#who can fucking stand you and you see yourself reflected in them on a fundamental level? even as you know they’re making you worse and their

[sparky-is-spiders]

Ignoring my Tumblr screentime limit to say that this song would be the perfect Amaldyne and Eityr song (from Eityr’s perspective) if it was less strongly implied to be about a romantic relationship.

[hero-israel]

Let me tell you being a former Christian this shit goes so much deeper than a lot of born Jews realize. The Christian worldview (specifically Calvinist/Puritan) seeping into and pervading all of modern leftism is honestly frightening. But also it's very funny.

They believe that there are Good people and Bad people, and that any mistake or lapse in judgment or instance of not being educated is a Mask Off moment, showing who is a member of the Elect and who is not. If you fuck up, that's not just a fuck up, it's Revealing. You are damned, were always damned, you were just good at hiding it, and now we know the truth and are doubly angry because not only are you evil, you lied about it. The only recourse is to shun you, and if that leads to your death, so be it. Anyone who's seen any micro celebrity get canceled saw this in action.

And the only way you can prove you're a member of the Elect is to operate as if you have nothing to hide. You have to loudly and proudly proclaim your righteousness. If you don't have anything to hide why would you be worried? Privacy is suspicious. You Must Speak on everything they deem important or else you obviously agree with the Bad People. There is no room for discussion or healthy debate. There are no loopholes or subclauses or other points of view to consider. You're with us or against us. If you don't constantly go around saying you're with us, you're probably secretly against us. The only way to convince your neighbors, whom you inherently distrust, that you're one of the Good Ones, is to perform righteousness, parrot righteous words. The only way to redeem yourself is by grandiose acts of self flagellation, perhaps being the right demographic, or by accusing others of Heresy.

The goal is not to bring good into the world, it's to recruit more people into the same thought patterns (that's kind of all Christian denominations though). Because if you can convince your community that you're one of the Elect, that means G-d preselected you for Heaven, and you're golden. No repercussions or consequences baby. The only material benefit for you is that you "get" to proclaim you're going to Heaven and everyone has to agree with you. If anyone doesn't they're probably going to Hell anyway. You're on the right side (of history), so why should you ever self reflect or grow? Why should you question anything? Why should nuance or empathy exist? This is about Right and Wrong. We know where we stand, where do you stand?

Every single aspect of American culture and politics, right and "left" alike, was planted by the pilgrims, and it is so fundamentally antithetical to true Leftist thought. Remember all the actually successful Western Leftist movements were started in Europe (and Israel cough cough)... because they kicked all their fucking psychotic Calvinists out. Those people went to America and that's a big big big reason why we don't have any near as much of a robust Leftist movement as even socially conservative European countries (and Israel cough cough). And what's funny is I still find myself slipping into these thought patterns, which is so not compatible with Jewish philosophy or theology. It's been years and I'm still not done.

It's a hell of a drug to kick, so I definitely don't trust white goysiche college kids who've been antitheists for about 6 months since they left their Republican parents' homes to have any great success in unlearning and unprogramming from this. Which is kind of obvious in that I see them acting just like their conservative Christian parents every day on every social media platform, swap out a gun toting white Jesus with some noble savage idea of Palestine, absolving the West of its sins against the Global South.

It is a cult structured around spiritual isolation, antisocial behavior, and it is inherently against any kind of political movement that centers and celebrates the Community. It is designed to tear communities apart and foster obedience to whatever authority can force itself on them. And this has been going on for almost 500 years, there is nothing we can do about it.

Thank you for the insightful look. Their "purity culture" approach definitely had to come from somewhere.

[paragonrobits]

“I dont like Transformers because alien robots are totally unrelatable” so i might be going completely feral with unchecked fury at this statement but I can also safely say this unlocked a great deal of thoughts on me that boils down to the following thought:

the idea of things being relatable, and that a sufficiently non-normal concept is inherently unrelatable and framed in such a way that this is a bad thing, is an absurd concept that needs to be extinguished already.

to be clear, I have come to realize that when people mean something is relatable, they almost invariably mean that they want to project onto it. This is where you see a LOT of fanworks that fixate on a particular character who is considered relatable to the audience of a particular subset of fandom, and their characters are constantly flattened and bent out of shape to suit the fandom’s perspective. These characters that are considered relatable have their characters completely nullified in favor of acting as an OC stand-in for the writer, or the fanbase as a whole in the case of widespread headcanons.

A prime example of this is Katara in ATLA, who is very often considered highly relatable, but fanworks with her (usually shipping her with Zuko) have no real relation to her actual personality, beliefs or mannerisms in canon. She’s treated as a girl next door from a suburb in terms of how she perceives the world (often valuing luxury or political power in ways the canonical character never would) rather than her actual persona.

Characters fundamentally cannot be relatable, when you get down to it. You might find yourself drawn to aspects of them, or see a reflection of yourself in them, but this is applicability in play. They will always be different from you; your life cannot ever map perfectly to their own due to the nature of fiction, regardless of how similar you might find them to yourself.

This also likely leads to how a lot of the people who really fixate on relatability often tend to dislike explicitly nonhuman characters. Again, using the above example, as people fixate on characters they can pretend are little booths for them to inhabit, you get a lot of vitrolic dislike for characters they cannot do this to, in a way that often feels bizarrely personal. You can almost imgaginen them saying ‘how DARE you not be a perfectly idealized version of myself! FUCK YOU AND EVERYTHING YOU STAND FOR.”

(This may in turn offer some reasoning for why characters who come from a very non-familiar background or homeland often tend to be irrationally disliked by the fandom. When you view all your stories as fuel to project onto, you tend to hate anything that you refuse to use for that purpose.)

[peachy-panic]

Only Temporary: Sebastian Tate

Hello. I was completely blown away by the positive response I got on the first piece of Jaime’s story (title under construction). Thank you to everyone who had a kind word to say about it! You made me really happy I made the mildly frightening choice to post.

In the interest of acclimating to the no-rules, freedom-to-post-out-of-order structure of this community, I wanted to introduce a new piece of the puzzle this time, with a new character that will come into play later.

Also, this piece goes into a little bit of the details, but for frame of reference on the BBU-adjacent thing: this story takes place in a not-so-distant future of the BBU, where WRU has undergone some changes. I look forward to exploring this world building more as I go.

Anyway, I’m rambling again. Thanks for reading. Here it is:

WARNINGS: General BBU warnings, talk of institutionalized slavery, classism, and general terribleness of large corporations. Referenced past homophobia and rough parental relationships, briefly implied/referenced non-con.

When Sebastian reflects on the day he graduated from med school, a sort of emptiness is the memory that first bobs to the surface. Among the cheers and camera flashes in the crowd, white coats and proud smiles, what Sebastian recalls most vividly from that day is looking out into the sea of parents and families and people there to support their loved ones on one of the biggest days of their lives, and not seeing a single person that had come for him.

What should have been one of the happiest moments of his life had been quickly overshadowed by the sinking feeling that none of it mattered as much as it would have if he had someone to share it with. Like there was something so fundamentally wrong with his life, that even something as objectively good and right and decent as becoming a doctor could be dulled over into a feeling of nothingness.

Perhaps, he thinks in hindsight, that moment had been foreshadowing for the following months ahead of him.

Watching rejection after rejection pour in from his top residency programs had felt like nothing short of his own personalized nightmare. He had spent several nights in a row on the phone with Alex, his undergrad roommate and only friend, clamoring back from the edge of many a panic attack, spiraling into all-out existential dread about the future and the past and what all of it meant for him if he couldn’t land an internship, let alone a real job out of school. To his credit, Alex never gave up hope in his friend. Or at least, he did a decent job hiding it if he did. Which was probably exactly what Sebastian needed to get through that particularly dark time in his life, and a good reminder of what a solid friend he had. Even if it was a party of two.

Unfortunately, Sebastian did not have the same faith in himself.

He was able to keep up some facade of optimism as his top five were picked off one by one. Telling himself, despite his devastation, that they were a pretty far reach, anyway. Even with good academic standing, it was famously no walk in the park to land yourself at John Hopkins or Mayo as a first-year. He even maintained a brave face as his first few safety programs reached capacity and moved forward without his name on the roster.

It wasn’t until he received his final rejection letter from some internal medicine place in Bumfuck, Idaho that he felt himself slip into dangerous territory. Sebastian knew himself well enough to know his own depressive patterns by then, and he knew it was only exponential decay from there.

Rock bottom came, as it did, in the wee hours of the night, after a full bottle of wine. Alone in his small apartment, surrounded by half-packed boxes with no destination, Sebastian found himself sprawled out on the floor with his laptop hot against his thighs. He couldn’t have explained why he opted for a privacy browser, but something about it allowed him to justify the words that he typed into the search bar.

It was a new low, and one he had sworn to himself he would never stoop to. Yet there he was.

He gave himself a moment to reconsider, to back out of what was undoubtedly a morally-gray train wreck waiting to happen as his thumb hovered over the enter key. And then the alcohol decided to override his moral compass.

Facility Care is the open secret of the medical profession. It comes with its fair share of stigma, and rightfully so, but it is notoriously easy to break into and pays a decent wage.

There are two types of people who end up stooping to that kind of employment. More often than not, it consists of doctors and nurses who had their licenses revoked or suspended somewhere along the line and needed a way back in. As far as Sebastian understood, they aren’t terribly ridgid about the particulars of each circumstance. After all, in the eyes of the law, the patients they would be treating are a price tag away from being entirely expendable.

The other percentage of Facility Care workers, and the reason Sebastian found himself staring at his too-bright computer screen with a sinking feeling of dread that night, are young medical graduates who find themselves in a tough spot. It isn’t difficult to spell out the logic behind that one when you open the WRU CAREERS tab on the home page and see the bright white words printed across the top of the screen:

LOAN FORGIVENESS.

It is shamelessly predatory and aggressively capitalistic, but Sebastian supposes that particular exploitation is pretty far down on the list of transgressions for an institution of legalized slavery. A few broke and hopeless medical students were hardly going to keep the Powers That Be up at night when they were able to rest easy under the weight of hundreds of thousands of stolen lives.

The whole thing is part of the massive PR overhaul the company did a few years back. In a world that was slowly inching toward civil activism and with the accessibility of platforms like social media to hold them accountable, WRU had to adapt to survive. Adaptation, in this case, took the form of changing the barest of minimums in order to keep themselves above board — to the public eye, anyway. Anyone who dares to take a closer look at the policy changes can see that it’s bullshit.

Changing ownership conditions to a rent-by-contract basis isn’t the humanitarian move they try to paint it as. In the end, it probably just equals out to more money in the company’s pocket when they can get more return on their “investments,” and a larger chance of exploitation for the people being moved around.

Getting rid of the Romantic division is an entirely meaningless gesture when they are still loaning out human beings with no legal rights and the inability to say “no.”

And offering an open job market with good wages and healthcare options to lower class individuals is a pretty convenient way to mute the backlash.

Essentially, you can tie a system of slavery and abuse up in a bow and make it pretty on the outside, but at the end of the day, it’s still fucking slavery.

Not that he has any room to criticize now. Now that he’s one of them.

In the end, Seb tries to justify his decision a few different ways. He is, after all, more or less a young man alone in the world. The odds are stacked against him and have been for a while. With only his own two legs to stand on, the only force stronger than his internal ambition is his instinct for survival, and he’s been running on those fumes for longer than he can count.

He had lasted less than two months under his parents’ roof after he came out of the closet at eighteen. It wasn’t exactly a surprise for anyone involved; Sebastian’s parents had known about (and subsequently bottled) his… urges… since he was in high school. Probably before that, if he is being honest with himself. And Sebastian, for his part, had spent the better part of his teenage years mentally preparing for the inevitable. He can recall long, late nights he had spent crying into his pillow and the perfectly-scripted ‘coming out’ speeches he recited to his mirror when he was one-hundred percent sure his parents were asleep.

Of course, none of the preparation had been anywhere near adequate when he actually found himself wilting beneath the heat of his father’s glare, the weight of his mother’s grief.

But. He had recovered. That is the point he tries to remember when the memories sting fresh beneath his skin, even all these years later. He has more-than proven himself to be a survivor. He has worked harder than anyone he knows for every scholarship, every grant, every dollar to put himself through school. Sacrificed nights out and real relationships for night shifts at shitty diners and long weekends cramming for exams. It hadn’t been easy, but he considers it the price he had to pay for his independence. For freedom, to live the life as the person he is meant to be, despite his unfortunate odds. He spent years telling himself it would be worth it. That one day, his hard work would pay off.

He can’t stop now.

Sebastian doesn’t have the luxury of taking time off to reroute when his navigation has gone amiss. He is walking the precarious line of rapidly accruing interest and student loans and a dwindling savings account, and there is no safety net below him.

Beggars can’t be choosers, and as it turns out, beggars sometimes have to compromise their moral integrity in order to survive.

It’s only temporary.

That is the mantra that gets him through the (half-drunken) application process and the (disturbingly lax) interview process. It is a job. One job. In the medical field, though the details are up for debate, and it is real-life money for rent and food and a savings that will hopefully be sizable enough to get him where he really wanted to be. Which is… really, anywhere else.

He can do ‘temporary.’ And perhaps, some misguided part of him thinks he can do some genuine good from the inside, too. ‘Be the change you want to see’ and all that.

It is a far jump from the floor of his apartment, sloshed and exhausted and desperate, to the cold, sharp reality of walking into his place of employment on his first day of work. Ironically, it feels a lot like an echo of the emptiness from his graduation day.

‘Sterile’ doesn’t quite cover it. ‘Sterile’ is the expectation of any well-respected medical establishment, but the inside of the facility walls has been wiped clean of far more than bacteria and germs. It is completely devoid of humanity. The long corridors that connect the medical wing to the general ward are windowless and dimly lit by flickering fluorescent panels that had make his head pound for the entirety of his first week.

He is given an office, though it is a term he, himself, might use loosely, as it is more akin to what was probably a storage closet before the old prison had been converted into the state’s training headquarters. It leaves him just enough space for a small desk and two chairs. On his first day, he asks if it is okay to bring in some personal items to spruce the place up. The older, balding doctor who had been assigned to show him around merely shrugs, and Sebastian decides to take that as a yes.

The small, pink-framed photo of a six-year-old Sebastian Tate in his grandfather’s white coat and an old-school stethoscope around his neck is hardly enough to make the place cozy from the corner of his desk, but it’s a good enough reminder of why he has to make this work.

‘It’s only temporary.’

‘Be the change you want to see.’

He will do his best.

[anika-ann]

WINSoD - Pt.5

If One Should Fall...

Type: series, soulmate AU series  (part 1, part 2, part 3)  

Pairing: Steve Rogers x reader  Word count: 3120

Summary: In which distribution of forces on the stones-retrieving mission changes. Because— reasons.The reason being a special visit someone pays you.

