#tw: discussions of suicide

[undertheopensky]

Moorhaunt 1

Whumptober Day 4: “You in there?”

Characters: Legend, Four, Hyrule, everyone’s kind of there

Trigger warnings: Discussions of suicide and self-harm

Read on Ao3!

-----

It takes them way too long to realise Legend is missing.

This is Hyrule’s Hyrule. They should never have lost track of one of their own, not in a place this dangerous. How could they have lost someone, lost Legend of all people? Not even Wild goes wandering alone here, there are so many monsters, traps and poisons and people who aren’t. How could he have lost someone?

Frantic barking distracts Hyrule from his panic. Wolfie comes barrelling out of the woods and skids to a stop on the trail in front of them. He yips twice, as if to make sure he’s got their attention, before diving back into the underbrush the way he’d come.

“Wolfie’s got something,” says Time, unnecessarily; everyone’s already racing after the wolf.

They follow the sound of him more than anything. The undergrowth here is dry and sickly, and makes a lot of noise when a hundred kilograms of anxious wolf goes crashing through it. Dead leaves drift to the ground in his wake, only to be stirred up again by seven pairs of boots. How far off trail did Legend go? Why?

By the time they make it to Twilight, Wolfie has vanished, job done. Hyrule gets a good look and stops dead.

Twilight’s wrist deep in the black haze hugging Legend’s upper body. “I can’t - I can’t touch it,” he’s saying, panicked. “I found him like this and he’s still breathing, but -”

“Oh no,” Hyrule moans. “No no no no no -”

He’s only seen them twice before. But the creeping black fog, too cohesive to be anything but alive, clinging and crawling and strangling -

“It’s a moorhaunt.”

“You know what it is? Great! How do we kill it?” Warriors is all business.

“We can’t, we - it’ll hurt Legend, we have to get it off first -”

“How do we do that?”

“I don’t know!” Hyrule wails. “It’s not - it should already be - be drifting between us, trying to feed from all of us at once, they don’t just - they’re opportunists, not true predators, this makes no sense -”

“Hyrule, breathe,” Time interrupts. “How much time do we have? How long before this is fatal?”

Hyrule bites his lip. “It’s - it’s not. Not directly. Moorhaunts don’t kill their hosts.”

That ratchets the tension down - somewhat. It looks bad - like Legend’s wearing a thick hood of shadows - but he is breathing, steady and strong, and he’s sitting upright without aid. They’re not running on a deadline. Warriors just narrows his eyes.

“If it’s not lethal, then why are you so scared?”

Hyrule flinches, mouth wobbling, then firms up his shoulders and makes himself say it. “About seventy percent of people commit suicide, within a week of the attack.”

Everyone jolts. Twilight casts a horrified look at Legend, still sitting placidly on his knees with a black haze shrouding his face.

Hyrule continues, “About ten percent recover okay. The rest of them… seem to recover, but within a month or so, as soon as someone takes their eyes off them -” he cuts himself off with a grim twist to his mouth. “Well. There’s a reason they were hunted almost to extinction in the Hero of Legend’s time.”

“Okay, so what do we do about it now?”

The noise Hyrule makes is somewhere between distress and despair. He doesn’t know.

Warriors breaks into his panic. “Hyrule. You said, ‘host’, and that it should be trying to feed on us, too. What exactly is its food source?”

“They’re… a kind of energy parasite. That’s why we can’t just - cut it off, it’s all up in Legend’s life force, it might - it could hurt him if we do anything to it, I don’t usually deal with them when they have a - have a person already, or if they do they’re willing to jump for me and then I can kill them -”

Again, Warriors stops him. “Hyrule, what’s its food source?”

“It’s - pain. Not physical pain, but -” Hyrule scratches at his ear, then his neck; his skin is prickling all over. “They don’t - cause pain. They just - trigger it. They infiltrate the host’s mind, and force them - make them relive their worst memories. And they feed off the pain it causes them.”

Warriors isn’t the only one to jerk back. Hyrule’s shaking like a leaf just standing next to the thing. All of them have things in their pasts they don’t like to think about. To have those things come alive again - trapped in your own memories, unable to escape -

“That’s why the suicides,” Four says, eyes dark. “And why it’s so fixated on Legend, I bet. He’s been through a lot. Why abandon a high-value food source for a less certain one, or one that’s less concentrated?”

Wind makes a high-pitched noise. “We gotta get it off him!”

“Think maybe we can intimidate it?” Twilight asks Warriors.

“I don’t want to -” Hyrule waves his hands and grimaces, struggling for words. “I’ve never dealt with one that’s so - entrenched. It’s wound right through Legend’s life force, and if we hurt it, or shock it, it might hurt him.”

“Well we can’t just leave him like this!” says Wind.

Theoretically, they could. The moorhaunt wouldn’t kill Legend. But what it put him through in the meantime - no, there has to be a way. He just has to think.

Four’s thinking too. “Hey, Hyrule. It took time to get this way, right? So that it’s hard for us to remove?”

“Yeah.”

“So if we can convince it onto someone else, there’s a window where we can kill it before there’s a risk of damage to the host. Is that correct?”

“Yes, but - it hasn’t reacted to any of us at all.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that.” One small hand pulls the feather earring from his ear and tucks it away. “Just get it off me as fast as you can.”

Then before anyone can protest, he’s kneeling right next to Legend.

The response is immediate - the moorhaunt visibly loosens its grip. It’s not like an octorock, with distinct, visible appendages; it just - expands in space, becoming slightly more transparent, like the black fog is lifting, or spreading. Then a tendril reaches out, light and fine as black silk fibre, to stroke Four’s face, almost curiously.

Four doesn’t flinch.

The moorhaunt shifts to Four in layers of gossamer black. Dark haze peels away from Legend to wrap around the smaller smithy, and it’s terrifying to watch his face disappear under the dark veil, but Legend’s becoming more and more visible as it eases free of him.

The last few wisps linger, reluctant to leave behind their last meal, but Four takes a deep breath and draws them in.

Like its psychic grip had been the only thing holding him up, Legend slumps sideways. Hyrule grabs him, sends a useless pulse of healing through him - he knows it won’t do any good but it’s instinct when Legend is so pale and drawn.

Dried tear tracks trail from unseeing red eyes, tight with pain. With the moorhaunt gone, they start to flutter closed, exhaustion draining the last of his strength. But his heart is still strong, and his breathing is steady - for now, for now, he’s okay.

“Hyrule - is he clear?”

Hyrule triple-checks. There’s nothing in Legend’s aura but his own tired energies.

He nods. “Yeah - kill it.”

Sky wastes no time. He draws the Master Sword, and almost delicately flicks it through the moorhaunt, as close to Four as he dares.

The scream is warping metal and wind through hollows. Sky slashes again, chasing the shadow’s retreat, and this time, it fades away to nothing; burned to ash in the light.

Four falls.

Legend is stable. Hyrule leaves him with Twilight and bolts for Four, supported against Time’s armour and tears coursing down his face. No, no, no, it was only a few seconds, he’ll be okay, he’s got to be okay. “Four? Four, talk to me. Do you remember where you are?”

Four’s jaw is clamped shut, and he’s making no move to answer. A faint tremble is starting to make itself known in his hands where they hang loose at his sides. He’d only been under a few minutes, but he’s in the same empty-eyed state as Legend.

“Fuck,” Hyrule mutters, “fuck.”

He scrubs his hands over his face, then runs them up through his hair and pulls. Two people down. In the middle of a dead forest. Black-blooded monsters yet to be found. They’re all tired, and stressed, and desperately worried.

Hyrule hates being in charge. But nobody else here knows the wastelands of his kingdom like he does.

“We need - we need to find a safe place to stay put for a few days.”

“The fairy fountain?” Time offers. It was where they’d been headed originally, before Legend went missing.

“No.” Hyrule’s refusal visibly surprises them. “No, that’s too enclosed, too much chance of an ambush.”

Warriors scowls. “Then why were we going there in the first place?”

“Because it is safe, briefly. But the entrance is a bottleneck, and if monsters realise you’re there, all they have to do is camp out by the entrance until you leave. And we’re going to need somewhere to make camp for several days at least.” The healer’s face is grim. “These two won’t be fit to travel for a while.”

Everyone’s gaze slides sideways.

Legend almost looks like he’s dozing, collapsed into Twilight’s side. There’s no way to make the same mistake with Four - he’s crying, shaking. Every now and then he shudders, and swallows, gaze fixed on something none of them can see. He’d done it to save Legend, without demand, without complaint. Hyrule still feels sick with guilt.

“It’s okay,” he whispers through the tightness in his throat, “it’s okay. You’re safe now. We’ve got you.”

Through it all, Four doesn’t make a sound.

-----

Read Part 2 here!

[schrijverr]

Making It to Siblinghood

When May is butting heads with her mom about talking to Liala, she needs to get away from it all during family dinner. Buck seeks her out, opening up about his own suicide attempts and giving her a listening ear.

On AO3.

