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hamliet · 4 years

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The Todorokis: Lost in Darkness and Distance

“Accursed creator! Why did you form a monster so hideous that even you turned from me in disgust?”

-Frankenstein, Mary Shelley

I’m by no means the first person to point out Frankenstein references in Dabi’s character (see @linkspooky and @findingoutwhodabireallyis for more), but I am gonna talk a l’il more about it.

Dabi, just like the creature in the novel, is not just a monster: he is a lost child, a portrayal of the lost innocence of all of mankind.

Dabi paints himself as a monster of Endeavor’s creation, and the tragic irony of this is that by seeking revenge, Dabi is thereby perpetuating his own abuse and becoming more like Endeavor. Dabi is a mirror, a reflection of Endeavor, who is a reflection of society. To redeem himself, Endeavor has to first save Dabi; to save their family, the Todorokis have to save Dabi; to save hero society (which basically just went up in a pile of blue flames), the kids are gonna have to save Dabi, Shigaraki, and Himiko.

The Todorokis, for all their genuine mourning for Touya, do not recognize him when he literally appears in front of them. That’s pretty hurtful, and explains more about why Touya assumes Shouto is Endeavor 2.0 (since Endeavor and Shouto are the two who have seen him in person). Touya’s wrong--he and Shouto are/have been a lot more alike than he would guess (both wanting to prove their worth through becoming strong but without their father’s training)--but he doesn’t know that, which is tragically ironic.

In order to actually heal and move forward as a family, the Todorokis are all going to all have to be able to see clearly, to see and acknowledge their flaws and what’s been swept under the rug (Link talked more about this in her excellent meta here).

Touya starts off the chapter mentioning that he’s been watching Rei from afar and presumably sent her something personal (referencing the room number). He doesn’t seem like he hates her, and that’s good. However, also remember that as much as Rei is a victim (she is), her situation is complex. Abused mothers who are afraid to stop their husbands from abusing their kids is a painful subject best dealt with without moral declarations, but suffice to say that it is valid and reasonable for many children to hold resentment at these mothers, who chose their own fear and self-preservation over their children’s safety. Not all kids feel this way and that is very valid too! But many do. It doesn’t appear, assuming that translation is accurate, that Dabi harbors resentment against her. However, Rei quite possibly still blames herself for projecting Endeavor into Shouto in a moment of insanity, a moment that has left him forever scarred. Now she has another son, a son she thought she lost forever, who is terribly burned by Endeavor’s and/or his own doing, committing atrocities and threatening others. What will she want to do? To redeem herself in her own eyes, my guess is she will want to save Touya.

Fuyumi, the peacemaker, is going to have to face the fact that two of her family members want to literally kill each other, which offers her some potential complexity. So much for Natsuo not forgiving Endeavor as the main conflict source. Will she want Touya redeemed? If she forgave Endeavor, you’d think so, but he would likely want her to choose between Endeavor and himself.

However, Touya doesn’t mention Fuyumi this chapter. He does mention Natsuo as his confidant, and based on past chapters, we can assume Natsuo and Touya were quite close. It’s to Natsuo that Touya asked the question of his arc: why do I exist? However, by sending Ending after them, we the audience realize Touya actually risked Natsuo’s life--which quite possibly wasn’t his intention. Narrative consequences don’t only exist for Endeavor, Touya.

The thing is, Dabi is still the child kneeling on the floor emotionally (yes he’s an adult, I’m not arguing he can’t be held responsible, please don’t come for me). He’s still asking the same question he claims to have asked Natsuo: “Why do I exist?”

Touya still doesn’t know what the purpose of him existing is. Right now all he has is assuming it’s just to destroy Endeavor, a destruction that will destroy himself with his tormentor, because he’s unable to think about his existence without torment and abuse and pain. He defines himself by his firepower just as Endeavor defined him.

Compounding this, Dabi has some seriously self-harm issues. I mean, we already knew that because of his quirk harming him, but it extends beyond the physical (though we’ll return to the physical in a moment). Dabi is fully aware that what he's doing is wrong. Unlike Endeavor, he doesn't even try to justify himself. Essentially, this is emotional self-harm. He thinks bringing down Endeavor and the society that created his pain is worth harming every part of himself for.

Back to the physical. "Dance with me in hell" kinda implies Dabi doesn't intend to survive his revenge (I’m not particularly concerned about him though; he frankly should survive). Again, we should have already been clued into this, because back in chapter 191, Dabi was ready to fight and die just to destroy Endeavor.

The Todoroki family’s healing entirely depends on saving Touya from “Dabi.” But he has little reason to trust most of them right now. However, there is another family around him now who can help him learn to trust: the League. I know Dabi says he doesn’t care about them, but his rage when Twice died kinda suggests otherwise. Not only that, but Himiko asked him how his hand was, expressing concern for him. They genuinely care about him, and not just for his quirk and certainly not for his name.

The League itself is, obviously, made up of lost children. We have Himiko, whose parents ditched her instead of getting her help and who was villainized for her quirk; we have Shigaraki, who stumbled through the streets after accidentally hurting his family, begging for help, and only a villain came. Sweeping them underground, killing them and/or ultimately defeating them in a grand final showdown, won’t fix anything. Touya has been defeated his whole life.

What Touya’s never gotten is love and safety just for existing, is acceptance that he’s enough just as he is. What Shigaraki’s never gotten is someone believing in him. What Himiko’s never gotten is acceptance and understanding. Which they can and will likely all find somewhat in the League, but also should find through their heroic counterparts (Deku and All Might for Shigaraki; Ochaco for Himiko, Shouto and the other Todorokis for Touya).

#bnha 290 #bnha meta #dabi #todoroki touya #todoroki shouto #todoroki enji #todoroki fuyumi #todoroki natsuo #todoroki rei #todoroki family #mha meta #bnha theory #league of villains #toga himiko #shigaraki tomura #shimura tenko #endeavor

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aftgficrec · 3 years

Note

Any fics like faded.?

We were a little uncertain about this one, because the fic title you gave us didn’t match the link, but we took a chance and went with the amazing fic the link led us too: ‘falling’ by Idnis. Sorry if we got it wrong!

Fics by Idnis have a very unique style, so that’s hard to find again, but luckily there are many other fics set in the world of art and photography that are also well worth a look. - S

(For different aus, you might like to check out this post about pining Andrew.)

From previous posts:

Andrew as photographer:

Photographer!Andrew here

‘(lift me higher) let me look at the sun’ here

Neil as painter/art student:

‘Paint Our Lives In Color’ here

‘Paint On My Fingers, Your Hands In Mine’ here

‘good night, melpomene (come home, erato)’ and ‘Art Hoe’ here

‘Chapter 48: Pipe Dream - A Skaterboi AU’ here

‘Constrast’, ‘You’re Such a Violent High’ and ‘I Just Wanted To Protect You’ here

‘Heart on a Canvas’ here

‘better than nothing’ here

‘Absinthe Makes the Heart Grow Fonder’ here

‘Pigment', ‘i want you, i'll colour me blue...’ and ‘Ficlet Collection.. Chapter 17’ here

‘Disillusion's All You Left For Me’ here

Andrew as painter/artist:

‘since we've no place to go’ here

‘A Panther, A Fox, and Their Artist’ here

‘An Abundance of Blue’ here

Neil as a photographer:

‘The Bokeh Effect’ here

‘Ursa Major’ here

Falling by Idnis [Rated M, 39247 words, complete, 2018]

The sun was bearing down on the park, on Andrew, on Neil Josten’s sketch, his auburn hair and blue, blue, blue eyes.

After a dozen tries, Andrew clicked through his photos. All the way to the first one. The one where Neil was staring straight at the camera.

Andrew’s breath caught.

tw: scars

NB: Art created for this fic by @nikipuppeteer can be found here

Photographer Andrew:

We keep this love in a photograph (We made these memories for ourselves) by foxyroxi [Rated G, 4282 words, complete, 2021]

Kissing Neil was like everything he had imagined, just better. It was like coming home, like coming up for fresh air, like getting sucker punched in the face over and over.

set the lights by Stjosten [Rated T, 12610 words, complete, 2020]

“Will you just- I don’t know, keep going?”

“I don’t have a set destination,” Andrew says, “I get assignments from my boss, I go to those places, I take photos, and then I move on to the next one.”

“So you’re just going to keep going forever?”

“Yup,” Andrew says, looking away.

“Is that all you really want out of life?”

“It’s all I need.”

or Andrew is on a perpetual road trip to avoid his problems when he runs into a runaway with a bag full of secrets and nothing left to lose

tw: implied/referenced violence, tw: scars, tw: implied/referenced abuse

Lost in Translation by augustskies [Rated T, 10577 words, complete, 2018]

Andrew Minyard goes to Antarctica on a work trip, but what he doesn't expect is meeting someone with eyes the color of a cold winter sky.

tw: nightmare with drowning, tw: references to canonical character death

Photographer Andrew, model Neil AU by @foxesbettingpool [tumblr, 2017]

Neil Abram Josten, is an on the rise model.

Artist Andrew:

the eyes don't see (but the heart does) by starstrucknic [Rated M, 25200 words, complete, Aftg Reverse Big Bang 2021]

It’s the blood splatter, really, that draws Andrew’s eye first. Would it really arc up like that, as if from a garden hose blocked by a careless thumb? Would it drench the sheets red or flow in neat streams down the front of the mattress?

It seems almost impossible how easily convenient death is. How Judith’s sword slices through Holofernes’ neck, his face an expression Andrew wouldn’t recognize even if he cared to. It’s just shadow, hair, and a wrinkled forehead, surprisingly free of blood. Being upside down neither helps or hinders his impression.

Judith, of course, looms overhead, one hand braced on Holofernes head, the other clenched around the sword caught in the act of murder. This expression, too, is indiscernible, yet Andrew has the strange instinct to rub his thumb over her face, as if that will clear it up. A windshield wiper arcing endlessly over oil stains.

Or, the one where Andrew, an art undergrad who unknowingly has prosopagnosia, contracts Neil, a math undergrad with an attitude problem, as a model for his portrait requirement in order to graduate.

tw: violence, tw: implied/referenced rape/noncon

NB: art for this fic by @sm-pcnlr can be found here

paper mâché stars by justadreamfox, makebelieveanything, nerdzeword [Rated G, 3538 words, complete, 2021]

Andrew Minyard, the scariest, meanest, most infamous MFA art student at Palmetto State showed up at the main campus library on the first day of summer vacation with a baby strapped to his chest and a wagon full of iridescent junk.

It wasn’t the first time Neil had met Andrew. It wasn’t the second or third either.

But this was the first time Neil had seen Andrew with a baby

we’re never done with killing time (can I kill it with you?) by blafard [Rated M, 2103 words, complete, 2020]

The charcoal stained Andrew's fingers a deep grey, left behind similar stains on the delicate bone of Neil's ankle and Andrew hesitated a moment before wiping it away again.

Neil's body didn't need more marks he didn't ask to be put there.

An Afternoon of Painting by NachtGraves [Rated M, 1355 words, complete, Andreil Week 2018]

Neil tries to be helpful and the boys play with paints.

Artist Neil:

bring color to my skies by kindersjosten10 [Rated M, 52825 words, incomplete, last updated Aug 2021]

“I miss painting, you know?” Neil whispered, cutting Andrew’s line of thought.

Andrew watched him, waiting for him to continue.

“I can’t paint anymore, though,” he was playing with his hands, staring at the burns covering them.

Andrew wanted to kill whoever did that to him.

“What’s stopping you?” He asked.

“Myself.”

Andrew owns an art gallery and needs help with an exposition, luckly, Kevin knows someone who can help: Neil, who used to be a painter and knows everything about art.

Neil wants to be around art again and an opportunity comes up.

tw: implied/referenced abuse, tw: implied/referenced child abuse, tw: implied/referenced torture, tw: implied/referenced rape/noncon, tw: violence, tw: blood, tw: panic attacks, tw: suicidal thoughts

Artist!Neil AU series by Fortheloveofexy [Rated G/E, Collection, Updated Sept 2021]

May We Meet Again by Fortheloveofexy [Rated G, 10732 words, complete, 2021]

Neil hurriedly pulls out his sketchbook and crosses the street. “Excuse me,” he says in fluid German, waving his hand to catch the short blonde's attention. He’s soundly ignored right up until he’s next to the man’s table. “Hi, sorry to bother you,” he smiles politely, “But I was wondering if I could sketch your portrait?”

tw: implied/referenced abuse, tw: implied/referenced rape/noncon

NB: find art for this fic by @fortheloveofexy here, here, and here, plus find part 2: ‘Paint Our Lives In Color’ recced here

coming down by Stjosten [Rated M, 10069 words, complete, 2021]

Nicky owns a gallery. Neil is an artist. Andrew is the one that has to move all of the art.

tw: implied/referenced abuse

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ectonurites · 3 years

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You know that Fitzmartin also write FS:Robin Eternal, and said that she like Steph and her relationship with Tim in the interview. But then made them break up in Urban Legend. That's kinda sus tho

it's not 'sus' (also sidenote- i hate that phrase i know its a meme from like among us or whatever but sdfgfdhgf i can not take it seriously) like, you can like a relationship but also want to tell a new story that goes in a different direction! Those things can coexist.

