Juliette genuinely seems to enjoy the power it gives her and I’m not into that.

On a technical level, this book is mostly Juliette being pushed around by men, feeling sorry for herself and clinging to morals that only serve to show how pure and good she is despite making no sense and being odd for someone in her position to have.

There are entire chapters of repeated revelations, where Juliette is sometimes literally dragged around from scene to scene by the hand, and she realizes the same thing over and over, seemingly forgetting it at the start of the chapter just to she can learn it again by the end of it: Warner is a meanie poopy-head who’s willing to hurt, kill, and torture other people for his own gain. Every time he shows this, Juliette acts shocked all over again.

This goes on for about half the book until shit suddenly takes a turn and the book becomes yet another Underground Teenage Rebellion Fighting to Take Down the Man drama, except this time the teenagers are mutants with cool superpowers.

It’s a complete tonal shift and it’s jarring as all heck, but at least there’s no more pretense about this being a dystopia because boy oh boy is it painful to watch Mafi struggle to worldbuild even the slightest concept for this superpowered angstfest.

The Worldbuilding

Important Proper Nouns galore. The book’s website (where I got the blurb) says that this book is “fresh” and “original”.

Yeah let’s uuh … Let’s investigate that statement.

The main evil guys are called the Reestablishment. That’s two letters away from Juliette fighting the establishment.

D-do I need to say more?

I honestly don’t know if I can. It’s like Mafi just sorta took all the other YA dystopian “quirks” and threw them all in without rhyme or reason.

Climate is fucked because of Big Corporate? Yeah. All animals are dead or mutated? Yup. Art and religion is deemed bad and terrible and banned for reasons? Throw that in there too, why not? They’re destroying all languages, English included? O-ok?

We never really … dwell on any of these things or figure out why they happened or how or even where. These things are always brought up together like some sort of checklist of all the bad things that the Reestablishment has done.

And I guess for a superhero story with “pulse-pounding” romance, it doesn’t really have to be that much more complicated, and it serves its function, but on Mafi’s website there’s boasting about how it has the worldbuilding of The Hunger Games and honey, you might become a more successful circus act than a writer because the level of contortion required to shove your head that far up your ass is frankly impressive.

The Wokeness

Warner is constantly described and called “crazy” and “insane” and a “madman”, so that’s FUN. Combined with the fact that this book doesn’t seem to have any idea about what solitary does to you and effectively trivializes literal torture, this isn’t looking good, lads.

There’s also, as I mentioned, no women aside from Juliette, and everything’s always about men and how they affect her and her life and how much they matter to her.

Just. Bad. The most progressive thing about this book is the fact that a WoC wrote it, and that’s about it.

The Quotes

I’m … so sorry for this. But you have to see them.

This Kills the Lady

Raindrops are my only reminder that clouds have a heartbeat. That I have one, too.

I always wonder about raindrops.

I wonder about how they’re always falling down, tripping over their own feet, breaking their legs and forgetting their parachutes as they tumble right out of the sky toward an uncertain end. It’s like someone is emptying their pockets over the earth and doesn’t seem to care where the contents fall, doesn’t seem to care that the raindrops burst when they hit the ground, that they shatter when they fall to the floor, that people curse the days the drops dare to tap on their doors.

I am a raindrop.

My parents emptied their pockets of me and left me to evaporate on a concrete slab.

Wot?

I catch the rose petals as they fall from my cheeks, as they float around the frame of my body, as they cover me in something that feels like the absence of courage.

Huh?

He shifts and my eyes shatter into thousands of pieces that ricochet around the room, capturing a million snapshots, a million moments in time. Flickering images faded with age, frozen thoughts hovering precariously in dead space, a whirlwind of memories that slice through my soul.

Come Again?

Summer is like a slow-cooker bringing everything in the world to a boil 1 degree at a time. It promises a million happy adjectives only to pour stench and sewage into your nose for dinner.

The Sun is a Rat Bastard – Poem by Juliette

I hate the lackadaisical ennui of a sun too preoccupied with itself to notice the infinite hours we spend in its presence. The sun is an arrogant thing, always leaving the world behind when it tires of us.

Juliette Contemplates Cannibalism

He whispers, “How are you?” and I want to kiss every beautiful beat of his heart.

He’s Not Wrong, I Guess

It’s the only reason Adam is staying with me – because Warner thinks Adam is a cardboard cutout of vanilla regurgitations.

Get You A Man Who Can Fix Years of Abuse and 260 Days of Solitary!

He’s kissing away the pain, the hurt, the years of self-loathing, the insecurities, the dashed hopes for a future I always pictured as obsolete.

*Sarah J Maas voice*

Realization is a pendulum the size of the moon. It won’t stop slamming into me.

I … What?

He’s a hot bath, a short breath, 5 days of summer pressed into 5 fingers writing stories on my body.

Juliette is a Loony Tunes Character

My eyelashes trip into my eyebrows; my jaw drops into my lap.

Kenji Is the Worst

He grins and hobbles forward. “You know, you’re pretty hot for a psycho chick.”

I … What? part 2

My jaw is dangling from my shoelace.

The Conclusion

Don’t waste your time on this. Trust me. There’s so many things I’ve left out for the sake of brevity, and I still ended up with a mile-long review.

It doesn’t work as a romance, it doesn’t work as a dystopia, and it certainly doesn’t work as a superhero origin story. Mostly because it tries to be all of these things at once and ends up being an overwritten mediocre mess.

For a time I felt vaguely invested and interested in knowing what happened in the next books, but that feeling has passed now and I couldn’t give less of a shit.

I would honestly be very interested in seeing a character like Warner be written properly and watch him try to redeem himself and atone. But that train has already left the station, and Mafi was not on it.

[voroxpete]

Here is a completely unprompted rant about the ending of RWBY Volume 6

So, I wanted to take a moment to talk about how much I loved this season finale and why, and most importantly what kind of lessons it offers to writers.

In general, RWBY has always suffered from a tendency to let procedural plotting ("what is the immediate, physical problem in front of the characters and how do they overcome it?") drive the action while dramatic plotting tends to get slotted in around it. The ending of the first two seasons are both good examples, leading up to really badass fight scenes that ultimately do very little to express or advance the characters and their personal journeys.

In more recent volumes we saw attempts to rectify this, but the writers approached the problem by simply taking the action that resulted from their procedural plotting and awkwardly shoving dramatic resolution into it. The end of season 5 is a great example of this. The fight in Haven is a fucking mess. Everyone just sort of awkwardly pairs off in ways that don't make any logical sense, it's just done to create opportunities for ham-fisted character moments. It's so bad that in a couple of shots you can actually see Ren and Nora standing around very obviously doing nothing because the desperate need to force character moments into the fight means that its not their turn to get involved yet.

The ending of season 6 on the other hand... Oh my God, this was fantastic. What's key to how well this ending works is the multitude of ways in which the action and the themes directly support each other. We start with the action splitting in two, leading to the mech fight and the Adam fight... But notice how these scenes aren't actually disconnected. Everything about Cordovin - a character really only introduced for this moment - is designed to reflect and echo the elements of Adam that we're being asked to focus on. Cordovin is an abusive person. Not in the sense of abusive relationships specifically, but she uses her power to bully people. She's a narcissist, and even her physical design is meant to emphasise this dichotomy. She's a tiny person who loves to look down on others.

In this context, her misuse of the battlemech makes complete sense. Sure, she could have sent her airforce, and that would have made more sense, but it wouldn't have satisfied her personal need to be the bully, to be (literally) big and powerful and in control.

And all of this reflects perfectly in Adam. Just like Cordovin, he's ultimately small, and weak, and desperate to be powerful and in control. Even the damage that he's suffered plays into this. He's been hurt, and now he hurts other people to regain the control that he lost.

This plays out in his fight with Blake and Yang through some especially on point dialogue choices. The line "I wouldn't have to be doing this if you would just behave" left zero doubt where they were going with all of this, and was a bold choice that really raised the stakes for the scene. The decision to really lean into "Adam is an abusive ex" took a fight that was already excellent on a technical level and turned it into something really powerful. It's also kind of neat that both sequences lead up to a moment where the heroes give the villain a chance to stand down, and both fights conclude with the villain being astonished when the hero literally disarms them. Again, all of these parallels are reinforcing the central themes. The story being told through these two action sequences is very explicitly one of the characters (notably, women) standing up to powerful abusers. That shot of Ruby alone in front of Cordovin's mech, and the follow up where her eyes narrow in disappointment is seriously fucking powerful, and her smallness in the face of her bully perfectly reflects the way Yang and Blake feel facing Adam. Reflections on reflections on reflections. It's brilliant.

This is how you craft an action sequence that is also a character moment. Not by shoehorning character moments into a fight, but by writing action that parallels and enhances your dramatic themes.

