#I explained my passive suicidal thoughts and active ones as well | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

forestlingincorporated · 4 years ago

Text

I wanna talk about Janet Drake

I’m not against exaggeratedly evil versions of Tim’s parents, tbh. It’s fanfiction, if we can depict an Exaggeratedly Good version of Bruce (which we can, and I do, and I love) then we can depict the Drakes as Exaggeratedly Bad. As someone who personally identifies with Tim, and his brand of complicated parental abuse in particular, I find it cathartic to uncomplicate that abuse and rescue him from the Obviously Evil Bad People.

That said, since much of comics lore is passed down word of mouth, the oral tradition surrounding Tim has developed this idea of Janet as The Worse Parent between her and Jack that was never really present in the comics. We see much LESS of Janet, and we have 20 years worth of comics depicting Jack as a neglectful hotheaded idiot who ultimate does love his son. More importantly, Jack isn’t very much LIKE Tim, so there is a habit to attribute Tim’s traits to his mother... and, as someone who really really identifies with Tim, Tim has... some negative traits. Tim can be a bitch sometimes. He’s fiercely intelligent and sweet and kind, with a strong sense of justice, but he can be cold and judgmental and unthinking - he fights those traits, but he does have them.

And it is perfectly fine to depict Janet that way. I’ve enjoyed depictions of Cold Calculating Janet Drake, but it’s not the ONLY option, and I want to challenge fans to consider different avenues. Tim could pick up these traits from anywhere: a nanny, Mrs. Mc Ilvaine (”Mrs. Mac”), a teacher, tv, Sherlock Holmes novels, Bruce Wayne himself. Tim is capable of not being like EITHER parent.

So, what do we KNOW about Janet? (I’ll also touch on Jack, but only in scenes he appears with Janet.)

When Janet was first introduced she was depicted as a gentle but “modern” woman. This was written in 1989, told by a 13 year old Tim, so this theoretically was meant to take place in 1979. I’m not here to give a lecture on the history of sex discrimination in the united states, but much of the legislation protecting women in the workforce or surrounding women’s bodily autonomy would have been very very new in this initial depiction.

Here, Janet is shown to be encouraging, emotional, maternal, and projects her own feelings onto Tim. Jack is shown to be slightly sexist, possibly discouraging, but not overbearing. And the artist is shown not to know how to draw children.

To insert some speculation, I think it’s important to note all the Drakes witnessed a terrible murder/accident that day. I point this out, because this is the last time Jack and Janet are depicted this way. It’s possible they changed as a result of this event specifically.

However, this is also a story being told by Tim. It’s also possible these events aren’t really “real” at all, and Tim is misremembering what his parents were like as a three-year-old, possibly projecting a more palatable version of his parents into the narrative. This is entirely up to personal interpretation.

In fact, the Drakes are shown in Legend of the Dark Knight attending Haly’s Circus, and the artist knows what a toddler looks like and they’re depicted as already having a slightly strained relationship. Jack is clearly on the defensive, and Janet seems to be passive-aggressive, though she could just be attempting to explain the situation to her toddler honestly. The intended tone isn’t especially clear.

I do want to point out, in this depiction, Tim isn’t being carried like he was in the previous one. He’s walking ahead of his parents, which isn’t a terrible horrible crime, but could be dangerous in a crowded place like the circus. Might be a subtle hint to his parents overall neglect.

Back to A Lonely Place of Dying, in Tim’s memories of the night he discovered Robin and Dick Grayson were the same person at nine-years-old, his parents are home, and watching TV together while Tim played... trucks, idk, in the living room with them. (This is semi-interesting, because you could say “oh, Tim liked vehicle toys as a kid” or you could extrapolate that this is another subtle indication of Jack’s sexism, providing Tim with appropriately “boy toys.” Either interpretation is valid. If Tim was assigned female at birth, would they have been given “girl toys,” or allowed to play with whatever they wanted?)

This is, to my knowledge, the only panel of the Drakes when Tim is between ages 3 and 13. They’re all together, which might indicate that the Drakes were home more often when Tim was 9, only later going on business trips when Tim was “old enough” but...

This is Tim’s boarding school when he’s 13. While most boarding schools in the US are for grades 9-12, Tim is clearly not a freshman at age 13; look how much younger the other kids in this panel are. In the US, the youngest you can attend most boarding schools is 7.

That means Tim could have begun going to boarding school anytime between 7 and 13. He most likely spent all of middle school in boarding school, at least. There are an almost infinite number of possible ways the Drakes handled having a business that required lots of international travel, an archeology hobby, AND a very young child. Janet staying home until Tim was 7, 11, 13, is equally possible as the Drakes having a nanny until 7, 11, 13. Tim just doesn’t talk about that period of his life very much.

(”What about Mrs. Mac?” - it is unclear when Mrs. Mac begins working for the Drakes. We only see her when Jack comes out of his coma. She could either be a long standing staff member, or a recent hire.)

Note: I’ve seen it said that it’s canon that “According to Tim, when his parents were home, they made a point to try and include him in their activities, bringing him along to events that were normally adults only.” I have never seen this panel, or I don’t remember it, so I cannot confirm, but I also cannot debunk this because... comics.

By the time Tim is 13, Jack and Janet are away on business trips a lot, with limited communication, and no firm return date. If I’m feeling generous, I’d say it was harder to communicate internationally in 1990 than it is today. If I’m not feeling generous, I’d say the Drakes are extremely wealthy, and international communication was easier than ever before in the 80s and 90s. They’re not even going home to see Tim in a week or two, they’re going home and calling Tim at boarding school in a week or two.

Even Bruce thinks its weird, though he doesn’t say so to Tim’s face. It’s written almost as if Tim’s parents’ neglect was meant to be a plot point that just got forgotten about.

Tim’s parents are fighting at this point (their poor assistant), but Janet still goes with Jack on these business trips. And she’s clearly involved in the business, somehow, but the comics never SAY what Janet’s JOB is. We’re told Jack is the exec, but Janet is ONLY ever referred to as Jack’s wife, though they’re later described as the “heads” of the company, plural.

Just to be clear, this is Jack’s business. There’s a perception that Jack is a bad business man because he and Janet fight over company decisions, and Jack looses the business after Janet dies, but Jack looses the company YEARS after Janet dies, and maintains it for about a year after No Man’s Land at that. We’re not told how Jack looses the business, but he’s got to be doing something right. Janet isn’t necessarily the “real brains” of Drake Industries.

And I’m not... gonna... touch the... exploitation and racism because... I’m not qualified to do that. But, here’s the panel. The Drakes sure seem exploitative and racist in their business decisions. Someone else can... analyze that with more nuance.

Regardless how how long they’ve been fighting, when their lives are in danger, the Drakes fall back into a loving husband and wife. Their marriage may be falling apart, but they do care about each other.

I want to show these panels because it shows that Tim and Jack do have things in common. They’re both level headed in a crisis and can be somewhat cold in their practicality. Janet meanwhile and silent. Jack is later willing rant and rave at their captors, but Janet remains silent.

That is, until they’re alone, and she finally lets herself fall apart.

God, Jack can be obnoxious. Janet just looks miserable and resigned. I actually think Tim takes after his parents in this respect in equal measure. Tim can have a temper, but he can also be fairly melancholy and defeatist.

Jack keeps reminding Janet to be strong and in control, which could be period typical sexism? But Jack seems so practiced and ready with the words of encouragement, and with Tim’s history with depression, I wonder if Janet has an inclination towards it as well.

As the end approaches, when Jack brings up Tim, Janet seems to have a lot of regret. She talks about “wasting” the good things, and I don’t think it’s too big of a stretch to assume she’s talking about time spent with her only child.

From this point on, Janet is at times spoken of, but not seen. Like here, when Jack says Janet wouldn’t approve of him and Tim being so “far apart.” He says this after he tells him he takes back his threat to send him back to boarding school, which might imply Janet was against the idea of boarding school? Though she obviously lost that argument when she was alive.

Jack will of course renege on this later, but that’s Jack Drake for you.

Or here in Tim’s illness induced dream, where he gets everything he wants. Though, since this is a fantasy of Tim’s, where his father and girlfriend are both more accepting and understanding than they are in real life, I would take this depiction of Janet with a grain of salt.

After loosing Drake Industries, Jack thinks about Janet (though, they call her Catherine/Cathy for some fucking reason) during his depressive episode. And... uh...

Hallucinates a Valkyrie???? Is this symbolic of suicidal thoughts, or is she... real? Or is he seriously hallucinating?

Anyway, we’re not here to discuss Jack’s mental state, the fact that he forgot Tim’s birthday, or that concerning “I was going to knock some sense into you but you’re still bigger than me” statement from Tim, we’re here to talk about Janet. And even though this entire arc is about Jack mourning his first wife, they don’t SAY anything about Janet herself at all. I mean, they don’t even get her name right, so I guess what was I expecting.

Then there’s Origins and Omens, which also doesn’t say anything about Janet, except that Tim’s memory of her is faulty - Janet was poisoned, her assistant Jeremy’s throat was slit on television, but Tim seems to have conflated the death he did see with the death he didn’t.

The only piece of canon to suggest that Janet might be cold, is Tim compares her to Thalia. And even then, he’s really just saying Janet was protective of him. It’s kind of a scary look to make at your kid, but Bruce does the same thing, so.

I do want to say... it’s not 100% clear if Tim is even talking about Janet. He could be talking about Dana. Dana was observably protective of Tim, though I don’t think he’s ever called her mom. He PROBABLY means Janet.

And finally we have Tim visiting his mother’s grave (in a duel Christian/Jewish cemetery, make of that what you will), where Tim says she was “a little religious.”

And that’s it! That is all we know about Janet Drake in New Earth. Hardly the Mom From Hell, but she isn’t perfect. I’d be interested in seeing some alternate depictions of her within the fandom.

I’m still gonna eat up Terrible Parents From Hell like a starving puppy dog, though. Just some food for creative thought.

#Tim Drake #janet drake #jack drake #robin #Red Robin #character analysis

1K notes · View notes

thelightofthingshopedfor · 4 years ago

Note

I love your meta. :) I always took him letting go of the spear at the end of thor as self destructive rather than having the knowledge of how to escape the void, because the void only opened due to the destruction of the bifrost, which presumably has never happened before, so how would he have the knowledge? Do you have any thoughts on this? Thank you!

thanks! and absolutely, I 100% believe it was a suicide attempt--sort of a passive, impulsive one, where the main point was less that he actively wanted to die and more that he wanted to not be alive (and yeah, there's a difference!), but in the absence of really compelling evidence to the contrary, I think he fully expected he wouldn't survive. my point there was more about another thing some people have been saying, that it's dumb to be frustrated about how inconsistent his powers have been in the MCU generally and the show specifically: in this particular case, I don't think it's possible to have it both ways. either he experienced a massive trauma culminating in a suicide attempt that was itself also traumatic, meaning it's perfectly legit to be frustrated if canon fails to address it, or he's so powerful and/or knowledgeable he somehow knew how to survive the void (which, yes, might not have even been accessible without the unprecedented step of shattering the Bifrost) when no one else in Asgard did, meaning it's perfectly legit to be frustrated if canon is inconsistent about his powers/abilities.

I mean, I also think it's reasonable to think both of those things, that it would be really nice if the show spent more time exploring his trauma and that it would've been possible to have him realistically power up through the show without immediately contradicting everything that came before it with the MCU making him hugely (and increasingly) underpowered compared to his comics counterpart. I came up with a headcanon about it in five seconds, and if they didn't actually want to go the route of explicitly blaming it on Thanos, the general idea could still be adjusted easily, like saying that the whole year was awful, he was forced to rely on his magic a lot to survive, and now major uses of magic also carry some residual trauma. which, well, would also require focusing some more on the trauma, but even if they didn't want to do that, it couldn't be that hard to come up with something else. or for that matter they could've had him using a lot more magic right from the jump but explicitly explained why he hadn't done so in previous movies--like, say, Mobius could ask if he had theories on why Prime Loki only conjured a dagger on the Statesman and not something a lot more helpful, and Loki could've been like "well it turns out you would've fucking pruned me if I had so fuck you very much for asking, but also, I recognize the signs of magical exhaustion in myself so it's a safe bet Other Me just didn't have much left over after the battle," and honestly that would be a quick, tidy way to explain a whole bunch of inconsistencies that also would have been relevant for Mobius to ask since any information about Lokis in general is valuable to him. given what they did with Classic Loki, it doesn't seem like they're all that hesitant about taking jabs at previous canon, so...it would've been nice.

but, you know, it's also completely possible to think these things are frustrating and mostly not focus on them, which is more or less what I'm doing. I'm used to doing a lot of the work anyway to reconcile various inconsistencies and focus more on trauma than canon does, so as long as there's something--which there has been, both for Loki's trauma and his magic--then it doesn't bother me that much if it's still necessary here. especially because like...I think they could do more with his trauma without alienating viewers, I really do, but I also realize that a show focusing on Loki's trauma to the extent that would fully satisfy me would probably be a) literally impossible to make and b) hella alienating for general audiences, so it's not like I can actually blame them for that!

#loki #loki show #loki spoilers #loki meta #my meta #loki series negativity #loki show negativity #tagging to be on the side side #I think these are mild and reasonable frustrations #and I'm like...presenting them alongside headcanons I have for fixing them #but it would be PRETTY HYPOCRITICAL of me to whine about people not tagging appropriately and then. also. not do that.#marvel cinematic universe #conversations #anonymous

18 notes · View notes

hyperfixationtimego · 4 years ago

Note

Alright we’re trying this angst thing again

Diamond Brothers Angst because I said so

Both Daiya and Mondo have huge self esteem issues bc of the crash

Both think stuff along the lines of what the fuck I could have prevented that

Neither Daiya nor Mondo can sleep very well because when they hear vehicles driving past and the occasional screeching tires they’re back at the scene of the accident

They hear a semi truck rumbling past? Suddenly neither of the brothers remember how to move or breathe properly

They both survived the crash but they were both injured severely bc fuck dude that was a truck that hit them

The Crazy Diamonds witnessed the whole thing and they were Worried™️

And we all know how the Owadas hate being vulnerable

Neither of the brothers could actively ride their motorcycles for a long time after the crash because they couldn’t handle it emotionally

They played off their mental recovery time as time in the hospital

Daiya made Mondo promise not to get back on his motorcycle, much less the road, until he was 100% sure that he was prepared to handle it because what if there’s another freak accident that neither of them have control over

Mondo made Daiya promise the exact same thing because He Cares™️

Mondo has reoccurring nightmares about the crash and often sees Daiya dead in those nightmares

The gang shows up in the nightmares too and they’ve all been hit and it’s all Mondo’s fault and he couldn’t be a good leader because he wasn’t strong enough and why couldn’t he just be more like his brother god fucking dammit

Sometimes he sees Taka or Chihiro in place of Daiya and the Diamonds and that Absolutely Terrifies Him™️

Daiya has reoccurring thoughts about hijacking a truck to hit the driver who hurt him and his little brother

He wants them to feel all the same pain and more that they put the Diamond Brothers through

Daiya has breakdowns over this because even if he is a gang leader, he would not go that far

cue the Am I A Bad Person Complex™️

Mondo does not let himself stim

He doesn’t think it’s manly and it definitely doesn’t fit the Tough Guy™️ act

This leads to worsened focus and next thing you know he and Daiya are having a yelling match at home because if Mondo’s grades drop any lower he’ll be expelled soon and Daiya just wants the best for his brother but nothing works out the way it was planned

One time Mondo received a popsicle stick and paper heart from Taka

He was extremely happy

When he got back to his dorm he was that happy that he was shaking and then oh shit

Mondo broke it

He snapped the popsicle sticks in half

the note that Taka wrote,, it got ripped in the process

Mondo full on sobbed over this for an hour at the least

Actual

Real

Tears

He broke something that Taka— not just his bf, but his best friend— had worked so hard on to make just for him and he fucking broke it like a shit for brains idiot

Mondo is terrified of hurting his friends

Because what if he forgets to take his adhd meds one day and his emotional dysregulation is all fucked up and he has an outburst again and actually hurts his friends

Or what if he takes 2+ doses by accident and focuses too hard and is left staring at one (1) spot and everyone hates him and what if they think he’s a creep

Mondo hates going out of his dorm at night because what if someone else is out and they have a flashlight and now they’re pointing it at him and it’s bright and those are headlights and that’s

that’s his brother

on the ground

not moving

Mondo will start shaking and he’ll break down hyperventilating or freeze on the spot

Either way, he hates being vulnerable

Whaddaya think? :D was that enough angst?

also can you tell that i kin Daiya on the dl bc i too got hit by a moving vehicle to save my young mer sibling from being hit /lh but also srs lmfo

HEY TINK??? HEY TINK????????

GodDAMN make me cry over this shit oKAY-

also sorry this took ✨forever✨ I had to gather my Thoughts™️ and my brain did not want to work today 😌

also before we get into my things, tw for trauma (obviously), unhealthy coping mechanisms, underage smoking/drug relapse/smoking as a crutch, and suicidal ideation (passive, but still there)

First of all, y e a h oh my god?? There is literally so much internalized guilt for both of them,,,,,like they rlly do have episodes sometimes where they just. Play over the events of what lead up to the crash in their heads and fixate on what they could have done differently,,,,,even though in the moment they both did their best? Like “well, I shouldn’t have taken us down this street” or “if I had acted quicker, maybe it wouldn’t have happened” and.....yeah those thoughts really fuck with them, y’know?

and 100% that unexpected/overwhelming vehicle noises and/or presences are nearly debilitating. Honestly, I imagine that Mondo can’t go hang out with Leon and Taka or whoever else if said people are hanging out in Kaz’s workshop. Owada’s only ever been in there once and immediately had to leave when he heard Kazuichi starting an engine he was working on. Not to mention being surrounded by a shit ton of vehicles, even if they were idle, had kept him on-edge the entire thirty seconds he was able to handle it.

They both deal with a lot of phantom pain, as well. Like something triggers them and suddenly, even if they’re able to remain in the moment and keep conscious of their surroundings, they somehow feel every ache, every twinge of pain, every breaking bone, or bruised patch of skin that they felt on that day. It’s a lot more prominent in Daiya than it is with Mondo, but they do both experience it!

And neither one lets the other know when they’re feeling like shit or having an episode because 😌 Daiya. wants to be strong. for his little brother. and Mondo. sees his brother basically functioning like a typical person. and figures that there’s something wrong with him. because he can’t get over what happened.

Takemichi is absolute shit with Emotions and being vulnerable or getting people to open up to him, but he’s like..........internally these bitches are Not Okay what the fuck am I supposed to do about it???? So he kind of...tries to hint to both of them that he’s worried? Without making it obvious or embarrassing them, but he’s like.......fuck these assholes.......making me be the one to make them realize they need help goddamnit........

And michi exhibiting a change in behavior is pretty 👀 because. it’s michi I mean he’s not just gonna change the way he talks in front of u for nothing, u know? So both Daiya and Mondo are actually able to pick up on it, although their reactions differ pretty greatly.

Like Daiya’s first thought is “wow, he’s worried, that’s really sweet of him. Better convince him everything’s okay.”

Meanwhile Mondo’s is “wow, he’s worried. my stupid emotional turmoil is that obvious. he must think I’m some sorta fuckin idiot for not being able to get over it. or selfish. or both. yeah, probably both.”