In the interview she specifically did around when Future State: Robin Eternal was coming out, her exact quote was:

"I’ve [also] always really liked Tim, I think in part because he was in Batman: The Animated Series. But the more I was getting into Tim even for [Robin Eternal], the more I was like, “This poor child.” I recognized this desire to do good, especially with his relationship with Stephanie. Tim and Stephanie are so interesting to me as a dynamic. Stephanie is so unapologetically herself, and a mess, and living her best life, which is also a mess. Tim is, I think, drawn to that aspect of her and it’s so cool. Even growing up, I was like, this is so cool to see the struggle of these two characters. I think Stephanie was who I wanted to be, and Tim was sort of who I felt that I was." (source)

Which... again, liking the dynamic but still breaking it off to tell a different story (because she wanted to explore identity with Tim and a story about him realizing he's queer was what she thought the best way to do that was) isn't a weird thing to do? Especially because her Future State story while it explored some Tim & Steph dynamic stuff absolutely wasn't showing them like... particularly actively in a relationship either?

Fitzmartin in multiple places has talked about how much she likes Steph, so if this is trying to paint her as having some sort of thing against Steph for how she handled the pairing in Urban Legends... that just feels wild to me. How much she likes and respects her as a character is actually part of why Steph didn't show up that much in the Urban Legends story, I thought it was pretty interesting what Fitzmartin said on the subject:

To once again pull from that same podcast interview i keep referencing

starting at 23:24

Interviewer: Many fans are upset that Stephanie and Tim broke off- up off-panel and him being queer is being seen as some- uh, by some as invalidating their previous romance. Can you speak to these fans mindsets, and how it was decided to handle Steph and their relationship in Urban Legends and Robin Eternal Fitzmartin: Um! So... part of, uh, I love Stephanie. I have loved Stephanie- Interviewer [overlapping]: Yeah! Fitzmartin: For forever, and I will always love Stephanie. She is amazing and, uh, gets the short end of the stick... almost all the time. Interviewer [overlapping]: Yes. Fitzmartin: Um, and in part of her getting the short end of the stick she is sometimes used as and-and was written thusly to be um, a... a female explainer for Robin- or for Tim Drake specifically- and I don't love that for her. Because I want more for her than to just be like... 'Ah yes, let me explain to you Tim Drake- let me be a story function for Tim.' Um and I didn't... I didn't want their breakup to be part of that. Also, to be perfectly honest, it was 10 pages. Who- I don't- there was-It was a very very small amount of space. Interviewer: [laughs] Second Interviewer [overlapping]: Right. Fitzmartin: Um. So I think like- those two things together I was like, this is Tim's story like, a- and that this has to be about sort of Tim and- and working through that, um because I think- I think too highly of Stephanie to like, have her be, um, the- the thing that props Tim up, d'ya know what I mean? Interviewer: Yeah, absolutely, yeah. Fitzmartin: Um also once again. 10 pages. 10 pages per story I was like- we gotta- gotta get in, gotta get out!

idk. the overall point of you sending this message confuses me, anon, I don't really get what point you're trying to make. I don't see what's 'sus' about any of this. 🤷‍♂️

also ok i wrote my answer to that late last night and put it in my drafts, and since waking up also got this on a similar subject:

and while I definitely at first was not a fan of the TimSteph breakup happening offscreen I do after listening to the above bit of interview I just typed out understand the choice a lot more, even if it wasn’t my initial preference for how it could have been handled.

But ultimately I like both pairings, but the way I like TimSteph is personally never as an endgame type thing, I love their relationship as something important and influential for the two of them and their lives but not something that lasts forever. And honestly I think I’m gonna end up feeling kinda similarly about Bernard, where it’s an important relationship for Tim that makes him learn a lot about himself but I also don’t necessarily think it’ll be forever either. That’s in part because seeing any comic relationship for a teen character like Tim as more permanent feels silly to me, until they maybe someday let him get a bit older I doubt any specific relationship will be ‘the one’ forever

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gaylorlyrics · 3 years

Text

Coney Island

Break my soul in two

Just like in Dorothea, we have the double meaning of soul here - also meaning “sol” aka sun aka Karlie. Taylor is devastated beyond heartbreak - her actual soul is broken. However, she is also saying that Karlie (the sun/sol) is broken into two - one person who Taylor knows, and one who she doesn’t.

Looking for you but you're right here

The soul/sol double meaning is reinforced here where “you” is split into two different characters, the one that Taylor knows and the one she doesn’t recognize.

If I can't relate to you anymore Then who am I related to?

This line conjures images of divorce - “who am I related to” i.e. who did I marry? Also, if you can’t relate to your spouse anymore then you would wonder who your family is - and who is similar to you.

And if this is the long haul How'd we get here so soon?

Again, this is an image of divorce - imagining that you would be with someone for the rest of your life and then that forever quickly ending.

Did I close my fist around something delicate? Did I shatter you? This is clearly a reference to Delicate from Rep. Taylor knew the relationship would be hard, and is now worried that she caused the relationship to end by making it try to work at all.

And I'm sitting on a bench in Coney Island wondering where did my baby go? The fast times, the bright lights, the merry go round

Coney Island seems to be a companion song to Mirrorball, but in this rendition its about two people who both have that obsessively people-pleasing, mirrorball inclination. They both have grown up in the circus & rodeo of stardom and entertainment from a young age (like karlie and Taylor). This is about the person who jumped in the fishbowl with Taylor. However, based on the Mirrorball imagery in the Willow mv Taylor is now alone in the fishbowl (which has now become a glass closet).

Also, the Mirrorball scene from Willow mv looks similar to vintage images of Coney Island.

Sorry for not making you my centerfold

Over and over Lost again with no surprises Disappointments, close your eyes And it gets colder and colder When the sun goes down

Here we have disappearing sun imagery, which furthers this idea of a Kaylor divorce and Karlie leaving (I know! im sorry!! im just calling it like I see it!!!!!). The phrase “colder and colder” contrasts the “warm bed” referenced in there rest of the album, like in tis the damn season. The question pounds my head "What's a lifetime of achievement?"

Taylor is high-achieving and has won tons of awards. She also puts a lot of weight on winning awards and approval of other people, as was touched on in Miss Americana. (”I just need to make a better record.”)

If I pushed you to the edge

Taylor is wondering if it’s worth all of the work and the awards and the honors, if she doesn’t have the person she loves beside her. This is also discussed in Miss Americana - “Shouldn’t I have someone to call right now?”

But you were too polite to leave me And do you miss the rogue Who coaxed you into paradise and left you there?

Taylor talks about paradise a lot - “darkest little paradise”, “snuck in through the garden gate” (garden being a reference to garden of eden), etc. ALSO interesting to use “Paradise” when there are a lot of theories that the album that was supposed to be after 1989 was called “Paradise” before she pivoted and made Rep.

Will you forgive my soul When you're too wise to trust me and too old to care? 'Cause we were like the mall before the Internet

August reference here with “meet me behind the mall”. Also a funny nod to the “comeback stronger than a 90s trend” in Willow - and the mall boom in the 80s-90s.

It was the one place to be The mischief, the gift wrapped suburban dreams Sorry for not winning you an arcade ring

Again - ring imagery indicating failed marriage. The “suburban dreams” also seems to reference marriage - gift wrapped in a neat love story. But Taylor was unable to give Karlie that neat storyline because she is in the fishbowl. {Chorus} Were you waiting at our old spot In the tree line by the gold clock Did I leave you hanging every single day?

Again - we have august/illicit affairs references with the clandestine meeting. Also, Taylor uses gold to represent true love. A “gold clock” is saying that that true love was counting down to something, and the clock was ticking on the time she and karlie had for their true love.

Were you standing in the hallway

In Exile Bon Iver says ”Holdin' all this love out here in the hall” as a metaphor for not being able to be with the person you love.

With a big cake, happy birthday

In “The Moment I Knew” Taylor talks about how her lover misses her birthday party and that’s how she knows they’re not The One. In the music video for “Lover” we see that the Lover who Taylor is singing about throws Taylor a birthday party. This references both of these songs, and shows that one person is trying their best to celebrate their lover.

Did I paint your bluest skies the darkest gray?

Taylor talks about the color of the sky a lot and things being blue or grey. In London Boy there’s a “grey sky”, in invisible string her lover puts “blue in my purple pink skies”, in paper rings her lover makes her “blue like the color we painted your brothers wall” - so here it’s a metaphor for taking something that should be happy and making it sad.

A universe away And when I got into the accident

This also references Taylor’s previous work in “Out of the Woods”, when she says “20 stitches in a hospital room” supposedly referencing a snowmobile accident that she and harry styles got in.

The sight that flashed before me was your face But when I walked up to the podium I think that I forgot to say your name Taylor is saying that even though Karlie is all she thinks about, and thinks about at the most important times in her life, she can’t publicly declare her love for Karlie.

{Pre-Chorus} {Chorus} {Outro}

#evermore #Taylor swift #coney island #kaylor #karlie kloss

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greenmantle · 3 years

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mister impossible live thoughts!!!!

my journey of reading this book lasted from sunday afternoon through monday evening with a sleep and work shift in between. notes taken on my phone are under the read more, these are silly and hold very little context and even less intentional analysis. no thoughts head empty, truly

so they really are zeds because of zzzzzz

alf was right bryde has just been called dad so he is unfortunately in the category of dilf. devastating

hennessy calling bryde a dandy and ronan not liking the word

(also wow who is bryde supposed to be, morally ambiguous gansey?)

BURRITO THE CAR?

i am stunned by ronan’s anxiety manifesting as “imagining dying before adam who then falls in love with someone else so that in heaven (if adam goes to heaven, in question only because adam is agnostic) adam has to split his time between ronan and his hypothetical second love” like. dude. also him thinking of this adam as a widower, as if ronan was a 35 year old and married instead of the 19 year old in their first relationship that he actually is

“balls,” ronan hissed, annoyed to have been startled. “tits,” added hennessy. THEM.

please don’t say masturbatory, bryde. i already don’t trust you i don’t need to see you as gross

i will not add to the hennessy enthusiastic clone fucker debate.

every time i read one of these books i’m reminded how charming i find maggie’s writing to be. “the haystack has not produced a needle thus far.”

jordan stole declan’s volvo. everyone say it with me: girl. boss.

holy shit!!!!!!! the painting the “dependents” the line “the rules of the game had changed”!!!!!!!

“the dream creatures seemed to have somehow divined that declan was the person least likely to enjoy them and therefore the most desirable to woo” scream!!

ronan being uneasy about something bryde so willingly creates and uses smells like foreshadowing

“your balls really are nifty things,” hennessy said. “love to get my hands on them.” girl.