It's not perfect of course. The arrival of Grimmzilla feels a little sudden and a touch forced, but it creates an excellent moment, allowing the writers to kind of recap and summarize everything that's just happened. We've seen, through the Cordovin fight, how Ruby has outgrown her uncle (a theme that's been playing out throughout this season), and giving her this moment to really emphasise what the character has become is a really nice way to allow those themes to breathe. It allows us to see the team reunited (something we've been desperately needing ever since the end of season 3), and really foregrounds the counterpoint to this theme of standing up to abusers, which is that you can't easily do it alone. One of the most dangerous behaviours of abusers is that they isolate people. While Ruby may be the only one with the special plot power that can slow down the Grimm attack, everyone is a part of helping her do it. There's even a great little moment where we see Blake, lacking any ability to physically assist, is still involved, acting as an emotional support for her friends, giving them whatever strength she can (it's also fun to note how "giving others strength" is literally Jaune's semblance, and it's cool to see the ways that got used throughout these scenes; there's a really interesting thematic tension between Jaune and Qrow specifically as opposing models of masculinity, and both the fight with Cordovin and the Grimmzilla scene clearly foreground the ways in which Qrow's model of trying to be the powerful patriarch figure who puts everything on his own shoulders is anything but helpful, whereas Jaune's masculinity - supportive, loving, kind - is the one that makes a difference, as Qrow discovers when he stops trying to carry everyone and starts, as Calvera puts it, catching them when they fall).

Again, thematically, this is more than just action, and that's why it resonates. From a purely mechanical point of view it's easy to see the Grimmzilla fight as disappointing, but that completely neglects the obvious purpose of that moment. We've already had two giant action sequences, the story didn't need another big blowout fight. What it needed was a coda, and Grimmzilla did that job beautifully.

All in all season 6 has made me excited about this show again, but more importantly I think that it offers a lot of great lessons to writers. People often criticise the writing in RWBY in very glib surface level ways; complaining that a certain line was cheesy, a certain moment was predictable. They're not wrong; the Blake and Yang fight definitely had a few moments where the dialogue choices felt painfully obvious or perhaps a little awkward. But writing is so much more than just plotting and a few lines of dialogue, and in so many of the ways that count the writing in this finale was superb and well worth studying.

[diicktective]

2. Their mother? How do they think of her? What do they hate? Love? What influence - literal or imagined - did the mother have?

Character Solidifying // @diewithouthim​ / @unequiaime​

WARNING ! IT’S KINDOFA LONG STORY !

How does your character think of their mother ?

               Swift thinks of Minerva as someone who he never really KNEW that well, but who he always UNDERSTOOD , on some subconscious level – not entirely, but better, at least, than anybody ELSE . They FELT like family in that they had some marrow deep similarity & a responsibility to look after each other, but they rarely ACTED like family. Sometimes they were more like friends, and a lot of the time they were more like roommates.

What do they love about her ?

               The thing Swift loved, really LOVED about his mother was that she never patronized him ; she never filtered or softened herself the way people do around children. She was more open with him than she was with anyone else. They were IN on everything together, it felt like. Swift valued the excess of freedom he had as a kid – not for what he could DO with it, but because Mini TRUSTED him with it.               & he loved spending time with her when she was wholly EUTHYMIC  – sharp & engaged, but not too impatient, often fascinating, and occasionally a lot of fun. There were GOOD TIMES , alright ?

               Otherwise, there was much that Swift ADMIRED about his mother. She busted her ass to take care of them both, and she didn’t complain. She was steely in the nerves & unflinchingly herself. Everything she ever did was on her own terms ; she didn’t give people any part of herself that she didn’t want to, and she didn’t extend her respect to anything that hadn’t earned it. A LOT of real young kids think their parents know everything, but Swift was possessed of that mindset longer than most, cause DAMN if she wasn’t CONVINCING ! He thought she must’ve been the smartest person in the world. He can still comfortably acknowledge that she was brilliant.

What do they hate ?

               It bears stating : Minerva was NOT a good parent. She was neglectful in most senses of the word ; her capacity for engaging & expressing herself emotionally was severely limited, and she made little effort to mitigate this ; She was erratic & unreliable. Her parenting tactics were consistently manipulative & self - serving. All of this Swift could – & did, & does –  IGNORE , either by justifying the behavior or minimizing it to the point of insignificance.

               But Mini’s REAL problem, the one at the root of all the others, was her complete SELF - ABSORBTION ; she fixated on her own priorities, feelings, beliefs, and motivations to such a degree that everyone else’s became irrelevant. THIS is what Swift grew to resent, and what ultimately fractured the relationship between them.                By his mid - teens, Swift had problems : behavioral, psychological, & substance - related. Eventually, those problems developed consequences. Minerva was profoundly unsympathetic, addressing the issues only as they inconvenienced HER , and doing so UNSPARINGLY . By this point Swift had seen his mother through no shortage of her OWN hard spells, and it was lack of reciprocity that really GOT to him.

                He processed it as anger – at the hypocrisy, the willful blindness – but in some deep – down place, it stung, made him feel alone & unwanted in away he’s never quite acknowledged or gotten over. Even though Swift was the one who left home & cut contact, it never felt like HE was the one doing the abandoning.

                NOW , years after Minerva’s death & even more since they’d reconnected, the resentment has evaporated. If Swift ever talks about the estrangement – & frankly, when WOULD he ? – it’s without detail or gravity. No big deal, just two stubborn people getting into it with each other. & he was a teenager then, so you know how that sorta thing goes …

What influence, real or imagined, did the mother have ?

               There ain’t much about growing up with Minerva that HASN’T influenced Swift in some way. He didn’t start out as ferociously mistrustful or guarded as her, but he’s pretty much gotten there. He takes it for granted that people are selfishly driven, that there are always ulterior motives, and he’s always trying to see through everyone & everything until he spots the bullshit, the CATCH . He was raised without respect for rules or conventions, and he hasn’t come by any on his own. He still values freedom & independence over safety & comfort.

               Thanks to Minerva, he knows the value of working smart AND hard, and he never mistakes the two for being mutually exclusive. He ALSO learned the inherent thrill of getting a way with something, of pulling one over on someone, though he doesn’t chase that rush quite as blithely as she did.                 Minerva was a pathological liar, and Swift grew up subconsciously fixated on DECEPTION ; he learned all the signs intuitively, then as specific tells. He can spin a pretty good web himself, but he’s come to view being lied to as the worst sorta insult.

               Digging a bit DEEPER , now …

               To Swift, the relationship between himself & his mother always felt CONDITIONAL  – the most IMPORTANT condition being that they bothered each other as little as possible. & since Swift had relatively less to contribute to their shared life, it made SENSE why he got relatively less SLACK in that regard. AND because the relationship between himself & his mother was his first close interpersonal bond, Swift naturally came to view ALL relationships as conditional.                How he sees it, between any two people there’s a simple equation with two values : how much each has to offer the other & how much each requires the other to expend. It doesn’t matter what forms or functions those values take ; all that matters is staying in the GREEN , one way or another. He’s sure PATHOS enters into things somewhere, but he’s also sure it has its LIMITS . Swift allows that he’s no authority, that he may be wrong, but he’ll always carry the vague suspicion that nobody can ever love anybody unconditionally, and the vague certainty that nobody could ever love HIM unconditionally.

               But perhaps the philosophy of Minerva’s that infected Swift most VIRULENTLY was the conviction that WHATEVER it is one must do or deal with, one must be able to do or deal with ALONE . Maybe she never said it in so many words, but the implication was always there – that NEEDING another person is an admission of weakness or failure. To this day, asking for or accepting someone’s help is about as easy for Swift as pulling teeth – & half as pleasant

[imagine-loki]

Winter's Hearts

TITLE: Winter’s Hearts CHAPTER NO./ONE SHOT: Eight/? AUTHOR: nekoamamori ORIGINAL IMAGINE: Imagine being Loki’s old friend/Lover in Asgard, but you left for Earth a long time ago. For all he knows, you might be dead, but you’re still alive and you’ve been working with SHIELD and/or the Avengers. RATING: T (so far) NOTES/WARNINGS: Also on AO3: Click here

    “Kyrie, I have errands to run this morning. Would you come with me?” Thor asked you at breakfast. You glanced at Loki automatically to see if he needed you instead, your duty was to him after all, but he didn’t look up from his breakfast.

    “You need an official escort?” you teased Thor. It was within his rights to ask for an official escort, even though your assignment was to Loki. It was a complicated system.

    He laughed. “Something like that,” he agreed.

    You gave him a look. “You just want me to drive, since you haven’t bothered learning how yet,” you accused.

    “Maybe I would like to spend time with you outside of the tower. Just because you were closer to Loki growing up, we all grew up together and you were basically my little sister,” you kept neglecting that part. He’d been an annoying older brother to you too and always hanging around Lady Sif and the Warriors Three. “You’ve barely left other than missions since you moved in. You’re not on house arrest and you deserve to have fun too. So I would like for you to come with me,”

    “Wait, so he’s your brother, and she’s your sister, and they dated and no one thinks that’s weird?” Tony demanded from the other end of the table. You, Loki, and Thor just stared at him.

    “You do realize none of them are acutally related, right?” Nat asked Tony as if he were stupid.

