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onecanonlife · 4 years

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careful son (you got dreamer's plans)

Wilbur gasps back to life with mud between his fingers and rain in his eyes.

Wilbur was dead. Now, he is not. He can't say that he's particularly happy about it.

Unfortunately, the server is still as tumultuous as ever, even with Dream locked away, so it seems that his involvement in things isn't a matter of if, but when.

(Alternatively: the prodigal son returns, and a broken family finally begins to heal. If, that is, the egg doesn't get them all killed first.)

Chapter Word Count: 6,284

Chapter Warnings: swearing, panic attack, vomiting, past mind manipulation, discussion of s.uicidal thoughts/behaviors

Chapter Summary: Wilbur has a couple of tough conversations, and he and Schlatt discover something interesting.

(masterlist w/ ao3 links)

(first chapter) (previous chapter) (next chapter)

Chapter Eight: but it gets hard to stand (i)

He is floating at the bottom of the ocean. It is dim and peaceful, and there is dappled light all around, shifting with the waters. He breathes, and fluid fills his lungs, but it moves as easily as if he were inhaling air. His hair floats in front of his face, gleaming white in the glints of sunlight. That should be strange, perhaps, but he feels so very calm. Nothing can reach him here. No care, no hurts. The water is holding him, and he is at rest.

But he is drifting upward.

The surface is approaching. The dimness recedes. There is light overhead, bright and warm, and he is moving toward it swiftly. Still, there is no cause for concern. He watches languidly, content to let it happen.

Is there a reason to fight it?

Surely not.

The waves break around him. He breathes in air. The sun is on his face.

He wakes up.

He lays there, still and quiet for a few moments before he musters the will to move. His breathing seems loud to his own ears, the only sound that he can make out. The roof above him is not one that is familiar—so, not Tommy’s house, then, and he wonders why that is. His mind is blank, and he’s sure there’s something he’s forgetting.

He rolls over and props himself up on his elbow. The lighting is dim, the torches flickering, the bare minimum placed to avoid mobs spawning inside. He’s lying on a cot near the wall, and from his vantage, he can see an area with pews and a dull golden bell, and a towering pillar of water in the center of the space he’s in. Recognition sparks after a few seconds; he’s only been inside a few times, but he knows Church Prime when he sees it.

There is no one else here. He is alone. Is there a reason for that?

He stands on shaky legs and immediately regrets it as his head spins and pounds, like the worst hangover of his life. Drinking would explain the memory issue, but he’s staying with Tommy, so that doesn’t sound like something he would do. Even when he does indulge, he almost never drinks to the point of blacking out. So that doesn’t make sense, but he’s at a loss otherwise. He breathes in through his nose and out through his mouth, and as soon as he thinks he can move without toppling over, he makes his way over to the center of the room, tottering unsteadily.

From here, he can see the front door. Outside, it is night, the Prime Path illuminated in the darkness. Something about that is off, he thinks—wasn’t it morning, the last thing he remembers?

The last thing he remembers—

He frowns, turning to the water, and absently, he runs his fingers through it. Cool and wet and gentle to the touch, and he remembers

(people around him people shouting and he can barely breathe and nausea rolls over him and his head is killing him and his mind is full of a red haze and he wants to go he wants to go but they’re not letting him and there’s water poured on him and forced down his throat and he nearly chokes but finally there is some kind of relief and it all falls away)

He freezes. Withdraws his hand from the water slowly, as if he’s stuck his hand into a mass of thorns and has to pull back out without being pricked.

The Egg. They went to see the Egg.

And the Egg

(oh Prime what did you do)

reached inside of him and picked through his mind and his memories, offering him what he thought he wanted most

(took you and hollowed you out and tried to take the parts that might be redeemable and replace them with itself and make you its creature completely and utterly)

and he let it, let it inside with barely a fight, and he almost hurt Tommy. He almost killed Tommy.

He almost killed Tommy.

A breathy whine escapes him, and he slaps his hand over his mouth as he doubles over, resisting the urge to dry heave. He almost hurt Tommy, almost killed Tommy, and all because he allowed a fucking Egg to whisper to him, because he allowed himself to be taken in and taken over, and he’s lucky, really, that he was able to snap out of it. It’s horrifying to think about, that he might have killed Tommy at the Egg’s direction, killed Tommy and felt triumph over it.

It was in his head.

He loses the battle against his nausea. His knees hit the floor, and he is wracked with dry heaving. There’s nothing in his stomach to come up. It just hurts. His breath hitches, air coming in fits and bursts, and whimpers and moans escape his throat at quick intervals, noises that are wounded and animalistic, but he doesn’t think he could hold them back if he tried. He’s crying, too, but that’s a given. There’s no one here to see, at least. No one here to see his shame, his weakness.

The Egg whispered to him of fire, and he wanted it. The Egg whispered to him of fire, and that’s all it needed to do before he embraced it with open arms.

The Egg whispered to him of rest, and he did it again. And Tommy was there. Tommy was there for all of it, and now Tommy knows that it’s all a front, a lie, a sham, and the miserable creature that got shoved back into this body is nothing like the older brother he wanted, nothing like the older brother he deserves. Scratch the paint off, and what is there but wreckage?

He hunches over, wraps his arms around himself. Tries to breathe. It’s difficult. He wonders if he should bother.

“God, there you are,” someone says, and—not someone. Schlatt. It’s impossible to mistake that voice for anyone else. Which is good, because Wilbur is not currently about to look up. He can’t even manage to get his lungs to cooperate, much less the rest of him. “I’ve been looking all over for you. I never took you for a pious man, Wilbur. Wilbur?” The voice changes, becoming more cautious, and then: “Shit, Wilbur.”

There is no noise to warn him of his approach. Schlatt moves soundlessly, now. But there is a blur of motion just in front of him, and blue enters his field of vision. A wave of calm washes over him at the sight of the color, but not enough. Not nearly enough. He can’t breathe, and he’s not certain that he wants to try.

“Alright, come on,” Schlatt says. “You know the drill, follow my breathing.” And he breathes in and out, very loudly, very purposefully. Out of habit, Wilbur attempts to follow, but he can’t manage it, his chest collapsing in on itself, his breath stuttering and gasping. “Okay, that’s okay, let’s do it again. You know how to do this, Wilbur, you’ve done it before. God, you shouldn’t have to rely on a fucking ghost to tell you how to breathe. That’s just pathetic. You can do it, come on.”

He almost laughs at that. Would, if he had the breath for it. He doesn’t think he’s ever found Schlatt’s vitriol more comforting. And all the while, Schlatt keeps up the pattern, his chest rising and falling with air that he doesn’t need to take in, and slowly, Wilbur manages to fall in time with him.

(they’ve done this before, once upon a time, back before everything, before this server, back when they were young and stupid and the best of friends, and Schlatt always relied on him to get him home after having a few too many and he always relied on Schlatt to calm the hornet’s nest that his mind became, sometimes, when all the world seemed to shrink around him, boxing him in and silencing his voice. they knew each other so well, then, trusted each other despite the warning signs)

“You good?” Schlatt asks. He’s so far from good that the question is ridiculous, but he nods. “Great. You look like shit.”

He does manage a laugh, then, short and bitter. “I feel a bit shit,” he concedes. “Is it that obvious?”

“I mean, I didn’t want to say anything,” Schlatt says. “But I feel like it’s my solemn duty to inform you that you look fucked up. I can’t leave you alone for two minutes, can I?”

“Been a bit longer than that, I think,” he says. “Where did you go, after the prison?”

“Well, you remember how Dream was being a fucking creepy asshole, right?” Schlatt says dryly. “Yeah, that had me freaked. It felt like—I don’t know, he was looking right at me, and it felt like I’d been dunked in a fucking, a fucking oil slick or something, like I could literally feel his eyes on me and his fucking—his murder vibes or some shit, I don’t know.” His form flickers around the edges, his face pulling into a grimace. “So yeah, I dipped. Went to go get something to drink, except I remembered that I can’t fucking do that, so I fucked around for a little while. Saw the crater, did all the tourist shit. Saw Quackity, actually, did you know he’s got, like, fiances now or something? No clue how he managed that. But then I decided to come bug you some more, except you weren’t at Tommy’s or literally anywhere else, and everyone I ran into looked grim as hell. I half-expected to find out that you’d managed to die again or something, or that you’d blown up someone else’s city. But here you are.”

He raises an expectant eyebrow at the end of that speech, not out of breath at all, the bastard.

(he always did like the sound of his own voice. it must be difficult for him to be silenced, for him to be able to stand in the middle of a crowd and have no one know that he’s there at all)

(at the heart of him, there is a part of Schlatt that just wants to be noticed, just wants to be paid attention to. Wilbur knows because they are the same)

Wilbur mulls that over in his mind, and gets stuck on the last part.

He bursts into laughter. He can’t help it. And it’s not very nice laughter, either, probably lands somewhere on the wrong side of deranged, but he can’t stop.

“What’s so funny?” Schlatt demands. “God, you’re such an asshole, I’m trying to have a conversation and you’re—you’re crying again, could you cut that out?”

Schlatt is beginning to sound genuinely alarmed, so Wilbur supposes he should make an effort. He gets a handle on the laughter and reaches up to touch his face, giggles still escaping him every few seconds. His cheeks are wet again, his vision blurring.

“Do you know about the Egg?” he asks.

“The—is that a code for something? What fucking Egg?”

“There’s an Egg underneath BadBoyHalo’s house,” he says. “It’s what’s spreading those red vines across the server. And if you go down there and see it, it talks to you and offers you things and gets in your head to try to override your free will.” He smiles. “I don’t recommend it.”

Schlatt is silent for a long moment, just staring, eyebrows so high that they look like they’re trying to escape his forehead.

“You’re not high, are you?” he eventually asks.

“It offered me destruction, Schlatt,” he says. “Fire and blood. And then it tried to get me to kill Tommy, and I almost did, but I didn’t, and then we tried to leave, and it offered me rest.” He smiles wider. “Rest, Schlatt. I wanted it so bad. I don’t remember how we got out of there. I didn’t want to leave.” He smiles wider still, and then something breaks, and he buries his face in his hands. “I wanted it so fucking bad, I wanted to rest, I still want it, but it was in my fucking head and fucking with my brain and I can’t—” He makes a low noise, pressing his hands harder against his skin, as if that will do anything at all.

“Jesus,” Schlatt mutters. “That’s—that’s fucked up. I don’t know what else you want me to say.”

“I don’t want you to say anything,” he mutters. “I don’t want me to say anything. I don’t want to be here. I fucking—I hurt Tommy, after I said that I wouldn’t. I hurt him. I hurt him.” He lowers his hands a bit, peering up at Schlatt, who looks very discomfited.

“Don’t start crying again,” Schlatt says, “please, I’m not equipped for that. This is—” He cuts off, scrubbing a hand down his face. “Jesus, Wilbur. The kid’s still alive, right?”

“Of course he is,” he snaps.

“Then talk it out or some shit, I don’t know. That kid thinks the world of you, man. No idea why, but there’s no accounting for taste. Just talk about it.” He shudders. “I don’t know why you’re asking me. You think I know shit about healthy relationships?”

“I woke up alone,” he says. “There was nobody here. I don’t know where anybody is, or if anyone’s hurt, or—I don’t remember how we got out, so what if something happened? What if it got me to do something and I don’t remember it?”

Schlatt is looking more and more out of his depth. Under any other circumstances, it would be funny to see him squirm, but there is no enjoyment in this. Wilbur wants

(Phil)

someone, anyone to tell him what to do here, to tell him how to make this right, but there’s no one but Schlatt, and it wouldn’t be fair to expect something like this of him, even if he thought he could.

“I’m sure they’re all fine,” Schlatt says. “Probably stepped out to take a piss somewhere.”

He draws in a shuddering breath. Maybe. Maybe. That doesn’t feel right, but maybe. He’s still shaking, and though he wills himself to stop, it makes no difference. He feels weak, feels pathetic, feels like the worst kind of traitor, to himself and to everyone around him, and the worst part of all of this is that he doesn’t know how much was the Egg and how much was him. Because to be sure, he could feel it influencing him. It’s easy to pick out in retrospect, the way it wormed its way through his thoughts, twisting him all around, and thinking about it now makes him nauseous again.

But in the end, it only brought out what was already lurking under the surface. What he’d been well and determined to push down, to ignore.

(and in some cases, not even that. a mask only goes so far, only serves so many people, and it takes a long time before the wearer can forget what lies beneath)

It is instinct, really, that has him reaching out, seeking physical contact. He’s always liked using touch to ground himself, to reassure himself

(Phil’s wings wrap around him and they feel warm feel like safety feel like home feel like he is protected and he is not alone if only for a moment if only for a moment he wishes that it could have been different could have been not like this but his course is set his ending penned and all that’s left to do is sign)

that he is real, that he is alive. His hand goes straight through, of course, and electric frisson runs up his arm. Schlatt makes an irritated sound, but puts up with the attempt, and Wilbur blindly tries again, even though he knows it will be futile. He wants something to hold, and in the absence of anyone else, Schlatt will do, but Schlatt will not actually do because he is dead and a ghost and Wilbur is alive and not a ghost, so he is left clutching at what might as well be empty air and wishing desperately for a connection.

He just wants—

(they are the same, they two, linked in life and linked in death and now in)

Something shifts. Undefinable, but undeniable. There is a sudden stinging in his chest.

His fingers curl around Schlatt’s arm.

They both freeze.

“What the fuck,” Schlatt whispers.

Experimentally, he tightens his grip. The fabric under his fingertips is solid, a bit scratchy. There is a strange lack of body heat, but Schlatt is as tangible as he is.

What.

Schlatt’s hand shoots out suddenly, landing on his shoulder. The weight is present and real, and he meets Schlatt’s eyes.

“What the fuck?” Schlatt repeats, louder this time. “What the—how are you doing that?”

He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know, except that his chest hurts, right where his scar is, and if he focuses, he can sense what almost feels like—a tether, perhaps, though he’s not sure that’s the right word. Some kind of connection, some kind of tie between them, and it’s as if energy is flowing down it, from him to Schlatt, and actually, wow his chest hurts.

