#he's had autonomy w/held from him his ENTIRE LIFE | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

burnedbyshoto · 4 years

Text

Battles

pairing: amajiki tamaki x reader

warnings: tw depression, fluff, cursing

word count: 1,164

a/n: this is for @katsukisprincess, I hope this helps, im not really good at words but I want you to know that you’re not alone. not now not ever, I love you so much sky and will help you at every single step of life if need be. happy holidays.

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depression: (n) 1. feelings of severe despondency and dejection.

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You weren’t sure when it happened, only that when you noticed you wondered how long you’d been like that.

Nothing felt right, it was as if you were suddenly aware that you weren’t in control of your body. It felt as if you were under some puppet act, a mere doll acting out what the people wanted. There was no self-autonomy, only a community need.

They want you to smile, so you smile.

They need you to be a goof, so you’re the clown.

You have to be silent, but kind, strong, yet soft, loud, yet humble.

There were so many different masks needed from you that at this point you had no idea which one was right. Which one was you?

Depression, the silver bullet to your personality, a constant reminder that you would never be ‘normal’ and it always left an acidic taste on your tongue. You also hated the definition of depression, why did it always focus on being sad? It was so much more than sad, sad was the last word you’d ever use to describe it.

It was feeling tired, unfit to do things, no longer in control, and by god did it make you angry. Anger always coursed through your veins whenever you knew you were in another depressive episode. Why were you like this? You were better than this! You knew you shouldn’t be this way because fucking hell things were fine in your life, sure it wasn’t perfect, but not anything close enough for you to want to sleep for a hundred years or just to give up.

So there you lay in bed for the second day in a row.

Your lips were chapped from dehydration, your cheeks felt hallow as you stared at the closed door, you needed to pee but you couldn’t stand up. You couldn’t move.

When was the last time you ate? Slept? Drank water? Used the bathroom? You couldn’t remember any of this anymore, only that you were bitter that you couldn’t get yourself out of bed. You needed to get out of bed, yet whenever you attempted your brain refused to send signals to your joints.

Frustrated tears had stopped flowing days ago and so all you could do is sniffle as you continued to stare at the door.

The door had yet to change within your time here, so when it opened, your heart hammered in worry.

In walked Tamaki, your boyfriend.

“Butterfly?” His voice whispers and you want to respond, you need to respond but your mouth refuses to open. “Are you okay?”

You watch with glassy eyes as he walks over to you, he still is partially dressed in his hero getup. Dirt covers his face as he stares at you in complete worry.

“S-Sorry, you’re obviously not okay, p-please wait here.”

You don’t say anything as you watch your boyfriend scramble from your vision.

Time seems to pass by like an eternity, the apartment is silent and you half guess that Tamaki had run away. You would have if you were him, you were a lost cause after all.

But, you were wrong.

The closed blinds in the room opened partially, the evening rays of the sun shining through the blinds as you blink once.

“I’m going to open the windows, you need some f-fresh air,” Tamaki informs you as the seal on the window pops showing that it opened. Immediately you can smell the stale air of the room as a cool breeze wafts through the window. Your eyes flicker over to Tamaki who holds a tray in his arms. “I brought you some water and some chicken soup. I-I’m assuming you haven’t e-eaten, so we’ll s-start you off with just liquids.”

You do not assist Tamaki as he turns you onto your back, lifting you up so that your back is elevated. You watched him with now dull eyes as he carefully feeds you. Your body at an angle so that the liquids easily travel down your dried throat until the small cup of soup and water is done.

“You ate and d-drank everything,” Tamaki smiled as he placed everything back onto the tray, “I’m proud o-of you, butterfly.”

It’s then that the glass wall between you and reality is shattered as tears explode in your eyes, and immediately Tamaki’s eyes widen in horror as he automatically assumes it’s his fault.

You sob violently as Tamaki throws the tray onto the ground, his arms immediately pulling you into a hug as he wants you to feel better and to apologize for anything he did wrong.

“What d-d-did I do w-wrong?” Tamaki gasps petrified as you can hear the tears forming in his eyes.

“N-Nothing!” You sobbed as your voice comes out thick and raspy from not being used in how many days. “You’re so fucking perfect f-for me, and I don’t deserve you! I’m sick and a-angry and tired of being depressed and it’s entirely bullshit of me to be f-feeling this way!”

Tamaki’s hold around you loosened as he took in your words, but your sobbing form held onto him like he was your lifeline.

Why were you so pathetic?

“That’s not true,” Tamaki whispers, his voice steely strong yet soft and warm. His arms wrap around you tighter and your sobs muffled as you bite down harshly against your bottom lip. “I only give back what you provide for me… y/n, you’ve given me so much that everything I do is because of you…

I’m sorry about your depression, I am but I don’t know how to help. It’s not a villain I can personally fight, it’s your inner demon. Even then, I’m here for you. I will be here to help you fight the demon every time it comes around. I wish it could be a one and done thing, but no matter if it’s the first or the thousandth time it happens, I’ll b-be here for you. But, my butterfly, even if you don’t want to feel this way, you act like it’s your fault that you’re here like this, and it’s not. Depression isn’t something you choose, but it’s something you overcome, and you’re so strong for being able to fight this every time it comes around… you’re a hero for always managing to move past it, even if you don’t always come out scar-free, by surviving you win… y/n… I love you, and I just am so proud of how resilient you are…”

Your sobs have become a silent cry as your eyes clench, your head presses against his chest as you listen to his erratic heartbeat.

Tamaki is here for you, you’re here for you.

“I’m s-sorry,” you croak.

“Don’t be,” Tamaki whispers as he presses a wet kiss to your forehead. “Battles are meant to be fought as a team after all, and I will be here with you, every step of the way.”

#tamaki x reader #amajiki tamaki x reader #tamaki amajiki #tamaki fluff #bnha writing blog #bnha #bnha x reader #bnha imagines #bnha tamaki #mha #mha x reader #mha imagines #mha tamaki

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a-chrome-disguise · 4 years

Text

A long overdue catch up

Once Brett was gone, a silence fell between Cyrus and Kazimir. The younger man was on his feet, arms held behind his back as usual, his eyes examining the photographs that lined the wall. Most of them he found too painful to look at for too long, so his eyes lingered on the candid photo of him in his Team Galactic outfit. He wondered why his grandfather had such a picture in the first place.

‘...I hope you don’t mind that I put that one with the others,’ Kazimir spoke up. ‘...I wanted to see what you looked like as an adult, so when the opportunity arose… Well, I took it.’

‘Ah.’ That explained that. ‘...It’s fine.’

‘I’m sorry, Cyrus… I’m really sorry. I let you down so badly…’

‘You did nothing of the short,’ Cyrus blandly replied.

‘But I could have done so much more, I should have -’

‘- I do not blame you for keeping your distance. I know what Olya and Aleksandr must have threatened you with.’

‘...You do…?’

‘I was not going to take it lying down. I told them that I was going to do whatever I could to maintain contact with you, and then they dropped the bombshell that if I did, I would be “forcing their hand”, and we would emigrate.’

Kazimir sighed heavily.

‘Yes, exactly… I didn’t want to leave you, but I thought it was the lesser of two evils. I didn’t think that you needed to deal with the upheaval of moving to an entirely new region on top of… everything else,’ he nodded. ‘But… with how things turned out, perhaps I made the wrong decision…’

‘I disagree. You are correct, I would not have dealt with emigration well,’ Cyrus replied, without turning his head. Keeping his back to his grandfather. ‘The time for me to leave Sinnoh was as an adult, not as a teenager.’

‘But maybe you would have been able to get help sooner, in a region that’s less… stifling,’ Kazimir murmured, picking his words carefully.

‘With those two breathing down my neck? Unlikely. Psychiatry is “quackery”, and “not something they’ll have in their house”. No, I was going to suffer by myself, whether I wanted to or not,’ Cyrus bitterly replied, and Kazimir shook his head. ‘You tried to keep my environment as stable as possible. I understand that.’

‘...Cyrus, I have to ask…’ Kazimir began, the hesitance clear in his tone. Cyrus swallowed hard, bracing himself. ‘...What happened at Spear Pillar? All I heard was that there was some kind of disaster… And you vanished afterwards.’

‘...So you have no clue.’

‘I thought you were…’ Kazimir’s voice choked up. ‘I thought you’d maybe… r-reconnected with Nazar.’ The euphemism hit Cyrus’ ears, feeling like a somebody had taken a mallet to his stomach. ‘A-And I heard things about… your team blowing up a lake… That’s not true, is it, Cyrus? Tell me it’s not true…’

Cyrus’ jaw was tightly clenched. His eyes were stinging.

What a disgrace he was. What a failure. He raised his head, staring up at the ceiling, to try and keep the tears from seeping down his face. Damn it, he was not going to cry. Not if he could do anything about it.

But the disappointment, the upset in Kazimir’s voice, damn near broke his heart.

‘...I cannot. I cannot do that, because it is true,’ he admitted.

‘Why? I - I can understand your general idea of erasing emotions, I know that was because of what your parents put you through, but… bombing lakes? How does that help anyone?’

‘I justified it as a necessary evil,’ Cyrus replied. ‘I did not want to do it, but it seemed like the only way to progress forward. In order to help save the universe from the burden of our shattered, incomplete emotions, I was going to have to make the sacrifice of one small lake. Yes, I understood the risk. But I was prepared to take it. ...I sent a team out to make sure that there were no innocents nearby that could potentially get hurt.’

‘God, Cyrus…’ Kazimur mumbled.

‘I needed the lake guardians. I needed the gemstones from them, in order to create chains that would wield Dialga and Palkia. That’s why. I would use the red chains to harness their power as my own, and with that, I would recreate the universe.’

Kazimir held a hand to his mouth in horror; the things Cyrus were saying sounded insane. He knew that his grandson had done some bad things, he understood that Cyrus’ ill reputation was for a reason, but… what he was hearing went beyond his expectations.

He knew that grief and abuse had twisted Cyrus’ heart, but it was only now, hearing Team Galactic’s full intentions, that he started to get an idea of just how much damage had been done. To him, as well as to the region.

‘I came so close to succeeding. Oh, the champion tried to stop me, as did her friend. Cynthia and Ksenia, Sinnoh’s heroes. But the biggest obstacle was the gap in my knowledge. I had spent so much time poring over the myths and legends of this Godforsaken hell hole. So much time researching the lake guardians, Dialga and Palkia.’ Sucking in a deep breath, Cyrus closed his welling eyes. Despite his best attempts, a tear trickled down his gaunt cheek. ‘But I had no idea about Giratina’s existence until it was dragging me down to hell.’ ‘“D-Dragged you down to hell”?’ Kazimir repeated, choking on his words.

‘Giratina, the Pokemon banished to the Distortion World for its violence. My actions had upset the balance of the world, and Giratina arose to correct it. By taking me with it. That’s what happened at Spear Pillar. My goal was within my grasp, I was just brushing a perfect new world with my fingertips - and then it was snatched away from me.’

‘Y-Y-You still want to do it? T-To try again?’ Kazimir questioned. Cyrus could not see his grandfather dissolving into tears, but he could certainly hear it.

‘...No. Not for everyone. It took being imprisoned in the Distortion World for me to finally pull my head out of my backside and start to reflect on myself, my actions. Why everyone outside of Team Galactic was so opposed. I accept that I was wrong to override everybody’s bodily autonomy like that, but I genuinely believe that the world would be a much better place without emotions. But I underestimated just how attached people are to these repulsive feelings.’

‘...Cyrus…’

‘...I’m trying to get better. I understand now, I know that I am the outlier. I cannot comprehend why, but I accept it, no matter how reluctantly. And I am trying to improve my mental health. To conquer my demons. ...I am in therapy. I have a therapy Pokemon. I am on medication.’

‘But you still want to remove your own emotions?’ Kazimir wept.

‘If I were to be given a magic pill that would make me permanently emotionally empty, I would take it in a heartbeat.’

‘...God…’ He tried to shake the thought loose, not wanting to commit that one particular detail to memory. ‘H-How did you get out of there…?’

‘...Ksenia came back. God knows how she managed to get in there again, but she came back for me. I was in there for a month, I think. Judging by my estimations once I was out again, because time certainly did not flow the same in there as it does out here. Give or take a week. But that is one reason why I will not try again. I cannot count on Ksenia rescuing me again. I cannot count on surviving a second attempt. Granted, my life does not mean much now, but…’

‘Please don’t say that. W-When I heard you were missing, I - I thought you were dead. I thought - I thought I’d lost my chance to reconnect with you… I couldn’t deal with the thought of having to bury both of my grandsons...’

‘...I am sorry.’ Cyrus bowed his head.

Kazimir wiped his face, drying the tears and trying to pull himself back together. Damn it, he was going to have to work extra hard to make sure his grandson never felt he lacked support ever again. He was going to have to make up for his years of absence.

‘W-What happened after I was warded away?’ he softly asked, afraid of the answer. But he had to know. He needed to know everything that Cyrus had been through while his back was turned. No matter how much it hurt. ‘H-How did they treat you? Did - did they at least improve…?’

Cyrus let out a small scoff of derision.

‘Disowning you was the last straw. That was the push I needed to disavow emotion. If they were going to make it so that I had no support, I was going to make it so that I did not need support. My faith in them was shattered. Rightfully so, because no, they did not improve.’

Cyrus shook his head.

‘The best that I can say about them is that Olya remained stable in her grief, but Aleksandr grew worse. In spite of my attempts at numbing myself, there were still numerous arguments between us. They still brandished Nazar’s name like a weapon, beating me with vitriolic sentiments of failure every time I could not - or did not - become Nazar’s clone.’

‘...I tried calling when you turned eighteen, you know…’ Kazimir quietly told him. ‘Since they couldn’t legally stop us from reconnecting. Aleksandr said you were out.’

‘I probably was. I spent as much time as I could out. Just to be away from them.’ Cyrus hesitated; did he tell Kazimir about the worst of it? The absolute nadir of Aleksandr’s abusive behaviour?

No. Kazimir had been upset enough by the current conversation, there was no way he could make it worse. At least, that was what Cyrus told himself. But part of him had to wonder, was this avoidance really due to not wanting to further distress his grandfather? Or was he just looking at any excuse to not open up?

‘...I had thought about reaching out, when I left their house. And again, after Spear Pillar. And a third time after my hospital release.’

‘Hospital release?’ Kazimir repeated.

‘After Spear Pillar, the moment I left the Distortion World, it did not take long for people to notice, and to call the authorities. I was sectioned, and held in hospital for a few years. But before the authorities caught up with me, I considered contacting you. ...I don’t know why I did not reach out sooner,’ Cyrus explained. ‘Well. I know why I did not after Team Galactic. I thought that you would not want anything to do with me, after everything I had done -’

‘- You will always be my grandson,’ Kazimir firmly told him. ‘I don’t approve of your actions, but I understand the why. I understand that you’ve dealt with an incredible amount of suffering by yourself. I’ll admit, hearing some of these details hurts, but it’s nothing compared to what you must have gone through with nobody to ease your burden. But I won’t turn my back on you. Cyrus, I love you.’

Hearing those words, the sentiment that he had secretly craved for so long, caused Cyrus’ stoic demeanour to further crack. He had his teeth gritted, as he attempted to keep himself together. Kazimir noticed his shoulders hunch as the effort of repressing what was threatening to burst free made him tense even further. Kazimir lightly placed a hand on his grandson’s shoulder, causing him to jump.

