#complacency as we know how they are and the lack of tangibility to personally affect them on a larger scale like I should just make a post

[dykedvonte]

You ever just see a Mouthwashing take that makes you want to bang your head into a wall? I literally just saw someone claim Curly couldn't have been emotionally abused by Jimmy before the crash because he was in a higher position of power than Jimmy.

-Shrimp Anon

The mouthwashing fandom has shown me that people genuinely do believe that certain types of abuse are not as detrimental as other types especially when they deem those immune/resistant, ergo, believing one is objectively worse no matter how it affects the person nor the intersections of power, history and dynamics at play.

Get ready cause this is a yap session:

Cause like it's heavily implied that Curly and Jimmy's friendship was toxic and abusive, pointedly in the direction of how Jimmy uses Curly's belief/comfort in him. Curly wasn't forced to enable Jimmy but he was emotional and mentally on edge around him in almost every scene in some way. Mental and emotional abuse are not contingent on what positions you have at work. Yeah, he's Jimmy's boss but he was Jimmy's friend first and it's like getting into Psych discussion to talk about how social power tends to overshadow any perceived organizational power in the human mind. People are concerned about their jobs ofc but they tend to hang onto and put more value/investment into their personal relationships, hence why there tends to be laws and restrictions around mixing the two.

I always see the sentiments that "Curly is a grown ass man", "Curly is bigger than Jimmy", "Curly is Jimmy's boss", "He just needed a backbone" as criticisms of Curly and while I do agree that on the surface level all of these to be true and viable ways Curly could've taken more control of the situation, I often look at the parallels of Anya and Curly as victims of Jimmy pre/post crash.

The way Jimmy talks to Anya post crash is how he talked to Curly in the pre-crash segments. It's hard to pin-point mainly because we know he hates and wants nothing to do with Anya compared to his contrary but similarly handled obsessions with Curly. It's a weird sort of "honey-moon" effect of abuse Jimmy does in terms of emotional and mental victimization. He is always horrid to Anya, always talking down or questioning her abilities and thoughts in a situation, this of course includes the harassment and assault. However, he has a moment of attempted gentleness/conditioning when he question her about the mouthwash when she's contemplating drinking it at the table. The key difference is he has no personal investment in Jimmy outside wanting nothing to do with him, meaning there is no sort of romanticized version of him that he can condition her off of. He knows this, hence, why he always reverts to trying to make her to scared to oppose him.

This sort of give and take of "kindness" doesn't work on her because she knows he is just doing it to take more from her than whatever he could possibly give but it reflects even the "softer" scenes between him and Curly where he always rewords or rephrases Curly's sentiments and concerns to sound more shallow. He is feigning a deeper understanding by reworking Curly's emotions into something bad and needing to be hidden. Everything is laced with envy and resentment, an outburst just around the corner, I mean he even slams the table in the birthday party scene, a tactic in emotional manipulation to set the victim on edge and cloud their ability to respond. Even if Curly knows Jimmy won't get physical in that moment, the physical actions is intended to make him back down in the confrontation in case it does. This is something that is just not person specific. It ingrains itself into how you interact with the world and life and it shows in major and minor ways with Curly.

Post-crash, the abusive nature is more in tandem to the physical victimization Anya went through and the stripping of voice and autonomy we see take place. Like the parasite in HFIM, Jimmy speaks for Curly most of the time and puts words in his mouth, similarly to how he takes Anya's plans as his own. He very commonly, with the both of them mind you, supplements the worst aspects of himself into them; pettiness, selfishness, lack of understanding... And tries to cover himself with their best qualities; kindness, planning, initiative, etc...

These parallel are just to say that positional power has little to do with if a person can be abused and how it can even be flipped to further the abuse. There is no doubt that Curly could've picked up on Jimmy's envy of his position hence another reason he never confronted him as a Captain but as a friend as doing so would immediately put Jimmy in a space to be confrontational/combative.

I think the disdain some people have when they talk about the heavily implied if not implicitly stated emotional/mental abuse Curly experienced being Jimmy's friend is when treating it as an excuse to why he didn't do more. I can understand that completely because it is not an excuse to why he didn't do more but is a very real reason people in his position in these scenarios can experience whether in the context of a work or social environment. However, I also think the way people talk about it really does demonstrate a bigger problem when talking about abuse when somehow who is/was abused is either part of the issue or enabled it.