It’s not as if energy is flowing down it. Energy is flowing down it. He’s getting tired. Too quickly for it to be natural.

(he didn’t think to check, didn’t think to wonder, but if Schlatt was brought back by the same power that ripped him back to life, why is Schlatt still dead, dead and a ghost, when he is alive and not?)

“I don’t know,” he stutters, “I don’t know how I—”

It’s new, and a bit frightening, and somehow, the fear gets in the way. The tether snaps, vanishing just as soon as it was formed. He lurches forward, surprised by the sudden loss of contact, and Schlatt’s hand swipes through his chest. Schlatt curses, eyes wide and wild and—not quite scared. Not quite scared, but perhaps something approaching it.

“Do that again,” he demands. “Fuck, do that again, you—”

“I don’t know how I did it in the first place,” he protests. “I can’t just—”

And then stops. Outside, there are voices. Distant, but getting closer.

Schlatt takes a long look at him, and he doesn’t know what kind of expression he’s making, but Schlatt spits out a string of curses and stands, stomping off further into the church. It would have more of an impact, he thinks, if his feet actually made a noise when they hit the ground. He thinks that perhaps they would have, half a minute ago, and he thinks Schlatt thinks so, too, judging by the glare he shoots back at him.

He stands, feeling far more exhausted than he did only moments ago. And that is saying something.

“—not a choice, you get that, right?” Tommy is saying. He and Tubbo enter the church side by side. They both look—terrible is a word for it, certainly. The bags under their eyes are dark and thick, their hair sticking out every which way.

(this is your fault definitely your fault you failed them and you know it)

“We can’t just—” Tommy continues, and stops abruptly as he sees Wilbur standing there.

For a long moment, there is silence. No one speaks. No one moves. Wilbur traces over Tommy’s face, and he can’t even begin to interpret the emotions there, and that hurts, hurts worse than the fading ache in his chest, because he should be able to read his brother. Should be able to know him. Right now, he feels a bit like he’s looking into the face of a stranger, a stranger of his own making, and he doesn’t know how to fix this, doesn’t know if he can.

(the words still ring out in his head: I lied I lied I lied)

“You’re up,” Tubbo says, his voice carefully regulated. Tommy says nothing.

“Yeah,” he says. “I—you two, I am so—”

“Don’t apologize,” Tommy snaps. “Don’t—I’ve told you, I have had it up to here with you and your shitty apologies. Don’t do that. I don’t want to hear it.”

Wilbur opens his mouth, and then closes it again.

Because that is the thing: he has nothing else to offer. Apologies are all he can give, because at least he means them. Promises, he can make, but he breaks them just as easily. If there is some action he can perform, he doesn’t know it. And it’s too little, too late, too late to mend the damage he has caused, and it weighs so little against the side of the scale that holds all of his sins, but it is all he has. All he has, and if Tommy won’t accept it, he doesn’t know what else to do.

“Okay,” he whispers, and silence falls again. The water gurgles softly at his back.

“Okay then,” Tubbo finally says, “okay,” and it’s in a tone of voice that is tired and exasperated and worried all at once, a tone of voice that implies fine, I’ll do it myself if you two are going to be stupid, and it’s a tone that Wilbur has heard before but never like this, to this degree, and it sounds a bit like Phil, really, when he thinks about it. “Okay, so are we going to talk about what that was, then? I feel like we should. But I guess we don’t have to if you’re not up to it, Wilbur.”

“Fuck that,” Tommy says. “No, fuck that, he’s talking. You’re talking, you shit.” He stabs a finger toward Wilbur.

“Yeah,” he says quietly, “yeah, I owe it to you. I’ll—” And then he has to stop talking, because he suddenly gets very dizzy, the room tilting on its axis. He blinks, and then he is sitting on the floor, Tommy on one side of him and Tubbo on the other, Tommy all but yelling in his ear.

“—the fuck are you standing up for, you shithead? Prime, you’re so stupid, do you know that? Do you know that you’re stupid?”

He keeps going, and Wilbur opens his mouth to apologize, only to shut it again, because Tommy doesn’t want apologies, does he? So he says nothing at all, and Tommy falls quiet, and the damn silence is overwhelming, overpowering, an unbridgeable gap between them.

And then—

“Wilbur,” Tommy says. Just that. Just Wilbur. Somehow, it manages to carry a wealth of connotations, manages to say why did you do that and why have you been lying to me and a dozen other things all at once.

And Wilbur doesn’t have a good answer.

“What happened in there, Wilbur?” Tubbo asks, and he supposes he should be glad that they’re willing to sit by him, that they’re not flinching away despite everything, that they’re sticking close. He wouldn’t blame them if they wanted to run and never look back. Some of that wariness has returned to Tubbo’s eyes, and he thinks he can see some of it reflected in Tommy’s, but they’re both still here, so perhaps that counts for something.

Little though he deserves it.

“Tommy, you didn’t hear it, right?” he checks, voice almost a whisper, and Tommy mutely shakes his head. “But you did, Tubbo. What did it say to you?” The words come out slow, reluctant, clumsy.

“A lot of things,” Tubbo says. “Some stuff about power. Mostly the power to protect myself. But I’ve got that already, so I didn’t feel too keen on listening to a breakfast food. And then it started insulting me. It was really mean, actually. Didn’t make me feel great. I could feel it, kind of, in my head. I think that’s how it hurt my feelings so much.”

He closes his eyes. Nods.

“It was in my head, too,” he says. “It—I’m not any better than I was, really. I’ve been lying to you. I want to be. Prime knows I want to be. I’ve—I’ve been trying.” Embarrassingly, his voice cracks. “I swear, I have. I don’t want to be the person I turned into. But that person’s still there, is the thing. I could be him so easily, if I let myself. And even maybe if I don’t. Once I start sliding, I’m not sure I’ll be able to stop.” He passes one hand over his face, and then keeps it over his eyes, shielding himself from their judgment. He doesn’t want to see their reactions to this. “The Egg—it shoved its way in and brought all of that out. I couldn’t stop it. I didn’t want to stop it.”

(he was a child born of music and summer breezes, once, laughter and quicksilver charm. that went into the fire, burnt to ash, and the thing that came out was a child of the flames, flickering, dancing, and a bloodsoaked smile, and he got so tired of being that so very quickly and the sword was a relief in every sense of the word because finally the fire was put out, doused by cold, gleaming diamond, gentle blue, and his father’s tears landed on his face and he could feel them, finally, after so long burning)

(but he is born again and the fire leaps high and he can only keep it banked for so long)

“You did stop it, though,” Tubbo says. “You snapped out of it. It wanted you to hurt Tommy and you didn’t.”

“Barely,” he murmurs. “I—I swore to myself that I wouldn’t hurt you again. I swore, but I failed, and I—” No apologies. Tommy doesn’t want apologies. “Fuck.”

He keeps his hand pressed over his eyes. The darkness is calming, just a bit.

(it’s a place to hide, the coward that he is, and he is the pied piper leading the children and running away before he can face consequences because that’s all he knows how to do)

And then, Tommy yanks his arm down. He flinches at the sharp motion, at the sudden pressure on his skin, even as he leans in to the contact.

“Wilbur,” Tommy says, low and serious and more than a little angry. It’s not his usual fury, not his loud explosiveness. This is a simmering, slow, pointed anger, almost frightening in its intensity. “You listen to me, and you listen to me right now. You didn’t—you need to stop going on about failing, alright? Because you didn’t. The Egg wanted you to hurt me, and yeah it was terrifying and definitely not okay, but you didn’t. You did stop yourself. You gave the Egg what for. And I—” He breaks off, scowling. “I’m not gonna be able to say this right. But I know, okay? I’ve always known. I know that that you is there, I’m not stupid. I saw it in the prison. And sure, it’s actively scary, but I can see it, yeah? The way you’ve been trying? I know that you don’t want—and I don’t want—it’s not even that you, not really, because that you didn’t care, okay? I saw it, I lived it, I know what you’re like, and the you back then got too tired to try, not like you’re trying now. Do you—do you understand what I’m saying, Wilbur?”

(the you back then was exhausted and sick and spiraling and broken from the stress of presidency and then exile and all you ever really wanted was to make something good and to have it ripped from you was more than you could bear and you were just so tired by the end and you are tired, so very tired now)

He stares. “I—think? But—”

“No, no, no buts, I’m not fucking done. So maybe the Egg got in your head and fucked you up a bit. It sucked and it was scary, but you stopped yourself, and if it happens again, you’ve got us, okay? It’ll be fine as long as you let us help you.” Tommy sucks in a deep breath. “That’s not what I’m upset about. I mean, I am fucking upset about it, but that’s not what I’m most upset about.”

“Then what are you most upset about?” he asks, thoroughly bewildered by now. He understands what Tommy is trying to say, but not his logic, not his apparent willingness to continue to trust him. He should know better than that,

(because how many times did he hurt him in that dark ravine, how many times did he manipulate him, how many times did he snap)

should know better than to place faith in him now that he knows him for what he is, what he continues to be. And he doesn’t understand why this is, apparently, not the thing that he’s most worked up over.

Tommy doesn’t answer right away.

“The fact that you have to ask,” he says, “the fact that you have to ask, now that is fucking terrible.”

Wilbur glances at Tubbo, hoping for clarification. But Tubbo just stares back, the corners of his eyes pinched. He wishes he had an excuse to turn around; he wants to see if Schlatt is still here.

“Wilbur,” Tommy says, and Wilbur looks back at him, because it is Tommy’s voice that cracks now and Wilbur feels a thread of alarm run through him, “you said—you said it would give you rest.”

The words hang in the air, unchallenged, unanswered.

“You kept fighting us,” Tubbo says quietly. “All the way until we got you up here to the holy water. We were lucky that Puffy got there to help. I’m not sure we would’ve been able to do it without her. And you were—you got really sick, but you were still fighting us, and then you went to sleep for a day and a half.”

He jerks at that, and glances outside. “A day and a half?” he repeats, somewhat numbly.

“The whole thing happened yesterday,” Tubbo says. “You slept all the rest of that day, and all of today, too. We were scared you weren’t going to wake up.”

“Speak for yourself,” Tommy mutters. “But you would’ve liked that, wouldn’t you? If you hadn’t woken up.”

He meets Tommy’s glare. It’s an accusation, nothing more and nothing less. Tommy is angry. He deserves to be.

There is a lie on his tongue. But it would be fruitless now.

“Maybe,” he says, and feels both their gazes on his face, and amends that to, “Yes.”

He doesn’t know what else to say. There should be no more lies. But he doesn’t know how to explain himself, doesn’t know how to explain the weariness that weighs down his bones and the way he struggles to function and the way he can’t stop remembering what it was like in those final days, what it was like to know that his story was coming to a close and he was the villain and he was fine with it, because even if the ending would not be a good one, at least it would be an ending. He doesn’t know how to explain that he never intended to survive the rebellion, that one way or another, he sought his own destruction, and that death was rest and peace but no true healing. He doesn’t know how to explain that he’s regained perspective and the capacity to regret and the desire to never, ever hurt them like he once did, but not any will to live for himself. Not any desire to stay in this world that has taken and taken and taken and put his pieces back together all wrong.

He doesn’t know how to explain any of it. And even if he did, he wouldn’t. They don’t deserve to have to deal with that.

(they are children, still, despite your best efforts, too old for their age, but they should not have to carry the burdens of their elders on their backs any longer)

“Oh,” Tubbo says, small and quiet.

“Why,” Tommy says.

He closes his eyes.

“Do I really have to explain it?” he asks.

“No, that’s not what I meant,” Tommy says, “I want to know why you didn’t tell us.”

He opens his eyes. Tommy is glaring at him, but it’s not quite anger anymore; it’s desperation, and fear, and worst of all, a terrible, horrible understanding,

(there is a boy with blue eyes gone grey and the boy stares into lava and Ghostbur isn’t sure that any amount of blue will make this better but it’s all he has, is all he can offer, and he allows the worst implications to flutter out of his brain like butterflies in favor of good cheer because it’s the only thing he can do to help and no one wants him to be the way that he was, so this has to be better, better to be a fool than a monster so a fool is what he shall be)

and he wishes it weren’t there. Wishes he didn’t know exactly why it is.

(he should have killed the green bastard then and there and hang what Tommy wanted, they all would have slept the better for it)

“It’s not your cross to bear,” he says. “It’s mine. It’s my own fault, and you shouldn’t have to deal with it.”

“So you thought lying to our faces was better?” Tommy demands. “You thought you could slap a smile on and it’d all turn out okay? That’s not how it works, Wilbur. I know that.”

Tubbo makes a noise, wounded.

“But really, you didn’t think it was something we’d want to know? That you still have a fucking death wish? What were we supposed to do, play around at being a happy family until you just up and died again one day? Because the last time you didn’t tell us something like this went so very well?” There is a flush spreading across Tommy’s cheeks. “I’m sick of people lying to me, Wilbur. I’m sick of you lying to me. How the fuck are we supposed to help you if you don’t tell us that you need help?”

He finds himself at a loss for words.

(he hasn’t been thinking about it in those terms. hasn’t been thinking about himself as someone who needs help, someone who deserves help. he is fire and he is ash and he is a spectre given physical form and he still doesn’t know what his purpose is, doesn’t know who brought him here and for what, so he has set himself to righting the wrongs he committed against his brother, but he hardly needs to take care of himself to do that, does he?)

(does he need help?)

(you made an ending but the story went on and you are back in it now, and who is to say there is no different path, no good road to set your dust-weary foot upon, and the sun shines regardless of what you do and indeed who is to say there will not be such endings?)

“I don’t want you to die, Wilbur,” Tommy says. “I can’t fucking do that again. You can’t leave, alright?”

“It’s okay if you don’t want to be here right now,” Tubbo puts in, still subdued. “We can help you learn how again. You’ve just got to give us the chance.”

It’s that that does it. Said so innocently, so determinedly, as if it’s that simple, as if there isn’t a thing with teeth and claws lurking below his skin, ready to lash out at anyone and anything, himself included. And he doesn’t understand it, not really, doesn’t understand why these two are so willing to help him after everything he’s put them through, doesn’t understand how they could think him worthy of it.