Also I think Daiya’s pretty perceptive in general? Like he can Tell™️ that something’s going on with his brother, but........yeah emotional conversations....vulnerability......that’s rlly neither of their strong suits. + he also figures that if it were something mondo were really really really having trouble with, he would come talk to him!

And so Daiya has absolutely no concept of just how Not Good his brother is doing right now hbbvvvv

So he settles for being like “I’m just gonna stay strong and act like the memories and intrusive thoughts aren’t affecting me in any way because I want to be a good role model” (which. is not healthy obv)

oh g o d the nightmares

they are so horrible and vivid and concentrated at times that Mondo simply.....refuses to sleep. He’s exhausted, both mentally and physically, and yet he can’t bring himself to close his eyes because he knows what he’ll see if he does.

And of course it affects him to the point that his friends start to become worried. Like Taka notices a stark increase in tardiness or general absences, and, after an initial assumption that it was simply Mondo choosing not to care about his academics again, realized that there was probably a lot more going on than he realized. He really, really wanted to bring it up and let his boyfriend know that he’ll always be there for him no matter what, but he couldn’t quite figure out how to articulate it properly. The farthest he gets is with the question, “is everything okay?”

And as much as Mondo wants to respond to him by saying that no, in fact, everything is not okay, everything sucks and everything hurts and he’s tired and he hates himself and sometimes he wishes that the crash had killed him, but that’s selfish so he should shut up- he just.....can’t bring himself to open himself up like that. Yes, he and Ishi are dating, so logically he should be able to tell him all this, but.....it’s so much. It’s too much. Too much to think, too much to feel, let alone try to explain. So he shuts himself up with a quick, curt, “Yeah.”

And....Taka knows he’s lying. He’s not sure how he knows, but he does. And it hurts to see someone he loves so much in such a state of anguish, and basically be unable to do anything about it because....how is he supposed to respond? What is he supposed to say? Navigating everyday interaction is difficult enough without having to improv something that could affect his partner’s mental health indefinitely. So....he does his best. Which isn’t enough, really, but it’s something.

“You can tell me anything.”

Mondo wants to believe him.

—

Another side of that same coin is Mondo skipping class a lot more than is typical for him. It’s almost always with Leon, but he’s also begun slipping away on his own, occasionally, as well, now.

And....y’know, at first, Leon thought it was super rad that Owada and he were skipping more! Like it used to be that Kuwata would offer for them to miss the next class, and Mondo’s usual answer would be ‘not today,’ and then Leon would keep bugging him about it until Mondo either gave in or told him to fuck off.

But....there’s just something about how it went from Leon being constantly shut down, to being told yes around the first few times the idea was brought up, to how, suddenly, Kuwata wasn’t even the one asking, anymore. It’s....depressing? Uncomfortable?

There’s also the fact that hanging out while they’re cutting just....isn’t as fun as it used to be? Leon’ll crack jokes or come up with stupid dares, and Mondo’s responses will be noncommittal at best. And Leon’s had enough experience with sleep deprivation to know it in his friends when he sees it.

He’s never been put in this situation before - usually it’s kuwata having some sort of stupid episode and usually it’s owada who’ll tell him to chill the fuck out and think rationally about things, but....Mondo acts a lot different when he’s upset than Leon does. He smokes more. Cuts himself off from everyone. Doesn’t engage with anything.

It’s different with people like Toko, or Makoto, or Kaz, because Leon knows what they need. He knows whether or not they need vulnerability, or a physical presence, or tough love, or tactile grounding, or a willing ear or shoulder to cry on, but with Mondo......he just isn’t sure.

So Leon doesn’t comment.

——-

Chihiro’s probably the one to get him to open up about it ngl.

ANYWAY-

y e a h Daiya intrusive thoughts?????? fuck yeah???? absolutely??????

god yeah I rlly feel him on that ngl hbhdbdbdbbb

and MONDO DARLING 🥺

god okay it SUCKS because????? he doesn’t judge his friends for stimming????? Like he sees his friends fidgeting or repeating phrases or rocking back and forth and he’s like???? Hell yeah you go u funky kid ilysm

But when it comes to himself????? he’s like if I do anything aside from stay perfectly still, I’m weird and bad and a failure so I simply Will Not

he’s wrong but it doesn’t change the fact that he feels that way ❤️

hhhvhvvdd I’m also a slut for daiya doing his best as a makeshift parental figure,,,,,,,like fuck dude okay,,,,,,as an older sibling who also loves and cares about their younger sibs but often finds emotionally connecting with them to be difficult,,,,,,,,,mood??? And having all of that amplified by rlly being his younger bro's only support in his home life,,,,,,,like ok mr. owada go off

he feels a lot of pressure to get it right and make sure that Mondo's doing okay, so the grades really worry him. but, of course, grades are a touchy subject with mondo regardless, so as u said it devolves into arguments and yelling and a lot of defensiveness!!

and god okay,,,,,,,the heart rlly got me,,,,,,,like that hurt. it rlly hurt man okay damn

honestly??? I think that might be the thing that gets him to break. like that might be his final straw.

because when they meet up again, Ishi asks him about it and whether or not he liked it. And Mondo just.

fucking.

breaks.

down.

He’s shaking and he’s crying and there’s snot running down his nose and this is so ugly and so not manly but he can’t stop. he can’t stop. Because there is this sweet, gentle, kind, sweet, beautiful, darling, sweet man before him who did something so nice for him, something he didn’t deserve, and he destroyed it.

Like he destroys everything.

And so when Taka panics and asks him what’s wrong (yes Ishi gets worried that he did something bad and yes ishi also gets worried that his boyfriend didn’t like the present because hdbdvdvd kin 💛) owada just. spills everything. and he doesn’t even begin with the gift??? he starts with apologies upon apologies, many of them incoherent, and many of them with Mondo not even certain what he’s apologizing for, just that he knows he needs to

and ofc Taka is like o-o because wow ok

but after his initial shock, and after Mondo has thoroughly cried himself out and explained everything he could stand to explain at that point in time, Taka just......holds him. And strokes his face, brushing away the tears that have not yet dried, simply offering his body as a weight, as something for Mondo to ground himself with. And it works.

And Taka insists that Mondo has nothing to apologize for, only that he wishes Mondo would have told him what was going on sooner. Because he wants to help. And hearing that just gets Owada’s waterworks going all over again, but he’s still got Ishi there with him. He hasn’t scared him off.

And it’s more than enough.

—

and UGH yeah????? yes absolutely absolutely okay okay so,,,,,,,,mondo comorbid adhd/depression/anxiety

like sir 🤝

got me fucked up smh

honestly he’s probably not diagnosed with the depression or anxiety, either, until something like the incident with ishi prompts him to realize oh wow I’m not okay actually

so yes he 100% does???

he constantly has all of these what if situations swirling around in his brain about what might happen if he fucks up, or does something that he doesn’t qualify as fucking up in the moment, but leads to something awful or painful or harmful for someone else, and he’s just??????? g o d

83 notes · View notes

icharchivist · 4 years ago

Note

Thank you for answering the previous asks and hope you're prepared!

How much, out of ten, are you of each winter troupe member?

Have a good day :3c

ahah thank you for doing that all the way!

and oh boy i thought i was prepared but turns out-

okay notewise.:

Tsumugi: 7/10, Tasuku: 3/10, Homare: 4/10 Hisoka: 9.5/10, Azuma: 10/10, Guy: 6/10

(if you're supprised Azuma is actually my ultimate kin and it's not Hisoka: congratz i fooled all of u. the only reason i don't have an Azuma icon is that i genuinely think he looks too sexy in some arts and it doesn't feel Me despite everything else. The more u know.)

And. i need to warn that i went much more into personal details for Hisoka and Azuma under the cut to the point where it may be overwhelming. And that Azuma's entry alone is 2.1k words long. What the fuck me.

Relating to team "we have so much trauma" is going to be so much fun.

coughs, anyway take care :3c

(Links: Spring, Summer, Autumn , Winter ranking)

Winter my beloved, this is going to be a normal, non emotional ranking at all.

Tsumugi: 7/10 I relate to his lack of confidence, and the way he gave up on everything he loved when his spirit was crushed (re what I was talking about with my Kumon rant). On my down time I did study a bit of psychology and though I wouldn’t put myself at the same level as a psy student I’m often told I read people mostly in an accurate way so I can relate to that. I can use my powers for Evil like nudging people in some direction or knowing where to attack, but I am super aware of that and I’ve been extra conscious about not having it happen again for over ten years now DLKFJDLF (Azuma is kinda like that too). But yeah the fact he is like that too makes it relatable.

I also think that the whole “feeling you fucked up and took all the responsibility when a friendship broke apart” is also something very relatable. So is “ghosting your friends after that”. I relate to the fact he’s a nerd too. I relate to him more than not but I guess I just removed points because of how while I relate to specificities the whole thing doesn’t connect as much as it could?

Tasuku: 3/10 he’s probably the one I relate the least to. I honestly didn’t understand Tasuku much until Nocturnality on my first read, and it’s only then that things clicked. Legit I saw him the way Azuma saw him dLKFJDKFJDF. But I do feel it relatable that he feels responsible for failing his friend and that he took it upon himself to try to read more into how people are behaving to try to prevent it from happening again. But else he’s. genuinely not like me KDJFKLDFJDFL

Homare: 4/10 mhmm. I think I relate to the way he is passionate and how much he genuinely loves. I also relate to the fact he is pretty analytic, though the details of what makes his struggles are not something I relate to easily. I have felt broken before, I was told i was broken or unfit in some ways, so this particular pain is something I completely understand. I also did use to be an artist and a writer so I can relate to that passion of his, although as I mentioned in others ranking *shrugs*. That said he’s very much more exuberant and confident than I am and I would assume I know how to deal with people emotionally a bit more.

Hisoka: 9.5/10 oh boy where to start. This is going to be a tough one to get into without getting extremely personal. To start with, I’m a sleepy baby. I sleep a lot DLKJFDF though not much at night. I used to fall asleep in class all the time my friends had to always be on the watch out for me. I don’t have much energies. I love plushy and I love being comfortable in some places. I also really love sweets tho not as much as him. I also do care ways too much for my specific plushies and pillows (I do have huge penguins plushies too).

I, too, have memories issues, though of course to a lesser extend. I have a lot of trauma and for a lot of them I ended up getting fuzzy memories. I used to be in a pretty toxic environment where I constantly had to make use of my memory to survive, and so when my memory started failing me, I was terrified. My parents gaslight me all the time and pretends a lot of things that happened didn’t happen and that I’m crazy for believing it happened, so the moment my memory started to fail me I started to panic a lot. It terrified me to not being completely sure whenever I could trust myself or not. It made me feel extremely unreliable. It’s still something I struggle with a lot.

This would have been my answer pre-awakening moon at least. I always related to him to some degree so Awakening moon was a slap in the face in a way I wasn’t ready to deal with, and this is where I have to be uncomfortably personal.

I am the youngest sibling of 3. My eldest sister ran away from home when I was 6, never to be seen again. My other sister resented me because I used to be very close to the eldest and she was jealous about it, and while the reasons were linked to our parents, who were extremely toxic to us and kept us into this toxic environment for years on end, my sister took all her anger out on me. While we’ve discussed it as adults now, our relationships is too strained to fix it nowadays.

It took me a long while – it took me Azuma’s arc actually – to realize that the way I feel for my eldest sister is more akin to grief than to abandon. I don’t even remember her. I don’t remember her and still apparently the way I was close to her was the reason my sibling hold it against me. I couldn’t even remember *why* my sister was mad at me because I don’t even remember being close to my sister that much. All I know is that she left because the situation at home was too toxic. It was.. so messy.

I have. Much more trauma linked to that specifically but that’s the root of something that hit me in the face with Hisoka’s arc. Because I can’t remember a person that disappeared from my life, and yet it was enough for it to break and shape everything I’ve lived through since. I couldn’t even start to talk about how it still impacts me now 20 years later. I’m just now making peace with the fact this was grief. This is the gist of the reason Hisoka’s arc hit me as hard as it did (and the fact that Chikage is actively undoing all the bad things his own grief pushed him to do on Hisoka is the reason Chikage is so compelling to me. My sister could never lol.).

I felt also that I had to take all the responsibilities for what happened. I felt like I could make things easier for the family after this trauma, at the rip age of 7, and no one stopped to think maybe a child shouldn’t have to be dealing with a collective family trauma like this. But well. Here we are.

I relate to the fact Hisoka also struggles to accept everything that happened. And that now he’s trying to make things better for others people he can relate to. It’s so… complicated.

Also I can’t forget the fact Hisoka tried to kill himself and :/ as someone who has had a lot of suicidal idealization in my life this really hit a lot harder than it should have.

In general I would just say that socially I’m not really like him except with people I’m comfortable with teasing. Hisoka can be a little too rude and it’s where I can’t relate lol. But otherwise man I care him so much I feel so seen. I’m just removing 0.5 points for that and I don’t give him full mark because of what I’ll explain next.

Azuma: 10/10 This one is going to be a trip. It’s about twice the length of the Hisoka’s rant. Mister took me by the throat too. As I think it’s clear now I cannot relate to the fact he genuinely loved his family and how much his family cared for him. Yet I relate… to about everything else.

On the surface I do think I seem more approachable and easy to talk with. I try to be the kindest person I can be, to not be judgmental. I’m conflict avoidant, just like he can be, and if I’m annoyed with someone I’m muuuuch more likely to use passive aggressiveness like he does with Tasuku when he’s pissed at him. (sidenote: I do find it funny that Tasuku was the only character I really felt I didn’t get until Nocturnality, while Azuma was having the exact same problem, and then he became one of my fav the moment it clicked. Azuma is my braincell.)

More often than not, there’s a smile on my face and I try to be soft in the way I can be. I’m generally pretty calm, I’ve been told I was soothing, or give good hugs, this sort of stuff.

Now onto the heavy stuff.

I have a lot of nightmares and night terrors linked to a lot of my traumas. I’m honestly scared sometimes to go to sleep ^^”. But in general, if Hisoka reflects a lot of a personal trauma and how it would personally affect me, Azuma reflects a lot on how I would behave with others people in general and especially when I’m unwell. I’ve coped most of my life with, everything that happened to me, by just. Trying to keep people at armlength. I don’t want to let people close to me, especially irl. Discussing all of that online gives me a distance that allows me to discuss it but, I remember in high school I was going through very bad things, and a few years later I was hanging out with a friend and I happened to open up about those things. And she was going livid because, she had known me for what, 6 years at that point? And she never knew any of this. We talked a lot then, we were close, but she never knew all those things about me until years later. It kinda scared her because to her I was always a sweet and cheerful person and she never expected that I was doing this badly. I remember then she brought up something we discussed back in a party with many of our others friends from high school and similarly they were all. “how did we never know any of this.”. Seeing Azuma in Nocturnality kinda brought me back to that convo tbh LKDJFLKDFJFD.

But I’m good at pretending I’m closer to people than they think. I’m an excellent listener. A lot of my friends tended to rely on me as the person they could talk about their problems to. I used to do it much more back then but I also used to pour a lot of energy trying to make it easier for people, solving their problems. Full on Therapist Friend:tm:. It does help that, as I said with Tsumu, I have basis in psychology so sometimes some observations I can make help much more than expected. Just like Azu tbh lol.

Oh also I am cuddly with my friends in general. I’m super touch starved but also to the point I feel uncomfortable to seek hugs because I just don’t get any on a normal basis and my body isn’t used, but I’m super cuddly and when I’m with my closest friends I’m like a koala.

And it gives people the impression to people that I’m very close to them because I know them well, and I know the ins and outs of why they behave the way they do. But. I kinda feel like it’s one sided more than not. And it’s all because of me, because I keep my walls up very high and it means people don’t generally expect that I’m hiding things.

I’m good at distracting too. I don’t relate to how flirty Azuma is but I keep seeing it as him distracting others. It’s flattering, and just embarrassing enough that the person ends up dropping whatever they may be pressing on Azuma to talk about. And, while not with flirting, I do that a lot, especially using compliments like that. (That said my kindness or teasing has been misinterpreted as flirting before DLKFJDLKF I’m trying to be extra conscious about not having that misunderstanding happen nowadays but man it happened a lot).

Azuma knows a lot of people, and has been supporting a lot of people, but he doesn’t let people in as much.

And a lot of it is linked to his own sense of grief. Of the fact he has lost so much he can’t afford to go through the pain of losing something again, so he distances himself from it before it can hurt. And I do that a lot.

I mentioned in the previous rant but it’s seeing Azuma’s arc that made me understand how much it’s more grief than abandon that makes it so hard for me to move on. And a part of me kinda just. Grieves the family I could never have, the normal life I wish I could have lived and clang too all of my life. When Azuma told Guy “I was always so lonely. Everyone had families they could take for granted but I had no one.” Oh my god it destroyed me. And how he mentions just afterward that while he has new people to rely on, it couldn’t change the fact he was still feeling this pain of losing his family and it just. Man. Might be crying right now.

It’s like… I think the reason I especially related to that is that, in therapy I’ve often discussed my problems in the lenses of neglect and abandon but the problem with that lenses is that, at least with the therapists I had, they tend to focus on the fact that therefore I /must/ be still yearning for them to change and turn around, like I could change something. But I don’t. I was resigned at some point. And it’s really only when I read that that I felt this exact resignation I have been feeling all that time. I think I mentioned once how reading a3 felt like going one step toward recovery I didn’t know I could get and this was exactly the scene I meant. It legit took a weight off my heart that i've been carrying for decades. It was the strangest feeling in the world.

Anyway more in general too, on top of keeping people at distance, I am also a pro at “suddenly disappearing/ghosting when I get too close and/or have a relapse”. When Azuma starts to pull his relapses like we see in Nocturnality, I see myself. Legit had a friend who read a3 who called me out about that DLKJFDKLFJ. Acting weird like this, closing yourself in like this, coming back to some harmful coping mechanism as a way to connect back with your own self, those are all things I do. And it sucks. Like. The things I put my friends though sucks. But I really can’t help it sometimes.

I’m good at listening and observing, I’m generally good at picking up why people act a certain way, but I’m still very distant. I do everything I can to pretend I’m not distant and generally it fakes an idea of intimacy that I don’t specifically see as such.

And I see all of that in Azuma in ways that are terrifyingly relatable. Another thing Azuma says in this convo with Guy, about how “Everytime I would go to sleep, I would wish the morning would never come” me. Mood. Holy shit. Feel seen. I hate it. Just in general though the way he talks about morning as this terrifying thing is me. Between the night terrors and the fact morning genuinely makes me feel horrible, that’s kinda why I end up oversleeping until the afternoon DLKFJDF Azuma my lord I feel you.

Because of my nightly panic attacks I do try to come up with ways around it mainly by drinking some relaxing tisanes and stuff. Oh and I did have a huge period in life where I HATED being in the sun, and I fucked over all of my melanin because of that. as a kid I would tan very easily, but now the sun hates me as much as I used to hate it. So when Azuma is a drama queen about not wanting to stay in the UV too much I’m just like. How dare you pull out a mirror on me I didn’t ask for this. (also I have been called a vampire by people esp when I was a teen but that’s just how people called edgelords like me. Still. Reo my beloved.)

There is honestly so many little things with Azuma that reminds me of myself like this that it makes me go nuts. If Hisoka is who I relate to in term of specific trauma and how I cope personally, Azuma is more like, the direct physical impact of my trauma on me and the way it makes me relate to others people, as well as just every little behaviors here and there that are just so specific.

