#and its not even sunk cost fallacy or feeling like he needs to make the deal worth it i think. this is just what he feels is necessary | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

manicpixiefelix · 3 months

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he wanted to be in love (but you got in the way) // epilogue

{ head, heart, hand. masterpost }

Summary: Oliver is haunted by what he's done to get his happy ending in Felix's arms. His guilt is only made worse when he meets the first member of your family to actually remind him of you. Unfortunately, he does not find it to get better from there.

{ context; please read he wanted to be in love (but you got in the way) first }

Need to Know: They/Them. Explicitly NB Reader. FWB!Reader/Felix. Reader is from a well off family but has pretty much been adopted by the Cattons. YOU ARE ALREADY DEAD IN THIS ONE, but you do get to haunt the narrative. congratulations?

Warnings: discussions of death/overdose, lots of guilt, manipulative oliver, felix being upset, vaguely unhealthy oliver/felix, lotsa angst, oliver quick reckoning with the sunk-cost fallacy.

A/N: 6828 words. first, i don't usually do part 2s when i say something is a oneshot, so this is a rare occurrence. secondly im sorry this is almost 7k there's something wrong with my brain i think. thirdly bro, bro, listen to me; ANGST. HURT NO COMFORT. HURT NO COMFORT. it's soft in the middle THE SOFTNESS IS A LIE. ITS GONNA HURT ALL THE WAY DOWN (apart from nana i love her nd i hope you will too)

TAGLIST IN COMMENTS!! // TAGLIST ALWAYS OPEN ! (just message or comment to be added)

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One hour and fifty three minutes.

Rounded up, because all things considered, he should round it up, that's two hours.

Two hours. Like the blink of an eye in the scope of a whole life. But a very long time when you sit and count it out.

One hundred and twenty minutes. Seven thousand, two hundred seconds. He's always counting two hours, seeing exactly how long it feels like, how he can fill that amount of time. Seconds pass like a steady heartbeat.

He can do a lot in two hours.

Oliver tries to occupy himself nowadays more than ever, and really tries not to be alone, but it's hard. Farleigh left for Oxford. Venetia, before she decided to backpack across Europe and find herself, wouldn't let anyone touch her anymore.

Oliver doesn't like leaving Felix alone, but sometimes he has to be. You're laying cold in a family crypt somewhere next to a grandfather you never knew, and while Elspeth and Sir James don't comment on it, they both scowled when your parents sprung the announcement on everyone at the funeral.

Felix spends a lot of time alone at the edge of the maze. He's making a fairy garden where you had waited. Sometimes he'll drive into town without telling anyone, and come back with quaint, second-hand miniatures to add. It's beautiful, shining with greens and golds when the setting sun hits it just right.

So Oliver finds time to occupy himself, when he's alone and all he can think about is you sitting by the maze. You laying by the maze. You alive when he'd run from the maze. And the two hours that followed.

Sometimes he leans out of his window and shouts to the gardeners so far away they look like ants; even at this distance, his voice carries, and he sees them turn, search for him, ask if he's okay. He is, and he apologises, and he think about how far his voice carries.

On occasion, out of the blue, he'll lift Felix up when he hugs him, able to get his feet off the ground as Felix wriggles and clutches him out of surprise. Of course Felix lifts him with ease in return, spins him around, but that's not the point. Oliver is stronger than he looks; he wonders if he could lift you, could carry you far, if he could have dragged you if it had come to it.

Some nights he wakes up in a fright, your rapid heart rate beneath his fingers and he swears he could hear you whispering for help amid your shallow breathing. Please. Pleading. Begging. You were alive when he'd left you. He presses two finger to Felix's pulse point beside him, and tries to calm his breathing, to focus on Felix's slow, steady heartbeat.

And some days he sneaks into the computer room and curses how long webpages take to load when he looks up statistics on overdoses. Symptoms. Niche forums where he can learn what it felt like from survivors. People luckier than you. Their words, their stories, the recollections of those horrifying sensations stick with him, even as he diligently erases any trace of his browsing history.

And he thinks about how fucking long two hours is.

"Nan's coming over later," Felix tells Oliver idly one Sunday afternoon, "we're having tea of you'd like to join us." They're laying out in the grass, Oliver in the grass finding shapes in the clouds, Felix on his side, chewing on the stick of a lollypop he'd finished an hour ago and gently tracing abstract patterns on Oliver's chest.

"I thought you said your granny haunted Saltburn," when Oliver looks at Felix, he still can't help the way his heartrate picks up. Felix Catton touching him in the most gentle, caring way; he'd never stop feeling lucky for getting here, and never forget what he did to earn it.

Felix's gaze moves with his fingertips, up Oliver's warm, bare chest, twisting two fingers in the delicate chain around his throat. He looks pensive; but shakes his head after a beat.

"Different nan," he says distractedly, plastic straw trapped between his teeth. He tugs the chain experimentally, like he's forgotten it's attached to Oliver at all. He's in his head again; Felix is always in his head nowadays, but there's still often echoes of who he was, echoes of what Oliver has fallen for in the first place.

And he's finding himself falling more and more for this version of Felix too. So he tell himself that it was all worth it.

"Love," all these pet names - Love, Darling, Sweetheart - because if he slips up, tries to call him Fi, Oliver knows he'll only get ice in return, "is everything okay?" Oliver carefully reaches up to cover Felix's large, warm hand by his throat with his own. Felix meets his gaze, and gives a faint smile, an attempt to reassure him when he says he's fine. It doesn't work, but Oliver lets it go, and lets Felix tug him in by his chain for a kiss.

"Tea sounds lovely," Oliver murmurs against his lips.

There's something about this visit has Felix alive and buzzing the he way he hasn't in a very long time. Still he's quiet, but his eyes are bright as he follows behind the staff members setting up tea and biscuits in the garden. He goes through all the DVDs the family has and picks out a stack he thinks would be suitable, making sure they're all perfectly stacked by the DVD player. Oliver floats along behind him, and simply allows himself to admire Felix's energy.

Still, Felix finally takes a moment to breathe right as it becomes noon, and decides to have a bath to freshen up before his guest's arrival; two hours before she'd be here, Felix reminds him.

Two hours.

Oliver feels drawn to his own room. He doesn't allow himself to be alone in Saltburn often anymore, doesn't like the thoughts that crop up when he does. Perhaps it's a kind of punishment, a painful reminder, penance for what he's done.

There's a scrap of paper that he keeps tucked in a book in his nightstand, his own handwriting stuffed amongst a collection of Edgar Allan Poe's short stories, words he'd clung to and scribbled out the minute he'd gotten the chance so he'd never forget them exactly.

From the coroner's report, according to Duncan and Sir James. Time of Death; around 2am. Cause; narcotics overdose, and there were signs of alcohol poisoning.

On the back, he'd written '12:07'.

"Mum and dad both say it was a tragic accident," Felix's voice in the dead of night, the night they'd gotten the full report, riddled with guilt and unspilled tears, betrays his disbelief regarding the sentiment. Felix doesn't talk about how his last words to you were shouted with anger. Felix doesn't talk about how your last words to him were a desperate plea for him through tears. Felix doesn't think that it was an accident; only Oliver knows that he's almost right, just not in the way he thinks. Or dreads. But he has to bite his tongue on the truth, and let the man he loves live with this unjust guilt.

The water starts loudly draining for the tub, and Oliver isn't sure how long he's been sitting on the edge of his bed with his eyes squeezed so tightly shut, but he scrambles to stuff the page back into the book, and toss it back into it's drawer. He can smile again, and admire whatever outfit Felix chooses for the rest of the day, and pretend like he doesn't feel your rapid heartbeat or hear your shallow breathing every time he touches that paper, like he had the night he left you.

With the hour drawing ever closer to two, Felix keeps checking his watch. The minute he deems it to be time, he gives up all pretence of small talk - which had been another thing severely lacking as of late - and snatches Oliver's hand, pulling him through the house. They even outstripped Duncan and the footmen by the door when there comes a firm knock. Its the only time Oliver has ever seen any of the Cattons open the doors for themselves.

And it's not Felix's grandmother.

"Hi, nan," Felix sounds so genuinely happy as he hugs the older woman at the door with a warm smile and your eyes.

Oliver feels like he's frozen, like he's seeing a ghost. Out of the corner of his eyes, he sees Duncan actually standing aside, giving Felix and your grandmother a quietly fond smile.

"I swear you get taller every time I see you, oh, my lovely boy," she says with a warm laugh that sounds so damn familiar, "or maybe I've been shrinking, you get to my age and people tend to do that," and Felix laughs, actually fucking laughs. Oliver realises it's been a long time since he'd heard Felix give a proper laugh like that. As the hug ends, Felix let's her tuck her arm in his as she continues, "just you wait, one day you'll only be six-foot tall." Another laugh, and Oliver can see how genuine and broad he's smiling, how his eyes shine when their gazes meet. She's surprisingly sprightly for her age, it seems. Oliver recognises your grandmother from your funeral, but hadn't made the connection at the time, so he's surprised when Felix goes to introduce him and her eyes sparkle with recognised.

"Nan, I don't know if you've been properly introduced, but this is -"

"Your Darling, Oliver," and it's said with such warmth; her hug feels almost like home, "you strange, little thing," she laughs, "it's called a hug; are you not a hugger? I should have asked," but she doesn't apologise, nor does she let go for a few more beats. Oliver gives into this moment, closes his eyes tightly and hugs her back.

"Our Darling Oliver," Felix echoes with such admiration, and when Oliver opens his eyes, it's the first time since you'd passed where his gaze has held only the love and pride Oliver had been craving since he'd first laid eyes on him.

Once Nana - she'd insisted Oliver call her that too - lets him go, she tucks her arm in his, and is waving Felix over to her other side, briskly asking where tea was to be held. Duncan leads the way and she fawns over him too, apparently downright overflowing with love for Saltburn and everyone and everything in it. She talks more than she doesn't, but considering who Oliver is and who Felix has become, that suits them both just fine.

It's been too long since they've had tea together, she insists, and doesn't talk about why exactly that would be. She doesn't bring you up, not while you were all making your way through the house, but once she's settled outside, she takes a moment. The way she looks at Oliver in this moment makes him queasy; the smile, that look in her eyes, the way her gaze takes all of him in. A woman, whose time is so precious to her, taking her time to make him feel seen. Felix is quiet, intrigued by the exchange.

Your phantom heart beats beneath Oliver's fingertips.

"You're Y/N's grandma," Oliver says quietly, breaking the tension. Present tense still, they all play pretend. She smiles, and finally leans back. The moment is broken; Felix pours them each a cup of tea. Nana takes a jammy dodger and looks over the gardens with a smile.

"Of course, dear," she says sincerely, taking a bite of the biscuit, but being so eager to talk that she spoke through half a mouthful, "and when they were thirteen they told me I was Felix's grandmother too, because they'd overheard Felix's mum talking about how she hoped they'd get married some day." Felix snorted a laugh at that, turning pink around the ears as he prepared everyone's tea, as if on autopilot.

