#the weaponization of language

[jarredlharris]

Live-threading my thoughts while listening to the Thereafter podcast episode where Benjamin Fay discusses the corruption and weaponization of terms like "DEI"

The following is a transcript of the live-thread I did while listening to Thereafter podcast episode 106.

I've had a very busy (and productive) day. I wasn't sure I was going to be able to get to the new episode of @thereafterpodcast. But I'm free and it's roughly lunchtime, so time to listen and live-thread my thoughts. Let do this!

Oh, Benjamin "Benji" Fay is joining them for the whole episode. Cool! Benji isn't on Threads, but you can go check him out on Instagram. @thereafterpodcast

https://www.instagram.com/heytherebenji/

Wait, someone over on Insta has a terrible take on "church hurt?" Must be a day ending in Y. @thereafterpodcast

I hope @thepursuinglife, @cortlandcoffey, and Benji touch on how trivializing the phrase "church hurt" comes across. I mean, for a lot of people, that hurt would be more accurate called "abuse" and/or "trauma." @thereafterpodcast

.@cortlandcoffey is kind of saying that, but isn't specifically calling out the language. @thereafterpodcast

Benji: "Anyone who thinks deconstruction is easy has never actually experienced deconstruction." Preach! @thereafterpodcast

Benji is giving an excellent explanation of the difference between reconciliation and suppression and how the two are sometimes conflated. @thereafterpodcast

Okay, there's something delightful about hearing Benji saying something "gives him the ick." @thereafterpodcast

Listening to this discussion of framing and language suddenly makes me want to see an analysis of how the talk about deconstruction by certain evangelicals would line up with @amanda_montell's discussion of thought terminating phrases and other elements of Cultish (the language of cults). @thereafterpodcast

. @cortlandcoffey: "Nothing is more uncomfortable than deconverting." I'm not sure that's 100% objectively true, but it's sure up there. Preach! @thereafterpodcast

I appreciate that @thepursuinglife is pointing out that some of the trauma comes from the theology itself. @thereafterpodcast

.@thepursuinglife is now tackling the recent Twitter discourse over the whole concept of "The Bible clearly says..." @thereafterpodcast

Benji: "So many thoughts." Hey, I have time! @thereafterpodcast

Benji is pointing out that the idea that there is a single, knowable, and objective interpretation of the Bible is rooted in colonial thought and it's a powerful point. @thereafterpodcast

.@cortlandcoffey is commenting on how people tend to claim that their modern interpretations of the Bible and their theology was shared by early Christians and it's so good. @thereafterpodcast

.@thepursuinglife: "Adam and Eve were reading the ESV..." Wait, not the KJV???? Heretics! No wonder they ate the fruit! @thereafterpodcast

I think Benji is ultimately touching on the fact that a lot of Christian preaching and apologetics (especially on social media) is more about demonstrating one's piety/membership in the "in-group" than anything else. At least that's my take. But I may be biased toward that opinion and am reading it into what others say. @thereafterpodcast

.@thepursuinglife is talking about how people defend their interpretation by saying the Holy Spirit told them what the Bible means while still insisting that doesn't make it an interpretation. Kind of reminds me of the argument that if morality is determined by the dictates of God, that actually makes it subjective. @thereafterpodcast

They're now shifting into the main topic, which is about the Right's tendency to demonize certain words, like "DEI," "woke," and "CRT." @thereafterpodcast

Benji is doing a great job explaining what these terms actually mean and how conservatives demonize this word once they start showing positive impacts (they don't like). @thereafterpodcast

Benji is also doing a great job of underlying how the demonization of these terms is clearly done in an attempt to maintain privilege and power. @thereafterpodcast

Benji: "There's a tendency among bigoted white people to blame Black people for the byproduct of things they created." 🔥 @thereafterpodcast

Benji on people calling to see Obama's and Harris's "papers:" "I'd be everything I own that if Melania decided to run, nobody would check for her papers." Boom! @thereafterpodcast

.@cortlandcoffey: "I don't see how people don't connect the dots...." My personal, ungenerous opinion: They do. They just choose to ignore or deny it. (What can I say? Cortland is nicer than me.) @thereafterpodcast

.@cortlandcoffey is calling out people who condemn Hip Hop for "being all about crime" while loving movies like "The Godfather" and "Scarface." I mean, he's not wrong. @thereafterpodcast

Benji is talking about the history of country music and some of the racist influences there. Interesting and horrifying. @thereafterpodcast

Benji is now talking about how much of Gen Z slang is appropriated AAVE that has been around for years. @thereafterpodcast

. @cortlandcoffey is discussing how white (mostly cis) gay men are pretty adept at oppressing others (particular Black trans women) and I'm here for it. We gotta clean our own house here, fellow gays. @thereafterpodcast

.@thepursuinglife uttered the phrase "this fucking election" and I feel that in the depths of my soul. @thereafterpodcast

.@cortlandcoffey, @thepursuinglife, and Benji are talking abut how old Biden is and how drastically the country has changed over those years. @thereafterpodcast

The political discussion that @cortlandcoffey, @thepursuinglife, and Benji are having is wonderful and needed. I don't have much comment because I'm still trying to work through some things there myself. @thereafterpodcast

Wait, did Benji just diss "School House Rock?" 🤣 (Not exactly.) @thereafterpodcast

This is your reminder that Trump has actually advocated for nullifying the Constitution over on Truth Social. @thereafterpodcast

Benji is talking about the importance of pushing for progress is, since it's not just going to happen. I'm having flashbacks (though in a pleasant way) to @theandrehenry's book. @thereafterpodcast

And just like that, @cortlandcoffey also mentioned @theandrehenry's book too! 🤣 @thereafterpodcast

Benji is pointing out that we need to expand our understanding of violence beyond physical violence. @thereafterpodcast

.@thepursuinglife is asking Benji about what helps him continue to have hope. @thereafterpodcast

Benji's answer to that question is incredible. What is it, you ask? Guess you'll have to listen to find out. 😝 @thereafterpodcast

Benji: "People are seeing each other as human again." YES! May that trend continue and grow. @thereafterpodcast

Another great episode! @thereafterpodcast

[academic-vampire]

𝕳𝖊𝖓𝖗𝖞 𝖂𝖎𝖓𝖙𝖊𝖗

[bruciemilf]

I think Harvey has Bruce’s name tattooed on his neck. Bruce has Harvey’s name tattooed on his thigh. He also has the Judge in italic letters, carved into his spine, and Two Face, just on his ass. Even better if the other has absolutely no idea

[darkshrimpemotions]

I am begging everyone 25 and under to learn that you don't need a 5 paragraph essay on why a fictional character is Actually The Most Morally Bankrupt Evil Character Ever And Everyone Who Likes Them Is An Abuse Apologist Who Preys On Children or what the fuck ever. You can literally just say "I hate that character" and move on.

[mhaikkun]

the foxes hunt the hounds

[paingoes]

Aegean Seas

Destroyer AU

long awaited roleswap AU. featuring royal delta and (defective!) living weapon paris

delta still has some psychic ability in this AU, but only a moderate amount. its nothing to write home about.

paris doesn’t have any powers, just an incredible capacity for violence. 

(Content: living weapon whumpee, royal whumper, carewhumper vibes, institutionalized slavery, blood, biting, choking, electrocution, choking, suggestive language, background lady whump, clowns, hidden injury, past abuse, past trauma, PTSD triggers, emotional whump, scars, body image issues, war mention, alcohol, non-con touching (nonsexual), conditioning, magical exhaustion, seizure, kinda fluffy?)

“You don’t have to look so upset about it.” Delta twirling the pearl earring around within the pierced fin. The golden bangles of his wrist clicked together lightly at the motion — and all the silver and sea-glass ornaments he wore jingled in time with the movement of the airship. He hadn’t been looking at Paris when he said it, and they were not the only ones in the cabin, but he understood it was meant for him.

“I’m not upset,” Paris said. At least, not as much as he could’ve been. 

Far below, the cerulean sea reflected the sun so that the water itself was blinding. Foam was gathering along the coast — a sure sign of rough waters. On the horizon, the embassy building jutted out from the cape.

~

The ship lowered itself in a hover just by the surface of the beach. Paris slid the exterior door open. He hopped the remaining few feet onto the sand right before the craft finally landed. By way of reflex, he extended one hand back to Delta, who took it without thanks as he stepped down.

