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ashintheairlikesnow · 4 years ago

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A Little Bit Stabbed

Jake Gets Stabbed Miniseries: First Second Third Fourth Fifth Sixth

CW: Discussion of past child abuse/domestic violence, description of stab wound, painkillers/drugged but in a good way, brief IV needle reference, some short references to Jake’s religious trauma, some trauma response stuff

“Took four of us to get you onto the couch, you know,” Kauri says, fingers moving gently to brush Jake’s short hair back off his forehead. There’s a hint of humor to his deep voice, but Jake catches the tremor in it, too. “You’re heavier than you look.”

“Must be… pretty fucking heavy, then,” Jake manages, voice slightly thin. They gave him something - Nat’s EMT friend showed up with IV supplies while refusing to tell anyone where they’d gotten ahold of everything from, except to repeatedly reassure all of them I know someone, it’s taken care of, I probably won’t go to jail for this. Besides, I’ve been in jail before.

Jake might not have found it very reassuring if he wasn’t halfway to unconscious from the pain alone at the time.

Now, though, there’s a needle feeding a steady supply of something wonderful into his bloodstream, holding the worst of the pain at bay. All he can feel now is maybe a little bit of an itch he knows better than to scratch, and a heaviness to his limbs that keeps them limp and relaxed.

“We had to turn the stupid thing into the pull-out bed just to make sure your feet wouldn’t be higher than your head.” Kauri smiles at him, but there’s worry in those warm blue eyes, and Jake uses every ounce of strength to lift his good hand, the one on the uninjured side, and take Kauri’s, pulling his knuckles to his lips to brush against them.

“I’m okay,” Jake says softly. “I am, Kaur. It’s not so bad.”

“It’s not-... you got fucking stabbed in your own kitchen, Jake.” Kauri’s lips thin and he looks away, over towards the TV, playing Clue.

Funny, Jake thinks, woozy and untethered to any kind of focus. My mom used to play Clue when we were alone, after. Made her feel better for a while.

“Just a… a flesh wound,” Jake manages in a terrible approximation of a British accent.

Kauri just looks at him, expression serious, and leans over until their foreheads touch. He’s warm, and Jake’s eyes close, basking in the body heat that comes off of him, surrounds them both. “Don’t,” Kauri whispers. “Please don’t make jokes. I thought-”

“It’s okay,” Jake murmurs.

Eventually, he should probably tell someone he can only sort of feel the hand on the injured side. But not now.

“It’s okay. It’s not s’bad. I got the good drugs, right?”

“Antibiotics and…” Kauri squints at the label on the bag attached to the IV, then winces and shakes his head. “Sorry. Can’t read today. It, uh. It kind of comes and goes when I’m worried, and today-”

“I get it. But… you don’t have to worry about me, Kaur. It’s over, it happened… I’ll feel better pretty fast. It’s okay.”

“It’s not,” Kauri says softly, but he relaxes beside Jake, keeping a hold of his hand. His fingers are slightly chilled, but they warm against Jake’s. The two of them settle into silence for a while, a woman in black on the TV with eyes blown wide in comic exaggeration of anger speaking in a blur of sound Jake knows by heart but can’t really pick apart from anything else, not just yet, not right now.

He knows this movie by heart. He and his mom used to curl up under a blanket while she closed her eyes and prayed for things to get better and Jake prayed for his dad to die in a car accident or some other terrible way, and make it slow, and then pray with terror not to go to hell for thinking like that.

If men like his father go to heaven, Jake would rather burn in hell.

At least my favorite bands would be there, he thinks, and laughs to himself, shoulders shaking a little, sending a ripple of pain down his arm and spiking into his skull. He winces, but the thought still strikes him as too funny to quit circling woozily around his mind, and he keeps laughing a little.

Kauri turns to look at him, eyebrows raised. “What are you laughing at?”

Jake blinks over at him, those wide blue eyes. It had been hell not to be able to hold him for so long, with eyes like that. Real hell, the kind where you spend your days wishing for a connection that seems too hard to make. “Nothing, just… thinking about shit with my dad,” He says, finally. “My mom and I used to watch Clue all the time. It’s her favorite movie.”

“Yeah?” Kauri looks over his shoulder, back at the television, and Jake’s eyes move lazily over the slight bump in his nose where it was broken by someone years ago, the dip of his lips, the roundness of his chin, angling a little with age. The way his neck would feel to trace with just one fingertip, how he smiles when Jake does it, asks him what the fuck he’s looking at when there’s way more to Kauri that needs attention right now than just his face.

There’s a lazy wave of warmth in Jake, a steady thrum of something that goes much deeper than arousal, at the memory.

Adoration.

“Yeah,” He says, softly. “She’d put it on when he left the house, we’d make popcorn and watch it. Saturday night special, popcorn and a movie, Mom and Jake.”

“Where’d your dad go?” Kauri asks, then the answer catches up with him, and he winces. “Wait, sorry. I think I know where he went.”

“Church.”

That is clearly not what Kauri expected to hear. “I-... what?” He turns back to Jake, eyebrows furrowing. “I thought-”

“Nope. He went to church. Fish fry on Saturdays, he volunteered.” Jake is dimly aware that this might be more than he’s ever told Kauri about his father, at least more than he’s ever said that wasn’t laser-focused on the hurts, the bruises, the concussion, the ER visits where Jake learned to lie. “He was a magician with a deep fryer. Best fucking fish I ever ate.” He laughs, then coughs a little against the new round of ache in his shoulder.

Kauri is quiet for a moment, his eyes searching Jake’s face, maybe looking for an idea of how to respond the right way. Jake knows that look - he’s seen it less and less over the years, but it never fully stops.

Kauri never stops looking for the safe answer, the one that won’t get him hurt. Jake never stops being ready to fight his way out if it happens again. Kauri is still ready to say what the abuser needs to hear, placate and please and keep himself alive.

Jake is still ready to pick up a weapon and use it if his father ever comes near he or his mother again. Not that he ever will. Not that he even wants to, sixteen years after Jake last saw his face.

But he’s still built, deep within, to fight the threat. And so is Kauri, in his own way.

“I love you so much,” Jake says softly. “I hope you didn’t pull anything dragging my ass around.”

“Mmmn, guess I’ll find out,” Kauri says softly, snuggling back up to him, then. “Should we change the movie? If it’s, like, a thing for you-”

“Nah.” Jake smiles, slightly. He feels pleasantly drunk, on whatever the painkiller slowly drip-feeding into his arm is. A little woozy, a little bit in love with it. “It’s like a comfort thing, really. I should call my mom-”

“I already did,” Kauri says, gently pushing him back down as Jake tries to make himself sit up. “She’s driving up. She said she’ll get here in the morning, she had to find someone to watch her dog.”

Jake blinks twice. “Mom has a dog?”

“I think it’s new. But, um. You can’t exactly meet her at her hotel, Jake. She’s gonna have to come here.”

Jake feels a rush of old nerves prickling along his arms, the hair of his neck trying to stand up. He closes his eyes, tries to push it back down. “I’ve never given her my address. It’s not safe for us. What if-... I don’t know. I’ve just never… I’ve always worried that if he found her, you know, that he’d… convince her to tell him where I live. He’d turn us all in just to feel like the big righteous moral hero all over again. Probably hard to feel that way when you’re hitting a teenager. Easier when you’re turning in vigilantes with stolen property.” He spits the words, and Kauri flinches a little. “Shit. Sorry, Kaur.”

“No, it’s. It’s okay. I get what you mean. But I don’t think your mom would do that. She loves you.”

“She does.” Jake exhales, closes his eyes. Inside him there is still an angry child that wants to point out that it hasn’t always been enough. But there’s a grown man, and a decade of fucking therapy, telling him there’s a whole lot more to it than that. “And she’s finally come around to understanding why I do this. Yeah… yeah, we’ll tell her where I am. It’ll be fine. Honestly, it’s not so bad. Jameson really did a great job on the stabbing.” Jake tries to laugh again. “Fucking surgeon with a butcher knife. He managed to miss every fucking bit of me that would have killed me.”

“Except for if you bled out,” Kauri points out, voice small.

“Yeah… but I didn’t.” Jake thinks of Antoni’s face, the focus in his dark eyes, the quick movement of his hands, the blinding agony of the cloth being forced into the wound to soak up the blood, the way Antoni had leaned all his weight forwards to put enough pressure to staunch the bleeding. Jake had never felt pain like that before, and he’s not sure he could handle feeling it again. “Ant was there. It’ll be okay. Where is he?”

“In his room.” Picking at the heavy thick blanket laid over Jake, not quite looking at him now, Kauri asks, “How are you so calm about this?”

“Drugs,” Jake answers right away. “Like ninety percent drugs.” He groans as a throbbing ache travels from the stab wound, up into his skull, all the way down to his toes. “Fuck. The… whatever’s in there helps. But also…” Jake sighs, letting his eyes drift to the ceiling, over the popcorn-texture there. He’d meant to scrape it clean and smooth, when he bought the house, but other stuff kept taking priority, and he hadn’t gotten around to it yet. “This isn’t th’ first time, you know?”

Kauri frowns. “Jake, I have licked just about everything on your body, I’ve never seen a scar from-”

“Not… not stabbed. But… stuck here, on a couch-bed, tryin’... tryin’ to heal from shit. That’s not new.” Jake exhales. Above him, the blades of the ceiling fan circle lazily, and his eyes follow the movement of the shadows.

“No, I guess not.”

“In any case… I haven’t s-seen… Jameson’s upstairs, right? Can you get him down here?”

Something passes over Kauri’s face, a shadow, a discomfort and darkness that Jake can’t quite read. “Jameson’s not in the house, Jake.”

“What? Why?” Jake starts trying to sit up again, and this time Kauri’s gentle push isn’t enough to get him back down. He grinds his teeth against the pain and forces himself upright, trying to shift his legs over the side of the bed. The room spins around him, dizzy-sick flip in his stomach, but he ignores it. He’s felt worse than this and kept moving before. “Shit, fuck, I should’ve made sure he didn’t leave-”

“He didn’t. I made him go.”

The look Jake turns on Kauri is baffled, but there’s anger, too, welling up inside him. “You what?”

“I told him he can’t stay here if he’s a danger to you and the others,” Kauri says, but he cringes back from Jake’s expression, instinctive fear. Jake hates how he looks like his dad - huge and muscular, a threat inherent in his existence that he might not give off if he were smaller. But his bulk and his strength is also the thing that makes him capable of withstanding the danger he puts himself in for them. It’s the reason he could come home and pick Chris up with a broken rib and carry him after they raided the last safehouse he’d lived in. It’s the reason he could finally fight back with his dad. It’s the reason the kids at his new schools, one after another after another as he and his mom moved constantly to try not to be found, left him alone.

“Kauri, he can’t-... Jameson’s not. He can’t live on his own.”

“That’s a lie,” Kauri says, lips barely moving. “That’s a lie they tell us-”

“No, that’s not what I-... Jameson’s like Chris,” Jake says, softly. “Like Chris used to be. He was treated like an animal, Kauri. He didn’t get to use fucking utensils to eat in the last two places he was held, he told me himself. He can’t live on his own yet. If you kicked him out… Jesus Christ, Kauri, do you not remember how it felt when you were kicked out?”