‘Come here, Cyrus…’ Kazimir had his other arm extended, to offer a hug.

Cyrus finally turned his head to look at him, but made no move to embrace him. So Kazimir did it, instead. Cyrus was still stiff and unyielding, but Kazimir gently pulled him close. He clasped his hurting grandson to him, and unlike before, Cyrus did not need prompting to return the gesture. Wrapping his arms around Kazimir, and with nobody else to see his face, he finally broke down into a torrent of tears. Kazimir made sure not to do or say anything, not wanting to accidentally spook Cyrus back into closing off.

The pair remained as they were for what felt like an eternity, until Cyrus had cried himself out. Until his head throbbed, his eyes felt exhausted, and he thought there were no more tears left for him to shed.

‘Better?’ Kazimir softly asked. Cyrus pulled himself away, rubbing his forehead. He silently shrugged. Not really. But he allowed Kazimir to steer him back to the sofa, and the pair sat down together.

It seemed that neither of them had any more heavy, upsetting details to bring up, and had cautiously descended into small talk. Properly reconnecting, getting to know one another again. The repressed, depressed adult in front of Kazimir seemed so different from the grandson he remembered, but the more they talked, the more he saw hints of the Cyrus he knew before. Especially when they began discussing astronomy.

Though Cyrus reluctantly changed the subject after a few minutes. As much more comfortable it was to discuss small things, there was still one important thing left unsaid. Something that he vitally needed Kazimir’s approval of, if they were going to continue to stay in touch.

‘Cyrus?’ Kazimir asked, when he fell silent, frowning with concern.

‘...There is one last thing I need you to know,’ Cyrus cautiously began, closely studying Kazimir’s reaction. He swallowed hard. ‘...I… I have a boyfriend.’

‘Oh!’ Kazimir looked surprised, but fortunately, it did not bother him in the least. ‘I’m pleased for you.’

‘...Thank you.’

If Cyrus was entering the emotional minefield that was relationships, then, in Kazimir’s mind, that could only be a good thing. A sign of improvement. Ahh, but poor Cyrus looked so on edge, and Kazimir realised that he must have been anticipating a negative reaction.

‘Does he make you happy?’

Quite a big question. Honestly, the answer was no. But that was not because of Jaideep; Cyrus could not fault him as a partner. He was simply too far gone to experience genuine happiness.

‘...I cannot say that I have been happy since… well.’ Cyrus stopped. No need to go over all of that again. ‘But, he makes me “happy” in that sense that he makes me as close to it as I can possibly be.’

‘Good…’ Kazimir murmured. Not quite the response he had anticipated, but at least this man made Cyrus sort of happy? The clarification that Cyrus lived in misery hurt, though, and he swallowed a sudden spike of anger at his daughter, at his son in law, for being so cruel.

‘What’s his name?’

‘Jaideep Rose.’ Another look of surprise. ‘I live in Galar, these days.’ ‘That name sounds familiar… didn’t he get into a bit of, um, trouble in Galar…?’ Kazimir carefully asked.

‘Yes. It is a long story, and obviously not one he is comfortable discussing -’

‘- Oh goodness, no, that’s very understandable! I wasn’t sure if I was thinking of the right person,’ Kazimir hastily clarified.

‘That is partly how we got to grow so close. Having misguided attempts at improving things blow up in our faces, and living with the consequences. ...He’s a good person. Kind. Considerate. Patient.’

Unbeknownst to Cyrus, there was a slight softening to his tone as he talked about Jaideep, and Kazimir grinned brightly.

‘Could I meet him some time?’

‘I -’ Cyrus began, taken aback. ‘Maybe? Obviously, I will need to ask him first.’ ‘Naturally, naturally. If we’re going to stay in touch, why don’t we exchange phone numbers? Then, if your young man is willing, we could maybe arrange a get together,’ Kazimir suggested. A sense of embarrassment crept over Cyrus - or at least, that was what he thought it was - at the mention of Jaideep being his “young man”, but he ignored it. Kazimir accepted him, and seemed delighted for him. Coming out could not have gone better.

‘That sounds like a good idea.’

#ic #prose #[Kazimir Voronin] Cyrus' grandfather

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the-gemini-cores · 4 years

Text

Penance, 2

Direct continuation of this. Word count of this sequel is about 4.4k (the first part was 1.3k), which is partly due to actual dialogue and Chell’s head being a lot clearer than dear Wheatley’s.

Along with what I intend to be apocalypse Chelley feels there’s a bit of swearing, though I imagine if you’re on this site then that isn’t too much of a problem :)

Her running steps fell on deaf ears –

“WHEATLEY!“

– and the knife came down.

Two inches to the left.

She spent a moment regaining her balance and then started wrestling the hilt from his fingers. Despite the awkward angle – and the steel’s partial embedment into wood – it gave with little opposition and was hurled somewhere into the far corner of the room.

A few sharp clangs sounded as blade hit stone, but neither person flinched. The air was too frenzied for her to pay any mind. Adrenaline coursed through her fibers. The immediate threat was gone, though. She vaguely noticed her peripheral vision returning.

Chell faced the wielder.

With him sitting and her standing they were nearly eye-level. She cast a shadow over the length of his body, only the top half of his head illuminated as it stared at her in quiet astonishment – like he was a child, and the thing she’d just ripped away was his most innocuous toy.

His irises held no sign of intent or fear. More than anything, he simply looked confused. Almost startled. He gazed at her unfocusedly, a frown punctuating his lips.

It made her furious.

Chell tried grabbing him by both shoulders before a ghostlike sensation reminded her this was newly impossible. She remedied her mistake, gripping him by the throat and pinning him to the chair’s back with the side of her forearm against his chest. He jerked a bit with the sudden motion. As his head settled, Chell forced him to see her, taking up most of his sightline.

She had risked her life for him. She’d done that – she’d lost her damn arm to keep him intact, and he had the nerve, the near spite, to try … to erase – to waste – her efforts. Even if not all of it, a good enough amount to piss Chell off. As if it was oh-so-simple for him to shed a part of himself, to lose so much of his autonomy, his competence, his strength, in just the span of a second.

To do what she did.

It’d been slow-going. The last couple of weeks were inconvenient, to say the least. Demanding, no question, but Chell had managed. She’d had to, there was no way around it, no way to undo what had happened. The medics could bandage her and prevent infection, but they couldn’t repair her. They couldn’t give her back what she’d lost.

It didn’t matter.

Chell remembered the attack. It was as fresh as if it’d been that morning, and given how monotonous time had been as of late, it very well could have been. One singular stretch, lasting for what felt like forever. She hadn’t seen sunlight since. The only thing confirming the separation of days was the leisurely recovery of her stump, marking time as it eventually stopped bleeding out.

She recalled the noise up there. She could still hear the yelling and shooting, trajectories concealed through fire and smoke. Billowing clouds had closed them in from the world. It’d felt like an oven, the door shut in on them as the walls grew hotter and hotter.

Chell could smell something like ash, even now if she tried. She could taste the whirlwind of hysteria – and she could hear the whistling. Not from wind. There hadn’t been any wind.

But the critical point in her recollection, the thing that stood out to her like a crystal in rock, the clearest and most colored portion of this memory, was him. Standing, in the grass, his noises unintelligible but discernibly frantic. He’d been scanning the area – for her, possibly. Probably.

And he was right in the way of it.   

Chell could never know what would’ve happened if she’d not made her decision then. If instead she’d stalled, or run a different route, or merely called out. She didn’t know whether he would’ve ended up like her or gone off worse – the latter, given where he was. Extent was debatable, and she was neither expert nor seer but if she were to make a guess, which she wouldn’t, she didn’t think there’d have been much left to salvage.

But that was precisely it. In her mind, the details of his fate ultimately didn’t matter. She’d managed to prevent it.

She’d made a sacrifice. She’d gone in totally blind, having hardly weighed the situation, but she’d done it. She’d done it – so that Wheatley wouldn’t have to suffer.

He was here. Sitting in front of her, whole and living. Breathing. Looking at her.

Shamelessly believing he had the right to suffer anyhow.

That it somehow wouldn’t make things worse.

Her teeth clenched harder.

Wheatley squirmed, his blank, innocent disposition rightfully dropping, but a simple change in visage wouldn’t cut it. He hadn’t said a word this entire time. Physically, nothing was stopping him – his windpipe was allowed plenty of room under her fingers. 

Chell held him carefully but without slack. In that quiet space, deep underground, nothing was relevant except him. What the hell he’d been doing, what sort of warped rationalization could have led him to attempt this. For it to even emerge in his brain and be deemed a feasible option seemed an otherworldly case.

She wanted his acknowledgment of a mistake. She needed his recognition that delimbing himself as a way to cope – it never could have ended well, or even left things as they were. Chell didn’t want a simple apology as a means of placating her, but assurance that he could handle himself. Quite obviously, from what she’d just witnessed, opening the door to see him sitting there with a blade over his arm…

Chell almost shuddered. That image had shaken her, but it also made her fiercely intent on getting to the bottom of things.

She wouldn’t chance Wheatley trying something drastic again, as he’d maybe not get so lucky next time. He wasn’t thinking. Even now, fidgeting and swallowing against her hand, Chell’s face impossible to miss, he seemed faraway.

That wouldn’t do.

Chell steadied her breath, bracing herself.

“What did you think it would accomplish?” she asked.

Questions – Wheatley couldn’t resist. Commentary was always offered, or perhaps his presumptions in what he thought might possibly be correct. She didn’t expect the trademark quick response this time, but perhaps some sort of signal that he’d registered. A perk in his brow, a clarity in his gaze – a spillage of quips maybe, coaxed by a question and the implication that she wanted to hear him. Or, in this scenario, that she’d hear him out.

But he gave absolutely nothing. Her voice, ballistic upon entering the air, lingered and then dropped, unsupported in the half-meter between them. Wheatley was unmoving on his end. He didn’t do anything to show that he’d heard, much less bother to speak, though his mouth hung agape. His eyes were wide.

As she took note of his countenance, Chell felt herself slipping, just for an instant. The lack of reaction was atypical. More unnerving than she would’ve cared to admit.

Chell willed herself to cool down, if only briefly. She knew her demeanor was less than friendly – she didn’t owe it to him. But for what she wanted, she might’ve come off too strong. Chell unsharpened her words, though she didn’t loosen the hold on his neck.

“Answer me."

And she waited, as patiently as her sanity would allow as she ignored the way her heart hammered. But Chell quickly came to realize that the command didn’t get through to him.

She remained where she was, trying to echo the words through her gaze, but seconds ticked by as silence festered like poison. They wouldn’t end, one after the next, slowly and steadily growing louder until they were downright ringing in her ears. For much, much too long, she bore it. Chell was almost convinced the sounds weren’t imaginary.

The stretch was taunting, as was he – Chell stopped minding her own expression. Her only anchor was the throat she currently clutched with her surviving hand, but even that seemed to be failing her. Its attached head was looking, still looking at her, with unease, like those blue orbs couldn’t understand what was happening and just gave up. Turned off.

He’d turned off.

Chell wouldn’t take it anymore.

She changed her grip, fisting the front of his shirt, and pulled. "TALK!"

Chell practically screamed the word in his face – she’d had to, if she wanted to break the quiet – and its sheer volume in such emptiness nearly made her choke. Wheatley appeared to hate it even more than she. There was a grimace at the way her voice caught, but screw his discomfort – it did the trick.

He’d winced, and then, his eyes saw her. Finally. After a few lasting pauses, Chell partly expected nothing more would happen, but then – God, that was better – the floodgates began shuddering open.

"W-w-what did I think – it would accomplish?”

In response to his long-awaited speech, she held firm.

“Well, it…” He blinked several times. In a flash, Wheatley reached back to grip the arms of his chair. He met her with alarm now, adopting a higher octave. “It wouldn’t fix things, that’s – that’s for certain, it, it wouldn’t get y– … your arm back, firstly, which isn’t ideal as, that’d definitely be the optimal case in helping matters. And – and you know if I could, if I could hit some kind of rewind button and put things back, I’d do that. Immediately. No questions asked, no need to stop and think about it. I’d absolutely do anything I could, any viable options I’d go for. ‘Cause, ‘cause if it worked – oh man alive, it’d be a miracle! But … but I can’t do that. It’d solve most of everything but … no miracles here. Except – except, of course, that you’re still alive! That is a miracle, that’s – tremendous, better than … the greatest possible outcome. Except for, uh, being alive and also … coming out in one piece.”

His notes had fluctuated the whole way through. Wheatley went from rushed to careful, certain to meek. That last part ended on a whisper. He’d attempted to sound matter-of-fact, she could tell, but Chell heard his vocals shake, barely concealed behind their natural fluidity. His irises weren’t doing much better in trying to seem calm – Wheatley peered into her own as if they were the barrels of a loaded gun.

But then abruptly, his voice picked up again.

"We – we can’t go back and change things … like you’ve said! Very much remember that. On the, multiple occasions you’ve expressed your … adamance, on the matter. And I agree, there is – that is true, there’s very little that can be done to affect things that have already happened. Sealed in time. But…”

He stopped, lost. Uncomforted, Wheatley glanced down to her hand after a few moments.

Chell watched as Wheatley’s brow gradually knotted. When he turned back to her, she was on the verge of letting go. His lids had narrowed. He looked her dead in the eye. He spoke with deliberation.

“… I have to do something. I can’t try and ignore what’s happened. Not like how you’re doing. Going about, not saying anythin’, treating things like nothing major’s occurred, shutting me up whenever I try and broach the subject. ‘Oh, no, there’s nothing wrong, what the hell are you insinuating?’ Any differences you notice are as trivial as an aching shoulder. You brush it off like it’s a bloody fly in your ear, like there’s no issue at all.”

Seamlessly, he sat up straighter, and her fist – still grasping the front of his shirt – followed. He leaned closer, searching her expression.

“But that’s just on the surface, isn’t it? A front?”

He waited, as if expecting some sort of reaction, some hole in her visage. Something revealing. But Chell wouldn’t give him the satisfaction – who was he to be interrogating her? After the shit he just tried to pull? He’d taken on a different tone, and hell, she did not appreciate it.

Wheatley went on. “You’re different. You’ve, lost something. More than your arm, I mean – which is enough as it is. But, something else … I’ve noticed. It was important. It was – well, can’t really put a word to it, but it was important. You sort of carried it around and, it made you who –” He faltered. Perhaps she’d glared harder.

Wheatley struggled to collect himself for a moment, but once he did, the accusation was totally gone from his words, and he sounded more pleading.

“And – and I don’t mean – you are getting along. Sort of. I – look, the point is, I can’t…read you anymore. I never know what you’re thinking, or how you’re feeling – or, or if you are feeling. Or what it is that you might want or need. I, suppose the only impression I am getting off of you would be your … well, resentment. A lot of that. Emanating off you. Along with – and I know you don’t like hearing this – pain…And walls. Bloody great big walls that you won’t let anyone through. Just put up recently. Blocking me out. Very noticeable.”

Again, Wheatley stopped. Watched her for some seconds. Chell continued to be still.

“I … I don’t suppose you might know what I’m talking about? ‘Cause, you’re not really being very responsive. To any of this. Apart from, glaring. Like how you’ve been doing. For the past … I don’t really remember how long it’s been, actually.” He attempted a laugh, but it came out more like a cough.