"Does that -" Oliver begins awkwardly, but he tries to smile, "do you think in time, they would have ask the same of you about me?"

"Considering how they spoke about you," there's a twinkle in your Nan's eyes as she turns back to him, smile knowing, "there's absolutely no doubt in my mind, my dear." All you had ever done was love him; love him and stand in the way of the love he desperately craved.

Oliver watches his tea for a long while, spinning the ornate cup on its matching saucer, while your Nana almost immediately picked hers up and took a tentative sip. Watching out of the corner of his eyes, Oliver notes the way her face goes on a journey of emotions, from pleased, to confused, to a sudden realisation as she looks to her cup.

"I should have asked you how you liked your tea," Felix realises too late, apology in his voice as Nana puts her cup down with a forlorn, yet fond look.

"No, darling, it's nice to know you know how my grandchild liked their tea," and she holds her cup delicately, looking into it's warm, brown depths, "just the same as I always made it for both of us when they were much, much younger."

"I am so sorry to ask," Oliver hears himself blurt out, unable to help himself, "but how does all this love just skip a generation?" It comes out far worse than he intends it to; he means to ask how someone so loving as you come from parents so uncaring, yet how did either of those parents turn out the way they did when the woman in front of him was clearly bursting with just as much love as you had been. Thankfully, instead of being offended, your grandmother laughs.

"My daughter is a wonderful, intelligent, compassionate, impressive woman," she begins, but sighs with unmistakable disappointment, "but my late husband was never capable of even trying to be a father over pursuing his own interests, and it's one of the few traits she actually inherited from him," she shook her head, "and she went on to fall in love with a man who loved her but suffered from that exact same defect," after a beat, she looked up with a warm, reassuring smile, "it's why I love Y/N so fiercely, and so hard," her grin turns soft and adoring, looking between the two boys before her, "the only way my daughter has ever disappointed me is as a mother, but I will never be disappointed in Y/N as my grandchild."

Oliver knows there's tears in his eyes, and Felix has ducked his head. Immediately Nan begins apologising, realising she'd set both of them off. Despite this, Oliver tries to wave her away, insisting it's fine, before he asks about her; he's heard bits and pieces he thinks, but Y/N had always been so cagey about their family. Honestly he's surprised that your grandmother knows so much about him when he feels like he's barely heard about her.

Despite turning out to be an incredibly decorated artist, with paintings selling for more than Oliver's pretty sure his own family's house is worth, your Nana is quick to downplay her own successes, simply insisting that it took decades of hard work. Again, he sees you in her eyes.

"We've got a few up around the house," Felix adds, "most of them actually from before we even met Y/N," and your Nana gives him a shove, as if flustered and embarrassed by the idea. But Felix is beaming, happy to be showing off her accomplishments, just as he always took joy in celebrating you; "there's one in your room."

"What?" Oliver asked, and your grandmother also seemed surprised, though touched by the thought.

"It used to be their room, actually, but Ollie moved in there, so Y/N was staying with me," he explains a little awkwardly, wanting to skim around as many implications as he could. Thankfully she doesn't comment. All she asks is which one. Felix and Oliver both think about the room; Felix about the few pieces of art on the walls, Oliver about your time of death in the drawer. You were alive when he left you -

"That one of the stars, and that person smoking; I think you actually gave it to them as a gift," he frowns for a beat, "for when they turned seventeen, I think?"

Oh, Oliver knows that one. It's enchanting, blues so deep, so rich it's like you could swim in them, stars that seemed to actually glow on the canvas, and the hazy, dark outline of the window in the foreground, and part of a figure against the windowsill, lit cigarette the lone spot of fire, of red or orange, that makes everything else warmer for it.

"That one really surprised me actually," Nana admits, giving Felix a shrew smile, though he only seems confused, "did they ever tell you anything about it?"

"Said you painted it for them; pretty sure I remember them crying about it," he says fondly, reminiscing, "one of the best gifts they ever got, I'm not lying, they say it every year. It's beautiful." Then, as if recalling what she'd actually said, he looks at her curiously, "surprised you?"

Her smile widened into something both knowing, and endeared.

"I asked them to send me a photo, a postcard, their very best drawing, anything, as long as it was their favourite place in the world - do you really not recognise it?" The tea and biscuits are gone by now, the tea portion of their afternoon is coming to a close. Felix shook his head, almost looking like a lost child, as if he was aware there was something he was supposed to be understanding but couldn't quite get it, "Felix, my dear boy, they sent me a photo of you; that's their dorm room window from boarding school."

Felix looks winded, and a bit like he's about to cry.

"Oh you two were impossibly sweet," she reaches over and holds his hand tightly, looking over to Oliver earnestly, "you take care of this dear boy and his heart, you hear me?"

"Yes," Oliver all but trips over his words to agree, "of course, nan." And she gives him a pleased grin.

They move indoors after this, Felix quiet but lending his arm to Nana, which she takes, while she explained that usually you and Felix would visit a few times a year when they were on break, but she thought it would be best to come to Saltburn this time, given the circumstances.

"You should come see the place when you get the chance," she insisted, patting Oliver's hand.

"It's mostly where Y/N was raised before they ended up staying at Saltburn," Felix supplied with a grin, piquing Oliver interest.

"Y/N's childhood home? Oh I have to see that," he grins, and your grandmother grins brightly for a long moment.

"I'm sure Y/N would love that, they can give you the grand tour -" but her face falters, falls, as if she'd just remembered. Sombre silence, the spell is broken. "I'd love to have you around, dear," she corrects, much softer this time.

Felix lets her pick a movie, while Oliver settles himself awkwardly on the sofa. He wants to reach out to Felix, to touch his cheek, feel his boyish smile and know that it's real. But Felix isn't really even looking at him. There's something childlike about his enthusiasm here, about how he sits on his knees on the floor, watching with rapt attention as your grandmother pores over them. He practically glows as she praises his choices. When she picks one, she hands it over and he scrambles on all fours across the short floor space to the DVD player, fumbling with the case like he can't put it in fast enough. There's a softness in your grandmother's eyes as she watches the boy who has seemingly forgotten the man he is; when she looks at Oliver, its like he sees her asking how easy is he to adore, what a beautiful young man.

"You don't mind watching a movie do you, Oliver, dear?" She asks, though it's clearly an afterthought. He's already shaking his head, assuring her it's fine. Felix is already scrambling back, remote in hand. Oliver tries to make space for him on the sofa between himself and your Nana, but he seems content to sit on the floor in front of her, leaning back against the sofa with her knees gently pressed against either of his shoulders. Handing her the remote, Felix twists to give Oliver an expectant smile.

"Come here, mate," he insists, patting his lap, his legs kicked out in front of him. At Oliver's obvious confusion, Felix blinks for a few moments. It's like he's waking from a dream. His face falls, he goes to apologise, strained smile on his face, "sorry, I know that's weird, you don't have to -"

Slowly, Oliver moves from the sofa, sitting beside Felix on the floor. Your grandmother's knee is pressed gently to his back, but he's not quite sure if he's capable of relaxing enough in this moment to mind. She's playing with Felix's hair, having already started the movie.

"This is what you and Y/N would do," Oliver said softly, and rested his head on Felix's shoulder. Felix takes his hand, and laces their fingers together.

"Do you like it when people play with your hair, Oliver?" Your grandmother asks idly.

"Um, sometimes," he answers, still feeling rather awkward. He hears her chuckle warmly.

"It's okay if you don't want me to; Felix likes it so much he lets me braid it when it's long like this."

"Oh, I know Felix loves it," Oliver hears himself agree, "if he were a cat he'd be the kind to purr any time someone scratched between his little cat ears." And while both he and your grandmother share a fond laugh, he can hear Felix's smile in his words. He gives Oliver's hand a squeeze.

"I can't even argue; I wish I could purr right now."

Oliver wants to bottle this moment forever, keep it locked tight in his chest.

But the movie is a long one. One hour and fifty six minutes. Two hours rounded up. A whole two hours. Enough time to fall asleep with his head in Felix's lap the way they both said you used to. He wakes with your heartbeat in his ears, rapid, alive, left for dead.

"You okay buddy?" Felix looks at him with genuine love and concern; it's been such a long time since he'd seen that look, even with everything that had been happening, "I'm here, you're okay," he assured. Over by the television, putting the remote back, your grandmother glances over at the interaction with a warmth that makes Oliver feel queasy in this moment.

And he'll look up from the book, from his notes from the coroner's report crammed in, obscuring the end of one story while The Tell-Tale Heart begins on the other. Felix will be getting ready for bed in the other room, but he won't sleep there. He can't sleep there. Can't sleep in that bed without you, can't move the costumes from that night that hang side by side as a reminder of the hole you'd left behind in his life. Oliver will read approximately two am in his own messy handwriting, and look at the digital clock on his bedside that had read 12:07 when he'd crashed into his room and locked the door and sunk down against it. The numbers had been shining red in the darkness. On the wall behind, that starry night sky and the hint of Felix and his cigarette; a home you'll never return to hung up in the home you'll never truly leave.

He put enough coke in that bottle to kill a fucking lion. He'd given you the bottle. He'd told you he loved you. He'd left you like that.

He knew you were dying.

He'd left you alive.

Two hours.

The book snaps shut. In the silence he thinks he hears your breathing. Please, Ollie, help. Paranoia is a cruel thing, he has to tell himself; paranoia and guilt.

"Can I ask you something?" Felix joins him just as he's putting the book back in it's drawer. Oliver, heart beat racing - never as fast as the memory of yours, oh now it's all he can think about again - nods quickly. Felix sits on the end of the bed, clearly preoccupied, fussing with the buttons of his pyjama shirt. The days are getting cooler now; Oliver misses his bare skin against his, but he still feels too precarious to make such an observation.

"It's about Y/N," Felix swallows, can't meet his eyes, "about that night." Oliver feels his mouth go dry; the worst fucking night of his life. The night he doesn't know if he'll ever figure out if he regrets all he'd done.

He nods again.

"Were you the last person they spoke to?" It's like Felix is forcing himself to not shy away from this moment, giving Oliver the attention he thinks he deserves for such an important question. Then, after swallowing hard, he can't help but drop his gaze, "why," he can barely get it out, there's already a lump in his throat, "didn't they come into the maze too?" Oliver can't even give him that.

You'd been such a mess on your way to the maze, even with Oliver supporting you. Crying, furious, apologetic; you were everything at once. Even when you couldn't bring yourself to go in, everything about you had been sliding from one emotion to the next. But then it had stopped.

"I can wait for Fi here." It's the most sure that he'd seen you all night. It's when he knew. It had to be you, even if he loved you too. He'd never forget how clear your smile was, how sincere you'd urged him into the maze to follow the tail of what he thought was right. The sight of you, waiting, obedient and loyal for your master to return; "I'll be here, I promise; I'll wait."

Oliver knew before he'd even entered the maze that Felix's return to you would be too late.