HENNESSY SAID I WAS A SINNER FINDING PLEASURE IN WINE, WOMEN, SONG. GIRL?

el gee bee tee

if she was referencing something don’t tell me i don’t want to know

hennessy i am obsessed with you. she said is adam one of those soft boys who hide in the firm pecs of their scary partners

i do not like bryde so much. bad vibes you weirdo saying ronan, a 19 year old orphan, is “looking in the rearview mirror” for wanting to be in contact with his family

ronan “mimicking his old friend gansey’s southern accent” it’s missing the gangsey hours

bryde get ready to fight me in a cage match

oh i love the brothers lynch

hennessy is so funny. she’s right pennsylvania sucks

oh reference to ronan’s discomfort with old people. think that gem is from...tdt?

rhiannon just called ronan darling ��

“this was the strangest part of the oldest liliana—she remembered a lot of what she’d already lived through, and a lot of that seemed to involve farooq-lane.” LESBIANS

WE’RE THE VILLAINS, FAROOQ-LANE THOUGHT. i had to COVER MY FACE. my GIRL. PLEASE. YEAH.

my god that was a good chapter

ADAM TAROT READINGS STOP. LOVE

“ronan felt hennessy shiver. he leaned his skull against her skull, and without pause or snark, she leaned back.” oh i love them.

are the dreamers three about to nosedive into eco terrorism

ronan thinking “she was going to leave them” is so. gansey. i miss gansey.

carmen and liliana i love you. el gee bee tee

what year is this set in? early 2013? 2014? i’m pretty sure trk was the 2011-2012 school year or the next. anyways, hennessy just referenced tiktok, an app that certainly does not exist yet in their world

i am not capable of sussing out what bryde is or what his goal is here. someone tell me

adam. oh adam. please call gansey you need an outlet for all of...that. all the hacking into government databases to access information gathered about the boyfriend you haven’t talked to in months. please call your friends

title mention page 234

man the whole three secrets thing in tdt feels a lot less fun now that we’re getting insight to a toddler ronan being told by his mother that he had to keep his dreams a secret forever :/

GRUMPY LUST, DECLAN’S BEDROOM

matthew said are you going to marry my brother 😩

DECLAN SAID BY THE TIME WE’RE MARRIED THE LYNCH BOYS ARE OUT OF THEIR MINDS

ashley ashleigh ashlee

what does “neat, civilized facial hair” look like on declan. floored by this

declan said ronan idolized gansey in high school :( he’s right but i miss gansey

WE ALL FINALLY FOUND EACH OTHER. OKAY GIRL BOSSES

(el gee bee tee)

i hate you chapter 33. very sad about this book.

is it ironic that i, tumblr user greenmantle, am upset about bryde being manipulative and harming ronan in ways that ronan cannot recognize. probably. that’s fine though

received these series of texts from my best friend while i was working:

lots of things i’m already loving about chapter 34, like the recognition that i cannot imagine a young woman feeling less comfortable in any situation than with ronan and his new hero, and the fact that during hennessy’s pov she thinks about carmen and liliana: “it was also clear they had crushes on each other.” i love when adults use the word crush i find it endearing

“they were muttering to themselves: make way, make way, make way.” I MISS GANSEY. make way for the raven king

i know that this book insisted again that opal is more creature than she is human but like. she’s still at least a little human. does nobody but me care about how she’s been doing all alone at the barns for however long ronan has been on the road?

MOTHER. FUCKER.

i’m sooooo mad i’m so mad. “i know when you dreamt me” fuck off! i hate you.

he’s a liar right this is nuts even for these books. this is some grade a gaslighting

oh nooooo

gun taped to the bottom of the kitchen table. oh declan

hm.

well. that’s the book. truly have no idea what happened those last few chapters. no clue. nada. hated those chapters. i’m gonna go back to living in chapters one through thirty-two i think

#mi spoilers #mister impossible #mister impossible spoilers #trc #spoilers spoilers i am so sorry if i spoil this for anyone!!!

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ashintheairlikesnow · 4 years

Text

Rise: Killan

The universe of Killan’s story belongs to @wildfaewhump. If you haven’t read their Iesin and Talvos or Pathverse stories, go! Go read! Read them or face my wrath. I have so much wrath to share.

CW: Referenced past torture, scarring, referenced dehumanization and briefly referenced pet whump, but this is not a piece about any of those things

Killan stopped, just at the edge of the rock along the riverbank, taking in a deep breath. The air was thin here, where the trees became scraggly pines that clung to rocky soil, hints of snowfall still littering the earth even this late in spring.

Leather boots covered his feet, he’d made them himself. It had taken forever to make the kill, tan the leather, cut it around his foot, sew it together. But he’d done it. Coated against the water, they kept his feet warm, but he wouldn’t have needed them, anyway.

He just never lost the habit of wanting to feign humanity, no matter how clear it was that he wasn’t human at all.

Not anymore.

Not a man.

Before, he couldn’t have stood here like this in just a shirt and pants without freezing. His fingertips should be blue, but when he looked down they were the same as always. Pale skin, roughened and scarred, but still skin - feeling only a faint chill. The dark talons on his right hand didn’t feel cold at all.

Killan lowered his eyes to look at them, clicking them together a little. The place where they’d been attached to the knuckles of his hands still held faint scarring where they’d been stitched on even as his bones blended, accepting with each addition parts that had been someone else’s body a little more easily.

Killan was so many people now, most of them fae. He was the only human left in his body but he could have told anyone who asked - cut his skin now and the blood ran pale, a pearlescent shimmer in what had once been a flat dark red when oxygen met wound.

Break a bone and find it hollowed inside, lighter weight easier for his wings to carry.

Make an incision along the wicked scar down his side and you’d find he lost a kidney and some ribs but gained other organs that weren’t there before. Killan would tell you - the wings were one life he stole, it took two for the eyes because the first set didn’t take, my hand was one along with some air sacs, the other air sacs and the lungs were another…

He was so many fae who should be alive, but instead there was only Killan Josta left to wear their parts, a child’s nightmare hiding under the bed, in the dark woods, a set of glowing eyes in the dark.

Not fae, either.

Watch Killan Josta open his eyes and see the pale color was replaced by a saturated, overwhelming blue, a black slit-pupil, eyes that would never sit in true comfort in his skin. They weren’t meant to be there. He still bled instead of crying.

Monster.

Hurt the creature and make it cry out in pain and hear two voices, two sets of vocal chords operating simultaneously, a shrieking fae scream alongside the lower human voice. Calon Nie had loved to hear both screams at once. So had the humans who had chained him down for entertainment.

Everyone was a monster, when given power over something new.

Everyone but... everyone but the ones who had saved him.

Buachaill del. Pretty boy.

Calon Nie’s pretty human, left alone to wander and stumble and plead, to make the mistake of asking for help. Captured, bought and sold, beaten and bled and sold and bought again, until there hadn’t been anything in Killan’s life but survival.

Until there had been no Killan left, that name held and hidden deep within himself. There had been only the creature, the monster, the pet the piece of fascinating conversation start the thing.

Not man or fae or boy or anything but organs and skin and wings to be bruised, broken, bloodied. Not even a favored animal.

Just a thing that knew how to keep living.

Raise your chin at the four-count whistle, hold up your hands at the three. Let them touch your talons, your wings, run their grubby fingers through the feathers you can never get clean. Feel the lash against the skin you were never meant to have for your own when you disobey. Fingers prodding and pressing at your scars. Chirp and trill for the men, the women, the children who call you the unnatural offspring of degeneracy when you were never that.

And it wouldn’t matter if you were, no one could deserve this. No one could earn this.

But this is life, this is all you’ll ever be, guard what’s left of you as deeply as you can and give them the mindless animal doing tricks for their coins, their hands, the promise that if you’re good it won’t last forever.

Feel the press of the muzzle keeping your jaw locked while you weep and beg to be seen as human again. See them lock up your voice and laugh when you try to speak and you can beg all you want, it won’t happen, they’ll never see you as a boy again.

It will never happen, and then one day…

One day, stop begging.

Slide away, into your own mind. Live for the moments where you’re fed for being good, the soft velvet of a horse nosing a carrot right out of your hand, the warmth of their breath curling up in winter stables with them. Curl up on straw and hold the chain around your neck and learn to stop crying.

Until he gives the five-count whistle.

Then you cry on cue.

Live for nothing but the hope that this day will end, because it has to, and then begin the next day living for the end of that one, too. Pray for the night because you are never alone until then.

Pray that it will one day end, and know that you are not praying for salvation, only darkness.

Until someone looks you in the eyes and takes a risk and you end up saved anyway.

Next to him, the river rushed by, swollen with a winter’s melt. The roar of water was deafening, and he couldn’t even imagine how loud it would be at the bottom of the waterfall, hundreds of feet below.

Somewhere further up there were fae courts hidden, deep inside the mountains. They didn’t want him either, but at least he wouldn’t be sold there. He wasn’t a curiosity to the fae, but an abomination, a warning, something to be feared. Something to be sent away as quickly as possible, but for all Calon Nie’s cruelty, it was only one fae that had held him captive and carved into his skin.

It had been a dozen of his fellow humans-

No. Not human anymore.

It had been a dozen or more humans who had bound his hands, forced muzzles on until he bled, sliced his skin to show the change in blood and marvel over his reddish tears, buried their hands in his feathers until he could not help but scream at the violation.

They loved to hear him scream.

Fae rejected him - but humans overwhelmed him.

Not fae either.

Killan looked down at his hands - fingers and talons, a madman’s puppet tossed aside, a piece of decoration in a human’s receiving hall, a pet kept hidden away until they tired of cutting him, a dirty slave for sale in the streets, keep him as a pet or the same way you keep a painting on the wall.

I promise you, messire, you’ve never seen anything like this! Show the man your hands, creature.

Even now, just remembering the whistle, Killan’s fingers twitched with unconscious need to obey.

The sun was rising, the sky a brilliant scattering of pink thrown up against the gathering clouds and a growing golden light finding its slow way along the world he could see below. The forest ran to the curve of the earth, and he could, with sharp fae eyes, see the smoke of chimneys in a village that would have taken him a day to climb down the mountain and walk to, but with wings…

Killan slowly flexed his wings out as wide as they would go, closing his eyes as his back straightened instinctively to balance the weight. The chill air ruffled along his reddish-brown feathers, a playful hint of breeze.

You know how to do this, the breeze whispered to him. You knew the moment he gave them to you.

He wasn’t meant to have them, but he did. They were blended into his back in a mass of scarring and changed bones, shoulder blades shifted out. On fae, the transition was seamless. On Killan, every inch of his skin told the story of screaming agony.

But the fae who had owned them was dead, along with every other one sacrificed to Calon Nie’s game. If they were anyone’s wings now, they were Killan’s.

I don’t have to be ashamed of what he did to me. I didn’t ask to be a monster.

The water burst from the confines of the earth next to him, tumbled and rolled into the air before it fell and fell and fell and crashed back down to earth below. Killan sighed softly, watching breath puff out before his face, and then turned away from the dawn.

He walked, step by silent step, back along the riverbank, watching the water running the other way, chasing the flight back down to ground. He stopped next to a thin pine tree, reaching out to touch the needles, crushing them between his fingers to release the scent, closing his eyes and breathing it in.

I didn’t ask to be this. It’s not my fault.

It’s not my fault I have new parts.

It’s not my fault I can fly.

Against his back, the breeze slipped around him again, dancing air that ran along the edges of feathers, beckoning. Beneath that, a faint shimmer of mystery. While fae and humans both looked away, Killan could call and have starsong reply, if only faintly, to his cries for help.

The mysteries recognized him as a mystery himself, not a monster. Not understood but not entirely turned away.

And he wasn’t alone, either. There were others out there who had been broken and bent to someone else’s will, who could see beyond the way he had been stitched together and know there was still a whole person inside.

Eitilt.

The breeze called again, and Killan stopped to look over his shoulder at the dawn. Farther than the sun’s light could reach, stars still shone, visible in the blue as brightly as they’d been in the black the night before.

Fly.

Killan took off running, back towards the cliffside, racing with his wings curved against his back and his feet pounding on rock. The roar of the river alongside felt like it ran with him right to the edge, where instead of stopping Killan flung himself out into space, the spray of water beside him.

Wings curved, he fell.

The air flew past his ears as he plummeted towards the earth, mysteries a song that wound around hollowed bones and filled the places inside him with air. The bottom of the waterfall came closer and closer, a frothing white spray where the water was wearing the earth down beneath dirt, beneath stone, to bedrock underneath it all.

Instinct told him things that human experience never could, and he let his body - bent and broken and twisted and remade, rebuilt, created by a fae who named himself Killan’s god - tell him when to stop.

Down and down and down and-

Now.

His wings snapped out, catching the breeze and slowing his descent, sending him forward instead of down and he trilled, beating wings heavily to head back up again. His back ached a little but he caught a current that helped carry him up, air that rested under his feathers like hands slipping around a small child to lift them up onto a mother’s hip to be carried.

The sky was not his mother, but she would be here to lift him where his own mam could not.

He burst upwards, spinning, breathing thin air as though he’d always been able to do so, human and fae lungs filtering every ounce of oxygen he needed in tandem. The sun warmed his face, and he closed his eyes against its touch. Sun on his face, stars at his back, Killan let the currents carry him a little further.

And then he dove again.

Fly.

He dropped like a stone, rushing downwards, spinning in the air before he snapped his wings out again and cut a hard left. Around him the air itself celebrated with him everything his broken body could still do, all the things he’d been given alongside what he had lost.