The other members of the court soon followed, a handful of advisors and scribes sent to keep the time. With a home advantage, all support had been reduced to a skeleton crew. Paris shifted carefully in between them, eventually settling a few steps behind Delta and a bit off to the right, which he knew was the best sightline he’d get without drawing too much attention to himself.

The path up to the embassy was lined with basalt — and a pretty long walk uphill, considering how many of its visitors were geriatric. At the peak, he again pulled the entrance doors open, taking a cautious look in through the entryway. He felt the familiar weight of the blade tucked up into his sleeve, though he had no real expectation of using it. He held the door open for Delta alone, but deigned to let the rest of the congregation pass through in the same way. He stole a last glance out at the countryside before he pulled the door shut tight.

At the front, Delta’s eyes flitted up in the same clouded concentration he always fell into before the meetings. He refused to take notes, so dedicated to committing absolutely everything to memory. He played all the information back like rolls of film. He waved vaguely at the prompting of his advisors, but it was clear he was somewhere else. 

He only came to when they reached the center. It was a large room, polished, and most everything in it was the soft color of sandalwood. The painted monarch sat perched within the straight-backed chair. His own court spread out in a half-moon around him, all their papers all ready to go. Paris only caught a glimpse of them through the doorway, but the glimpse alone was enough to make him spiteful.

“Watch the entrance,” Delta whispered to him just before they passed through the entryway. Paris nodded and stepped off to the side of the door. 

Soon he was alone in the large hallway. The building was old and its halls were echoing, though not quite as bad as the castle. He leaned back against the wall, wishing he’d brought the cigarettes with him. He passed the butterfly knife idly in between his hands, having no better way to occupy the time. He’d gotten good enough at it that he didn’t even need to look while he did. His eyes still scanned the corridors in the way they’d been trained, sizing up each impotent official or underpaid clerk whose heels tapped down the linoleum tiles. There was no real threat. Nothing ever happened.

The jingling bells warned of her approach before she came into view. He sighed, slipped the knife back into hiding. Jo popped out from the doorway. She was quicker than he would’ve thought, skipping out a few paces before she even turned to see him. When she did, her painted face contorted into an express of unadulterated mirth. She giggled — and the bells of her hat jingled again as she flipped over to stand on her head.

“I was wondering where they were keeping you this time.” Her voice was raised in faux cheeriness. 

Paris watched her carefully — he couldn’t not. The rapid movements set all his nerves on edge. He was sure she knew that. He was sure it was why she did it. He didn’t answer.

She rolled over into a backbend and let her hands guide her up. When she was upright, she was not more than a few inches from his face. She was shorter than him, the difference exaggerated by the heels of his boots and the flatness of her stupid pointy shoes. She rose up on tiptoes to meet his eyes. He could see the glitter against her sclera. 

“No dogs in the house of law, eh?” She stretched one leg up over her head. Her movements continued so fluid and so completely uninfluenced by anything she was saying, as if they were completely different hemispheres of her brain.

“I heard that when the neophytes drop out, they give ‘em a new name and put ‘em out on the street. Painted silver! They spend the rest of their days doing tricks for spare change. Is that true?”

No one ever dropped out. He didn’t answer. She did a back walkover, her speech uninterrupted.

“Or I heard what they’re really doing now is selling all the new grads to Crimson’s West Front,” she paused for dramatic effect, “There’s a famine there, you know. They need new meat!”

She cackled. He stiffened slightly, because that part was probably true. Even if they weren’t getting eaten, a lot of the kids did get bought out for the war effort, and were given no arms when they arrived. They were getting pushed into the meat grinder, literally or figuratively.

She seemed disappointed with his lack of outward reaction. As she rolled onto the floor again, she laid there on her stomach for a second, kicking her legs back and forth.

“You don’t have to worry about that though. I bet he’s nice to you,” She grinned impishly, pushing herself up into another handstand. “I hear he’s nice to everyone.”

She erupted into a laughing fit at that. His eye twitched. He felt the weight of the blade in his sleeve. She looked over to see his expression and her smile widened. She cartwheeled towards him, again landing only inches apart from him.

“People on High Street got a name for him. What was it again? The something wonder? You’ve heard it before, right? You had to. You spend enough time with that whore to-“

He threw her into the ground before she could finish, the last synapse snapping within him. 

The sudden violence got a forced, clipped laugh from her. She did a back roll before he could strike again, sitting up on her knees before she swept one of his legs out. He dropped, but it didn’t slow him down. Nothing could have. He still drove his fist full force into her jaw, once, twice, about as many times as it would take to break it off. 

She didn’t let him get that far. Jo was stronger than she looked and just as quick as he was. She was not downed easily. When he pinned her, she slipped. When her nails reached up to scratch out his eyes, he bit down upon her fingers hard enough to break them. Her blood gushed into his mouth. It was familiar. He didn’t even stop to spit it out.

She elbowed him in the face at the same time she drove her knee up into his stomach — all sharp angles. It was hard enough to knock him off of her and onto his side. Blood poured from his nose. It splattered on the floor right beside her own. She crawled forward on her bloodied fingers, trying to get even. He forced himself back upwards, lunging at her again. He became vaguely aware of a commotion behind him.

“Stop,” Delta said tiredly.

Paris did not stop. No fucking chance. Not now. She was still moving, still breathing, still fucking laughing. His hands closed around the undulations of her throat. 

“Stop,” Delta repeated.

Blood dripped thick and hot from the both of them. Johanna twisted beneath him, her eyes shining like stars. He wanted them barren. He wanted her to stop moving.

“Stop,” Delta said it with no more emphasis than the first two times, but he’d closed the distance between them now. The prongs of the choke collar dug into Paris’s neck, cutting off his oxygen. 

He backed up on his knees, leaning backwards into the touch, the only way he could loosen the chain. But for all the slack the proximity created, Delta only pulled it higher, tighter. No air reached him, even when he’d stopped, even when he had stilled. It kept going. The panic gripped him immediately, tempered only by experienced. Delta wouldn’t kill him. He wouldn’t, he wouldn’t, he wouldn’t, and as soon as he started to think that he would, the chain released. Paris gasped shakily, collapsed down onto his hands and knees. One hand pawed desperately at his throat. Small beads of blood had formed there in the collar’s outline.

He felt the pressure of the chain being picked up and winced, but it did not tighten again.

“Sorry about him.” Delta frowned. “And…sorry about your…clown.”

“Oh, don’t worry about her. She’s had worse.”

And sure enough, Jo sat up again, the wounds he’d given her already half-healed. Her stupid fucking hat jingled as she shook her head clear. The sound was enough to re-trigger the prey drive. He lunged.

Sharp and course electricity ran straight through his body, aborting the attack before it could even begin. All his muscles locked up. He’d built up a tolerance for the dryer sparks, but being tased was rare. It was a different story. He knew the shock only lasted a few seconds, but those seconds dragged out like years. Delta didn’t even say anything, the tips of his fingers retreating from the raw skin of his neck. 

“Here girl,” the monarch snapped their fingers. 

The clown stood up in her wet clothes, skipping happily back into the employ. Paris kept his eyes trained on the empty space in front of him, the blood spots on the floor. He heard their footsteps retreating. The hallway was silent. One of Delta’s fingers was still hooked around the circle of his collar.

“Clean it up,” he said. Paris nodded. The chain went slack and he was alone in the hall once again.

~

“She started it-“

“She is a jester,” Delta cut him off. “She was doing her job. If she didn’t have that healing factor, you would have killed her.”

His eye twitched. Killed her. Kill her. It flared up within him again, without any target. He dug his nails into his wrist to keep from something worse. The anger burning so hot inside of him he thought he might just be sick from it. She’d done it on purpose. She’d got him on purpose, but it shouldn’t have worked. 

“You weren’t there,” he said, the ache of defensiveness rising in his voice. “You don’t know what she was doing.”

“Did she draw on you?” Delta asked, sounding bored. He already knew the answer.

Paris’s face flushed anyway. He gave no reply.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” Some small satisfaction crept into his voice, then faded quickly into irritation. “You didn’t have any impetus. Nobody was in any danger until you snapped. And now they know that if they so much as wave a flag in front of you, you act like a rabid fucking animal.”