Harkening back to the sentiments about Curly's inaction regarding Jimmy, I think the exact phrases I used/have seen show how there is an inherent belief that it is easier to overpower the effects of emotional/mental abuse that go in tandem with the perception of Curly as someone who should be able to. There is not an age you suddenly stop being susceptible to abuse nor a set point or low where you realize how it has affected you. You don't suddenly know to stand up or put a face on to face your abuser nor admit that you inadvertently enabled them to subjugate someone else to the same treatment. Maybe it's my psych brain but their is this growing belief that direct action is somehow easy or always the best method with the game shows you instances where it is not always the case. In real life that rings true too. He should have done more, but it's not impossible to see why he struggled to find a way or didn't even if it makes us mad.

It's not easy to suddenly gain a "back-bone". You don't immediately want to resort to aggression, especially if it mirrors the type you were a victim to. You don't want to believe you allowed yourself to be treated this bad, let it get that bad or allowed something bad to happen to someone else. It is easy to be in denial, to retreat to your thoughts or make excuses to avoid the painful truth. It's frustrating but in a way we know is relatable. It why we both hate and love Curly for it. We know we'd be better, we think we'd be better, we like to think we wouldn't falter in the same ways but it's always easier to say that from the outside looking in. It's easy to see what he was doing wrong because we are seeing it, not him, but the game really does make you picture what you would do if this was your raw reality and it's why this debate about Curly seems so never ending/contradictory. We can all say what we'd do but bottom line is that's much different when you're in the moment with all the emotions and human feelings attached.

I personally think Mouthwashing tackles the themes of rape culture, enabling, toxic masculinity, types of abuse and patriarchy in ways that are meant to deconstruct the typical straightforward views we mostly have of these concepts and how little subtilities of them are just as, if not more, detrimental than the overt/obvious parts. The game deals with the idea of little details and bigger picture in a way to show that sometimes the bigger picture is not the issue but the little details that make it up. It's why I have a personal dislike of depictions of Jimmy as the typical horrible person who would of course do something like this because the game is about noticing the little warning signs, the foreshadowing and foresight.

It's why I dislike the typical discussion of "bro code" and "boys will be boys" for the game because the game makes a point to avoid the standard depictions of such. It is about the type of men who still enable despite not condoning, agreeing or even perpetuating harmful beliefs because they can't see the little details or the ways it seeps into their everyday. The severity is not obvious to them as it was not obvious to Curly, Swansea or even Daisuke the way it was to a woman like Anya. There are little details about Jimmy that should ring alarms but if you are too naive like Daisuke, too distant like Swansea or too conditioned like Curly, they are just off markers.

There is 100% more constructive/concise ways to say "Curly was a victim of Jimmy's abuse on an emotional and mental aspect that clouded his judgements and perceptions in the scenario" while also critiquing on the side of "Curly still had a responsibility to protect Anya as a crew mate and Captain that he failed to do due to biases and stigma's he failed to surpass" without the weird condemnation people give him about should've knowing better than to let himself be manipulated by a person he considered a close, if not family/best-friend and had his own reasons to trust initially. Also stop being weird about victims of abuse in general with this fandom, like sorry not everyone has a like social epiphany the moment someone's nasty to them. People are treating it like you immediately know when you are in a toxic relationship immediately or comprehend when a person is actively dangerous and either it's your fault for not knowing how to leave/cut them off or you deserve it. Like the hypocrisy of people believing how certain fans treat the story reflect their irl views but not their own is crazy.

End statement is: I honestly don't even know man, I've been writing this too long and just like no man on that ship was perfect or really helped Anya when it mattered and I feel like pitting them against each other in discussion on who did the least or most or how it was justified sucks cause in the end Anya always did the most and best thing for herself.

[casmoments]

One Broken Half

Original Imagine: Imagine you’re Castiel’s commanding officer, in charge of punishing him for his rebellion. Reader Gender: female Word Count: 3600 Warnings:  not as dub-con as the imagine might suggest but still.  i strayed very slightly from what it implied and there’s a mutual connection between cas/reader.  that being said, the circumstances are obviously not friendly.  derogatory language, light violence/violent threats, roughness.  "angelcest" if you are sensitive to it.   the brother/sister terminology is explicitly defined with an alternative meaning, but if you think it might bother you to see those titles, then be wary.  no sex but it’s still smutty.  might potentially finish a more evolved sequel.  