One of the only thing I really don’t relate to Azuma about is his love for Alcohol but I think if you replace it with like, my addiction to juice it works out the same.

Oh and, that’s a stupid but funny thing to me, I project hard on how much the reason he keeps his hair long is a form of mental stability for him, because I legit keep my hair long for my own mental stability. I have tied ways too much of my recovery process to my hair that when I see Azuma coping with grief with his hairstyle and how almost cutting it would be him spiraling down, I felt seen.

also i have 0 stamina just like him.

ANOTHER THING is also the fact Azuma is genuinely yearning for connections with people but he spent so much of his life keeping people away that as much as he’s yearning for it, it takes him so long to be able to lower those walls because he’s been so used to keep people away that he can’t reply to this yearning. And the way how, once he actually ends up feeling this bit of vulnerability toward people, he would suddenly shut in like it suddenly scares him? Mood.

One last thing (i promise) (i think) is that, if it wasn't obvious from all my ranting.... So much of myself and the way i view myself is defined by my trauma. I struggle to exactly come to term with my identity in any shape or form that isn't deeply related to my trauma. Even if you asked me what my sexuality is (please don't), my actual answer would be completely shaped by the fact i have so much trauma linked to sexuality, romance and gender, that i don't want to process it at all and can't actually manage to "fit the boxes" because i cannot see myself as something else than my trauma, or explain my feelings without linking it to my trauma. Honestly at times i find it kinda cringeworthy from me because i really, really can't tell about anything about my identity without thinking of my various traumas (i talked about a few of them in those rankings but it's not even the tip of the iceberg for a lot of stuff.) And when i see the way Azuma is in particular, maybe i'm projecting, but i feel like a lot of it is the same. Like not processing his age because if he does it reminds him of how he outlived those he loved (which is an headcanon but com'on.) or how even his hair is linked to his trauma. Or how he doesn't drive because it's linked to his trauma. I feel SO seen.

If it wasn’t for the fact he genuinely loved and was loved by his family, I would have felt exactly the same about everything regarding him.

But I still give him a full mark because the way Azuma’s arc has affected me is beyond any possible words I could use. And also because I legit wrote above 2100 words just on how much I related to Azuma ALONE. Even Hisoka took me 800 WORDS. HELLO. Guy: 6/10 Back to general coping here, Guy isn’t exactly relatable to me except in well. For exemple the ways the others relate to him, especially Hisoka and Azuma. So his memory loss to cope with intense family trauma is relatable to me, the way he can have nightmares and night terrors is also hella relatable to me.

But something that’s more Guy that I relate to is the whole “Step dad kept talking down on him and verbally abusing him until Guy basically completely closed himself in” because man. I won’t elaborate but I’ve really felt from reading that verbal abuse the same way I felt thinking back to how my ex-step dad used to talk to me. It made me so angry on his behalf. And the way he internalized it to cope was something deeply relatable.

Another thing with Guy is the fact that Guy did genuinely believes himself inhuman and tbh there was a time when I was very young where I would catch myself unable to feel a bit of humanity mostly from how I kept shutting myself in. (The reason I don’t relate to it with Homare is that this “inhumanity” was never actually there even if Homare did believe in it. But for Guy he went the extra mile convincing himself to the point where he denied this humanity as far as possible in a self destructive way and :/).

SO YEAH Winter is like. Therapy for me. The problem with “Trauma: The Troupe” is that saying “I relate to the Winter troupe” means “I may have problems and so what.” And it sucks.

if you read that wordvomit, congratulation, was it worth it?

Take care!

#closes eyes and pretends i didn't just type all of that for azuma ANYWAY #bows down thank you for indulging in my fav passion of 'therapy via a3' the more we go #ichafantalks a3 #pandapillow #ichareply #also man Risky Game is going to absolutly murder me isn't it.

4 notes · View notes

trophywifejimgordon · 5 years ago

Text

ok fuck the ten year time jump me and my homies HATE the ten year time jump and i swear after this post i’m never acknowledging it again. but. i have been sitting on this gobblepot sequence of events surrounding it,,,

:). so basically,

oz & ed commit some crime, or they’re framed for it. or ed does something on his own and tries to bring oswald down. or their pardon is just generally ignored/abused.

whatever happens, they get arrested.

jim sees this arrest and knows it’s not right, but gotham’s new management really wants them put away. he says it’s not right. they threaten him. he fights back. they threaten everything he stands for. well....

he gives in. just another thing to feel guilty about forever, right?

they’re both going to be put in arkham indefinitely.

jim campaigns against this. he doesn’t waste time on ed (can’t, if he wants to sustain credibility), but vouches for oswald’s sanity, citing the certificate of recovery from his first stint in arkham, his mayoral campaign, the illegality of his second arkham visit, and his custody of martin.

he does not get oswald a pardon. he does get him 12 years at blackgate.

10, with parole, if he’s good.

jim prays he’ll be good

he keeps the news of his mostly failed campaign under wraps as much as he can, because he doesn’t want oswald to feel obliged to him for something that didn’t even save him from prison, and in fact probably made things a lot worse. as a result, all oswald ever hears about it is, “jim gordon had you sentenced to blackgate.”

he’s furious. he vows to Kill Jim Gordon

oswald goes to blackgate.

jim tries to visit him exactly once. oswald is so furious that the guards have to physically restrain him. he does not visit again.

oswald has enough of a reputation (and is smart enough to have earned it) that he is not touched in prison. in fact, he makes somewhat of a name for himself, and, while he doesn’t enjoy his time there by any means, it IS better than arkham. he’s at least comfortable; he eats well, he arranges poker games, he makes skillful connections that will last him years, and he keeps information flowing to him on the inside.

he starts writing passive aggressive letters to jim with thinly veiled threats on his life inside them. they keep getting returned to him unopened, and eventually he stops sending them. he keeps writing, though. eventually, these evolve and become not the threats and barbed comments that they were meant to be, but more love letters to a jim gordon of a bygone year, an idealized jim gordon that oswald knows never existed. he keeps them in a neat stack beneath his cot.

oswald does not tell anyone about these letters.

jim looks into what happened to martin after oswald sent him away, and he gets the news that cobblepot lost custody entirely. apparently, he’s been jumping from foster home to foster home because he scares the people who want an undamaged kid and lashes out against the people who are just in it for a check from the state. all of them think they can get him to start talking. he draws disturbing pictures of them dying in creative ways. apparently, there’s talk of getting him sent to a correctional facility.

jim has him moved to a gotham-based orphanage, and visits him. initially, martin won’t acknowledge him at all. jim tries to explain that he didn’t want oz hurt, gets into their history a little, and after bribing him with books and things he hasn’t had since he was in oswald’s care, jim starts to win his trust.

he visits martin about once a week. what really wins him martin’s trust is that he gets it set up so the orphanage will allow him to visit oswald in prison regularly, on the condition that he doesn’t let oswald know who’s behind it. martin more or less behaves himself at the orphanage from then on.

those visits are the highlight of oswald’s week, and they keep him going more than anything else in those ten years. he starts learning sign language in his spare time.

on the other side of things, jim bumbles his way through learning it, too. they’re all accidentally a family without any actual interaction on oswald and jim’s side.

when barbara lee gets older, jim introduces her to martin. she asks why he doesn’t come live with them; jim tells martin it’s an option--he’s hesitant. jim understands, and doesn’t pressure him.

barbara lee is the highlight of jim’s life, and the only thing that really keeps him going. he’s worn out by the crime in gotham, by the way he’s been working for over 15 years and hasn’t made a single dent. he’s unfulfilled in his marriage, and watches barbara kean get better every day while he falls into familiar despair.

he starts taking risks. he starts going out into the field for the thrill of it, and leslie files for divorce.

in jail, oswald hears about jim getting hurt and worries, despite himself. he hates jim for making him care.

he writes more letters.

jim hears that bruce is returning, and feels that his time is finally done. he’s not actively suicidal, but he wants to die, and well... hm. everything is winding to a close. he turns in his resignation.

penguin is released from jail on parole. neither of them are surprised when oswald appears in the back seat of jim’s car. neither of them are surprised when they end up at the docks.

jim’s resigned to oswald shooting him. he decides that whatever happens, he’ll probably deserve it.

but oswald can’t shoot him.

he doesn’t want jim dead. he wants jim to understand how much he’s been hurting for the past decade. jim sees this, and he jumps in the river--not to save himself, really, but to spare oswald the tumult. and because oswald’s very personal rage suddenly puts the arkham breakout in a new light.

in all the chaos, he doesn’t report the incident.

martin is out of the orphanage now, going through college at gotham u, paid for by an anonymous source, perhaps tangentially connected to the wayne foundation. oswald comes to visit him, and during their reunion, martin lets something slip about jim.

troubled and frantic, oswald chases the thread. he ends up unraveling the whole thing, down to transcripts of jim fighting so hard for his acquittal.

he confronts jim again, in tears. asks him why he’d let oswald hate him for so long--why he’d let oswald kill him--over something like this. jim just tells him he figures he’d deserved it. he treated oswald like shit for so long, everything now is too little, too late.

oswald hates him for this explanation.

he loves jim gordon.

they kiss. probably marry. oswald gives jim the support he needs to continue on as commissioner, jim doesn’t feel like he’s compromising his principles quite so much when he looks the other way while oswald reestablishes his empire. oswald eventually gives jim the love letters, and jim admits he’s been thinking about the ones he sent back unopened for years; he knew how much oswald hated him at the time, and the masochistic part of him wanted to read the abuse, but he thought it would be better for oswald if he could just get it out of his system and forget about jim. martin is best big brother to barbara lee. everyone pretends that they don’t know that batgirl is kind of totally threatening to beat up her beloved stepfather.

the end :)

#gotham #text post #gobblepot #jim gordon #oswald cobblepot #barbara gordon #barbara lee gordon #martin #at one point i was going to actually write this fic but now i have a staunch policy where i hardly recognize any of s5 as canon #so how could i possibly dedicate any time to this #the Least Canon Episode of s5 #the thing about that pier scene is that it's like you'd really do it dot jpeg #bro you don't take someone down to the site of your big first Moment and relive your greatest hits while screaming about how #this begins AND ENDS with HIM AND YOU #because you want to kill them #you do it because you are gay #i'm rewatching gotham and i'm halfway thru s2 #and that makes talking about this Domestic Shit seem so far out of left field #but the impeccable thing about gobblepot is that it HAS the range darling

18 notes · View notes

elmidol · 5 years ago

Text

Tenacity and Rebirth

Three Blind Tooke Part Three Death Is An Art

Read on AO3

Three Blind Tooke

Part Three: Death is an Art

Chapter Sixty-Two: Tenacity and Rebirth

If not for you,

I could never survive

This one moment,

The most painful of my life.

The chaos of battle was not a new experience for you, although the change in perspective remained a novelty. Too accustomed had you grown to observing the carnage through the lens of your scope. In that moment, you would not have traded your position for anything in the world--that would have stolen you away from the nearer proximity to Kylo. Your grip on the lightsaber that had belonged to his mother tightened. The ground under your cheek shook as the planet itself was assaulted by blasts from weapons of war. You stumbled, regained your footing, and surged towards the Force users. Finn and the Knights of Ren had also taken paths to bring themselves closer to Kylo Ren, Rey, and Not-Rey. Other Force users that had--stupidly, you thought--aligned themselves with the First Order worked to thwart these actions. If not for them, Finn might have been at Rey’s side when Not-Rey and Kylo both called upon the Force to knock her back several paces. Her body hit the ground, albeit not as hard as it might have had she not recovered enough to use the Force to lessen the impact.

What you were working to do would be suicide. Someone yelled that to you--a Knight, an officer, a stormtrooper, a Resistance member, you did not know. It hardly mattered. You would not stop running towards Kylo Ren. A body slamming into yours rendered that statement a lie. You and the assailant landed on the ground. Rolling, you quickly activated Leia’s lightsaber and used the plasma blade to impale their throat. The blaster that would have been used to kill you, that had been on a trail to meet your gut, tumbled out of their grasp as their floundered, perished. You deactivated the blade in unison with pushing yourself back up onto your feet. Winded, you mentally swore at the delay that this had caused.

Fissures were forming in the ground at each clash of Not-Rey and Kylo’s blades. The power swirling about them had kicked up a wind that lifted pebbles, stones that were the size of fists. You suddenly wished that you had grabbed your helmet for protection. There was no undoing the past, however, and so you simply changed course. Rey had heightened reflexes, which meant that if you were beside her, you stood a greater chance of succeeding. In the interim, you endured those pebbles cutting into you, beating you, bruising you and drawing blood.

Rey, possibly sensing you, paused until you were only a few feet away--in hearing range, which allowed you to heed her words. “He’s so cold. I haven’t felt anything like this since… I was small and on Jakku.” She shuddered, the shiver not from the weather. Its emphasis on what she had said made you hold your breath for a beat. The pair of you activated your lightsabers, two Skywalker blades that were meant to protect the last of that bloodline. You followed along a few steps behind her, mimicking her actions to effectively dodge any projectiles as well as deflect First Order soldiers that successfully broke through all obstacles and arrived where the pair of you were.

You readjusted your grip on the lightsaber that was in your possession. You knew that your fighting stance was incorrect; you had never before wielded such a weapon, and, yes, a part of you did fear it. You recalled how it felt to be injured by the plasma. Knew the impact it had. You were concerned that it would ricochet into you, that you would lose a limb. That you would fail Kylo. Yet the timorous voice in your head that preached these potential failures was one you disregarded as you pushed onward.

Rey linked an arm into yours, yanking you out of the way of one blaster bolt, released you, and used the Force to stop a second that would have pierced the both of you--you in the arm and her in the clavicle. You bared your teeth, looking in the direction from whence it had come. This allowed you to also check on Cardo’s status. The medic remained kneeling over him, two other Knights of Ren nearby, keeping away foes. As Rey turned on her heel to refocus on the task of joining Kylo, you looked to Not-Rey. They looked so alike, Rey and Not-Rey; and as the Darkness in Kylo grew there were shadows forming on Rey’s face. As though this might drown her, the bond they shared in the Force threatening to crush both. Watching her in the corner of your eye, however, you could not help but note that there was also a Light that refused to go out. Instead it grew brighter in the face of Darkness. If one went to an extreme, the other shifted to encompass its opposite on the spectrum. The Force balanced itself by using these two.

Not-Rey and Kylo were thrust back from one another after a coupling of their blades temporarily linked them and they both called on the Force for more strength. It was Not-Rey that drew nearer to the two of you as a result. Rey locked blades with her family member, and you ran past her towards the amber-eyed man that was not bothering to look at you. His hand surged forward when you were near to him, and you were tugged into his grasp. Still his eyes did not consider you. You clutched at his hand with both of yours, which took additional effort as you fought to keep hold of the lightsaber that was in your possession.

“Kylo!” you growled out, weakly slamming the metal of the weapon’s hilt against his wrist. That did earn his attention. He lowered you so that your feet were once more on the ground, however he did not release you. He barely lessened his hold. “I’m on your side.”

“Are you?” The challenge was punctuated by additional pressure from his thumb. Another bruise, you passively thought. His eyes roamed along your face, drinking in your expression for signs of deceit. Finding none, Kylo did at last remove his hand from your throat. You staggered forward, managing to catch yourself before you could collide into him. “I will kill her.”

“That’s fine! I just don’t want you to kill Rey!” It was infuriating but understandable, his entire attitude. The coolness of his gaze sent an icy chill through you, and now you shuddered just as Rey had when she had sensed the changes he was undergoing. You felt some of it, and yet it was different--because you felt his emotions as well, felt his loss; and because you loved him. “I…” You scanned the various skirmishes taking place nearby, and in truth you were surprised that Kylo as giving you the time to do so. That he was not actively pursuing Rey and Not-Rey. Your very presence aided in leveling him out. It helped him to center himself. “If Finn is here, he can help me keep Rey away.” Finn would understand and would agree. This was not about hurting Rey. It was saving her and others. Not-Rey had made her decision and would not stop until she was killed. The same blood that ran through their veins was a curse, nothing more.

Kylo nodded in assent, his eyes momentarily darting to Not-Rey. Then he half-turned so as to engage the nearest First Order soldiers that were preventing Finn from getting closer. It was as though they had understood that keeping him away from Rey aided the First Order. It kept Not-Rey alive, which sealed the deaths of Order of Ren and Resistance members alike. The red blade cut through two enemies before you could even injure a single target. Kylo was faster, adrenaline and hatred equally fueling him. Another enemy impaled simultaneous to a different individual being crushed with the Force. Finn, perhaps sensing the enclosing Darkness, pivoted. His wide eyes returned to normal immediately upon seeing you. The two of you nodded at one another in understanding.

Together, the three of you cut through the First Order enemies that had kept you apart. You spoke to him, quickly explaining the plan; Finn nodded the entire time, verbally agreeing though he wore a pained expression near the end. Neither of you wanted to hurt Rey. It did not matter that there was no way around this. Nothing was going to lessen the blow.

“As soon as we take care of her, I can use a comlink to get hold of Rose or Poe.” A truce, you understood. A way to relay to the remainder of the Resistance that the only enemy to pursue was the First Order. You glanced towards Kylo only to find that he was no longer paying attention. “I know it will happen.” Finn was not relying on Kylo, but on you. You pinched your lips into a thin line, feeling simultaneously confident and helpless. “Ren?”

In slow motion, Kylo met Finn’s gaze, which briefly narrowed. Kylo nodded. You understood nothing, which frustrated you. There was no time to dwell on these thoughts, however, as both men began to head for Rey and Not-Rey. Licking your lips, wincing at the injuries you were beginning to feel, you moved to join them. Because he was not locked in battle with Not-Rey, Kylo Ren was not exuded as much Darkness, which meant there were less stones in the air. Less things cutting into you. Your fatigued body screamed for you to stop, but you would not listen. You could not rest. You would assist Finn in convincing Rey that she had to keep back away from her relative.

How could you explain that blood did not determine family? This was what she had longed for, and you could well remember the ache you had felt when you had believed you had lost your entire family.

Rey reached a hand towards the three of you, and it felt as though you had walked straight into a wall. Perhaps you would have been thrown backwards had Kylo and Finn not sensed what she was doing and each raised a hand to deflect her power. Maker, you despised how the Force could be used against you. Wiping sweat off your brow with an arm, you resumed walking to her and endured her glare while offering one of your own. Finn caught her blade on the end of his. Not that she had swung in earnest; she had known she would not harm him, but had given into frustration all the same.

“No!” she screamed as Kylo Ren took her former position, engaging Not-Rey. You held a hand behind your back, felt the hilt of the lightsaber wobbling, and opened your fingers. Leia’s lightsaber returned to her son so that he could kill the woman that had assisted in her execution. “No!” This shout from Rey was weaker, and she dropped down to her knees.

Your heart ached at the sight of her tears. Finn glanced at you, sending the message that he had to remain alert, ready to stop her should Rey leap up. Telling you that he had to remain on his feet so as to fight any foe that approached. You, on the other hand, could lower yourself to the ground and join Rey. You placed both of your hands atop hers. She curled her hands into fists, her glare harsher, crueler, a flicker of hatred piercing you.

“Who that woman is doesn’t define you,” you said, not even sure where the words were coming from. Kylo? Finn? Rey? Yourself? “I’m so sorry, Rey. I…”

“Just...don’t.” She shook her head, allowing the first of her tears to fall. “There is nothing you can say...nothing…” Her voice caught in her throat. You nodded, respecting her wishes. Looked over her shoulder towards Cardo. Could not tell if he was still alive. Did not know if Kylo Ren had lost a member of his blood family and found family on the same day.