“I was defending you, you ungrateful fuck!” The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. Delta looked up in shock.

“I’m sorry,” Paris amended quickly, retaining at least some sense of self-preservation. He covered his mouth with his hand in a a belated effort to silence himself. It wasn’t enough. He’d been on thin ice before, but that could not be tolerated. They both knew it.

“Why are you like this?” Delta asked. He didn’t say it as an insult. He asked like he really wanted to know.

That only made it worse.

~

The inner courtyard of the Aegean palace was dense with marble and wildflowers. He always thought the statues looked out of place among the foliage, the vines creeping up the legs of the gods as if they’d already been forgotten. The last of the day’s light was held up in the violet clouds. Beneath them, the walls were doused in the cool blue of dusk. The air was warm and wet.

Paris went without prompting, without needing to be forced. He pulled the shirt off of his back, shivering a bit as the scars that already laid there were exposed to the open air. He knelt down by the post. The guard shackled his wrists to the side of it. He rested his forehead against the wood, curling and uncurling his fingers. It made it more tolerable.

He heard the whip crack against the ground as the guard made practice shots. Delta sat off to the side, one elbow propped up against the aluminum garden table, watching without much interest. He’d never get his hands dirty doing it himself. He wouldn’t even know how. 

That idiot guard didn’t know much better. The first strike came down unpracticed, landing diagonally along his shoulder and against the old scars. He pressed his head further into the post, preferring the pressure he felt there to the hot pain that was forming along his back.

It only grew. It layered. It would’ve layered already, in just a single beating, but his body had years worth of them just waiting to be reignited. The whip dredged up the old pain easily. It didn’t split the skin, but he could remember when it had. The thought alone made him dizzy. The pain quickly became all he could focus on. It kept going.

“Please stop,” he said, beginning to get truly nervous now. It’d been going on too long and was pushing up against the bounds of what he could tolerate. His hands turned over anxiously in the solid iron of the manacles. He couldn’t have gotten out even if he tried.

Delta held a hand up. The whip temporarily ceased. He stood up from the table, electrifying the air as he got closer. 

He shouldn’t have said anything. 

“Hm?” Delta asked, leaning down a little, “Stop?”

He could tell that he was feeling vindictive. Delta’s voice took on that soft, too-patient tone it always had when he was furious. 

“Paris, when I told you to stop, what did you do?” he chided.

“…Kept doing it,” he muttered miserably into the post. He hated when he got like this.

“So you do understand.”

“It hurts.” He kept his voice soft, somewhat whiny. It was calculated, but he didn’t have to force it. It didhurt.

“It’s supposed to. I wouldn’t have to do this if you would just listen the first time. You don’t have anyone to blame for this but yourself.”

There was no making him understand. Delta had no concept of what hurt meant — of how much was too much. His own body was unblemished. He’d never bled for anything. 

For as long as he was standing there, the punishment couldn’t continue. They wouldn’t dare swing the whip when Delta was in line of it, god forbid. He took the break for what it was, a few needed seconds for him to catch his breath. Delta seemed to catch onto what he was doing, taking a few steps back. He turned back to the guard.

“Finish up. Gag him if he talks again. He knows better,” he instructed. 

He paced out of the courtyard, retreating back inside the castle walks. He never liked to see the aftermath, either.

~

Delta had been sixteen years old on the eve of his first and only assassination attempt. It had been a failure, in the sense that he had not died from it. It had also been a failure in the sense that the assailant had not even gotten close. 36,000 volts ran straight through his circulatory system before the knife could even fall.

Delta had been uninjured — and in the end, unshaken. The King and Queen were not. They had no other heir.

Paris came as a knee-jerk reaction, dredged up out of whatever trench they’d found him in. He could play nice, when he needed to. He knew exactly what was on the line.

He was passable. The King bought him alone and unannounced. He’d complain for years afterwards that he’d been ripped off.

Paris had glanced up when he was first made to kneel in the throne room. His first impression was that Delta looked awfully calm for someone who had just survived an assassination attempt.

Delta was unimpressed by it, and had been unimpressed by everything since.

~

Almost everything. Kitty glowed blue in the light of the lounge. It was Delta’s favorite room. in the palace. It had been even since he was little. The walls were all made of glass, with thousands of gallons of seawater lying just behind them. Whole shoals of fish reflected silver onto the dark floor. The sequins of Kitty’s slit dress had the same effect.

She was wearing a collar. He didn’t know why he found this so funny. He guessed it could be considered a choker, if he wanted to be generous, but with the ears and the tail, “collar” was the first word that came to mind.

Hers wouldn’t choke her. If he wanted her to, he’d have to do it himself.

She draped herself over the arm of his chair. Kitty was growing into herself so beautifully. Her eyes still lit up at the sight of the fish swimming, just the way they had when they were kids, and he knew she wanted nothing more than to break straight through the glass to get at them. But everything else about her now shone with such a honed sophistication. 

“You’re bleeding,” she said, her eyes widening with concern.

“What?” He blinked. He hadn’t meant to.

But sure enough, a thin stream of blood trickled from his nose just as soon as she got close to him. Delta blushed, a pale blue hue rising up beneath his freckles. It came as a betrayal.

“You’re so predictable.” She almost smiled, pressing a pink handkerchief to his face before the blood could drip onto the soft sheen of his clothes.

The air around him crackled so badly both their hair stood on end.

~

Apollo tread into the kitchen with the golden fringes of his clothing catching all the light. He dragged the kitchen chair out and fell lightly into the seat. He made a soft sound of surprise  as he found Paris leaning back against the edge of the counter. 

“You have to stay up as long as he does?” Apollo asked. He leaned forward against the marble table, rocking the chair from side to side.

“I’m not supposed to sleep at all,” Paris responded flatly, only half joking. It was a bad look for him to be sleeping while Delta was awake, in the same way it was a bad look for him to be sleeping in. That left a very small window for him to get any rest at all. 

Apollo grimaced in sympathy. He placed the empty glass down on the counter. Wordlessly, Paris took it to refill.

“Oh, I didn’t- Is that even your job?” Apollo asked, a blush rising to his face.

Paris shrugged, pouring the last of the bottle out into the glass. He slid it back across the table. 

“You should let me fix that for you,” Apollo offered.

Paris yanked his hand back as violently as if he’d been burned. He thought it was invisible. It hadn’t healed that wrong. It still worked. It wasn’t an impediment. He clutched it to his chest protectively, shielding his wrist with his other hand.

Apollo gave him a knowing look. He stirred the drink idly. The ice made a soft noise as it clattered against the edges of the glass.

“They didn’t splint that for you in training?” He tilted his head.

Paris looked down. He tentatively loosened the grip on his wrist. It’d just been a fall. He’d gotten knocked backwards and he’d needed to stop himself from cracking his skull onto the floor. He’d done it wrong. The wrist had taken the brunt of the impact. He kept it in a splint at night — and when he was alone — but he couldn’t ever wear it around the trainers. He made use with the bandages instead, prayed everyday that medical didn’t come see him. In time, the bones had stitched themselves back together. Not enough, apparently.

Apollo was still staring at him.

“…It’s disqualifying,” he said softly.

“Ah,” Apollo leaned his elbow on the counter. He pressed one finger up against his lips. “Don’t worry. Your secret’s safe with me.”

Paris looked at him gratefully. Apollo took another sip of the drink, seeming to study the swirling patterns of the table’s surface. After a while, he added:

“He wouldn’t mind, though.”

Paris frowned. He didn’t think so either. That wasn’t the point. He couldn’t have his wrist be unusable for a full six weeks. He could not stand to be any more unusable than he already was.

He couldn’t bring himself to say it. He never would. The silence endured. Apollo shrugged, taking the drink back with him as he ducked out of the bright kitchen. Paris drew the sleeve of his shirt all the way past his fingertips.