Sharp talons could tear apart a rabbit and defend him from attackers just as easily.

Rise.

Fae eyes saw far, farther than even the keenest human sight, and kept him safe. He could see in the dark, he could see them coming before they could see him.

Rise.

Hollowed bones let him fly, kept him lighter, along with the places added to him to hold air, to bring him higher and higher, to help him-

Rise.

Fae blood carried oxygen more easily, let him climb higher into the air, the currents under his feathers like a friend lifting him up. As high as he could go, not quite so high as a full-blooded fae but he felt the air thinning and thinning and the stars were ever closer, their song welcoming him even if the fae did not.

Ardu th’uas. Rise above.

He slowed, spinning in the air, letting starshine and sun wash all his ruined skin clean.

Leanh na realtai. Child of stars, you, too.

His heart stilled, here where the air was thinnest, with the question he never voiced. Even ruined, I am?

And every time, the certainty returns.

Even ruined, you are.

Iron and earth may be blind, but the stars see you.

Killan dropped again.

He spun with his wings pressed tightly, speeding to earth so fast the air was a scream and he couldn't find the breath to laugh. The forest below him, the sky above him, the sun and stars.

Killan Josta, as he was, should not exist.

He did, though, and in this moment with his wings snapping out to slow his descent, catching an air current that pulled him back around towards the mountains, he feels them.

Something like friends.

They were calling him back to the waterfall and the cliff and the camp in the woods where they will be waiting for him, the ones who saw beneath his skin to the boy still hiding under a monster, the man half-buried by cruelty but still trying to break free of its legacy.

They were waiting, with breakfast probably already ladled out for him.

First, though…

First Killan Josta, who had a name again, wanted to fly. One more time he climbed the currents, found the pockets of air to push him higher and higher and higher, until there was a half-breath of pause as high as his broken, remade body could go.

He let that pause draw out, listening to the stars whisper in human ears.

Sing, Killan Josta.

He trilled, a cry as much of gratitude as it was of joy, and wrapped his wings around himself to plummet to earth again.

Rise.

Killan fell, and fell and fell, and then just when he could fall no further without breaking on the earth, his feathers caught the air and he flew.

-----

Tagging Killan’s crew: @astrobly @burtlederp , @finder-of-rings , @slaintetowhump , @quirkykayleetam , @whumpallday , @whumppsychology, @doveotions, @broken-horn, @moose-teeth, @whumpfigure, @spiffythespook, @oceanthesarcasamfox, @whump-only(if you would like to be added to an OC’s tag list, please send your request via an ask! Those are easier for me to keep track of and I tend to lose requests in comments, reblogs, tags, or PMs!)

#trauma recovery #fantasy setting #fantasy whump #winged whumpee #wing whump #referenced torture #scarring #wildfaewhump's world #trauma recovery whump #killan is babey and saddest boy #wings #dehumanization reference #pet whump references #magical whump #magical setting #if you're thinking I wrote this to a single song #you are correct

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carewyncromwell · 4 years

Photo

POTC AU go time! Pictured above are fresh-faced pirate Charlie Weasley, the mystical witch of Tortuga Chiara Dalma, and so-called “Pirate Dragon” Samantha O’Connell @samshogwarts! Looks like these three are a bit over their heads...let’s see if they can get out of it!

For those of you who appreciate my mini-history lectures surrounding real Caribbean pirates of the 17th and 18th century (please let me know if you do, I will happily geek TF out if it’s something you all like XD) -- Tortuga is an island in modern-day Haiti. It was originally a Spanish colony, settled in the 15th century not long after Mr. Despicable himself Christopher Columbus “discovered” the New World. Despite this, and despite the, er...tempestuous relationship between Spain and its neighboring countries, Tortuga ended up also hosting both English and French settlements, largely made up of buccaneers, in the 17th century. Buccaneers were an ancestor of the more classic “pirates” we think of today -- the biggest differences were that they were privateers, meaning they worked on behalf of a country and only attacked ships from other countries (i.e. a British privateer like Sir Francis Drake would only attack Spanish or French ships), and that buccaneers specifically congregated in that area of the Caribbean (namely, Tortuga and the island of Hispaniola) alone. Historically, however, Tortuga stopped being a great place for buccaneers to gather before the end of the 17th century -- specifically when treaties were passed officially banning those old privateers from attacking foreign vessels during times of peace, circa 1680. This also effectively killed off the buccaneer as a profession, until the War of Spanish Succession turned a lot more privateers who had fought during the War into the more classic 18th century pirates we think of today. During the most famous period of the Golden Age of Piracy -- namely, the third and final wave after the War of Spanish Succession ended in 1714, which hosted all of the best known pirates like Blackbeard and which both the Pirates films and this AU is set in -- it would’ve been far more common to find actual historical pirates in places like St. Mary’s Island off the coast of Madagascar or (I’m not kidding) Port Royal, Jamaica, which was quite frankly NOT the beautiful, upstanding city we see in the films. In truth, it actually prospered under piracy, until Port Royal’s leadership finally decided to crack down hard on pirates circa 1720. In this project, though, for the sake of iconography, I will treat Tortuga very much the way Port Royal would’ve really been historically -- a pirate island which, in this time period, was suddenly barraged by the pirates’ enemies and was immediately no longer a safe place for pirates to hide in. (Of course, historical pirates were much less likable or sympathetic than the pirate characters in this AU are, regardless of how objectively hard their existence was and how frankly horrid the world was in general for anyone who wasn’t upper-class, white, and male back then.)

The so-called “seven seas” have gone through a lot of “shuffling around” over the centuries, as our understanding of the world has grown. The phrase was first used by the Ancient Greeks, but back then of course, they didn’t know about the existence of bodies of water like the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean. In the Pirates films, there are nine Pirate lords for the Pacific, Indian, and Atlantic Oceans, as well as the South China, Caspian, Adriatic, Black, Mediterranean, and Caribbean Seas. I’ve slimmed down the number to just seven for the sake of referencing the so-called “seven seas,” and also because with the Pirate King, that would then give us eight pieces of eight, which seems like a much more logical number than nine pieces of eight. (Plus, to me, the Caspian and Black Seas are kind of weird choices to have Lords for as the Caspian is land-locked and the Black Sea can only be sailed into through a narrow channel in the Mediterranean...and from what I can tell, there wasn’t much 17th-18th century piracy specifically centered around those two seas either.)

Previous part of the AU is here -- whole tag is here -- and of course Jules Farrier-Weasley belongs to @cursebreakerfarrier and Finn McGarry / Davy Jones belongs to @theguythatdraws. <3

x~x~x~x

In the nearly three weeks since Jules, Bill, and Charlie said goodbye to Carewyn, the three had practically been thrown head-first into what piracy truly meant. Sailing aboard the Artemis hadn’t been as glamorous as the stories Jules grew up with, but trying to steer the Revolution with only three people aboard without enough food or drink to go around, all the while knowing that just about no ships they might come across and very few islands they might land on would be friendly to them, was something that didn’t sink in until one was left sitting up all night thinking it over. Everything the three owned now -- everything they were -- was either on their person or on this ship...and if anything happened to the ship, they wouldn’t just lose the belongings they had on board, but also the only way they could transport themselves out of danger and the only “home” they still had. No one would likely even know anything had happened to them until days, weeks, or even months afterwards. It was like nothing tethered them to the Earth at all -- like they had no gravity and could just fly up into the air at any time, disappearing forever without a trace.

There was a freedom to it, of course, knowing that you didn’t have to be defined by how you were born or what arbitrary value society placed on you...and yet, the freedom came at a cost.

The three Weasleys arrived on the island of Tortuga within four days. Truthfully it wasn’t really a place a lot of people would enjoy visiting -- it was loud, filthy, seedy, and treacherous, and yet, it was a safe place for them to fill their bellies and get their ship repaired and outfitted with new crew members.

There were a few pirates who initially balked at the idea of joining the crew of a ship captained by a woman, but before long, Jules made a name for herself in Tortuga after she was able to out-maneuver two drunken men twice her size in a fight, the first by ducking under his arm and then smashing a bottle of rum over his head to knock him out and the second by stealing his own pistol out of his belt and pointing it right between his eyes until he backed off.

Charlie couldn’t help but grin as the pirate rather cowardly slunk off like a dog with his tail between his legs.

“Bloody hell, Jules!” he laughed. “Reckon you scared him so bad he’ll be running off crying to Mummy...”

Jules crossed her arms, the man’s pistol still in her hand. “Well, he had it coming. Not wanting to be on our crew I can accept, but I am not a thing he can pay for.”

“You can’t be bought, period,” agreed Bill lowly, shooting a rather dirty look at the man’s back as he secured an arm around his wife’s waist. “Least of all by a disgusting cur like him.”

Charlie gave a low whistle.

“Blimey, Bill, a man of the Church, swearing like that?” he teased. “Whatever happened to turning the other cheek?”

“Ecclesiastes 3:8 -- ‘there is a time to love and a time to hate,’” said Bill coolly. “This is not a time to love.”

Jules smiled wryly up at Bill.

“I might have to disagree,” she said amusedly, as she tilted his head down enough to ensnare his lips with her own.

Not long after they arrived, Orion and the crew of Artemis met the Weasleys in Tortuga, as planned. It was good to see some familiar and friendly faces, in a sea of insincere smiles and shady looks. Orion immediately introduced the crew of the Revolution to a few of his “friends” on the island -- Andre Egwu, a rather fashionable pirate who had once been both a tailor and a French privateer; Erika Rath, the rough-and-tough owner of the Faithful Bride tavern, who had been a pirate herself before settling in Tortuga to offer a safe place to those who were too ill, young, old, or otherwise unable to sail anymore; Ethan Parkin, Skye’s father and a retired pirate himself, who, despite being a rather egotistical sort that disdained Orion quite a bit, still was always willing to do the crew of the Artemis and their associates a favor, for the sake of his daughter; and a pirate solely called “Face Paint” who was known on the island for being a master of disguise that could not only look like anyone they wanted, but also make other people look like just about anyone else too.

Andre and Face Paint were able to help out all three Weasleys with their wardrobes, so that they “fit” a bit more with the pirates of the island. Bill picked out a new belt that could better fit a scabbard for his sword, and Jules finally got a hat worthy of a captain -- a forest green tricorn hat trimmed with silver embroidery. Charlie was even able to snatch up a pair of boots made of a black scaly material that reminded him of the pictures of dragons he’d see in books as a kid. Charlie had expected Andre to encourage him to shave too, since both he and Bill were already getting a bit stubbly since they hadn’t shaved since they left Port Royal, but Andre actually discouraged this.

“If people know you better without a beard, then you should grow one,” he advised. “The more different you can look from how you did before, the better the chances you’ll have of not immediately being recognized, if you collide with the wrong person. In general, my advice is to change your look up every four to six months, just to throw off the authorities.”

Bill, Jules, and Charlie also accompanied Orion on his visit to the far corner of Tortuga, over a small lake to an eerie-looking worn-down shack on stilts in the middle of the water, which was the home to the resident “witch” of Tortuga.

“Have you ever met a witch before?” Jules asked Bill and Charlie.

Both Weasley brothers shook their heads, looking a little disconcerted.

“She’s truly not as terrifying as everyone makes her out to be,” said McNully reassuringly. “I’d say there’s only a 63% chance she’ll curse you if you make a wrong move.”

Charlie shot him a flabbergasted look. “Oh, that’s encouraging.”

Skye gave a light “hmph!”

“My best piece of advice? Try not to make eye contact and let Orion do the talking,” she said under her breath. “The witch can do favors for you, if you somehow get on her good side and give her proper payment...but she doesn’t trust easily.”

“And likes anyone even more rarely,” added McNully, though he sounded more thoughtful than Skye. “Orion’s one of the few people I’d say she does favor a bit...though I reckon that’s because they go back a ways, and Orion’s not really like most pirates...”

“It’s pirates especially she doesn’t like,” said Skye.

Charlie frowned. “If she doesn’t like pirates, then why is she here, on an island owned by pirates?”

“I reckon witches probably don’t have a lot of safe places they can live as it is, Charlie,” Bill pointed out somberly. “Even the Bible says you should not suffer a witch to live. She probably lives here because she doesn’t have much choice.”

When they reached the dock under the shack, they tied up their boat, McNully staying behind to watch it while Orion, Skye, Jules, Bill, and Charlie climbed the ladder up into the shack itself. It was a bizarre place with various bottles, model planets, and other such trinkets dangling from the ceiling, and toward the back of the single large room was a table covered in a dirty grayish white tablecloth covered in spots and stains.