The cacophony of battle dwindled to a low buzz as your mind worked to shield you from anything that was not Rey or Cardo or Kylo. Yet even for those important individuals, you discovered that your attention wavered. Remaining in place yielded the result of an adrenaline decrease. Exhaustion began to work through your limbs. Injuries screamed, demanding your attention. Chest heaving, you greedily drank in air while searching Rey’s face with your eyes then your hands when you could not be certain there were no hallucinations. Rey did not bat away the limbs. The intended targets of touch were the shadows that played along her countenance. These traces of darkness assisted in amplifying the similarities between her and Not-Rey.

Rey enveloped you in her arms and buried her face in the crook of your neck. Her hands were in constant motion. She was reaching with the Force and using that power to aid Finn in halting potential injury to any of the three of you. You placed both of your hands on her back. Returned the embrace and remembered how she had done the same for you when she had agreed to remain behind on the day of Snoke’s demise. She had stayed for you. The two of you had never met before that, not officially, and yet she had felt in the Force that connection. With Not-Rey, you could tell, it was solely because of the blood they shared and Rey’s desire to find her family that she struggled with. She knew that there was no connection beyond that, that Not-Rey would kill her with little to no thought if given the chance. She had been sold by her family, a kind of rejection that she had not been fully old enough to comprehend at the time. Now she had been rejected again.

As much as you wanted to tell her that it would be okay, you were afraid that fate would prove you a liar. Leia had already fallen in this battle. Cardo could be on the way to losing his life as well. So many potential deaths.

“I can feel something,” she murmured. Finn made a noise of agreement.

This interaction prompted you to look back at Kylo Ren, who had been joined by Vicrul. Not-Rey caught Leia’s blade on one side of her own weapon then Kylo’s on the other. At that angle of the blades, her only move to fully disengage without injury would have been to push backwards. That was where Vicrul’s presence assisted Kylo. The Knight had his weapon at the ready; the scythe, from what you had been told, he used to tear the souls out of enemies to augment his own power. If Not-Rey thrust herself away from Kylo, her flesh would be caught on its sharpened blade.

There was a moment wherein Kylo Ren and Vicrul shared a look. Despite his mask, Vicrul was able to be read by Kylo. The exchange would have been easy to miss if you had not been paying such close attention. Not-Rey, too, was not oblivious to what had happened. Her face broke out in a snarl and she released a scream of rage. The Force swirled around them as it had before. Rey shuddered, trembling against you as the Dark power rose in both Not-Rey and Kylo. Perhaps in Vicrul as well, although you could not be certain.

You were forced to shield your eyes with one hand, which obscured a part of your vision. The three warriors shifted, Not-Rey trapped despite the way she called on the Force for aid. Her next shriek was also one of rage yet it contained pain as well. The sound reverberated through you with how the wail seemed to be sucked into a void. Rey’s head snapped upwards. It caught you in the chin, and you rubbed at your jaw, sucked on your bloodied tongue, which you had bitten upon impact. Together with Rey, you rose shakily to your feet and stared.

Vicrul’s scythe had been thrust through Not-Rey from back to front. Kylo Ren had released his hold on both lightsabers. It was Vicrul who held them. And it was Kylo who had a hand hovering over the tip of the scythe, which meant that he had used the Force to drag it through her. Kylo Ren himself had been the one to kill Not-Rey, and there was something in you that stirred. A sense of awe and of concern. The premonition that it would be revealed he had absorbed Not-Rey’s essence. Be it her soul or her power only, it did not matter. This potential precognitive realization meant little. It did not change the feelings you had for him nor the relief that Not-Rey was dead.

Finn gave your shoulder a pat. Your knees began to buckle, nearly giving out completely on you. Rey and Finn each grabbed one of your arms to keep you from collapsing. “Give me a moment to find a comlink. I need to get in contact with Rose or Poe.” He took another moment before stepping away. Before that he, like you, had watched as Kylo yanked his hand backwards and drawn the scythe the remainder of the way through. Then Kylo had traded weapons with Vicrul again, both men setting off in different directions to cut through more First Order foes.

“We’re sitting ducks here if we stay,” you said, trying to work through the various routes things could go. Hux would easily be able to eliminate the majority of the Order of Ren leadership along with the Resistance. You doubted, despite this, that he was sitting up there where he could be killed. That was not his style; there was taking risks, and then there was being foolish. After witnessing the display of Kylo Ren’s power with the deaths of the ysalamir, Supreme Leader Hux would aim to kill the man with technology yet he would not bank on a full victory on this day. You tilted back your head and scanned the skies.

Order of Ren and Resistance starfighters slowly disengaged from battling one another in favor of allying themselves against what First Order ships remained. There were more casualties as the news was relayed, delays occurring alongside miscommunication. You felt your stomach swoop and plummet with each death that you witnessed. As those starfighters cut through the enemy, there were transports arriving on the planet for both the Order of Ren and the Resistance. The Night Buzzard had been brought in closer, landing where Cardo could be carted inside along with the medic and nearby Knights. Vicrul and Kylo remained on the ground, neither reacting as the Night Buzzard lifted for a second time. This time it headed towards the sky, towards escape. The Millennium Falcon blasted a First Order TIE that had started pursuit. You breathed a sigh of relief. Heard Rey whisper that Chewbacca, Poe, and Rose were all aboard that vessel.

The temporary alliance was more clear to you as your mind processed what you had seen in regards to the Knights of Ren ship; a Resistance fighter had also gone up the ramp. They had been holding supplies for the field medic, had been working to help keep Cardo alive. Likewise, several Order of Ren officers and stormtroopers boarded a Resistance transport that was on the ground. The soldiers worked together to kill First Order troops and allies.

Looking away, you began a search for Kylo and thus learned that his path was taking him to his mother’s body. You tiredly started forward in pursuit. Rey walked a mere two feet behind. Her lightsaber hummed, its blade screeching whenever it was assaulted with a barrage of blaster bolts that it then deflected. Finn was headed in the same direction. So, too, was the Millennium Falcon. Kylo Ren reached Leia first, and by the time you arrived to join him, he had already lowered himself long enough to scoop her up into his arms. He hugged her tightly against his chest, which heaved but a single time. Other than that he displayed no signs of despair--nothing typical, that is, since the color of his eyes betrayed how her death continued to shake him.

“We’re leaving?” You were fairly certain that you already possessed the answer to the inquiry, however you refused to take for granted that he could give into his rage once more. Kylo’s gaze flicked to you, considered Rey and Finn, and then he twisted so as to locate the Millennium Falcon. The ship was beginning its descent though it was not powering down its engines in a way to suggest its pilot planned a prolonged touchdown. Kylo stepped in the direction of the ship. Its ramp was lowering, and Chewbacca was visible in the formed opening. His despair was vocalized in a bellow that nearly dropped you down onto your knees. Tears sprang to your eyes; they were the ones that you had somehow managed to choke back when all the others had fallen.

The back of your arm served as a tool with which you wiped away the liquid from your face. Rey had her free hand on the small of your back, urging you forward. Even as he walked, Kylo turned and called to Vicrul a command that the body of Not-Rey be collected. You wondered if this was so that he could study her or if it was to reduce her to ash as part of his new collection. Whichever the case, his words impacted Rey. Her fingers twitched enough that you felt them jump along your spine.

Chewbacca reached out for Leia, yet Kylo did not oblige this silent request. He clutched his mother, altering how he held her so that he could use one hand to grab onto Chewie, who tugged him aboard the Falcon. The familiarity between the two struck you. How had you taken for granted that this wookie was, in a way, also part of Kylo Ren’s childhood family?

Finn was next to board the Falcon. He turned around and, along with Chewbacca, seized your tired arms and dragged up into the ship. Rey used the Force to jump higher than a non-Force sensitive could, which was not much different than what Finn had accomplished.

In order to relocate Kylo for what felt like the millionth time in a handful of hours, you were forced to set off in a jog. Stumbling thrice, you growled out annoyance over his familiarity with the Falcon. He had a predetermined destination in mind and that was where he headed. His loud boot stomps were a gift, perhaps intentional on his part. He was not going to leave you behind no matter his pain. It was the others that he worked to abandon. Any other Resistance members jerked away from him, which you noticed the very first time you turned a corner and caught a glimpse of him. Two corners later, you paused at the doorway.

You took a heavy breath while stepping inside. The door slammed closed with extra force, an indication that Kylo Ren would not allow anyone else near. Not for now, not for--how long? It hardly mattered. You walked to him; his back faced the door, and he was seated on the ground. Legs spread, his mother’s head in the crook of an arm, one hand on her face as he wiped clean the spit that had mostly dried.

As you moved around him, you noticed two things: his eyes maintained a different hue than their norm though they were not quite so red-rimmed in their irises, and there were tears slipping along his cheeks. You did not comment on either. Did not say anything at all. Only lowered yourself onto your knees, and stared at mother and son.

Footsteps on the other side of the door preceded another wookie wail of despair. Your lips parted at their sound. Still you said nothing. The world around you buzzed, tilted. The Millennium Falcon was in flight, but you could not say if that was the cause of this vertigo or not. Chewbacca slammed a fist against the door. Then two fists. The metal dented. Snarling, Kylo’s grip on his mother’s lifeless body tightened. He allowed the door to open, which had been the only way to silence those fists.

Just as with you, after Chewbacca entered the room, the door slammed closed. You barely had a chance to catch a glimpse of Rose and Finn standing on the other side. You assumed that Poe and Rey were working together as pilot and co-pilot in order to ensure a successful escape. Chewbacca lowered onto his knees without attempting to touch Leia or Kylo. Your mind was spinning. Reality was shifting all around you, going in and out of focus.

Apologies would not bring her back. Nothing would. You wrapped your arms around yourself, mindlessly humming a tune that your father and mother had taught you. It was one that played at funerals yet also a tune that you had loved beyond that. A strange post-mortem hope. Kylo lifted his eyes off of his mother’s body. His mouth opened, his moistened jaw wobbling though he refused to let free a sob or any other sound that would fully display his despair.

He had danced with you. He had given you gifts. He had saved your mother. You could only sing, shyly, softly. A tightness lodged itself in your throat but you persevered. You sang for your mother-in-law, for one of the Rebellion’s heroes, for the woman that had formed the Resistance, for the era that had perished alongside her.

Kylo removed his hand from his mother’s face to cup your cheek instead. He hooked his fingers, dragging at your flesh repeatedly until you obliged the silent request, shuffled forward without standing. Your knees collided against his legs and that was where you stopped moving. His thumb traced down to your lips. Lower to your throat, down until he was able to place his palm over your heart. It pounded in your chest, increasing its rhythm as your eyes beheld his other hand encircling his mother’s wrist. There would be no pulse for him to feel. His eyes were wide, so wide, a question dancing in them. A question that you did not need the bond to know.

Would I be a monster, am a monster, that I want to trade the living and the dead, to swap their places?

It was unclear if the living being he would exchange for his mother was Chewbacca or you. There was a chance that it was your mother. If he could go back in time to sacrifice her, if that meant Leia would remain alive.

“Kylo…” You swallowed thickly, tilted back your head, and let yourself sob. You choked out his chosen name again. “It didn’t matter how much time I spent with her, she never agreed… She never will.” There was no way to lessen his pain, to wipe it away. Nothing would steal away his dreams that would forevermore remain unanswered. That did not equate to you giving up in trying to provide something. “My mom, even if she is alive, she tolerates who I am.” You bit down on your bottom lip, closed your eyes, and sighed heavily as the leather glove cradled your cheek for a second time. “It’s like she wants me to succeed without winning. To succeed at existing as the idea she always saw for me.”

“It hasn’t disappeared.” You shook your head, whispering that it never would. The idea that had been planted in his head, that had been hammered repeatedly, was so fully integrated with his being, and it would not change. He would be haunted by it, though this haunting was one that he could well survive. You reopened your eyes in unison with his hand dragged away. Kylo Ren lifted his mother up into his arms again long enough to transfer her onto the bed upon which he laid her out. He shifted her hands so that they were crossed one atop the other. He began to fix her hair. His eyes in constant motion, scanning every detail as he looked down at her.

Chewbacca also rose to his feet and you did likewise within seconds of that. “Do you want me to speak to the others?” You did not want to leave him, not really. Kylo knew that, he had to, and so he nodded in understanding. Though subtle, you had felt the jump into hyperspace, which indicated to you that communications between the Order of Ren and Resistance had been completed. The ships would regroup, regather, and only then would true conversation take place. In the interim, all that knew of Leia Organa’s death would be demanding to see her. They would be outraged that Kylo was with her, nevermind that he was her son. Nevermind that a truce was taking place.

Leaving meant that you were able to gather what other information had been learned including who else might have perished. You wanted to know the status of the Knights of Ren, and you desired knowledge of your mother’s whereabouts. You exited the room. Finn and Rose stood on the other side, the pair engaged in small conversation. Rose broke away from Finn, thrusting herself forward and embracing you. You weakly returned the hug. The warmth with which you were greeted did at long last manage to floor you.

The pair of you were a laughing mess as you both collapsed together on the floor. You were in hysterics. Crying. Laughing. Sobbing. Shoulders shaking. Unable to breathe, a lump in your throat, the invisible hand of despair choking life from your spirit. Your own pain and Kylo’s, which hit you in waves as he let himself mourn his mother now that the only witness was Chewbacca, who had been there since before he had been born. Chewbacca, who was a kind of uncle to him. Chewbacca, who had shot him when he had killed his father, Han Solo.

Rose placed her hands on your shoulders and began to knead the flesh as she spoke. The sound of her voice washed over you though her words did not. She, too, had lost everyone. Her parents then her sister. All of them were dead. You could feel that in her words, understood a kinship that existed between her and Kylo just as it existed between her and you. Life and Death, the Force, connected all living beings. Pursing your lips forward, you worked to regulate your breathing.

Two hours passed, two hours that were nearly a blur of activity. Rey barely spoke; she, too, was processing the loss as the finality of acceptance regarding the truth of her family hit. The somber mood permeated throughout the ship. Known deaths were discussed. Your mother was not among that number, and she would be joining the Order of Ren and Resistance due to an encrypted message that had been sent to the last of the Resistance. You were growing too numb to feel relief, though the absence of another reason to ache was in some way more noticeable. The Order of Ren had sent a list of injured parties and deaths as well. Many were strangers to you, thus what this would mean in terms of the war you would not know until Kylo Ren was ready to share.

You were seated beside Poe. Rey and Chewbacca were piloting the Falcon, and Dameron refused to leave you alone. He had listened to you describe Leia’s death in full detail, or as much as you could offer. You had then also narrated the remainder of the battle to help him understand how Not-Rey had died along with how you and Finn had prevented Rey from stopping or delaying it from occurring. Only after you were finished had Poe slipped the datapad that contained the list of Order of Ren casualties towards you. You had read through them then shifted to the injured. Cardo remained critical, his last update given directly after he had been taken onto the Night Buzzard. Trudgen was injured as well, albeit not gravely from what you could tell. Kuruk was not listed at all.

Since Ap’lek had been absent from the battle, you did not search for his name. Ushar and Vicrul, on the other hand, you scanned the list for. The last reserves of strength were siphoned from your body as you read both of their names. Vicrul was injured yet, like Trudgen, did not cause you more than a moment of concern. It was Ushar, who was listed as critical, that had you collapsing against the back of your seat.

Poe led you towards a different area of the ship so that you could rest. You slept for an indeterminable amount of time, awakening to discover that you were not alone in the room. Poe and Ap’lek were seated nearby, the two men across from one another. There was a warm ball of fur cuddled against your stomach. You stroked it, and Millicent released a light noise of acknowledgment. You searched your surroundings without raising yourself in order to learn your present location. You deduced that you had not been removed from the Falcon. Ap’lek and Poe communicated with one another with a multitude of pauses; they were not comfortable in each other’s company and wanted only to gain as much information as they could. It was a shaky, new alliance and thus you were not disheartened to notice these things.

When it was apparent that you had awoken the two alternated speaking in order to bring you up to speed. The Millennium Falcon was in the docking bay of the Order of Ren’s flagship. Leia Organa’s body had been removed from the Falcon and taken elsewhere to prepare it for a funeral that both the Resistance and Order of Ren would attend. After its completion, a real discussion of what this alliance might mean would occur. Arrangements for the upcoming battle with Supreme Leader Hux would also be discussed; that was what they were referring to it as--it was not an end to the war, per se, simply another battle. When the Emperor had been defeated, the war had not ended until Jakku. Even then there had been more skirmishes, and the First Order had arisen. When Snoke had been killed, Kylo Ren had taken the mantle of Supreme Leader; likewise with the fall of Kylo and the rise of Armitage.

When does war end? Maybe it never ends. Maybe that’s why I clung so tightly onto a singular goal. Kill Kylo. Kill Snoke. Kill Hux. Take it a step at a time, but when does the fighting stop for me?

With a sigh, you scooped Millicent up into your arms and rose from the bed. Ap’lek stepped in front of Poe to prevent Dameron from following you. You appreciated this, as you did not want to be tailed. There was, in fact, only one person that you wanted to be with. Your familiarity with him led you. Millicent’s warmth assisted in grounding you. You stroked the top of her head, holding onto her so that she could not get away if she tried. She was not squirming. The small cat instead retreated into your embrace, tucking her head against your arm to hide from the Resistance and Order of Ren members you caught glimpses of as you kept walking without taking time to identify any beings.

Kylo Ren stood close to the observation window through which he was able to watch Leia being prepared. She had already been changed into new clothing after being washed. Her hair was arranged in an Alderaanian fashion. Her dress was red with white designs. Her lips were painted to represent Naboo, to tie her in with her birth mother. Noticing that, you recognized the care with which she was being readied. Her biological and adoptive parents were all represented. Her wedding ring tied her to her husband. A mother’s ring to her son. You raised your stare to consider Kylo’s reflection. His eyes had not returned to their normal darkness, but they were less yellow than before.

As he turned his head, Kylo rested his attention on the feline that you held. “You find something new in which to place hope.” He turned back to his mother. “Every time.”

“I am a stubborn tooke,” you said softly, your eyes focused on his, which pinched in the corners though he did not smile.

“Yes, you are.”

#kylo ren x reader #kylo x reader #kylo ren imagine #three blind tooke #death is an art #kylo ren x you #kylo x you

3 notes · View notes

robininthelabyrinth · 5 years ago

Text

Fic: Lonely, Dark and Deep - ao3 link - Chapter 8

Fandom: Naruto Pairing: Madara/Tobirama, background others Summary:

Hashirama was always going to have to leave Konoha behind one day, but no one was expecting for it to happen so soon.

Tobirama falls apart without his brother.

Madara, mad and bitter and preparing to leave himself, finds that he’s now without his best friend and responsible for a village he’d just about given up on.

And now it seems like there’s something not quite right with the forest…

———————————————————————————–

"No."

"I'm not sure where you got the impression that you were being given a choice," Touka says dryly. Madara's actually grown moderately fond of her, beserker ‎of a kunoichi that she is, over the last few years, but he's seriously considering whether blowing a fireball at her head would be considered overreacting. Sadly, it probably would. Whether that’s going to stop him is still up in the air. "You were the Nidaime's right hand. You're going on the ballot."

"You can't actually make me be Hokage," Madara says.

"Why not?" Touka asks, merciless as ever. "We made Hashirama do it."