    “But he just said-”

    “Let me recap for you, shellhead,” you growled, summoning your gloves and putting them on in case you had to defenestrate Tony for being stupid. You saw the barest hint of a smirk on Loki’s face. “Thor and Loki were told they were brothers and grew up as such, not finding out until a couple of years ago that Loki was adopted. I was Loki’s best friend from the cradle. Not sister. Thor treated us both like annoying little siblings. Got it?” you growled, hating defending something so stupid from Tony.

    “Yup, I really don’t feel like crashing through a window this morning. Carry on with your breakfast,” Tony replied quickly. One of these days you were going to break in his lab and fix everything for him just to annoy the shit out of him. Asgardian technology was years ahead of the stuff in Tony’s lab.

    You finished your breakfast and vanished the plate clean to the cabinet. “Shall we, Lady?” Thor asked, offering you a hand. You placed your gloved hand in his and let him pull you to your feet.

    “Take care of my Valkyrie,” Loki snarled at his brother before you left the room. You hid your smile. He did want to make amends.

    “She is safe in my care, Brother,” Thor replied jovially, giving you too wide of a smile. He knew your reaction, but you gave it anyway.

    You growled. “I’m the bodyguard here,” you snarled at Thor. It was literally your job and you’d trained for it from birth.

    “Yes, you are, little Valkyrie,” he agreed. You glared. He was giving up too easily. “But my job is still to look out for your well being too,” he reminded you. You glared and grumbled, but didn’t try to argue with him again.

    Instead…

    “Did I tell you guys about the time Thor and his warrior friends nearly got their asses handed to them by the bog monster they swore they could handle by themselves, despite that it was an elemental creature?” you asked the rest of the team innocently. You wouldn’t argue with Thor, but you had plenty of embarrassing childhood stories to share.

    Thor’s warm hand clamped over your mouth, his other arm around your waist. “Enough of that. Come along, Kyrie,” he stopped you from finishing the story, but was chuckling.

    “Tell the story!” Tony protested. You raised your hands in surrender, but Thor dragged you from the room anyway and didn’t let you go until you were nearly at the elevator. You were still laughing when you summoned a light jacket to throw over your t-shirt, though the weather didn’t really require it. You didn’t want the mortals accidentally bumping into you. Also you could hide way more blades under a jacket than under a t-shirt.

    You left the tower hand-in-hand with Thor, just an old familiar casuality to the action, but you caught the jealous look in Loki’s eyes anyway.

    *

    Spending the day out of the tower with Thor was fun. You did have to drive because he still refused to learn how. He was excited to visit all of the Midgardian shops and didn’t really have any errands, but just wanted to get out of the tower. You had a nice lunch at a burger place where you both won their eating challenge and got t-shirts for your effort. Five minutes later there was a sign attached to the eating contest rules stating that Asgardians couldn’t compete. You still had a picture of the two of you up on the wall for winning. He had even dutifully not complained when you wanted to visit the bookstore and then wouldn’t let you leave until you’d picked out an acceptable number of new books to adopt.

    You had to stop to take selfies with people when they recognized Thor. You were still mostly unknown, though you did get mistaken for Lady Loki once. You’d also had to answer a lot of questions about whether you were dating Thor.

    Thor’s phone went ‘Ta-da!’ in Loki’s voice while you were milling around the mall aimlessly. Thor reached in his pocket to check it while you raised an eyebrow at him at his choice of notification noises.

    “Why is that your notification sound?” you asked when he put the phone back in his pocket. You also wanted to know what the message was, but that would be rude to ask. He wasn’t sharing either.

    “Stark set it up,” Thor grumbled. “And I have not yet figured out how to change it,” he pouted.

    You wandered a couple more stores before Thor announced that he was tired of shopping and ready to head home. You agreed. It was after lunchtime, and you were tired of dealing with Thor’s fans. When you arrived back at the tower, you vanished all of your books up to your room to sort through later instead of trying to carry them.

    “Thor, Y/N, we need you in Lab C,” Cap’s voice came over Jarvis’ PA system when you and Thor stepped into the elevator to head back into the tower proper.

    “What’s going on?” you asked.

    “Just get here,” Cap replied. You looked over at Thor, who just shrugged. You had a dagger in your hand before you got to the lab and stepped in front of Thor to enter first. You weren’t letting him put himself in danger unnecessarily. He stepped back, letting you take your proper guard position.

    You opened the door to the lab and just stared in shock.

    You stepped through the doorway, still in awe. You just couldn’t believe it.

    There were tears of joy in your eyes, of disbelief, shock, awe, astonishment.

    You were home.

    The lab and whatever its usual contents had been were gone. Instead a room you hadn’t seen in 900 years was waiting for you. It was technically one of Loki’s sitting rooms, but it had become a shared space by the time you were 10. It was just as much yours as his. You spent so very much time here, nearly every single free moment you’d had growing up on Asgard.

    It was perfect. The plush rugs on the tiled floor, the couches in front of the fireplace, with their end tables and lamps, bookshelves along the wall, the desk big enough that you could both work at it, currently holding a selection of books and papers and the ever present pitchers of mead and fruit juice, weapons rack on a separate wall, the giant glass doors leading out onto the balcony. The lighting was perfect, the feel of the slightly sea scented air was perfect, the golden hue from the surrounding city was perfect. It even smelled like home.

    You hadn’t been here in 900 years, but it was still home. You couldn’t express how it felt to be here after so long.

    Every single tiny detail was absolutely perfect.

    Including the Loki who was uncurling himself from his couch, closing his book carefully, dressed in a green Asgardian tunic and black pants. He had a small tentative smile. “Surprise, Kyrie-love,” he greeted you warmly, the even more pet name of your old nickname sliding effortlessly off of his silver tongue.

    You ever so vaguely noticed Thor closing the door, having not entered the room, giving you your privacy. Damn older brother had kept you out of the tower while Loki was crafting this surprise.

    You had your hand to your mouth, had unconsciously used magic to change into an Asgardian style tunic and leggings of your own, had unconsciously vanished the dagger, and took another step into the room. “How-?” you managed softly, stunned beyond words.

    Loki smiled and stepped over to you. “D-do you like it?” he asked nervously. It was an understandable response. You were so shocked you could barely speak and had tears of joy in your eyes. Easy to misinterpret.

    “Lohk, it’s perfect!” you told him, staring around in awe. You finally turned your attention to the man instead of the wonderful gift.

    He was talking to you again!

    “Darling, I am so, so, sorry. I never should have treated you like that just because I was angry and hurt by the Allfather. I hope you might find it in your heart to forgive me,” Loki told you with a vulnerability you hadn’t seen from him in too many years to count. “It’s not much, and I can’t keep it going more than a day, but I thought you would appreciate the token of a taste of home,” he gestured around the room. “I do not wish to lose your love, we have already lost too much time as it is, and I pray I have not done so already. I sincerely hope someday you will forgive me enough to take me back…”

    Before he could finish that thought, you had closed the last of the distance between you, your arms around his neck, your fingers wound in his hair, and, after the briefest hesitation for consent, your lips met his for the first time in years.

    You really were finally home.

[themockingcrows]

Whisper Just For Me: Ch. 12 - Shadows Past And Present

This chapter is SFW AO3 Mirror: [X] Being separated from Dave is continuing to prove painful, and keeping positive is harder and harder. You're not sure how long you can keep it up, really, but Jade continues to work miracles where she can. For instance, it's all thanks to her that you're both finally getting to meet Dave's surviving relative and learn more about him. Hopefully learning his past will help your present and Dave's future.

    This Roxy girl, while unable to see you directly, was extremely observant in other ways. Everything you knocked over or threw around was noticed even if she was not there to witness, as if she had a picture perfect memory of what her home looked like prior to walking out with her keys and bag. Similarly, she was somehow able to tell it was not the doing of her cat, and you weren't certain just how that was. Not bad for a week or two of practice, you'd be proud if you weren't busy mourning that observance halting literally an inch in front of your own face or anything useful towards getting you home.

    You could hover upside down beside her while she surfed (Was that what it was? You'd heard the phrase in movies John watched, read on the bright screen of his computer over his shoulder, but you'd never really focused on hearing anyone say it aloud..) the internet, and she would just keep typing, the only sign of something causing her discomfort or distress being the faint crease between her sharp brows.

    The cat was another story. You were getting a good deal of fun out of tormenting that fur ball with your simple presence, and if that presence involved playfully swatting at its bottle brushed tail or popping up out of the flooring slowly and following it around acting like you were going to touch its favorite toys, then so be it. Entertainment was all around you in this place, but without being alive, it was.. limiting. Most of the things Roxy did were fun were found in different electronics, even some of her books! You'd caught her pulling a little slab of a screen out of her bag and thumbing along till she had gotten to a bookmarked p, age of text, which she then toted around the apartment with her all the rest of the evening. She even took it in the bath from what you'd seen prior to your hasty exit.

