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destinyimage · 2 years

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6 Ways Satan Defeats Believers

Many Christians blame Satan for the breakdown of our culture.

They decry the works of the devil through drugs, abortion, perversion, immorality, and a host of related evils. Yet Satan is perhaps gaining as much advantage through the unforgiving spirit of professing Christians as he is through all of these malignant vices combined. Satan knows men will sink deeply into the mire of overt sin on their own with little urging from him. But if he can defeat and mar the testimonies, health, and relation- ships of believers through unforgiveness, he will seize every opportunity he can. Paul warned the Corinthians how Satan gains an advantage over us through unforgiveness. (See 2 Corinthians 2:10-11.)

Relationships are the very crucible of life. They are among the most difficult yet enjoyable experiences we have. It is impossible to escape relationships. Because all of us are sinful by nature as well as by choice, it is only a matter of time before each relationship encounters a challenge. At times, we are deliberately offended. Other times, we are hurt and disappointed by the failure of the other party to meet our expectations.

All relationships tend to progress through at least four levels. Beginning a relationship with someone, we tend to see only the good and feel idealistic about the relationship. Soon, however, reality sets in, and we begin to wonder, Hmmm, I didn’t realize he was like that. This level is quickly followed by feelings of resentment, a sense that we have been profoundly let down. We find ourselves disliking the way the other person is. If we are not careful, resentment sours into hatred and a desire to get out of the relationship altogether. But this exit may not be God’s way.

When the issue of unforgiveness confronts us, we find ourselves acting like pitchfork Christians. We take our complaints and fling them over our shoulders, hoping so-and-so is listening and will get the point. But we must lay down our pitchforks, stop advertising our pain, and allow God’s Word to penetrate us deeply. Failure to do so is costly. Refusing to forgive never ends well. It plunges us into a downward and spiritually destructive spiral.

Ephesians 4:31 details this harmful plummet. We must appreciate the context of this verse to grasp the gravity of the situation a lack of forgiveness generates. Ephesians 4:26-27 warns, “Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: Neither give place to the devil.”

Allowing the sun to go down on our wrath simply means that we harbor unforgiveness; we go to bed angry with someone. When that happens, we leave the door ajar for Satan. Ephesians 4:30 says we grieve God’s Holy Spirit when we permit unforgiveness to fester. An unforgiving spirit is the devil’s legal camp- ground. It gives him a place of entry into our lives where he can war against us from within. Verse 31 describes the downward spiral: “Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice.”

Bitterness

Carefully notice the phases of Satan’s attack once we give him ground. His first tactic is that of poisoning. The word bitterness simply means poison. Bitterness is the direct result of an unforgiving spirit. A bitter person is someone who has been hurt. Someone has wounded him, neglected him, abused him, rejected him, slighted him, or cheated him—or, at least, he feels these hurts have happened to him. Rather than admit- ting the hurt and going to others to settle the matter, he harbors the hurt. Like a poison injected into the body, bitterness is a poison of the soul. The longer it stays, the more deeply entrenched it becomes, and the more it permeates the entire life.

The analogy of poison in the body is striking. Scripture refers to the “gall of bitterness” (Acts 8:23). Medical studies have demonstrated that bitterness of the soul is a factor in cholecystitis or gall bladder disease. Bitterness creates a chemical imbalance in the body, causing cholesterol to develop in the form of gallstones. The relationship is direct. Bitterness is an acid that eats away its own container.

Usually, bitterness is hidden under the surface. Hebrews 12:15 refers to it as a root. During biblical times, one of the shepherd’s duties was to prepare a field for his sheep by carefully digging up any poisonous plants. Failure to do so resulted in sick or dead sheep. Likewise, we must dig up unforgiveness before it develops deep roots in our lives. No one can harbor any degree of unforgiveness without becoming bitter. Though we may mask bitterness before others and before ourselves, it is always destructive. Someone once said, “Bitterness is like shooting yourself with a shotgun so the recoil will hit the other party!”

Bitterness shuts off the flow of God’s life through our lives. Our prayers are hindered, and our lives become joyless and fruitless. One day, a mother disciplined her little girl. The angry girl knelt by her bed to say her prayers while her mother waited to tuck her in. The little girl prayed for her dad, her brothers, her sister, her aunts, her uncles, and her grandparents. After she said, “amen,” she turned to her mother and announced, “I guess you noticed I left you out.” The problem is, she had left God out too! Prayers from an unforgiving heart rise no higher than the ceiling. Praise and worship become a mockery, and life is poisoned at its source.

Wrath

Unresolved bitterness eventually leads to wrath, the next phase in this deadly spiral. Wrath, an interesting word, has the idea of heat connected to it. Wrath is that slow burn inside. It is an inward seething against the offender, a smoldering resentment. The word resentment means “to feel again.” We delight to feel again the hurt and sorrow of wrongs done to us. Resentment provides a bittersweet pleasure. Wrath is the fire set by the initial hurt that was never resolved. It is akin to tossing rags into a trash can, setting them aflame, and placing the can in a closed closet. The rags burn slowly but surely.

Anger

When we fling the closed door open, the rags of smoldering wrath burst into flames. That picture describes anger, the third stage of Satan’s assault on the unforgiving soul. When something happens to reveal the wrath and bitterness in someone’s life, the person explodes in a fit of anger. Less-than-minor differences may develop into a full-scale war on a personal level. Such a display only reveals that a root of bitterness ignited the inferno.

Anger also carries the idea of something outward and open. Perhaps you have surprised yourself with an outburst of anger. You may not have realized how irritated or smoldering you were inside until an annoyance set you off. Your response was likely a root of bitterness displaying its fruit. We like to stonewall and wear a facade, pretending nothing is wrong. But it is impossible to purify the water by painting the pump. Bitterness eventually finds an outlet in anger.

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Clamor

When anger bursts forth, it is frequently followed by clamor. You begin to verbalize. The word clamor itself suggests speech. Maybe you shout. Perhaps you argue at a high decibel, or you simply cry. The poison has so corrupted and filled your soul that it overflows through your tongue. The Bible describes such a tongue as “a fire, a world of iniquity” (James 3:6).

Evil Speaking

Clamor turns to evil slander. You say words you never imagined you’d utter. “I hate you!” “I wish you were dead.” “I’m sorry we ever had you for a child.” “I hope I never see you again.” Don’t forget that often-repeated phrase, “I want a divorce.” We say things we don’t mean, all because of an unforgiving spirit, which arises out of a bitterness we never resolved. Someone once said, “Your venom poisons you more than your victim.”

Malice

Finally, evil speaking boils into malice. Malice is the desire to harm someone. Never be deceived about the depths to which Satan can take you when you yield him ground through failing to forgive. You may punch someone out. You may take a gun, knife, or another weapon and threaten him, or you may actually harm him. You may destroy someone financially. You may so maliciously slander him and assassinate his character that his reputation is ruined.

Satan is systematically demolishing the lives of many through their unforgiving spirit. Alexander Pope said, “Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, As, to be hated, needs but to be seen; Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, We first endure, then pity, then embrace.” Forgiveness is the basis of our relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Therefore, failing to forgive others is a serious sin, an affront to God. This sin will especially take us farther than we planned to go, keep us longer than we planned to stay, and cost us more than we planned to pay. We have only two outcomes. Either, by God’s grace, we dig up the root of bitterness, or we allow it to ruin us.

Reflections

Bitterness will take you farther than you planned to go, keep you longer than you planned to stay, and cost you more than you planned to pay.

Bitterness is like a root. It lies beneath the surface. It is not easily detected.

Bitterness bears harmful fruit. Once Satan is given ground in the human heart, his influence spirals out of control.

“Let all bitterness…be put away from you.” (See Ephesians 4:31-32.) Once you detect a root of bitterness and discern the fruit, you must give it the boot!

Study Questions & Points of Application

Unhealed hurts morph into bitterness. Unchecked bitterness gradually produces resentment against God. Can you recall Bible characters who became bitter?

The children of Israel came to the bitter waters at Marah. To heal the bitter waters, God instructed Moses to cut down a tree and cast it into that polluted pool. The only tree that can heal the bitter waters in the human heart is a tree called Calvary!

Carefully read Ephesians 4:26-32. Take note of the downward steps through which Satan leads someone who has failed to forgive. Are you experiencing any of these steps in your life because of your unforgiveness?

If so, recall the author’s statement that forgiveness is a deliberate choice of the mind and will. Realize that you have yielded ground to Satan. Confess your sin to God and ask for His forgiveness. Pray in the name and through the blood of Jesus Christ that God will restore to you the ground you have given to Satan.

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tillidontneedfantasy · 3 years

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A Track-by-Track Breakdown of Taylor Swift’s 9th Studio Album: ‘evermore’

“My collaborators and I are proud to announce that my 9th studio album and folklore’s sister record is here. It’s called evermore,” is how Taylor Swift introduces us to this album in its foreword. One might assume a “sister record” would entail b-sides, or tracks that didn’t quite make the cut for folklore, despite Taylor’s explanation that “we just couldn’t stop writing songs.” evermore’s release came at a strange time, upon the heels of the Folklore: Long Pond Studio Sessions film on Disney+, as well as 5 Grammy nominations for folklore. The world still captivated by folklore, it’s understandable why one might not consume evermore as critically. Even as a die-hard fan, I felt some whiplash by this announcement; I am still processing folklore! Hell, I’m still processing reputation!