In the present, Felix waits too, diligent, expectant. Oliver thinks about lying. Oliver thinks about how the truth will break his heart. Oliver thinks about how close Felix will hold him in his guilt riddled grief.

"I don't think they wanted to interrupt -" Oliver tries to start, but Felix immediately swears, hangs his head.

"Can't fucking believe I did that," he spits, "I was angry, and off my fucking face, sure, but that was fucking low, even for me," he admitted, pitching himself back on the bed, whole face scrunched up with guilt, barking out an upset fuck far louder than the others, prompting to Oliver to tentatively ask what he means. Felix took a moment, as if forcing himself to calm down, before he admits, voice low like he was sharing a secret, "I never even took Eddie into the maze," he sighed. After a beat, he conceded, "no, okay I did, but we didn't do anything - we made out a bit, but -"

"You didn't fuck you ex-boyfriend in the maze," Oliver connected the dots quickly, "but you did fuck your best friend's ex-not-girlfriend who you kind of stole from them, out of spite after kicking them out of your the bed you've been sharing all Summer?"

"Fucking hell, Ollie!" Felix sounds especially wounded when he lays it all out like that.

"Sorry," immediately, Oliver apologises, knot in his stomach when he hears Felix's pained tone. He wonders if this was what it was like for you all through the night of his birthday. Fuck, he can't think about that.

"No, but you're right," Felix admits, eyes finally opening, looking all hurt and vulnerable. Oliver lays himself down next to Felix, going the other way, both of them looking up at the ceiling. Oliver's hands rest on his chest, trying again, softer this time.

"So was a special place to them?" He gets no response other than a guilty nose from Felix, "you think that's why they wanted to wait by the entrance?"

"They wanted to wait for me," Felix says weakly, clearly in his head about that night once more, "didn't want to interrupt even as I was fucking defiling our-" but he catches himself turning bitter again, mouth snapping closed, "after everything I said that night," he mumbles, "fucking hell," he chokes out. The pain in his voice is audible. This is the sweet spot, Oliver thinks.

"I can wait for Fi here," Oliver whispers amid Felix's faint sobs.

"What?"

"You asked me what their last words were," Oliver told him as softly as he could manage; Felix sits up, eyes wide, distraught, so full of guilt and love and - "only thing they were properly coherent about; waiting for you," Oliver props himself up, reaches out to wipe a tear from Felix's cheek.

"You're not- Ollie, please tell me you're not kidding," Felix practically begs.

"I can wait for Fi here," Oliver reiterates, making sure to meet Felix's gaze as he holds his face, "'s the last thing they said- they said; I'll be here, I promise; I'll wait."

God he can see it in Felix's eyes; it's like the man's entire world crashes down around him. But he clings just as Oliver had hoped he would. As Felix holds him tightly, Oliver can't look at the glaring, red numbers of the clock on his bedside, the constant reminder of the two hours where he could have done something. Two hours and those wouldn't have been your last words.

He looks at the painting. At the stars. At Felix and his cigarette and your idea of what home looks like. The stars look just like they did that night. Just as bright. Oliver closes his eyes. Guilt twists people into shapes they don't often recognise; Oliver just holds Felix, hopes they twist into something together.

Except Oliver's guilt isn't the kind that twists, it's the kind that bites. It's like moths, eating him from the inside out. The guilt leaves him with jagged edges and thoughts he'd rather not be having; there are shades of Felix Catton that he loves, but shame and revulsion bites just behind the guilt as the months pass and he realises more and more this is not what he wanted. This is not the Felix he wanted.

Felix is like an echo, like the sun without it's warmth; he can look just the same, smile, talk, charm just the same if it was required of him, but there was something clearly missing from every interaction. Guests to Saltburn would pull his parents aside and ask if everything was alright. He is, but he is not the same as he once was.

Every day Oliver looks in the mirror and sees something grotesque behind his eyes that no-one else seems to notice. Felix Catton was meant to be the prize, the one who tossed aside everything but the best, the one who made the world fight for his attention, and feel heartbroken when he merely looked the other way. After all this, Felix Catton was not someone Oliver expected to be bored by.

Oliver Quick had lied for, lied to, betrayed the trust of, worked to gain the trust back of, loved, made fall in love with him, and literally murdered the love of his life who he also loved and was themselves also in love with Oliver while still considering Felix the love of their life, just to get a chance to spend his life by Felix fucking Catton's side. He wasn't allowed to not want this.

Felix smiles at him, says he loves him, fucks him, but it's not the dream Oliver once had. Something is always missing. No. Oliver deliberately took that thing away. But he can never admit that, nor can he ever regret that; too far gone. Oliver doesn't want to talk about the past, Felix can't being himself to talk about the future. Trapped together in the present, living lives that no longer feel like enough. Their routine becomes suffocating. Even Venetia, the few times she's stopped back at Saltburn, can barely manage a disdainful look, as if merely inconvenienced by Oliver's presence.

The growing apathy of the estate and it's occupants is exhausting. The cost of this lifestyle has long since surpassed it's value. He's even bored of being haunted. Two hours feels like fucking nothing when the days drag on the way they have been. Behind his eyelids he doesn't see you begging for help, you hiss for him to run, to get out.

He should have listened.

"Ollie, can I show you something I found?" Felix sounds bright today, and though Oliver wants to roll his eyes at the idea of anything in this house being new or novel enough to show off, he smiles back instead.

"'course Felix, what is it?"

Except Felix isn't smiling at him. Felix is looking far more serious and determined, sitting on the edge of their shared bed. Oliver immediately frowns.

"Have you been hiding something from me, Ollie?" It's a trap; a forced confession. Oliver shakes his head, plays dumb. Felix takes a deep breath, the kind that shifts his whole body, his expression remaining firm, "before I show you this thing, I want you to be honest with me; you promised you wouldn't lie to me anymore, you remember?" Oliver tries to lighten the mood, leaning against the window with a warm smile.

"Of course, my lovely Felix, no more lying," he assures, but the hairs on the back of his neck stand up with the way Felix remains quiet.

"What's seven-past-twelve mean?" Felix is watching him closely; too closely. Scrutinising his every move. It's like Oliver's been doused in ice water, even his tongue frozen in his mouth, "and what's it got to do with what happened on the night of your birthday?"

Felix doesn't even look at the night table as he opens it; his gaze is solely on Oliver. It's clear he'd done this before, pulling out the book, flicking through it's pages, and pulling the delicate, incriminating piece of paper out from where it had been safe for so many months.

"Felix, I-"

"What does twelve-oh-seven mean?"

Oliver is the deer again, trapped in Felix's accusatory gaze. For just a moment, Felix's voice drops, pleading with him for some other explanation, that Oliver wasn't somehow caught up in what happened, more closely, more malevolently than he'd ever said -

"Tell me," there's tears in his eyes, the furious kind, the ones where he's desperate to love and hope against all odds, "Oliver," he pleads through gritted teeth, "tell me you didn't know."

"Know what?" Oliver's voice is a hoarse whisper; he knows he is caught, all he has left now is borrowed time and a desperately silver tongue he doesn't know if he can rely on anymore. But Oliver's tragically weak denial is enough for Felix to all but jump to the right conclusion.

In a rush, Felix has Oliver by the collar of his shirt, pressed to the window -

"You knew they were dying and you fucking left them there."

This is the tipping point, the end of whatever good this had been. Felix could hurt him, Felix had hurt countless people on your behalf, he'd seen it himself. But Felix had always been the bleeding heart; you were the one who had to be kept on a leash. Felix could hurt him, could probably maim him for what Oliver was about to say, but he never shared your stomach for true Machiavellianism.

"Of course I knew," Oliver managed coldly, despite Felix attempting to crush all the air from him, "the amount of coke I gave them in that champagne could have killed a rhino-" it needed to be unforgiveable, the confession, so Felix would let him leave, would never want to see him again. He hadn't expected the force of Felix's rage to have the glass behind him give out.

Oliver falls from the second story window into the hedge garden below. Felix's shouting is tearing through the whole house it seemed, making his way downstairs, while Oliver tries to regain his breath and figure out if anything's broken. He's pretty sure it's not, but that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt as Felix drags him by his feet from the hedges, demanding at the top of his lungs that Oliver get the fuck out of Saltburn.

Every single person who'd been in the house comes outside to view the commotion, to see Oliver struggling to his feet, to get away from Oliver. Elspeth looks helplessly between the two boys, wondering what happened -

"Tell her what you did," Felix demanded, once more getting into Oliver's space, jabbing at his chest, "tell her what the fuck you just told me -" and Oliver's strength isn't insignificant, but Felix is in a fury, flooded with rage and adrenaline, and he grabs the back of Oliver's shirt like he's scuffing a cat, shoving him towards his mother like an offering. Oliver struggles because he feels like he has to, feels wild, feels feral, but it's the most of anything he's gotten from Felix in so long. His mouth stays shut, won't give him the satisfaction of a confession.

"He killed them," Felix doesn't even let Oliver have his power play before he grows bored. He shoves Oliver just a little, grip unyielding despite Oliver's best efforts, like he means nothing to him. Elspeth and Sir James are confused, looking between them both, but Felix isn't done with stringing Oliver up for all of Saltburn to see, "Y/N; he intentionally dosed their drink and left them to die outside the maze."

The Catton parents immediately look crestfallen; it's the first time in months Oliver's felt genuine guilt again. Oliver stops fighting. Felix lets him go. Elspeth asks him if this is true; that heartbroken hope is going to make him sick.

"Just send me away already," he drops his head.

"Oliver," Elspeth's voice is firmer this time; when he looks up, she's stepping towards him, tears in her eyes despite how hard she's clearly trying to hold herself together, "is Felix telling the truth?" Is this it? Is this the final gate to his freedom from Saltburn.

"Yes."

Elspeth slaps him so hard her ring draws blood. Oliver hadn't thought that was even possible, but his head is ringing from the collision.

"Get. Out." She hisses with absolute malice as he's hunched over, clutching his face. Felix is by his mother's side in a heartbeat, arm around her, looking at Oliver with contempt. Behind them, Sir James is ordering Duncan and the other staff members to get Oliver off of the property as quickly as possible, but the look in Elspeth's eyes is burning, "this is my family, you monster."

At first, it almost feels worth it to leave Saltburn. To leave the Cattons and their bullshit and their games behind. He thinks he knows them well enough to trust that they don't want the kind of scandal a murder on their hands would be, and for the most part, he's right.

It's not the Cattons who haunt him after Saltburn, though they may be pulling the strings. It's you. It's you sitting on Felix's bed in his dorm room reading every single detail of Michael Gavey's file with threats on your tongue. It's the casual way you talked about being able to access his academic files to change his grades if he wanted. It's you, tipsy at Saltburn, admitting that you got Eddie transferred without his consent to a university on the other side of the country after he cheated on Felix with Venetia.

There's no place for Oliver to return to at Oxford... He's not entirely surprised about that, however, there's also apparently no record of him ever attending. Any calls or enquiries he makes are shut down with the kind of immediacy that seemed reserved for shows about government conspiracies. When applications open for other universities, it seems websites shut down the minute he fills out his damn name. Nowhere in the world seems willing to consider him.