Ships: none

Warnings: discussions of past suicide attempts and parental neglect

~~~

It’s during a family dinner and May is sitting away from everyone. She wants to enjoy tonight, but she can’t bring herself to stop stewing in her own emotions and she just needed to be away from it all for a bit.

However, it doesn’t appear she’ll get that, because Buck is lowering himself down next to her with a dramatized groan, holding out a lemonade for her, while he takes a sip from his own glass.

May looks at it for a second, slightly annoyed, but when Buck doesn’t make any move to leave, she takes it grudgingly. But just because she took the drink, doesn’t mean she’s up for talking, so she doesn’t say anything as she drinks.

Buck takes her standoffish attitude in stride and just sits with her in the quiet. It’s actually kind of nice and May finds herself relaxing a bit.

After what must be about ten minutes, Buck breaks the peaceful silence, asking: “So, what drew you out here?”

There it is, she thinks, heaving a sigh. “Did mom put you up to this?”

“Up to what?” Buck asks, looking genuinely confused. “Is there something going on between you two? Are you okay?”

If it were anyone else, she might not have believed them, but Buck… well, he’s Buck. He doesn’t manipulate and lie, he’s just honest and steady. So she gives him a small smile: “I’m fine.” Before she mutters: “If only everyone else would believe that.”

Buck frowns at that and she curses herself. Sure, she’s annoyed, but she wants people to not worry, getting snippy is definitely a way to make people worry. And indeed, Buck’s voice is worried when he asks: “Why would they not believe that?”

May considers the question for a moment. She could just brush it off, say she doesn’t want to talk about it. Out of everyone, Buck might be the only one who’d let her do that. Despite his stubbornness he has a great intuition and is actually capable of letting people have space, instead of being nosy.

But, it’s Buck. Telling him might be nice. She wants to talk about it with someone, but she doesn’t have many friends that talk about these things and talking to her parents is a no go. She loves the rest of the 118, but they’re all friends with her parents. Buck is too, of course, but- but he’s her big brother. He’s that nice in between of a trusted adult, but not her parents. It’ll be nice.

So, moodily she says: “I went out for coffee with Laila, the girl that nearly bullied me to suicide. She just wanted to apologize and I wanted to hear her out, but mom is being stifling about it. She always is when it comes up, every anniversary she gets like this too. The only reason she lets me even sit here by myself is because she can watch me from between those plants.”

She groans and leans back on her hands as she continues: “And I get. I get that she’s worried, but I’m an adult, I can talk to whoever I want. She always thinks I don’t know what I’m doing, that I’m going to break, but I’m fine. It was just a one off, hearing Laila out doesn’t make me want to kill myself again. I don’t understand why she won’t get that.”

Buck listens to her rant, nodding thoughtfully as he lets a silence fall between them. After a moment, he says: “I get it.”

“You do?” May asks skeptically.

He doesn’t meet her eyes, continues staring into the dark garden as he shrugs: “Yeah. For you it was just a thing. You didn’t necessarily want to die, you just wanted everything to stop for a bit and this was the only way you saw how. Now that you’re in a better place, you’re good. Maybe a bit embarrassed that you tried and you don’t want to be reminded of it, but everyone keeps reminding you of it by hovering.”

“Yeah,” May agrees, surprised. “How did you know that?”

Buck finally looks at her, his face weirdly melancholic, something she isn’t used to with Buck. He gives her a sad smile and says: “Because I tried too.”

May can feel her eyes grow wide in surprise. Due to her work as dispatch, she knows that all sorts of people can have all sorts of problems, but it just doesn’t seem to click in her brain that someone as happy and carefree as Buck could’ve ever tried. “Really?” she finds herself asking.

“Yup,” Buck shrugs as if it isn’t a big deal.

And maybe it isn’t, not to him, much like her own attempt isn’t to her. But his attempt is a big deal to her, because she almost wouldn’t have had her big brother, wouldn’t have had this piece of her family and that leaves her breathless. She is starting to see where her mom is coming from.

Emotions swirl through her and she can’t comprehend it, so she stumbles over her words: “Wh- what? Why? When?”

“When I was sixteen and when I was twenty,” Buck confesses.

“You tried twice?” May asks, concerned. Once is already worrying enough, though she can understand getting to that point, but twice means the first time wasn’t enough of a wake up call.

“Yeah,” Buck says, sounding a bit embarrassed, likely as embarrassed as she feels when people talk about it. “First time, Maddie had been gone for two years, she came to my fifteenth birthday, but Doug didn’t let her come to my sixteenth. I got upset about it. Took a bunch of pills. Not enough though. I went to bed thinking that was it, woke up the next day to my mom scolding me for missing school. Terrible headache. Got grounded because they thought I’d snuck out drink with friends.”

May just stares at him with wide eyes, but Buck doesn’t seem to notice, drifting away on memories as if he hadn’t just shared his parents missed him attempting suicide.

“Second time was after Maddie gave me the Jeep so I could run,” Buck continues on obliviously. “I was so mad she wouldn’t come with me – kind of makes me feel like a jerk in hindsight honestly – then that anger turned into upset. Tried to jump off a bridge, but it wasn’t high enough. Slept soaking wet in my car instead. Got a cold soon after. Figured it was a sign of the universe to not give up.”

She doesn’t really know what to say to that, much like she doesn’t know what she’d like her mom to do now. It’s clearly in the past for Buck, but it’s still a pretty big thing. She knows she doesn’t want the hovering, but it’s nice that someone cares. That they know. Like, yeah, sharing it at work had been awkward as hell, but having Sue or Maddie check in with her is nice. Buck doesn’t seem to have that at all.

Unable to find words, she throws her arms around him and he lets out a surprised whoosh of air as he catches her.

“Hey, Mayday, hey,” he shushes her gently, the kind of childish nickname that usually annoys her now soothing. “I’m okay.”

It’s not until he says that, that she notices she’s crying. She sniffles and buries her head in his chest, listening to his heartbeat and feeling the steady rising and falling. She gets herself under control and says: “I’m glad you’re still here, Buck.”

And she is soothed by Buck running a hand through her hair as he says: “So am I.”

They sit like that for a second, leaning on each other and watching the light polluted air of LA as they listen to the sounds of the garden and the neighborhood.

May tries to wrap her head around it. Not around trying to kill yourself. She clearly remembers how she felt. How awful it all was, feeling like her only best friend abandoned her and everyone hated her. How badly she didn’t want to go to school, because then she would have to face how alone she was and how bad she felt.

No, what she is trying to wrap her head around, is his parents not noticing. Being alone for it. She never would have gotten better without telling her parents, without reaching out.

“How did you do it?” she asks.

“Do what?”

“Keep going without telling anyone,” May clarifies. “I mean, your parents wouldn’t have grounded you if you told them what happened, right? So the fact that you did, means you never did. God knows I wouldn’t have told mom if she hadn’t found me. And the other time- You sounded alone.”

Buck winces and he replies: “I was alone, but it’s okay, really. I didn’t mean to be a downer. I actually never told anyone before.”

“You haven’t?” May asks, both horrified and honored to be the first one to hear this from him. “Not even Bobby? Or Maddie?”

“No, and I’d prefer it if you didn’t tell them either,” Buck says, looking her in the eyes and showing that he means it.

May frowns and goes to reply, but before she can, Buck says: “It’s okay to keep a secret unless it puts someone in harms way, right?” which is what her therapist and mom agreed on.

“And you’re not in harms way?” she checks.

“It’s been years, May. This is the best I’ve felt. Joining the 118 has only been up for me, despite the lows. I’m in therapy now too and I have a support system. I’m not in danger, so please don’t tell anyone,” Buck says.

“I guess,” she says after a beat, watching Buck’s frame relax slightly. Her determination to keep the secret strengthens and with more certainty, she says: “I won’t tell.”

“Thank you,” Buck gives her a proper smile for the first time since he’s sat down next to her.

Curiously, she asks: “Why did you tell me when you don’t like sharing it?” Because he sounded so casual about it, as if he told it often. She knows she sounds like that about her own attempt, but that is because she has talked about it. She definitely wasn’t like that the first time she shared.

“You seemed like you needed to hear it,” Buck shrugs, as if for him it truly is that easy. She needed to hear it, so to make her feel better, he would share it. “I mean, I can see that for you it’s not this big thing, which is why you think your mom is stifling, but it’s nice to have someone to talk about it with. Someone who won’t immediately go mama bear.”

May laughs at that and agrees: “I can use a little less mama bear, honestly.” Then she imagines Buck doing the same, how scary it was, but how he got grounded for it. Morosely she adds: “But I am grateful for her going mama bear, just a little bit.”

“I’m a little grateful for her going mama bear too, honestly,” Buck confesses in a whisper, adding a bit of comedy to it by exaggerating the whisper. It brings the smile back to her face.

Then she frowns again. “I just wish she wouldn’t smother me with it, you know. Talking to Laila isn’t the end of the world. She’s grown as a person. And so have I. I’m not a fourteen year old anymore, Buck, but mom won’t see it. She refuses to acknowledge me as an adult. Not just with this, but with everything. She’s against my job, she’s against me having this friend, she’s against me not going to college. It’s like she wants to make all the choices for me.”

“She just worries,” Buck says.

“That’s what everyone says,” May rolls her eyes. “I know she worries, but she isn’t the only one. I worry about her when she leaves to go out there on the streets, encountering god knows what. I get scared sometimes when there is a weird call and she’s the one responding. But I’m not controlling about it.”

Buck thinks about it for a second. He always considers her side, has done so even before he was an adult. She sees he does the same with Chris, Denny and Harry. She likes that about him, how seriously he has always taken them.

“I- I don’t know what it is like for a mom to find her kid like that, to go through that,” he starts after a moment. “And I know you worry too, but it’s different. You’re an adult, sure, but you’re still her kid. She still feels responsible for you. She’s not going to be rational about it.”

“Like Bobby not letting you work after your leg?” May asks.

Buck sends her a shocked look, seemingly not used to anyone picking his side in that moment of their shared lives.

“What,” she says defensively. “That was stupid. You were fine. He just felt bad, because the bomber dude was after him and he was all guilty towards you about it. I heard him and mom talk when it was happening. I can have my own opinions about it.”

“Never change, Mayday,” Buck grins, ruffling her hair.

She bats his hands away, less annoyed than she should be as she pouts: “Don’t call me that.”

“Alright, alright,” Buck concedes, before circling back. “But, yeah, like Bobby, I guess. She is going to hover.”

“Dad doesn’t hover,” May points out moodily.

“Then you should probably talk with your dad about it,” Buck suggests. “I’d love to give you the answers for that, but I can’t. I wasn’t super involved in your life back then, I don’t know what it was like for everyone. If you want to talk about the experience itself, I’m here, but you gotta figure out things with your parents yourself. Like you said, you’re an adult; you talk it out.”

“Ugh, sometimes I wish I could just slam the doors and hide out in my room instead,” May groans.

“Doing that will only prove Athena right,” Buck says, annoyingly correct.

May groans again: “Fine, I’ll talk to dad, then figure things out with mom.”

“A plan of attack, already a step in the right direction,” Buck smiles.

And she has to admit that she does feel better now that she has a plan. When she hid out here, she was mostly frustrated anger that wanted to escape, but knew that actually doing so would end in a police search that left her even more angry. Now, she doesn’t feel trapped in the stifling care, but like she has space to move. To make her own choices. She’s not the scared little girl who took a bunch of pills anymore. She’s an adult. She can talk it out.

“Thank you, Buck,” she says, hoping she sounds as sincere as she feels. “I needed that. Thank you for sharing, you didn’t have to and it made me feel better.”

“Anything for my favorite May,” he tells her affectionately, wrapping an arm around her and pulling her into a side hug.

“You know that doesn’t really count when I’m the only May you’re close with,” she points out.

“Yeah, but if I said sister, Maddie would be mad and if I said Grant, your mom and Harry would be mad,” he tells her and she can’t help but feel warmth bursting through her veins at being classified as his sister.

“Well, then you’re my favorite Buck, wouldn’t want Harry getting pissy,” she smiles at him, noting how his smile gets a little brighter at that and he leans into the hug more.

She rests her head against his shoulder and looks out into the garden again. After a moment, she wonders out loud what it would be like if they could see the stars and he tells her a little about what the sky looked like in Peru and in the south where he apparently worked as a ranch hand in the middle of nowhere.

He knows a lot of space facts and sheepishly admits that Chris is doing a chapter on space in school and he got sucked in when helping him. She asks if he knows anything about the moon and if the full moon making people weird is true, because listening to him talk is soothing and she wonders if she can trust the office gossip at the dispatch center.

Their moment is interrupted by her mom calling out: “If you don’t hurry your asses inside, there’s not going to be dessert left. And it’s getting cold out there, grab a jacket. Are you two okay?”