If this was the Taylor from two years ago, this may have been a big enough fear of hers to hold off on releasing evermore. But as she explained upon folklore’s surprise release, life is too unpredictable now, and there are zero givens or guarantees. So she followed the same path this time (although making sure it fell in line with her birthday weekend). But it’s not just the strategic timing of the release that she’s thrown out the window for now, but also her mindset whilst making records. As she explains in the evermore album foreword,

“I’ve never done this before. In the past I’ve always treated albums as one-off eras and moved onto planning the next one as soon as an album was released. There was something different with folklore. In making it, I felt less like I was departing and more like I was returning. I loved the escapism I found in these imaginary/not imaginary tales. I loved the ways you welcomed the dreamscapes and tragedies and epic tales of love lost and found. So I just kept writing them.”

This is a revelation for Swift, to let the music lead her into artistic freedom, which is what makes evermore such a triumphant return. Truly folklore’s sister record, Taylor wrote evermore with the same creative team: Aaron Dessner of The National (Swift’s favorite band), long-time pal and collaborator Jack Antonoff, Justin Vernon of Bon Iver, and William Bowery aka Swift’s boyfriend, Joe Alwyn (as officially revealed in the Long Pond Studio Sessions). Additionally, former 1989 tour openers and close friends of Taylor, the HAIM sisters, join the crew, along with Marcus Mumford for some dreamy backup vocals.

The production is just as wistful and mesmerizing as it was on folklore, yet the storytelling on evermore is kicked up a notch, expanding on the topics and worldbuilding established in its sister record, with even sharper lyrics and an effective and elaborate use of alliteration. The best thing about Taylor is that no matter what she does, her masterful lyricism is always at the heart of her art, and somehow, she keeps getting better. Once again, I wanted to explore the rich stories she’s crafted in this woodsy universe. This is how I’ve interpreted the album, but I hope you find your own meaning in the songs as well.

1. willow It is fitting that the opening track to folklore’s sister album, where we wade further into the forest that is Taylor Swift’s imagination and storytelling, would center on the type of tree that is a symbol of hope, belonging, safety, stability, and healing. “willow,” one of the few more obviously autobiographical tracks on the album, is a hymn of gratitude for her man (as she wants you to know, yes, thirteen times), Joe Alwyn, and how the invisible string tethering them together pulled her to him in a time when everyone else was counting her out. Though not as present on many of the other songs later to come on this record, you can feel the lightness in her heart on this song as she embraces the way in which the willow has bent, wrecking her plans, throwing her into the water and leaving her happily lost and afloat in his current. The downward key modulation throughout the last two repetitions of the chorus is beautiful and very fitting for Swift vocally, but also sounds like the feeling of finding your comfort and settling into it, basking it in while you wait for the next place the wind pulls you. Best lyric: “Now this is an open/shut case / I guess I should’ve known from the look on your face / Every bait and switch was a work of art.”

2. champagne problems On the second track of the album, Taylor dives back into the fictional worldbuilding she began to explore on folklore. While on folklore high school relationships and dramatics took center-stage, evermore graduates from adolescence to young adulthood, not that it is any easier emotionally on the listener’s heart. “champagne problems” chronicles a rejected marriage proposal between two college sweethearts at their old dorm building. Taylor sings as the narrator, a reflective, self-deprecating young woman who jokes about belonging in a madhouse and dismisses all her turmoil as champagne problems. The term ‘champagne problems’ itself could have various meanings here: their trivial concerns, the fact that their “sister splashed out on the bottle” of champagne that they will not be using to celebrate as they had hoped, or perhaps it could even hint that excessive drinking is a piece of all the ways the narrator is “fucked in the head,” as they said. Although the person she is singing to is the one who got hurt in the story, the hurt in the narrator’s heart is just as palpable and relatable, because you only have yourself to blame when you self-destruct. Best lyric: “’She would’ve made such a lovely bride, / what a shame she’s fucked in the head,’ they said / but you’ll find the real thing instead / she’ll patch up your tapestry that I shred.”

3. gold rush On her YouTube live chat prior to the album’s release, Taylor explained that this song “takes place inside a single daydream where you get lost in thought for a minute and then snap out of it.” The daydream consists of a love story so pure that the town had never seen such a thing; it could only happen in a fantasy for the narrator. How could she possibly have the gall to call them out on their contrarian shit, or end up with her Eagles t-shirt hanging from their door, when they are so coveted by all, and when she cannot withstand the thought of even competing? She sings, “My mind turns your life into folklore / I can’t dare to dream about you anymore,” a sweet little connecting piece to this album’s older sister, effectively convincing herself out of the idea of jumping into the chaos of the gold rush because even inside her own imagination it’s too dangerous. Best lyric: “I don’t like that falling feels like flying ‘till the bone crush.”

4. ‘tis the damn season According to Aaron Dessner, Taylor had written the lyrics for “’tis the damn season” in the middle of the night amidst their Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions recording after a long night of chatting and drinking with their co-conspirator, Jack Antonoff. The lyrics perfectly encapsulate the guttural ache the track evokes. It is a tale of two people who always find their way back to one another in their hometown, which acts as the ever-returning fork in the road. The path taken, back to L.A. in pursuit of her dreams, is the one she chose and continues to choose, but whenever she returns home, she takes a ride down the road not taken, just to get a taste of what could have been, even if just for the weekend. What starts off as an icy homecoming always transforms into the warmest intimacy. The success of this track is aligned with the success of Taylor’s entire career; even with such specific details, it feels so deeply personal to the listener. You know the street you’d drive along late at night laughing, the spot you’d park the car, the person who stars in every what-if. You will never really know if the road not taken is as good as it seems, but that might be ok; sometimes, the fantasy is better than the reality, anyway. Best lyric: “It’s the kind of cold / fogs up windshield glass, but I felt it when I passed you / There’s an ache in you / put there by the ache in me.”

5. tolerate it Inspired by the novel Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, “tolerate it” is an agonizing track from the perspective of a devoted wife who polishes plates and paints portraits and waits by the door for her husband with a battle hero’s welcome, who at best tolerates all her adoration. There are few things as painful as idolization being met with indifference, when you have all this love to give to someone who just leaves it there untouched. “tolerate it” captures that desperation for the approval you know will never arrive, but you sit and watch, waiting for it just in case you’re wrong, but you know you’re not. Best lyric: “I made you my temple, my mural, my sky / now I’m begging for footnotes in the story of your life / drawing hearts in the byline”

6. no body, no crime feat. HAIM “no body, no crime,” the one evermore song solo-written by Taylor, has the clearest plot from beginning to end. In the same vein as the female powerhouse country classic “Goodbye Earl” by The Chicks, Taylor is out for blood to avenge her friend, Este (named for one of the HAIM sisters). The story goes as such: Este’s husband kills her for calling him out on his infidelity, and then Taylor kills the husband and frames his mistress. The HAIM girls, who are long-time friends of Taylor’s and former touring mates, lend their vocals to reinforce the accusation on the husband and to provide Taylor’s alibi. “no body, no crime” is so far the closest we’ve gotten to a return to “country Taylor,” proving that she is still the master of a killer country tune (yes, pun intended, it had to be done I’m sorry). Best lyric: “Good thing Este’s sister’s gonna swear she was with me / (she was with me, dude) / Good thing his mistress took out a big life insurance policy”

7. happiness Written a week before the album’s release, “happiness” is one of Swift’s strongest and most reflective breakup songs. Although she writes it as though it is recent, there’s a lot of power in knowing that she’s been happily in love for four years, and that she is even better now at doing the thing that has always been best at. She is finally “above the trees,” as she sings, and is able to see it all for what it is, but her character is still in the heat of it all, trying to navigate the stages of grief when a relationship ends. We see the narrator grapple with many of those stages throughout the song. Most striking is the anger displayed in the second verse when she sings: “I hope she’ll be a beautiful fool who takes my spot next to you / No, I didn’t mean that, / sorry, I can’t see facts through all of my fury.” That section is jarring and feels like one of the most honest moments in a Taylor song, the insanely difficult emotional balancing act when we are grieving a relationship. The devastation of loss can distort our perception, and a part of that is the difficulty of understanding how multiple seemingly opposing things can co-exist in our hearts, such as happiness because of someone and happiness after them. But when you leave it all behind and finally find your place above the trees, you can find happiness after someone and also look back and appreciate the happiness they once provided. Both of these things can be true. Best lyric: “Showed you all of my hiding spots / I was dancing when the music stopped.”

8. dorothea Taylor Swift has the uncanny ability to create such developed and well-rounded characters with such little information, which is what makes her storytelling so compelling. In “dorothea,” we learn much about the title character through the narrator’s eyes, and the relationship they once had. The lyric “skipping the prom just to piss off your mom and her pageant schemes” alone tells an entire story in itself. “dorothea” is also the companion song to “’tis the damn season,” just from the other person’s perspective, which helps shine even more light on the story. The narrator of “dorothea” reveres her but wonders if she’s still the same soul in L.A. as she was back in their never-changing town. Whatever the answer, they’re still willing to support her no matter where she is, but she’s always welcome back in Tupelo by her hometown love’s side if she ever just wants to be herself rather than someone known for who they know. Besides, they’re the only soul who can tell which smiles she’s faking. And you can always return to the road not taken. Best lyric: “They all wanna be ya / but are you still the same soul I met under the bleachers? / Well, I guess I’ll never know / and you’ll go on with the show.”

