#but even with those triggers (except explosions and suicide) you can still listen to the hour and a half concept album ^w^ !

[omegasmileyface]

Pink Floyd The Wall is a movie about a man who, among other things, is so normal about women

[polyamorous-selfinserts]

case #0091104 - almost dead

trigger warnings: mentions of death, drowning, suicide, cutting, explosions, fire, depression

jon finds a tape in the archives that looks familiar...what will he learn about the archive’s resident teenager?

tagging @astralshipper @shippin-in-the-rain @grimms-heart @ghostlyvenus​ cause i’m super proud of this! 

this takes place during season two, but there’s not any major spoilers. just jon being paranoid, plus mentions of michael becoming the distortion.

Recorder clicks on

Jon: Found this tape under a box in the archives. It’s, uh, it looks like one of Gertrude’s tapes, but the handwriting....that’s Charlie’s I think. I guess I knew sh- they were here before I was, but…

Jon: Could they have killed Gertrude? I suppose it's possible. They would’ve been, what? Thirteen, fourteen?

Jon: I found this about a week ago, and I’ve been watching them. They spend a lot of time in the archives. I don’t think they go home. Come to think of it, I don’t even know where they live. I tried asking Elias - I couldn’t find the information in any of our records - but apparently they don’t work at the Institute. Which is, uh, alarming, to say the least.

Long exhale

Jon: God, I…

Recorder clicks off

Tape player clicks on

A low voice with an American accent. Probably 16-25, female?

Voice: Uh, hello? This is Charlie Finn. I uh...well I guess I’m kind of an archival assistant? Not officially though. Over my dead body, Elias.

Exhale, snort of laughter

Charlie: I’m uh, I’m making a statement, I guess? I think I’m already in more of these than Ger- uh - Gerard, but uh, I’ve never actually made one so…

Rustling of papers

Charlie: Statement of Charlie Finn, regarding...um, their life, almost-death, and subsequent paranormal existence.

Deep inhale

Charlie: So, uh, I uh, I tried to kill myself when I was eleven. Jumped into the Thames tied to a cinder block. Guess I should’ve tied the rope tighter, or maybe skipped swim team, cause the knot came undone. It was cold. Late February. When you’re drowning, you go into a panic - but there’s this point, at the end, where it’s so peaceful...you can almost see it - the end. I don’t remember not dying. I had almost reached that point, where I just...wouldn’t be. And then I was breaking the surface of the water. I - I tried again. Tied the rope tighter. But my hands were shaking so much. I couldn’t tie it fast enough, and dawn was coming. People had started to wake up - I guess one of them saw me jump in this time.

They take a shaky breath

Charlie: I could barely see - the edges of my vision were going - but I fought against his hands. He was an EMT, going in for the early shift. White guy, college age. When he pulled me to the bank of the river, I realized he’d - uh - (humorously) he’d pulled the cinderblock up with him. Couldn’t get the knot undone, I guess, so he just pulled me out, and the block came with it. I think he gave me CPR - not sure, I was kinda out of it. There was a crowd around me when I came to - of course there was, but, uh, they looked so concerned - (huff of laughter) - the ambulance arrived, and they asked all the questions - finally it came to the one I was dreading - my parents.

Charlie: I guess I should back up a bit. Some background info. That’s how these usually start. Um, so my parents are both teachers - we had moved to London when I was maybe ten? Not long before this happened. I hated changing schools, but my parents got really good jobs at some schools - my mom was offered the principal position at a private school - and my dad was offered a position as a child psychologist at some elementary schools. My sister was too young to really get it, but I hated my new school. All the kids were rich - and honestly, I preferred American homophobia. Anyway, this school was maybe five blocks from the Magnus Institute. Or, is. (humorously) It’s not like it’s just gone and disappeared, now is it.

Charlie: Peter Lukas doesn’t like me that much.

Charlie: So, um, yeah. My relationship with my parents has never been great. My mom’s downright emotionally abusive, and my dad...well he just… he doesn’t really have a backbone. My mom’s always been high strung, and I know she wants the best for me, but...the best to her isn’t something I can do. My dad tried his best to defend me against my mom’s criticism, but, I mean, he had his own critique for me.

Charlie: I’ve uh….I’ve never been the skinniest of people. And I’ve got narcolepsy - which means I sleep a lot. My dad - he’s one of those people who, just, well. He doesn’t understand disabilities. Like, I mean, he understands them, obviously, but he doesn’t really get that sometimes, I just can’t do stuff. So he pressured me a lot into exercising and not eating a ton.

They take a shaky breath

Charlie: So, I um, I was depressed, obviously. And therapy in central London isn’t exactly easy to come by. I was cutting, but that was - that wasn’t because I wanted to die. It was more for control. I could control that. (inhale) I um, I made the decision when my friend, um - I had a crush on him. His name was Nathaniel. He um, he stopped talking to me, just after my birthday. He just...never texted me back.

Charlie: I somehow got it into my mind that he - um, that I’d like, done something? To make him leave me. Which, I mean, I think that’s dumb. Sometimes people just leave, but my brain decided it must be my fault. So I, um. I jumped into the Thames.

Charlie: So yeah. Um, the ambulance people asked for my parents phone number and I just - I couldn’t deal with that right now. I just - (humorless laugh) - I told them my parents were dead. They didn’t know how to respond for a second, but they asked if I had someone else to contact. At this point, I’d visited the Institute a few times and met Gertrude. I was doing a school project on, like, local businesses, and I thought it would be cool to do the Institute. Gertrude had helped with a bit of the project - she was head Archivist after all. Looking back on it, I think she probably did it cause she has this sixth-sense about people who’ve been marked. I probably walked in that first day marked up to the wazoo for the End, and she took an interest in me.

Charlie: Whatever it was, I knew she would at least cover for me. So I told the ambulance staff to call the Institute, ask Rosie for Gertrude Robinson. They looked alarmed, but maybe half an hour later, I was sitting in a hospital room, Gertrude Robinson acting like she was my grandma.

(laugh)

Charlie: She’s rather convincing, when she needs to be - had a whole act about being a kind old lady. She was all (imitating an old woman) ‘my sweet little Charlie’ (laugh) Knowing what she’s done now, I’m not sure if I should’ve been impressed or afraid…

Charlie: Probably afraid.

Charlie: Anyway, she got me out of there real quick. Since we were in Chelsea - and my parents lived and worked in central London - I wasn’t much afraid of them finding out. It wasn’t in the news - (sarcastically) lucky me - and as far as I know, they never found out. Gertrude walked me home, which was...nice? I don’t know why she did it. Maybe she was actually worried for me. Probably not though.

Charlie: I stopped really going home after that. Or to school. I told my parents I’d got a job, and I was living with a friend. Both sort of true. I emailed my teachers, told them I was in a ward and I would pick up the work I needed to do at the beginning of the week and drop it off on Fridays. People aren’t exactly keen to pry into that sort of stuff, and as long as I got the work in, no one really cared. So I effectively moved into the attic of the Magnus Institute. Elias said it was fine, as long as I wasn’t disruptive. I became a sort of assistant - I took statements, filed them - I was one of the only ones who could understand Gertrude’s system - and looked into some cases for Gertrude. But my real job was in artefact storage.

Charlie: I know people don’t love it there, but I’ve always been interested in them. Gerard says it’s stupid teenage curiosity, but...he’s not my mom. Even if he was, I wouldn’t listen to him. Anyways, my job was to look into the objects that really messed people up. Not gonna go into super specific detail, cause the really bad ones are technically, like, classified or something, but lets just say there’s a reason I hate bugs.

Charlie: This was all fine, and I kind of fell into a routine for a few months. But I started to notice something. When people came in to give statements, I could, kind of, feel something about them. Like they were still going somewhere. The statements I took were always unfinished somehow.

Charlie: It got to a point where Mikey had to stop an interview because I wouldn't stop asking the woman if she was sure that was everything. I didn’t know what was going on, until one day I was walking home from the store - there’s no real food in the Institute fridge so I lived off of microwaved meals mostly - and I felt this pull. It wasn’t, like a literal pull. More like - (sigh) - you know when you’re walking back to bed in the dark and you feel like something’s about to get you, so you, like, throw yourself into bed and pull your covers up. Yeah, well, it felt kinda like that, except...except I was the thing in the dark. I don’t know how long I walked for, but it was after midnight by the time I came to an apartment complex.

Charlie: The women before, who I had been interviewing. She said there was something wrong with her gas pipes, but whenever she asked the landlord to check it out, they said there was nothing wrong. But she kept smelling gas. I could certainly smell it, as I walked up the stairs in a daze. I came to a door, 407. The door was locked, and when I put my hand on it, it burned. But I didn’t flinch - instead I turned the nob and I could hear the lock snap.

Charlie: Inside the apartment looked normal. I walked into a side room and the woman was asleep in her bed. She looked terrified. She asked me why I was here, was I going to kill her?

Charlie: I shook my head. No. I wasn’t going to kill her. But she was going to die. And -

Charlie: And the building, it exploded.

Charlie: I don’t know why I didn’t die, but she certainly did.

Charlie: (laugh) Jude was pretty pissed about that. Said I ‘took’ her sacrifice. Like everything doesn’t already belong to death.

Charlie: It doesn’t happen a lot, anymore, but I could tell when it would happen. I don’t know why the deaths are important. It didn’t happen when (shaky) when Gertrude left Mikey. Though I suppose he’s not really dead...is he.

Charlie: I don’t know. There’s a couple statements that mention me, but I don’t like to read them. It makes me feel guilty. I guess it’s not really my fault - they would’ve died anyway, but…

Charlie: Yeah, so. Um. Statement ends.

Tape player clicks off.

Recorder clicks on

Long, shaky exhale

Jon: Well, that’s, enlightening. I’m going to be honest though, I have more questions than answe -

Door opening

Charlie: Jon! Hey, I’ve got a question about this case, I think you might’ve misfiled it cause Martin said - 

Jon: Um, actually I was -

Charlie: Oh, are you recording right now, sorry! What’s this statement about?

Footsteps, sounds of shuffling papers. Charlie’s voice is much closer to the recorder now.

Charlie: Is that a tape? One of Gertrude’s? I thought the police had taken them all?

Jon: (fumbling) No, um, it’s -

Charlie: Wait, is...is that my tape Jon?

Jon: I mean - well - yes - but I - oh god - I just, I didn’t think -

Charlie: (cruelly) No, you didn’t think, did you Jon. (voice breaking) I hope you’re happy, now you know. I defended you, you know. Tim’s been so pissy and I - (voice cracks) I wanted to believe you weren’t that type of person but…

Jon: Charlie--

Charlie: No. I’m… don’t talk to me Jon. I don’t want to hear it.

Loud footsteps, door slams

Jon: Shit.

Recorder clicks off.