-

Though heaven was absolute, you supposed them guilty of one error: you were not a good choice for this job.   The history you thought you could ignore, the feelings you once reigned, broke past all confines and blinded you.

The brethren of angels was not founded like human relations.  There was no biological foundation or recognizable trait to call your brothers and sisters legitimate kinfolk.    But that did not open grounds for lewd engagements, to debase the host in any depravity, to entertain humanistic curiosities.  

All the same, you and Castiel always had a… fondness for one another.   You once served as a unit, a pair, as some angels did.  The stories conceived by mankind had so much muddled reality that they sometimes confused your partnership, assuming you were one solitary being.  

Though if you were honest, that claim was not wholly unfounded; you sometimes felt like one entity.   Eons had unfolded, centuries all but dawdled with no company but stars, a growing earth, and a familiar presence flooding your space.   And if your grace had ever entwined with his, it was nothing to remark upon.   There was no real corporeality to identify debauchery or sin.   You and Castiel were close, and though you lacked much physicality, it sometimes manifested in physical terms anyway.

You sometimes wondered if they separated you for that reason.   You never thought anything of reassignment, plucked from his side and promoted to a higher position in heaven.   He continued with his duty and you continued with yours.   And you never before possessed the capability to consider sentiment.   That… fondness was the deepest your considerations ever ran.   Neither of you were built to endure the labours of human affection and emotion.   You were partners and then you weren’t.   If there were empty,  aching patches in your grace, invisible wounds between wings or flames or limbs, then you had ignored them and their possible ramifications.

It was harder to ignore now.   You were not technically occupying a vessel but this particular cell recreated vessels to inhabit while in heaven.    It was meant as a form of torture, encasing an angel in a body and restraining all their powers, forcing them to feel what it would be like to fall, to be human.    Unfortunately, it affected everyone contained.   Not only were the victims restrained in empty vessels, forced to feel them like bodies, but the supervisors and interrogators were likewise bound.    The only different was the chamber’s sentience; it responded to your wiles and commands but ignored his.

All the same, you did not appreciate vessels on earth and you certainly did not appreciate this sensation.   Everything felt so immediate—hot, bright, cold, crawling under your skin.   Millennia worth of knowledge, experience, and battered emotion began to burn like something tangible.   Though you maintained a stoic reserve, your heart beat faster than resting pace.  

Much faster, still, at the sight of him—a sight you barely understood.   He seemed to barely understand it, and it affected him more bodily.

But there he sat, forced onto his knees before you, arms spread and hands manacled to individual chains, fastened to the ground and preventing much movement.  The room was completely empty, white marble stretching all around you, pillars of silver and reflective glass every so often.  But the cold wash of white was a faraway thing.   An unfamiliar heat rolled through your human body, some deep significance wrought from his mussed hair, from his unbuttoned shirt, from his dilated pupils, his parted lips.    A reaction to things you did not fully comprehend—the pinnacle of confusion resting in his obvious reciprocation.

“Control your vessel, Castiel,” you demanded, hoping disdain would mask your unease.   He shifted uncomfortably, audibly responding to pain for the first time since this session began.   It was a low groan, one which fanned that heat low in your body, creating discomfort between your thighs.   You recognized your arousal for what it was, though you did not understand why you felt it.  

But he clearly felt it as well, that groan, that bulge in the front of his trousers, betraying the wrath in his voice and the fire in his eyes.    Though this session began with his gentle persuasion—you don’t have to do this, he had said, appealing to emotions you did not have, or emotions you thought you did not have—he had now reached the height of fury.   He refused to surrender, as stubborn as you.   His convictions were locked.  You now stood at a stalemate, caught in a repetitive cycle of physical action which no longer resembled your chore.

You were not a good choice for this assignment.   There was too much, too much history between you and him.  Somewhere deep in the pit of this human form, you felt the tendrils of your true essence expand, almost like it was reaching for him.    You swallowed hard, recalling the long centuries of your partnership—recalling that first hesitant brush, a strange burning sensation which delved to a comfort like no other, wings brushing, flame twining, limbs hooking, and a power rippling from the core of your being outward, singing until it met its likeness in a separate entity.