May makes eye contact with Buck and rolls her eyes, in turn Buck gives her a sympathetic grimace of support.

“We’re fine, mom. Coming,” May calls back. “Save us a plate.”

“You’re good to go inside?” Buck asks, when May hoists herself to her feet.

“Yeah,” she smiles at him. “Feel much better now. I might even enjoy dessert despite my shadow.”

He laughs at that and smiles back: “I’m glad. And I’m always right here if you wanna talk, okay?”

“Okay. Thank you,” she says. “I’m also here if you want to talk.”

“You’re becoming a magnificent young woman, May Grant,” he informs her with pride. May has always liked being the oldest, but this feeling, this is nice.

“And don’t you forget it,” she grins.

With that, she turns to walk inside to join the rest of the family dinner. She is going to enjoy the rest of her night and not stew in her own emotions. They’re all still there, but she isn’t alone with them and having someone who gets it makes all the difference.

[emotionally-destroyed-soldier]

Be honest... Don't you want to see them again? Those old friends of yours, don't you want to see them so, so badly?

Why cling on to the possibility of a better future when things are only going to go just as horribly as they did before?

It would be so much easier to simply... close this door, so that you can open a new one into the great beyond.

You could see them again.

I do. Don't think I haven't thought about it. Don't think that I still don't. God, it'd be easy. Could take the route so many people close to me have. Kiss this all goodbye with one pull of the trigger. Anything else would take too goddamn long. I don't want to linger around or be fucking melodramatic or give anyone a chance to find me before I'm gone. Maybe I could be with them. Maybe not. Or maybe it's all just oblivion. I had a dream about a bar once. But I don't know if that's it or not. So yeah. I know it'd be easy. And I'm so... goddamn exhausted. It hurts all the time. I can't tell the people close to me how much because I don't want to be a burden to them. I don't know if even Fritz knows how bad at is. But. Displaced by time or right here near me, there are people in my life that I'm close to. And... and I know how it feels. I can't begrudge others for not being able to endure anymore, especially considering the circumstances we mercenaries had to deal with, but... it'd be so cruel. I've never been the same. It feels like something inside me was carved out and can't ever be replaced. I've felt like that far longer than people know- because someone I cared about closed that door and didn't even tell me why. Why the hell would I subject anyone else to that feeling? Why would I carve out that hollow in people who love me? I can't do it to them. I won't. I won't do it to them, and damnit, I won't do it to me either. Because things will get better. I have faith that they will. And when that better day comes around, when dawn finally breaks on this long, long night? I want to be here to see it.

[pollsnatural]

Spin the wheel to get a spnblr discourse topic.

[ghost-proofbaby]

never love an anchor (e.m. x reader)

"On some level, I think I always understood that a ship could never really love an anchor."

warnings: severe hurt/brief comfort, suicidal ideations, severely depressed reader. again: detailed recount of suicidal ideations. dead dove: do not eat.

wc: 5.8k+

an: i cannot emphasize this enough - this fic deals with a severely depressed, and blatantly suicidal reader. it is extremely heavy. it is extremely triggering. it is extremely self-indulgent. the romance aspect is ambiguous and the comfort aspect at the end is brief. this is a genuine, and sincerely personal piece of writing. it is an outline of how suicidal ideations may present themselves to some people. of these 5k words, 4k is deeply littered with reader's ideations without sugar coating. please, please, please do not read this unless you're in the state of mind to read it. you've surely heard it before but i'll say it just to be sure: it is a permanent solution for temporary feelings. and, just in case no one has told you, i'm glad you're alive. if you're reading this, i'm glad that you're alive. you're enough.

if you find yourself feeling like reader, i urge that you find resources such as those linked. hotlines, therapists, friends, your doctor, your family - please. i do not wish these emotions upon anyone, and they should never be taken lightly.

that being said, here are my guts from a very vulnerable moment, spilled out across the page. please handle them with care if you choose to read.

Technically speaking, the pressure that the human body is capable of handling almost seems infinite. When introduced slowly, and time is given to adjust, there is no pinpointed amount of pressure that dooms the human body. Like a crab in slow boiling water, your body should be theoretically able to handle a steady increase, bit by bit, and never truly notice. 

So why does it currently feel like you’re dying?

The pressure was never an overnight thing. It was a conglomeration you’d gathered, piece by piece, collecting little souvenirs of all the responsibilities you can’t currently remember if you’d ever agreed to along the way. It hadn’t been sudden, it hadn’t been with lack of adjusting, it hadn’t been a pressure suddenly unloaded upon you all at once – you’d done this, brick by brick, all with your own two hands. 

Keeping up with friends, keeping up with work, keeping up with expectations. Always trying to run ahead of the curve, always trying to be better. You should be fine. You shouldn’t even notice. You shouldn’t be sobbing on your bathroom floor, clutching the edge of your porcelain tub, every single breath a labor of survival. 

It feels like every bone in your body is splintering. It feels like the world has cracked open your ribs, one by one, just for show. You don’t feel poetic like the movies, you don’t feel like a valuable lesson learned in the books. You feel as though you’ve become nothing more than some crude display in a contemporary art gallery, and you were the one to hang yourself on the wall. 

Needles prickle across your skin with another heaving sob, as if you can feel the push pins you’ve used to spread yourself out for consumption. 

We still on for tonight? 

The text from Eddie glares at you from your phone discarded on the floor mere inches away. You’re lucky the screen hadn’t broken when you’d thrown it down on the ground on your way to the toilet, dry heaving through all your tears. 

He wasn’t a part of the issue. If anything, he was part of the solution. 

A shining clean slate, pristine whites and a scratch-free surface for you to press your cheek to when it all got a bit much. An abyss of freedom and openness for when the world was all a bit smothering. An anchor to cling to, a rope to tie around your wrists to keep from floating too far. The willow tree in a graveyard to rest your back against, the caress of a warm sun even if only momentarily as you stared out across headstones of all the pieces of you that you can never get back. Every version of you that has long since buried, a few even with newly churned dirt resting upon them. Something soft, something sacred, to rest your hands upon. 

Why does he still let you rest your bloodied and dirtied palms on his shoulders? Did he ever agree to that to begin with? 

You can’t remember. Or maybe your brain is simply refusing to recall. 

I hate to cancel, but I’m sick. I don’t think I can come out tonight :-( 

What? Is everything okay? Are you okay? Do I need to bring you anything? 

Please don’t.

The please is what gives you away. You should have forgone it, should have offered him a lighthearted response instead. 

But there is a pit in the bottom of your stomach, and seeing all the question marks across his text only made it more terminal. Only gave it more reason to swallow you whole. Only gave it more reason to grow and to tangle up and to restrict each stuttering breath of yours that you can’t seem to steady. 

Another buzz comes from your phone, but you don’t look to read it. You resort to resting your forehead against the lip of your toilet, all attempts at a deep breath futile as you finally taste the salt across your lips. 

Were you too much? Were you not enough? Was it possible to be an odd juxtaposition of both? 

A harrowing thought crosses your mind, and you know if Eddie could read minds across the intricate webbing that connects cell phones, he’d grab you by your shoulders. Maybe shake you until you see sense, or maybe cling to you until the thought has faded into nothingness. As if he could squeeze you hard enough to press together all the splinters that are left of your bones, forming a new body – a better body. One that can handle the pressure. One that isn’t imploding upon itself. A more durable mind, a more capable suit of skin to occupy. 

Does it even matter anymore? Would it even matter if I simply vanished? 

Would it be so bad to let the pit finally consume you? To just give in, to let it erase you from existence. To finally wave your white flag and let the awfulness inside of you finally win the battle, erasing you from existence and leaving behind an empty space in the world that could be filled with someone better.

Someone who could be a better friend. Someone who could be a harder worker. Someone who wasn’t choked up on their bathroom floor, beginning to contemplate if the painful gasps were even worth it. 

Were you worth it? Were you worth the air in your lungs? Or could it better serve someone who could handle all the pressure? 

And it wasn’t even that much pressure to begin with, if you pick it apart thread by thread. It was the natural weight of the human experience, and you were still crumbling. 

There was a full bottle of ibuprofen in the cabinet. There was a busy street not far from your home. There was a bathtub that could easily be filled with water – you’d never been good at holding your breath, unless someone counted the last few months, in which that seemed to be all you were good at. 

There was even a bridge, 5.27 miles away from your house exactly. You could already envision the patch of grass you could park your car at, feel the drop in temperature as you stood and overlooked the tame waves of a man-made lake.

Maybe your feet didn’t even have to leave the pavement. Maybe it would be enough to just stand in the silence and see the jump with your own two eyes. 

You felt like nothing more than a ghost of yourself, yes, but maybe. Maybe, just maybe, there would still be a broken shard within you that could stir awake at it all. Maybe if you got up off the bathroom floor and set yourself into motion, it would open its eyes just in time to scream no. 

Ghosts don’t just appear. They were a vibrant soul once – they were somebody once. 

But it’s hard to imagine that you ever were. When it gets like this, it’s hard to push through all the tumultuous thoughts and loathly emotions to remember that. A version of you vibrant, a version of you that might have been worthy, if only for a moment. 

A version of you that wasn’t insulting to compare to others. That was capable of progress, of earning your blip of existence. 

You don’t want the bottle of ibuprofen. You don’t want the busy street. You don’t want the overflowing tub. You don’t even want the calm of the bridge. You just want it to stop. 

There’s a knock on your front door that echoes through the entire apartment. You dread that you already know who it is, but you can’t get up to answer. 

You can’t move from this very spot. You’re terrified of what will happen when you do. 

Will your bones collapse into ash upon the floor? Will you make one wrong move, and in a fit of pressure, make a terribly permanent decision for what feels like a terribly permanent feeling? 

Maybe you were born with the pit in your stomach. Maybe you were born with that black hole inside of you. Cursed to always be yearning, always be a juxtaposition, always be a ghost of what could have become. 

You think you hear the click of your front door opening. You think you hear heavy footsteps across the hardwood floors. You think, you think, you think. That’s the issue. 

The tears are still coming and going in erratic tides. The salt is drying out your lips, your cheeks, the corners of your eyes. You’d thought you’d been incapable of any more emotions like this, but your tear ducts have managed to prove you wrong. 

Does it even matter anymore?

You’d left the bathroom door wide open. 

Were you worth it?

You’d been home alone – past tense.

A more durable mind, a more capable suit of skin to occupy.

A soft gasp of your name has you microscopically lifting your head from the toilet seat. You know what the scene looks like; it looks like nothing more than the excuse you’d used. You look as though you’re ill, like you’ve been spilling your guts across the bathroom floor all night. 

If you had been, would it all feel a little less heavy? 

“Hey, Eds.” 

You’re tired. You’re exhausted. Your voice is nothing more than a drag of a whisper as you look up at your anchor standing in the doorway, his face painted with concern. 

Maybe you were an anchor – maybe being an anchor wasn’t a good thing. After all, what use does an anchor have beyond weighing down the ship? 

“Jesus,” he mutters as he rushes to your side, falling to his knees carelessly as his hand flies out to brush back tendrils of your hair, “You look like shit.”

You felt like shit. 

Selfishly, you lean into his touch, desperate for comfort. Desperate for those caring palms to soothe the ache you’d carried since birth. Desperate to hear him tell you that you’re wrong – hands to promise you that you’re worthy, fingers to wrap around your bones rather than these burning ropes. You’re bloodied and raw, fully on display, and you just want to be okay. 

You don’t want the bridge. You want Eddie. You want him to magically make it okay, and that’s unfair. 

You’re not his weight to carry, not his burden to shoulder. 

After far too long of a silence, one in which he sits patiently in with you, all you can really reply is a broken, “Yeah.” 

Immediately, he knows something is wrong. Because of course he does. 

Because he’s a good friend. He’s a good person. He has the right words more often than not, and his hands were always formed to heal rather than injure. Create rather than destroy. Those warm palms are made to hold the space he’s earned in the grand scheme of the Universe, and it almost makes you nauseous as the jealousy spreads. 

He’s good. 

And you’re simply rotten.

You used to lie to yourself and say it was simply one rotted bit amongst plenty of good, but tonight, it all seemingly comes to clarity. You can’t dig out the bad, cleanse yourself of the rot, because it’s all decay. 