[justanotherlifeff]

Levi Ackerman × reader

Genre: Angst, Hurt/comfort, Fluff, matured themes, slowburn

Warning: There's mentions and descriptions of underage rape and suicidal themes and self harm and other triggering stuff.

No one's POV

Year 845: The day when wall Maria fell

"(Y/N)! Thomas! It's time for breakfast!" Gloria shouted from the dining room. Thomas, (Y/N)'s father, was sitting with (Y/N) in the living room. One of them busy with paperwork and the other with an interesting book borrowed from Erwin. (Y/N) didn't have training sessions with Erwin for a while, as he was on an expedition. He was supposed to return by now, but, he would be going to Wall Rose directly. (Y/N) kept her book down and followed her father out of the room to the dining room. "(Y/N), I cooked potato pancakes for you. Aren't they your favourite?" Gloria, (Y/N)'s mother told (Y/N) with a smile.

"Thank you" (Y/N) said softly, with her usual frown etched up on her face. It pained both Gloria and Thomas (L/N) that their adoptive daughter, no, they saw (Y/N) as nothing less than their own child, couldn't show emotions properly. It started after the incident with Jacob, one that they regretted ever since it happened. Only if they had the faintest idea of what that wretched man was doing to their beloved daughter... They consulted doctors from wall Rose to make sure (Y/N) is back to normal but the doctors only told them to be careful and not let (Y/N) get hold sharp objects.

They assumed (Y/N)'s aggression had something to do with her past in the underground, much like her self harming habits. They didn't know, however, that this would only push (Y/N) away from them. It's true that (Y/N) couldn't show emotions properly, but, that didn't mean the (L/N)s would love her any less. The day passed by normally, and just as Gloria was washing their plates for lunch, with the help of (Y/N), there was the sound of a huge explosion. "Gloria, stay with (Y/N) inside the house. I'll go see what that was" Thomas told the two of them before getting out. They waited for about fifteen minutes before a Garrison soldier knocked at their home.

"The wall of Shiganshina is breached! Gloria-san, your husband is helping with the evacuation. We need you to go to the barracks and gear up." the soldier said hastily. "Okay. Cadet Schultz, take (Y/N) to the evacuation boats. I'll catch up later" Gloria told him calmly. (Y/N) was witnessing everything. She knew enough about titans. She read about them in the books of Erwin's library. "Mom, I want to go with you" she told Gloria. Gloria looked at (Y/N)'s eyes, surprised that her eyes showed more emotions than she ever saw her express. There was fear, concern, love... "Honey, it's dangerous. I promise I'll be back before you know it with your dad." Gloria smiled as she felt (Y/N) hug her tightly. She knew that the chances of making through this was low. Very low. "Go now. We will be fine." she told (Y/N) before sending her off to the boats.

(Y/N) was sitting on the boat, hugging her legs. There were too many people here and she couldn't see any of her parents. There were no other soldiers here on this boat. "Maybe the soldiers are coming on a different boat?" (Y/N) thought. When the boat docked in Wall Rose, (Y/N) saw Erwin Smith standing there on the dockyard. She pushed through the crowd to go to him. When she reached him, she asked, "Are my mom and dad okay? Where are they?". "(Y/N), we don't have news about the soldiers fighting there yet. We will know by the next day. Right now, I need you to come with me. You won't be staying with the refugees as it is not safe. I arranged a home for you. You'll get good food, good clothes and a good place to sleep there." Erwin explained with a smile.

(Y/N) held his hand and went to the place he mentioned. It was a government run orphanage. Erwin mentioned that he had to pay money to let them take an extra child at this time. The matron looked like a kind motherly looking woman to (Y/N). "Be nice to everyone. Okay? I'll bring news about your parents as soon as I can." Erwin told (Y/N) with a kind smile before he left. (Y/N) remembered that something like this happened before.

"Don't be scared. You are safe now. No one will hurt you again." the blonde man told (Y/N) as he used a hairpin to unlock her cuffs. (Y/N) was huddled into a corner, scared that these men will take advantage of her like every other time. "It's okay. Everything will be okay. What's your name dear?" he asked with the same kind smile. "(Y/N)" (Y/N) managed to croak out. "Nice to meet you, (Y/N). I'm Erwin. Everything is going to be okay." he said, smiling. Everything didn't become okay.

"Was it happening again?" (Y/N) thought. "No. It can't be happening. They promised me that they will be back" (Y/N) brushed away the thought.

The next day

It was dawn. (Y/N) was sleeping on the bed assigned to her. The other children didn't talk to her yet as she spent most of her time in the matron's office. The matron was an amazing woman. She was nice to (Y/N), tried to give her as mental support as possible and made food almost as tasty as her mother. "(Y/N) dear? Wake up. Erwin Smith is here..." the matron called (Y/N), her face concerned. The whole orphanage was quiet, none of the other children were awake yet. (Y/N) walked towards the matron's office with the matron, a walk that seemed to go on for eternity. When she reached, (Y/N) saw Erwin sitting there, looking tired. "(Y/N)..." he started but (Y/N) interjected by saying, "They are dead, aren't they?".

There was no visible emotions in (Y/N)'s eyes. After all, she felt dead. Just her body was still functioning. It happened again. "Yes. Your parents died heroically, saving many citizens with their lives" Erwin told her, trying to make her proud. "They broke their promise. They left me too. They are no different from other people. They are just as bad as everyone else." (Y/N) stated, as if she was in a daze. "(Y/N), I'm sorry.." Erwin tried to say but (Y/N) stopped him. "It's not your fault, uncle Erwin. It's them." she told him, before walking to the bathroom. "I need something sharp..." she thought as she searched the bathroom for a blade.

A week later

The matron introduced (Y/N) to the other children as she decided that (Y/N) couldn't curl up in her office with a book forever. After all, (Y/N) was a permanent resident. There were twenty other children in the small orphanage. (Y/N) of course, didn't give any heed to their names at first because, of course, it was all pointless. What was the point of being alive anyway? What did she have left? Except her uncle Erwin? She was sure that he was strong enough to deal with her death anyway. He was the one who made her as strong as she is now.

It's because of him, she's still fighting. After the matron went away, telling (Y/N) to talk to the other kids, (Y/N) simply went to a corner of the room and start reading the book in her hand. It was the books and the agony in her body from the cuts she made on herself that kept her mind at bay from the death of her parents. She, of course, stole bandages from the matron's office to keep the bleeding at bay so that she wouldn't die. The cuts weren't too deep, just deep enough to sting for a whole day and heal up. She just had to make more cuts after it healed up.

"Oi brat, you think a newbie like you can just sit and read shit without working?" a young boy, much bigger than (Y/N) walked towards her, with another girl and a boy with him, all of them bigger than her. (Y/N) merely looked up from the book with a vacant expression. "Don't give me this look, you shit! Go do the dishes!" he shouted. "Isn't the matron supposed to assign chores? I remember doing mine this morning." (Y/N) answered to him calmly. "Listen, newbie, we make the rules here. Go do the dishes!" the leader of the group tried to speak in a menacing voice.

"I refuse to do it unless the matron asks me to" (Y/N) simply answered but just as she did, the boy took the book from her hand and tore it in half. "You two, get her" he ordered the other two kids who started kicking (Y/N). (Y/N) could’ve easily beaten them up but she remembered the advice from Erwin. "Be nice to everyone" he said. (Y/N) didn't flinch even when they hit her in the areas with cuts, she was accustomed to pain. After all, she always had these habits and also went through training with Erwin.

These went on for a week. When those kids, Sean (the leader), Lena (the girl) and Paul (the other boy) found out that (Y/N) doesn't react to beatings, they started picking up on her in different ways. One day, they poured horse shit in her drawer full of clothes. The other day, they burnt all her books. (Y/N) still didn't move from her decision to do their chores for them. After a week, Erwin came to visit. Erwin decided to visit (Y/N) every week, to brush up on her training. Her training was complete before the fall of wall Maria, but, he still decided to spar with her sometimes, so that she wouldn't loose her practice.

Erwin also was fond of the small girl, almost as if she was his own daughter. It's true, Pixis asked him to train her in the first place and also got (Y/N) the place in the orphanage using his power in Trost, however, as Erwin trained her, he realized that she was going to be a deadly weapon if she ever joined the military, or the survey corps. Erwin, however, wasn't keen on her joining the survey corps due to the mortality rate. He didn't want (Y/N) to die as she was almost like the daughter he never had. Erwin was a ruthless person but, (Y/N) seemed to be one of the very few soft spots he had. As he sat in the matron's office, he saw a calm but angry looking (Y/N) enter the room. He figured something was wrong. "(Y/N), is everything okay?" was his first question to her.

"I don't like this place." (Y/N) simply replied. "Why is it? Did someone bother you?" Erwin asked, concerned. (Y/N) explained everything that happened in the past week to Erwin. "Why didn't you fight back then?" Erwin asked, quiet surprised that (Y/N) took a few beatings. (Y/N) wasn't the type of person who would take beatings without counterattacking. At least that was how it was during training. "You told me to be nice to everyone" (Y/N) grumbled. "Well, did you complain to the matron?" Erwin asked. "I did. She scolded them but that only increased the problem" (Y/N) explained.

"I see. Well, I know I told you to be nice to everyone but that doesn't mean you won't use self defence when required." Erwin advised. "So, I can beat them up?" (Y/N) asked, with an evil glint in her eyes. "Yes but stay in your limits. Don't make any permanent injury." Erwin said cautiously. (Y/N) was still a kid and kids couldn't be trusted much when they are angry. "Oh don't worry. I'll just scare them a bit." (Y/N) answered with a sly smile that worried Erwin even more. With that, they went to a nearby field to brush up on the training by sparring.

That night, (Y/N) sneaked into the matron's office to find a stack of newspapers. She saw the stack in the matron's shelf before when she took a book from there when she first arrived. After searching for a while, she found the newspaper she was looking for, the one from 6 years back. The one with the news of the murder of Jacob. After taking the newspaper, (Y/N) sneaked into the kitchen to get a knife.

She walked into the boy's dormitory to find Sean sleeping on his bed. "Oi, Sean" (Y/N) called out. "Huh? What?" Sean got up, still sleepy. "What the hell are you doing here. Are you really itching to get beaten?" he growled after seeing it was (Y/N) who called him. "I don't intend to have a single scratch by you on my body, Sean. However, I can't say the same for you" (Y/N) answered, putting in a psychotic smile on her face as she brought her knife out in the open as it glinted in the moonlight coming from the window in the room. The whole room of boys were awake now. (Y/N) suddenly threw the knife backwards, which stuck to a bed post along with the fabric of the night shirt of Paul near his hand, thus keeping his hand in place.