“Oh,” he chokes out, and distantly thinks that he is really crying too much today.

“Aw, jeez,” Tommy says. “Oh no, don’t—don’t cry, big man, come on. We don’t need to do that.”

Maybe. But on the other hand, maybe he does, and Tommy is very close, he suddenly realizes, and Tubbo, too, both of them close enough to pull into a hug, as long as they don’t object, so that’s what he does.

And they don’t object.

He should not, perhaps, be clinging to them as hard as he is. But they don’t tell him to stop, so he doesn’t.

For a while, they sit there, and he hugs them and they bury themselves into his side, and it’s almost like being back at home again, like Techno will come marching out of the woods with his sword mounted over his shoulder and Phil will call them in for dinner any moment, and in a few minutes he’ll get a message from Schlatt on his comm inviting him in on his latest business venture that is actually a thin veneer for a scam, like always.

He glances up, and Schlatt is nearer, in his field of vision, considering them with a raised eyebrow but a thankful lack of mockery. He rolls his eyes when he sees him looking, but from Schlatt, that’s practically a ringing endorsement.

He should probably say something about Schlatt’s presence at some point. No more lies.

In a minute, perhaps. For now, he holds his brothers tight and tries to let himself believe that everything is going to be alright.

(easier said than done)

#mcyt #dsmp #dream smp #dsmp fic #wilbur soot #tommyinnit #tubbo #jschlatt #alivebur #glatt #/rp #cat writes fic #long post

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dreamypeaches · 4 years

Text

can’t look away | pope heyward x reader

request: @https-luna asked: can I have 8 and 18 from list one for angst pls 😌 and and uhm 24 and 30 from list one for angst pls ❤

“I’m not okay if you’re not okay.”

“Please talk to me.”

“Will you just hold me?”

“Who did this to you?”

summary: pope heyward can only watch as the one he loves tumbles towards destruction

warnings: angst, alcohol use, drug use, depression, self-destruction, death

word count: 1.8k

a/n: so, this is very sad. it’s for pope appreciation day 2: angst. that’s all i have to say. my messages and inbox are always open if you want to talk. take care of yourselves and know you are amazing.

Have you ever seen a car crash? Not the aftermath where the cars have already completed their journey of destruction, but the actual event of a car crashing. Things seem to move in slow motion and all too fast at the same time. It’s terrifying and sad and violent, and there is nothing you can do about it except watch, helpless. She was a car crash, and Pope Heyward was the hopeless, desperate bystander watching her fly through the air.

It took time for Pope to realize she was driving towards her destruction. When he first met her she was new to the Outer Banks and ready for a fresh start. A ball of positivity and life that made the sun look like a black hole. Her laughter was contagious, spreading though Pope’s soul like a virus, forcing him to laugh along. She made him feel like a new man, dragging him on adventures, introducing him to new things, spoke to him like she could see into his soul and pick out all the bad parts and love them just as much as the good ones. For the first time, Pope felt confident, she made him confident. Confident to ask her out, to kiss her, to make love to her. He wished she made him confident enough to help her. Not that he could if he’d tried.

When the car makes it’s first move before a crash, swerves into that lane or isn’t paying attention to that light, you can think for a moment that it might be okay. Maybe they’ll recover, maybe it won’t be that bad, maybe it will be okay. Pope saw this move one night, knocking on her door after a day of unreturned texts and missed calls. She was curled up in the bed, comforter pulled up to her chin, a random cooking show playing on the tv. She stared at the screen without really watching, eyes glazed over and void of emotion.

“Hey, lovely, how’s it going? I haven’t heard from you all day, I got worried.” His voice was soft as he scooted in next to her. Her head instantly fell onto his shoulder and rubbed her nose into the shoulder of his sweatshirt, inhaling the the comforting scent that was uniquely Pope Heyward. He wrapped his arm around her now shaking shoulders as she began to cry. Tears soaked his hoodie, darkening the light fabric with spots of dampness. He went back through the previous days, trying to find anything that may have upset her. He came up empty.

“Please talk to me,” He said, lips brushing against her ear.

“Will you just hold me?” She responded between gasps for breath. Pope nodded, wrapping another arm around her front, pulling her in for a tight bear hug. He sometimes wished he could have squeezed the sadness from her body and soaked it into his own like depression sham-wow. Unfortunately life wasn’t that easy.

The next moment of a car crash is when you realize it is happening, this car is crashing and it might be really bad. But you’re still hoping, believing that it might not be too bad. Maybe fortune will be on their side. This moment for Pope comes when he held her hair back from her face for the 3rd time in two week as she vomits the contents of her stomach into the pristine toilet bowl.

She brought her hand to her forehead, pressing the heel of it into her eye. Pope sat back too, fingers threading through her hair and massaging her scalp as she wiped the remnants of her mistake from the corners of her mouth. She’d already been to two parties that week, getting drunk off her ass then cross faded on top of it. She skinny dipped in the ocean as a dare, tried to seduce her boyfriend into a quickie not twenty feet away from the kegger, attempted a front flip despite never even trying before. She was like a completely different person.

But that night was different. There had been no party, no kegger, not even a group of Pogues to get fucked up with. She’d been all alone, moving through her liquor shelf like it was popcorn. Pope found her jumping on her bed and listening to the Jonas Brothers, a wild, drunken grin on her face. It’d been fun the first hour, dancing half naked to bops from their childhood. But her energy soon faded and darkness washed over her features. She collapsed onto the bed and stared up at the ceiling. Pope laid beside her, fingers intertwining with her own. His head turned to take in her profile, admiring the color of her eyes and the curve of her nose. She felt his gaze, turning to give him a small smile.

“You’re so good, Popey,” she said, turning to caress his cheek with her palm.

“What do you mean?” He replied, face heating up as his hand falls over her, fingers tracing shapes on her back.

“You’re just so…good. You make me feel good. You’re going to do great things, I know you are. Best fucking forensic pathologist in the goddamn world.”

Pope laughed before kissing the tip of her nose.

“We’re going to do great things,” he corrected. Her smile faltered for a moment, returned with less sweetness than it had before.

“Yes we are.”

She’d moved quickly from the bed after that, retrieving the half finished bottle of vodka and downing it. It wasn’t long after that they found themselves in her bathroom, regret coursing through her veins.

She wiped a hand across her chin before she looked at Pope. Silent tears fell down his cheeks as he stared at her, fingers absentmindedly stroking through her messy locks.

“Pope, don’t cry, I’m okay,” her smile was obviously forced, never reaching her eyes. He sniffled, wiping his cheeks on the back of his sleeve.

“No, love, you’re not. And I’m not okay if you’re not okay. This is not okay, you are hurting yourself and I don’t know what to do!” He exclaimed, tossing his hands in the air. One of her hands ghosts over his cheek, wiping the newly fallen tears from his cheeks.

“You don’t have to do anything. Don’t worry, I’ll get better. It’s just a little hard right now.”

Pope just nodded, mulling over her words as he pulled her into his chest, kissing the top of her head.

“I love you,” he uttered.

“I love you too,” she replied.

Your heart pounds, your breathing shallows, your body stiffens. The moment of impact. The moment when you realize exactly how bad the situation really is, and it’s too late to stop it. Her moment of impact is quite literal, and she has the scars to prove it.

His leg bounced and fingers danced on the arm of the couch as Pope waited. She was an hour late for date night, no text or call as to why. Pope bursted to his feet when the front door opened, turning towards the girl with a frown.

“Where were you?” Is all he said before his heart stopped. Her eyes meet his, but they aren’t the same. One is dark and swollen, the other had a small cut above it, dripping blood down her face. A split lip graced her mouth, one entire cheek bruised. A definitely broken nose, another cut on her other cheek below a small but ghastly bruise. His feet carried him to her, drawn in like a moth to the flame. His hands hovered hesitantly beside her face, shaking as they moved millimeters above the broken skin.

“Who did this to you?” He said, voice broken and wavering. Her face was dead, her mouth a line and eyes far away. She pushed past him moving to the kitchen where a bottle of wine had been waiting for her, meant to be shared with the love of her life.

“Barry.” She said simply before chugging some of the red liquid. Pope thought he might die at the sound of the name. His jaw dropped, fists clenched and unclenched.

“Barry? What the hell were you doing with Barry?

“I was purchasing illegal narcotics from him,” She said as if this were an everyday occurrence, “but I guess I owe him money that I don’t have so he fucked me up. It’s chill.”

Static blared in Pope’s brain as he tried to comprehend the words coming from his loves mouth. His brain refused to process shocked by the overload of information coming at him.

“What the fuck?” Is all he was able to spit out, “What the fuck? What the fuck!” he continued, pacing through the small dining area. She grabbed his arm, stopping his movements pulling him close to her. Her arms wrapped around his neck, fingers toying with the hair at the base of his neck.

“Pope, don’t worry, it’s not so bad, really, I-”

“No! It is bad, love! It’s been bad but this…this is too much. Can’t you see how much you’re hurting me, hurting yourself? This isn’t good.” His hand grasped her own, pressing a kiss to her palm. “You need to get some help, love.”

Tears were streaming down her face now. She ignored the sting of her cuts and she nodded at Pope, fingers moving across his face as she took in the curves and edges of his features.

“You’re right. I need some help. I will, I promise.”

The kiss they shared was short and sweet, sealing the promise with an action. Pope pulled her to the bathroom and cleaned up her wounds, hope in his heart that the woman he loved would be happy again. Hope is a dangerous thing.

Have you ever seen the aftermath of a car crash? When the damage is done and it’s sad and intriguing and violent and all you can wonder is why did this happen? The car smashed up on the side of the road, the car overturned in a ditch, the three car pile up on the highway. Why did it happen?

Pope Heyward couldn’t tell you why it happened. Why the ball of love he had fallen for became a shell of who she used to be, trying to fill the empty space with drugs and alcohol, a hallucination of the girl she once was. He’d had hope that there was a possibility. The possibility of a future. Maybe there could have been. Maybe if he had said something, done something differently. Maybe if she had done something, heard something different. Maybe if he hadn’t left her alone that day. Maybe if she hadn’t saved that one bottle of tequila. Maybe if he hadn’t ran over that nail. Maybe if she had said she couldn’t drive, told him to call JJ. Maybe things would be okay. Maybe there would have been a future. Maybe there wouldn’t have been a moment where Pope was just a hopeless, desperate bystander on the side of the road, watching the girl he loved make one too many mistakes. But there’s no use dwelling in the past, asking yourself why, telling yourself maybe. Sometimes it just happens. A car crashes. And all you can do is watch.

taglist/moots: @jjmaybby @dontjinx-it @butgilinsky @rekrappeter @diverdcwn @rafecameron @prejudic3 @starlightstarkey @https-luna @sunnypogue @obxmxybxnk @jjmayybank @euphoricheyward @socialwriter @kindahavefeelingskindaheartless @peachydrews @outerbanksbro @poguestyleskye @softstarkey @bricksatanakinswindow @mdlyncline @poguemackin @downbytheouterbanks @rae131415 @ptersparkers @prkerspogue @moldisgoodforyou @outrbanks @girlsru1eboysdroo1 @tempestuousjj @stargazingstarkey @anxietyandtacos @uwubonebabie @joshy-obx @sortagaysortahigh @overly-b @highondrew @madelynsclines @cherryobx @royalmerchant @wtfkie @ilovejjmaybank @broken-jj @vindictive-hearts @fttayla @rafej-cambanks

#pope heyward x reader #pope heyward angst #popeappreciation #pope heyward fic #obx fic #my writing

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brywrites · 4 years

Text

Date Night II

Here’s the second part to a TKOW-verse “Date Night”!

Part I | The Keeping of Words

Summary: Three years after leaving the BAU, Dr. Spencer Reid has given up chasing monsters to be a part-time professor and a full-time dad. It’s all domestic bliss - until Cat Adams turns up at the BAU.

Warnings: discussions of miscarriage, abuse

........

And so he took Cat to a roller rink. It wasn’t ice skating, but it was still skating. Walking inside with her like this was all just a fun game. Her fantasy come to life. She made him hold her hand. She kept calling him Spencie and he tried not to cringe, not to snap at the sound of it. It wasn’t a term of endearment. It wasn’t even close to the way it felt to hear Bianca say his name, to whisper my love as she ran her hands through his hair, or the way it sounded when Eliza Lou shouted daddy with the biggest smile on her face. No, any form of his name on Cat Adams’ lips made his skin crawl.

He kept trying to get Cat to slip up, but she refused to answer his questions. “I don’t want to talk about that,” she said after he asked about her baby.

“I didn’t want to talk about it,” he said. “I was actually just trying to see if I could use it against you.”

Cat spun around, skating closer. “Oh, really? What about um… sex?” She wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her body against his. He gritted his teeth as he placed his hands on her waist to steady himself. Her touch felt like burning, in all the worst ways. As she gazed up at him, he had to force himself not to look away. “Why don’t you use that against me?”

It was hard to breathe this close to her, with his thoughts moving too fast and the memories of Mexico, of Milburn coming too quickly. He had to stay calm. He had to play this game. It was the only way to keep Bianca and Elizabeth safe. He was doing this for them. He just had to think of them.

Cat pushed him away suddenly, and the next thing he knew she’d slapped him hard enough to knock him off balance. She skated away and he scrambled off the floor. “Cat, wait! Cat. Cat, wait. Cat!”

“I have spent my entire adult life reading men. I know when they’re thinking about someone else,” she spat. And of course he was. Of course his mind was on his daughter, on his wife, on the two people he would have gone to the ends of the earth for. The only two people who could have compelled him to go on this stupid sham of a date in this godforsaken roller rink. “Do you know what this was for me? I didn’t ask for one last family visit or final meal. I wanted this. And you can’t even give me the courtesy of your undivided attention. So thanks, but this date is over. You can turn off the stupid lights, boys!” she shouted.