9. coney island feat. The National What really started the folklore / evermore journey was Taylor’s love for The National. Taylor has cited them as one of her favorite bands for many years, and as we know, this led to her beautiful new collaborative relationship with Aaron Dessner. So it would make sense for the track written with the intention of this duet to be so well executed; you can feel the love and care Taylor put into writing this song. In her press for these sister albums, she has spoken about trying to channel frontman Matt Berninger’s writing style. But what actually happened was she just produced her own signature lyricism at its sharpest. “We were like the mall before the internet, it was the one place to be / the mischief, the gift-wrapped suburban dreams / sorry for not winning you an arcade ring over and over,” is a hall of famer Swift-ian lyric. “coney island” explores the confusion, hurt, and self-reflection when a passionate affair burns out fast because you did not prioritize that person. And to top it off, Swift and Berninger’s harmonies are achingly beautiful, transporting you right there in the story, on the bench, wondering, over and over. Best lyric: “Do you miss the rogue who coaxed you into paradise and left you there? / Will you forgive my soul when you’re too wise to trust me and too old to care?”

10. ivy Leave it to Taylor Swift to make a song about an affair sound so romantic, and so sympathetic to the narrator, that you’re rooting for adultery. “ivy” tells the tale of a woman in a lifeless marriage, likening her home with him to the tombstone that the widow in town visits each day. I like to think this is the same wife whose husband was out there building other worlds without her in “tolerate it,” because then that means she found someone who celebrates her love, who holds her pain for her, who blooms all over her; they started it, but she’s fighting for it all the way to the end, nonetheless. “ivy” showcases Swift’s gorgeous vocals and her sharp lyrics, with a melody so infectious it is bound to permanently plant its roots in your dreamland. Best lyric: “Oh, I can’t stop you putting roots in my dreamland / my house of stone, your ivy grows, and now I’m covered in you.”

11. cowboy like me With the beautifully blended backing vocals of Marcus Mumford, “cowboy like me” is an entrancing love story of two con artists who lost at their own game and got conned into forever with each other. She’d gone from swindling old men for their money and fancy cars to falling victim to the danger of dancing with someone who only has eyes full of stars, and she knows she’ll pay for it. “cowboy like me” is one of the most romantic tracks on the record, proving that life never plays out quite as we plan. Best lyric: “Now you hang from my lips like the gardens of Babylon / with your boots beneath my bed / Forever is the sweetest con.”

12. long story short One of the more pop-sounding tracks on evermore, “long story short” is pretty much a summary of the long story behind reputation (2017). The song is filled with various metaphors for her reputation crumbling around her, and then finally putting her defenses down to be with her lover, someone as “rare as the glimmer of a comet in the sky.” It is a sweet ode to her boyfriend, and a gentle comfort to her past self that it will all work out. But it is also an oddly relatable example of how we shrug off our struggles and minimize them to just a “bad time,” when the time she is singing about was obviously something that deeply affected her (as will be further explored in the title track); but sometimes it actually feels good to just shrug it off as just a blip in your life, because at the end of the day, you survived, and that’s what counts- even if you’re not keeping score anymore. Best lyric: “Pushed from the precipice / clung to the nearest lips / long story short, it was the wrong guy. / Now I’m all about you.”

13. marjorie Whereas track 13 on folklore was a tribute to Swift’s paternal grandfather, evermore’s track 13 is a tribute to her maternal grandmother, Marjorie Finlay, who was an opera singer in the 50s, and passed away in 2003 when Taylor was 13 years old. “marjorie” is quite possibly the most touching track Taylor has ever written thus far in her career. Grief is one of the most difficult topics to tackle in a song; the genius of “marjorie” is that it is simple, yet not understated. Swift reflects on the profound lessons she learned from her grandmother, about the difficult balances of kindness and cleverness, and politeness and power. She curses herself for not cherishing the moments she had with her, for complaining rather than understanding in the moment how admirable her spirit was, for all the amber skies she’d love but will never see. The chorus, blunt and hard-hitting, reminds us that someone does not have to be living to be alive, to be all around, to be with us. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were singing to me now,” Taylor sings towards the end of the song, right before you hear a sample of Finlay’s opera singing in the background, a truly eye-swelling moment. It is clear that Finlay played a pivotal role in Swift’s own ambitions, as she sings, “all your closets of backlogged dreams, and how you left them all to me.” Marjorie knew she was leaving them in good hands. If you haven’t yet, check out the moving lyric video for the song, where you can see photos and video clips of Marjorie, both throughout her career and in her time with Taylor. Best lyric: “Never be so polite you forget your power, / never wield such power you forget to be polite.”

14. closure On the most experimental track musically on the record, Taylor writes off her need for closure from a relationship of some sort, whether it be romantic or platonic or business, all of which can cause hurt of equal intensity. The subject of the song is trying to make nice with Taylor, and she is just not having it, as it is not coming from a genuine place, but rather to ensure that their life remains picture perfect, or to clear their guilty conscience, or to preserve their own ego. This is a deeply relatable sentiment; as valuable as forgiveness can be, sometimes the person who hurt you just doesn’t deserve it, and all you can do is forgive yourself for blocking their number or shredding their letters. Best lyric: “I know I’m just a wrinkle in your new life / staying friends would iron it out so nice.”

15. evermore feat. Bon Iver To close out the standard edition of the album, Taylor joins forces once again with Justin Vernon of Bon Iver, with whom she collaborated on the Grammy-nominated duet, “exile” for folklore. However, Swift leads most of the track this time, lamenting the difficult time she went through in 2016. The piano and Swift’s vocals are haunting, particularly when she describes this time in her life as “catching my death,” consumed by a pain that she feels will never end. If you’ve ever been depressed, you know what that feels like, and the dark places it leads you. Although she is singing about a time four years prior, it sounds so present, and it is heartbreaking to hear her in such a state. When Bon Iver comes in, the tempo of the song picks up, the piano riff becomes more erratic, like a winter storm hitting you in the face, and he voices all the anxieties of the cost of such a downfall. But through those anxieties, Taylor finds not a cure, but an anchor in love, and then the tempo slows back down. By the end of the song, Taylor has the foresight to understand that although it may not feel like it now, the pain she is experiencing is not permanent (a sentiment my therapist has been trying to instill in me for years). In her Apple Music interview with Zane Lowe, Taylor explained how the lyrics parallel the times we are in currently, and so it feels really special to have the album end with someone who knows how it feels to be imprisoned by your pain gently comfort us with the wisdom that “this pain wouldn’t be for evermore.” I hope one day soon, as we leave 2020 far behind, we can all truly believe her. Best lyric: “I was catching my breath / barefoot in the wildest winter catching my death.”

16. right where you left me (bonus track) The first bonus track on evermore, “right where you left me,” captures a moment so earth-crushing, a piece of you is trapped in it forever. In this song specifically, the narrator finds herself stuck in the same corner of a restaurant where she was told by someone she loved that they had met someone else. “Glass shattered on the white cloth, everybody moved on,” she sings in mourning. We have all experienced those moments that we could teleport back to if we just closed our eyes; the scenery, what you wore, the smell and taste of the season, the very point in your body where it felt like your insides were collapsing. Or that one particular person, who is long-gone from your life but seeing them is like time-travelling back to that person you once were, ready to pick up where you left off. But as much as you want to stay in that moment forever, just in case it changes in your favor, the cold reality is that the world stops for no one. Best lyric: “If our love died young, I can’t bear witness / And it’s been so long, but if you ever think you got it wrong / I’m right where you left me.”

17. it’s time to go (bonus track) “right where you left me” was Taylor’s cry for help to get out of restaurant, and “it’s time to go” is the answer to the call, as she sings in the first line, “when the dinner gets cold, and the chatter gets old / you ask for the tab.” This song is about gathering the strength to leave situations and relationships behind that no longer serve you. She grieves the betrayal of someone she thought to be a twin from her dreams (almost definitely referring to former friend, Karlie Kloss), acknowledges that keeping a marriage together for the sake of the kids often actually has the opposite intended effect (possibly- but not certainly- something she and her brother experienced), and recounts attempting to bargain with someone consumed by greed, only able to leave with herself (absolutely referring to the end of her fifteen-year long business relationship with Scott Borchetta, her former record-label owner). But as painful as leaving all of those situations was, Taylor has gained the wisdom to understand that walking away sometimes takes as much strength as persevering. You can’t stay at the restaurant, or at the mercy of someone else forever; you have to forge your own path, even if it’s in the opposite direction of what you envisioned for so long. And even with all her past success behind her, as folklore and evermore have proved, there is so much more ahead of her. Best lyric: “That old familiar body ache, the snaps from the same little breaks in your soul / You know when it’s time to go.”

In a time where we are all trapped in our homes and in our heads, the folklore/evermore experience has been the sweetest escape. If anything, the creation of these wonderful sister records has taught me that our most powerful tool in times of distress is our own imagination. Even just the ability to close my eyes while listening to one of these tracks and feel the character’s story is a gift. The way I’ve always been able to pick up Harry Potter and escape to Hogwarts when I’ve felt alone and friendless, I can listen to folklore and evermore when I feel scared or hopeless and escape into this enchanted forest Taylor has built, where I can climb above the trees and see it all for what it is. I feel so lucky to watch Taylor’s imaginative world unravel around me. I can’t wait to see what she creates next.

DISCLAIMER – REVIEWER’S BIAS: I would literally die for this bitch.