~

ponyboy: heyyyyy

headrooms: holy shit

headrooms: i thought you fucking died

ponyboy: nope :-)

ponyboy: just busy yk how it is

headrooms: fuck

headrooms: dont scare me like that

ponyboy: sorryyyyy

ponyboy: how have you been

headrooms: im chill

headrooms: i got beat up by a jester last week

ponyboy: lmfao

ponyboy: dude shut up your job is cushy as shit

ponyboy: you wanna know what they had me doing last week????

headrooms: uphill both ways in the snow

ponyboy: i was pushing whole barrels full of petroleum and poison uphill in the coldest day of winter. they didnt even give me gloves until my fingers were already falling off!!!

ponyboy: hey fuck you

headrooms: lol

headrooms: are you good though like actually 

ponyboy: ya i mean

ponyboy: its definitely heating up here but we’re still holding a good position 

ponyboy: they kinda treat me like shit but they also dont want to lose me so im not being sent for the real suicide missions yet <3

headrooms: thats good i guess

headrooms: is vi chill

ponyboy: omg no shes been on her fuckin period lately 

ponyboy: bitch mode

headrooms: lmfao mine too

headrooms: i swear its the full moon

ponyboy: IT LITERALLY IS IDK WHAT HER PROBLEM IS

ponyboy: ughhhhhh

headrooms: i miss you

headrooms: like

headrooms: all the time

ponyboy: i miss you too !

ponyboy: ill let you know if im ever in your corner of the galaxy! i want to see you again so badly <3

Paris winced. If her people ever ended up in his corner of the galaxy, that was a bad, bad sign. Selfishly, he wished for it anyway.

He heard footsteps approaching and quickly slid the phone back into his pocket. He was not quick enough to get rid of the cigarette. Delta paced out onto the balcony in a whirlwind. Little bouts of lighting lit up by his eyes.

He plucked the cigarette straight out of his mouth. His other hand smacked hard against the side of Paris’s skull. 

“Ow,” Paris winced, though it didn’t really hurt. Because he wanted Delta to feel bad. Or because he knew he wanted to hear it. Whichever it was that day. Whichever worked.

“Those are my fucking lungs,” he hissed. The guilt trip hadn’t worked. Paris shrugged.

“Sorry.”

The apology worked better. Delta’s body language relaxed some as he snubbed the cigarette out on the palace wall. He didn’t ask for the rest of the pack. Smoking was fair game, really. It was getting caught doing it that was the issue. 

“Who were you texting?” he asked mildly.

He hadn’t hid the phone quick enough. He tried to play it off.

“Just Lorry.” He looked down. 

“Oh.” Delta’s expression seemed to soften, almost imperceptibly. “Is she okay?”

“Yeah,” he answered automatically. His heart quickened right after. “…Why? Did you-“

“No,” Delta cut off that train of thought before it could really begin. “No news. I was just wondering.”

“She’s fine, then,” he confirmed. As much as she could be.

It was only then that Delta actually looked guilty. He didn’t have to. It wasn’t his fault. Lorelai had been purchased months before Paris had. It was a miracle he was even allowed to stay in touch with her. He knew most of the program’s graduates weren’t half as lucky.

He still wanted the cigarette. He leaned back against the wall, unsure what to do with his hands or his mouth when it was gone. Delta didn’t leave after that, the way he’d expected him to. He pulled himself up onto the railing with a kind of stupid abandon.

The air carried the scent of salt from over the ocean. Down on the beach, two kids flew a white kite right above the waves, blissfully unaware of the peacetime’s fragility.

~

“Keep?” Paris asked, holding up the alligator skin boots. They’d been dyed a shade of ruby red.

“Absolutely not.” Delta shook his head frantically, “Toss. Don’t even tell anyone I had those.”

“I thought they were nice,” Paris muttered. 

He tossed them into the trash pile anyway. He crossed back over the length of the massive closet, pulling another bag off the shelf. This was absolutely, definitely not his job. But it wasn’t like he had anything better to do. He liked anything that did not make him feel like a total waste of space.

His knees hit the ground before he really knew what he was doing. It was a better instinct, though, probably the least harmful out of all the ones he could not control. Delta looked up in surprise, only realizing what had just happened as the King stepped in through the doorway. Delta’s attention recentered on his father. They both acted as like he wasn’t even there.

“Don’t you have a dispatch to be filling out?” Ulysses leaned against the doorway, surprisingly casual in the company of his only son. It was a reprimand, but his tone was still playful.

“I’m fuckin’ working on it, jeez,” Delta snapped. 

“Doesn’t look like it,” the King glanced around the room. Paris flinched a bit as his gaze passed over him, but it didn’t linger long.

“Oh!” The queen Andromeda appeared in the entrance before Delta could even respond, looking excitedly at the gown Delta held in one hand. “I’ve always loved that dress! You never wear it!” 

“Oh my god,” Delta said, “Can you leave me alone.”

She rushed forward anyway, squishing his face with one hand as she kissed his cheek.

“Mom!” He blushed terribly.

She smiled, knowing exactly how much she was embarrassing him. He shoved her lightly back towards the door and shut it quickly before either of them could protest. He slammed his head against it once it was closed.

“You can get up,” Delta rolled his eyes. Paris did, rigidly so, in the same mechanical way as when he’d gone down. He blinked a few times, trying to bring himself back to the present.

“They’re so fucking annoying,” Delta muttered to no one in particular, wiping his face off.

“Your parents are nice,” Paris protested weakly in their defense.

“He beat you with a 2x4,” Delta reminded him.

Paris shrugged. The King could’ve done much worse. He’d snapped at Delta that time — not on purpose. Never on purpose. It was only the nerves firing wrong, the signals getting twisted. He couldn’t help it. But it’d been grounds for immediate termination. Paris got off easy, and had moved on from it fairly quickly. Delta still held a grudge against his father for it. 

“Keep?” Delta asked this time, desperate to change the subject. Paris guessed he was glad, too. Something in him ached awfully whenever they were around.

“Keep,” he affirmed.

~

It was awful. They had to hold court later, had to hold it in ten fucking minutes, and his heart felt like it was about to explode if he didn’t kill something. He paced uncontrollably, snapping at the air no matter how hard he tried to stop it. Delta watched idly from the throne. Not angry. Just visibly unpleased with it all.

“Come here,” he called finally. 

Paris flinched. It was not a request. He tried anyway.

“I don’t…want you to…” he protested weakly.

“I didn’t ask if you wanted it.”

Paris reluctantly approached, kneeling beside the throne. Delta tilted his head, the tiara slipping down a bit as he did so. A soft blush rose to Paris’s face. He pulled his shirt off, then lowered further onto the floor, laying down flat on his stomach. He rested his head against his arm, burying his face. He heard Delta rising up from the throne and settling cross-legged onto the floor beside him.

Delta made that same soft, dissatisfied noise he always did when he saw the old whip scars all along his back. Not his work. The lashes he gave didn’t leave a mark. He didn’t like it when they did. Paris winced.

They were ugly. Paris knew that if the King had caught a single look at the lattice, he’d have never been bought in the first place. Because it was defacement. Because they were ugly. The thought echoed in Paris’s brain every time he caught a glimpse. It was pure vanity. He was a weapon, he knew it didn’t matter, he shouldn’t have even cared about that kind of thing. But he did. He hated them. 

“So tense,” Delta murmured from above him. His hands kneaded into the ridges along Paris’s spine – that strange, analgesic touch. Paris could feel his muscles softening involuntarily, the tension in them forcefully removed.

The urchin spine slid into the center of his shoulder blades. He bit his arm to keep from gasping.

It wasn’t the toxin alone that did it. He knew that because he’d pricked himself with it once, just out of curiosity, and he had felt almost nothing at all. It was the way he used it. 

He didn’t always hate it; sometimes it was almost nice. It was nicer when they did it alone, when he wasn’t forced to take it, exposed on the floor of the throne room. It was viscerally unpleasant to experience against his will. He did not like Delta having that much control over his body. He didn’t want to calm down.

The spine entered again, and he calmed anyway.

It went on like that until all the rigid tension seeped out through his skin like poison, then a while afterwards too. It was gentle, despite everything. He could’ve cried.

“Better?” 

He nodded, though he really just felt hazy. He didn’t think he could even hold a sword anymore. The calm felt intrusive. He was sure he couldn’t move at all, almost limp in the aftermath. He didn’t need to, though. Delta pulled him up a little, trying to straighten him out. He found his position again, on his knees. 

He pulled the shirt back on, roughly. His arms had gone numb; it took so much more effort than it had to take off. He shifted, readjusting so that he was facing the rest of the room this time. It took so much effort just to sit upright then. He felt high.