Warnings!: skip to post-Infinity War and the summary of it - you can imagine; deaths, violence....briefly tho, + language, mention of the inability to bear children, brief suicidal thoughts, kinda religious motives because SPN

A/N: Enormous time skip, because obviously CA:CW didn’t happen and the timeline is changed from canon already. Also, the title (What I’d Never Say or Do had I been in my right mind) is reeeeeally applicable in this one and somehow… it felt right to connect the chapters like this. Do not murder me…?

Part 4

༻༺༻༺༻ღ༺༻༺༻༺

Forever was a funny word. A funny concept, perhaps. People always said they wished for some moments to last forever and what they meant was for them to last as long as possible, with no change in sight. Or they said that something unpleasant felt like it lasted forever, their souls craving an end of the misery, a fundamental change as the polar opposite to the first case.

You lived through both in the past years.

Sitting on your ass in a Wakandian palace, watching a battle unfold in front of you, an ensemble of great warriors fighting yet another army from space, that felt like forever, a never-ending nightmare and you only got to watch.

It set a pattern for you for several more years to come. To only watch.

You watched an alien creature steal the sceptre that the Avengers had decided to store in the palace and it did so while killing everything in its way. Princess Shuri had the great idea of hiding you and cuffing you so you wouldn’t stand in the creature’s path while she tried to stop it with the others. She ended up in shattered glass, only unconscious, as if thanks to a miracle.

You watched as… as she fell apart to ashes only minutes later; just like many, oh so many others.

Half of the population, they said.

Thanos, The Mad Titan, had wiped half of all living creatures.

The moment was carved into your brain forever. And the eternal time you waited for anyone to come back from the battle, to see Steve alive, because God, please, let him live – yes, that sure as hell felt like forever too.

Lives were lost. Bucky, Sam, Ryan, Wanda, Pietro, Peter, Shuri, T’Challa, Strange, Fury… the list went on and on. All of them, gone. Forever.

The world changed. Avengers  ow officially didn’t exist and yet recruited new members all over the freakin’ space, which was the only way of finding out Tony Stark, who had disappeared on a spaceship, in fact, survived.

The missions of the greatest defenders of Earth changed as well. Some members took off to start a family, lucky enough to still have a partner to do so. Or to have the ability to pass their genes.

You couldn’t. Or maybe Steve couldn’t, it didn’t matter. You never pried after the source of your inability to have children; you two were one, a unity. You didn’t want to know so you could point fingers. You could tell Steve blamed himself, as well as he knew that your irregular period was definitely not helping. You made your peace. In fact, you admired Tony for finding the courage to create an environment for a child in this mad world; your lack of faith in being able to do the same had the opportunity rose ironically helped you to come to terms with the fact of your body was not functioning right.

In a way, it only drew you and Steve closer. You had valued each other before, yes, but now… you truly were like one. You backed him up in how he decided to honour Sam’s memory by starting a support group and he was the one to sense that in a search for reassurance, strangely materialistic, you craved an official bond with him, despite never saying a word.

You were Steve’s wife now – and you were each other’s rock, even during the poor attempt at defeating Thanos again.

Five years was a long time, a forever, one might say, but when Scott Lang, one of the people believed to been dusted, reappeared, forever and never became relative again.

Which led you to now; what was left of the Earth’s mightiest heroes was planning on retrieving the infinity stones.

Because they figured out how to time-travel.

Observing your reflection in the mirror, the circles under your eyes, you couldn’t but run your hand down your face and sigh.

You were still struggling with accepting the incredible fact of the possibility of coming back in time, yet you had to shush the hope inside you. Hope was a dangerous thing; certainly on such big scale as everything could being as it had been, hope that all the people who had lost their lives during the Snap could be resurrected.

As for a person who in fact had died once, it was easier for you to believe it was possible and you weren’t sure that it was a good thing. The fear of losing what you still had – read Steve, mainly – in the process, was paralyzing. It would mean your end, one you might deliver by yourself if it came to it, because you weren’t as strong as your husband. You wouldn’t make it through. Not after everything that happened.

You sighed again and tried to shake off the darkest thoughts.

When your eyes fell on the reflection again, a man stood behind your shoulder.

You spun on your heels and jerked away, your bottom bumping into the sink with a startled yelp escaping your lips.

In a fraction of second, several ways of defending yourself flashed through you mind; but the man was already three feet away; in a blink of an eye, before you could even move further.

Chest heaving with frantic breaths, hand over your heart, you stared at the intruder dressed in a three-piece suit and a red cravat. Of average height and maybe few pounds over healthy weight, smoothly shaven so his smirk could stand out, he looked… peculiar, especially given the fact he had found himself in the ladies’ room.

It shouldn’t have surprised you he spoke up with some kind of an accent on top of everything, but it did.

“Saving the world is exhausting, isn’t it?”

You stared at him, speechless. Your brain kicked into an overdrive, analysing how much of a threat he was, if he was like Pietro, too fast for Friday to catch him, or what was he-

“Who the-“

“I’m Crowley, darling. And you don’t need look so scared. If I wanted you dead, you’d be already lying here in a puddle of blood,” he reassured you like a sleazy businessman, all pretence at kindness.

You winced at the visual and narrowed your eyes.

“Alright, Crowley, what do you want? And what exactly are you?” you demanded, uncertain why you felt calm despite the man appearing out of thin air and speaking of you dying in the bloodiest way. Were you truly so numb these days?

He smiled, as if he was old friend. “I am a friend of Moose and Squirrel-“ What. “-or Sam and Dean, as you know them. I have no doubt they mentioned me. After all, my mother is assisting them more than she would like. You met her, incidentally.”

It didn’t take a genius to figure it out – you hadn’t met many people during your time with the Winchesters. This man… was probably a warlock. A witch. Rowena apparently had a son.

Well. Shit.

“Okay. So… you’re a witch or something. Means I shouldn’t trust you fully. Noted. Now what do you want?”

His face twisted in a theatrical insulted grimace, his palm laid on his chest as if you just shot him through the heart – which, by the way, would probably do nothing to him.

“First of all, I am here to help, so I don’t think you have other option than trusting me. Second of all, I am not a witch, I am the King of Hell, thank you very much-“

Somewhere in the back of your mind, Sam Winchester’s voice whispered something about the King of Hell having been Dean’s bestie for a while, which did not make you feel any better, only more confused.

“And thirdly… I’m here to tell you what you, my darling, need to do for this mission to be successful.”

You stared at him incredulously, his casual stance and animated speech bewildering, and had no clue what to make of it.

Yet, you let him speak. You let him give you the advice no one ever wanted to receive. Ever. But this sleazy man had told you about how he had saved the world before, side by side with the Winchesters and everything suddenly made sense.

Crowley, the King of Hell, answered the most burning question you had been asking yourself ever since coming back from the death, doing so more and more often these days.

Why.

Why were you given the second chance at life? Why you of all people? What was the purpose?

And now you knew.

Rowena was the greatest witch the supernatural world had ever created and she supposedly looked through all the possible futures she could. Tony had once told you, drunk and hurting, that Strange had done the same right before the battle and he only saw one way of how it could end with Thanos’ loss. Now Crowley told you the ‘one’ future was still in play, that everything was actually still on the way to the world’s victory.

The price of victory was high. History had taught you that.

But the price people paid for losing was higher.

And as much as you hated what you apparently had to do…

“Okay,” you rasped, guilt already gnawing at your chest, tears strolling down your face, fear eating you up from the inside, fear of unknown and yet known, instincts fighting the urge to do the right thing and finally actually help to the heroes you found yourself among while still useless.

You were only watching too long. Forever, one might say.

“Okay?” he echoed, clearly surprised by your antics.

You only nodded, wiping away your tears and forcing your breathing to calm and steady. There was no way you could go back to the base of operating in the living room like this. You needed to be a fucking grown-up. Grown-ups had to be okay with not being okay. You must finally become worthy of being Captain Amer- Steve’s wife.

“Yes, Crowley. I’ll do it. Though I still have no idea why you came here to tell me. Aren’t you supposed to be the bad guy?” you teased him lightly, your mouth speaking its will without permission, the question only half-expecting an answer.

“Well, my darling. It’s the end of the world as we know it. It doesn’t matter now if you’re good or bad. Not if you want the world not to end.”

༻༺༻༺༻ღ༺༻༺༻༺

You were a terrible actress; a Razzies-nominee kind of actress. You couldn’t lie to save your life (the irony of such statement was not lost on you, yet it wasn’t properly appreciated either) and you were aware of the fact that Steve liked that about you. You could never lie to him. So you never tried.

You knew you couldn’t break that streak now, because he would see right through you. So you stooped lower than ever. Omitting the truth. Lying by not sharing the whole story. Whether you could make that work, only time would tell.

When you finally managed to compose yourself – at least more or less – and exited the bathroom, you found out that not much had changed. The team was still debating the details of best approach, uncertain but determined expressions on their faces.

Steve spared once glace at you and instantly was able to tell something was wrong. He hid you from the view of the others by his broad figure, concerned eyes scanning your face, observing and searching for any clue; for the source of your distress. As if the fact that they were – you all were, even if they didn’t know yet – about to time travel wasn’t enough to give one palpitations and serious stress-induced headache.

His tender fingers tucked a loose strand of your hair behind your ear as if it would help the mess your hairstyle must have been. A small encouraging smile graced his lips despite his own mind no doubt weighted down by numerous worries.

He didn’t have to ask for you to start talking, the brilliant colour of his eyes sweet and inviting enough.

“What if something goes wrong?” you questioned in a hushed whisper, not having to pretend to have such haunting thought. “What if… I don’t even want to think about what could it be. You’re going to need someone capable to pull you out. I am… I am not that capable. Definitely not when it comes to science of time-travel.”

Despite Steve acting like a human shield, your concerns were acknowledged by everyone, their heads snapping your direction. Steve, feeling all the curious eyes, cleared his throat and gently took your arm, leading you away from the prying ears.

“….excuse us for a second,” he hummed absently, waiting until he was out of earshot to speak with you again. “Doll… what- what is this really about?”

“What do you mean-“ you bluffed lamely in an instant, but the look Steve gave you shut you up.

“I know you, sweetheart. You can’t lie to me.”

If you weren’t dreading what you were about to do, you might throw a ‘watch me’ back at him. Instead, you aimed for an irritated tone – one that would be justified in case he would truly be questioning the claim you were about to point out.

“So you think I’m not afraid for you?”

A frown crossed over his face, his palm on your bicep tightening before he eased his hold to brush his thumb over the very same spot. “No! That’s not- I just know there’s something more. What is it?”

Gulping and averting his gaze, because the intense burn of genuine concern was unbearable, your mind raced with the effort to find the right words.

Your stomach was tied in tight knots, turning at the idea of playing Steve, more so for such nefarious purpose. But how else you could have convinced him that it couldn’t in fact be him and Natasha going to Vormir to retrieve the soul stone?

“I… I want to help. I need to help, Steve. You’re— you're so strong, always the hero and I’m not even close, I-“

“-need to prove my worth?” he finished easily, a knowing look in his eyes, and fuck him, how did he know—

He might not understand fully, he had no way of knowing what Crowley told you to do, but still, Steve was still able to recognize what fuelled your determination, what were your motives.

You opened your mouth uselessly, a shaky exhale brushing Steve’s face as he lowered his head to you, his eyes wide and genuinely troubled. God, you couldn’t bare the intensity of his gaze.

“Christ, doll. Where’s this coming from? Don’t be rid-“ From the corner of your eye, you saw him lick his lips as he swiftly cut himself off before calling you ridiculous. His large warm palms framed your face, forcing you to lock your gaze with his, passionate words accented by the burning fire of his irises. “You don’t need to prove anything to anyone. Not to them, certainly not to me. You are my everything and you are the most amazing person I have ever met-“

You closed your eyes, a soft smile tugging at your lips despite your better judgement. You never doubted Steve’s feelings, yet he was always quick to reassure you, having the patience of a saint whenever he noticed a hint of insecurity.

“I know. I swear I know that, I know how you feel, but- let me do this. What if… what if you don’t come back? What if you don’t come back and I’d be just sitting here, knowing I could have done something, but I didn’t. You’re too familiar with that feeling, Steve. Please. Let me come with you,” you pleaded in a hushed voice, hating you reminded him of losing you, but knowing it might be effective. “You know you can protect me when it comes to it.”

Brows drawn together, Steve observed you, baffled and yet understanding at the same time, torn between the instinct to have you protected at the compound and the responsibility he felt towards this mission. This was the fight of your lives; deep down, he must have known he couldn’t afford to jeopardize that even if it came to you. Which, naturally, didn’t mean he had to like it.

A clearing of one’s throat that sounded a bit like a clap of thunder interrupted your staring contest and you both glanced towards Bruce’s huge green form in the doorway, sheepish expression comical on his massive face.

“…sorry to interrupt, but… we kinda all think she has a point so-“

Steve’s sucked in air between his teeth, letting his hands drop from you face, only for one of them to run through his hair, the other balling in a fist.

You shrugged, the battle of emotions – victory and defeat at the same time, because God, why – no doubt visible on your face as Steve turned his attention solely to you once more.

“I’ll give you guys another sec…” Bruce hummed, backing out of the door, leaving you to deal with clearly irritated and reluctant Steve.

Thanks, buddy.

Wordlessly, Steve’s fingers slipped beneath your jaw, pulling you in for one of the strangest kisses of your life. H poured all his emotions into one simple gesture, hungry and intense, intimate wet sound of a dirty encounter of mouths echoing in the otherwise silent room. You allowed yourself to get lost in the sensation of Steve’s lips on yours, in his arm grabbing you and pressing flush against his hard chest; it was all too harsh for anyone to believe it was not a display of affection of a half-desperate man.

Breathless and with vertigo nearly overcoming you, you rested your forehead against Steve’s, mirroring his action once you parted. His eyes were closed shut, as if too heavy to kept open, but you could see that something in his expression shifted; you and Bruce won.

Peripherally, you noticed Crowley’s faint figure, the shortest of appearances as he nodded in approval and goodbye. You suspected he did something so Steve gave in; you didn’t care what and how, hoping it didn’t harm your soulmate.

Tears stung in your eyes when you realized what was to come and you forced them to be kept at bay, shutting your eyes close again.

“Fine, have it your way,” Steve rasped, his voice clearly irked, yet resigned. “But if you get one scratch on you, doll, just one, I’ll hold you responsible.”

No, you won’t.

You charmed a guilty smile, a lame tiny thing, and he inhaled sharply, only for huffing the air out.

“How could I, having my chivalrous man by my side?”

It earned you a kiss on your forehead, Steve’s fingers interlacing with yours when you made your way back to the other room where everyone waited.

Oh, how much it now hurt, the amount of faith Steve could put into you, charmed by your teary smile, that little thing puling on his heartstrings.

Oh, just how much it would hurt…

༻༺༻༺༻ღ༺༻༺༻༺

Part 6

༻༺༻༺༻ღ༺༻༺༻༺   

This chapter might seem a bit strange, but hopefully it fits the atmosphere of Infinity War and Endgame…

Thanks for being here. I love you for your encouragement :-*

P.S. Here, have the last part of a SPN guide - visuals and references for Amara (God’s sister who gave back ‘reader’s’ memories) and Crowley (from this chapter).

