Tumgik
#this may get flagged but it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make
skhardwarevers2 · 1 month
Text
On Worm Soup and Axes
At the time of writing this, I have no cares for convention and this is more of an “informal as FUCK character study of sorts, I don’t know–screw you I do what I want” sort of thing
Also Compelled by Hindsight is playing, which I find a bit funny for the character I want to quote unquote study (I don’t know if you’re supposed to use quotes after saying quote unquote…I can’t find any clear answers so I’m keeping it like that. Also I’ve read the word quote so many times it has been semantically satiated, hooray!)
So, now that we’re past my incoherent babbling, who is it we’re talking about this time?
Some of you may be familiar with the phrase “Worm Soup”, and if not–good. We don’t address it at all. Wormy–aka at some point worm soup, aka forest girl, aka Moose–has been the center focus of a lot of my thoughts recently. Why, you ask? Because really I never got too into her. For a lot of reasons that I’d rather discuss on my chaotic main–all you need to know is I’ve rewritten her quite a bit. 
Do I know her past quite solidly? Not at all. Why would you think that, stupid. You know I make those things up on the spot.
But I know her a bit better now–and her strange relationship with Moon and Crayon. 
I think it goes without saying that she is a way better person than either of them combined–or at least in current times. Though that strange bit of foreshadowing isn’t her fault, they say that the people you surround yourself with are the people that make up who you are–so what happens when you’ve grown attached to irredeemable people that never should have made it this far anyway? (Okay…maybe I’m being a bit harsh but you know how I feel about Mr. Worm and Moon)
Wormy is a strange character. I don’t know the details (she’d have to tell me herself, once she remembers, whatever the hell happened to her to make her like this) but she grows attached to just about anyone. Doesn’t matter what they’ve done to her or others, she’ll find a way to excuse it. Childhood best friends turned into a strange, not very friendly dynamic, is what I’ll say to describe the person that got her stuck up in that forest in the first place. Young people do stupid things in fiction, and because I’m a shut in loser who doesn’t talk to people half of my ideas of what “young people” do is based on slasher movies and such–blame the screen not the writer. (I’m mostly joking, but I do base a lot of her story on some slasher aspects–mostly the whole reckless young people thing and paranormal and strange “friend” dynamics…like Regina George and Gretchen when Kady was tearing them apart) 
But if any of that makes sense, hopefully you get the sense that there was some stupid gathering of people turned pretty deadly…because you know, it’s the forest…that ended with it taking Moose as the sacrifice and/or payment for their ignorance. And no it wasn’t her choice, but she didn’t want her “friends” to suffer so she stayed anyway. And loneliness can do a lot to a girl. Wandering the forest isn’t as fun as it seems. So meeting Crayon (and Moon) she was quick to ignore the many many red flags they had. 
And we know Moose, she’s kind. She’s naive. She’s the embodiment of a ray of sunshine. She’s not the kind to be violent 
I think we know where this is going
As time went on with her newfound friends their (may I say quite violent) habits and ways of thinking started to rub off on her. She was still wouldn’t do any of those things, she still tries to get them to think of something more peaceful–but when push comes to shove (or rather spear through the chest), her entire being shifts (which, if you still count the grave she dug and her mourning period as canon, is quite obvious). She’s reckless and willing to do anything to keep the people she loves safe. And she means quite literally anything. 
And I don’t really have a spot in the story for this just yet, but I really want to give this girl an ax…for normal reasons of course. (and for future paragraphs be warned, I will eventually talk about brutal ax murder. I cannot predict when or the length of which I will talk about it or in how much detail. Take that as you will)
That was a lie, I am very not normal about her with an ax in whatever scenario I happen to cook up. I’m not sure when the hell she’d do this, and call me a shit writer who doesn’t know his own characters–like I care, I’ll write it anyway, but I like to think at some point she hits a breaking point.
(okay real quick, about the “call me a shit writer” thing, I very much will care and fear this every day don’t call me out on this unless you can sugarcoat it so much it could kill a horse…back to me ranting)
I was thinking about the phrase “even a worm will turn”, which is hilarious considering her placeholder name (Wormy), but really (and for lack of any other word I can think of, sue me) poetic to me. 
Because yeah, a worm will turn. She will turn and do some horrific shit without even meaning it. Simply because of who she’s put herself around, and how much she wants to keep them safe.
Bloody ax murder shit, you know? (yeah so we made it to that part. I’ll revise this parenthesis with how much I get into it probably[…uh ... it's not too bad? It’s not finale or ARTCON level, but still a little graphic])
Like, I don’t know who the threat is just yet which is fucking up the late night thought I had about this but whatever. But someone or something poses a threat to people she cares about, that actually care about her (more on that earlier and later!). And I don’t know how she got the ax. She just picked it up, said “I don’t want to be defenseless” and after a bit of protest from her friends “I can fight for myself”, and carried it around wearily until this moment. She doesn’t know why she said that, she’s never hurt a fly for fucks sake–and she plans to defend herself with an ax? What was she thinking!
But then that moment comes, where she’s the only one left standing, ready to fight, ready to attack, and she just lets loose.
Like I’m talking serious overkill. Something ticked her off to the point that she’s covered in just as much blood as the person she’s attacking. Is she thinking? Probably not. She hasn’t felt pure rage like that just about ever and actually expressed it. And the “threat” is completely decimated, limbs detached, blood pooling out onto the floor and splattered on the walls. It’s completely gross, gorey, and in all honesty disgusting. It’s something more akin to what Crayon would find himself doing–but instead he’s staring in shock.
It takes her a second to realize, “Holy shit I just killed someone”, and there’s a few minutes of silence between everyone. Complete silence. Crayon and Moon think that they’re seeing things, Moose has literally been painted red by blood (if I didn’t make it obvious I think she would completely destroy this person to this point). When it does click she has a bit of a divide in her mentality. Her usual self is horrified, obviously. She couldn’t even listen to Crayon and Moon talk about death, and she just caused one. But there’s a small little part of her, saying “you did what you had to for them”
And that’s the thing with Moose. She can’t seem to do things just for herself. She’s always doing something for someone else. Often brushed off as her trying to be “helpful”, in my eyes she’s like a people pleaser with a premium subscription. She can’t shake the notion that what she did is slightly justified because she did it for her friends, she didn’t want them to get hurt. But she would never do that on her own. And so when I say that her friend’s violent ways rubbed off on her, I mean it more in a “she’s doing what she can to be like them, in hopes that it’ll make them like her more than they already do” way. Again that ties back to her past but we don’t need to get into that just yet. 
When it comes to Crayon and Moon’s reactions–they’re a little proud that she was trying to do the right thing and she stood up for herself, but also knowing her and how she really is they’re incredibly horrified and guilty. They know that she got the notion to do that from them, and the fact that she took it to such an extreme weighed on Crayon pretty hard. Because he’s done some messed up things, this is canon, obvious, an overall given, you get it. But the fact that he’s been trying to better himself only to watch someone who was so much better than him, someone he admired and wanted to be a bit more like (crazy I know), do the same thing he would’ve done in that situation makes him sick to his stomach. 
But enough about them. Because she does everything for them
She’s disgusted with herself, even after constant reassurement that they didn’t see her as a different person. It was just a mistake (although a pretty big one). She actually considers going back to the forest just to rot and die–maybe to let it tear her apart. 
And oh boy back to my favorite thing–Guilt.
Crayon and Moon are a tad bit worried that she might get haunted by it, since physical manifestations of guilt are very real (for example N/A and the Bugs, respectively). So for a good while they’re keeping a close eye on her, but nothing seems to turn up. Or at least that’s what they think.
She did get her own manifestation of guilt, but it’s a bit strange. It’s not really physical–not yet anyway. Hallucinations and horrific visions and dreams about the person she tore apart reanimated, just there. It takes a lot of different forms, but they all look gross, trust me. There’s other aspects too, but that’s just the horror nerd in me acting up. Blood on the walls and eyes and all that, strange noises in the middle of the night. 
And she doesn’t tell them, she doesn’t tell anyone. Not until it’s like real and a problem but I don’t want to get into that just yet. She keeps it to herself, moving on. And every time she thinks that she’s moved past it and she can live comfortably again it shows up to bother her. 
And I think you know where I get those parallels from. N/A makes itself known from time to time, and everyone knows it’s Crayon’s guilt. It constantly nags at him right when he thinks he’s safe. However, I don’t think I ever explicitly stated that The Bugs were Moon(/Stargazer)’s guilt entity. They kept it a secret, knowing damn well what they were. They were able to play it off as a nuisance rather than a reminder–which is what Moose does…
She knows this about both of them, but doesn’t say anything. She’s stuck in the “for them, not for me” mentality. So she’ll let it eat away at her until it’s real and she can’t ignore or hide it anymore. Blah blah blah the comfort to your hurt–I didn’t start typing away a storm to talk about comfort. Just the hurt. Fuck you. 
So…In lack of much else to say and no proper ideas for a conclusion take this jumble of words: Moose will turn, despite her own better judgment. Step on her all you want, she’ll bite back eventually. And she’ll regret it the second she does, whether you deserved it or not. Don’t give her an ax, never let me think again, I wrote this simply because of the bloody ax murder thing, sue me, go fuck yourself I know my characters make no sense, good day, and goodbye
1 note · View note
katherines · 4 years
Photo
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
Amanda Seyfried in ‘Chloe’ (2009) dir. Atom Egoyan
822 notes · View notes
searidings · 3 years
Note
....🥺 can you please tell us more about that season 5 alternate ending where andrea ends up using the dagger pretty please, just like who does she end up hurting and the others reaction? if only you want to of course !
hooookay this ask got me to open that wip for the first time in a year and actually it's not that far from being complete! but idk how to finish it and i feel like i've done the s5 conflict resolution thing in multiple fics now like how many is too many? i fear i may have hit that limit. BUT since you asked, here is the beginning of it. please note:
1) this thing is angsty and also it's unfinished, so read at your own peril
2) because i wasn't ever expecting to finish/publish it, i've recycled bits of description from it into other fics. so if you see stuff i've repeated elsewhere no you don't <3
-
The last thing Lena sees is a flash like dark shadow pass over Andrea’s eyes, before a kryptonite dagger slides between her ribs.
The sound she emits is less of a scream and more of a surprised squeak as she sinks to the ground.
If you want to get to Supergirl, you’re gonna have to go through me.
It’s not that she hadn’t believed Andrea would do it. Lena was under no illusion of safety when she placed herself between Supergirl and the glowing green rock in Andrea’s hand. She’d come to terms with the possibility of dying for Kara long ago.
What she hadn’t been able to prepare for was the pain. The abstract of sacrifice was all well and good, but. Reality, this searing epicentre, a point of white hot agony turned molten, seeping through her body. No amount of her mother’s decorum training had prepared her for this.
Something is filling her mouth, thick and dark and oozing. She can’t scream. Kara sits, eyes silver, a world away. Kara. Lena has to move. She can’t. Andrea steps over her, and is that the pounding of receding footsteps or the dogged beat of Lena’s heart? Either way, it’s slowing. Every inhale cracks her body down the centre, each exhale buries shards of glass inside the gaping wound.
Her eyes are beginning to mist at the edges but she strains, listens. The sound that cuts through the haze is not the scream she dreads, Kara’s agony as her veins sear emerald. It’s not a scream, but a shout, and then a blur passes over her like light and shadow.
Concrete cracks, or perhaps it’s Lena’s ribs. Sounds are muffled now, the world dulled down like the inside of a snow globe. Underwater, time passes sluggishly to where she lies, drifting, encased in glass. But someone is fighting the current, resisting the pull. Hands grasp her shoulders, burning where they touch. Through the rolling fog comes Kara’s face, blurring out in red and blue and gold and sickly green. Lena wants to push her away, keep her separate from the venomous substance protruding from her chest, keep her untainted. But Kara’s hands are dancing there-away along her cheeks, her jaw, Lena’s own name sounding from her lips over and over, a siren song, calling her home. It’s raining now, wet spots peppering her brow, or maybe the sun is crying.
“Lena, Lena,” Kara is saying. It sounds like her heartbeat and she cannot bear for it to stop.
“Kara,” she manages, a whisper, a prayer.
Her face flashes within Lena’s line of sight for one perfect moment, and is she green-tinged or is it Lena’s failing vision? A shiver passes through the air between them, I’m sorry fluttering like a bloodstained white flag but whether it falls from her own lips or another’s, Lena cannot say. Then a sudden pressure at her ribs, a heavy push and release that feels like salvation and damnation all at once.
Lena hears a scream, two screams, billions. She is left gaping, open and exposed. Invaded by the air and exalted by the sticky-sweet blush of her own blood, her body purging itself. Through the slick of gathering crimson her head rolls to the side, darkness pressing in around her, eyes blazing with the final image of a limp hand on the ground beside her, veins shot through with glowing green.
-
For a long time, there is only darkness. The deepest blackness she has ever known, all-encompassing. Devouring light, thought, feeling. Lena floats, tethered to her own existence only by the pressing weight of the dark, closing in until the end of the world.
Slowly, sensations begin to blur in and out. Cold, a deadening flow, hooking into her very marrow and stripping her from the inside out. She drifts, and then there’s heat, scorching, radiating out from her ribs in scalding waves, and she wishes for numbness.
For a moment, Lena thinks she sees the star-burst of veins behind her eyelids, but then they are gone and all is black again. Sound fragments filter through her peripheral awareness. A great noise, banging and shouting and exploding. She slips back under.
Vibrations reach her, but they must be sounds because Lena no longer has a body with which to feel them. She floats, untethered, sinking beneath the surface of a dark ocean so vast it surely cannot know she’s there. In the deep, voices flicker.
“Haven’t you heard that you’re supposed to leave the knife in? She’s minutes from bleeding out.”
The blackness turns to blood around her, not vibrant red but sticky dark, the kind so loaded with the very force of someone’s life that it moves slowly, crawls under the weight of it, sucking light from all it touches.
“Her veins were green, Alex.”
An eternity passes.
She dreams of her mother, dark hair fanning behind her as she cuts through the still waters of the lake. The scene is calm, but the growing dread means Lena knows what’s coming and suddenly it’s not her mother but Kara before her, and the lake isn’t clear but radioactive, glowing green, and still Lena stands at the shore and watches her slip away, helpless.
Words float through the haze and Lena wishes she could reach out, grasp them, weigh them in her hands to know the truth behind them. Radiation and poisoned and flared and gone, the sounds making physical shapes in the darkness. She thinks of a child, two dark-haired children, of hours spent pouring over a dictionary. A cruel laugh when she got a definition wrong, grudging silence when she got it right. How she wishes now to be wrong, to mishear, a stay of judgment on the world these words conjure into being. But the focus is gone, and she slips away again.
“—whatever you have to do! Or so help me, I’ll—”
Though Lena is nothing now, just an exhale in the wind, she smiles. Warmth blooms, the blackness not crushing but caressing for a moment, and she drifts into memories of happier times.
A million years pass, a billion. Lena is upside down, and right way up, and no way up at all. If she still had a face, she might feel the pressure of a warm forehead against her own. If she still had hair, the imprint of lips pressed gently against it might still ache. If she hadn’t burned every meaningful bridge in her life in the year before her death, she might believe the trick of a whisper wrapping on the breeze, words of comfort, of promise.
But she had, so she doesn’t, and time collapses in on itself as Lena watches, motionless and alone.
-
Though she has always been nowhere, she can feel herself drifting further and further from the last thing that might just resemble a somewhere. The eons slow. If she were a doctor, Lena thinks, then this would be the time to make herself comfortable. To say her goodbyes.
She cannot look at blackness any longer, cannot bear the glowing green after-image that seems to stick to every corner and edge. She thinks of blue, of rain-washed skies and Kara’s eyes, conjures it into being with every fibre she has left. Wraps herself up in it, plunges headfirst, drowns.
“Like it matters!” Kara says, no, shouts, from somewhere far above and below her. Lena would flinch, if only she still had a body. The voice rings out through the void. “Like any of it matters now.”
Lena is privately inclined to agree. She tries to breathe, but the full weight of the universe, of every universe, presses in. As everything, even the blackness, dulls, there emerges a crushing, cracking suffocation, and Lena wonders why she can’t even die in peace. A high-pitched scream, maybe hers, maybe Kara’s, maybe her mother’s, maybe the world’s, stretching out before her like a pathway. Though there’s no doubt where it ends, Lena almost wants to follow it, if only to escape this sensation of being crumbled, submerged, denied life as its very essence is wrung from her being.
And then a hundred trillion bolts of lightning shoot through her at once, and Lena is gone.
-
When she wakes, she wakes secure in the knowledge that she must be alive. Sure that the pain that had burst through her, blighted every nerve with an agony so intense she feels its phantom grip even now, could only lead back to life. Sure that no departure could hurt that much.
When she wakes, it is through cracked, dry eyes to the sight of pipes and ceiling vents, the bland, industrial grey that can only denote underfunded government property.
When she wakes, Kara is standing at the foot of her bed, hands behind her back and looking every inch the righteous hero, and Lena’s unsteady heart sinks. She’s been on the receiving end of this authoritative pose more than enough for one lifetime. At least her hands aren’t on her hips.
But Kara’s eyes brighten as they meet Lena’s fluttering gaze. “Lena.” Quiet, reverential. “How are you feeling?”
Lena takes stock. Alive, to begin with. Every limb still intact. Aside from an unnerving constriction in her chest and the fact that her blood feels a little like it’s burning her cells as it courses through her veins, it could certainly be worse.
When she speaks her voice is hoarse, cracking. “What happened?”
The same darkness creeps into the edges of her vision as she listens to Kara list the extent of the damage. She presses her lips together, willing away the blackness, registering only snippets.
Stab wound. Kryptonite poisoning. Collapsed lung. Cardiac arrest. Resuscitation.
Leviathan, gone. Andrea, captured. Lex, escaped.
The words wash over her like a freezing tide, and Lena wonders if maybe the darkness had been easier after all.
It takes far longer than it should for her to realise that the room has fallen silent. Kara is watching her, concern etched into her features like tears carving through stone.
Lena swallows as best she can. “And you?”
A corner of Kara’s mouth quirks up. “I’m fine. Thanks to you.”
But she doesn’t look fine. She looks exhausted, her face drawn, blue eyes lacking their characteristic shine. Even her hero’s stance can’t mask the fatigue weighing heavy on her shoulders.
But Lena doesn’t have the strength to argue the point. She rolls her head to the side, joints popping and releasing, noticing for the first time the tangle of IV lines threading into her skin. She lifts her other hand to touch them, feels the warning tug of more needles even as Kara steps forward, arms raised as if to stop her.
Her hands reach toward Lena, or at least, the spaces where her hands should be. Huge white dressings swaddle Kara from the wrists down, so bulky they do not resemble hands at all. Lena’s breath catches in her lungs as she takes in the unwieldy bandages, third degree burns and possible nerve damage echoing through her mind and she understands now why Kara had hidden them behind her back.
The inhale she aims for seems to stick in her ribs and she can feel again the crushing, the cracking, the dizzying lack of oxygen as her head spins. Kara is by her side in an instant, radiating warmth and just breathe, Lena, it’s okay, a comforting weight settling against her hip. Lena thanks the thick blanket for blurring the press of rough bandages where there should be warm skin, softening it into something just nondescript enough to be calming.
When her pounding pulse has slowed, the heart monitor downgrading to a less frenetic beat, she sucks in a breath despite her lungs’ protestation, waits for her vision to clear. Kara is still there, and dread opens up in Lena’s chest.
“You— you touched it. The kryptonite. You pulled it out.”
Kara doesn’t move, doesn’t speak. Just nods, her gaze locked on Lena’s own. Lena lies catatonic, paralysed with the knowledge, unable to move even as Alex enters the room. Dimly aware of low words exchanged between the two sisters and then Alex at her bedside, gentler than Lena’s been worthy of seeing her in years. Just rest, Lena, the press of a button on the IV monitor, and she sinks back into oblivion.
207 notes · View notes
captainpikeachu · 3 years
Text
Steve & John: shared similarities
People have talked endlessly about Steve and John’s differences that made Steve worthy of the shield and John not worthy (plenty of gifsets are all about that), but for me, the contrast of their personalities and how they handle things only really work because the two characters actually share many similarities at their core. And I don’t just mean because superficially they are both blond haired blue eyed white dudes with military experience. 
So in this post, I’m going to talk about the ways Steve and John are much more alike than people would like to admit.
---------------------------------
1. Shy down-turned smile (also Imposter Syndrome)
Tumblr media
Steve always had this shy/nervous downturned smile when someone took a genuine interest in him, and no doubt much of that came from how often he was looked down upon before his transformation. So he’s genuinely surprised/pleased that someone is interested, and a little nervous too. Because even if he is the big strong man now physically, I think there is always that bit of imposter syndrome with Steve where he still thinks of himself as the scrawny kid from Brooklyn and not this big tall hero that people see him as. John when he gets teases from his wife and his best friend in those locker room scenes does this same shy downturned smile, as if he’s still that nervous anxious high school kid with a lot of expectations on his shoulders, a side that he doesn’t really present to anyone but the people he trusts to let his guard down with because John also has a huge case of imposter syndrome as his past experiences and trauma doesn’t make him feel so strong and qualified and heroic. Everyone may call him the hero, but in his heart, he doesn’t feel like the perfect righteous hero that people expects or sees him as. 
2. Discomfort with their public roles + Just want to do the job
Tumblr media
Steve was notably uncomfortable being thrown into the USO tours. It’s not what he wanted, it’s not what he intended. He felt like a dancing monkey, performing for people instead of doing the things that he wanted to do to actually help people. And while he reluctantly accepted that all the autographs and fake smiles and acting and fame was part of the job, all he really wanted to do was actually do the real job and save lives, to have the chance to make a difference and do the right thing. This same sentiment is echoed by John, who is equally as uncomfortable being placed into a public role that he clearly does not want to be in. He’s a soldier used to serving a silent and thankless role, we see his discomfort with publicity in his GMA interview, and we see it later in the show when strangers come for autographs. Yes, like Steve, he has accepted this is part of being Captain America, but he doesn’t want it, he just wants to be able to do his job, complete his mission, and keep everyone safe.