Madara...really doesn't like the sound of that, because if you look at it in a certain light, they did. Not a promising precedent.

"I'm objecting to the fact that there's a ballot at all," he says instead. "We don't even have a body -"

"His students were very clear about the circumstances he was left in - and that was two weeks ago."

"It's Tobirama! If anyone can pull some sort of ridiculous nonsense out of thin air -"

"He had an opportunity to give his life for the village," Touka says, and she doesn't mean to be cruel with it, that's the worst part. He knows that her cousin’s suffering has hurt her as much as it's grown to hurt Madara. "A justified opportunity. You know as well as I do that he would take it."

Madara does. But he's had enough.

Enough of pointless losses, enough of war, shocking as it is to say. ‎They're going to make Kiri pay for this, of course they are, but -

All Madara wants is to get to bury his friend (his almost-something-more) this time.

To mourn properly.

(Not to be the last one of them left standing.)

‎"I'm going to go find his body," he announces.

Touka sighs. "Listen -"

"Put my name on the stupid ballot, I don't care," Madara interrupts. "But I'm going. This isn't like Hashirama, disappearing into nothingness; Tobirama was fighting flesh-and-blood shinobi. Either Kiri left his body behind for sky to bury or they took it back with them. There's even a chance - marginal, I admit, but a chance - that they managed to take him alive. I'm going to make sure that's not what happened."

Touka's frowning, but she seems more inclined to listen.

Good, because Madara's not going to take no for an answer.

"We already have an empty mausoleum for Hashirama," he points out‎. "As you're always observing, twice makes for a tradition. We wouldn't want that."

Touka unwillingly snorts. "Fine," she says. "Go. But mind that you come back. You may be old for a frontliner -"

Madara is not that old!

"- but your name still means something in terms of village defense," she concludes. "Don't let these Kiri bastards write both your names on their wall of trophies or we’ll never hear the end of it."

"I won't," Madara promises.

He leaves the village three hours later, after giving Hikaku - his second, now that Izuna isn't there - notice of his sudden promotion to temporary acting head of the Uchiha clan.

He makes good time. Tobirama's students (they reminded him so much of ducklings, following along behind Tobirama, that he had to remind himself not to call them that to their faces) had given him a pretty good idea of where they'd been when they'd split up, and while Tobirama would have branched off from there, Madara is certain that he can track him.

After all, after all this time spent sparring against Tobirama - and might he say, his respect for Izuna's skills was never higher than when he was fighting the man who was his brother’s opponent - Madara knows what the aftereffects of his jutsus look like better than most.

He forces himself to pace himself on the way, though. As much as he would like this to be a rescue mission, requiring full-bore speed, it's not.

It's just retrieval.

Tobirama’s already gone.

Why is it, he wonders, that every time he starts to admit to himself that he could grow to love someone, they die?

What he has with Tobirama isn’t about the village anymore, not about Hashirama, it's about Tobirama himself - he can admit that, if only to himself, now that Tobirama is gone.

Tobirama is irritating, overly literal and works too much, and Madara had already been missing him like fire even before he’d gotten word that he was gone forever.

But really, Madara’s losses are starting to be too many to count. Izuna, ever a gaping wound, was bad enough, but then he lost Hashirama,‎ too, and now Tobirama as well...is it him? Is he the connecting factor, the bad luck?

Was it Izuna’s ghost come back to snatch away any chance of the new happiness he’d just about nearly convinced himself he could find in the softening of Tobirama’s eyes?

Still, pacing or no pacing, Madara is still who he is. He makes good time and, sure enough, it only takes a day or so to locate what must have been the battle site.

‎The first thing Madara sees is the corpses of Kiri nin piled up and twisted into a defensive wall and he can't help a smile: Tobirama's total disregard for the bodies of the dead never fails to amaze him.

Then he takes a deep breath, fortifying himself, and looks around further.

And that‎ -

That’s when things stop making sense.

He knows these corpses.

Madara never doubted that Tobirama would put up a fight to the end, passively suicidal or not - the man was far too spiteful to do anything less, and really, it's Madara's own fault that he didn't force his clan to make peace earlier because Tobirama and Izuna were two peas in a pod when it came to that. Even less did he doubt that such a fight‎ would have a significant death count, enough to ferry Tobirama to the Pure Lands in style.

But - those were Kinkaku and Ginkaku. Amazingly strong, but ruthless, and cowards to boot: they would have hung back until the very end, letting Tobirama tire ‎himself on their soldiers and moving in to claim the final kill only when his chakra was totally depleted and his body broken.

If they were dead...

Madara casts his eyes across the rest of the battlefield with hope rising like a fire in his belly. These are all of Kiri's strongest, all the ones they devoted to this battle - Kagami had returned with his Mangekyo sparked from Tobirama's loss, and he'd had his Sharingan active the entire battle; he'd given Madara a list of every shinobi on Kiri's side, and this is everyone.

And - and here was what really didn't make sense - their deaths were wrong.

Tobirama had attained mastery over all elements, ridiculous ‎overachiever that he was, but like most shinobi he fell back on his natural affinities when cornered. Water and lightning and sword - those were the signs of Tobirama's fighting, and while there were a good number of those lying around, that wasn't what had killed the majority of the Kiri warriors.

No - what had killed them was wood.

Wood splinters grown through the mouth or the back of the neck to pierce the brain; wooden spears to impale the heart; tree roots wrapped around the throat to strangle...

Madara fought the Mokuton for most of his life. He, more than anyone, knows what a battlefield looks like, after; he knows how to recognize the bodies it leaves behind.

‎But it's impossible.

Hashirama is gone, and for all their mastery or science, neither Tobirama nor Madara has any access to that mysterious Senju bloodline limit.

At least, Madara thought they didn't. Has Tobirama been holding out on him?

Madara licks suddenly dry lips. It suddenly occurs to him that it doesn't matter, not really. What matters is - if Tobirama did figure out a way to use the Mokuton - if every single one of the Kiri shinobi are dead -

Tobirama might be alive.

He could be dead of chakra exhaustion, too, but Tobirama had once explained - on one of those dark nights when everything seemed bleak and they both missed Hashirama like drowning men missed air, when they sat together on the roof and looked down at the village they'd created together and drank Hashirama's favorite sake to pretend that he had only just gone down the hall to get more - that he'd deliberately sealed away an infinitely small portion of his chakra for just such an eventuality.

Tobirama had been the only Senju capable of giving Hashirama a good ‎spar, he’d explained, in the years before Madara was available as anything other than an enemy on the battlefield and he'd been determined to be what his brother needed, even if it meant going far, too far, beyond what he could handle. The seal was designed to activate in the event that all his chakra was gone, sending Tobirama into a deathlike coma meant to conserve his strength until he could awaken once more. He'd understood the risks, of course, but he was a Senju: he had no fear of being buried alive in the welcoming earth, should it come to that.

Tobirama, alive..!

Madara curses himself for not having listened to his instincts and run here as quickly as possible, and immediately starts searching the area.

It occurs to him as he does that the bodies around him are decayed more than they should be - moss and lichen and mushrooms eating up the soft flesh, bones already showing - and he wonders if Tobirama has played some trick with time to accomplish it.

Well, if Tobirama is alive, Madara will just have to ask him about it.

The possibility excites him.

He starts a systematic search of the area, straining his sensor abilities (above-average when compared to anyone but Tobirama) to the limit and covering each twist and turn of land, careful to test each square inch for jutsu designed to hide things or confuse the senses.

Even so, it takes nearly two days of nothing, nothing, and more nothing – no sign of Tobirama, but no sign of a body, either, and that gives him hope – before he finally catches a break.

It’s faint – extremely faint – but Madara’s learned Tobirama’s signature as well as his own through the long nights of working on the Rinnegan together, and it’s unmistakable.

It’s Tobirama.

He’s alive!

Madara whoops, entirely undignified, and dashes off in that direction. It’s not far away, but it’s deep, very deep. Tobirama must have found some cave or cavern to crawl into to recuperate.

It takes some searching to find it – actually, Madara doesn’t find a proper entrance at all and ends up just burrowing into the ground with a doton jutsu – but soon enough he’s in the cavern, which is dark as pitch, and he can hear Tobirama’s voice distantly up ahead of him.

He's there!

He’s alive!

He’s – recounting a story about the village?

“– and then Madara says, ‘You don’t actually think that, do you’,” Tobirama is saying. He sounds…happy? Extremely tired, but oddly happy. Perhaps being so close to death has reminded him of all the reasons he has to be alive. “And then, of course, the Hyuuga leader puffs himself up and says, ‘Are you calling me a liar’ and Madara responds ‘Listen, if what you want is to start measuring dicks I’m willing to pull mine out right now –’”

…why is Tobirama telling that story.

He promised to stop telling people that story.

(Actually, he’d dealt with the situation as sternly as ever and then, the second the still-blustering Hyuuga had left, put his face on the desk and let his shoulders shake with laughter for nearly ten minutes, which had been the one bright spot of a fairly awful day. And then Tobirama couldn’t even look at any Uchiha or Hyuuga for the next week after without smirking. But he had said he would stop telling everyone about it eventually, though he’d refused to indicate when ‘eventually’ would be.)

“– yes, I know, right? Much less shy, especially compared to when he was a child –”

Ugh. Speaking of Senju spreading stories they promised they wouldn’t, has Hashirama told everyone about that particular incident? Madara really hopes not.

Still: embarrassing stories or not, Tobirama’s alive and that means everything.

“Tobirama!” Madara calls out.

Silence. And then – “Madara? Is that you?”

“Yes! Hold up, I’m coming towards you now.”

It’s harder than it looks, given how dark it is in the cave even with the advantage of the Sharingan; Tobirama must be entirely blind. A strange place for a suiton user to hide, deep in the ground, but Madara supposes that growing up in a doton-inclined clan might have that effect.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Tobirama says. His voice is slurring a little from exhaustion – and blood loss, undoubtedly; he can’t be fully healed yet given the amount of blood he left behind on the battlefield. “You’ll be so happy when you find out, just like me…”

Madara has half a second to wonder what Tobirama could have found down in a cave like this that he thinks would make Madara happy - another stone tablet, perhaps?‎ - before he makes his way into the cavern where Tobirama waits.

He sees -

Tobirama.

Alive, wonderful alive and somehow, after all this time and despite all odds, beloved. He's smiling, that crooked little lift of his lips that ‎softens his whole face, and he's - he's -

He's covered in roots.

Twining around his legs, resting on his shoulders, wrapped in a constrictor's embrace around his chest and narrow waist, even woven through his pale hair - everywhere.

And they're not normal roots, either: to his Sharingan, they shine bright in the dark, loaded heavy with chakra of a serene glowing gold that feels bafflingly familiar.

But at the same time, Madara's sure he's never seen anything like it before.

"Madara, I'm so glad you're here," Tobirama says, and he looks pleased, more than Madara has ever seen him, his eyes curved up into crescents with joy even though they are still only half-open, heavy with the call of sleep, and staring in Madara's general direction in a way that suggests Tobirama can't see but is relying on his sensing. Tobirama then reaches up a hand and puts it on the root on his shoulder, a familiar gesture, almost the way he would if it was someone's hand resting there - someone he liked, of course, because the vast majority of people would have their hand cut off for daring to place it there. Madara'd only recently been inducted into the ranks of those who could do it with impunity. "You'd never have believed it otherwise."

"Believed...?"

Tobirama’s lips stretch in a real smile, which for him is the equivalent to beaming. "I found Hashirama!"

Madara stares at his friend and sometimes-lover, wondering if he'd gone mad.

What in the world is he talking about? Is he suggesting that he found his brother's corpse and somehow pulled the Mokuton out of it – fine, that does sound like Tobirama, designing some forbidden jutsu that -

Something moves in the dark.

Madara's attention had been focused on Tobirama, overly focused in his relief, but his Sharingan misses nothing: his head snaps in the direction of the moving roots that someone is sending his way in some sort of large lumbering cluster -

Those...aren't roots.

Or, rather, they are.

But they shouldn’t be.

Gnarled bark and roots twist together to create a terrible mockery of a human body; it's the exact opposite of a wood clone, which accurately formed to resemble a person but living only to the extent of the chakra lent to it - this thing is bursting with life, with that strange gold chakra, and even as Madara watches a thin layer of moss grows over one 'arm' while a scattering of blue flowers appear to curl over the thing's shoulders. Its hands are too large to match the rest of its body, too-long splintering fingers with web-like veins running through every elongated joint; its legs are titanic, sinking deep into the ground like ancient tree trunks.

And its head: lined by a heavy fall of something not quite branches and not quite leaves, thin and willow-like and only vaguely resembling hair, its misshapen face has too much jaw, gaping open in something like a too-wide smile to reveal teeth made of needle-sharp splinters, and the eerie eyes, dark brown with a pupil of gold instead of black, are lined with dark red marks like heavy slashes seeping sap instead of blood.

It's a monster.

"Tobirama -" Madara starts, then stops.

Marks around the eyes.

Dark marks on that ‘face’, streaks of color, and in the center of the thing's forehead are two concentric circles.

No.

The thing before him shifts forward, all of it moving at once and leaning towards him over Tobirama's smiling unseeing unknowing blindness.

"I'm so glad you're here, Madara," the thing says, and the familiar ‎voice it uses is only a little distorted (too many tones all at once, previously absent harmonics, a low rumbling pitch) from the one Madara once loved so dearly. "I missed you!"

And as much as Madara tries to convince himself that the whole horrific mess is just a monster, just a mimicry, just an illusion of the worst sort -

It's still recognizable as his best friend.

#senju hasirama #senju tobirama #Uchiha madara #my fic #lonely dark and deep #madatobi

24 notes · View notes

natalienaughton · 5 years ago

Text

Trigger Warning: Sisyphus Cannot Convince Everyone out of *******

TRIGGER WARNING: sexual assault and suicide

Sisyphus Cannot Convince Everyone out of Suicide

Existentialism: Existence and Anxiety

December 19, 2014

Katie did not believe that life was not worth living, she believed that her life was too painful for her to stay alive. I met Katie in the emergency room as a rape crisis counselor following her sexual assault. She displayed flat affect, as if even though her body was present, her conscious mind was not. Katie explained that she tended to dissociate because otherwise the painful trauma from her past would lead to thoughts of suicide. Katie’s father had sexually abused her as a child, she spent three years in jail as a young adult, she had attempted suicide twice, and her suicidal ideation led to frequent hospitalizations. This particular evening Katie had come to the emergency room after surviving a sexual assault perpetrated by two strangers while she was waiting for the bus. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether or not embracing positions of existentialist philosophy can prevent people like Katie from dying by suicide, as there is no doubt in my mind that at some point in the future Katie will attempt to take her life again. I will begin by explaining Albert Camus’ position that one can make life worth living by accepting that the universe will never provide a concrete meaning for existence and by finding intrinsic value in the meaningless tasks of everyday life. Camus illustrates this argument by using The Myth of Sisyphus as a metaphor for how to live a meaningful life. I will argue that Camus’ position is not sufficient to prevent individuals like Katie from dying by suicide, as it does not offer her the ability to have autonomy over her life, which is a necessary factor for surviving adversity and reducing one’s risk of suicide. Camus’ argument does not apply to someone who faces extreme adversity, because rebelling against the absurd like Sisyphus is not enough to convince someone out of taking her own life.

Camus addresses the option of suicide in response to the absurd, which refers to how the world is silent and does not provide us a clear answer for living. The two obvious options to respond to the absurd are to invent one’s own meaning of life or to die by suicide. Camus argues that both of these options avoid addressing the absurd and are merely an escape from it. He suggests a third option of rebelling against the absurd through accepting that the universe will never respond to our questions and so we must find intrinsic value in meaningless struggles. Camus illustrates his argument by using The Myth of Sisyphus as a metaphor for rebelling against the absurd. In the myth, the gods punish Sisyphus by sentencing him to repeatedly rolling a boulder up a hill that will always fall back down for the rest of eternity. Sisyphus rebels by finding intrinsic value in this meaningless, never-ending, unachievable task by taking pride in his rolling of the boulder. Camus says that, “The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.” (1) Instead of dying by suicide or inventing a purpose for rolling the rock, Sisyphus finds happiness in the challenge itself.

The Myth of Sisyphus is a helpful way for many individuals to make life feel meaningful. However, the problem with The Myth of Sisyphus is that it is not enough to steer someone who faces extreme adversity away from the option of suicide. Camus neglects to include that part of living a meaningful life where Sisyphus has the option of letting go of the rock and choose to do something else. Camus’ prescription for choosing an option other than suicide does not work for individuals who are seriously considering ending their own lives. The essential part of the prescription is to address symptoms of depression that lead to suicide by encouraging the individual to foster a sense of autonomy and embrace the idea that she cannot only control her attitudes and beliefs, she can also make concrete decisions on how she wants to live her life. The reason that this is important is because suicide is not often the result of philosophical contemplation over the meaning of life, but rather the result of painful depression and hopelessness that has become unbearable for the individual. Rebelling against the absurd like Sisyphus may be inspirational to an average individual tackling everyday tasks, but Sisyphus’ intrinsic happiness cannot convince everyone out of choosing suicide by powerlessly, yet joyously accepting one’s fate. One needs to be able to find intrinsic value in life, while also taking ownership of deciding how to live.

Camus would respond by arguing that the punishment for survivors of adversity is similar to that of Sisyphus because the individual cannot control what happened to her. The only option is to accept what has happened and find meaning in the challenge of tolerating the punishment. Camus believes that Sisyphus has sufficient autonomy because he controls how he thinks about the situation that he has no power to change. Sisyphus does not have the option to decide to let go of the rock because the gods have punished him to do so and they are the only ones who can make that decision. For Sisyphus, letting go of the rock would symbolize suicide. An important part of life is that everyone experiences events that they are powerless to change and this should be embraced in order to live a meaningful life.

However, Camus’ argument does not address that though everyone must accept that there are parts of life that cannot be controlled, part of living a meaningful life is believing that one can decide how to think and act. The gods punish Sisyphus in the beginning of the myth and there is no reason why Sisyphus cannot take ownership of his own actions and choose to let go of the rock. He believes that he must accept his task because the gods said he had to, and the only way for him to exert control is to think about the punishment differently. However, we can control more than our thoughts; we can also control our behavior. Katie was powerless to stop her assault from happening, but she can still choose how to respond to it. She has already demonstrated this by voluntarily going to a hospital to get help. When Katie eventually thinks about the option of suicide again, it will not be because she cannot find intrinsic value in her struggles, but because she does not believe that she can survive the emotional injuries that she has endured. Taking action also shows that she believes that there is enough meaning in her life to exert the effort to go to the hospital and tell strangers about what happened to her. What leads Katie to be suicidal is not the meaninglessness of everyday existence, but when she feels like the amount of trauma she has experienced exceeds her ability to cope.

I will argue that Camus’ use of the metaphor of The Myth of Sisyphus to show how one can make meaning in a meaningless world is not sufficient for persuading a suicidal individual from following through with the act. Philosophical rumination does not typically lead to actively suicidal thoughts; the thoughts are the result of depression and feelings of hopelessness. An important part of overcoming depressive symptoms is accepting the parts of life that one is powerless to change and actively choosing how to think. However, the most important aspect of overcoming suicidal thoughts that stem from extreme adversity is fostering the belief that one has the power to make decisions over what happens to her. Sisyphus may empower himself by choosing to view his task as a challenge rather than a punishment, but he never considers the option to let go of the rock and take ownership of his own fate. The Myth of Sisyphus perpetuates the idea of being a passive victim to the punishment of living a boring, everyday life, and since Sisyphus has let the gods influence him to think that there is nothing he can do to change his situation, Sisyphus romanticizes his struggles and finds his happiness in an act he would really not be doing if he believed that he had a choice.