[curly-bangtan]

Heatwave Drabble #7: it’s just a date, mate

[Heatwave // Godless // Heatwave Drabbles] <- read first!

Pairing: Taehyung x reader

Summary: Date night, and you don’t know what is going on.

Genre: drabble, angst, fwb au, roommate au, f2l

Warnings: u might have severe feels after reading

Word count: 3.3k (short because i saw it more fitting to split this in two)

A/N: It’s the beginning of the end of this series :((. Two parts left after this!

not edited well!

.

You’re feeling jittery.

You don’t think you can remember the last time you went on a date. It might have been Josh in highschool. He took you out to a movie, some shitty action film that went through the same heavily manufactured Hollywood recipe. You shared popcorn, but he had eaten most of it. And at the end of the night, he kissed you with too much tongue and asked for a second date.

You told him right then and there that you think he’s a bad kisser and said they shouldn’t see each other again.

Maybe the pattern of singleness in your life is starting to make a lot of sense.

You stare at your own reflection in the mirror, and almost scoff at how ridiculous you are. Seriously? Black dress? As in the black dress you have since named “dick-slayer” because you always slay some dick in it. Not to mention, you’re wearing foundation and lipstick. Foundation and lipstick. Who are you even trying to impress?

It’s just a date. You don’t have to impress anyone.

But you haven’t been able to stop thinking about him. Him. How is he going to react to you like this? What is he going to say? Oh, you think you know what he’s going to say - no - do to you. Especially with that track record of his.

So why is your heart pounding? There is nothing to be nervous about. Since when do you get nervous?

For a moment, you just pause all your thoughts and listen. To the sound of your blood and the gentle pads of his feet. He’s outside, somewhere. Clueless. Probably waiting for you.

Everything’s going to be fine.

With a great sigh, you gather yourself and step out of your room. Heels clanking at your every step, you strut towards the unsuspecting Taehyung perched by the island counter with his back facing you. He turns at the sound of your approach.

And chokes on his evening cereal.

“W- You’re- Where are you going?”

“Out with Junho. I told you.”

There it is. You say it as if you’re dropping a bombshell you know will detonate in seconds. You want to wince, yet you know you cannot cower. You can’t let him see through the cracks.

Taehyung goes completely silent, the kind of silence that signifies more than sound.

“Wh…” His voice ebs into a whisper, facial features falter. His cereal spoon slides out of his hand into the bowl of sugary milk, slowly turning on this bottom to face you completely. Your heart is racing again, out of fear and anticipation of what he is going to say because it will tell you all you need to know.

Tell me to stay.

At the lack of response, more likely due to his brain trying to piece together this situation, you say, “I told you about this on Monday.”

He bristles as if you prodded him with a fork. “I- I know, but you didn’t say it was a date.”

Hearing that word roll off his tongue, d-a-t-e, does something to you. That kernel of regret in your chest is starting to grow with every passing second that he is just staring at you with wide bewildered eyes, cereal forgotten and growing soggy.

You can take it back. You don’t have to go.

Then tell me not to go.

“Yeah, I guess it’s a date then.” You clear your throat.

You watch Taehyung’s jaw tighten, teeth grinding behind that solemn expression. That sour feeling concentrates and diffuses in your gut. You thought you knew what to expect from him but you’re not so sure anymore. He looks like he could explode in fury, yet also like he could just shrug and tell you to enjoy your night.

“Who is this Junho?” His tone is still undecipherable, eyes, though locked on yours, unreadable.

“A random guy from physics.”

You hadn’t really noticed Junho much until he started texting you recently. It was only harmless conversation at first, one that you dismissed as his effort to befriend you; you’re not so big headed as to think that every guy who speaks to you has a thing for you. And when he had asked you to grab a drink on a Friday night, you hadn’t even thought twice before agreeing - you’re a sucker for alcohol, any excuse for you to down a few pints, you’ll take.

It wasn’t until Lotta texted you this morning telling you that Junho, who happens to be quite close to her as well, is absolutely shitting himself about your date. Date? Oh. Date. Of course. You thought to yourself.

So it’s a date.

You get along with Junho, he’s a nice guy with a dimpled smile, maybe lacking the same humour as you, but a cool dude nonetheless. You had instantly told Lotta that you’re not interested in him like that. But when she had shut you down, insisting that this is what you always say about every guy interested in you and that is why you’re forever alone because of your stupid committment issues and stubborn vendetta against romance, you realise that she may have a point.

There’s no harm in giving him a chance, actually. Who knows, maybe you might like him?

But moreso, you agreed to go on this date because you wanted to see Taehyung’s reaction. Lately, it feels like there are unspoken words hanging above your heads, and you’re just walking in circles avoiding them. You’ve been thinking a lot. The two of you fuck, sometime borderline make love, you grocery shop, hit the midnight diner, have chicken and beer night, watch movie marathons. It feels an awful lot like a relationship. Yet everything is utterly undefined. You’re not dating, nor are you exclusive. You just want an answer.

Would he fight for you or not? This isn’t the best way to go about this, sure, but it’s going to give you your answer decisively. Does he want you or would he let you go?

“Just a random guy from physics, huh.” Taehyung swivels back around and picks up his spoon, sloshing disintegrating cereal around in the milk.

Maybe you should have done this a different way after all. You’re getting nothing. You wanted a direct answer and he’s giving you nothing. And it stings.

But you can’t stop your feet from walking towards him, to get closer to him so you can read his face. “He’s… a friend I guess.”

“Oh, cool.” He refuses to look at you. As he stuffs a spoonful into his mouth and chews quietly, you cannot help but feel like utter shit. He is never this cold towards you, he has never been so passive aggressive with his replies. You choke on an apology stuck halfway down your throat, because you know you’re not doing anything fundamentally wrong, yet you know you’re fucking it all up at the same time.

The moment Taehyung goes so cold and quiet like this is the moment you should know to fear. You watch him eat his cereal as if you’re not standing right next to him. One spoonful. Another spoonful. The silence has never been so loud.

But actually, no, what are you doing that’s so wrong? Honestly, nothing. If he’s unhappy about it, he should just fucking say it. You’re giving him the chance to say how he feels and he’s tossing it back to you.

“Oh, cool?” You ask, reigning in the guilt. “Is that all you have to say?” The dress you’re wearing suddenly feels very small, constricting your lungs, exposing your legs to the cold lick of the evening breeze.

“What do you want me to say?” He mutters irritably. The cereal is finished now. Is he still not going to look at you?

What do you want him to say?

Don’t go out. Don’t go on a date with him. Go on a date with me.

I love you.

“You’re just being weird, Taehyung.” You gulp and cross your arms. Tension is rising along with your temper. You don’t want to fight but your anger is taking over. Why can’t he just say it?

Finally, he looks up at you, brows pinched in such animosity that you take a step back. When he speaks, his voice is something you don’t recognise. “You’re going on a date for the first time since we met with some random guy in physics, wearing the dress you always wear when you want to get dicked down. What do you want me to say?”

You flinch.

Not to say you didn’t expect some sort of negative reaction, but hostility of such extent was unforeseen. You thought he would whine and pull you into his arms and ask you to stay with him tonight. Not… this.

“It’s just a date, mate. What’s your problem?” You hiss, feeling your calves tremble with bitterness. He acts like he doesn’t want you to go, yet is doing nothing to stop you except hurling knives of ice your way. Coward.

Pause. He flicks his dishevelled fringe out of his face, lips pursed. “Nothing. I don’t have a problem.”

“Then why are you making me feel like shit? A simple ‘Have fun, enjoy your date.’ would have been nice, it’s good to know that you’re so supportive. Or if you have something else on your mind, then fucking spit it out.”

You want to stop, you want to shut up, apologise. You hate every second of this and you hate yourself. But your defense mechanism has always been to fight back, no matter how much you love the person you are fighting and how much you don’t want to hurt them. You can just end this now, say you’re sorry, make up, before you exacerbate it with your own feisty temper.

Taehyung is glaring at you as if he hadn’t been kissing your neck this morning and whispering about how much he loves the way you smell.

You take it all back.

“I’m s-” You start.

“Well, congratu-fucking-lations, a guy actually asked you out for once.”

Everything stops.

And just like that, something shatters within you. You’ve never been one to be affected by other’s words, never one easily hurt. But when he spat that out to you with such intent to inflict pain and loathing, you feel something pierce your chest. In your nearing three years of friendship, you have never thought Taehyung capable of ever hurting you, especially so spitefully. But now, you see it so clearly. He is the only one in this world capable of hurting you like this. Because he is the only one in this world you care this much about.

Or cared.

Then something shifts in his eyes, an instant regret when it dawns on him what he had just said.

At least he had the guts to ask me out, you wanted to scream at him. Why don’t you ask me out if you want me to be yours so badly?

“Congratu-fucking-lations to you, you’re a Class-A dick. Choke on your fucking cereal milk.” You fasten the strap of your purse around your shoulder and whirl away, ignoring the sting behind your eyes threatening to unleash your emotions in waves of tears.

“W-wait. Sorry, I didn’t mean that.” Taehyung stands so abruptly that the stool almost topples back.

But it’s too late. All you can hear are those words he spat out, looping in your head like a broken cassette. You keep walking until you’re slamming the front door behind you, leaving the wreckage of a delicate fragile love that you should have known better than to fall for.

You almost turn back when you hear his muffled yell, “Fuck!”

But it wasn’t enough.

.

You come home to an empty house. Everything feels cold, barren. You feel exhausted.

The date had gone… exceptionally well. That is perhaps the worst part.

Despite going into the night with an aching heart, Jongho had managed to make you at least try to forget the events that spiralled with Taehyung. He made you laugh, albeit slightly half-heartedly. He paid for the food and drinks despite your protest. He looked at you like he didn’t see anyone else in the room.

But you couldn’t bring yourself to stop thinking about Taehyung for even one second.

A week or two ago, when you had come down with a fever, something changed between you and him. You knew you were giving him a difficult time by refusing to go to the doctor or take the medication, yet it accentuated his endearment towards you. And you had thought, damn, he really cares about me, doesn’t he. During your feverish night, lucid dreaming in between cold sweats, all you could see was him. Flashes of him, rains of him. And you had thought, hmm, maybe I do love him after all.

You think you imagined it, a scene where he crawled into the bed beside you and held you close because you had been shivering all night. He was so gentle with you, more gentle than he usually is and that is saying a lot. He brushed your hair out of your face and rubbed your back. And you had thought, wow, I definitely love him a lot, a lot lot lot. Then, it was as if he could read your mind because you heard him say:

I’m not me without you. And I love you. I entirely belong to you. And I love you.

You think you imagined it. Because they were the exact words you were thinking. And because it was so frightening to hear them from Taehyung.

But when you woke up, he was beside you, still cradling you.

You replay this scene in your mind every night before sleep can grace you, fuzzy, oscillating between a memory and an imagination. And the more you think about it, the more you’re unsure of its reality.

But you knew something for certain.

Taehyung fell ill immediately after you, fell ill entirely because of you. And when he was sniffling, sweating, shivering, and when you were making him soup, carefully drying his sweat, holding him in his sleep, you knew you love him.

You’re so fucking stupid, you’re so stupid.

The house feels colder than usual without him, though a different sort of ice pricks at your heart. You make it into your room before kicking off your heels and flopping onto the bed in defeat.

You’ve fucked it up.

Knowing him, he is out clearing his head in the park right now. You saw the hurt in his eyes, you know he was only saying those things to you in retaliation because he felt betrayed. Screw you and your stubbornness, you should have just taken it all back when you could have. Taehyung doesn’t need to say anything. You know he loves you back.

It was your selfish need for a confirmation, to hear him put away his pride and tell you outright that he loves you and wants to be with you. Just one sentence, that’s all it would’ve taken because you already belong to him.

You rummage through your purse for your phone and dial his number.

Voicemail.

It’s nearing midnight, he’s going to come back soon.

Out of decency and respect, you text Jungho:

hey

thank u for the date tonight I had a rly good time

but i’d just like to let i know since i rly like u as a person that i think i’m emotionally invested in someone else so i don’t want to waste your time

sorry

Sighing, you let your phone slip out of your hands and just stare at the ceiling. Taehyung could come back any second now. And then comes the confrontation.

“Hey, Taehyung, I just want to say that I’m really sorry for everything tonight. It was so fucking stupid and I was just being a bitch because I thought- no, I don’t know.” In the dark, you begin to rehearse to yourself. “We both said or did some hurtful shit but let’s just put that behind us and pretend it didn’t happen. The date was stupid, it only made me release how much I… I love you. So fucking much. I don’t want to be with anyone else but you. I love you, Taehyung.”

You close your eyes, exhale.

.

You don’t exactly know when but you must have drifted off. The rattling of keys at the front door wakes you. You sit up instantly.

Fuck.

This is it, this is all or nothing.

Your heart is racing. Do you wait for him to come to you? No, you dumb bitch, run to him.

With your chest soaring to your throat, you roll off your bed, instantly awake and alert, and stumble to the door of your room, the only thing separating you and your destiny. Come on, deep breaths, just like you practiced. I love you, Taehyung.

Then you hear something that freezes your blood entirely. An unquestionable female giggle. Then the clumsy stagger of feet, two distinguishable pairs of feet.

You can’t move. You can’t scream. You can’t even breathe.

You just stand there by the door, fingers on the knob, completely rigid, as they drunkenly flounder back to his room beside yours. You can hear him kissing her. You can fucking hear Taehyung kissing her.

You close your eyes because it’s too much, the pain is crashing into you all at once and is too much. You close your eyes because you don’t want the tears to fall. But they do nonetheless.

There is a very distinct feeling you get the moment you start to cry. The muscles in your face tug so tight that they finally snap, the stabs of fire behind your eyes finally rip through, the horrible hammering against your throat finally manages to rupture. Then you just crumble.

You never used to quite understand what people mean when they described heartbreak. You would think to yourself, it can’t possibly be that bad, that’s just overly dramatic. How much could it really hurt.

Well. As you slowly pace back and sink down onto your bed, the thin walls of this house doing nothing to mask the sound of their scuffling feet and removal of apparel, you know. You know that it feels like mountains upon mountains suffocating you, tearing at you from all directions. You bury your face into your pillow to muffle your sobs.

Does he know you’re here? Does he even care?

You spent your entire night thinking about him, regretting your mistakes despite having the option of another man. While he drank until he no longer remembered and replaced you with a chick from the bar. Just like that, huh?

And when the creaking of the bed begins, you want to scream, you want to fucking scream. You’re losing your mind like this. But you can’t get out. You can’t let him know you’re home, or if he already knows, you can’t let him know he is breaking you into pieces like this.

How is this the same person who rubbed your stomach when you had cramps? How is this the same person who pretended to be scared during horror films just so he could have an excuse to snuggle with you. How is this the same person who said he would carry you to the hospital on his back if he had to? You had spent all your fucking money on his birthday, you had let yourself be vulnerable with him, and he just…

Yet still - you cannot find it in you to hate him. This is your own doing. You misunderstood every moment you had as something more because you are so used to the world being in love with you. You mistook his kindness for love out of your own delusion because you deep down had wanted it to be true so badly.