    For some reason, peeping on her felt different than peeping on John...Didn't entirely stop you, but the peeks were brief and curious, appreciative before leaving to dart around knocking things off shelves.

    Roxy's hanging pans and pots were definitely fun to rattle and toss around, as were her drawers of socks. There were so many colors and types, and different designs, they looked like ribbons when they fell into heaps on the floor. At first she'd feared a robbery, coming home to that, and had wandered the house with a kitchen knife before taking her bedding to the bathroom and sleeping in the tub with her (angry, protective, fluffy) cat till dawn with the door locked and the light on.

    Now? She was used to it and annoyed.

    She would speak to you, but not at you personally. You had become her 'Casper'. Fitting, you supposed, but no less obnoxious. You contemplated how much energy it would take to spell your name out on the floor in socks, but realized it wouldn't matter. A name wouldn't get you home, and there weren't enough socks in the house to explain an address. Managing a pen would be doable, if not scrawled, and you didn't dare risk possessing her after a brief desperate prodding at her physical and mental hold felt like being stung.

    Her dreams were blocked to you, guarded, and secretive. Frustrating. You missed John's easy to access mind, his lack of reservations, how open he was. ..Maybe it's because for all Roxy's ghost jokes, she didn't fully believe in them at all outside of stories. Or, more specifically, that she didn't believe they'd be around HER or in her previously calm, entirely ghost free home.

    You wished she'd leave one of the game systems on sometime. Little electrical pulses, little pushes, you could manage. Perhaps with those buttons so close together, you'd even be able to play something that required some timing. Master of Mario you wouldn't be again without some hands, most likely, but surely you could explore some of the larger worlds that had lit up this girl's television screen. Her computer too, actually.

    W to move forward, S for back, D and A for right and left. Clicks of the mouse to select actions and do things and speak to people. Simple gestures. If she'd just leave them open, you wouldn't need to exhaust yourself getting them into position to access them in the first place, and you might be able to play!

    Roxy carried her laptop from her living room to her bedroom, screen lit up to some kind of mail. ..E-mail? No, no. Instant mail. Instant message, John already taught you this, don't forget it! You'd watched John talk and learned the little shortened messages and what they meant all on your own, even spouted them back at him with the planchette before. You'd talked to Rose on that Skype thing, had seen her on screen and she'd seen you, how could you forget that! This wasn't the Skype thing, but you were half sure you'd seen it or something similar before.

    ...If you'd lived, would you be an adult enjoying these things on your own now? Or would you be older and gray? How old would you even be, for certain? You'd just thought of that with John before, but now it was a struggle. Time felt funny, slower, and you lost track of what you were doing and where you were, chest aching. The world faded to darkness.

    When you were aware again and out of your daze, Roxy wasn't home, and it was potentially afternoon judging from the light streaming in the windows. Mutini was dozing on her pillow with his feet in the air, a living plushie with too much tuna-flavored stuffing and a bat attitude. Her laptop rested, still open, on a small lap desk. Leftovers from either an early meal or a late night snack rested on a plate on top of the wrinkled blankets, crusts from a sandwich and a few crumbles of ridged potato chips. There was a small bar on the bottom right that was keeping track of a percentage, text flying fast enough that you couldn't keep up with what was being said below the numbers and the bar. It was about 60% complete now, whatever it was, and showed no signs of slowing down as it ticked up to 61%.

    Her messages had been left open, two separate windows over top of a third. You recognized the multicolored internet symbol as the same kind John would click and complain about the provider of if it took more than a breath to load something, and loomed closer to get a proper look at it upside down before sinking down into the mattress.

    Mutini startled awake when your chill brushed his tail, hissed wildly and tore off for the living room.

    Purple text color, bright but easy enough to read. You'd seen a lot of text colors over John's shoulder when he used a different kind of window, liked how the blue looked, and remembered he had a friend who used this kind of purple as well. The words were crisp, precise, and clearly written compared to the pink above it. You were willing to bet the pink was Roxy's writing, and were surprised by how garbled it looked, even if she was able to edit it to get her meaning across afterward with the little stars. You squinted a bit and sorted through the corrections. ..Oh. The files were multiple games, music, and other files, all coming in bulk. She'd started it last night and it was only in the 60%'s? You supposed even enhanced speed of modern technology just couldn't instantly make something appear like that once it was over a certain size. Maybe further in the future, then.

    Roxy had apparently left this person with the purple text hanging without a reply, and you were frustrated on their behalf. Didn't sound urgent at least, more of a conversation that had been neglected.

TT: Are you asleep already?

TT: Oh. Odds are you're at work now, looking at the time. Kudos for keeping the job this time around instead of quitting because you got bored of others on your shift fucking everything up. Maybe you'll manage to change some of their habits by being the good example, get more positive things on paper that for some reason your prior qualifications weren't enough to convey on their own.

TT: Wait, does that mean you didn't sleep at all before going in? I don't know how you do it, I'd kill to stay awake longer and keep functioning that well. Or at least kill to get a good, uninterrupted night's sleep for once. There's been a lot going on here lately as usual, and on top of that some friends are having issues as well so that's been keeping me busy.

TT: Do you know how tiring it is to advise someone who's lost something they couldn't even properly see till a few months ago themselves? Like helping someone find a lost puppy, but nobody else can see the puppy or hear it, and it won't die if you forget to feed it so you can't even hope to find a body for a resolution.

TT: I suppose a body could be found easily enough if they looked through enough records, if he wasn't cremated and scattered, but it's not a body they're wanting to find. It's a big mess all around.

    You frowned a bit and re-read what had been typed as recently as an hour ago according ton the time stamp. That was definitely a weird thing to say. Maybe this person was a detective who didn't deal with face to face things? Maybe it was online hunting and tracking. No bodies there, just data and energy, the only pulse an electrical hum and the steady beep of a wireless connection.

    A second message window was open behind the one with purple text, bright cyan letters and a cheerful way of speaking from the bit you could make out of the conversation. Bits and pieces, didn't really make sense. Behind that was the internet, open to a step-by-step site you had seen John pull open and try to use when he'd first become aware you were co-habitating with him.

    So she realized there was some kind of a haunting happening at least for sure, and just wasn't going out of her way to hunt you down..? It was strange to realize. John was so focused on getting proof of you, to communicate with you, give you attention, that being acknowledged in passing and otherwise left along felt strange. Lacking. Akin to being completely ignored, especially since she wasn't bothering to find your fucking name.

    Casper. Bah.

    Fuck Casper, you weren't a friendly fucking ghost, you were a grown ass adult who-. ...Right? Grown adult. Or nearly? Fuck, not this again, stop thinking, stop thinking. You didn't want to risk losing time again in confusion or your own thoughts, not sure what was happening with that, not liking it. What if it became more permanent? How would you ever get home then? ..Was it because you were away from home so long now? From where you'd lived..?

    Panic seized you, and you stared at the screen once more with purpose, to the open messenger. The keys made the letters when they were pressed with enough force, and if there was someone ready and waiting on the other end who was good at finding people, maybe they could help. You'd never tried to hunt someone down yourself before, let alone with these limitations in place, and definitely not in this year. This person sounded like it was their business to find people online, maybe they could find John online for you.

    ..COULD you type?

    Pressing the tiny individual keys would be tiring, as would the attempts at not shorting the device out just by touching it.. Sucking batteries dry and overloading other things, what a fucking life. This computer looked much newer than John's though, shiny and fairly thin save for what looked like some manually added hardware attached to the outside and secured in place. Maybe because this was newer, stronger, and you were very determined it would be possible?

    If so, you'd have to talk to John about that messaging idea he'd brought up before when you got home successfully, to open another venue for talking to him and others. John could hear you now, could feel you when you were together, but Jade was still harder to reach now and then. Clearly speaking would be amazing and worth the fatigue afterward if you could rest. Maybe you'd even get to type in your own color, be different from everything else. Perhaps even keep a messenger open so you could talk to John on the go, like he said before..!

    No more guessing and wondering, then, it was now or fucking never and forever being apart from the person you loved. Risks had to be taken, what the fuck was there left to lose!

    Psyching yourself up, you finally reached a hand out over the keys and focused on the letters you wanted, trying to will them down with the same force you used to knock over books and papers or fling socks with without potentially wrecking the thing. A sense of panic rose up in your chest as the climbing percentage bar slowed to a halt along with the rest of the words flying by underneath.

TG: h

    Okay. You got a letter. It was tiring in another new way, a deep pull of giving up energy to this machine while hoping to not take too much from it in turn by mistake, but you had gotten a letter without too much issue. Now for the rest.

TG: help me

    There. That was clear enough, right? You needed help, so you were asking for it, what else were you supposed to say? Oh, shit, right. People liked manners when you were asking favors, right? Wouldn't want to be rude. Floating and scaring people was one thing, but speaking in text somehow brought out memories of at least attempting to kiss up to people in the past, remembering manners he had no need for anymore while incorporeal.