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theyreonlynoodlesmike · 4 years

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Ten People From Horror Movies That I Want to Kill With My Bare Hands (plus reasons cause I know y'all are gonna ask)

Trigger Warnings: mentions of attempted rape, incest, and abuse

1. Chucky (Child's Play series)

He doesn't deserve Tiffany. This fine ass woman waited for him for ten years and he has the gall to laugh in her face when she thought that the ring he left was because he wanted to propose and then proceeded to trap her the same way he was trapped. Not to mention the first thing he says to her after being gone for ten years is literally "I thought you were gonna let yourself go" oh my GOD Tiffany please love yourself. He's a little bitch and Tiffany needs to raise her standards. Also, he tries to kill a child for like three movies straight? While I love the Chucky movies, I get no greater satisfaction then from watching him die at the end of all of them. (The exception being Cult of Chucky)

2. Frank Cotton (Hellraiser)

Steals his brother's wife and then tries to force himself onto his niece. Knowingly opened the puzzle box because he's a literal dumbass and then gets upset when he gets sent to hell. Kills his brother and wears his skin. Come here you skinless freak I'm gonna send you back to the Cenobites myself.

3. Alex Le Domas (Ready or Not)

The fact that homeboy was even willing to chance having Grace pull the card proves that he's a bitch. Why don't you try being honest with the woman you supposedly love and tell her about your family's weird curse? I'm pretty fucking sure that'll get her to stop asking to tie the knot if she knows there's a chance she's gonna pull a card and all of her in-laws are gonna proceed to try to kill her. And the fact that this man had the audacity to chance sides and try to kill his WIFE??? Sorry, but I hope you enjoy being in hell get fucked Alex

4. Max (The Lost Boys)

This man saw that his son was dead and just went "haha guess he misbehaved" and I'm not exaggerating that was literally the dialogue. He also tells a woman, Lucy, how to parent her kids and tries to manipulate her into becoming a vampire instead of just, maybe, I don't know? Getting to know her, building a solid foundation for a relationship, and being honest about it? Instead of basically holding her children hostage by turning them into vampires and using her love for them against her. Basically I would kill this man with my bare hands for both his sons and Lucy and that's on that.

5. Guy Woodhouse (RoseMarys Baby)

This man can catch these hands any day of the week. He lets SATAN r*** his goddamn WIFE, and then proceeds to gaslight her for nine fucking MONTHS about how her pregnancy is totally normal and how she's not carrying the actual anti-christ even when it seems she's inches from actual and literal death. Just so he can be an actor. I'm going to beat his ass all the way to hell, Satan come get your man

6. Christian Hughes (Midsommar)

This cheating, lying piece of shit. The movie starts with how he plans on breaking up with his girlfriend but refuses to because he's too chicken shit and then he proceeds to make plans to leave for a month (?) without telling said girlfriend and is never honest with her. THEN, he fucking steals his friends thesis before finally cheating on his girlfriend. I hate, hate, HATE this man, and I'm not saying he deserved to get put into a bear skin and then set on fire, but he definitely deserved something

7. Chris Hargensen (Carrie)

It's no wonder Carrie had a nervous fucking breakdown when this is her school bully. Chris traumatizes Carrie when she gets her first period, and refuses to accept that she was in the wrong??? And instead blames Carrie for her and her friends detention/suspension from prom when they were the ones that literally threw tampons and pads at a girl who thought she was dying all while chanting "plug it up"? And, to top it off, she gets a girl who's been ostracized her entire life elected prom queen just to pour pigs blood on her in front of the entire senior class. Chris Hargensen can rot in hell and I can only think about fighting her every time I watch it.

8. Jack Torrance (The Shining)

The scene where he specifically yells at Wendy when she comes into his study and you can see the way her face falls really solidified my hatred for this man. Jack is the only other adult around for Wendy to talk to and he shames her for wanting human connection and a conversation from her fucking husband. Not only that, but he once broke the arm of his child and this was pre-hotel. So, basically, the hotel turning him insane or not, Jack was always a piece of shit and I'm glad Danny was able to later confront his feelings about his father in Doctor Sleep.

9. Charley Brewster (Fright Night)

Within the first five minutes of the film, we literally see him ignoring his girlfriend's lack of consent and pressuring her into having sex with him. Then, he stalks and obsesses over his neighbor and just so happens to find out that his neighbor is a vampire. Since he has absolutely no survival instincts, he makes this unfortunately clear that he knows and even denies the chance to pretend that he didn't see anything when Jerry confronts him. All I'm saying is that Charley really shouldn't have been surprised that Jerry was going to try to kill him and that all of the decisions that Charley made were bad ones. Especially the ones that lead to Ed (his bestfriend) dying and Amy (his girlfriend) almost being turned into a vampire. 10/10 would stake

10. Michael "Mike" Williams (the Blair Witch Project)

As someone who used to camp regularly and has experience in survivalist training, Mike is a prime example of what NOT to do during a survival situation. He is the FIRST to panic, the first to point fingers, and he fucking throws away the map. He. Fucking. Throws. Away. The. Map. All of his decisions are made on impulse and he never even tries to be logical in this entire situation. His character makes my blood boil because even if there wasn't a witch keeping them trapped there someone like that will end up making chances of survival slim anyways. Go stand in the corner and think about what you've done.

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wiltyard · 3 years

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⇢ regrets & pointless apologies

fandom: Wizards: Tales of Arcadia pairing: implied reader x hisirdoux casperan gender: AFAB reader who uses she/her pronouns warning/s: lots of cursing, lots of self-doubt, and self-hate on the reader's part to the point she ends up having a breakdown, angst (there's no direct comfort coming from any of the characters here guys, sorry and btw, the reader is 100% the asshole here, she's still pretty much just troubled, in her late teens of all ages) synopsis: this happens during episode 8, and since my brain was pretty much dry as fuck when I wrote this, this isn't chronologically correct in terms of the events that happened during that episode, but let's just pretend this happened in an alternate timeline for plot-purposes a/n: the reader is named btw, her name is Anake

"Oh, just fucking great! Not only do l we have to deal with a bunch of demigods, but now Morgana, MONSTER JIM, and A REVIVED KING ARTHUR who wants us DEAD?? For FUCK'S SAKE—" You threw your hands up in exasperation.

Before they could say anything, you were already storming off, making your way to who knows where much to your companions' disbelief. After all that? You had the gall to storm off somewhere? Alone?

"Anake! Where are you going?" Claire calls out. She reaches out as if to grab ahold of your shoulder to stop you. She decides against it, remembering how you did not like people randomly touching you. And how you almost broke Steve's hand when he grabbed you out of nowhere. They had to peel you off of the poor guy.

She shook off the thought, turning to look at Doux. He only stared back at Claire with the same baffled look on his face. But he tried to convince you otherwise, putting a hand over your shoulder to stop you from going further into the "It's not safe to split up right now—"

"Douxie, don't—" She was a little over too late. A thud was heard as Claire visibly cringed.

"Don't fucking touch me!" You screamed at him. His eyes widened in surprise, seeing how you glared at him, and if he didn't know any better, he'd think you wanted him dead.

But he's spent enough time with you to know that you usually mask most of your feelings with anger. Closely examining your face, in your eyes. He could see it. You're scared. And he couldn't find a reason to blame you for feeling that way.

He could be mad at you for acting this way. But he's lived for 900+ years and has dealt with worse people. Bickering with you over how you're acting wasn't going to accomplish anything. Well, aside from deepening the already large gap between you two.

Before he knew it, Archie was already by his side, asking if he was okay, along with everyone else. Doux only nodded in response, seeing the regret flash in your eyes and you turning around to dash your way into the forest. He tried to keep you in his sight, but his view was blocked by everyone else crowding around him.

"Guys, Akane's getting away!" Steve pointed in the direction you went. Claire offers her hand, and Doux sighs as he accepts her help. As she pulls him up, they both exchange worried looks. Then Doux stares at where you last stood.

"Let's give her some space. Camelot knows she needs it." He releases a sigh.

...

You were frustrated. Angry. You did not come here to get dragged into some prophesied 900-year-old end-of-the-world event. Yet here you are.

Grabbing fistfuls of your hair, you pull it as you scream in frustration. Your hands slide off due to the short length of your hair, making you even more pissed. You don't know what else to do other than scream in frustration when you're pissed.

You were dealing with enough shit on your own, and now you're being forced into this whole "saving the world" shit. You kicked the dirt and stomped your feet. Yelled profanities. Screamed your lungs out. Cursed everyone you knew.

Anything to deal with the feeling of helplessness and powerlessness clawing its way into your heart. In your anger, you couldn't help but wonder, of all people, why did it have to be you?

Things were getting better for you. But then it didn't. It was such a sudden turn of events. And then these weirdo magic people came. Dragging you with them, having to fight for this Nari demigod you found out was part of the Arcane Order. The more you knew, the more confused you got.

And it turns out that you were also a weirdo magic person! Amazing! Right?

You might have felt differently if you had learned about that in better circumstances. Maybe after processing it all, properly at that, you would've been overjoyed.

But it all happened so suddenly. After that, you, Doux, Claire, and Jim fucking disappeared into the past— god, your stress levels went off the roof during all that happened.

You can't handle shit like that. You were never the best at handling stressful situations like they all could. All you know how to do is have a breakdown, internally panic, internalize your feelings and then blow up on everyone that gives a shit about you.

Pathetic, isn't it?

Yet, now that you have a chance not to be a pathetic piece of shit who only knows how to loathe. You couldn't even do anything right. You were worse than who Douxie used to be. At least he was trying his best. Unlike you, he was ambitious. He had good intentions. You, on the other hand, just got dragged into this. You don't have any life-long goals to help the world.

But still, you fantasized about this, receiving some power to achieve all your dreams and surpass expectations. Now that you've received that power for who knows what reason, you figured whoever runs this universe is just fucking with you at this point. Regardless, you don't even know what to do next.

You should've just stayed home with that woman you were forced to call "mother." And a father who willingly put you through all that suffering. After all, they were right about you. You wouldn't make it out here in the real world. You should've just stayed with them. No matter how much they hurt you. Or put you down.