Maybe he was close to loving you, but what you did tonight just pushed him away.

You are the fool. You are to blame.

When the moans and grunts echo from his room, you feel your mind disintegrating to ashes. You don’t think you’ve cried in years. And now that you do, the tears just keep flowing like a broken dam, you don’t think you can stop.

Bit by bit, you crack open. You’re losing yourself, but worst of all, you’ve lost him. Your best friend, your almost boyfriend, your unspoken soulmate.

You thought you would cry yourself to sleep. But sleep doesn’t even find you.

Not when his front against your back as been your gentle sweep of lullaby for months, and all you can hear now is him with someone else across the wall.

.

A/N: Hi, don’t hate me. Don’t cry. I almost teared up writing this too. ;-;

.

13/02/19

© Copyright 2020

.

@taexxxiiaa @shookpreme @taetaeobsessed @tangledsparkles @nonexistentfucks  @evilkookie  @nbiased95  @taehyungmakesmeoof @itscalledgayhoney @tahaing  @deliciouslydisturbed365  @expensive-bangtan-girl  @jwlmnbt  @herakimkim @dnyad  @kaepjjang365 @gingerpeachtae  @spring2787  @askingtheimportantthingshere @casualminiaturetimemachine  @xblackclover13x  @vasysauce @deadinsidebitch2412  @emiyooa  @i-dont-even-know-fck  @chimycthulhu  @taexxxiiaa@hisunshiine  @xtaeyi  @softjellyjimin​  @d-noona​​  @malfeitofeitto​  @bangtanfancamp​  @keopitae​  @out-of-jams​ @bluemooncnblue​  @haechanspudu​  @camilaxpolanco​  @dawnispeace​ @vante-visuals​  @liquanzhe222  @bangtanloverrrrr​  @bs14401​

[digdag88]

When you’ve spent a lifetime among dysfunctional people, operating out of self-protection, competition, and a compulsion to please without expecting reciprocation, everyone seems untrustworthy and disappointing. This is an illusion created by years of you treating your value as conditional (you must be charming and successful to have value) and keeping everyone at arm’s length out of fear. It’s as if you’ve spent the first three decades of your life building a castle out of bulletproof glass. You’re protected but you’re looking at everything through a warped window. Your vision is warped. Your reflection is warped. The way other people see you is warped. Reality is impossible to understand or let in. In fact, reality feels like a looming threat that you’ll never see clearly, like a monster in a suspenseful horror movie. Your own emotions are a kind of creeping monster, too. They threaten to ruin all of your already fragile relationships, and they compromise whatever limited attention you’re getting from the distracted friends and lovers you seek. When you finally mention your history of abuse to someone, it serves as a desperate means of regaining some shred of moral high ground after you already sense the other person is halfway out the door, but it makes you feel even more like the monster in the horror movie. You’re fearful and fragile, yet your sudden confession makes you seem unsteady and out of control, an echo of some dark reality that no one wants to acknowledge or consider, least of all those who aren’t that invested in the first place. So this is where I would start: Ground yourself in reality. Walk around your castle of bulletproof glass and examine how warped it is. Watch how you move away from people who actually care, or lump together bad friends and good friends in an effort to keep yourself safe. Witness how you ingest your own shame, every day, telling yourself a story that you’re not good enough because someone took something from you. But this isn’t solely an intellectual exercise — that’s just where it starts. Notice how hard you try to keep people around. It might look desperate to you now, but that kind of concern for connection lives inside of you and it’s beautiful. Notice how hard you had to scramble, to make yourself seem whole when you didn’t feel whole. Those efforts might look weak to you now, but you picked up a lot of skills and a little magic in those efforts. Notice how fast you had to run away from anyone who might recognize that you were broken. Then consider what it means to be broken. What if you could proclaim yourself sick and hurt and sad and broken and malfunctioning, every single day, and still believe that you deserved love? What if you could sit in the rubble of your shattered castle, and still feel compassion for yourself? Because compassion for the self is the same thing as passion: That’s where inspiration and beauty are waiting for you. It’s also where your passion for your life begins, where a real, sustainable passion for other people can begin. It’s a leap of faith into a new world where you can look at reality with clear eyes and not feel afraid. The monster from the horror movie is wheeled out onto the set in the light of day, and it’s just a mess of blinking red eyes and shiny scales and rubber claws. There’s nothing to fear. Once you ground yourself in reality, and dare to give some love to your true, broken self (that part is very difficult at first!), then you can finally approach the world as you are. You don’t need to be entertaining or sexy or clever or useful to be lovable. You don’t have to prove your value in order to be valuable. You can simply be what you are. Being what you are looks like this: You enter every room as a calm, neutral observer. You are average. You don’t have an agenda. Your only job is to listen and observe and offer your support. Your only job is to watch and learn and allow room for yourself, even when you don’t say a word, even when you don’t look that good, even when you seem useless. There you are, giving yourself the right to be without running or hiding or dancing. That is grace. It matters. Being still and silent and broken is its own kind of religion. Doing this — existing around other people without proving yourself — works well because it feels good. It feels good when you’re not trying hard to win people over. It feels good to stand without adornment and know that you are enough. But it also works because good people respond to it. Trustworthy people will accept and embrace your listening and support and your silence. Untrustworthy people will think you’re a fucking weirdo, or believe that you’re not worthy enough because you’re not dancing or running or staying half-hidden and building suspense. In contrast, it is exceptionally difficult to feel connected or close to other people when you’re sure that your value is conditional. You can spend decades in this state, and the more energy you put into keeping other people happy, the more convinced you become that no one is dependable and no one loves you for you. That doesn’t mean that you haven’t withstood abuse or tolerated selfish friends. But refusing to give yourself the right to simply exist is a way of preventing other people from simply existing. Everything is bartered or traded. No relationship is what it is: lopsided and weird and flawed and sweet. Every effort must be reciprocated with equal and opposite force (even if your emotional accounting is never shared with anyone) or you’re being ripped off or taken for granted. No one is allowed to be broken. You have to be better than you really are, and so does everyone else. Once you develop an independent faith in your own value (this takes constant, repeated reminders to be compassionate and patient with yourself for the first time ever), then you can start to treat other people as valuable even when their value isn’t immediately apparent. You can enter the room as a broken person, sit with your brokenness without hiding it, and let it exist out in the open. You don’t have to share your own secrets straight out of the gate. You can ask people about the things that broke them, because you understand that being broken is interesting and includes a good story, or maybe 100 good stories. You listen to their stories not because you expect that then they’ll listen to yours, but because you’re making it your goal to take in reality, to connect, to get closer to the real world and the real people who live in it. This is the hardest thing for someone like you or me to do: to crave the real world. We had to create imaginary worlds to survive, and it’s hard for us to resist the temptation to live there now. We are fundamentally self-involved because that was the only way to survive neglect. I wouldn’t characterize my childhood as abusive, but self-involvement is also a way to survive abuse. It’s not an inherently negative thing to be self-involved, as long as you have enough compassion for yourself that you can channel your secret worlds into some activity or point of focus that feels rich and sustainable and renews your faith in yourself and others. I started working from home around your age, for some of the same reasons you are. I had a few friendships fall apart, my co-workers drove me nuts, and I was disappointed and distrustful. I knew a lot of narcissists, and I was a narcissist myself probably. I gave too much but I didn’t really show up a lot of the time. I didn’t believe that I deserved love unless I was useful or entertaining or special, and I didn’t really know how to give myself what I needed. It’s easy to become isolated under those conditions, so you should work hard to schedule breaks and force yourself to get out of your place often. Exercising somewhere else, joining a running club or other group that meets regularly, setting up weekly plans with certain friends can all help to keep you from feeling alienated and bugging out alone. But working from home did really help me to slow down and figure out a lot about myself. I also got a therapist who helped me to understand that connecting with strangers was possible. I felt better, but I still had a lot to learn. It took years after that to welcome reality, to believe in my worth without feeling ashamed of that belief, as if it were hopelessly self-indulgent. It took years to learn how to listen; I said I cared about listening long before I felt the sensation of real, honest connection with a good friend and knew that it wasn’t just a weird twist of fate that we landed there. It took years to show up and make some room for the real world, in all of its glorious disappointments. The more compassion you have for yourself, the easier the next year will be. You’re doing something that’s incredibly difficult. Every single day, every single minute, you need to push away the feeling that you’re uniquely screwed and you’re running out of time. Because you’re surrounded by people who feel many of the things you feel, and you’re still very young, and you have plenty of time. We all have plenty of time, though. A day can feel like a divine eternity when you spend it letting the world in with an open heart. You let the world in, and it hurts, and you sit with your hurt. You let reality in, and you feel shame, and you sit with that shame. You invite in the things that make you hate yourself, and you let them exist without judgment: This was how I learned to run very fast. This was how I learned to dance and sing. This was how I built a castle all by myself. This was the warped view from my castle. Everyone looked so small from my castle tower. The days flew by, and even when I wasn’t alone, I felt so alone. I thought I would die if I ever came down from my tower, but once I did, everyone looked big and scared and sad, just like me. And time stood still. This world has been waiting for you to catch up. This world has been waiting to show you its treasures. Your monster finally gets to stand in one place, feeling the sunshine, knowing that it’s okay to be broken. This divine moment is yours.

https://www.thecut.com/2018/08/how-do-i-start-over-now-that-i-know-how-damaged-i-am.html

[swiss-army-fangirl]

have y’all ever watched ‘unraveled’ by brian david gilbert on youtube? that was how i felt writing this. and i don’t even have a master’s degree in creative writing, i’m an engineering major with nothing else to do.

anyways, i present: ‘vessels’, unraveled 

the order. the Beginning. We’re set up with a futuristic, cinematic vibe right away. Buckle up idiots.

satellite. The introduction of our hero and their beloved, blessed with a connection that transcends distance, obstacles, etc. Also the introduction of the interdependence between the hero and their partner. The hero is dependent on the partner for guidance, but at the same time, the partner is referred to as the hero’s satellite, with the hero’s gravity (down-to-earthness?) keeping them tethered. The first mention of a darkness within the hero, but this darkness is clearly kept in check by his connection with his partner. This is a love song, the only balanced love song on the album, honestly.

frequency. The aforementioned connection in Satellite has been corrupted. There’s a disconnect between the two of them, and initially the hero believes he’s imagining it, but over the course of the song, he realizes it’s real, his partner has been severed their connection, and he feels raw, angry, scared, and most of all: betrayed. He’s never been alone before. He wasn’t meant to be alone. He doesn’t want to be alone.

DIE FOR YOU. This song is the death of me, personally. Fuck. Anyways, this is our hero coming to terms with his partner’s disappearance, in his own way. He acknowledges that they’re gone from his side now, but that he will not stop until they can be reunited again. In a ‘story’ scenario, I’d imagine this as the hero seeing that their partner has Turned, but the hero believes redemption is possible for them, or rather, that losing them is not an option. The hero will be there, waiting for their partner with open arms, no matter what happens between them, even if it means the death of them and what they stand for. Because death is preferable to separation.

Ricochet. A reflection of how the two of them ended up here, the first time we realize that maybe, their separation was fate. There were indications that the partner was bold, sometimes too bold for our hero to follow, but it never occurred that this would be their undoing. And that realization hurts, hurts him to his core. His beloved is beyond his reach, the gap between them self-imposed, but indomitable. We get the sense that this is a blow he will not be able to recover from. STORY MOMENT: the hero realizes that redemption is not possible for their partner, and it is completely, and utterly devastating. The person that was once there is gone, closed off, replaced by something that feels nothing for him.

starlight. Some insight into the bond between our hero and his partner. I’m choosing to interpret this song as from the point of view of them both: a plead from the hero, and maybe a moment of lucidity from the partner wishing he would just let them go, that they can be reunited, but they have to be separated now. The chorus and bridge are imbued with this sense of longing and dogged determination we saw in DIE FOR YOU, but the first verse is so reminiscent of someone consoling another as they slip away (‘the void is calling’/’it’s okay, I promise’). You know those moments in like every fanfiction where someone is possessed and then they break the possession for just a moment to say ‘I love you’ or something? This is that but a song.

into the unknown. HOOO BOY: this is the beginning of the end for our boy. This song is notably more aggressive that any of the above. This is our hero taking matters into his own hands, embracing his loneliness, his anger, all of those negative emotions he’s initially been pushing aside, and things are starting to get dicey. He’s walking the edge of a razor. Whatever it takes, he remembers. Whatever it takes.

gravity of you. Remember that razor’s edge from earlier? We’re about to go over. The loss has turned into an obsession, their love gotten twisted and darkened into something that is fundamentally changing them. The connection we thought was lost in Satellite is back, and this time, it’s Worse. There is a lot of imagery of a craft being pulled into a black hole; a toss-up between being reunited with his partner but to lose himself, or to live a life without them and in effect, lose himself anyways.

back to the earth. the alternate title for this song is ‘consequences’ because holy shit. We’ve gone over the edge, all logic is out the fucking window, we are committed and honestly, this would be the moment of wondering if the wrong decision has been made, because it feels wrong, so painfully wrong, but the question of ‘is this death or rebirth?’ makes one wonder if maybe, there could be a positive ending to this, that this pain might be worth it in the end.

last to fall. More exploration of falling, of going rogue, being the right choice. While Gravity of You had us worried (rightfully so), it’s clear that our hero’s intentions are pure at heart: he won’t abandon his partner, he won’t ignore that their connection is still strong (even if it’s distorted or corrupted), that he’ll put himself through hell for the chance that they’ll be by his side again.

bringing it down. In a story, this would be the moment our hero and their other half are reunited, but God at what cost. It’s finally sinking in that their partner is not the same, they’re something worse. And the worst part? He still cannot bear the thought of leaving them, even though the relationship that was once mutual is starting to become parasitic. The world is falling apart around them. We are nearing a life or death situation, saving yourself, or becoming unrecognizable alongside someone who was once the world to you.

unbecoming. Consequences 2.0. The decision above has been made unknowingly: the hero is being undone by all that he’s put at risk, and when he hopes, desperately, that his partner will be there when he needs them the most, they shun him. They laugh, ask how he could have been so trusting, so stupid? And now, our hero has no choices left. His partner’s knowing betrayal is the final nail in the coffin.

monster. Manipulation is the name of the game. Now that the trust, the love, is gone, all that’s left is a slew of negative emotions that are perfect for becoming an unrecognizable husk of who you once were. I talked about this song earlier, but the first verse being a railing against the partner for abandoning them as a catalyst for their corruption versus the second verse being a series of ‘I’ statements in which our hero realizes that this darkness was always within him, but never acknowledged? I’m just a slut for heroes becoming villains. The opposite of a redemption arc. The hero and his partner are truly together again, in horrible, distrustful love.

telepathic. Dustin fucking knocked it out of the park with this track and I wish we talked about it more. There are several moments of realizing that this love was cursed, but in this moment of clarity, our ‘hero’ realizes how his dependence truly was his undoing. Even before their Fall, his partner was always two steps ahead of him. There’s also a fun role reversal here: moons are referred to as natural satellites. In Satellite, our hero refers to his partner as his satellite, but now, he refers to them as the Sun, and to himself as a moon. There’s been a swap in power, I would even argue a subjugation, after this unraveling. I don’t know what conclusion to draw from that I just think it’s crazy.

everglow. This is still a song of admiration, even monsters have their moments of reprieve. Our hero is still so, so in love. It leads one to wonder if the love is reciprocated, because this song makes it feel one-sided, like we’re still the territory of ‘obsession’. Even after all that has happened, he’s willing to give everything he has to them, even if ‘everything’ is actually nothing at all. I also think it is fucking wild how this song goes from this really heavy vibe, to a final orchestral piece that makes one imagine end credits rolling. Wow.