Kauri looks like he’s been slapped. “Wait, Jake-... I didn’t mean-”

“We found you half-dead under a goddamn bush, Kauri, you can’t do that to someone else just because I got a little bit stabbed! Shit. Fuck. I gave him a burner phone, if he’s still got it on him, maybe I can call-”

“Jakob fucking Stanton!” Kauri yells so rarely, and Jake goes still, turning to look at him, seeing the anger written across Kauri’s face. Kauri angry is electric, and immensely sexy, and something Jake had gone so long thinking he would never see unless Vincent Shield showed up with a new idea for how to make up for all his failures by forcing himself around someone who hated him. “Will you fucking listen to me?!”

Jake just sits there, staring at him. He can’t even find the words. Eventually, he just nods.

“I didn’t kick him out on the street, I’m not that awful, and fuck you for thinking I am and we’re going to talk about that later when you aren’t half off your head from painkillers. I don’t want him here until you’re feeling better in case it happens again, so I-... so I sent him home with Nat. She doesn’t have anyone living with her right now, and she said okay, so he’s going to stay with her.” Kauri swallows, reaching slowly out to lay his hand on Jake’s leg. “He and I talked. He said it’s always been men, Jake. All of the ones who hurt him were men, one of them was... was really big like you, I guess. So I thought-... if he’s with Nat, maybe it won’t happen again for long enough for him to, to work it through in therapy and Dr. Berger maybe can give him, give him s-something to help. So maybe he won’t, um, hallucinate or… or w-whatever the next time.” Kauri’s eyes well up, glimmer with tears that don’t fall. “I was trying to help. I thought he’d feel safer with only a woman, maybe, and I sent him alone so that he’d know he can’t hurt Allyn, he was really scared of that, and…”

Jake’s mouth hangs open.

Kauri slumps over, his forehead slowly resting against Jake’s back where he sits slightly behind him now that Jake is nearly off the bed. “I had to make sure everyone’s safe. I didn’t know what else to do. I sent Chris to stay with Laken overnight but he’ll be back tomorrow, Antoni’s fucked up but he’s in his room and he’s safe, and all the rescues promised to stay in their rooms and Allyn tried to go with Jameson and I think they hate me now because I said no, but I didn’t-... I tried to think of what you would do, if it had been Chris or me he’d hurt. I was trying to be like you. I’m s-sorry if I fucked it up, I’m sorry, please, I thought you were going to die, please don’t be mad at me-”

“Kauri.” Jake turns, and uses his good hand to lift Kauri’s chin, meeting his eyes.

Blue on blue, always.

“I’m not mad,” He says, gently. “Not… not now. You’re right, I shouldn’t have… just been a shit deciding what you did without asking. I’m sorry. So, let me just… you spent the last couple of hours really fucking busy, huh?”

Kauri nods, kissing Jake’s fingertips, one by one. “I’m sorry,” He whispers. “I’m not… I’m not good at this, I’m not... not... I was so scared. I didn’t know what you would do, Jake, and Nat said she thought it was a good idea, so-”

“It is. It is a good idea.” Kauri blinks, surprised, and the tears that have been threatening finally run, clear as crystal, down his flushed cheeks. He looks like a fucking sculpture, Jake thinks to himself, like some artist’s idea of the perfect beautiful person. “Kauri, just. Now that I get what you were trying to do… Shit. That’s really smart.”

Kauri huffs a laugh, a kind of half-sobbing sound, and shakes his head. “It’s just, I was just guessing-”

“That’s all we ever do, too,” Jake says, voice soft. “We guess, at what we can do to help. Nat always says we make the hard choices when nobody else can. Kauri, that’s the smartest fucking idea. I’m… that’s some grace under fire shit. That’s amazing.”

“It… it is?”

“Yeah.” Jake kisses him, and Kauri tastes like mouthwash, like mint, kisses back with desperate intensity. “Yeah, Kaur. That’s even better than what I would have done. You’re so fucking smart. What made you decide to slum it with me?”

“You have a really good d-dick and I don’t w-w-want to lose access,” Kauri says, and he’s crying or laughing or maybe both. “You’re my eye candy.”

“You’re my Einstein.”

“Fuck you.”

“Fuck me yourself,” Jake says softly.

“Heal a little first.” Kauri sighs, half-smiling, pulling Jake back into the bed to lay down again. “Everyone’s safe, Jake. At least for now. Everyone’s okay. You need to rest, and everyone’s going to be okay.”

Jake lets his head be maneuvered back onto the pillow, feels Kauri settle back down next to him, pulling the blankets back up over them both. He’s silent for a while, lets the soft sound of the end of the movie wash over him, showing the different endings.

“I love you,” He whispers. The way the adrenaline is fading makes him sleepy, drifting in a new drowsy haze, ready to dose off again. “So much.”

“Love you, too,” Kauri murmurs.

He knows this - the couch-bed pulled out, watching movies and stand-up comedy at a low volume, a throb of pain somewhere that will heal only with time - by heart.

With Kauri’s weight and warmth beside him, it feels entirely, completely new.

@astrobly @burtlederp @finder-of-rings @whump-tr0pes @raigash @moose-teeth @orchidscript @doveotions @pretty-face-breaker @eatyourdamnpears @boxboysandotherwhump @whumptywhumpdump @whumpfigure @outofangband @downriver914 @justabitofwhump @thehopelessopus @butwhatifyouwrite @yet-another-heathen @nonsensical-whump @newandfiguringitout @gonna-feel-that-tomorrow @oops-its-whump @cubeswhump @whumpiary @endless-whump

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kurtanaaa · 3 years ago

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i am back to ask another gaga related glee question ☺️☝️

you get to give each member of the OG new directions (+ blaine & sam) a gaga solo, what are they singing?

everyone sit down shut the fuck up and listen to me i have important things to SAY thank you ANA

my only problem is i cant assign people just one so i will be listing other contenders if i have them

quinn: sinner's prayer. "and she wants nothing more than a man to please/maybe she's in too deep/her love for him ain't cheap/but it breaks/just like a knockoff piece from fulton street" tell me thats not quinn. tell me thats not quinn and ill tell you youre wrong. and the title alone... perfect for her religious trauma. ALSO it fits her alto voice!!!!! can you tell i had this one on standby for if i was ever asked something like this.

mercedes: you and i. now this is a song i mostly chose because i would absolutely love to hear it in her voice. she would fucking kill it and would sing it with so much emotion i can SEE it. also (pushing my samcedes agenda), its vaguely country vibe means it would be a great song to sing to/about sam's lil country ass. the shows version... did they really HAVE to mash it up with that other song. Did They. i was also seriously considering paper gangsta for her bc that would fit her s4 storyline SO WELL but i just wanna hear her Sing this one more. other contenders: paper gangsta and the fame

only now realizing how long this is, its going under a cut

kurt: hair. i cant avoid it man. this is just his fuckin song! this is it! i know the whole "hair" metaphor doesnt really work with short hair, but its about the MESSAGE! ITS ABOUT THE EMOTION! he just wants to be himself and he wants you to love him for who he is! other contenders: boys boys boys and donatella (i have to say i rlly did something here with the other contenders)

santana: marry the night. everything about this song is for her. god i wish we got the "santana exploring the lgbtq scene in new york" storyline we deserved because this would fit it perfectly. shes gonna drive down the streets dressed insane and be gay as fuck! and she's gonna be alive to see it! no other contenders bc this song is just Hers. sorry bout it! and my fucking god her voice would sound INCREDIBLE doing the "NIIIIIIIIIGHT" AT THE END

sam: alejandro. now we all love Our Local Slut Sam. this is his Single and Free vibing song, which he should've gotten maybe! at some point! just a lil moment to Vibe and be sexy. i think this would be SO FUN!!!! he needs to wear a weird outfit and weird makeup. basically i need sam to be more campy

tina: dance in the dark. god this song fucks. i dont wanna ramble on too much to explain exactly how much it connects to tina (because it connects SO MUCH. SO MUCH) but. its about the breaking free of expectations and the self-consciousness. it is! AND about being a woman and having to deal with those things specifically!!!!! also her voice is so sweet and suited to this song's range. other contenders: schieße

rachel: million reasons. i think that this song connects to her and finn and a lot of their relationship. plus, this song isn't really pop, which suits rachel's voice more. thats it really. other contenders: joanne (also about finn, but specifically his death.)

puck: dope. you know that post about changing hey there delilah to be about a man separated from his daughter? yeah do that with this one and make it about beth. do it i promise it doesn't hurt at all :)

artie: just dance. this is a song i think he himself would choose bc it is right in his pop wheelhouse. he would have fun with it i think! and no escaping, he has to sing both colby o'donis AND gaga's parts. he is not exempt from gaga. other contenders: mary jane holland and starstruck

blaine: fashion of his love. this just makes sense okay! it just does. "i'm gonna be his first and last kiss" ok miss thing!!!! you go kiss your man!!!!! other contenders: so happy i could die

mike: artpop. im gonna be real, i mostly chose this because i think he could dance to it in his Own Style. i dont think theres much of an explanation otherwise? HOWEVER. if it werent such a Kurt Song i would def also propose hair for mike. it would fit his storylines quite nicely! so, other contenders: hair and teeth (that makes it sound like its one song title They Are Separate)

finn: brown eyes. this ones about rachel. it tracks it checks out it adds up it makes sense. "everything could be everything if only we were older/guess its just a silly song about you/and how i lost you/and your brown eyes". and in the context of finns death it hurts more ! :) other contenders: 911

brittany: highway unicorn (road to love). now i'm not just saying this because of the unicorn. i AM saying this because it just feels very brittany in terms of vibes as well as it being something she can sing about santana (she don't care if your papers or your love is a law/she's a free soul burning roads with a flag in her bra). also i think she can dance to it somewhat which is important

BONUS

marley: judas or john wayne

jake: bad kids

unique: babylon

kitty: grigio girls

bc i couldnt stop thinking about these while making this post

#THANK YOU SO MUCH AGAIN FOR THIS ASK ANA IM SORRY IT GOT SO LONG AAAHHHHHHHAAGHAGH #anyway i have so many other ideas for gaga songs that would be duets/group numbers/etc.#like bloody mary shouldve been a kurtana duet. i need it like i need air #and grigio girls rlly could be sung by ALL the ND girls #IM SO SORRY THIS IS SO LONG I JUST LOVE IT WHEN MY INTERESTS INTERSECT #i listened to the entire joanne album for the first time for this and uh. bro. im so sorry i neglected her #joanne i love you and your bluesy-rock gospel-ish style can you ever forgive me #ana 🍎#rae talks #glee #lady gaga #glee headcanons #long post #rae's headcanons #new directions

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ladyloveandjustice · 3 years ago

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The Westing Game Chapter 17

Some Solutions

-Jake is trying his darnedest to rekindle the romance between himself and Grace. Is it just because he noticed the spark has died, or IS he suspicious/jealous about how much time she’s spending with Mr. Hoo? At any rate, when he sends her bon-bons, Grace is convinced he’s trying to poison her and makes him eat one first, which is a red flag for any relationship, I think we can all agree.