The witch called Chia Dalma was almost ethereal in appearance, from her long, flowing white hair to her sea-blue eyes to her bloodless, porcelain skin. She wore a rather worn, clearly second-hand dark red dress and a full-moon-shaped locket around her neck. She also considered all of Orion’s party with considerable distrust in her eyes -- Charlie felt like he was being X-rayed. Orion, however, acted as though he didn’t even notice the scrutiny the others were getting and spoke to Chia very pleasantly after giving her some incense and a jar of candied pineapple.

“How are the stars sounding, to you?” he asked. “From what I’ve seen, Venus is particularly bright, right now -- I would think you’ve heard a lot about love, in your conversations with the night sky.”

Chia finally tore her critical eye off of Charlie to turn to Orion, her posture still noticeably guarded.

“Yes,” she said, “though I believe there’s a reason you noticed Venus’s brightness in particular, as opposed to the rest of the planets’ movements.”

Her voice was very soft and understated, enough to make you freeze where you stood and hold your breath in a subconscious attempt to hear her better. Despite this, her discerning look on Orion was considerably less suspicious: if anything, it looked almost curious.

A flicker of a smile teased at the corners of Orion’s mouth.

“...I suppose I may have.”

Bill and Charlie both shot Orion looks out the side of their eye. They had a feeling they knew exactly why that was.

Bill and Jules had talked to Charlie about their suspicions about Orion and Carewyn, and although Jules had been very supportive of it and even Bill acknowledged that Orion did seem to feel genuine affection for Carewyn, Charlie himself still felt a bit uncomfortable about it. To him, Carewyn was his twin -- although in a lot of ways, she was more like Bill personality-wise and Bill and she were clearly the best of friends, Charlie and Carewyn had still been two peas in a pod for a lot of the War. Because they were seen as twin brothers by the Navy, they were often positioned together and ended up supporting each other whenever Bill -- the person they both loved and trusted more than anyone else -- wasn’t around. This whole experience was the first time he’d really been apart from Carewyn since he’d first joined the Navy...and with Bill now married to Jules and the whole world suddenly being against them...Charlie found himself missing his “twin” more than ever.

‘Orion’s not a bad bloke,’ Charlie thought to himself. ‘If Carey really likes him, I’d understand, but...I just don’t want things to change anymore than they already have...’

Becoming estranged from Percy had been hard enough. Knowing that Bill and he would drift apart as his older brother made a life of his own with Jules, and thinking of Carewyn making a life of her own with Orion, while he himself was left on the sidelines...it was a thought Charlie didn’t like wallowing in.

Chia regarded Orion with a more solemn look as she took a seat at her table.

“It would behoove you to take a more complete look at the planets,” she said lowly. “There’s friction growing between Saturn and Uranus.”

Orion’s eyes narrowed, though his expression remained typically serene. Charlie glanced from Orion to Chia.

“...What does that mean?” he asked.

Skye shot him a look as if to warn him to be quiet -- Chia turned her attention to Charlie, her blue eyes boring into him with such intensity that Charlie flinched back a bit despite himself.

“Saturn represents Law -- a rigid structure,” she answered lowly. “Uranus, his father, represents Disorder -- Unpredictability -- Rebellion and Reformation. It suggests that there is to be great upheaval, very soon -- a large shift, the likes of which none of you have seen in your lifetimes.”

Charlie’s eyebrows furrowed in concern. “Bigger than the War?”

Chia’s eyes narrowed slightly.

“That was a War fought solely for the advancement of a few,” she said, her voice noticeably cool. “However big it felt to you, Charles Weasley, it merely reinforced what was already there, and so it will ultimately be forgotten. Only the ripples of that War -- the ones we feel, in this moment -- will leave any real impact.”

Charlie wanted to ask how Chia knew his name, but Orion spoke before he could.

“Can you tell which planet is rising, of the two?”

Chia glanced up at the model planets over her head pensively. “Right now, no. They’re on a collision course in the night sky, set to eclipse each other...but I can’t say which will fall first...and what will fall here on Earth, in response.”

Chia’s eyes drifted from Orion to Charlie to Jules, narrowing a bit more critically as she considered each of them in turn.

“One thing is for sure, though -- when two such powerful planets meet, it signals the end of an age. Whatever’s born from the ashes of that end may be up to whomever is fortunate enough to survive.”

The group left Chia Dalma’s feeling considerably less comfortable than when they arrived. Despite this, and despite how weirded out he was that she’d known who he was before he’d even told her his name, Charlie had to admit to himself that she didn’t seem as scary as Skye or McNully had made her out to be. She kind of reminded him of the ocean in a way -- mysterious and intimidating, sure, but ultimately something worthy of respect. Even just the way she spoke seemed to hint to her being much older than her face would suggest.

No one in the group had any idea what Chia Dalma could’ve meant when she discussed “an great upheaval” until over a week later. That was the day that the Flying Dutchman arrived on the shores of Tortuga and, without any warning, opened fire.

It was Hell the likes of which even Bill or Charlie had never seen. Cannonballs blasted through buildings, smashing windows and shattering walls. Before long, whole buildings were coming down and crushing people as they fled. Then the Flying Dutchman’s crew came ashore, undead and rotten and crusted over with barnacles and sea-life, as if they’d been swallowed up and spat back out of the sea itself -- and they killed and captured by the hundreds, with both swords and nets.

Then the Captain of the Dutchman himself, his octopus-like face visibly furious as his lobster-like claw clutched at the front of his chest where his heart should be, turned his ire on the settlement itself.

Cutler Beckett wanted him to send the pirates a message, did he? Well, then...he’d send them a message they’d see for miles.

With a click of his claw, Jones conjured up a large, flaming cinder, which he then chucked at the Faithful Bride. In an instant, it was set ablaze...and all of the pirates trying to hide inside the tavern were soon forced to flee and be captured, or burn to death. The fire spread from roof to roof, and soon all of Tortuga was in flames.

In the midst of the chaos, the crews of the Artemis and the Revolution hurried back to their ships, preparing to retreat. As Charlie ran behind Jules and Bill, however, he stopped abruptly when he caught sight of a white-haired figure being shoved around inside the crowd. It was Chia Dalma. She looked like she was trying to push through, but the horde was quickly devolving around her, trapping her in once spot.

Making up his mind very quickly, Charlie darted back the way he came.

“CHARLIE!” cried Bill.

“SET SAIL!” Charlie bellowed back. “I’LL CATCH UP!”

“CHARLIE!” Jules shouted too.

“Wait -- !”

Was that Orion’s voice? Charlie had never heard him sound tense like that before. Nevertheless, he couldn’t stop. He pressed on, unsheathing his sword as he pushed and shoved the other pirates aside.

“Move! Bugger off!”

Finally he was able to make his way over to Chia Dalma, just in time to block a block a blow from a shark-headed sailor’s sword.

“Oi!” he said angrily. “Leave the lady alone, you toothy maggot!”

The two immediately started to fight, until Charlie managed to get the upper hand by slashing at his flipper-like leg and then shoving him back off his feet through the window of a house.

He turned to Chia Dalma.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

The witch’s gaze was just as piercing and guarded as it had been before as she analyzed Charlie’s face.

“Yes,” she said softly.

Charlie offered her a smile, even as more sailors charged at them.

“Stick close to me, all right?” he told her.

“You can’t win against the crew of the Flying Dutchman,” said Chia very gravely.

“Not with that attitude!” said Charlie almost cheekily. Seeing the severe look on her face, he said a little more seriously, “Look, I get that you don’t trust me -- I don’t know you at all either -- but I’m not just going to sit back and watch someone die if I can help it. And if this is the crew of Davy Jones, you’ll die if you stay here.”

The sentiment seemed to cause Chia visible pain. Her eyes abruptly hardened.

“Do not speak with such certainty about Davy Jones,” she said very sharply. “He may be a heartless being now, but that doesn’t make him devoid of conscience, or of feeling.”

Charlie frowned deeply and was prepared to ask Chia what she meant, but before he could, he soon found himself faced with another crew member from the Dutchman with a face covered in barnacles and starfish and had to immediately go on the attack again.

Charlie fought off three other fishy sailors, beating them back as best he could as she tried to steer himself and Chia back toward the docks. But as more time passed, the flames engulfing the nearby buildings only grew. Soot and ash rained from the air, making it harder to breathe by the second.

Charlie struggled to breathe normally as he fought the sailors away from Chia Dalma, but there were just too many of them, and just like with the cursed crew of the Revenge, they didn’t go down easily. Somehow, he managed to steer Chia to the dock, where the Revolution was still floating close by, their anchor already weighed and a ladder dangling off the edge.

“COME ON, CHARLIE!” cried Bill.

Coughing hard, Charlie brought an arm around Chia Dalma, pushing her slightly forward.

“Go on, climb up -- ”

BAM.

All of a sudden, Chia whirled on Charlie, grabbing hold of him and shoving him backward and to the ground just in time to avoid a giant explosion of flames that collided with the dock. The force of the explosion made the ocean water around the island crash, shoving the Revolution back with the force.

“CHARLIE!”

Charlie could hear both Bill and Jules’s voices as the ship was thrown backward away from the island by a massive, torrential wave. His heart gave a spasm of terror as he stared at the red-hulled ship being tossed like a bath toy in the chaos.

“BILL! JULES!”

Within moments, Charlie and Chia Dalma were surrounded by the Flying Dutchman’s crew. Charlie immediately stood in front of Chia protectively as they were encircled. The witch, for her part, looked disconcerted by the Dutchman’s crew’s appearance, but not in the way that she looked afraid -- if anything, she almost looked deeply troubled.

“There’s reluctance, in their eyes,” she murmured.

Charlie glanced back at her. “Huh?”

Chia’s lips came together seriously. “You know the purpose of the Flying Dutchman?”

“Yeah -- it’s supposed to ferry the dead.”

As Charlie considered this, he realized that this was strange. Why would a crew that was supposed to ferry those lost at sea into the next life be attacking Tortuga?

Chia nodded solemnly. “They’re not here of their own free will. Neither they nor Davy Jones...have come here because they wish to.”

Charlie felt his jaw clench as he stared down the circle of sailors holding up nets and pointing their swords at them as they prepared to capture them.

“Maybe they haven’t, but that doesn’t make them our mates,” he muttered.

Just as it seemed that Charlie was out-numbered, there was a loud rumbling down the street. A whole cart full of barrels were rolling right down the street, right at them.

Chia abruptly grabbed hold of the back of Charlie’s shirt and in an instant, the two had levitated about four feet off the ground, just in time to avoid the throng of barrels knocking over the Dutchman’s crew like nine pins.

As Chia and Charlie slowly returned to the ground, they were joined by another pirate -- a rather striking blonde with emerald-colored eyes. She held a pistol in one hand and her sword in the other as she rolled down the street on one of the barrels, jumping off of it to land on Chia’s other side.

“You both all right?” she asked, as she lifted her leg just enough that she could catch the barrel she’d arrived on with her foot.

“...Aye,” said Charlie after a moment, still a bit in awe about having just been floating in the air like a cloud. “Thanks, uh...?”

“Samantha O’Connell,” she introduced herself quickly.

Charlie blinked. “The Pirate Dragon?”

Both Samantha and he immediately had to duck to avoid a grenade being chucked over at them. It seemed some of the Dutchman’s sailors had recovered from the “barrel attack” and were coming back.

“Look, I’m all for introductions and ‘how-do-you-do’s,’” said Samantha with a wry smile, “but right now, we’d better move!”

Urging Chia in front of her, she then ran down the street away from the dock, Charlie at her heels.

It seemed that the infamous “Pirate Dragon” and Charlie also had a mutual friend in Orion Amari. Despite persuading both crews to “keep to the Pirate Code” (namely, that whoever falls behind is left behind), Samantha nonetheless had enough honor to -- upon seeing Charlie and Chia had been separated from the others -- backtrack enough to make sure they got away too, even if it couldn’t be on the Artemis or Revolution.

“I have my own ketch here at the eastern dock, which I’ll be taking back to my ship,” she explained as they ran. “There are a few others you can choose from, to steer yourself and Ms. Dalma here to Shipwreck Cove -- you’ll be safe there...”

“Shipwreck Cove?” repeated Charlie.

Chia Dalma’s eyes flashed at the name.

“The home of the Brethren Court,” she murmured very icily.

Samantha shot Chia a frown.

“Look, I get it if you don’t like going to another pirate haven, but it’s really the safest place, now. I doubt even Jones himself knows how to get there -- and once all the Pirate Lords assemble, we can come up with a plan to deal with this.”