[the-final-sif]

do you have any advice on starting out writing fic?

Yep!

My first, and most important piece of advice to someone new to writing fanfiction, is to write.

Write literally anything. Write without planning anything out, write with a full outline, write that super silly, self indulgent idea. Write crackships, rarepairs, the most popular pairing in the fandom or complete gen fic. Write crossovers, write fics with a self insert or an OC. Write chat fics, write fics that move too quickly, or far too slowly. 

All that matters, especially when you’re getting started, is that you write, and that you write things that make you happy. Don’t let people police your content, or shame you with cringe culture, just write for yourself and ignore the noise.

That’s the core of it, alongside that, if you want to improve your writing for your enjoyment, there’s a number of tools you can use.

1) Reading.

Read fanfiction that you like, and ask yourself why you liked it. What about it made you happy? What about it wasn’t really for you? Don’t copy directly, but learn from what you’re reading and use fics you like for inspiration/a place to collect new tools from.

2) Getting a beta.

Particularly if you’re someone who has a lot of issues with spelling/grammar, if you’re writing in a second language, or if you just like an extra set of eyes, reach out and see if anyone would be willing to beta your fics for you.

3) Read over your own (older) work.

Okay, I know people like to talk about how they can’t stand to look at their older works or whatever, but honestly, fuck that. Yes, it’s not perfect, it never will be perfect. Nothing is ever perfect. Go back and reread your writing from time to time. Find positive things in it, and look through it to find patterns/ideas/choices you might still be making/using. Reflection is good!

Some other useful things I’ve learned:

1) Try to know what story you want to tell when you’re starting out.

This one is a solid ‘sometimes’ one. Sometimes you need to start the fic before you really know where the story is going or what story you’re telling, and that’s just fine. A good chunk of the time though, it can be really helpful to figure out what story you want to tell, at least roughly speaking.

What that means, is ask yourself what you want to communicate in writing this story. This helps a ton with figuring out where the ending of your story should be. The story ends when you’ve told the story you want to tell. I tend to do this a little more with my long stories, but it applies to shorter ones as well.

For example, with Forged by Nitroglycerin and Spite, I started off knowing that I wanted to tell the story of Katsuki accidentally getting All for One, struggling with that along with his own guilt and blame, and then learning to accept the quirk as his own as he also learns to let go of his guilt. My story ends once he’s done that.

With my most recent fic, Sink or Swim, I wanted to show an early kidnapping of Katsuki’s, and how it fundamentally shaped him as a person, sending him further into self-reliance and isolation because he didn’t have any other options. The story ends when Katsuki has handled an impossibly hard situation on his own, and actively decided against reaching out for help, since that’s the story I wanted to tell.

It takes some practice, but it helps a lot, and particularly when you get an idea for a cool concept/AU/major canon divergence (ie, Katsuki gets All for One), it helps you give your fic proper direction and purpose, so the story doesn’t just loose steam when you realize there’s too many directions to take that idea and you aren’t sure where you’re going with it.

2) Outlining can be great, but don’t let it get in the way of actually writing your fic.

Listen, outlining a fic can be a wonderful way to get it figured out. It can help make the story a lot stronger.

But don’t get so lost in outlining and planning that you keep delaying actually starting the fic. Once you have a sense of where you’re going, start writing, and if you need to adjust things/plan more along the way, then you can.

3) It’s okay to give up on things.

Okay, here’s the thing, fanfiction is meant to be fun. It’s something you do for yourself.

If you start a fic, and you fall out of love with the fandom, or you grow bored of the plot, or you just aren’t feeling it. It’s okay to leave it behind so you can put your time towards other things that make you happy. You don’t owe anyone else any updated/a finished fic/more stories for a series.

Some people like to get really entitled/demanding in the comments, fuck ‘em. You don’t owe them anything, they have no right to your time, attention, or writing. Ignore them or delete them. This goes for people who ask “when will this be released/updated/finished/etc” too. You don’t need to reply to them and commit to some timeframe, you don’t need to reply to ‘em at all.

In the end, it all kinda comes back to the first part though. Just start creating, and you’ll figure out the rest of it on your way.

[onestowatch]

Amanda Brown on the Artists’ Role in Society, COVID-19, and Advice to Young Women [Q&A]

Amanda Brown has had a hell of a career, but she wants you to know she is just getting started. Born and raised in the Bronx, the Puerto Rican/Jamaican vocalist and songwriter got her start as a fan-favorite on NBC’s The Voice and has made a name for herself backing up Adele, Stevie Wonder, and Alicia Keys… just to name a few.

With a resume apt to make just about any musician jealous, Brown is one of the most in-demand session and touring vocalists in the biz, but parallel to this work, she has been crafting her own artist career, writing mature, alt-pop tracks like “From Here.” Begging questions about self-acceptance and the uncertainty of the road ahead, “From Here,” released in October, became the perfect quarantine companion just before the presidential election as the nation stood at a crossroads. Though she originally expected to spend her year on tour busses and backstage, working with the industry’s A-listers, COVID-19 allowed her a once-in-a-lifetime chance to stay in and tell the stories of the year through her own artist project.  

For Brown, her success as a songwriter and vocalist stems from more than sheer talent (though she could easily find success on her innate gift alone). It is her regimented soul-searching and her living by Nina Simone’s mantra “an artists’ duty is to reflect the times” that sets Brown apart from the pack as she builds her profile as not just a vocalist for others but as her own artist.

Ones to Watch spoke with Amanda Brown to recap her unexpected 2020, her advice to young women, and her plans for the new year.  

Ones to Watch: You've been working in various roles as a vocalist/musician for years. How do you approach your own music as an artist differently than the work you do with other acts?

Amanda Brown: When it comes to my work as a solo artist, I don’t hold back. What I mean by that is, when it’s my show and my recording session, I can do, say and sing whatever I want the way that I want! There’s a certain amount of freedom that comes with being a solo artist, accompanied by more responsibility. Whereas, when I am working with other acts, I am subject to the will and vision of those creatives. Not to say that I don’t enjoy those experiences and get lost in the music when I’m on stage. Performing with other acts carries it’s wonder as does my work as a solo artist and I feel blessed to have had the opportunity to experience both.

You've been on the road a lot in the last few years, but COVID-19 this year has forced you to stay home. Have there been any positives to this tough situation?

I definitely miss traveling, meeting new people and playing live shows (while being in the same room as the audience); however, this year has allowed me the opportunity to create music for the sync and licensing world, which I’m enjoying. This year has also allowed me time to myself to think, learn and do things I’ve always wanted to do but never had the time, like gardening for example. I most definitely had a black thumb prior to the start of this year. I believe I’ve grown as an individual, for the better. I’m strong and resilient - those aren’t qualities I would have necessarily attributed to myself in the past, not because they weren’t true but more so because I’d be too shy to say them out loud. Also, witnessing the resiliency and strength of so many others around me has left me inspired and hopeful for the future. Yes, there are many downsides to covid-19, the main one being the loss of life (I lost family and friends this year). With that said, I’m hopeful that we will make it through the rest of this difficult year with the support and love of each other. Community is important and this year has driven that point home for me.

We've seen a lot of people lean on music to get them through such a tough year. What do you think an artists' role is in our society today?

Nina Simone said, “an artists’ duty is to reflect the times” and I believe that to be true. Some artists are called to make social commentary, others are called to reflect upon their personal experiences and the experiences of those in their close circles. Either way, I believe art is a reflection of how an artist may be feeling, what they are experiencing and/or what they see others experiencing. Sometimes art is created to help people forget difficult things that are happening in the world - I believe that to be a reflection of sorts. Regarding myself and my art, I’m am learning to honor my feelings - not to silence myself in order to make others feel comfortable but to dig deep, be vulnerable and honest.

You've used your platform this year to speak on important social/cultural issues, especially in your collaboration with LACES for the single 'they say.' Has using your platform in this way always been a fundamental goal of your career?

I want to be myself and in order to accomplish that, I have to be honest at every turn. I may not share everything but when I do share, I want it to be the truth. Life experience has taught me that certain things should not be tolerated. Sexism, misogyny, white supremacy, homophobia, transphobia, ageism, classism, and any other type of prejudice and discrimination is fucked up and should not be tolerated! We need to stand up to that shit and anyone that seeks to perpetuate those toxic behaviors and systems - I believe that should be the goal of everyone, regardless of whether you’re an artist or not. These social and cultural issues are human issues, and they should matter to everyone.

There are many people who grow up, dreaming of a career like yours. What do you think it took to set yourself apart as a vocalist and artist?

Sometimes I think I know the answer to this question and other times, I have no idea. There are things I could list off like me being hard-working, detail-oriented and studious but I don’t think those attributes alone are responsible for the career I’ve been fortunate to have thus far. I have not made it to this place in my career on my own. There have been so many people that believed in me throughout my journey, encouraged me, recommended me for work and supported my music and artistry. I think it may be a combination of qualities I possess, music training, live music experiences and the individuals that helped create opportunities for me. Regarding my success as a vocalist and artist, I think I’m equally indebted to some of those individuals that helped me as I am to my innate propensity for creating music and art and being disciplined within my craft.

What was a turning point in your career that really changed your life?

I’d say being a contestant on The Voice changed the trajectory of my career. It allowed me to perform in front of a national audience weekly. As a result of being on that show, I’ve had a number of beautiful music experiences playing all over the world and meeting fans of the show and myself. I’m grateful for the platform The Voice allowed me and to those that continue to listen to and support my music after watching my performances on the show.

Do you have any advice for a young woman hoping to create a career in music?

Don’t be afraid to experiment in order to figure out what you like. You will fail. Failure is a part of life and helps us grow. No one can tell you what’s going to work for you and your artistry. Only you can decide what is right for your music and art and the way that you’d like to create and communicate that art. Trust your gut. No one should make you feel uncomfortable or unsafe EVER! Surround yourself with people that inspire you to be the best version of yourself. A career in music is not easy. Educate yourself as much as possible. Make a list of all of your goals, figure out how to accomplish them and then execute them. You will often be the only person advocating for your vision (until you find your team) -  don’t give up! If you don’t believe in yourself, your gifts and your art, no one else will.

Looking ahead to 2021, what are some of your plans?

I’m ready to release more music and I can’t wait to perform in front of an audience. My next live show, I may try to hug every single person as they enter the venue, once it’s safe to do so of course. I’d want to collaborate with more female producers and songwriters. I’ve had lovely experiences working with women over the past three years and I want to create more of those opportunities for myself and others. I’m going to continue to build upon the good habits I’ve developed this year and pay more attention to my mental health. More gardening with homegrown fruits and veggies. I want a puppy friend next year, so I’ll be on the hunt for that little guy or gal. Also, people! I can’t wait to see people face-to-face...in-person and without masks or fear of getting sick because it’s no longer a big threat. I understand that all of the precautions we’re taking are necessary but I’m looking forward to the day when we can all hug and hang out together again.

Black Lives Matter! Trans Lives Matter! Stop Policing Women’s Bodies!

[cagestark]

-Defender//6-

Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four | Chapter Five | Chapter Six

just a lil chapter. Next is the last.

Read here on AO3.

-

Tony’s hand isn’t as burned as he feared. Once the initial redness wears off, the skin is just tinted pink and a little raw. Still Rhodey supervises down in Tony’s lab while the younger man applies burn cream to the tender skin. On top of all the callouses and scars that his hands already bear, he’s surprised he even feels it at all.

“I’ve never heard you so quiet before,” Rhodey says from where’s he’s seated on a stool on the other side of the lab table, the surface strewn with first aid supplies. The man’s dark eyes track his every move, mouth in its characteristic frown. “I’ve never actually heard you be quiet at all. This must be serious.”

“It’s not, really,” Tony says. But as he says it, he loses his confidence. What happened upstairs seems pretty serious: seriously concerning, seriously unexpected. In a deep, vulnerable place, Tony was seriously grateful. “Peter is protective. I recruited him a few weeks ago when I found him scaling the side of the building.”

Rhodey’s eyebrows climb up his sloped forehead. “Mutant?”

“Enhanced,” says Tony, slowly refilling the first aid supply kit. “Bitten by a radioactive spider, believe it or not. He’s got super strength, agility, and scopulae that help him stick to nearly any surface like Velcro.”

“Goddamn.”

“My sentiments exactly.”

“So why are you the surface he’s stuck himself to?” Rhodey asks.

Tony lets the question linger, pondering it. This is Rhodey, who has seen him in all manners of debauchery, who has seen every high and low of Tony’s up-close-and-personal for the last thirty years—but that doesn’t mean it gets any easier to see the disappointment in his face. It doesn’t mean that Tony doesn’t fear losing one of the last people who cares about him, who tolerates him at all.

At last Tony says, “I think he’s kind of in love with me.”

“Kid’s got a crush?”

“Yeah,” Tony admits. “And—he’s not the only one.”

Rhodey sighs, reaching up to rub at his forehead. “Jesus, Tones. How old is he?”

“Legal. Not that it makes it any better with more than twenty years between us. Steve doesn’t approve. He thinks I’m grooming the kid.” 

“These people don’t know you at all,” Rhodey says. “Tony. Tony, look at me. That’s not the kind of guy you are.” 

“He’s the most righteous man alive,” Tony says. His hands shake, weakness, like leftover DT’s from the day she stopped drinking an inordinate amount of alcohol and only indulged on occasion. Weakness. All he’s made from are a dozen different weaknesses stitched together into the shape of a man. “You know me. Obviously I’m not one for self-reflection. But when the man who used to kill Nazis for a living always thinks the worst of me, maybe it’s because there is worse in me.

“Peter treats me like the sun shines out of my ass, all because I treat him like a fucking human being, but he barely knows me. If there’s one thing history has taught me, it’s that there’s Captain America’s side, and then there’s the wrong side. I always end up on the other side. Always. If Peter isn’t careful, he’s going to end up there with me, and that’s not what I want for him. He’s good, I think. In his core.” 

“So are you,” Rhodey says. “None of the Avengers know you, and you don’t even know yourself. If you did, you wouldn’t let yourself be treated like this. At least this kid seems to have some sense, even if he’s subtle as a brick wielding it. I feel a lot better about spending so much time in DC knowing that someone is here and in your corner.”