"Why am I so fucking stupid?" You finally whisper, clenching your hands into fists. Something in your chest felt heavy. It hurt.

And then you felt something wet rolling your left cheek. Confused, you bring up a hand to touch it. It was... tears? More started to roll down your cheeks. It didn't matter how much you tried to wipe them away and convince yourself that you shouldn't be crying.

"Only weak people cry!" You say out loud, ignoring that you used to cry every night, wanting to run away, wanting to escape to a safer place.

...who were you even kidding? You are weak. You can't even help yourself.

And with that, a sob escapes your throat as you furiously try to wipe your tears away with your knees weak. You sunk to the ground before you noticed, instinctively leaning against the tree for support. You don't know what to do.

"God fucking— damn it!" You cried harder. This world is so big, bigger than you once thought it was. And you've never felt so small.

What's worse is that you can do nothing about how you feel. You can't control your feelings. You tried, and it all ended up the same way, exploding in your face or at other people.

You never had control, to begin with. You couldn't do anything.

Not even when Steve was about to get shanked by that Gumm-Gumm troll thing, you couldn't move your body at all. You were so afraid that you froze. During a war of all things! And Cameron ended up losing his life because you didn't do jack-shit. Steve watched his friend die in front of him. You could've done something to try to save him, but you didn't.

You gritted your teeth, squeezing your eyes shut as a sob broke out from your throat. You concluded that they don't need someone like you dragging them down. Not when the world is at risk. You began to cry into your hands.

You apologized. You apologized to whoever could hear you.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry! I— I'm so sorry." You sobbed.

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petalsmooth · 4 years

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Lili fans who are not vicious, psychotic stalkers determined to destroy lives please avoid this post

At the heart of every attempt to tear Cole down and take with him women who did nothing but breathe in his area lies an opinion that the women they troll him with are of lesser character than Lili. Unless they stood aside as their mother whipped a rabid group of obsessive fans up into trying to cancel him across the social mediums, as their mother stalked Cole fans to try and turn them and, failing in that, turned those rabid fans on THEM, stood aside as THEIR fans outed his residence at the time, stood aside as his friends were attacked, stood aside as their fans tried to get him fired for the “sin” of breaking up with her, relayed the general area he bought a NEW house in an interview when Cole has yet to acknowledge it himself and hell even KJ hasn’t done so yet, used the NYT’s to cast innuendo without actually saying he did anything wrong because she wanted to sell a book and a movie....well sorry if I don’t consider virtually any of these women downgrades even if allowed you were right about all dozen of them.

This does not even address the fact Lili’s entire persona is now in dispute since she seems determined to undermine everything she previously claimed to hold dear. She said she valued privacy in her relationships. Clearly not true. She spoke up about editing photos. Clearly changed opinion there. She previously said she has never been with a woman, then said she had in a timeframe when she is believed to have had a boyfriend. She spoke out about sexualization of costumes for the sake of it...that went out the window this Halloween which is especially galling because she has real talent as an F/X artist and could have done something actually amazing. She used to shoot the idea of Barchie down to the point their fans wanted her fired and RAS would backtrack and do damage control to keep Barchie fans dangling but now she seems entirely onboard. She’s pushing religious scams onto her young fanbase. She built this entire pretense this summer of being scared to leave her home and mask up then went cross country to visit a family who had been vacationing in COVID hotspots. A family she claims to miss and love dearly but couldn’t be bothered to spend time with most of quarantine. She now seems to at least at times call the paps as the TMZ video and Halloween pics would suggest. She compared life in Vancouver to prison then rather than apologizing tried to blame others for their misinterpreting her. Another new pattern that seems to have emerged in past months as she claimed multiple journalists misquoted her, leading to their integrity being questioned and attacked but in retrospect seems they did quote her accurately.

I told you people not to push this but you persist so here we are. If at his WORST Cole has had sex with multiple consenting adults this past year since exiting his relationship, done soft core drugs and alcohol which Lili does too, amidst actually WORKING and wishing his ex a classy farewell post which she has STILL not reciprocated or acknowledged than damn if I don’t still think he is lucky to be out of that relationship and could do better.

Sorry if the sane Lili fans read this and understand if they move on but I have it with this idea Cole is a degenerate raised out of the depth of Hades by Lili’s sheer grace and now should be condemned back because their goddess has removed her favor or worse...because he removed his. You want people to face facts well face these: not everyone views Lili the way you do and regardless of what happens to Cole my opinion of her actions remains firm. I am not so naïve to think the breakdown of their relationship was driven by one person alone and I don’t know what specifically happened (though her mother is no credible source) but I know what I’ve been forced to witness on social media since and on THAT score he has been almost faultless.

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a-crimson-lion · 5 years

Text

The Moms Of BNHA

[Warning: Spoilers and Potentially Triggering Opinions follow. You've been warned.]

[Also: Long Post.]

So, I've been thinking about this when I should be doing, homework (lol), but... can we talk about a certain trio of moms in BNHA?

Inko Midoriya

Inko is probably the least problematic mom I'll be talking about today. Does that make her perfect? Hell no! But she tries so hard for Izuku, and it shows. Even if she doesn't support Izuku's dreams of heroism once he's diagnosed as Quirkless, it's clear that she supported him in any other way she could think of. She's also worried about his well being, as we see after the mall confrontation and the aftermath of Kamino. And when she sees Izuku's dreams finally becoming a possibility after a lifetime of doubt, she apologizes, fully supporting Izuku's choice in life from there on out. Sure, after Kamino she considers pulling Izuku out of UA, but that's not from a place of selfishness or malice. It's out of worry. She wants her son to be happy, but she also wants him to be safe.

Honestly, I can't think of any legitimate reason to full on hate her...

Rei Todoroki

So Rei... gosh where do I begin?

She's definitely more problematic than Inko, or rather, her situation is. People tend to get on her case because she was apparently just as abusive to Shoto as Endeavor was, and-

Can... can we talk about this for a moment?

I understand that what Rei Todoroki did was wrong, end of discussion. I understand what Rei did only worsened the circumstances for her family, her son, and herself. I understand that while her institutionalization wasn't fair, it was likely for the best given her state of mind. But to put the blame squarely and soley on Rei's shoulders?

That's where I draw the line.

I only say this with the experience of a novice, but from personal experience, most people don't just randomly lash out spontaneously. In my case, it's usually a series of offenses (minor or major) that I refuse to respond to because I feel like that will make me a bad person, but that residual rage? It builds up. Sometimes you can let it out in minor spurts, but it's not enough. One day, one way or another, it will boil over. All that anger, all that frustration, all that rage will combust. You won't be able to stop it once it starts. You'll feel tense. You'll punch things, not caring whether you'll break them or they'll break you. When you get tired of that, you'll storm off into your room and angrily sob into your pillows, or yell/growl... or both. And when it's finally over, you'll still feel like crap. And it'll be a long while before it feels like you or anyone else can forgive yourself.

This is me anywhere from several months to several years. Rei Todoroki had to put up with Endeavor and his abusive behavior for about a decade.

Rei was abused, end of story. Rei's children were abused, either physically or neglectfully, end of story. We've seen Shoto's training. We've heard Endeavor hitting his wife and hearing her scream. People are not perfect. People are not invincible. To expect that someone like Rei could keep her head held high when it felt like the world was against her is like expecting a stone to say the same shape and size out in the open for thousands of years.

In the end, it all wears down.

Rei even knew this herself. She knew she was breaking down, and tried to call on her other family in order to stop something bad from happening. Too little, too late. Rei sees her son, the left side of her son, the side that her husband was responsible for, in a sense. She remembers all the beatings, all the physical and mental degradation against herself and her kids, and she snaps. She has finally had it with Endeavor, and in her fury, she pours boiling water against his face. Only it wasn't her husband's face. It was Shoto's. Her youngest child, her little boy, the one Endeavor was the most brutal to. The one she had wanted to live without fear of a beating.

And she just struck him without a second thought.

There's immediate remorse. Rei doesn't stew in her rage; the guilt overtakes her almost instantaneously. You could argue that trying to ice boiling water is not the best method of preventing a burn, but it's the intentions that matter here. From what I've heard, the scar could have been a lot bigger if Rei just stood there. Plus, I don't think it's necessarily common that people think 100% sanely when they're overcome by extreme emotion. Saying Rei was wrong for trying to soothe her son's burn even if it wasn't the best method is like getting made at a fireman for successfully putting a forest fire out, even of the trees are no longer living.

It's permanent damage, but would you rather deal with that, or something worse?

And just imagine how Shoto feels in all of this. There's sadness. There's betrayal. Of course some of it is directed at Rei, and deservingly so. The one person he felt he could trust basically just turned on him, seemingly out of nowhere. And yet... even though Shoto is a child, he's far from naive. He knows that Endeavor isn't a good person. He's heard his mother's cries, likely her arguments with his father, and he's even been a witness to Endeavor's abuse towards her. She may have done the deed, but for Shoto, the scar isn't his mom's fault. It's Endeavor's. He was the one who abused them, he was the one who took away their sense of happiness, of safety, he was the one who pushed them to the brink and then pushed them some more.

If he had just been a bit more considerate, a bit more reasonable, a bit more human, Rei's breakdown might have been delayed, if not outright nonexistent.