Chell observed his back slump. Wheatley’s pupils darted to the wall – he was clearly becoming nervous. He tried again, voice roughly cracking over a swallow. “You know I’ve just felt … a bit useless lately … kind of left in the dark … and all…”

“…”

“… God dammit would you PLEASE JUST GIVE ME A SIGN?!”

Chell nearly jumped. She stepped away, hand releasing the fabric and moving back a few inches on its own. She brought it to her side, fist still clenched.

He hadn’t been facing her when he shouted. His irises remained on the wall. Immediately, Wheatley froze.

The seconds were ticking by again, and he still didn’t turn to her. His face was discolored in horror. In her scrutiny, Chell forgot to check her expression.

He was talking again. “I – I’m sorry I, I shouldn’t’ve…”

A hiccup left his mouth. He was looking incredibly anguished, breath starting to staccato.

Wheatley tilted his head to the floor and met his hands with his cheeks. Hurriedly, he rubbed at his temples with knobby fingers, but they soon halted. They wouldn’t take back that outburst.

Without warning, his shoulders gave a harsh shake. She couldn’t see his face, but his digits moved under his glasses.

He sniffled.

The only noise in that dark, throbbing room.

Chell never took her eyes off him.

She was waiting, she supposed. Truthfully, Chell wasn’t certain of how she wanted to proceed. She wasn’t going to leave – she could take with her the knife that was resting in its corner, but who knew what he’d do if left alone. No, she wouldn’t leave – but neither could she bring herself to disturb him. It’d be like tampering with something that had been a long time coming, intervening in the placement of a much-needed piece. She didn’t want to shorten or prolong it, draw attention to herself or disappear entirely. So she hung back, listening as his gasps morphed into barely-repressed weeping, and she waited.

It wasn’t very long before he moved his face up again. That single light in the room highlighted wet streaks around his eyes, which Wheatley didn’t bother to dry. He looked at her, yet he seemed just about ready to break down again.

As their gazes locked, Chell noticed the lack of tension she felt in her own face. The muscles had relaxed. She didn’t bother adjusting them now – Chell doubted she could take on an expression of severity, and anyway, the thought of doing so at the moment felt repulsive.

Wheatley opened his mouth, visibly distraught. “Chell.” That hurt. “Chell p-please, I want to help you. Believe me. More than anything I want to help you. I know I’m being pathetic but, but all I want is to make things better for you. Or as b-better as they can be, but I can’t. Not –” he caught his breath, “not so long as you refuse to give anything away.”

Chell was finding it more and more difficult to stay focused. Her goal had been plain at the start of this, but now she could hardly keep her mind on the bigger picture. As he panted, she found herself considering his words.

Chell would never call the aftermath of the explosion “nothing.” It hadn’t been. It still wasn’t. But she was managing. She was handling it. She was fine. She had to be, as there was no time for otherwise. She couldn’t afford to be mulling over it – no one could afford her to be mulling over it.

Wheatley apparently disagreed with that notion.

Chell left the gruffness out of her voice. “And you thought cutting off your arm would be the solution?”

He blinked. It was like, for a moment, he’d forgotten about that, or maybe he wasn’t expecting to hear her speak. “Well … well I don’t know! You won’t talk to me, I can’t tell what’s going on in your head anymore, and you won’t acknowledge that you’re hurting ‘cause you’re too proud to admit it. Even now.”

Chell could see how drained Wheatley was. He appeared to shrink, curling over and shifting away. His pupils went elsewhere again, dull and exhausted. An exhale.

“I’m sorry,” he croaked. “You – you hate me.”

Chell was surprised. “I don’t hate you,” she pressed.

He didn’t seem to hear her. His eyes were watering. “I just – I just want things to be okay. Please. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for this to happen…”

Before she could determine what to do, Wheatley faced her, fatigued and aged. But that broken cadence carried on in earnest.

"I know you. And – and I know you’re hurting. But…you won’t let me in. I can’t get through to you. I can’t help you.”

His sightline dragged to rest on her bandaged stump.

“I did this to you,” he whimpered.

Something cold clawed at Chell’s chest.

“No. You didn’t, Wheatley.”

“I did this.”

“Stop. I made a choice, and –”

“But you shouldn’t’ve had to make it! And I know you say that, you’ve made it perfectly clear you’re of the opinion that once you make a choice, you stick to it. But as you’ve probably noticed, I have a hard time accepting that choice when it means you have to lose your fucking arm on my account!”

Wheatley wiped his tears. His breath was shaky. “I wish … I almost wish you’d let me get bl–”

“Don’t. You. Dare.”

He removed his hands from his cheeks. “… I’m sorry, I know that’s selfish.”

Chell nearly gave him the affirmative before stopping herself.

On the one hand, it was selfish. It was implicitly telling her that he didn’t fully appreciate what she’d done, that he’d rather think about what could have happened instead of what did happen, that Wheatley couldn’t find it in himself to let go of that for her sake now, when she was still dealing with the consequences and had to relearn the most basic practices.

But on the other hand, she thought wryly, Wheatley was hurt. He was hurt, much more than she would’ve thought, and he was hurting on her behalf. He felt guilty, like he was the one who’d forsaken her.

He interrupted her thought with a sigh. “I’m just … scared. I don’t know what’s going to happen, I don’t know what the next crisis is going to be, and this is going to change everything. I just thought … maybe it’d help … but, but in retrospect, it’s probably best to keep all the limbs we can, actually. The smartest thing to do. Got that right."

When before she’d seen a man she cared about, throwing away a gift she’d given him, defying her, going behind her back, foolishly believing that his decision was going to do anything to help them…

Now she saw a man she cared about, and who she knew cared about her, and because of that he was willing to do anything if he thought it might alleviate some of their pain.

Wheatley had absolutely miscalculated. He’d made a terrible misjudgement – and she was angry about it – but that was because times were hard, and he was hurt, and she needed to make sure he wasn’t hurting anymore.

“I’m scared, too.”

At once, Wheatley was reanimated, eyes bulging out of their sockets. It was a sight she would’ve laughed over had the situation been different.

“You … you what?”

“Hard to believe?”

“I just…You haven’t acted scared. I mean, even if you were, I wouldn’t expect you to act that way, but … you haven’t even seemed concerned. More like indifferent to the whole situation. And that’s what’s terrifying.”

For the first time since she’d entered that doorway, Chell glanced at the floor.

“Maybe I’ve been trying to ignore it.”

Out of her peripherals, she saw Wheatley shift closer. “… Because … you want to move forward. Right, well, that is a very Chell thing. But, but in doing so, you know, you’re taking those feelings and shoving them into a box.”

“… Does it really make a difference?”

“It does to me.”

She peered up. Wheatley openly faced her, no more hunching back or twitching fingers. He was fully attentive, concern etched across every feature, but she recognized the relief in his brow. He was so glad to hear her talking.

Perhaps she had been holding out on him.

“It’s affected you,” he said. “Sort of … closed you up. Made you undecipherable. And moody, too, if I’m honest.”

“My mood stressed you enough to do this?”

“I –” Wheatley looked perplexed. “… I wanted to know that you were alright. Seeing you like that, like you’d practically forgotten what had happened even with all the new strains put on you, and acting so different while shutting down the conversation…You’d taken it for me, and I couldn’t even do a proper job of helping you through it ‘cause you weren’t wanting to talk to me…I thought, I had to do something. Show you, maybe, how sorry I was, and hope that –”

“I didn’t realize I was hurting you,” said Chell.

She fought the urge to watch the floor again. What she said wasn’t entirely true.

Chell had noticed a change in Wheatley. His attempts at optimism had become infrequent and half-hearted, to the point where he turned full-on despondent. She’d figured it might’ve had to do with her behavior towards him, but didn’t think very much of it as she was recuperating.

She swallowed her compunction. “… I thought you’d dismiss it as me needing time to cope.”

“I…True, yes, that, uh, definitely would’ve been a possibility. And, sort of, I’m hoping, still is the case. Now that I know you’re not…Maybe in time, you’ll be more willing to talk to me about it. ‘Cause, honestly, up ‘til now, I was not getting the impression that we were on good terms. And I wouldn’t have blamed you for that! Given that you did save me.”

Wheatley quieted. “… I am so … so sorry. I – I know you’ve said I’m not to blame, but … I mean, maybe rationally you might think that, but there’s no way you don’t hold some anger towards me.”

Chell considered the man in front of her. She measured his confessions, thought of her own, weighed his actions and reactions and tone of voice.

“Wheatley.”

“… Yes?”

“You’re going to have to learn to stop feeling guilty.”

He was taken aback. “… I…”

“Please.”

Wheatley opened his mouth as if he were going to object, but then shut it. He gave up, the tension leaving his body as he exhaled through his nose.

Rather than agreeing, he had his own request: “Please don’t ever save me again.”

But Chell wouldn’t promise him that, and he knew it. She simply eyed him, tired, and without even acknowledging he’d spoken she smoothly stepped forward and wrapped her arm around his neck, settling her head over his shoulder.

Chell had never initiated a hug with one arm before, and it did feel rather awkward at first, but the feeling dissolved when she felt Wheatley place both of his around her back.

He was gripping her tightly, encouraging her to sit with him, but she wouldn’t just yet. At this height she could still reach his ear. Chell turned to him and whispered as surely and comfortingly as she could, “I’m going to be okay.”

He took a few moments.

“Heh, I should be the one reassuring you. Strong as ever, you are. I just hope you know, what I was … doing. When you came in earlier – I really didn’t mean to seem like I didn’t care about what you did. Or, didn’t appreciate it. I am grateful. Really. In a … begrudging sort of way. I mean, it’s complicated, obviously. Bittersweet. So, so thank you for that. I owe you, I do – but, but what I’m getting at is, I’ll make sure it wasn’t for nothing. I’ll do everything I can so that you don’t regret it.”

Chell had lowered herself onto his lap, nose buried in his chest. “I’m never going to regret it. I just need time … and you around.”

“Oh – well, I’ll be here! If you need anything at all. Probably be best, though, if you wouldn’t mind being more vocal about what you need, or the like. You know, at least until things are semi-normal again. Back in the swing of things, almost.”

Chell leaned away to look up at his face – it was no longer in shadow. Wheatley was staring at her, stratosphere eyes bright with the idea that, indeed, it would finally be okay. Because she would be okay, even if things would be different, and that was what mattered to him.

She felt like quirking a brow, but instead reached up as best she could to give him a quick peck on the lips. She’d missed that.

“Deal.”

#c's posts #chelley #apocalypse au #chell #wheatley #portal #portal 2 #fics

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cygnuswheel · 5 years

Text

no one’s here and no one’s going to save you. this is a nightmare waiting to happen, isn’t it? but he can’t wake up any more than he already has. everything’s spinning. it’s hopeless.

oscar sits in a bathroom, post volume 6.

( note: this was inspired by @flame-cat‘s recent comic that they posted on their art blog! i had a lot of thoughts about it and wanted to see where i’d go with one particular spin of mine. please make sure to check out their work!! )

oscar. oscar.

oscar, listen to me.

it’s a haze. the rush and the hurt and the panic can only lead to hyperventilation, to discomfort and to a hollowed spite. the air comes in and out, but he isn’t breathing. it’s like he’s drowning in his own presence.

what did this mean? how could he let this happen now, when everything was hinging tomorrow going perfectly? this isn’t the time for this. it was never the time for this, for the tears and the loathing and the absolute feeling of disgust. his thoughts are racing, trying so hard to come to some sort of conclusion, some way to feel better. yet, every time he tells himself to calm down, that his thoughts don’t matter and that this whole thing doesn’t matter, it comes back. a plague that sticks in his chest and summons forth a pain that sits in his torso, soaked by the sobs and heaves and chattering teeth.

oscar.

it’s all useless. why even try this at all? the relic, the plan, the whole fate of the world-- why, none of it really seemed to be all that important anymore, but, at the same time, it’s the biggest thing that he’ll ever be a part of in his entire life. it matters. it doesn’t matter. everything matters. everything matters but you. how would he be able to contribute to this, to any of this? his job was to be a vessel, a messenger of higher thought and information that the team relied on, but everything’s been so out of order lately. the information is lies. the promises are lies. the bonds he formed with everyone was a lie. he’s nothing without this great and powerful curse placed upon him. he’s just a boy. a fourteen year old boy that doesn’t know how to do anything. and he would never know how to do anything.

stop.

the word grips him like a hand placed firmly upon the shoulder. oscar’s eyes are wide, lips pulled back to show a sorrowful grimace, a face full of tears. his chest feels like it’s going to burst from the pause. he looks from one side to the other, nothing. the bathroom is empty other than himself, light dimly illuminating his strife as the rest of the party slept, surely anxious enough that they didn’t need any of the shit that he could dump on them. it wasn’t worth it for them, surely. he was barely going to be around in the long run anyway. there’s no need to bond with some pathetic creature that didn’t have much time left in the world anyway. and it’s not like he was any fun to be around either, with misery wrapping around him like a homespun cape--

you’re not a miserable person to be around, oscar.

there it is again. the boy squeaks in surprise, voice cracking in a startled motion as he curls further into himself, breathing ragged and wetness beginning to soak into the cloth of his knees. really? right now? his throat is rubbed raw and even the very labor of getting a wheeze out feels like absolute agony, so verbal communication here doesn’t seem like an option that he can take right now. still, his thoughts are loud and clear, defensive and bitter and oh so sorry: what the fuck. what the fuck. what do you want?