You don’t have to let the pit consume you – it already has. You were born with it, and it had swallowed you whole from the first cry that had ever left your lips. 

He makes himself a bit more comfortable, and you almost feel bad for reducing him to nothing more than the bathroom floor, “You wanna talk about what’s really wrong?” 

“I’m sick.” 

“This isn’t just some stomach bug.”

Your throat begins to tighten again, and suddenly, his gentle touch across the crown of your head burns. Your eyes water ferociously, and your chest caves into itself.

You can’t make a better body or a more sound mind out of the mess you’ve become. You can’t pull gold from tarnished rubble. 

Confessing to him will only be handing over something heavy, something terrible, that he shouldn’t have to struggle with as well. But not offering him a sliver of the truth almost feels more dishonoring. 

“Do you ever feel like a waste of space?” you croak, leaning back, finally accepting that the small space of the toilet that had been cooling your face has gone warm. Another thing you’ve ruined, in hindsight, “Like, this world is filled with great people, and I just… I just, I’m taking up the space- I’m wasting the space-” 

You can’t get out the proper words. You don’t know how.

How do you say you want to cease to exist when you’re not really sure if that’s the truth? You’re miserable, and you’re selfish, and you’re not entirely sure your feet would have ever left the pavement if you had driven yourself to the bridge. You’d be too scared to do it.  

Too scared to miss the day that science announces it’s found a cure to all your rot, a miracle drug to erase the pit, a way to reverse all the damage you’ve been comprised of your whole life. 

His brows furrow and his hand stops all the calming movements, “What? Are you- are you saying you feel like a waste of space?”

It feels silly to admit it to other people. To try and describe how it all feels. Like a child trying to convince their parents the Boogeyman is real, you have to make him see that you’re right. You have evidence, you have proof, and it’s not just a feeling. 

“I don’t feel like I’m a waste of space,” you finally correct, both yourself and him, “I know I’m a waste of space.” 

“Bullshit.”

“Eddie, don’t-”

“No,” he cuts you off. And somehow, in only a way that he’s capable of, it’s not offensive, “You’re not. I’m not going to sit here and listen to my favorite person claim they’re wasting space-”

“I am!” It’s your turn in the cycle of interruption. You pull away from him entirely, chest heaving with the weight presenting itself once more, tears starting to fall all over again. You can’t even distinguish where the old tears stop and the new ones begin, “I really am. All I seem to do lately is just exist. And that’s such a- such a- that’s such a waste. I can’t read any of the things I should enjoy these days, I can’t even write. All of the words feel like they just come out wrong. I’m letting everyone down left and right, I’m never living up to whatever pedestal you’ve put me on. I don’t even know what I’m doing with my life. I don’t even know where I’ll be in a year from now – I can’t even see that far in the future.”

Heaves become sobs, and the crumbling has begun once more. A cycle of breaking, a cycle of demolition. Even leaving behind the rubble feels like a crime. A waste of space. 

“I don’t think I’m a good person,” you manage to spit out between all your visceral reactions, “Every year, I tell myself the same thing – I’ll be better, I’ll be kinder, I’ll be worth it. And every year, I fail.” 

Can he see it? All the fractures and splinters and pits and metaphors? 

Can he smell it? All the rot and the destruction and hopelessness?

Can he feel it? All the pressure? 

Through your sniffles, you press your back to the tub, knees to your chin as you wrap your arms around your legs, desperately trying to shrivel up. To take up less space. To waste less space.

“I used to think I could make up for it,” you whisper, “I could offer people things that made them forget I’m… so useless. But I don’t think I’m even capable of that anymore.”

If he’s about to respond, it’s drowned out by your cries. You press your eyes hard into your kneecaps, until you see stars, and you try to swallow down all the embarrassment. Try to stop all the hurt from spilling out, to stop all your guts from painting the bathroom walls. 

He could simply sit there, let you wallow in your misery alone. Sit and stare as the artwork finally serves its purpose to the visitors of the gallery. Maybe jot down some commentary on how with your bones all spread out like this, the point the artist was attempting to make becomes oh so clear. 

And yet, he doesn’t. 

You know it’s his arms that are wrapping around you, pulling you from the chill of the tub and into the warmth of his chest.  And you let yourself smother within the fabric of his shirt the same exact way in which you’ve convinced yourself you smother everyone around you, let yourself breathe in drugstore cologne and his last cigarette rather than think about all the thoughts that had been spiraling you into dismay over the last twenty four hours – over the last twenty four years. 

He’d probably been smoking while waiting on your call tonight. Probably riddled with anxiety, if the shake of his hands pressing into your back are anything to go off of. An anxiety and waiting game that wouldn’t have to exist if you didn’t exist.

The thought makes you cry harder. 

If a ghost dies, can it even still return back as itself? Can it still find it within itself to haunt empty hallways, and watch the ones it once loved find peace?

“You’re not useless,” it sounds as though Eddie might be crying as well, if not just a little choked up, “You’re not- I swear- You’re not useless, okay? Never have been, never will be.”

His murmured words are nice, but they fuel an unimaginable guilt. It was supposed to be a nice night. A night of movie marathons and midnight coffee, of trying to remind yourself why you still stick around. A moment of incomparable joy and sweet reprieve as your stomach ached from laughter, your cheeks swelling with an infallible grin that Eddie always seems to pull out of you.

There’s no smiling, no giggling, right now. Just his favorite band shirt from the show you two had attended a few years before, soaking with a fast-growing stain from all your tears. 

When you don’t answer him, only manage to wrap your selfish arms around his waist, he continues, “How long have you felt this way, sweetheart?”

And if you hadn’t already been shattered previously, that would have finally broken you. 

You can’t pinpoint when it started. You can’t clear the smoke of memories and find an exact moment that you can point to and say, there. That’s where the hurt starts — that’s where the rot starts. 

“I don’t know.”

In your mind, it’s a wail. Loud and ferocious, efforts of all it has taken to withstand the pressure of your undoing screamed out loud. 

But on this quiet bathroom floor, it can’t even be considered a whisper. Nothing more than the spoken words lingering from a ghost who can’t give up the haunt. An echo of a memory, an echo of the piece in you that can’t let go, not yet.

Not of existing, and not of him. Your fists hold him so firmly against you, you’re scared that you’re going to bruise him. Hurt him just from the sheer effort of trying to show that you love him. 

The only way you know how to love – a violent dog who will always bite the kindest hands. Leaving behind bloodied knuckles even if you hadn’t so much as snipped this time. 

You take a sharp breath, aware of the levity of the words you’re about to say, “I don’t want to exist anymore, but I wouldn’t even make it off the bridge if I tried.”

It’s not about the bridge anymore. In all likelihood, it wouldn’t be the bridge you turn to. There’s a grand metaphor somewhere in the admittance, but your mind is just too tired to try and paint a prettier picture of it for him. 

Because exist is just a placeholder. And there’s a bigger, scarier word that should stand in its place. 

He starts to break the hold, and you nearly sob out again just at that. Losing the warmth of his chest and arms strike pain somewhere deep within you, just north of the pit that’s devoured all that’s left of you. 

“Bridge?” Phrased as a clarifying question, but when you see his face, it’s clear he knows. There are no good words left to say about it, “Sweetheart, no.”

There are worse reactions to be had. More scenarios that end in slamming doors or deafening silent treatments. Realizations that you’re right and it’s not worth it – defense mechanisms that involve them leaving first. 

“I couldn’t do it, even if I want-” 

Even if I wanted to. The words you can’t speak, dying on your tongue. 

Do you want to? Where does the pain begin? And where could it end?

“You really don’t see it, do you?” he laughs humorlessly, his hands still gripping your biceps in a death hold, “You… you just…” 

He doesn’t know what to say, and you don’t blame him. You knew this was heavy; you knew this isn’t the type of bomb to drop on someone you love. 

But if you didn’t, where would the bomb have gone? You’re not equipped to detonate it. You’re not equipped to survive the explosion. You wouldn’t want to survive that explosion. 

“I’m sorry,” your words pour out, beginning to shake beneath his palms, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” 

Dry, cracked lips feel as though they nearly split from the apologies. More violence, more devastation, more of what you always knew you were. You can see it in his eyes – you’re dragging him down with you, right down to the bottom of the ocean. You’re being an anchor. 

He’s all stutters and harsh breaths, panic filling the space with your own as his eyes search yours, “Don’t apologize. You don’t have to apologize. Just-”

He cuts off and is pulling you close again. Slamming your bones into his, wrapping up around you as if he might be able to keep you safe from the world. From your own mind. 

“I don’t need apologies,” another squeeze of your closer to him, another attempt to pull you away from the dangers that lie within, “I don’t- I just… Can I help? How do I make it better? Just say the word. I’ll do it.” 

It’s not your job. That’s not your job. 

You don’t realize you’ve said the words out loud until he’s squeezing you so tightly that you now can’t breathe. Until all you are is him. All his old t-shirts he’s lent to you that hang in your closet, all the nights spent with tangled legs as you sit across from each other on your couch, all the phone calls in which he refused to be the first one to hang up. Cologne that is too cheap to be able to cling so ferociously as it does to all your surroundings, chain-smoked cigarettes you always chastise him for because they’re gonna kill you one day, the smoke of his latest blunt resting in an ashtray as his head finds home in your lap. 

All the inside jokes. All the hugs. All the simple texts, if for nothing more than to just check in on each other. The broken reminders of having someone out there that cares. That loves you. 

How can such rotten hands pull such love from others? How have you yet to infect him? 

“I know it’s not my job,” he finally says, and you know for a fact he’s crying along with you before the first of his tears have wet the crown of your head, “It’s never been a job. You’re not a job. Okay? Get that through your head. There’s- Fuck, there’s plenty of things I wanna drill in that pretty little head of yours right now, but I know I can’t, so just get that.”

He’s trying. A little trill of his tongue that falls a bit flat when he refers to your pretty little head, a brief squeeze of your shoulders as he tries to relax a little. He wants to make you feel better. He wants to make it better. 

But he’s still holding you like he’s terrified. You did that – you instilled that fear. 

“I’m a mess,” you whisper in bitter realization, ash on your tongue as you process what you’ve done. You’ve already apologized, but you’re seconds away from doing so again, “I’m- I’m a mess, and I’m dragging you into it, and I’m sor-”

“Stop being sorry.” Definitive words, no room for argument. The smallest of shifts as things click into place. He isn’t budging – he isn’t letting go, “Do you remember when I first met you?” 

You can’t tell if the question is meant to have a point, or if it’s meant to be a distraction. You let it grow into the latter.

“Yeah,” you breathe out against him, melting into his chest, trying to focus on his voice rather than the ones in your head, “But tell me about it anyway?” 

“Two years ago. Technically, two years and seven months,” he starts in the same voice he used to take on during Hellfire sessions, before the members had scattered from coast to coast and his D&D club only became a rarity when the stars aligned. There’s still a crack to his voice from his tears, but that doesn’t stop him, “We were in some cursed fucking diner we don’t even go to anymore, in the dead of the night, and all the servers knew your name and order,” he paints the picture with a humor that should feel out of place, but it settles some of your breathing. Omitting all the vivid details, opting for triggering the memory with words you’d just get. You can feel the stick of the plastic beneath your thighs, you can smell the grease of the kitchen. You can see the cloudy night out of the oversized windows. He’s a natural born storyteller in the most subtle of ways, always knowing his audience, “You were sitting all alone in that booth, and all of Hellfire had just left. Gareth had just told us how he was going to college in California – did you know that?” 

“I didn’t.” 

“Well, he did,” his chin presses against the top of your head, a huff of a laugh escaping him, “Dropped the bomb it was our last summer as a club probably. We were happy for him, though. Real fucking happy. Got milkshakes to celebrate and made plans to get drunk off our asses the next night to keep the party going. It was dumb, and I’m getting off track, but…” 

Baited breath, you’re waiting for him to continue. No thoughts of the bridge. No thoughts of your failures. Living in a small memory with him on the floor of your bathroom. 

“Anyways, you were sitting there all alone, with a plate of fries and ranch.” 

“Oh, God,” your nose scrunches and you try to pull away, suddenly remembering how embarrassing this memory ends for you. It suddenly didn’t seem like the best way for him to make you feel better by any means, “No, I remember how this story ends, and-”