And can we just talk about the Rei/Endeavor parallels for a bit? Nowadays the manga readers are in the midst of Endeavor's redemption arc. I personally think that it's mildly problematic, but I will admit that it's probably better for Endeavor to not continue being a sorry excuse of a human being for the remainder of the series. That being said, I'd like to point out that Rei came first. Rei threw the first jab, and immediately felt remorse afterward. Shoto walked back into Rei's life, and she did not take that opportunity for granted. She spent the time shortly after her hospitalization trying to get better, and this is only more apparent when we see her for the rest of the series. As for Endeavor? His change in behavior was a lot slower. I'll admit that functionally speaking, he's a good hero, but as a person he's the scum of the Earth. He doesn't try self-evaluating after Shoto's fight with Izuku when Shoto says he only used his fire because he forgot about Endeavor. Even at Kamino, Endeavor is still an ass to All Might even though they have bigger things to worry about. And when he sees Small Might, exposed to the world? His first idea is to state that knowing he'd never catch up to All Might drove him to abusing his family.

Endeavor, buddy, that was your call. Not All Might's. Quite frankly, I don't think he's even aware of the BS you put your family through.

One of the few things that frustrates me about Endeavor's redemption is not that he has one; it's that under different circumstances, it wouldn't exist to begin with. Without All Might's retirement, without Endeavor forced into the spotlight as the new #1 Hero, there is no development on his part. I'd have the gall to say that Endeavor would still be a narcissistic asshole if All Might managed to hang on to his power for a while longer. Without the pressure of being #1 on his shoulders, Endeavor continues (in vain) to try and surpass All Might, or at least get Shoto to. He's still a good hero functionally speaking, but how long until his obsession starts to cloud his judgement? How long before the #2 Hero eventually slips up in his rage-fueled fervor?

I'll say it again: it's good that Endeavor is trying to change, but without any actual unprovoked self reflection on his part, it's not as impactful.

So to sum it up, I don't think Rei deserves all the hate she gets. She deserves to be held accountable for what she did, yes, but she's also a human being who was put into a mentally toxic position. It's a miracle she didn't snap sooner, and it's a miracle she's finally making progress with help from her kids.

Mitsuki Bakugo

And finally, the reason why I started down this train of thought.

I'm not even gonna try beating around the bush here: Mitsuki Bakugo is a bad parent.

Notice how I didn't say abusive. No, that does not mean I'm validating her. It just means I personally haven't seen or heard enough in the series thus far to justify whether she should be held on the same level as Endeavor, if not close.

I still have enough sense to see that she's not a good parent though. Far from it, actually.

So far we've only seem Mitsuki officially in a parent teacher meeting after Kamino, and a brief mention of her from Katsuki during the Remedial Course Arc. It doesn't paint a good picture. Right from the get go, her first scene is her hitting her son on the head and calling him weak. This isn't some slapstick or tough love, as some people will say. This is something entirely different, and it should tell readers two things.

Mitsuki is disconnected from her son.

Mitsuki is a carbon copy of her son.

Now take that second point with a grain of salt. People have said time and time again that Mitsuki is basically a genderbent Katsuki, which is accurate to a degree. She's also more mellowed out than Katsuki, as she can talk to other people without trying to assert her dominance. She's actually surprisingly aware of her son's superiority complex as well, but... For all that, it's obvious that Mitsuki isn't actually fully aware of her son's issues. Like her son, Mitsuki is also too focused on her son's brute strength. Calling him weak isn't some karmic justice for all the times Katsuki has said the same to other people; it's a feedback loop that feeds into Katsuki's insecurities, which feeds into his inferiority complex, which feeds into his superiority, which then repeats ad infinitum. You could argue that maybe Katsuki has acted too thick-skinned around his mom to let her actually get a feel for his problems, but I personally doubt that she's really tried to understand her son, or maybe she just... gave up.

And then there's Katsuki saying that he was raised with violence. "BUT CRIMSON, SHE HAS TO BE ABUSIVE IF SHE'S WILLING TO HIT HER KID, WhY cAn'T yOu AcCePt ThAt!?" Well, from what I learned, people can hit their kids and still? Not? Be abusers? Spanking used to be a thing, y'know, and while it's heavily controversial nowadays, I doubt that the good parents used it at the drop of a hat. Kids can be jerks; I was one. Back to Mitsuki, I doubt that this line meant from the day Katsuki had been four years old, his life had been hell. I feel like even if Mitsuki was still brash, she didn't immediately start beating on Katsuki when he started to get a big head. If anything, I'd assume she waited about two years at most before she started letting the fists fly. Keep in mind, almost everyone Katsuki meets admires him for his abilities. Who's to say his mom wasn't one of those people at the start? It wouldn't have been until Katsuki ego started becoming a noticeable issue that Mitsuki decided she needed to tale care of it. Only problem? Mitsuki makes bad decisions, just like her son. Resorting to physical violence and verbal taunts did nothing to help Katsuki, but it's what Mitsuki knew how to do, so she rolled with that. I'm not giving Katsuki a pass because of this, however. Shoto essentially went through the same thing, and his response was not to endlessly shout at others or display dominance. The violence targeted at the boys was brutal, but violence doesn't justify more violence. Katsuki may have had a convenient excuse to start being an ass to people, but so did Shoto. And yeah, "Earlyroki" was an ass, but at least it wasn't intentional.

Before I go, I just want to bring up really quick where Masaru falls into this. One could argue that Masaru's also to blame for how Katsuki turned out for not stepping in but... have you seen Mitsuki, or even Katsuki for that matter? No offense to Masaru, but he's kind of a doormat character. He only married Mitsuki due to her persistence, and while Masaru's "Oxidizing Sweat" quirk is likely destructive, Masaru himself is... not. He seems to be the exact opposite of his wife and son personality wise, only instead of canceling them out, his lack of dominance forces him to run for cover should a dark omen come about. We've seen what Katsuki's done to Izuku before UA. Masaru basically has to put up with two of those, and unlike our protagonist, he doesn't have the resilience to withstand that much anger.

So...

TL;DR. Inko Midoriya is a great mom who just wants her son to be safe and happy. Rei Todoroki cares a lot about her son and is willing to work to show it, even in the face of setbacks. Mitsuki Bakugo is a terrible parent who either needs to figure out what's wrong with her son properly, or leave to someone who can.

Thank you for your time.

-Crimson Lion (24 November 2019)

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loveurn · 4 years

Text

@principalles // i haven’t written this au in literal years but i want to now

taeyang had become greedy. maybe a little shamelessly, but with how he easily it shows on his face and how quietly he’s started to mumble it, he thinks he’s retained some of his dignity. not that there’s much to retain after baring himself in front of hyunshik in his apartment, and crying, and having a breakdown. all in less than five minutes? maybe four? a record honestly.

han had promptly laughed after hearing the tale to which taeyang promptly threatened to shove the stretch roller up his ass. that’s what he gets for having a best friend though.

the problem is. time has passed since the incident and taeyang had assumed that their general agreement was to not discuss it. not discuss how taeyang had clung to hyunshik’s body the next morning, refusing to move until the male had said the phrase three times. the second time was because taeyang was convinced he was asleep and the third was because apparently hyunshik got a kick out of the look on his face.

you’re beautiful.

just the thought of it and taeyang’s entire body gives him away.

traitor.

the real treachery came after a morning where taeyang was sure would be the last time they discussed the incident. with taeyang but a few inches with the male, craving post-breakdown affection with the unfortunate person who’d given him attention the night prior. it’s embarrassing to think about, how he’d asked if they could eat breakfast together and how he’d had to physically suppresses noises of distress when hyunshik hinted at leaving for work that day. but they had lives, jobs to attend to and obligations. and hyunshik’s obligation was not to make taeyang feel better about the parts of himself he couldn’t love.

even if that part was his job.

he would pick himself up after that as always. he would wash his face, stretch and show his face perfectly and pristine in the studio for rehearsals. after the injury healed his restriction was lifted and he was back to the early mornings and the strict regulations. he wasn’t given a moment to breathe and that was probably easier, it should’ve helped the parts of his mind that wanted to stay wrapped in hyunshik. in his words and the way his hands felt, secured and grounding. cupping his face as they whispered the words, holding his shoulders as he held him close when they slept on the couch.

taeyang would be doing an excellent job of this is hyunshik wasn’t determined on making his life a living hell. but see, maybe taeyang’s had him penned wrong. the man with many jobs, a working man, an honest man, he was cunning.

and he hasn’t stopped using all opportunities to bring back those same feelings as if that night was only a day ago.

this includes but isn’t limited to: text messages, snide comments, support at showcases, unnecessary notes. yes hyunshik has found a way to insert something similar to that dreaded phrase each time he sees taeyang and they see each other quite a lot. not that taeyang was avoided him but if he was this would’ve been a hell of a lot harder. but the coffee shop is his favorite, the bar is the only one han will go to and when there’s those lovely galas he’s invited to, hyunshik must be a part of the company they hire to cater.

it’s a cruel joke.

because he’s sending innocent messages like outgoing [ did you like the show! ] incoming [ yeah. you were gorgeous. ]

and getting off the wall responses like that.

it’s them spending days cooking, taeyang stressing over a new recipe that hyunshik’s showing him and hyunshik spending time either laughing at him or observing him. moments that are far too silent and when taeyang seeks to break them with a question of if they’re correct or he needs to change anything he’s met with the stare. a stare far too similar to that night. and the words that accompany them.