“Good boy,” Delta said, about a half second before the doors opened. He was only saying it to be mean, but in the moment, Paris couldn’t bring himself to care.

~

Delta yanked his hand away from his face just before Paris could snap it off. Paris hissed in frustration, falling abruptly to the ground. He pounded his fists against the tile. It was all he could do to not fucking kill him. 

“Why the fuck would you do that?” He hissed out through gritted teeth. It was wrong. He was making it worse for himself. He had no fucking right to be talking to him like that. 

He couldn’t help it. He felt like he was going to scream.

Delta watched impassively.

“It’s getting worse,” Delta said. There was real concern in his voice. 

Paris pressed his forehead to the ground, curling up. Anything else. 

“I know it’s getting worse,” he growled.

Delta started to bend down, which was the worst thing he could’ve done.

“Get away,” Paris warned. For fucking once, Delta actually listened, taking a few cautious steps back.

It took ten whole minutes for him to get back to a state where the prey drive wasn’t waiting two inches beneath the surface. He sat up wearily. Exhausted. Fucking embarrassed.

Delta’s eyes were wide, but then, they always were. The rest of his expression revealed nothing at all.

“You need to figure that out,” he announced quietly.

“I’m not doing it on purpose.” Paris buried his face in his hands. “You know I’m not doing it on purpose.”

“That isn’t going to matter to them and you know it.” His voice was soft. Almost sympathetic. “And don’t talk to me like that,” he added, almost as an afterthought.

“Delta…” Paris whined into his hands. It was an undisguised plea. As if the way he was talking was what mattered right now.

“I’m serious. Don’t.” The plea went unanswered. If anything, his voice hardened. Paris watched with some small horror as all the patience seemed to bleed out of him. As if he could afford to lose a single ally.

“Sorry,” he muttered. 

“Figure it out,” Delta said with such sincere urgency that it seemed like now was his turn to beg. He stormed off, unwilling to let anyone else get the last word in.

Paris picked himself up off the ground and put his fist through the nearest wall.

~

No matter what happened that day, he still came crying in the night like a little kid. 

Paris flinched a bit as he was awoken, but not for very long. He guessed he should’ve been used to it by now. Delta stood over him, tugging at his sleeve impatiently, wordless. His eyes shone like beacons in the darkness of the bedroom. His hair was down. He looked so young when he was like this. His look was all pleading.

Paris sighed, letting himself be roused from the bed. He just barely had time to grab the sword before he was dragged out into the hallway. He followed Delta all the way up the stairs, all the way up to his bedroom. He could hear the water trickling well before he entered.

His parents really did spoil him. Delta’s room was probably the most expensive part of the entire palace. Water rushed down from the ceiling in an artificial waterfall, landing into the koi pond that took up a whole quarter of the room. All the rest of the room was crystalline, opalescent. Absolutely cluttered with anything that would shine.

Paris didn’t roll his eyes at the giant seashell that held Delta’s mattress. He’d seen it enough times that it had lost its novelty. He didn’t expect anything less.

“Watch the door,” he begged.

Paris nodded. He knew the drill. He sat down on the floor by Delta’s bed while the sheathed sword rested in his lap. He wouldn’t need it. He knew he wouldn’t need it. Delta was just scared.

Delta crawled up into the bed, arranging himself carefully for the meditation. The low drone of electricity began to fill the room. Channeling again. All the stars had aligned for it.

“παρακαλῶ,” Delta muttered beneath his breath. “παρακαλῶ, παρακαλῶ, παρακαλῶ…”

The incantation began shortly after that. The hair on the back of Paris’s neck stood up. He kept his eyes on the door. He didn’t like to watch.

He’d learned to tune out the rambling, for the most past. He knew Delta didn’t like it when people overheard — and he only let Paris do it out of necessity. It was fine. He didn’t understand any of the Greek. It was only the rapid, manic way he spoke that really scared him. Hushed and quick and ancient. It felt right to avert his eyes for it. It was something he had no business witnessing.

His eye twitched a little bit as he realized just how loud the incantation was growing behind him. The room was getting brighter. He got the awful feeling he always did when he felt lightning was about to strike. It was getting bad this time. It was getting worse than he could ever remember it being.

He turned around.

It was about as bad as he imagined. The light burned and radiated off of him, bright enough to be blinding. Delta was definitely seizing beneath it all. His eyes were shut tight like the power was painful. His hands clutched at the blanket. Paris realized with horror that the bedding was turning blue from all the blood that then dripped from his mouth and his eyes. 

“Fuck,” Paris muttered beneath his breath. 

He should have known better than to wake a sleepwalker.

He regretted it as soon as he touched him. For a minute, he thought he’d really gone blind. The pain exploded in his arm as he was thrown back against the wall. His own body seized with the residual electricity. He gasped, crumbling down into a heap onto the soft floor.

“What the fuck did you do?” Delta coughed up blood onto the floor. Blood or tears poured from his eyes. In all likelihood, it was both. He wiped at them idly, not seeming to be in any particular hurry. It wasn’t like he’d be able to get all of it off with his hands.

He stumbled up from the bed — and immediately fell onto the floor. He crawled the rest of the way over to the koi pond, scooping the water up with his hands to remove the rest of the blood. 

“Why the fuck did you do that?” he repeated, even angrier now.

“You were seizing.” Paris gasped. His arm hurt badly enough that he thought it might be broken. He couldn’t tell. He was still mostly blind.

“I told you not to interrupt,” Delta pressed his forehead onto the stone. He couldn’t even stand.

“You’re pushing it too far,” Paris said. It was all he said. It was all he needed to.

“Shut up,” Delta warned.

“You’re pushing it too far,” he repeated, sing-song.

“Shut the fuck up!” Delta stood up again. Paris knew he meant to hit him, meant to fight him, and suddenly that was what was happening. 

“Oh god damn it, you fucking moron.” Paris blocked his fists with his arms. It hurt a little bit, but not nearly enough to incapacitate. He pushed Delta off with zero effort, which only seemed to piss him off more.

Delta growled, stumbling to his feet. He marched over to the bedside table, pulled out what Paris recognized belatedly as a fucking muzzle.

“Wait.” He tensed up, still not having risen off the floor. “Wait, wait, wait, chill-“

Delta fell messily to his knees, trying to secure it onto him. This time, Paris actually did fight. He caught his wrists. He hated that thing so much. It was the middle of the fucking night, he’d never be able to sleep with it on. He didn’t deserve it. He’d been trying to help.

“Stop,” he pleaded while he still had the ability to. “Come on. Stop. Please.”

Delta sighed in defeat. He dropped the muzzle to the floor — and let himself fall to it a few seconds later. He mumbled something in Greek.

“I’m tired,” he muttered into the carpet. His mouth was still bleeding.

Paris stood up, with a lot of effort, but he was still in better shape that Delta was. He picked him up with his uninjured arm. It wasn’t difficult. Delta was light. He wouldn’t have won the fight he’d tried to start. Paris pushed him back onto the bed, letting him collapse there.

“On your side,” Paris reminded him. Delta readjusted onto his side so that the blood wouldn’t asphyxiate him.

“Fucking goodnight, I guess,” Paris muttered, picking his sword back up from the ground. He picked the muzzle up too, placing it back in the drawer. Should’ve just thrown the damn thing out.

“Stay?” Delta asked.

“Yeah, think I’m good on that.” Paris started to walk out the door. 

“Stay.” It was an entreaty, now. Paris groaned. He walked back, collapsing onto the other side of the bed.

“Not all night. You cry in your sleep. I don’t know if anyone’s ever told you this.”

“So do you,” Delta muttered in reply, already half-asleep.