-Meanwhile, we FINALLY get Mrs. Hoo’s full name courtesy of Ford and Sandy’s research- it’s Sun Lin Hoo. Apparently the order of events is she immigrated from Hong Kong two years ago and married Mr. Hoo last year (his first wife died five years ago of cancer). The HOT GOS is he married her to get her her family’s sauce recipe or whatever, which seems like a “grain of truth” thing even if it’s not the complete truth- I mean, whatever the reason he married her, it doesn’t seem to be because he liked her, considering how little regard he has for her. And the feeling seems mutual. Hmm.

(I’m gonna call her Sun from now on bc less typing and considering how little love there seems to be in her marriage, I’m getting the feeling she wouldn’t mind. Mr. Hoo is just Hoo now, no offense, just less typing, and James is easy to mix up with Jake, while Shin is apparently his restaurateur name.)

So on Sun’s side of things, she’s picking up English pretty quickly thanks to regular visits from Jake. It would be extremely weird if a double affair started up here, wouldn’t it? But maybe that’s another motive for Jake’s sudden gift-giving- does he have a thing for Sun and feel guilty about it?

And is driving a wedge in the marriage part of why Westing paired them up like this in the first place?

-Re Ford’s private investigator: I’m starting to think it might be Barney Northup (or rather, whoever Barney really is). That would line up with her being surprised and thinking this all might be part of Westing’s schemes, but the investigator is also giving her files on everyone and you can’t well expect a private investigator to reliably give the truth about themself. But how could she trust Barney when he’s the one who gathered them? Maybe she doesn’t, and is trying to investigate HIM right back.

The only other real possibility of characters we’ve been introduced to outside the circle is the lawyer, Plum, and Westings Morgue Friend.

-The other big part of this chapter is Theo! Who is SUPER overthinking this investigation. But that’s not surprising, he’s got a big motivation to get that cheddar, it’s a way he could go to college AND pay off his brother’s surgery, potentially. He starts suspecting Otis, but runs into Crow instead, who pulls him both into her apartment and into prayer, stating:

“We are sinners, yet we shall be saved. Let us pray for deliverance, then you must go to your angel, take her away��.

Okay, so I think this line makes it extremely likely Crow’s obsession with Angela is she DOES see her as Violet Westing reborn, essentially, and Theo as the lover who will “save” her this time, like his dad didn’t. Violet was married to a man she supposedly didn’t love and died, and we must stop Angela from the same fate, yet adultery is a sin, hence the prayers for salvation.

So that means Crow had some involvement with whatever drama went down with Violet and carries such guilt and/or trauma over the whole thing she’s a). become pretty disconnected with reality and b. will go against her own religious beliefs and “sin” to do things right this time. What did she do that led to this fervor?

Whatever it is, this is a pretty terrifying experience for poor Theo. Hope she doesn’t keep him praying TOO long. It can mess up the knees!

#nev reads the westing game

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watchwithbee · 4 years ago

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the fosters, s1e11

tw: brief mentions of (fictional) past r*pe and s*xual a*sault, foster siblings having romantic/sexual relationships, poor mental health, father figure fighting an alcohol problem, somewhat shitty commentary but that’s everything I post lmao

1k words

(started about 10 minutes in)

HELL YEAH JUDE

PREACH

STAND UP FOR YOURSELF BBY BOY

ALSO HEY BRANDON YOU PIECE OF SHIT

WHAT THE FUCK DUDE

I’M STILL PISSED AT HIM

Ju: you’re no better than liam >:(

Me: FUCK HIM UP BABY BOY

B: I love callie

[egregious puking noises]

Look ship whatever you want

Just acknowledge when things are problematic

Ship brallie to your heart’s content as long as you don’t condone in*est IRL

I’m not here to police ppl, I’m just giving opinions no one asked for cause that’s the entire purpose of this blog

Oh no jude

Poor boy

I literally hate brandon sm he needs to get his shit together

[aggressive vibing to the theme song]

[weeping] you’re surrounded by love and you’re wanted

I used to think the theme was cheesy

Now i literally love it sm

The RUBBER DUCKY

THE HAND HOLDING

Ugh ads

I really think people are overlooking jude’s feelings rn

Omfg stef’s mom (her name is sharon, bee)

I love her

I love jude and sharon’s dynamic it’s

Chef’s kiss

Immaculate

Sh: I’m not gonna break up with him cause I love his bed

“Subtext, by calvin klein ;)”

Oh right this is the bed that fucks up their marriage

Ju: I’m a taco :D

Me: [I can’t find it but the clip from b99 where boyle says I’m gonna need a minute

It cuts to a black screen that says one minute later than cuts back to charles tear and snot stained face after clearly crying a lot

Boyle: sorry for the sobbing and the wailing and the weird snorting noise I made at the end

But yeah that’s me rn]

Oh god not more jesus lexi drama

I wish mariana and jesus got along better

Also jake t austin jesus walked so noah centineo jesus could run

I love that typed out it looks like I mean jesus the religious figure

Oh shit

Lexi needs to stop gatekeeping and mariana needs to stop taking the division of time as a personal offense

I mean she and jesus are both taurus so I’m not surprised they’re clashing

Oh god callie why did you run away w wyatt

I hate wyatt

I hate the aliens dialogue

W: the government is making it seem fake oOoOoH

Literally hate it

Callie “he’s better off without me” addams foster is getting on my last fuckin nerve

Like the insensitivity?????

The not actually caring about the people around you under the guise of caring about them??????

The only difference between martyrdom and soupyslide is press coverage

The whole Wyatt And Callie On The Run thing is getting old and it’s been happening for like 10 minutes

Self sacrifice isn’t cute sis

WYATT WHAT THE FUCK

He claims to care about her and yet

Deletes the fucking voicemail from her mom??????????

What???????

Christ stef is fucking crying

Sh: my love…

STEF AND HER MOM BOTH CALL PPL MY LOVE

SO FUCKING CUTE

Now wyatt is playing the good guy???F???

Okay hold up

Look

Callie and brandon are both at fault for kissing each other at stef and lena’s wedding

which was SO cute btw

the wedding not the gross kiss

I will say that callie, who was literally r*ped by L*am, was incredibly emotionally volatile then bc everything with him had been stirred up and she just found out he wouldn’t go to jail

No one would be surprised if she did something impulsive and self destructive bc of the trauma, especially something related to having an inappropriate relationship with a foster brother

Brandon knew about all of this and he wasn’t having flashbacks or a bunch of trauma about anything

He should have stopped her or at least pushed her away

And he didn’t

I’m not saying Callie isn’t at fault too, what I am saying is that brandon had more responsibility in that situation and didn’t do what a decent person would do

WYATT AND BRANDON ARE BOTH BAD FOR CALLIE

SHE DOESN’T NEED A RELATIONSHIP RN SHE NEEDS A LOVING SUPPORTIVE FAMILY

Callie is so clearly sprialing rn

At least Wyatt is actually trying to help her

No one can handle a stressful situation in this show

I can’t describe how much I hate the pseudo end of the fucking world energy they’re going for

At least wyatt had the decency to not immediately try to share a bed w her

I like how flustered he gets cuddling her

That’s cute at least

I don’t like that callie didn’t consider that sharing a bed would make him nervous or uncomfy

OH SHIT THERE THEY ARE

MOMS HAVE ENTERED THE CHAT

And now callie, feeling trapped again, is going to run away yet again

And do something impulsive

Yet again

Jfc

Look I have trauma and a strong fight or flight response too, but I dont hurt the people I love

Hitching a ride with a trucker??????????? She’s going to put herself in a very avoidable irreversibly bad situation

I love mike getting to be a good dad figure

It’s rare with the whole alcoholic plot

I really hate that too btw

He has a comforting presence

Let him be a good dad

Mariana you can want to be vegan but pls don’t be a toxic vegan

Let people make their own choices

I love frazzled mike trying to be a good dad

I wish mariana would be a little bit more of a problem solver

If she doesn’t want any animal products or peanut butter offer to make your own lunch maybe??????

I hate how fast Jesus and Mariana forgave brandon after the whole “We ToOk YoU iN wHeN NoOnE eLsE wAnTeD yOu!!! sTeF iS mY mOm!!!!” bullshit

“Mom’s car won’t start” lmao

What the actual fuck callie

If she’s this at risk for such self destructive behavior she needs way more help

HOT GIRL WITH PINK MULLET

MARRY ME

Oh god not the begging for a job scene

I hate this part

I’m a little over half way done with the episode so I’ll cut it here, part 2 will be up shortly

#the fosters #anti brallie #netflix #show review #idk what else to tag this #s1e11 #the fosters s1e11 #watch with bee

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my-healing-journey · 4 years ago

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So. I have sole custody of our 2 kids, which means that I’m responsible for making all of the big decisions (medical, educational, religious, etc.) and I do not need to have Jake’s approval before making said decisions. Jake has visitation with our kids twice per month on weekends, plus spring break, half of winter break, and two consecutive weeks in the summer (twice over).

He had the kids for spring break. I needed a break from the kids - I wanted to get my house sparkling clean, declutter, reorganize, etc. - but I couldn’t stop feeling anxious. The kids didn’t want to see Jake. They begged and pleaded with me to not see their dad. They wanted to stay home with me. They were angry with me for taking them to see their dad.

Here’s the thing, though - if I don’t take them to see their dad, he can sue me in court and then the kids can possibly be taken away from me. I have to deliver them to him for short visits every so often, otherwise I risk having to deliver them into his hands permanently, and that eats me up inside. They’re children. They shouldn’t have to be delivered to him at all.

Spring break came and went. I was a workaholic all week. I missed my kids fiercely. Tried to clean the house, wasn’t successful, and wound up hiring someone to come in and do the bulk of it for me. I worked 13+ hour days, binged The Last Kids on Earth (since my kids like the show), cried a bit, continued to miss them, got a massage, and tried to make my executively dysfunctioning brain do things. I felt anxious all week. Jake only let the kids call me on Wednesday (yes it goes against the parenting plan for him to limit their communication with me, but still).

It was around 6pm or so when the kids called me that Wednesday. I was still in the office, trying to wrap up some paperwork. My oldest went off into some room of the apartment where his dad was not present, as is typical for him, and then told me that he was angry at me because Dad had promised to take them bowling, but now didn’t have the money to do so because he ran out since he has to pay me every month. My head spun. WTAF? Before I could think of what to say, my child then said something along the lines of, “Dad said that if you saved all of your money, you’d have $6,000 per month and $70,000 in a year, but he only gets $1,800 per month, and he pays you $600 of that.” I asked my child, “Do you know why Dad pays me?” Child said no. I replied with, “That’s how he helps take care of you and your brother. That’s what good dads should do, right? Help take care of their kids?” His attitude turned around as he said “Hmm. Yeah.”