“I’m not done,” he locks his arms around you, and you can feel the whisper of a smile as it brushes against your temple, “Obviously you know where I’m going with this, but I’m not done, sweetheart. Because all the other guys had just left, and I’m sitting there, realizing the only other customer was some random person over across the diner, scribbling away in some notebook. Thought you looked cute when you were all focused like that, y’know? But then you were so focused that it became distracted, and you spilled that ranch all over yours-” 

“Please, stop.”

You’re laughing through the words, weakly, the air of desperation in the word please being far different from earlier in the night. No bridges, no failures. 

“I was probably being a weirdo, trying to run over and help you or whatever the fuck I was trying to do. I probably made it worse, right?” 

You’re there, remembering a version of Eddie that was a stranger, taking napkins to the knees of your jeans and smearing the ranch rather than really helping you clean it up. “Yeah, just a little bit.” 

“Sorry for that, by the way,” he airily apologizes before continuing, “But I just remember thinking about how focused you were on that notebook. And how you laughed with the waiter. And how you were just… lost in your own little world. And how you were so cute. You were so nice. The type of person I wanted in my life. Took one look at you with that ranch all over your lap and thought, huh. I want to get to know that person.” 

“Nice? I was not nice, I was-” you cut off, heart all but stopping as you recognize the point of it all. It wasn’t meant to just be a distraction. He was making a point. “I was a… a mess that day.” 

“Exactly.”

He pulls away again, and this time, it’s a little easier. The world has put a pause on its ending and you can handle the weight of his arms lightening for a few seconds, just so he can get a good look at your face. 

“You were a mess the day that I met you, and I still wanted you in my life,” he says each word deliberately, not breaking eye contact. Fear has broken through to determination. “And even if you’re still a mess today, I still want you. Nothing changes. You get that?” 

No bridges.

No failures.

The weight of it all had been heavy. The type of sorrow you thought was never meant to be carried by more than your own two hands. But he had taken it in his palms, lifted it from you entirely, even if it would only be temporary. One day you’d have to endure the pain again, get to the root of the problem. Figure out if all your ailments had been something wired into you since birth, or things you’d picked up along your way. But for now, you could breathe again. You could hear the drumming of your heart in your ears, and you could hear every single one of both yours and Eddie’s breaths in the silence, and that was enough. 

“I don’t want to die,” you finally quietly admit. Saying one of the bigger, scarier words. The thing you’d been too afraid to let slip off your tongue originally. “I just- sometimes it all gets a bit loud, you know? And I know you said don’t apologize, but I am sorry that I scared you. And I’m sorry that you have to take the bad to also get that little bit of the good with me.” 

His hand leaves one of your arms for the first time since he’d first wrapped you up, and it finds its way to cradle the side of your head. Holding you as if you’re porcelain still. You know that won’t go away, not tonight. “I’d rather have your bad days than have nothing at all,” he chokes up once more, and you can see tears threatening to welt in his eyes, “You get that, too. Alright? You’re worth it. Bad, good, funny, sad – give it to me. I’m asking for it. Just don’t… don’t leave me with the nothing.”

You’re worth it. 

He’s found a worth in you attached to nothing at all. He’s sitting here with you, on the bathroom floor, and his perception of you has nothing to do with what you can only offer. 

It just has to do with you. He sees you, and he’s decided you’re worth it. Even now.

He smiles softly, as if he can see the realization dawning upon you, “You wanna get up off the floor now? We can go sit on your couch or bed or something.” 

You’re quick to shake your head. Your knees are partially digging into his thighs, your breaths are matching his. 

“Okay,” his face falls slightly, but not entirely. Not entirely, “That’s okay. Do you want me…. Do you want me to go?” 

Another shake of your head. But this time, you need to offer more than just the motion of your head, especially when you can feel tears returning as your throat tightens up, “No. No, just- Stay with me? Please?” 

Your hands reach out without you even processing it, gripping his wrists, desperate and clinging and still verging on the edge of violent. The thought of being alone is terrifying, but the thought of having to watch him walk out of this room is even more petrifying. 

He doesn’t even flinch as you sink your claws in. His smile only returns, and he shuffles to pull you both to hold your backs up against the wall across from the toilet, “Of course. I’ll stay, sweetheart. I’m not going anywhere – wouldn’t even dream of it.” 

His words shake just a little less than they had when he’d first entered the room. 

He can’t fix it all magically. That isn’t his job, isn’t his role, isn’t his choice. But he can sit here with you, on the floor of the bathroom, endlessly patient and tragically caring as he urges you to lay down. He stretches his legs out and pats his lap once before hovering his hands over your shoulder, guiding you until your temple is flush with his thigh. 

He can choose to not hesitate as his fingers immediately push through the baby hairs by your temple, a soft hum in the back of his throat that sounds exactly as you feel.

Hesitantly content. Just for now. It’s enough. 

The storm is receding. As hours pass by, and noises of uncertainty become more confident hums of a song you faintly recognize, it all settles. He stays. You stay. The storm passes for the time being, and the hole tempers itself for just the night. 

It’s enough for now. You’ll worry more tomorrow, or the day after, or the day after that. You’ll talk more about why you feel this way, and he’ll offer better solutions. The weight won’t simply be passed into his waiting hands and forgotten – one day, you’ll find a way to lighten it through dissipation rather than through catastrophe. 

One day, the seas will calm, and you’ll find yourself the ship rather than the anchor. 

And the captain can be the boy who sits on the floor with you through the sadness, content to wait out the storms with you until you find the worth he sees in you.

[myfandomrealitea]

I know this topic is extremely controversial and extremely nuanced and blah blah blah and I'm lighting a rock on fire and bashing my own skull in with it, but....

Sometimes. People are just ready to die.

That's it. I firmly believe assisted suicide, at absolute minimum for the terminally ill, should be a universal concept. People want to die with dignity. People want to die with comfort. People want to die feeling like themselves.

When someone is ready to die, peacefully, we should let them.

[ruegarding]

in relation to the last post, the entire plotline is poorly executed.

annabeth's reaction to percy in tartarus is normal, like, not good, but normal. percy's not only challenging the laws of the world, he's indulging cruelty. being afraid is a normal reaction to have. despite that, it's still a conflict that needs to be resolved...and it's not.

immediately afterwards it's like ok back to normal! the jagged edges of percy's soul smooth over and annabeth is back to business (which immediately begets the question: why did rick write that then? which is never answered. the point? missing*). like, the actual issue isn't even addressed. before turning the poison onto akhlys, percy is being tortured w it (and nothing annabeth tries stops it). percy isn't doing this bc it's fun and exciting. he's doing this bc he was feeling so angry, so hurt, so scared, so traumatized that he resorted to hurting someone to make himself feel better. this is literally never addressed.

even in boo, annabeth's arc isn't abt learning to not be afraid or to trust percy again, it's to allow herself to be afraid. w piper. away from percy. and she never confronts percy directly, she never reconciles her fear w percy, they never address how this changes their relationship. also piper is there bc annabeth is so freaked out by percy that now piper is freaked out by percy. which is. a separate issue that is only an issue bc once again it never gets resolved.

and then w percy obviously he has his suicide attempt. like, he thought what he did in tartarus was so unforgivable that he not only believed that he deserved to die, but deserved to die slowly and painfully from something that he could easily prevent. like. that's the thing. percy's powers come easily to him. do u know how low he would have to be to not even subconsciously try to save himself? and the only response is a "i think i get it" from someone who's perspective does not properly convey the severity of the situation (ppl read this scene without even realizing it's a suicide attempt). once again, percy and annabeth do not confront this conflict together. percy tries to kill himself and the narrative is like...anyway.

if rick didn't know how to handle this, or even if he just didn't want to write it, he didn't have to write it. any of it.

but it's not that rick doesn't know how to handle this situation bc he writes the same thing in boo and handles it a million times better. nico and reyna have a very similar situation to percy and annabeth and the inclusion of both of these scenes and the difference in how they're handled ends up vilifying annabeth in the narrative.

reyna and nico have known each other for less time. they have built up less trust. and yet. when nico challenges the laws of the world and indulges cruelty in a way that reminds reyna of her extremely traumatizing backstory, she comforts nico. she doesn't treat him like he's dangerous. hedge tells him "we all get angry" and reyna vehemently agrees. nico is given explicit support even before he can start spiraling. and when nico is told to not use that power, it's bc of how it affected him, not how it made them feel, not that it's unnatural.

this shows that there was a correct answer. annabeth didn't have it, and suddenly her "normal" reaction looks bad in comparison. but instead of addressing this in any meaningful capacity, we're going to ignore it and send p*rcabeth to college. #relationshipgoals.

it's such a narrative failure. and rick could've just. not written it.

[frownyalfred]

WHAT IF

Jason knows that killing joker means him dying too but he still want to do it

HOWEVER- Bruce jumps in front of the joker at the last second bc he can't lose his son one more time

That's where I was thinking that idea would go too, anon. And so Jason and Bruce's conflict over the Joker gains a new edge, because not only does Bruce not want to take a life -- he doesn't want Jason to die again, like you said! Even if that's what Jason wants.

I could imagine a Jason who came back slightly wrong, who might be suffering from the Lazarus Pit still, who cannot abide by the Joker still being alive, who would be sick with grief, anger, and resentment.

And maybe, to add even more angst, Bruce wanted to kill the Joker too -- when Jason was still dead? And Clark stopped him. Now he can never kill him without losing Jason too. It's kind of like the universe mocking him a little bit, isn't it?

[idolomantises]

I think I’m gonna discuss this once and hopefully never have to bring it up again. Originally I wanted to talk about it on Twitter but people are very disrespectful when it comes to mental health so… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Basically, I haven’t been doing so great, mentally. Nothing bad has happened to me, I’m safe and surrounded by people I care about, and it’s been like that for months. I just, I haven’t been feeling good.

For people who do follow me on accounts like Twitter and Instagram, you may have noticed I haven’t posted anything new since January. I was struggling to feel motivated to make something for my main accounts despite having countless ideas I’d love to work on. I feel better now and do plan on getting something done in March, but that sudden lack of motivation is pretty rare for me. Art is not only my job but a big hobby for me, I just love drawing. I did get some nsfw art done at least.

I don’t know what really prompted my mental health decline, I’ve been getting a few worried messages and fanart because someone insulted my art. But that didn’t hurt me at all, it actually boosted my account and patreon.

I guess I just… got sad?

I have a really bad tendency to suppress and even ignore my trauma and feelings of guilt. And I guess one day I really sat with my thoughts and I just, lost it I guess. I have so much traumatic memories and sudden and intense feelings of self loathing, something I’ve never felt in almost a decade, that it got overwhelming. I couldn’t reassure myself, I couldn’t really talk to anyone about it because how do you confront things that happened years ago? You feel almost irrational. It’s just memories that haunt you, it’s nothing physical or tangible and yet it’s a crushing feeling of anxiety, self hatred and resentment.

I was crying almost every day, and crying so much that my eyes kept hurting long after I was done, and I could barely see my own screen. I’ve had paranoid thoughts about myself and others, thoughts I can’t get into because they’re so deeply irrational. I was feeling suicidal urges and thoughts of self harm. I don’t see myself doing it, but it’s so frequent and overwhelming it’s like I’m already planning my suicide note.

I was talking to my therapist about it, that I was starting to hate being alive. That I hated living. That I could spend the next 50 years of my life with no more conflict or trauma and I’d still be in intense misery and turmoil. They’re feelings I couldn’t really bring myself to tell friends about because what could they say? How do you calm yourself down and reassure yourself. I can’t even talk about my trauma verbally without crying. And it’s funny because sometimes minor irks started to affect me negatively. I was feeling anxious about what to draw because I didn’t want to do deal with homophobic backlash.

I went to a therapist, I talked to friends, Ive been working out more and eating better, I did everything I should do to improve my mental health and all of a sudden a single night just sitting in my room destroyed everything I was slowly building up over the past 5 years.

It’s been really difficult for me. I think also, I just felt so much guilt over not being the best person I could be. I decided to lessen my online usage, not just for my mental health but because I really wanted to work on being a better person. I want to stop hating myself and letting my trauma push me down and I want to do just be better and do better as a person. A lot of people have been very forgiving and kind to me but I don’t feel like it’s enough and I want to do more and I want to feel better about myself. I want to give everything I can to people around me. I’ve been going to therapy a lot more lately and things are getting better for me, but it’s been a very slow process.