Paul was white with fear as it happened and (Y/N) simply said, "Paul, don't try to move or come at me with the knife. It's going to get in your stomach in that case". She then threw the Newspaper at the now intimidated Sean's face before saying, " Read the headline.". The whole room of boys were watching, scared by (Y/N)'s sudden change in demeanour. "8 year old brutally kills soldier". Sean read before pausing. "(Y/N) (L/N), an 8 year old child from the Shiganshina district, killed Jacob Meyer, a garrison soldier from Thomas (L/N), (Y/N) (L/N)'s adoptive father's squad. Jacob's eyes were gauged out and throat was slit and his head was almost severed by what seemed like at least 20 stabs. About (Y/N) (L/N)'s past, all that is known is that she was rescued from a whorehouse in the upper class pleasure district in the underground..." Sean continued but his voice faded.

(Y/N)'s picture was drawn on the newspaper. They had no idea who they were messing with. "Well, that's enough. Now answer me, who else wants to end up like that piece of garbage?" (Y/N) asked in a cold voice. No one answered. "That's a good choice. Now," (Y/N) started as she moved towards Paul and pulled the knife out of the bedpost, "all of you, don't mention that I was here tonight. And yes, no one will be listening to these two worthless garbage here anymore or their so called friend. No one will do one extra work than what's assigned to them by the matron. Am I clear?" (Y/N) finished. Some kids were crying as they were intimidated but all of them nodded or muttered yes. "Good. Oh, and, don't bother me when I'm reading. Just leave me alone okay?" (Y/N) told before leaving the room with the newspaper and the knife so that she can keep those in place again without anyone realising.

Year 847:

It had been two years since (Y/N) started living in the orphanage. After that day, no one messed with (Y/N) again, and, no one listened to those three bullies ever again either. However, every good thing always came to an end. "Commander Smith, (Y/N) is already 16 years old. She's an adult now and we usually look for a groom for anyone who is of age in our orphanage. If you gave me the permission, I would've looked for someone suitable" the matron told Erwin. Erwin was called to the orphanage after (Y/N)'s so called 16th birthday according to her birth certificate. "Well, I suppose? I just didn't think that she will get married so soon..." Erwin started but (Y/N), who was also sitting in the room and listening to the conversation, stopped him and said, "Exactly. I am not getting married so soon.".

"But (Y/N), you're of age and it's against orphanage policies..." the matron started but was interrupted by (Y/N) as she said, "I understand that. I'm joining the military.". "(Y/N), you are not joining the military." Erwin simply answered. "Why not? Am I not of age? Am I not allowed to make decisions now? If I'm old enough to get married, why am I not allowed to join the military?" (Y/N) asked casually. "(Y/N), it's dangerous unless if you join the military police." Erwin sighed. He knew where it was going. "You really think I will join the military police, Uncle Erwin? I'm joining the Survey Corps. I'll kill those bastards who took my parents away from me." (Y/N) said as the matron shouted, "Language (Y/N)!".

"Very well. I have to ask you though, (Y/N). Could you die if you're asked to?" Erwin asked (Y/N). "Depends on why you are asking me to die. If the reason is valid enough, then I am ready." (Y/N) answered. "Well, (Y/N), on missions, I can't look out after you. I might have to send you to your death if required because on expeditions, I'm your commander, not your uncle." Erwin told (Y/N) coldly. "I understand." (Y/N) answered. She enlisted to the 104th trainee corps the next day. "I won't let myself be hurt again" she thought as she wore her uniform, leaving the orphanage for good. The (Y/N) from four years back didn't know that it will keep happening again (Jacob) and again (death of parents) and again (death of squad Levi) and... Again...

To be continued...

Taglist: @reality-is-often-disappointing, @kingtamakimurder

[facethroughthemirror]

A Little Less Dramatic

[ hey @fanvsfic I’m late to lunch with my mom and grandma so I can post this today enjoy it ]

Crossposted on ao3

Relationships: Donald Doyle/Emily Grey, Vanessa Kimball/Agent Carolina Additional tags: Suicide, Doyle Lives au

Over an hour after landing at what the rebels have termed “Crash Site Bravo” finds General Doyle still in the back of the pelican, perched on a bank of seats with his unarmored head in his gloved hands. The ache from where he’d hit it in the fall caused by the transport being jolted by the explosion has subsided, but the throbbing in his ankle. He can’t bring himself to look down at the discarded helmet at his feet, or at any of the plate armor he’s wearing. Not yet.

It’s war , he tells himself quietly. These things happen. Not everyone makes it back. He’s seen it happen countless times, hundreds of soldiers whose names he had never known slain on the battlefield, scientists and medical staff massacred by Charon’s mercenaries, each and every leader of the Federal Army before him either evacuated or dead, including the man he’d worked for most of his adult life before the... abrupt promotion. Good god, he stopped keeping track of names years ago. There were too many of them after a while to even keep track of. He doesn’t even know how many of them had died for nothing but the benefit of a businessman somewhere beyond Chorus’ skies, sacrificed for someone else’s gain.

And as much as it pains him, he can’t help but resign himself to the thought that maybe Armonia had been just another one of those sacrifices. That everything -- every one -- that Chorus had lost was for nothing. That it wouldn’t matter in the end.

No one’s been by to check on him. He assumes it simply to be due to no one noticing that he’s gone, though he finds it just a bit more comforting to think that it’s perhaps out of a kind of respect, or even more likely out of a somewhat mutual depression. Though he suspects that it’s entirely to do with the loss of Armonia, and not at all with the loss of...

“Oh dear…”

“What is it?”

“Are you ready?”

“... I’m afraid I won’t be joining you after all!”

“... What?”

“... there’s no longer a way to overload the reactor from the control panel with enough time to leave. But, I can still trigger an explosion! I’ll just have to do it manually!”

“... manually?! No, you don’t, just--just stay low, we can come to you.”

“I’m afraid that just won’t be possible! I appear to be surrounded, and there’s just no time for anyone else to get down here without tipping off Charon that something’s not right!”

Emily was a doctor . A non-combatant. He knows she can likely count the number of times she’s fired a gun on one hand, maybe both of her hands, and her standard-issue sidearm (that came with being an officer and as strongly as Emily objected to carrying one, there just wasn’t anything either of them could do about that) was in such a pitiful state of disrepair that it was hardly safe to use -- she’d had plans to convert it into a tranquilizer gun, he’d discovered. She should have never been down there in the first place. She should have left Armonia with her staff and patients, long before she could have ever even had the chance to suggest this. He should have told her to leave the city, she would have listened -- need to keep up appearances, after all, she wouldn’t have blatantly protested or outright disregarded an order where the others could have seen her do so.

The whole thing had been her idea, once they’d realized that Charon would leave the city if they knew that he had. She’d been trying to buy them time, she’d been meant to lead the mercenaries around, lose them, and then overload the reactor controls and slip out of the city before the reactor blew. They’d switched plate armor, so that she’d be able to not only catch the pirates’ eyes, but pass as him from a distance, while moving quickly through the city. She was several inches shorter than him, and was noticeably slighter, so it wouldn’t be enough to fool someone up close, or to trick Locus if she crossed paths with him, but it would buy them the time they needed. She would keep the mercenaries distracted, lead them in circles. They’d switched her hardlight shield into his armor, it ran better and covered a larger area, standard issue for Federal medical personnel in order to shield patients in the field, and he’d given her his better-maintained sidearm, so that she’d have a fighting chance should she be cornered.

It feels… almost unreal. He… still can’t believe it. It had all been going according to plan, but then…

“Emily -- Y-You can’t--!”

“I’m sorry, General Doyle! I know it isn’t perfect. Oh... there we are. The timer on this detonator barely lasts a minute. You need to get out of the city while you still can!”

Kimball throws her weapon to the floor of the Pelican as she speaks, shouting now, even though the other general knows it won’t do any good. “Damn it, Grey! Don’t--”

“Chorus needs you both. When this war ends, they’ll need skilled leaders more than they’ll need another doctor. You’re no good to Chorus dead!”

He just stands in quiet shock, gripping hard on a grab bar close to the bay doors as he hears that cheerful voice on the other end of the line, so matter-of-factly explaining, rationalizing, her situation as if it was a simple lab experiment. He can hear Kimball shouting over the radio, but a private message over his own comm. line drowns her out.

“... I’m so sorry. If there were any other way…” He hears her breath hitch, hears her voice shake. And it breaks his heart to know that there’s nothing he can do. “... look in my left-side storage pocket. I left you something just in case. I love you.”

He doesn’t have time to answer her, doesn’t have time to tell her that he loves her, doesn’t have time to say goodbye or anything else: there’s a deafening roar of an explosion, one that shakes the transport. But he isn’t sure if it’s the impact or the grief that snatches his knees out from under him and sends him crashing to the floor .

Emily’s “just in case” had turned out to be the very same things Locus had brought him after the massacre at her outpost, just about. Except, she’s left him both of her identification tags, with her ring neatly dropped onto the ball chain and hanging beside them.

“… Doyle?” a voice asks from somewhere outside his vision. He tucks the tags back into the pocket from whence they’d come: he doesn’t want anyone to see them. “… oh, you’re still in here.”

Tired blue eyes crack open finally at the sound of someone calling him, catching sight of the helmet at his feet. He closes them against the tears as they start again, and he swallows. He knows that voice. He knows precisely who’s speaking to him, and he also knows full well that he can’t exactly ignore the speaker. But he just can’t bring himself to look up. It takes a great deal of effort simply to speak aloud.

“... unfortunately.” His unconscious choice of words spikes emotion in his chest, but he swallows it, shuts his eyes against it. He can… he can deal with that later. “... do… do you... er… do you need me for something?”

Vanessa is quiet, the silence heavy in the air between them. For that long moment, he’s sure she’s about to begin shouting, telling him that of course she needs him for something. But she never does. Instead, her response is quiet. Almost… concerned. “... It can… wait.”

“... ah… are… erm… are-are you certain?”

“... yes.” Her footsteps approach his position slowly. Carefully. Once she stops walking, he hears the sound of a helmet seal breaking, and feels her sit down next to him. When she doesn’t say anything further, he finally forces himself to open his eyes again, to turn his head and look at her. Vanessa’s face, so young still but aged prematurely around the eyes by the stresses and horrors of war, is normally tired and sort of angry-looking, or at least, it has been the few times he’s seen it. And she still looks tired now, but… the anger is gone. Her curly hair is coming out of the hurried little bundle she appears to have put it into to keep it out of her face. He can see the very badly-faded lock of what was once ice-blue hair that hangs somewhere in the middle of the right side of her head, it’s come out of the bundle completely and is hanging down away from the other fugitive tendrils.

“... Sarge told me you two seemed close,” she finally says.

“... closer than he knows, I believe. I… spent quite a lot of time in her medical bay, after all, quite, er… quite prone to fainting spells. We… got to be… yes, quite… quite close.” He swallows. “... I shouldn’t have let her go. She never should have been out there, she… she should have left with her patients.”