3. Loyalty to their loved ones
Tumblr media
Steve will always come for the people he loves, he will always stand by them, he will fight for them and die for them. Numerous times now Steve has been willing to risk everything to protect Bucky or anyone else that he cares about, even if no one else is willing, even if the world is against him or his own life is on the line. John carries that same loyalty for the people who matter to him. When Lemar is taken by the Flag Smashers, John’s immediate concern isn’t even about the mission or his job, it’s getting Lemar back. When they were fighting on top of the trucks in Episode 2, when Lemar’s life was in danger, John puts himself at a disadvantage to take a shot at the guy holding Lemar even though it leaves himself open to attack and nearly kicked off the truck roof. And then he throws the shield to cover Lemar’s landing despite it would leave him weaponless as a regular non-powered person to face off a super soldier. Steve and John would both do anything for the people they love.
4. Self-sacrificing
Tumblr media
We’ve seen Steve willing to throw himself on the grenade, so to speak, time and time again. He did it in his first film to send the plane into the water. He does it for Bucky in Winter Soldier. And not to mention actually jumping on grenades, even if that ended up being a test. Steve’s instinct to throw himself in danger and sacrifice for others is well documented, but John matches that self sacrificing instinct as well. He’s jumped on grenades before as an active duty soldier. He has three Medals of Honor that would only be earned through willing to sacrifice himself above and beyond the call of duty to save others. And even in the final fight in Episode 6, we see him fighting off the Flag Smashers while trying to pull that truck up even if the Flag Smashers pull him over the ledge. When push comes to shove, Steve and John’s instincts are to jump into danger to shield others with their lives, no hesitation. They both would see it as their duty. 
5. “I can do this all day”
Tumblr media
This is Steve’s signature line. He doesn’t give up, he can keep standing up to fight for what he believes in, whether against bullies, Red Skull, Tony, the government, Thanos, and even a version of himself. Steve is resilient and his endurance goes beyond just his physical abilities. He has the heart to keep fighting, the stubborn tenacity to never give up even when all seems lost. Yet John has that same stubborn tenacity that Steve has. Those three Medals of Honor are proof of that. You’d have to be able to walk through hell to even get one medal, much less three. The mental endurance required to keep going would have been enormous. And even after Sam and Bucky broke his arm in that warehouse, John got back up and tried to keep fighting, they had to bash him into unconsciousness to even stop him. And even then he went on to forge his own shield and got back into the fight. Much like Steve, he doesn’t know when to give up. 
6. Lying (in an attempt to protect themselves and others)
Tumblr media
Steve lied to Tony about the truth of his parents’ death. He knew and he kept silent, lying by omission, and he was going to keep lying until Tony finally confronted him for a simple clear answer. Steve even admits that he thought by not saying anything, he was sparing Tony, but he realizes that he was really sparing himself. It was a selfish choice, one born not out of malice, but perhaps a misguided attempt to keep the peace, thinking if the truth isn’t out there then maybe any conflict is unnecessary and everyone can have their peace of mind. And that same line of thinking is what drives John’s lies to Lemar’s family too. A part of him wants to spare them further pain, because what good would come from telling them that their son/brother’s killer is still out there and that he failed to stop them? He wanted to spare them, he wanted to give them closure and peace in their grief, to not burden them with an open ended story with no justice. But he was also sparing himself, because he’s afraid admitting the truth that he didn’t kill the person directly responsible might lead to Lemar’s family hating him and he’d lose them and his last connection to Lemar. This is not a decision of malice, this is a decision born from fear. Steve and John both lie in trying to spare others from pain but also selfishly spare themselves from the further conflict that the truth may cause. 
----------------------------------
In a way, yes, John was designed to be a darker mirror to Steve (less solid morality, less emotional control), but that darker mirror only works when they share some core similarities. Their differences are in how those traits can manifest outward into different actions.
Perhaps shockingly, I think Steve would have understood John and his choices more than most, and may have been able to talk him off the ledges better anyone else besides Lemar, and maybe with some more understanding guidance, John might have made for a good Captain America. After all, Steve did say once say in that letter to Tony, “I know you’re doing what you believe in, and that’s all any of us can do, that’s all any of us should.”
54 notes · View notes
frame-to-frame · 3 years
Text
Breaking Down Griffith’s Coping Mechanisms: Repression v. Self Harm
CW: extended discussion of self harm and suicidal ideation, images of torture, mentions of CSA
For anyone interested, here is my very long breakdown of how I read Griffith’s state of mind and coping mechanisms (1. repression and 2. self harm) working throughout the Golden Age of Berserk. I think this reading provides an explanation as to why Griffith acts the way he does in some of his more obtuse and “irrational” scenes (the river, Charlotte), and how these actions eventually lead him to becoming Femto at the end of this arc.
Miura may not have planned all this out explicitly, but I think he has a good understanding of the psychological reality of why people repress and why they self harm, and the story proceeds accordingly.
This essay is basically a psychological deep-dive and a reworked version of a very long conversation I had with @bthump​ last year, it’s taken me a while to get back to this because life n stuff.
The content of this analysis is basically going through the GA scenes where Griffith acts in a self-destructive way and explaining how and why this happens and how it informs his actions in the story more generally.
If you don’t like or understand Griffith, I would invite you to give this analysis a shot anyway, because a lot of Griffith’s story takes place in the subtext of the Golden Age, and it takes a liberal helping of interpretation to figure out what’s going on. This of course is just one reading of Griffith’s character, but as I hope to show, there remains a consistent logic behind his actions that governs his impulses to act in the way he does throughout the story.
Okay, enough preamble, let’s jump in.
On Griffith’s Guilt
So first off, we have to ask why Griffith acts in these self-destructive ways in the first place. Basically, what are his coping mechanisms are responding to – why are they necessary at all?
I think it’s pretty clear that the heart of Griffith’s pain, coping mechanisms, and self-destructiveness is his guilt. More specifically, this guilt comes from the belief that he is cruel and evil because he’s willing to continue to pile up bodies and walk that corpse-laden path to the dream, to put others in harm’s way for his own sake, to devour others’ dreams for the sake of his own.
We see this in the flashback with the doll-knight boy, when his guard slips in front of Casca:
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
Casca specifically flags for us that this is a significant and unusually revealing moment for Griffith, where he shows a sliver of what’s underlying his implacable façade as a mercenary leader.
Another moment where we see Griffith’s guilt directly expressed is in “Tombstone of Flame: Chapter 2.” This scene shows us more explicitly that his guilt is bound up in his pursuit of the dream and the cruelty it takes to make that dream a reality:
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
From this scene, we can understand that to Griffith, his “cruelty” is specifically associated with walking the path to the dream, and alongside this, his willingness to put others in danger while he himself remains out of reach of harm’s way. These are both shown to us as things he hates himself for, given that he self harms directly after these scenes (with Gennon and with the second set of scratches – and if you need evidence that the latter happens, bthump has broken this down here).
This “cruelty” that lies at the heart of his guilt is why the guilt trip the Godhand take him on during the Eclipse cuts so deep, because throughout that sequence, the Godhand emphasize exactly that aspect, his cruelty, and no other part of him (such as his remorse, his intentions to create a more equal world, etc.).
Tumblr media
On Griffith’s Repression and Resentment of his Dream
Alright, so we know why Griffith feels guilty. The next question is how Griffith responds to this – I’m suggesting here that it’s through a dual combination of repression and self harm. So, why does Griffith repress and why does he self harm?
Generally speaking, he represses to make himself feel better. This is basically the act of redirecting his feelings – telling himself that the guilt/pain he experiences over pursuing the dream doesn’t matter because all of these acts of cruelty are in fact justifiable, because they agreed to it, because he thought about this logically, because fate said it was OK, because he feels nothing, because, because… It’s basically every time he puts aside his feelings in pursuit of the dream.
Griffith’s repression involves rationalizing away his feelings in order to retreat to a space of emotional safety as an escape from his self hatred and the guilt he feels over his willingness to pursue the dream. The repression exists to smother the negativity he feels about the dream (and what it takes to get there) however it possibly can. And it is in this way that Griffith’s ability to attain his dream becomes closely tied to his ability to repress his guilt over wanting to and trying to obtain it. The repression and the dream basically go hand and hand.
However, it’s important to acknowledge that Griffith’s repression also walks a delicate line, because it attempts to excuse the corpses for the sake of the shining end goal as the ultimate justification for all the bodies, effectively justifying death with more death in a vicious circle, where the guilt continues to grow larger and larger into a mountain of bodies that is eventually visualized for Griffith directly in the guilt trip.
Tumblr media
To make a bit of a subtle distinction here, it's not exactly that Griffith’s ability to repress his guilt over all of this becomes necessarily weaker the more the bodies pile up around him, because the increased body toll simply demands the need for greater and greater justification. In other words, it asks that he make a huge sacrifice for a huge gain – the eclipse for a utopia, basically.
However, we see that how this plays out in practice is that Griffith’s repression works against itself if not in the short run, in the long run because it ends up feeding this vicious circle. His repression feeds and intensifies his self loathing because it effectively enables more death, which in turn necessitates the greater need for his coping mechanisms and with it a stronger and stronger ability to repress those negative feelings. So if his ability to repress ever falters, what’s waiting in the wings is an increasingly difficult-to-justify mountain of death, guilt, and self hatred.
And not only that, if we dig a bit deeper, his ability to repress also feeds his self loathing directly, even as its entire goal exists to suppress it – because if he hates himself for his “cruel” willingness to walk the corpse-laden path to the dream, and the primary way he’s able to do this is because of his repression, then his ability to repress, to put on the mask for the sake of continuing the dream, would also be something he (unconsciously) hates about himself.
And in fact I think we see some of this resentment over his ability to repress his guilt finally acknowledged in the Godhand’s guilt trip:
Tumblr media
Read: “That’s right, I knew what this was doing, what I was excusing, what I was encouraging, and I found a way to do it anyway.”
If Griffith’s repression is what enables his cruelty, when his ability to repress falters and he’s left only with his self loathing (as we see in in the guilt trip sequence, or even to a lesser degree with Casca in the river sequence), he is thus also hit with the resentment and self hatred not just over his willingness to repress his guilt but over the dream also, because this is what all this evil has been done in the name of: this is the ultimate cause. “It’s a blood-smeared dream after all.”
Of course we can see that Griffith is still able to functionally rely on the dream as a coping mechanism all the while implicitly resenting it throughout the Golden Age, but only insofar as he’s successfully able to repress the negatives that threaten to undermine its ability to function. After all, that’s why he needs to repress his guilt over the dream in the first place, because he cannot justify pursuing the dream if he confronts that guilt directly – it’s basically always threatening to overwhelm him.
And so, as soon as the mask of repression begins to slip, this underlying resentment makes it progressively harder to put on the mask and convince himself that the dream is worth all this death and cruelty. As we see in the river scene, once overcome by negative feelings about the dream – that the dream may in fact be able to excuse nothing, it may be ultimately nothing other than a monument to his own cruelty – the repression slips and he reverts to self harm, and he can only snap the mask back in place when he realizes that other people still need him to keep up that façade.
Tumblr media
Griffith’s repression is essentially, at its heart, a precarious coping mechanism – it is intrinsically set up to undermine itself. The repression feeds and strengthens Griffith’s feelings of self loathing and his need to turn to self harm as a backup coping mechanism, which is effectively threatening to burst through the surface at any moment.
As we’ll see in the next section, his self harm in turn functions to invalidate his belief in the positive aspects of the dream (basically that it can still redeem him or his actions), and with it his ability to repress his own negative feelings.
This is essentially why I read the climax of Griffith’s Golden Age arc being the collapse of his coping mechanisms and his belief in the dream – because it hangs on his ability to successfully repress the negative feelings he has about the dream, and it hangs on two coping mechanisms that work at cross purposes from one another.
 On Griffith’s Self Harm
Okay, so we’ve been over why Griffith feels guilt and how his repression works, but how does his self harm function in the story? First, let’s look at what it does for him emotionally.
There are a couple reasons people generally self harm – one of the main ones is that it can serve as a distraction from our problems and emotions, allowing people to focus on the pain in the moment to the exclusion of everything else. This kind of self harm would function like repression in Griffith’s case, because it would bury the guilt with a sort of distraction, by smothering it with a different kind of pain.
Now I don’t think that’s how Griffith’s self harm works, for a couple of reasons.
Firstly, it’s because none of the instances of self harm we see textually in Berserk actually function to help him forget or diminish his guilt or self loathing over pursuing the dream, and instead are oriented around the opposite, leading him to focus on it instead.
In the river when he’s scratching himself, he’s almost doing it subconsciously, like he’s not even paying attention to what he’s doing, and he’s instead thinking about what he’s talking about: the dream, specifically the negative aspects of the dream:
Tumblr media
Throughout this scene, he’s not focused on his own self-inflicted suffering as a distraction, he’s focused on his own guilt from pursuing the dream. His suffering is positioned here as a direct consequence of his guilt.
Similarly, when he’s fucking Charlotte he’s thinking about Guts leaving and rejecting him, not getting lost in what he’s doing with her.
Tumblr media
Neither of these two instances of Griffith’s self harm are functioning as distractions from his pain, they’re about intensifying it. So, why would he want to intensify his pain?
It’s because the self harm is Griffith’s backup coping response – it’s what seeps out when the repression isn’t strong enough to bury the guilt. It’s what happens when he’s hit with the full intensity of the self loathing, guilt, resentment, etc. that his repression usually protects him from. Given that he’s essentially being overwhelmed by his self hatred, it makes sense that he would want to feel worse as a result, because this is him accepting and becoming all-consumed with the idea that he is evil and cruel, and he thus “deserves” to suffer.
It is in this way that the self harm serves as a punishment in Griffith’s eyes: “dirtying” himself is essentially meting out justice, effectively giving him what he “deserves” for his own cruelty. In his eyes, this is him reaping what he’s sown.
Basically, the second reason why I think the self harm doesn’t function as a distraction is that it seems to be more centred around penance through his own suffering. The strongest evidence for this again comes from the river scene:
Tumblr media
“[F]or hundreds, thousands of lives to hang in the balance and myself alone to not be unclean…”
This part of his monologue clearly sets up his own suffering (“dirtying” himself) as both punishment and atonement for his guilt over putting other people’s lives in danger.
Digging into this a bit deeper, Griffith is still essentially trying to prop up the dream here through his self harm, by trying to position his own suffering as constructive to his end goal. If the guilt threatens to tell him that none of this is worth it, the self harm in this instance is Griffith telling himself that it can be if he is just punished enough for it. (“What I want…won’t enter my grasp so easily as that.”)
This monologue shows us that in Griffith’s mind, his own suffering may be directly given up in response to the suffering of others. It’s what’s being offered in “exchange” – basically, if he becomes unclean enough (read: suffers enough) it’ll make all those hundreds and thousands of lives that hang in the balance “okay” (and you can see how this is some shaky and desperate logic).
In construing his self harm as a sort of atonement for the lives he’s put on the line for his dream, he is trying to absolve himself through his own suffering. This moment in the river essentially shows us Griffith’s thought process as he is in the process of self harming: “If I suffer and atone for this, then it will all be okay in the end, I can still attain my dream because I will have paid my dues.”
However, while Griffith tries to make this impulse to self harm constructive, as we’ll get into in the following section, we can see that this is still always fundamentally destructive to his goals because it always makes him feel worse about himself and his own actions, and that impulse to feel worse can easily spiral out of control when faced with a growing mountain of bodies and a shrinking sense that he can offer up anything in penance or justification for it.
This choice of the word “unclean” here basically serves as a signpost to explain why Griffith takes every single later action he associates with “dirtying” himself throughout the story. This idea of “dirtying” himself is obviously extremely loaded – these acts which make sure he’s not “unclean” are communicated as acts of self-imposed suffering that take place as a sort of punishment after he acts “cruelly” (this is not him putting himself in harm’s way during battle, he does that anyway), and they’re acts that he himself explicitly views as loathsome and disgusting.
Tumblr media
It’s clear that he views having sex with a child predator in similar terms to scratching himself – to Griffith, “dirtying” himself is essentially his self-imposed punishment, and he’s basically trying to construe that punishment as productive by positioning his suffering as in some way equivalent to the suffering of others (basically, “if I suffer too then that’ll make their suffering okay”).
This is also why, as we’ll get into in a minute, if he doesn’t view his suffering as “worth” anything, it becomes impossible to view his suffering as equivalent to the suffering of others. And that’s also why the more the suffering and the bodies pile up around him, the more difficult it is to rationalize his suffering as equivalent to all of this pain and horror.
This is basically the process of how Griffith rationalizes his self harm, this is how he construes it as a productive enterprise instead of a self-destructive one – this is the logic that links his self harm with achieving his goal.
And clearly it’s logic that’s resting on some supremely precarious ground.
 Repression v. Self Harm
In order to see how my readings of Griffith’s self harm v. his repression play out, let’s revisit a few key scenes in greater detail before we get into discussing the wider implications of this in terms of Griffith’s story and the sacrifice as the culmination of all of this.
Let’s start with Griffith’s interchange with Guts in Tombstone of Flame:
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
This conversation basically proceeds as follows: do you think I’m cruel? -> yeah, but you believe the cruelty is necessary, don’t you? -> yes, you’re right, all of this is cruel, and I am too, so I deserve to be punished for it -> self harm with the second set of scratches.
That smile – that same smile as with the doll-knight boy, and indeed the same as the sacrifice – is Griffith being overwhelmed by self loathing. This is not repression. This is not “You’re wrong, I’m not cruel/it doesn’t matter because [denial/rationalization/repression/justification],” it’s “You’re right.” This is me. I’m cruel, a monster, and therefore I deserve to suffer.
And indeed, all three examples of that same smile (the river, Tombstone of Flame, and the sacrifice) lead to acts of self harm. In this case, this isn’t an example of him trying to justify or bury the guilt and pain and horror or build up his defences like the repression would, it’s him justifying an act of self-destruction to tear himself down, because he thinks he deserves it.
To really dig into this distinction, let’s turn to another example of how Griffith’s self harm works in contrast to the repression, and return to the scene where Griffith scratches himself in the river.
First of all, he’s scratching himself here because he feels guilty over putting people in harm’s way for the sake of his dream (a feeling which is specifically kicked off by doll-knight boy but I think it’s made pretty obvious that this is just over people in general), while denying this guilt out loud and spewing his BS rationalizations to Casca.
Tumblr media
Both the self harm and the repression are working in response to the same guilt here. But why doesn’t he stop with the rationalization? Why is it narratively or psychologically necessary that he also self harms at all here?
It’s because the denial (i.e., repression) isn’t strong enough to smother the guilt – and yeah, it’s because his rationalization is flimsy as fuck – basically it boils down to “I don’t feel responsible because I am a being of pure logic.” Which: lol
Again, the rationalization exists here to suppress Griffith’s negative feelings, the guilt, self-loathing, and monstrousness – this is him telling himself the guilt doesn’t matter, basically trying to push it away so he doesn’t have to emotionally confront it, because “I thought about it logically […] I don’t feel at all responsible…”
But we see that the rationalization isn’t strong enough, and the self harm is what seeps out when the rationalization can’t bury his self loathing. When the self harm takes over directly after this, the tone of this exchange changes and specifically swings toward the negative aspects of the dream: as he gets deeper into scratching himself, he becomes more and more dream-negative, i.e., focused on how his dream is built on corpses:
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
We’re being visually told that his answer to this, his way to make sure he’s not unclean, is to not only have sex with a child predator, but also pay that debt through his blood and suffering. The self harm is justifying his self loathing and guilt in a different way than the rationalization is, not telling himself that “the death is okay because [repression],” but instead “the death not OK – I hate myself and I need to atone for this, which will hopefully make it OK in the end.”
And importantly, as mentioned earlier, as soon as Griffith gets a stronger angle in this exchange – protecting Casca instead of protecting himself – his repression snaps back in full force and he reins in the self harm immediately.
I see this moment as especially significant to understanding how Griffith’s self harm works, because it shows us that the self harm cannot uphold itself as a coping mechanism, it’s basically destined to collapse on itself.
This is because in order to believe you can atone for something through your actions, you have to believe that your actions, your own suffering, has worth. And since the self harm is premised on tearing himself down, as he gets deeper in the hole of self harm, it becomes more and more difficult to believe that his penance is worth a damn. It’s just as much of a balancing act as the repression is, except that it specifically hinges on Griffith’s sense of self worth… so it’s pretty much destined to spiral out of control.
To reiterate, why is the self harm still a defence mechanism if it’s designed to make Griffith feel worse and emphasize the negative aspects of the dream over the shining end goal?
The river scene shows us how Griffith’s repression works in relation to his self harm – when the repression falters, the self loathing that has him focusing on the road of corpses gets him dangerously close to thinking that the dream isn’t worth it, and obviously he can’t live with that because then he’s left with nothing. The self harm (at least in the case of the scratching and Gennon) functions as the last line of defense against that sneaking suspicion that the castle cannot in fact redeem all of this death – because it asserts that maybe the dream can still be worth it if he suffers and atones for his actions. Again, the evidence for this is in the river scene:
“But… for hundreds, thousands of lives to hang in the balance and myself alone to not be unclean… What I want…won’t enter my grasp so easily as that.”
That last part indicates that he essentially still wants to want the dream here, and the self harm is basically what’s allowing him to do so, to continue on the path to his dream through his suffering as penance.