Then he told me that his dad disagrees with my oldest’s ADHD diagnosis and has convinced my kid that the medicine he’s been taking for ADHD is messing with his brain and he should stop. Child then passed the phone to Dad, who told me that he was concerned because my oldest child is forgetful.

Me: He’s always been forgetful.

Jake: But it seems really dramatic.

Me: He doesn’t live with you all the time; you usually just see him on weekends. His forgetfulness has been pretty bad. The medication he’s been taking has really helped him a lot. He’s gone from struggling with simple math concepts, with tears and frustration and tantrums, to being able to complete his homework on his own within 10 minutes. It’s a night and day difference.

Jake: Forgetfulness isn’t a symptom of ADHD, though. I know, I work with kids who—

Me: Forgetfulness is a classic symptom of ADHD, Jake. Along with voice volume control issues, stimming, and angry outbursts. Ryan has all of those symptoms, and he’s been diagnosed by two separate doctors as having ADHD.

Jake: I’m just saying, he didn’t use to be this forgetful.

Me: And I’m telling you that he’s always been forgetful, ever since he was a toddler, and the medication makes him less so. We have an appointment with his psychiatrist next Thursday; I’ll bring up your concerns with her then.

Jake then handed the phone to my youngest, who ran into a different room and just burst into tears and said he wanted to come home. I asked him if something had happened, and he said he didn’t want to talk about it. Y’all. My heart aches just thinking about it.

The kids came back home on Sunday at the end of spring break, and they were both in an agitated state of mind. My oldest proceeded to yell at me in the car on the way home. My youngest was quiet and withdrawn. My oldest told me that Dad put him on a diet, and ate cookies in front of him with his brother. He explained that Dad is pitting one child against the other, and my poor truth-telling oldest child bears the brunt of Dad’s annoyance and anger. Dad called him names and made fun of his clothes. Among a litany of other things.

My oldest is nine years old. 9. NINE.

I’m still so angry about all of this that I just. I want to scream and punch things.

Who puts a nine-year-old on a diet?! And who pits one kid vs the other and encourages antagonistic behavior?! Where does he get off thinking that it’s appropriate to tell my child to stop taking his medication, and blaming all of his financial problems on me?! Since when is it appropriate for him to talk about things like child support with THAT MUCH specificity and a negative light?! Since when is it okay for him to call my children names and put them down?!

...right. He’s a narcissist, Aerin. This is what he does. This is his whole fucking thing. To stir up drama and bad emotions, and then lord over all those in his life for having negative emotions.

I want him to go away and leave us alone. Forever. Just. Disappear and leave us be. The anxiety and the tension has been running at ridiculously high levels in our home for the past couple of months. He’d seemed to be doing pretty okay, and then all of a sudden he’s just. Decided he was bored with behaving politely, apparently.

My kids’ therapist has reported him to CPS 3x just this year thus far, and it’s only April.

Another incident happened during his last visit with my kids, a more physical one which I don’t want to write about right now because the emotions are still very raw and there’s so much anger and hurt. Suffice it to say, that resulted in yet another CPS report, a consultation with my attorney, multiple discussions with my children’s therapist, and I may very well be authorizing my attorney to file an emergency motion with the court in order to try and slap an immediate injunction onto Jake’s parenting time, pending a full psych evaluation.

This has got to stop. It has to stop.

I just want him to go away forever and leave us alone.

I feel like I’ve moved 1,000 steps forward, only to suddenly be pulled 600 steps backward. All that healing I thought I’d done feels like it’s gone again. Maybe not all of it. I no longer mourn my failed relationship. I feel quite indifferent toward Jake and whatever personal life he may have going on now. But the trauma has come back. Anxiety sits in my chest and in my throat, it’s been there for the past several weeks, and I’m just. I’m constantly near tears. I can’t sleep. I’m so frustrated that this is happening. Frustrated with Jake, frustrated that he just won’t change his ways, frustrated at the hurt he is purposely inflicting upon our children, and frustrated at myself for spiraling again. WTH. I thought I was past what he’d done to me. I thought I had healed. I was dating other men, I felt like my head was on straight again, and now I’m back to feeling unprepared for another relationship (something that I want so so badly), I feel like a giant mess of scattered puzzle pieces which had been mostly put together and then upended by a spiteful toddler. How am I supposed to move forward? Is this just going to keep happening over and over and over again? Will it never get better?

Go away, Jake. Do us all a favor and leave us alone. Ghost us. Never come for us again. Please. Do just one single good thing in your life and leave us alone.

Let us move on.

#tw abuse #tw gaslighting #tw narcissistic abuse #tw child abuse

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sometimesrosy · 5 years ago

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I wonder why it was Monty to help her in her mind space. For the show runners it was probably for nostalgia purposes, we love and miss Monty as does Clarke. But in the actual show, why? Why not bell. Or her mom. Or madi? Or wells? Or her dad? Why Monty?

First, I think it’s a mistake to separate the show from the showrunners, and say that the showrunners purpose is not the show purpose. They’re the same thing--unless you mean Doylist analysis vs Watsonian analysis, meaning the storyteller’s perspective vs the in narrative character’s perspective. Now that I think about it I think that is what you meant.

All right. So lets examine that.

Doylist (as in arthur conan dole who wrote Sherlock Holmes) analysis looks at a story to see the storytellers narrative purpose, how narrative choices are included so that the story can move forward, or create a feeling in the audience they want them to have, or even how fandom or society can affect their choices. While Watsonian (as in John Watson, Sherlock’s partner and friend, a character within the story,) analysis would look at a story to see how it is explained WITHIN the narrative or world of the story. Character feelings and motivations, social mores of the culture in the story, psychology of the characters, ships, world building and how it all fits together to make a fictional world.

So, what is the purpose of the showrunner’s use of Monty in the dreamspace. I do not think nostalgia is the top reason. I think more likely it’s because Monty has been the moral center of the story for a long time, so for Clarke to internalize that makes sense. Also, her dad WAS there, right when she woke up. And it makes sense, because he was Clarke’s original moral center. Come to think of it. Maya was a moral center, too. With this cast of her mindspace, Lincoln should have been there too, and Wells. They wanted Wells, but the actor was unavailable. And they probably didn’t even try for Lincoln because JR ended on bad terms with Ricky.

Also, Monty told her to do better. So he’s the one calling on her and correcting her understanding of doing better. Oh, but I think we’ve moved into Watsonian.

Clarke’s subconscious brought Monty because she is interpreting his directions and giving up and giving in to Josephine was the incorrect choice. She gave up because of guilt and probably exhaustion and narratively some suicidal urges. Internalized Monty said no.

Why not Bellamy, Madi or her mom?

Because I think Clarke was not ready to face her guilt over what she had done to them. This was narratively stated when she faced Octavia. He’s not there because she’s afraid that he hasn’t forgiven her and does think she’s a monster. And the drawing with Clarke shocking Madi was shown as three different drawings in three different places in her cel. ALSO was referenced as child abuse by Josephine. She also sacrificed her mother quite a few times. So why Octavia? Maybe because she feels she deserves to be attacked for what she did, and that’s why Octavia showed to be mean to her, but not Bellamy because she couldn’t deal with him being so angry at her. While we DID see Maya attacking her, which was WILDLY out of character for Maya. Even mindspace-Clarke seemed to realize this because the angry Maya couldn’t manage to remain, and soon became a helper figure rather than an enemy.

So the people in her mindspace were: Jake (helpful), Octavia (antagonistic), Maya (antagonistic then helpful), and Monty (helpful.) She faced her guilt and kind of decided that it wasn’t useful in fixing the situation, so moved on. Josephine, however, was NOT part of her subconscious, and was continuing to manipulate her until her subconscious Monty came to tell her to knock it off. That’s the part of her who knew Josephine was manipulating her.

You know. You can essentially look at all those mindspace actors as Clarke dressed up like them. Because that’s who they are.

If however you don’t mean Doylist/Watsonian analysis and instead you mean a concept that I’ve seen in fandom where the writers hate the characters and audience and are creating a story simply for the purpose of causing the most anger and upset and pain in the audience... which, as a writer I simply don’t understand. Do y’all REALLY think that’s what writer’s do? I mean, yeah, we want to jerk on your tears and anxiety and joy, but any good writer is not going to HATE their audience.

Read a GOT rant after the break in which I admit the possibility that this could be what happens

Okay. Okay. This DOES happen. And I hate it. It especially happens with genre stories, where showrunners go for the surface glamour, the hollywood flash and dazzle, the cheap and trite tropes, the unearned twists, the shockers, the blockbusters. But they often don’t respect the genre itself, and intend to use it just to make money. Often they don’t understand the genre, the purpose of it, the meaning of it, the need the audience fills with it. I think this is the way D&D treated GOT, and it’s why I call them bad writers.

But I’m not just calling them that because I don’t like them or the way the story ended or that my ship didn’t end up together because he murdered her. (I had to stop and shake my head at that ending because of how poorly done it was, but I could have accepted it if it had been told well.) The problem is that they didn’t follow the story, dropped important storylines, ignored the magic system, the political systems, the cultural systems, the religious systems, and the prophecies that had been set into place. This is the essence of the genre, and they just shrugged and ignored it. This, to me, shows disrespect to the genre and the audience. Then, they ignored the character development and narrative development, and this showed disrespect to the characters, story, and audience again. Then, they ignored the real world social and political issues like racism, misogyny, domestic abuse, and this showed that they were just complete and utter assholes who preferred the world the way it is, full of injustice, and want to keep the underdogs under the thumb of the lords and masters. Jackasses. ANYWAY enough about GOT. Fine, fandom is right. Sometimes this is the case and we can leave the possibility that JR will pivot and head the same way as D&D.... but I DON’T THINK SO.

I trust JR because of the narrative choices he has been making. I do NOT think that he hates Bellarke, because the narrative has been bringing them closer and closer together. I do NOT think that he will betray the story he has been telling, because he has systematically been wrapping up various storylines... not always happily, but always in a way that is consistent with the world view presented in the story. Yes, some characters have terrible endings, but it doesn’t seem to me to be useless torture, but rather an exploration of the TRAGEDY of the world that does ACTUALLY sometimes show that people cannot overcome their traumas and weaknesses. It’s sad but it’s true. And he has enough characters with endings that show their strength, even in death, that I think it is not about torturing them. He also has enough characters that learn from their failures and are growing and making better choices. And THEN he gave Harper and Monty a happy ending, and brought Bellamy to the completion of his hero’s journey, and gave Memori an honest and unflinching love story, and HAD the discussions about what it means to do what someone else says even if it’s evil, because you’re following instructions. There’s just too much about BEING a better person and transforming your world for me to believe he’s going to trash the slow development he’s been building.

But I admit that I might be wrong to trust him. The only way to tell is to watch the rest of the show. So we’ll see.

#the 100 #clarke x monty #mindspace #watsonian and doylist

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rwdestuffs · 6 years ago

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Done dirty: Worldbuilding.

Not pictured: Actual worldbuilding.

In all honesty, I don’t know how to start this post.

Yeah, I have the image that’s there to help inform people about the subject at hand, but it’s hard to do a post about something that’s practically nonexistent.