... you already know, don’t you? a sigh escape’s ozpin’s lips, presence light and shy, clearly a bit sheepish at the fact that he was around at all. after that grand disappearing act ( something that everyone else labeled as unfair abandonment, though oscar has a slightly different opinion on that matter ), it’s only natural that the wizard is reluctant to be around. to be here for you, something that i had previously failed at quite spectacularly. oscar scoffs. right. that must be it. what a joke. it was already obvious to him, clear as day. they were bound together, linked by an unfortunate rope of fate that put one of the most powerful men on the planet with some pathetic weakling that can’t even do his job without getting cold feet--

oscar, please. it’s a pressing, imploring tone, edging out to something that could possibly be described as sad. ( it still feels euphoric. it’s an addicting sort of validation that only draws in guilt. he doesn’t deserve any of this if he’s practically begging for it through the use of a panic attack. how deplorable. ) ozpin continues on, quiet yet firm: you’ve done more than what anyone could have ever asked you to do. never mind the addition of your age or life circumstances-- this, to any human being, would have had them meet their breaking point much, much earlier than you.

you’ve been strong. liar. more than i could have ever expected from you. stop. stop. i’ve been alive for far too long to not be able to recognize your efforts. you’ve been overworking yourself. but he’s not, he’s really not. it wasn’t true. if he was, then--

‘ then why is everything i’m doing never enough? ‘

his breath hitches. oscar is forced to stare at the wall tiling, the vague image of a warped reflection looking all too brown and black. discomfort dancing from one organ to the next, he tries to imagine dark greens, soft silvers. it’s a warmth that he’s desperate to have. some guidance. some way to keep going forward so he can ignore this ugly mess inside of his chest. inside his mind, he feels from ozpin a sensation that could only be described as a forlorn look gazing down at him, unsure but all too familiar. what would be enough, oscar? tell me.

the question leaves the boy a strange sense of winded, eyebrows knitting together as the frown remains on his face. he sniffles, bare hand coming up to rub at his eyes, hiccuping as he forces out words, something to regain control of the conversation, to regain footing on his very own uncertainty. “ i-i-- i would have been able to, i don’t know, fix this easier. i would have been able to tell them what they could do so they d-didn’t have to risk their lives like this. i would have been strong enough to be able to lead them to wherever the lamp needed to go. “ it sounds ridiculous. he knows it is, but it keeps spilling out, as if someone had forcefully broken open his dam. “ i would h-have been able to tell him that you were gone, and that it was j-just me. “ ( while the pain has disappeared, he will never, ever forget the sensation of having his back shoved against that wall, fury in the blond’s eyes and the reach that oz had made during it. ruby had yelled at him, made him stop in his tracks. oscar hadn’t been able to do anything. anything at all. ) “ i-i would have known what to do-- “

i didn’t know what to do, oscar. ozpin interrupts, clearly not wanting to hear anything more from the boy at the moment. his presence is heavier now, closer to the surface and beside the child. vague instructions and sprinklings of hope. ha ha. it would be unfair of me to think that you would know either. another sigh. this time, it’s both of them in sync. oscar feels his heart rate begin to settle more and more. it still hurts. i left you. after all the measures i had taken to control you. a pause. ... both physically and mentally.

i never stopped to think anything about praise and encouragement past our shared duty. i never celebrated you for who you were, simply a means to an end by my own action. but that was fine, oscar thinks, incredulous at the statement. it’s fine, because he won’t exist in time, so ozpin could do whatever he wanted, right? right? the wizard frowns. of course not. do you really think i’m above being held accountable for my actions? should miss xiao long and everyone else not been furious with me?

oscar pauses, swallowing a hard lump that had begun to grow in his throat during the conversation that he had neglected to pay any mind to earlier. he can’t say that. he can’t say that because he felt the very same anger right in the beginning, when he had dragged himself out of the depths of his mind and stopped ozpin from taking back the relic. he was angry because it was wrong. he was angry because he thought they were fighting for a justice that deserved honesty. he understood why his cheek had been sore for days after qrow had rushed ahead to give oz a strong right hook. they had been betrayed.

you had been betrayed.

after i had insisted that you could trust me. it’s a wan, self-loathing sound that echoes through oscar’s mind. he isn’t used to this. this overt display of... well, anything human. it had stopped after the ex-headmaster had run away. his crying had been a phenomenon that oscar had not completely grown to accept as normal yet. whether or not i’m proud of my actions doesn’t excuse what i’ve done to everyone. you especially, oscar.

please don’t try to hold a burden that no single person should bear. oscar closes his eyes. please don’t ignore how much you’re hurting. he’s shaking. there’s tears again, reintroduced. please don’t make the same mistakes i did.

“ i-i don’t know what else to do. “ the boy chokes out, no longer hyperventilating but so, so sad. he’s holding the cracking pieces of his spirit and begging for direction. “ there’s so much to do, w-we don’t have time for this. “

i do, oz says. i have more than enough ‘time for this’, oscar. especially after everything. a puzzled quirk of the child’s brow. i...

... i want you to be able to grow on your own, oscar. what a kind, gentle voice. my interruptions do little to help you with your autonomy. i’m enough of an overbearing presence already without the whole subject of possession. a sniff from the smaller one. i understand that it feels both too early and too late, with the complications i’ve thrown into the mix, but... you deserve to be able to mature into your own self.

so please don’t ignore your own feelings, the entity pleads, and in that moment, oscar, more than anything, just wants to hug the other and not let go. it’s overwhelming. to be honest, i’d be insulted if you decided to go down the path of being as foolish as me. he feels a tingling in his arm, not too forceful but still a bit leading. he follows the sensation and, in a strange movement, ends up rubbing his own hair. a confused look. i can’t manage much more at the moment without being disrespectful, ozpin answers, letting the smallest suggestions of a smile begin to hint at his voice. but i’ve always been a good listener, if you ever need an ear from the local curse in your mind.

something bubbles in him. oscar doesn’t know what until midway of it happening-- a chuckle. it doesn’t sound the most delicate, as his throat had recently been assaulted by his own dread, but it’s so much sweeter compared to all the previous panicked babble and anxiety coming from his own mouth. the corners of them are beginning to upturn into the smallest grin. “ o-okay. i’ll try. “

i’m yours for the rest of the night and always after, mister pine.

“ ... alright. “

in the unspoken recesses of his thoughts, he makes a promise, a tiny thing, but nevertheless dear and precious beyond anything else.

‘ i’ll try. ‘

#oscar pine #ozpin #rwby #tw suicidal ideation #tw negativity #( two souls. )#[ oh god i forgot what tags were ]#[ i wrote this in two hours in hopes of reactivating my prose gene! it's unbeta'd and word vomit again but i hope its readable ]#[ i love oscar pine a lot guys :( ]

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pcychedelic · 6 years

Text

Spoil Of War

One-shot written for exo-writers-net’s #SmuttyEXO18.

Relationship(s): Zhang Yixing/Reader

Tags: Royalty AU (Game of Thrones-ish inpired); Smut

Rating: Explicit (mature themes, explicit language, violence, and sex)

Content Warning(s): Slavery, blood, death

Words: 3.2k

Synopsis: Caught in the middle of war, your village became a casualty of one of its battles; all the men were ordered to be killed while the women and children were taken as slaves, and you became one of the king’s spoils of war.

Huge thanks to Illi (weirdsofagirls) for the prompt! Do check out her works as well. ♡

The royal kitchen was your least favorite room in the Yang Keep, not that you had much fondness for the castle to begin with. For some reason, something was always cooking in the kitchen throughout the day, even after the king and the other lords and ladies had finished eating. The constant boiling and frying from the pots and pans filled the room with hot steam and smoke, making your skin crawl from the memory that the sweltering, humid air induced.

What seemed like a normal quiet night in your village soon became your worst nightmare. You stirred from your sleep because of the sudden hotness in your hut, your cot drenched in sweat as you slowly got up. Mind still clouded with sleep, it took you a while to notice that the scorching heat was not because of the onset of summer, but because your village was on fire.

The scene that greeted you the moment you left your hut was one that you would never forget, a horrific sight seared at the back of your mind: the village field was drenched in red and the air carried the stench of death, lifeless bodies lying on the grass as blood from them seeped onto the ground.

Tears stained your cheeks, your body violently shaking as you made your way through the maze of corpses, desperately searching the field in the hopes that your father was still alive.

You felt something cold and sharp sting the skin on the back of your neck. You had held blades from the moment you could walk, so you would know when one was being pointed at you. “Halt,” a frigid voice said behind you.

Without lowering his sword, the soldier came around until he was in front of you. His eyes landed on the jade amulet hanging from your neck. “You’re the chief’s daughter?” He asked, though his tone implied that it was more of a statement than a question.

Your necklace gave it away, so there was no point in denying the obvious. “Yes,” you managed to answer despite the trembling of your throat. “What have you done with my people? Where is my father?”

Instead of answering, the soldier swung his sword at your neck, cutting the string of your amulet and scraping the skin just above your collarbone. Blood was beginning to drop from where he had cut you, but you felt nothing; you were stunted by fear and you just stood there stiffly as the soldier bent down and retrieved the necklace that had fallen on the ground.

A team of riders then arrived, the sound of hooves against the dirt filling the air. That was when you noticed the sigil embossed on the riders’ armor and sewn on the banners carried by the bannermen—an iron ram with a crown atop its head. The soldier that cut you also had the same symbol on him. That only meant one thing: they were Zhang soldiers.

“All the women and children have been rounded up,” said the rider at the forefront. “They will be shipped to Gengxin Bay first thing in the morning. But… I guess we missed one.”

The soldier in front of you shook his head, raising your jade amulet in his fist. “This one will not be sold to slavers. She is Chief Liang’s daughter. The king will be pleased when he sees what spoil of war we’ve brought him. He’ll find some other use for her, I’m sure.”

Spoil of war.

That is what you are now.

“The king has returned from his hunt,” said Jihae, the head handmaiden, breaking your train of thought. “You know what to do.”

Sighing, you nodded.

It had been months since you were brought here, but you could count with your fingers how many times you’ve seen the king in the flesh. He was often out of the castle, out on “hunts” as the other stewards called it, but you knew that the king was going to war meetings with the other high lords of the houses under the crown regarding the ongoing war against the Huangs. At least that was what you heard when you eavesdropped from soldiers guarding the king’s chambers as you made his bed the other night.

The mental image of the king and the other lords sitting around a table and planning which village in the Xinzou peninsula they were going to attack next made your blood boil, the memory of that horrific night when you woke up to the sight of your own village burning resurfacing in your mind.

It was always the smallfolk caught between the nobles’ wars. It was always the smallfolk’s blood spilled on the battlefield. It was always them. It was always you.

If only you could do something about it.

You made your way to the king’s chamber at the heart of the castle, carrying a tray of hot food from the royal kitchens. The king had missed supper tonight, and it was your job to make sure he ate nonetheless.

When you made it to the wing where his room was, you were surprised to see that the guards that usually never left beside the doors were gone. Where were they?

“Your Grace,” you said through the door. “It’s your handmaiden. I’ve brought your supper. I would knock, but… my hands are full and your guards aren’t here.”

The door suddenly swung open, startling you. The king came into view, but you kept your head and gaze down. Jihae said that if you wanted to keep your neck, you have to avoid the gaze of the king or any other noble unless they said otherwise.

“Come in,” the king ordered.

You’ve never heard him speak before. His voice was soft and gentle, a stark contrast to what you were expecting. He almost sounded like how a good person would, but you knew what this man was capable of. He was the kind of man that wouldn’t hesitate to order his army to kill innocent people and burn entire villages to the ground for the sake of war. You reminded yourself that your father and the rest of your people died because of him.

“You can stop lowering your head now,” he said as you set up the table. “It’s making me uncomfortable.”

You nodded faintly and looked at him, only to be greeted with the sight of his bare torso through his open robe. Heat creeping up to your cheeks, you immediately averted your eyes.

When you were done arranging his supper for him, you faced him and bowed, and quickly turned around to leave the room.

“Wait,” he said. “You can stay here until I finish.”

“Yes, Your Grace,” you replied despite the harsh beating of your heart against your chest. You didn’t want to be in a room with the man responsible for your anguish, but you had to follow his orders if you didn’t want your head to end up on a spike.

As he sat down to eat, you stood opposite him, hiding your hands behind your back so that he wouldn’t see them trembling.

“Have you eaten?”

The question caught you off guard, and you instinctively looked at him to answer. “Y-yes, Your Grace.”

He hummed quietly as he nodded, and then said nothing after that.

You watched him as he ate, your first good look at the great Yixing of House Zhang. For all it was worth, he looked like how a king should—elegant, manly, and as much as you hated to admit it, he was beautiful. Despite his mellow voice, he radiated a powerful aura that made your knees buckle under your weight. Something about him was terrifying.

You learned from Jihae that he had been king since he was only eighteen, and he still looked like he was in his late twenties, which meant that he would remain king for a very long time.

But that also meant that more villages would be destroyed should there be another war in his reign, the very reason why you were standing inside his chambers right now.

The current war began when House Huang defected from the crown, claiming their autonomy over the Xinzou peninsula with their lord, Zitao, calling himself the King in the South. In retaliation, the Zhang Army stormed the south to reclaim the region and make Huang Zitao bend the knee.

But the war was still far from over—more people were about to die, more villages were about to be destroyed, all because of noblemen and their thirst for power.

“You look like you want to say something,” King Yixing said, snapping you back to reality.

“Oh, I w-was just…” You stammered, racking your brain for an excuse. “I was just wondering why there are no guards outside your chamber tonight, Your Grace. They used to be stationed outside even though you weren’t here.”

Yixing took a sip of his dark ale. “I sent them away,” he explained. “All they do outside anyway is gossip about the matters of the crown, matters that shouldn’t concern them. I don’t want imbeciles guarding my chambers. Better nothing than them.”

If there was no one guarding his room anymore, then…

Your eyes fell on the knife Yixing was holding, and an idea grew inside your mind.

You bid your time before you went on with your plan.

You had to earn the king’s trust, so you continued to do what you had to do as his handmaiden. But without realizing it, you soon stole glances at him when he wasn’t looking, wondering how someone as gentle and soft-spoken as him would be a man that didn’t care whether the smallfolk died in his wars. You often found yourself thinking of what he truly felt about the senseless fighting, of all the horrible things happening to the country he was supposed to lead, when he was nothing but kind to you since you served him supper that night.

But the sound part of your head reminded you that if it wasn’t for him, you would still be in your village living your simple life with your family and your people, away from the squabbles of the rich and noble. You wouldn’t be a mere spoil of war.

Your father taught you that all important things must be done when the moon was full, as was the tradition in your village. Your people worshipped Chang’e, the goddess of the moon, and so all significant occasions were celebrated during the full moon—weddings, initiations, and what not—as it was believed that the goddess bestowed twice as many blessings that night.

Tonight, you needed all the blessings you could get, because this was the night you were going to kill the king.

When the castle fell asleep, you made your way to the king’s chambers and felt relief wash over you when you found that there were still no guards at his doors. Ever so slowly, you opened the door and hoped you were quiet enough for the king not to stir in his sleep.

With a knife in your hand, one you stole from the royal kitchens, you tiptoed to his bed and looked at him as he slept. He looked even more beautiful like this, completely at peace without a care in the world, and you felt your conscience tugging at your hand, encouraging it to put away the blade you were planning to run across his throat.

But this had to be done. If he died, it would be the last blood to be spilled in this meaningless war.

You held the knife against his throat as you gently climbed onto the bed, straddling him with your thighs. You had to be quick and be done with it; if he woke up, you wouldn’t stand a chance against his strength even if you knew how to fight.

The blade shook in your hands, your heart about to burst inside your ribs. Why are you having such a hard time doing this when you’ve planned this moment weeks ago? What was making you second guess?

“Do it,” Yixing said, his eyes still closed.

Without lowering the knife, you asked in a trembling voice: “Aren’t you afraid, Your Grace?”

His eyes fluttered open, a lazy smile resting on his lips. “You’re about to slit my throat and you still have the heart to call me ‘Your Grace’,” he said. “Everyone dies, today or a hundred years from now. What does it matter?” He grabbed your hand and pushed it further toward his neck. “Do it while I’m still allowing you to.”

He knew that he was at your mercy, and yet he was still making no attempt to stop you from cutting him open. Wasn’t that the kind of man you would want to keep alive?

“You murdered my people,” you whispered, but you were reasoning with yourself as much as you were with him. “You burned my village to the ground. You sold the women and children as slaves at Gengxin Bay. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t end your life right here, right now, when you’ve done all those monstrous things. Who knows what more you will do?”

The smile didn’t vanish from his lips, his gaze still locked on yours. “I wasn’t the one who ordered those things. All I said was to reclaim the villages in the Huang stronghold, but the Hand of the King had other plans.”

“Liar,” you spat, tears now stinging your eyes. “Why should I believe you?”

“The mere fact that you’re listening to me right now proves that you somehow have trust in me,” he countered. He then grabbed your arms and flipped both of you around, so now that you were the one being straddled. “You should’ve killed me when I gave you the chance. But I guess there’s a reason why you’re having second thoughts.”

He was right.

Yixing’s lips crashed against yours, and without thinking, you simply let him. His left hand found its way to your thigh, riding your dress up until your stomach, sending waves of fire through your entire body. The knife then fell from your hands with a loud clank onto the floor, the blade and your plan completely erased from your mind as the king kissed you languidly and traced your curves with his soft hands.