-

Peter rests his forehead against one of the glass floor-length window panes in his room, mouth full of sticky-sweet cherry flavored pastry. He can barely taste it. Up this high, Manhattan looks fake beneath him, a toy city that he should take care not to step on, like the lego structures he used to leave out around May’s apartment when he was a boy. 

May. The pain of losing her never gets easier. There is no coping, there is just forgetting. Times when his mind is so full up with other things that there is no room for even her, when he’s working on a machine, when he’s training with Natasha in the gym. Then in moments like this, her memory comes rushing back in, and it’s like the grieving process starts over. She dies again to him, every day. 

Are you ashamed of me? Peter wonders, looking into the cloudless sky. There is no answer. 

May had never liked violence, but she was fierce in her own way. She believed in justice, she believed in compassion. Would she think he overreacted in the kitchen when he’d threatened to tear off another enhanced’s limb? Or would she think him justified, if she knew of the things Steve and the rest of the team had done to Tony? Just thinking about it makes his blood boil. People who had hurt Tony physically and emotionally, people who had no respect for him, people who still took advantage of every bit of his goodwill. Unremorseful people. 

Glancing down, Peter sees that he’s crushed his other poptart to crumbs. Kneeling down to sweep them into the palm of his hand, his spine goes stiff, just a brief moment of warning—someone at the door, not Steve, not Tony, someone—before there is a firm knock. Abandoning the crumbs, Peter opens the door a crack, afraid of who might be on the other side. 

A dark, serious complexion greets him. 

“Hi,” Rhodey says. “Can I come in?” 

“Of course,” Peter says, opening the door wide to let him past. He catches a brief glimpse of the other Avengers standing huddled together, eyeing Peter’s room with wariness before he shuts the door on the image. 

It must look strange, a young man whose room is so empty. No photographs on the wall, no pile of clothes on the floor, no posters or game consoles. The bed is made (unslept in most nights, though Rhodey would have no way of knowing that sometimes Peter feels more comfortable in enclosed spaces, that he curls up inside the closet empty except for clothes hangers or that he crawls underneath the bed to sleep). Combined with his display in the kitchen, he can’t imagine what the older, distinguished man must think of him. 

“Is Tony’s hand okay?” Peter asks. He can still hear the pained hiss the man made when the steaming coffee spilt onto his bare flesh. It makes that feeling come up in Peter all over again, that feeling like he has swallowed fire, fury like acid that eats at his stomach, fury that he wants to spit out at someone. At Steve Rogers. “I should have stayed to make sure.” 

“It might blister,” Rhodey says. “But he gets worse down there in his lab on the daily. That’s not why I’m here.” 

“Why are you here then?” 

“Tony is important to me. The most important person in my life except for my own mother. I’ve been watching his back since he was a teenager, and short of dying, nothing’s ever going to change that. That’s either going to make us friends or enemies, Parker. Your choice.” 

On the lengthy list of threats Peter’s received in his life, this is easily the most charming. Rhodey isn’t even enhanced. Peter could kill him without breaking a sweat, could tear his head from his body, could pull off his arms and legs the way other kids do to spiders, to smaller, weaker creatures. But there’s still something formidable about the other man. At the very least, there is something respectable. 

“Anyone in Tony’s corner is someone I want to be friends with,” Peter admits. 

Rhodey’s expression softens. He holds out a hand that Peter meets with his own. “Then you’re alright by me, kid. You could use a lesson in picking your battles, though. It doesn’t take enhanced powers of deduction to see that Rogers wants you off the team.” 

“I’ll fight any battle that protects Tony.” 

“And when you’re on the bench because Rogers has convinced the Powers that Be that you’re too unpredictable to be in the field? Who’s going to be protecting Tony then? Too many injuries have happened on missions because not a single one of them can be counted on to have Tony’s back. You could change that, if you’d get a grip on your temper,” Rhodey says. Peter’s shoulders sag—he hadn’t even thought of that. 

“Sometimes I can’t help it,” Peter admits. “It feels like there’s this monster inside of me. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde or something. When they say something bad about Tony or when they hurt him, some flip inside me gets switched. How do I stop?” 

“You’ve got to choose what’s more important to you,” Rhodey says. “Protecting Tony or avenging him.” 

For a long time after Rhodey leaves, Peter stands at the wall of windows, staring out unseeing at the city below while he cycles through everything that Colonel Rhodes said, wondering again and again, Why can’t Peter do both?

-

“This is like, a foreign language to me,” Peter mutters, flipping through the textbook that Tony had retrieved for him. The cover reads FUNDAMENTALS OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING. The glossy margins are filled with Tony’s tiny scrawl, and Peter runs his fingers reverently over the writing trying to imagine a fifteen year old boy scribbling on each page. He’s seen pictures, newspapers archived on the New York City Public Library computers of a young, handsome boy crouched beside a robot he built, smiling into the camera. Fifteen years old, and this had been nothing to Tony. Peter is twenty and it takes him ages to get through a single paragraph, googling foreign terms on his phone and struggling to understand the abstract concepts. 

Tony glances up from his StarkPad. He balks at the expression on Peter’s face and turns the tablet off, sitting it aside. “Come over. We can go through it together.” 

“You’d explain it to me?” Peter asks, raking his eyes over the older man’s face. Fuck, Tony is so handsome. That look he’s giving Peter, too, the unbearably tender kind, the fond kind, it makes him all the more beautiful. He’s not above asking Tony for help. His pride was one of the first things he had to let go of when he began to live and sleep rough. “I feel like an idiot.” 

“You’re far from an idiot,” Tony says. He pats the seat next to him and they sit shoulder to shoulder, close enough that Peter can soak up the man’s warmth, struggling not to sway ever closer. Tony has his own gravity, and Peter often feels helpless to it. “You’re self-taught. It’s no wonder that a lot of this technical jargon isn’t connecting.” 

They make it through the first chapter together, and Tony was right—much of it Peter was familiar with, though it hadn’t been presented in terms he knew. Tony is an excellent teacher, too. Patient and insightful, witty. He soothes Peter’s fears that he isn’t smart enough, builds confidence in him that maybe he could learn to be an engineer the way he’d always dreamed. 

“We should send you to school,” Tony says afterwards, handing Peter a chilled Coke from the refrigerator. “An Avengers Scholarship, maybe. Full ride, all the amenities, only the best schools and tutors.”

“You mean you won’t be my private tutor, Mr. Stark?” Peter asks, letting his eyes get wide and sweet. Most older men find the guileless thing sexy, but Tony just laughs at him. 

“I wouldn’t want to put your education in jeopardy. People will hardly be able to say I’m an unbiased educator,” Tony says. The warm, dark eyes drop to Peter’s mouth for just a moment before looking away, drinking deeply from his own Coke. “Though I’m sure we could come up with some incentive program for good grades.” 

“Incentive program, oh,” Peter laughs. “I like the—”

An alarm begins to sound, loud enough that Peter feels it in his teeth and deeper. It’s louder, harsher than the sound of Tony’s doorbell. The reaction it evokes in the older man is visceral as well, eyes going wide, jaw going tight as he taps at his glasses. The sound cuts out of the penthouse, but Peter can hear it continuing on in the floors below. 

“What’s wrong?” Peter asks. “Are we under attack?” 

“Someone is. That’s the alarm for the Avengers to assemble.” 

-

The people under attack are on the west coast. Some ‘half-rate magician’ (Dr. Stephen Strange’s words, not Peter’s) had accidentally conjured inter-dimensional creatures that they couldn’t control nor send packing. The Avengers are being sent to round them up and with the assistance of Dr. Strange, send them back to where they’ve come from. 

For the first time, Peter meets Director Nick Fury, a black man with one eye and a direct way of speaking that Peter can appreciate. Around the table are seated seven other Avengers: Natasha, Steve, Clint, Sam, Wanda, Vision, and Tony himself. After Fury ends his briefing on the situation, Steve stands and begins to formulate the briefest bones of a game plan and—

Peter isn’t in it. 

“Sorry, kid,” Steve says. “You’re not yet cleared for field work. Maybe next time.” 

“I’ve been working with Natasha for weeks,” Peter says. Colonel Rhodes words play on a loop in Peter’s brain, and they’re his lifeboat in the sea of anxiety that threatens to drown him. Peter needs to stay calm and play it cool. It’s the only way he’ll be allowed to have Tony’s back, and he must have Tony’s back. “This seems like the perfect mission for me to get my feet wet.” 

Tony sits beside Peter, silent and stiff. Director Fury watches all of them with a cool, knowing gaze when he says, “He’s got a point, Captain.” 

“We’ve got protocols for a reason,” Steve says. “Putting you in the field before you’re ready is an easy way to get hurt, Pete. Sorry, but the answer is no.” 

All eyes turn to Fury, who nods to Steve magnanimously. “Don’t look at me,” he tells them. “That’s your team leader. It’s his call.” 

Peter listens to the rest of the plans with his hands clenched in his lap, knuckles turning white. He cycles through every stage of grief, and as soon as the team breaks to head to the room where the helicarrier will take them to California, Peter catches one of Tony’s wrists to keep him from filing out of the room, just another soldier under Captain Rogers’s command. 

“Please don’t go,” Peter mutters. Director Fury watches them unabashedly, his arms crossed. Tony lifts a hand to ruffle Peter’s hair, but the expression on his face is downright grim.

“Don’t worry about me, kid,” Tony says softly. “I’ve been doing this gig for years now, and I haven’t died yet.” 

That doesn’t comfort Peter at all. When Tony leaves, he takes all the warmth with him until Peter feels chilled to the bone. 

“Parker. Nice to officially meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you,” Director Fury says. He doesn’t offer his hand to shake, and neither does Peter. 

“From who?” Peter wonders out loud. “Captain Rogers?”

Fury hums noncommittally. “Don’t worry about Stark. He is an asset to the Avengers, and I will do all I can to ensure his safety.” 

“With all due respect Director Fury—he is not just an asset,” Peter says. Too afraid of what else might come from his mouth, come straight up from that dark place inside of him fueled by fear and anger and hurt, Peter lets his feet guide him back to the elevator. Without asking, FRIDAY takes him up to Tony’s penthouse. When Tony gets back, Peter plans to move back in (so long as the older man wants him to). He tells himself that again and again. When Tony gets back. When. 

Peter sits and he waits.

[mrsunderhill678]

Hehe, more writing

“Not all darkness equates to tragedy, just look at the night sky. Despite it's darkness, it's still beautiful, and isn't it the same with us?" - Romena Sunfritz

“That's all war is. A twisted blood sport for the powerful to watch, is that all we fucking are, huh? A God damn spectacle? There's thousands dead on either side, soil so stained with blood it ain't ever washing clean of that crimson, but you claim this is for a good cause? To hell with that, to hell with the country, to hell with you, and to hell with me. Damn, us, all.” - William Phoenix

“The world is quiet but even violence goes by softly spoken.” - William Phoenix 

“I was eluded by the dark, wrought with passion and addiction, I danced within the illusion of love, lost within a resplendent delusion. And oh, now, here I stand, my heart aggrandized by the dark, swindled into the illusion that this is my purpose, my destiny.” - Alden Delafontaine

“Am I sick, or am I twisted? For I am starting to believe there is no cure, and I am simply twisted in nature.” - Alden Delafontaine

“This world isn't fucking cold, dude, we're just turning our backs to the flame.” -- Rocky Bellot

“I used to say, I'd light a match, just to feel the fucking flame, that I was Pinocchio, rotting in the shop, but perhaps, now, I'm Jipedo, and I can breathe life into me, and fix this rotting boy of wood.” - Brad Collins

“I've tried so desperately to scrub myself clean, I've spent hours at the stream, rubbing at my hands yet still they remain stained. With tragedy, with pain.... With me. Perhaps I am the stain.” - Turner Kordell

“The scariest thing of all isn't being scared of other people, it's being so terribly frightened by yourself that even if the mirror isn't broken, you are.” - Turner Kordell

“If my past were tangible, it would bleed me dry the moment I ran my hand across it, so wickedly sharp that I never stood a chance, really. I can forgive myself all I like, but at the end of the day, it isn't about me, it never was.” - Turner Kordell

“I have been destroyed down to my very atoms, nothing but the molecular level of what I once was, but here I am, still standing, cause I ain't in this life to back down, I'm here to rise up, and stay strong in the face of my damn fear.” - Kirby Bellot

“When I'm done, I can look the devil in her pretty blue eyes and say, I did good nuff, and she'll embrace me with open arms, cause these days, the devil leans back, admires my work, and bites her damn lip, cause I've sinned so deeply ain't even the most forgiving of beings can forgive me. I am a testament to the fact that even good men, can go rotten, just ask the devil, cause all she ever did, was tell the truth. And I'm proof of that.” - Zafavri Holts 

“We're all playin' a game 'a chess with our demons, mate, we're all in a back and forth battle against our darker fuckin' side, difference between me, and the average man, is my demons said checkmate the day I was bloody born.” - Alfonso O’Sullivan

“I am beauty in the ugliest of ways.” - Micah Romiro

“They say killing a man fundamentally changes a man, and that's true so long as it's yourself you're killing.” - Micah Romiro

“It's me who made this mess, the genocide of my own self, the slaughter of my own sense of being.” - Max Shaya

“I often wonder if God keeps me alive only because she fears what I would do to her.” - Howl Matthews 

“I have danced with such sin that I am the crawling of God's skin.” - Howl Matthews

“I do not fear death, I do not fear life, or the punishment I shall receive for mine.” - Howl Matthews

 “My whole damn life around me burned and now I can just hear the fucking silence of my regret.” - Milos Fellwitz

“I have found peace in who I am, I am prepared to burn for what I've done, for everything I love already fucking did.” - Milos Fellwitz 

“So come on world, come at me, I'll break you down to my level, cause you already broke me.” - Milos Fellwitz

“Stand up to me, we'll see where it gets ya, cause buddy, you can start this fight, but you sure as FUCK, ain't gonna be the one to God damn finish it. You want a grave? Good. Stand up to me and I'll grant your wish.” - Milos Fellwitz

“I am no longer tethered to me, I am nothing more than a conscience in another body, a reflection of someone else. In these many lives I've lived I've forgotten who I was, Preston Wilkins, the walking grave.” - Preston Wilkins

“I have made grand discoveries in this life, beasts do indeed roam this world, and you'll be surprised to learn we aren't the worst of them. There are things darker than the shadows in this world. Things more tenebrous than the pitch black of the nebula.” - Preston Wilkins

“I am dead to me, a grave now to even myself.” - Mikaelson Graves

“The only time I feel truly alive is when I can dance under the torchlight... The flame flickering on my skin, the moonlight dancing on me, it's as if Heilgravold is spinning only for me on those nights... The stars shine, the moon gleams, the world spins, I can't just stand still.” - Jemalina Night

“I have lived a life I fear will end in damnation, but I cannot truthfully look God in the eye and say I had no justification for what I've done.” - Adam Borwick