‘cute.’

or when taeyang gets bold and asks if there’s something on his face he gets a bold,

‘it’s gorgeous don’t worry.’

he’s occasionally walking in the cafe and trying to get his order in when his greeting is along the lines of, ‘what can i get you’ with handsome, gorgeous, beautiful tacked on the end. with little regard to how astonished his co-workers seem to be by the flirtations.

can they be considered flirtations though? they don’t have the same greasiness in the smiles. not the ones he’s used to. because taeyang’s heard these before, he’s dealt with them before. flirty baristas, playful bartenders, lingering hook-ups. he’s dealt with them all and this was not that. because hyunshik’s smile was less of a smirk and more genuine, more sure in the words. maybe it’s because hyunshik’s seen him at his worst, his most open that taeyang wants to believe the smile is genuine and not a joke.

maybe he’s believing that no one could see him like that and have the gall to joke about something so obviously wrong. because it hadn’t been beautiful, he hadn’t looked beautiful and as many times as the words play over in his head, it’s still hard to believe.

but there’s no implication, no raised eyebrows, no winks, no phone numbers scribbled, or hands snuck onto his back or laced drinks. there’s just hyunshik with his words and the same smile that he gives the next customers ( though it’s not as risen for them taeyang will claim that thank you very much ).

hyunshik being candid so smooth that it’s knocking taeyang off-guard every time.

outgoing [ i almost think you’re doing this on purpose. ]

in the time it takes hyunshik to respond taeyang almost regrets the message. but he’s had a bit of wine, sue him.

incoming [ sorry, busy shift. doing what? ]

outgoing [ asjdhgajs you know what!!! ] incoming [ did you keyboard smash? ]

a moment of silence.

incoming [ did you drink...? ] incoming [ where are you? ]

another moment of silence to mourn taeyang’s inconspicuousness. and for how his stomach leaps at the message, and he groans with his head hitting the phone screen.

outgoing [ i had some wne. i’m home mom!!! ] outgoing [ and thstg not the opint! ] incoming [ cute. ] incoming [ okay then, i’ll humor you what’s the point? ]

a lot happens then. because taeyang is momentarily struck by the message. by the image of hyunshik smiling, actually smiling as he types because he is humored and this is all probably fun for him. and taeyang is probably more of a mess than the first time hyunshik had to deal with him drunk. or less, just with more emotions. he feels too much and that’s why the word cute blares on his screen the way it does. that’s why it takes a million takes to type what he really says.

unsent [ the fltying unsent [ the flrt unsent [ flrjng wieth merg unsent [ caalng mr sthings yeou dont measn

thankfully, it takes a gradual amount of wine to get him to send a message that works - or to work up the courage to send it when he thinks it’s acceptable enough.

outgoing [ calling me beautiful. ] incoming [ and if i am? ]

the good news, taeyang falls asleep before he can embarrass himself further and before he gets a chance to read the response. the bad news, the messages he thought were unsent were sent, completely and fully sent and ready to make his waking hours even more miserable than he’d intended.

han is cackling up a storm the when they see each other seeing as taeyang had mass messaged him the screenshots of his mess the following morning. han had thought it was fun to ask him ‘how are you and hyunshik’ the minute he’d entered the apartment knowing taeyang had resolved to do everything in his power to avoid the male.

the answer was easy, childish but easy.

'you’re scared of how he makes you feel.’

it was a little more than that. taeyang was scared of the rush, of how drunk he’d felt on those simple words. on how he might start to believe them and only believe them because it’s hyunshik and not because of anything else. he was scared on how easily swept up he was by them, how sugary they seemed as if their path would only rot him to the core. or even worse - that he had nothing there left to rot and didn’t deserve the touch. the sweet. it was a dilemma but han wasn’t his friend for his eloquence.

‘so the man tells you you’re gorgeous. not seeing how it’s a bad thing if you feel good tae. it would do you some good to listen to someone, especially in our line of work.’

a line of work where they’re taught their imperfections while being taught to be perfect. they’re set-up for failure, to never have the right image of themselves so that their arrogance doesn’t ever come across to the audience. so that they always remain a product of the eyes and the judgement that watch them. you are not beautiful because you believe yourself to be you are beautiful because you break yourself for others and you try to be, for them. and they might give you the credit, for trying and only trying and living the illusion.

it was hard to believe it and taeyang had never had trouble before with the easy flirts and the quick comments about his figure or his performance, even his face.

but there’s hyunshik saying it in the dark of his room with taeyang’s face tear-stained, body sweat and spent, holding himself together by a broken illusion. there’s hyunshik whispering it so that it can fill in all the cracks that taeyang’s made himself.

and it’s scary. it’s scary how filled he’s feeling by one utterance.

“i don’t want him to feel obligated.” ‘i’m ninety percent sure that’s not the case.’ “i don’t want to fish for the compliments.” ‘fish for them! ask for them everyday who cares!’

han’s advice doesn’t sit in like it should. not for the first two weeks of taeyang’s resolve. to keep his distance as much as he can. he can blame it on rehearsals as always. it leaves messages unanswered, it leaves han picking up their coffee order to bring to the studio, it leaves him at new bars and with other, unfamiliar faces, greasy bartender and fed up baristas. he lets the break in his routine happen if only to break his mind from what might be a trap.

hyunshik must be busy too, because he doesn’t go out of his way to text, which shouldn’t bother taeyang as much as it does. it stings a bit though, as if the drift is only pulling at him.

if it takes a toll on his mental it doesn’t show in his work, at least not that he can tell. han tells him everyday that he needs to stop and talk it out. their choreographer also tells him everyday that he’s messing up, that he’s not good enough for the showcase and taeyang subsequently forgets all the words hyunshik’s told him in favor of that. in favor of the cruelty of his job.

because pride in himself was forbidden, and he’s deserved it.

taeyang’s never had a bad performance, not by critic standards. rookie or amateur yes but nothing serious as a fall on stage of forgetting a routine. he’s got too much muscle memory for that really.

the thing is, he can feel the disappointment coming halfway through the performance. he hasn’t spoken or seen hyunshik in a month, preparing for this opening night. a gala performance that was the introduction to their new musical. a teaser for the lovers of high culture and art, taeyang invited as the star to debut it with the corps.

he’s been eating adequately, been practicing normally but the pressure - maybe it’s the pressure. he tries to rationalize through his movements, through the music what the feeling is. that’s during practice and he can’t quite pinpoint them. the performance is in three hours and he doesn’t have time to figure it out, not with costuming and dress rehearsal, not with getting ready and mingling before. not with the face he has to steel press on the minute he walks into the venue. and he should know that there’s no point in trying to analyze himself and his emotions when it’s the day of performance but he’s doing it and he’s coming up blank.

and he wishes that’s the face he could keep on. but when his choreographer’s called him out on it, in those hours before the show, in the same way he’s been grilling them, breaking him into the new routine. it’s not new but it does wear and tear. as the pressure does, as the stress does, as taeyang lets his body take the hits as much as his soul does. soft despite the years of training and steel he’s supposed to have built up.

‘you’re not giving me your best tae.’ ‘i don’t know, we might have to give this to someone else.’ ‘this is a debut for our sponsor.’ ‘why are you breaking form!’

something feels wrong. and he’s suddenly aware that he was right that he didn’t deserve the compliments, that he didn’t deserve the words. and taeyang can’t remember his routine for clearing himself before a stage despite it all, can’t remember what he would do before hyunshik. because everything done after was so refreshing, healing.

as he tries to steel those thoughts away and smile for a councilwomen, he catches the movement out the corner of his eye. he doesn’t need to look further, doesn’t need to chase it or the voice he hears giving out orders for appetizers. he knows it’s hyunshik, his body knows the sound. and he wants to smile, he wants to run, he wants to do everything in once. but his choreographer’s smile is strong, his misplaced praise drowns out everything and the councilman’s hand on his waist feels tighter than usual. it’s a trap. taeyang’s trapped.

he’s reminded of the perfection he needs and the perfection he lacks.

he can’t see hyunshik anymore, can’t remember what he’s supposed to focus on other than the importance of this performance and the fact that he’s not ready. he’s not perfect, he can’t fake it today and his body won’t shut down enough to let him.

there isn’t enough time and han rubbing his hands before the performance doesn’t help. taeyang staring in the mirror as he finishes the last touches don’t help and the breath he takes before the music starts and the lights dim don’t help.

whatever it is, whatever it is that clogs and prevents him from surrendering to the strive for perfection. it holds him the entire performance. he’s suddenly aware of all the eyes, of all the eyes, of his director’s frown of the awe of the audience and of hyunshik’s eyes. even if he doesn’t quite see them, he knows.

disappointment is an ache he swallows tight while they clap and cheer.

taeyang doesn’t have bad performances, there’s no fall there’s no mistake but he knows. he knows it enough. he knows it as the pictures are taken, as the hands are shaken and flowers and doubled in his arms. he knows because he could hear his breath as the music stopped and the spell was broken. the spell of the character he’s supposed to be for the audience.

he couldn’t create it. he failed.

and his director doesn’t rip into him yet, his choreographer doesn’t, too busy soaking in the praises from the audience. but he knows. when they’ve pulled the corps backstage to recap everything and it’s him, his director and choreographer zoning in on him for fifteen minutes.

‘you lost your character.’ ‘your form was terrible.’ ‘how could you do that?’ ‘you could do better.’

and when it’s over and he faces his own mirror backstage his makeup’s smeared with tears. he’s not exactly crying because he was chewed out by his directors or in front of the corps. no he’s more crying because of the loss of control, because of the sloppiness he’s allowed in something he so deeply cares about. he’s frustrated really, confused and so the tears come.

taeyang hears han calling for him and he makes for the back exit with whatever strength managed to carry him through the performance and hold him up after it all.

as luck would have it he’s heading out the back doors by the alleyways and hearing a voice that doesn’t sound like han’s.

it sounds like a memory. sounds too good to be true and almost like a nightmare in itself.

because taeyang’s whispering not now, why now. but he can’t stop time and he turns to see hyunshik slipping his phone into his pocket, standing by the back entrance of what is probably the kitchen quarters. because of course whatever he was doing ends as taeyang is running from everyone. regardless he’s stopped and more aware of the tear stains on his cheeks, the falling glitter that’s not streaming down his face, and how horrid he must look.