Yet even as this recuperative logic works to some degree in the river scene, this belief is still founded on the (shaky) assumption that his own suffering is worth anything in exchange for the suffering of others. That’s why, to me, it seems apparent that Griffith’s self worth plays such an important part in the breakdown of his coping mechanisms, and why it makes sense that at a certain point he reaches such a low that the self harm no longer becomes penitent, it becomes only punishment. This is the point where self harm becomes self destruction, and this is exactly what happens with Charlotte.
 On Griffith’s Self Harm as Self Destruction
We know that Griffith having sex with Charlotte and his subsequent taunting of her father work differently than with the scratching and Gennon, because unlike these two cases, these instances of self harm involve him throwing away the dream too (or at the very least in the former case, putting the dream directly into jeopardy) – casting it into the fire along with all the other “frightening and sad things.” Like with his later suicide attempt and the sacrifice, this isn’t an example of Griffith still wanting to walk the path of the dream, this is him reaching the point where the dream no longer seems worth it, and we know this because he takes steps to actively throw it away (though I do think this understanding is still operating largely instinctually/unconsciously until the soup-behelit, as I outlined in my previous meta).
Throughout the torture sequence, as he goads the King into viciously beating him, we see that Griffith verbally associates his own failure (by implication – he is clearly referring to himself as well as the King throughout this sequence) with his worthlessness.
Tumblr media Tumblr media
At this point, Griffith is masochistically relishing in the fact that he basically cannot offer anything to anyone anymore – his penance is no longer worth anything to anyone, and all that remains is the suffering he thinks he deserves.
This is the first time we see Griffith’s self harm not being mobilized in a remotely constructive way. Getting beaten doesn’t have anything to do with attaining the dream, this is a naked display of the belief that Griffith thinks he deserves to suffer for his actions without the veneer of his suffering functioning as penance. This is now simply his punishment, for daring to try to pursue the dream in the first place.
This exchange effectively reveals the naked truth to us – that Griffith���s self harm reflects his desire to suffer for what he’s done to others. Even though he may have pretended in the past that this desire to suffer for his sins can still in some way still be constructive to his goals, this moment shows us that ultimately it’s not. Here we’re seeing directly that when Griffith’s self worth is low (i.e., when he feels like shit), all he wants to do is suffer more, and that’s basically the rub.
And yeah, of course that’s how it works, because this is exactly how we see his self harm working throughout the story. Whenever he feels guilty/cruel/dirty, we watch him self harm to feel worse: the doll-knight boy and Gennon, Gennon and the scratching, “am I cruel” and the scratching, being rejected by Guts and self destructing, all culminating in the low point of the torture and “This is worthless.”
Tumblr media
This scene shows us that Griffith’s self worth is intrinsically tied to his belief that he deserves to suffer, and this is set up as a vicious circle – the worse he feels, the worse he wants to make himself feel, and so on.
To back up a bit to the preceding scene with Charlotte, this is basically the gateway scene between Griffith as a functional human and Griffith as a self-destructing catastrophe.
Why he comes to Charlotte in this moment is open for debate – perhaps he’s simply trying to repress his pain over Guts’ leaving by attempting to seize the dream by seducing the princess. Or perhaps he secretly wants to get caught doing something risky that will fundamentally jeopardize the dream in order to punish himself for being unworthy of Guts’ love. Or perhaps it’s both at the same time.
Tumblr media
Let’s quickly break down how this scene works in terms of Griffith’s state of mind. First we see him still trying to play the gentlemen, still repressing and putting on a show of the perfect prince for Charlotte. Soon after though, the mask drops and he basically reveals a hardened statue beneath. He’s ultimately too hurt in this moment to keep the cheeky and/or charming mask up – he looks like he feels cold and empty, and he’s still trying not to think about what’s just happened with Guts.
Tumblr media
This is basically an exact midpoint between his repression and his self harm – he’s trying to smother the pain by not thinking about it (repression at its simplest), but at the same time what he’s choosing to do with Charlotte actually intensifies his pain, because it leads him to think about Guts anyway (self harm).
Tumblr media
Again, Griffith’s repression exists to make himself feel better, to reassert the importance and value of the dream, and his actions don’t actually accomplish this in the slightest. It doesn’t make him feel better, because it’s functionally designed to make himself feel worse.
And yeah, we see that afterwards he clearly feels 1000% worse, not better.
Tumblr media Tumblr media
Griffith’s self harm moves into the territory of self destruction here because he isn’t actually able to atone for anything by having sex with Charlotte – regardless of what he might have intended when he went to Charlotte’s room, the scene plays out to tear himself down, and the dream is no closer after he’s done so.
His isolation in that final panel is basically a visual representation of his own self-imposed punishment for his daring to think all of this was worth the price he, and more importantly everyone else, has paid for it.
In this way, this sequence and the one that follows in the torture chamber show us that Griffith’s change in attitude toward his acts of self harm v. self destruction comes down directly to the amount of self loathing he is experiencing, and in an intrinsically related way, how much value he places in himself, his own desire to feel better, and his ability to atone for his actions.
And I think it’s clear that things change for Griffith because of Guts. Whether he likes/recognizes it or not, by the time Guts leaves he’s also staked his self worth on what Guts thinks of him, because he loves him and craves his respect and admiration. Guts’ answer to “Do you think I’m cruel?” cuts deep, but not as deeply as being told that he essentially never had any of Guts’ love or respect in the first place, which is what he believes as Guts leaves (“Is this how badly you want to leave my grasp?” – see bthump’s excellent meta breaking this moment down in more detail).
It makes sense that this moment would deliver such a devastating blow to Griffith’s sense of worth that it makes his self loathing spiral out of control and leads to him tearing his life apart.
And indeed, I read something very similar going down in the guilt trip, when the Godhand essentially tell Griffith that not only did he never have Guts’ love, he was in fact never worthy of love in the first place, because he is evil, a monster, too cruel, dirty, and loathsome to deserve a way out of this hellish cycle he’s stuck in.
Redux: The Sacrifice as Self Destruction
As I broke down in my previous meta, my analysis of the Eclipse leads me to believe that during this sequence Griffith is choosing the sacrifice (self harm) and not the dream (repression).
Originally, I argued that repression played no part in the sacrifice. However, upon further reflection and lengthy discussion, I have come around to the idea that in fact it is still at play during the first half of the guilt trip. This is clearly the case, because Griffith actually does manage to make an “ends justify the means” argument with respect to his sacrifice of the BoTH, even confronted with an image of all those bodies laid at his feet.
Tumblr media
With the Godhand’s encouragement, he is temporarily able to push past the guilt to keep proceeding toward that end goal, covered in blood, in the attempt to convince himself that all this death and suffering couldn’t be for nothing (“If I repent...”). As I noted in my previous analysis, I believe this logic would have been enough for Griffith if all he had to do is sacrifice his Hawks – but as we know, in order to become a monster, you have to sacrifice what you love most, and imo no positive or constructive logic about finally attaining his dream could lead Griffith to the conclusion that the dream is worth anything close to Guts’ life.
It seems that what actually makes the difference at the bitter end is the intervention of fate and the word of God during the Eclipse. The Godhand essentially don’t let Griffith go through with this line of utilitarian thinking, because right after emerging from “the reality within his conscious realm,” they bring him right back into the pile of corpses, only this time it’s portrayed in less abstract terms by evoking the battlefield directly.
Tumblr media
The Godhand are effectively telling him right after he’s successfully made his rationalizations that there’s no washing that blood off – that he’s already evil (“That is you”) and there is no absolution waiting for him, only his destiny, which is to reap the evil he has sown. It’s like they specifically get him to make the justification one more time in order to condemn him for it.
They prevent him from shifting the focus back onto that end goal and instead re-emphasize what he’s done to get there (“Over those corpses…you have trampled”), to tell him that he must embrace the cause and effect of his actions (“Bear [your] evil and confront destiny”).
Tumblr media
In this way, it’s ultimately a pronouncement of guilt from the veritable mouth of god that finally puts the nail in the coffin of Griffith’s dance between the ends and the means, repression and self harm. They definitively come out and say that there’s no more repressing this, there’s no world in which this will ever be okay. You’re just evil and all you have to look forward to is more evil. This is you.
Directly after this, at the moment of the sacrifice, Griffith has basically been brought to his absolute lowest point, where self destruction seems like the only option (keep in mind that he’s already tried and failed to kill himself). After the guilt trip he thinks he’s less than worthless – he’s been convinced that he’s evil, and deserves nothing but more evil and his own eternal suffering, to “bear his evil and confront destiny.” This is where the last moments of his (human) life swing toward self destruction once and for all.
From what we’ve seen already about how Griffith acts when he feels worthless and wants to self harm, at this point Griffith cannot possibly think that he deserves to benefit or gain anything – not a castle, not absolution, love, or care or human connection. All he deserves is eternal pain and suffering. And by making the sacrifice, Griffith is guaranteeing that belief in his own mind, by obliterating all the remaining goodness within himself by committing an evil act.
Choosing those “raven-black wings” over the lives of Guts and the Hawks is so contrary to what values we already know he believes in, this moment it’s basically just more fuel for the fire.
Contrast the sentiment behind this:
Tumblr media
With this:
Tumblr media
We’ve been shown that Griffith’s sense of ego is premised almost entirely on what he can do for others – he has left very little sense that he deserves anything for himself. That’s why the selfishness of the sacrifice is, imo, so personally destructive to him – because for someone who has such little sense of independent self or self worth, to make an entirely selfish choice is so contemptible, terrible, unforgivable in his mind that it completely destroys him.
We know that this same perceived selfishness is already his deepest source of guilt and trauma (the belief that he has put others in harm’s way for the sake of his own goals) – so agreeing to the sacrifice is a manifestation of that exact same guilt, just magnified a hundred times over. This act is him basically deciding to give up the pretense that any of his actions have ever been anything other than pure selfishness, cruelty, and evil, by fully embracing that evil and making an exchange for personal benefit, because in his mind there’s essentially no coming back from such a contemptible decision.
Griffith thus chooses the sacrifice as an act of self destruction, and it represents the choice to become exactly everything he always feared he was, to let go of his responsibility to do the right thing by proving that the Godhand (and Guts, or so he thinks) were right all along, by finally making a truly evil choice and thereby validating his belief that he has always been evil and therefore deserves to suffer for eternity.
Tumblr media Tumblr media
This is what I mean by the sacrifice being an act of self harm and “spiritual” suicide, not just because he’s basically killing himself, but because the whole impetus is based around actively destroying all the things that he valued about himself – his own soul – everything that made him good and human in his own eyes (and like, this is exactly what Femto, the result of this choice, is). This decision is based around tearing his entire sense of humanity to shreds, by doing the worst thing to himself that he could possibly imagine (making an exchange for personal benefit and sacrificing his most dearly beloved) and becoming the embodiment of that cruel and violent world order he always hated.
Tumblr media
The way I think of this as suicide isn’t at all about making him feel better, because it’s not ultimately giving him absolution/justification for or abdication from his actions, it’s giving him the exact opposite – proof of his cruelty in the form of raven-black wings, which are basically just the evidence he’s been looking for all along that he deserves to suffer. It’s also not a depiction of true suicide, which would be an actual escape from his pain. Though this is still an escape in a way – not from his pain but into it.
 Conclusions
While all the acts of self harm/destruction we see Griffith undertake throughout the Golden Age (the scratching, Gennon, Charlotte, the torture chamber, and the sacrifice) have varying elements of repression within them, because that’s still Griffith’s default response to his guilt, each are still ultimately acts of self harm/destruction because they result in tearing himself down and they actively function to make him feel worse – this is succumbing to the pain rather than trying to shield himself from it. None of these moments succeed at helping him along the path to the dream or making him feel better about himself, because none are functionally designed to.
And in saying this, I’m not also implying Griffith didn’t want his own suffering to end at different points in his life. I think after being tortured he wanted to die and end his suffering, after the soup-behelit/nightmare sequence he wanted to die and end his suffering, obviously, he attempts suicide after all. But the guilt trip is the ultimate difference in the end – the guilt trip is what convinces Griffith that he doesn’t deserve to end his suffering. That even his own “death” should be in the name of greater suffering.
Ultimately, what we can understand from this is that, despite the fact that he tries to pretend otherwise, when Griffith scratches himself it has nothing to do with attaining the dream, it’s not ultimately justifying anything other than his own belief that he deserves to suffer – he’s basically always just doing it to feel worse about himself.
When he has sex with Gennon, the specific act he chooses to take is one that is designed to hurt himself – there would have been many different ways to throw himself back into the dream in order to earn money without putting people at risk: for example he could have taken on some mercenary jobs personally, or sought out some non-combative work for interested Hawks – specifically why he chooses to have sex with a child predator is because he wants to punish himself for getting others killed, to atone through his own suffering. Choosing to have sex with a child predator as an act in isolation doesn’t advance the dream, only the end result (money) does. And that money could have been obtained in objectively less harmful and potentially more fruitful routes to that same goal.
Similarly, with Charlotte, his having sex with her, his leaving in broad daylight, his taunting the King, etc. – I read Griffith making those choices because some part of him wanted to destroy himself, to actively torpedo the dream because in some sense he has been brought to believe that he’s worthless and so is everything he’s staked his life on.
What he did in the river, with Charlotte, with the King, even the sacrifice – none of these events had to go down the way they did. The way they went down was basically arranged to destroy every one of those “sad and frightening things,” including the dream and his own life.
~~
In conclusion, I hope that this meta shows how centrally important the logic of Griffith’s self harm is to his actions throughout the narrative of the Golden Age. His beliefs about himself and his own suffering are shown to us to consistently shape his choices, and I think it’s also clear that this logic persists through Femto’s actions after the Golden Age.
I have some more metas planned where I’m thinking of fleshing some more stuff out that spawned out of my original meta and subsequent discussions around it, so keep out an eye for those if you’re interested.
As always, if you have any thoughts about any of this I would be very interested to hear from you.
Thank you so much for reading!
207 notes · View notes
onesunofagun · 3 years
Text
Undeath in the Era of the Hero of Time : 1
aka Seeing the Hero’s Shade in this TP replay shook up all my feelings of agony again and now I’m working backwards from there because I like to hurt myself.
Tumblr media
Part One: An Overview of How Fucked Things Are ™
aka The Blood Soaked Hyrule of OoT’s time 
Take it as you will, in the Zeldaverse, the colour green has an overwhelming association with undeath. 
Sure, sure, life too, I hear you. Farore came down and produced all the living beings that would uphold the law, apparently (specifically not claiming monsters and demons, but that’s another thing). On the surface, that make sense. Forests, lush green fields, prosperity, all of those good things. Green the colour of the most common rupee, green the colour of the Hero’s tunic. Green the colour of magic, and potions that revitalise the body and spirit.
The thing is, revitalising the body and spirit is a flexible idea. To imbue something with new life and vitality can have a lot of implications, especially when you stop talking about the strictly living. 
I feel vitality is certainly the best word, not only because of it’s association with life and potency ala the Goddess origin stories, but in the ways that the game uses green itself, such as a measure of both magic and stamina. Green is the colour chosen to represent the unlocked potential within young Heroes. 
Vitality specifically refers to a state of being strong and active, and it also refers to the continuance of something to exist. That’s a great thing for plants, or economies, or a potion taken by a young Link who’s swung their sword around or fired off a spell one too many times and feels a little low.
But the dead, though?
As it happens, Hyrule is absolutely littered with human remains, in no small part due to the very recently ended civil wars. 
The Civil War, if you need the reminder, is described as a time when the many races of Hyrule were divided and each focused on establishing dominion over the Sacred Realm (because Triforce). I touched on this in my last meta post, but basically, its no holds barred to stop that from happening because if the wrong person gets into the Sacred Realm and makes a wish, it immediately malfunctions. 
The criteria for getting into the Sacred Realm and touching the Triforce without royally fucking everything, is basically impossible for anybody not chosen by Hylia. 
If you are neither of Hylia’s Bloodline (The Hyrulean Royal Family) or one of her Chosen Avatars (The current incarnation of the Hero), you are not supposed to touch the Triforce. Ever. You WILL be found wanting, it WILL shatter, the Sacred Realm WILL be corrupted by your selfish desires, it WILL unleash and onslaught of mystical influence (reflecting your heart) onto the country.
Now, if it’s Zelda or Link who touches it, that’s fine. Good vibes will pour out. An age of prosperity will ensue. The Sacred Realm is in its default state, a blank and neutral wellspring of magical force.
The game has been rigged from the get go because Hylia still had a job to do. She had to get creative because Demise almost captured the flag, so to speak, leading to the snafu of the Cycle and all that because she cheated at the game, but ultimately Hylia’s task was to guard the Triforce. And that still remains true, for the most part. The Hyrulian Royal Family (and the Shiekah by extension) had to stop at absolutely nothing to win the wars and unify the country, and retain the stasis of the Realm and Triforce, because that’s what their divine orders are.
That’s what they’re supposed to do, ‘the very reason that they’re born’, to lend a quote from King Daphnes. With Hylia on their side by default, they’re willing to do a lot of fucked up things to make sure that happens, ‘for the greater good’.
These dark times are a result of our deeds... -- TP Zelda
In OoT The Sheikah are known as the Shadow Folk. They are heavily associated with death, whether that is caring for the dead’s rest in the graveyard, or working as spies and assassins on behalf of the Royals, or dabbling in various forms of necromancy. Red eyes are an established trait of their people. I will note that, at least from a Japanese point of view, red is often used with the intention of intimidating evil spirits. But it is also a color identified with power and vitality.
So, one could suppose, the Sheikah red eye also symbolises power/control over evil and darkness (spiritually).
That’s a little something that plays nicely with things like the OoT Manga’s explanation of the tear on the eye (and the previous betrayal of the Royal family) and the high probability of a Shiekah faction defaulting during the wars and being banished with other traitors to become the Twili. I know the manga isn’t canon and also SS Impa has a tear, but if you squint, that might be because of her own feelings of personal failure to the Goddess after Hylia’s shedding of her Divinity. You could headcanon that. The existence of the Yiga later in BoTW as a similar happening of division and betrayal lend some more weight to things.
Also, Sheikah who defaulted during the civil war might have even been the ones who actually utilised the Shadow Temple. 
Headline: Necromancer ninjas in the process of torturing enough info out of the enemies of the Royal family, who were reportedly seeking the Sacred Realm, decide ‘hey fuck it, let’s take it ourselves’. 
That certainly fits into the description of, ‘interloper skilled with dark magic started to appear, seeking dominion of the Sacred Realm’, for me.
Anyway, to the point.
In ostensibly one of the most haunted areas of the game, Kakariko village, we’re treated to the Graveyard and the Royal Family’s Tomb, the Shadow Temple, and the Bottom of the Well. All of these showcase the obvious death and torture that went on, as well as the creepy byproducts of places so saturated with blood, pain, regret, and hatred.
Tumblr media
There are skulls in little alcoves on the walls of the catacombs, literally built of bones, who deliver messages to Link. The ones that whisper these messages are all marked by the glowing green eye sockets. Here, the green is used to make the presence of a ghostly sentience inhabiting the skull. 
Unsettling. Musty. 4/10 heebie-jeebies.
Tumblr media
The Deadhand, giver of childhood trauma that it is, really does its job to hammer home the fact that there has been so many deaths, so much anguish and horror, that those remains can seemingly form into entirely new monstrosities. An amalgamate of undead flesh and nightmare fuel, made up of the body parts of torture victims and the grudges of lingering spirits, seeking to consume the living vitality of whatever comes near-- Link wearing green around the thing might as well be red to a bull.
When defeated in game, it typically drops a small green pot that refuels Link’s magic.
This is a common theme with undead enemies, specifically the ones that are of the zombie flavour. Redeads, Gibdos, Deadhands. All of them generally give up, effectively, distilled magic as a drop item.
Terrifying. Probably smells even worse. 11/10 heebie-jeebies.
Tumblr media
Literal torture device. So many people died here, the room has a green tinge to it. It is soaked in the spiritual imprint of the pain and anguish that took place here. Blood sits here looking freshly spilled, despite the civil war ending many years prior and the Shiekah having ‘died out’, save Impa.
Elsewhere in the temple and under the well, blood splatters are darker red and at least have the decency to pretend to be old. This means one of two things:
Impa still has to make sacrifices to the Seal that contains Bongo Bongo, or feeds people to the undead creatures who lurk down in the dark so they don’t wander up. (Cue the gasp of ‘so that’s why she let the Hylians into Kakariko! Every so often one of them goes missing!’)
Which is a fun dark headcanon to play with, but probably not the case.
Or more likely, the residual spiritual energy that the green haze suggests manifests fresh blood in a manner typical of extreme hauntings. For the victims, their hatred and pain persists so strongly, that their blood seeps up from the cracks no matter how long it has been.
Poltergeist shit. Slip hazard. 8/10 heebie-jeebies.
Tumblr media
Then there is this. Some people say its just another torture thing, it could have been intended to convey some sort of acid dip. If not torture, maybe bodily disposal. And sure, that’s a reasonable guess. 
But it is at the very bottom most cavern of the Well of Three Features, and if it were acid-- for how long the bodies have just been marinating in it-- you can assume nothing would be left of them to stick out. And the fact that all the bodies are neatly spaced, with the arms oddly preserved. They’re presumably like that from lowering bodies in from the wooden beams, the victims may have been tied up with their arms straight upwards. 
But, given the Redeads wandering around nearby, I’m pretty sure that’s what this thing does. Make Redeads.
The liquid itself hurts Link, but Link is also alive, and this pool seems to be lacking much of a glow. It’s green, sure, but it’s not exactly teeming with energy. And I think that might be part of its designated purpose-- extracting that green vital energy from living prisoners, draining them until they’re dead. I’m talking juicing people and scooping out the good stuff like the pulp from a really disturbing OJ. 
But still steeped in the juice as a corpse, you’re basically pickled in magic brine, so then those gross husks crawl out as Redeads. (Hey, you know what’s handy in wartime? Scaring the shit out of enemy forces by sending some zombies at them. And if they kill them, you’ve lost nothing. If the Sheikah could actually control them? Undead soldiers. Excellent stuff.)