Paris shrugged. The waterfall was quiet and reassuring. He could stay for that, if nothing else. 

~~~

@catnykit @snakebites-and-ink @scoundrelwithboba @whatwhump

@pumpkin-spice-whump @deluxewhump @fuckass1000 @fuckcapitalismasshole @defire

@micechomper @writereleaserepeat @aloafofbreadwithanxiety @floral-comet-whump @littlebookworm69

@lordcatwich @human-123-person @paperprinxe @whomeidontknowthem @chiswhumpcorner

@bacillusinfection @ichortwine @whump-queen @lumpywhump

@jumpywhumpywriter @sir-fenris @a-formless-whumper

[chocolatepot]

While I'm ranting about fandom, I have really mixed feelings about posts that are like "back in the day, we never cared about what anyone else was doing and you could write/draw/ship whatever you wanted with no backlash."

Because on the one hand, yeah, there was a much higher tolerance for dark content 10+ years ago, and I do miss that. Antis are bad, sui-baiting people for drawing cute art on one account and NSFW on another is bad, whump is excellent and I wish there were more of it.

On the other, said tolerance didn't exist everywhere and you're kidding yourself if you think it was a fandom-wide virtue. Ship wars were vicious and frequently involved judging female characters as sluts unworthy of $hero because they'd kissed another guy onscreen one time. There were plenty of places you weren't allowed to write anything but fluffy canon het or get judged. I think it mainly feels like there was some golden time of everyone being Okay With Anything just because we didn't have these massive sites where you were rubbing shoulders with everybody. On LJ, it was very easy to just interact with the other people who liked the same stuff as you.

And also on the other, the rise of antis/criticism of dark stuff/etc. went hand-in-hand with the rise of social justice awareness in fandom, and I have strong memories of people really resisting any analysis or discussion relating to bigotry or subconscious bias in canon or fanon because get out of here SJW! It's all made up and meaningless! Pretty much everyone was sorted into either the social-justice-aware camp or the called-people-SJW-unironically camp, and the former was going to be critical of what message your fic or fandom participation was carrying (in terms of sexist tropes, ship statistics, and so on) while the latter was going to be hostile to you saying you were offended or disturbed by anything at all.

I remember one time toward the end of Fandom_Wank (after UnfunnyBusiness had been split off to talk about conflicts involving -isms because people had come to recognize that not all drama is equal) when someone brought up an old wank involving people upset that in a particular fandom's AUs, the characters of color would frequently be turned into literal animals while the white characters were still human. Originally, they had been mocked because this was obviously trivial and not racist, it was just random chance which characters got turned into animals, etc. But at that time, post-RaceFail, everyone agreed that it was really messed up. And that's what I think about every time the "people used to not care about what you wrote" topic comes up.

[makoredeyes]

Lie in Peace

Think I’ve put an easy 50 hours or more into this this was the most beastly test of my extremely poor patience but damn it I did it.

The flowers are chrysanthemums, edelweiss, and a single black dahlia EDIT: someone asked about the flowers so here are the meanings, in short. (I didn't get very subtle with them lol) White Chrysanthemums: death and mourning, Truth Edelweiss: courage and devotion Black Dahlias: betrayal, deception. Lies

[bazpango]

A lawlight fan fiction where the NPA’s benefits package includes—mandatory—counselling sessions (their job is emotionally taxing) but they can’t use them because it’s too much of a risk to the task force’s objective in catching Kira:

Matsuda waltzes in with a stack of notebooks under his arm. “I read in Good Housekeeping that journaling lowers stress!” L groans. Soichiro—desperate for any crumb of autonomy in this investigation—fully endorsed the idea.

Light freaks. If anyone finds the Death Note and they hire a graphologist, the first samples they’ll want to compare will be his—if L has anything to say about it. He has to be careful. This will be a burdensome paper trail. With a second (well, third) notebook to keep track of, the mental load is at risk of becoming dangerously heavy—for even the best of liars.

Every morning and evening the team journals for thirty minutes; they are locked away in a safe at all other times. It becomes a sort of ritual for clocking in and out of work.

Light is meticulous. Holding his pen off-kilter to throw off the curves and edges of his penmanship. He takes to journaling like he’s penning the world’s most mundane, most detailed, most virtuous autobiography.

L’s notes on the other hand are borderline illegible. Each entry is merely one or two sentences at most. Sometimes just a word, or a string of numbers.

Strawberries too tart today, taste terrible

He is Kira

1600. 50? …

Misa Light-kun’s girlfriend

Watari. HQ. microwave mud cake?

Light-kun did not kiss Misa back

L feels it, something quiet and scheming in the man sitting beside him. He tugs on his tie. It’s something new, since they’ve started journaling.

Weeks go by. One night, he tiptoes down to HQ hoping to break into the safe and confirm his suspicions; to his surprise he opens the door to find Light seated on one of the couches, flipping through his journal and scrunching his nose at it. “Light?” Caught you. “You aren’t to be here after curfew. Especially not with that.”

“You’re one to talk.” Light’s eyes scan L and then flicker to the coffee table, where his own journal sits invitingly. L’s been got, and what’s worse, Light knows it. He always knows. L wonders if he’ll ever get used to it.

“Yes, but.” L perches on the opposite sofa. “There’s no reason for you to be reading my journal. I’m not a suspect in this investigation.”

There’s plenty reason, and they both know it. If Kira can anticipate L’s hunches, he can misdirect. It’s a poor bluff, but still it’s one that Light can’t cop to.

“I suppose your right,” Light says, lips tightening into a line. He locks eyes with L and closes the journal softly, tossing it on the coffee table. L scratches at his wrist, where the handcuff used to be. Questioning if this opportunity would be wasted by fighting fire with fire.

“Perhaps my journal offered some insight. I was thinking the same about yours,” L mutters, “…Kira is my white whale, I suppose.”

“But I’m not Kira.”

“Yes, you keep saying that.”

Light crosses one leg over the other. “And Captain Ahab isn’t someone to aspire to. I’d be careful Ryuuzaki,” he warns; sounding perfectly concerned as a friend ought to be, “or the task force might begin to question your aptitude. You’re beginning to sound obsessed.”

Snide bastard.

“And what of you, Light?”

Light stiffens. So begins the spar.

“Do you shed the work day off in the shower with ease? Is your sleep dreamless, or do you comb through evidence you might have missed? You are tasked to help us hunt down the most prolific serial killer to ever walk this Earth, and…” he raises a thumb to his teeth, “surely that can’t be accomplished between the hours of 9 to 5, even for someone as brilliant as yourself.”

He’s monologuing now. Leaning forward. Dangling the fish hook and begging that Light takes the bait.

“That would be a most incredible feat for any man,” L says. He’s got Light right where he wants him, wide eyed and stubbornly still. Careful not to reveal any tells, which is one in and of itself. “But you don’t see yourself as one, do you?”

Light scoffs. “What are you asking, Ryuuzaki?”

It’s a ruse. Light always knows exactly what he’s saying, and does this stupid little dance with him anyway because he knows he can. L normally quite enjoys it, but tonight he’s had it and he isn’t sure why. He stands, only to step across the coffee table and plant his foot on one side of Light, the other soon to follow on the other side. Light instinctively recoils until his back is flush with the back cushion. It isn’t quite straddling, because L is still quite hunched overtop of him. But it is an intimidating closeness. Obsessive, even.

“I’m asking,” L mutters, eyes darting back and forth between Light’s, “if you think yourself God, or man.”

He’s still an immovable force, a statue underneath him. But there’s a flush of pink to his cheeks. So, you are human after all.

“This is ridiculous!” Light huffs, wiggling, and for the first time there’s a tinge of urgency to it. “You’re not getting a false confession out of me, pulling a stunt like this.”

“That is not my intention.”

“Then what is?”

“Have I not made that clear?” L asks, and the patronizing tone gives Light significant pause. L looks at the wetness of Light’s lower lip and bites that thumb between his teeth. “…Or have you just tricked me into thinking you’re smarter than you actually are?”

Light, ego bruised and bested, smashes their lips together. He plays dirty, and spars with him until their lips are swollen and there is a tinny, metallic flavour on both their tongues.

God, man, monster. Whichever he is, L likes the taste.

[academic-vampire]

𝕮𝖆𝖒𝖎𝖑𝖑𝖆 𝕸𝖆𝖈𝖆𝖚𝖑𝖆𝖞

[prontaentrega]

theres a situation ive observed multiple times where a person whos used to being the only/most neurodivergent person other people have to accomodate for (not a bad thing) interacts with another neurodivergent person who also needs accomodations/considerstion and they get really mean about it

[seaweedstarshine]

Thinking about River affectionately calling the Doctor her “madman in a box” only after he's called her his “bespoke psychopath,” and vice versa. They each were called these words by the other before ever using them to describe the other.