You wrapped your arms around his neck, the same neck that you were about to cut open just a few moments ago before he turned the tide and kissed you instead, and you were almost glad that it came to this rather than that.

The king took off his half-open robe and threw it somewhere around the room, all without his mouth leaving yours, and then proceeded to rip your dress off of your body. When you were all but skin and flesh, his lips transferred to your breasts, sucking at them until your nipples were hard and your mind was clouded with pleasure.

“Yixing…” You moaned.

His smug smile was back. “What, no ‘Your Grace’ this time? Just Yixing?”

You began to say something, but your response was replaced with a sharp intake of breath when he began sliding the tip of his cock in and out of you and started spreading your slickness all over. The teasing sensation made you arch your back in order to feel more, to feel him, to feel everything. But the king had other plans.

“You’re not getting it that easy.”

He pulled his tip away from your entrance and you whimpered at the emptiness that followed. He went to lay down beside you, ordering you to get on your knees in front of him and make his cock yours.

You did as you were told, licking his length all the way from its base up to the tip before slowly coating it with your mouth, slightly gagging as its head reached the back of your throat. The king groaned loudly, eliciting a smirk from your lips. You continued your push and pull, sucking sloppily at his staff until it was quivering inside your mouth. With one last lick to his slit, you let go.

Yixing’s eyes were now filled with a darkness that you couldn’t describe.

“Stay there,” he growled.

Wordlessly, he got up from where he was laying down and went behind you. He slapped your ass with such force that it should have hurt, but all it did to you was make you wetter than you already were.

His fingers roamed around the area where he had struck you, his touch cooling the flushed skin.

“You’re good at taking orders,” he said. He leaned closer so that his lips were now brushing against your ear, his proximity making the skin on your neck tingle with anticipation. He then whispered, “But let’s see if you can take me.”

He slapped your ass once more before aligning his tip at your entrance, pushing slowly and then all at once, making your hips buckle and your legs wobble at the sudden feeling of fullness from his cock.

He stayed still for a moment, as if gauging if you were ready for him, and when you clenched around his member, he moaned wildy and squeezed your ass one last time before pounding relentlessly into you, sending the entire bed quaking.

You whimpered against the pillows as your hands clutched the sheets so tightly that your knuckles were now turning white.

“I won’t last long when you’re this tight,” he rasped, his jagged voice sending shivers down your spine.

He fucked you hard, again and again, your moans and mewls getting lost in the overwhelming sound of skin slapping against skin. You could feel pressure building up in your hips, and it seemed like you weren’t going to last long either.

Yixing’s thrusts became more and more irregular, and one particular push sent you over the edge without warning, and you screamed so loudly that you doubted that no one heard it.

“That’s right,” Yixing grunted. “Wake the whole castle up and let them know how good I’m fucking you right now.”

His words tipped you over even more, blinding your vision with white hot pleasure as you continued coming all over his cock. He continued ramming into you despite all of it, your nerves flowing with oversensitivity the longer he stayed inside of you.

“Please…” You begged. You couldn’t take any more, but at the same time you wanted him to keep going and going and fuck you into senselessness.

With one last thrust, hot spurts of his cum exploded inside you, filling your core even further. Yixing dropped his weight on top of you without pulling out, his breaths coming out ragged as he struggled for air. When he recovered, he kissed your temple and then rolled over to your side.

You were still coming down from your high, your mind still somewhere up in the clouds from the pleasure that the king gave you.

He rested onto his side and looked at you, brushing stray strands of hair away from your face. “You should’ve killed me when I gave you the chance,” he whispered. “Because now I’m never going to let you go.”

Instead of answering, you kissed him deeply.

Perhaps being a spoil of war wasn’t so bad after all.

This fic is also available on Asianfanfics.

#exowritersnet #smuttyexo18 #yixing x reader #lay x reader #yixing fic #lay fic #yixing fanfic #lay fanfic #yixing fanfiction #lay fanfiction #yixing smut #lay smut #yixing au #lay au

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theliterateape · 3 years

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How Free is Our Speech and Who Decides?

by Don Hall

"Donald! If you say one more word, I'm sending you to the Principal's Office! Just. SHUT. UP!"

Third grade. Mrs. McWilliams. As the resident 'new kid' I was isolated to begin with but I had ridden this roller coaster before. Two boys in class decided that I was their enemy (or rather the object of their boredom) and they had taken to stealing any toys or books or games I'd grab during in-classroom recess. This was the third time and McWilliams had had enough of my gift for non-stop verbiage.

There it was. They had ripped the CandyLand game out of my hands and aside from just marching across the room and beating them to death I had no options but to sit there and take it. McWilliams had completely cut me off at the legs. If I say one more word, I’m screwed.

Except…

I grab some construction paper and a crayon. I draw what looks like two parentheses with a line through:

( | )

Sort of like an early emoji before there even was such a thing. In my brain, it was a butt. Then I drew the same butt with lines coming out of the crack and another with several circles coming out. This was my best guess at drawing the litany of profanity I wanted to yell. My nine-year old imagination couldn’t come up with anything quick for ‘cocksucker’ or ‘motherfucker’ which, all things considered, was probably a good thing.

I walked over to the boys and flash card style, held each one up to them making a stern and angry face.

The boys ratted me out. McWilliams fished the paper out of the trash and LOST. HER. MIND.

Two hours later I’m underneath my mother’s dining room table waiting for her to come home and belt me. McWilliams was apoplectic; the Principal was horrified. They sent me home early and called my mom at work to tell her what a perverse and awful monster I was. I had drawn pornographic pictures in class!

In hindsight I get it. I was an obnoxious kid. I was smarter than most, was full of more energy than five teachers could handle, and I thought nothing of breaking the rules for the sake of breaking them.

It seems that we are at an impasse when it comes to our personal rights to free speech. Laws against hate speech are already a violation of the First Amendment (which sets out that the government cannot create and enforce laws abridging speech) but we get around it by using the old chestnut of yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater. The idea that by uttering racial slurs is somehow in the same ballgame is tenuous but still sticks.

The other side of the debate is accountability for words spoken or written. Call it whatever you choose—cancel-culture, public shaming, mob justice—it amounts to groups of people with no individual authority but the power of populist organization to effectively shame companies into firing offending employees. It also, on a far smaller but more destructive level, harbors a revenge justification against those who err in public for any reason (Amy Cooper is a solid example).

When the religious decide you can’t do or say something, well, Holy Shit.

The Critical Race Theorists who advocate curtailment of speech offensive to minorities insist that individual instances of hate speech are never the isolated, unpopular speech of a dissident few. Rather, they are manifestations of a deeply ingrained cultural belief system, an American way of life.

Hate speech is so dangerous because it plays melodies that are so deeply rooted in the culture as to be structural parts of everyday life for large numbers of Americans—perhaps even a majority.

“Your motherfucking son spray painted my house, bitch!”

The woman was a good six inches taller than my mom and outweighed her by at least seventy pounds. Earlier that day she had decided that I and my other eleven-year old friends were too loud just outside her window.

She screamed at us through her window. We cussed her and then ran off. I had come back with some red spray paint and had tagged the side of her house with a defiant “FUCK YOU!”

“What makes you think you can accuse my son of vandalizing your fucking house?” Mom was tiny but the Irish made her think she was much bigger.

“The little dumbass signed his name.”

She was right on both counts: I had signed my name because I was a little dumbass.

When a homophobe uses an anti-gay insult, he's signing his name to it. When a misogynist says something obviously anti-feminist, he's a dumbass. Things get stickier when the racists aren't dumbasses and refuse to provide an incriminating signature.

The question that some would prefer we check off in the “Answered” box is likewise a tangly mess. Is the n-word (a word so thoroughly aggrandized that, like He Who Shall Not Be Named in the JK Rowling books, the utterance has increasing and horrifying power) “hate speech” or just hateful speech? Is it racist or merely racial? Queer used to be a slur but when GenZ kids regularly describe themselves as such, no one calls the language police.

The lack of any clarity along these lines is resulting in a quandary for everyone involved in words or merely dealing with other people and being in a position to have to communicate with them.

In the film Dangerous Liaisons The Marquise de Merteuil (Glenn Close) plots revenge against her ex-lover by ruining his young fiancée. There’s a lot of betrayal and a duel that ends in the death of a dude who duels and all. In the end, she is boo’d a bunch and she is disgraced. Now imagine if her big sin was to call someone something on the hate speech spectrum or espouse an ideology deemed wholly immoral. Sure, booing her then seems appropriate but for her to be completely eviscerated for it? To have the booing crowd pressure her work into firing her? Putting her behavior on social media so that she can never be hired again? Seems like an overreaction.

Seems like the permanent record one receives from going to a religious school.

Seems a bit religious.

When the religious decide you can’t do or say something, well, Holy Shit. You don’t have to go all Goody Proctor and the witches beings drowned to see if they could float to see a more recent example. Operation Rescue was the anti-abortion group in Wichita, KS when I happened to be going to high school in…Kansas. Randall Terry had a unique approach. If he disagreed with you (and if you were anything but fully anti-abortion in every possible scenario, he disagreed with you) he would yell over you instead of have some sort of heated discussion.

The local broadcasters stopped putting him on television because he’d just get on there and scream people down. As if, by drowning out their ability to communicate with anyone, he was likewise obliterating the message entirely.

He and his crew were out of control. They had determined that anyone associated with abortion in any way whatsoever was EVIL. In fact, I remember a group of them screaming at passers-by in downtown Wichita on Douglas Avenue for not joining them. They had extra placards with pictures of butchered fetus parts on them and were foisting them on people. If the person demurred (you know, maybe they had an appointment or needed to go impregnate someone so they could have a reason to slaughter the baby) the group would scream at them until they basically ran away.

At the time, I was anti-abortion but a prolonged summer of being around these religious screaming whack jobs changed my mind. Truly. My ideological change from pro-life to pro-choice had more to do with disgust over these idiots than any righteous belief in the autonomy of women.

This is not to say that I didn’t come around with a more progressive view. It took some time but a woman’s right to choose which surgical procedures she employs on her body is pretty much her business. If someone can elect to tattoo 75% of her skin, decide to stick Botox in her face, and fill her tits with silicone it isn’t much of a stretch that she should without obstacle relieve herself of a tumor that will become a human tethered to her hip for life.

The idea that human life is valued in the world is perhaps a goal but certainly not a reality. An ideal to uphold but not a realistic approach. Some lives matter. Lots of lives don’t so much.

Ideals are exactly that: goals. “I disagree with what he says but would die to ensure his right to say it” is a goal but would I really die so that someone unbalanced or religious is able to say “God Hates Fags” or “All White Americans are Racists”? Probably not.

Would I expect you to die for my right to say whatever I want? Not unless I'm a sociopath or a moron.

So no one is really going to die so that someone else can insult another person or espouse an ideology that differs from his own. Established fact. Where does that leave us as we navigate the increased opportunity to show our ass's in public more frequently (considering that social media and the whole of the digital highway is now quite public)?

Self censorship is completely legit so the folks complaining about people being afraid to speak “their truth” because of repercussions are simply pussies.

Around 2010, I was working for the public radio station in Chicago. I also had a blog from before I was hired. It was entitled (with an intentional wink at the rightwing NASCAR crowd) "An Angry White Guy in Chicago". Being fairly progressive in politic, the fun in the name was that people on the stereotypical raging caucasian dudes would jump on expecting me to parrot their ideology only to have themselves smacked in the face with articles against George W., in favor of the queer nation, and railing against the tendencies of unregulated capitalism. Also, as my mom used to point out, a lot of profanity.

The meeting was called because there were concerns about employees of an NPR station with social media and blogs. The concern was that these platforms might paint the station in a bad light if a lack of objectivity presented itself. The management had come up with a policy limiting our ability to utilize these methods of communicating and asking that they be able to censor us when necessary.

I listened.

My boss came over after the meeting.

“So, Don, what are you gonna do about your blog now?”

“Wrong question, boss.”

“Wrong question? What’s the right question?”

“What are you gonna do about my blog?”

He paused. “Probably nothing.”

“Good answer.”

I had come to the conclusion that any business that decided to censor me wasn’t worth my time working for and that has held true to this day. I suppose the fact that I’m not a racist or a sexist or a religious-type saves me from being relegated to the heap of dumbasses who sign their names to their intolerance. Being far more tolerant but more discriminating (or skeptical, I guess) has likely made me less odious.

At some point I did change the name of the blog mostly because, with Donald Trump suddenly in office, the joke wasn’t as funny as it was before. Self censorship is completely legit so the folks complaining about people being afraid to speak “their truth” because of repercussions are simply pussies. If you believe it, you can prove it, you should say it but don’t blame the mob if they don’t like it. This includes college professors, linguists, journalists, activists, and those dumb shits who think they can post memes on Twitter but shouldn’t lose their jobs if it’s anti-Semitic.

On the other hand if the best you can do in the face of language you can’t abide is scream down your opposition, you’re no better than the anti-abortionists of the eighties and you should look closely at your maturity level and how cultish your beliefs are. Chances are, if you’re so impassioned by your beliefs and refusal to hear anything that may contradict them, you’re a religious nut of one stripe or another.

“You’re a racist, man!”

The guy was in the casino I was managing, trolling around, trying to bum smokes and vouchers from paying guests. When I told him he couldn’t do that, he decided to play what is commonly referred to as “the race card.” This card has now become the rosary beads to flash around as a sort of secular religious icon.

“You’re racist, man!”

“OK. You still can’t solicit cigarettes or cash on the casino floor.”

“It’s because I’m black!”

“No. It’s because it’s against the rules. It’s a colorblind rule.”

“RACIST! RACIST!” He started screaming at me in order to what? Shut me up? Scare me away? He got loud and animated. I just stood there and watched him lose his shit like the girl who lost her shit on the white professor whose wife had written that college Halloween costumes are not the height of racist demonstration. You remember the video. I was mostly surprised at how calm the professor was in the face of such unrepentant childishness.

His accusation didn’t rile me up because I had no reason to be defensive. I know who I am and he doesn’t. He might as well have accused me of being a vampire or a Scottish lord.

“You finished?”

“You gonna kick me out, racist?”

“I’m going to ask you to leave unless you put some money in a machine.”

“What if I don’t?”

“I’m gonna kick you out.”

“Because I’m black?”

“No. Because you’re an asshole and assholes can be any color under the sun.”

To whom do you award the right to decide which speech is harmful or who is the harmful speaker? To whom would you delegate the task of deciding for you what you could read?

— Christopher Hitchens

It seems like an awful lot of this battle for freedom of speech is a struggle for who gets to say what without living-threatening consequence and who gets to dole out those consequences when they decide it goes beyond a predetermined boundary. The idea that those who can wield the iconography of secular religious thought are somehow the disenfranchised is a fantasy in the exact same way that the idea Christians (or Muslims) are in some way marginalized by those who do not believe.

These days political thought is indistinguishable from religious rhetoric. So many looking to assert the moral ground upon which we all must stand or be banished. The mistake made is to embrace the idea that the digital space is real life or even matters that much. As someone who dumped Faceborg a while ago and whose dick didn’t fall off and life didn’t end, social media is not the sum total of free speech.

A friend who works for Netflix recently made an off media comment that the company is noticing that the social justice crowd is fighting online for more inclusive and political content but that no one is watching it. This indicates that either they’re all just a bit full of shit or there simply aren’t as many out there as the noise of deplatforming and calling out signals.