But all the pulpy good stuff is gone, and has been for a while, so most of the bodies in there haven’t pickled in enough magic to reanimate, I suppose.
Human juicer that churns out zombies. Out of juice currently. 6/10 heebie-jeebies.
Tumblr media
Now, THIS is active zombie juice, if I’ve ever seen it.
This is the Royal Family’s Tomb, by the way. Note the skeletons, picked clean, missing a lot of bones. And that’s a choice they made, because there are also full skeletons around to find. 
There are plenty of Redeads down there, for good measure, so I’m going to assume the skeletons are potential graverobbers who were eaten. If Sheikah can presumably command the dead, then the Redeads down there might actually be a counter measure against thieves. If a thief freaks out in the dark when he realises there’s undead down there trying to eat their face, there is also a good likelihood they’ll trip and splash into this green death. A few seconds of exposure is probably enough to kill the average person, and then if their corpse stews for a bit, you have another Redead. 
Their living energy revitalises the goop. Their body becomes bolstered security measures. It’s a self sustaining system.
Horrific but effective. 5/10 heebie-jeebies.
Also, there’s a chance that a couple of the skeletons or one or two Redeads down there are the remains of the Composer Brothers. But they will get their own special part in this series, covering Poes in particular.
Tumblr media
But for the moment, let it be noted: their eyes are also that ghostly green.
Poes are spirits that are unable to move on and who have the unfortunate fate, if left unattended, of turning into phantom monsters who forget their human selves and prey on the living. They tend to pop up the most in two places. One, the Kakariko Graveyard, is obvious and somewhat expected. Dead people, lots of lingering spirits, most of them probably Sheikah and Knights of renown who died in the line of duty. Understandable.
So when you apply the same thought to the fact that Hyrule field is the second most common place to find them, you may as well be concluding that it’s an enormous mass grave of war casualties.
We have established that mass quantities of concentrated death, especially earth that is saturated by the spilled blood of strong soldiers and highly skilled warriors (full of life and magic, as it were), can result in creepy shit made from human remains reanimating over time. 
Poes share their haunting of the field with these bumpkins:
Tumblr media
These hauntings are not the result of Ganondorf, or the corruption of the Sacred realm. They are not a particular curse placed by anybody.
The Poes and Stalfolk are present in the game from the very beginning, and quite normal fare for Hyrulean life. Lon Lon ranch and castle town are walled off for good reason, and the drawbridge raises at night specifically in response to the literal skeleton monsters who roam around at night. 
Stalchildren, specifically, seem akin to the Deadhand in that they are not a direct reanimation of any one particular set of remains. Rather, they seem to be mutated amalgamations of various parts. In the case of the Stalchildren, they rise up under the dark of night, a not-quite-human formation of bone and magic. They seem to possess an aimless drive to attack, perhaps possessed still by the orders of the soldiers who died there. 
Interestingly, in a somewhat similar fashion to BotW’s blood moon reanimating the fallen monsters (due to the potency of Malice in the land peaking at those times), Stalchildren only seem to be active under the moonlight. They disintegrate when the sunlight touches them, which promotes the idea that they are the bones of the fallen possessed by the ghostly memory of the war.
Tumblr media
They also appear to wear raggy leather kilts, which is a feature they share with the related monster, the Stalfos, who are often acting out the part of a soldier as well. Even better, those bastards are actually WEARING GREEN, to boot, which given the history of Hyrulean Knights prior and their uniforms (SS and Minish cap) is pretty self evident. 
Stalfos, however, are also confirmed as humans who have died under certain unique circumstance (such as the magical influences of the Lost Woods) and reanimated as a consequence of what I assume is basically magic poisoning.
It could be a bit like an overdose, succumbing under the intense mystical forces at play within proximity to the Deku Tree (which the strong of spirit can resist). It could be a draining effect, maybe even just a gaseous version of what’s happening when people come into contact with the green goo, except extracted by the forest spirits and plants (also possible that the strong of spirit might resist). That could go either way.
The forest absolutely does eat people’s spiritual energy, though. RIP to Grog and Link’s mother. They’re Stalfos now.
"Anybody who comes into the forest will be lost. Everybody will become a Stalfos. Everybody, Stalfos."
Upon killing both kind of Stal, however, the bones rapidly deteriorate into flames.
You guessed it: green.
Tumblr media
I’ve already pointed out a BoTW reference already, but to add more context back into this thing about the tie between green and things in Hyrule that refuse to die properly:
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
That last one is cheap of me I’m sorry but we’ll get to him too
So we have established that green has an overwhelming association with not only life, but states of undeath.
The overview is, things were already pretty fucked in OoT Era before Ganondorf got the Triforce.
On to part 2!
42 notes · View notes
Text
HASO, “The Harbinger.”
It was nice to finally write this piece, and sorry for not posting for the last two days. With my work schedule, weekends for me sometimes fall in the middle of the week. 
Hope you all have a great day!
“This is going to be a disaster.”
Overhead the UN flag snapped in the wind desperately trying to cool their bodies from the beating Sun.
“So you say, but I disagree.” She glanced down at the crew roster in her hands, “The boy really did his research, asked for people specifically, all the way down to the marines. A lot of them crewed the original enterprise. If this were a deck of cards I would say he has a royal flush.”
The other Admiral grunted but didn’t argue with her.
The man had never personally be into space, never even visited mars, so he didn’t pretend to know more than she did, while simultaneously being skeptical. She could deal with that, but at least he respected her enough to have trusted her decision.
Together they stood on the tarmac of the launch field.
The new ship wasn’t there as it had been built completely off-earth at Europa station considering how massive the ship was and how unwieldy the thing would have been in atmosphere. However, someone had taken the time to throw up some projectors, showing the view at Europa station as the last finishing touches were added, and cargo was loaded into her hull.
Across the Tarmac, they watched as Captain Vir stepped from UNSC headquarters and out onto the pavement. If the boy had any more bounce in his step he might as well have been skipping as he made his way up to the lectern and sat just off to the side on a metal folding chair. There were still other speeches to be given, those being the UN president, a few other major officials, and a broadcast by the GA, who were very pleased with their decision despite continuous grumbling by UNSC officers who still thought the boy was going to screw it all up.
The other admiral turned his head to look at her, “just look at him, he’s like a puppy, probably gonna piss all over himself with excitement.”
Admiral Kelly looked over to where he was sitting, on the edge of his folding chair, hands casper before him and one leg bouncing like a jackhammer against the pavement. There WAS something surprisingly doglike about him, “Oh give him a chance. I was just as excited as he was to fly my first mission, the difference was I didn’t show it. You can hardly blame a man for wearing his heart on his sleeve.” “More like smack in the middle of his forehead.”
“Give him a chance.”
He glanced over at her, “You’re fond of him.”
“He makes it easy to be fond of him.” 
The UNp resident finished with his speech and stepped down from the lectern.
“Oh here we go, what is it gonna be, a cheesy joke and a Star Wars reference.”
She glanced at him from over her shoulder, “how do you know about star wars?”
He blushed only slightly, “I have a son who is into that old vintage stuff.”
“Mmmmm Hmmm.” She said pointedly before turning back to Captain Vir as he stood from his seat. She watched as he took a deep breath to calm himself, and then walked slowly up to the lectern his back straight, his expression serious
She smiled as she watched her friend’s eyebrow raise in surprise.
“Just over a year ago I sat in a VA hospital wondering if I was ever going to walk again, Eight months ago, I wondered if I was going to survive, six months ago I wondered if I would ever fully recover, and one week ago I wondered what kind of drugs the brass was smoking to offer me this job.” He smiled slightly as the crowd laughed, “All joking aside, I am privileged and honored to have been chosen. I know there has been a lot of controversy behind my appointment to this position, and Ithink Admiral kelly especially for her faith in me. I am not going to delude myself into thinking I can make any promises about whether or not I will succeed, but I can promise that I will do my best, which is as much as any man can promise considering such uncertain circumstances.”
He glanced down at his papers as the wind tugged at his cap, “As we speak the last cargo is being loaded onto my ship in preparation for our first deployment into the stars. I have thought long and hard in preparation, and for a proper name for the ship that will help usher in a new age of cooperation and companionship between us and extraterrestrial life. Sleepless nights, hours with the Oxford dictionary, and plenty of inappropriate suggestions from family members…” He paused there to allow a light chuckle from the crowd, “Hours and hours of thought and planning,...” he paused smiling ruefully, “I actually found the perfect word while out with my dad searching for new tractor parts. You know how these companies are, they have to make their tractor parts sound really manly or they’re worried we won’t buy them.” There was another slight chuckle from the crowd, “Anyway, the word I found means ‘ something that comes before and that shows what will follow in the future, a herald, a precursor or a forerunner. The word I chose and the name that my ship will take is Harbinger, a herald of things to come, the forerunner of humanity’s expansion into the stars and our alliance with alien races. She will be a harbinger, but a harbinger of good things to come. The crew of the harbinger will uphold all the values and oaths of the UNSC, protect, when others cannot, sacrifice when others will not, and fight when others actively rise against those that we protect.”
He went quiet as the un flag snapped behind him in the breeze.
“I give my soul to this endeavor with every fiber of my being, and I ask for my crew to do the same.”
***
Europa station 1200 hours EST
UNSC identification badges must be worn at all times.
“Now remember, she’s got six main engines, the back one is the most powerful but make sure to use your left and right for maneuvering to keep power. Never fire the warp core andt the engines at the same time unless you want to end up a thousand light years away and by all that is holy try very hard not to initiate that shatter sequence if you can help it.” Europa station director, and lead commander on the build team led him across the open deck and towards the open cargo ramp.
Adam’s eyes were wide, stuck open with awe as they approached the ship. He had seen her only once in her full glory, having asked the shuttle to take a quick tour around the Europa station so he could get a good look at her where she was docked
By all rights she was as aesthetically pleasing as a cinder block, but he thought she was beautiful all the same.
The man pulled him to a halt waving over another figure who had, up till that point, been busy shouting orders to a group of grey jumpsuits people who scrambled to do her bidding.
She stopped yelling at them long enough to turn and walk over.
“Captain, I would like to introduce you to your Chief Engineering officer Narobi. She knows everything there is to know about this ship. If she so much as suspects something might go wrong, you listen to her, no dumbass macho man act, and no blowing her off because she's probably more important than you will be when it comes to keeping this beauty in the air.”
She was tall just an inch or two shorter than him with dark skin and hard brown eyes. She wore one of those grey jumpsuits of the other engineers, but had wrapped a bright orange and red scarf around her head, tied up in a decorative knot. She was probably the most beautiful woman he had ever seen though the look on her face made it very clear that she wasn’t the type to hold such things at a high priority. Looking into her cold hard eyes he had no doubt that she was ready and willing to brain him with a pipe if he ever deserved it.
Adam held out a hand to her, “A pleasure to meet you-”
She took his hand, her grip as a calloused vice against his. He hadn’t expected that and grimaced as her fingers crushed his, she leaned in very close, “You see that ship right there, captain.”
He squeaked out a response, suddenly afraid for the safety of his bones.
“That right there, that ship, is mine. You may pilot my ship, and I will even allow you to talk about her like she’s yours, but at the end of the day she is mine. I take care of her, I fix her when she is sick and I keep her in the air. You treat MY ship well and we won’t have any problems.”
She squeezed again just a little harder before letting go, and he took back his hand waving it slightly to disperse the apin, “Got it, she is your baby.” He grinned at her, “Strong grip you have there, though I’d like to keep my hands for flying next time if that’s cool.”
His smile seemed to throw her off guard and she frowned slightly, “I…. I’m sorry I was sort of expecting….”
“Some raging asshole on a power trip….?”
“Something like that.”
“It’s ok, I get it.” he flexed his fingers and waved at her as he was carted off. She stared after him eyes narrowed slightly and a look of confusion on her face .
That boy is either a real idiot or a scapegoat for the UNSC who thinks he’s going to fail
Adam stepped onto the ramp before him and headed up into the interior of the ship wide eyed like a child and bouncing with excitement. When he reached the top of the ramp he looked around watching as men and women hurried to stow cargo and do last minute checkers to see if everything was strapped down.
Turning he found a group of marines standing in one corner receiving orders on how to help. One of the marines turned, and they locked eyes.
The marine’s face was split with a matching grin, and he broke formation to race across the floor. Adam did the same, and by the end they had the entire cargo hold’s attention as they met in an embrace each of them trying to squeeze the life out of the other. Eventually Adam used his superior height to pick up the other marine and spin him around once before setting him down.
“I knew you loved me but I didn’t know it was that much.:”
Adam grinned, “ramirez you son of a bitch. I missed you.”
“I can hardly blame you.” He winked a grin splitting his handsome face, “Last time I saw  you, you were on a shuttle to Anin.” His smile died slightly, “I heard about what happened, I’m sorry to hear….” He glanced down at Adam’s leg before a smile lit up his face again, “On the brightside, you’re a cyborg now, can I see?”
Adam was surprised, not entirely used to people being so bold about wanting to see the prosthetic but, well it made him feel better, and he liked the idea of being a cyborg, so he pulled up his pant leg to give the marine a good look.
“Damn! How far does that go?”
“Buy me dinner and find out.”
The marine looked up, grinned and laughed, “Wow look at you. Not even blushing either you raging prude.”
“I only blush when I’m attracted to people.”
“Ouch, rude.”
Adam grinned and patted Ramirez on the shoulder, “I am glad you took my offer.”
“Glad to receive it. They’ve had me sitting on my ass over at fort Georga for the past year, and man being a marine is a lot less fun when you aren’t out being abducted by aliens.”
“That I can understand. Anyway, I gotta get up to the bridge, but I’ll catch up with you later, alright.”
“Later then.” The marine jogged off and he turned back to see some of the officers staring at him. He just shrugged, smiled and allowed them to lead him up and onto the bridge. The moment he stepped in was like, like nothing he could have ever dreamed. The station was facing towards jupiter, and glowing light from her swirling surface filtered in on the command center seats, and the captain’s chair was placed high above it.
It took every fiber of his being not to jump up and down squealing like a child. Even so he couldnt stop the stupid little dance that led him over to the chair. He could still sense the others staring at him, but he didn’t much care, sliding into the seat and feeling a warm rush of pure joy shooting through him like fire.
He leaned back in his seat.
Then he reached into the little pocket at the front fo his uniform and pulled out the small notebook there.
“Preflight!”
The officers hurried to their stations, and watching them rush at his words sent another thrill through him.
Engines 
Warp core
Crew
Cargo 
He rubbed his hands as they were almost done, “And one last and most important part of the preflight.”
They all turned to look at him, as he scrolled through his downloaded playlist, “You can’t just launch a ship without some epic tunes.  My life didn’t come with a preset soundtrack so I guess I have to make my own.” They stared at him, but he just grinned and turned on his pre picked music selection. It had been difficult to chose, but he had finally made a decision.
The crew shifted almost nervously as they looked back and forth between each other unsure if they wanted to be a crew under this lunatic.
Adam engaged the microphone for the rest of the ship, “Alright Ladies, gentlemen and…. marines , welcome to the Harbinger,  please keep your hands and feet inside the car for the duration of the trip, don’t throw marshmallows at neutron stars and no playing golf out the airlock. Next destination, Andromeda.” He let go of the announcement button and sat back in his seat.
“Harbinger ready for launch in Ten…” He engaged the countdown, and the crew rushed to their positions. He felt the rumbling of the engines as they engaged below him, and took control of the  manual drive as the ankers were disengaged from his ship. There was a sharp thud as they disengaged from the airlock.
He slowly adjusted their rotating engines.
3
2
1
The ships engines fired, and he took control of the ship, gently maneuvering her away from Europa with all the skill and finesse of an eagle riding an updraft.
He pressed the button to call down to the engine room.
“Captain Vir calling for report.”
Nairobi’s voice came over the intercom, “She’s practically singing, Captain.”
“That’s what I like to hear.”
He let the com drop, “Engage warp core.”
Europa station was already receding into the backdrop against the massive glowing orb of jupiter.”
“How far?”
“Safe warp distance approaching in in ten…”
He flipped up the switch on his chair, and waited for the count.
Their navigator turned to look at him and gave a thumbs up. At that moment he shut off the engines, and flipped the switch for warp following the targeting directory and input.
The entire crew braced themselves for warp, many of them remembering what it had felt like the first time.
Luckily for them it was a long warp, so it wouldn’t be so instantaneous.
Adam’s eyes went wide as he watched the stars bend around them. His teeth flashed white.
He had a good feeling about this.
234 notes · View notes
the-shy-shade · 3 years
Note
Who do think is going to die this volume?
JNOR
At first I was so certain that Ren and Nora were on the chopping block from all of the death flags they were raising. However, now that his semblance has evolved I'm pretty sure Ren's was a red herring.
Nora's not safe though. She's currently unconscious & heavily injured. Between the Hound, hacked!Penny, Cinder, and Watts all either at Schnee Manor or on their way, she'd be easily caught in the cross fire once the chaos ensues. I can totally see one of them attacking Nora just to fuck with RWB+WWKM. She shouldn't be in too much danger, but it all depends on what happens.
Personally, I think Jaune's in a lot more danger considering Ironwood's (presumably unknowingly) going to have the Ace Ops blow them all to hell if they can't get Oscar out of Monstra in time.
Death Chance:
Ren: 15%, Nora: 30%, Jaune: variable (depends on how good or bad their mission goes) Oscar: 0% (Oscar's too important to kill rn)
WWKM
Willow has the Dead Mom - Classic hairstyle. I think shit's going to go very wrong very fast and if they have to escape Willow would probably sacrifice herself to let her children get away. Plus, I like the angst that comes with the idea that Weiss has to be the one to tell Winter about their mother's death, and Winter feeling guilty about not being there to help defend them.
Whitley's probably safe. Can't see him dying yet, if ever. There's always a chance he die could, but I doubt it, unless their trying to destroy Weiss or something. Would be cool if amidst the chaos he unlocked his aura and awakened to his semblance. Winter did specifically say "all Schnees", presumably by blood, so it would be weird if he was just normal.
Klein dying would be the saddest thing ever because Weiss and Whitley love him so much and that's exactly why I can see him being collateral damage.
May isn't dying. RWBY already has an inadvertently triggered the bury your gays trope with Clover and I don't think they'd be willing to deal with the backlash of killing off the only confirmed trans character in the show. Plus, her voice actress is trans irl so I don't think they'd be as happy to voice for the character if that's what the writers had in-store.
Death Chance:
Willow: 95%, Whitley: 15%, Klein: 50%, May: 0%
RWBY
They're all title characters. None of them are dying until the very last volume, if at all.
Death Chance:
Ruby: 0%, Weiss: 0%, Blake: 0%, Yang: 0%
Villains + Antagonists
Ironwood seems like he's a primary candidate for getting killed this volume. Pretty much everyone views him as an enemy now. Salem has only let him live this long because his paranoia and distrustful, authoritarian nature is useful to her and easy to manipulate, Qrow wants him dead because of Clover, Cinder just loves seeing powerful men burn (literally) and would do it for kicks, and if Ruby finds out that he's the one who ordered Watts to hack Penny then even she will want him dead.
I feel like Watts is coming to the end of his usefulness, both as a character and as Salem's minion. I mean, it sounds like his skill set would be mostly useless in Vacuo and I don't really think there's anything left for him in Vale that he hasn't already done. I wouldn't be surprised if they killed him by the end of the volume.
Emerald and Mercury are both safe for now, unless they do something incredibly stupid or risky. Actually, Emerald might already be on thin ice after her, Cinder, and Neo snuck off to Amity. If she's going to ask Jinn something she better make her question a good one!
Hazel is in danger. I feel like Salem already has it out for him so if he tries defecting or using the lamp and gets caught she's probably just going to kill him.
Tyrian is a motherfucker to kill so assuming he doesn't get sniped by some serious bad luck it probably won't be this volume, especially with him heading off for Vacuo.
The Ace Ops are in an interesting position. Pretty much all of them, except Vine, one way or another want to defect from Ironwood and his absurd orders. I feel like at least one of them is going to die, but I don't think all of them will. I think Elm and Vine are more likely to die than Harriet and Marrow, but maybe that's just because the latter get more screen time than the former.
Death Chance:
Ironwood: 85%, Watts: 70%, Emerald: 30%, Mercury: 0%, Hazel: 60%, Tyrian: 0%, Harriet: 30%, Marrow: 30%, Elm: 50%, Vine: 50%, Cinder: 15%, Neo: 0%.
Misc
Penny won't die again. What's the point in bringing her back, giving the Winter Maiden powers to her instead of Winter or Cinder, only for her to die and have one of them get the powers like they should've the first time. Killing the same character again for dramatic effect won't work the second time. It never really does. Could have some drama with Pietro deciding whether or not he wants to give Penny a third iteration at the cost of his life, but I'd rather kill him to raise the stakes for her so that a third iteration is impossible and she can't come back again if she dies.
Maria is a treasure and if she dies we riot.
Winter is pretty up in the air right now. Depending on what happens she might throw her life away all for nothing because Ironwood told her it was the right thing to do, just in more glorified wording. Or she could comes to her senses and defects like she so desperately wants to. If Willow does die in Schnee Manor and Winter finds out about it, I can see this easily being what pushes her to follow her heart instead of continuing to pretend to be the obedient soldier she never really was.
Death Chance:
Penny: 0%, Pietro: 50%, Maria: 30%, Winter: 50%
And this concludes my death predictions forecast! Thanks for the ask @neospacecat!
***REMEMBER*** These are only my personal predictions and should be taken with a grain of salt. This entire post is merely speculation and should be treated as such.