Having him audited seems like overkill. When it happens the next year, despite no employer willing to even consider him for an interview, the existential dread of his situation sets in.

Felix never had the stomach to finish the job; he'd let you haunt Oliver forever.

#felix catton x reader x oliver quick #saltburn x reader #felix catton x reader #saltburn imagine #felix catton imagine #felix catton x y/n #felix catton x you #oliver quick x reader #oliver quick x you #oliver quick x y/n #oliver quick imagine #head heart hand fic #manic writer

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andromeda3116 · 1 year

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going back and rereading order of the stick from the beginning, and like. god, the first 250 comics or so are just. not good. they don't fully suck, but they are so generic. and so early-2000s. but once you get to azure city and start to get the lore, it's like.... okay. we might be onto something here. and then the battle for azure city starts and it's like... shit, we're definitely onto something here.

and then you get to don't split the party, and while it's got its weak points, you hit the soul splice arc with v, and it's like. holy fuck this is good. how the fuck. this was a gag-a-day comic strip about a dnd adventure, how did it come to this? the fact that that arc is all about how one of the good guys descends into madness -- using characteristics that were originally one-off jokes -- and ultimately ends up committing the most Evil act in the entire story, and it's completely in-character, and then has them reach the very bottom, hit their "what you are in the dark" moment, and go back, thus seeding the possibility of their redemption --

shit.

and then it only gets better from there. everything past don't split the party is phenomenal storytelling, world-building, and characterization, and we're coming up on the final battle, and i'm just like -- there are several shoes that are still waiting to drop, and i legitimately cannot tell how this is going to end. i mean, the oracle said that elan would have a happy ending, which means that the world isn't going to be destroyed, and he wouldn't be happy if he, haley, or roy died, so probably at least those three are going to make it, but beyond that...?

this started off as a mediocre early-aughts dnd-based stick-figure comic and turned into a legitimately incredible fantasy tale

shit, and this isn't even starting on redcloak, especially if you read the prequel story, start of darkness. like, he is the poster-child for the sunk-costs fallacy, but at this point, what will it take to convince him to turn on xykon? he loathes the lich, is using him for his own purposes, but he truly believes that he needs xykon to accomplish his goals. but the good guys need him to turn on xykon! they need him to join them, or else all of this is for nothing!

i feel weird recommending it to people because it's like. the first 250 or so comics are mediocre at best, but you can't skip them. early on, there's a lot of casual sexism and a lot of casual homophobia, as was normal at the time this was published. it starts off simplistic, making a lot of cheap dnd jokes. it doesn't start to get impressive until the army shows up at azure city around strip 415, but after that, it will start to blow your fucking socks off.

but you can't skip the first 400 strips! you have to read it from the start! and you'll read them going "is this really what you're recommending?" and i'm like YES!!!!!! just wait for it! the payoff is so fucking worth it!!!

#order of the stick #it gets so amazing y'all!#some parts of the writing will stop you in your tracks and make you stare at the wall #it starts off so rough but *god* does it get fantastic

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bugflies00 · 1 month

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Imagine supporting someone throughout grooming allegations manipulative and damaging behaviour plain old petty lashing out and so much more and then getting to the point where their ex friend's mother talks about the person you support sending an essay length message about why her son is bad...and you still defend them. Like I feel half bad for them at this point. It's the sunk cost fallacy isn't it? You've held onto this asshole from when you actually cared and felt any joy from his content pre-allegations and its gotten to the point where he literally doesn't make anything you feel anything about all he does is MORE stupid petty shit but you're so far in now, if they're still with him at this point that means they've by design victim blamed ignored horrible shit And plain old Asshole-ness and at this point probably harassed and bullied people who dislike Their Guy, they're probably so far gone they feel like they just need to keep stanning him until they feel justified in any way at all with all the horrible shit they've supported and done themselves but it's never gonna happen he's never becoming the good guy

genuinely dream stans have shown behaviour unlike any other community i've seen (well apart from gnf's but theyre adjacent if not the same). i think you're right that the only explanation i see for a lot of these people's utterly irrational behaviour is a mentality of not wanting to let go after the next shitty thing when there's been so many. i think a lot of them probably have their own issues and they react like this because dream's cultivated a relationship with his audience that's very insidious imo. idk. it just surprises me every time even though its been over 3 years how quickly they jump to harass anyone who criticises him it feels so. stereotypically stan behaviour? that it almost feels fake LMAO

#alex.rambles.txt #dream situation #mcyt #tw grooming mention #alex.asks.txt #discourse

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lanchang · 3 months

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now i never read the extras which i assume detail their established relationship....and its been a while since ive read the book.... but wow what a scenario! really tests the concept of loving someone at their ugliest, the...im more upset about this than other things you have done because it was a wrong done to me, of it all. the way hc might actually feel he needs to go its fine gege 👍 whatever you want in a sunk cost fallacy kinda way (more complex version), the way xl might be frustrated if hc doesnt get mad and MU QING hoho. did he start it & not believe it would happen? despite everything said to the contrary he was doing a little social test and while shocked it went somewhere just didnt backpedal? intrigued‼️

i never actually read the extras other than the birthday one but its so INTRIGUING!!! would hc try to submit to the 🫶 cuck lifestyle? how long until he snapped? would he immediately try to strangle mq? could he even actually retaliate if it meant hurting someone xl cared about? it would just be so interesting for a character as single-mindedly devoted as hc to actually deal with betrayal like would that finally change how he feels about xl? he was prepared to be rejected after the cave of 10000 gods but rejection and betrayal hurt in different ways and now hes actually been with xl.... and how would xl handle it? i think he would feel guilty no matter what hc said about it and yeah would he be hurt if hc said its fine do whatever you want? i think they would both be kind of miserable and im sorry if this makes me sick and twisted but i like that for them 🤭 AND MQ!!! in my mind its a natural progression of him and xl reconnecting in a nice way and then mq getting quietly more and more curious about hl's sex him and pretending it means nothing to him but also testing the waters with xl little by little while fully accepting nothing will ever happen. until it does 😳 and i dont think he would feel that bad about what he did tbh afterall hes not the one in the relationship and he doesnt really like hc soooooo idk i dont think he would WANT xl to be upset but also hes kind of abnormal about things. i just think it would be really messy 🥰

#idk whether or not to put this in the tags alfndjdjdjd um #mulian #<- the people need content #ask #vortex posting

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onewholivesinloops · 1 year

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Sharing screenshots of some of my thoughts on the latest Meguri chapter on discord because I’m too lazy to copy paste stuff or figure out formatting. I have more thoughts on the whole thing but If it’s not obvious from this alone I’m just thoroughly disappointed by all of this. I did say Tatariakashi was going to either make or break the whole thing and the latter ended up happening...

^me @ Tomato

I’ll still keep up with this because sunk cost fallacy is a bitch, but I just don’t understand the point of Meguri’s existence when it just feels like a half-assed Gou/Sotsu with none of the things that made it interesting. I have so much love for Gou/Sotsu despite its flaws. It has beautiful concepts that resonate with me on a personal level and I appreciate Ryukishi choosing to come back to Satoko of all Higurashi characters, because he felt like he did her a little dirty in the original by slotting her into the role of "princess" who needs to be saved by Rika and Keiichi, and robbing her off of having her interiority explored in the same way as the other girls even though I still think Satoko gets to have agency in Minagoroshi by being the one who saves herself through asking for help herself and I think this is a very important thing in this type of stories. Depicting victimhood is always very tricky, but I really appreciate the type of story Gou/Sotsu wanted to be at its heart.

I’m too tired to talk much about this but Gou/Sotsu, regardless of how you feel about it, only happened because Satoko was who she was in that story. She was allowed to be a flawed person and the whole thing brought back so much of her characterization from Tatarigoroshi that was sidelined for a while. If she were a different person, it would have gone completely differently. She’s a very messy person and that mess is compelling and relatable. In Meguri, it’s just Satoko being railroaded into this by Eua so if you replace her with any other character it wouldn’t make much of a difference and I don’t think the answer arcs have done anything to justify this or make it remotely interesting. Satoko is just a witch who’s detached from her life. I’d say maybe the “different” final chapter/arc they keep advertising will have something interesting, but I don’t believe this is salvageable personally especially with all of the blatant sexualization and fetishization? There’s plenty to dig into in terms of Satoko character arc stuff in the anime even if it’s poorly conveyed by Passione and not as explored as it should but the important thing is that it’s there? The anime also didn’t sexualize Satoko left and right. I’m so tired of that and how much I’ve been dreading checking every chapter when it comes out. Fuck Tomato. All my homies hate Tomato.

I’ve been holding back on posting this because I feel bad being a hater openly but I think this was inevitable.

#gamo.txt

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a-student-out-of-time · 20 days

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For a series that's infamous for giving the characters a surge in screentime solely because they're dying in that chapter, Kakeru and Kanata didn't even got that treatment, they felt bg characters throughout chapter 3.

But i think what bothers me the most about Kanata's death is how it happened (not the method specifically, tho that's pretty bad too), Kanata's FTEs tells us of a time where she put her life in danger for the well-being of her patients and Yuki even points out how badly it could have ended for her but at the time all she could think of was of others, not herself. This is like a perfect setup/foreshadow for a killing game death, and Kanata does die in a chapter were a character died trying to save another..

... But said character wasn't her. Literally why. That's such insane missed potential to me because you also had a great opportunity to showcase more aspects of her character through these actions other than her just crying all the time. But i guess because Kakeru is the big buff dude he's the one who needs to do the heroic sacrifice part.

//You know what makes it even worse? When you remember that Kinji literally had no reason to kill two people.

//He'd already killed Kakeru, which would've fulfilled his quota for saving the orphans. The only reason he still went ahead with killing Kanata wasn't even because she would've outed him or anything, since she was unconscious the whole time.

//He did it because of the Sunk Cost Fallacy, because he decided he was already in too deep and that he had to finish what he started. Combine that with his method of killing her, and attacking Rei and Tsurugi to frame them, and the whole thing really just makes him come across as a bloodthirsty lunatic

//He only saves himself from complete character ruination by virtue of showing some remorse afterward, but then he gets completely screwed by Monokuma ^^;

//So not only did Kanata and Kakeru feel like background characters there, but the story goes out of its way to tell you that their deaths were literally for nothing. Great. Cool. Thanks for that, LINUJ.

#mod talks #a student out of time

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queenburd · 10 months

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some ramblings about rawts and rtaos under the cut ft @misspelled-magic

Misspelled-Magic — Yesterday at 4:51 PM ok. have some thoughts now: some of the issues here might be coming from the fact that the narrators want to put Stanley and the Narrator into their roles within the Parable. where is this instinct coming from? is it just a sense of superiority? just the superiority thing wouldn't warrant all this effort. like, it makes more sense that they'd just try to get their Stanleys back. hm. also, the narrators are out of their own Parables. hm. yeah, as it is, Leigh's narrator doesn't feel like he has the right motivation to be a major antagonist. like... it feels like it has to be more personal?