The best form of “deplatforming” is to ignore the people who can’t understand that all speech is free but if you scream in the wrong person’s face, you’re gonna get popped in the jaw.

Or at least kicked out of the casino.

#Freedom of Speech

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spiralatlas · 6 years

Text

Pax 2017 Panels day 1

Today was an unrivaled success. I didn’t break anything.

Western Dating Sims: Beyond Tsunderdome

Are we having fun: Playing games critically

The State of Queer in games

Western Dating Sims: Beyond Tsunderdome

Barbara Kerr https://ms45.itch.io/ Jack Crnjanin Pritika Sachdev Cassiel Kelner localiser, translates from Japanese to English Shakari former insomniac now indie Jess Zammit games critic Queerly represent me

Not a competition between Western and Japanese dating sims, both are good. But there are trends.(The panel talked a bit about Japanese games too anyway)

Main difference: more established genre in Japan, less accepted in the West.

Basic framework: generic main character. Selection of different kinds of love interests, often very tropey. Situations range from mundane to fantastical.

Kenka Bancho Otome Dating sim where you are crossdressing as your brother at a fighting school and have to beat the boys to get them to respect. (Not available in English but checking the spelling lead me to an anime adaptation on Crunchyroll, no idea if it’s any good)

Often don't have much family, no mention of that background.

Freshman and Sophomore cute have f/f. (Couldn’t find links for these, sadly)

Saying exactly what somebody wants to hear until they kiss you- is that bad?

Everyone showered DAO characters with gifts.

Desire in the west to mirror the complexity of real relationships.

Examples mentioned: Cute Demon Crashers, Lady Killer In A Bind.

Strategic dating is good:

predictable

choose a character you will definitely like

"Game-Like"

clear differentiation between characters

learn how to interact with people

Kindness Coins: dating sims are safe. I can't be hurt, if I get scared I can shut it down. Safe space. Explore sex, relationships, communication.

Counterpoint: Strategic dating is bad:

predictable

replicates shitty real life behaviour "I was nice to you, you should date me", like blaming FPS for violence

Not much fun for the developer

Complex games justify complex mechanics

Tusks: gay orc dating sim. Can enable NPC autonomy. harder than he expected.

Queer relationships (Queer and gay used as synonyms a lot this panel :/) Producing your own games allows you to reflect yourself Coming Out On Top: straight dev, lots of consultation. A bit tropey in parts but not too bad. Tusks: complex variables & approval w queer orcs Lady Killer In A Bind BDSM safety warnings in loading screens The Crown and The Flame it's good to be the queen. Pixelberry just lets you bang anybody. Kind of have to pay to follow the f/f path fully in some games.

Further recs:

Astoria Fate's Kiss: greek gods and mythological figures. Equal partnership with Hades. Medusa's story is full of queer characters, often you feel like the only queer character in a game, normalises it. Alex is non binary.

Brooktown High cheesy typical highschool game. Can be a boy or girl but have to be m/f. A bit dated, so bad that it's good. PSP game.

Pixelberry Choices: can date m or f, choose stuff about PC.

Dream Daddy is a very straight gay game but fun.

Date or Die.

A game about dating Japanese warlords that may or may not be Destiny’s Princess

The Arcana

Paris the City of Love

Fire Emblem: Fates

Great Personality

There was a liveplay of part of Dream Daddy. The audience voted overhwhelmingly to talk to Damien first.

Are we having fun: Playing games critically

Rami Ismail: @tha_rami Alayna Cole: @AlynaMCole Dakoda Barker: @JiroJames David Hollingworth: @CPTHollingworth Jess Zammit: zammitjess

Distinction between playing for work and fun?

We do this because we like games, except for the games we do in fact hate.

Rami: Started making games before he started playing, modding code in simple ways in QBASIC (this is also how I got started).

Alayna: Being paid in neocoins to make people's profiles. Didn't realise until after highschool that coding skills could be used to make games.

(And then I stopped keeping track of who said what)

Took a while to realise it could actually be a job.

Having been a critic changes the experience, doesn't make it less fun just different. Same with reading or watching tv when you're a writer.

Yonder the cloud catcher chronicles: playing to review took away from her enjoyment because she had to get a review done quickly when it's supposed to be played in a slow, relaxing way.

As a creator he’s looking for shortcuts and tricks. Walks back and forth to test out where he thinks a loading point is. "Did you see that cool action scene?" vs "Did you see that cool slow zoom??"

Played intro area of Mario Odyssey. This is so good I’m angry, time to pack up the games industry.

"I wish I could do that"

Used to be a rule never to give 10/10. Now they do it if they just really love a game.

Have to put a game down to play the next one, it’s frustrating.

Criticism doesn't have to be finding flaws but can be figuring out how it works. Creator’s job is to trick the player into believing that the world of the game is real and the plot is important.

What does it mean to you to play games critically?

Looking at the game means looking at the creator. What are they trying to do or say? How do they execute it? Even AAA games have a group of humans behind them.

Rami cheerfully ruined games for everyone eg FIFA goalies perform worst at the end to give more last minute wins. Every game with percentages is lying. If you are told it's 50% accuracy people expect not to lose more than one time in a row. Humans think stuff is "fair" when it's in their favour.

"It's a platformer where you shoot things...about love." How is that mechanic making you feel love?

Bad games can be informative. Earth Defense Force. Defending cities from giant ants. "I want ants. 1000!" "That can't work with the frame rate" "AND LASERS."

Every bit of a game is controlled. Someone chose every detail to be the way it is. Ask why it is the way it is.

Good to question the choices people see as default. "Did you notice every character is a white dude?" Things that are considered important vs things that are just made "the default"

Is there a conflict as both critic and developer? Even the positive feedback made him feel bad, he just focused on any negative aspect. Conscious as a reviewer of not attacking the developer themselves. Still write spiteful humourous reviews, but avoid attacking developer, know there are things they can do better.

Giving feedback is hard. Rather than questioning intent, help them achieve their intent better.

By the time you get most negative feedback, you know about the flaws, have heard about it all before. Let people be angry for three weeks, then fix. Half the time they end up fine with it.

People who play a game a lot will say it's too easy, if you listen to them you’ll make a game that puts off new players.

A player might say "this weapon is too strong" but they mean "the boss is too easy" or "you get the weapon too early". Listen, but not too hard.

Multiplayer game, teams supposed to be balanced, but one team kept winning. Turned out one had louder guns, made them more aggressive so they won. FEEDBACK IS HARD.

Who you are giving the feedback to makes a big difference. A student, a friend, a developer you want to help, asked to write a snarky review.

Games CAN be fun, but expecting them to be JUST that is reductive. Games can let you feel something, find catharsis.

We are affected by everything we engage with.

Games are part of a wider industry. Pays peoples wages, needs to be looked at critically.

Even if it's just fun for you, someone else might have a different experience from the same game. I won't tell you what games are for you and you don’t tell me what games are for me.

If you're at PAX you spent money to be here, you care.

"just" for fun implies “fun” is not a great value.

Knowing his game helped someone in hospital deal with pain.

If you want to be a good game maker, play lots of games and see how they're made. Keeping a journal of every game he plays.

If you are playing a game and feel something, figure out why.

When giving a student a game, give them a challenge like "explain X to me", so they have guidance, a direction to go in.

Thinking critically in a fun way: fun to write reviews when you're angry. Critical isn't negative, just more active.

You can't force players to engage in any specific way, just make the game and let them do their thing.

Some players will get really angry anyway so just make your game.

Hype can work against you as a reviewer, makes it hard to be objective if the game disappointed you. Can also be hard to say you loved a game if everyone else hated it.

Balance frustration with a sense of achievement. Frustration is a tool, as is a grind. The “random” drops aren’t entirely random: if you haven't gotten anything good in a while it'll give you something nice, and if you get a good drop too early it gets held back. Testing, see how people feel. If people aren't complaining you're doing something wrong. If everyone complains about all classes it's balanced.

Nanojam 3.0: Wacky Live Game Design

Jason Imms, Rami Ismail, Paul Verhoeven, Leonie Yue, Maize Wallin, Lucy Morris

So a little before this started my body went NOPE NOPE NAP TIME, and while I did manage to drag myself in near the end I wasn’t up to taking notes. I had a great time though, it was hilarious. The panel got given silly ideas for games and brainstormed them together, while an artist drew illustrations.

The State of Queer in games

Ashton McAllen @acegiak Saf Davidson @wanderlustin Charlie Francis kennedy @CharliethGfish Alayna Cole @alynamcole queerly represent me Jess Zammit @zammitjess David Hollingworth @cpthollingworth

What have the panelists played in 2017 that was really good queer rep:

Horizon Zero Dawn subtle, sidequests, feels very natural

Tacoma lesbian couple part of the main cast. Very cute, positive and real.

Miss Fisher's Murder Mystery has cute background f/f couple.

Life is Strange Before the Storm isn't very gay yet but is going to be.

Mighty Games added queer couple to the background of Charming Rooms, support for marriage equality in update in Shooty Skies. Good place to work, big "Vote Yes" sign on the window.

Dream Daddy: lets you choose your previous partner and how child was born, cool as an adopted person. (Also makes it easier to play trans character)

Pyre: choose pronouns

Lady Killer In A Bind lets you skip sex scenes, has an option in the menu you can change at any time.

Night in the Woods. Background m/m couple.

Little moments that people enjoyed:

Heartstruck app dating sim (you ate the daughter of a president) LI actually SAYS she is bi. (not sure if the same as Lovestruck?)

Hacknet Labyrinths: Incidental queer content is good, rather than PLOT TWIST THEY'RE TRANS.

Criminal Case Pacific Bay: Background f/f in a hidden object game.

Recs from audience:

Overwatch made Tracer a lesbian, but only in extended content. In that case not so bad because of the nature of the game. All back stories are extended content (compare to harry Potter). She has a line in the game where she mentions her girlfriend.

Tides of Torment Numenara: 2 body types and 3 pronouns.

Stumbling blocks and salt:

Mass Effect Andromeda: had trans character tell you her deadname. At least they fixed it.

Where are the explicitly ace and bi characters??

Lost phone turns out to be owned by trans woman, feels really vouyeuristic, inspiration porn. No agency or voice.

Why isn't there more incidental queerness??? So easy!!

Don't rec stuff to us JUST because it's queer if it's not something we'd enjoy.

Only representation is aliens and robots.

Even in most games with incidental queerness it's a tiny drop in a sea of heteronormativity.

South Park lets you pick your gender etc and you get attacked for whatever it is. The fact it happens to cis people won't make it less awful for trans characters. Game designers need to talk to people with diverse POVs and have diverse teams.

Why not 3 body types, or sliders? Saints Row is the bar.

Encountered none as a reviewer of AAA games over 2017 (was playing as a dude in Mass Effect Andromeda and got bored before encountering any queer content)

Can make Shelob a sexy woman but not add queerness to Tolkein??

Annoyed that it's SO notable that a character has a gender neutral pronoun option.

As a trans person I am escaping my shitty life as a trans person, I don't need that in a game.

List of demands:

Gender neutral pronoun options if there’s a gender/pronoun choice. Charlie will help you.

Bisexual anything.

Asexual humans.

Robots having sex.

Incidental queers.

Explicitly non binary characters, not necessarily androgynous.

#panels #conventions #pax 2017 #pax #recs #queer

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deadpresidents · 7 years

Note

Is there any connection between Gerald Ford and Barack Obama? I know Ford died in 2006 before Obama became President, just wondering if Ford ever commented on Obama?

I don’t think so. I’m 99.93% positive that former President Ford and Barack Obama never met each other. While Ford led an extraordinarily active life until he was about 90 years old, he began to slow down considerably after reaching that age. Obama truly became a player on the national stage when he gave the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention during his campaign for the U.S. Senate, and Ford had turned 91 a couple weeks earlier, so there wasn’t really much opportunity for them to cross paths before Ford would have even known who Obama was. Ford almost completely stopped traveling during the last two years of his life, so any meeting likely would have happened at Ford’s home in Rancho Mirage. Although Obama was in the midst of his meteoric rise during that time period there probably wasn’t any reason for the increasingly frail former President to invite a candidate from the opposite party who was running for the junior Senate seat from Illinois to the Ford home for an audience. Once Obama was elected and started setting his sights on the Presidency, Ford’s health finally began to fail and he died on December 26, 2006, nearly two months before Obama announced that he was seeking the Democratic Presidential nomination.

My understanding is that Ford remained lucid and well-informed until the last few months of his life in 2006, but he certainly wasn’t playing any sort of public role by that time. Ford’s last public appearance was in April 2016 when he briefly appeared before photographers following a private visit to him in Rancho Mirage by President George W. Bush. And although he actually looked pretty good for a man who was nearly 93 years old, he was clearly frail, needing to be steadied by a cane and President Bush, who held Ford’s hand the entire time. If Ford ever made any comments about Obama I’ve never been able to find any record of it. Obama wasn’t seriously being discussed as a potential Presidential candidate in the media until the fall of 2006, particularly after Tom Harkin’s traditional steak fry in Iowa and following an appearance on Meet The Press in October. By that time, Ford’s health was gravely ill and -- other than a statement released in November when he passed Ronald Reagan to become the longest-living President in American history -- was bedridden at home as longtime friends made their final visits to say goodbye.

After the 1980 campaign, in which Ford briefly flirted with pulling a Grover Cleveland by seeking a non-consecutive term and then considered accepting an unprecedented offer to join the Republican ticket as Ronald Reagan’s Vice President (the discussions fell apart when Reagan was unwilling to promise sharing power or to pledge that Ford would have autonomy in certain areas), former President Ford rarely spoke out on Presidential politics. Even if he had been healthy while Barack Obama was making plans to seek the Presidency it’s doubtful that Ford would have commented much about him or his candidacy. Because of his advanced age and rapidly failing health, I’m pretty certain that Ford never offered any thoughts or opinions publicly about Obama.

#Gerald Ford #President Ford #Jerry Ford #Barack Obama #President Obama #2008 election #1980 election #Presidents #History #Presidential Relationships #Death of Gerald Ford #dylansh99 #questions

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kinetic-elaboration · 7 years

Text

April 23: Jasper and DNR

I wrote this weeks ago, toward the beginning of the hiatus, but didn’t post it for Boring Reasons, so here it is I GUESS. Even with weeks to ruminate I’m still not sure what my point is but w/e.

This was inspired in part by this post by @jontyaxefive (cited again below) and this post by @falafel14 which I know are from weeks ago, but so is this, if you want to be technical about it.

~3300 words in 3 parts (DNR Specific thoughts in Part III)

I've been thinking a little about Jasper, his story in season 4, and the DNR kids in the 4x09 promo. These thoughts are really scattered so I'm not sure what they're going to look like in written form or what conclusions I'm going to come to, but basically, here is my reading of Jasper in Season 4 and my hopes for him and the DNR story line in 4x09.

A lot of these thoughts are based on reading I did for my Health Law class in law school, in our unit on end of life decision-making (triggered by the phrase DNR). I won’t go into details about that reading, but that's the basic background of how I got to thinking about this.

I. Jasper as Rational Actor

First, I know that I have personally had a certain contradictory reaction to Jasper's story this season, one that's coming into sharp relief with the hints we've gotten at 4x09. On the one hand, I do believe he's a rational actor and that his decision to let the radiation take him isn't just a knee jerk reaction but carefully considered and, in its own way, sensible. We hear his philosophy in his conversations with Clarke (in 4x04) and Bellamy (in 4x08), and we see it in the consistency of his actions over the course of the whole season.