Like, doing a post about how Yang got mistreated in certain volumes, and not getting development from facing the stigma from her Vytal Festival incident is one thing. So is pointing out how Sun is literally just there to be eye candy for Blake’s arc with little to no development to his character whatsoever. Same with how Pyrrha is just a prop for Jaune and a plot device to set off Ruby’s plot device. Same for the grimm in general, or dust.

Talking about writing concepts is hard because it has to be there for a person to talk about. Most mediums that take place in fictional worlds at least understand how to properly world-build.

There’s a show from the 80s that had better worldbuilding in it. And that show has a half-naked superhero cheap action figure as their main protector from an ineffective villain who needs a friend so that he could feel good about himself!

Joking aside, other worlds also have very little issue with worldbuilding. Like the Legend of Zelda games. Thanks to interaction with NPCs, the bits of lore that are scattered around, and the ways that it’s made, you can get a good idea as to how the world works. Hell! There are different species, and they all have different cultures and societies that are unique to them!

Zoras are prideful and are often talented musicians. They pride themselves on their sense of duty and order.

Gorons are prideful of their strength. They feed off of rocks, and they greatly enjoy competitions that show off their strength.

Gerudos are terretorial, and don’t like strangers. They’re a warrior race, and are proud of it. They only have one male child every hundred years.

This is from a Video Game. Admittedly, a Video Game with over twenty-five years of history and other mediums, but still! They managed to have distinct races and cultures despite their limited medium.

Look, the primary reason I’m avoiding the subject is because… there’s is no subject. There’s hardly any worldbuilding, and whenever there is, it’s often contradicted in a later episode, or through the director’s commentary. The same could be said about character traits, but I think I’ve covered that pretty well in other Done dirty posts.

Take the thing about gods, for instance. Qrow says, in the same scene I might add, this:

Which is it, Qrow?- Are people not religious, or have they made gods of their own?- Like… You have literal relics from the past that definitively proves one single religion. Sure, you’d have a few holdouts, but still!

Now that I think about it, uniting under a single religion would probably be enough for dickhead god 1 and ass-face god 2 to say “Yeah, humanity’s united. Okay, you’re all good.”

But we don’t get that.

Even in Marvel, where a literal Norse God regularly visits New York, there are a few skeptics. Here’s an article that details that storyline: https://arousinggrammar.com/2013/02/19/life-questions-with-thor/

Like… All I’m saying is that when you place something extraordinary into the real world, people tend to take the effort into thinking how society would adapt to it. Some people would adapt by thinking nothing is wrong at all, some would adapt by obsessing over it, some would make statues, some would resent the extraordinary, and so on. There are also ways in which the government could adapt. Like in the X-Men series, where the subject of mutant rights is often brought up so often, that you kinda want to see how other countries are handling it (Sidenote: Someone send this idea to Marvel so that the aren’t recycling and reusing the same storyline over and over and over again).

And if it doesn’t have that big of an impact on the ‘real world’ then they tend to find a way to showcase why. In Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, Stands are invisible to normal people, so there is no reason for society to have adapted to their presence. In American Dragon Jake Long, the magical world is kept secret, so there’s no reason for there to be big societal adaptations for their presence. Same thing with the show The Life and Times of Juniper Lee (Does anyone remember these shows?- They were pretty good). And when the “fantastical world” does get exposed, like in X-Men or in Danny Phantom, there are societal adaptations. People and society adapt to what is new and not normal. It’s ultimately an interesting way to create a world based on the real world, but still feels separate from ours.

So yet again, we circle around to how the show fails at this. We don’t get the little interactions that make it easier to understand the world. We don’t get the moments that detail how dust changed society. The faunus racism is hardly a thing, and we don’t know if there are clothes specifically designed with faunus traits in mind. There are no societal protections against the grimm like walls around the cities or more emphasis on the importance of Hunters. Apparently the maidens have been around for a long-ass time, but there’s no recorded history of them despite the selection process being random at certain times.

Like, what?- Was there never news about sweet young Olive suddenly summoning the winds without dust or aura consumption?

And speaking of aura, does that cut down on accidents or murders?- What about semblances?- do they cut down on death caused by accidents or murders?- Do they contribute? We don’t know. And that’s because the writers didn’t want to create a. fantastical world that makes sense. They just wanted to get their characters from point a, to point b, and have a few fights along the way to build up tension that ultimately goes nowhere because the fights have no real stakes to them. Because the heroes always win. The only times they didn’t was the fight where Yang’s trauma got fixed the moment she put on her arm and the one where Qrow’s poisoning got fixed thanks to a Deus-Ex-Machina airship to Mistral.

Without stakes, the viewer is left to try to make sense of the world. Which they can’t do because there’s hardly any worldbuilding at all.

We know jack shit about Vale culture or how the society works, and what we do know came from Qrow’s biased review on the continent in the WoR video. Same with Atlas, Mistral, Vacuo, and even Menagerie.

No worldbuilding. Just a travel pamphlet.

And I don’t want no stinkin’ pamphlet. I want a freaking book or website that details all the attractions, and the history of the place. What the people are like. What are the main means of trade. All the things that you could get out of good worldbuilding.

If I can’t have that, then at least build the actual overall world of Remnant. Like how dust effects society and makes it different from ours.

But we also don’t get that.

We get just some generic talks about how “Jaune used to go to a certain town with his family” or Generic backstory about the village that Ren’s family was slaughtered in.

Nothing special. Nothing to make me actually care about the towns.

Just some generic stuff that is never brought up again.

And I for one, am really sick of the world not actually feeling like a world.

I’m not asking for worldbuilding or made-up cultures on the level of Star Trek, but I am asking for is a bit of effort so that it doesn’t feel like the bare minimum was put into it.

#rwde #done dirty #writers crit

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fearsmagazine · 3 years ago

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AGNES - Review

DISTRIBUTOR: Pending

SYNOPSIS: Father Donaghue and Deacon Ben are sent to a remote convent after a report of a nun’s disturbing behavior sparks rumors of demonic possession. Father Donaghue no longer holds his previous beliefs about the rite and has become disillusioned. Ben tries to assist but the priest’s methods backfire and when he calls in an old colleague for help it leaves a wake of terror and trauma.

REVIEW: In talking about his 1967 novel after the release of the film “Rosemary's Baby,” author Ira Levin remarked that the filmmakers didn’t understand the novel as he wrote it to be a “satirical” piece in response to the mounting satanic hysteria of that period in time. As the New York Times cover story questioning “Is God Dead” became a fading memory, the years past and stories of people who had repressed memories of being abducted by Satanists were forgotten or debunked. Still, films like “Rosemary’s Baby” and “The Exorcist” firmly planted the idea of demonic possession within the zeitgeist of American audiences. The Catholic Church began to withdraw from being associated with exorcisms, still the fractured American Christian faiths formed their offshoot religions that were speaking in tongues, handling snakes, asking for vast sums of money, and performing exorcisms. Yes, we are all god’s children, he will forgive us for our transgressions against one another, but if it was truly evil, the devil made me do it. Possession wasn’t just for the Catholics anymore. Somewhere along the line science and psychiatry got involved and said that it wasn’t the devil or his minions, but some underlying chemical or physiological problem. A breathtaking tower Babel rose up, casting its long shadow over people who were looking for help and answers.

Over the years the film industry has provided us with dark comedies on the subject of demonic possession, and even a few slapstick comedies. After all, even Satan was a character in the TV series “South Park.” Still, I am hard pressed to think of a film that I would consider a satirical take on the subject. That is until Mickey Reece’s AGNES.

The film looks and feels like a period piece, set in the late 60’s or early 70’s. Right from the opening it immerses the viewer in the iconography and dogma of the Catholic faith. However, during the first 15 minutes of the film the viewer begins to feel that something is off, the narrative is left of center. Deacon Ben is the observer, the eye of the storm. Father Donaghue has progressive views about the church and his faith, which sends the exorcism off its rails because it doesn’t address Agnes' needs. Donaghue calls on an “old” friend, who dresses like a hybrid of a TV evangelist and a priest, with a progressive take on demonic possession. The filmmaker presents this an engaging interplay between these contemporary and complex religious themes as the drama unfolds with subtle stereotypes, even the convent, the sister, and Agnes are all part of this layered tapestry that calls into question belief.

Once this all comes to a horrific, and I do mean horrific, climax, the film shifts gears as the character of Mary, Agnes’ friends, feels the order and attempts to adapt to secular life. What unfolds looks and feels like a Kafka take on a Canterbury tale styled after a contemporary Grimm's’ fairy tale. That sense of uneasiness still carries through as Mary tries to make a place for herself. It is revealed that she has a personal trauma in her past and she is a broken person who is looking for answers. Reece does an amazing job of allowing the viewer emotional access, but at times he reduces the viewer to a simple spectator in order to take everything in and allow us to question the consequences of character choices and actions. As the film drew to a close I had this feeling of emotional freefall. Reece presents so many counterpoints and conflicts that I felt I would be left hanging, lacking any meaningful explanation or resolution. Then Reece and co-writer John Selvidge create this ground and brilliant scene where they reintroduce a character that offers urban poetry in trying to sum up the journey we’ve taken with these characters. It puts it all in perspective, although I may never look at a deli sandwich the same way again.

AGNES has an amazing ensemble cast and the direction and screenplay offer each performer an opportunity to shine. Actress Molly Quinn, who some viewers may recognize from her time on the TV series Castle, is also one of the film's executive producers. She delivers this outstanding performance and conveys this sense of soullessness. She transitions through emotional moments that carry the viewer along the journey. Again, the rest of the cast is amazing and really brings their “a” game to the piece.

The locations are amazing, the costumes are so integrated into the cinematography that at times it looks like a portrait. The editing maintains the energy to what could have easily become a methodical narrative. The special effects were just enough to add the horror element to the film. Lastly, composer Nicholas Poss’ score nicely accentuates many of the elements of the film and helps to keep the viewer on edge and emotionally invested in the story.

Mickey Reece’s AGNES is not simple entertainment, nor should it be taken at face value. It is a satirical, thought provoking exploration of the human condition as it grapples with belief and religion. It offers a rich narrative that requires an investment by the viewer. This is storytelling at its finest, supported by an artistically visual style and an outstanding cast. It is no wonder that it should be part of a film festival program and I believe it might stick around for next award season. If you can, see it on a big screen.

CAST: Molly Quinn, Jake Horowitz, Sean Gunn, Chris Browning, Ben Hall, Mary Buss, & Chris Sullivan. CREW: Director/Screenplay/Editor - Mickey Reece; Screenplay - John Selvidge; Producers - Jensine Carr, Molly Quinn, Elan Gale, Jacob Snovel, & Matthew Welty; Cinematographer - Samuel Calvin; Score - Nicholas Poss; Production Designer - Kaitlyn Shelby; Costume Designer - Jack Odell; Special Effects Coordinator - Joshua Miller. OFFICIAL: N.A. FACEBOOK: N.A, TWITTER: N.A. TRAILER: https://youtu.be/blBviVHOEGY RELEASE DATE: June 12th, 2021, Tribeca Film Festival & Festival On Feman to Follow.