33 notes · View notes
quazartranslates · 3 years
Text
Welcome to the Nightmare Game - CH116
**This is an edited machine translation. For more information, please [click here]**
[<<< Previous Chapter | Table of Contents | Next Chapter >>>]
-----
Chapter 116: The Dream of the Holy Nun (VI)
Out of habit, Qi Leren went to Chen Baiqi to buy some information about the Holy City. Unfortunately, Chen Baiqi didn't have any details on it, only an old map of the Holy City from decades ago that she made Qi Leren pay for. Chen Baiqi reserved the task information of "The Dream of the Holy Nun" from him, to be sold to her when he finished his task.
Qi Leren also asked her if she had any interest in this task. Although the number for the task was already full, if Chen Baiqi was willing to join, he could consider persuading Dr. Lu to stay safe in the clinic.
Chen Baiqi gave him an inscrutable look: "I’ve been able to  live in this world for eight years by holding a principle."
"What principle?" Qi Leren asked.
"Never die easily unless you have to," Chen Baiqi said.
“……”
"This kind of task involving the demon invasion from more than 20 years ago is either epic difficulty or a chain task that will go through eighty-one difficulties before finally becoming epic difficulty. Anyway, it won't be easy. I wouldn't be surprised to see demons all over the city as soon as you enter the Holy City. Please Qi Leren, don't let me sweep your grave again," Chen Baiqi patted Qi Leren on the shoulder and said with a smile.
"Hey, don't give me a flag," Qi Leren said depressedly.
"You'd better hold Su He’s thighs. He may have items that force him out of the task. He would never let himself die from not being able to stand the difficulty. After all, there’s still a long way to go. It's a pity that you are a little poor, otherwise I could sell you some high-quality items. Right now I can only sell you cheap little miniature bombs, I really can't make a lot of money." Although Qi Leren had earned a lot of survival days, he was still a poor wretch in Chen Baiqi's view. She couldn't extort money before he was fattened.
Qi Leren, after paying for the task’s necessities, went home depressed.
The mandatory task for the first month had arrived. In the first month, Qi Leren performed two tasks, namely, Witchcraft Sacrifice and Castle Cry; one was a main world task and the other was a copy world task. During the tasks’ execution, the players’ remaining survival days would not be consumed, but they were still counted as survival time spent by players.
Every mandatory task could be postponed for one week. If a player failed to start after the deadline, he would be forced into the task world. If a player performed a task that lasted for two months, he must complete a mandatory task within one week after the task was finished, and then complete another mandatory task within one week.
Players in the Nightmare World hated the "monthly exam", because there was almost no task reward (unless the degree of completion was extremely high), and the difficulty was also raised every month. By the third year, those players who were not qualified and neglected to improve themselves began to fall off one after another and were eliminated by the cruel monthly exam without the chance of a make up exam.
Qi Leren wasn't worried about his own strength. Ning Zhou said that his skill cards and his own strength were enough to cope with the compulsory tasks of the first three years, but he was often flustered because he frequently met tasks with unusual difficulty.
Dr. Lu, however, looked frightened, fearing that he couldn't pass the first monthly exam, and came to Qi Leren's home to start the task together. Although most of the first compulsory tasks were single-person tasks and starting together didn’t mean they would be in a task together, it made Dr. Lu feel a little safer.
But…
"You, you, you, you, hello*!" After seeing Ning Zhou standing by the window, Dr. Lu suddenly remembered that Su He had talked about a friend in Qi Leren’s home last time.
*{E/N: Dr. Lu is trying to cover up his shock by making “you” (你) into “hello” (你好)}
At the moment when Qi Leren opened the door, he wanted to throw the door in Dr. Lu's face. However, if you thought about it carefully, Ning Zhou and Dr. Lu would meet each other sooner or later. Seeing him early was the same as later since he had to introduce people to Ning Zhou.
"Dr. Lu, this is Ning Zhou, who will participate in the 'Dream of the Holy Nun' task. Ning Zhou, this is Dr. Lu, whose full name is Lu Cangshu, he’s my friend from the same Novice Village who’s a healer," Qi Leren briefly introduced the two men.
Stopped on the sofa, the big black bird cawed angrily, forcing Qi Leren to introduce it to Dr. Lu to get it to stop.
Dr. Lu looked at the person from head to toe with his mouth open, pulled Qi Leren’s ear to him, and asked, "Your goddess?"
Can you not be so quick with this? Qi Leren vomited in his mind and nodded honestly.
So Dr. Lu sat down with a strange smile, looked hard at Ning Zhou, and looked hard at Qi Leren, as if he knew everything. Qi Leren felt that he couldn't explain clearly even if he had one hundred mouths.
Poor Ning Zhou didn't know why he was being scrutinized. He was completely out of the situation and was not used to getting along with strangers. He sat for a while and then went upstairs.
When Ning Zhou left, Dr. Lu tried to suppress the excitement of getting gossip, and forced him to align himself with Qi Leren seriously, saying, "I don't discriminate against homosexuals. Really, I’ve seen many as a doctor. Several little gays came to the anorectal department every day to ask my brother for a finger examination. His technique isn’t bad. It takes 30 seconds to milk a prostate..."
"...You’ve misunderstood, we’re not that kind of relationship."
Dr. Lu had a look of "Excuse me, you are living together".
"Ning Zhou just came to help me train. The training menu I gave you last time was set by him," Qi Leren explained.
"I see..." Dr. Lu suddenly realized, then looked at him askance, and asked, "Do you think I’ll believe this nonsense? Didn't your relationship die as soon as the mission was over? Why is it that now he cordially trains and practices with you? A while ago, you suddenly disappeared. I couldn't find you all over the world. I really wondered if you’d given up and chased your goddess. Now that you’ve finally caught this goddess, you actually say that you have a pure straight man friendship, hehe."
Qi Leren was speechless.
Although it was normal for two men to live together, Qi Leren believed that Ning Zhou didn't think much about it at all, but it was unconvincing in front of Dr. Lu who knew the previous episode... After all, more than half a month ago, they’d fallen in love at first sight and went through fire and water, dying to live... and then died when it was all laid bare. As a result, it took less than half a month for them to live under the same roof. This development didn’t seem quite right…
However, Qi Leren couldn't explain the Slaughter Secret Society undercover task to Dr. Lu - although he feels that after the explanation, Dr. Lu would only be more convinced that they weren’t innocent, and even Qi Leren himself began to wonder if there is something really wrong between him and Ning Zhou.
Qi Leren asked himself, if he had met Ning Zhou as a woman at a different time and place, would he fall in love with her? The answer was: he would. As a woman, Ning Zhou perfectly met all his expectations for the other half. Whenever and wherever he met her, he would definitely fall in love with her.
But if he met Ning Zhou, who was a male, would he still fall in love with him?
Qi Leren thought that the answer was probably no.
He may worship him, yearn for him, want to be friends with him, and even go through life and death for him, but he wouldn't fall in love with him, because he wouldn't consider the possibility of exceeding the limit of friends at all, and Ning Zhou would only be more stubborn than him. Even if they went through hardships and died together, they may have a deeper friendship and even affection than love, but that would never turn into love.
Feelings were so simple and complicated, neither one was deeper than the other, but only a small error would completely change them.
"Although there was something wrong at the beginning, the misunderstanding has been solved now. I think we’ll become good friends, very good friends," Qi Leren said, speaking slowly. Maybe he was a little confused, but he still said so, inexplicably determined.
Dr. Lu looked at him carefully for a long time with disbelief: "...Oh."
"Time is almost up, let's start the mandatory task." Qi Leren cast aside his distractions and concentrated on dealing with the present difficulties.
He opened the system’s menu bar and selected the mandatory task for this month. Qi Leren and Dr. Lu disappeared from the room one after another.
The eagle, who stopped on the sofa, patted its wings and flew up the stairs to return to its master. Ning Zhou, who stood on the stairs, stretched out his arm to let it land. The eagle that understood speech affectionately rubbed the side of Ning Zhou's face and felt it’s master's mood. It was very clever at times.
The two people in the living room had disappeared. Ning Zhou wanted to go downstairs to help them prepare but instead heard Qi Leren and Dr. Lu talking about him, so he had stopped on the stairs.
Friends…
This should be the most appropriate distance.
-----
Editor’s Notes:
Qi Leren: “I’m not gay.”
Dr. Lu: “Okay but like have you tried having a finger up your ass? For science.”
-----
[<<< Previous Chapter | Table of Contents | Next Chapter >>>]
33 notes · View notes
musical-in-theory · 3 years
Text
Caught in the Crossfire
Chapter 1: Dealing with the Devil
Wilbur took a deep breath as he stepped out into the crisp night air. It had been a few days since he had last come out of the ravine Tommy dubbed ‘Pogtopia’. The cramped space between the walls and the stale, dim lighting were already starting to take their toll on him. He felt it in every time the arrow wound on his shoulder ached. He felt it in seeing the emotion slowly fade away from Tommy’s expression. 
He slid his favored beanie off his head and carded his hands through his, frankly, tangled and grimey hair. Even during the war for L’manburg, Wilbur prided himself on keeping up appearances, looking like the leader his men needed him to be. But now as he gazed up at the stars he hadn’t seen in a week, appearances didn’t seem to matter near as much. 
Wilbur laughed to himself bitterly. Because, well, that wasn’t quite true, was it? No, appearances mattered even more now just in a new way. He could feel himself wearing a mask every day, and he could feel it slipping now. He wore the mask of the General, the President, the guy who always had an answer or a plan. He wore it for Tommy and Tubbo. They needed to know that he was still in control of the situation. Or at least, they needed to think that he did. 
In truth, Wilbur hadn’t had control of anything since that damned election started. Every step of the way, his oh-so-brilliant plans slipped from his fingers like sand, and he watched his sandcastle kingdom crumble in front of his eyes. His plan to have a single party election? Dashed away by Quackity and George. His plan to have his old friend JSchlatt come to his aid? Went up in hellfire. His plan to just rest for one fucking moment in the country that he poured his everything into? 
Tears pricked at the corners of his eyes. Gods, he was tired. So tired. But he had to keep going. He wouldn’t allow himself to give up. He was the man that won against Dream, a metaphorical god amongst men. Losing to one of his oldest friends… it won’t happen. The only question left was how far was he willing to go. 
Wilbur sighed and thought back to the boy who was currently sleeping soundly in the ravine beneath his feet. He wanted to use the same tactics he used to end the first war, but those tactics had nearly cost him his little brother. Wilbur shuddered as the image of Tommy close to bleeding out in his arms crossed his mind. No, Tommy wouldn’t be the one to sacrifice anything this time around.
He needed a plan. As much as he would have loved to put off making one and just adjust to the new situation, he knew that Tommy would ask about it sooner rather than later. Wilbur couldn’t afford to not give an answer when he did. That’s why he’d taken the risk to come out of the ravine in the first place. He thought maybe the change in scenery would help him think. In Pogtopia, it almost felt like there was a fog surrounding his head and clouding his mind.
He was wrong, of course. “Although it’s not like that’s anything new,” he thought sarcastically to himself. The breeze reminded him of the chill that was ever present underneath the ground. The moon provided about as much light as the lanterns did. The worst part of it all is that the steady drips of stalactites and the creaking of their wooden paths were merely replaced with the chatter of crickets and the hiss of the occasional creeper. 
Wilbur hated the sounds of creepers. The hissing was a precursor to the dreaded crescendo of an explosion waiting to happen. It was an omen of needless destruction coming soon. It all rattled in his head, ravaging any thoughts that fought to survive in its torrent. He was a man of melodies, not senseless noise.
“Well, look what we have here. A bit of a bad time to start taking night walks, don’t you think Soot?” A hooded figure jumped down suddenly from his hiding spot amongst the tree branches. His posture radiated an arrogance that could only be attributed to one man.
“Dream.” Wilbur’s eyes narrowed at the masked man. He took a few steps back and felt the pommel of his sword dig into his palm. He silently cursed himself for not staying vigilant. Just because Schlatt’s men had given up on their search didn’t mean that he was safe. 
Dream could easily see the fear and tension present on the former general’s face. He chuckled a bit, but most of it was muffled by his mask. “The one and only.” He stalked over to Wilbur and began circling him as a predator would his prey. Dream didn’t even have a weapon on him, and yet they both knew who had control here. Wilbur couldn’t help but think that this must be how the Dream team felt during Manhunts. 
Nevertheless, he tried to stand his ground. “What do you want? I highly doubt the mighty Dream is prone to midnight walks alone outside of your own territory.” He put as much venom into his voice as he could muster. Fearful or not, Wilbur couldn’t forget how he put an arrow in his baby brother.
“What do I want? Oh come on, Wilbur. Don’t be so predictable. But I guess I’ll humor you a little.” Dream began walking away from Wilbur, then stopped and turned back. “Well? Are you coming or not?” 
Wilbur knew that nothing good could come from indulging in whatever conversation Dream wanted to have. Wilbur may have been the better wordsmith, but Dream held the authority and could manipulate their discussions in whatever way he wanted. He knew this, but Wilbur realized that for the first time in at least a week, the noise and the fog had disappeared. 
Before he knew it, Wilbur was walking alongside his old enemy underneath the trees. They remained in a hesitant silence for a bit, or at least Wilbur did. Dream seemed to be perfectly comfortable leading them to some unknown destination. Dream side-eyed his new companion. “You’ve been gone for too long, President Soot-”
Wilbur cut him off quickly, “Not President anymore, I’m afraid.” He schooled his expression in a vain attempt to cover up how much it stung to hear that title again.
Dream laughed. “You’ve really given up that easily?” Wilbur opened his mouth to refute, but Dream continued, “Doesn’t matter. I’m here to change that. Like I said, you’ve been gone for too long. The Wilbur Soot I fought against didn’t just lie down and accept his fate when things got tough.”
Wilbur glared at him. “Is that what you think I’m doing?” 
“I think that you’re lost. You’re lost in your own head, confused and wandering around until the right idea comes to you, instead of going out and finding it. When I said that you’ve been gone for too long, I didn’t mean that you’ve been away from L’manburg. I mean that the you that never stopped coming up with ways to be a legitimate threat to your enemies has been gone. You let yourself get complacent in your position. Now that it’s gone, you’re floundering.”
Wilbur shook his head. He hated to admit it, but Dream actually had a point. In their war against each other, he had plans, backup plans, and adapted to every situation that was thrown his way. Getting thrown out of his country should have been child’s play in comparison to having the ground beneath his feet blown to smithereens. Yet here he was, struggling to come up with anything.
Something was still stuck in the back of his mind, however. Wilbur walked a bit faster and stood in front of Dream, effectively stopping them both. “Why should I even trust you? Only a month ago, you wanted L’manburg dead and gone. Now you want to convince me to take it back. Sorry if I’m not buying this whole ‘altruistic’ act, you’re putting on.” Wilbur spat.
Dream laughed again. “I never said there weren’t strings attached. Soot, you and I have a common goal now. You want Schlatt out, and so do I. I signed a treaty with you, because I trusted you to uphold it. And I know you trusted me to do the same. We are men of honor, in that way. Schlatt is way different. Destroying L’manburg was out of the question the minute the war was over. Consider this to be damage control.”
The masked man casually walked around Wilbur and continued on their predetermined path. Annoyance shot through Wilbur as he stood watching Dream’s retreating silhouette. When did it get so bright? He looked back towards the darker part of the forest, the part closer to Pogtopia, before catching back up to Dream. 
Wilbur had to squint a bit to see Dream next to him. He didn’t think he’d been walking for too long, but it must have been morning with how light it was becoming as well as the rising temperature. Dream seemed unaffected, but it was always hard to tell with the mask and the hoodie. 
Dream turned a bit to face Wilbur. “I’ll say it again, Soot. You’ve been gone for too long, and Schlatt’s already ten steps ahead of you,” he said as he stepped out of the woods. The light nearly blinded Wilbur as he looked out at the scene beyond the cliff he stood on. L’manburg was on fire. The flag was burning into ash with stray flames finding their way to the wall. The wall itself was haphazardly torn down, as was his beloved camarvan. Everything he fought for, everything that he used to make a home was being destroyed before his very eyes. 
Amidst it all, Wilbur could see three people standing near the flag’s base. One had a torch. Time felt like it stopped all around him as he saw that it was Fundy, Niki, and Eret. His son, his best friend, and the traitor that started it all. 
Wilbur fell to his knees as the smoke and dust swirled around him, intermingling with the fog that had enveloped his head since he first stepped foot into that godforsaken ravine. His once home burned in front of him, and yet no warmth could breach the ice that invaded the ex-President’s veins. 
He flinched as a hand on his shoulder brought him out of his stupor. Wilbur looked up at Dream. Although he couldn’t see his face behind the mask, he could feel his eyes trained on him. “All that work, all that sacrifice, and look where it got you. Powerless and watching from an outsider’s perspective.” Dream took back his hand and leaned against a nearby tree. “I never took you for someone who just waited in the wings, letting things happen all around you. Are you really the same guy I fought and lost against?” 
Wilbur tore his eyes away from the destruction of his nation and let them fall upon the masked man. Something dark and ugly settled into his chest as the weight of Dream’s words hit him. Was he the same person? Did he even want to be? The Wilbur that won his nation was the same man that lost it so easily in his arrogance. 
Dream must have sensed his confusion because he continued on, “You can be better than that. You can become what I should’ve been in order to take back what is rightfully yours. I’ll help you learn from my mistakes, but in exchange you’ll need to follow my orders to the letter.” He pushed off the tree and held out his hand toward the fallen leader. “Do we have a deal?”
Wilbur’s mind screamed at him to not take the opportunity in front of him. It shouted at him accusations of Dream’s imminent betrayal. How many times had people turned his backs on him already? His own son had even taken the trust Wilbur placed in him and tore it to pieces right in front of him. 
But that same line of thought kept him desperate for any sort of help, any sort of assistance that would be offered. Even if the one offering was an old enemy. Wilbur’s eyes hardened in his resolve, and he lifted his hand to meet Dream’s. He helped Wilbur to his feet and promptly shook his hand. The voices fell silent, and a bitter smile found its way onto Dream’s face. “Alright then, shall we get started, President Soot?”
“With pleasure.”
Thank you so much for reading! I’m going to work hard to get the next chapter out soon. Thanks to @the-ruler-of-rabbits for beta reading this for me!
Taglist:
@obsidiancreates @strawberiitea @coindoesstuff @unlikelypaperwitch @marysueoc @crazymecjc @ducklingqueen @idkhowbutimgayer @whydoilovesomanyvillians @anne-the-historian-ish
Let me know if you want added or dropped from the taglist. My inbox is always open!
45 notes · View notes
spookybreadstick · 3 years
Note
Do you think you could do some headcannons for Tim and Brian with a s/o who comes out as asexual 🥺? If not, that's chill tho - 🖌 anon (if that isn't taken)
hello, hello to my newest anon!! i’m so glad you’re here, and I am happy to take this request for you. I hope it’s okay. I try to write realistically, but also in a happy way, if that makes sense. I centered it more around the “coming out” aspect, since in your other ask you said that you would probably come out to your partner a few months into the relationship or they’d find out on their own. Let me know if everything is good here, I tried my best and I did some outside research for you <3
TW for discussion of s*x. Nothing is explicit, but it is briefly discussed in regards to asexuality and what that looks like in a relationship. 
💖💞💖💞💖💞
❓Hoodie/Brian with a s/o that comes out as asexual❓
If he finds out on his own...
❓ Brian is most likely to find out because of going through your phone. Not because he's looking for anything, no, you would have probably told him to look something up on your phone but he would have seen your search history... (probably something like “coming out as asexual to your boyfriend how to”) 
❓ It would surprise him, but also kind of make sense to him now. 
❓ You guys wouldn't have done anything sexual together, but he always just thought you wanted to take things slow, so he never put too much thought into it.
❓ But this is something he'd like to address with you. It's something you need to have a conversation about as a couple, but Brian wouldn't confront you right away. He would want you to tell him on your own terms.
❓ However, he would be distant until you told him.
❓ It's not on purpose, he just doesn't want to make you uncomfortable in any way, so he ends up being a little distant.
❓ Once you come to him asking what's wrong, why has he been acting weird lately, he will assure you that he loves you and hasn't been meaning to be distant.
❓ Then, he will ask you if there's something you'd like to tell him. He will gently pressure you into saying something, but he makes sure you know that he's not mad or anything, he loves you. 
❓He just wants to have a mature discussion and make sure you're okay with everything that's been going on in the relationship so far.
If you tell him a few months into your relationship....
❓ It would be a surprise to have you come out to him, but it wouldn't necessarily be a shock to him at this point. 
❓ He figured there was probably something you had been avoiding talking about concerning sexy stuff, so he waited patiently for you to tell him yourself.
❓ He's proud of you for telling him, and he will tell you how brave you are. And how much he loves you.
If you are willing to have sex for your partner (I read that some asexuals have sex with their partners sometimes for the enjoyment of the partner)...
❓ Brian is very respectful of your asexuality.
❓ He lets you set the sexual boundaries from that point on, and he apologizes if there were any times he may have accidentally made you uncomfortable.
❓ He wouldn't initiate it unless you did first.
❓ If he has a partner that has a high sex drive, his own drive will match theirs.
❓ But if he has an asexual partner, his sex drive will also lower, so he wouldn't mind going long periods of time without doing the deed.
If you are adverse to sex or sex-repulsed....  
❓ It would have to be a conversation between you two, but in the end, he would always respect your feelings on the matter.
❓ He would never, ever try to pressure you into doing anything you're uncomfortable with and if sex is off the table then it's off the table. End of story.
❓ There are other ways he can deal with certain things, and once again, his sex drive usually follows his partner's so it's not a huge deal for him.
❓ All in all, he is one of the best pasta-boyfriends when it comes to asexuality.
🎭Tim/Masky with a s/o that comes out as asexual🎭
If he finds out on his own...
🎭 Tim would be most likely to accidentally overhear your conversation with somebody who are out to or something like that. 