“She’s not you,” he blurted out. Cat turned to glare at him. “Ever since you came into my life, it’s like I can’t get you out of my head. There’s some part of my brain, some part that you inhabit and no matter how good or – or kind or attractive my wife is… she’s not you.” And the words weren’t necessarily lies. There had been a time when he couldn’t get Cat out of his head, but because he was haunted by her – not attracted to her. And Bianca wasn’t her, wasn’t anything like the woman who had tried to tear him apart.

“Do you think about me when you fuck her?” Cat asked.

Lie. Lie and make it good. For the first time in a long time he thought of Maeve. Thought of Diane and the warehouse and how he hadn’t been convincing enough to save someone he loved that night. He wasn’t going to lose this time. He looked to the side, hoping the heat rising to his face would look like an embarrassed blush.

Cat laughed, and to his relief it was a laugh of delight. “Oh come on, Spencie. I’m gonna need you to elaborate on that for me.”

He closed his eyes so his microexpressions wouldn’t betray him. “I try not to. But it’s like I can’t help it. She just… doesn’t do it for me anymore. Not like you. And I know she wouldn’t be able to handle the things I – the things I want to do with you.” God, he was going to be sick.

But Cat was threading her arm around his. “If I’m a homewrecker, I want to make it official. Take me home, loverboy.”

Against all his better judgment, he agreed. Cat already knew their address he presumed, given that she’d had Lindsey bring his mother by the day they’d abducted her. They stood on the front porch of the little blue house as Spencer fumbled with the key in the lock.

“Wait,” Cat said, putting her hand on his. “Did you really mean what you said back there?”

“Yes,” he answered immediately. He could feel the questioning stares of Luke and every SWAT agent.

“Prove it,” Cat said. “And make it good. Because I’m this close to letting them die.”

Reid stared at those cold, dark eyes. He had to make her believe it. He had to betray Bianca in order to save her and their daughter. Just pretend it’s her. He cupped Cat’s the face the way he had done to Bianca a million times, closed his eyes and pressed his mouth to hers. It’s Bianca, he told himself. It’s Bianca. He kissed her furiously, the way he did sometimes after they’d spent too much time apart, or she was blushing in that adorable way, or she was begging him for a distraction. The illusion was a fragile one. Anger could be mistaken for passion though, and he was so angry in that moment. He grabbed at her hair tighter, he pressed the weight of his body against her, he sucked harder at her lip. He tried to believe it, but the hand on his cheek was too warm and the hair between his fingers was too long and the tongue forcing its way into his mouth wasn’t hers.

Just when he thought he couldn’t do it any longer, Cat pulled away. He wanted to vomit, but he forced himself to swallow back the bile rising in his throat. He had to make her believe it.

It was only then that he opened his eyes and realized she wasn’t looking at him anymore. She’d opened the door, and he followed her gaze to where Bianca stood in the living room, her mouth hanging open as she stared at them.

His heart plummeted.

He yanked his hand away from Cat as Bianca wrapped her arms around herself, a look of unmistakable hurt plain on her face.

“B, what are you doing here?” he gasped, crossing the room towards her. She clutched her phone in her hand. There was a pattern of bruises, dirt, scratches across her face. A burn visible on her collarbone that he presumed was from the blank that had been fired. He ached to hold her, but she took a step back when he approached.

“Where is she, Spencer? Where’s Elizabeth?” Bianca demanded.

“Get Cat out of here,” Luke shouted at the SWAT team.

“No, no! She’s the only one who knows where my daughter is!” Bianca cried. “Cat doesn’t go anywhere until I know where she is!”

Cat sauntered into the living room, a triumphant smirk on her face. “Well look at that. You’re not as boring as I thought. You’re plucky. Did it make you mad that I was kissing your husband?”

“No.”

Cat pouted. “Why not?”

“Because there are other things on my mind. Where is she?” Bianca demanded. “Where’s Eliza, where’s my daughter?”

“You’re always so serious,” Cat groaned. “Tonight’s supposed to be fun. Like all the games Spencie and I play together.”

“You think this is a game?” Bianca said. “You kidnapped my daughter!”

“The daughter you didn’t even want.”

“What?” Bianca’s eyebrows, knit together in anger, raised slightly as her rage gave way to confusion.

“Oh please.” Cat rolled her eyes, taking a seat in the armchair. “I got the transcript of the arraignment. You’d be surprised how easy it is to bribe prison guards. You didn’t want to be a mother. But boy genius here got you knocked up. I mean, you really think he’d know to wrap it before you tap it.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t I? He wanted to be a dad, and now here you are. Really I’m doing you a favor. You see, he’s got everyone fooled. Everyone things Dr. Spencer Reid is this nice, innocent, bookish genius who always saves the day – and has zero mommy issues, right? But he’s not. You know he said he thinks about me when he’s fucking you,” she laughed. Bianca recoiled at the words. “Does he ever get rough with you in the bedroom?”

Her face went red. “He’s never hurt me.”

“But that’s not entirely true is it? You said it yourself. He almost died in front of you. He chose drugs over you. He’s hurt you before. Maybe it didn’t leave a mark, but he’s hurt you. Maybe you know the real Spencer Reid. Just like I do.”

He bristled as she sat there in their chair, in their home, talking as if she owned the place. She didn’t belong here. She didn’t know anything about them. “Who’s the real me, Cat?” he asked.

Cat shifted her gaze to him. “The real Spencer Reid throws women against walls and hisses that he’s going to kill them. Even though you knew I was pregnant. You still hurt me.” She turned back to Bianca. “That’s right – while you painting a nursery and picking out baby names, he was throwing me against a wall and choking me. And the next day I miscarried.”

Bianca turned to look at him. The anger in his chest turned to lead, the weight of her words slamming down on him. “No. No that can’t be right. That’s not true.”

“It’s the truth,” she hissed. “Check my medical records. He might pretend to be a doting father, but he fawned over your little bundle of joy after killing my baby. He’s a murderer. Really no different from me. Or from that brother of yours.” Cat laughed sharply. “Oh, yeah. I did my research. Now that had to be fun to unpack in therapy. But it turns out all men are the same, aren’t they?”

“Bianca, I-”

“You were supposed to be different,” she said, cutting him off. She stared down at the floor of their living room. He was hurting her. He was hurting her right now. He fell back onto the couch in the living room, too tired to stay upright. “But you’re just like them. Like my father. Like Rick. Like Franklin.”

Franklin? The third name didn’t make sense. But Reid was too overwhelmed by her words to pay it much attention. She said it with such disgust and he couldn’t deny the guilt that was threatening to crush him. He wanted to sink into the floor. Had he really done that? JJ had tried to stop him but he hadn’t listened. Oh god what had he done?

“Let’s make a deal,” Cat said, grabbing the phone from Bianca’s hands. “I’ll tell you where your kid is. If you tell him exactly what you really think about him.”

Bianca closed her eyes. He could see her hands shaking. “I hate you. You’re just as bad as the others. But you hurt me. You hurt me so many times and you don’t even see it. And it doesn’t matter what I say or how much I yell at you, you’ll never see it.” He couldn’t breathe. What was happening? Where was any of this coming from? She’d only ever once spoken to him like that before. “My truth I will keep, I will not lie. You should have stayed at Milburn. It’s where you belong. Because you’re no different from any of the people you put away. You don’t deserve to be here.” She turned to stare at him. There were tears in her eyes.

And if he hadn’t known better, he would’ve assumed they meant hatred. But she’d given him a clue. My truth I will keep, I will not lie. That’s where Franklin came from. It was a line from “The Franklin’s Tale,” her favorite part of The Canterbury Tales. She’d told his mother that the day she first met Diana. It was a story she saw the two of them reflected in. Arveragus and Dorigen had a pure love based on equality and mutual respect, and when Aurelius tried to split them up, the strength of their love and their willingness to sacrifice for each other kept them together.

Bianca was trying to tell him that it was all an act. That whatever Cat was trying to do to split them up, it wasn’t going to work. Reid had to bite down on his lip to keep himself from smiling. That was his girl. His brilliant, incredible wife. He was so proud of her.

But he had to play along. “Bianca, please.”

“No. No more. I’m glad you found Cat. You two deserve each other.” She turned to Cat. “Now tell me where my daughter is, please. So I can get far away from him.” Cat typed something into the phone and handed it back. “There you go. Baby girl is alive and well. You’re welcome.”

Bianca turned on her heel and ran out to the team, leaving him stranded as he sat on the couch, staring straight ahead. Playing the part he needed play. “I win,” Cat declared. There was chaos around him as the SWAT team handcuffed Cat and Luke took off in a car with Bianca. He was loaded into the truck to sit beside Cat for the long ride back to the prison. The silence gave Cat’s words plenty of time to sink in. Regardless of Bianca’s reaction, there was a truth to what Cat had said. He’d hurt the woman he loved, and he’d done it more than once. He’d hurt so many people. And he’d caused Cat to miscarry.

He disgusted himself. It was all he could do to keep it together as Cat explained she’d just wanted to see him one last time – to make sure he wouldn’t forget about her.

She was hurting too. And maybe even scared. Her voice shook as she said, “Bye, Spencie. I really enjoyed our date.”

And then the guards were taking her away. And then Garcia and Simmons were there. “We heard you might need a ride,” Matt said. “We got Eliza. They’re both safe. We can take you to them if you want.”

“Yes. Yes, please.”

.....

He couldn’t get into that SUV fast enough. He clambered into the passenger seat, heaving a sigh.

“Rough night, huh?” Matt said, as they pulled onto the highway. Reid just shook his head.

“I thought that might be the case,” Garcia said. “Hey, boy genius. I know that you had to say some super yucky things tonight, but we briefed Bianca on it all before you went inside.”

“What? How?”

“Well, Cat had Juliette drop Bianca in the street. Cat wanted us to find her so you three could battle it out at home. The whole showdown was orchestrated – I’ll explain all the details later but to make a long story short, we figured out her endgame pretty fast. So we picked up my favorite petite poet the moment we got her location, hooked her up with a wire, took her back to your place, and told her to follow Cat’s lead and just lie as much as she had to. She would’ve made Meryl Streep proud with that performance! And then the moment Cat sent that text, we were able to swoop in and rescue little Eliza Lou from the clutches of the big bad wolf.”

“Thank you for doing all of that,” he said. “But I’m still feeling pretty horrible at the moment.”

“Is this about the miscarriage?” Garcia asked. “Because I can help you with that, too. “Cat said check the medical record and I did. She had a miscarriage, but it was months later. It had nothing to do with you. It was just a lie to throw you off. The whole team knows that, and so does Bianca.” She reached out from the backseat to put a hand on his shoulder. “You’re not a monster, no matter how badly she wants you to believe that.”

With that information, Reid’s heart lifted ever so slightly. It wasn’t true. And while it would take a while to shake this terrible feeling after everything he’d heard and said, that much was a relief. And most importantly, Bianca and Elizabeth were safe. That was all that really mattered. The day had ended with the two people he loved most alive and well. Everybody lived this time.

They arrived at the hospital and the three of them walked through the maze of corridors together trying to follow the instructions of the front-desk person. He’d left his phone back at the house so Garcia was frantically trying to text Bianca for her location. Just when he was about to declare that they were hopelessly lost, a door opened and he spotted a familiar face.

“Maybe we should go back?” Simmons asked.

“Oh wait! This should be the right hallway,” Garcia said. “Just one door on the left and Bianca should be there, and we can put this whole day behind us. No more lies or games!”

But he didn’t hear them. Because Bianca was walking towards him with the most perfect smile on her face. Her cardigan hanging loosely from her shoulders, bandages and sutures on her skin and a hospital bracelet on her wrist.

“I don’t know,” Simmons said. “I mean, that kiss – that kind of thing seems hard to fake.”

“Oh Matt,” Garcia sighed. “You haven’t seen them together enough. Watch and learn.”

Reid ran to Bianca and wrapped her in a gentle hug. “Thank god you’re okay. Where’s Eliza?”

“The doctors are talking with her to make sure she feels safe at home before we can see her. But she’s okay. We both are,” Bianca said, “thanks to you.

“You were only in danger because of me. I’m so sorry.”

Bianca held him tight. “This was Cat’s fault. Nobody else’s. And it’s over now. We’re safe.” And so they were. She gazed up at him and those brown eyes were so warm. So inviting. He raised a hand to tilt her chin towards him and then shifted to caress her cheek. A smile spread across her face and she closed her eyes as he leaned in to kiss her. Slow at first, as he tested the boundaries, worried about the bruises she bore. But she pulled grabbed his suit jacket and pulled him closer, so he deepened the kiss, savoring the taste of her lips and the sensation of her fingernails at the nape of his neck. She was still too far away, so he shifted his hands to her waist, carefully avoiding the places he knew she’d been kicked, and lifted her up, holding her against him as he spun her around, never once moving his lips from hers.

He kissed her with a passion typically reserved only for their bed or the sofa or up against the wall of the study late at night, kissed her like he couldn’t get enough of her. He didn’t care who saw them. She was safe. She was alive. He loved her, and he wanted the whole world to know that.

When they finally needed to breathe and she pulled away, he set her back on the ground only to pull her back into a hug, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “I love you so much,” he murmured.

“I love you, too.”

At the end of the corridor, a dumbfounded Matt raised his eyebrows. “I see what you mean now.”

“Mr. and Mrs. Reid?” a nurse asked, poking his head into the hall. They both turned around. “You can come in now, we’ve finished talking with her. You’re all clear.” The relief on their faces were twin expressions as they dashed into the room together.

Elizabeth looked so small in the big ER bed and a hospital gown far too big for her, but she wore a huge smile. “Daddy, you’re here!” she said.

Reid hurried to her bedside, enveloping her in a hug. “I’m here. I’m right here.” He needed tangible proof that she was alright and to hold her in his arms seemed the simplest thing. His child was safe and sound, back with them where she belonged.

Bianca sat down on the bed and the little girl curled into her mother’s side while holding tight to her father’s hand. “You were so brave today, dear heart,” she said, stroking Eliza’s hair. “I’m so proud of you.”

Eliza looked up at her with wide brown eyes that mirrored her own. “I didn’t like the game,” she said. “Not fun.”