TG: help me please

    Enter was how these were sent, right? There was a little button beside the text that said send, but you didn't want to try fucking with the mouse at all to touch it. Instead, you went for Enter and hoped it worked. The message blinked away, and reappeared up underneath the purple text in bright pink. Satisfaction filled you, but was quickly replaced by dread as the loading bar flickered to life and then stalled once more. ..Was that your fault?

    Quick as a flash, the messenger dinged softly and purple text flared to life anew.

TT: What's wrong? Are you alright? What do you need help with?

    Fuck! Someone was really live over there! That was a quick response, you were communicating live! Don't panic, don't panic, just. Move the keys again.

TG: lost

    The fan suddenly started up inside the laptop, cooling it down as it began to pump out more and more heat. That had to be your fault. You were tiring yourself out just with this much, restraining as much of the potential damage as you could but still trying to force the buttons to move on your unseen command, and you could imagine the strain being put on this machine from the parts you weren't able to control. Shit, had to get it across at least!

TT: What did you lose? Oh, no, did you misplace something again. What is it this time.

TG: john

TT: What?

    ..John. John what. You were having trouble remembering his last name. You knew it well as you knew his face, what the fuck was the problem, what was happening, why couldn't you remember his last name? The fan wavered as if it were going to turn off, and the screen flickered for a moment, neither of which you could care about.

    You couldn't remember John's last name anymore.

    Panic turning to rage and sorrow, you stopped trying to block yourself from the keys, stopped caring about damaging them, and unleashed yourself as hurriedly as you could

TG: john john john john john jo

TG: hn john help me help john helpmeh

TG: elpjohnhelphelp helphelphelphomejohn

TG: homehelphome hel

    The last string was sent in a frenzy, hammering the Enter button and seeing the pink fill the screen before it all went black. The fan had turned off, as had the computer itself, and you couldn't stop shaking. Fatigue was trying to drag you under even in your misery, and you wanted to do anything but sleep now. You wanted to be home, you wanted to stop forgetting things, you wanted everything to stop hurting.

    You wanted John.

    Things went dark again, and you felt the pull of the pendant willing you to return to rest, a slowly pulsing red heartbeat that nobody in this building could properly see.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

    “Thank you for meeting with us, Mr. Strider,” you said, adjusting your crutches off to the side. It had gotten a lot easier to wander around with them, even if they did leave your palms feeling abused and your armpits sore, the mobility was worth it. Jade had convinced you to stay at home long enough to heal up and rest after a few shifts at work, and all of it was worth it just to make it to this meeting a few cities away. You and Jade had woken early, taken off after dawn, and driven till you arrived at an older theme restaurant. Odd place for a meeting but beggars couldn't be choosers, and with how heartsick and stressed you were with Dave missing, any strings of information held the promise of making you feel less separated from him.

    It had been instantly obvious which table held the man you were to meet with.

    From looking at Dave's picture and trying to guess numbers and ages, you couldn't tell for sure if this guy was his brother or his dad. Then again, with how much time had passed since Dave's death, it was no surprise the man looked fairly old either way. Pale blonde hair that poked out from underneath a gray baseball cap was streaked here and there with sprinkles of salt and pepper, more noticeable when he peeled the hat off to rough up the strands with calloused looking fingers. The sunglasses were a gag you were sure, some leftover tidbit from an anime convention or abandoned stock in a store. His eyes when he removed the sharp points of plastic were a shade John had never seen before, nearly orange gold in the light, and permanently exhausted looking from the bags beneath them. Dark, well worn in circles beneath each.

    “Sorry it wasn't sooner, I run my own business and it's hard to find any down time, but you already know that considerin' how you found me,” he said. You focused in on the tone, caught similar sounds of Dave's whispery voice, and shivered. Not bad, just. ..Strange. So similar but just different enough, and of all things: alive. “Go ahead and order whatever you want, tab'll be on me for makin' you two schlep all the way up here. I'd recommend the burgers personally, the pizza's more like a greasy napkin with tasty toppings on top.”

    “I think I'll take that into consideration,” Jade said, reaching for a menu and peering over it. “..What a weird place though. It's like a knockoff Chuck E. Cheese. Creepy looking puppet theme all over the place.”

    “Think some pictures and décor is wild, you should check out the animatronics themselves,” the man said. “They're like a huge music box working four separate bodies on one central hub, but when they move the music is some regurgitated blend of rock, pop, and attempts at rap if the audio doesn't fizzle out on the main bot's speakers.”

    “You must come here a lot then,” you guessed, peering down at the food. Aside from pizza and burgers, there was standard restaurant fare and what looked like a pretty good ice cream sundae you'd need to investigate for dessert. “Can I ask what to call you, actually? I can't just keep calling you Mr. Strider.”

    “Depends which one you want. Real one, one I work under for the company, or what friends call me?” he asked, leading Jade to lift a brow at him.

    “...That's a bit weird, just saying. Let's go with what you'd rather we call you, then. Real name would be a good backup, if you respond to it at all. Your website was pretty sparse on much else than what you were marketing.”

    “Hah, still surprised you spent so much time on there tryin' to track me down, if I'd known what this was about I'd have checked my spam folder sooner. Just call me Bro, then. Everyone falls back on that. Apparently I don't look like a Broderick kind of guy since I'm not headlining on a soap opera,” he said, giving an idle looking through the menu even if he knew everything on it by heart by now. When a waitress appeared a moment later, he added his soda order along with your drinks, with a request to hold the ice on his. He also asked for the pizza, with a mention he'd think about dessert later and might add more to his order.

    “I thought you said the pizza was garbage?” you asked, wondering if it had been a joke and if you'd regret your burger later when it arrived.

    “Oh, it is. It's absolute garbage. But it's pretty tasty garbage, if you're used to it.”

    “...Can I ask why you wanted to meet here of all places?” you asked finally. “I mean. I know it was because you were busy and we needed to come this way, but there's all kinds of places around. Why this spot?”

    “Because when it was brand new, Dave used to like it. He was really little at the time. Same garbage pizza, games in the back, lights, music, other kids running around. He wasn't big on the animatronics, that was more my thing, but long as we didn't go near the stage he liked it just fine. Had a few birthdays here, his request. I come back around once in a while. Usually in winter, though.”

    “Why winter?” Jade asked.

    “His birthday was in December, so I guess it's just habit. Still smells the same after all these years. Dunno if that's a good thing or something for a health inspector to worry about,” Bro said with an amused snort.

    Three tall glasses of soda arrived on a black plastic tray carried by the same waitress, and were divvied up between the three of you along with napkins, hot sauce, and a slick glass bottle of name brand ketchup. Bro asked if she had any honey mustard, or ranch, and was told that she'd look around for him just in case, but warned that they were probably out again.

    “Before we get into all these questions I know you've got, I gotta ask: why are you askin' questions in the first place? Who's Dave to you, you're pretty young to be askin' about him.” He paused, squinted a bit. “Or not. I can't tell that well from this angle, you've got baby faces. You kids of a classmate of his or..?”

    “I live where he used to. Or where you both used to?” you said hesitantly. “And. ...A lot of strange things have happened. Which led me to find his name, and to find you. I want to know about him, and I can't find anything about either of you, so I just. ..I just needed to find out what was happening.”

    “What kind of strange things,” Bro said, sounding hesitant for once. “..What, you gonna try feedin' me some line about ghosts or some shit? Kid, if there's an afterlife, I'm sure Dave's already up there sleeping till the afternoon and polishing his halo when he ain't doing aerial stunts.”

    “Like I said, some strange things! And. ..And what if I am,” you said, hoping you didn't just doom the conversation entirely. “What would you say if I said he'd been hanging around where I live still, and that the reason I wanted to ask about him was to understand why.”

    “Bullshit,” Bro said bluntly. “Kid would've moved on, there's nothing there for him. Not anymore.”

    “Okay, then he moved on and there's still something weird happening that's linked to him. Can I at least get to know about him? Or about who he was?” you ask again, trying to keep calm. You're almost glad that Dave wasn't with you right then, unsure of how he'd be reacting to his family, or if he was even ready for that. If he wouldn't just instantly disappear upon seeing him.

    Bro looked uncomfortable, cornered, and spent a good minute and a half fucking around with his soda and straw, chasing bubbles and avoiding talking. It had been decades, and apparently the subject was still a store one. You were almost positive he'd call everything off and bolt.

    “...You would've liked him,” he finally said in a quiet tone. “Everyone liked him that I could see. Real charmer, even if he had a mouth on him. Got in and out of trouble faster than anyone has a right to, but none of it ever stuck. Nothing serious ever, he was a good kid, just.. Y'know. Stupid kid shit brand trouble.”

    You nodded and held your glass close to sip from the straw slowly, and glanced to your side to catch Jade's face in your sight. She had taken out a notebook and was jotting down a few memos on it as a precaution. Any slip of information she could catch, she'd make a note on for later, just in case he suddenly balked and left.

    “How old was he when he died?” you asked, trying to go with as tame a question as you could manage. “Youngish?”