You quelled those thoughts, bat them down, turned your eyes to the resolute white marble.

“Why are you here, Castiel?” you asked, the same question over and over.   If he was smart, he would reply with his crime, allow this to unfold smoothly, fall back into quiet complacency where he belonged.   Where you belonged.   Where you both belonged.  But he would not.   He would confess to no crime.   Even if you did pry the words from his mouth, he would show no remorse.   You were not even halfway done.

And he was goading you on.   He was trying to make you angry, trying to make you feel.   He had succeeded once already, moments before now.  You had lectured him on respect, on seniority and servitude.

“We are not our Father,” you had said.  “We do not have the eyes to perceive true good and evil, to judge for ourselves where we should stand.   We rely on his word, the will and order, and that cause is just, it is goodness itself—”

“You do not take your orders from God,” Castiel had snapped, all but snarling at you.  “We took our orders from Anna once, now—”

“Anna,” you had spat the name, recalling a tragic spiral of human messes.   You then reared back to strike him, summoning your blade to your hand.  “You will not utter Anael’s name in this chamber, you insolent—!”   You had paused, his wrath having dissolved.   It was not replaced with fear, however.   He tipped his head and regarded you with a warm sort of curiosity.   You lowered your hand, blade smacking your leg.   “What?”   You shouldn’t have asked, knowing his reply would only disorient you.   But you did and he met your gaze, eyes so blue they reminded you of his true form, and it warmed you in unfamiliar places.

“You’re angry,” he had said.  You narrowed your eyes, gripping the hilt of your blade tighter.   “You are not as indifferent as you would like, Y/N,” he clarified, looking at you with a much too knowing eye.   He then narrowed his own gaze, looking at you with a twisted disgust.   “Do you think you can hide that from me, sister?”

“You are not the Castiel I knew,” you had said, voice shaking, fingers quivering.   You ignored how the familiar title panged inside you.   And it remained true; sister did not mean the same thing as in human tongues.   It wasso much more.   It was far beyond intimacy that humans could comprehend.   You cleared your throat.   “You see and know nothing.”  

“I am me,” was his sharp reply.   You released your hold, dropping your blade.   It clattered to the ground as you set to contemplative pacing.   “I see you,” he had continued, words biting, “I know you.  You won’t do this.”

“You don’t know what I’ll do,” you had said.

“I don’t,” was his sole admission, looking up at you.  “That’s not what I said.”

You won’t do this, he had said.   Your actions were unpredictable but he knew you would only go so far.    

You had dropped to your knees in front of him, grabbing him by his hair and yanking his head back.   He made a small noise of surprise but otherwise controlled himself, closing his eyes and drawing his lips together.   You let go of his hair to free the tie around his neck, tossing it over your shoulder.  That was when you called to your blade.  It lifted off the ground and rebuilt in your hand.  You used it to cut away the trenchcoat he wore, the black suit jacket following.   He stared at you while you worked, his breath running over the side of your face.   You looked at him only once, your faces frighteningly close.

“You disgust me,” was all you said, tearing the clothing down.  It fell in shambles around him.   His gaze darkened then.   You assumed it was ire, did not interpret the dilation of his pupils through any other means.   You tossed your blade behind you and grabbed his shirt.   You ripped it right down the middle, buttons popping off, an angry tear sounding in the empty chamber.   He breathed a bit harder as if the blow had been delivered to his person.   You opened up the shirt, slamming your hand into the middle of his chest.   It had some effect, winding him, but it did not last.

“How could you let yourself become this?” you had asked, more distressed than you wished.   You steeled yourself immediately, backing away before he answered.   You marched a few paces and then whirled around, at which point you noticed the effect you had.   He breathed unevenly, gaze thrown aside like he could not bear your sight.   Your eyes fell  to the hard evidence of his arousal, and the first wave of heat had struck you then.

And that left you here, in your little stalemate, breath ragged and bodies hot.    You cleared your throat, looking away from him as you spoke again.

“Castiel,” you said, a little throatier than you would have liked, “name your crime and pray for absolution.”