“... you heard her on the radio. I… really don’t think you could have said anything to stop her.”

“You’re… entirely right. Emily is… w-was … a very willful individual. One of the many things in my life I had absolutely no control over. But that… always seemed to work in my favor. If I’d managed to find my spine for two minutes maybe I could’ve… talked some sense in her…”

Kimball’s hand settles on his wrist, and he pulls his hand away. As a reflex, he stands, shaking his head wordlessly, intending to physically move away from her -- from the conversation. He doesn’t get far on trembling knees and his sprained ankle, though, and winds up crumpled on the floor of the pelican about three feet closer to the bay door than he’d started. And it’s there that he stays.

Good god, he’s pathetic.

Kimball’s beside him in a moment, but doesn’t move to touch him yet, just stands beside him and waits for his next move. When he doesn’t make one, she takes a knee beside him. He finally manages to look up, face lined with years of worry and etched deeper with fresh sadness, eyes tired and empty and heartbroken, brimming with restrained tears. He can’t manage to say anything yet -- just stares. Stares, then turns his eyes almost sheepishly to the floor.

Kimball sighs. “… Look. I… I don’t… I didn’t know Doctor Grey as well as you did. So… I’m not going to sit here and pretend to know what she’d really want. But… if you two were that close, then I can promise you that she wouldn’t want you to think that way. She wouldn’t want you to blame yourself. I understand how hard this is for you--”

“ Do you.” The statement -- absolutely not a question -- is uncharacteristically harsh. The bark of a much larger dog than he’s previously shown himself to be. And it absolutely does not come with an immediate retreat and profuse apology, though neither does it come with an aggressive posture. It’s more addressed to the floor than to the other general. “ Do you understand.”

“Yes, I do!” Kimball snaps back. “You’re not the only one who’s lost friends because of this war.”

… friends. Right. Of course she couldn’t have known: he and Emily had been very careful to keep that information private. If anyone has figured it out, he’d’ve assumed it was Agent Washington: most of the soldiers at the outpost avoided Emily like the plague and probably assumed that he, while possibly afraid of her, felt bad for her that she was so isolated.

He doesn’t correct her. It doesn’t matter now.

                                                  -------------------

“Ducking out early?”

He stops in his tracks as he makes it to the door, and turns over his shoulder to see Vanessa leaning against a wall not very far from him, a cup of coffee still gently steaming in one hand. He just gives a bit of a nervous chuckle, reaches up to rub at the back of his neck. “… and here I thought I was being quiet.”

“You were. But I know you by now.” She stands straight, taking a long sip of her coffee, and makes her way closer to him, which isn’t hard, considering that he doesn’t move. “I’d offer to make you some eggs, but I get the feeling you’d say no.”

“H-Huh?”

“Nothing. You got somewhere to be?”

“Ah, er… well, I… yes, I do. But… but I--” He’s caught. He knows he’s caught. He’s got no excuse. So he just slumps. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to just… disappear like this…”

Vanessa laughs , and of course it’s not malicious. It never is, with her. At least not to him, not anymore. They’ve… come quite a ways in the several months since the war ended. “You at least gonna tell me who it is? I feel like you owe me that much.”

“I-I…”

“I’m joking . What you do once you leave here is your business.”

He stammers further, as if looking for an excuse even though one isn’t required, but eventually shuts his mouth and looks down, clears his throat to reset his stammer. It’s been dreadful these past few months, after so many years of speech therapy and an entire adult life with little discernible trace of the horrible thing. But… well, he’d been warned that the stress and trauma could bring his speech impediment back.

He is, however, thankfully spared from answering as Vanessa continues to speak. “… I’m happy for you. You know that, right?”

“Ex… e-excuse me?”

“You’ve been… down. Really down. I’ve noticed. And I get it. You… we’ve all been through… well, a lot. You, me, Chorus… and… you know, some people haven’t been able to come back from that and be happy and connect with people again. It’s good to see that you’re finally getting back out there.” There’s that teasing smirk again. “Even if it means I get to see less of you.”

“ Please don’t say it like that. I…”

“Like what?”

“Like this is your apartment and… a-and I’m sneaking out after something illicit !” It’s quite a bit louder, and quite a bit harsher, than he’d like, but the jokes -- and he knows she’s joking -- have made him uncomfortable for quite some time, and… well, today of all days he just… he really, really can’t take it. In his frustration, he twitches, his fingers flex, and he drops his helmet to the floor with a loud clatter that snaps him out of his moment of unprompted rage . “… I-I… I’m so sorry, I…”

Vanessa is, of course, unfazed. “Doyle, I’m gay . You very much aren’t my type. Well, you’ve kinda got the right hair color, but otherwise--”

“I know that! I…” He just shakes his head. He knows that. He’s known that for nearly a year now, since he first caught her eyeing Agent Carolina while the former freelancer was making use of the weight room at the training facility. “I-I know that. I’m sorry. This… this is just a very… strange day. For me, I… I’m very sorry. I… I need to go. I, er… finished the last of the major projects I’d been working on, those are on my desk.”

“Cool. I’ll get to them in the morning, I’m about done with mine.”

“There’s no rush.”

“… mind if I ask what you’re headed out to do?”

“… not at all. I…” He pauses, stoops to pick his helmet up, and straightens again, tucking it securely under his arm. “… it’s… ah… anniversary.”

“Anniversary?”

“Yes.” He doesn’t elaborate beyond that. It’s another brief moment before he turns away from her, and puts his helmet on, with shaking hands. “… good night, Vanessa.”

She doesn’t say anything further, simply watches him leave. Once the door closes behind him, he’s off down the back staircase -- he’d normally take the lift, but that’s not… he’s better going down stairs than up them. It also allows him to avoid people. Not that there’s anyone left in the building at this hour, he and Vanessa are almost always the last to leave.

He sees a familiar, teal-armored someone lurking in the lobby once he emerges from the stairwell, and he gives her a polite nod. “Hello, Agent Carolina. Er… waiting for Vanessa?”

She gives a noncommittal sound of acknowledgement.

“She should be down soon, but I can key you into the lift if you like.”

“… I’d appreciate that. Thank you.”

He nods a bit, tosses his head toward the lift and turns to lead her to it, keying in the code and letting her in in order to send her up to the offices. Once he bids her a good evening and the doors close, he sighs, and turns to head out of the building.

The walk home is short. Of course it is, his apartment -- they’re all in apartments, even him and Vanessa, it was… it was the most efficient solution to the housing issue -- isn’t far from the offices. Not a long walk at all. Not quite enough time to let his thoughts run away from him. His apartment is in the basement of the building, so there’s no zoning out in the lift and staring into space while his mind runs unchecked. Just a short flight of stairs down into the basement hallway, then a few more feet to the only occupied apartment on this level -- there’s an empty one across from him, no one’s cared to move into it, it reminds a lot of them of the barracks, and he understands that. It’s not at all why he found this one comforting, in fact, it makes his skin crawl just thinking about it that way, but it had been the sense of solitude that had come with it.

And there it is. Once the door closes, all the sounds that come with existing beyond these walls cease entirely. No traffic noise, no humming of industrial ventilation keeping air moving through the hallways. He finally lets out a heavy, exhausted sigh, letting the tension drop out of his shoulders as he leans back against the door. It takes him an inordinate amount of strength to reach up and remove his helmet, and even more to reach and set it down on the table beside the door.

It’s slow going to change out of his armor, but he manages it. Manages to start dinner too. He’s not sure how much of it he’ll eat, but he’ll try. He’s just sitting down on the sofa when the chirping alert tone of an incoming call comes in from the radio console on the end table. He considers not picking it up, letting it ring out. But he doesn’t let it go, he reaches over and taps the button to answer. “Yes?”

“ It’s me .”

“Hello, Vanessa. Did I leave something at the office?”

“ No, uh. Look, I feel bad about… you seemed upset with you left. I just… wanted to make sure you were okay .”

“Oh. Yes, I’m. I’m alright. Just a strange day, I told you.”

“ … Carolina and I are going to get some dinner, if you want to join us .”

“Ah. Already in for the night, actually. Thank you, though.”

“… what um. You mentioned an anniversary. Anniversary of what, exactly? ”

“… I… well, er…” He swallows. He’s… very carefully avoided discussing this with Vanessa. He’d had no reason to do so. When he speaks, his voice is… different. Far more tired than he’d sounded before, an incredible feat, really. “… did you know I was married, before?”

“… uh… no, you, um. You never mentioned that .”

“Mm. I asked her to marry me while I was having a panic attack. I-I thought one of us would die before we got the chance.” Doyle’s laugh is humorless, more like a scoff as he realizes how stupid it must have sounded at the time, though his fear would prove itself to be real several years later. “She probably shouldn’t have agreed to it.”

Kimball remains quiet for a moment, which he expects. He doesn’t hear Carolina in the background, but he knows she has to be there. “… do you want to… um… tell me about her? ”

“I don’t want to intrude on your evening, Vanessa. If you’ve plans with Agent Carolina, then you should keep to them.”

“ It’s… um, it’s okay. No, we… we can wait a minute. You um. You sound like you need to talk. ”

“I’m alright.”

“ Not even a name, huh? ” Her joking tone is back, and normally, it’d be… sort of welcome. But it isn’t. “ Come on. Some good memories to balance out the sadness, huh? ”

“… well, you did meet her.” He reaches up and closes one hand around the identification tags he’s kept wearing even after the war. One of them is his, the other Emily’s. Her ring settled right alongside them. “I’d be surprised if you remembered her quite as fondly as I do, though, no one really seems to.”

“… who was she ?”

He pauses. He’s not sure why the question stings so much. “… right, I didn’t think y… y-y… didn’t think y-you did. I’m… not surprised. Emily could be… a bit off-putting. I admit that.”

“Emily? … wait, Doctor Grey?”

“Mm.” He leaves that answer as it is for a moment. He hears Vanessa make a small sound of acknowledgement, but she doesn’t speak. His grip tightens around Emily’s tags, so much so that it shakes. “... she deserved so much better. ... she wasn’t always l… wasn’t always li… l-like that. I… I di… didn’t… didn’t realize there was something wrong until it was… far too late to stop it. She deserved someone who could have helped her… before she got so bad. Perhaps if she’d been in her right mind--”

“... I don’t think she’d be very happy to hear you say that ,” Vanessa says, thankfully cutting him off before he can really finish his thought. “ I think she’d be insulted to know you think she must have been out of her mind to do what she did .”

“You… y-you’re very right.” Doyle shuts his eyes again. Good lord, he’s absolutely awful. How can he think so poorly of Emily. And what’s worse… what’s worse is the part that he’s forgotten in his grief. That his voice cracks and shakes on admitting, even after the usual throat clearing in order to stop himself from stammering. “... her greatest fear was that she would lose her mind entirely, you know.”