    “Not quite twenty. Day after he turned eighteen, he started talkin' about wanting to live on his own, go to school, get a job. We argued about it. I didn't have the company back then, funds were tight and I wouldn't be able to help him with paying rent very much or bailing his ass out if he landed in hot water. Didn't feel right, felt like a huge waste of money. It would've been easier if he just stayed home and commuted places.” Bro went quiet for a moment, then smiled a little. “So of course soon as I said 'No', he went and found a job and busted his ass savin' money. I signed the lease for him since the owner of the building was a hard ass about his age, and said I'd take responsibility for any property damage so he'd let a younger dude live there instead of an adult, yadda yadda. ..Things were a lot different back then.”

    Jade pursed her lips a bit as she wrote. ..Eighteen when he got the place, but that was different from what she'd found out over time and pieced together. The lease was for two years, and he'd gotten the place at eighteen, and died before he was twenty? Dave had said he WAS eighteen when questioned. Was he remembering wrong? Or just remembering how old he was when he first moved in to the apartment? Research had showed that sometimes spirits memories were locked in on one specific point or age, and if moving in to that apartment had meant so much to him, maybe that's why he was remembering it so specifically. He also didn't seem to either remember or WANT to remember how he'd died, so perhaps avoiding his real age for another reason..?

    “My Dad had to co-sign my lease when I got my place at first, but we transferred it soon as we could,” you said with a slight grin. “They were finnicky about me too, but trusted him. I keep expecting a knock at my door and a note being pinned there saying 'sorry, but we changed our minds'.”

    “No shit? Wonder if it's the same guy who owns it, or if he passed it on to a family member or somethin'. It was privately owned, not run by some corporation, or at least it was back then.”

    “Tubby bald guy with a mole on his neck?” you offered, and snickered when Bro nodded a few times.

    “Wasn't bald before, but that sounds familiar. Dave was there for over a year, and we just never bothered to swap the lease over to be in his name when the second year's lease started up. The setup was good and it kept that guy mostly off his ass, and I had it written in my own paperwork as Dave renting from me as a sub-letter. He'd have a squeaky clean rental history far as anyone was concerned whenever he decided to move somewhere else, never late with his payments or nothin'. After he passed, I kept making payments on the place because I couldn't bring myself to go clean it out, was worth bleedin' myself dry over to avoid. ..When I finally did, lease was up and I couldn't bullshit myself anymore, cleaned it up and moved everything out.”

    “Sounds like you helped him out a lot,” Jade said. “And it sounds like he enjoyed that apartment a lot, too.”

    “Oh yeah. His castle, basically, same as everyone else who gets their first place. Dave was proud as hell of that little slice of heaven, even though the AC hardly ever worked and the place needed some repairs even back then. When he wasn't inside, he was prowling every square inch of that building like he was memorizing it, doing projects out back or in the front if they weren't too big or messy. Turned a section of his place into a studio after figuring out where the best light was or how to block it in other spots.”

    “Studio?” she asked, making another note. “Was he an artist?”

    “...I guess you could say that, yeah. He had a really interesting style, kept pouring out work left and right, I was sure he was gonna go pro in one thing or another if only 'cause of how much he kept making. Ambidextrous too, his style'd change dependin' on the hand, and a lot of his jokes were mostly things only we'd be able to understand.. but they were really distinct to him. Did photography too, used to have pictures strung up all over the place after he'd developed them himself. That camera was like his baby, most expensive thing he owned for ages, kept it on the shelf with all the dead stuff.”

    “...Dead stuff?” you asked with a frown.

    “Yeah. Formaldehyde and skeletons and shit. He loved all that junk, kept really clean samples and displays. Never wanted to go in for taxidermy, seemed more interested in the animals whole or what was inside instead'a just looking at the outsides. Not sure if it was a carry over of him learning about paleontology and archaeology in school as a kiddo. Pretty sure it made a lasting impression on whoever saw'em, though,” Bro snorted, looking over when the waitress came back once more with a few trays in hand. Pizza for himself with a side of onion rings, and burgers for yourself and Jade, both with sides of crispy looking fries. No ranch, but the woman had secured some honey mustard and left it on the tabletop for Bro to open and dole out onto his plate.

    “Do you have any of his work left?” Jade asked. “I'd love to see some of it. Drawings? Photographs?” Maybe be taking a few snapshots of his work, she'd be able to jog some memories for Dave, communicate with him more. If he was into art, perhaps there were art supplies he'd be able to interact with and make things with, have a bit of fun once he got home if he didn't feel like moving on to the afterlife yet.

    “I kept some stuff in boxes over the years. Nowadays, I've only got one in storage. But I do have somethin' else,” he said, and leaned to the side to roll his sleeve up. The tattoo was simple, and it took a moment to understand that you were looking at a stylized face gone soft and slightly blue with passing time. “This guy was one of the characters he made up. After Dave died, went ahead and got it done. ..Seemed fitting.”

    You didn't feel hungry, but you played with your fries and got a few down anyway, wanting to keep the air casual and calm. Your new phone had a nice, clear storage section to keep the picture of the tattoo you snapped safe for later.

    “..So if he moved out when he was eighteen, died when he was nineteen.. I take it that it was really sudden?”

    Bro's hint of a smile faded away and he dropped his sleeve, smoothing the fabric down to hide the face again as if it were something precious to be protected and hidden from the outside world.

    “Yeah. Crazy sudden. It's not really anything you can plan for, y'know?” he said. “He never showed any kinda signs or anything, but apparently if he'd joined into sports it might've happened even sooner, or maybe might've gotten caught.”

    Jade leaned forward curiously, and made another quiet note.

    “Signs of what?” you asked, finally ready to learn what happened.

    “He.. He had somethin' with his heart near as anyone could guess afterward. Can catch it sometimes nowadays in some cases, but he didn't show anything wrong when he was little or anything like you'd think there'd prolly be. They said he went into an arrhythmia and that spun into a full on cardiac arrest. Ever seen that shit on the news, people in sports or teenagers suddenly going down without any warning? Same thing. Dunno if there was a defect somewhere in the heart for sure or not, medicine wasn't as advanced as it is now and they couldn't find anything specific back then. It was in the back yard of the building, in summer. One second he was up and we were sparrin', putting each other through some paces and working up a sweat. I was sure he was gonna beat my ass that time, kid got even faster than he used to be. Next thing I know he went down like a sack of bricks and stopped breathing, face went all blue.”

    “I've seen those reports, yeah. ..CPR didn't work?” Jade guessed, speaking up when you'd gone completely silent, stomach giving another nauseating twist. “I don't know about cardiac problems, would that have even helped?”

    He shook his head and stirred his drink, looking like he'd lost his appetite as well.

    “Nope. I tried, though. Who wouldn't try? Screamed my fuckin' head off for someone to call 911, didn't have cellphones back then, didn't wanna stop trying to get his heart going till someone got there to help. When help finally got there, they tried too. Couldn't manage it even with everything they brought in their kits, and it'd been too long by then too, so.. they called it. Took him away.” Bro's voice was quiet. “Still feels like my fault. Kept that shit out of the paper, wasn't their fuckin' business. Most there was would be a little blurb of an obituary a few lines long, and I know his friends did some kinda gathering or party to celebrate him on their own time. Basic ass funeral, couldn't afford much more.”

    “You said there was no way you could've known, though,” you pointed out. “He didn't have any sign something was wrong, right?”

    “He'd fainted once or twice over the months beforehand but we thought he was just dehydrated or somethin'. Kid drank more soda and juice than water, was always a struggle to make him drink much else. ..Still. I keep wondering how much longer he'd have lived with that tickin' time bomb if I'd never sparred with him that day. Or ever, even. I fucked up a lot, it might've made it worse every time without me knowing. Pushed him way too hard as a kid, I fought him like I'd fight with an adult, busted his ass more times than I wanna admit to while teaching him shit. I didn't.. I didn't know jack fuckin' shit about raising a kid or being around kids, but I can't undo any of that and it's stupid to sit and wonder what would've changed if I hadn't done any of it 'cause I can't undo it or take it back now. If he hadn't keeled over with me he'd probably have died on the job lifting something heavy too many times in a row, or in the middle of hookin' up with someone,” he mumbled, but he didn't seem to be convincing himself much with his words.

    “..I'm sorry to ask this, but I wasn't sure and now I definitely can't tell. Was Dave your brother? Or your son?”

    Bro's face twisted again.

    “Dave was a surprise I wasn't anticipatin' or ready for, if that answers your question. I'd prefer to leave it at that, thanks.”

    Jade nodded and scribbled a bit more in her notebook with a quiet sound. “Sorry, won't pry on that then, got it.”

    “S'fine, not like you'd have any way of knowing. I keep my shit pretty private for a reason, and everyone calls me Bro. He did too.”

    “Was Dave buried locally?” she asked, wanting to get a look at the stone.

    “Cremated, and there's a little stone with his info on it. Gonna go in the same plot when I go someday, already got everything worked out and set up ahead of time. Not much to see there though. Basic. Things were still tight. I keep it clean, put some flowers and things he liked on it once in a while, but I know he's not there. If he was, he'd be bitching at me for not bringing better music when I turn up probably.”