He looked at you but said nothing.   His stare was intense, defiant, challenging.   Your feet carried you towards him, the thought barely conceived before it was realized.  Parts of your grace seemed to spur you on, two very different bodies encouraging action.   You powered every frustration into righteous anger, glaring as you circled him.  

You stopped behind him and stared.   He looked at you over his shoulder, as insolent as ever.   You stormed towards him, all but slamming yourself against him.   His head hit your legs and you bent over, crouching slightly.  

“When your superiors question you, then you answer them,” you barked, hooking your arm about him.   You wrapped your hand around his throat, angling his head to bare some of his neck.  

His only response was a barely stifled moan.   You tightened your hold on his neck, palm rubbing against his throat, fingers squeezing.

“The horrific realizations of humanity,” you snapped.  “Look how their lessons have debased you.   This would have shamed you to consider once.   Now look at you.”  You tore back the collar of his ripped shirt, exposing more skin.   You held his throat, keeping his head tipped, revealing a tantalizing stretch of skin that begged to be ruined.  “You take pleasure in this now.”  

The chains rattled slightly; he must have tried moving.   His hands were caught where they were, far at his sides.   Your eyes remained fixed on that untouched bit of skin.   Other hand still gripping his throat, not tight enough to strangle but strong enough to threaten, you ran a finger from below his ear, down his neck, over the dip leading to his shoulder, stopping only when you reached the shirt again.   He breathed so hard, you could see his chest rise and fall with every breath.  

And you couldn’t help it.  He radiated heat and it was so achingly familiar.  Your forms were completely different… and it somehow felt more real than ever.   Your body felt empty, age-old tremors rattling beneath your skin, every inch of flesh vulnerable and wrong.   His body practically begged for yours, as yours did for him.   And you were close, far too close and never close enough, your chest against his back and your hand on his throat and his skin right there under you—

He moaned, long and low, when you closed your lips over that juncture between his shoulder and neck, biting into the soft flesh.   The chains rattled again, a frustrated sound bursting past his lips.  You licked over the little bite, immediately marking a similar brand beside it.   You relished in the sounds he made, the way his breath would catch, how his shoulders shook, the bob in his throat moving beneath your hand.

“If only you were half as good at being a soldier,” you snarled, speaking right into his ear, ��as you were at being a whore.”   That only drew another deep groan, adding to the heat in your body.    “Should I test the limits of this room?” you asked.  “And the limits of you?”   You finally released his throat, curled your fingers around the collar of his shirt.   “If I willed it, you would be without this garment, wouldn’t you?”   Sure enough, the white shirt vanished as if it had never been there, your hands falling to his bare shoulders and squeezing.   He grunted, leaning back slightly, your clothed breasts pressing against his bare back.    “And you would enjoy it.  As I suspected.”

His next sound almost resembled a whimper, helpless and forlorn when you moved away.   You circled him again, stopping to stand in front of him.   He stared up at you, that stripe down his shoulder and neck marked red, glistening in slight from wet kisses.   You moved onto your knees in front of him, flattening your hands against his stomach and sliding them upward.   His eyes fluttered closed, lips pressed tightly together.  The chains rattled a bit.

“You serve heaven, not humanity,” you said, “enslaved as you are to their decadence.”   You rolled your thumb over a nipple, looking there before sensing his gaze.   You looked up, saw he stared at you with a feverish intensity.

“Decadence,” he growled, leaning as far forward as he could.  You leaned back, tipping your head, and still his mouth hovered above yours.   “You should learn to flatter yourself, sister,” he said, lifting his head so the tip of his nose brushed yours.   You licked your lips, raked your teeth over your bottom lip because it seemed to ache in wanting.   You dug your fingernails into his chest, dragging them down.   His eyes closed in an expression of pain but the sound he made revealed pleasure—pleasure right down to his core and yours.

“You don’t serve me either,” you breathed.   He opened his eyes again, that fire yet burning.

“You would like me to.”

His words ran down your body, sliding past your own suit jacket, your dress shirt, your pants, and every article beneath.   You felt it on your skin, between your legs, and somewhere deep inside.   Your heart raced, and its thunder was affected by fear.

“I have no likes,” you stammered, “I have no desires.”