“We won’t play it ever again,” Reid promised her. There were no more games to win, no more villains to best. The doctor came in to assure them that they’d run a full exam on Elizabeth and had found nothing wrong. Juliette hadn’t hurt her. Bianca was given instructions to follow up if had any prolonged pain and then the three of them were on their way home. Garcia and Simmons gave them a ride back to their house, where Luke had driven Bianca’s car back to. By the time they arrived, Elizabeth was fast asleep.

They carried her into the blue house and up the stairs, tucking her carefully into bed and turning on her nightlight. Reid and Bianca hovered in the doorway just a moment longer, needing that extra space to remind themselves that their daughter was okay. They tiptoed downstairs where Bianca put a hot kettle on the stove for two cups of tea.

“You know,” Reid said, “I think Cat Adams was right about one thing.”

“What’s that?” Bianca asked.

“In twenty years, I won’t remember her name.” He stepped closer to her, lacing his fingers through her own. “But it won’t be because of Alzheimer’s. It’ll be because she won’t be worth remembering. I’ll have too many other memories – memories of vacations we took together and Eliza Lou’s birthdays and all of our anniversaries. Our life together. Our little girl. Cat won’t be anything but a blip on the radar. Hardly even a footnote in our story.”

“It’s finally over?”

“It’s over,” he assured her. “We don’t ever have to worry about her again.”

She smiled. “I’m sorry for everything I had to say tonight. I didn’t mean a word of it.”

“I know,” he said. “I picked up on that clue about the Franklin’s Tale. You were brilliant in there. I’m so sorry you had to go through that.”

The tea kettle began to whistle as she wrapped her arms around him. “It’s okay. We’re safe. We’re home. And we’re together.”

“That’s all I’ll ever need,” he murmured, leaning down to kiss her.

#criminal minds fanfiction #spencer reid x oc #the keeping of words #tkow

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starprincecas · 3 years

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Okay so, while I've been enjoying the Loki series for the most part (aside from the weirdness of the main thread of the 4th ep which I'm going to forcibly ignore), I've realized if I think of the show's concept of 'pruning' too much to try and understand it, it starts to fall apart. That, or I'm thinking too hard late at night when I should be sleeping instead.

Bear with me here while I try to make sense of things. (Or, y'know, skip right past my post and keep going on with your day)

My initial assumption of how it works was that it was very literally like pruning a bad branch off a tree to prevent a rot from spreading. A judicious snip here and there and the rot's cut off so the timeline tree can continue to grow straight and up like it's supposed to. Simple enough so far.

Pruning or erasing the variants they've pulled from the timeline works much the same except they're independent of the timeline now, so the analogy shifts to throwing out a seedling wholesale before it can establish roots (in this case, problematic influence) or probably more like avoiding a plant like mint overtaking your garden (I know next to nothing about gardening so, sorry if the analogy fails)

Actually, wait. Y'know what, I don't understand why the variants are pulled out of the deviated timeline if they're going to be erased anyway and the trials are a sham. Why not erase them with the timeline? Why the whole song and dance? :/

It's also a little weird that no one in-show has questioned it, but eh, that's probably gonna be rectified soon in the next ep as part of the explanation of what's actually happening.

Until then, I'm impatient and confused, so, stream-of-consciousness word-vomit time.

Here's the one consistent thing we know of the show and the TVA so far: it exists to prune variants and branches to help protect the one, true timeline.

So we've got the TVA staff instituted as time gardeners / cops, and with the "they're all variants" reveal from ep. 3, the assumption that they were probably plucked from the previously erased (merged?) multiverses. The presence of the 'good' guys is explained easily enough, but that doesn't help make sense of the 'bad' guys, or, more specifically, their diversity.

If the Hunters and Minutemen are as good as implied, they've been pruning all deviations as soon as they occur, so the variants they've captured and erased should be only slightly different from each other and the OG version they've branched off of, not as vastly different as we've seen.

Take old, classic comic!Loki for example. If we ignore the fact that he's old as being part of comics visual aesthetic for villains from the period of comic he's inspired/pulled from, the fact that he's old is kind of major. If our Loki died young because that's how it was always supposed to happen, how did this one manage to live as long as he did? (Clearly he wasn't an older Sylvie situation for the TVA because if he'd had the same luck and wits she did, they'd actually have been a little better prepared to take her on, which they weren't)

Aaaand I've officially reached the point where I'm stuck and don't know what to do with any of this to make it make sense.

Anyone got any theories on any of this?

I feel like the 'capture the variants' rule (because Loki and Sylvie are proof that there's such a rule and not just a straight and simple (ha!) one to just erase them along with the deviant branches) might be the linchpin that explains the entire series.

#marvel #loki series #loki series spoilers #loki #mobius #the time-keepers #either the plot is a gordian knot or my brain is being wound into one trying to understand it #loosely related to my ever-increasing mountain of confusion - what's supposed to happen with the main timeline without Loki in it?#i'm pretty sure my brain yo-yo'd and stalled a couple of times while writing this so it's a miracle if any of this makes sense #my brain is mush this year and isn't equipped to make sense of sci-fi framework #someone make sense of my thoughts to/for me pls #becca rambles

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shijiujun · 4 years

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warning - spoilers for MRIAD ending (it’s out i finished it)

okay i’m putting all my word vomit under the cut BUT I would like to say that if you guys were going to write an unrequited love QCS for LY AU? fucking do it. do it now. fucking do it now. I AM SCREECHING AND THAT’S ALL I WILL SAY.

- also if you guys wanted the marriage to be a sham, and if you guys hate the queerbaiting or bromance then i’d suggest you guys stop watching from ep 26 onwards cuz they try piling it thick from there onwards, but if you want a point at which it’s confirmed then it’s 30 onwards

- gifs will be tagged as #mriad spoilers if you guys wanna avoid

- don’t open the cut if you don’t wanna be spoiled!! doing this for you all who can’t decide whether to finish the show or not

- overall - i do like the cases all the way until ep 32 onwards cuz then it gets a bit complicated! but overall we do get our himbo LY and QCS taking care of him and i’m just going to selectively avoid some scenes in my head yeah, still quite a bit of bromance but if the bromance + hetero relationship ain’t for ya then erm.. yep

- ALSO? RANDOM POINT BUT - SALIM? SALIM IS FUCKING RIPPED HE BE GOOD LOOKING WHAT THE HELL

just some of the main points of the last episode:

- YES, YOU NING AND LU YAO ARE FRICKING IN LOVE WITH ONE ANOTHER and he really loves her - i don’t feel it but whatever floats his boat and basically his dad still wants him to go home, so they send an actual troop of 3000 people to basically force LY to go home, and then YN is like ‘you have to marry me, they can’t take my husband away from me’ - which is true

- They do get married and SAD QCS SCENE NO. 1: HE LOOKS SO LIKE MELANCHOLIC? LIKE AT THE WEDDING? HE ADJUSTS LU YAO’S TIE BUT LIKE HE LOOKS SO FUCKING SAD LIKE THE SMILING KIND OF SAD

- Lu Yao’s sister already approved of YN and she goes home and tells LY’s dad that hey just let LY be yeah, and LY’s dad is like OKAY FINE, LET’S GO SEE THEM

- LY is told by Britain not to stay in Shanghai for a while because the last time he was there his dad and the triads each brought men and nearly turned this whole thing into a war and so LY brings YN to Paris via cruise for their honeymoon

- He really loves her

- QCS gifts LY with a Mercedes and then LY kisses him on the cheek, and QCS puts LY above his sister/family can you imagine that? Can you imagine the sound of my heart breaking?

- And then as QCS is sending LY and YN off at the port for their honeymoon? OMFG pls tell me I’m not reading too much into this because?!!! WTF HE IS SO WISTFUL? HE LOOKS AT LY AND YN HOLDING HANDS FOR A BIT TOO DAMN LONG?! GUYS I’M NOT JOKING!!! and he’s all like hugging LY and asking him to come back soon and warns YN against bullying him and I’m like?!!!! UNREQUITED LOVE BUT THEN WE FIX IT AND IT BECOMES REQUITED OR WE DO SOME POLYAMORY THING PLS

- because that last scene at the ports? QCS looks so fucking sad and it’s CLASSIC UNREQUITED LOVE SCENE OKAY?!! LIKE WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK

- Don’t think there’ll be a season 2 but I guess the last part can be quite open ended, but LY tears up the message and THEY FRICIKIN LEAVE QCS IN SHANGHAI ON HIS OWN AFTER ALL HE HAS DONE FOR THEM, FOR BOSS BAI FOR EVERYONE

- And I’m like when does anyone do anything for QCS? I’m fucking sad okay

- But honestly guys you should still watch the very last 10 minutes for the sad!QCS scenes guys GUYSSSSS

#my roommate is a detective #民国奇探 #mriad spoilers #MRIAD #LAST EPISODE #ep 36 #it's all out but no subs yet #i literally sped through it all #i can't breathe #i feel for my bb qcs #who gonna take care of him?!!!#he deserves everything!!!#SOMEONE BETTER WRITE ME A FIX IT OKAY #also you are welcomed to come into my DMs for more spoilers

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flightfoot · 6 years

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Apollo has PTSD

So I’m planning on going through all of Apollo’s various mental issues that I’ve seen, was going to go through them all here... and then realized that PTSD was long enough to deserve a post on its own. Seriously, he’s shown signs of PTSD from SEVERAL different sources, though surprisingly enough, none from the events of TOA itself... yet. I’m betting that’ll change with Jason’s and Crest’s deaths, though.

PTSD

I think most people know what this looks like. It’s been discussed in popular culture rather a lot in recent years For those who don’t, here’s a quick briefing on it. I’m using that guide for my PTSD criteria.

Daphne: Even after all this time, he still harbors an intense guilt over her fate, has a tendency to start crying when reminded of her, and tries to avoid forests:

I wanted to say: You remind me of someone. But I didn’t dare open that line of conversation. Only two mortals ever had broken my heart. Even after so many centuries, I couldn’t think of her, couldn’t say her name without falling into despair. (THO 23)

As I said earlier, I was generally not a fan of the woods. I tried to convince myself that the trees were not watching me, scowling and whispering among themselves. They were just trees. Even if they had dryad spirits, those dryads couldn’t possibly hold me responsible for what had happened thousands of years ago on a different continent.

Why not? I asked myself. You still hold yourself responsible. (THO 43)

A woman whispered in my ear. This time I knew the voice well. It had never stopped haunting me. You did this to me. Come. Chase me again.

Fear rolled through my stomach.

I imagined the branches turning to arms; the leaves undulated like green hands.

Daphne, I thought.

Even after so many centuries, the guilt was overwhelming. I could not look at a tree without thinking of her. Forests made me nervous. The life force of each tree seemed to bear down on me with righteous hatred, accusing me of so many crimes….I wanted to fall to my knees. I wanted to beg forgiveness. But this was not the time.

I couldn’t allow the woods to confuse me again. I would not let anyone else fall into its trap. (THO 83)

Apollo can’t stop remembering what happened to her, checking off the “Re-experiencing” box. He shows avoidance symptoms: he tries to avoid things that remind him of her (which is pretty difficult, considering that “trees” are on that list, and he happens to love the outdoors). He doesn’t seem to have the arousal and reactivity symptoms all that badly, unless feeling tense while around reminders of the event counts. He definitely has the cognition and mood symptoms though, since he has those intense feelings of guilt and negative thoughts about himself, which he admitted in his failure song:

I sang of my failures, my eternal heartbreak and loneliness. I was the worst of the gods, the most guilt-ridden and unfocused. I couldn’t commit myself to one lover. I couldn’t even choose what to be the god of. I kept shifting from one skill to another—distracted and dissatisfied.

My golden life was a sham. My coolness was pretense. My heart was a lump of petrified wood. (145)

Of course, Daphne isn’t the only cause of his PTSD: not by a long shot.

Hyacinthus: While Apollo doesn’t seem to have quite as many PTSD symptoms in regard to Hyacinthus’s fate - his guilt over his death doesn’t appear to be quite as intense for starters, since Zephyros can reasonably be blamed for most of it - he still exhibits some of the symptoms. He feels intense sorrow over Hyacinthus’s fate, and has a tendency to break down when reminded of his death:

I opened my eyes and saw a ghost—his face just as precious to me as Daphne’s. I knew his copper skin, his kind smile, the dark curls of his hair, and those eyes as purple as senatorial robes.

“Hyacinthus,” I sobbed. “I’m so sorry…”

He turned his face toward the sunlight, revealing the ugly dent above his left ear where the discus had struck him. My own wounded face throbbed in sympathy.

“Seek the caverns,” he said. “Near the springs of blue. Oh, Apollo…your sanity will be taken away, but do not…”

His image faded and began to retreat. I rose from my sickbed. I rushed after him and grabbed his shoulders. “Do not what? Please don’t leave me again!”

[...]

How cruel to see them—the flowers that I had created to honor my fallen love, with their plumes stained red like his blood or hued violet like his eyes. They bloomed so cheerfully in the window, reminding me of the joy I had lost. (141).

Later, in Burning Maze, Apollo loses his temper in his grief over being reminded of Hyacinthus by Herophile’s crossword puzzle:

First the maze forced me to read Walt Whitman. Now it taunted me with my own past. To mention my dead love, to reduce him to a bit of Oracle trivia... No. This was too much.

I sat down on the rim of the fountain and cupped my face in my hands.

[...]

I surged to my feet, my sadness converting to anger. My friends edged away. I supposed I must have looked like a crazy man, and that’s indeed how I felt.

[...]

“Enough is enough! HYACINTH!” I yelled into the corridors. “The answer is HYACINTH! Are you happy?” (TBM 350-351)

His grief still feels fresh, even after all this time. Mind you, I don’t think what’s shown here alone is enough to say he has PTSD over Hyacinthus’s death in particular, but it just compounds the symptoms of PTSD he already had from other events.

That’s still not the end of PTSD symptoms Apollo has accrued over his lovers’ fates. Can’t forget about Commodus.