Even if Katie is able to find intrinsic value in her suffering, it will not be enough to convince her that continuing to endure such suffering is even possible. Katie indicated that she believes her life has meaning by voluntarily going to the emergency room for help, openly letting her boyfriend know what happened so that he can support her, and allowing a nurse to treat her injuries. Many survivors of trauma are not able to execute actions that demonstrate a sense of self-care. Despite the evidence that Katie believes that her life is worth living, it was also apparent that she is still at high risk for suicide. Katie does not think that her life is meaningless and that she has no ability to dictate her own thoughts. Katie contemplates suicide because she is in such excruciating emotional pain and she feels like she has been robbed of the power to decide what happens to her body. If she were Sisyphus, the weight of the rock would exceed her physical capabilities and therefore accepting her fate to roll the rock up the hill would actually kill her.

Camus neglects to acknowledge the power of the individual to choose her own actions in response to adversity. The ability to control one’s physical self, as well as one’s own thoughts, plays an important role in convincing oneself that suicide is not the best option for someone facing extreme adversity. Sisyphus’ punishment should not imply that Sisyphus has no control over his physical body rolling a rock up a hill. It is great to acknowledge the freedom to find intrinsic meaning in everyday acts, but it is more important to acknowledge the individual’s freedom to choose how to act in response to an event that one has no control over. Sisyphus has the physical capability to let go of the rock, just like Katie has the power to decide whether or not to report her assault to the police, seek therapy, or agree to let a nurse take pictures of her injuries for evidence. The first conversation I had with Katie was about her right to consent. Katie had just been robbed of control over her own body, and part of my job was to remind her that she had the right and the ability to decide what happened to her from that point forward. Katie could decide to end the evidence collection exam at any point and it was her choice whether to report the crime to the police.

My official job title is “medical advocate.” This means that my main role in supporting survivors of trauma is to empower them by advocating for their right to choose what happens to them and their bodies. I provide legal, medical, and social service information so that they can make their own informed choices about how to actively respond to the traumatic event. My first objective is not to guide the survivor to try and find the bright side to her suffering, it is to support any decision she chooses to make, simply because her ability to choose what happens to her is the most important factor in emotionally surviving the event. Katie chose not to report her assault to the police and opted out of certain parts of the evidence collection kit, and I did not try to convince her otherwise. What I did do was reassure her that she had the power to make these decisions and that it was her right to do so.

Camus’ analogy of The Myth of Sisyphus as a way to rebel against the absurd or seemingly meaninglessness of life is valuable, as Sisyphus shows that though we cannot control everything that happens to us, our response is what makes life meaningful and worth living. However, though the analogy may be especially inspirational to a shift worker looking to make meaning out of everyday, instrumental tasks, like shopping at the grocery store or driving to work during rush hour, it is not enough to save the life of a seriously suicidal individual. Individuals like Katie do not become suicidal because they are frustrated that the universe will not provide them with a concrete answer for why life is worth living; they become suicidal because they feel powerless over their own lives. The first time Katie tried to die by suicide was the night before she was sent to jail for three years. The second time was during her incarceration. These were both situations in which Katie was powerless to decide what would happen to her and the only way she believed she could assert control was to die by suicide. The Myth of Sisyphus is not an uplifting philosophical analogy for someone experiencing struggles like Katie. Sisyphus plays a victim who somehow forces himself to see the fun in not being able to control his own actions, and what now puts Katie at a high risk for suicide is if she similarly continues to feel like a prisoner in her own body. The existentialist philosophy behind The Myth of Sisyphus cannot convince a suicidal individual like Katie out of dying by suicide. In fact, the powerlessness and lack of control Sisyphus has over his physical self would more likely convince her that suicide is her only option.

References

Soloman, Robert C. "Soren Kierkegaard." In Existentialism. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.

(1) Robert C. Solomon, Existentialism, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 198.

#philosophy #mental health #existentialism #myth of sisyphus #sisyphus #trauma #psychological resilience #traumatic growth #survivor

3 notes · View notes

illyrianwingspans · 5 years ago

Text

Do Not Go Gentle: Appointments

Link to song: Appointments by Julien Baker

Synopsis: Feyre makes good on her promise to Rhys, and Rhys makes good on his promise to Feyre.

TW: Brief and non-graphic mention of self-harm, suicide and domestic abuse.

Ao3 link

Chapter 16: Appointments

“How are you feeling today, Feyre?”

How was I feeling? I didn’t know. My body felt like TV static with the volume on low. Crackling, bustling, full of nervous energy, but dim. Quiet. How was I supposed to explain that to him without sounding like a true basket case?

He sat in the chaise across from me. It was grey, muted, soft. Everything in his office was. There were great, wide panoramic windows, and outside rain pattered softly against the windows. Another week of rain in Prythian, as though it was just for me.

The couch beneath me was soft, comfortable. I sank into it when I’d sat down minutes ago and settled in after sitting in the waiting room. When I’d first walked into the clinic, there were others in the chairs. A older man, probably in his forties, was thumbing a magazine, but not looking at it. Just staring at the walls around him, flicking through the magazine, as though his fingers were soaking in the articles through his skin. A woman about my age listening to music on her phone, eyes closed, head leaned back on the wall. I’d only stared at my feet as the sound of the secretary typing away on her computer filled the empty space, paperwork clutched in my fingers. I’d filled them out on Saturday, and Rhys had them scanned and emailed that day, but they needed more paper copies handed from me in person.

“Miss Archeron?” The secretary had called out. I’d pushed up from my seat and shuffled over to the counter, presenting her with the five sheets I’d meticulously filled out. They were thorough, extremely thorough—so much so that when I’d filled them out at Rhys’s kitchen counter, I was clenching my teeth, ticking off the boxes that applied.

Suicidality:

Ideation: No-Active-Passive

Plan: No-Yes (describe): Jump

Attempts: No-Yes-More than one

Date of last attempt: March 27th

Lethality of attempt(s): Low-Moderate-High

Thankfully, Rhys had left me alone that night leaning over the kitchen island, pen tapping against the cold marble. Every question was like another stab in the gut.

Self-Harm Behaviour:

Current: No-Yes (describe): Cutting

Past: No-Yes (describe): Cutting, two years ago

When it got to family history and prior or current relationships, I nearly tore up the papers right then and there and walked out of the townhouse. Instead, I scribbled down my answers as concisely and quickly as possible to not feel the sting of the words.

In my hands, handing over the papers, it felt like I was yet again giving pieces of myself over, letting them cut open my brain and take a peak of the scrambled, decayed remains inside.

The secretary, a kind-smiled woman in her early thirties, pointed to a blue door where the gold plaque read Dr. Angèl Suriel, PhD. I’d knocked softly on the door, heard a muffled, “Come in!” From the other side. The first thing that hit me when I opened the door was the faint smell of fried chicken.

“Sorry,” he’d said, hunched over his desk further in the back of the room, next to the windows on the back wall. There’d been a rustling of a food takeout bag before he’d shoved the top drawer of his desk closed. “Just got some lunch quickly.”

He opened a window, and lit a candle on his desk next to his jar of identical pencils, then turned to face me. Angèl Suriel was an older man, tall and thin with darker skin. His accent was slightly lilted, definitely Spanish judging by his first name. He’d smiled warmly when he faced me and extended his hand, which he’d brushed on his tan trousers moments before.

“Angèl Suriel,” he'd presented himself, and I’d shaken his hand weakly. “But call me Suriel. No doctor formalities, please.” He’d smiled. “You must be Feyre.”

I nodded, eyes diverting from his. They were brilliant blue, so pale, contrasting against his tanner skin.

Staring at him now, sitting five feet across from me on his chaise with a file in his lap, I wondered how the hell Rhys had found this guy. Why he’d needed to find him, in the first place.

How was I feeling? How was I feeling?

My tongue felt swollen, limp and utterly useless in my mouth. I resorted to staring past him, over his shoulder, to the buildings in the background. They were like standing giants across the city, watching over, holding thousands of people with energy and moment and life, but so solemn and serious in appearance.

“Feyre?” He repeated.

I blinked. “How about you look in that file of yours and tell me how I’m feeling, Suriel.”

“Oh no, that’s not how this works,” he grinned. “It seems as though you’ve watched too much TV, miss Archeron. I’m not going to sit here and waste my time if you’re going to be resistant or unwilling to share. I’m only going to say this once, so listen to me.”

My heart pounded wildly in my chest as those crystal eyes met mine, and he leaned forward slightly in his seat.

“There are thousands of people in this city who suffer with the very same feelings and behaviours that you demonstrate. There are hundreds of people on my waiting list, right now, waiting for a call that they can finally see me and get the help they need. I work twelve hours a day seeing people, filling in charts, coordinating with hospitals and answering ER calls at three in the morning. I’m doing this as a favour for Rhys, and I’m doing this because I want to help you. It’s only going to work if you do your part as well. So if you’re here to waste my time, feel free to leave so I can get back to my fried chicken.”

I sat there shocked. My mouth was open in surprise, and all I could do was blurt, “I don’t know how I feel.”

Satisfied that I’d given him an answer, he resumed his position, one leg crossed across the other to balance the papers in his lap. “Okay,” he said, “how about we try this. On a scale of one to ten, one being your complete worst, and ten being your complete best, where do you think you fall?”

It took a few seconds to mull over before I murmured, “Three, I think.”

He nodded and wrote something done. “And Friday night? What number did you feel then?”

That one didn’t take as long. “Zero.”

“Zero,” he repeated. “You just broke my scale.”

Despite myself, I snorted.

“Tell me about what happened.”

Another question that settled within me like a stone sinking into water. I felt like I was holding it in the palm of my hands, turning it over slowly, examining its features, dips and curves, not knowing where to begin, or what to say.

“I don’t know what happened.” That was true. The details were so hazy. The timeline was broken in my head, only giving me fragments and pieces of those moments on the ledge.

In his lap, Suriel flipped over a paper and murmured, “It says here you were going to jump. Where were you?”

At the word jump, I flinched. Clutching my kneecaps, I blew out a shaky breath, still staring just past Suriel’s shoulder, never quite in his eyes. “At my friend Cassian’s apartment. Fifty storeys up.” I picked at the skin on my thumb, not knowing what to do with my hands.

“You went to a friend’s house? To carry out your plan?”

“I was staying at his place.”

“For how long?”

“I was there for about a week and a half.”

“Where did you live now?”

“With Rhys in his townhouse.”

“And before that?”

I wasn’t ready to go there yet. “My apartment.”

But Suriel watched me carefully, like he knew my answer was missing something.

I murmured, “With my ex-fiancee.”

His pen scribbled against the paper once more, and this time when he looked back up at me, he said, “You were at this friend’s apartment. Alone?”

I nodded. “He was still at work.”

“So,” he said, then paused for a bit, wondering how to phrase his next question, “do you remember the events, or maybe the emotions or thoughts that lead up to the execution of your plan?”

It was like I was back up on that building with Rhys’s voice echoing in my ears. I could practically feel the rain falling on my shoulders, my hair, my hands.

When Suriel pushed a Kleenex box on the small table between us, I realized it was because I was crying. The tear drops collected in my open palms like some sick offering to the gods of pain.

“Why am I doing this?” I whispered sinisterly, bitterness in my voice, my eyes as I narrowed them at Suriel, wanting to storm out of this fucking office and never look back. Rhys was wrong. He was a destructive, conniving asshole. “What the fuck is the point of this?

Suriel, not missing a beat, leaned forward as I did, and spoke in that low commanding voice of his he’d wielded only minutes ago. “The point of therapy, Feyre, is for you to get as close as possible to the ideal life you imagine and want for yourself. To solve the problems you face, to help hone your skills and speak your mind. Many of my clients walk into this office just like you, sometimes in worse shape, clinging to the notion that this is the enemy. That I am the enemy. But the only enemy right now in this room is you, you and your mind.”

I couldn’t stop myself from crying harder.

“I am not here to judge you. I am not here to pick apart your brains, but I need to know what the problem is, where to start, and where we can go from there. People walk into this office miserable and they leave with hope.”

Even the rain paused outside when I said, “I was kneeling in the entrance of the apartment. Crying.”

My mind went back to me curled into myself on the hardwood floor, when I’d shut out the world completely in my own little bubble of agony.

“I got up, ran to the bathroom, and tried to find pills, blades, anything, but the shelves were empty. Cassian must’ve been worried because he’d basically childproofed the entire damned place. But one thing he couldn’t take away from me was the fact he’d bought an apartment on the fiftieth floor.”

“And before that? Before you went out on the balcony? Why were you crying?”

I opened my mouth, then closed it. Words I hadn’t spoken to anyone, not a soul. Words I didn’t think I could even speak.

“Feyre, take a deep breath.”

I clenched my eyes closed, only able to see his twisted snarl of fury when his hands had closed around my throat. When my chest had slammed into his desk. When his fists slammed into my ribs.

“Feyre, take a deep breath.”

Slowly, trembling, I forced a breath into my lungs. I choked it out in a sob.

“Good. Another one.”

This time it came a little easier. On the exhale of my third breath, I said, “My ex-fiancee was there.”

“Did you speak to him?”

I shook my head. “I heard him through the door. He’d found me with a tracker on my phone.”

“Why aren’t you together anymore?”

I thought of the elevator, of me crawling on my hands and knees, nails cracking as I tried to resist him dragging me across the carpet of the executive floor.

“Because he locked me up,” I wheezed. “He wasn’t my partner. He was my captor.”

There was an eerie silence, only broken by the soft sounds of my quiet sobs. Suriel’s eyes found mine, and when I looked up to him, I said, “He was my fiancee. And I loved him. I love him.”

“But,” Suriel sighed, “he abused you.”

“No,” I contradicted weakly, “not necessarily.”

“Was he ever physically violent with you? Did he ever intentionally hurt you, has he ever tried to manipulate you or repress you?”

Silence. And Suriel had his answer. As I reached for a tissue, Suriel wrote some more notes in his papers. He looked over his shoulder to the city scape, then turned those eyes to mine and wondered, “Have you talked to your friends since everything happened?”

I shook my head. “Only Rhys. He may have said something to them, but I’m not sure.”

“Okay. It says here you don’t have a job right now. Are you looking?”

I shrugged with one shoulder. “A little. Rhys offered me something short-term.”

Suriel said, “That’s good. I want you working on something right now, Feyre. Even if it’s from home, if it’s a skill or a hobby or a job, you need something right now to keep you distracted. I don’t know enough about your situation right now to give you more specific goals or coping mechanisms, but I’ve found the best thing for clients in your position is just to keep their mind focused on something else. Being alone with only your thoughts when they’re so toxic can lead you down the wrong roads.”

I nodded, hands pursed in my lap.

“Try to see what Rhys can do with that job, try to talk with some friends. Something light. You don’t need to tell them about what you’re going through if you’re not comfortable because you don’t owe anyone an explanation. So you know your homework?”

“Get a job. Talk to friends.”

He snorted. “Distract yourself, Feyre. With good things. Light things. Even if it’s a movie with Rhys or cooking dinner. And try to stay away from alcohol and substances.”

“Distraction.” I repeated.

“Distraction.” He confirmed, a light grin on his face. “And I’m afraid that’s all the time we have.”

I wiped my nose once more than stood, tissue clenched in my fingers. “Same time next week?” I wondered, heading towards the door.

Suriel smiled then said, “Sounds good to me. Thank you very much for today, Feyre. You’re doing extremely well so far.”

“Well, hopefully therapy is the one thing I won’t fuck up.”

He smiled, more of a smug, cheeky smile. I opened the door and it closed softly behind me, but not before hearing his drawer being pulled open, and the sound of that takeout bag rustling around.

***

The car door shut beside me, and Rhys turned on the ignition.

“How was it?”

The streets passed by, full of people, full of energy. “Were you there in the parking lot the whole time?”

He shrugged as he made a left turn, going the opposite way of home. I raised my eyebrows. “Don’t you have better things to do? A company to manage?”

“My office is very flexible. Phone calls can be made from anywhere, including the comforts of my car.”

“You shouldn’t be sacrificing your work to take care of me.”

Rhys eyed me sideways. “Taking care of you is not a sacrifice. It’s as essential as any hour of tediousness in that stupid building.”

I sighed, my arms crossing across my chest. “Where are we going?”

“Somewhere. How was the session? Do you like him? If not, we’ll find somebody else.”

The rain beat furiously against the windshield. Rhys increased the speed of his wipers. I said, “It was fine.”

“Fine.” It was more of an assertion than a question.

“He’s strange, but he’s good.” I glanced at him sidelong, and that calm concentration lining his features. “How did you find him?”

He shrugged. “Suriel was a very difficult man to track down. There’re many psychologists in Prythian, but not many that take on…these kinds of cases.”

“Which kinds?”

He looked at me then, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Suicidal ones.”

My next question was already on my lips, but a call came through, and Rhys touched the bluetooth piece in his left ear. “Yes Morrigan?”

I could hear her shrill voice distantly yelling at him to never call her that again. Rhys and her spoke of something for a few minutes, names and things I didn’t understand and didn’t care enough to try and decode. Finally, he said, “I’ll be there in a minute.” The call ended, and he pulled the piece out of his ear, discarding it in the cupholder. I looked out the window, curious as to where we were.

“Where are we going?”

Rhys said, “To the office. I have to pick up some things.”

My heart beat nervously. I knew that the circle would be in the office, and I wasn’t sure if I was ready to see them yet. But I remembered Suriel’s homework for me and sighed, knowing that it was best if I did have some sort of human contact. “Can I come?”

His smile was wicked and salacious. “But of course, darling. Let me take you into devil’s lair.”

***

Night Industries was nothing like Spring Corporations.

Everything, from the lobby to the reception to the workers was much more heavy duty. Sleek. Dripping with grace and elegance in a dark, ominous way. Black marble greeted us upon our entry where six security guards stood at their posts. Each nodded to Rhysand, who in turn greeted them all by name with a stern nod of his head. Rhys didn’t need to say anything as he marched past the reception desk towards the elevators. I went to reach for the button, but he shook his head.

“Executive floor is a little more protected than that.”

I raised my eyebrows.

“We do things a little different here than Spring.”

At that, he lead me down another corridor to the left and down to flights of stairs. I was about to ask where the hell he was taking me when we entered another lounge, with a different secretary, who instantly greeted us with a smile on her face. This place was darker, a dingy unsuspecting hallway that I wouldn’t have considered if ever I were to break in. I guess Rhys expected such a thing and acted accordingly.

“Good morning Nuala,” Rhys smiled as he laid his finger on the scanner presented to him by the dark haired woman. She didn’t say a word to him, only smiled at both of us as the tablet turned green and the door to what looked like a janitorial elevator opened. It reeked of metal and rust as we entered the wide space. On the interior, it was padded with black velvet and golden lining. Rhys pressed the button for the ninetieth floor, and we were going up.

“Your clients don’t find this a little sketchy when they visit?”

Rhys snorted. “My clients never cross the threshold of my real office.”

Another raise of my brows. He only said, “You can never be too careful, Feyre darling.”

We were silent the rest of the way up. Once the elevator doors opened once more, the space that greeted us was nothing like the beat-up receptionist’s office downstairs.