    “What was his favorite kind of music?” Jade pressed. Things Dave liked. Things that made him happy. Any of this information was just as useful, if not more, than learning how he had died. You weren't sure what you'd do without Jade there right then, keeping clear enough to keep moving forward instead of free floating like you were right then.

    You wanted to cry. You wanted to find Dave even more now, talk to him about this, make him feel welcome, never leave him behind again so long as he wanted to stay. No wonder he hadn't talked about it. If he did remember, it was traumatic, too sudden to even think about. Unfair. Entirely unfair. Maybe even painful. If he didn't remember.. that made sense too. You reasoned that you'd be upset not being able to remember how you died as well.

    The pendant hadn't been in your car, hadn't been at the hospital, and you had no leads on where the fuck to even start looking for him now. The most you had of Dave aside from an empty apartment, the data you'd gathered in the past, and the new picture was the jellyfish plush he'd picked out at the aquarium that now rested on your bedspread awaiting his return.

    Everything felt bleakly empty all at once, rushing up like a slap to the face, and you stopped being able to listen to the conversation clearly.

    “..You said weird shit was goin' on though, linked to Dave, and that's why you were asking all these things. What kind of weird shit,” Bro asked again suddenly, apparently a bit more willing to speak and listen now that the scab had been peeled back and the raw wound beneath thoroughly gouged till it went numb again.

    “...Please, don't be upset. But we think.. potentially, maybe, he might still be around,” Jade finally said in a rush. “Or at least some part of him might be. We wanted to learn about him, see if it really was him, see why he was still there.”

    Bro stared, and looked like he might leave at the very notion. His hand reached for his shades and he pulled them on, sharp and dark, making him look much more severe despite the comical appearance they lent at first glance.

    He didn't get up, though.

    Instead, he stared hard at Jade, then towards you and your miserable expression, waiting in silence on his side of the tabletop as if awaiting some sign.

    “..If it's him, tell him to find the light however he can, so he can stop hangin' around. If he's hanging around because of me, tell him I said the same. He deserves better. If he's hanging around for some other reason.. I guess try and find why so he can go.”

    “And if he wanted to stay?” Jade asked. “..If he wanted to stay, would you want to say something else to him?”

    “No,” Bro said. “Because he'd have to be out of his damned mind to want to stay down here when he could be moving on to somewhere better. It'd suck to be all excited to see him again someday only to find he missed the fuckin' bus to hang around on Earth alone.”

    “Right,” you said. “I get it. Got it. Is there any way we can see the box you have in storage?” you asked. “I'll leave you alone after this if you'd prefer. Drop contact, won't bring it up anymore. Won't bring him up anymore. You've answered all our questions so far, you've been a huge help.”

    “..Yeah. Yeah, I could let you paw through that box. You'd need to come by where it's stored though,” he said. “It ain't too far, if you don't mind following me to it. I'd offer to just drive you but with how shit is these days, I know that would go over like a lead balloon.”

    “We'll go,” you said automatically, and Jade nudged you. You nudged her back with your foot. You were sure you could both trust this guy. It was Dave's family after all, and that little bond was still stringing you along like a security blanket while he was gone. The chance to see more things that Dave had seen, maybe touch things he'd touched, was appealing in his absence. “Let's eat or grab some boxes and go.”

    A bit surprised by the sudden agreement, Bro blinked and nodded. Right. Food was there. That was a good idea.

    “Sure thing.”

[somedaypast-thesunset]

so i really think i am done now. 

like im weirdly overwhelmingly speechless but yet have so many thoughts and feelings but none of them of extreme anxiety.

he tells me he went to drop in group therapy today and that hes going to go to rehab after he takes care of me for a month and maybe he’ll be better for spring.

i’m like .........................................

oh. o.ka..y. i just spent weeks - literally weeks - being dragged along by him with phone calls and questions and requests and he saw me invest my energy and time and that i was becoming like excited for this prospect. yesterday i was being told i would make him homecooked meals and take care of his dog. like i was fed everything and boom “maybe, i don’t know, we’ll see”.

and i didnt know how to react because on one hand im like okay cool good job trying something new i hope this gives u something ur looking for and helps the situation. on the other im like wow you literally have zero care about me and even if youre sick and thats the excuse behind this back and forth - you dont care about me. is it the sickness that makes you not care or you yourself? and am i sticking around to find out on the hopes that rehab makes this better? like your complete constant inability to give any respect to another person. its not like im thinking he has to go through with the original plans or else but its like not one time did he mention hey thanks for working on this i appreciate that youre doing this with me and you put time into it and i really want to be on my top game and i know this kind of puts a bump in the road but im hoping that itll be worthwhile at the end of it because we’re on the right track but i am not.

it was just im doing this and this. cool. 

u know he cant consider other ppl right he has to only consider himself and how to make himself better while completely neglecting the massive damage he is currently doing around him but its okay because hes going to rehab and if i believe in this opportunity i wont be bothered by a bump in the road. 

yes i absolutely think my life story should be tramping across canada i guess by myself now to be with a guy fresh out of rehab. so fuck me right. and im just like.. sooooooooooo.... many emotions. im angry and bitter and sad and heartbroken and i dont know what to be. i dont know whats the “right” path for ME to take. because fuck anyone else fuck it all - whats the right path for me. do i want to be angry? do i want to cry? 

except i already knew how this went because i did it before the summer about this fucking trip so its like u must think im literally retarded. if i complained at all in anyway i was an asshole for not supporting his want to go to rehab. i didnt want him to get better. and there was no way to explain that he was just completely neglecting the damage he caused and was causing at this very moment regardless of his positive decision because nothing about making the ecision to go to rehab is that positive. its only positive because youre “getting better” otherwise youre going because you suck right now. thats not a positive decision. it is AFTER fucking rehab. but im not even on this level with him you know. im not saying any of this. i just know that if i say even one single thing about it, im an asshole even though its presented to me by an asshole. 

so i told him that i wanted to go and be sad and i talked to him later. he asked me why i was sad and really pressed on the issue and i told him it dint matter and i would prefer to just go but again he pressed and i felt anxious like either i flat out accepted what happened right now and just live my life in whatever new way i was required to in his shadow or tell him that i felt uncomfortable and sad and that he was just going to come for a month and go away again and that didnt make me feel good. 

and thus - well he was doing this positive thing and he wanted to feel better and not feel like he wanted to die everyday and you know i had this opportunity where i was too and i had problems i wasnt working on and it doesnt make him feel goo to have to deal with the stress of me being upset about his decision. 

and i was just so frustrated. like after two fucking years you still do not get it at all. like omg i could quit smoking everything tomorrow and still feel like absolute garbage and want to di ei could have a great job an still feel like garbage and want to ie because my BIGGEST MOST OVERWHELMING FEELING I HAVE NEVER NOT SHAKEN IN MY DAILY FUCKING BEING is loneliness. and its not like im forcing him to mae me not lonely. but when you offer this stupid dream world where im not going to be lonely, when you put on a mask to parade around and “care for me” after surgery but disappear promptly after its like do you not understand its literally more painful for me in my life to live with loneliness than anything this cyst does to me. anything. i could live with it for a year and it would be less worse than the all consuming depression of loneliness. and by feeling so lonely ive struggled with finding a purpose. and like i have friend(s). i have one very good friend ive had for two years that i really really connect with and really really respect and weve fought but its totally okay and when i feel really alone i honestly think of her maybe first and foremost because i genuinely feel loved by this person. i really really think they would do the most for me and in return i try to do the very most for them. and weve supported major life crisis with each other. we’ve really emapthized and like wanted nothing but the best for each other and like cried with each other and this person is truly an example of why it might be worth giving people more chances.

but i experience such an isolating loneliness and my personal battle because life has decided i will and have experienced this  is that i need to embrace being alone because of all the people who have hurt me. i am not prepared in any form to vouch for someone being okay. ive made so many excuses for shitty people and shitty behavior that deeply reflects and scarred my soul so fucking bad. im soooo tired of making excuses for shitty people. im really tired. 

i try to bring up that he had fed me all this crap and he bounced between saying “i knew it wasnt true” that he was “pretending to be normal” and that he was still buying the land and he didnt understand why this was such a problem for me because “nothing changed” and finally that he was “sorry” and kept asking me what i wanted or what i wanted him to say and its so disgusting to put the victim in a position where they have to teach you what it is you did wrong when its so fucking obvious that you lied.

and so i thought about it briefly after hanging up and once again - dont get surgery. i was so uncomfortable now. i was like downtrodden and disrespected and nothing of what he said gave me confidence in fucking anything so i had a choice of pretending like it was all totally okay and watching him leave at the end or being upset about it and getting the bare minimum care from someone who kept filling my head with ideas that were never going to actually happen. so now im like vulnerable and have to experience this person no matter what and like i dont even want to talk to him now. im so shocked. lke the full weight of what he just did has not even set in fully but i know that its so fucking heavy it just changed my soul and like the minions are working overtime to figure out how to put this shit back together because i cannot even believe the level of how he trie to sell me on this shit and have zero fucking compassion towards the idea that  he once again had to take a new path alone and “couldnt consider me anymore” but “nothing had changed”. dont be upset.

