nothing without love. ( snapshots of max arciniega and gustavo fring, throughout the years. written from the perspective of max, and based upon a backstory built around breaking bad canon. ) please do not repost elsewhere. reblogs welcome.
valparaiso, chile. june 1981.
in the years previous, your life has been a race: feet dragging through sand, one heavy weight to another, the word relay becoming absent in your seventeenth year of life. therein lies the absence of a hand, passing one heaviness to another, allowing a singular exhale to find the next.
a steady rumble of: i’ve got it this week, maximino, and one hand — brief, ghosting — clasped around your shoulder, becomes the last memory you have of your brother. from then on, the weight becomes your own. the weeks following drag on, and on, and on. it seems to never stop, with every bite of yours, becoming a break. one snap of your spine at a time, until a hand — steady, reliable — on the small of your back aligns you once more.
this moment in particular, reminds you of this. gustavo’s touch relieves any trace of what once had been heavy, present in every corner of your hand-built-life: tugging you out from the rubble, and into a rapture. in these minutes, you don’t allow for an exhale. instead, you find your inhale between a kiss that tastes of bittered coffee, and sweet, sweet, nothings, while your hand — pious, unwavering — slides behind the back of his neck.
your hair, still wet, yet now absent of seasalt, drips an imprint onto his shirt.
in an earlier time, you may have apologized. (for the kiss, for the water, for the heaviness.) now, you tip into a sun-soaked grin, and fall into him further.
dusseldorf, germany. march 1983.
there’s a morning that feels like the sun has risen for the first time. it’s a marvel of a moment, with all the succinct simplisticity that gustavo provides. some people, you think, would hate the mundane. they’d yawn, stretch their arms, and chase after something ravenous. but as you watch gustavo straighten his tie, blinking into the mirror with the blank-slate-face you’ve come to know well, you think simplicity, in all of its forms, is far more exhilarating.
your feet find the ground in silence, moving to align the front of your shoulders with his, and replace his hands with your own. you straighten his tie, press a kiss to his cheek, and nestle the curve of your jaw into the crook of his neck. his presence becomes a tether to reality, knitting itself into the very essence of your grin; every echo of your laughter. without him, you wonder where you would be. there’s a pause — a brief fraction of a moment designated towards this thought — before you abandon it entirely. any reason to fantasize of otherwise is obsolete, washed away as he presses his lips to your forehead. this action, however brief, reminds you that to chase after anything ravenous is a waste.
you’d much prefer the significance of satiation.
george town, the cayman islands. september 1984.
the photo itself means nothing in the face of his smile: ear to ear, tugging a radiance onto features that elicits a thought of how something so bright could exist on this earth without burning it whole. it blinds you, inching into every corner of your own grin until you can’t tell where his ends, and yours begins.
to anyone else, this may be an infinitesimal moment. to you, it is a fraction of the universe, sliced out in just the right dose. gifted, on a silver platter. to you, it is the final piece of the puzzle, slotted into a space of your heart that reminds it to keep on beating.
one infinitesimal moment to the next, one fraction of the universe to another: to you, this moment is everything.
the andes, chile. november 1985.
gustavo says, we are insurmountable, and you believe him.
he says it fervently, intently, with the ever-lasting and ardent declaration that you imagine a prophet to have. as if his words, merely a promise, are nothing but a statement of fact. some years ago, you may have laughed — as any would, upon gazing at heights that far surpass your own. but halfway up the mountain, fifty percent of the way there, with beginnings that smolder into a fire that’s now merely smoke in the distance, you think his words are closer to a scripture, than a story.
there will always be nonbelievers. the faithless, the doubtful. once, you may have been one of them. skeptical of your own future, hesitant to invest in his. but gustavo says, we are insurmountable, and you are no longer staring at heights that tower over your own. you may only be five foot seven (on a good day) and halfway up the mountain, but you think that with only an outstretch of your hand, you could hold the whole world in your palms.
you lace your fingers with his, and wonder if you already do.
michoacán, mexico. february 1986.
recipes, your mother said, are nothing without love.
you’ve scrawled every step down, crafted all the necessary pieces to align into memory, and folded a love letter within your own creation. the word hermanos, in contrast to it all, tugs a full bellied laugh from you; your head, shaking briefly at the mere thought.
it doesn’t bother you, as some may believe it should. the story of your life has never been written for anyone else’s consumption but your own: once, swallowed down in one hard-to-digest moment to the next. now, it’s a smooth sip of sweetness; your honeyed heartbeat pitter pattering against the word hermanos. like drizzle on a windowpane, tapping against the glass, in a reminder of your shelter from an ever-present storm.
you write every recipe in pin-point accuracy. in careful script that tells of one part fable, and one part truth. a bond, surely, but nothing of brothers. only a step closer to good friends.
however, there are some things, you think, that are implied. some things, that you needn't add to a list of ingredients, regardless of the presence of such.
after all — recipes are nothing, without love.
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Imagine being shamed into thinking somethings wrong with you for pointing out that celebrating a r*pist is a bad thing.
That original comment had been deleted, and Viv's stans are saying shit like "lol gottem" "get wrecked" "destroyed" "Oh no when the villian is villainous"
I don't even fucking care anymore. I hate Viv. I hate her stans. I hate her cult. I hate the shows she's created and the damage she's doing.
Just for reference, I am a victim of sexual abuse and assault and r*pe. I have written/read stories and have done RPs that have disturbing elements and r*pe.
I will never condone those things. Ever.