Commodus: Now, I’m gonna have some trouble categorizing “flashbacks” here. Apollo regularly gets overwhelmed with past memories while in his mortal form, and they frequently don’t appear to be PTSD related, such as his flashback to transforming Emmie and her sister into gods or his memories of Herophile’s past. Still, he’s traumatized by his flashbacks of Commodus in ways that he isn’t for other flashbacks.

When Calypso asks Apollo about combat ostriches, he’s thrown into a flashback of the last time he saw Commodus before he became emperor. He’s distraught after the vision ends:

Then he left the tent - walking, as the Romans would say, into the mouth of the wolf.

“Apollo,” Calypso nudged my arm.

“Don’t go!” I pleaded. Then my past life burned away. (TDP 124)

The vision’s ended at this point, since he’s aware of Calypso again, but mentally, he’s still there, pleading for Commodus to come back - because he knows what will happen to him. But what’s done is done, and no amount of pleading will change the past.

He has a much worse flashback later on, when he remembers murdering Commodus.

Her words struck me in the gut like one of Artemis’s blunted arrows (and I can assure you, those hurt.)

We can take him.

The name of my old friend, shouted over and over.

I staggered to my feet, gagging, my tongue trying to dislodge itself from my throat.

“Whoa, Apollo.” Leo rushed to my side. “You okay?”

“I-” another dry retch. I staggered toward the nearest bathroom as a vision engulfed me... bringing me back to the day I committed murder.

[...]

But as I stumbled to the bathroom, ready to vomit into a toilet I had cleaned just yesterday, dreadful memories consumed me. I found myself in ancient Rome on a cold winter day when I truly did commit a terrible act. (176-177)

Other times Apollo’s had flashbacks, he’s collapsed, but he hasn’t felt this much distress. Needing to strangle Commodus affected him BADLY, as he accounts at the end of the flashback:

Britomartis was wrong. I didn’t fear water. I simply couldn’t look at the surface of any pool without imagining Commodus’s face, stung with betrayal, staring up at me.

The vision faded. My stomach heaved. I found myself hunched over a different water basin - a toilet in the Waystation.

I’m not sure how long I knelt there, shivering, retching, wishing I could get rid of my hideous mortal frame as easily as I lost my stomach contents. (TDP 182)

Honestly, this flashback really comes across as being at least influenced by PTSD, considering his highly negative physical reaction to it, which fulfills the “re-experiencing” criteria.

As for avoidance: well, he tries to avoid still pools of water in order to avoid memories of the murder (kinda sucks how commonplace Apollo’s triggers are).

For arousal and reactivity: Apollo just doesn’t have these symptoms as much. Immediately after being reminded he’s slightly snappish, but I don’t think it’s enough to really qualify.

And finally, for cognition and mood symptoms: well he definitely has some feelings of guilt over this, though guilt over the murder itself isn’t all that distorted since, you know, he DID murder him. But he also feels guilt over the events that led up to Commodus going off the deep end, which aren’t really his fault:

I sobbed and hugged the commode - the only thing in the universe that wasn’t spinning. Was there anyone I hadn’t betrayed and disappointed? Any relationship I hadn’t destroyed? (TDP 183)

Negative feelings about oneself: check. Distorted sense of guilt or blame: considering that Apollo didn’t really have a choice in this, him either killing Commodus, or letting someone else do it after he destroyed Rome some more, I’m gonna say check.

So yeah, at this point Apollo doesn’t really have any faith in himself to even HAVE relationships, though he at least seems to feel a little better after a visit with Jo.

Not all of Apollo’s trauma is related to his dead lovers, though. Who can forget the first source of his trauma, Python!

Python: So the trauma with Python is more hinted at, than fully explored. I have a feeling we’ll see it more in subsequent books, as Apollo gets closer to taking him down again. At least this trauma doesn’t fill Apollo with guilt, so, small mercy there. Also, his memory loss is actually kinda nice here, since the memory of fighting Python is blurred. Python TERRIFIES Apollo, especially in his vulnerable mortal state. He had nightmares of Python for centuries afterwards, and he has a phobia of scaly reptiles, to the extent that he only barely tolerates Hermes’ Caduceus’ snakes. He hasn’t really had flashbacks to the fight that much, though he DOES remember being trapped in Python’s coils when Meg is ALSO caught in a serpent’s coils:

I knew the strength of such a serpent. I remembered being wrapped in Python’s coils, my divine ribs cracking, my godly ichor being squeezed into my head and threatening to spurt out my ears. (TDP 201)

So I guess that MIGHT count as a flashback? Overall though, his trauma with Python seems to mostly just be “that was a nightmarish and scary fight”, but he won and it doesn’t really seem as emotionally taxing as the other things I’ve listed. At least this one doesn’t cause him any cognitive or mood symptoms.

Lastly, I want to talk about something I’ve left OFF the list: Zeus’s lightning. As much as it would make sense for him to have PTSD over being zapped by it, he doesn’t really show signs of it. He acknowledges being hit by the bolts and says he hates it, but the most obvious trigger, lightning, doesn’t actually seem to freak him out.

Still... something was strange about his use of lightning. I could always recognize the power of Zeus in action. I’d been zapped by his bolts often enough. Jamie’s electricity was different - a more humid scent of ozone, a darker red hue to the flashes. (TDP 361-362)

He certainly notes the similarities to Zeus’s lightning, but he doesn’t seem to have any flashbacks or be scared of it. And in TBM, he doesn’t seem especially freaked out by Jason’s use of lightning, even though it WOULD feel the same.

Before he could recover and decapitate her, Jason got overexcited.

I say that because of the lightning. The sky outside flashed, the curved wall of glass shattered, and tendrils of electricity wrapped around Timbre, frying him into an ash pile.

Effective, yes, but not the sort of stealth we’d been hoping for. (TBM 251-252)

Apollo just isn’t all that much more freaked out by lightning than he should be. I’m not ENTIRELY sure why that is - though I do have some speculation - but regardless, he doesn’t seem to have PTSD from this in particular, at least.

Apollo has a crapton of PTSD, and with TBM’s events, I’m betting it’ll get worse before it gets better. He does a pretty good job of functioning though, even WITH PTSD, and doesn’t tend to take it out on others (not that he can at the moment). I feel bad for Apollo, and hope that he can come to peace with some of these issues - at least somewhat - by the end of the series.

PTSD isn’t the ONLY issue Apollo has - not by a long shot - but that’s an analysis for another time.

#trials of apollo #lester papadopoulos #apollo #PTSD #my analysis post #THO #TDP #TBM

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earwaxinggibbous · 6 years

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Eminem - Worst to Best

So I was watching theneedledrop and thinking I could do this too. That’s all the prefacing you’re gonna get.

I know it’s hard to believe I can judge Eminem from an objective standpoint considering I’m such a big fan that I ranked Kamikaze as my favorite hit song of 2018 (my actual favorite song was probably When You Die by MGMT or Stop Smoking by Car Seat Headrest for the record) but I am able, physically, to have negative opinions even about the rap god himself.

My only rule is that this only includes his full-length studio albums. Infinite won’t be here due to my lack of knowledge regarding it, but everything else is fair game. This will be heavily opinion-based.

Let’s go and start from the worst!

9. Revival (2017)

Initially I was gonna put Encore below this one. After all, in my opinion, there’s nothing egregiously awful about Revival in my mind. It just sort of existed to me, like that dead roach that stayed in my high school’s gym for over a month before disappearing without a word about it.

It wasn’t until I gave a few of the tracks a re-listen that I realized Revival has nothing going for it. This is Em’s sellout album, the one where he collabs with Beyonce, Ed Sheeran and goddamn X Ambassadors in the vague hopes that it’d get him a hit. Songs that don’t bother having clever writing because all they need to do is slap a semi-important pop singer on the hook.

It’s easily Em’s most ballsless album. In a universe where Kill You and Same Song & Dance exist, there is no need for Framed, Em’s almost saddening attempt to return to his Slim Shady roots even though, let’s be honest, the years of Shady are long behind us.

I’m not saying I need Em yelling slurs and talking about murder every five seconds, I just want him to be, for lack of a better word, the most authentic version of himself he can be. And this really isn’t it to me. No amount of politics or wordplay can hide that this is a sham of what an Eminem album should sound like. I don’t need diss tracks, or songs about serial killing, I just want him to say what he wants and not hold back.

Everything about the album is weak and tired. Every song melds into one another, without thought or purpose, only broken up by the celebrity hooks that define them. It’s the blackest mark on Em’s discography, and easily his worst album to date. Not even worth sneezing at.

8. Encore (2004)

I guess we shouldn’t let Em do whatever he wants...

Encore has the opposite problem that Revival does, and it’s a problem I empathize with. Encore is essentially word vomit in album form. It’s the musical equivalent of Jack Kerouac’s spontaneous prose, loud and incoherent and kind of gross. It’s what happens when ambition goes unchecked, and Em just leans a little too far into what the media says about him.

This was also deep in the throes of Em’s drug abuse problem, and it shows. This album feels like a bad drug trip, sludgy and gross and heavy, in a way that makes it hard to move your arms and legs. With these absolutely god-awful sung choruses on songs like My First Single, Eminem dares you to make less sense than him as he rambles like a crazy person through song after song, only taking breaks from his half-attempts at comedy on tracks like Mosh, Like Toy Soldiers and Mockingbird, which try to be serious. But it’s hard to be serious when you’re essentially getting choked in a soup of valium and regret.

I don’t hate Encore like I do Revival, because in some ways I can understand where it comes from. It’s trying to do the same sort of thing its predecessors did, with silly songs and serious ones. But the funny songs are so weird and frankly gross that it quashes any attempt of seriousness. It’s like Eminem thought the only way to make his songs better were to take what his detractors hated about him and turn it up to 11. Songs like My First Single are complete nonsense complete with gut-churning sound effects and a shitty beat, whereas Just Lose It, a song I’m ashamed to admit I enjoy, fills itself with baseless offensiveness and weird reference humor to function. And that was the big hit single off of this album.

Really I think Just Lose It was the best way to sell this album. What says Encore more than a song insisting that Eminem diddles little boys? FACK would’ve been in place on this album, which is not a compliment.

7. Recovery (2010)

Recovery shares a lot of problems with Revival, a lot of radio-bait songs featuring pop artists that have no business being within ten feet of Eminem. But I’ll admit its singles were far superior to that of Revival. No Love was far superior to anything Revival spat out.

I just kinda don’t care about this album. Other than how Love The Way You Lie was permanently ingrained in the cultural consciousness around 2010, I have very few thoughts about it. I remember hearing most of the singles when I was in elementary school, and they were all just kinda fine. Space Bound was okay (other than that coked up line about love being ‘evil’ spelt backwards) and Not Afraid was sincerely underwhelming considering what it was going for.

It’d been diminishing returns for Em for years, so I’m not shocked he needed some time to get back on his feet. But there’s just not much to say about Recovery. I feel like Em was a lot prouder of it than anyone else.

6. Kamikaze (2018)

At some level, I feel like Kamikaze set itself up to fail. And it did pretty well in spite of that.

The album’s main selling point was that it was dissing everyone. Shady’s gonna name names, I remember hearing, as this album dropped right the fuck out of nowhere in the late summer of 2018. Diss track drama has never really been for me, since oftentimes it pits artists I like against one another over petty bullshit. And hearing that Em slammed people simply for disliking Revival only made me more nervous about what Kamikaze’s outcome would look like.

I’m glad to say it was not nearly as bad as I was expecting.

I’m sort of on the fence about this album. While I think it is punchy, and pretty fun lyrics-wise, it definitely doesn’t hold a candle to any of his older stuff. It doesn’t even really hold up against MMLP2. It’s less that I enjoy this album, and more that I enjoy the possibility of Eminem managing to pick himself up after Revival and move into the new age while still being himself.

Easily the worst moment on this album is Eminem calling Tyler the Creator the f-slur and even implying he’s pretending to be gay, which he has since apologized for. However, the scariest thing to me that the line represents is the possibility that Eminem’s personality is too anachronistic. That in an era of young-adult trap rappers with very experimental homemade beats, there’s no longer room for a famous, albeit angry man in his 40′s being backed by a studio. It’s the years of Soundcloud, where anyone can be a rapper, and someone as old and frankly polarizing as Eminem may never truly have the limelight again.

Em’s style has simply fallen behind the times and he will never be content with updating himself, because that isn’t who he is. And while I love that about him, I think it might speak disaster for his career.

I like the songs though.

5. The Marshall Mathers LP 2 (2013)

Now we’re getting into the good shit. The Marshall Mathers LP 2 starts off with a bang, the first song being Bad Guy, a direct sequel to Stan and an incredibly powerful sequel at that. Eminem asks questions about his fame, his identity, and most notably, he fucking gets murdered at the beginning of this album.

MMLP2 strips off all but one skit. No Paul Rosenberg cameo on this one. This was him getting serious after the relative failure of Encore and Relapse. This was, frankly, what Recovery should’ve sound like. With Berzerk being a fun sort of party hit, Rap God is what really got him back on the map. The song asserts his lyrical dominance. It is a brag track, and it earns that right.

Despite it being of incredibly high quality, this is nowhere near Em’s best work, which speaks highly for his track record. The fact that something this well-made is comparatively mediocre when put next to the top four is incredible to me. This album is more of a revival than Revival was. It’s Eminem reaching out of the dirt after being buried and yelling “Hey, I’m not dead yet!” It’s the hearbeat running through a comatose body as they return to consciousness.

But when it comes down to it, I love what this album represents to me more than its content. Aside from Berzerk, Bad Guy and Rap God, none of the songs really stand out either way. It’s all good, of course, but none of it can match up to his older work. Regardless, this album means a lot to me on a spiritual level. Whenever I listen to this I feel like a proud parent, and Em is my son who just completely crushed his elementary school talent show.

It’s a good feeling.

4. Relapse (2009)

At this point it was sort of like picking my favorite child. My number one is obvious, but deciding how to order these three was trouble.

People will probably argue with me saying that Relapse is one of Em’s best, but fuck that. This album is severely underrated among the fanbase, and is an incredibly powerful listen. This album is an auditory representation of rock bottom, in the best way possible.