“Lying is a sin,” he said—always too smart for his own good.  Always too much heart for his own good.   Always too much everything for his own good.   His good and yours.   He was falling and he was going to drag you right down with him.   You could feel a heavy weight inside your chest, yanking you down, lower and lower.   Your hands roughly moved over his abdomen and sides, like they were fighting some invisible force, fighting to stay while that force removed them.   You had no idea what to do.  

You knew what you wanted to do, though.  And that thought unsettled you, even while the cavities formed by fear were filled with liquid heat, born of the passion in his gaze.

You fought yourself, a three-word battle that raged in terror.    With a frustrated exhale, your hands went to his belt and unbuckled it.   You fumbled a bit, distracted by his breath, by his eyes locked on your face, by the hot pulse of your own blood.   You parted the belt and undid his trousers, tugging them down his thighs.

“Y/N,” there was desire and maybe fear in that voice, though maybe not fear for himself.   Your mind was a bit foggy, torn between a hundred thoughts.   You couldn’t think straight in this body.  

You ignored his voice, grabbing the sides of his boxers and pushing them down as well.  His cock sprang from its confines, throbbing, rigid, dripping precum, and your lips parted in a wordless wonder as you looked at him.

“Oh,” you scarcely breathed, lifting a hand, carefully wrapping your fingers around him.   He closed his mouth, biting back a sound, breathing hard through his nose.   You experimentally moved your hand down his length, revelling in how his entire body seemed to quake with need.   “This anatomy grows harder with arousal,” you murmured, stroking him again.  “You must be very aroused, Castiel.  I never thought you could feel so hard…”

“Y/N—”

“Brother,” the title again spoke volumes, whispered from some place you wanted to forget.    

He moaned, leaning towards you, hips bucking into your hand.   Your actions were slow and you recognized that, though you did not speed them, continued to slowly work him in your warm grip.  When he adjusted to your cadence, he lifted his head slightly.   You were close enough that his lips brushed your cheek, his nose pushing at a bit of your hair.   He breathed against your skin, licking his lips, the action touching you.  

“Your anatomy experiences dampness with its arousal,” he said, speaking low, that deep voice of his rolling over you.   “Are you wet for me, sister?”   You made a small noise, almost whimpering, moving your hand faster.   He dipped his head forward, panting in your ear.   “You are,” he growled, “your body knows what it is missing.”  

You shook your head, though lying was futile.   You were soaked and he would know.   Your brother in divinity, your Castiel—

You could feel he was on the cusp of a climax.   You delivered him to the brink and then stopped, abruptly seizing him, drawing a wretched sound from his throat.

“Y/N,” he groaned, “you can’t—”

“Now you have favours to ask of me,” you said dryly, squeezing him.   He made a pitiful sound, the chains rattling for a prolonged moment.    You remained there, gripping him, listening to his frantic sounds, watching desperate expressions shadow his face as you stroked him again.   He shook his head and then nodded, tugging on the chains again.

“Please,” his voice broke.   If only his resolve could so easily fracture.   You considered drawing out this moment.   You could no doubt pry some interesting confessions from him.   But there was no lasting victory in any comment.   The second he was relieved, he would return to his stubborn self.  

“I should keep you like this,” you said, telling him as much.   “I should leave you alone, begging for me to finish you.”   He whimpered, the sound rolling into a moan as you started stroking him again.   “But I won’t,” you said, breaking into a little noise of your own, “I want to see you at the height of human depravity.”

The very second you released him, he came with a cry, panting, spurting a mess of his own ejaculation across his body.   You pulled your hands back, watching as he groaned, as his tense body slackened, as the chains protested his slumping form.   You grabbed his chin and lifted his head, looked into eyes which reminded you of a much older story.  

“Things are different now,” you said, not even sure what you meant.   Did you mean to reject him, to put him in his place?   Or had you delivered yourself across some unexpected bridge?   Who had broken whom?  

You received no immediate answer.   He was suddenly clothed, at least in pants and a shirt.   You both looked confused and then footsteps resonated behind you.   Your commanding officer stood in wait, looking none too pleased.   You rose immediately, stepping away from Castiel.   You bowed your head, anticipating admonishment.   To say you had lost track of your goals would be an understatement.

“You will seek absolution elsewhere,” your superior said, frowning.  “I will handle this rebel myself.”  