“We are inclined to believe that everything beautiful is good, but even the damned can look of salvation. The scariest thing about a liar, is they're often indistinguishable from the truth tellers, and often I've found they pretend to be prophets. They speak lies as others breathe, lies fall off their tongue like truth, and just like that, a thousand fools are lured into lies. Great minds think alike, my friend, but fools' minds rarely differ.” - Adam Borwick

“My hands are a fretwork of white laced scars, healed remnants of the pain I've felt, reminders that I've survived, that I'm alive.” - Juliet Borwick

“My brother often thinks himself a hopeless case, afraid of the blood he's spilled... But despite everything he's done, he's still my hero, and I know that if the wolves surrounded me, with their gnashing teeth and claws, he'd come to my rescue, frightening the beasts with poetry singing of clashing steel and red.” - Juliet Borwick

“The sun ain't gon' rise... At least, heh, not for you.” - Defforest Van Patten

“I have watched bullets soar through the air, droppin' soldiers and bloomin' flowers 'a red misery.” - Defforest Van Patten

“I will face this Goliath in my future as if I was David, slinging the fucking stone.” - Lockman Pierce

“ I will drag this dark into the dawn and make it Icarus, only difference is, it burns for a cause more grand than itself.” - Percy Pierce

“I'd rather go up in flames then down the wrong side of history.” - Percy Pierce

 “My hands are stained with blood, and truthfully, I don't know if it's my own or my conscience's... In this dark place my mind rattles, constantly ricocheting between myself and another... My mind speaks from the tongue of my abuser.” - Dylan Robertson

 “I'm just another man riddled with bullets, watching as all the King's horses and all the King's men simply step over me. This was war, but it became tragedy, as all wars do. Bullets flew, prophets spoke, but the blood was never prose, just red.” - Dylan Robertson

“All it takes to be a good man is to love and be loved, to give what you can and help those less fortunate than you. Even a smile can save a life. I reckon our hearts are suns waitin' to rise, and all it takes is a spark, really. Of love, of joy, even of curiosity. I've found when times are hard, ya don't got to look forward to what life may bring, just curious enough to explore the path God has given you.” - Thornton May

 “I am silk, woven from the finest of horrors.” - Dr. Tobias Emory

“I have watched humanity build themselves a grave over these many years, from the days of the lawless West to the stabbing of Julius Caesar, funny, how knives find backs and ours found the world's.” - Dr. Tobias Emory

“I am poetry, a dark entity captured in the paintings of Van Gogh and the prose of Allen Poe.” - Dr. Tobias Emory

 “You hold a secret for long enough, you become one.” - Changreta Alderbright

“My regret is so softly whispered that I imagine I am simply the who shouting only for Horton to hear.” - Changreta Alderbright

“I am lost, my eyelids heavy and bloodshot, projecting the horrors I can't scratch out, and despite how much I've torn, there's no key behind those fuckers.” - Arnaldus Alswith

“In a kingdom where the gifts the gods bestowed upon us is outlawed, punishable by death, what else are we supposed to do but rebel?” - Faylen Osophine

“I'm a shadow, wearing a crown as if it would save me, but instead I am crushed under it's weight, a stain on my engraved tile floor.” - Jalandar Osophine

 “This battle, this revolution of me, was never meant to be easy, I've fought against myself for decades, and I'm proud to say, not a single corpse of me fell, and flowers bloomed from the bullets fired.” - Georgia Graves

“I am a heartless beast washed in the blood of the lamb by force. God spares me, because I've pulled the wool over his eyes. I am Jacob, pulling a coat over my barren arms and telling Issac I am Easu if only to receive a blessing a doth not fucking deserve.” - Abdalla Calico

“This war against myself is too much to bear, how did I manage to become the hunter, the deer, and the bullet piercing my own damn skull?” - Abdalla Calico

“So oh lord, I am washed in the blood of the lamb, but be weary, for that's only because I slit it's throat.” - Abdalla Calico

“I say, it's time the outcasts wrote the fucking history books. The victors write their own version of history, so I say it's time someone told the damn truth.” - Sluzmink Jones

“I ain't askin' to be forgiven, just spared.” - Regan Locke

“On the inside, I am dyin', bullet holes and old wounds etched on the inside, and yet, on the outside, I ain't even bleedin. It's funny how that works, huh? We all die before we ever reach the damn casket, all it takes is a single bad day, so imagine a life of em.” - Regan Locke

“Bleeding from one's soul is the truest form of self.” - Azophine Bane

“My heart sings a battered melody, but even a lute of few strings can play a chord.” - Brilista Shante

 “I often damn myself for others have damned me.” - Brilista Shante

“I fear I am the judgment of others, I fear I am every person I've ever met and every crime I've ever committed. But maybe, that's because in a world that hates you for your birth, I'm scared to exist, when my existence is damned.” - Brilista Shante

“Who said gluttony came in the form of food? We can wolf down sins just as we would a meal on a silver platter, and I'm just as greedy as the rest of ya if not more.” - Harold Stout

“I have fed myself so full that I can hardly walk without the crushin' weight 'a my sacrilege buryin' me six foot undah.” - Harold Stout

“I am starved yet gorged with sin.” - Harold Stout

 “Am I really to stumble through the dark, finding cliff-sides rather than solid ground?” - Gothel Hendricks

 “My tongue is scarred and bleeding from the lies of affection, my lips are burned with the taste of abusive love.” - Gothel Hendricks

“Life can be tough as all hell, it can shove us in the dirt and then some, but all you gotta do to survive, is get back up. The worst thing a man can do, is stay down.” - Salary Holmes

“Mercy, my dearest of friends, is torture after you are broken, so I wouldn't go praising a man for sparing you. He's spared you of death, not the pain he wishes to cause you.” - Cyrus Hollow

[lydiabennett]

maple, harvest

autumnal asks !! how fucking cute !!

maple - is there a hobby / skill that you’ve always wanted to try but never did?

     i want desperately to learn how to play the violin. i sang & played flute in high school and college, and i always, always, always wanted to learn violin. every time i listen to folk of any variety, i want to play the violin. every time i listen to emilie autumn, i have a series of Emotions that center around me being so fucking amazed that the violin exists, and wanting so badly to learn how to play it. once grad school is done, once i have some disposable income that doesn’t go toward books that will make my research easier, i intend to learn. 

harvest - what fictional character do you most identify with? Why?

     oh, this is a tough one. so i have a holy trinity of fictional ladies who get me on a fundamental level and for whom i would destroy the universe — lydia bennet (of pride and prejudice but, most intensely, the lizzie bennet diaries), leslie knope (of parks and rec), and cosette fauchelevent (of les mis). i draw from each of them in different ways. 

     for lydia, it’s her vivacity, her joy, her passion. there are two quotes that really hit me. the first is from the original pride and prejudice, and it’s in my sidebar: “lydia was lydia still: untamed, unabashed, wild, noisy, and fearless.” the second is from lbd: “you’re only a secondary character if you let yourself be.” i am a trauma survivor; lydia’s sheer & unadulterated power, her refusal to make herself smaller, and her willingness to get back up even when she’s been badly bruised up is both inspiring and, at the risk of sounding arrogant (i’ve earned this tho lbr), kind of a mirror. i see a lot of that in myself, and i’m really proud of my resilience. 

     for leslie, it’s her optimism. i’ve been finding more and more that i really am an optimist? i genuinely believe that the world is a good and kind place, that people are inherently good and kind, and that compassion will beat cruelty. i believe that to be the kind of person i want to be, i have to be willing to take risks to stand for what i believe in even if it has consequences, and i have to be willing to be hopeful for something better even when i am, and everyone else i know is, fucking exhausted, because the second i let myself off the hook for that, the second i just say “well, that’s how the world is, the world sucks, people sucks,” i am giving the world & the people in it a free pass instead of standing up & demanding better.

     and for cosette, it’s her warmth and her love !! back in 2013, i was fucked up, as a lot of us were, and i lashed out a lot because i did not have the capacity to handle the emotional toll of constantly renewed trauma. so i actually literally sat down with myself that summer and i said “ok, this isn’t my fault, but it’s still my responsibility, and i can be a person who gets cold and hard and angry, or i can understand that my anger has served me well but isn’t helping me anymore and i can stay soft despite everything trying to push me in another direction.” and i actively modeled myself after cosette in a lot of ways: cosette is driven, above all else, by love and compassion. cosette reflects and represents the absolutely and, quite literally, revolutionary power of love. and i realized that that was the person i wanted to be, and even when i’m not actively thinking ‘what would cosette do’ i have that sort of tattooed on my brain. she’s a guide and a gift and i hope hope hope that i can live up to her example.

[tanadrin]

@bpd-anon:

I think I agree on some points and disagree on others but mostly I would love an expansion of this part: "I don’t think he actually understands fantasy as a set of generic conventions as well as he thinks he does." Can you explain the parts that he is misunderstanding and what true understanding looks like?  

For some context, I have never seen GOT. I read the first book and it's tied for my favorite book ever but then college and its stress hit and I mostly stopped reading (same reason Blindsight is another favorite book ever but I haven't read Echopraxia). I mostly read science fiction books and I haven't even read the all-important LOTR (mainly because I hear there isn't any moral greyness, sounds boring). 

Martin has said things like this:

“I admire Tolkien greatly. His books had enormous influence on me. And the trope that he sort of established—the idea of the Dark Lord and his Evil Minions—in the hands of lesser writers over the years and decades has not served the genre well. It has been beaten to death. The battle of good and evil is a great subject for any book and certainly for a fantasy book, but I think ultimately the battle between good and evil is weighed within the individual human heart and not necessarily between an army of people dressed in white and an army of people dressed in black. When I look at the world, I see that most real living breathing human beings are grey.”     

“Ruling is hard. This was maybe my answer to Tolkien, whom, as much as I admire him, I do quibble with. Lord of the Rings had a very medieval philosophy: that if the king was a good man, the land would prosper. We look at real history and it’s not that simple. Tolkien can say that Aragorn became king and reigned for a hundred years, and he was wise and good. But Tolkien doesn’t ask the question: What was Aragorn’s tax policy? Did he maintain a standing army? What did he do in times of flood and famine? And what about all these orcs? By the end of the war, Sauron is gone but all of the orcs aren’t gone – they’re in the mountains. Did Aragorn pursue a policy of systematic genocide and kill them? Even the little baby orcs, in their little orc cradles?” 

“By the time I got to Mines of Moria I decided this was the greatest book I’d ever read… And then Gandalf dies! I can’t explain the impact that had on me at 13. You can’t kill Gandalf… Tolkien just broke that rule, and I’ll love him forever for it. The minute you kill Gandalf, the suspense of everything that follows is 1,000 times greater. Because now anybody could die. Of course, it’s had a profound effect on my own willingness to kill characters at the drop of a hat.” 

Taken together, Martin is one of the people I’m thinking most of when I say things like “nobody reads Tolkien, only their caricatures of Tolkien.” About the only thing I can say for him is that he’s right on Tolkien being about an external battle of Good versus Evil a lot of the time; though for my part, Martin’s world doesn’t come off so much as Gray versus Gray as Evil versus Evil, and a lot of what he seems to take for “moral ambiguity” to me is perfectly unambiguous: they’re all (or mostly) villains, doing villainy things to each other. Sometimes for quite human reasons; but the best villains have comprehensible motivations beyond pure evil. Doesn’t make them not villains.

First of all, he’s simply nakedly incorrect that Tolkien never considered the difficulties of rule, or never looked at the practical aspects of his worldbuilding. They don’t come in much for emphasis, but they’re absolutely there (most notably in the scenes set in Minas Tirith, in the run-up to the Battle of the Pelennor Fields), and indeed the moral nature of the Orcs, and therefore the correct stance to take toward them, was of deep concern to him, and subject to a lot of later revision as he struggled with the idea of what we would now refer to as an Always Chaotic Evil fantasy race.

Tolkien certainly critically interrogates the morality and moral authority of rulership. In the Silmarillion, he has plenty of figures who cut heroic profiles but make bad (or at least ambiguous) kings, with much resulting conflict; and indeed, that ambivalence is something he’s in part borrowing from his medieval sources! To say that the medievals had a totally black-and-white view of kingship is to betray a lack of familiarity with actual medieval writers, who even (especially?) in the Early Middle Ages are adept at portraying leaders with powerful qualities that turn against them in the wrong situation. Beorhtnoth, the heroes of Njal’s Saga, and Beowulf would have all been extremely familiar to Tolkien, and are good examples I think. Tolkien absolutely understood that people come in shades of gray, and there are various admixtures of light and dark in almost all his characters. Even Frodo for Chrissakes puts on the Ring at the end--and Gollum redeems him. Like, come on! That’s one of the most memorable parts of the main trilogy! But from Galadriel right down to the Sackville-Bagginses, Tolkien is intensely conscious of the moral complexity of everybody in his stories, he just doesn’t need them to say “fuck” in order to express that.

What Martin seems to have confused for Tolkien is, like, the semi-mythic style of Arthurian romance (which... is still not always super black and white?), which is only a small part of the generic conventions Tolkien is drawing on. Tolkien is much more steeped in the conventions of the realist novel, with its penchant for psychological complexity, even as he’s borrowing the setpieces of older literature. I think that’s important because it’s what marks Tolkien out as a fundamentally modern writer, despite his sources; yet people skate over this and like to pretend he was some kind of reverse Connecticut Yankee who stumbled out of the 13th century with medieval sensibilities intact. Which is... weird.

The quote about Gandalf is especially telling. Gandalf’s death happens for extremely clear structural reasons: it provides a climax to Book II (if you’ve never read LOTR: each volume is divided into two “books”; the three-volume split was a post-writing publication decision, LOTR was originally written as a single continuous unit, and the “books” are like mega-chapters), much like, but stronger than, the Flight to the Ford at the end of Book I; it sets up the sojurn in Lorien (recovering from the trauma of the loss of their nominal leader); it helps the narrative transition from the low-stakes, bucolic setting of everything west of the Misty Mountains to the high-stakes dangers of the rest of the story; and it serves the conclusion of the story because without Gandalf’s sacrifice (plus many other events), the Ring never would have made it to Mount Doom. Also, not to put too fine a point on it, but Gandalf comes back, in a way that feels sensible within the world Tolkien has built, and which sets up further development of both the main plot and the the themes Tolkien is concerned with.

If Martin had written Lord of the Rings, Gandalf would have died to a random Orc arrow, would never have come back, and the Ring wouldn’t have made it to Mount Doom at all. And you’d be left feeling like Gandalf dies for basically no reason--and you’d be right. The suspense in Lord of the Rings doesn’t come from wondering who will die (the only major named characters who die permanently are Boromir and Gollum; both similarly serve important thematic and plot functions when they do, but by Martin’s standard, Tolkien isn’t even trying), or wondering how things will turn out--does anyone ever doubt that the good guys will win?--it comes from seeing how they get there, from wanting to experience the emotional and narrative beats of the story, wanting to see the narrative logic being brought to its conclusion. It’s why it’s a good story even if you know the ending! And all of Tolkien’s work is like that: a well-constructed narrative that is perennially satisfying is far better than a one-off surprise that can never be repeated. That’s a mistake a lot of modern media is making right now, which the rise of undue emphasis on spoilers isn’t doing anything to reduce.