This is one of the only albums to really define a split between Marshall and Slim Shady, with Slim being a deep-voiced demon and Marshall being a fucked-up middle-aged man who just came staggering out of a rehab center. The way the characters play off of one another is beautiful, Slim trying to manipulate Marshall into his ways and wiles. This also easily has the most horrorcore-type sound and content out of any Eminem album, with Slim occasionally playing the role of a serial killer, such as on 3 am or one of the standout tracks, Same Song & Dance. Insane tells a story possibly regarding Slim’s father, or maybe representative of something else entirely.

One of my few issues with this album, aside from We Made You of all things being one of the singles, is that one of the best tracks is only on the deluxe edition. My Darling ties off the Slim and Marshall story in a nice little bow, plus Careful What You Wish For sweeping up all the themes and putting them in one place.

This album is beautiful, it’s cinematic in a way. It’s deep and powerful and incredibly, incredibly scary, with Em at his lowest point in his life and career. Sadly, it was not well-received critically, which I think is a shame. Clearly they weren’t seeing what I see.

3. The Eminem Show (2002)

Screw Revival, this is easily Em’s most politically powerful album yet. I listened to this whole thing on a boombox I got at Best Buy for 20 dollars and I felt like I had fucking transcended.

This album pulls out all the stops, immediately starting out on White America, a song so goddamn strong that every time little me heard it on the radio I immediately got down and lost my shit. I didn’t even understand what it was about, all I knew was that it was big and important. And it is.

While his first two big albums tried to be weird and threatening, The Eminem Show just wanted to be big, and talk about big things. Eminem fearlessly tears into heavily-charged concepts in White America, Say Goodbye Hollywood and Square Dance. Then on the flipside he aims the gun at himself on tracks like My Dad’s Gone Crazy, Cleanin’ Out My Closet and even Hailie’s Song. It’s a gut-punch of an album, this is where Eminem is truly fearless.

I’ll also say I feel this album is a little bit more accessible, weirdly enough, than Em’s earlier stuff. It’s much less crude and aggressive, but still carries his trademark style. It’s got the skits, he yells a lot still, but the topics are easier to swallow than his earlier albums. I’d say it’s a good entry-level Eminem album if you’re threatened by rape jokes and Em yelling the f-slur constantly. And unlike what Teens of Denial was for Car Seat Headrest, I feel like The Eminem Show manages to be that entry-level album without completely castrating Eminem’s lyrical content.

But even longtime fans can gain enjoyment from this album and how loud and proud it is, how fearless Eminem really is on this album. This one, more than anything, is the unfiltered Marshall Mathers experience. No filters, no jokes, just him and his daughter and Dr. Dre.

But easily the best part of this album is the DVD extras thing where you get a free episode of the Slim Shady Show. Fuck yeah.

2. The Slim Shady LP (1999)

The Slim Shady LP was Eminem’s first really successful work. It was also the first thing he ever put on a CD. Yeah, Infinite was on cassette only. And this album is fucking great. It’s a perfect debut for Eminem. It’s got his first big hit, My Name Is, and a myriad of other great tracks. It’s just good late 90′s rap, with fun beats and interesting lyrics. As much as I love SSLP, I don’t really like talking about it because... yeah, it’s good, I’m just never sure what else to say.

And that might make it sound like I like it less than The Eminem Show, but no, that’s not it. As much as I think political Em is great, I’ll forever prefer nasty rat boy Em any day. This is the Em that inspires me the most, the grody, crude one that reminds me of myself. Best tracks include 97 Bonnie and Clyde, Bad Meets Evil and of course My Name Is. This is also the only album where Ken Kaniff is played by Aristotle. There’s your fun fact for the day.

1. The Marshall Mathers LP (2000)

FUCK everyone else, I respect YOU!

The Marshall Mathers LP is a defining rap album. It’s lyrical perfection, the hooks are god-tier, and it is without contest the best Eminem album of all time. I doubt he’ll ever top this, and if he does it’ll probably break space-time.

MMLP ticks all the boxes an Eminem album usually should. It’s quirky, it’s comedic, it’s dark, it’s angry, it’s violent, it’s everything I could want and more. But beyond that, it’s the thing that really proved what Eminem can do. He can tell stories, he can do lyrics, he can flow, he has good beats, he can murder his ex-girlfriend, he can get his own songs censored on the uncensored version of his album, he can do it all.

The songs on this just put me in a good mood. Even though they’re horrible, and I don’t mean they’re bad songs. The content is absolutely fucked, this album is not for the faint of heart. But it makes me feel represented, not for being gay, trans, mentally ill or short, but for being a fucked-up weirdo who lived a fucked-up life and just wants to scream and lose his shit. More than anything, this feels like an album that’s there for me, for better or for worse.

The standouts on this album in my opinion are the two “named” tracks, Kim and Stan. These tracks are incredibly disturbing, but they both mean a lot to me and are incredibly written and acted. The Real Slim Shady is still an amazing single with an awesome, hopping beat. I’m Back is incredibly solid, Criminal is cleverly contradictory, every track on this album is great without any misses. If there were enough words in the English language to describe how much I love this album, I’d probably use all of them.

This album couldn’t exist today. If this came out today, it’d probably be thrown to the wayside for a myriad of reasons. It’s too late 90′s, it’s too dark, it’s “problematic”, we have like 500 white rappers now, but for the record: Anyone who writes this kind of music today owes it to Eminem, ESPECIALLY all of the white rappers who insist they’re better than him. (Looking at you, MGK.) Even if he’s not doing that great now, even if you don’t like him, it’d be foolish to not acknowledge what MMLP did for rap. And not only was it influential, but it still holds up to this very day.

So there you have it. All of Eminem’s full albums (besides Infinite oopsies) listed from worst to best. Have any differing opinions? Leave a reply. Just be polite, you filthy animal.

#worst to best #eminem #music review #music criticism #panda posts

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blxxdcurdle · 6 years

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Bleach verse: Tag pending

You were born in this midst of nobility, striking everlasting in the noble clan of the Tsynashiro clan. It was a dull life that you had been told countless times that should be seen as a blessing.

At your womb, you were born with a mom that loved you and a father who was hardly a father to you.

You were born as a child in nobility, destined to one day, become the real helper to this world.

If you could even call it that. Years past and your older brother was born. He was named Tetsu. He was also, like you, born into this society, and hated it. He would always come to you after sparring sessions. He would beg you to play chess with him or help him study the clan’s ways. You liked your brother. You had a special connection with him.

Then, your father started losing faith in you. This was all of sudden, but with Tetsu born and you defying him more and more, it was bound to happen eventually.

You couldn’t help but feel discern for him. All the intense times of training over the years. The times you felt as if the world had abandoned you, scorning you for not being noble enough.

Not being as brainwashed as you.

Beatings happened. Your father trained you so hard to the point where you started vomiting and he would even keep going then. You would come back with bruises.

Your mother, however, would sing you to sleep. She would sing you a lullaby. She would come to your door after such intense training and approach you if everything was alright. Her calm voice, her happiness, would always keep yourself going. You were always happy with her.

She, however, endured a lot of abuse with your father. Vases would break and the white walls of the Tsynashiro Clan would be torn. Your father was never the kind to hold back.

Time and time again abuse would happen. Your father doesn’t see it as abuse though, he sees it as a lesson.

You didn’t think though about telling him that. He would just beat you. Again and Again, as if it was some kind of lesson.

He was supposed to be a leader figure and yet, he did nothing that was supposed to be good as a leader. You watched your mother time and time again try to give to the poor. Even though your father saw it as against the law, it didn’t stop your weak and frail mother to help them. You saw that as strength. The strength that you did not have.

And yet, you wanted to have so bad.

You started going to Shino Academy. Father said that it was better this way. That you would get whipped into shape.

People looked at you like you were the plague in school. They knew who you were. They knew that you were noble. They hated you for it. They pelted rocks at you and other things every day. They scorned you for being the way you were.

They hated you because of who your father was. You admit, maybe you deserve this. Maybe you deserve to live with the shame of having him as a father. The way he even presents himself pisses you off.

And yet, he gets away with everything. Everything, because he’s a noble.

You hate him more in this school. You are away from him but it’s because your father can’t stand you that you’re here. He wanted you to straighten up. He wanted you to be converted into the clan. This experience though has stray you away. It has made you hate your father more. If that was bloody possible.

You’re mad, and even the Soul Society cannot calm the anger building in your soul.

Until a man approached you from the school. He was one of the people in the Gotei 13. He was a tall, blond man, with a good nature.

Out of all the Gotei 13 members that had come here to visit, he’s the only one who has struck a cord to you.

His name is Yagi Toshinori. He is a member of the fifth division. He’s a current third seat and you find him appealing. He is not like the others, he is pure. He has every ounce of the opposite energy to his father.

He is what a true member of the Gotei 13 should be.

You go with your day and he gives a bright grin at you, “You know, Chizome.” He jumps from the ledge, landing in front of him, “When I was your age, I could hardly practice Kido without blowing it up in my face.” Laughter fell from his lips, low and wholeheartedly. He slammed his thick hand onto your shoulder, “If you keep working hard, you’ll get there. You might be able to join me, Aizen-fukutaichou, and Shinji-taichou in the Gotei 13. We’ll be happy to meet you.”

Those are names you haven’t actually heard too much around. In fact, you don’t know if you even have seen them once. If Toshinori speaks well of them, that had to mean something.

But you’re essentially worried about how corrupt this society. This was a little too good to be true.

Little did you know, your instincts were correct. There were many, many people out there that played shams for the Soul Society. They acted like they were doing right, but they did not do what your mother did, risking her life to make the Rukongai district a better place.

You decided that during your off days of school, where your terror wouldn’t stop, that you would personally decide to start going there.

You would help your mother with society, but you would keep it away from your father.

Things were better that way. You needed to be there for your mother while you were away from his scornful and punchable face.

So, you went to the Rukongai districts, distributing food to the others. Giving them smiles, giving them hope. You see an older male doing the same. With purple and black robes dressed. You look in disdain, thinking of him as another noble, but he presents himself as someone he wasn’t. You look angry. You do not understand this man. You don’t understand why he looks essentially like a noble but is giving back to the poor. You don’t know why, but it boils your blood.

Then, he calls out to you, “Hey, you’re Tokinada’s son right?”

And your anxiety reeks out at that. You hated it whenever someone compared you to him. You hated it when someone would bring up your father. You don’t like the sound of that name. You despise it as if your father was your shadow.

You look at him with red eyes, glaring. You look nothing like the typical Tsynashiro because of your genes of your mother. Your mother is the reason. It was hard to bear your brother who looked like your father. You had to stop yourself from hitting him in your final days in the mansion.

You give a small wave. You don’t know how to respond. Your first instinct is to punch the man hard in the face. You didn’t like hearing things about your father ever.

However, if he looked rich, you didn’t want to be on the receiving end of an arrest. That means you’d have to see that fake Captain Commander you saw at your opening ceremony as a student. He gives you the same vibe everyone else does in the damn Soul Society. He’s responsible for the Rukongai district. He was what was wrong with the Soul Society. He was the problem.

You couldn’t help but wonder what exactly would happen that would be beneficial to the Soul Society if that old bearded man was dead.

The man talks with you for a bit, he seems nice, but you ultimately rule him off as acting. No one close to nobility could be that kind. No, he could not.

He introduces himself as Hozuki Yaijime. A man that was a part of Central 46. In all honesty, you just wanted the guy to stop talking.

Until, he said something that shook you to your very core, “You mother was a fantastic woman. I never had the pleasure, but Tokinada spoke often highly of her.”

Highly? Was?

What the fuck?

You snatched his collar so fast that it causes the bystanders to take a step back in fear. They are scared of you. They’ve been acting like that the moment that old bastard said his name.

“What the hell are you talking about?” You spat. Your anxiety had finally burst. Your anger as well. You hated this. Tokinada speaking highly of your mother boils your fucking blood. It boils it to no end, “Spoke highly? The bastard used her as a sex tool. He used him to birth my brother and I. I hate him.”

Yaijime is stunned by your words. You are angered, but he lets out a sigh, “I’m sorry. I know Tokinada hasn’t been the best…”

Your fist slams into his face, knocking him into the ground, “You’re sorry? You knew what he did to me? You assholes never will understand. That man, I live in his shadow every day. I live in it every day. He beat his wife and kids, and yet, gets exempt from every rule, all because he’s a damn noble.”

Yaijime is on the ground. A hand rising to his face to wipe the blood off of it. You are stun. It’s not phrasing him, “I didn’t know he did that to you, and I’m truly sorry.” He lets out a sigh, “You’re lucky I’m one of the nicer ones of Central 46. Word must’ve not gotten out to you over this situation. I’m sorry you have to know this, but your mother was stricken with an illness a few weeks and she’s…” He lets out a sigh, “no longer with us.”

Your entire world falls down. Your eyes are widening in agony. Denial rose into your system. Your heart pounded louder and faster as if you were ready to burst.

“No, you can’t be saying…”

“I’m sorry, my boy, I’m afraid I am. Your mother fell ill in the Rukongai district and passed a few days later. Your clan tried to help but it was…”

You understand now.

They let her die.

You storm off, hearing Yaijime calling out to you, telling you to come back, but you’ve had it. You’ve had it with this situation. You’ve had it with this wastehold of a society.

You are beyond mad. One of the only ones you loved, gone. Dead just like that.

You run and run for what seemed like hours. You did not want to return to that school. Fuck it, you can’t look at it right at all. You cannot, not after this. Not after knowing your father caused all of this. Sure, you don’t have proof, but you know your father doesn’t give a rat’s ass about him. You are still essentially a child. You have no combat skills, you have nowhere to go.

“You seems in distress.”

You jump out of your emotions and turned to look at a brown-haired man with glasses standing there, giving a sympathetic smile.

“Tsyuanshiro Chizome, am I correct?” The man asked, keeping the soft smile on his face.

“What the hell do you want? I already received word that my mother is dead.” Your words are nothing but scorn. You hate this. You hate it all. You don’t know what to do.