“… I think that’s a perfectly rational fear .”

“… as did I,” he simply says. “… I’m… dreadfully sorry to have ruined your evening, you had… you had plans, didn’t you?”

“ … no, it’s… i-it’s okay. I don’t mind. You’re upset, and you, um… it’s not a problem .”

“No, I… you should enjoy your evening. Well, er… a-as much as you can after dealing with me, anyhow.”

“ Wait, no, it’s--it’s fine, really .”

“… thank you for listening, Vanessa. I didn’t realize how much I needed to… ‘get that off of my chest,’ as it were.”

“ Hey, listen, it’s still early, Carolina and I can come get you, you can come have dinner with us. I don’t feel right leaving you alone like this. ”

“No, thank you. I’m not much for company right now. I… think I’m just going to go to bed.”

“ Doyle, wait-- ”

“Good night, Vanessa.”

                                                 -------------------

Doyle doesn’t come in on time the next morning.

Doyle is never late to work. In fact, he’s always early, settled into work for the day by the time Vanessa makes it in. So to see no trace of the man in the building after the rest of the staff is mostly in in the morning is jarring and almost frightening to begin with.

Vanessa has her suspicions.

Something about the dark office, the empty desk, the memory of just how tired Doyle had sounded on their call last night makes her feel sick and worried. She remembers how he’d very uncharacteristically snapped at her before leaving work the day before -- he’d apologized, true, but still… and last night had been… a hard date for him. Something’s wrong. She knows it.

But she waits. She waits five, ten minutes before she can’t stand it anymore. She doesn’t bother with a call. She just rushes from her office and down the back stairs, because taking the elevator will take too much time. She barely stops to apologize to Matthews after knocking into him on her way out the front door, and it’s hell to push upstream through the foot traffic for the two blocks between the offices and Doyle’s building, but she manages it.

His building had chosen to go for non-powered doors, far easier to build than the heavy steel sliders, though with far less security. Which is useful for Vanessa, considering it only takes her two minutes to break the damn thing off its hinges.

She’s only been to his apartment a handful of times, and every time, she’d noted how bare it was. Hardly looked lived-in. She’d thought that it was because all he did was go to work and then come home to sleep, he didn’t take days off. He didn’t have a lot of time for decorating. But now… she’s not so certain that’s the real reason. Now… it sort of feels like he didn’t plan to stay long.

“… Doyle?” She shakes her head, reaches up and pulls her helmet off when she sees his still sitting on the table by the door. “Doyle, it’s me.”

Nothing.

“Doyle? You home?”

Of course he’s home .

There’s only two doors in the apartment: she knows one to be the bathroom, which also has a door into the bedroom. So it’s this second door she tries when she finds the one to the bedroom locked. And it’s not only unlocked, but slightly ajar.

She had been afraid of what she might see once she reached his apartment. Her mind had given her a hundred possibilities: that lanky figure hanging from a ceiling figure by the neck, the coffin-sized bathtub overflowing with bloody water, a body slumped against a wall with gore smeared behind it and a gaping gunshot wound. Or worse, no trace of the man at all.

So when she sees the shadowed shape of a body in the bed, it’s… both something of a relief, and sucker punch to the gut that knocks all the breath from her body. She’s hesitant to cross the small room and turn on the overhead light, but she does, and it cuts off the third attempt to call the man’s name entirely.

Vanessa knows he isn’t going to answer her.

He left the empty medication bottles on his bedside table. Two of them, both prescribed to him by Doctor Grey, but… obviously a little out of date.

She’s seen her share of dead bodies. But all of them have gone out violently, or in mental anguish that still showed on the corpse. But Doyle… looks peaceful. Really like he’d gone to sleep. No fear, no pain, nothing. Just… peace.

She looks for a note. She doesn’t find one.

She calls whoever she needs to. Reports it. Suzy, the medic-turned-doctor, who Emily had trusted with her patients. Jensen and Smith, they’re… cops now, they have to be called. She stays while they look around, tells them what she knows. What he said. How he didn’t leave a note that she can find. They find he’s holding a set of military ID tags, with a gold ring dropped onto the chain. One of them is his. One of them is Doctor Grey’s.

When they finish up, she goes back to the office. She’ll… have to think of something to tell the people now. It occurs to her to check his office on the way by, check his desk for the projects he’d said he’d finished. She’ll have to clean it out anyway. She finds the files right where he said they’d be, but on top of them is something else: a piece of paper, marked with his flowing, elegant handwriting. Not messy, not hurried. Absolutely clear to read.

I’m very sorry I lied to you, Vanessa. I didn’t want to waste your time with a long goodbye. You had an appointment to keep, I had dinner plans. But if you’ve found this, then I suppose that you already know what those plans truly were.

Do you remember what I said, at the skirmish in Armonia? The outpost that was destroyed? It was our primary command facility, and the location of our field hospital. Where Emily was stationed. After the massacre there, Locus reported it to me in Armonia. He put her ring into my hand, and told me that he’d found her lying in the snow. That she’d already bled to death by the time he’d gotten to her. There was nothing he could have done. I still wear her tag. And her ring, on the chain.

Every time I closed my eyes, all I could see was what I thought she must have looked like by then. And when it came to light that Locus had been lying to us… I was hoping that he’d lied about her too. And he had, which in all honesty came as nothing short of the most intense relief I think I’ve ever felt. I thought back then that I didn’t know how I’d ever get along without her. When you met me in Armonia, I was greatly considering letting you take your shot and end everything. I didn’t want to live without her. I’d considered doing it myself, but I couldn’t have done that to the soldiers.

Please don’t be upset with yourself. Or anyone else. Of course no one saw the signs. I made certain there weren’t any signs to show. I didn’t go a romantically poetic route and go all the way to the old Armonia site and let the radiation get me if the medication didn’t because I didn’t want to be stopped by some soul on the street and distracted. I didn’t want it to be loud and messy, or dramatic. I wanted this to be over. Rather appropriately, I am just so tired. I’ve been an insomniac since I could spell the word. I just want to sleep. This has been months in the making, Vanessa, there was never anything you or anyone else could have done to stop it.

Tell people whatever you like. Tell them the truth, tell them I was too weak to go on, too selfish to live without the woman I loved. Lie to them and tell them the trauma of war took its toll in other ways and I wasn’t strong enough to take it -- well, that part’s sort of true, I suppose. Or don’t tell them anything. It doesn’t matter in the slightest.

Do me a favor, would you, and make sure that whatever happens to me, they leave me with Emily’s things. There was nothing of her to bury but her plate armor, and I’ve had that since it happened. If we can’t be buried together properly, I’d like to do whatever we can .

She doesn’t know how long she spends standing there, reading and rereading the paper in her hands. She doesn’t know how long her radio chirps for before she notices it, and answers, her voice shaky and broken.

“Yes?”

“ General Kimball? It’s uh. It’s Smith, ma’am. There’s kind of a crowd out here, some reporters. Uh. What do you want us to tell them? ”

She pauses. “Don’t tell them anything. Not yet. I want to handle this properly.”

“ Yes ma’am. ”

                                                   -------------------

Suzy comes to visit around dinner. To check in on her, mostly, see how she’s holding up, but also to deliver some news.

Preliminary results of the autopsy say that it was the medication overdose that killed him, she’s confident to call it a clonazepam overdose right now. But there’s something else. Sort of an ultimate cliche, really.

His medical records all indicated a rather weak heart. But the heart she’d seen when she’d checked him over had been… different. There had been some swelling, she says, a specific swelling of the left ventricle that indicated something called takotsubo cardiomyopathy . It’s stress-related, and rare, and it mostly affects women between sixty and eighty. Dying from it is nearly unheard of, but if it goes untreated in someone with such high stress, well, it can cause other problems. If he’d ignored it, or had never noticed, it could have contributed to heart failure.

It’s the common name that almost, darkly, makes Vanessa laugh. Some people, Suzy tells her, call it broken heart syndrome .

“The physical broken heart didn’t kill him,” Suzy clarifies. “But by all accounts, it was probably going to.”

[alittlesliceofcucumber]

can you write something about half infected Paul and make it angsty as hell?

Requests are open!

You bet I can!

Universe: The Guy Who Didn’t Like MusicalsCharacters: Paul, EmmaWords: 1091Genre: Angst, TragedyTrigger Warnings: Blood, Death, Referenced suicide

Requested by anon

Still The Man You Trust

“I don’t like musicals!”

Paul ripped the pin out of the grenade and hurled it into the meteor.

Almost instantly, it exploded with light and heat and he was thrown back due to the blast. He heard the melodic screams of the infected as he crashed back down onto the ground, and he felt warm blood trickle out of his side. He turned his head to check his injury. His blood had a distinct blue tinge.

His stomach grumbled briefly, before he threw up all over the rubble in front of him. Even his own vomit was glowing blue.

And then he felt the spores. The air was thick with them, and every heavy breath he took allowed more of them to accumulate in his lungs. He began to wheeze hysterically…

Until he stopped.

He wasn’t sure why the pain suddenly seemed to fade. He tilted his head downwards in order to look at his shirt. It was stained with patches of both dark crimson and a glowing azure. He felt nauseous, so he lifted his head to prevent himself from vomiting again.

Except he didn’t move.

He tried to move his head again, but it didn’t budge. Neither would his hands. He put all of his energy and effort into his right hand, and all it did was twitch slightly. Why couldn’t he move his own body?

His head lifted (without him trying) and Paul saw all of the infected people that had tortured him begin to scramble back onto their feet. Some were even missing limbs, but that didn’t stop them from stumbling through the large hole in the theatre that the grenade had created. Paul followed.

No! I’m not one of them! I want to stay here! I want- Hell, I want to die! I’m not-

He willed himself to stay. He begged himself to fall to the ground. He wished that he had died in the explosion.

But none of those things happened.

Paul watched helplessly as he became part of the musical mob that infested the streets of Hatchetfield, singing and dancing as they went.

“Oh my God! Paul, y-you made it!”

Emma began to sob with relief in Paul’s arms. “We made it!”

Paul tried to pull away, but he knew it was hopeless.

Emma no I didn’t make it-Emma I’m sorry-Run away Emma-Emma run away from me-I’m not Paul anymore-Emma I’m sorry-

“Emma, I’m sorry”

Paul felt a chill run up his own spine as he heard those dreadful words being sung out of his own mouth. “You lost.”

He watched in horror as Emma pulled back and looked up at him with a strange nervousness in her beautiful eyes. Eyes that used to look at him with an odd admiration, but now with terror.

“Paul?” She asked quietly, her smile beginning to fade.