I just want to repeat that nothing serious has happened to me. Nobody attacked me in a way that negatively affected my health. A lot of people, friends and strangers have been really nice to me these past few months. I just was doing a lot of self reflecting and unintentionally forced myself to confront a lot of my trauma. I’m saying trauma a lot. I don’t want to get into depth about what I endured because it’s my business but people who do know me know how bad things were for me. I don’t want to feel like that again. I want to feel better, and I want to do better.

Sorry for the long read. That’s just how I feel.

[bamsara]

Please stop

[iwritenarrativesandstuff]

Trimax Thoughts Vol. 4 Pt. 3

Alright. Bit of a heavier one for tonight. I want to talk Vash's relation to his own feelings of anger and how these tie into his suicidal thoughts, because it's tragically fascinating and I still can't really make heads or tails out of it - specifically in that I don't think anyone is a reliable narrator in this situation so I'm left a little lost as to who to believe.

(ID: A screenshot of four panels from Chapter 7 of Volume 4 of Trigun Maximum. A conversation between Hoppered and Vash takes place, in which Hoppered says "I bet you want to kill me too, right? Of course you do... You want to tear me limb from limb." A somewhat grainy image of Rem, smile visible but eyes hidden, is shown, before Vash replies, his eyes narrowed, "Yeah... I do..." End ID.)

Warning! I am going to be discussing Vash's no good, very bad mental health. It's nothing worse than what is obvious from a read of the manga but if you're not in the headspace for it, you might want to skip this one. I had a bit of trouble writing it, if I'm being honest.

Volume 4 basically solidified what had kept cropping up all throughout the manga - Vash is keeping himself going only through his goal of "settling the score" with Knives. On the next page, Vash says the following:

"That's why... you can go right ahead and kill me. But... before I give you that chance... before I let you bind me in chains, lock me up, and torture me to death... I will send Knives to hell!"

Yikes buddy. This has been a running bit of characterization all throughout the manga - Vash survives because he has to. He takes small moments of joy where he can, tries to smile even when he's not feeling it, looks on the bright side even when things seem hopeless, because that's the only way he can survive to do what he has to. <- There's nothing especially wrong with this. This is a coping mechanism and as far as his coping mechanisms go, it's not so bad at all. It's actually pretty good, all things considered.

Problem is, he also has to embody the ideal he strives for - that no one needs to die, that he will never kill. And herein lies the issue, because Vash already feels like a monster because of July. Any deviation from the peace loving pacifist image he tries so hard to maintain brings Vash's self-loathing to the surface.

Ex. Vash sees the moon his angel arm blew a hole in and goes from denying culpability for the destruction of July to hardly resisting and calling himself a murderer.

Ex. Vash expresses that he holds murderous sentiment towards Hoppered. He sees this as a justifiable reason for Hoppered to kill him.

Even the thought that he has or could still deviate from his promise made in Rem's memory causes him immense amounts of shame. Vash does not want to harm people. Is it out of love? Is it out of guilt? I think at this point, there's no separating them. Vash doesn't kill out of a mix of these two emotions that are so intertwined in his core they have become inextricable.

The thing is... Vash's driving emotion appears to actually be anger, specifically, anger against Knives. He wants to "settle the score", which is a pretty retributive mentality for someone trying to embody pacifism. In fact, that kind of motivation strongly clashes with that image in a way that imo cannot coexist. It's reasonable in his mind to take that stance against Knives, who is not one of the humans Rem died to save, but against humans, it's unacceptable. So, Vash represses his anger constantly.

A great example of this is watching the contrast between Vash fighting Leonof and Wolfwood fighting Ninelives. Wolfwood fights with his emotions on visceral display; he is loud and cocky and desperate and violent. Vash, on the flip side, is almost dangerously quiet and composed, to the point Wolfwood seems a bit disturbed by it - but it's all repression. He needs to stay focused, his motions are calculated to reduce harm even against the puppets, he's eerily silent and his facial expressions are controlled and muted for the most part; all methods that Vash uses to stay in control (<- this is important!).

Here's the thing. I don't know that I necessarily, fully believe that Vash wants to kill Hoppered. I don't know that I trust anyone's narration in this scene - first of all, Hoppered is mad projecting his animosity onto Vash because he needs to secure the image of Vash as unrepentant destroyer of July; if Vash isn't the demon he believes him to be, his quest for revenge was for nothing (well, sort of. Vash obviously did destroy the city, but the intent was not there - and the latter seems to be what Hoppered is banking his hatred on). Hoppered earlier accused Vash of enjoying the fight... which is pretty clearly not true, so that it was Hoppered who prompted Vash's admittance above is a little suspect. Second, we've seen what Vash looks like when actually violently angry.

(ID: Two separate images screenshotted from the Trigun manga. The first shows Vash raising his gun at a recently reborn Knives, angrily shouting the other's name. The second shows Vash having jammed the barrel of his gun into Monev's eye, clearly close to pulling the trigger. End ID.)

To me, I see little indication in the build up to this of Vash legitimately wanting to kill Hoppered. He had no desire to kill Rai-Dei after all, and that was after he knew the GHG were targeting Home. Hoppered is probably the most sympathetic of the GHG. Vash is also in a self-destructive mindset in this scene, having just called himself a murderer after seeing the damage done to the moon again.

Is he agreeing with Hoppered's projection because he wants Hoppered to continue to hate him enough to punish him for the deaths of all those people? (The image of Rem then becomes symbolic of his having already failed to uphold her sacrifice.) Or should I be taking his words at face value and he really does want to kill Hoppered? (In this case, the image of Rem is out of guilt for voicing something aloud that goes against his image of her.) Is it possible that a combination of his self-loathing in this scene and fear of himself has him agreeing with Hoppered out of resignation that despite his best efforts, he is doomed to destroy? (Like in fifth moon's "we were no good from the start". The image of Rem is thus the image of someone genuinely good and kind to him, an image he feels he cannot embody no matter how hard he tries.)

I find it very ambiguous honestly. Any interpretation is compelling from a character sense. Perhaps they all hold merit to some degree.

Regardless of how you interpret the line though, Vash is obviously angry, and for good reason - Hoppered, Midvalley and Zazie have taken Meryl. He's also likely afraid for her too - dude did jump out a window for like no practical purpose whatsoever before Zazie even finished talking. Like that's really sweet buddy but you accomplished absolutely nothing of use lol. Anyways. The point is, even if Vash was angry enough to want to kill Hoppered (and it would be for this reason, since nothing else would really warrant that), then that still wouldn't make Vash secretly evil and awful - first off, having a thought does not mean you will actually act on it, and second, what's the thing we keep getting shown and told, again and again?

Anyone will pick up a gun when their loved ones are threatened.

It's very natural to feel animosity for a person who may have harmed someone we care about. In that sense, Vash is behaving very human.

However, there's an extra layer here that complicates things. Vash has never been shy about his anger, but I think there is a bit of a progression of Vash kind of... tamping down on it faster, reeling it back in a little sooner after an initial flare of rage. ...Ever since Fifth Moon, actually. We also know that he has a strict training regimen, he does not miss a target, even blindfolded - Vash clearly maintains strong control over himself, all to mitigate the potential damage he could cause.

But then there's his Plant abilities. The angel arm. Something destructive he clearly does not understand, and has little if any control over (never mind that control was literally wrenched away from him but whatever). I don't think it's a stretch to say Vash is terrified of losing control.

Any human can feel hatred and anger and potentially cause moderate amounts of harm and damage, but these are likely to be targeted and can be more easily contained. Vash feels hatred and anger and has the capacity to level a city and blow a hole in a celestial body in the blink of an eye, and there is nothing anyone can do about it. That must be terrifying.

Because, see, the no-killing thing is out of respect for Rem, but Vash also strongly wants to, needs to believe that non-violent solutions are possible, that people are good, that anyone can change. Vash, out of some combination of love and guilt, does not actually want to harm anyone, but Vash is also a living gun just under the surface of his iron self-control. And being reminded of that deeply fucks him up, to the point he believes he is a danger by nature, incapable of living up to the standard of kindness he wants to put into the world, so even just the thought of wanting to inflict harm on another is enough to send him spiraling - because what if that is the point he loses his control? "I should never have been born" indeed...

It's interesting to me that Vash should call Wolfwood out on his lack of hope in a future for the world, when he so clearly has little if any hope in a future for himself. He allots himself no place in the world. Maybe you should allow yourself to heal a little, buddy. You have some people pretty close by who, in spite of it all, like you quite a lot...

[uncanny-tranny]

This might be controversial to some, but you cannot "tough love" your way to preventing suicide. You cannot have the attitude that people who complete suicide are selfish or are ungrateful or immature. If your mindset about suicide isn't coming from compassion rather than judgment, it won't help suicidal people. You will never help us with a slap on the wrist and a lecture about how we're awful for even thinking about completing suicide.

Suicide intervention starts with compassion and care.

[withthewindinherfootsteps]

Nie Huaisang and the Morality of Revenge

(Greatly expanded AO3 version here – I would definitely recommend that one more, but it's a little long for a tumblr meta)

"Take revenge on the ones who bite you. Wen Ning’s branch doesn’t have much blood on their hands."

There's a clear pattern as to how revenge is presented in MDZS. Though revenge against the ones who wronged you (or those close to you) isn't something you're morally obliged to do, it isn't condemned, and tends to be presented in the right. Revenge against innocents, however – that's where you draw the line.

All of which leaves Nie Huaisang in a very interesting position. Because though his target is the person directly responsible for his brother's death... those he's willing to harm to achieve that goal are not.

Vengeance in MDZS

MXTX: If you were to ask Wifi as to why he did not reveal [Nie Huaisang's] mask, it’s because there wasn’t enough evidence, there wasn’t a way to catch his tail (...) there was no way to punish him, because his reasons were righteous. - MXTX interview, translation here – 'Wifi' refers to Wei Wuxian

Now, it's one thing to say revenge is presented as right, and it's another thing to prove it. Why do I think this, and what material is there to support this in the actual text?

One major piece of evidence is Wei Wuxian himself.

If he were Chang Ping, he wouldn’t have cared how prominent or powerful the LanlingJin Sect was, or how much glory the road ahead offered him, and he wouldn’t have let the matter [of his clan being murdered] go. Instead, he would’ve went to the dungeons on his own, cut Xue Yang up so that he was nothing more than a puddle of flesh on the ground, and summoned his soul back to repeat the process to the point that he regretted ever being born in this world. - Chapter 33, EXR translation

This is something that Wei Wuxian thinks in the present day – not under pressure, not in the aftermath of anything traumatic. And the important thing is that it's never questioned. There isn't a moment where Wei Wuxian or anybody else dwells on this and thinks/says 'maybe I shouldn't keep retaliating like this' or 'will harming more people after their actions have already been taken actually fix anything, or just cause more damage?'. It's also never framed as a tragedy that these views don't change. There is a moment of thinking his past self went too far with his vengeance, but look at the context:

And for every one of the Wen Sect’s cultivators whom he killed, he made them into puppets as well before controlling them to kill the friends and family they had before they died. (...) Not only others, even when he, himself, thought about it afterward, he felt that he had done a bit too much. - Chapter 60, EXR translation

Killing their friends and family – yes, this is a war between clans (people with blood ties to each other)/sects (in which you spend most of your time around fellow members), so it's likely many of these are on the battlefield... but do we know this is the case for everyone? We know there are people and branches of the Wen sect who are noncombatants, and we know outer disciples exist, whose families may or may not be affiliated with the sect in some way. We also know resentful corpses can seek out, recognise and target people due to their bloodline without direct control (see Nie Mingjue finding Jin Guangyao and then targeting Jin Ling in Hatred and Concealment), so seeking out family members outside of the battlefield is possible. Out of the potentially thousands of people Wei Wuxian killed in this way, is it really that probable that every single one was guilty?