“My name’s Aizen Sosuke. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you. I came to tell you that your notion of believing that your father is responsible for your mother’s death is true. And look, your father never told you. He wanted you to realize that your mom was weak. That your mom doesn’t deserve to live. He used her and threw you out like you were nothing.” He takes a few steps forward towards him. You know all too well that it’s true. You had to know,

Your “father” had been dead to you since you started here at Shino and now, he was nothing but a memory, “My father killed my mother.”

“Yes, he sure did. That was a terrible tragedy. My men are actually investigating the situation, and they have discovered your mother died by your so-called father’s hand.” The brown-haired man’s grin faded, staying at you, “I can tell you have no purpose, Chizome. So, I want to offer you something…” He offers a hand for you to reach out, “I hate Soul Society too. You needn’t hide that from me. I can see the corruption clear as day, as do you.” He continues, “So, my offer is to join me. I have a plan that can make sure people like your father do not see the light of day ever again. You can only do that though and train.”

“How am I even supposed to go back there?” You ask through your short breaths. It wouldn’t be the first time someone betrays him.

Aizen’s eyes narrowed, “You go back there to spite them. You train yourself as hard as you can. You are already stronger than most of the students there. You are better than them. They don’t see what we see. You needn’t worry though, You can graduate in the course of four years with your skill, and when that happens, you may come to my division.” He adjusted his rectangular glasses, giving out a smirk to you.

You hesitated, wondering who he was, why he was doing this? Why did he want you on his side? Why was he talking to you like this? Just how? You don’t know what else to do. Only he is offering you a chance.

“You can get back at your father for taking your brother away. For taking your mother away. You can get away from them all. You can bring true change to this society by joining me.”

And that day, changed your fate and changed your path. You agreed to his destiny. You sold yourself to that society. You gained a Zanpakuto that did stuff the moment you licked the blood. It froze people for a short amount of time depending on the spirit energy.

Those years past and when it came down to it, you saw that Yaijime figure again, and you watched Aizen slaughter him as you killed more and more Central 46 members. It was invigorating. You enjoyed the Sneetches of blood. You enjoyed the very fabric of their society falling and falling.

This is what you were born for. You were born to kill. You were born to stain the Soul Society red. You enjoyed this. Aizen was right, this society was doomed to fall under his reign where he would no longer have to associate himself with the Soul Society and create a new one. A world like the one Soul Reaper he met that one night.

Destiny begins here, and it would end with you at the end of Toshinori’s mercy, and hopefully, at your brothers’ as well.

#Bleach verse tag pending #tw: gore #tw: blood #tw: death #tw: child abuse #tw: abuse #tw: bruises #ask to tag #( Here we go )#( Who's gonna write this with me )#( Also I aplogize this is so bloody long I got carried away )#( I didn't even care to format because it was so long lmao )#( I will do his Zanpakuto in another post )#tw: anxiety #tw: depression

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ionlydate2dboys · 6 years

Text

I have a lot of feelings regarding S7 of Voltron, which I will word vomit in this post, and then probably never speak of again.

I’ll put it under a read more, since my thoughts are probably going to be long.

First things first, I don’t ship Klance. I don’t ship Klance in the sense that I didn’t realize it was a ship until Tumblr informed me it was, so I watched the show again, and still found no indication that it was anything close to a romantic ship. Maybe that’s just me, maybe it’s just because Tumblr has gotten into the habit of shipping the idea of something, rather than the actual ship.

I find most depictions of the ship out of character, and reaching, but I am the first person to admit that the creators, and promoters of Voltron took this very hardcore part of their fanbase, and fed into them to create a hype.

By this, I don’t mean the voice actors who shared their personal opinions on the ship, or the show, because they have zero influence as to what happens to their characters. I mean the writers, and creators of the show who have distinctly pushed the idea that it could be a ship, while never developing them, or intending to develop them in the show. It is a gross marketing ploy, taking advantage of teens and young adults who desperately just want some positive representation in modern media.

So while I don’t ship Klance, and never saw any indication of the ship becoming canon, I do understand the anger and frustration most shippers much feel at this moment. They were targeted, and baited into an idea because it fed the hype. They were taken advantage of in the most deplorable way, and that is unforgivable.

Leading into that, Allurance, and whatever Keith and Acxa’s shipname is, are shoehorned, heteronormative tropes. Allurance is the tale of the tragic, rejected hero and the girl who only sees his potential after he’s given his life to save hers, and Keith and Acxa are two lone wolves going off together, despite having nothing in common, and no noticeable interactions, whatsoever.

Though I saw Allurance coming from a mile away, right about the time Lance started admitting his feelings for her to the mice, I feel like neither of these pairings do the people involved in them justice, which ultimately is just sad. In fact, I’d go as far as saying that if these pairings truly become canon ( which I don’t think is far off from happening ), it will severely deconstruct the characters we have gotten to know over the past six-and-then-some seasons.

And then there is Shadam. Or Adashi. Or perhaps, just Adam as a character.

Where to start, other than to express my absolute anger, and distaste for the way they have treated these boys. I won’t even go in to the pat on the back the creators have been trying to give themselves in regards to Adam’s “impact” on the season, and the forceful hype they created about Shiro’s coming out. There was no coming out, there was no hype.

All we got was a disgustingly ambiguous three minute flashback, and the next episode he appeared, Adam was dead. His death wasn’t impactful, or even well orchestrated. There was no emphasis on his character passing, no mention from Sam, or any of the other characters on how this would affect Shiro, he was just another character to add onto the wall of fallen soldiers. His death was done so slyly, even, that if I hadn’t been looking forward to the development of his character, I easily could have missed the fact that it was Shiro’s fiancé dying on the job.

Now here is what disgusts me the very most.

For weeks, ever since SDCC, we had been hyped up for proper representation. The way its creators spoke about representation, and the way it would be depicted, led us -- the fans -- believe that there was going to be decent development for these characters. That they were going to be treated with the dignity this community deserves.

Instead the show told us that it’s okay for us to die, as long as it ticks the check box for underrepresented communities, in the most ambiguous of ways. It told us that being gay is okay, but only quietly. Only when no one knows. Only when one of them survives, only to never mention, or be represented as a part of our community again.

Shadam is queerbaiting, because ultimately, there is no depiction of their relationship. Ultimately, there is no relationship. There is no emotional connection between these characters, because of how the show has decided to portray them. Shadam, is a Sham because of what it represents, because of what it tells its young, LGBTQ+ followers, and because of how both halves of the pair have been treated throughout the show.

Is there a way for Voltron redeem itself?

Possibly. Adam being alive due a miracle might be one of them, but I’m not keeping my hopes up.

I will probably watch season eight, because I want to know how it ends, but the emotional connection I felt, the excitement I had for Adam’s appearance, that flame’s gone out.

Ultimately, I am sad, disgusted, and disappointed.

Don’t tell us you will represent us, only to treat us in the dirtiest, undignified ways.

We are not your representation check box.

We are not your free promotion, and hype.

We are not your bait.

That’s it.

#voltron season 7 #voltron spoilers

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raynebowrayne · 6 years

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New project I'm toying with. Whacha think, folks?

I'm tagging this with Reylo tags because that's the main focus of my blog and people there read my Ao3 Reylo Fanfic.

Here is an original story I'm working on.

***

He's like a male Molly Ringwald.

That was my first impression of Ben Johnson when he completed his first season on my favorite television show. In his rookie year as a celebrity his character had come on the show as the slightly odd and geeky but still charming and rather attractive in an unusual way that you could spend hours pondering without ever being able to explain the how or why of.

The next year he finished the season by winning the heart of the beautiful Esmeralda Crain, the central "beautiful young focal character" of the ensemble driven primetime drama that I watch with an almost religious fervor.

The show, "Finding Me" is an hour every week from June to September of pure unadulterated drama about a dozen just out of college, young people finding their way in the world. It's shot like a 'reality' show, but it's fully scripted and jam packed with amazingly talented actors and actresses. I can't get enough of it.

By season three I was blogging about it on three different social media websites, spending every second of my free time obsessing over the show. In truth, I spent my unfree time obsessing quietly while I check bags and wave a metal detector wand around people at my local airport.

Season 7 has just wrapped up and somewhere along the way, I fell head over heels for the character Miles Adams. I tuned in every week after season three just to see Miles. The other 10 people on the show were great, but Miles and Esmeralda stole the show in season three… and for me, in my obsessive frenzy, they became the pair I loved the absolute most. They were perfect together.

The actors who played them - Ben Johnson and Emmy Star (no, that's really her birth name, I googled her) were superb. By season 4 they were each making four times more money per episode than anyone else in the cast.

Of course, when they flew to vegas during the season four finale and got married during the airing of Miles and Esmeralda's own vegas elopement the internet exploded with the impact of an atom bomb.

Some people were flat out convinced that it had been a sham, a publicity stunt, a way to make the show more money so that it could afford Season five's pay raises for the entire cast, including doubling Ben and Emmy's already impressive salaries.

I never believed that. No way. Ben and Emmy, or Bemmy as I call them, have waaaay too much chemistry onscreen and off to be faking it. No, the show making more money was a natural consequence of having the most talented young cast ever assembled in one show. Period. End of discussion. Fin. I will not hear another word about it.

Of course, in every fandom you find trolls… With six couples, a lot of cross-relationship sexual tension, and a highly diverse cast season seven Finding Me's social media following is a breeding ground for fandom trolls. We real fans call them "antis." They whine endlessly about the show but for some reason wont just stop watching it. I do not get those people. They annoy me.

So here I am, in my cheap polyester uniform with my shiney little badge and clunky black patton leather steal toed boots, daydreaming about Miles' gorgeous, fiery, brown-eyed smoulder while I wave through a pretty blond that towered over me by a good six inches.

Mile's eyes have the most intense quality about them. He can literally boil freezing water with a single stare. I'm not sure at exactly what point he went from "geeky" to "omfg I totally would trade my soul for just one night with him" but I think it might have been the season two smouldering hot ten second stare down while stalking toward Esmeralda with pure unfiltered, unbridaled lust rippling off of him like heat waves off desert sand. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that was the moment.

Just the thought of that moment is enough to make me blush as I blink away the image. I glance up at the guy who'd just set off the metal detector as I pass the wand across his chest. I freeze. My brain crashes against my skull and I stand there gaping like a fish out of water as Miles Adams stares back at me in annoyance.

I blink.

No, not Miles Adams.

Ben Johnson.

Ben "omfg" Johnson is scowling at me. In the flesh. At MY airport! In Real Life!

I watched in fascination as the annoyed look melted off his face and alarm flashed ahead of concern that gave way to amusement and finally turned to exasperation.

"Breathe." He rolled his eyes and said, half mockingly - half coaxingly with a slight grin on his lips.

In Dolby Digital his voice caresses you like tattered silk, in real life, it's more like a cat's tongue.

His eyes widen and he half reaches for me. "No, really, you need to breathe."

Oh, god. His voice... is talking to me!

"Shit!" He hissed as his face, that incredibly expressive face of his, swam before my eyes.

I blinked and found myself looking up into his frowning face.

"Dear god, not again." Came an annoyed female voice. "They're never going to stop doing that if you keep catching them."

Ben turned a quick scowl toward someone above my head then looked back and asked me, "Are you alright?"

That's when three things hit me at once.

One, I'm cradled in his arms, across his lap as he squats down in front of the metal detectors.

Two, his eyes are prismatic, a totally different shade, ranging from black to amber-yellow depending on how the light hits them.

Three, I'm making a total ass of myself by continuing to stare at him - dumbstruck and drooling.

Reality set in with the suddenness and force of a high speed mid-air collision.

I apologized profusely as I fought my way through 10 tons of humiliation and panic to get to my feet. My mortification could not have been more complete… until I chanced a glance upward and spotted a trickle of blood oozing down his chin.

I have never wanted to cry so badly in my life.

Without another word I took off at a dead run for the nearest ladies room where I immediately screamed "Fuck!" at the top of my lungs. That didn't help much so I did it a few more times before I began ugly-crying my eyes out.

It took me a good hour to get control of myself enough to clock out amidst pitying glances and some snickering from my fellow security guards. I kept my eyes straight ahead as I walked briskly out to my car.

I'd been at Bluegrass for five years. I'd seen celebrities before. Admittedly, not many… but some! Johnny Depp once came through my line! I was calm, cool and professional. No sweat. Under no circumstances have I ever lost my shit over anything or anyone like I did with Ben Johnson. Not even close.

I called in and talked my supervisor into arranging two weeks worth of my accrued vacation for the immediate future. It was too easy. He had obviously been appraised of my blunder.

I hung up and cried myself to sleep at four o'clock in the afternoon.

The next two weeks were more of the same. Log in to check my blogs, weep as soon as I see a picture of him, log out and cry myself to sleep. Wake up, go pee, see myself in the mirror and burst into tears. Pull a burrito out of the microwave, set it on a paper plate, burst into tears.

About midway through the second week I got rip roaring drunk... at home… alone… with a half gallon tub of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream and a half gallon bottle of Smirnoff.

It tasted terrible when it made an encore appearance later on.

As I lay there next to the toilet, in the fetal position, my hair wet from both sweat and vomit, I pondered my life and it's recent trials and tribulations.

The most comforting thought came to me as the room spun like a drunken tilt-a-whirl. It doesn't actually matter what happened when Ben Johnson unexpectedly jumped out of my fantacy and into my reality… I'd never see him again.

Another highly comforting thought was that my co-workers will surely have moved back to their favorite gossip topic, Shirleen Dabney's love life, and forgotten all about me fainting and then splitting the lip of my favorite celebrity by now. Surely. It's not like they're blogging about it. Shirleen's love life is way more interesting than lil ole me.

Shirleen is a tall, leggy, redhead with surgically enhanced ta tas and an ass like a fetishist porn star. She's been picked up and dropped off to work by twelve different men in the three months she's been at Bluegrass. Twelve! Different! Men! That works out to one a week. The security room is abuzz with gossip about her every second that she's not in it… and dead silent when she is.

With two more Shir-boys to gossip about, no doubt my little incedent with a t.v. star is long forgotten.

#reylo fam #tracy adkins #reylo shippers #reylo fandom #fanfic

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