May “Knife Bird” Sparrow — Yesterday at 4:52 PM straight up, i have no interest in pursuing this tory. this has literally become whump for whumps sake. so im checked out already

May “Knife Bird” Sparrow — Yesterday at 4:52 PM but like. it's mostly a punishment from the other narrators. that this bitch thought he was so much better than them [4:53 PM] honestly its just to hurt a person, which is what most of them were doing to their stanleys anyway [4:53 PM] which was the whole point. like. theyre not LEARNING. [4:53 PM] but you know. sunk cost fallacy.

Misspelled-Magic — Yesterday at 4:53 PM god the narrator is consistently a idiot in every single variation.

May “Knife Bird” Sparrow — Yesterday at 4:54 PM i just heard my guy rear his head like "HEY" like. babe. you are also an idiot. in a funnier way.

Misspelled-Magic — Yesterday at 4:54 PM he's an idiot (affectionate) (I adore this feature)

May “Knife Bird” Sparrow — Yesterday at 4:55 PM honestly i think i just keep like.... i dont know how to describe it but its obviously a theme underlying a lot of these ideas [4:56 PM] the theme that "maybe this one narrator was the one that went wrong. that broke his design. a narrator is not supposed to BE this way. he's not supposed to CARE like this." and the repeated challenging of that idea. [4:59 PM] and repeatedly, the theme is left unresolved. it's left open ended. because hes ONLY going to the places where there are narrators who could never compromise with their Stanleys. the call Stanley puts out will NEVER be answered by any other Stanley who got out just fine with his Narrator, because they never had REASON to interact with this Narrator. [4:59 PM] we dont know if there are any of those out there. [5:00 PM] the answer I keep trying to go with is "does it matter? this is how he is now. this is the person he wants to be. and it's a good person." (edited) [5:00 PM] but i dont think my mind is resting.

Misspelled-Magic — Yesterday at 5:00 PM mmmmmm. see, the idea of what if other narrators changed because of what they saw with Stan's narrator-- I LOVE that idea. i feel like that would need to happen for it to be narratively satisfying. because like... to me, the Narrator and Stanley have to be together-- even when they are the worst versions of themselves, they are codependent. and honestly, I feel like the Stanleys that were hurt would be in the minority

Misspelled-Magic — Yesterday at 5:34 PM i might be remembering how things work wrong, but i dont think that most iterations of the Narrator and Stanley would know about the pod be defualt-- so in those instances, the Narrator (stan's) would just be able to show them to the pod? and then these other iterations of the Narrator and Stanley don't experience the thing where the Narrator gets stuck in the Parable?

May “Knife Bird” Sparrow — Yesterday at 5:36 PM hes only ending up in Parables where the relationship is so deteriorated that that iteration's narrator would never give Stanley a chance at freedom

Misspelled-Magic — Yesterday at 5:37 PM ohhh. he's has to go to parables like that [5:37 PM] is there a particular reason that's going on?

May “Knife Bird” Sparrow — Yesterday at 5:37 PM yeah, the idea is he doesnt know if hes ending up where hes NEEDED or if he is literally the outlier [5:38 PM] hence. gestures again. the theme.

Misspelled-Magic — Yesterday at 5:38 PM ahhh [5:38 PM] thats gonna hurt

May “Knife Bird” Sparrow — Yesterday at 5:39 PM yeah, thats why he has such a shit time of it and why its like "this is going to hurt no matter how he looks at it" [5:39 PM] "so he doesnt. look at it. he just does what he has done for years: he helps Stanley." [5:42 PM] because yes, there is a codependency to the narrator and stanley, on the whole, they do NEED each other, but here he is, on his own, trying to make the best of it, and watching these ones who have their stanleys and treat them as so lesser, and there has to be a point where the line gets drawn. you can say "they need each other" all you like, but if one of them never treats the other like a person, then.... a good person on the outside is going to object.

#repeat and write this story #with some #reset the actors on stage #The Sparrow Parable #Parable Actors

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sepublic · 1 year

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“Besides, who would you be without me, Prime?”

“...Time to find out.”

Out of context, this sounds exactly like some sort of abuser leveraging, exaggerating, their importance to their victim, gloating power and importance over them, in order to reel them back in. And finally, a victim, after years of being terrified, not just of their abuser but even moreso of what they’d be without them, of the uncertainty of independence and having nobody familiar to count on… As someone held back by the constant reminder of the good their relationship had, clinging onto it even as the bad continues to drown it out;

Well, it’s time to move on. Time to find out.

Now, the context of this quote is a scene that is… Understandably criticized, and Dark of the Moon is certainly no pinnacle of writing. I mean, the original ending had Optimus and Megatron agree to that truce, hence why Optimus’ reaction feels a little dissonant; This was supposed to be a redemption for Megatron of sorts, or at least the beginning of one, and atonement.

Ordinarily I’d rewrite things so Megatron’s proposal is sincere and Optimus accepts; Thing is, we have Age of Extinction and The Last Knight to go through in the Nizziverse, and Megatron/Galvatron’s actions there really make no sense if just beforehand, he sincerely expressed a desire to give up conquest and warfare. Or at the very least, it’s not narratively satisfying.

So alas, I have to go with Dark of the Moon’s canon ending, so the rest of the story makes sense; That said, I do consider it a major moment in Megatron’s arc, representing a huge shift as he becomes a lot less rageful and just more. Tired. As we see him in The Last Knight. Which then leads to his official redemption in whatever saga acts as the cancelled ‘sixth film’, in response to Unicron. Losing Optimus for real this time is kind of a wake up call he can’t ignore, he has to cope with the fact that he burned that bridge and truly sacrificed his brother for this cause, maybe sunk-cost fallacy doesn’t work...

I honestly want to keep this exchange, just rewrite a lot of the context and buildup leading up to it, so we don’t have bloody war criminal Bayverse Optimus. I want this moment to be Optimus finally cutting himself loose, letting go of this toxic relationship; Because deep down, just as Megatron longed for a nostalgic past, so too did Optimus long for his old brotherhood with Megatron.

And I think that hope, that desperation, clouded Optimus’ judgment a bit; Because yes, it’s not wrong to want to rekindle a friendship, to see a loved one become better. But at the same time, it made Optimus hesitate when Megatron committed horrible atrocities, it kept him from making the final push necessary for the greater good. I don’t think victims of Megatron’s genocides would be all too sympathetic if Optimus failed to make the final blow because he hoped there was still good in his friend and the capacity to change.

Optimus, he’s just… Given Megatron one too many chances. And Megatron refuses to change, has in fact responded as if HE’s the one under attack, and in turn externalized his rage towards the Autobots and the organics he blames for turning his brother against him. It’s very immature and disregards Optimus’ agency and choice, turning him into some sentimental wimp with very little backbone, easily swayed, just needs to be kept to the right path. And it’s grossly possessive of Optimus, too.

When Optimus says “You’ll never stop at one”, it’s a callback. In its colonization, Cybertron didn’t always destroy civilizations, just worlds with life, but none of it sapient. Contrary to how some Decepticons might frame the past, back in the day, even during the age of the Functionists, most Cybertronians saw the destruction of other races as a bit distasteful. Of course, they’d still go through with it, but it was an unfortunate necessity, and people preferred if they plundered an uninhabited world instead.

Megatron was on that same fence, that so-so opinion of, WELL, this isn’t ideal and it’s honestly messed up. And under different circumstances, he easily could’ve worked with those feelings to decide, no, I shouldn’t be sacrificing other civilizations for my own. But as I said, Megatron felt betrayed and reactionary to Optimus’ opposition, and that incentivized him to double down when he otherwise wouldn’t have; And so he ended up fully embracing a hatred for organics for what they took from him, for the problems they and sentimentality have caused.

It was a gradual change. Megatron often made promises he didn’t keep, that they just needed this one last civilization to die, and then they’d stop. Or they’d make contact with another race and yeah they’d take a little, but not this much! We just need a bit of your energy and resources for ourselves, we’ll pay you back later! Or at least stop taking. And Optimus, blinded by his sentimentality for Megatron, he ignored the obvious warning signs. He wanted to believe that this was the last transgression and that Megatron meant it.

But then he found out; How this allegedly uninhabited colony DID have a civilization, a primitive one. But undeniably a culture of people. And Megatron claimed they were never there, that this planet they were harvesting was a relatively ethical option. And besides, they NEED more Energon right now; Once they address this vacancy, then they can stop conquest and move onto sustainable resources. It’s just this once. Is the future of our race not worth one single life?

It’s a tragedy because you love a person. And they love you back. But if they REALLY loved you back, if they really respected and cared about you as a person and not a thing that brings them happiness, they’d have listened. They’d have respected and taken into account what you said, and how their bloodshed was destroying those with equally-meaningful relationships as the one they shared with you. And they just refuse to open their eyes and see, to empathize. It’s twisted and awful and you can understand why Optimus doesn’t want to accept it, but eventually he has to.

Megatron frames his rescue of Optimus as something to lord over him; He saved Optimus, Prime MUST repay the favor by submitting, by helping him fix Cybertron. But in the end, Optimus’ motivations are more than that; They’re about the greater good, about the ‘lesser’ peoples that the Cybertronian Empire overlooks, because only the Transformers matter. Megatron saves Optimus not to end the war, but moreso as a side-effect of his revenge on Sentinel, and anyhow as a ploy to leverage power because he’s ‘owed’ something now.

Megatron has constantly tortured Optimus with this reminder that they’re brothers and that matters above all else. That they fought together, that Optimus wouldn’t have defeated the Functionists without him. But in the end, that’s the past, and as important as it is… They can’t cling onto that, times have changed. And Optimus can’t agree to a ‘truce’, especially when this ‘truce’ is Megatron offering amnesty to the Autobots, in exchange for… The Autobots basically surrender and agree to help the Decepticons with anything. Megatron’s offer is both sincere but also not; He wants Optimus back, but he isn’t interested in any actual compromise. And so he raises Optimus’ hopes one last time by saving his life, just to crush them by revealing it was never to change, but to just double-down on what HE wanted.

And that’s the last straw. The last chance. And Optimus finally lets go, for the sake of himself and so many others who have died because of Megatron, who doesn’t actually plan to stop. And so when Megatron, betrayed, tries to remind Optimus that they were brothers once… It may seem cold to an outsider, but Optimus rebuking him is totally justified. He’s no longer under Megatron’s hold and guilt-tripping, because if Megatron really wanted to remain brothers, he’d have stopped. But he’s made it clear time and time again that he chooses Cybertron and destruction over his brother, so Optimus will also choose his beliefs over Megatron, too. Megatron just isn’t interested in meeting him in good faith, why waste himself in trying to give what won’t be reciprocated?