Thinking about the way they defy reality for each other. How modern psychiatry elevates objective reality to gatekeep full participation in society, yet they shatter objective reality with love — “I can’t let you die without knowing that you are loved.” and “You are always here to me and I always listen and I can always see you.”

Thinking about “What's the mad fool talking about now?” and how Gallifrey ostracizes those labelled mad, going so far as to see it as failure in children. Thinking about “A child is not a weapon!” “Give us time.” and how Kovarian equates psychopath with weapon as a tool of dehumanization and control.

Thinking about the way the psychiatric-industrial complex inflicts violence upon those who deviate from psychosocial norms. How their relationship was born in violence, but of madness — not madness in a post-Enlightenment framework of opposition to Reason, but madness as radical compassion that doesn’t demand so-called rationality — “Every time you've asked, I have been there.”

Thinking about how neither of them chose “psychopath” or “madman,” but they both own those words as instruments in their own agency.

[wishfulsketching]

The dads and teenage Long Min, bonding and becoming a family

[whumpeteerscrankli]

Scientist Whumper has been working on his greatest achievement, a superhuman, for years. Initially, he had no reason for creating and enhancing Whumpee, aside from the usual “Research purposes” that motivated most of his other experiments.

Imagine how ecstatic he is to hear that a high-ranking government official is in need of protection. Imagine how pleased he is to be granted the opportunity to finally give Whumpee a purpose.

[tadbitsketch]

*throws Ellegaard page at you*

[paingoes]

Rubies - Trial II

hiiii. i have such a headache omg. help meeeee

(Content: living weapon whumpee, past child abuse, conditioning, dehumanization, electrocution, physical abuse, verbal abuse, bruises, broken bones, institutionalized child abuse, institutionalized slavery, (internalized) victim blaming, self hatred, retraumatization, whump aftermath)

He had still felt the chill of the ocean when they had first brought him back to base. They’d had to recast his arm for the final time. They’d spotted the broken ribs that had barely had time to heal, not helped at all with the impact he’d made into the water. The fever dreams crept all around the corners of his eyes. 

After Levon had left, the nurses had made a request of him.

He did not have to stand for it, luckily. He sat up on the bed and let them undo the jacket, folding it back against his waist to reveal his bare torso.

He was so covered in bruises then that it almost looked natural on him.

The marks themselves were not the shape of anything in nature, though. Not unless you counted the handprints. Instead, they showed the imprints of rulers and rings. Whip marks. Chains.

They really tried to be respectful as they aimed the camera at him.

~

Two and a half months later, in the new and sterile room, all the bruises had faded. It was the longest he’d ever gone without them. There was still a tenderness in his ribs, but it felt more like a phantom pain than anything real. The cast had finally come off of his wrist — and he appreciated the new dexterity it afforded him. 

He sat on the white floor and watched Kitty hesitate for a long while with her rook.

He was not allowed outside of his room, but he could have her inside of it. He’d had Apollo there too, but from what he understood, the medic had immediately been thrown back into clinical rotations. Kitty’s role in IT afforded her much more free time. She’d spent most of her absence working too, so there was no real change in their schedule.

She put the rook down indecisively, but seemed to tire of the game. She glanced back at the door, furrowing her eyebrows at the lock placed upon it. She folded her fingers up beneath her chin.

“This whole thing is a waste of time.”

The anger in her voice caught him off guard.

“I’m sorry,” he said, drawing his hand closer into his lap. 

She looked up in surprise, a bit of guilt seeping into her expression. 

“I’m not mad at you,” she clarified, “You didn’t do anything wrong. That’s the thing. Levon knows you’re innocent. You shouldn’t have to go through all this.”

He didn’t really feel like he had been through anything, but he didn’t argue with her. He processed the words slowly, trying to work around the irritation in them. It still made him antsy.

“Hey,” she spoke gently, trying to draw his attention back, “I’m not mad at you. You’re not in trouble.”

“Okay,” he conceded, “Sorry.”

He moved his bishop to put her in check. She sacrificed the knight in the king’s stead. Before he could capture it, a voice sounded through the buzzer, directly on the other side of the door.

“Maryam Pike. Can I come in?” It crackled through the static.

Kitty gave Delta a concerned look. He blinked, unsure what she was waiting for. 

“Do you want her to? You don’t have to let her into your space,” Kitty said.

He shrugged. She was just doing her job. There was nothing he could really do to avoid questioning, anyway.

Kitty stood up from her spot on the floor, stalking over to the entryway. She opened it up.

“Does it have to be here?” She asked Maryam, “It’s his room.”

The older woman shrugged just the same.

“His choice. I have the office too, if you want to take the hike.” She glanced over Kitty’s shoulder, addressing Delta. “You want to get out for a little bit?”

He did, actually.

~

They were back around the table. Apollo was absent this time, but everyone from the council was still in attendance. Levon leaned against the back wall casually, sorting through the folder he’d been given. His expression was unreadable.

They knew how impossible it was to get Delta to speak in front of people. He had his gaze all the way down even as he sat at the table. It was too difficult to try and have him give testimony. They’d had to resort to other ways.

Maryam slid the cassette player into the center of the table. She looked at Delta, giving him a final chance to amend it. He had nothing to add.

He still cringed to hear his own voice play over the tape.

[

Q: What is your earliest memory?

A: …I was playing with a baby pool, filled up with all these little fish. The staff were asking me if I could move them around, but without using my hands. It took hours, but eventually I could focus enough to push them around just by thinking about it. I made them swim upside down. 

Q: Where did this take place?

A: One of the lower levels of the Institute. It was one of their wet labs.

Q: What were your parents like?

A: I never knew my parents, ma’am.

Q: How did you feel about other children your age?

A: …Indifferent.

Q: What is the primary emotion you associate with your childhood?

A: …I don’t know, ma’am.

Q: What were the rules at the institute you grew up in?

A: No running. No fighting. No talking back. Be respectful when addressing a superior. Wait for explicit permission before using your powers. Take your medicine as prescribed.

Q: When you were a child, did you ever make any attempt to escape or to disobey your handlers?

A: Never to escape. And I never, um. Never intentionally disobeyed. But by accident sometimes, yeah.

Q: By accident? What did you do?

A: …I was getting fussy one day after drills. There are these kind of growing pains you get if you move up a new level — and I was getting them really badly that day, and I guess I was lashing out too much. I wasn’t really listening.

Q: And what happened?

A: Got some warning shocks. When that didn’t work, they. Um. Increased the voltage until I was ready to listen. 

Q: To clarify, are you saying they electrocuted you?

A: Yes, ma’am.

Q: Did this happen with any frequency?

A: Not to me.

Q: Not to you? What does that mean?

A: Not to me, ma’am. It happened to the other students a lot more. I didn’t need as much correction, ma’am.

Q: And you witnessed this “correction” personally?

A: Yes, ma’am.

Q: How frequently did this happen?

A: In the first years, it was multiple times a day. It didn’t happen as often later on. A lot of the problem students had already been eliminated from the program at that point.

Q: I see. And you never once attempted escape?

A: No, ma’am.

Q: Why not?

A: 

Q: What was that?

A: I didn’t have anywhere else to go.

]

The tape clicked off. Delta folded his hands in his lap.

“We also have testimony from other alumni of the Beldam Institute,” Maryam declared, though Delta disagreed. You couldn’t be an alumnus if you didn’t actually graduate. She’d gotten testimony from the drop-outs. It’d been edited into a neat and digestible format, though to him it seemed a bit hokey.

Levon pulled it up onto the projector, his expression still unreadable.

The woman in the video was in her mid-20s, which meant she hadn’t been there from inception, and that she hadn’t stayed long. She said as much in the video. She was a kind of lightworker - lasers, burns, flash bombs. She’d been transferred to the Institute out of foster care.

“-would’ve been unethical to have adults working those hours. 16 hour days — and there were younger kids there than I was, ones that needed like ten hours of sleep, and they never got it. I don’t think I had a single moment of free time while I was there. The amount of-“

“-and of course they hit the kids. Where I went, at every house I’d been to, they hit the kids. That was nothing new to me. But they had the kids hurting each other. And these were untrained psychics who were still learning to use their powers, they didn’t know their own strength. And they were learning to use it on whoever was lower in the hierarchy than they were. Some of them would get messed up bad. One time-“

“-said pack your shit, get out. I didn’t have any more value to them anymore. I had been fucking gifted. And they just burnt me out like I was nothing. Glad they did, though. The only way kids ever left that school was burnt out or in a body bag. I still haven’t-“