Samantha immediately boarded the small blue-painted boat, preparing to cast off. Charlie was frowning more deeply than ever in confusion as he jumped aboard a neighboring red-painted ketch.

“There are Pirate Lords?” he asked.

“Of course -- the owners of the seven Pieces of Eight, representing each of the seven seas,” Samantha said logically, as if it were common knowledge. “Or at least six out of the seven -- the Piece of Eight representing the Pacific Ocean was lost after its Lord, Bartholomew Sharp, died...anyway, Orion’s one of the Lords too, so he’ll be able to show your sister-in-law the way and you can meet the rest of your crew there -- ”

Charlie could hear a lot of shouting and pillaging growing louder in the distance. Soon the Flying Dutchman’s crew would be on top of them again --

He quickly threw out a hand, offering it to Chia Dalma. “Come on -- we’d better hurry.”

Chia glanced back in the direction of the flaming city, her blue eyes narrowing. It almost seemed like she was conflicted.

“Listen, Ms. Dalma,” said Samantha sharply, “Jones is under the control of the East India Trading Company and the British Navy.”

Both Charlie and Chia Dalma straightened up abruptly, visibly shocked.

“I overheard Jones say that Beckett’s orders had been to ‘send a message to all pirates.’ That can only mean that Beckett has some leverage over Jones and has impressed him into service. We can’t hope to deal with Jones until we deal with Beckett’s leverage first, and to do that, we have to deal with Beckett.”

Chia once again looked at the flaming buildings, her eyes rippling with emotions Charlie couldn’t read. Then, at last, she closed her eyes, swallowed, and turned to Charlie, taking his hand and boarding the boat.

“See you in Shipwreck Cove!” said Samantha, shooting a bright smile over her shoulder at Charlie. “Good luck!”

Charlie watched her go, before weighing anchor and immediately setting sail with Chia Dalma himself.

The crew of the Flying Dutchman only arrived just in time to see the two ketches already floating off into the distance and out of sight. Chia herself stood at the railing of the boat long after Tortuga had disappeared over the horizon, holding the moon-shaped locket around her neck in her hand. Charlie pulled on the rigging to pull the sail toward the starboard side, glancing over at her with some sympathy.

“You knew Jones...didn’t you?”

Chia glanced back at Charlie, her eyes very unreadable. Then she returned her gaze to the horizon.

Charlie secured the rigging, knotting it tightly.

“...I understand how hard it is, to have to leave someone behind. There’s someone I’ve left behind too -- two people, in fact...who are also probably having to bow to the whims of Cutler Beckett, even if I’m sure they don’t want to...”

The memory of Percy’s pleading face and Carewyn’s stoicism in the face of her heartbreak both rippled over his mind.

“Charlie – don’t do this – think of Mum – think of us – ”

“I want you on a vessel so strong and so fast…that I can never catch up to you again.”

Charlie closed his eyes, inhaling and exhaling heavily.

“...Sometimes, though...the only way you can really help them is by leaving them...however hard it is.”

There was a silence. Charlie opened his eyes and headed up to the helm, turning the wheel to help steer the boat through the waves.

While he was piloting the boat, however, he was interrupted by the soft clink. Chia Dalma had placed something on the edge of the deck within Charlie’s reach.

“This is for you, Charles Weasley,” she said.

Charlie blinked and picked it up. It was an old pewter button encrusted with gold and decorated with the icon of an anchor and an intricate cursive “S.”

“Oh, ah...thank you,” said Charlie awkwardly. He turned the button over in his hand. “...What’s the ‘S’ stand for?”

“Sharp,” Chia responded. “Bartholomew Sharp.”

Charlie straightened up. “The Pirate Lord Samantha mentioned?”

Chia inclined her head in a nod. “That is his Piece of Eight. Sharp abandoned his duties as Pirate Lord of the Pacific Ocean long before dying in prison in disgrace, and since then, it has been largely forgotten, by both pirates and honest explorers alike. It’s the last untamed sea, of the seven...”

Her blue eyes bore into Charlie’s face.

“...And now...it will be your responsibility...Pirate Lord Charles Weasley.”

#potc au #au #pirates of the caribbean #my art #my writing #chiara lobosca #charlie weasley #bill weasley #jules farrier #finn mcgarry #samantha o'connell #other people's mcs #orion amari #murphy mcnully #skye parkin #ethan parkin #erika rath #face paint kid #andre egwu #my fanfiction #DUN DUN DUN #my precious charlie a pirate lord!!#i'm so pwoud #X3 #yes I know charlie's not a captain yet which is usually a requirement to be a pirate lord but hey #the pacific ocean interestingly was VERY unaffected by the golden age of piracy #there was the expedition done by privateers like bartholomew sharp as mentioned but that was pretty solidly in the 17th century #sharp even died in prison in 1700 #so around this period there wasn't much happening in the pacific ocean outside of piracy closer to china and singapore #and the south china sea is also one of the 'seven seas' with a lord

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multicatnoodles · 5 years

Text

The One Time You Didn’t Come Back

Summary: Five times Minghao walked out and came back. And the one time he didn't come back.

Genre: Angst

Word Count: 2,129

Fandom: Seventeen

Characters: Minghao, Seungcheol, Chan, Soonyoung, Jihoon is mentioned for a brief second

Pairings: MingCheol, Referenced SoonHao

Triggers: Cheating, Implied controlling relationship, Just a bad relationship overall

AO3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20267737

The first time, Seungcheol couldn't remember what started the argument. It was probably something minor. But it became something major. Most of the fight was a blur to him. One minute he was laughing with Minghao over a joke. The next they were yelling at one another.

Seungcheol didn't remember what he said. Whatever it was must have been too harsh. He remembers the tears pooling in Minghao's eyes. The younger had stopped yelling and just stood still. He remembers the heavy silence that fell upon them. He could never forget how it choked him, waiting for Minghao to say something.

In retrospect, Seungcheol realizes that is when he should have apologized. He should have taken back whatever mean words he said. Instead he glared angrily at Minghao, his stance firm and unmoving. He remembers how tight he had clenched his jaw. He must have looked terrifying in Minghao's eyes.

It had felt like ages before Minghao made the first move. He turned quickly on his heels and made for the door, phone in hand. He slipped on his jacket and shoved his keys into one of the pockets. Before Seungcheol could process what was going on, the Chinese boy was out the door.

He remembered the loud slam enunciating Minghao's exit. It was mere seconds after the door closed that the older male broke down. The couple had their fair share of arguments in the past, but never had one of them stormed out. He was scared that he had lost Minghao forever that day. He sent multiple texts apologizing and asked Minghao to return home.

And he did several hours later. Seungcheol wrapped the younger in a tight hug, apologizing profoundly. The issue was never properly addressed again. Seungcheol feared that if he brought it up, Minghao would leave again.

The second time was months later. The pair was brainstorming how to rearrange and redecorate their apartment. They couldn't come to an agreement on what color to paint the walls. It was a stupid thing to fight about in all honesty. Seungcheol should have just agreed to the bright red Minghao wanted.

He wasn't sure why they were so worked up about it. He doesn't know why he hurled insults at Minghao. The Chinese male shot them right back at him. The two went at it for thirty minutes. During the time it happened, it had only felt like five minutes.

At some point Minghao decided he had enough. He scooped up his phone and left like the last time. Seungcheol wasn't as worried as the last time though. He didn't break down or immediately apologize. Instead he waited for Minghao to return home.

Minghao was gone longer this time. He wasn't home until late into the night after Seungcheol normal went to sleep. The elder had stayed up to ensure Minghao was safe. The apology was short. Both retired to bed shortly afterwards. In the end, the walls were not repainted.

A year pasted before the next major argument. Minghao had cancelled their long planned date week in favor of working overtime. He wanted to make extra money to go visit home. Seungcheol understood the fact that Minghao missed his homeland and family. But the plans had been set months ago and it had taken forever to align their vacations up.

Seungcheol was upset. He just wanted to spend quality time with Minghao. Was that too much to ask for? He had plenty of money saved up if Minghao really wanted to see his family. Working overtime and cancelling their plans was unnecessary. He made sure he was vocal about it.

Minghao accused him of trying to keep him away from his family. He claimed they had other days to spend together. His words implied that Seungcheol was being too controlling.

That's where Seungcheol snapped. Of course he wanted Minghao to go visit his family. He had no problem with it. It had just been a while since they were able to go on a proper date. He wasn't trying to control Minghao. He was trying to spend time with him outside of their morning and nightly routines before and after work.

The younger wanted to hear none of it. As soon as Seungcheol tried to explain himself, Minghao had earbuds in. He turned his music up loud enough, Seungcheol could hear it from ten feet away. He yelled at the other to listen to him. His words were muted by the pumping bass.

Minghao was gone in less than a minute. Seungcheol was too tired for this shit this time around. He showered before climbing into bed. He vaguely remembered Minghao returning early the next morning. Had he been more awake, he would have been more upset with how long Minghao had been gone.

It was only a few weeks later when it happened again. This time, they were out shopping. They were stocking up on groceries for the week at the local supermarket down the street from their apartment building. Any where public is never a good place to have a fight.

Minghao wanted one brand of one thing and Seungcheol another. It kept happening with nearly every item on the list. It peeved Seungcheol how Minghao was trying to change everything. He could see wanting to try out a new brand or two. Yet he wasn't so sure about getting a different brand for everything. They had been using the same brands for years and never had any issues with them.

Despite his annoyance, Seungcheol kept quiet. He knew better than to start something in public. Every few things he'd allow Minghao to get the brand he wanted, but he tried to stick to what they usual got as best as he could. He could tell the younger male was also getting increasing annoyed.

It was near the bottom of the list when Minghao broke. He started to yell at Seungcheol. Once again he accused Seungcheol of being controlling. He waved his arms about and pointed fingers. The Chinese boy nearly broke a nearby jar of pickles in his anger.

Seungcheol remained quiet. He didn't want to yell in public. It would look bad on him if he did. He could feel the stares of other shoppers. Their eyes burning into him as his boyfriend yelled at him. So the older stood still and quiet. He allowed Minghao to let all his anger out. Once Minghao stopped, he asked in a soft voice, "Feel better now?"

Apparently those were the wrong choice of words. He could see Minghao's anger flare up again. The younger's eyes going wide and his jaw clenching shut. He tossed the list at Seungcheol before walking away. The onlookers looked between the two before carrying on with their own shopping.

Seungcheol found the rest of the items on the list and paid by himself. The cashier gave him a tight-lipped smile as he wrung up the items. To make it up to Minghao, Seungcheol had gotten a cake and some ice cream. He knew it wouldn't mend the situation, but it would be a start.

The male left the store and found Minghao waiting in the car. His arms were crossed and he had his head phones in. He refused to look at Seungcheol the whole way home. Minghao's shell cracked upon seeing the sweets and he apologized for his behavior in public.

The fifth time was in the middle of summer. Minghao had been working more and more. He always seemed to be taking any shift tossed his way. He was only home when he went bed.

At first it worried Seungcheol. He didn't like Minghao overworking himself. It wasn't healthy and wasn't worth the money in his opinion. He wanted Minghao to take time off and relax. Too much work leads to too much stress. It wasn't good.

Then he became annoyed. It felt like Minghao was taking up shifts to avoid him. Seungcheol would try and plan something for them to do. Most of his plans were simply to have dinner at home together. Yet his boyfriend never seemed to have the time.

One day he decided to bring Minghao lunch from home. He packed it neatly and drove to the other's workplace. It was suppose to be a nice, simply jester. A homemade lunch made with love for his lovely Minghao.

When he entered the building, Chan greeted him. Chan was one of Minghao's co-workers and friend. Seungcheol had met him several times before. They weren't close, but they could at least recognize one another. Seungcheol asked where Minghao was currently at.

Chan frowned, "Umm... Minghao hyung isn't here. He has the day off."

"He said he picked up an extra shift today?" The confusion started to settle in.

"No... I haven't seen him all day. As far as I know, he hates doing overtime. Every time Jihoon hyung asks if Minghao hyung can work later or take an extra shift, he turns it down."

Seungcheol stood frozen, "Are you sure?" Chan nodded. The elder stared into nothingness processing the information.

"Oh... Hyung... I am so sorry..." Chan finally grasped the situation.

"No... It's okay. It's just..." Seungcheol took an uneventful breath, "I have to go. Thank you for letting me know."