Megatron is still confused and even heartbroken when Optimus rejects his ‘offer’ at the end of Dark of the Moon; He saved his life! But it was never about how Megatron treated Optimus, it was about how he treated other races. And thus he still misses the point… But not the point of Optimus’ axe, at least. Make no mistake, it still breaks Optimus’ heart too to see a glimmer of hope for his old friend, only to realize he misinterpreted it, and that he really has to go through with this (he hesitates before he replies, eyes conflicted before becoming resolute).

But when so many others have died and will continue to... He has no choice, and the justified, righteous rage towards Megatron for still clinging onto his genocide is cathartically allowed to take over. Optimus allows himself to be mad in an ugly way towards his abuser as he deserves, like so many victims, without having to worry about being the ‘bad guy’ here. There’s a relief for him that it’s over; Maybe not Megatron himself as he finds out next film, but the attachment and hope that kept betraying him like Megatron did.

And Megatron had the same misguided hope for Optimus, too, that kept him from finishing him off (because the lives of other races weren’t at stake to HIM, so it’s easier to treat this like a game and decision to put off); And it’s only when he finally lets go and accepts the consequences of his mistakes to fix them that he can redeem himself, and acknowledge and apologize for how much he hurt Optimus, unconditionally with NO expectation for forgiveness or a return to the past.

#maccadam #transformers #megatron #optimus prime #nizziverse #fanon #au

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manie-sans-delire-x · 11 months

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What would you do in this situation? Ive been on and off with my first boyfriend for 3 years. He has cheated on me twice and still continues to hang out with girls he has slept with despite it making me incredibly uncomfortable. I want to leave him but our good memories are keeping me from doing it.

Leave him leave him leave him.

Girl!! He clearly gives zero shits about you, hes made that abundantly clear. Im supposing you told him how uncomfortable it made you feel and he continued anyways? Would he freak out if you were hanging out with male friends that youve slept with?

Listen, he cheated 2 times in the short span of three years- that you know of. Its highly likely that hes cheated much more, probably with those girls. You've also been on and off multiple times- not a good sign.

I understand that hes your first bf, but stop wasting any more time with this loser. You deserve better, and he will never respect you unless you stand up for yourself and leave him. And dont take him back no matter how much he cries and begs and swears he'll never do it again. He blew his chance multiple times. Youre letting him play you for a fool. Youre telling him, by staying, that its ok for him to cheat, that you have no self respect and will let him do anything and he can take you for granted. So of course he would do it again, there arent any consequences.

Do you know what sunk cost fallacy is? A fallacy is a flaw in thinking, an illogical thought process. Sunk cost fallacy is when you think "well Ive already invested so much time/enery/memories into this, I cant quit now even though it no longer serves me". It doesnt matter how much time you spent, most relationships are not meant to last forever, if any at all. Take the good times with you, but say "this relationship is no longer serving my needs or wants and I will not waste further time and energy into it." Dont keep watering a dead plant.

3 years isnt a big deal, its not too much wasted time. But how are you going to feel when youve wasted 10 yrs on this guy? 20? If you get married and/or have kids? Hes still going to cheat, and you might not even find out til 30 yrs down the line. Cut the line now. Im guessing youre young- go have fun, be single for a while or meet a better guy. Hes your first bf so hes the only experience youve had- you need more experience to grow in confidence, that you dont need him, that theres better guys out there. What do YOU want in a relationship? Are you ok with settling for a cheater? Who doesnt love, appreciate, or respect you?

#asks

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cydie · 1 month

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i feel like i'm going around in circles

i know we both feel the same

but i don't know which one is the right choice

the more time i'm taking the less time i have to grieve

the last 2 days ive felt dead

like i need to rot in bed for days and days

like im living in autopilot and i can't get into anything

i try to motivate myself to clean but i can barely move

ive spent more time crying than i have anything else

i keep switching on and off between feeling my emotions and feeling nothing at all

when i feel my emotions they take over all of me and i can't put them down until they're addressed

it's like they're screaming "listen to me, hear me, feel me"

but it's painful. knowing that this wasn't accessible until he accepted his vulnerability and accountability

knowing that if we had never come together and made the choice to move on, that we never would have spoken the way we did

we would have lived our lives, wondering why each other didn't love the other

do we now take the gift we've been given and start over?

can we even bring this into a relationship?

///

I guess this relies on both of us

it relies on how much I'm willing to work even after everything, and how much he's willing to work, even after everything

and I guess if we wanted to answer that question, we would need to identify what makes this different

and make sure we keep doing those things inside the commitment

I know I'm scared to make the wrong choice bc whatever it is, we can never go back

and what's scarier is that each choice comes with its own challenges

if we break up and move on, do we later realise it was a mistake?

what if one of us never moves on?

if we stay together and work through it, it will be hard work

what if we do the work and in the end we realise it wasn't worth it?

what if we don't grow together? what if we grow apart?

what if we stop loving each other?

i don't want him to hurt. i just want to love him as much as he loves me.

before this, a major player was sunk cost fallacy.

this time there's a new player in the running, and he only showed up after the game was over.

and it's "a cleaned slate".

i didn't think we could rebuild before, but this new player has me second guessing

if we are the right person wrong time, is the right time now?

nobody said it had to be the cultural socio definition of time. it could be that time is defined by certain turning points, plot points if you will

what if the timeline is just weaved in between course changing decisions instead of linear time?

i just don't know how to feel. and i can keep pushing it down and pretend that everything is fine, but im just wasting time.

#personal #;m

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pezpenser205 · 2 months

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unhinged suicidal rambling again because i have no quality control on my blog anymore :/

man. idk. life amirite. why do people do this. any of this. everything i do is just another thing to pass the time. i dont genuinely enjoy anything and the worst part about it is that i dont even think i want to. i just. dont care. like at all :/

my therapist asked what keeps me going to school and stuff and really all i had to say was "nothing. i dont have any future plans i want to carry out and im not invested in anything. the only thing i want to do is fuck around and die. i do stuff because im told i have to." and she was just fucking floored?? like maam i came to you with a major depressive disorder diagnosis. what do you want from me. what is my dad even paying you for. hell why is he paying for anything for me ??

what did you expect me to say here. "ohhhh yeah im totally living to get my fucking community college associates degree and get my first goddamn fucking miserable job i dont care about at 21 and a shitty apartment with no one in the world i can trust just to come home and play the same 2 games ive been playing my entire life because theyre the only thing that makes me feel like a kid again while i absentmindedly try to latch onto media i couldnt even give a single atom of a shit about while being unable to get an animal or a plant for companionship because im so scared of the emotions that come with loss i refuse to love anything at all im just fucking dying to live and get my whole life consisting of persistent apathy, longing, loneliness and sorrow started bro. ^_^"

????? kill yourself like actually what else do you want from me. im alive to keep you comfortable so you dont have to grieve and thats it you fucking shitbag. "live for yourself" what a fucking joke. whats best for me rn is like. the opposite of that. i dont get why people in my life want me alive for some reason though and its simultaneously selfish and pointless because i cant name a single positive thing about me without it being a lie. im 100% convinced people just dont want me to die because theyre attached to the idea of me existing because ive been here for so long and people dont like change, as shown by me being so scared of the idea of losing a pet that i refuse to get one. or the fact that i cant get attached to any media bc i know the attachment will fade and mean nothing. or the fact that i dont want friends because i know we will grow apart. there is no imaginable goddamn reason why ANYBODY would want me here other than fear of loss. everything ive ever done can easily just be done by others its ridiculous.

idk i think being anti suicide is dumb because some people really do just need to kill themselves because their unhealthy mindsets and coping mechanisms are etched into their very soul and everything they do and one of those people are in fact me. nobody would be missing shit if i died except for like. the money my family spent raising me. and even then thats just kind of a sunk cost fallacy type thing. so like my family needs to get over it or something idk. im living life with the "one more day" mindset atp. they can just cry about it if they dont like it. lord knows ive done more than enough crying in the past 2 months alone. idc anymore. yalls turn. <3 cry. ❤️ or shut up. youre annoying. ill kill myself whenever its convenient and potentially painless. literally the only thing keeping me from doing it is it being inconvenient. if i had a gun itd be so over /pos i really think itll be the first thing i buy with my money if i ever get a job

#op #suicide #suicidal ideation

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screechthemighty · 11 months

Text

TriMax vol. 2 notes are here!! Also note that I might be wrong about the CW for 2.7, but I'm like 99% sure those dolls were anatomically correct (I do not want to know the answers to the questions this raises, the Gung Ho Guns are a buncha FREAKS FR).

TriMax Notes: Vol. 2

TriMax #2.1: Return of the Blue Wind of Death

Content Warnings: Body horror/gore

OH it’s the guy from the ‘98 pilot!

So they’re sending in fake!Vash #1 (from ‘98) against the other Gun Ho members…oh dear

OH NO OH NO OH NO

Hey Legato what the HELL man

WHAT IS WRONG WITH HIM

TriMax #2.2: Resume Our Business

This is disturbing on so many levels. His continued degradation even after being saved from sex slavery…just…ahhhhh

Also Midvalley is a dumbass

YEAH DUMBASS HOW DID YOU THINK THAT WOULD GO [Context note: this was him getting body-slammed after pulling a gun on Legato and thinking that would work out in his favor]

“We’ll show him the true human nature he so desperately protects. Fuse the futility of his purpose to his very bones.” Ohhh this is. Scary. In light of Stampede…

Wolfwood dodging how he knows Knives’ name and then being called out by Rai-Dei does NOT look good for him LMAO

“Glorious! My spirit is afire!” / “Gee. So happy you liked it…can I go now?” LOL

“Terrorist priest” is. Close to true, yeah.

Also this fight is gonna be banging in Stampede since Vash does more close quarters fighting there

TriMax #2.3: Samurai Showdown

“No, more like, it’s because they are still human…that’s the reason behind this sinful existence (WW about the Gung Ho guns) chews on this chews on this chews on this

GUN ARM! YES!!!

Don’t know how he won that but good for Vash

TriMax #2.4: Wolfwood

owo

Rai Dei: I WILL sunk cost fallacy my way out of this!! WW drawing a pistol: Bet, lmao

“Maybe he would have fired…but…I would have just dodged! No matter how many times I’d have to! It’s better than killing him and taking away his chance to stop.” UNHINGED. About this line in light of the Stampede finale [Note: May just do a tumblr post about this on its own because it does drive me insane]

“You talk of saving everyone but you don’t want to get your own hands dirty” GNAWING…

“No matter what you do, you give it up so easily” HRMMM [Note: transcribing this does not capture how my handwriting turned into barely legible scrawl]

I need to make a tumblr post about this [Note: this was the post]

Also ZAZIE NOT NOW

“Did I say something wrong again?” Milly babe everything you say is right and correct!

TriMax #2.5: Desperado

“It would appear I’m no longer fit to hold you guys” I’m devastated thanks for asking!!

Dehydrated!Vash looks like the dying plants in TriStamp…feel like that’s deliberate on Stampede’s part

Vash just wordlessly following this kid with a smile on his face…funny? Sad? Both??