There was no footage of the Institute. No cameras had been allowed inside except by licensed professionals. What they did have were the scans of the old photo books. Delta recognized the backgrounds so clearly, even though it’d been years since he had stepped inside. He felt only some dull recognition for the children in the photos — there’d been too many to keep track of. He’d never cared for them much anyway.

He felt the air in the room stiffen as the pictures got progressively gorier. Training accidents. Wrong dosages. The stripes they’d whipped into the backs of the worst kids. He wondered how much of his survival had been pure luck. He hadn’t known just how mismanaged it’d been at the time. Though he did have inklings.

“It’s clear the defendant was raised in an environment in which his every move was controlled under threat of severe physical punishment or death. His surroundings instilled a sense of learned helplessness within him. From an earlier age, he has been made to feel he has no option but to obey. Due to that conditioning, we can reasonably say that any exhibit of his powers has been under duress. It’s absurd that he should be held legally or morally responsible for his actions.” Maryam had a practiced cadence, especially on such short notice. She looked at nobody and nothing in particular when she did it. Levon watched her like a hawk.

She took a deep breath.

“There’s evidence this coercion continued beyond Beldam Institute.”

She switched between files on the computer. A new screen filled the projector.

“Hold,” Levon held a hand up, “Delta, you don’t have to be here for this. You can take recess.”

She couldn’t get him to talk about Paris. It’d been a no-go. His chest tightened up whenever he tried. The questions made him dizzy.

She had other ways, though. She was surprised she’d managed to dig them up. There’d been so few photos or videos of Paris anywhere. By now, the videos of his time on-the-run far outnumbered any from his reign. He couldn’t imagine how much effort it must have taken her to find this one.

He shook his head. He didn’t see any reason to, did not want any reputation for sensitivity. Keyglades didn’t even stand out as one of the bad ones, anyway. 

“I’m okay, sir,” he said softly.

The video began to play.

It had sound.

Paris’s voice cut through the white noise. It was distant, grainy with analog. Still, Delta felt his ears perk up, immediately rapt. Unable to pry his attention away even if he had tried.

He could pick up on the irritation from the first syllable. The tape showed surveillance footage  a hallway within Keyglades’ city hall. It led away from the main conference area and twisted up into the further reaches of the government building. Delta had been pretty sure at the time it was restricted territory, that they shouldn’t have even went that far.

Paris’s speech had risen to the rapid-fire pace it always took when he was pissed. Delta swore he worked himself up just for sport sometimes. Paris didn’t want a solution, he just wanted to be mad. He should’ve known better than to interrupt.

On the tape, Delta’s voice was low enough that the exact words were indistinct. But the sound of the ringed hand coming down hard against his face had been picked up in crisp resolution.

“You think I don’t fucking know that?!”

It had caught him off-guard. It seemed to catch the others in the room off-guard now, some of them visibly flinching at the abruptness. In the tape, he had reeled, though he did not have long to do so. Paris’s hand caught on the loose fabric of his shirt collar and slammed him into the wall. His grip moved upwards, onto his neck. Tight and uncomfortable, but not actually choking. Just meant to hold him there. Make sure he couldn’t avoid it.

“It’s not about the fucking tax, it’s about the principle. That’s all it ever is with these people. Can you stop acting like you know better than me? There’s a reason nobody fucking asks you. Who the fuck even gave you permission to speak?”

Delta frowned, looking down as if he was getting scolded in that same instant. It had the same effect. He tucked his legs further beneath the chair, shielding them. In the tape, Paris pushed him to the floor — not a hard thing to do — and stomped down on his wrist. It was too mild for him to really consider a beating, but some blood had dripped from his mouth while he was on the floor, which is probably why she’d chosen it.

Maryam cleared her throat.

“Would you say there was anything exceptional about this event?” 

It took him too long to realize the question was directed at him. He knew they were all looking at him, but he couldn’t bring himself to look up from the floor.

“No, ma’am.” His hands balled up in his lap.

“And was this an atypical occurrence?”

“No, ma’am.”

“How often would you say you experienced this level of violence?”

That level, specifically? That much was hard to quantify. It depended on how quickly operations were moving, how much the plan was working, how badly he’d fucked up. He’d like to say he had a good track record when it came to his powers. He aimed to please. The worst of it came when he didn’t. He would have answered monthly if he’d been asked how frequently he was actually beaten. Those were the standout ones, the ones that left him sore for days afterward, the ones he most thought of as deserved. Well, justified. He deserved all of it.

But the tape hadn’t shown a severe beating. That kind of pettiness came much more frequently. Weekly, he guessed. Biweekly if things were going well. The other kind of biweekly if things were going poorly. If he counted the smaller things — the shoving, the hair-pulling, the grabbing — he would have said almost daily. But he didn’t count those.

“Weekly, ma’am.” He didn’t let his uncertainty show in his voice. He couldn’t pose it as a question; it wasn’t something they could answer. Weekly was a good enough approximation.

He saw Kitty’s eyes narrow dangerously. Her claws carved lines into the woods of the chair from gripping it so hard.

“This caused significant injury, as evidenced by the condition he was in when he first came to Galatea.”

The screen clicked abruptly to the photographs the nurse has taken just before she’d cast his arm. There were several of them, taken from different perspectives. The broken angle his wrist was held at. The thick, dark bruise against his ribs where they’d been kicked in. There was a whole litany of other bruises along his arms and neck. Handprints, implements. Nobody could argue they were obtained in combat. None of the photographs showed his face.

It was his first time seeing the full mosaic. He’d avoided the mirror whenever he could while it was happening. He remembered how badly he did not want Simon to see them, to have the proof of his failures be written out so clearly on his body. It felt a million times worse for Levon to see him like that. He wanted to apologize. He’d promise to do better, if he was allowed to. His lip bled from how hard he was biting into it.

The bruises were bad. Each of his separate ideologies burned in his brain, building and fighting each other. He’d failed. He’d earned it. Paris was fucking crazy. He’d never be able to please him. He’d deserved it. He was supposed to be better than this. He deserved worse.

Kitty’s hand brushed against his. He flinched, but forced himself not to withdraw it. Too well trained to pull away. She seemed to pick up on this as she drew her own hand back.

“Where are you?” she whispered. He couldn’t answer.

When he looked up again, Levon was staring straight at him, not at the bruises on the screen. As soon as they made eye contact, Levon looked inconspicuously to his watch.

“Think we’re gonna call it for today,” he announced. 

~

He’d expected to return straight back to his room afterwards, but nobody escorted him. Kitty led him through the airy hallways instead. This section of the building was made mostly of glass and white tile. 

“I swear this is their best kept secret,” she said as she pushed open the outer doors.

They entered into the bio-pond. The algae green ambiance contrasted sharply with the tidiness of Galatea’s interior. Despite her claim, a few other people drifted around the edges, absorbed in their own work. They didn’t pay the pair of them any mind.

It was the first time he had stepped outside all week. The damp air was suddenly much easier for him to breathe. She sat him down by the edge of the pond. A row of turtles sat on a log in the center of the water. The grass was soft, slightly damp. It felt cool against his palms.

Kitty leaned forward over the water, pointing out the fish that lived inside of it. He saw her claws poke out like she wanted to snatch them straight from the water, but she held herself back. 

He didn’t speak. Subconsciously, he tried to shield his arms, covering up the bruises from her sight. Of course, they weren’t there anymore. And when they had been, she’d seen them already. 

He didn’t know how long they stayed there, but he saw the sky slowly fading to purple by the end of it. The mosquitos were starting to bite. 

“Why don’t you hit me?” He’d asked when he finally had to return to his room. She went in with him, just for a little while, until she had to go back to her own. His head had drooped a little when he asked in, in its exhausted state.

“Whyyy would I hit you?” She asked instead, hooking one finger around his. This time, he didn’t flinch, felt no urge to withdraw it.

Because he was difficult, more needy than he’d been in years. Because he was evil, because he deserved it. Because she could. Because everyone else always had.

He shrugged.

“Never,” she promised. She brought his hand up to her lips, kissing it gently. 

His chest ached.

~~~

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