More generally: there’s nothing wrong with high fantasy externalizing the conflict between good and evil. That is in fact one of its functions, as a kind of moral metaphor or moral proving ground in the same way that, say, science fiction often serves as moral and philosophical proving ground for ideas around technology or exploration or the alien. It’s not obligatory, but to cite that as an insufficiency of any work in the genre is to fail to understand the genre. Tolkien specifically provides some arch moral figures (Morgoth, Sauron, Manwe, Aragorn), but he also provides some much more mixed ones: Denethor, Saruman, Grima Wormtongue, Boromir, Gollum, etc. (also Thorin, Feanor and his sons, and in fact just like a huge chunk of the cast of the Silmarillion in general), and gives his characters plenty of opportunity to reflect that, even in a conflict with a literal evil spirit, there is room for ambiguity (cf. Sam’s meditation on the Haradrim in Ithilien). And the sum total of the effect in Tolkien’s work is that it actually feels like something is at stake. I don’t feel like that in Martin’s world. I feel like if the Night King were just to destroy all of Westeros that would make as much sense and be about as satisfying as any other outcome, because there’s nothing that feels especially worth preserving there.

In discarding everything about both the moral and narrative structure of high fantasy, Martin’s world leaves nothing for one to hang one’s hat on, nothing to use as a fixed point of reference when it comes to orienting yourself in it; he is writing a critique against many things, perhaps, but not an argument for anything. The result leaves me quite cold.

[ireviewstuffsometimes]

A Serious Man (2009) 1/4/20

Starring Michael Stuhlbarg and written & directed by the Coen brothers, this multi-award winning “drama/comedy-drama” (according to google...), was quite odd to say the absolute least.

Now, I won’t fool you–although I doubt you would be fooled–, but I am certainly not a professional reviewer of anything. I’m certain you’d like to know more background, or at least know how much background I know, but I’ll give you everything I can. I’m just doing this because I like consuming copious amounts of media and because I also really like giving my opinions on said media. It’s just nice to write them down sometimes, even when I know the general public won’t care. So anyways, on with the show.

To be fully honest with you, I chose this movie because I am obsessed with “Call Me By Your Name”, in which Michael Stuhlbarg plays Elio’s father. He did a fantastic job in that movie and I vaguely remembered hearing about the awards he won for his part in “A Serious Man”, so after stumbling upon it on Netflix while looking for movies to download before a two hour long car drive I had to make, I decided this was the one, and off I went.

The movie starts in the past, focusing on what I can only assume to be Larry Gopnik, the main character’s ancestors. After being visited by a supposed “dybbuk”, an evil possessing spirit in Jewish beliefs, the wife stabs an ice pick into the maybe-dybbuk’s heart and life carries on? I didn’t really understand what this meant. The best I can assume is that perhaps there is a curse on the family like the wife said at the beginning and that is what is conveyed? Anyways, time flips forward to the 1960s where we are brought into the life of the Gopniks, a Midwestern Jewish family who’s son is soon to be mitzvahed, daughter is desperate to wash her hair, father’s brother is desperate to drain his cyst, mother is seeing another man and looking for a divorce, and father is at the beginning of the end. 

The entire movie is filled to the brim with absolute randomness best described as controlled chaos. Or maybe not controlled, but semi-connected. The best thing I can tell you to do to understand this review is to go watch the film yourself. So many little details happen and they all wind up overlapping each other to make poor Larry’s life a living hell. Maybe he is in hell? But that’s not the point. 

The real point of the story, which, after a couple of hours, hit me like a pile of bricks, is that some things in life are left unanswered. The universe or God or HaShem–however you refer to it–doesn’t always give us exactly what we’re looking for. The movie, however, leaves it up to the viewer to decide whether these unanswered questions are a bad thing or a good thing. While this parable is literally said almost word for word in Larry’s meeting with the second rabbi, you don’t remember it for awhile after seeing the film because your immediate thoughts at the end are “what the hell? that’s it???”. It leaves you with so many unanswered questions that, because we’re so conditioned to movies ending with a solution to the character’s problems, for awhile, you’re just stuck wondering what could’ve possibly happened. So here’s a list of all my questions that are completely unanswered:

Does Larry have cancer? What was on the x-ray that the doctor needed to discuss? Does he ever make it to the doctor considering there’s a tornado coming? Speaking of tornado, does his son die in the tornado? Does Fagle die in the tornado? Does the old Hebrew school teacher ever find the right key to get the basement door open? Why the hell did anyone think that, in the event of a tornado warning, the best thing to do is have all the kids stand outside while the helpless old teacher slowly goes through each key, trying to unlock the basement door? Back to Larry though, does he get tenure? Who was sending the defaming letters to the committee? Was it in fact Sy Ableman? Do Larry and his wife still get a divorce? Does his daughter ever stop washing her hair? Why doesn’t his daughter have enough time for Hebrew school? Does his son learn to value his dad for anything other than fixing the aerial to ensure a clear viewing of The F Troop? Does Larry ever cancel the Columbia records subscription? Does Larry actually fuck his next door neighbor? Is Larry’s property line issue ever fixed after the one man dies of a heart attack? Does Larry still have to pay for that man’s services even though the man died? Does Larry’s brother Arthur actually get jail time? Was Arthur really committing sodomy? Is Arthur’s cyst really that bad? Does Larry end up taking the bribe from Clive? Does Rabbi Nachtner ever stop telling the story of the goy’s teeth? Was “help me” really ever written on the goy’s teeth? Why are some questions in life left unanswered and why are we just expected to accept this???

While this movie does pose a big question of whether it is better to spend life constantly searching for the answer to even the smallest of questions or to give up and try to forget about all those unanswerable questions, it doesn’t pose this question in a rude way, unlike other films that often dole out insults rather than advice. Was this my favorite movie ever? No. But I certainly understand why it won so many awards. It tricks the viewer into authentically struggling with the same questions as the main character and forces us to ask “is there an answer?”, automatically making us sympathize with Larry so much more when we realize that we are in his shoes. Everybody is selfish and when they consume media, they are only doing so in order to find a character that is a reflection of themselves. When somebody with at least some brains in their head watches this movie and begins to wonder if there is an answer just like Larry does, they immediately connect with a character in a way that they might not have been able to. 

I am not Jewish. I am not a man. I was not alive in the 60s. I have never experienced divorce, nor do I have children. I’m not a college physics professor seeking tenure, and I certainly don’t live in the Midwest. On all accounts, I am nothing like this character. Except, I am. We both want answers to the unanswerable and that is what makes us fundamentally the same and makes “A Serious Man” a seriously enjoyable film for all those who can’t stop asking questions that nobody knows the answer to and that many people don’t even think to ask. Verdict: 7 out of 10 promised hot soups.

[calleo-bricriu]

What I want to see is what over 100 years old Calleo and his cards have to say about Voldemort.

The hell do I need cards for that for? I could just tell you outright but, then, I’m sure you’d be back at me going on about how that’s no fun at all.

In the distant past, they’d described him as a bullheaded, reactionary wank cloth who’s prone to having violent tantrums when he doesn’t get his way–I’m condensing that down rather a lot but that was the gist of it; perfectly charming sort until he gets the idea that you think he’s roughly as interesting as watching paint dry.

But, hey, people change and maybe when he’s ready to try again he’ll have improved somewhat.

Which, in his case, would more than likely manifest as just becoming more wildly unpredictable with his meltdowns and moods but, you’ve asked my cards, not me, so here we go.

I wonder if he still does that thing where he tries to go as long as humanly possible without blinking because he could do it indefinitely with a little transfiguration and charms work.

Where was I?

Ah! The cards.

(( Larger resolution image is here. ))

Hermit’s pretty self explanatory; he’s been isolated, and should you find him and ask him he’d likely tell you that it was on purpose and/or for the purposes of enlightenment, introspection and contemplation–hopefully around why he didn’t account for basic defensive Blood Magic but, most likely not that. I know I don’t like to dwell on it when I miss something basic, I like to forget I did that and move on while also keeping it tucked away in the back of my head so I don’t do it again.

I’m going to go ahead and ignore that, all around, when the Empress shows up it she often signifies a pregnancy and considering Voldemort, unless he gets incredibly creative with trying to get himself back into a body (or just possesses the first thing he can manage that’s human) is not likely the sort to be able to get pregnant, which leaves the third option of someone else…letting him…do that to them.

It can also mean that he’ll just make an effort to be a little more creative and inspirational to anyone stupid enough to show up for a second round and with his recruitment efforts but if I had to have the mental image of somebody not only fucking Voldemort but letting him knock the up so the rest of you–and I say the rest of you because I don’t know specifically which one of you asked for this reading so you all get to suffer.

And I don’t think it’s that second one as the Ace of Cups revolves around beginning again which, fair, if you’re half-resurrecting yourself–but it primarily focuses around fertility and pregnancy. Someone is going to let that man knock them up.

Ew.

Getting away from that horrifying set of mental images, the Eight of Wands indicates he’s going to be about as good at being patient and planning things out (complete with contingencies or alternate plans in case the main one fails) as he was the first time around which is to say, not at all. However, since the Ministry is staffed largely by what I can only assume are tranquilised bonobos in suits, nobody here is going to care. Or notice. I’ll notice, I’ve already noticed, but I have enough benzos from Muggle doctors that I legitimately do not care.Or, if they do notice, they’re going to pretend they haven’t so all the progress speed, action, momentum, all that nonsense, is only going to seem speedy to the people who haven’t been paying attention.

The rest of us will have seen it slowly coming since roughly 1982.

He’s got abandonment issues head to toe based on the Eight and Five of cups, which is a large part of what makes him dangerous as, instead of focusing on the cups that haven’t been knocked all over the place and using those to rebuild, all he’s likely to focus on will seem, on the surface, to be a political revolution but that’ll just be a thin and fragile veneer covering the fact that he’s a desperately lonely, fundamentally unhappy, nearly always frightened basket case and that manifests (as it often does) in violent outbursts and an undercurrent of wanting to make everyone else suffer the way he feels he was made to suffer.

That’s not even all that uncommon, you can see it to a much lesser degree anywhere in Knockturn if you stay there long enough or visit often enough.

Queen of Swords is likely to turn out to be his most dedicated defender, coming from a point of power obsession and pity, though if she’s got any brains she won’t ever mention she pities him as it might get her killed, and wants nothing more than to shield and protect him, keeping him from harm; also indicates that she’s married–well, it mentions it in the inverse as a divorce, which would make sense if she’s one of those sorts that were pushed into a family alliance sort of marriage that she never particularly cared to be a part of to begin with.

And, at some point, he may be able to shake off all that flailing about to somehow manage to convince the general public that he’s not that bad, and he’ll do so through gratuitous shows of generosity, charity, investing in community (the community he envisions, at any rate; some of you will have to be his diversionary scapegoats, after all), and while everyone is distracted by someone who’s likely to be able to walk into the Ministry and buy them off with false gratitude, making them feel valued, paying them well, displaying what comes off as fairness unless you scratch the surface, he’ll get to work doing what he wanted to do in the first place.

And what does he want to do in the first place? Get himself into a position where he’s well liked, respected, viewed in a positive light, as a good leader, as someone who is successful, committed, has clear goals, and will lead the Ministry to greater things. This is someone who wants to be loved without having to leave himself vulnerable in the process.

For awhile, he’ll get it, and it’ll seem solid.

It won’t last, however, not for long, because that Eight of Swords is going to leave him feeling trapped, restricted, and lashing out at anyone or anything who he even suspects of holding dissenting views through harsh punishments, executions, imprisonments, persecution, “trials” in front of the Wizengamot that were rigged from the start, and at that point he’ll be at two distinct paths he can take.

I do love the Two of Wands for letting things go in different directions.

First potential path: If he goes that route, he’ll be able to leverage what little political and social capital he’ll have left after that mess I just described and, with a little creativity, should be able to pull it all back together in a way that cements his socio-political views as the new, accepted norm and any rebellion against it won’t be able to gain the following it’d need to challenge him for decades to come.

Second potential path: Nine of Swords circles back to the Eight of Swords, only more intense. Terror, not just fear, seeing enemies everywhere, being the subject of gossip, the narrative of which he will not be able to control as it will be a moving and largely invisible target that is perfectly willing to martyr itself if it means his downfall. As a result, he’ll fall further and further into paranoia, nightmares, despair, and stress, leaving him with an inability to cope with the reality of the situation which will only circle back to him lashing out at anything that comes within range, regardless of who or what it is, and when he hits his breaking point he isn’t likely to survive it.

The card between those two paths, as I was curious as to which route the deck thought he’d take, is a reversed Star.

Hopelessness, despair, the inability to take responsibility for one’s actions being what led them to where they are, lack or loss of trust in those around him and in himself, feeling as though everyone, even his closest followers, are plotting against him.

Considering that, I suspect he’ll go the second route to hang out with the sword filled guy in an egg costume.

Let’s see if one overarching card will give some closure here, shall we?

Regret, refusing help from those who legitimately want to give it (back up a bit and re-read the bits that mention paranoia) because, as surprising as it may seem, there are people who genuinely do care for him–in their own, strange way–disillusionment, becoming even more self-absorbed and depressed, focusing on the fantasy in which he’s–apologies, but I’m going to jump back to how two of my former Archivists often described him–seen as something greater in terms of charisma, success, skill, and political success than Grindelwald.

I watched that mess rise to power and fall from it spectacularly, and my memory has more than enough clarity to state with certainty that the only things I’ve seen that Voldemort is better than Grindelwald at are:

1) Keeping himself out of prison.

2) Being ballsy enough to apply for that Defence Against the Dark Arts position looking the way he did when he got that interview. He had to have known what he looked like, unless he doesn’t cast a reflection anymore and nobody told him how off he looked. Just to note, it’s not that I think he’d have been unqualified for the position so much as he may have come off as only wanting it to use as a recruiting platform which is–one of those things you really need to hide until you’ve got tenure, or at least a signed contract.

3) Being repeatedly thwarted by children yet still having followers willing to both overlook it, stand there with a straight face while he probably blames his wand for it (because they all do, you find any Wizard over 60 that has a spell fail and the first thing you get is some variation of, “I swear this has never happened before! It must be the wand acting up!”), and continue to follow him despite the fact that all they’d really have to do is walk away and start telling people what he’s really like and it’d kill any chances of recruiting anything with any skill or ability to follow through.

4) Talking to snakes, allegedly. Not entirely sure how useful that skill would be but I suppose snakes probably have some interesting things to say now and again.

At any rate, Four of Cups almost guarantees he’s going the Nine of Swords route so it’ll get a bit hairy for awhile but whatever grip he gets on anything is going to be tenuous at best and even holding onto it with both hands his reach is likely going to exceed his grasp.

I never like to see raw talent wasted like that, and he does possess a great deal of raw talent as well as the intelligence to have made it, with right people around him, into something spectacular; it’s just been–misapplied and left in the hands of people who never did have his interests at heart, and it’s easy to take advantage of a kid like that. See it all the time in Knockturn.

Pity, really.