“What’s wrong with saving your family? You people didn’t even try to do anything!” / “Not everyone can gamble with their lives so casually.” Reminds me of Roberto’s comment about how only the privileged can throw around the word “coward”

”There really is something wrong with this brat” LMAO WW leave him alone!!

TriMax #2.6: Home Sweet Home

“I can’t afford to die. For the sake of the kids, y’know.” (WW) Muffled scream

“I don’t have time to play ‘til I hit the limit, the way you do.” (WW)

Vash been gone for 10 years, but everyone seems to view him well…though these are puppets whoops [Note: honestly that whole scene was super messed up in how cruel it was]

TriMax #2.7: Darkness

Content Warnings: Anatomically correct dolls that form together into a cursed looking spider-thing, "genitals" only in a few panels though (I didn't keep count lmao)

Damn Wolfwood didn’t even wait to start blasting

I need to see this bitch animated immediately

OH HE BROUGHT BACKUP?? CHEATING!!!

#screech reads trimax

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wiihtigo · 2 years

Note

have u been asked chibita hehe... chibita (you'll never know who this is)

send me a character and i’ll list:

hiiiiiii

favorite thing about them

this is so mean but its that his life genuinely sucks. like hes one of the more normal and grounded characters in oso (hes still really fucked up and evil though sometimes/a lot its just when hes next to all 6 of the matsunos hes like an angel) like he grew up an orphan living in a pipe with his only adult presence in his life being IYAMI he never went to highschool he tried and failed in his teen years to be a chef but kept getting kicked to the curb HE TRIES TO KILL HIMSELF AND IS SUICIDAL IN THE MOVIE (AS A TEENAGER?) why does chibita have such a rich backstory and multidimensional character. and the anime is about these 6 neets who keep not paying him at his business he started on his own and relies on totally and completely for a living. wtf.

also i think hes just so nice as much as they dont deserve him im glad the matsunos have a friend as good as chibita hes tough but kind of spoils them cuz i think hes kinda lonely when theyre not hanging around making his life worse. i love chibita hes awesome

least favorite thing about them

victim of a few gross jokes i wasnt a fan of but i more blame the writers for that and not him. kinda funny though how visibly his IQ goes down in proximity to iyami

favorite line

not a line but his matsu hunting song in chibitas revenge was so so so good. literally one of my favorite episodes in the whole show

brOTP

always smile at his interactions with totoko i think its cute how theyre buddies too. Also i suppose shoutout to iyami. think its funny he kinda still keeps iyami around and still gets roped into his schemes even though he doesnt REALLY need to he has a JOB just cuz hes been around since he was a little kid. sunk cost fallacy

OTP

i like karabita ^_^ i also think osobita is funny sorry karamatsu LOL

nOTP

im not a hater about it but i prefer him and totoko as friends

random headcanon

had a crush on oso when they were kids but realized he couldnt tell them apart so he came to his senses

unpopular opinion

um? i dunno lol. i think too many ppl use him for karamatsu suicide angst instead of just writing them going to disneyworld like any other ship online but who am i to judge. i actually am one to judge sorry

song i associate with them

i know he plays work bitch - britney spears on the ipod on his mind on those cold winter days he doesnt wanna get out of bed and get out the oden cart

favorite picture of them

this isnt a picture OF him but whn i was watching osomatsu on tubi the subs for the karamatsu incident were changed i guess so it would be easier to understand for the average english speaker? so they just changed this joke totally but its raelly funny the way they changed it so its ok. look at this

for context the joke origianlly was that jyushi misheard "kidnapped" (yuukai) as "yokai" and thought karamatsu was turned into a yokai

also the rest of the joke is funny too

i feel bad chibi isnt actually in these though so heres this picture i like from kun

#asks

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youngster-monster · 3 years

Text

An act of love and mercy

In the wake of Sasha’s death, Sam finds himself at a loss for what to do. Grief, he finds, makes him restless. Or rather the avoidance of grief. For himself to be busy enough not to be sad, he needs something to be busy with. And there’s not much that a newly ghostless Guardian can do around here. He doesn’t have that many marketable skills, after all. Especially since he still hasn’t gotten used to his new lack of depth perception, which skews his aim something fierce.

He ends up calling in every favor owed to him by fellow Hunters until one of them can present him with a bounty fit for his new limited abilities. He has no qualms about leveraging the death of his ghost to get it for himself.

She meant for it to be a relaxing, low-stakes job in-between bigger expeditions. That means it’s a little too dangerous for a guy with only one working eye. Fortunately Sam is used to fighting without Light by virtue of spending most of his active duty career in the farthest, darkest corner of the system. He’s never run a mission with no light or backup before, but he makes up for the difference with a little bit of a death wish.

The mission is simple at least. A Fallen ketch crashed near the Cosmodrome for unknown reasons, and he’s supposed to go investigate and get rid of any hostiles.

Easy enough.

He must have jinxed it though, because the first thing he finds when he shimmies in through an exhaust vent and into the ship proper is a Fallen corpse, half-buried in the disgusting organic growth tell-tale of the Hive.

And where there’s Hive, there’s usually troubles.

You should call for back-up, the ghost (hah) of Sasha’s voice whispers in his mind.

He’s heard these exact words in her voice thousands of times before, and has never listened to them. Why would he start now?

The advantage of a bow is that it’s quiet enough that even when you’re trying to remain undetected you can afford to miss. Since his shots tend to only hit their mark one time out of five nowadays, Sam is thankful for that much.

In the close quarters of the ketch he ends up using his arrows as melee weapons more than projectiles anyway.

He’s only found a handful of thralls so far, which he dispatched quietly, although he can hear the distant roar of a more substantial force deeper in the bowels of the ship. They’re far outnumbered by the bodies. Everywhere he looks he finds the chitinous plates of Fallen, what little isn’t buried under Hive growth covered in their blood. Few of them wear armor, he notices.

He’s starting to get the disquieting feeling that this might have been a civilian ship.

But what would it do near Earth of all places? He has yet to find a House banner; impossible to tell if they were fleeing something or lost the trail of their fleet.

He checks every room, hoping to find an answer. Records of their last communications, perhaps, or of their trajectory. If Hive is infesting Fallen ships — if Fallen are bringing their civilians near the City — then surely the Vanguard needs to know.

What he finds instead is a nursery.

The place is… A nightmare. There was an attempt to retreat here, he assumes from the numerous bodies piled in the same place, some so small he feels bile rise to his throat. He has no love for the Fallen, certainly not now. But children are children no matter how many eyes they possess. Any man with a heart would be upset by such a sight.

His fingers twitch around his bow as a high-pitched chitter breaks the deathly hush of the room. Nothing moves. He’d think he has imagined it if his senses weren’t so well attuned to danger; he’d think it came from some distant threat, echoing through the walls, if it wasn’t followed by the slightest shift in the shadows as four small lights blink in unison.

Staying low to the ground, feet light against the metal flooring, Sam sneaks towards the source of the faint glow. Again that chattering noise. Like cicadas in the summer, only… diminutive, somehow. One single cicada.

Or, it turns out, one single Fallen, buried beneath its dead brethrens.

Sam freezes at the unexpected sight. It’s… Small. The size of a large cat, maybe, though it’s hard to tell when it’s curled on itself like a pillbug.

A hatchling. It stares up at him, then opens its mouth filled with rows of needle-sharp teeth, and lets out the same clicking sound. He gives the surroundings a brief once-over, expecting more to come crawling out, but nothing echoes its call. It’s all alone, saved from the slaughter of its kin by a miracle or the body of its caregiver collapsed over its small body. Easily overlooked if not for the sound it persists in making.

The first thought that comes to his head is, it must be hungry. It’s only logical. Children cry when they’re hungry; why wouldn’t a Fallen hatchling do the same. Quickly following in its steps comes the much more disquieting, it doesn’t know it’s going to die.

The idea chills him. He’s not sure why it bothers him so much — he’s certainly killed his fair share of Fallen — only that it does.

Probably because it’s so small. Vulnerable, with a soft, translucent shell that’s nothing like the hard exoskeleton of the older specimens and about as likely to protect it as a paper umbrella. It doesn’t look old enough to walk. Not that he knows at what age the Fallen learn to move about on their own. But it looks reasonably toddler-like that he’s willing to make a few assumptions.

(Not that he knows what age a toddler starts actually walking, either.)

He lifts a hand to his quiver and finds it shaking. It can’t leave the ship on its own; even if it managed that feat, how would it feed itself? What does a Fallen even eat, at that age? It would be merciful to put an end to its life before it can starve to death, or be found by the Hive. Really, he’s being pragmatic.

The shaking doesn’t abate.

(Sam Fletcher sneaks out of the ship with the hatchling bundled up in the torn fabric of one of its dead brethrens, held tightly against his chest with one hand even as it makes climbing out the way he came more bothersome. Let someone else clean the place; a true Guardian, maybe.

He’s always had too much of a soft heart.)

Sam hesitates on his way to the City, and ends up making a detour through the European Dead Zone. His jumpship needs fuel, is his excuse; but the truth is that he’s not sure he could enter the City with a Fallen hatchling and leave it with both of them alive.

He’s already gotten a little attached, although he’ll blame that on the sunk cost fallacy born from the effort it took to get the bug out of the ship undetected. He feeds it bits of jerky while he lands his ship near Devrim Kay’s church. He doesn’t know the man overseeing the region personally, but he has it on good authority that he’s… nice. Nice people don’t shoot babies on sight.

And indeed Devrim does not shoot either of them on sight, although he does stare for a very long time before politely asking, “And what… Do you have here?”

Sam shrugs. The hatchling, clinging to the fur ruff of his cloak, shifts with the movement. He summarizes in a few words the events that led to him finding a baby Fallen and keeping it; Devrim is nice enough to keep any comment he might have to himself. And when Sam says that he has no idea what to do with it, he says,

“The Awoken of the Reef have opened their ports to Guardians. Maybe you could find one willing to ferry the little one along to one of the… less hostile houses.”

It’s a decent idea. Perhaps even a good one. Sam considers it for a little while. Of course that would require finding a Guardian who can be trusted with the life of a newborn, but that can be arranged. He knows people. Mostly Hunters, so no one he would trust with the life of a human child, let alone an alien one, but he’ll manage.

“Why did they open their borders?” He asks, because it’s been a while since he’s been aware of any Guardian business.

Devrim scratches his beard. “There’s been talks of a Fallen uprising,” he says wryly.

Ah.

That does complicate things a bit.

While trying to find a way to get the hatchling back to its people, Sam tries to find it a nickname. It’s a little awkward calling it ‘the hatchling’ all the time, is all. He’s not getting attached.

(Devrim stares evenly at him and wisely doesn’t say anything to that.)

But getting rid of it seems less likely by the day as the Wolves rebel against their Awoken sovereign. What Fallen would agree to meet with a human peacefully, let alone take in a child that does not belong to them? Perhaps one of those living on the Shattered Coast, but the place is a den of smugglers and Sam knows what happens to small, vulnerable individuals there.