On a semi-related note, I personally suspect that he has delineated his thought process off-camera to Monty as well, perhaps as early as the space between 4x01 and 4x02 (Monty doesn't seem terribly surprised by Jasper's non-sequitur "I'm not going to kill myself" in the 4x02 shower scene) and at least by 4x04 ("You're the one who's decided he's not going to be saved. You're the one who's leaving me alone."). Monty's smart and Jasper's not subtle; it's possible he's just context-clued his way to this understanding of Jasper's plans, just like the audience has. But my personal feeling is that they've actually had a discussion about Jasper's plans, which is why, or part of why, Monty seems to accept so easily that Jasper wants to end his life—or at least, that Jasper is willing to passively let himself die, which is, admittedly, different. (More on the other why's below.)

It's my instinct to accept Jasper's reasonable conclusions in the same way that I accept all reasonable conclusions, and to respect his personal decision (a decision deeply rooted in individual bodily autonomy, one of the highest values in my society) in the same way that I respect all personal decisions. And honestly...he makes compelling points. The Sky People have expended incredible effort and made great personal sacrifices in order to survive. And for all that, they have seemed to gain very little. Most obviously, of course, many of them haven't survived. It's all well and good for the people who are still standing to say 'yes we did all of this, but it was worth it'--was it worth it for the delinquents who died at the dropship? Who died in Mt. Weather? Was it worth it for Maya or Monroe or Lincoln?

I also think, maybe this is reading a little too much into things, that Jasper has a unique awareness of just how easily any one survivor could be just one more dead body. I can't remember who said this, what meta I read it in, but I remember someone once pointing out that when Jasper was speared, the injury to him wasn't just in being physically hurt, it was in being completely surprised by what was happening. Later injuries and deaths, even the sudden ones, occurred in the context of an ongoing war (or war-like situation) with the Grounders: everyone was on high alert because of what had happened to Jasper. He had no comparable warning. He WAS the warning. Combine that with his later experiences--his life in Mt. Weather (not just being held as one of the prisoners there, but acting in a leadership role, truly believing during that time that he could save everyone, and then having that naïve belief dashed), and his s3-s4 suicidal ideation—and you have a character who, more than the average bear, recognizes how quickly all of one's survival efforts can come to nothing anyway, coming radiation or no.

The sacrifices haven't just been in lost friends and loved ones, though. They've sacrificed their time and their effort. They've even sacrificed their sense of morality, perhaps even something of their humanity. Jasper has only brushed against this in himself (in setting off the dropship-rocket in the S1 finale, a decision he briefly reconsiders in 2x01: "Should I not have done that?"), but he's seen people he loves and trusted make truly horrific decisions in the pursuit of survival, most notably his best friend and Earth parents committing genocide in 2x16. Were those decisions worth it?

Maybe he could come to the conclusion that they were, if it weren't for the radiation coming. Another huge factor in Jasper's rational conclusion is that they are all going to die anyway. But not only that: since they first came to Earth, they were all going to die, and die young, and die horribly, anyway. This entire time, they've been gunning for survival, making sacrifices for survival, putting themselves on the line for survival, with the assumption that survival meant "if you're really, really lucky, into old age itself." But that was never what it meant! It meant, "survival, for another few months." That's almost funny, in a sick, dark way.

Further, as jontyaxefive pointed out here, the rationale behind the DNR kids' decision to stay at Arkadia might be even more expansive than just 'the end is coming anyway, let's accept it,' if they foresee in the bunker an Ark 2.0. For Jasper (et. al.) survival at all costs hasn't just been the mantra since they came to Earth. It's been standard operating procedure their whole lives. I've talked a little bit here about the consequences of a community-first/humanity-first society and the toll it takes on individuals. But it's not like it's hard to understand how children who've lived their whole lives hungry (see Jasper and Monty's 2x01 conversation at Mt. Weather dinner), who've seen loved ones executed, or left to die of illness or injury, who've been themselves imprisoned, who've been told over and over and in every conceivable explicit and implicit way that their lives are worth nothing except as vessels to the next generation, might prefer to go out their own way than to be shoved back underground, literally, because the general concept of 'survival' is worth more than their own (individual) lives.

My point is that Jasper's behavior this season is in line with a coherent, consistent, rational philosophy about life and death and that this philosophy, as well as his human right to his own bodily autonomy, should be respected, both by the characters in the show and by viewers analyzing Jasper. His reason for accepting death isn't simply 'well it's going to happen anyway, fuck it all.' Unlike most of the other characters, he's actively interrogating what a worthwhile life is. He's recognized that they are all almost certainly facing the end of their lives and that there is a decision to be made: one between doggedly pursuing any chance of survival in the hope of a last-minute miracle--and giving up everything else in that pursuit and that hope--on the one hand; and prioritizing quality of life in the time left, on the other. Characters like Clarke and Monty don't see the choice at all, but Jasper does, and he's chosen quality of life.

II. Jasper’s Cries for Help + Other Characters’ Reactions to Him

For all of this, though, I've also had the exact opposite reaction to Jasper in S4, a visceral reaction in which I don’t view him as rational actor taking control of the last months of his life, but as a scarred and damaged child on a path of self-destruction who no one is making the least effort to save. The trauma that triggered Jasper's PTSD occurred in the pilot. He's been openly and actively suicidal since 3x01 (when he tried to commit suicide by Grounder in front of a half-dozen witnesses). And he wasn't contemplating the coming Apocalypse 2.0 at the beginning of season 3, or even in 4x01 when he came within a hair's breadth of killing himself. If the radiation weren't coming and Jasper were talking so openly and so consistently about death, I'd think, I'd hope, that finally the people around him might recognize how severe his illness is. (By 'people' I mean 'people who aren't Monty' because imo he did all that one person could do to help Jasper in early season 3, using the resources available to him and within his own limits. Everyone else seemed quite frankly to have given up by the time we get to 3x01.)

Despite everything I just said about respecting Jasper's autonomy (and I do believe this!), it also shocks me when I hear characters supposedly close to him simply accept 'Jasper's ready to die, that's how it is.' My personal values in real life veer very strongly toward quality of life, bodily integrity, and personal autonomy, but I still have a gut reaction in favor of life, too; I mean I am human. To say 'this fifteen-, sixteen-year-old kid easily accepts, even welcomes, his own death and that's not a problem' is a deeply troubling position to take. When you consider, first, just how strong the survival instinct in humans is (meaning that either Jasper doesn't have that instinct anymore, which is a huge red flag; or that he does and he's going to come to regret his decision at the too-late last moment if he's not veered off of his current path), and second, that Jasper has an illness that has been putting the idea of suicide first and foremost in his head for months now (which means that his rational decisions aren't totally rational, but tainted by his disorder), it seems disgustingly irresponsible for his friends and loved ones to treat Jasper as a lost cause at best, a nuisance at worst ("Grow up!").

In defense of everyone around Jasper, there are some good reasons for not trying to save him. First, they have other stuff to do. For most of the season so far, the majority of Arkadia has been running on a very tight deadline to make their shelter livable: this is hard, time-consuming, physical labor, and it takes all available hands. Those who are a bit more on the brain-trust side of things (aka most of our mains) are also really busy. Plus, most of them have known or suspected for a while that not everyone is being saved anyway, and there are plenty of people who want to live. Being rational again, those people are the priority. I may be a hardcore Jasper fan, but that's fair.

More to the point, I think most of our characters have taken one of two positions about the end of the world (other than Jasper's position) and neither of them is conducive to seeing Jasper's situation as urgent.

Bellamy is of the position that they are probably going to die, but he's going to do what he can to make sure as many people survive for as long as possible—and hey if there does happen to be a last minute miracle, that's all the better. It's the 'we save who we can save today' philosophy. If he’s right, and the end is inevitable, well there's no reason to save Jasper because he's not going to actively kill himself, he's not in any other immediate danger, and when it does come time to save him, not only he, but Bellamy and everyone else, will be beyond saving.

I think most of the other characters are like Clarke and Monty. They are 100% Team Survive. And being Team Survive means believing with unerring optimism that a solution WILL appear. Clarke's been the most obvious proponent of this view. She encapsulates the philosophy every time she says something along the lines of "I'm not stopping until I save everybody." But Monty is just as clearly and decidedly on her side. He's been at the forefront of survival brain-storming efforts and was the mastermind behind the now-defunct Ark-as-metaphorical-Ark idea. He was instrumental to opening the bunker door. He is, in general, one of the characters most associated in the audience's mind with survival efforts. And in his scene with Harper at the beginning of 4x08, he explicitly takes the Trust in Survival view, opposite her The End Is Nigh position.

From this, I take two main lessons about Monty. First, he may rationally know that Jasper has chosen death, but if his optimism is wide enough to encompass a belief that the apocalypse itself can be staved off, it's wide enough to encompass a belief that, when the time actually comes, Jasper can be saved, too. And second, his own survival instinct is so deep, so overwhelming, and so much on the forefront of his mind, that he probably cannot actually fathom that Jasper's view point is something totally different, that he either does not have that instinct, or he's very effectively buried it.

In essence, I think that Monty attributes Jasper's ready-to-die attitude solely to Jasper's conviction that the end is inevitable anyway. And Monty simply doesn't share that view. I think when his view is vindicated, as it now appears to be, he'll turn to Jasper and he'll say, essentially "okay, you were wrong, here's the solution, you don’t have to be all ‘let’s party in the face of our doom’ anymore, time to come inside." In fact, I think that's what he's saying in that scene from the trailer in which he and Jasper are on opposite sides of the Alpha Station door. Even if they have talked off-screen about Jasper's decision (as I head canon), I don't think that the full breadth of Jasper's philosophy has sunk in for him. It's not just about making the most of what time is left. It's about taking a hard look at what it means to live in the first place.

So in other words, Monty is refusing to treat Jasper's obvious desire to die as an urgent problem, not only because there are even more urgent problems, but because he thinks the problem will solve itself. When Jasper sees the possibility to live, he'll take it, because that's what people do. They survive at absolutely any cost.

III. Overarching Moral Questions and 4x09 DNR

These questions: what it means to live, what it means to survive, what value we place on life, what value we place on quality of life, the place and the limits of personal autonomy and individual choice, the importance of bodily integrity, the responsibilities we have to other people and to our overarching human values, and the places of stress where these values clash, are all of considerable interest and importance to me, and I thought about them a lot in law school. Part of the reason I've been interested in Jasper this season (besides that he's my fave, ngl that's reason number one) is because I think he's been situated to bring these questions into the narrative. And I've been disappointed by how much he's been underutilized, by how much his potentially complex personal philosophy has been presented as one-note through the season so far, again not just because I love him as a character but because these themes I'm invested in have been pushed to the side right along with their representative. Personally, I would rather have watched my hypothesized Jasper + Monty conversation than the allegedly tense tinder box scenario or the supposedly heart stopping hydrazine race (both of which I found boring and predictable personally but maybe that's just me).

But now at last, with 4x09, it looks like maybe this conflict will come to the fore. I am both excited and nervous about this.

Here is what I would like: for the narrative to acknowledge the contradictory feelings that Jasper has inspired this season so far, delineated above. For the show to demonstrate that he has BOTH a rational and coherent viewpoint AND a damaged psyche that has never been given any chance to heal. For the viewer to get the sense at last that these two strands are not opposites but part of one complex whole. The second influences the first (and should influence our reaction to the first), but doesn't invalidate it.

It would be a good idea for the Arkadian society to reckon with the concerns that Jasper and the DNR kids bring forth, both because their philosophy is a legitimate one in its contours if not in its ultimate conclusions, and because these concerns are born from a very real and very severe pain. Surviving to live in constant misery is simply that: surviving, not living.

At the same time, reckoning with these concerns does not mean accepting that they want to die and leaving them to it. Any society that values life itself has a moral obligation not to throw up its hands when one or more of its members says 'life as it is now is just not worth it, I am choosing death instead.' This position isn't a problem because life itself is the goal no matter what, or because all life is good no matter what the cost and no matter what its quality, but because anyone who is choosing death in this way is in a dire position and deserves help and compassion.

Further, any individual who values his friends, as Monty does, should be deeply distressed when one or more of those friends outright declares life unlivable, even rationally, even with reason. Jasper's been constantly sending out flares and crying for help since Season 1. No one's ever really listened. The cry absolutely doesn't get any louder than being part of, let alone leading, a DNR group. I'd like someone to listen at last.

Sometimes, just acknowledging someone's pain and taking what steps one can to alleviate it goes an incredibly long way.

At the end of S3, Monty promised Jasper that he would feel happiness again, that his life would get better, and that Monty would be part of that journey with him. Obviously, he couldn't predict the quite legitimate Humanity Saving distraction that was about to pop up in front of him and push his friend's concerns to the back burner of his mind. But the radiation isn't the only obstacle in front of the fulfillment of Monty's promise. Even before anyone in Arkadia knew about the coming radiation, and probably mere hours after that conversation, Jasper was ready to commit suicide. It's very easy to make promises like the one Monty made, and very hard to follow through on them. I'd like Monty to take the position that it isn't, even in their current circumstances, impossible. I don't have a ton of hope that we'll ultimately have a hopeful ending to this story (or at least, not one that includes Jasper, who deserves it most, because it's his story), but it would be nice if, for once, we did.

#jasper jordan #the 100 meta #my writing #mine #the year 2017 #2017: the 100 s4 #s4 reactions #this meta does not discuss jasper's death bc lalalala i cant hear you

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republicstandard · 6 years

Text

The History Of Liberty

Liberty is not a recent invention; on the contrary, the idea of it forms part of our oldest intellectual heritage.

When we say that no man may be imprisoned or dispossessed unless in virtue of the law of the land and the judgment of his peers, we are getting back to the language of the Magna Carta. Or if we seek with Chatham to affirm the inviolability of the private dwelling-house, we are unconsciously bringing back to life the imprecation contained in the ancient law of Norway:

"If the king violates a free man's dwelling, all will seek out the king to kill him."

Liberty is found among the most ancient groupings of the Indo-European people, known to us. It is a subjective right which belongs to those, and to those only, who are capable of defending it: to the members, that is to say, of certain virile families which have, with a view to forming a society, entered into a sort of federation. Whoever belongs to one of these families is free, because he has "brothers" to defend him or avenge him. These can, if he has suffered injury or death, beleaguer in arms the dwelling-place of the murderer; they can also, when he is the accused, range themselves at his side.

In this powerful family solidarity, all the most ancient forms of procedure find their explanation. As, for example, the manner of serving a writ, the record of which is preserved for us in the laws of Alfred: acceptance of service was obtained by a mimic assault on the defendant's house— a clear indication of the fact that a suit was at first a recourse to arbitration held with a view to obviating a physical combat. It was these powerful families, jealous of their independence, but assiduous in matters of common import, that gave their tone to libertarian institutions.

To us it is hardly credible that a society can remain alive in which each man is the judge and master of his own actions, and our first reaction is that the most hideous disorder must reign wherever there is no Power to dictate to men their behavior. Patrician Rome is evidence to the contrary. Why is it that the autonomy of individual wills did not produce what seem to us its natural results? The answer lies in three words: responsibility, ritual, folkways.

The Roman was, it is true, free to do anything. But, let him have answered imprudently the question "Spondesne?" ["Do you promise?"] and he was bound; that he misunderstood, that he was deceived or even coerced, helped him nothing: there was no coercing a man; etiamsi coactus, attamen voluit [Even though compelled, yet he decided.].