He was out the building and in his car before Chan could reply. Once in his car, Seungcheol whipped out his phone. He dialed Minghao's number. It rung a few time before the younger picked up.

"Hyung? Do you need something? I'm a bit busy right now."

"Oh. I'm sorry. I just wanted to check in on you. See how you were doing," Seungcheol decided to play dumb.

"I'm fine. But work is kinda busy right now so I have to go."

"Lair."

"I'm sorry?"

"I was just there. Chan told me you haven't been taking extra shifts or overtime. What are you actually doing?" Seungcheol tried to keep his voice calm.

"What were you doing at my work?" Minghao's voice sounded worried.

Seungcheol glanced at the lunch he had made, "I wanted to bring you lunch. But you aren't here."

"..."

Minghao didn't reply. Seungcheol waited for something. Anything. Some excuse Minghao would make up. Yet he got nothing.

Just as he was about to ask another question, Minghao spoke in a soft voice, "I don't have the time or energy for this right now."

The younger ended the call. It wasn't so much a fight and walking out. But to Seungcheol it sure felt like one.

The final time was later that same day. Seungcheol had gone home to think over what he had learned. He didn't even notice the time passing him by. He simply sat on the couch, staring at nothing, lost in his thoughts.

The door opening shook him from his trance. His brown eyes watching Minghao walk into the room. The two stared at each other. Both knew they had to talk. It was inevitable at this point. Something was clearly going on.

The silence stretch out. Neither wanted to break it. Neither wanted to be the one who started it. As much as this needed to happen, neither of the males wanted to bear the responsibility of initiating the conversation.

"You're cheating aren't you?" Seungcheol couldn't handle the silence. It suffocated him and he had to break it. He watched Minghao open his mouth before closing it several times. At a loss for words, he simply nodded his head.

Seungcheol combed his fingers through his hair and buried his head in his hands. He wasn't sure what to say or what to do. He had thought about what actions to take after he got home. Nothing seemed right. His mind was too clouded. He didn't need this. He didn't need any of this.

"Get out," Was all he managed to say. Seungcheol didn't bother looking up. He could hear Minghao walking away. He could hear the sound of keys being picked up. He could hear the door open and close.

And that was the last time Seungcheol saw him. The next day he had come home from work to find all of Minghao's belongings gone. His copy of the key was left on the kitchen counter top. The only lingering reminders of their past relationship was the pictures. Seungcheol took them down and put them in a box. The box was shoved into a closet where it would be forgotten until he moved out.

He heard news about Minghao from time to time from their shared friends. He was dating his coworker Soonyoung. Seungcheol didn't like to hear about it and allows tuned out when the topic was brought up. His heart ached. But it was healing. He just needed time.

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relationshipidiot · 6 years

Text

King Push v. 6ixGod

OCTOBER 12, 2016

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~H.G.T.V. FREESTYLE~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Half a year later, still ain't heard an album greater The natives want me out of the office, back on the pavement Jokers at the top know the king is nothin' to play with 9 to 5 money is just as sweet as the grave shift El presidenté, Blowbama, blow by ya Chopper next to me in every picture, Osama Oh mama, they question my starting line up You only find a diamond from diggin' like coal miners Don't listen to 'em, Desiigner The same rappers talkin' next year will be Uber drivers (Fuck 'em) Chanel dad hats, but you don't know that they got 'em Trap door shopper, they rotate the wall So you will never see me as you rotate the mall 330 spin, cook a steak up on this grill Me myself and I, we like a hamster in the wheel Rolls emblem, Black Virginia Pull in a neighborhood I don't blend in Album of the year contender every year The kitchen's full of work, it's blenders everywhere Blended bitches everywhere that do the most They never seen with him so they fuck his ghost Invisible man, timepiece with the invisible hands MJ, remember the time they counted in sand hourglass But mine come with purse and heels And the DIY Gucci with the crest and shields