This is what I believe 'done a bit too much' means – targetting people who may or may not have been directly involved in action against Wei Wuxian/the allied sects.

There are also other instances of vengeance, directly against the ones who harmed you, being framed as justified (resurrecting Wen Ning to kill the inspectors that killed him, for example); as well as instances that aren't exactly vengeance but are still linked to punishing somebody for their bad deeds (seen a lot with Xue Yang – eg Xiao Xingchen demanding "severe punishment" for what Xue Yang did to the Chang clan in Chapter 30*, Wei Wuxian's "Xue Yang must die" after witnessing the Yi City flashbacks in Chapter 41), also framed this way.

But, first, a clarification.

MDZS may not condemn vengeance, but it does condemn holding onto resentment and letting it twist you, particularly when it leads to the harming of other people. And this is something important to note about Wei Wuxian's character, as well – he is quick to vengeance and retaliation, but that's exactly the point. He does the deed and then doesn't hold onto those feelings (under normal circumstances), instead carrying on to live his life with his adherence to his moral code unaltered**. See the Second Siege – a lot of these people directly contributed to the first siege on him, but he doesn't hold onto his resentment and decide not to save them as a result. Instead, he and Lan Wangji work to save them as well as the Juniors at great personal risk to themselves. That's why most of his actions are justified by the narrative, and why the two times he does act based on feelings of resentment he holds (Sunshot Campaign in the above quote, and Nightless City***), his actions aren't.

Back to vengeance itself.

Of course, vengeance is not presented as the only course of action! Lan Wangji doesn't do anything to avenge Wei Wuxian's death, instead focusing his energy on helping people and on teaching the younger generation to avoid the mistakes his made, and he's all the better for it. The line immediately following Wei Wuxian's thoughts on Chang Ping and Xue Yang is this:

But, not everyone was like him[.]

Which is followed by understanding for Chang Ping's situation, especially taking into account the fact that "some of the Chang clan's people were still alive" and may have been casualities if vengeance was carried out. Revenge isn't something you're obliged to do – and when the alternative is protecting others, is arguably less important. But, in itself, it isn't a moral wrong. As someone I talked to about writing this meta said, it's often the only way to bring someone who has done bad deeds to justice (which the story supports: see my earlier points about Xue Yang, as well as MXTX saying Xue Yang "deserved to be beaten by the protagonist") in a society which often leaves bad deeds unpunished and good deeds condemned.

(Of course you're allowed to disagree with this view of vengeance and punishment – I do myself – but that's what I believe to be the story's view on the matter.)

When it does become a moral wrong is when it targets innocent people.

Going Too Far?

As we've discussed, there two scenarios where revenge is presented as in wrong: the above, and being corrupted by the resentment you hold due to continously seeking your vengeance. And more often than not, these scenarios are strongly tied to each other. The sects targeting the Wen remnants after the Sunshot Campaign is an example of the former, as is Xue Yang's murder of the Chang clan; Nie Mingjue's single-minded hatred of Jin Guangyao is a clear example of the latter. Even if Jin Guangyao did do the actions Nie Mingjue had hated him for (and he did!), the resentment Nie Mingjue carried due to this eventually led to his death (through its amplification by the Collection of Turmoil). We also have a reversal of scenario two with Jin Ling's arc of learning to let go of his hatred, which deserves its own post.

But even in the above, there are traces of the other problem. Were the sects not blinded by their resentment and prejudice against anyone with a Wen name? Did Xue Yang's experience with Chang Ci'an and the injustice/resentment he felt from that not negatively impact him? And did Nie Mingjue's anger at Jin Guangyao (even if it was supernaturally amplified) not lead him to lash out at Nie Huaisang, an innocent in this scenario? And other scenarios are even more intertwined with both, for example Jiang Cheng pursuing ghost/demonic cultivators after Wei Wuxian's death (scenario 1) due to his hatred and resentment (scenario 2).

This relationship is very interesting, since it leads to the idea that holding onto resentment does make you more likely to target innocent people – ie, it often leads to loss of critical thinking, something else that's strongly condemned in the novel (as the force behind mob mentality, etc). It's also eerily similar to people's ideas of what practicing guidao, aka cultivation using resentful energy, does to you ("damag[ing] your heart" – LWJ, Chapter 62)... as well as to the loss of discernment that occurs both times Wei Wuxian loses control of his cultivation (Wen Ning accidentally targeting Jin Zixuan, the corpses accidentally targeting Jiang Yanli)****!

As for why this sort of vengeance is presented as wrong, I think it's pretty obvious – it harms innocent people as well as yourself. There isn't really any good in that.

Nie Huaisang In Context

So, with all that said... let's finally look at Nie Huaisang.

As MXTX has said, she believes his reasons were justified. His aim wasn't to take revenge on innocents, which avoids scenario one (in motives, at least). Whether or not Nie Huaisang was 'corrupted' due to resentment he felt is a little harder to judge***** – we don't really know his inner workings before Nie Mingjue is killed, so we don't know his moral code or what he's willing to do before then. We're also not there for the vast majority of his planning, so we don't know how he changed during that period, and by the time we're in the story proper, his mask is too good to really discern anything about his attitude... and we don't see much of him afterwards, either, the only thing being him starting to his more competent side when organising the coffin sealing ceremony. So we'll leave scenario two as an unknown, and not comment – however, it should be noted that vengeance doesn't seem to affect Nie Huaisang's critical thinking.

But what's unique about his vengeance isn't motives, direct targets, or the effect it has on him. It's something we haven't really seen before – the effect on those who weren't his targets, but were still heavily harmed. In other words, collaterals.

The most obvious example is probably Mo Xuanyu:

Perhaps to gain information from Mo XuanYu, Nie HuaiSang talked to him once. From Mo XuanYu’s grievances, he knew that Mo XuanYu had once read the fragmented manuscript that recorded an ancient, forbidden technique in Jin GuangYao’s collection. He then urged Mo XuanYu, who had had enough of the humiliation coming from his own clan members, to seek revenge using the forbidden technique of body sacrifice. - Chapter 109, EXR translation

Was Mo Xuanyu a direct target, someone who Nie Huaisang knew was innocent yet decided to take vengeance on anyway? No. But was he provided an avenue to and motive for suicide by Nie Huaisang, as part of his plan to take revenge on someone else? Yes! And Mo Xuanyu isn't the only death Nie Huaisang had a hand in causing – perhaps his is even the least direct. After all, he was responsible for releasing the hand at Mo Manor as well, leading to the deaths of four people (the Mo family and A-Tong) and endangering many more (the junior disciples, the rest of the household's servants). Yes, this wasn't his aim – he wanted Wei Wuxian to subdue it and start investigating the case – but he knowingly endangered everyone while doing so, and in the end the hand was subdued as quickly as it was by Lan Wangji's involvement, who he couldn't have known was there!

There's also the case of luring the Juniors to Yi City, purely to place more blame on Jin Guangyao if they'd died there! That isn't even necessary to taking down Jin Guangyao and figuring out the case of the corpse, as resurrecting Wei Wuxian and releasing the hand arguably were (Nie Huaisang could've tried to expose Jin Guangyao earlier, but we don't know which way public opinion would've swayed – that isn't necessarily a point in his favour, just a remark)! Then he threatened Jin Guangyao with the letter, leading to the events of the Second Siege which endangered and nearly killed "thousands" (Chapter 68) of people, as well as to the events at the Guanyin temple which nearly killed Jin Ling and Wei Wuxian and endangered more... and there are the smaller things too, like killing those cats, potentially dismembering the innocent Meng Shi's corpse, and possibly knowing about Sisi for a while before freeing her (she said she was freed "recently" in Chapter 85 – but to be fair, we don't know how recently he found out, or how long ago exactly she was freed. She wasn't necessarily freed right before she gave the testimony). We can't forget about potentially endangering many people who lived in Qinghe due to causing the Nie sect to greatly decline, and making himself seem like somebody useless, meaning people likely wouldn't go to him for help if they needed it.

In conclusion: a lot of people were killed, harmed or endangered in his plan. So, with a potential body count that would've (...nearly. maybe. not quite.) rivalled Wei Wuxian's had things gone wrong... where does that leave him in the eyes of the narrative? Do the ends justify the means?

...It's interesting.

Slowly, Nie HuaiSang brushed together his storm-drenched hair, “I think that if this person hates Jin GuangYao so much, they’d probably be entirely merciless towards something he cherishes more than his life.” (...) Perhaps (...) he didn’t want to admit that he used others as pawns, treating human lives as nothing. - Chapter 110, EXR translation

Nie Huaisang's actions are certainly framed as some of wrong. This is consistent with the closest example we have to his actions also being framed as in the wrong (Nie Mingjue harming others by lashing out while hating Jin Guangyao, albeit on a much smaller scale, with durations, intentions, presences of plans, the effect holding onto resentment had on them also being very different; possibly Jin Guangyao himself in his plan to kill Jin Guangshan, although that's obviously not the only condemnable action Jin Guangyao takes, and he very much does intentionally harm others even if it wouldn't really contribute to his aims (burning down the brothel, giving the Tingshan He sect to Xue Yang to experiment on, killing the prostitues when he could've bribed them and forcing them to keep on going even once Jin Guangshan was dead, among many other things)... there really aren't many similar situations to Nie Huaisang's in the novel), even though they're framed this way for different reasons (being blinded by resentment vs knowingly endangering others as part of a wider plan).

Yet, on the other hand, it isn't considered a tragedy that his actions went unpunished – and with reference to MXTX's quote about Nie Huaisang, this isn't accidental (with a slight caveat we're about to talk about).

In the end, it comes down to another, very related, theme.

Conjectures were conjectures, after all. Nobody had evidence. - Chapter 110, EXR translation

MXTX: If you were to ask Wifi as to why he did not reveal [Nie Huaisang's] mask, it’s because there wasn’t enough evidence, there wasn’t a way to catch his tail. - MXTX requote, start of this meta

Think critically. Don't target somebody without evidence. Don't target someone who may not have done something wrong.

Don't target innocent people in pursuit of vengeance, or justice.

That's the main reason Nie Huaisang wasn't exposed. Would Wei Wuxian have exposed him had he had the evidence needed? Maybe – we can't really say. He did endanger a lot of people. But targeting him without evidence, letting suspicions drive actions, would make Wei Wuxian – and indeed, anyone who did so – no better than the mob that does the same thing throughout the novel.

They're also doing it in pursuit of what they think is justice, or vengeance, or an intertwined mixture of the two, after all.

---

*Which is quite similar to Wei Wuxian's own thoughts when first told about it (in the quote). This further supports the assumption that this line of thinking is presented as justified, due to Xiao Xingchen himself being written as an ideal of goodness:

When writing paragraphs about Xue Yang, I had to adjust my mentality to be in the darkest, cruellest state, while it was the exact opposite for Xiao XingChen, from whom I felt holy light every time I wrote about him. - MXTX's postscripts (Chapter 113.5), EXR translation

**"Forgetting the pain as soon as the wound has healed" is a phrase that's used to describe him in the novel, and while it's generally used to describe somebody not learning a lesson after a punishment, it describes this aspect of him perfectly.

***Relevant quote:

Wei WuXian had already lost his judgement. He was already half-mad, half-unconscious. All evil was being augmented by him. He felt that everyone loathed him and he loathed everyone as well.

Holding onto those feelings of loathing and resentment is directly tied to losing judgement and presence of mind – which demonstrates this theme better than any analysis can, I think.

****For more analysis on the themes of resentment and how resentful energy ties into that, this amazing meta by @rynne delves into it more deeply than I do here – I really recommend a read!

*****MXTX does say this earlier on in the same interview:

As to whether it was purely to take revenge, maybe he only had one motive. But afterwards, he wasn’t thinking purely on revenge.

Which does suggest that other more noble factors, such as prevention, may have played a role in his plan too. This seems to indicate Nie Huaisang wasn't completely overtaken by resentment, working to his favour in avoiding scenario 2. However, for the the purposes of this analysis, this isn't too important (and not just because there's nothing to prove or disprove it in the text) – such aims could be achieved by simply exposing Jin Guangyao without utternly destroying him, which is where the motivation of revenge and its effects comes in. It's this aspect of the plan that leads to Nie Huaisang endangering innocent people, which is what this meta dwells upon.

[insomniamademedothis]

I take it all back torchwood is batshit insane Jack saves a man from suicide but the guy immediately says I’ll do it again btw so Jack says oh ok and sits with him while he kills himself?????????????

~200 years old and never had any mental health awareness training????