Everything was dark, but in a different way. Grey walls. Dark stained floors with a silver carpet leading down the main artery of the hallway. On each side were doors, definitely offices or file rooms hiding behind them. It was like an impenetrable fortress on all four sides. At the end of the corridor lay a set of black double doors with silver glinting handles. Lights shone at the bottom of each wall, lighting up the floors, leading your way to them. I only stood in shock at the stark differences between Spring and Night, the luxury and elegance that seemed oozing power and control here rather than tacky expensiveness in that ivory tower.

Before the doors, to the right hand side stood an empty office chair behind a black desk. An apple computer was there, unused, unoccupied, waiting for somebody to sit down.

“Who works there?”

“No one,” Rhys replied, as he laid his palm on his door handle. He waited a moment before a whir and a click sounded, then winked at me. “Only opens with my fingerprints on the door handle.”

How that worked, I had no clue. But once the doors opened, I swallowed hard at the scene that greeted me.

If… if his office was supposed to look grand, it was nothing compared to Rhys’s.

The walls were twenty feet high, and along the entire back wall stood windows reaching all the way from floor to ceiling. The light, despite the raining day, was bright and inviting, speckled with drops of precipitation outside. On the left side of the room lay an area for comfort, white leather couches and seats, enough for all the damn employees in this place to sit. A low grey marble table sat between the seats in the middle of the circle, currently obscured with documents and files piled up haphazardly. Stretched out across it though, was a map—a map of Prythian, marked up by different colour pens, from the Sidra to the major companies of Prythian and their headquarters. The colours made no distinct pattern I could decipher, but the entire thing seemed meticulously examined.

On the ceiling, light lined the space in strips, the source unseen beneath the black beams forming squares, each equally spaced apart. On the side wall were different alcoves, within one I could see acting as a coffee bar with a mini fridge beneath it. The others were wider, also lined with light—but barren.

“I’m waiting for the right art piece to put there.” He explained. “Nothing has quite tickled my fancy yet.”

I could paint for you, I thought, but then was disgusted by the notion of picking up a paint brush.

And to the left of the space was finally his desk. Nearly the length of the wall—the back of which was filled with books—and also dark to match his limited palette. Three screen monitors sat atop of it, and other files were strewn around, as though he’d left his office in a hurry. He strode over to it once he saw my shock had subsided it, and sat in his black leather chair with a sigh.

“Take a seat, Feyre. Won’t be too long.”

I sat in the grey leather chair across from him, still soaking in the room. It was gorgeous. Bigger than any apartment my sisters, father and I used to live in.

He fiddled around on his cellphone for a bit while I was still gazing across the city skyline, and minutes later came a knock at the door. Rhys checked the monitor, then pressed a button on his keyboard. The door opened, and in sauntered Mor.

“Seriously, I could’ve just emailed them to you. I don’t know why you’ve got to waste so much gas to drag your ass across the city for a stupid paper—” only she stopped when she saw me. Mor, beautiful as ever, wore a white pantsuit and her hair up in a high sleek ponytail to show off her gold hoop earrings. Her face broke into a smile, her red lipstick beaming, when she saw me.

“Feyre! He finally showed you around. What do you think? Don’t give him any credit for this place, I designed this thing from the ground up.”

“You’re a dirty liar, Morrigan. This place was built before you were born.”

“Don’t call me that again, Rhys, lest you want me to remove your favourite part. And you know full well that I was in charge of all the renovations, so look in the mirror next time you call someone a liar.”

Rhys rolled his eyes as Mor sauntered over and handed him the paper. His eyes scanned it for a few moments before they filled with dread. “Seriously?” He asked his cousin mournfully.

She only swallowed, eyes skirting over the words as well. “I’m sorry, Rhys.”

He sighed. “It’s fine. We’ll just add it to the rest of the chaos we have to deal with.”

As he opened one of his desk drawers and pulled out a file, Mor came to sit beside me. Her hand found mine and gave it a squeeze, her brown eyes warm and bright. “You’re looking great, Feyre.”

I could tell by the kindness in her voice that she was being genuine, and not Ianthe’s sappy fake shrill that I was used to. “Thanks, Mor.” My voice was scratchy and low.

She turned her head to Rhys, who was collecting other papers from his desk to cram into the manila folder. “Have you talked to her about the position yet? It’d be nice to have someone new around the—”

One look from him and she stopped mid-conversation, then turned to me. “I picked up another set of clothes for you, by the way. After your comments from last time I went for more…comfort. Still very stylish, though, so not to worry.”

“Thanks. I didn’t really think the leather jacket look suited me.”

Mor laughed at my dryness, and Rhys only rolled his eyes. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Mor.” A clear dismissal, but I only thought of what Suriel had given me for homework as Mor lifted from her seat and made her way to the door.

“Wait,” I said, looking into Mor’s soft eyes, who were filled with hope and excitement just at the sound of my voice. My heart swelled with the non-verbal support she held for me. “Why don’t you all come over tonight? For dinner?”

“Feyre, darling, please, that’s just asking for it.”

“Wait, no! That’s perfect! I’ll make cookies, and we can bring popcorn and snacks and oh, oh!” Mor jumped up and down excitedly, looking to Rhys with her eyes full of hope. “We can have a game night!”

“Dear Gods, Mor,” Rhys folded his hand into a steeple and closed his eyes, his features lined with misery. “Are you trying to scare her away?”

“Oh, you’re just old and cranky. Make yourself another coffee, for fuck’s sake. Have a little fun, Rhys. We’ll be there at seven!”

The door closed, and I could only work on trying to bite back my smile as I turned to face Rhys.

“You seriously don’t know what you’ve started, Feyre.”

“I’m just doing what Suriel suggested, Rhys,” I said sweetly. “Social interaction is good for the disturbed mind.”

He only chuckled and shook his head, amused. Then he stood, hands in the dark trousers he’d donned today. No suit—he’d worked from home most of the morning before my appointment. The black long-sleeve sweater he wore stretched over his muscles that rippled beneath as he faced the skyline below us.

“I did come here for that paper, but I guess while I’m at it I should make good on my promise to you.”

Pushing up from my chair, I followed behind him quietly, arms crossed over my chest. “Promise?”

“Yes. I said I’d have a job for you. And I do.” He was quiet for a few moments, the stars in his eyes glowing as he gazed at the cars below. “I need all the people I can get right now.”

“Why?” I breathed. The response, whatever it was, made my heart beat furiously in my chest.

“Because war is coming, Feyre.”

#dngg #acotar #acomaf #acowar #a court of thorns and roses #sarah j maas #sjm #acotar fanfic #acotar fanfiction #feyre #rhys #rhysand #feysand #feysand fanfic #feysand fanfiction

5 notes · View notes

surveys-at-your-service · 5 years ago

Text

Survey #254

“i hate that it seems you were never enough; we were broken and bleeding, but never gave up.”

What’s the best gift you’ve ever gotten? My late dog Teddy. Well technically, it was a container of puppy chow behind the tree, but in essence, him. Has there ever been a person you regret ever being friends with? I don't think so? Do you think you have a good understanding of love? Yes. What do you want to do on your honeymoon? Relax and enjoy quality time w/ my spouse somewhere great. Do you think Medical Marijuana should be legalized? Yes. If you were forced to dye your hair another color, what color would you get? At this current time, silver. What do you think of your parent(s)? I love them, a lot. Who do you talk to on the phone most often? Actually talk, Mom. But I text Sara more. What’s a song that makes you feel happy? Uhhh "</code>" by MIW came to me first. What celebrity would you like to meet? M-M-M-mARk What is your favorite clothing store? I can't really say. I like Hot Topic's content most, but they're really not all that broad in size range, so it seems unfair to say them. What’s a good idea you’ve had recently? Hell if I know, I don't make those. Do you like to wear high heels? No. What are you most excited about right now? Nothing. Would you like to live in a different country? If so which one? Honestly, if it didn't mean leaving Mom behind, I'd go to Canada by now. Recent events have me fucking livid with America's healthcare system. What’s your favorite song from a movie? Like, it was made for the movie? Man, I dunno. Probably something off Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, though. The soundtrack is magical. Where would you like to volunteer? Realistically, I don't know. A zoo would be incredible, but I handle heat incredibly poorly and also canfuckingnot pick up feces or touch vomit. So, that takes a big chunk out of what volunteers can do there. What’s the last song you listened to? "Another Life" by MIW is on repeat right now and I need to turn it the fuck off because I'm in a bad PTSD episode. Do you like being alone? Sometimes, yes, but not for too long. How do you find new music? YouTube recommendations, usually. What’s your favorite city? I don't have a favorite. I've only ever once been to an even remotely impressive one: Chicago. What’s the last YouTube video you watched? Some tarantula one. I'm fucking addicted to tarantulas now and need a Mexican red knee like now. Once we (hopefully) move, I'm gonna at least try talking Mom into it. Where are you going on your next trip? I don't know. If you had to make a six-hour cross-country journey, would you rather take the train, fly or drive? How come? Fly, if I had the window seat. It's relaxing. How long do your earphones tend to last before the connection goes and you have to replace them? Considering I'm like, constantly using them, Mom says they die fast, judging by how frequently I let her know I need a new pair. She got me a big box of them for Christmas, even. I've got one extra pair left. If you could dye your hair any color in the world, assuming it would look perfect with your coloring, what would you pick and why? Pastel pink bc aesthetic. Are you a fan of musicals? If you are, what ones have you seen live and which ones would you like to see? No. Have you ever had to give up something you were addicted to? Did you actually succeed? Yes. Have you ever had to work (or study) with someone that you really didn’t get along with? How did you deal with it (ignoring them, being nice, etc.)? Maybe at some point, idk. Have you ever had any problems with your wisdom teeth, or have they been taken out already? No. Which one of your senses would you miss the most if you lost it? Hearing, probably. That'd feel so lonely. Do you find your mood changes when you’re hungry or tired? Does eating or sleeping automatically cure you of a bad mood? I can definitely become irritable if I'm extremely hungry and/or tired. Sleeping helps me with a lot of problems, lmao. What’s the stupidest fight you’ve ever gotten into? Did you make up with that person or did you end up losing them over it? Oh idk. Probably something RP-related as a kid. Have you ever gotten really bad travel sickness? Has this put you off travelling or going by certain modes of transport in case it happens again? No, thankfully. What’s your opinion on prostitution? Should it be legal and regulated, or is it something that needs to be gotten rid of completely? I don't support it. Just leaving it at that. If it was a case of prostitution or being evicted from your home, which option would you pick (assuming you’d tried everything else to make money first)? Evict me. Morally, prostituting would kill me. I have family who thankfully I know would let me stay with them. Are you into piercings and tattoos? If not, do you judge people who are, and vice versa? Hell yeah, so I obviously don't judge people who are. What’s your opinion on places like Seaworld? Do you think keeping whales and dolphins in such small enclosures is cruel or a necessary evil? First: I'm not very educated on how similar *all* Seaworlds are. But in regards to keeping whales, it's inhumane as all fuck. They are WAY too big to be held in such a small space for our goddamn amusement. I support zoos who do what they do for conservation and educational purposes, but from my memory of Seaworld, that's not their primary concern. Who is one person that you no longer hang out with? Why did that association end? My former best friend. There's a novel on why I don't associate with her anymore, but the top reason would be she's just a drama magnet that does no wrong. Wonders why her life is so insane and tumultuous while never looking into herself as the potential reason. What was the last item you put into your pants pocket? I don't really wear pants with pockets, but I'm sure in the last case, it woulda been my phone or money. Who was the last person to endanger your life, whether it was accidentally or intentionally? Well I'm certain it was accidental, but idk what the most recent situation would be. What was the last thing you started over on? Job searching, I guess. What was the last task that you completed? Does eating breakfast count? Esp. when you really didn't want it but needed it? Have you ever failed at something extremely important to you? If yes, what? Ah, what a timely question. I dropped out of school for the third fucking time a few days back. When was the last time that you wanted time to move faster? Last night in my regular routine of waking up in the middle of the night twice/thrice. I sleep so poorly that I just want the morning to come at some point so it's "normal" for me to be up. ^Slower? Hm. I dunno. I don't have much reason to want time to slow lately. When was the last time you felt impatient with someone? Currently w/ Mom, but it's at a low level and probably isn't fair feeling impatient in the first place. Who was the last person that you called a “bitch”? I don't know. Probably playfully, anyway. ^Who, if anyone, was the last person to address you by that term? I also don't know. When was the last time you questioned whether or not you were making the right decision? Every time I make one lmao. Has a boy-/girlfriend ever suggested that you might want to lose some weight, or that it might make you look better? lol wow no. What is your idea of “too big” when it comes to weight? Once it comes to a point of infringing on your ability to function normally. ^How about “too thin”? Same as ^, really, it just goes in the opposite direction. Have you ever experienced an overly clinging boy-/girlfriend? Yeah, we lasted two weeks lmao. What is the most annoying thing your family members do on a daily basis, if anything? I only live with Mom, and she doesn't regularly do annoying stuff. With which family member do you get along with the least? The best? Least, my grandma. We've gotten kinda better though now that she's dying. Best, Mom. ^Why do you think that you don’t get along well with that family member? We have very, very averse beliefs and standards. Who is someone that you wish would be there for you more often? My sisters, honestly. Shit's going on with them, I always reach out to let them know I'm here. Something's wrong with me, I never hear a word. Have you ever felt like someone abandoned you? If yes, explain? BIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITCH- How often do you find that you are bored? Daily, nearly at all times. This is gonna sound pathetic, but I tend to be so bored so regularly that I experience passively suicidal thoughts now and again because I just feel being dead would almost be more exciting. That's something I'll never act on, but yeah. I have mega bad anhedonia. What activity has the best chance of holding your attention for a long period of time? Hm. Playing a game, maybe. Or if I'm watching a really good video on YT. Have you ever decided that you like/dislike someone based on their survey answers? Yup. What previews did you see at the last movie you saw in theaters? Hell if I remember. How many things are you a fan of on Facebook? Wow, a fucking lot. Back in the day I would "like" lots of those pages that just had funny/relatable names, and man does it pay off (usually) now. I Got The Memes. Do you have more friends on Myspace or Facebook? Probably Facebook? I don't really remember the friending process on MySpace besides the "top 8" thing that destroyed friendships, lmao. Have you ever been to a movie that sold out? Maybe? Idk. Have you ever been to a midnight movie? One. What’s your state’s weather usually like this time of year? Too fucking hot. Do you get those leg cramps in the middle of the night? No. What movie last made you too scared to go to sleep? *shrug* Is your cell phone a qwerty (full keyboard) or no? Yeah. What was the last website you logged onto (besides the one you’re on)? PetSmart to apply for a position as pet trainer. I hate chain pet stores, but whatever, I'm desperate. What’s your home page? Google. Do you have split ends? No. When you’re on a laptop, do you hook up a mouse or use the touchpad? I prefer to have a mouse. If you’re learning a language, what year are you in? I'm not anymore. Do you think you’re done growing or will you grow a couple more inches? I'm sure I'm done. What’s your mom’s mom’s name? Cecelia. Have you ever encountered a creepy neighbor? OKAY at my old place where I used to ride my bike all the time, there was this old man way down the road that liked to talk to me but he creeped me out so much that I started turning back before I got in sight of his place. Do you like the foam soap or the liquidy soap? Foam. Do you tend to lean towards bright colors or more subtle colors? Bright. Do you use British spelling even though you’re not British? No; I even change it in surveys a lot, lol. When was the last time you attended a barbecue? I don't have a clue. I don't like them. Can you handle movies involving lots of bugs and insects? Yeah. Are you borrowing books from anybody at the moment? No. What is one similarity between your parents? Christ... they seem incomparable by this point. Do you keep scissors in your kitchen? If so, where? Yes, in the drawer beside the fridge. When was the last time you used a payphone and who were you calling? I've never used one. Have you met everyone who lives on your street? No. Do you have a boyfriend? No. When did you last write out your name? Recently for something at school. Do you like being kissed on the neck? Yeah. What friend can you tell everything to? Sara. Would you be shocked if the last person you had feelings for texted you? No. What if you had a baby with the last person you texted? We're both cis females so physically can't. And neither of us want kids. Who knows your biggest secrets? Mom, Sara, Jason. Do you have any hickeys on you? No. Is there anyone you wish you could fix things with? Yeah. Who is someone that puts up with you no matter what? My mom. When was the last time you cried? Two days ago I sobbed for a good while. Can you honestly say you’re okay right now? Not really. Is there a girl you would do anything for? Anything? No. Is there a boy you would do anything for? No. Who IMed you on Facebook last? My friend Ian, but I haven't read it yet. What color was the last swimsuit you wore? Black. Have you ever been to an auto show? Yooo I remember as a kid, my family went with our friends to a monster truck show, I think it was? I was so not digging it and wanted to go home the whole time. What was the last thing you cooked for dinner? I had one of those Banquet microwavable dinners last night. Spicy chicken and mac 'n cheese. It's fuckin GOOD and really filling. Do you live in the city/town you were born in? No. Have you slept for longer than usual today? No, I slept terrible. Have you ever smoked a cigarette? No. Have you consumed alcohol today? If so, what? No. What’s your go-to website when you’re really bored? YouTube is my general go-to. Who was the main cook of your Thanksgiving meal last year? My sister. Do you have a passport? If so, how many stamps do you have in it? No. Have you ever been dumped really harshly? WHEEZE Have you ever taken classes for a musical instrument? Yes. Have you ever been on vacation with someone other than your family? Yeah. Do you live with your parents? With my mom. Can you do a blackflip, or anything else of that sort? No. What moment in your life have you been most scared? The night of the breakup, particularly when Mom dragged me back inside and I just literally melted. Do you have any exes you can’t stand anymore? What happened to cause you to feel that way about them? No. Do you ever make your own surveys, or just take them? I just take them. Have you ever actually thought you were pregnant? Were you? Yes, but it was entirely illogical, so I obviously wasn't. Anxiety and being terrified of pregnancy is fun. Are you more of a phone or a computer person? Computer. Do you like to cook, or do you prefer when other people cook for you? I don't cook. How old do you think you’ll be when you move out on your own? Who the fuck knows anymore. Do you have a job? If so, where do you work? If not, do you want one? No; yes. Have you ever ripped your pants in public? I don't think so? Do movies such as Saw and The Grudge scare you easily? No. How many best friends do you have? What are their names? One; Sara. What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever been dared to do? Did you do it? No clue. Can you drive? I mean I can, but I'm terrified of it, and my permit is expired anyway. What do you consider to be a good grade? What do you consider to be a bad grade? B; C and below. Have you ever had a teacher who hated you? No. Can you remember who your grade 5 teacher was? Did you like them? Yes, I adored them both. Do you know anybody that has severe allergies? Multiple people. Who was the last person you slow danced with? laskdjflka;jwe What’s your favourite song at the moment? Ah shit man idk. Do you prefer headphones or earbuds? Earbuds. Headphones aggravate my ears. Do you ever ride the city bus? How much does it cost you? We don't even have one here. How do you get to school? N/A What is the last book you read? Did you enjoy it? The first Wings of Fire book, and yes, very much. Do you scream out the answers while watching game shows on TV? Scream, no. I'll say them sometimes, though. Who in your life do you care about more than yourself? Mom, Sara. Jason, probably, as much as I hate to admit that. Would you ever consider adopting a child with a severe mental illness? HYPOTHETICALLY, if I even wanted kids, yes. I'm very empathetic and care a shitload about mental health, so I think I'd be a very good cheerleader for them. Which wild animal would you most like to have as a pet? Again hypothetically, a meerkat, but I DO NOT support them as pets and get very upset when I see them as such. What bill do you hate paying the most? I don't have any. When is the last time you got drunk and danced on a bar? Never. If you could move anywhere and take someone with you, who and where would it be? Sara to the mountains of NC. Favorite non-sexual thing to do with girl/boy? Play games together. Who from high school would you like to run in to? A handful of people.