You started to leave, pausing in your retreat.   You looked back at Castiel whose fiery resolve returned all at once.   He glared at the high-ranking angel though you knew from experience it would not take long for him to break Castiel down.   Some angels were better at this than others.   Honestly, you once counted yourself among them.   But Castiel…

He looked over at you, something softening in that gaze.   The unsatisfied tension in your body sprang to life.   You stumbled from the chamber, exploding into your celestial form.   Electric currents seemed to run through every little wavelength, every chaotic wonder of your composition.    And though you were no longer in a human body, you were overcome with despondency, a keen lamentation, a perfect heartbreak.   You could not weep in this form and you seemed to suffer all the more for it.

Curled amidst stars, you supposed you knew exactly who had broken whom.

castiel x reader masterpost

[dukeofriven]

FOOL: “By the Lord, fool, I am not mad.”— But do you remember? ‘Madam, why laugh you at such a barren rascal; an you smile not, he’s gagged?’ And thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges. - Twelfth Night, 5.i For fuck’s sake. Let’s just, for the moment, set aside the utter horror of the event itself - the mourning, the agonies physical, mental, spiritual, the trauma that will afflict people for the rest of their lives. Let’s lay aside the secondary horrors, of everyone not ‘there’ who now has to process the event - the clean-up, the identification and cataloguing of the dead. Let’s set-aside the feelings of helplessness and gut-wrenching self-recrimination of people who will spend years blaming themselves for what happened - the ‘could have done betters’ the ‘why didn’t I realizes’ the ‘if only I acted fasters,’ because events like this are never singular in their trauma, they spread it in tendrils of loathing. Let’s set aside what we all know will happen next: ‘thoughts and prayers,’ a refusal to accept mass murder as a political statement and a demand not to politicize the event, the same Candide-esque, almost zen-like statements in support of a culture where sickening mass murder happens weekly and nobody does anything about it because why would you? America has more guns than people As Is Their Right and acting like there are consequences to that fact would be foolish or, worse, political. Let’s set aside the millstone of the second amendment - both the repeatedly fatal modern misinterpretation of its language and the broader, never-examined inability of a nation to even consider that it’s founding members might have erred in framing its legal foundations - either from bias, oversight, or simple failure to accurately predict the technological and social changes of the subsequent two and a half centuries. Let’s set aside the gross obscenity that is the Department of Homeland Security informing the public that is has uncovered no links to terrorism and that other venues are not at heightened risk - because if we examine that quote for even a second we come to the blood-chilling implication that the Las Vegas gunman didn’t need the financial backing of a nefarious terrorist organization to arm himself and carry-out an attack that killed 50 and injured 400+ people - he just needed to go to a store, and therefore all venues are at the same terrible, unpredictable risk of lunatics who are allowed to own 10 firearms with little oversight or scrutiny that they were yesterday as they are today, and will be again tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that. Let’s even lay aside the fact that since the middle of last night every casino owner in Las Vegas has been locked in meetings with their business partners, lawyers, and accountants as they - almost paralyzed by blind panic - try and predict how this will affect revenue over the next six months and how they can best minimize the damage to their pocket books - because let’s not pretend that a corporate culture that was content to passively let people gamble their lives away is going to find a conscience when lives in the region are taken more actively. Let’s set all that aside because at the end of the day none of this is unique - if we neglected covering something in the litany of stark, sobering horrors above we shouldn’t worry: we’ll have another chance to mention it the next time the horror comes round. Even oh-so-edgy, truth-to-power, we-simply-must-change write-ups like this one are part of the process - a thousand came out after Orlando, a thousand came out after Sandy Hook, a thousand more will come out in the next few days, and they will all fall howling into the amaranthine void, having accomplished nothing. If Europe is place that cannot escape its past, America is a place that refuses to look directly at it, save through a mirror darkly. America is a place where pattern recognition is a mortal sin in the eyes of the political class. When the Challenger exploded the board of inquiry started asking a series of whys and hows - looking not only at the specific, technical failure that caused the shuttle to explode, but at the reasons for that failure in the first place: the culture of complacency, arrogance, and profit that existed within the institutions - NASA, Marshall, Morton Thikol - that had failed so badly to protect American lives. Whenever American society explodes, however - whenever the system fails to stop a madman from committing brutality and terror - you’re not allowed to ask more than one ‘why’ and one ‘how. “How did he do it” and “why”? The ‘how’ is always “he bought guns” and thank you, that’s all, no further questions. To examine the question further, to examine the culture that gets indignant at the thought of questioning gun ownership and the love and worship and appreciation of guns, is offensive, rude, ‘not the done thing.’ So let us set aside a cultural landscape where the act of social critique is far more disturbing and disloyal a trend then the weekly murder of the innocent en-masse. “America is full of responsible gun owners” the outraged will bristle, while doing nothing to address the fact that American guns owners are more consistently irresponsibly then any other nation on Earth not currently on the edge of or having collapsed, doing nothing to address the fact that America’s relationship to the consequence of mass gun ownership has no corresponding reflection anywhere else in the first world. ‘A few bad apples’ is the familiar refrain whether it is mass shootings or police brutality or sex crimes at fraternities - the annual, predictable harvest of bad apples is a quirk, an anomaly, and not a reflection that the orchard itself is not so much riddled with disease and sickness as it was seeded with toxic cultivars at the start; that these bad apples are the trees producing fruit as intended, that all of this is preventable if only anyone would actually tend to the orchard with a ruthlessness that would lead to tangible results. Let us set that all aside because it is a given - immutable, unchanging - and focus on the one thing in all of this sickening tragedy that is new, namely that this morning the president of the United States came within a heartbeat of sending the victims of senseless trauma his ‘warmest congratulations’ on the event of their being assaulted by a madman with guns. “Warmest condolences” isn’t a thing people should say - it’s some awful confabulation between ‘sincerest condolences’ and ‘warmest congratulations,’ born perhaps of confusion over the right thing to say in the moment. Culturally you’re allowed to be insincere with your congratulations, hence the intensifier of ‘I really mean it,’ but it’s gauche to be insincere when expressing sympathy. On any other day, with any other person, I would doubtless overlook it as a slip of the tongue. For all I know it is a regional difference and New Yorkers warmly offer condolences to one-another all the time - but after a week spent watching one Donald J. Trump repeatedly disrespect the mayor of a dying city he is failing to lend aid too, complain that football players are pussies for not putting themselves at greater risk of concussions for the entertainment of the masses, and cutting the legs out from under his chief diplomat for no other reason than he wants to seem like the biggest cock of the walk when it comes to nuclear war, I can only see this as one more example of a man whose lack of empathy takes my breath away. Donald Trump doesn’t know a thing about sympathy - but he knows what it sounds like when someone tells him how great he is, so that’s what he defaults too. That last little meaningless valediction - ‘God Bless You” - really sets my teeth on edge for it hollowness and vacuousness (coming as it does from a man who is his own god) but it’s that opening statement that is the most meaningless. (It is amazing how Donald J. Trump washes clean the sins of past presidents. How can we ever consider Nixon cold and unfeeling when compared to Trump? How can we feel that Regan’s rapidly deteriorating mental state made him unfit for the presidency when compared to Trump? How can Eisenhower, Kennedy, and LBJ choosing to mire America in the bloody charnel house of Vietnam rather than lose any face on the world stage seem nearly as bad when compared to Trump, taking the world to the edge of nuclear war for no greater reason than his infantile ego?) The panic, horror, and surreality of mass shooting have happened before. They will happen again. But now we are faced with a new element - sincerity so ineffectual, so insincere, so clearly forced that the national mourner-in-chief can not even find the humanity within himself to reflect upon the shocking, brutal loss of American lives in a way that makes any of this feel real. We have already become numb to mass shootings in American: are we now becoming indifferent? Is so little demanded of political leaders’ empathy and compassion that glimpses of grief - glimpses of the real people who inhabit the office - are surplus to requirements? The biggest mass shooting in American history happened last night, less than eighteen months after the previous biggest mass shooting in American history: in the time between the last great shooting and this one American has only gotten colder, more violent, and less caring. The trends above seem to go hand-in-glove with this new trend of a president who can shed only crocodile tears. How long before his incapacity finishes trickling down to the rest of them? How long before they stop acting like they should care? How long before we stop expecting them? How long before the next mass shooting becomes like the next drunk-driver crashing on the highway - beneath the notice of the great and powerful? After all, it happens every day - and it’s not like we can do anything about it. It is The Way Things Are.