TO DRAKE

It's too far gone when the realest ain't real I walk amongst the clouds so your ceilings ain't real These niggas Call of Duty cause their killings ain't real With a questionable pen so the feelin' ain't real Rap's John Grisham I can paint the picture with the words if you listen (shh) The bar's been lowered, the well's run dry They beefin' over melodies, but no, not I (yugh) See I'm so top 5 If they factor in the truth I just might blow by Blowbama

~~~~~~~~~~~TWO BIRDS W ONE STONE by DRAKE~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

OCTOBER 29, 2016

More time with family and friends, more life More time to get it right It's only me, but I'm seeing four shadows in the light My demons visit me every night To the most high, I'm forever indebted I know I gotta pay somethin', I know that day's comin' I put it all in the music Because if I don't say it here, then I won't say nothin' Could feel my hand getting tired from holding the grudges Two birds, one stone, my aim is amazin' I need to start losing my shit on you niggas that's hatin' Too reserved, like I called ahead for me and my lady Free C5, how the fuck we got the boss waiting? Ever since the blue basement, I found God and I lost patience Between rocks and hard places of all places Spotted everywhere, like Dalmatian Cops snoop around now, 'cause all of my dogs famous Please welcome the October fall baby Vaughan Road Academy, star player—my mind's not all there Used to carry a lot of dead weight like a pallbearer People too scared to tell the truth, so it's all dares Count it, it's all there, and we all square Quick money, I'm in and out My dad used to use a soap bar 'til it's thinnin' out But, shit, look at Dennis now All Stacy Adams and linnen'd out More blessings for Sandy and him, more life My parents never got it right But God bless 'em both, I think we all alike We all wide awake late at night, thinking on what to change If we do get to do it twice in another life Scared to go to sleep now 'Cause being awake is what all my dreams were like Back when the bar that I had set for myself was out of sight Tell me how I went and did chin-ups On this shit when I can't see it Pin-ups of Meagan Good and Pam Grier Soul sisters inspired my old scriptures Now that feeling's gone like them old pictures Mixin' liquor got us both twisted, words get so vicious You just stare at me while you roll Swishers Girl, I love you, but I don't miss ya And no matter what year it is, I'm a 06er Go figure, cold nigga, stay in school, man Fuck the rap game, it's all lies and it's all filthy Two percent of us rich and the rest of these niggas all milk it Got two of my niggas off with a "not guilty" Gave back to the city and never said it if I didn't live it But still they try and tell you I'm not the realest.  Like I'm some privileged kid That never sat through a prison visit Or like it was just handed to me tied with a ribbon.  I never worked to get it

TO PUSHA

 But really it's you with all the drug dealer stories That's gotta stop, though You made a couple chops and now you think you Chapo If you ask me though, you ain't lining the trunk with kilos You bagging weed watching Pacino with all your niggas Like, "This what we need to be on," but you never went live You middle-man in this shit, boy, you was never them guys I can tell, 'cause I look most of you dead in your eyes And you'll be tryna sell that story for the rest of your lives Can't show us where the cash is Me, I don't judge, I'm just going off what the math is Numbers inflated They all look at me, like, "What have you done for me lately?" "I like your older shit but wasn't in love with the latest." Aw, baby, stop debatin', I'm just a creative My numbers out of this world No wonder they got me feeling so alienated

TO CUDI

 You were the man on the moon Now you just go through your phases Life of the angry and famous Rap like I know I'm the greatest Then give you tropical flavours Still never been on hiatus You stay xann'd and perk'd up So when reality set in, you don't gotta face it I'm down 200 in Vegas but winning life on a daily basis It seems like nobody wants to stay in my good graces I'm like a real estate agent, putting you all in your places Look what happens soon as you talk to me crazy Is you crazy?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~INFARED~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[on the album]

TO DRAKE

The game's fucked up Niggas beats is bangin’, nigga, ya hooks did it The lyric pennin' equal the Trumps winnin' The bigger question is how the Russians did it It was written like Nas but it came from Quentin At the mercy of a game where the culture’s missing When the CEO's blinded by the glow, it's different Believe in myself and the Coles and Kendricks Let the sock puppets play in their roles and gimmicks, shit Remember Will Smith won the first Grammy? And they ain't even recognize Hov until "Annie" So I don't tap dance for the crackers and sing Mammy 'Cause I'm posed to juggle these flows and nose candy (yugh) Ferrari, my 40th, blew the candles out Tom Brady'ed you niggas, I had to scramble out They be ridin’ these waves, I pulled my sandals out Jefe Latin my Grammy, I went the Spanish route

REFERENCING BACKLASH FOR DISSING BIRDMAN & CASHMONEY

Oh now it’s okay to kill Baby Niggas looked at me crazy like I really killed a baby Salute Ross 'cause the message was pure He see what I see when you see Wayne on tour Flash without the fire Another multi-platinum rapper trapped and can’t retire Niggas get exposed, I see the cracks and I'm the liar? Shit I've been exposed, I took the crack and built the wire

BACK TO DRAKE

Now who do you admire? Your rap songs is all tryin' my patience Them prices ain’t real without inflation I done flew it, I done grew it, been a conduit Moynat bags on my bitches, I done blew it See through it, neck, igloo it Habla en español, I y tu it Let Steven talk streamin' and Shazam numbers I'll ensure you gettin' every gram from us Let's cram numbers, easily The only rapper sold more dope than me was Eazy-E How could you ever right these wrongs When you don't even write your songs? But let us all play along We all know what niggas for real been waitin' on, Push

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~DUPPY FREESTYLE~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

MAY 25

{ALL TO PUSHA}

So if you rebuke me for working with someone else on a couple of Vs What do you really think of the nigga that's making your beats? I've done things for him I thought that he never would need Father had to stretch his hands out and get it from me I pop style for 30 hours, then let him repeat Now, you popping up with the jokes, I'm dead, I'm asleep I just left from over by y'all putting pen to the sheets Tired of sitting quiet, and helping my enemies eat Keep getting temperature checks They know that my head overheats Don't know why the fuck you niggas listen to Denim or Steve Must've had your Infrared wrong, now your head on the beam Ya'll are the spitting image of whatever jealousy breeds Don’t push me when I’m in album mode You not even top 5 as far as your label talent goes You send shots, well, I got to challenge those But I bring Calicos to the Alamo I could never have a Virgil in my circle and hold him back 'cause he makes me nervous I wanna see my brothers flourish to their higher purpose You niggas leeches and serpents I think it's good that now the teachers are learning, yeah Your brother said, it was your cousin then him, then you So, you don't rap what you did, you just rap what you knew Don't be ashamed, it's plenty niggas that do what you do There's no malice in your heart, you're an approachable dude Man, you might've sold the college kids for Nikes and Mercedes But, you act like you sold drugs for Escobar in the 80's I had a microphone of yours, but then the signature faded I think that pretty much resembles what's been happening lately Please believe your demise will be televised, yeah And as for Q, man I changed his life a couple times Nigga was at Kroger working double time Ya'll acting like he made the boy when I was trying to help the guy Yeah, who gassed you to play with me? Man, you made this shit easy as ABCs Whoever supposedly making me hits, but then got no hits sound like they need me My hooks did it, my lyrics did it, my spirit did it I'm fearless with it, yeah I really shouldn't have given you none of my time 'Cause you older than the nigga you running behind Look, holla at me when you multi-million I told you keep playing with my name and I'ma let it ring on you Like Virginia Williams I'm too resilient, get out your feelings It's gonna be a cruel summer for you I told Weezy and Baby "I'ma done him for you" Tell 'Ye we got a invoice coming to you Considering that we just sold another 20 for you

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workingontruth · 5 years

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Part 5 of 7: The Gospel (In Full)...Stage 3; Surrender Me

June 21, 2019

[Forgive Me. Fill Me. SURRENDER ME. Command Us. Fuel Us.]

Can the good news of the Good News get any better than the moment in time when a human soul hears the voice of its Creator, and is enlivened by that Creator to accept his invitation into a rebirth as a citizen of heaven? Indisputably not (Stage 1; Forgive Me).

Still, it is our life in Christ that is intended to bring technicolor substantiation to that eternity-shifting moment when the Holy Spirit took up residence within us (Stage 2; Fill Me). And I’m concerned these days that our default handicap as first-world, self-resourcing people is prevailing over our ability to substantiate our new lives as ones belonging to another primary citizenship.

Going right for the bull’s eye on this third stage of the Gospel (something I’ve not done so well in my two previous entries on topic), and in the words of Dr. Tony Evans which I previously touched upon in Part 2,

“Our problem today is we have Christians who want God to get them to heaven, but who do not want Him to own them on earth.” (Adonai – The Owner of All, a sermon message by Tony Evans aired on The Alternative on or around April 15, 2013)

Last minute insert:

I SO dislike that I feel this concept of surrender has to be met with such directness and seeming negativity. But, acceptingly, to make sure I’m not miscommunicating the point by going soft around the edges, I’ve chosen to do so. Nonetheless, the beauty that comes to us on the other side of surrender is not negative at all, but wholly positive, joyous and freeing! It is because we don’t really know the heart of God that we come to this topic with a spirit of trepediation. Oh, how I wish I could communicate this better.

Here’s another way to look at the surrender of which I am speaking in this entry: I’m asking us to give up our paint-peeling, wood-framed, backyard sandbox and rusty water hose for the seemingly endless, snow-white sandy beaches and aqua warm waters of the Caribbean! C’mon, man! I can honestly say the most cherished words in my vocabulary have become surrender and brokenness. I don’t believe there is any other way to experience a deep and abiding walk with Jesus but through these dual remedies. We don’t have the space or time to go into it beyond that herein, but I had to try to bring a positive notion of this precious stage of the Gospel to the fore.

Okay, where were we…oh yes…

The evidence of this truth is all around us. Look at the way most who call themselves Christians live. In a phrase, we’re long on freedom in Christ, but short on living in compliant obedience as an act of worship to a Holy God (Ps. 103:11, 112:1, Jn. 14:24). We’re long on grace, but short on purity (Phil. 1:27, Col. 1:10). We’re long on self-indulgence and short on self-denial (Luke 9:23, Heb. 12:1, Mark 8:34). We’re long on having the glory of God ride with us down the highway of life, but we’re short on giving up the wheel of control.

This tells me we don’t know God. This tells me we don’t know who we are as Kingdom citizens in our new birth. This tells me we haven’t known the deep joy of an intimate fellowship with the Holy Spirit as we walk alongside Him. And this tells me we certainly don’t know surrender. For if we truly knew surrender, it would be the sweet anthem being sung over more of our lives.

Surrender.

I address the absolute necessity of this “white flag” kind of posture before God throughout Set Free (especially in the Introduction, and in chapters 12-17, 25-29, 34)…though I never mention it as a white flag. Annnnnd...hold on just a moment here .... Haha, I just searched the manuscript; I mention surrender 92 times. I had no idea! Certainly, it’s a repetitive theme throughout…but I believe it holds the key to the Christian life.

The Gospel calls us to the utter surrender of ourselves. How could we not if our theology of salvation is accurate? Is this not the message of Romans 6? Only as we daily reckon upon and cooperate with what God says is true of us as ones put to death and buried in Christ will we ever be able to live into its truth (Romans 6:4-7).

If God has put our old man to death, then that slain one is incapable of reigning from the grave unless we refuse to cooperate with truth and, instead, choose to live in a lie.

This whole matter of surrender was supposed to have been settled when we asked God to make us into a new creation by forgiving our sins, disconnecting us from our sin nature, and by recreating in us his resurrected Life. It is only we who give Satan the power to deceive us with the continual lie that we cannot trust God in ongoing surrender.

Yes, the ongoing Christian life demands our cooperation.

And because I cannot help myself, here’s a freebie; I just posted the very center of chapters 25-29 referenced above, Chapter 27, HERE (scroll down the page to find Chapter 27). In it, I address the core of our inability to surrender control of our lives, and all of the evolving circumstances therein.

I think of the 5 Stages in The Gospel (In Full), this third benchmark is our greatest challenge. But only in its wake can we find the keys to the final two stages.

Okay, because this is the undercurrent theme of an entire book, I must limit my focus here and point you to Set Free for the extent of my heart on the matter.

But for the purposes of this 3rd Stage of The Gospel (In Full), let’s simply say ...

It is only through an unrestrained surrender of every part of our lives that we find the freedom God intends for us.

But this kind of surrender is not easy. It takes the Holy Spirit to help us detect the depth of the talons of self-confidence, pride and self-resourcing that cling to us if we so much as glance in the direction of our old Adam–for Satan’s lies are always ready to dog us if we allow him to turn us inward upon ourselves.

And then, in our quest to find the life of freedom and joy Jesus intends for us as his children, there are the very practical, cultural realities of our heritage–how we’ve grown up as Americans. The very taste of surrender as it proceeds from our lips is somehow detestable, not to mention culturally unacceptable.

In our secularist dialect as Americans, surrender is a vulgar word, full of weakness, defeat and loss. As a nation, we would claim to have earned our cherished freedom through victory, not surrender. Tyrannous, controlling, power-hungry, freedom robbing regimes have needed to be kept at bay. Therefore, as freedom-loving American citizens, we equate surrender to a loss of freedom, to enslavement and oppression.

But as heaven’s citizens, everything is turned upside down. This is because the authority to which we have surrendered is the Author of perfect freedom, perfect administration and perfect joy. He is not tyrannous. He is not oppressive.

Think of it; as Christians, surrender was the initial, beautiful act which brought us out of slavery and into freedom. But somehow, too many don’t equally understand the ongoing nature of the Gospel to be reflective of a perpetual and unconditional surrender.

In short, the evidence of our lives reveals that we don’t trust God with our life … “just” our salvation.

How weird is that?!

Notice the pronoun usage above. It speaks volumes. If we really understood the real-life, theological implications of the cross over our lives (which should be an essential part of early discipleship), we would rebel against the idea that the life we now live even belongs to us. It doesn’t.

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. - Galatians 2:20

But until we electively deliver ourselves to him without controversy (after our having been saved), he cannot have his way with us. I have illustrated this to much greater effect in Chapter 27 (again, scroll down the page to find Chapter 27).

No, the title deed to our lives belongs to the One who paid the full purchase price for it. It is his life.*

* (Pardon the short pronoun diversion–couldn’t help myself.)

But we somehow think that although we gave our eternal destiny into the hands of God, we are left to living our lives here and now according to the insights of the old man God put to death when we gave our hearts to Him. Now we wouldn’t come out and say it that way, but the way we live our lives betrays us.

In short, we have an ownership problem.

I believe we all want to experience the after-effects of the Holy Spirit’s having filled us. We want the victory-aiding power of God in our lives. We want the internal, personal affirmation that this God to whom we gave our hearts is real. But, and here again is the point, until we recognize Jesus as Owner, He does not have free reign in our lives to do as He pleases (Did I mention Chapter 27 in Set Free?).

Until we recognize Jesus as Owner, we will never own a true revelation of the Spirit’s indwelling which could revolutionize the life of any Christian.

So, this begs the question,

“How then can we experience a life-changing, perspective-altering recognition of the Spirit’s indwelling?”

The tough news is that we cannot do, find or earn this. Our options are limited. There is no formula but release. There is no prescription but ongoing surrender. God is God. We are not. What we do know is what He tells us–that if we knock, the door will be opened to us. What we do know is that He will not give us a snake when we need bread, that He has purchased us with a great price, and that He desires our fellowship so much that Jesus died to gain it–rather than live forever without it. What we do know is that He desires to live through us and empower us supernaturally, differentiating us from the on-looking world, that His name be praised through our lives.

But until we own more than a surface acquaintance with surrender, we will live our lives in the in-between. Until we lose our appetite for control, until control of our lives becomes to us something nauseatingly repulsive, we will be unable to successfully live into our new citizenship.

I think now is a good time to remind us that there are two kingdoms up and running (Jn. 18:36, 14:30, 15:19, Eph. 2:1-2, Matt. 6:33, Phil. 3:20).

It is vital new believers understand that they have been supernaturally transferred from the kingdom of darkness (this world) into the kingdom of Light (heaven). It is critical that they understand how they have factually become citizens of another place (Jn. 18:36). This is an important, foundational building block onto which their future faith and identity in Christ can anchor.

When we choose to place our trust in Jesus, our life, and thus our citizenship, is transferred over from the world (John 15:19) to a kingdom of another place (John 18:36).

But Greg, you say, why does my life as a believer still look so much like it did before I came to Christ? Why is there still a discontented ache in my life? Why am I not more satisfied as a Christian? Why can I not find this “increasing obedience” in my daily life instead of repeating the same, selfish behaviors which possessed me as a non-believer?

Dear Christian friend, if you feel your life is the poster child for James 2:17, where the bible says that faith by itself, if not accompanied by outward evidences of that faith, is dead, then you may still be holding onto your life. It may be that you cannot advance in your Christian walk with God because you are unwilling to surrender control of your life (all of it) over to God. And in so doing, you are regularly keeping the Holy Spirit living in you at bay. Study Mark 6:5-6 and Matt. 13:58 if you don’t believe our faith and trust, or the lack thereof, can keep the power of God on the sidelines of our lives.

Any way you slice it, the authentic Christian life is the one that looks like it from the outside in. If you know your life isn’t taking on the appearance of a new life, steadily increasing in surrender and taking on the character of Christ, then it is time to address this incongruence with the benchmark of an accurate theology of who you are in Christ.

James inextricably links our faith to the outward manifestations of that faith when he challenges someone who believes that an inward faith alone is sufficient in itself.

“Show me your faith apart from your works,” he says, “and I will show you my faith by my works.” – James 2:18

A saving faith is always accompanied by outward evidences of that faith. Coming to Jesus means, in the challenging words of Billy Graham, that

“...the Lord Jesus Christ will come into your life and reform, conform and transform you into an obedient follower. If that is not your desire, you have every reason to question whether or not you have been saved.”

Part of the Gospel’s Stage One repentance is a change of direction in how we live our lives. If God truly has our heart, then He will also have our behavior. Period. If He doesn’t have our behavior, we have every reason to question whether He has our heart.

The bible asks,

How can we who died to sin still live in it (Romans 6:2)?

But it is super important we realize God is after more than our conduct; He is after our heart.

When God has our heart and not merely our behavior, our conduct in Christ becomes joyously compulsive–and our obedience comes along for the ride by default!

Indeed, when we try to live the Christian life by pleasing God out of the shallow resources of the old man (who has been done away with when we gave our life to Jesus–Romans 6:4, Colossians 3:3), we are quenching the power source who lives within us as children of God!

When we fail to understand that the power to please God lives in us by his Spirit, we can easily revert to the thinking that the best way to abide in Christ is by earning his favor day-by-day, in what we do. And when we live this way, not only are we incapable of pleasing God, but we have lost sight of the freeing core of Christianity; we cannot earn God’s favor or proximity to him by what we do. This is as true after coming to Christ as it is prior to our coming to him for our salvation.

The only thing that gains us proximity to God is the blood of our Saving One, Jesus Christ.

So, until we let go of the self-preserving tendencies of the old man who died in Christ when we gave our heart to Jesus, we’re going to be stuck – never making it over the “hump” of the mid-stage of this Gospel (In Full).

Cutting right to the chase again, and in slightly different words than in the fourth paragraph of this entry, you may never experience deep communion and the intended freedom of the Gospel because you love your sinful self-reliance more than you love your God. I do not make this inquiry of our hearts glibly, but with a sadness of heart. There are likely dozens of scenarious that play out in our daily lives where asking this question would be appropriate:

Do I love my sinful self-reliance more than I love my God?

This inquiry of our hearts is a call to surrender. This is a call to help us make choices that glorify God and enliven his Spirit’s ability to mold us into whose we are!

In closing, I want to point us to the glorious upside of surrender. When we surrender, we are set free. When we surrender, we are no longer Christian imposters before God. When we surrender, we lose fear and gain God’s confidence. When we surrender, John 15 begins to come to life for us.

Once through the marvelous inbreaking awareness of the Holy Spirit’s work in us we emotionally and subjectively understand we are not The Vine, then we are finally gaining in our journey toward an honestly fulfilling life.

Once the Spirit of God within us has been welcomed to break us, the resulting surrender frees us from the pressure of having to lead our own lives. Instead, we begin to understand how to follow–as we abide in Him, the true Vine.

In Jesus’ very words to us, he says this in John 15:1, 4-5, 9:

I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser.

Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.

As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love.

Then Jesus goes on to tell us that our surrendered obedience to him will enable us to abide in his love. In so doing, we will live our lives without quenching his Spirit in us. Then, in verse 11, he gives us this glorious conclusion to the matter:

These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.

We can find an unmitigated, boundless, full joy that doesn’t hinge on the moment-by-moment circumstances of life when we learn to surrender and abide in the Source of our life.

And my prayer is that in this day of the duplicitous-living, ever-distracted evangelical church attender, there will be an increased emphasis on helping believers understand the theological basis behind the new life in Christ. Scripture contains plenty of Spirit-empowered illumination to help many a believer surrender once and for all to the One who purchased and rightfully owns his bride.

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