**Until we can all head back into the theaters our “COVID Reel Value” will be similar to how you rate a film on digital platforms - 👍 (Like), 👌 (It’s just okay), or 👎 (Dislike) Reviewed by Joseph B Mauceri

#film review #movie review #agnes #agnesmovie #mickey reece #john selvidge #horror #demonic #posession #exorcism #joseph mauceri #joseph b mauceri

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ashintheairlikesnow · 4 years ago

Text

Touch

CW: Consensual spice (PG-13 at most, totally safe for work), trauma response, PTSD panic attack, meltdown, internalized victim-blaming, internalized ableism, head banging, negative stimming leading to self-injury (there is also positive stim in this piece), references to past conditioning, references to past noncon. This is a heavy one. Stay safe.

TIMELINE: Post-Chris moving into college, after Oliver Branch’s trial. Happens during Chris’s freshman year at college. He is 22.

Tagging Chris’s crew: @burtlederp , @finder-of-rings , @endless-whump , @whumpfigure , @stxckfxck , @slaintetowhump, @astrobly, @newandfiguringitout, @doveotions

It begins, and ends, with touch.

It’s not that Chris is afraid of any of it - he likes the way Marissa hugs him when they meet up or they split to go their separate ways or just whenever the urge to hug strikes her. He likes the sensation of warm arms around him that never come with an ulterior motive. He likes the way it feels when he and Dylan curl up on Dylan’s bed to watch TV, the two of them shoulder-to-shoulder with touch all the way down their legs, perfectly normal, like he’s always been a part of the world where these things happen without the prickle of fear or shame underneath them.

But the way Laken hugs him… feels different, and Laken is always hugging him or putting an arm around his waist or nuzzling playfully against his face. There’s always touch and he loves it, the simple reassuring weight of a hand on his back by his shoulder blades comes now with an electricity that sparks like static between them, but it doesn’t fade when they leave. He feels their touch for hours after, thinks of them in his sleep, stares at the bottle of cheap shampoo in the shower he shares with Dylan and the boys who live on the other side of the bathroom and wonders if Laken likes the way his shampoo smells or not.

Laken is like a lightning bolt wrapped in black in Chris’s life, there and gone in half-seconds of time, a flash of a smile in a warm brown face. The brush of roughly textured black hair that falls in curls long along the top and back when they lean over to point out something in the textbook they’re studying from, and Chris feels the place their hair touched him for hours afterward, like a lingering kiss, like a burn.

Laken laughs and tells him to find out for himself when he asks what hair that short feels like. Chis’s nerves spark when he runs his palms over the short buzz cut sides and he can’t explain why his mouth feels dry and his heart beats rabbit-fast inside his chest.

He feels like an idiot whenever he speaks, his words stumble and trip over each other out of his mouth, but Laken doesn’t seem to mind. Like Jake, they don’t interrupt him, they let him find his way to the end of the sentence no matter how long it takes. Like, Jake, their smile doesn’t falter when they watch him fiddle with the feather he is always wearing, with the bracelet, or if he taps on himself or the wall or the bed.

But they’re not like Jake at all, are they?

They ask, once, what he’s doing when he taps. He uses the words that Nat gave him when he was scared, the name for what he does. Words are a kind of power, in many ways, Nat had explained gently. That’s why the company gives you so many things they force you to remember while they make you forget the rest. Language creates thought.

Chris had been caught tapping the wall. He’d been terrified and held his hands out for discipline and Nat had folded his fingers back up over his palm, one by one, held them briefly in her warm, firm grip before giving his hands back to him. The glimmer in her eyes caught his, and held it. You were forced to forget the words, and give up the power, but you can have it back, sweetheart. There’s a word for what you do, and a reason you do it, and you deserve your hands, you deserve the mind that moves them. You deserve to move, Chris.

He tells Laken the name for it, the words that Nat gave him - I’m, it’s called, um, stimming, it means self-soothing stimulatory be, be, behavior and it helps, helps me calm down and and and and focus, Ben, um, Ben knows, Ben’s little brother does it, you should, should should should ask Ben, should ask him- and understands what Nat meant about power, then. Because Laken just nods, says cool in their deep husky voice, and Chris feels a kind of rush inside himself greater than any he’s ever felt.

Laken Mamani is beautiful, and handsome, and everything in between, and Chris doesn’t know why he feels like a fucking idiot whenever he’s around them but he thinks Dylan does. His roommate gives him a weird, knowing smile whenever he sees them together. Makes jokes about things that make Chris turn bright red and hide under his pillow.

Everyone knows that Chris didn’t grow up the way they did - he doesn’t tell them that maybe he did, he just doesn’t remember it. Everyone thinks he grew up in a sheltered religious family. Laken suggests maybe he grew up in a cult.

Chris doesn’t argue. The lie is easier to believe than telling them the truth ever could be, and much, much safer.

He and Laken don’t do anything special. Just hang out in Laken’s room mostly since their roommate goes out every single night and sees her boyfriend on the weekends. They just watch movies Chris hasn’t seen that everyone else is always quoting, they just sit on Laken’s bed and sometimes Laken has to reach over Chris to grab at their drink or their bag of chips and Chris feels his breath catch and thinks, maybe they’ll stay there and it feels like something he wants and something he doesn’t, both at once.

Tonight, there’s something even more electric between them than there ever has been before. Laken keeps glancing over, and every look seems weighted with meaning Chris doesn’t understand and couldn’t begin to explain to himself.

The movie isn’t any different than the movies always are. They have their Chemistry book open between them - they share two different classes together - but neither of them is looking at it, not even a little.

Everything is normal, but something is different.

Chris is sitting back against the wall, with one of Laken’s pillows - the thick one with those little arms - against his back, his eyes on the tiny TV but he has no idea what they’re watching, some Netflix show that Laken put on. He doesn’t think Laken is paying attention, either.

Laken has their phone out, fiddling with it idly, and they look at Chris sidelong and then back down before they put it down, leaning forward to catch his eyes. “Hey, Chris. Can I ask you something?”

Chris looks over, and Laken is closer than he thought. He licks at his lips - they feel suddenly chapped and dry - and slowly nods. “Um, yeah, sure, sure you, you, you-you can,” He said, softly. He already had one hand grasping onto his feather idly, and hopes it looks perfectly natural when his thumb moves to rub over the textured silicone. Not nervous at all, just absolutely one-hundred-percent normal.

“So… look, I figure it’s better to be super direct about this.” Laken swallows, and Chris realizes they’re nervous, too - and he didn’t know Laken got nervous, really, they’ve never acted the slightest bit nervous around Chris before.

“Um… okay.” Chris winces as soon as it’s out of his mouth - there has to have been a better, smoother way to respond, but he genuinely can’t think of anything else to say. His mind has gone totally, utterly blank.

“You’ve-... um, we’ve hung out a lot, the last few weeks,” Laken says, looking away from him and down at their bedspread, running a fingertip over the deep saturated orange-red paisley print there. It had surprised Chris to see their room the first time and realize that Laken - who alway wore black, who only wore black, had everything in their room a million bright colors.

A lot about Laken surprises Chris. Like unwrapping a gift, only the gift just keeps unwrapping and there’s always a new present to be found.

“Yeah, we, we have.”

Laken nods a little, as though Chris has asked a question, and then they take a deep breath and straighten their back, leaning over to look a little closer into Chris’s face. They have brown eyes, and this close Chris can see little flecks of green just around their pupil on the inside, a hint around the edges. “Chris, do you like me?”

Chris goes still, for just a second, before he rubs harder at the feather on his necklace and finds a kind of nervous smile, letting his hair fall alongside his face, taking comfort in the brush of sensation along his cheekbone. His heartbeat skips, stutters, stammers along with his voice. He’s on fire with fear and nerves and excitement. “Uh… um, I, I, I-I-I, I… yes. Yes, I, um, I-I like you.”

“Yeah, but… like for real, right? I’ve-... you know, I’ve fucked up noticing this kind of thing before, so I just want to check-”

Chris swallows around a lump in his throat - made of air? of words? of fear? - and nods, quickly, three or four times in succession. He’s going to throw up. He wants to throw up and sink into the floor and maybe drown somewhere else where this won’t have happened. But he wants it to happen.

And he doesn’t.

“Yeah, no, I, I, I do. I like you. Um, a lot, Laken.”

Laken gives another slow nod while they lick their lips in thought, and Chris’s eyes are caught there, on the full swell of the bottom lip, the flash of pink tongue against it, the slight dip in the middle of the top lip. The trace of a smile always present in one form or another. The way Laken glances up to catch Chris’s eyes on their face and grins at him, warm. He feels it like a spark catching dry grass at the end of summer.

How would he know what that looks like?

“Laken the lightning bolt,” Chris whispers, and doesn’t know he’s spoken out loud until Laken moves and their mouth is on his.

Chris makes a noise like a whine in his throat before he can catch it, pushes back the training that still lingers in his mind even four years later and focuses instead on how Laken’s mouth has the slightest pressure against his, their bottom lip caught just between his two, and the kiss ends too soon and takes so long, both at once.

Laken pulls back, takes a breath, and says, “Holy fuck, you’re a good kisser.”

I got good marks in that-

Chris drowns the voice by reaching out and pulling Laken back to him, hands to either side of their face, his thumbs resting on cheekbones that look like they could cut glass as he kisses Laken again.

Somehow he’s on his back on Laken’s bed with the soft puffy paisley comforter dipped slightly under his weight and Laken straddling him with their knees on either side. Mouths open, Chris can taste the cherry Coke that Laken is always drinking, thick and syrupy-sweet taste and he chases it with his tongue and Laken meets him with theirs, making a soft sound at the contact that sends a thrill right through Chris’s body, from the hairs on top of his head down to his toes.

His heart is beating so hard it might break out of him and be visible to Laken and show them everything he’s thinking. His heart is pounding and there’s a thin line between thrill and fear and Chris is standing between the two as he feels Laken’s weight settle over his hips, rolling just a little as they sit back up.

He breathes hard - there’s an ache in his chest, something odd but he doesn’t want to question it or think about why his hands are starting to tremble as he watches Laken sit back. Those deep brown eyes lock on his and Laken gives a half-cocked smile as they pull their T-shirt off over their head, the black fabric bunched around their neck and then gone, tossed to the side onto the floor on the little red shag rug that they brought with them from their home.

Chris has a moment, just a hint of thought, about how much he likes running his fingers over that rug, the shag like fur.

“I hope binders don’t bother you,” Laken says, with a carefree air to their voice but there’s a catch in it, and Chris thinks that Laken is serious, they’re actually worried that whatever a binder is will bother Chris.

“A, a, a-a wh-”

His eyes seem to come back into focus and he realizes Laken means the thing he’d thought was just a long sports bra or something, what looks like a form-fitting black tank top with thick shoulder straps they were wearing under their t-shirt and he blinks once, twice, three times.

“Uh… no, it, it, it doesn’t.”