[faislittlewhiteraven]

Undertale Yellow: An amazing fangame with one glaring thing I hate about it (that I need to rant about or else I'm going to go insane).

As the title says, Undertale Yellow was a game I really enjoyed playing. Lots of fun dialogue and designs, utterly fantastic art and animation (holy hell that Flowey fight! <3 <3 <3), great music and feels, etc. Seriously it deserves a ton of praise, not only as a fully completed fangame that took years of development, but as genuinely amazing prequel to one of my favorite games of all time.

...Unfortunately. Much as I truly enjoyed playing through the majority of the game, when I finished the True Pacifist route I was intensely unhappy with how that went and while the credits scenes and funeral for Cover helped ease some of the worst of it, I cannot help but wonder who the flipping f$%& in the development team thought presenting Clover's suicide as the 'just and happy' ending that all the friend characters accept with barely any argument was a good idea?!

Now to clarify: I went into Undertale Yellow knowing that Clover was going to die and that there were good odds their death was going to be self sacrificial or involve suicide. Undertale Yellow is a prequel to Undertale after all and children being murdered and/or sacrificing themselves for the greater good of lovable monster kind is an established part of the setting.

I came in knowing this game was bound to end tragically. I was excited to see how this game would pull that inevitable tragedy off while exploring the Yellow soul's theme of Justice and staying true to Undertale's established canon.

And all the way right up to the end of the True Pacifist ending I truly thought they'd nailed it: The constant pressure of the monsters suffering and being trapped in the Underground despite their sweet and earnest natures, Dalv's clear issues regarding a human, Starlow's unintentional reinforcement of the 'one sacrifice for the greater good' idea with his trolley problem reenactment, the repeated back to back betrayals from characters who should be friends (the Feisty Five, Starlow, Ceraba) hurting Clover instead, the dull realization in universe for Clover that all their efforts to find the missing human children were all for nothing...

It was fantastic. There was a real sense of looming dread for me, seeing all those moments and just knowing in my gut that after the desperate struggle with the agonized and grieving Ceraba, ranting about how monster kind is doomed as it stands, that Clover would start thinking of sacrificing their life for monster kind, especially when their 'sense of Justice' at the start of the game had them willingly jump into a gaping pit they couldn't have possibly have known the height of, for the sake of mission they (according to Flowey) easily abandon when offered a loving home instead. (aka implying not so great things about how much they value their own life)

So. With all that 'hyped for tragedy' in mind, there I am at the True Pacifist ending. I've just spared Ceraba, the friends are all arguing as to how to keep Clover (and possibly any future humans who fall) safe and Clover begins to go into something of a zone out, thinking about all the things they've heard and seen over the course of their adventure.

This is it! I think to myself as I watch it play out. This is where Clover, after everything they've been through, makes the tragic yet understandable mistake of running away from their friends and confronting Asgore just as Flowey kept encouraging them to! Not to fight and bring Asgore to justice but to try talking him down and when they fail that, offering up their life to help and 'save' their friends even as the narrative will (matching Undertale) will make it clear that this is a mistake and only hurts everyone involved, just like every suicide and child murder in Undertale hurts everyone involved until Frisk is able to end the cycle of pain by rejecting the Kill or be Killed premise and setting the monsters free! Wow, I can't believe it, they set it up so well, what a perfect way to tie into Undertale's greater narrative via tragic prequel, I love this eeeeee!

Except of course that's not what happens.

My first hint something is off is when the quotes Clover's 'remembering' in their little bubble start being way too positive for the set up (also there's nothing from the trolley problem section). The second is when the music shifts from quiet to holy and then outright happy.

And third is when Clover snaps out of it and point blank tells their friends they choose to die. Now, I'm getting a little confused and wary at this but alright, this is a pretty long sequence already but I guess we get to have one final hope moment before Clover somehow gets away from their friends to die (maybe Flowey if not Asgore?)-

-and then I am left absolutely flabbergasted as the friends who just spent the last huge chunk of the game trying to protect Clover/getting talked out of killing them because 'its not right' end up agreeing with Clover's decision after a pitiful amount of arguing against it (where the utterly stupid 'there's no other option' reasoning is used as the primary reasoning despite all the other options being very clearly stated just moments ago), before the woman who's entire massive trauma arc that is centered around her accidentally killing her own child out of blind faith for 'the greater good', proceeds to assist Clover with their suicide (who she clearly views as a surrogate child despite her best attempts not to) while the other characters meekly say goodbye, give hugs and leave all while bittersweet but mostly sweet 'great job honey, this sucks but we're proud of you' music plays (also Flowey says stuff but like, its Flowey so frankly he could say anything and it'd be fine. He's not the issue here).

...Wow.

What a screwed up way for that to end. Like, I clearly get the 'idea' that Clover is meant to be noble and good and such but like, really? A fan game of Undertale (where one of the main ending messages was 'Don't kill and don't be killed', where a child's suicidal attempts to free monster kind lead to every major tragedy in the game, and where suicide was repeatedly shown to only make things worse through Asgore and Alphys in numerous neutral endings) is the game that decides having its protagonist's pointless self sacrifice should be honored and treated as a good ending by the narrative?????

How did none of the otherwise clearly brilliant people working on this miss the very bad, no good implications of Clover's friends being talked into letting them kill themselves and having the narrative frame it as anything but the worst end?????

I have many, many questions. And concerns. And...

Look, I do get it. Undertale Yellow is still a fangame. There are going to be weird notes in the tone due to different writers and such, and I should just be happy that the game was finished it at all, and accept that this god awful scene is probably just the result of its creators really, really wanting their beloved characters to go out as kindly (and beautifully drawn/animated) as possible with all the hugs and feels of canon Undertale without taking into account how much the very different context might warp the tone and the characterizations of everyone in the entire scene.

But like. God damn. There is something very off putting about not letting brave kind Martlet refuse to take this as an answer and then finding she actually can't stop it happening (and no her saying that after like two sentences from 'Ceraba who's judgement about the human sucks' doesn't count). About Starlow not recognising he and his posse might've had something to do with why Clover is thinking this. About Ceraba not on some level going 'IF THIS IS YOUR CHOICE THEN WHY DIDN'T YOU LET ME USE YOU TO SAVE KANAKO?!' Edit: Also a totally waste of prequel opportunity not to let Asgore visibly make the worst choices we canonly know he made on screen. Yes, he gets to stab Clover in the Flawed!Pacist route but Clover's trying to shoot him in that one; the fact we don't get to see him stab a 'far too willing to die for their friends and not defending themselves' Clover as the friend trio can do nothing to stop it from happening feels like such a cop out I swear XD

I'm all for 'Clover dies willingly' at the end of the True Pacifist but they way they did it was just... Really ugh in a way I'm finding tricky to word and I'm honestly shocked I haven't seen more people point it out (though admittedly that might be because I haven't really looked around much). ...So yeah. I know its too late to change said ending but really kinda hoping at some point one of the Undertale Yellow team realizes this might be an issue and thinks to add a content warning in the game's opening or something because it could really use one of those. Also that for any future projects they do, they happen to do a little more research into how to avoid accidentally glorify suicide as opposed to having it as a tragedy because damn they did not manage that here whatsoever.

---

ANYWAY, with all that rant finally out of my head some other stuff about Undertale Yellow I be feeling strongly:

Flowey's boss battle and the lead up to it is incredible and without a doubt makes the neutral route the most amazing well crafted route in the game. 10/10 may have already mentioned this in the massive rant above but if so gonna repeat it anyway because it's just that damn good.

Genocide route being a deconstruction of the 'disproportionate revenge is justice' 90s Anti Hero is very cool theme wise but the lack of the lack of stuff like notes in shops saying 'please don't kill my family' and monsters with less screen time getting more fleshed out drags it down a little, as does Clover not actually choking on dust or getting attacked by the human souls or something at the very end. Really do love the Martlet battle flashback moments and Axel's horrifically timed confession scene though.

The general uselessness of the ACT menu in big 'endurance' fights as well as the lack of 'alternative sparing ACTS' makes fights a lot less fun than they could be and I found myself a lot less willing to use them in general as a result despite them being my favorite thing about Undertale. Did still adore what fun stuff was in them though so I think it's just a case of them being a tad too out of focus compared to the bullet hell gameplay (which I'm not that good at) for my tastes.

Pacifist route could've really used some more optional hangouts and/or letters from the main friends. As is, the peak 'hang out' part of the game for me was the nap room I spent maybe two minutes in, and Dalv especially could've benefitted a ton from a bit more presence (I got more interaction from Mo and the rabbit who's tongue was stuck to a pole and I'm not happy about that? If nothing else not getting to see the inside of Martlet's house or help Dalv build his new home feel like lost opportunities).

Personal pet peeve and nothing too serious but not a fan of Asgore not getting the kill on Clover outside of Flawed Pacifist. Makes sense on most routes (glares at T!Pacifist again) given the way the plot is set up and all but given Toby Fox has repeatedly stated Asgore killed all the humans who fell post Chara it just drives me nuts XD (As does the poor Blue Soul getting treated as a killer/evil but like, I can see where people are coming on that one and Undertale Yellow uses that to amp up Chujin's nightmare fuel vibes fantastically so I shall reluctantly congratulate that theory's use there and steel myself for the inevitable 'wait you're using Undertale Yellow lore but Axis didn't kill Integrity?' questions that will be posted on my 'will eventually be posted' Undertale fanfics XDDDD)

Love all the main cast, especially Martlet, and I am way too hyped for the day Undertale Yellow and its main cast get their own fandom tags on AO3.

...Kanako's death was incredibly stupid and avoidable but like, that's kind of what I like about it? I really also wanna know which Amalgamite she became (I'm thinking probably the one that tucks Frisk in to sleep and pats them on the head because of her and Ceraba's little 'going to sleep' game but like, I could see a very heart wrenching case for her being part of So Cold as well).

Anyone reading this who somehow hasn't played Undertale Yellow should really stop reading this and go play the game. It's free, its (one major thematic issue I have moral objections to aside) pretty decently written, and hey, more Undertale stuff to have fun making fanworks with <3

Goddamn has Undertale Yellow kicked my drive to write Undertale fanfic into overload XD Thank you Undertale Yellow team for helping me get all fired up again and sorry about all the grr but dang it, it needed to be said and now that it's out of my system I can throw myself into finding ways to incorporate your settings and characters into fanworks of my own (admittedly the AU elements might make things kinda tricky -Asgore having to kill EVERY human child even more so- but that nifty little detail of early Royal Guard Martlet having and being willing to abuse her access to the Hotland Lab allows me so many ways to have Chujin be a well meaning awful person and I am living for it!) <3 <3 <3

[myfandomrealitea]

https://www.tumblr.com/myfandomrealitea/751477314025586688/people-are-not-obligated-to-be-your-dumping-ground?source=share

Dumping to strangers could backfire - its why i can't do helplines, they don't know me and I cannot trust them to say mostly the right things.

Helplines when done correctly, efficiently and safely can save lives.

Unfortunately the majority of helplines available right now aren't those things. Employees are often volunteers or lowly paid people with no actual education in psychology or therapy and people trying to push religion as a solution or aid even to the detriment of the caller are simply allowed to do so freely.

The helplines and online websites that are staffed properly and by qualified, trusted employees are usually ones you have to pay to access. Which is fair, but does also mean they're inaccessible to many people.

But also, its worth noting that "saying mostly the right things" will always vary individual to individual. Its why I recommend a 1:1 therapist over things like helplines and support groups, because it gives your therapist the opportunity to learn and evolve to your needs over time. It allows them to learn how to impart information and advice to you, and what structures you need in order to benefit.

This is not to demean or undervalue the people who volunteer at or work at a helpline at all. It can be incredibly valuable work, but it is also incredibly precarious and risky work. Saying the wrong thing could quite literally mean the difference between life and death.