(He’s dealt with the Spider once. Never again.)

It chitters quietly in his ears from its perch in his fur collar.

“Sounds a bit like a cicada, doesn’t it?” He says idly. He’s perched next to Devrim, helping keep an eye on the surrounding area even though he’s mostly looking at the baby Fallen.

The other man offers no commentary beyond the slightly amused tone of his wordless hum. Sam reaches back and plucks the Fallen from his shoulder, holding it in front of his face and examining it closely.

“Yeah. Cicada,” he says resolutely. “That fits.”

By the time the situation in the Reef has calmed down somewhat, Cicada has gotten downright clingy, and the House of Wolves — the only House friendly enough to meet with — has all but disappeared.

Sam stares at his small charge and thinks that this might be a more long-term commitment than he previously assumed.

He’s been running around helping Devrim, but that’s becoming more difficult as Cicada grows and becomes impossible to hide in his cloak anymore. He’s alright with bringing his own mortal ass to a gunfight; a child, not so much.

“There’s a farm not far from here,” Devrim says, “They could probably find you something to do in exchange for room and board.”

“Oh, I’m sure. The Fallen stowaway might be a dealbreaker though.”

“I’ll send them a word. Suraya isn’t the biggest fan of Guardians, but for a kid I’m sure she can make an exception.”

Sam doesn’t ask how Devrim came to know someone who’d like a Fallen better than a Guardian. He’s just glad for the offer. He can live rough and risk his life all he wants, but the kid hasn’t asked to be brought along. He can’t do that to it.

Sometimes, kinderguardians will stumble to the Farm, lost and confused despite the guidance of their Ghost.

Against Hawthorne’s complaints — those are mostly for show anyway — Sam insists on feeding them before sending them on their way to the City. Most of them have never gotten a real meal in their life before ending up here, and he’s already cooking for two anyway. Why not more?

And if they don’t look too weirdly at the small Fallen clinging to his shoulders or trailing after him, running on all six limbs to keep up with his stride, he might even give them a few pointers. They’re hopeless, all of them, and he might no longer be the sharpshooter he used to be, but he’s still a veteran. If it keeps them from getting themselves killed stupidly, he’ll take it.

Sometimes they come back. For more help, or just to say thank you. He appreciates it, even if it’s weird as hell to have people thank him for so little.

One of them comes back with ether as a gift. He stares at the little canisters, dumbstruck. He figured Cicada would need some of the substance, since Fallen seem to depend on it, and getting his hands on it has been a hell and a half. They guard it ferociously and there’s only so much a single, mortal Guardian can do.

“I thought I would help,” the Guardian explains. “Like you helped me, even when I had nothing to offer in return. So when I found these on my last mission, I thought…”

“It’s appreciated.” Then, because it feels rude to only say thanks, “Do you want to stay for dinner?”

They keep coming after that — Sam has gotten pretty good at cooking, and he guesses most Guardians don’t learn to do it for themselves. He certainly didn’t.

And because they seem to think there’s an ether fee to pay for the privilege of homemade food, he ends up with quite the stock. He’s not sure how much a growing Fallen needs, so he just… gives Cicada as much as she demands. Which ends up to be a lot.

At least she’ll grow healthy. He hopes.

The first time Cicada speaks — the word food warbled through her many teeth and alien mouth — Sam nearly has a heart attack.

The second time, he grabs the nearest Guardian and asks if they could find him an Eliksni language dictionary.

It doesn’t seem right to keep her from her own language. And if he has to learn how to make the weird sound with his own very human mouth, well. He’ll try. Even if it’s really cute when she tries to beg scraps from him with her odd, scratchy voice approximating human syllables.

One day — years later, when Sam has gotten a little more grey in his hair and a lot steadier in his one-eyed aim — Cicada, now much bigger, will point at one of the picture hanging over his bed and ask,

“Who’s this?”

And he will look at the picture of him and his Ghost and feel only the soft, blunt ache of an old scarred wound. It’ll be a small surprise to find himself, if not healed, at least over the hurt. And he’ll pick up his kid, even though she’s much too big for him to do that easily nowadays, and say,

“That’s Sasha. She was my family, before I found you...”

#writing #destiny 2 #my ocs #sam fletcher #baby eliksni time <3 #long post

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kittinsrkillers · 3 years

Text

So I'm a die-hard wonder woman fan, and I'll be honest, I'm super not into all these internet edge lords hating on WW84.

It came out yesterday my dudes, you can not feasibly have a fully fleshed out opinion on it yet.

Give it a few more days, talk to a few people about what they thought about it, I guarantee that you will view it much more positively.

That is, of course, if the conversation had isn't actively trying to tear it down.

This is made mostly in response to all the reviews that didn't understand either or both of the film's villains and about the magical McGuffin involved.

Actual spoilers below (it's where I start really complaining)

Now what I said above also applies to me, but I did spend several hours analyzing the movie with friends and family so there is that.

I'm going to be talking about things I've seen and how I think those opinions are one dimensional

1) Barbara did need to be in the movie and/or her storyline dragged

I think this is mostly clouded by the iffy cgi when Barbra becomes Cheetah, because her storyline actively parallels Diana's. Max Lord is not the antagonist to Diana but to Wonder Woman, Barbra is Diana's “antagonist”. She gives up her kindness to gain power and Diana gives up her power, her ability to help other, to gain Steve. Diana relinquishes her wish but we never have any confirmation Barbra does the same despite knowing it will only hurt her. One is willing to see the truth of their world, while the other let their desires consume them.

2) Max Lord doesn't have any clear motivations

Most of the complaints I’ve seen of this don’t understand how he could let things get so bad, as if people don’t dig their heels in and refuse to change plans when things go wrong every day. He is already shown to fall into that with his cooperation, he falls into sunk cost fallacy so easily, his greed blinds him to the cost of his actions, he just needs a little more power and then his son will be proud of him, he will be respected, just a little more, and then things go wrong so he needs just a little more power to fix them and the cycle repeats.

3) The villains' didn’t do anything that bad, they shouldn't of been vilified

They didn’t and they weren’t. I have seen posts addressing this but I’ll do so too, to be inclusive. The villains’ were just regular people blinded by the injustices of the world till they too became part of the problem

Max Lord wanted to be respected and successful so he “cheating” others like he felt life had cheated him.

Barbra was trampled on by people her whole life, so when she got power she trampled on others too. Though hers is harder to talk about because the dream stone stole her warmth and empathy, she no longer cared for other people the way she once used to.

Then they were “forgiven”, able to grow past their mistakes to try and be better.

4) Steve was forced into the movie and he didn’t add anything

This is where my personal opinions really start to show up because I personally don’t think that that was really Steve. I think he was Diana’s memory of Steve, the Steve she wished for.

But before I get into that, if you pay attention to Steve's timeline then he’s just come off major character development and is now more idealistic, he trusts in Diana's judgement and his already strong moral code, he doesn't even consider that Diana could lose because he’s already seen her fight a literal god of war. He has already made sacrifices for the good of mankind, he can and will do so again.

The next bit is connected to my “Steve is a memory come to life” theory so I’ll include it here.

Diana only knew Steve for like a week why is he the one thing she wished for

How could Steve fly a 1980′s jet

Diana left Themyscira for mankind, she attached to Steve so hard because he is one of if not her first love. He was the catalyst for her leaving her home, possibly forever, he was her connection to mankind, so she fixated on him. She is also much older than a human and has a much longer lifespan, theoretically, it could mean she views time as much less important, she can grieve over her dead boyfriend for decades because she will be alive for millennia's.

We do not hear the specifics of Diana’s wish. We do not know the wording used, thus we could hand wave away a lot of the weird bits about Steve. Diana first meets Steve when his plane crashes and she last sees him when he detonates the aircraft full of poison gas. He introduces himself as a pilot, but the lasso of truth compels his to divulge that he is a spy, the rest of the movie focuses more on his ability to spy than his ability to pilot, and with seventy years of nostalgia, Diana , who knew Steve for a week, likely only came to know Steve truly through the rose-tinted stories of his old friends and family. Thus, when he is returned to her, he is her perfect, idealized Steve. The one who she admired for his ability to fly.

Of course, I’m sure there is just as much, if not more evidence to indicate something else entirely, but it’s only been a single day since I saw the movie.

5) It is campy, cartoonish, and less impactful than the first movie

Being campy and cartoonish does not make it less valuable. What does cartoonish mean in this context? Does it mean childish? Does it mean silly or simplistic? Does it mean better actualized through animated film? Because this is a comic book movie. A Wonder Woman comic book movie to boot. It will be hopeful and inspiring, about an incredibly powerful, mythical woman who helps humans by inspiring them to be better. Though a crude comparison, she can be likened to a “Girl Superman” though the tone of the two heroes is drastically different.

I genuinely don’t know why people are criticizing the themes and message this movie is trying to make. People keep throwing around words like heavy and deep about the first movie because it talks about mankind's willingness to hurt others to achieve their own petty goals, as if this movie isn’t exploring how mankind will hurt themselves in their own misguided desire for what they don’t have, how their greedy desires will only hurt themselves and others.

Is it because this one doesn't have a war in it?

I’m getting petty now so I’ll only cover one more thing.

6) A lot of the plot is just handwaved away and we’re just supposed to believe things

This is particularly used regarded the dream stone, it wasn’t explicitly explained and the god that made it is only vaguely mentioned. This applies to all the magic and mythical elements of the movie. Magic and gods are often portrayed as based in belief. Wonder Woman has unwavering belief, belief in people, gods, truth, justice, forgiveness, honor. In return people believe in her. This belief is the main force behind the magic involved in the movie.

We the audience believe in this universe created -> this universe has gods in it capable of incredible feats of magic -> these gods do not always approve of or care for humans -> these gods do not necessarily force humans to participate in what they hold domain over -> A god of lies and deceit made a wish granting stone -> the stone shows the lies of human greed -> the lasso of truth is the embodiment of truth -> one is unable to lie in its hold -> one can “see the truth” in its hold -> the particle satellite thing was wished into working perfectly -> Now the particles “touch” all of mankind (though they can only understand Max Lord through their screens) -> The lasso of truth becomes part of the broadcast thus “holding” all of mankind -> all of mankind can mow see the truth (though the screens only show the magical golden light because they are machines without thoughts)

And though it does not matter if this fits into the DCEU timeline, by all of the other movies, 30 to 35 years have passed, it was a week of unexplained, but certainly not known to be magical, chaos when all of the rest of the justice league was either a child or simply not born yet.

I’m sorry for the crazy rant, but I feel like the internet is full of people who seek out reactions so I made this for people to read when they feel like WW84 is being clogged with negativity. You don’t need to give them the reaction, I already have.

(P.S. The Trump thing isn’t real, Max Lord is the 80′s archetype of the cooperate raider, I didn’t even make that possible connection till the bigots online with their ever present victim-complex started acting all offended)

#ww84 #Positive ww84 #Wonder Woman 1984 #only about the plot #in reaction to weird complaints about the movie #no negativity

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