“Good. ‘Cause… it stays on.” Laken gives them a small smile, a hint of vulnerability, and Chris has never seen Laken look like that before. “I’m just more comfortable that way. Is that cool?” Every other moment with them has been Laken’s effortless confidence compared to Chris’s nervous, excited attempts to be half as cool as they are.

But here it is. Just a little, just a bit - a moment where Laken wonders will he still like me if-

“Yeah… yeah, that’s, that’s, that’s-that’s-that’s cool.” Chris’s voice sounds ridiculous, airy and higher than he means it to sound, but Laken doesn’t seem to notice. They just breathe out a sigh of clear relief and lean back over him again.

Their hands on his face feel dry and warm, soft palms cupping his jaw on either side. His hands settling briefly at their lower back to feel the slight dip there. Then his fingers move up over the fabric of the binder, the curve of waist and ribs, and back down again.

Chris is strung between Laken’s mouth and their hands, moving down his neck and over him, sliding up under his shirt. He’s on fire and his body is singing at the kind of touch it has been so thoroughly denied after having been so thoroughly taught to need a long time ago.

There’s a point, somewhere between one touch and another, where something inside Chris cracks open. Maybe it’s the motion of a hand over his hip, or the way Laken starts to undo the button on his jeans. Maybe it’s something else entirely.

One moment, he’s on perfect fire. The next, he’s burning down.

His mind opens like Pandora’s Box, like he read about in class, only Chris isn’t full of things like sickness or death. Instead, with Laken’s hands sliding up his ribcage, Chris feels a terrifying helplessness pouring out of him from behind the dark wall he has built to separate the three lives he has lived in twenty-two years.

He cracks open, and Sir pours out.

Chris is fear and hurt and oil-slick smile and the voice and his pain and his pain and his pain-

The walls inside his mind can’t hold. The weight of it all is too great.

The cracks grow.

The dam breaks. The box opens. A voice whispers like fingertips that graze up the back of his neck, shouts like a hand gripped tight to his hair. A voice he has never forgotten, that he is never allowed to forget, no matter how hard he tries.

Be still, darlin’. This is what you were made for.

He doesn’t want this. He doesn’t have to anymore. He’s not made to do this, he’s not, and he doesn’t want to, and he never wanted to and they made him he never wanted this he never did they made him they made him they made him, rebuilt a boy that didn’t want to, he doesn’t want to do this-

He has spent four years learning to say no. He’s so good at it now. It’s just one word.

You don’t have the option of saying no. Not any longer.

“Chris?” Laken’s voice is low against his ear. Lips brush there and he shudders in disgust, he doesn’t want it to go this far, he doesn’t want it. There’s a vibration in his throat, he might have made a sound. He doesn’t know, he can’t hear it over the static noise beginning to blare inside his head.

I don’t want this.

What you want is irrelevant.

I have never once wanted to do this.

It has never mattered if I did.

What you want is irrelevant, it’s not an option, it doesn’t matter, you were made for this you’re made for this you’re not a person you’re lying they all know you’re lying they know they know they know they know

They know what you are they all know they all know they all know they all-

“Chris!” He jumps at Laken’s voice, his eyes rolling, white around the edges. He thinks they pull back from him but he can barely see, Laken is a blur of black binder and pants and brown skin and black hair.

Some part of him realizes they sound worried, not pleased, at his fear. They sound scared. No one ever sounded scared for him before. Chris’s eyebrows furrow in a vague confusion.

“Hey, are you okay? Oh, shit, are you okay? Hey, Chris, talk to me, you have to talk to me-… look, look at me, please look at me.” Laken pats the side of his face and Chris flinches, hands flying up to guard himself. He whimpers - he can’t remember how to beg not to be hit.

“Oh my God,” Laken whispers out loud. “Oh, shit. Chris… Chris, what’s wrong?”

When his mouth opens, nothing comes out at first. No sound. No air. How do you breathe? He used to know. It used to just happen - lungs expanding and contracting without his consent, he didn’t have to tell them, they just soaked up oxygen and fed it to his blood. Suddenly he understands that he can’t breathe unless he thinks about breathing and he gasps in air, a whine on the exhale, fear is burning him he is burning he is on fire.

It’s only after Laken has moved back that Chris looks up to see the open concern for him on their face. It’s only then that he remembers how to speak.

“I… I, I have to, to-… to, to to to go.”

“What? Hold on, no-”

Chris has already pushed them back and away, is already up and out of the bed, pulling his shirt back down. He forgets shoes exist in the moment, he’s running barefoot out into the dorm’s hallway with Laken’s voice at his back, reminding himself consciously inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, inhale exhale inhale exhale inhaleexaleinhaleexhaleinhale-

There are people in the lobby who look up when Chris flies past, a blur of blue hair and bare feet slapping briefly against the tile floor before he hits carpet again. He doesn’t stop to see if he knows them. He doesn’t stop.

His brain breaks apart under the strain and everything crashes together. He can’t ever look at Laken again he can’t do this he doesn’t want to do this with anyone he never wanted to they just made him think he did even when he didn’t he just wanted to be with them but not like that and now everyone knows they know they know

The world is a cacophony of sound around him - music muffled behind dorm room doors and people talking and the crinkle of a bag of chips and someone shrieks, playful and harsh, and the sound grates in Chris’s ears. Back behind him he hears Laken call his name, but he barrels into the door to the stairwell - Chris lives on the fourteenth floor and he’s never seen anyone in the stairwell before and figures he won’t see anyone now

His brain is twisted in two directions - go up or go down, one or the other, he can’t decide, his thoughts go both ways and finally he runs down. His feet drag against rough strips laid to keep shoes from slipping on rainy wet days, the concrete stairs are freezing cold against his toes.

He can’t breathe he can’t breathe he can’t breathe

There’s nowhere to run, trainee. Where would you go? How would you ever find your way out?

There’s no way out.

He collapses somewhere near the tenth floor, maybe. His foot skips a step and the world spins in a sick whirl around him. Chris slams down onto the landing, pain flaring up his arm and shoulder as he lands hard on his right side, crying out. His voice echoes in the stairwell but no one hears him.

The fluorescent lights are flat and eternal in the stairway, and Chris sobs, fingernails scrabbling at the ground just to remember that he’s lying on concrete and not white tiles. His arm hurts, a dull throbbing ache, and he winces as he moves it just to be sure it’s not broken.

The button on his jeans is still undone and he feels his pants shifting oddly on his hips without it fastened as he scrambles into the corner of the landing, curling himself into a tiny ball.

He’s going to have to drop out. They’ll know and they’ll tell the admissions people and they’ll make him drop out and it doesn’t matter, he can’t look anyone in the eye ever fucking again. He can’t look Laken in the eye. He can’t look at anyone. Ever.

Chris lets out a wail he can’t hear around the noise in his mind and slams his head back against the brick wall, trying to drown out the sound with sensation. It’s not enough so he hits his head again. And again. Again and again and again and again and again-

Oh, like that’s going to help. You’re a fucking piece of work, 223499.

His fingers are in his hair, gripped tight, pulling on it as hard as he can as he rocks back and forth, trying to stop the thoughts in his head the voice the hands the feeling that he doesn’t want, he’s never wanted, he never wanted this he never ever wanted this-

Oh, darlin’, my beautiful boy, you’ve made such a mess of yourself, haven’t you?

There’s an echoing voice in the stairwell, the sound of steps growing louder, but they seem like maybe they’re just in his head like Sir’s voice like the handler like his whole life is just something he’s lived inside his head and he’s not allowed to have these feelings anymore.

He’s not a person. Why did he think he could fake being a person? It was a stupid fucking mistake and he needs Jake to hold him and make him remember but Jake isn’t here and he was stupid to think he could go to college, he’s so stupid, he’s so fucking stupid to think he can be anything but what they made him, he’s so fucking stupid to think he gets to want things or not want things, it doesn’t matter what he wants it never mattered it’s never going to matter.

He can feel hair tearing free of his scalp and the pain is clean and the pain is pure and the pain is not the noise inside his mind and the world around him is too much. The brick wall is too red and the light is too white and the sound of footsteps bounces in his skull.

His heart beats too hard inside his chest, he’s a prison inside and out for himself.

Chris makes a strangled noise in his throat but he can’t make sounds and breathe at the same time.

He’s a wildfire burning down the forest, he’s the skeletons of trees and dead animals scorched and charred. He’s a ruined place where the ruins think they’re still buildings and don’t know any better than to wonder where all the people went.

He’s a dead tree that remembers the birds.

There are sounds nearby but he can’t hear them, there are people but he can’t see them. He can only rock - back and forth and back and forth, letting his head hit the wall behind him, tearing hair out with his hands.

It hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts

“-he is!”

Something trickles into his mind, some hint of sound, and a moment later there’s a face in front of his and Chris flinches back and away from it, letting out a shocked, terrified cry. “N-no, Sir, please!”

It takes whole seconds ticking by for him to realize it’s Dylan.

“Chris?” Dylan’s hair is in his eyes, still wet from a shower, and he’s wearing his pajama pants and no shirt, blinking. “Hey, man, what’s happening? Laken came and got us, they’re freaking out, man, what’s going on with you right now?”

Chris opens his mouth but nothing happens. The words are gone. Were there words? They know, they’ll all know. He can’t tell them. It doesn’t matter, they’ll know, anyway. They’ll know and someone will call the cops but he doesn’t have a barcode to be scanned, anymore, so-

It doesn’t matter. Sir is in jail. They won’t send you back to him, they’ll refurbish you, back to white walls back to white lights back to the pain and the fear and what you were made for-

Chris whines and covers his face with his arms, hands up in his hair, rocking and rocking and rocking to try and rock the thoughts out of his mind.

“He can’t talk right now,” Ben says from behind Dylan. Chris’s eyes dance up to his, peeking between his arms, and Ben looks back at him with a kind of calm on his face that Chris wants to grab and hold onto. “Back up a little, Dill, give him space.”

Dylan shuffles back a few steps but doesn’t stand up, resting his back against the central pillar where the stair railing attaches. “Got it. What the fuck’s happening right now, Ben? He looks like-”

“Yeah, describing what it looks like isn’t going to help it go away, dumbass.” Ben just gives a shrug and then turns, speaking over his shoulder at someone further up the stairs. “Run up and get a blanket, okay?”

A flash of something, black clothes and brown skin. Laken running back up the stairs. Heat flares in Chris’s face as he realizes they saw him rocking, saw him - how much did they see?

I wasn’t still. I should have been still. Just stayed still and let it happen, stayed still and been hurt because it’s what I’m made for, what I’m made for, all I am-

He starts rocking hard back into the wall again, but he sees Dylan flinch, and something in the movement stops him.

“We’re here, Chris,” Dylan says. His voice is gentler than Chris has ever heard it, calm and soft. He sounds like Nat. He sounds like Jake in the middle of the night when Chris calls because it’s storming and he needs someone to tell him a storm is just weather and it doesn’t mean fear anymore. “We’re right here. Take your time, we’re here.”