He was free, but, through carelessness, imprudence, or stupidity, he promised to pay a certain sum, and cannot: behold him now the slave of his creditor. A world in which the consequences of mistakes were liable to be so heavy both required and formed virile natures. Men meditated long their actions, and, as though to induce reflection, their every action wore a ceremonial aspect [my note: origin of Olympian virtue ethics].

At the height of Republican Rome, this ritual was strict in the extreme; and brought it home to men that their decisions and acts were grave and solemn things. It gave to their steps a measured and majestic gait. Unquestionably, nothing did more to give to the Senate its air of an assemblage of kings.

The early imprinting on the mind by a feared and venerated father of the cult of the ancestors, a severe and uniform education, the formation in common of adolescent training centers, the early spectacle of behavior commanding respect, this and all else conditioned freemen to certain modes of behavior.

The climate of opinion when Republican Rome stood at its summit was that of a small, privileged society, freed from all menial work and sordid preoccupation and nurtured on tales of heroic exploit; a betrayal of this standard, and its doors closed forever against the offender.

It was because the political thinkers of the eighteenth century conceived of opinion after these classical models that they sought to entrust it with so large a part. They failed to notice that the object of their admiration was neither general nor natural, that it was the opinion of a class and a product of meticulous training.

The system of liberty rested entirely in those days on the assumption that men would use their liberty in a certain way. Reliance was placed on the observable fact that men —men, that is to say, of a certain class— in virtue of acquired characteristics which could be maintained in vigor, behaved for all practical purposes in this particular way. With them, and for them, the system of liberty was workable. It was a system based on class.

The word "freeman" does not sound to our ear as it did to those of the men of old. The emphasis is, for us, entirely on the "man." In it is the substance, and the adjective is a mere redundancy which only develops an idea already contained in the noun; whereas for the Romans the emphasis was on the "free," so much so that they telescoped the noun and the adjective into a single noun: ingenuus.

It is to this nature that the privileges of liberty are linked. The moment a man belies it, they are lost to him; as, for instance, to the Roman who let himself be taken prisoner in war, or became a notorious evildoer, or, for the sake of security, placed himself in another man's power.

Freemen are, taken as a body, capable both of ruling others and of agreeing among themselves, and rest their pride simultaneously in the majesty of their own persons and in that of the city. Men of their breed, whether Spartiates or Romans, will never submit to slavery whether from within or from without. They put up a superb resistance to the aggressions of Power seeking expansion, while bringing to the discipline and defense of society a proud and assiduous succor.

They are the soul of the Republic, or rather they are the entire Republic. But, what about the rest? The system of liberty in the ancient world rested on a social differentiation which the modern spirit finds profoundly shocking. Full civil and political rights were at first the portion only of the eupatrids or the patricians, members at one and the same time both of the founding families or clans and of the warrior bands in whose assemblage the strength of society consisted; the phratries and curias kept alive the memory of these bands.

Naturally, the mass of plebeians brought social pressure to bear on the privileged aristocracy, and this pressure had the effect of diffusing the system of liberty, though it also altered its characteristics. To us, who are not satisfied with a liberty that is undiffused, this pressure, and its diverse forms and consequences —which are not, as we shall see, what were intended— are full of valuable lessons.

Out of an extremely complex process, it is only possible here to disengage the three main forms of emancipation, to which we shall give the names of (1) incorporation, (2) differential assimilation, and (3) counter-organization.

In the earliest days of Roman history whole families were taken into the patriciate. The authorities tell us of several occasions on which this happened, as, for instance, at the annexation of Alba, when the great Alban clans were taken in on a footing of equality. Enlargements of the patriciate effected after this manner did no harm to the system, any more than did the frequent admissions of individuals by way of adoption. The effect was merely that people who had the habit of liberty received an accretion of like-minded people, or, in the case of individual admissions, of people who were considered to display in the highest degree the characteristics proper to a state of liberty. The admissions of individuals went on almost uninterruptedly and greatly reinvigorated the patriciate. The admission of whole families soon came to an end.

The result was that, instead of virile plebeian families coming in to enlarge and fortify the patriciate, they remained part of the plebs, gave it its leaders, and conducted a long-drawn-out political warfare, in the course of which the right of plebeians to hold the various public offices was progressively recognized.

In the course of its struggles with the patriciate the condition of the plebs changed, for it won for itself civil and political rights. These were not, properly speaking, the patrician rights, and this is why the expression "differential assimilation" has been used. For instance, the form of patrician marriage, the confarreatio, was bound up with rites which were purely patrician; other forms of marriage had, therefore, to be found. Again, the manner of making a will by means of a solemn declaration of testamentary intentions made before the comitia curiata was unsuited to the plebeian; so there was invented the disposition by way of a fictitious sale of the estate.

The spirit of the law underwent a change. So long as Roman society was powerfully organized in private groupings, each of them presided over by a man of strong will, whose will had been disciplined by beliefs and folkways, all the law that was necessary was to keep some sort of watch on the various crossroads at which collisions were possible. But, behavior became less calculable when it was a case of a crowd of men whose wills had received less conditioning. Weaker characters, of men who had not previously enjoyed complete autonomy as regards law, could not be made subject to the cruel consequences of mistakes, which would be more frequent. It became necessary to temper and humanize the law. Public authority, in the form of the praetor, was brought in to protect individuals. Regulations multiplied under it.

The men of the people came thereby to set less store by their legal status of freemen than by their participation in the public authority [my note: birth of liberty as democratic machination, no longer liberty as personal honor and aristocratic virtue]. In this way, there was introduced into Roman society the essentially erroneous notion that it is the business of legislative authority to prescribe or forbid anything whatever. Anyone who put forward a proposition of a nature seemingly advantageous for the immediate future was blindly applauded, even though his proposition subverted the entire permanent edifice of order.

It was the tribunate [a political body first created to protect the plebs from arbitrary tyranny] which habituated the people to the idea of a saviour redressing at a stroke the social balance. Marius and Caesar were to be its heirs, and the emperors would find it an easy task to establish themselves on the ruins of the Republic and liberty. And who were the men who would try to stay this process? Freemen of the old school. Brutus' dagger, so dear to the Jacobin heart, was wielded by an aristocratic hand.

The death or the Roman Republic may be ascribed with equal truth either to the fault of the masses or to the failure of the great. The system of civil and political liberty could be made to work so long as it was not extended beyond men whose folkways accorded with it. But, it ceased to be workable when once it had come to include strata of men for whom liberty was as nothing beside political authority, who expected nothing from the one and hoped everything of the other.

In the first period of growth, economic independence and personal autonomy in matters of everyday life had gone on broadening down at the same pace as the right to political liberty, or even at a faster pace, a second phase arrived in which this independence and this autonomy started contracting, while the right to liberty continued to be extended to those members of society who were as yet without it (instance the admission to citizenship by Marius of the capite censi).

The result was that, instead of the physical independence of society's members becoming generalized, the bulk of them became the dependents of the public authority. To carry out its new duties, that authority had necessarily to build up a separate administrative corps.

I find a remarkable counterpart to the story of the two Gracchi [two brothers who tried to salvage Rome by two very different methods: fortifying of the middle class vs. their final excision in a two-class state] in that of the two Roosevelts.

Theodore Roosevelt, considering that the physical independence of the majority of citizens was the essential condition of their attachment to libertarian institutions, applied himself to fighting a plutocracy which was transforming citizens into salaried dependents. He came to grief on the same blind egoism of the men of great place as caused the downfall of Tiberius Gracchus.

Franklin Roosevelt accepted the accomplished fact, took up the defense of the unemployed and the economically weak, and constructed, by means of their votes and to their immediate advantage, such a structure of Power as recalled in striking fashion the work of the first Roman emperors.

The phenomenon, when once its essence has been grasped, throws a flood of light on the political history of Europe. We may pass over the evolution of the Italian republics, which, in their progress from the patriciate to the tyranny, exactly reproduce the course of events at Rome; for it is not by these, but rather by the monarchies, that the modern states have been created.

As we have seen, the chances of preserving libertarian institutions are bound up with the proportion of the politically effective members of the society in question who desire benefit from them. We ought not, therefore, to feel surprise at the wide measure of support accorded to kings in their attempts to substitute their own authority for liberties which benefited only the few and were an oppression to the many. Those historians who are impelled by an inner need to take sides are much embarrassed by this struggle between monarchy and aristocracy.

Will historians, in their passion for libertarian and anti-absolutist institutions, admire the resistance of aristocracy to the formation of absolutism? Sismondi, for instance, states that in the Middle Ages;

"All the real advances made in independence of character, in the safeguarding of rights, and in the limitations forced by discussion on the caprices and vices of absolute Power, were due to the hereditary aristocracy."

Only the English political scene does not impale the historian on this dilemma, and that by reason of certain historical peculiarities which have been well set forth by de Lolme. There, in effect, the authority of the crown was from the first sufficiently great and security sufficiently assured to save the large class of freemen from shriveling into a narrow caste.

Instead of the ambitions which had been thwarted and the activities which had been exploited by the oppressive measure of liberty enjoyed by the notables finding, as in France, a rallying-point beneath the royal banner, the political strength of what may already be termed "the English middle class" was mustered in the wake of the squires (regarded as large-scale freemen) under the banner of liberty. The phenomenon is one of decisive importance: for it has had the effect of forming, for and throughout whole centuries, an English political outlook very different from that prevailing on the continent of Europe.

J. S. Mill, in a famous passage, threw into contrast the different political tempers of the peoples of France and England:

There are two states of the inclinations, intrinsically very different, but which have something in common, by virtue of which they often combine in the direction they give to the efforts of individuals and nations; one is the desire to exercise power over others; the other is disinclination to have power exercised over themselves. The difference between different portions of mankind in the relative strength of these two dispositions is one of the most important elements in their history.

Barely troubling himself to camouflage the cap, Mill then fits it on the French, who sacrifice their liberty, he explains, to the most exiguous and illusory participation in Power:

There are nations in whom the passion for governing others is so much stronger than the desire of personal independence, that for the mere shadow of the one they are found ready to sacrifice the whole of the other. Each one of their number is willing, like the private soldier in an army, to abdicate his personal freedom of action into the hands of his general, provided the army is triumphant and victorious, and he is able to flatter himself that he is one of a conquering host, though the notion that he has himself any share in the domination exercised over the conquered is an illusion.

A government strictly limited in its powers and attributions, required to hold its hands from over-meddling, and to let most things go on without its assuming the part of guardian or director, is not to the taste of such a people; in their eyes the possessors of authority can hardly take too much upon themselves, provided the authority itself is open to general competition. An average individual among them prefers the chance, however distant or improbable, of wielding some share of power over his fellow citizens, above the certainty, to himself and others, of having no unnecessary power exercised over them.

These are the elements of a people of place-hunters; in whom the course of politics is mainly determined by place-hunting; where equality alone is cared for, but not Liberty; where the contests of political parties are but struggles to decide whether the power of meddling in everything shall belong to one class or another, perhaps merely to one kind of public men or another; where the idea entertained of democracy is merely that of opening offices to the competition of all instead of a few; where, the more popular the institutions, the more innumerable are the places created, and the more monstrous the over-government exercised by all over each, and by the executive over all.

The English people, according to Mill;

"Are very jealous of any attempt to exercise power over them, not sanctioned by long usage and by their own opinion of right, but they in general care very little for the exercise of power over others."

The English have little sympathy with the passion for government, but "no people are so fond of resisting authority when it oversteps certain prescribed limits."

In their capacity as leaders of the middle classes, the English aristocrats, ever since Magna Carta, associated them in their own resistance to the encroachments of Power. From that ensued a general attachment to safeguards for the individual and to affirmation of a law which was independent of Power and, at need, opposable to it.

In France it was around the monarchy that the middle classes rallied in their struggle against privileges. The victories of state legislation over custom were popular victories. So it came about that the two countries entered on the democratic era with very diverse dispositions.

In one of them, the system of liberty, from being a right of persons of aristocratic origin, was to be progressively extended to all. Liberty would become a generalized privilege. For this reason it is misleading to speak of the democratization of England. It would be truer to say that the rights of the aristocracy have been extended to the plebs. The British citizen is as untouchable as a medieval noble.

In France, on the other hand, the system of authority, the absolutist machine constructed by the Bourbon monarchy, was to fall into the hands of the people, taken in mass. In England, democracy would take the form of the extension to all of an individual liberty which was provided with centuries-old safeguards; in France, that of the attribution to all of a sovereignty which was armed with a centuries-old omnipotence and saw in individuals nothing but subjects.

When the people appears in the political arena in the leading part, it enters on what has been for centuries the battle-ground of monarchy and aristocracy. The former has forged the offensive weapons of authority, the latter has strengthened the defensive positions of liberty.

According as the people has, during its long minority, rested its hope in the monarchy or in the aristocracy and collaborated in the extension or in the limitation of Power, according as its admiration has traditionally gone out to kings who hang barons or to barons who turn back kings, it will have formed potent habits of mind and inveterate sentiments which will lead it on to continue either the absolutist work of the monarchy or the libertarian work of the aristocracy.

Thus, the English Revolution of 1689 invoked the name of Magna Carta, whereas in the French of 1789 praises of Richelieu rang loud; he was canonized as "man of the mountain and Jacobin." But even in countries where popular authority is orientated by potent memories towards the safeguarding of individual rights, it will inevitably tack about to Power's side, and its breath will come, sooner or later, to puff the sails of sovereignty. This tacking about takes place at the bidding of the same causes as we have already seen at work at Rome.

So long as the people, consisting of freemen participating in the work of government, comprises none without some individual interests to defend, so that all feel an attachment to subjective rights, liberty seems to them precious and Power dangerous. But so soon as this "people with voting power" comprises a majority of persons who have, or think they have, nothing to defend, but are offended by great material inequalities, then it starts to set no value on anything but the power which its sovereignty gives it of overthrowing a defective social structure: it delivers itself over to the messianic promises of Power.

Louis Napoleon, Bismarck, and Disraeli perfectly understood this —great authoritarians all of them, who realized that, by enlarging the franchise at a time when property was becoming a closer preserve, they were, by calling in the people, paving the way for the distension of Power. It was the politics of Caesarism.

Only three things matter to Caesarism. First, that those who are oldest in liberty within the society should lose their moral credit [note: in America, the moral delegitimation of Anglo-Nords, who built the modern West and only for whom a modern republic has been possible] and become incapable of imparting to those who enter on the heritage of this liberty a pride of personal status embarrassing to Power. Tocqueville has remarked on the part played in this respect in France by the complete extirpation of the ancient nobility. The second factor necessary to Caesarism is that a new class of capitalists should arise, without moral authority and possessed of an extreme of wealth which sets them apart from their fellow-citizens. Lastly, there is the third element, which is the union of political strength with social weakness in a large dependent class.

Though they heap treasure on treasure and think themselves thereby more powerful, the "aristocrats" of the capitalistic creation,by awakening the resentment of society, disqualify themselves for ever from being its leaders against the inroads of Power. Whereas the infirmities of the multitude find a natural haven in the omnipotent state.

In this way is removed the only obstacle that Caesarism has to fear— a movement of libertarian resistance, emanating from a people with subjective rights to defend and under the natural leadership of eminent men whom their credit qualifies and whom the insolence of wealth does not disqualify.

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