hes going to rehab. 

and like im sorry i dont really believe in the recovery of this person other than the symbolic “i went to rehab” because he smokes weed. he refuses - flat out fucking refuses to see what actual fucing hurt he caused people and hes the only person who can work on these things and in no fucking way what so ever do i believe weed has any part of what hes doing. i really dont. if i can be proven wrong in the end ill take it back in respect but fuck him anyways because if a heroin addict shot me in the leg he still shot me in the fucking leg. forgive but im not forgetting. 

like the shit he has made me do and go through is abysmal and hes never ever going to admit to anyone that he did these things to me so at no point is anyone going to turn to him and say uhm u did fucking what. so wheres my bonus in all of this when / if it all comes back in the spring and hes ready to go because omg guys he went to rehab and now hes enlightened and sober and better than all of us and still the giant piece of shit to me hes always been. and now more so because i still smoke weed and god u know im a real drug addict. 

i told him i was uncomfortable with getting surgery knowing i would essentially be stuck with him for this time and right now i was just really uncomfortable and upset. he said that was fine but he was offering to “fulfill his obligation” of caring for me and he still loved me and if i only wanted him to come make meals and change my banages an leave then he would.

and its like man no. at this moment right now. right fucking now i am full realization that this is super abusive even if youre sick. even if youre sick. because i know this. i did this. and i did this very similarly u know like this woman loved me. she loved me and she cared for me but lke there was alot of things i id wrong like i was lazy and ungrateful and spoiled and a bitch but she cared for me and especially - ESPECIALLY if i was “sick” she really “cared for me” and that cleared her record. everytime i was sick - well u know she did this and this for u. but like she was killing me EVERY OTHER FUCKING DAY and all of this - al of this my whole life with this crazy woman was because she was sick. she was sick and this happened. and he was sick and this happened but like no matter the sickness this fucing HAPPENED. you damaged another persons soul like omg do u think u can get away with punching one of ur kids and going to mental ward one time and never ever have it brought up again no u damaged that kid and ur whole fucking family forever cuz ur sick. 

so ur saying before you go to rehab you will come back and care for the person that you have to “have no concern over” thereafter and that person can have literally no fucking emotion like youre a fucking home care nurse they never met before. like omg. are you for real. am i dead? why am i crazy because i think this is uncomfortable, stressful and awkward for the legitimately physically ill person. 

he says i can decide what i want, its my body but hes still offering to care for me and he doesnt want to play games because he was fine to take care of me and get surgery before he brought this up and i had already done this before and its like man why are you gaslighting me making me thinking my feelings about this are a manipulation tactic against you when its a legitimate fucking concern for my own well being and why is it insinuatingly so offensive that i switch to concern primarily for myelf when someone says theyre also doing the same thing. thats what makes you the most sick. and no one will ever reall see this. and its like when i realized i would never get anything back from my sick father and 10 years of caring for him and its just like damn. no one - no one will ever fully know what you did and thats how you actually won in all of this. even if i go out there and i say well he did this and this you already diminished my reputation of being like a logical level headed person in relationships and now i look fucing insane especially the embarassment of sticking around. 

like i cant even explain all the ways it oesnt feel right to get this surgery. ive had nightmares of dieing and its a nothing surgery. like maybe the anasthetics kill me or something. i have a surprise heart attack from my years of smoking. and if that doesnt happen then im here with him and like i dont even want ot look up what the surgery is because im 50% still in hope that like ill jump right up and be cool and like have no problem taking care of myself and i overestimated how much care iw ould need and its all good. best case scenario. then 50% im like okay if the cyst is as bad as it was and theyre cutting out a whole chunk of flesh and stitching it my likely best case scenario is moderate swelling and pain, moderate body movement and anxiety over a fucking wound thats so deep and like ive never had such a deep wound before and in this area i cant even bend with a cyst and its stitched what if i bent and it ripped like fair enough i could ask many of these questions of my personal anxieties with a doctor. and maybe what really happens is a bit of both and i struggle with feeding and bathing myself and my biggest concern is the set of stairs to the apartment and living in disgusting filthy room. 

so now im dealing with maybe a home care nurse level of care. im made some food. my bandage is changed and im left to fend for everything else even though there could be some limited mobility and stairs and just like.. not really being able to do anything strenuous and i imagine not alot of sitting and like this all sucks and now im watching the person i looked forward to the most feed me the bare minmum and leave. or he stays and is of more help and i fall into the same bullshit again. maybe he feeds me over and over these romantic bullshit lines like once i get out of rehab wel do this and this and blah blah blah because hes still fucking sick and theres no controlling what he will actually do so what he demonstrated is that hes unstable an i have no been freshly duped by him and i dont feel mentally strong enough to take the rollercoaster with him in any way shape or form. 

as he was repeating some shit about needing to respect him getting care for himself, my phone died and i took a deep breath and put it dow and was kind of thankful that the fates of technology decided this for me because i was really really super done. i know hes serious about going and i know hes serious about having no concern for me because hes already done all of these things so everythhing that happens is tainted to yeah hes right - “i knew all along” that he was a lieing piece of shit and i was wasting my time. 

and it bothers me that like on paper im like real shit luck in life, been through so much, have very little in posessions, no family and this person was like oh hey we’ll go do this and this and frolic through the land and its like do you even comprehend the weight of what you just did to this person. and to turn around and say make a way for yourself like im piggybacking off of you? omg. 

theres like a top 5 worst people ive ever personally known. my mother almost always tops the list for pure longevity. i have an ex friend who turned so vicious it like fucked us both up in the long run and im bitter about it. my most recent friend would maybe me number 5, maybe in running with my alcoholic friend because besides being nice theyre terrible people. but in this list, possibly #2 has to be him. he is worse than my ex because my ex’s “sickness” was being dumb as fuck and hes like.. hes just dumb. hes not terrible hes just really dumb and like not a good person to be around and even though i got him arrested im not ure he would be top 5. he was just so dumb that im not like traumatize by him im just like man thats on me. thats rly rly on me. but this guy --- im not so fucking retared im just running back to a piece of shit to be shit on with zero fucking bonus to my life. this person has to actively participate in making me want to come back by actions and words. im not stuck with him at all. no money ties. i dont live with him. why woud i go back unless he was gving me something i wanted? 

but he was never going to give me anything i truly wanted. and its my fault for sticking around. he told me all of this so i shouldve known even though “we’re going to have a sugar shack, we’re going to have a dog” - and just this mention of the word “we” was soooooooooooo fucking nice to me you have no idea. this really like.. stuck in my head and made me feel a tiny comfort like wow theres a we. i’m not just an i. i’m finally a we.

does he care? no he doesnt fucking care. hes sick. hes going to rehab. 

the bestthing he could do is leave me alone. thats truly the very best option. my trust is broken. like nothing he says to me from this point on is believable or true or leads to anything substantial. i should put no weight at all on anything he says which makes any conversation with him totally useless. because even if our convo is political i dont believe thats what he believes anymore. maybe tomorrow he believes something else. 

and if you love me. if you actually fucking love me you dont “love me to death”. thats not it. true love of me is an actual understanding of who i am and what ive been through, to really deeply respect where ive come from just lke i have to respect everyones living family my story should be equally respected and taken seriously and not toyed with. thats showing me a true love and if you cannot do this you need to step away and honestly man. its not like a step away for awhile and we’ll see like people are like wow ur so black and white but why am i fucking with a future you when both present and past blew it? there is no evidence to even back up future you and by the time future you outweighs all of this karmically, who the fuck cares that we ever knew each other its like some kid i sat beside in a classroom. like cool bro ur still alive wow nice. i never want to deal with him or anyting about him again. he made me carry so much of his weight he refuses to see it and i didnt need any of this in my life and i didnt ask for him to do any of this in my life. but i shouldve walked away sooooo long ago. i can reprimand myself fo this. but i also know im on my process and this is part of it. this is three years out. im not even homeless or fucked up im just like super sad about all of it. 

he had this speech about how i had to get the surgery before because we had to be ready for spring. so he had intertwined this surgery with this proposed future and i had to do it to be prepared and show him im serious and now im like bro if i get one in 3 months who cares ill just go to the hospital again. this is an option. they never said i would die if i idnt get it. its just a like.. quality of life surgery. and my quality of life is shit anyways this surgery and these cysts mean nothing to me and having to go through all of this man.. at one point he had literally said “if you dont get surgery because of me then thats how itll have to be” 

so you stepped on other people, you hurt other people and if they dont do a thing to better themselves because they have to deal with you “then so be it”? im going to ~rehab~.

i havent turned my phone back on for a few hours i guess and i really dont want to. he wont have done anything differnt, ill have gotten no messages but i dont know. i just.. i want to forget all of this. him, the surgery. just continue to hobbit for the month or something and “figure something out”.