Ben shifts slightly into Chris’s field of vision more fully. “Chris, I’m going to talk to you right now, and you don’t need to talk back,” He says quietly. “I just want you to hear me, if you can. That is all we need from you right now, just to know if you are hearing me. Can you hear my words?”

Chris shudders and nods, trying to show he’s trying.

“Good. If you can, I need you to stop pulling on your hair. Can you hold your necklace instead, will that help you?”

“What are you doing, Ben?” Dylan asks, glancing up at Ben, whose expression hasn’t changed. “Why are you-”

“Redirection,” Ben interrupts, voice slightly flat.

Chris closes his eyes, puts all the strength in his body into pulling his fingers out of his hair. Strands of blue with strawberry blond roots drift towards the concrete, settle there. His arms move only with supreme effort but he finds the necklace still right there over his sternum, and he grips onto it with one hand as tightly as he can, rubs his thumb over the texture silicone plastic, a desperate push for texture. He takes a breath and taps his fingers against his leg, tap-tap-tap-tap against his thigh, rapid-fire, as quickly as he can. Lets the soothing rush of each sensation rock through him.

He stops rocking back into the wall.

“Okay.” Ben swallows, his eyes moving like he’s reading a book inside his mind. “Okay, Chris. I want you to breathe, okay? Just focus on breathing. You don’t need to do anything right now but breathe. Don’t think about trying to speak to us, just take your time. We just want to be here if you need us, okay?”

Chris manages a nod. He can do that. He can breathe.

He can remember how to breathe, and if he can remember how to make his lungs work without having to think about it, he can remember how to speak, too. He drops his eyes back to the ground, rocking a little but he can keep his hands busy with the feather and the tapping and push away everything else, the touches of Laken’s that had lit him up in good ways that were too close to the bad.

There’s silence from the two other boys, for a while. And in their presence - the visible, tangible reminder that his life is not what it used to be and it will never be that life again - Chris can feel his lungs start to work. The automatic reflex of breathing starts back up without his conscious input. His heartbeat starts to slow. He stops rocking.

More steps on the stairs and Chris looks up to see Laken holding their paisley comforter in their hands. Their shirt is back on but it’s backwards and inside out and they don’t seem to notice as they move over, glancing at Ben nervously. “I have a blanket. What now?”

“He’s overstimulated and the lights bother him. I noticed that before. Let’s cover him with the blanket.” Ben takes a corner of the blanket and Dylan takes a third and between them they pull the blanket open and taut and move to hold it over Chris’s head. The darkness descends on him like a comforting physical weight and Chris feels the prickles of the fluorescent lights on his skin suddenly stop.

They just… hold the blanket, there, for a while.

Chris feels his knees unbend, his legs slowly straightening. His shoulders lower and he looks at the three of them, seeing their legs showing before the darkness of the blanket covers up their top halves from his vision. Laken in their slightly faded black pants, Dylan in his pajamas, Ben still wearing paint-splattered jeans.

Circling him, but not as predators.

Close enough to touch, but nobody’s hand is out to grab.

“I…” His voice croaks at first, and he has to stop and clear his throat. How do you speak again? He shakes his head just to feel the brush of blue hair against his cheeks, to see the flash of it in the corner of his eyes. “I’m… better.”

“Are you sure?” It’s Ben, still. “Don’t try to be better if you’re not, you don’t have to do that for us.” Chris doesn’t know Ben that well but right now he wants to hold onto him and not let go. He’s a Jake, Chris realizes. Someone who wants to help people and knows how.

“Yes,” Chris says, softly. “Laken, I’m, I’m, I’m-I’m sorry, I’m so-so-so, so, so so so-... so sorry.”

“Hey, it’s okay. Shit happens.” The blanket-sky over his head is collapsed as they move to wrap it around his shoulders instead. He sees concern written over their faces, not derision. He expected disgust. He expected loathing.

Instead, Dylan drops next to him, holds out a hand, pulls back it. “Chris, can I-”

“Please, yes,” Chris whispers, and Dylan leans in to wrap an arm around his shoulders, pulling him into an awkward side-hug, pressing his face into Chris’s hair. Chris leans hard into it, but he keeps himself moving, tapping his leg, rubbing at his feather, lets his legs shift a little. The energy is twisting around inside him, it has to find somewhere to go.

“How did you know all of that would work?” Dylan asks Ben, still holding onto Chris. Laken moves to his other side, watching him with deep brown eyes that don’t see him any different than they did before.

“My brother.” Ben gives a shrug, casual as can be, but he’s watching Chris with careful consideration, eyes moving over his face, the way his hands are moving. “He was having a m-”

Chris meets Ben’s eyes. Something passes between them in a fraction of a second, and he knows Ben sees the way he is pleading without the words to know what he’s asking for.

“-a panic attack,” Ben finishes. “I’ve seen them before. It’s okay. He’ll be okay. We need to get him back up somewhere, though. Can we get you back to your room, Chris? Are you tired? Do you need sleep?”

Chris swallows and shakes his head. He can’t sit still in his room, not now. He can’t sleep. He’ll see Sir behind his eyes.

Will he see Sir forever?

Ben nods, lets out a breath, and his eyes move to the side, in thought. Staring at the stair railing.

“Outside,” Laken says suddenly. “I’ll… we can go for a walk. Down by the lake, it stays quiet over there. Yeah?” They look at Chris, and he wants to say no but he doesn’t want to say no. He wants to tell them why and he doesn’t want to. He can’t reconcile the two tracks, the trains of thought that run parallel in two entirely different directions.

“I’m sorry,” He whispers. “Laken, I, I, I-I’m so sorry-”

“Fuck off, don’t be,” Laken says, and they smile at him. They smile, after everything he just did. “Shit happens, like I said. But would it help to get outside for a while? No pressure, I promise. Absolutely none. We’ll hit up the Student Center, get some coffee, walk over to the lake and around it. Yeah? No talking if you don’t want to.”

“No, I… I, I do want to. I, I do, I want-... I want to.” And… and he does. He does want to. He wants to walk around the lake with Laken, maybe even hold their hand, maybe hug them some more. He likes the hugging. He even liked the kissing. It was, was just-... it was just what came after the kissing that scared him.

“What if he has.. Um… Ben?” Dylan is gnawing on his fingernail, index finger. He does that when he’s nervous, and Chris wonders sometimes what the difference is between nervous habits and what he does, why there are different names for things that are sometimes the same. “What if he freaks out again?”

“He didn’t freak out, Dill. I’ll explain it later and show you what to do next time. Come on, Chris, let’s get you back upstairs so you can get some shoes on.” Ben gives him a smile and an offered hand, and it’s Ben’s hand that Chris takes, curves his fingers around, uses it to pull himself up.

Laken on one side, Dylan on the other, Ben in front of him.

“You’re okay, Chris,” Ben says, gently. “You’re okay.”

“We got you, man,” Dylan says, and squeezes him around the shoulders again. “If you need help, we got you.”

“I, I need… I, I need to, to to to call my, my brother,” Chris says, his voice low.

What you want is irrelevant-

“Your phone’s still in my room,” Laken says, and gives him a warm smile, a curve of those lips that were so soft and then so hard and always so perfect against his. “Okay? You can call him right away.”

“I want to talk to Jake,” Chris says, softly.

What would ever make you think anyone cares what you want, beautiful boy?

“Sure. Sure, Chris. Anything you want.”

Every step back up the four flights of stairs that will take him back to his floor is a calming, grounding motion. Foot on concrete, place and balance, step up to the next. One by one by one. And with each step, his friends are on either side of him. They fall into an easy conversation about something someone did last week during a co-op game they played and they don’t ask to explain himself or to justify his actions. They’re just… there.

Dylan keeps an arm around him, and Chris feels himself lean against it, chasing the kind of contact that feels safe and not dangerous. Laken brushes fingers against his hand, just a little, and gives him the softest smile that maybe says they’re still interested.

Ben stays just ahead, but looks back on occasion.

He’s the one Chris worries about. He’s the one with something brewing behind his eyes. He’s the one with the questions that Chris can’t answer, doesn’t want to, would rather choke on the words and die.

Or maybe not. Maybe he’s reading too much into the curiosity that Ben never quite hides behind his glasses.

Maybe.

“Hey, you don’t have to walk, by the way,” Laken says when they’ve made it back to his room. “If you want to go inside and just, like, chill and have a reset, you can do that. I can get your shoes and stuff back to you and you can just hang with Dill. It’s not a big deal. Okay?”

Chris shakes his head, a little too quickly, and he’s rewarded with the slight smile on Laken’s face in response, the barest flash of their teeth. It makes him think of their stomach, the way it had curved just a little, the softness he had, for just a second, wanted more than anything to touch.

“No, it’s-... I want to, to, to-to-to walk with you,” He says, shyly, his voice catching and coming out a little softer than he meant it to. “Just… not.. Um. Can we, um, can we not, not, not-not-not, um, can we not-”

“No more touching?” Laken asks, carefully neutral.

“No, not that, just-... just. Um. Can we not-... can we not talk about-”

“Yeah, Scout’s honor.” Laken crosses index finger over middle finger and gives him a grin. “I absolutely one hundred percent swear we will only talk about, like, nature and stuff. Sound good?”

Chris lets out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding, and he meets their smile with one of his own. “... yeah, that, that sounds great.”

“Good. Then I’ll get your phone so you can call your brother while you put your shoes on. I… I like you, Chris. I’m sorry if I pushed too fast.”

“I’m, I’m sorry if-”

Laken presses a finger to his lips and Chris feels the spark of it, the same way he felt before. A dull burn that he doesn’t want to feel any brighter or hotter than this. “Don’t be sorry,” Laken says. “Just go on a walk with me. We’ll figure shit out as we go, right?”

“Right.”

“Perfect. I’ll be right back with your phone.” Laken pulls their hand back and moves away down the hall, back towards their room. Chris watches them go, gorgeous in their inside-out shirt.

Can you want to kiss someone if you don’t want to do anything else? Can you like someone if you can’t-... if you can’t be what I was? What if I don’t want to, ever? Is it Sir taking me over if I don’t want to?

But I didn’t want to, before, did I?

They made me.

Didn’t they?

“Hey,” Dylan says from inside. “You wanna change clothes first? You were pretty sweaty.”

Was he? Chris blinks and looks down at himself, realizing only now that he’s covered in a thin film of sweat drying sticky on his skin. And he’s going to go on a walk. Because he wants to go on a walk with Laken, in the dark, where nothing happens.

Where he isn’t afraid.

Where what he doesn’t want to do matters just as much as what he does.

Chris nods, slowly, steps back into his room, and shuts the door.

“Can I… hug you, man?” Dylan asks. “I mean, if you don’t-”

“I do,” Chris says, and Dylan’s arms are around him, strong and sure. He melts into the embrace and hugs back, dropping his forehead against Dylan’s shoulder, bouncing lightly on the balls of his feet. “Dill, I, I just, I-”

“I know. You been through some shit, right? And it got to be too much?” Dylan snorts, but it’s a soft sound, a kind one. “I get that. It’s okay, Chris. It’s okay. It’s okay.”

It begins and ends with touch.

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