I will never romanticize those things. Those things are fucking ugly. And if you're going to try your hand at serious subject matters, treat them like the scary, ugly, nasty things that they are.
Viv is gonna keep Millie's su*cide attempt in. The stans will champion her for handling it "so well" and no ONE will criticize her. If they do, they'll get blasted into oblivion.
I hope Brandon and others can get the fuck away from her. Ashley, Michael, and Goose (and others) are dodging some big fucking bullets right now.
And full disclosure, I don't care if people like Val. I don't care if they think he's a fun villain, that he has a cool design, even find him attractive.
Don't you fucking dare make the people watching your show feel like they're wrong, or that they'll be torn apart if they disagree.
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Sorry but I think you’re being super negative about the whole “Rachel Presents” announcement.
Rick Riordan is a white author who is passionate about mythology. After Greek mythology and briefly going into egyptology, he used his influence to give People of color a chance to write modern mythology stories from their own culture and experiences—and most importantly he stayed in his lane.
I think Rachel choosing to step back and give other people a voice is a great outcome, considering you guys all joked about how horrific it would be if she tried to appropriate another culture in her next series.
You also said she should have given LO to another creator who had the passion and dicipline to finish for her. That’s ESSENTIALLY what she’s going to be doing with RP. Maybe her true calling is just…being an Idea guy. She has wonderful concepts and cool ideas, but lacks commitment. In this scenario, we could end up with super amazing stories, with proper editing from Random house and proper commitment from new creators. I don’t really see the issue here, everyone wins.
(And lots of authors do the whole “___ presents” format. I don’t think she deliberately copied RR. Most likely her books sales did well and Penguin House approached her with this offer.)
lmao what? I was against the folks saying she should give it to another creator. I don't think not liking the series should mean she's obligated to "give it to someone else." The series is hers and so it's her responsibility to finish it. I do think she should have ended it a long time ago or if she was really miserable making it then she should step away, but she shouldn't be giving it to someone else to finish for her just because "boo you suck at writing your own comic". She started this, she should finish it.
And this is literally her doing exactly that - appropriating other cultures - with extra steps. Just instead of being on the front lines with her own work, she's sponsoring other works based on her own bar for quality (which we know is EXTREMELY low) and slapping her name on them so she can take a "backseat". It's really icky to see from a creator who practically failed upwards and is now using "herself" as a selling point, when she has no real legitimacy outside of LO, which was only as successful as it was because of WT constantly sinking money into it and advertising it over other series on the platform (and because it's based off a story that was VERY popular to romanticize at the time, the H x P myth. Like it was literally what was popular on Tumblr when it started as a hobby comic on Tumblr.)
I'm outlining all of these posts with "speculation" because obviously I don't know what's really going on behind the scenes here, but I think it's really disingenuous of Rachel to sell herself as some top tier brand name for mythological works as a whole when she's caused so much actual harm to the Greek myth community and its sources. It's furthering the notion that she has any credibility as a "folklorist" when really she just pulls whatever comes off the front page of Google. And the similarities between herself and Rick Riordan do matter here because of how commonplace it is these days for Rachel to rip off other works rather than take inspiration and make it into something that's organically her own.
That's my two cents. It's not me trying to be "negative", it's me being genuinely concerned over the blatant appropriation from a white woman gaining even more control over the depictions of cultures and mythologies that she claims she's educated on and isn't. Unlike Rick Riordan, Rachel does not have any formal education in the subject she's claiming to be educated about. Unlike Rick Riordan, Rachel allows her fanbase to use her work as a source on Greek myth and she obfuscates the line between "fiction" and "fact". Rick Riordan started Rick Riordan Presents after he had multiple hits under his belt that were celebrated and loved. Rachel is starting Rachel Smythe Presents after a one hit wonder that could be chalked up to a total fluke that wasn't even able to go out with a bang.
Rick Riordan writes fictional stories inspired by Greek myth for children. Rachel is writing fictional stories claiming to be "retellings" of Greek myth - and now other mythologies if the implications of this project follow through - for adults. It's disingenuous and it frankly deserves to be paid attention to and called out.
I do genuinely want to see creators given an avenue to monetize their work and that's why I think the thought of it is nice, but any amount of further digging just makes this feel like a grift that will lead young and inexperienced creators down a path that won't benefit them (or take advantage of them) due to the blatant lack of care and management exhibited by Rachel over the past 5 years. Just because Rachel had one massive hit that lined her pockets for years does NOT qualify her to be a titan of the industry. Not by a long shot.
To quote Super Eyepatch Wolf,
"Let's say you decide you want to become a carpenter, and particularly, how to build a nice chair. Think about the kind of person you'd want to learn that skill from - would it be from someone who's built nice chairs every day for 30 years, or would it be the guy who built ONE nice chair 5 years ago out of a special kind of wood that doesn't exist anymore, who has NO experience with the kind of wood available to you now?"
EDIT to add: it was more likely Rachel's representative, Britt Seiss who landed this deal for her, not Penguin House themselves. That's what agents are for.
EDIT EDIT: this is ALL assuming she even FOLLOWS THROUGH with this project, because god knows the only reason LO has even gone on as long as it has was because she was being held responsible via a contract, she's NOTORIOUSLY bad for committing to things and has even admitted to it in interviews. She barely even works on LO as it is. Spring of 2024 could roll around and this project could entirely fizzle out. Again, not me trying to be a negative nancy here, I'm just stating my own concerns based on what we all know about Rachel at this point and how she operates.
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