🎭 Honestly? He'd be pretty upset. 
🎭 Tim doesn't know what asexual means, so he thinks that this somehow means that you want to break up with him. It now makes sense why you guys haven't done anything sexual together. 
🎭 Tim would tell Hoodie (he's sworn to secrecy, but you've got to know that those two tell each other literally almost everything), and Hoodie would be like 'dude, they probably don't want to break up with you. Do your research on it first.' 
🎭 So Tim would research asexuality and it would make him feel a bit better. 
🎭 He still is a little upset that you didn't tell him right away. Like, he gets it, but he's your boyfriend and he thinks that he should have been in on this. 
🎭 Tim wouldn't confront you right away, but he would need to talk to you about it pretty quickly.
🎭 Tim would just be blunt about it. "I overheard xyz, I didn't mean to but I did. I did some research but... are you actually asexual?"
🎭 Once you admit to it, he'll ask you to tell him about it. He did some research, but he wants to hear it from your mouth. What you are comfortable with, uncomfortable with, what is on or off the table for your relationship.
If you are adverse to sex or sex-repulsed....
🎭 Honestly? This does present kind of a problem.
🎭 Sex is something he was kind of counting on (whenever you were ready to do so, of course)
🎭 But he loves you, so he'll figure it out.
🎭 He makes sure to tell you that it's not your problem (being asexual/not wanting to have sex), it's his problem (wanting to have sex). You will never have to do anything sexual if you don't want to, and it'll be on him to deal with his own stuff. Never would he put any kind of guilt on you.
🎭 You are his number one priority, his favorite person in the world, and the thing he treasures most. If sex is something he has to sacrifice in order to be with you, then he'll learn to live with that.
🎭 As long as you love each other, your relationship will make it through. The love is what is most important, after all. 
If you are willing to have sex for your partner...
🎭 Tim would be very happy about this.
🎭 He would always try his hardest to make it a great experience for you, and he always lets you know how lucky he is to have a great partner like you.
🎭 He will initiate sex with you (unless that's something you ask him not to do) but you are never pressured to do anything you don't want to do.
🎭 Tim loves and respects you, so he wants you to be good with whatever you decide gets to go down.
🎭 Overall, Tim just wants you to be happy with him. You are the greatest thing that's ever happened to him, and he wants you to know that.
Tumblr media
^ look at how cute this asexualiBEE is!! 
BONUS: 
❓ Brian will def buy you one of those asexual pride pins or a mini pride flag. It's a small gift, but his way of showing his support. 
🎭 Tim would probably just buy you a mini rainbow flag, because he doesn't know that asexuality has its own flag (if you tell him, he'll get one for you though). He's pretty awkward about showing his support, but he tries. Just know that he loves you. 
Tumblr media
17 notes · View notes
brujahinaskirt · 4 years
Text
@missn11​ says:
Tumblr media
Ask and ye shall receive, fellow neonate! <3 Bear with me, because I’m about to hammer out 2000 words very quickly...
This massive rant by its topic nature is sort of Nines-critical, so lemme start by saying that, in my own way, I love Rodriguez. (I was partially self-burning in the shitpost that ignited this rant because I SEVERELY exaggerated Nines’s canonical shadiness levels in my ancient fanfiction, and for no other reason than because I was a teenage edgelord. I am appropriately embarrassed, but only by my excess and melodrama, not by Troika’s characterization. I think the writing behind VTMB’s Nines is superb.)
When it comes to Bloodlines, I think he’s one of the most psychologically interesting profiles in the game. In fact, I could never get into LA by Night because they so de-toothed Troika’s vision of him. Not to say LA by Night’s Nines was a poorly-developed character in his own right, ‘cause he wasn’t at all, but “my” Nines will always be unapologetically and only Troika’s: boiling angry, viciously pragmatic, a survivor who doesn’t let anyone too close lest they see through him, whose over-the-top confident façade cracks a little more every time his back’s against the wall. Troika’s Nines is the epitome of greater VTM’s “fallen rebel” archetype, and even though we don’t get to see it on all playthoughs, that makes it even better and more believable.
But as with all characterization in Bloodlines, we have to read between the lines and between our own play styles a bit to piece the truth of the puzzle together...
Besides the direct evidence Troika gives us—i.e. the music cues, which are a bit overbearing if I’m honest (sorry, Troika! ilu); the absence of Nines in Rosa’s prophecy re: people you can trust; and the overt warnings Camarilla-aligned characters give us about him—the biggest red flag about Rodriguez, imo? It’s twofold:
the way the characters he surrounds himself with talk about him and the type of vampire he chooses to fill his den. Namely: Nines exclusively recruits angry, spurned, mistreated people who are younger and far less experienced than he is
those messy, ugly, fleeting moments where you see his toughguy everyman personality crack
So! Starting with point one:
THE PERSONALITY CULT ITSELF
We can’t deny that Nines does not surround himself with peers. He surrounds himself with followers—people who don’t challenge him in any way, who are fanatically loyal, who openly profess their worship of him and their conviction he could never/would never do anything wrong. If you listen to how Damsel and Skelter talk about him, it’s with frightening adulation, often repeating Nines’s lines word-for-word without truly understanding the argumentation behind them. (Damsel’s the main offender here with her “IT’S A PYRAMID SCHEME… it just makes sense, you know? It just makes sense!” And then, of course, she gets pissed and refuses to speak to you when you push her into elaborating.)
Nines has clearly made himself much more than just a friend-figure or a Sire-figure to them. He’s utterly and completely mythologized by the LA Anarchs, held up next to other politically mythologized names like George Washington and Ho Chi Minh. His followers love him… but there’s a pecking order, and like good body shields, they believe their lives don’t matter as much as he matters. And they love that, too. They want to die for Nines. They’re not just willing to or resigned to it; they’re eager to die. Damsel will volunteer this information the first time you meet her. She just can’t wait to prove herself by taking a bullet for goddamn Nines Rodriguez. It’s literally how she introduces herself to new people.
And yet Nines deliberately withholds his attention and time from his followers. He uses his attention as a reward, as incentive. He rations some care and reassurance and help—makes you feel good and gives you reason to crave his attention—and then he pushes you away, back into his adoring ranks until the next “two minutes” you earn from him in which you’re special enough for such an exceptional, important, cool guy to talk to. That’s a classic manipulation tactic, and a classic personality cult tell.
And Troika is so damn fuckin’ brilliant about it because they don’t stop at showing us that an Anarch-aligned fledgling might feel this way—no, they make the PLAYER also feel this way. On our first playthrough of Bloodlines, we’re desperate to talk to Nines. We want the reward. “Let me finish the plaguebearer quests… let me run to the Elizabeth Dane… I hope Nines talks to me again now! Quick, to the Last Round! Maybe if I say the right thing to make him like me, he’ll give me another free EXPERIENCE POINT!” (iirc he’s one of two characters who will do so, and the only one who gives multiple points.)
But at the end of the day, Nines is indisputably the leader of the Anarchs, and even fledgling figures that out. (“Sounds like you’re the Prince of the Anarchs.”) He’s very much the Baron of Downtown LA, even if he won’t use that language. As for the grating day-to-day management and leadership stuff that might make him somewhat unpopular among the Anarchs, though? He fobs all that stuff off on Damsel!
Damsel, his Minion No. 1—whom a lot of players will hate on their early playthroughs, because she assigns tough missions with little to no reward. Damsel, who has no real power role in the Anarchs and functions only to serve Nines. You help Damsel, and you do Nines’s work—i.e. you do the work of the Barony of LA—and he doesn’t even have to take the admiration hit by having to ask you himself.
There’s only one non-follower of note around Nines. It’s Jack, and by his own words, he’s not one of Nines’s people; he disparages them, in fact. And we’ll notice that Jack—who is stronger, older, and wiser than Nines—very much doesn’t talk about Nines the same way Nines’s followers do. While Jack doesn’t directly insult him and occasionally defends him, Jack also has a downright shocking response to the announcement of the Blood Hunt. When fledgling desperately asks what they can do to help Nines—Jack says, word-for-word: I could give a damn.
Something ain’t quite right about this place.
Moving right along:
NINES IS A FAKE ALPHA MALE WHO KNOWS HE’S GOING TO DIE
Part of why Nines is so attractive to someone scared and weak like our fledgling (or Skelter or Damsel) is that he seems utterly fucking untouchable—like nothing scares him, and that must be reassuring when two of your age-old enemies are moving into town. But Nines’s tough, cool, Devil-may-care persona outs itself as a protective shell, too… and this is another thing I think Troika handled so subtly and so well.
You’ll notice that even Nines’s voice is dramatically different in a couple different situations: when Ming Xiao is borrowing his body, when he’s afraid, and when he’s distracted or deeply disturbed. (A successful Malkavian mind read will really slam a crack in his coolguy persona. For a second, the nonchalance shatters and he childishly screams SHUT UP!)
But whether you Malk him or not: In those isolated moments, the Coolguy Nines Rodriguez we normally see frays. Physically, even! His accent loses its burr (that ballsy rural American everyman accent), shoots up to a higher register—and reveals a much softer voice than the one he uses in front of other people. No wonder; part of Nines’s charisma comes from his performance of masculine confidence, and even if it’s not a toxically patriarchal masculinity in the way we often picture it, the fact this performance cracks at all shows it’s not his genuine self. He’s acting. In the way a lot of toughguy men do—but for Nines, whose survival depends upon attraction now, he’s acting toughguy for his very life.
I think those little fray-under-pressure moments are the “real” Nines, or as close as we’re going to get: scared, desperate, worn-down, and very aware of his doom.
Now, all that said…
BLATANT FALLEN REBEL CONCEPT APOLOGISM
I don’t think we can quite throw Rodriguez into the same Mean Monster Morality Dungeon for Evil Vampires as other Big Bads in LA. This is where motivation comes into play, at least for me. We know Nines can be merciless and violent, and he doesn’t hesitate to sacrifice his own soldiers (namely, um, US!) to protect his holdings. But he does seem to have a twinge of genuine anger over injustices wrought upon “little people” (look no further than Nocturne)—one that seems like it stems from a sense of right v. wrong rather than sheer pragmatism. This stands in stark opposition to the rationed pacificism of characters like LaCroix, who simply doesn’t want the headache of cleaning up a pile of dead humans on his nightly to-do list.
Nines also, of course, just doesn’t have the same kind of disaster reach other Bloodlines Big Bads do in how much harm he can cause. When LaCroix gets up to some bullshit, he crashes the national economy. Nines, like, crashes a car into a corporate office window or takes over a street or something. Can’t really compare the two when it comes to the scale of damage done.
And even Nines Rodriguez is, for all his strategy, still an honestly angry person. Not all of him is fake—what’s troubling about him is what he’s willing to sacrifice and do to satiate his anger-passion. It’s the standard Brujah emotional-moral struggle. Even though I agree with much of what he says about bloodsucking late capitalist vampires (tbh he seems to hate vampires in general!), one wonders if it’s not partially the anger-passion that’s warped him into the façade of a noble leader he’s become. It’s not a pure anger anymore; he’s weaponized it in selfish, unhealthy, destructive ways.
But if he’s a fallen rebel—and since he is still apparently capable of some genuine anger and sadness—then we can infer he wasn’t always like this. He fell, and narratively, that’s key to understanding Clan Brujah. Maybe he fell in a way all of us angry rebel-types risk falling if we let our hatred of the bloodsuckers in real life outgrow and consume our care for the real-world little people.
I think we also have to appreciate that—as far as we know—the shady shit Nines does, he primarily does to prolong his power. But for a threatened Anarch like Nines, power doesn’t mean expansion or accumulation as it might for an ascending Ventrue; it primarily means survival. The Camarilla and Kuei-jin incursions into LA have numbered his days, and he can’t possibly have any delusions about this, no matter how much he swaggers. So he does what he can do with the skills and limited resources he has. He corrupts vulnerable, angry, abused people by giving them the appearance of friendship, family, and hope they can become stronger—much like effective gang leaders do.
If he’s morally nastier than other power-players like LaCroix in some way, imo, it’s here. It’s the intimacy with which he manipulates the people around him. LaCroix may lie to you; Strauss may withhold information from you; Ming Xiao may double-cross you. But none of them ask that you love them. That’s not their goal; that’s not how they operate. None of them expect or encourage anyone to happily die for them of their own free will. If they get you killed, you’ll die resenting them—resenting that you had to die, at all.
But when you die for people like Nines Rodriguez, you do it willingly, if only because you believed he cared somehow and that he’d fight tooth-and-nail for you, too. You believed that you were a member of his little outcast family—or that you would be, if you just proved yourself a little bit more. If you just fought a little harder. If you were just a little happier about having the chance to die for the cause. Maybe if you die for Nines, then Nines will love you, too.
I don’t think he does. I don’t think he will. If he’s a true fallen rebel archetype, I don’t know if he can anymore.
That’s enough Anarchs for now! I’m gonna peace out with some copy/pasted lyrics from the theme song of Nines’s den: the ballad of the charming and vengeful Lecher Bitch. Stay sharp, my little Bloodlines fanatics!
Tell me your story Don't worry, I've been there Crown me your savior Don't worry, I'll be there
[Chorus] I said hey You're coming all the way I've got some hell to pay I'm diggin' all the way All the way down I said hey You're coming all the way I've got some hell to pay Gonna rip you every way On the way down again [Bridge] Don't belong lording above me Won't be hard to pull you underground It won't be long 'til you love me And I'll be coming at your back To break it down
125 notes · View notes
terry-perry · 3 years
Text
A Life Worth Sharing (Ian x Vampire!Reader)
A special request for my good friend @ladyfluff​
Hope you enjoy!​
Set in the Adam’s Family AU
Tumblr media
She groaned as she felt herself being shaken awake. Her annoyance soon melted away, however, once her vision became less fuzzy and she caught sight of her boyfriend crouched down beside her and wearing that shy grin she loved so much. 
“Sorry to wake you,” Ian mumbled. “But didn’t want to leave without saying goodbye.”
Peering over at the clock on her nightstand, she saw that it was almost five in the morning. She groaned again; she didn’t like it when he left super late (or super early, to some). His sleep schedule was already off-balanced enough with his job and her brother having him as his personal errand boy.
“Can’t you stay a little longer?” She pleaded.
“I wish I could, but my flight leaves very soon. And I have some music people I have to meet with tomorrow night.”
“Okay, but you’ll be back in two weeks right?”
“Definitely,” Ian grinned before leaning forward to give her a good, long kiss goodbye.
This had been their routine for almost two years now. It was a struggle at first with the constant back and forth and then the added revelation of what she and her family were, but they were able to adjust for the most part. They cared for one another too much to let what they had go so easily. 
Even when they had only been on a handful of dates, it was almost unreal how intense their feelings were. Y/N knew this was definitely something she had never felt before. Like many others of her kind, she had her share of casual lovers throughout the centuries she lived -- only giving her heart to one or two souls. 
She made peace long ago with the idea that there might not have been a special someone for her. She had convinced herself that the love she shared with her family was enough to sustain her. She did her best to be happy for her brothers as she’d watch them interact with their loves they had found; laughing at the way Peter would banter with Rowan, be fascinated at how Adam and Eve were able to communicate with one another without words.
She was happy for them, yes. But envious as well. 
None of the others she’d been with made her feel what she did with Ian. Since the night they met, she would think back to the stories she heard long ago about their kind and their version of soulmates. They weren’t known to play around with their feelings. They may give in to carnal urges from time to time, but there’s very few they were willing to place their trust in. 
 And with Y/N and Ian’s relationship being a special case, she was willing to make it work no matter what way they chose to go about it all.
Tumblr media
''Listen darling, all you've got to do right? You just take these, put them in some water right? Unless you want to dry them, dried flowers are amazing. You can use them for potpourri and stuff.''
Ian nodded as he continued to listen to what Peter had to say. What luck for him to be in Detroit on business. He was just who he wanted to speak to about what he planned on doing the next time he saw Y/N. Well, maybe that wasn’t entirely true. 
Peter wasn’t exactly his first choice. He could’ve tried talking to one of his human friends that were in serious relationships of their own, his mother or even Eve if he especially wanted an unfiltered, unbiased opinion on the matter. But she was still doing what she did in Tangier. Regardless, Ian knew that if had to choose between Y/N’s two brothers, Peter would be the one to do his best to not judge as he gave his two cents. 
At least then the risk of him being maimed would drop a good amount.
“She’ll really like these,” Peter continued, offering the small bundle of flowers. “They’re just like the ones we had outside our home, growing up. She used to love frolicking in the field and pick as many flowers as she could.”
Just then, Ian thought of his girlfriend. A mini version of her running around so carefree with her sweet smile intact. They had touched upon the subject of children in the past, and while it may have been a giant sacrifice to make when it came to dedicating his life to her, he knew it was worth it. He never even played with the idea of having children of his own until falling in love with Y/N.
“Can I ask you something?” 
As expected, Peter offered him a friendly smile to let him know he was all ears with what he had to say. A nice change from the scary expressions Adam had to offer when it came to stuff like this.
“Yes?”
“How did you know Rowan was the one you wanted to be with?”
He got a bit worried when Peter’s expression went on to be a little more puzzled, as though unsure where this was going. Thankfully, he decided to answer without another second to think about it.
“I guess it was the way we were able to stand together through hard times. As you know, we met each other during a time where a love like ours wasn’t exactly celebrated. Quite the opposite. We had to earn the bliss we have now. That’s how it is with love, I suppose.”
Ian nodded, letting his words sit with him. Love was definitely work. Twice the hard work when it came to unique situations like this one. But it was all about being with someone that makes you want to do it. Someone that doesn’t make it feel like work. 
And Ian did his best when it came to Y/N. The long distance, the different sleeping patterns and, of course, the morbid fact that he would eventually grow old and die. But he did all he could to make it work and be there for her. If he was meant to wither away, he would happily do so if it meant he gave his time to her. 
Tumblr media
“I know what you’re up to,”
Ian wasn’t able to escape Adam like he intended to. As harsh as it sounded -- especially since he was someone he genuinely looked up to -- Ian didn’t want to get the third degree from him. Had he contemplated getting his blessing? Sure. But his fear took over, knowing his thoughts on the relationship already. 
So to now hear that Adam knew what he was planning on doing behind his back got him scared shitless. 
“What do you mean?” Ian sputtered, deciding to play dumb.
The vampire could only narrow his eyes in response. He wasn’t in the mood for games. Then again, when was he? Ian grew more fearful as Adam stared him down. He had no choice but to sigh and give in.
“How did you know?”
“Speaking as someone that’s been hiding their true nature for 500 years, I know a bad liar when I see one,”
Ian could get that. Especially, now that he thought about it some more, he wasn’t the best with hiding his intentions the last several weeks. Adam must have spotted the catalogs he saved that had a great selection he could choose. If that didn’t get him to question anything, the way Ian showed interest in Adam’s marriage was definitely a big hint. 
The two of them had a mostly business-like relationship with not a lot of personal information being transferred between themselves. That hardly changed when Ian started seeing Y/N; the two men not wanting this to change the arrangement they had, despite Adam being strongly against their coupling. So when he began to ask about the ways Adam made his marriage work, that was a definite red flag. Why would he be curious about his life and become suddenly bold enough to ask questions if he didn’t have some ulterior motive to his actions.
“Doesn’t help that you kept eyeballing my wedding photos,”
Ian cursed to himself. He was so stupid to think he could get away with how he kept checking out the old pictures Adam had of him and Eve. In his defense, they had been among the many photos Adam had of his heroes. Of those he knew once. He supposed it was because those particular ones were kept close and meant for his eyes only. 
Those moments where Ian would sneak a peek, wondering about the ways he could have something similar with Y/N, he could understand how anyone could’ve caught on to what he was up to.
“Adam, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. But you need to know that I love her. She’s it for me. I’ve known that since I first saw her, and that feeling hasn’t changed. I hope you understand.”
“I do,” 
Well that was certainly something that caught him off guard. Adam wasn’t exactly someone that green lit what Ian had with Y/N. So to hear that he seemed to be okay with this next step...
“I may not be 100% okay with what you have with my sister, but I know how much you care about her. However, I can’t let you propose with just any ring.”
Ian wondered what he could mean by that until Adam pulled out something from the pocket of his robe. Revealing what he could describe as the shiniest and most beautiful diamond ring he has ever seen.
“This once belonged to one of the Bronte sisters, I can’t remember which. Either way, they were a couple of the few people Y/N admired and miss dearly. She’ll really appreciate it if you give this to her instead.”
Ian couldn’t help but smile. He may have not known who exactly were the people Adam was talking about, but he knew this was his way of getting his blessing in a way. It may not have been said out loud, but he knew Adam was aware of the feelings he had for Y/N. He wasn’t messing around when it came to her. 
“Thanks Adam,”
Tumblr media
The day had finally arrived. Well, the night. Whatever. 
Ian didn’t have a complete plan, more of a hope that she’d say yes. It might have been why he decided to do it after witnessing her staring out the large window she possessed in her apartment when he welcomed himself in. This was it then, especially when Y/N turned to welcome him with a smile before going back to her other view.
“I don’t think I’ll ever tire of this sight,” she reflected, her eyes never leaving the lights the city of New York had to offer for the late night.  She was sitting down on the chaise lounge that was near the window. He stared at her for a brief moment before closing the door and making his way over to her
“I was thinking the same thing,” he murmured, never taking his eyes off her as he stepped forward.
 He wasn’t much for big gestures but she deserved it, this was the right time. He was sure.
“Y/N...”
She had no choice but to put her attention back to him. She wasn’t all too sure what was going on, but she had a feeling he had plenty to say as he took her hands in his. Needing her to feel the anxiousness he was feeling as he did his best to word all he wanted to tell her that moment.