Paul wanted to scream. He tried to scream. The last thing he wanted was to be the cause of Emma losing her enchanting smile. He had very little control over his actions, but by God he was going to use that little control as much as he could.

Emma, listen to me. I’m not Paul. I’m sorry Emma, but I’m one of them. Please run. Get out of here. Emma, I’m sorry.

“Emma, I’m sorry you lost your way.”

NO-

“Paul, you’re scaring me-”

All he managed to do was widen his own eyes as he began to drag Emma across the street in a dance of death. He wanted to stop. He was scaring her. He didn’t want to scare her.

He heard himself sing, telling her that he was happy now. He wasn’t.

Emma struggled against his grip, and desperately tried to break free and run. She knew what had happened. What she didn’t know was that Paul was trying to stop himself. He was trying to break free too.

Don’t listen to himEmma, I’m not me anymoreHe is infectedI am notHe’s the monsterI’m still the man you trust

“I’m still the man you trust”

Paul cringed when he heard his personal words be sung by the monster that he had become.

Emma began to cry. “No, get away from me! You’re not Paul, you’re one of them!”

Tears started to form in Paul’s eyes, before trickling down his smiling face. He didn’t want to smile. He wanted to cry. More importantly, he wanted Emma to be safe.

To his own surprise, he let go of Emma.

This is your chance. Emma run now before I grab you again. Get to safety before I kill-

Kill. The thought hadn’t even occurred to him before now. What if he killed Emma? No, that was impossible. He could never do such a thing. He would rather kill himself before he killed Emma.

But you already did kill yourself, Paul. You killed yourself the moment you walked into that theater.

He screamed. Or at least, he wanted to. He yelled until his throat throbbed and his voice went hoarse. But he still hadn’t made a sound.

Except for the song that he was singing. He kept on telling her that it was inevitable for her to become infected.

It’s not inevitable, Emma. Run. Please Emma, just run.

He saw the others dancing with him, surrounding her: Bill, Ted, Mr Davidson, the Professor. All of them keeping Emma from escaping. He never hated them more than in that moment, not even Ted.

They started a kickline. A kickline of all things. Except Paul was physically kicking Emma, who herself screamed hysterically.

Stop you’re hurting Emma stop stop stop-

He stopped. Paul relaxed for a moment.

It didn’t last long.

They all began to close in around Emma, with himself leading.

Paul wanted to close his eyes. He wished for all of it to have been a nightmare. For him to wake up and for Emma to be safe. Hell, he’d rather have never met Emma than for this to happen.

But no, his eyes widened instead as she fell to the ground. He watched helplessly as the concoction of goo and saliva dripped from his own mouth into hers. Tears rushed down his face more frequently as she coughed and spluttered, before becoming silent.

Emma was dead. Paul killed her.

He wanted to mourn. He wanted to kneel next to her and cry. But his legs picked himself up again, and he started to walk away against his will.

Emma’s body may be lifeless, but Paul’s soul was as good as dead.

[whumperflying]

~Whumptober 2021~

Day 1 - bound

Triggers - creepy whumper, bruises, restraining

Evander is talking and Cordelia forces herself to listen through the ringing in her ears and cotton wool in her brain. To not listen, she knows, is to invite punishment. Especially now.

“You’re here out of your own free will, understand?” Evander is saying, smirk curling his lips.

He has a face that would be handsome if the world was different. If he weren’t Cordelia’s jailer, if the sight of him didn’t send her heart racing hard enough to be painful. She can’t afford more pain than is necessary.

“No one is going to come for you.” Evander is still talking. Cordelia thinks that maybe his words would hurt more if she could hear properly. When he’d been here earlier, with Niko, when Carlos left…

When Evander had been here earlier he’d slammed her head into the wall so she wouldn’t run after Carlos through the cell’s door, open for once. She’s still feeling the effects, even hours later. She isn’t like him and the other soldiers, isn’t Altered. She doesn’t heal like they do - jury’s still out on whether he remembers that or not. She’s swaying more towards him remembering that she’s just a fragile human, no extras, when he abruptly stops talking. The lack of noise is a balm against her pounding headache and she can’t stop herself from folding, head too heavy to keep upright. The movement pulls against the healing bruises that litter her, but she’s too out of it to notice. She’s not quite gone yet, though, so she sure as hell notices when Evander makes a disgusted noise and strides forward, grabbing a handful of her lank blonde hair and dragging her head upwards so her eyes meet his. She barely resists crying out as her brain slams against the inside of her skull, as her skin pulls taut, as the barely-healed marks on her ribs split. She won’t give him the satisfaction, won’t let him know how hurt she is. Even though it’s a hopeless gesture, even though he knows already. She still has her pride.

“Goddamn useless.” Evander snaps and drops her hair.

Her head pounds violently and she feels nausea flood through her. She takes a second to breathe, to force the pain down and raises her head again, slowly this time. Evander’s at the other end of the cell. His back is turned and Cordelia entertains the fantasy of launching herself across the space and snapping his neck. She wouldn’t though, can’t. Evander’s an Altered - he’d have her on the floor in pieces before she could even lay a hand on him. Even if she thought she could stand up without vomiting, let alone move, right now, Cordelia’s not suicidal despite the accusations Carlos threw at her earlier. She wants to live. That’s why she’s here, after all.

There’s an explosive noise of irritation from Evander and Cordelia forces herself to pay attention. He turns back to her and she stops breathing. Chains gleam in his hands as he starts towards her. Cordelia forgets how to breathe as her brain spirals. She’s not been hurt, yet, in any meaningful way by Evander or his fellows, with the exception of the beating she took before she was thrown in here and the concussion earlier, but she knows that she’s been on a countdown since Carlos walked out. It looks like her time’s run out. She knows how bad Evander could make it for her from the files she’s read on him. An Altered with the ability to break bones without laying a finger on her? To drown her in her own blood without even touching her? He’s a very real threat and even though Niko Price swore that she wouldn’t be killed, she knows that death is the least of what they could do to her here.

Cordelia’s so lost in her panic she barely even notices Evander reaching her and looping the chain through the hook on the wall behind them. She drags her attention back just as he connects the thick cuffs on both ends of the chain and nearly dissolves back into panic again. She knows she can’t afford to though, knows that whatever’s going to happen will be a hell of a lot worse if she doesn’t know what happening. She forces herself to watch as Evander finishes securing the cuffs to the chains and lifts his head. He’s too close to her - she can feel his breath washing across her face and doesn’t flinch away with a conscious effort. His expression is flat, but his eyes are gleaming. He enjoys this, Cordelia realises with a sickening lurch. Her fears are confirmed when he opens one of the cuffs with a click that echoes through the cell and grabs one of her bruised wrists with much more force than necessary. Sharp pain sears through her and Evander’s close enough that she knows he hears the hitch of her breath at the sensation. He’s practically drooling as he snaps the cuff shut and takes the other wrist. Cordelia’s sure that the nausea she’s feeling now isn’t just to do with the concussion. The cuff snaps closed in the other wrist and she swears violently within the privacy of her own mind. The cuffs are heavy enough that they hurt, a slow persistent ache building in her wrists. He steps back just enough that his breath no longer reaches her and surveys her, electric blue eyes sweeping her body with a clinical detachment. They linger on the cuffs bisecting her arms and a hint of a smirk passes his mouth. Cordelia has the thought again about his face being handsome in other circumstances and tells her brain to shut up. The ache in her wrists has only added to the pain of her pounding head and stiffness of the healing bruises. As she takes inventory of her injuries, trying to distract herself from Evander’s unnerving gaze, and from the fatigue creeping over her, she has the unwelcome thought that he also knows precisely where on her body she’s hurt.

“I’m going to heal you now.” Evander says flatly. “The concussion, at least. There’s no point to this if you aren’t properly awake. Those cuffs,” he says, and points at them like she hasn’t noticed them, “are just to stop you getting any ideas about escape.”

Fear swamps her, following closely on the heels of both fatigue and nausea. She prays that she won’t throw up on Evander as he comes towards her again. She has no idea what the punishment for that would be, and no desire to find out. Cordelia focuses instead on her breathing, slow and steady instead of the panicked gasping she wants to do, as Evander stops next to her, close enough that she can feel his breath again, dropping to a crouch beside her sprawled body. She stops breathing entirely though, when Evander’s hands land on her, splayed over her ribs, which took the brunt of the beating however many days ago that was. The ache that had been winding around them suddenly intensifies, fire raging through her, burning her from the inside out. She can’t help the frightened cry that bursts out of her and Evander laughs quietly, mouth by her ear. She can feel bruises pushing their way out of her body, vanishing and leaving only clear skin behind, and the sensation hurts so much and feels so wrong that tears roll involuntarily down her cheeks and - then suddenly it’s over. Cordelia sags, only now registering the burning in her wrists from the cuffs - was she pulling against them? - trying to catch her breath and failing, too agitated to appreciate the sensation of breathing without pain. Evander’s still crouched next to her, leaning his weight back on his heels and looking so pleased with himself that she wants to spit.

“Still got your concussion to go.” He says, smug, and Cordelia can’t help herself. She sobs.

[swimmylionni]

Unsong describes mental illness. This is not a coincidence.

This could be triggering if you’ve experienced depression, psychosis, or suicidal ideation.

A couple years ago, a song told me to kill myself.

This isn’t a song Tipper Gore could have tried to censor for its dark message. There are no lyrics telling the listener to kill themselves, as far as I know. It’s entirely in Japanese, and screamed quite unintelligibly--I have no idea what they’re saying at all. Maybe some people hear lyrics about suicide, like Gallows’ Death Voices, and take the suggestion to heart. That’s not what happened here. This was more holistic.

Unsong is pretty good and you should read it. You will learn things, probably. Here’s a passage from one of my favorite chapters. It’s a bit long.

The Talmud says that God created the Torah nine hundred seventy-four generations before He created the world. Generations of who, I don’t know. The Talmud is kind of crazy.

But the Torah is basically a few short stories about Creation and the distant past followed by a long and intricate biography of Moses. Why would God care so much about one Israelite guy that He would lovingly sketch out his story long before the first day rose upon the universe in which that guy was to live?

There’s another episode in the Talmud, one where Moses is ascending Mt. Sinai to receive the Torah. God discusses how carefully He wrote the Torah over countless eons, and the angels say – then why are you giving it to this Moses guy? Who’s he? Some random mortal nobody! We’re angels! Give it to us! Moses argues that the people of Israel are sinful and so need it more. The angels accept his reasoning.

But this argument is less interesting for what it says than for what it leaves out. Moses doesn’t say “Uh, guys, have you even read the Torah? Four of the five books are totally about me, personally. There’s even a section describing how God gives me the Torah, in the Torah. How can you challenge my right to have my own biography?”