#survey #quiz #questions #personal

3 notes · View notes

timelesshonesttrailer · 6 years ago

Photo

Content Warning: Frank discussion of depression and suicidal themes.

One of the most controversial parts of the Timeless finale is the death of Garcia Flynn. The series staff and a section of the fandom believe it was an honorable, heroes’ death. The other side of the fandom believe it was nothing more than glorified suicide.

So, which is it?

Sometimes, when it comes to media, things are truly left up to interpretation and there is no right or wrong answer. Other times there is a clear answer which is obscured by a person’s prejudices or ignorance. (I want to state that ignorance is not inherently a bad thing. It simply means a person is unaware of specific facts/realities.)

So, let us break down what happens with Garcia Flynn, not just in this specific moment, but through all the events leading up to it.

We know that Flynn was suicidal when Lucy visits him in São Paulo. He tells her as much in season two when she asks him about the journal and how he came by it. His family had just been murdered in front of him (the movie later telling us only weeks before Christmas) and he was being blamed for it. Not only was his wife and daughter dead, but he had no support mechanism either. He was completely cut off and alone. It is unsurprising that Flynn would consider ending his life.

Then Lucy appears, gives him the journal, and… well… things become complicated.

The movie would like us to believe that this is a Closed Loop, but it’s not. As I explain here, the series has always had a Causal Loop which means the Lucy that visits the Flynn we meet in the pilot is not the same Lucy who meets the Flynn we see at the end of the movie. That isn’t even the same Flynn from the pilot as this Flynn has an older brother and possible other changes.

The Flynn we see in the show does not act like someone who has been told he will die without saving his family. Everything in the Season One finale completely contradicts a Future Lucy telling Flynn these things. From teasing her about aging well to screaming at her about trusting her with the life of his child. These are not the words or actions of someone who went through the São Paulo scene we were given.

But, this makes sense, because it’s a Causal Loop, not a Closed Loop, therefore we don’t actually know what the first Lucy told Pilot-Flynn. An assumption can be made that she offers some kind of hope since Flynn is basically the embodiment of hope throughout the series. As he tells Lucy, they will somehow save the people they love, as long as they don’t give up hope.

However, his depression never goes away. The more we see of Flynn, the more we see of his self-hatred and conflicted nature. He tells Lucy he doesn’t sleep. We see him haunted by memories of his family. There is the speech he gives to Lucy about having become something else, stopping short of calling himself a monster. And when Lucy tries to tell him he’s wrong, he can be a father again, he has a very classic case of depression brain saying ‘hold my beer’ and trying to prove what he believes to be true.

Throughout the first season, Flynn shows several signs of being passively suicidal. (This is when someone doesn’t actively try to take their life, but doesn’t try to safeguard it either, often letting themselves be put in dangerous situations because they just don’t care if they live or not.) The biggest moment is when Flynn saves his brother, he’s risking his own birth because his mother may never decide to leave the country if she has her eldest son to take care of.

A parallel can be drawn here between Flynn and Wyatt, the latter man being far more passively suicidal. During the pool scene in season two, Wyatt confirms this by admitting he took the mission because he figured it was a suicidal one and he didn’t care. This is most notable during the Alamo. When Wyatt decides to stay behind, this is literally a suicidal act. If Lucy hadn’t talked him out of staying, then his death would have been suicide, not a heroes’ death or risking his life, etc. He didn’t think his life was worth going back to, so he figured he’d go out ‘doing one good thing.’

This is very much the thought process of someone who is depressed and suicidal. Depression brain likes to minimize a person’s worth and positive impact. It ignores the fact that Wyatt likely saved thousands of lives getting that intel out, and just tells him he’s a failure… at everything. That he was expendable. But Lucy was there to remind him that he is not a failure, nor expendable. It’s enough to get him back on track long enough to get home. Though, odds are, if they hadn’t convinced Christopher to let Wyatt stay on the team, Wyatt would have gone back to drinking away his PTSD and possibly be dead within six months.

In season two, both men show progress away from these tendencies. Wyatt’s admission to his suicidal feelings was a good step in the right direction (though I would argue the healthiness of hanging his recovery on a romantic relationship). Flynn shows his progress by actively trying to stay alive in prison and get back after Rittenhouse.

We can also throw a parallel in here with Season Two Lucy. When she is betrayed by her mother and then believes her support mechanism is gone (Wyatt, Rufus, Jiya, etc), she actively decides to become a suicide bomber. She gets the grenades specifically to blow up the Mothership, with herself in it if she has to. But once she realizes she is not alone anymore, she scuttles that plan. However, the depression that had been building through both seasons gets magnified after being betrayed by her mother and the whole thing with Wyatt. She turns to alcohol, and one might interpret her chasing Emma as a passively suicidal move.

Now, back to the grenades, if Lucy had not run into the guys and had instead gone through with her plan, this would be classified as a suicide mission, not committing suicide. These are two different things, though yes, there is a fine line between. If she ran into them and decided to go through with her plan anyway, even though there were now clearly options, then it would be committing suicide.

And now here becomes the crux of the argument. What makes these things different?

Risking One’s Life: If you choose to do something dangerous to save someone, then you are risking your life. Running into a burning building, taking a bullet, these things aren’t guaranteed to kill you, but you know the risk is there.

Suicide Mission: If you choose to do something guaranteed to take your life for a perceived greater good, then it is a suicide mission. This is the ‘one person has to stay behind to throw the switch’ type scenarios. The ‘you’ll make it in but you’ll never make it out’ moments.

Committing Suicide: If you actively take steps to avoid being saved, ignoring obvious avenues of possible rescue or repair, then it is suicide. Saving another person(s) during this act does not minimize the fact that it is still suicide if you could both save the person and possibly yourself but choose not to.

Now, let’s look at how Flynn’s mission went down and see where it fits in the above.

First off, Flynn does not talk to anyone about his plan. He doesn’t say ‘hey, someone has to do it, someone has to take the risk, I’ll do it.’ He doesn’t give the team a chance to either a) stop him, or b) come up with a better solution.

The first part can be read many ways. It’s not inherently suicidal to not want to be stopped from doing something that would risk your life. But the second part is very telling. There was nothing that said that Rufus had to be saved right then. They only had the journal a very short time. A journal that Flynn admitted wasn’t always reliable. And they hadn’t even made a concrete plan of how to deal with Jessica or other options.

Instead, Flynn simply decides to slink away and risk his life on a plan that isn’t even fully formed or realized. This is clearly a passively suicidal action. Made all the more so by Flynn leaving a suicide note, for that is what the message to Lucy is. He may preface it with ‘if you’re reading this, I didn’t make it back’ but that does not change that he calls himself expendable, a direct parallel to Wyatt at the Alamo. This is his way of saying 'let me do this one good thing’ which we have already established is a clear sign of suicidal tendencies.

Flynn leaves the note then goes back (forward) to 2012 to take out Jess. Now, I won’t get into the logistics issue with this because a) if Rittenhouse wants her alive why would they ask her to get out of the car, and b) where the hell did he park the Lifeboat to be so close but not give himself away, c) did Jess really die that close to his home or did he call an Uber or something, and d) when he eventually dies on the beach near his own home why didn’t his fingerprints and DNA pop up in the system seeing as he’s an NSA agent?

Anyway, Jess dies, and then Flynn goes back to the Lifeboat. By this time he’s had some headaches but has basically been able to stay on his own timeline for quite a fair amount of time. Enough that one could reasonably assume that if they got out of their own timeline, they might actually survive. Yes, the script says that he believes he’s dead anyway, but there is no physical reason he should believe this.

He’s not bleeding out from a fatal wound. He is still mentally coherent enough to work the controls. All he has is some blurry vision and headaches. Now, if he interpreted these signs as reasons why he would not make the two-minute trip back, why would he assume he would be able to make it to his home and then far enough away from his home not to disrupt his life? If he thinks Rufus will be in 1848 and there isn't enough room in the Lifeboat, they can take two trips between 1848 and 2018, especially as the Lifeboat has a new power core. He should know this better than anyone seeing as he had the Mothership.

The only way his actions make any sense if his depression brain kicks in and convinces him to actively take steps that would end his life because what is the point of living anyway? He’s expendable. He’ll never save his family.

Let’s rewind for a second. When Flynn landed, what if he had immediately sent the Lifeboat back? While we can argue the idiocy of him running off like he did, it wouldn’t be such blatant suicide. Because yes, he doesn’t know if he will succeed on his mission. He doesn’t know if he will make it to Jess before his brain craps out. Or if Rittenhouse will get to him first. So sending the Lifeboat back immediately would actually be the smart, tactical move.

But no, he clearly believes he will make it back to the Lifeboat because otherwise he’s just stranded Lucy, Wyatt, and Jiya in 1848. So if he believed he’ll make it back once Jess was dealt with, why not go with the Lifeboat? He’s survived this long, perhaps leaving his own timeline will allow him to recover. Jiya recovered(mostly) from being the fourth person in the Lifeboat, so there is cause to believe he could survive this.

His decision to jump from the Lifeboat and stay on his own timeline where he is guaranteed to die is quite literally an act of suicide.

The mission is over. He has a chance to save himself. He chooses not to.

Garcia Flynn commits suicide.

This is made all the worse by the fact the team may not realize this is what he’s done. They know he went back to the Lifeboat after killing Jess, though it’s unsure how they could know he didn’t send it back before going after Jess. So maybe they do realize it was a suicidal act? Regardless, when 2023 Lucy tells Flynn he will die, she’s inadvertently, or purposely, telling a suicidal man to go ahead and kill himself, but not until he’s taken care of a few things for her first.

And again, this is a Causal Loop, not a Closed Loop. The simple fact that things like Amy, Emma, and Jess don’t appear in the journal, that the series staff admitted the journal can change, and missions listed in the journal don’t take place, prove that it’s a Causal Loop and it doesn’t have to play out the same way.

The team has five years to write a new journal, one that could literally fix everything. They could ensure Anthony doesn’t die and Mason Industries doesn’t blow up. They could bring back Amy. They could keep Jiya from both gaining her (forgotten about) powers and from getting stuck in Chinatown. They could even make sure Lucy and Wyatt end up together.

“What’s the point of having a time machine if you can’t fix your regrets?”

Instead, they tell a traumatize man to do horrible things, let him commit suicide over what he does, and call him a hero for it.

#Garcia Flynn #Timeless #tw: suidice #Timeless Honest Trailer

107 notes · View notes

thoughtfulpaperback · 6 years ago

Text

SPOILERS!!!! CHARMED 1x19

Okay y'all, I've finally seen the latest episode of Charmed.

So... overall I actually like the episode. I like that we are getting into the lore more. I like that connection to and the differences between the OG Charmed.

So in the OG Charmed magic isnt necessarily neutral. There is good and evil magic but (at least in the first few seasons) there was the idea that magic had to be balanced which is why there was a council made up of elders and demons to protect that balance and ensure the secrecy of magic.

Reboot Charmed I like the idea that all magic comes from one source and it is the actions that determine evil or good. Which just reaffirms what Harry has told Macy. By the same hand, there are some plot holes in all that. Macy is having a little bit of trouble with her demonic side since they said demon blood acts as an infection (and apparently Parker didnt always have it) that would mean that although witches are born demons are not or at least special conditions have to be met, maybe? So not sure how they will explain that. Also Macy is obviously having trouble with her demon side now. I dont know if her emotional state after the break up is contributing to that since her confidence is probably shaken as well as the fact breakups suck.

I actually don't mind the opening scene showing the Sarcana deaths. Hold on! Let me explain. The big villains of the show are white, I dont know if that is on purpose. I see they are trying to be diverse by having non-white witches and non-witches. So when you are trying to have diverse casting and people have to die and you only have white villains, your POCs are always gonna be on the chopping block. Which is why i think having diversity on a show is hard because you cant be callous with any of your characters (in general I dont think you should be, but i feel a lot of show writers write for shock or angst) because you have to remember that certain storylines take on a different meaning when the actors are non white. For example, OG charmed wasnt a stranger to mass murder. Season 4 started with the slaughter of the Elders and whether you were pro or anti elder that was still shocking as heck. Which I think the reboot was trying to do with the Sarcana. The issue is that in the OG we had 3 seasons of elders exploring thier faults and the good they do, and both the slaughters(titans) and elders were white (well primarily white, I think we only got to see like 2 non white elders in the entire series if I remember correctly). Here you have a white villian and mostly POCs being slaughtered. I totally see how wrong that looks and I think the writers or the casting directors either missed that or they are being heavy handed with the idea of abusive white villains against POCs. I think the scene was about showing how aweful and abusive Fiona is, also revealing her main motivation, that they dropped the ball on the whole "you are murdering most of you POCs here which arent main characters".

Speaking of abusive. I still want Villian Charity. I want her to take out Alastair and be an active villain not a passive one. I mentioned before that see would probably be a passive one before, but I said I wished she wouldn't be. I like villains. I like well written villains mostly. I think Charity has the perfect set up to be good villian. She began her own fall from grace (although the structure which taught her had a hand in it too), she fell into bigger evil under a tyrannical and abusive character, if she goes Lilith (CAOS reference) and decides to replace Alistair some way as the big bad I will be happy. Because I dont want to watch her be a meek used and abused character to then either be killed or do some sort of self sacrifice thing. She straight up murdered people and is a villain in spite of mostly being passive. Cole was killed in the OG charmed because at some point (we can argue about exactly where) his actions were irredeemable. Yes his story was complex, yes a lot of miscommunication and power dynamics went into all the issues there but the line had to be drawn. Charity, at least in my mind cannot go back to being "a good guy". She is getting in deeper and deeper. She obviously has emotional ties still to her sister and probably Harry, just as Cole did with Phoebe, and I want to see where those ties lead her. But I will be disappointed if after murdering a bunch of people and helping out a demon to try and bring on the apocalypse, they make her an abuse victim who dies. Not cool. Stop hurting abuse victims for emotional reactions on television! I know many abuse victims are killed by their abusers (RIP Dr. Wagner although Hunter did it we know who ordered him to). I dont want to see it overdone on the same show within a few short episodes. Charity shouldnt get off free for her murders either even though she is obviously in an abusive relationship now with Alistair (not talking romantic relationship) she has been set up to become a villian, tragic back story yes ,but her choices were made and she has to live with the unintended consequences.

Macy was being super toxic this episode. Let's at least call her out for it. Yes, imo Galvin hasnt been that great of a boyfriend except for a couple of cute moments (the really didnt get enough screen time to say whether the good outweighed the bad). But Macy needed to leave him alone. Like the whole time watching this episode I was just like "so are they spreading out the Cole and Phoebe arch to everyone?". He obviously is traumatized. He already told her he was out. I know she is hurting, imo they way he broke up with her made it worse and messed up her confidence even more than it could have, but she still seeks him out even though that is a violation of his boundaries. I dont like how he attacked her personality when he said that he couldnt compartmentalize the way she can. Macy does do that, I agree that they probably would have broken up because of that, but again he could have just said "I dont see it that way, please understand that". That also said, Macy trying to convince him other wise also rubbed me that wrong way. When he questioned her thoughts and actions over her demon side it was hella wrong! Equally for her to question him over how he feels about what happened to him. They are his feeling and she needed to respect that. I think that they arent right for each other and are kinda bring out the worst in each other. If Galvin gets killed because of magic I will be upset, because he firmly expressed that he wanted out, and if Macy or his lingering feelings for her get him killed that would be unfair. Just as unfair as charity dying doing something good after being abused and manipulated (abuse should never be a punishment I dont want a theon grey joy on Charmed characters shouldnt have to be abused to convince the audience that they deserve to be redeemed).

Parker and Maggie...I feel for Parker. I do. But your decision to not play a part in bringing about the apocalypse shouldnt be based on whether or not your girlfriend wants to be with you. I get it, he is freaked out and he thinks he killed his mom. Charity killed elders out of panic and I didnt cut her slack. I called her story a tragedy but didnt suggest her actions werent heinous. Parker is the same. I am getting Romeo and Juliet vibes here. Like stupid kids making stupid decision based on misunderstandings and feelings beyond thier Ken (or at least infatuation and adolescent hormones beyond thier knowledge). I never liked Romeo and Juliet so that could just be me.

I dont know. When my brother passed away I felt dead, my whole world and future as i saw just crumbled. I was depressed and had some PTSD (according to my doctor). Even though I had suicidal ideations, I still feel that in Parkers place I wouldnt do something that would involve hurting other people. I wanted to go away or disappear, but the idea of hurting others would be too much for me. And Parker is supposed to be this nice guy who has been fighting his demon side before he met Maggie. Maggie gave him the motivation to break away from his father but he was never into hurting people. So to go from that to, "let's destroy the world, I've got nothing to lose" ....except you might end up killing Maggie and a whole bunch of other people in the process. Considering he was horrified thinking he hurt his mom, it doesnt seem to be in character. Again Romeo is not thinking things through, but like not thinking things through was kind of Romeo's thing whereas for Parker not so much.

So like Mel and Niko should be the new Piper and Leo. Like they should be the one couple that despite there issues (only if it is done better than leo and piper was) makes it til the end from the very beginning. I am a Hacy fan but as the episodes go on I feel that they both need a lot of growth before that happens.

Speaking of Harry. I love him. He has recieved the best character growth within a season I've seen. So like he is an established good guy (not good as in not evil, but like a genuinely not trashy person) but obviously his faults kind of go along with his emotional boundaries. He gets attached really fast and that can cloud his judgment. His whole Charity relationship was so teenager in nature that I wanted to slap him upside the head, but I think he is ment to be compared to Fiona. In spite of being created and used as a tool of the Elders and being tossed aside coldly (although he was an idiot in many ways where Charity was concerned) after years of loyal and good service, he doesnt turn into a trash monster. He doesnt use being abused as an excuse to abuse others. Fiona is so angry (not gonna say she doesnt have a right to be) at being a tool for others that she uses and abuses people and feels justified in it.

I totally get her wanting to extinguish magic. But like ber issue is that magic made people want to use her as a tool and that power and having power ruined her life.... wouldnt it make more sense to just bind your powers and wipe you mind? Like less carnage and you get the same result. A life without magic. See doesnt seem to be doing it to protect others, it seems more like she wants to hurt them by taking thier power.

The episode was ok. Things moving along and I will be watching. I really want to know where they go from here and what the big finale will be.

The lore needs some help, maybe with the new staff coming on board that will be ironed out next season.

I think the last episode was better pacing wise. This one felt a little slow to me. Anyone else feel that way. Lots of problem introduced this episode I am hoping they will lead to satisfying conclusions. Or at least a super good itch for the next season. I will probably still continue to watch either way next season because for its faults I think this show is doing some really great things and i am still excited for them.

How are y'all feeling though?

#charmed remake #charity callahan #charmed 2018 #charmed reboot #charmed cw #cw charmed #harry greenwood #macy vaughn #mel vera #maggie vera #fiona callahan #niko hamada

7 notes · View notes