“You’ve made me feel things that I didn’t know existed outside of movies and the songs we listen to. And I’ve realized that I don’t want to live without you. It doesn’t matter to me if we spend forever or just the rest of my life together. All I care about is that we spend our time protecting each other, taking care of each other and making the most of what we have together. Because you’re it for me baby. You’re the love of my life.”
Y/N reached up to cup his cheek with a warm smile and glassy eyes.
“And you’re mine,” she sighed. 
Ian closed his eyes and succumbed to her touch, turning his head a bit so that he could kiss the palm of her hand. He laced it up with his and brought it down with him as he got down on one knee. He took a deep breath and looked up at her with his own vision starting to blur somewhat with tears. But he could still see the way she placed her free hand over her mouth in an attempt to repress all the emotions that wanted to come out at once.
“Y/N,” he began with an unsteady voice. “Will you marry me?”
With all the enthusiasm she had, she nodded her head. 
“Yes. Yes, I’ll marry you!”
Once he was back on his feet, she jumped into his arms and held on tight. He hugged her back with a similar amount of desperate strength and added in a fierce kiss that gained a bit of saltiness from their tears. With some reluctance, he broke apart from her when he remembered something.
“Fuck. I forgot the ring.” He said, fishing for the small, velvet box in his pocket. He took it out and opened it up to present the ring to her before placing it on her finger.
She marveled at the sparkling beauty of the diamond, tracing the delicate band and cut.
They shared another loving embrace after, as if holding onto one another would keep them safe and sheltered for as long as they lived. 
16 notes · View notes
moondrop04 · 3 years
Text
RWBY VOLUME 8 FINALE AFTERMATH!!!
SPOILERS!!!
SPOILERS!!!
SPOILERS!!!
WOW.......What A F***** Finale To End A Volume!!!! I was left surprised, shocked, sad, disappointed and ecstatic with the events that unfolded and also for the future of the RWBY series!!! I have so many theories and headcanons racking in my brain that I’m acting like a Giddy Little Troll 😆. So let’s jump right into the FINAL aftermath of Volume 8....
-(Tick-Tock Took Out The Vine) Before starting into this I want to give a shout out to CRWBY for starting out the episode with the “Warning” for the deaths that we were about to witness. I’m glad they were thoughtful for their fanbase’s wellbeing after watching this finale and hope they continue this trend of “warnings” in the future.
Now onto the first major character death of the episode......Vine 👀. I was fully expecting to see at least one of the Ace-Op members to die in the finale and I was actually quite surprised to see it only be Vine. Given the circumstances that Qrow, Vine, Elm, Marrow and Robyn were put into because of Harriet’s blind loyalty, it wouldn’t be too hard to have expected more characters to die in that situation.
Vine has always been the calm one within the team, so to see him willing to sacrifice himself to save his friends from death was a very touching moment. I was also honestly quite surprised he could used his semblance like that as well 😳. I kinda wished we had seen some more aspects of him extending his aura like that in previous episodes, but that’s just a bit of a small nit-pick of mine.
It’s also going to be interesting how this will impact the rest of the Ace-Op members going forward, especially Harriet. This will no doubt cause some inner turmoil for her character and only time will tell what type of effect it will hold in future dire situations .
-(Fighting For Your Beliefs) Hmmm......I’ll be honest......I was a bit disappointed with Winter and Ironwood’s fight 😓. Now I have a few reasons why I feel like this so let me explain....
1:I think the decision to make Ironwood fight with a “BFG” against Winter was a poor one. As we have seen in Volume 7 episode 11 we know that Ironwood can fight much better with his duel hand cannons. Watching him fight with a bigger weapon against a much more agile opponent didn’t feel right to me lol.
2: Having Winter win the fight using the maiden powers. Now I have no issue with Penny giving the powers to Winter, but I would have preferred if she could have found a way to defeat Ironwood without having the convenient power up. Winter is a very good fighter in her own right and I think having her defeat Ironwood with her abilities alone would mean much more before she was given the maiden powers by Penny.
3: Now I have said this before in previous posts but I would have liked it if Qrow was the one to fight Ironwood. There was indeed a bit of a build up for Qrow to fight Ironwood this volume so I do feel we were a bit blue-balled for that confrontation. Then after some time to think about it I feel the decision to make Winter be the one face Ironwood was the right one. Considering that this was the end of Atlas and that these two characters are the most associated with Atlas, made their fight against each other more fitting then leaving it up to Qrow.
The only positives I can give this fight is that it showcased more of Winter’s fighting potential and I was pleased how the animators made her fight with both Ironwood and later with Cinder. 😊
-(For Her Friends) Now onto definitely the most important part of this episode......Penny’s death. Now I’m really gonna be honest with all of you......I was not at all surprised that Penny died in the finale 😔. Ever since she gained the maiden powers she was always gonna have the “Red Flag” known as Cinder be connected to her. I more or less imagined that Penny’s powers would be taken by Cinder at some point and Penny would make some sacrificial play to save her friends while she still had her robot body. So when I witnessed her second death, as a REAL GIRL, I was shouting out “How could I be so RIGHT and so WRONG all at the same time!?” 😫
Now what has me intrigued about this second death is the part about Jaune’s involvement. I’m gonna keep my opinion about this choice from the writers neutral for now because I feel this is deeply connected to what they have already written for Volume 9. There’s is something they are planning for Jaune in the future and I want to see the whole picture of what they are drawing out before giving this either a thumbs up or a thumbs down. 😤
I have one more thing I want to bring up about this, and this is my opinion so if anyone wants to skip over this part I totally understand......so here it is. I truly believe Penny will be brought back to life in the future 🙂. When she first “died” back in volume 3 I fully believed she would be back eventually, so even if the circumstances are different this time around I am still having that same feeling that she will come back. I understand everyone else has their own feelings about what happen to Penny so I will not disapprove how everyone feels about it. It’s just how I feel about it is all 😊.....
-(The Captain Goes Down With His Ship) So.........this is the end of James Ironwood. As Atlas inevitably falls, so to does the man that represented as its symbol throughout the series and it’s aspects of strength, elitism and control.....
.......yeah I’m not buying it 😒
Something feels off if this is how he “permanently” dies..... I understand the symbolism of his “fall” parallels that of Atlas crashing down and being destroyed, but him dying doesn’t feel complete to me....
Not to mention this man has survived with half his body being destroyed in the past with what I believe to be nothing but his sheer will. So if I had to bet on anything I think he would have found a way to have survived Atlas’s crash and the flood that came afterwards....but I think he would be terribly wounded in the process....
There are also a few characters that I feel he hasn’t had a satisfying conclusion with that still needs to be addressed......Qrow, Oz and Glynda.
Also forgot to mention that apparently Arther Watts is dead too.....yeah I believe he’s not dead either 🤨. In fact I’m fully expecting Watts will survive but will be horribly burned and scarred the next time we see him. He will vow vengeance against Cinder and will stop at nothing to obtain his revenge on her. So it would be really lucky of him to find an unconscious and badly wounded general nearby that he could kidnap and experiment on to be his personal attack dog later to kill Cinder 🤔......wouldn’t that be a something to see lol
I’ll gladly wear some clown shoes and makeup in believing that we will be seeing both Ironwood and Watts again in the future, and if I’m wrong then I’ll gladly accept that L from everybody.....till then see you again next time general Ironwood and Arther Watts 🤗
-(Volume 9 and The Future Of RWBY) Alright! There is a couple of reasons why this post has taken me three weeks for me to write 😓.
First reason obviously is because of my job 😭. Some things have been happening at my work that has been stressing me out for weeks and honestly it’s been exhausting to even write anything....
Second reason is that over the course of the past few weeks after the finale aired I have been non-stop thinking of several headcannons, theories and speculations on what may happen in volume 9 and future volumes of RWBY 😆!! Don’t believe me? Here is some of the crazy s*** that came out of my head lol
-Team RWBY, Jaune and Neo meet the God Of Darkness
-The God Of Darkness gives Team RWBY power ups and new outfits to fight against Salem. Also gives Neo the ability to speak.
-Oscar vs Raven
-Salem sends Cinder to Vale to search for the Crown of Choice......but not alone. She gives Cinder 4 more experimental S.E.W Grimm to aid her and one of them happens to be Summer Rose.
-Horribly burned and scarred Watts kidnaps a wounded Ironwood and experiments on his body to change him into a complete cyborg with one objective......kill Cinder.
Believe me I have more context for each of those that I just addressed but that’s for separate posts that I hope to make in the future lol 🤗
Well that’s about all I got for that finale review and I literally cannot wait to see what happens next 😤 lol. I hope to engage with some of you in the fandom in the future and hope we get along 😎
Till next time........BUH-BYE!!!!
8 notes · View notes
route22ny · 3 years
Text
Sky
Perhaps this will be hard to read. Laments often are. It may bring you comfort, or it may make you angry. It may make you think more of me, or less. It may offend you. Rest assured, it offends me. So be it. 
Once upon a time, there was a man who spoke of torture as a good in and of itself, to be pursued whether it was effective or not. Who promised to use the power of the state to enact violence upon scapegoated religious and ethnic minorities. Who insisted upon framing our struggle against Mideast terror groups in the same religious terms the terrorists themselves insist upon. Who praised himself for nursing petty grudges, for treating revenge as justice. Who threatened the free press with retaliation for reporting certain truths about him. Who bragged about sexual assault. Who mocked people more brave than himself and called their bravery weakness. Who lied seemingly without strategy, as if lies were good to tell only for the telling, who showed a shocking indifference to the very concept of truth. Who praised brutal dictators for their brutal methods. Who seemed (and seems) to be receiving shadowy support from a brutal dictator. Who claimed dictatorial power for himself.
Tumblr media
This is fine.
He appeared entirely confused about the basic facts of geopolitical reality, or of how our government works, or even of the function within our government of the role he proposed to take on. He had a clear and obvious history of fraud and hucksterism, of enriching himself at the benefit of others with less leverage, and was even engaged throughout his campaign in a lawsuit for defrauding college students, since settled for $25 million dollars. He speculated with frightening casualness about destabilizing actions: proliferation and even use of nuclear weapons, defaulting on our debts and our treaties, backing out of our most long-standing alliances. He publicly called upon the intelligence apparatuses of foreign governments to intercede in our election on his behalf, and it seems increasingly likely they may have obliged. He whipped his crowds into frenzies, then directed their ire toward journalists reporting the event, many of whom he threatened to prosecute once in power. He offered to imprison his political adversary, to the delight of his chanting crowds, who wore t-shirts decorated with the flag celebrating the war to preserve American slavery, decorated with vulgar slogans of violence and rage. He promised to steer us directly into the deadly heart of the oncoming climate catastrophe; having claimed the work of men more intelligent and knowledgeable than he was nothing but a Chinese hoax, he sneered at the very idea of new energy sources.
Tumblr media
This is fine.
That’s a short list. It’s a hell of a short list. But wait, listen: The people went for it.
Tens of millions of people voted to make him the most powerful man in the world. He will soon have the ability to blast the planet to an irradiated cinder, if he sees fit. He will continue to run his business, which appears to involve sitting in a golden throne and putting his names on things. He's given every indication, despite some laughably thin feints toward divestment, he will run that business from the Oval Office. Maybe he’ll even put his name on new things, like laws. Laws: a whole new product line for Trump International, and a potentially lucrative one. He owes the banks of foreign powers millions and millions of dollars. One wonders what laws they’ll want passed. Word is, his first foreign trip will be to visit Vladimir Putin. Heigh-ho. 
Tumblr media
His party is in control, too. They don't seem bothered by any of this. They're a bit more focused on providing checks and balances upon ethics watchdogs who have pointed out their party leader's multifarious and historically unprecedented infractions. They'd rather ignore those, so they can immediately—immediately—get down to the serious business of divesting millions and millions of the most vulnerable people in our society from the only chance they have at affordable health coverage. They plan to replace this program with something...someday. Their speculation so far indicates they will be replacing it with the opportunity to save up hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay for medical bills if you need them someday, or, if you don't have hundreds of thousands of spare dollars, to maybe go screw yourself. So, a lot of people are going to die in coming years, that would otherwise have lived, and they're rushing to make it happen. My, look at them laugh. 
Tumblr media
Republican lawmakers sign legislation to repeal ACA and defund women's health care access through Planned Parenthood, January 2016
Meanwhile, they're ignoring as peccadilloes the caricatured infractions of a man who intends to keep his own private security detail around him, who expounds upon provable lies, and then when exposed simply doubles down on the lie, who is considering throwing the press out of the White House, and other maneuvers straight out of the dictator handbook. It's really something to see. It's a new order, trumping the old. Isn't it great again?
Tumblr media
Laura Ingraham, speaker at the Republican National Convention, 2016.
It’s hard to understand what people hoped for from him other than this. It’s hard not to assume they were responding to the shockingly frank bigotry, his promises to return to an earlier time, the knowing use of slogans used byracists and fascists of days past. These are certainly what seemed to generate all the most popular applause lines. But I don’t want to think that of my country or my fellow citizens. I really want it to be something else. Let us consider other possibilities. Many seem to think that a great thing about him was his frankness. They liked that he “tells it the way it is.” Then again, those same people seemed most likely to think that he didn’t really mean his more shocking proposals. It’s a bit confusing, then, parsing what is meant by ‘telling it like it is,' as it appears to rely on selective trust in insincerity. Many voters, excited by promises to “drain the swamp,” but now disappointed by the recent appointment of a Goldman Sachs foreclosure kingpin to Treasury, of a Putin-connected oil executive to State, and by other signals the new president has given about his eagerness to rob us all blind, have been admonished by a key advisor for taking his words so literally. The 'alt-right' Neo Nazis and the KKK are very excited, for what it’s worth, about the more shocking proposals, and they remain confident our new leader meant every word.
Tumblr media
You're really going to want to go to video on this one.
Some people thought he would be less likely to make them pay more in taxes, I suppose. So perhaps at last now we know the answer to the old hypothetical about whether we’d be willing to travel through time and sacrifice our lives to prevent the rise of a self-professing tyrant. Answer: We wouldn’t even suffer a hypothetical increase in our income taxes. I'm told folks voted for Trump because they were tired of being called racist. I imagine that was hard for them—who wants to be considered racist? If this complaint is yours, I imagine reading this (if you're still reading) is also hard. I sympathize; it's not particularly easy to write. But then again, the response seems an odd retort to the complaint. If your persistent problem is people keep telling you there is spinach in your teeth, you might consider getting a mirror and taking a look, rather than voting for the Jolly Green Giant running on a platform of outlawing all floss. And, perhaps, if it is painful to be considered racist, consider this: it may be all the more painful to live under racist oppression.
Tumblr media
KKK Newspaper, The Crusader, endorses Trump. 
Many seem to have mainly enjoyed that he wasn’t Hillary Clinton, and it’s certainly true to say many concerns and criticisms could be levied against her. But the man they voted for as an alternative already stood actualized as the cartoon parody of any potential danger she may have hypothetically posed. Bad judgment? Corruption? Fraud? A proclivity to violent retaliation? A worry about temperament? Untrustworthiness? Lack of transparency? It’s hard to believe this all had much to do with Hillary Clinton and her faults. Hard to believe this list of concerns would yours, but your acceptable alternative would be Donald Trump.
Or maybe they believed the more lurid stories, the debunked, the ridiculous. Hillary’s murdered 80 people close to her. She invented cancer and put it in your cell phone battery. She is secretly seven tiny demons all stacked up in a pantsuit and glued together with the blood of aborted fetuses. She controls the Yosemite supervolcano, along with a cabal comprised of George Soros and 17 other Jewish industrialists. I don’t know what all. I know there are people like this, who have seceded from objective reality into a dystopian alternate dimension, where they can perhaps supplement the powerlessness they feel in their lives with the comfort of false control, of being one of the few with the secret knowledge unavailable to the masses. I don’t know what to do with them, because they live in an alternate dimension. And, it must be said, I don’t think there are 63 million of them.
So here we are. In grave moral and physical danger. All of us. And for what? I’ve heard the same line again and again since the election: “America isn’t a different country today than it was before the election.” Jon Stewart trotted it out. I think I heard it from President Obama.
I fear I agree with the statement. I’m puzzled, though, because I think it is meant to be reassuring, to think we’ve always been the country capable of such a choice.
The statement doesn’t imply that we’re still great. It implies that we were never good.
It has to be admitted, people responded to Trump for what he is. Which means we are left with the statements and proposals by which he distinguished himself. And millions of us—tens of millions—preferred him specifically for his points of difference. Excited by his promises to return us to a time when our system existed only for certain people, and the preferences and needs of all others were beneath consideration, or at least willing to overlook that, in favor of some material or policy advantage somewhere. And ultimately, the reason is immaterial. A man ran for president promising to use the power of the state to bring violence to scapegoated religious and ethnic minorities, to make America torture again, to make it easier for an already-militarized police force to employ violence, who praised dictators, who bragged about sexual assault, who praised vengeance as good, who promoted as fact debunked conspiracy, who stated his determination to ignore as conspiracy what the data overwhelmingly indicates is an oncoming extinction-level event. There was some other reason to vote for him, that allowed you to overlook these facts? Save it, please. It really doesn't matter. It was a bad reason. We have seen this movie before. Historians have a word for Germans who joined the Nazi party, not because they hated Jews, but out of a hope for restored patriotism, or a sense of economic anxiety, or a hope to preserve their religious values, or dislike of their opponents, or raw political opportunism, or convenience, or ignorance, or greed. That word is "Nazi." Nobody cares about their motives anymore. They joined what they joined. They lent their support and their moral approval. And, in so doing, they bound themselves to everything that came after. Who cares any more what particular knot they used in the binding? What am I saying here? Am I saying we are Nazis? The answer, I suppose, has to be 'no.' Only Nazis are Nazis. We are Americans. But what that will mean in decades to come—'American'—has been thrown into hazard. We used to be the sort of place that doesn't allow Donald Trumps to happen. That's gone now, along with that specific sort of trust the world once had in us. In any case, what we seem to now be trying to redefine 'American' to mean seems like a rough beast, and omnivorous. Democracy reveals us by our choices and our actions, not our intentions. We are what we are. And Donald Trump will be president.
Tumblr media
As a result, I’m bereft. Bereft of the country I thought I was living in. Bereft of the people I thought I lived among. Bereft of what I believed was a shared direction despite divergent opinions. Bereft of a belief in the possibility of a common dialogue or even a common reality. Bereft in confidence in basic decency and intelligence. Bereft of the spiritual heritage I was born into, because of course Trump’s most enthusiastic supporters were white Christians. Christians voting for a new Herod with the power of a Caesar is a pretty good joke for the universe to tell, I suppose. He’s even promised to go after the (anchor) babies.
My translation of the Bible is full of all this toff about loving your enemy, about how love of money is the root of evil, about showing hospitality to the widow and orphan and the immigrant, and admonishments against drawing the sword lest you die on it. My reading of the Bible doesn't ask "but who's going to pay for that?" My reading of the Bible suggests to me that if you wish to pretend to care about babies unborn, maybe you shouldn’t be so hostile to the idea of making sure they’re cared for once they are born and inconveniently and expensively needy, and perhaps you shouldn’t make so many of their mothers into the welfare-queen boogie-men of your whole realpolitik, and perhaps you shouldn't make weaponry a right more important than health and food. Maybe healing and wholeness and liberty is something that should be available to even the pagan. Maybe the door is open for the tax collector and the prostitute and the Samaritan. Maybe, unencumbered by the overweening need to be perceived as correct in every moral posture, they've even entered that door ahead of us as we do our best to hold it shut against unworthy access.
Tumblr media
Maybe I got a trash translation. Maybe the other ones are all about the joys of using political power for your own aggrandizement instead of the call to self-sacrifice for the benefit of others, about the dangers of anchor babies and welfare mothers, about how paying tax money toward a shared life is tyranny, about how with terrorists you have to kill the families, folks, believe me, kill the women and children, you’ve got to go after the families, and we’re gonna torture again, folks, we’re gonna torture, believe me…
You know what? I believe him.
Tumblr media
WWJD Check: White Evangelicals are the group most likely favor use of torture by a military superpower. 
* * * You wake up and the sky is gone. At times that’s how it seems. You wonder at it: how could there not be a sky? What will become of us now, in this world without a sky? Was it ever there, or did we just imagine it there, as an exercise of collective will?
And then you talk to other people who insist the sky is there. They say: It’s not gone, it’s just red now. Don’t be a sore loser, just because you didn’t want it red. Accept that we did want it red. It’ll be fine if it’s red. And anyway, the banks seem to like it red. Move on with your life. Suck it up. Hope that the red sky will be as good as the blue one. But the sky isn’t red. It’s not anything. It’s just … not. It is a not-ness. An un-sky. A nothing.
And then you start talking to people who laugh, not without compassion, that you ever fell for the idea there was a sky. They say: That big vast emptiness? Oh, yes. That’s always been there for us. Is it there for you now? How… interesting. We can tell you a thing or two about that emptiness, if you’d listen. We’ve been watching it an awful long time.
Tumblr media Tumblr media
American Nazi Rally, Madison Square Garden, 1939 
Tumblr media
Future Georgia Representative and Civil Rights pioneer John Lewis, beaten by a state trooper on "Bloody Sunday" in 1965.
Tumblr media
Oh. Will he. Will he do that.
Tumblr media
The sky is the future. Or it was the future. That’s how it seems, at times. How odd, to speak of the future in the past tense.
But the past tense presents us with further troubles. It seems the past is gone, too.
Tumblr media
In 1965, everybody thought King was great, and nobody tried to dismiss him by tying him to violence.
Growing up, we were taught that we were a kind and good and just nation. The story we were given was of a nation born of a righteous cause, not quite made perfect by the godlike men who forged it, but honed to apotheosis over the decades that followed. The destruction of the native nations and their people, ah, tsk, a shame, we’d change it if we could, but unfortunately in the past and unrecoverable. Slavery, a dark stain, but by now expunged entirely. Jim Crow, its shameful cousin, absorbed by a saint named King, who led a boycott (a pleasant and polite and non-disruptive one, it seems, in our memories), then stood on some stairs to give a universally-admired speech about his dream of inclusion, and then, his work seemingly accomplished, having seemingly changed minds forever, ascended harmlessly into the clouds.