The rabbis explain this by dividing “Torah” into the historical Torah, meaning the records of Moses’ life – and the legal Torah, meaning the ritual code. God wrote the legal Torah beforehand. The angels wanted the legal Torah for themselves. But that doesn’t work either. Take a look at the legal Torah and it’s all sorts of rules about which kinds of animals to eat and which close relatives are too close to have sex with. This also seems like the sort of thing you don’t necessarily need to have finished 974 generations before you create the world. And it also seems like the sort of thing that angels don’t have to worry about. So what’s up?

...

The kabbalistic perspective is that nothing is a coincidence. We believe that the universe is fractal. It has a general shape called Adam Kadmon, and each smaller part of it, from the Byzantine Empire to the female reproductive system, is a smaller self-similar copy of that whole. Sometimes the copies are distorted, like wildly different artists interpreting the same theme, but they are copies nevertheless.

...

Twist and stretch as it may, the underlying unity always finds a way to express itself. If you’re a science type, think of the cells in the human body. Every cell has the same genes and DNA, but stick one in the brain and it’ll become a brain cell; stick it in the skin and it’ll become a skin cell. A single code giving rise to infinite variety. If you don’t understand the deep structure they all share, you’ll never really understand brains or skin or anything else.

The Torah is the deep structure of the universe, and ‘structure’ is exactly the word for it. It’s pure. Utterly formal. Meaningless on its own. But stick it in a situation, and its underlying logic starts to clothe itself in worldly things. Certain substructures get expressed, certain others shrivel away. Certain relationships make themselves known. Finally, you get a thing. Box turtles. International communism. Africa. Whatever. If you’re not looking for the structure, you won’t find it. If you are, it’s obvious.

At the time in question, I hadn’t read this. But damn does that sound a lot like the reasoning of mentally ill person. A knowledgeable one, sure, but not sane.

Here’s the song. Warning: it’s loud angry music. If that’s not your thing, don’t listen to it. But how it sounds is important.

It has a long, dark, slow buildup at the beginning. This goes on for over 3 minutes. It builds tension by adding layers and expanding the theme more elaborately. At around 2:50 all the layers are there, working toward an explosion of loudness and screaming at 3:33. This sustains and dies out a few times until 5 minutes in. From there it’s all noise and screaming and yelling and pain until it cuts out abruptly at around 6:30. After that, an acoustic guitar plays a soft melody for a minute or so. This is the end of the album.

I was walking home from the train. It was winter, so the sun was already setting. Something about the lighting that evening was abnormal. The world around me had a strange orange glow it usually doesn’t, even during sunset. As the song was building up, it glowed stronger, turned redder. The thought suddenly popped into my head: this song wants me to kill myself. It just fit, everything was right. The time, the night, the year, my life, the universe. The universe itself wanted me to die a violent, horrible death.

Around the time, suicide occupied my thoughts about 3/5ths of the waking day. I was able to get some work done each day, that’s about it. Any time I hurt anyone’s feelings, even slightly or in my imagination, I had a recurring thought: “A deep wound was opened in the world the day I was born. It’s trying to heal itself. It will never be healed while the infection is still present.”

Some days it was my first thought waking up and my last going to sleep. I knew, of course, the world doesn’t want anything. It’s not a spirit, there are no ghosts. I argued with myself: It’s a metaphor, for how I hurt people all the time.

That was an excuse. It wasn’t a metaphor. Part of me really believed that the world itself--the planet, everything in it--wanted me to die. That my existence caused everything to shriek in pain. The world wanted my depression to build up just like the song I described above. Tension and pain, an explosion of noise, and a violent end, after which everything could be peaceful and whole again. The universe is fractal: all of the galaxies, all of the living beings, and even the entertainment created a story in which I died very soon. Narrative logic demanded it.

It was a super negative version of kaballistic arguments in Unsong. If you read Unsong and laugh at the ridiculous conclusions drawn from every friggin’ thing because they’re crazy, that’s exactly right. They’re just like crazy, or at least like my crazy. Except you’re forced to think like that all the time.

So that evening, I noticed even a song whose lyrics I don’t understand was telling me to kill myself. Any song in a minor key with decent tension and resolution would’ve done the same. I don’t think it had anything to do with the heaviness of the music per se. Censoring lyrics would have done precisely nothing.

But I do think happier music in a major chord wouldn’t have had the same effect.

I did not attempt suicide that night. That experience wasn’t special. My life was a constant struggle to suppress or overpower those kinds of thoughts, and I won. I’m still here and I’m happy. Take that, depression. (And thanks, Wellbutrin.)

And the standard notice that should go in posts like these: If you’re in a situation like this, get help. It’s painful to do so, but not as painful as bearing the depression for any longer than you have to. If you tried and it didn’t work, it’s ok to psychiatrist-hop and medication-hop. Both of those things are also painful but, again, not as painful as sustained depression. You are not terrible and it is possible to be happy again.

[kittoforos]

A Beginner’s Guide to the Music of Aleksandr Bashlachev

By popular demand, here is a starter kit, in mostly English, to help anyone interested get into the work of my absolute favorite late-Soviet poet (/rock poet/singer-songwriter/guitarist of sorts) and one of my best beloved poets, as they say, всех времён и народов: Aleksandr Bashlachev (Александр Башлачев, or, if you’re feeling extra helpful, Александр Башлачёв— that last “e” is always pronounced “o”). 

Aleksandr Bashlachev was born May 27, 1960, died February 17, 1988 (by his own hand; sometimes people count him in the so-called “27 Club”), and left around 60 poems/song texts and various recordings (audio and some video), many of which are available on YouTube (a lot of his stuff is on Spotify, too, if that’s your thing). Despite the short length of his life/career, his body of work was/is a sort of massive hidden influence on Russian rock music/the associated culture from Perestroika forward; he’s not at all well-known among the general public in Russia today, but if you’re at all interested in any of that cultural history (or if you just like Russian rock), he’s worth at least a passing familiarity.

I’m making this post partially because I just love him and want to share his brilliant work,*** but also because his poetry (like, frankly, a lot of Russian poetry) is graceful and rewarding on its own, but also densely loaded with intertextual meaning, and his performance style (messy snarly vocals, messy acoustic guitar, just a bit of a mess really, albeit a through-composed one; also incredibly intense, somehow simultaneously explosive and hypnotic— one of his contemporaries, Yuri Naumov, used the term “thermodynamic”, which I like a lot) can be a rather “acquired taste” for a lot of people, especially for those who aren’t already familiar with the stylistics of Soviet bardic music or, like, garage folk-punk or something idk. I know it took me a long time to get into his stuff, at any rate (but once I did, I didn’t listen to anything else for months).

Themes and frequent images in his work include: Russia’s fate, politics (complicated ones, for which he got “shaken down” by various “security” organizations a couple of times— they only stopped doing that in 1987), spiritual freedom, spiritual honesty (”it’s impossible to sing one way and live another”), human contact, human nature (each unique individual as part of the whole), words, bells, birds, heights, Leningrad, love (unconditional and all-encompassing: “even those I hate, I love— they’re just not good enough people to realize it yet”), the sun, the role of the artist in society, the utopian future, suicide.

Also a key point here: SashBash (that was/is his nickname) wrote not so much songs, as fellow rock musician Boris Grebenshchikov put it, as entire emotional spectacles, so when you watch a video of him singing, there’s a helluva lot to take in on top of the words and music themselves, even though he was given to keeping the mis-en-scene pretty minimalistic (just a snarly Russian dude, his guitar, and his bell bracelets). It can be pretty intimidating stuff overall, (especially if your first language isn’t Russian! and/or you’re not used to listening to poetry in Russian, in which case I’ll tell you up front that this is gonna be really rough, but ultimately totally worth it— all the time I’ve spent listening to this stuff and frantically trying to decipher it has helped me a ton with my Russian!) and it can be hard to know where to start with him because his poetry is very complex and he wrote in a couple of different “genres” (to use the term loosely); hopefully this guide will help.

So with that, here are ten (10) songs (plus important musical/poetic background) to get you started— all listed, linked, and commented on under the cut!

(i love this pic there’s something magical and telling about the combo of rocker-style leather jacket and komsomol lapel pin)

***and because this man desperately wanted to be remembered (he believed that people are reincarnated as soon as they are forgotten, and absolutely did not want to ever come back), and I get so much out of the art he made, I feel like i should try at give back at least a little, if only now, and like this

I see you’re still with us! Excellent! Поехали!

Okay, so, the first thing to know with Russian rock music is, a lot of it is based on (at least) two traditions: Western rock music (and/or the contemporary Soviet perception of it) and the Soviet bardic song genre of the 1960s and 70s (e.g. Okudzhava, Vysotsky). Russian rock tends to be heavily text-based and very individual-driven (in the sense that the lead singer of a group is often pretty much synonymous with the band— it doesn’t really matter who’s playing backup to Boris Grebenshchikov, as long as he’s there, the band is “Akvarium”), and SashBash’s work is definitely no exception to those rules— if anything he takes them to even higher levels. He worked almost exclusively alone, and a lot of his singing uses a dramatized speech-like recitative timbre; his main concern was not so much with rock music as such as with the poetry, with the Word, with expression through the Russian language (великий, богатый и проч. и проч.). 

Although that artistic concern remains fairly constant throughout SashBash’s repertoire, his genre choices are less consistent. Roughly speaking, his work can be divided into short comic songs, short serious songs, and long-form epics or meditations. Texts for all the songs I’m about to list can be found at http://www.bards.ru/archives/author.php?id=1927.

Short Serious Songs: (i’m starting with these because because there’s a lot of them, because they include some of his best known songs, and also because they’re just a good place to start to get a feel for what he was about as an artist without buckling in for a twenty-minute Suffering Session— that comes later)

1. Время колокольчиков (The time of little bells) — SashBash’s most famous song, just generally a famous song, gave its name to the whole era in Soviet music culture. If you’re only going to listen to one of these, this is the one, and I highly recommend watching the linked video of him performing it (all of the videos I’ll link here are from a квартирник (apartment concert) at Boris Grebenshchikov’s place— there exist other videos of SashBash performing, but a lot of them are from large concerts which he was very uncomfortable playing, and a lot of the time it shows). Rock and roll, the role of the artist in a time of individualist upheaval, the fate of the Russian soul, and more. (3:20)

2. Лихо (Likha (Slavic mythological personification of Evil); Dashingly) — One of SashBash’s major influences on the Russian rock scene was an eye toward Ancient/Medieval Rus’ as both a source of contemporary Russia’s problems and model of possible futures, whether good or bad. These certainly weren’t new ideas in Russian literature (see: Westernizer vs. Slavophile debates of the 19th century), but SashBash’s deft, unforgettable phrasings (and passionate, agitated delivery) brought rock and roll into conversation with these classic Russian arguments, and imbued them with new urgency. (2:41) 

3. Влажный блеск наших глаз (The wet shine of our eyes) — This is a bit sexier. Actually it’s all about sex. And love? And misery. And sex. (3:08)

4. Поезд №193 (Train №193) — This is a straight-up suicidal ideation song, an attempt to catch at a working definition of love, a swift pile up of quick-fix definitions, desperations. A genuinely short song with a pointedly circular structure. (2:16)

5. Вишня — This is the last song Aleksandr Bashlachev wrote whose text and audio survive. It’s a relatively melodic, life-affirming song full of fairy-tale imagery and general generosity of spirit, and the advice the singer gives to the princess character is actually pretty solid imho, especially for the 1980s (be brave, be kind, rejoice in all the things that please your heart and especially in your own freedom/will). (4:17)

6. В чистом поле дожди косые (In the open field slanting rains) — A treatment of a lot of the same themes as Время колокольчиков, but more explicitly and imagistically Russian (as opposed to Soviet), with the theme of rock and roll expanded to art/literature in general, a lot more Orthodox Christian imagery and ideas (anticapitalist), a less ecstatic and more lachrymose ambiguous ending...  A lot of people claim this to be the best song he wrote. (4:57 (song starts around 30 seconds in))

Short Comic Songs: (We need a break...such as it is. Soviet humor. If you don’t know the drill, you will shortly. I’ll go ahead and put trigger warnings in for these.)