Somehow we are never culpable. It was always a long time ago. Mistakes were made, but we’d never make them ourselves. It was always somebody else holding the gun, the whip. We arrived here after that, you see, born blameless, without any afterbirth or shock, into the Greatest Country in the World. Our holocausts we absolved ourselves of, because they served to illustrate not the evil we’d done, but how far we’d come from it. We stood on the prow of the ship, looking forward as we cut new water, not aft looking back at whatever may have been churned up in the wake. Not big on the rear-view mirror, us, not fans of the over-the-shoulder glance. We’d tell ourselves stories of what lay behind. We’d imagine ourselves into those stories of darker times, making ourselves the protagonists. We would have been the ones to build false walls in our home to hide slaves. We would have marched with King. We would have spoken out against the Japanese camps. We would have stood at Stonewall.
Our moral arc bends ever toward justice; an inevitable thing. That was the story.
America was great, because it was good. All the old hits.
Tumblr media
People still alive can remember this sort of thing very well. 
Tumblr media
This kid is probably still alive. As are most of his classmates. As are the children with whom he refused to attend school. 
Tumblr media
This also happened within living memory. 
Tumblr media
It's amazing what people consider communism. I mean back then, of course.
Sometimes you’d hear stories about a random injustice or brutality. A policeman who had become a little too enthusiastic. A bad apple, and surely justice was served. If not, it’d have been in the papers You’d hear about it in the papers if it hadn’t been. A gay teen beaten to death in a cornfield. A car with the banner of the struggle to preserve human slavery on the bumper sticker. The KKK marching again, how quaint. Ah, you’d think, if you were like me. We still have some work to do. Cleanup on aisle seven.
Technology has changed that. We see with new eyes now, unless we choose not to. We see videos, dozens and dozens of them now, new ones each week it seems, of police shooting unarmed black people. Again and again and again and again. Can you remember all the names? I can't anymore. And I ask myself: why can't I?
We see the speed with which so many seem willing to seek and find the nearest handy reason the victim deserved his or her fate. We see the news organizations find a Sunday School photo for the shooter and a mugshot to represent the victim. We see acquittal and acquittal and acquittal. We see failure to prosecute.
And, perhaps, we begin to wonder.
We see the people protesting, unarmed, asking only that their lives be thought to matter as much as another’s, and we see the stormtroopers with their massive guns and their tanks, arrayed against a civilian population almost reflexively, like defenses in an organism’s bloodstream mustering against a disease. And we wondered, perhaps: why do they look so much—so exactly, if we’re honest—like an occupying force? 
Tumblr media
We saw the white ranchers seize government land, pointing their guns directly at law enforcement officials, speaking openly of armed insurrection against the government, of revolution, of war. We saw them, later, seizing a government building. They weren’t protesting after centuries seeing their children and brothers and sisters killed without consequence by authority. Rather, they didn’t want to have to pay a grazing fee. Was it with surprise that we saw it: law enforcement seemed less frightened of these white men and their guns than they had an unarmed black woman in a sundress, or a 12 year old boy playing in a park? Were we surprised to see they seemed so level-headed in this situation, so much less likely to respond with immediate lethal force?
Why, those fellows with their arsenal didn’t even get convicted. They were less threatening to the system, apparently, than a man, arms up, lying on the ground next to his autistic ward begging not to be shot. (He was shot.) We might contrast to the treatment of the protesters at Standing Rock, and wonder…is the Holocaust against native people relegated only to the past? Would we change it, if we could?
We wonder: Are we seeing the system breaking down, unable to cope with new challenges? Or are we seeing a system working exactly as it’s always intended? Do we as a collective of 'white' people secretly want the police to control brown people by force? Are we secretly hoping that force will prove lethal, only occasionally enough to soothe our consciences, but frequently enough to promote an order less immediately costly, than the pain of culpability, than the justice of restitution?
If not, why are prosecutions so rare, and convictions even less so?
If not, why aren’t we protesting these killings? Why aren’t we in the streets?
Do all lives matter? If so, why wouldn’t we act like it?
White Christian America reveres Dr. King, it should be noted. You remember him—the peaceful guy who gave the speech that ended racism. If Facebook and newspaper op eds are any measure, we white Christians can’t stop bringing him up, almost as a cudgel, an admonishment to those today who would dare ask for their own human dignity, for not doing it as antiseptically as we remember it being done by him. And perhaps people begin to wonder: Why was King enshrined as 'the peaceful one' only once he was peacefully dead? Is King’s being safely dead our favorite thing about him? These days, we white Christians can claim to have brought his dream to reality (the white guy is usually the hero of the story in the movie), and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. will not protest—and we white Christians don’t like protest. Heavens, no—it’s so divisive. Dr. King, he wouldn’t approve of this protest, nor that one, and certainly not that one. His protests were so polite! Why, nobody had any problem with them at all! Dr. King agrees with all of us in white Christian America so much, these days. Oh my, he never stops agreeing with us. Just ask us; we’ll tell you. Yes, and what ever happened to Dr. King, anyway, after he gave that speech that ended all inequality forever?
Tumblr media
But no matter, I told myself. That’s a dying strain, it's not who we are these days. That’s just a few bad apples. We’ve made so much progress. They’ll exhaust themselves in a final futile sputter. We’re just about to turn the corner. Sure there are racists, bigots, white supremacists, lost-causers, and they're loud, but they're dying out, and they know it. They'll eventually run somebody on an overtly racist platform, and they'll lose huge—I disagree with Republicans, but most of them won't stand for stark white supremacy, surely, and obviously Christians won't be able to align themselves with it — and we’ll show them it’s no use, and they’ll retreat, retrench to even positions even more compromised, less fortified, further back, smaller, diminished. We’re a better country than that.
But then Donald Trump, a half-rate and transparently obvious bullshit artist, a greasy reality TV star most skilled at demonstrating his manifest ignorance, promising mostly the goodness of violence and the strength of vengeance, offering to return America to an earlier time, railing against the inconvenience of practicing sensitivity toward the perspectives of others (he called it 'political correctness'), received 63 million geographically-convenient votes to become the most powerful person in the world. Perhaps, if you’re like me, you took a moment then to ponder that statement about bad apples and what they do to the whole barrel. The meaning of it. And, perhaps, another saying, about recognizing a tree by its fruit. And, it must be said, though we refuse to face it: In America, our trees have long borne a strange fruit.
  Here’s what we’ve lost, or at least what I’ve lost: The assumption of goodness’s inevitability. The assumption of goodness of those around me. The assumption of good intent in their hearts. The assumption that the future is still there. The assumption that most of us will die of old age. Here's what I've lost, the one favor Donald Trump may ever do for me: The wool from my eyes. An illusion, particularly a pretty and a convincing one, can be a painful thing to lose.
I’ve gained a vision of tens of millions of people desperate to bend history’s arc back toward an injustice that favored them, and willing to fight for that regression, willing even to risk species-wide extinction rather than suffer the pain of facing the consequences of their own mountainous indifference.
The moral arc of the universe may bend toward justice, but the gears of history grind the weak. There are people now who are giddy, almost with the air of a teenager behind the wheel of a sweet-sixteen hot rod, to test out their perceived new warrant to deliver retributive and violent indifference to the people they deem unlovely. A headscarf yanked off here. A slur shouted in public there. A swastika scrawled on a wall here. A Neo Nazi propagandist advising the President of the United States in the corridors of power there. A crowd of seig heils in a government building, in praise of our new leader here. A few million children stripped of health insurance with no serious attempt at a replacement there.
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
They think this is allowed now. Sixty-three million people, complacently or enthusiastically or ignorantly aligned with white supremacy, gave them the idea it is. It’s going to be our job to show them otherwise. We must show them otherwise. And. Even if you voted for Trump—especially if you voted for Trump—the door is wide open for you to join in that struggle. You show them otherwise, too. All you have to do to join...is join. Your intentions were good? Excellent. I believe you. I've badly misunderstood you? Excellent. I believe you. Now, show it. Show your good intention by your good actions. You, like all of us, possess tremendous moral authority. Don't lend it any longer to those who have promised to squander it on atrocity. They seem intent on doing as they say. If you wait too long, they will leave you with none left to withdraw. Use it to protect those different than you. Use it against your own advantage, for the advantage of those who have none. And. If you, like me, did not vote for Trump, there is the great danger of complicity. You will be offered, if you, like me are white and straight and employed and well-off and cis-gendered and able-bodied and healthy and property-owning, the opportunity to be indifferent. Resist that current.
If the universe bends toward justice, the engine it has chosen for this good work is the hard and sacrificial struggle of good people willing to acknowledge the basic humanity of all other people. People who don’t think profitability is the foundational metric of goodness. People who don't think life holds a value that begins at conception but ends the moment it enters poverty. People bold and willing to become peaceful pebbles in the gears. To give time and money. To link arms with a married gay couple. To take sides in a cafeteria skirmish with a transgendered teen. To take a truncheon in the head for a Muslim. To paraphrase Jesus (another favorite who those of us in white Christian America appear by our words and deeds to consider as safely dead as Dr. King): to live, first you must die.
Or, as another poet says, love’s the only engine of survival.
So, what’s next?
First, we lament. We acknowledge the un-sky, the void. We listen to those who’ve been staring at it far longer than us. We name the challenge with clear eyes. That, I suppose, is what this has been.
And then we get to work. Let us hope our leaders will prove other than than they say they will. Let us not be so naive to think it likely. Let us oppose in a fierce and broken love. Let us meet with friends, we eat good meals with them. Let us consider people before money, and notice where our society fails to do so. Let us make art, and we try to make it well. Let us refuse to allow a comfortable silence to enfold a hateful or ignorant statement. Let us stand up against hate, bodily if necessary. Let us learn our system, and work within it. Let us call our leaders, and advocate for those who suffer. Let us practice generosity without care for the merit of the beneficiary, but only for their need. Let us investigate before we publish. Let us loudly proclaim the humanity others try to diminish. Let loudly proclaim the humanity of those who do not share our values, even as we oppose. Let us never celebrate the suffering of those who oppose us, for they suffer, too. Let us seek to divest ourselves of unearned cultural advantage. Let us enter spaces where our voices are not primary, and listen without thinking to speak. Let us create space to speak, in places where our voices are primary, for those who have had no voice. Let us reject optimism and blind belief. Let us embrace hope. Let us work. Let us work. Let us work. We are a people who have dreamed of the sky. I’d like to see if we can make it real.
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
source: http://www.armoxon.com/2017/01/sky.html (January 16, 2017)
VOTE
26 notes · View notes
jbbarnesnnoble · 3 years
Text
Tumblr media
Hello lovely humans!
I’ve recently hit the 500 follower milestone and want to celebrate with another challenge! This time, dark fics are welcome! 
I have a lot of prompts here and what doesn’t get used will probably be put aside for a future challenge. I like to make sure there is a wide array of prompts to be chosen from and tend to go overboard. Whoops. 
The Rules: 
1. Use the hashtag #JBBNN500 
2. Dark fics are welcome - Just be sure to utilize trigger warnings and indicate that it is a dark fic. 
3. Even if you aren’t writing a dark fic, use trigger warnings if the content warrants it. If you write something that has heavier themes, like those that delve into mental health topics, be sure to label it appropriately. 
4. Selecting Prompts: Just let me know which one you want to do! 2 people per prompt! Tell me which subheading and the number of the prompt so I can mark it down! If it’s a lyric prompt, please give me the song and the number! 
5. You don’t have to be following to participate! 
6. Deadline: January 11, 2021
Yes, I’m giving about 3 months for this. January 11 also happens to be my birthday, so I figured that would be a good date to choose. 
The subheadings are: dialogue prompts, sentence prompts, quotes from popular media, and song lyrics!
Find the prompts under the cut! 
Dialogue Prompts
“Life is made up of maybes and regrets. I don’t want this to be one of them.”
“You can’t do this. It’s my choice to make, and mine alone. If you don’t agree with it, the door is there. Feel free to use it.”
“I used to be afraid of the dark, you know. Until I learned that the real monsters thrive in the light.” 
“So, what you’re saying is if I gave you a nickel, you’d do it.”
“No, I don’t know how the cheese got there, and honestly, I don’t think I want to know.” 
“You’re sounding more like a cult leader every time you open your mouth. Don’t think I’ll be accepting any Flavor Aid from you anytime soon.” 
“How did you...you know what, I’m going to forget I saw a thing, and go read a book. Or bathe in Holy Water. Or both. Both is good.” 
“If you say one more word I swear--” “One more word” “I hate you” 
“You can’t come in here singing my favorite song and expect forgiveness, that’s not how this works!”
“No. You mean nothing to me. You never did. You never will.” 
“But if it did, it would work and you can’t convince me otherwise.” 
“You are simultaneously the smartest and least intelligent person I have ever meant. Truly, an amazing accomplishment.” @bonkywobble​
“Next thing you’re going to say is that ghosts are real...please tell me that’s a joke” 
“All I’m saying is, I could do that blindfolded.” 
“But why was there pizza on the ceiling?” 
“If you write me a four thousand word essay on why you think that’s a good idea, then sure.” 
“I didn’t think you were serious. Do you know how illegal this is?!” 
Sentence Prompts
Feel free to change the pronouns used to suit your needs, even if they aren’t bracketed! You can also change the tense if you need to! 
The January rain fell, feeling like razors against [your/her/their] skin as [you/she/they] stared out over the horizon.
This was it, the moment where life as [you/she/they] knew it ended.
 [His/her/their] gaze fell on [her/you], like a lion circling its prey. 
You never thought that it would come to this, come to being the one to end it all. 
You took a moment to calculate [his/her/their] next move, figuring out the perfect counter. 
Hanging by your ankles from a tree was most definitely not how you planned on spending your Saturday. 
Glancing around the room at the decor, one thing was obvious: it was [his/her/their] doing. 
Hurt was the only thing you felt, the only thing you could cling to in this abyss.
Lies, it had all been lies and they were crumbling around you. 
The screech of tires on the pavement sent a shiver down your spine.
He/She used to love this time of year, the beauty of it all. 
It was like climbing Everest: ambitious, dangerous, and maybe a little insane. 
Forgiveness was not something you were willing to offer so freely, not this time. 
Chaos may as well have been the code name of this mission. @nekoannie-chan​
Silence was your new best friend, one that never seemed to leave you alone.
That smile, that smile was something you could get used to waking up to every day. 
Your face twisted in disgust as you realized what you had fallen into.
You were beginning to wish you had taken [him/her/them] up on that trip to Madrid. 
Quotes from Popular Media:
With these prompts specifically, you can use the full thing, paraphrase, etc, since some of them are quite long, or just write something based off an idea it sparks. 
“There are so many stories where some brave hero decides to give their life to save the day, and because of their sacrifice, the good guys win, the survivors all cheer, and everybody lives happily ever after. But the hero... never gets to see that ending. They'll never know if their sacrifice actually made a difference. They'll never know if the day was really saved. In the end, they just have to have faith. Ain't that a bitch.” -Epsilon, Season 13, Red vs Blue 
“We're so arrogant, aren't we? So afraid of age, we do everything we can to prevent it. We don't realize what a privilege it is to grow old with someone. Someone who doesn't drive you to commit murder or doesn't humiliate you beyond repair.” - Daniel, P.S I Love You 
“After centuries of men looking at my tits instead of my eyes and pinching my ass instead of shaking my hand, I now have the divine right to stare at a man's backside with vulgar, cheap appreciation if I want to!” - Denise, P.S. I Love You
“Life isn't just death. Don't ignore the living.” - Vada Sultenfuss, My Girl
“Life's full of barbaric customs. But I hope they all end with a kiss like that.” - Vada Sultenfuss, My Girl 
"You're a little scary sometimes, you know that? Brilliant ... but scary." - Ron Weasley, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone 
"It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends." - Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone 
"I’ll be in my bedroom, making no noise and pretending I’m not there." - Harry Potter, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets 
“Sweetie, this is one of those times when I know what's right and everybody else is confused.” - Angela Montenegro, Bones, Season 3 
“Oh, God. I'm in the middle of something, aren't I? Oh, look! Dead guy!” - Cam Saroyan, Bones, Season 5
“Don’t make it sound trivial when you know it isn’t. You keep talking about how we just need a little more time, but you’re not the one having to struggle.” -Nora, RWBY, Volume 7
“It's called survival. But I forgot, you two at best are functional morons.” - Crowley, Supernatural, Season 5, Episode 10
“I once had to judge a tighty-whitey contest for Lambda Kappa Pi. Trust me, I can handle anything.” - Elle Woods, Legally Blonde 
“How were we supposed to know? It's not like we run background checks on all her boyfriends.” - Kathryn Kennish, Switched at Birth
“Don’t try to get on my good side. I no longer have a good one” - Ouiser, Steel Magnolias 
“I would rather have thirty minutes of wonderful than a lifetime of nothing special.” - Shelby, Steel Magnolias 
“You have the handwriting of a serial killer” - Clairee, Steel Magnolias 
“I didn’t know if you would hire someone who might be married to someone who may or may not be a criminal” - Annelle, Steel Magnolias 
Lyric Prompts
What Do You Think Of - Lauren Alaina ft. Lukas Graham
What do you think of when you think of me?
When you look back on us what do you see? Is it the good times, is it the bad times, is it somewhere in between? 
I can’t even drive down 8th Avenue because the whole damn town reminds me of you
Hurts to Know - 1551
But you stayed when I made another promise to keep
And you waited and waited for the life you saw in your dreams 
You walk in and begin to try to heal me again, but each night is a fight that’s getting harder to win.
Sick - 1551
Everyone I meet feels like another target
I’m feeling sick, I’m feeling twisted, I wasn’t home before this feeling existed 
I never knew that wrong could feel so right
seven - Taylor Swift
Sweet tea in the summer, cross your heart won’t tell no other, and though I can’t recall your face, I still got love for you
Passed down like folk songs, the love lasts so long
I think your house is haunted, your dad is always mad and that must be why 
We’ll hide in the closet, and just like a folk song, our love will be passed on 
the last great american dynasty - Taylor Swift
How did a middle class divorcee do it? 
The wedding was charming, if a little gauche 
And they said “There goes the last great American dynasty. Who knows if she never showed up what could have been.” 
epiphany - Taylor Swift 
With you I serve, with you I fall down 
Something med school did not cover
And some things you just can’t speak about 
Chapters - Brett Young
Chapter one, I was raised on the Dodgers 
There’s no perfect life, you can’t hold back time
Everybody expecting perfection 
Things change in the blink of an eyelid, guess my body knew way more than I did
The Daughters - Little Big Town
Girl, know your place, be willing and able 
Girl, watch your mouth and watch your weight
Pose like a trophy on a shelf, and dream for everyone but not yourself
I wash the dishes, feed the kids, and clean up all this mess, do my best, forgive myself, and look good in this dress
It Won’t Always Be Like This - Carly Pearce 
I remember how I couldn’t wait to get out of my hometown, now I’m looking for every excuse to go back on the weekend
I remember hearing the door slam, twenty-two, didn't have a clue who I was, who I could trust, and who were my real friends
The heart won’t ache forever, no matter how hard it gets, it won’t always be like this
Next Girl - Carly Pearce 
You overlook a lot when he looks like that
He’ll charm your mama with that smile, hide the red flags for a while 
He’ll make you think it’s love, but I promise you it’s not 
Bar Back - Lauren Alaina 
You can have that coffee shop we went on our first date
I’ll give you back that sweatshirt, that one you know I love
I’m taking back that little hole in the wall, the red door sign saying “come on in y’all”
If I Was a Beer - Lauren Alaina
Honey you’re in luck, ‘cause I’m a fine, fine, wine. I’m a slow sweet pour, I can be a little bitter, but I ain’t a hard hitter, like a 30 from the grocery store
Waiting for Superman - Daughtry
She says “he’s still coming, just a little bit late” 
She’s talking to angels, counting the stars, making a wish on a passing car
If life was a movie, then it wouldn’t end like this 
Before You Go - Lewis Capaldi
When you hurt under the surface, like troubled water running could, well time can heal but this won’t
Before you go, was there something I could have said to make your heart beat better?
Our every moment, I start to replay, but all I can think about is seeing that look on your face  @arrowsandmixtapes​ 
Hard to Forget - Sam Hunt
It's kinda funny how I can't seem to get away from you, it's almost like you don't want me to
You’ve got a cold heart and the cold hard truth
Told me to leave all your things out on the porch on the swing
Oh you’re breaking my heart, baby you’re playing hard to forget 
This is It - Scotty McCreery
You can open your eyes
Can’t you see forever 
On top of the world here together
If there ever was a time for a perfect kiss, this is it 
Wish You’d Miss Me - Chase Wright
I was good for you, you were bad for me 
I was solid ground, you were broken wings 
I gave you love you gave me pain
You gave me hell, I gave you grace 
I knew all along that you were gonna leave 
What a Man Gotta Do - Jonas Brothers
I’m not trying to be your part time lover, sign me up for that full time @unnuevosoltransformalarealidad​
This Feeling - Chainsmokers ft. Kelsea Ballerini 
I lay out all my reasons you say that I need help
They tell me think with my head, not that thing in my chest
They got their hands at my neck this time 
I tell you all my secrets and you tell all your friends 
Hold onto your opinions and stand by what you say 
What Are You Gonna Tell Her - Mickey Guyton 
She thinks life is fair 
But what are you gonna tell her when she’s wrong?
What are you gonna tell her when she figures out that all this time you built her up just so the world could let her down? 
Do you tell her not to fight? 
Can you look her in the face and promise her that things will change? 
29 notes · View notes