7. Подвиг разведчика (The feat of an intelligence agent (title of famous WWII movie)) An average late-Soviet asshole with a brutal hangover daydreams about going on Cold War spy adventures, is ridiculous. The linked video has a pretty solid translation in the drop-down. (4:55) TW: alcohol, food, domestic abuse, poison, homophobic slur, torture mention, guns, suicidal ideation, rape mention (casual use of term)

8. Верька, Надька, Любка (Faith, Hope, Love (girls’ names)). Sometimes subtitled Исповедь весеннего рака (Confessional of a spring crab). A very strange, ultimately sweet and oddly earnest song that starts fairly concretely and gets rapidly, cosmically out of hand. A giant confused metaphor for a single Leningrader’s personal ideological development, with metamorphoses. (5:20) TW: food, suicidal ideation, religion, alcohol/drugs, brief casual transphobia (? tbh i’ve been chewing on this line for two years now and in context i’m still not quite sure), unreality

Epics/Meditations: (ok here we go, от винта!)

9. Имя Имён (Name of Names) — A chant of shifting rhythms over a monotonous pair of guitar chords, an uncertain, lurching, demanding, overawed and underserved Credo. (8:19)

10. Ванюша (Vanyusha (boy’s name, affectionate)) — This is an arc-structured song, about trying to understand the loss of a loved one, of a child, to find or make meaning out of that suffering (Bashlachev, whose philosophy in total seems to me simultaneously very Soviet and very Orthodox Christian, believed that all personal development, and indeed all that, which is worthwhile in life, comes to us through suffering— “if your soul hurts, it means it’s working”). It uses a lot of Russian folk structures and motifs, both lyrical and musical. (11:53)

Please note that these are not my personal favorite songs of his, necessarily— just a good first set that I hope represents and can act as a starting point for his whole body of work. Thank you for reading!! Спасибо за внимание!!

BONUS SashBash singing Russian 19th and 20th century pop hits with some friends. Laughter, joy, and contextually inappropriate quotations of Lenin ensue

[extremelyaverageincrediblynormal]

I think its time to update this thing with everything that has been going on. A lot of beautiful things have happened the past 6 months, but when i look back, its a supercut of mental breakdowns and self harm. Surprisingly, i havent seriously thought about killing myself, but I am definitely putting a strain on my mental health, and i dont think i saw the signs until i was 4-5 months deep. until i was at the hospital. until i was crying in my work bathroom every day for 5 days. and even then, i still tried to keep telling myself if i give up, i am mentally weak. i still tell myself that know, as i try to get myself out of this situation. so lets explain the situation. I will try my best to go back to may and bring you up to speed.

I started working at this job... lets call it, the hellpit. I started in February, and they agreed to give me time off in april to go to japan. I was pretty happy about that, but i remember about a month and a half in, i seriously considered quitting, and that seemed early. I was annoyed at the lack of organization with the products we were selling, and the extra stress it put on the front of house employees. The job ITSELF wasnt so bad, it was simple tasks that were sometimes fun. But the customers were the worst. This is a private club, so we see the exact same people every single day, and i work in a half grab&go half diner. And we get treated like we are nothing. most of the time, we dont even get a “hi” or “thank you”, but we are required to smile and be polite, tell the customers to have a nice day. One girl got fired because she didnt smile enough and was kind of a quiet person. oops. But then i got my best friend hired, and i started enjoying my days a bit more. Japan gave me some perspective on life and i was running off that energy for about a month. I was also moving at the end of may so that took most of my focus. I was then asked to work in the poolside snack bar/ actual bar. I was excited, it sounded like a fun, fast-paced environment. I feel dissapointed writing that because I was so wrong. It makes me feel sad.

I would be working closer to the actual manager. Now, there is drama going on with that. there was 2 managers, R and C. R had been there for 13 years, had close relationships with the people in my workplace. she was even sister-in-laws with someone there. And then C comes in, and sees that there is a lot wrong with how the cafe is running. she wasnt totally wrong, but she has a large personality and isnt afraid to shit talk people. she came in and tried to change everything, and I dont know exactly what happened behind the scenes but R left on a 3 month stress leave, came back for 3 weeks and quit. If that doesnt tell you something about what it’s like to work along C, ive got more. 

So this poolside hellbox was usually run by some other managers in the club, but C insisted on running it herself, putting her employees in it, etc. it was going to be the best year the poolside hellbox has ever seen. it was small, but it needed at least 3 people to run properly. Sure, it could be slow on cold days, but on hot days, it was a nightmare if there was only 2 people. Because we had to do everything; open, stock all the food, take orders, make orders, and pass them off, and close. it was truly exhausting and our days were always 9-10 hours, no breaks. She also stopped putting 3 people, brought it down to 2, usually 1. it was incredibly stressful. I tried to talk to her about my concerns, and she completely agreed. so i thought things would change. they did not. after some time, i injured my rotator cuff, and that lasted about a week until my entire back seized up and i had to go to the doctor. i was physically burnt out. and she had to work one of my shifts because i was medically ordered to take a break from work. writing this is making my back hurt.... funny how that works. anyways, i came back and she told me about how HARD of a day she had when she had to be in there for 6 hours. I thought to myself, good, she will finally understand. She never did. put me back in it, working 6 days a week, no tips, no breaks, 9 hours. there was a day where the air quality was so bad that my coworker with asthma expressed how ill the smoke makes him feel and that he cant breath, and she made sure he felt guilty for not telling her before hand. and then when we werent even making money that day, she blamed the people upstairs for not making the call to close it. i cant believe it.

the PSH finally closed for the year, but she wanted one more day to make a bunch of money. So there is another key player here. J. J has the title of supervisor but doesnt always act like it. C expresses how she feels about J often, and shes the only one who has the power to do something about it but does she? No. 

So on this day, C is not at the Bad place, so in any other situation, J would be in charge. But C insisted that I text her and listen to what SHE said. and she said she wanted to open the PSH 2 hours early. J said it was too busy and we needed coverage. I listened to J. The fact that we didnt open 2 hours earlier really upset C. she was so mad at J for making that call, and i was upset that i was put in a position where i had no idea who to listen to. 

So that was the day i decided i couldnt be there next summer. I needed to leave before the PSH opened again. 

And since then, there has been a lot of hostility towards me. I remember C telling me that people might not like me because she likes me, and people dont like her. that should have been my first red flag to get the fuck out. I honestly thought she was a woman of her word, and that sticking with her was the right decision. she made me all these empty promises, like i’ll be getting a raise in September, or that she has big plans for me and my career there, or even that we were getting a company-paid night to reward us for all our hard work. and what has unfolded? nothing. 

since then, it has been a series of bullshit. she comes down, yells at everyone and everything thats wrong, comments on how terrible the communication is, and how this doesnt look right, and how stupid everything is and how no one knows how to do their job, “except for you, this isnt directed towards you.” I have a feeling it may not be IN THAT MOMENT, but im sure it has been directed at me at some point. Shes manipulative, and takes advantage of people for her own personal gain, and completely lacks empathy. If it doesnt affect her, why does she care. If someone cant help her, why does she need them. that is her mentality, and she is a psycho. she wants complete control, but does nothing to change anything. She wants people to do certain things, but never tells them. She is by far, the worst manager i have ever had. not to mention she puts out the schedule thursday night-friday for the upcoming monday. so, yes, 3 days in advance. I feel betrayed, i feel disspointed, i feel burnt out. 

She also made a sarcastic remark about how i could “never disappoint her”, which was the last straw for me. That was the day i decided i need to get out of there. 

So, thats whats been going on at work, but behind the scenes, i have been unraveling. My manager has qualities that remind me of my mother, and not in a positive way. it’s very triggering in a way, and when i feel like i have disappointed her, i have the same feeling i would get when my mother would be disappointed in me. when she is completely unsympathetic to me being burnt out, i remember all the times my mom told me to stop feeling sorry for myself when i would cry. so i deal with daily triggers that i have a hard time shaking. there are also some things that go on in that club that really disturb my core values. I am a caring, inclusive person and these people treat us like dirt. I think most people are used to it, i even feel like im less sensitive to it as time goes by. 

But i have been having mental breakdowns at least once a week. they were worse back in june or july, i remember completely trashing my room, throwing my books around and slamming my book case on the ground, and the colapsing and hyperventalating on the ground until my roommate found me. I remember scratching myself until i bled. I remember running to a park and crying in a field. I remember crying on the bathroom floor naked. I remember not being able to get out of bed. i remember punching a wall so hard i almost broke my fingers. this all happened withing 3 months. and after the big explosions came depression and giving up. I cry in the work bathroom often, i dont care about being on time, i dont care about my job, i dont care about my health or being in pain. i am in a constant fog, im exhausted and angry and i have a beautiful partner who loves me so much and i cant feel any of it, because i think i shut down everything so i can make it through the day. I’ve gained weight, i hate my body again, and i feel stuck. i feel ugly, i feel useless, i feel trapped. i need help. i need help getting out of this. i am so exhausted mentally, i do nothing with my day because im too tired. i am so incredibly miserable, i get those depression headaches every single day. I have a surgery coming up that i am not willing to compromise. maybe ill take some extra days off then? look for a job? rest my mind and prepare to job hunt and grind for a job that i might not hate? maybe i should leave now, go work at starbucks, see if i can get the time. maybe i should find a part time job, but will my manager hate me for it? does she already hate me for it? i just want to survive. i just dont want to get to the point where suicide feels like the only option again. I am not there yet, but its on the horizon, and that’s why i am scared.