‘taeyang.’

and the fact that now he can’t pretend he didn’t see hyunshik.

“yeah?” taeyang wants to hide, and he does so with his head lowered as he answers, his body folded in and ready to bolt when he can. it’s the first time he’s been aware of his voice since the day started, and the affirmation the he’s not all hear, that he’s been crying, that he can’t quite bring himself together. but he doesn’t move like he wants, he waits.

‘your performance...’ comes first and taeyang feels his body stiffen. he feels his stomach churn and his chest tighten. it’s probably noticeable and his response is immediate, head up as he snaps the words back. there’s nothing sharp about it though, just that it comes desperate and rather rushed. because he doesn’t want to hear the rest, he can’t bear it. “it was bad i know.” if hyunshik means to say anything against that, taeyang is too quick to respond, too seated in his belief. he failed. he knows. but he’s smiling amongst it. “i wish i could’ve shown you better.” something that matched up to all hyunshik’s said to him.

he’s so seated in the belief that he doesn’t notice hyunshik getting closer, doesn’t notice the hand on his shoulder until he flinches. hyunshik is but a few inches from him, his hand inches from where taeyang’s stepped back, flinched away from it.

‘tae, that’s not.’ “i’m sorry.” the rest of it, the ‘i have to go’ is only said when he’s turning to make his way out the alleyway as he intended and keep the pain that’s constricting his chest until he’s safe in his apartment. it tightens and it suffocates but it’s easier when it’s caught in his pillow. when it’s smothered and stuck in the walls of his apartment.

if his phone is ringing multiple times he doesn’t try to check why, or who it could be. instead he only answers his door when he hears han’s voice on the opposite side. lets his friend engulf him in a hug and hold him with plans of ice cream and nothing remotely related to dance or the performance. han doesn’t try to convince him of anything, that he didn’t bomb the performance ( though he makes a few quips about their director ), he doesn’t mention seeing or not seeing hyunshik or that taeyang’s been crying and probably looks a mess. he just mentions that they should order more food since ice cream isn’t nearly enough.

and they do just that.

taeyang is a wimp so he gets han to open the messages hyunshik sent him, just for the sake of getting rid of the notification. and han doesn’t complain, lets him be in his moods and his avoidance for as long as he needs. taeyang can’t face the messages, for a multitude of reasons but the top being he needs to get himself together before he tries to engage whatever hyunshik had said, whether it’s anger at leaving him without a word, ignoring him, or god forbid those sweet words that’d held him above the tide for so long.

so there’s practice again. there’s the bend and the break. the edge that he faces each day, trying to stay afloat it all, present and drowned in his work. it’s hard but he makes it, he always makes it.

he has to rewatch the performance but this time when he does it’s in the comfort of his room, with his pup curled in his lap. he analyzes and what he can’t quite steel away he lets fall on the pads of his finger and his screen.

maybe he’d been so uncomfortable because he’s used to sharing these moments alone. the deconstruction that he had to do to himself in order to be great. he was so used to doing it alone that doing it with hyunshik even once, had thrown him off balance. it’d felt good - so good but taeyang was scared of it feeling like the best and getting attached, addicted. to the point that if hyunshik disappeared he wouldn’t be able to return.

return to what though - as if this routine was any healthier.

it worked though, working himself to the bone.

it works.

he’s not banned from the official debut, he’s just expected to do better, to be perfect in every sense of the word. and slowly he gets his rhythm back, it’s not as smooth, feels a bit stretched and awkward but it’s a rhythm and it produces results. what bothers him is that it doesn’t feel smooth but it’s definitely the routine he was used to before all this. before the feelings and breaking himself over for the man with the calloused hands and the candid smile.

when the time comes dress rehearsal has gone different. he’s in his head but he’s not as afraid. he can feel the muscle memory, can feel the haze of the music as it’s all but set and soaked in his brain. he doesn’t review much as he stretches backstages and just repeats affirmations, perfection, perfection, perfection.

‘ready to shine?’ han is meeting him backstage, no doubt after dropping his arm candy off in their auditorium seats. in his hand are a small bouquet of flowers that he places on the vanity. “rude of you to give me flowers your date brought.” ‘asshole, they’re not from me to you. but they’re definitely for you.’ they’re a mixture of pink flowers, white ones and blues, all taeayng’s favorite colors. there’s a note inside, yellow with a silver pattern around the border. taeyang is used to getting flowers before big shows, though they usually come afterwards. intrigued that han is bringing a set personally, he reaches for the note.

and sputters when he reads it.

they’re being called though and he’s being ushered up and out to the stage.

the performance is a bit of a blur. which is a good! that’s good, his muscle memory saved him and he was able to deliver as flawlessly as expected. does he have critiques for himself, yes. but nothing a few reviews couldn’t fix and not enough for his director to pull him aside. so he’s content. he usually feels an airy bliss when he’s come down from performing, the curtain lowering and the high subsequently falling, settling into the noise of his head and the noise of the audience.

he’s breathing again but this time it’s because he’s running. past those asking for picture, past the corps and past everyone until he reaches the lobby. until he reaches hyunshik, the yellow note tight in his fist and his other fist reaching for the back of the male’s jacket.

his voice stops when hyunshik turns to meet him, and his hand starts to loosen on the hold. what had he run for, what was he even going to say. the note is crumpled and sweaty in his palm and hyunshik’s gaze is, surprised and then calm. patient.

what had he planned on saying?

“the note.”

beautiful as always. it read.

“you hadn’t even seen the performance.” ‘doesn’t mean i didn’t think you’d be.’ “but - you couldn’t have known.”

you can’t have that kind of faith. is what he means, it’s what he doesn’t say. as if not giving him the chance to continue his thoughts hyunshik’s closed in, and his hands are lifting taeyang’s head from his chin. taeyang’s then aware that his eyes are watering again, that he feels powerless but in a different way.

‘you always are. tonight. before tonight. i’m sorry i didn’t get to tell you that at the last one.’

why is he apologizing. he doesn’t need to apologize. taeyang has so many, so many apologies lined up, ready. but he’s hiccuping and hyunshik is smiling so sweet, so sincere.

‘it’s hard to get tickets for this one so i was working to afford it - then han went and invited me for free.’

it’s not right, he doesn’t deserve this. not the devotion. not hyunshik working extra for him. not hyunshik still smiling while tears roll down his cheek, while his hands shake and find purchase in his tuxedo jacket.

“you don’t have to be nice.” ‘taeyang, i am anything but nice.’ taeyang’s heard those stories. of how strict hyunshik was viewed by other employees, by other customers. he’s heard him take orders before, handle rowdy guests and even dismiss people who were far less annoying than han. he knows nice isn’t exactly the right word, but mean isn’t either. ‘i’m just honest.’

more tears fall and they start to run over hyunshik’s thumb. taeyang’s a sniffling mess, his head is scrambling again but in a way that’s more how his stomach feels. an onslaught of emotions, rather than the thoughts, it’s all getting blanked, overrun.

‘what i think is beautiful, is beautiful. whether he believes it yet or not. so i will say it because why not? why shouldn’t I?’

taeyang doesn’t have the heart to think how he doesn’t deserve it. the thoughts can’t penetrate right now. he’s filled with thoughts of this smile, of this touch. of hyunshik inches from him, of the cologne sprayed on his cuff links, of the cup of his hand on his cheek and every brush of tears that comes after. how can he thinks when he’s all static and it’s all screaming for the man in front of it again. how can he deny himself the indulgence when hyunshik has already made up his mind about it.

how could he deny himself anything less.

“can you say it again...please.” he allows himself to be shameless. ‘you were beautiful tonight taeyang.’ so hyunshik says it and so taeyang lets himself believe it for the moment. for the kisses placed on his forehead and his cheeks, for the laughter so easily pulled from his lips and the kisses stolen from there as well. it’s cute and it’s light and taeyang feels like he’s soaring, letting hyunshik fit arms around his waist and shield him as they head to his apartment.

he’s a giggling mess from all the kisses and the repeated whispers of the same phrase. he’s become a little greedy now, attacking hyunshik for more when they cross the threshold of the elder man’s home.

“i’m sorry for running away last time.” ‘mhm.’ “and i’m sorry for ignoring your messages.” ‘mhm.’ “and i’m sorry for avoiding you at the same time.” ‘hm.’

all said between kisses, distractions really.

“say it again?” the question is shy, tucked into the white undershirt of the tux and the spot he’s occupied with hyunshik’s chin atop his head and his arms fastened around the elder’s body. hyunshik says it again and again, long after he’s wiped away all the tears. long after the traces of makeup are just a few black streaks and lingering sparkles. long after taeyang’s found a pair of trousers and a hoodie to throw on and they’re in a bed not a couch.

hyunshik whispers it so many times it sticks to the walls how it permeates and floats around in taeyang’s mind. floats and dances and holds him as he replays every move from the night, every attempt to criticize and berate himself stolen back with each kiss and each laugh that has him floating and falling. hyunshik kisses away the mistakes so tenderly taeyang almost forgets they exist, his body on fire in a way that dance doesn’t sum up to.

on fire in a way that’s probably not reserved for dance. but for the two of them. and in a way that makes him think it’s okay to be a little shameless, and a little greedy.

and even if they stop when hyunshik insists he get rest, something about the firm hold the male has on his body lets taeyang know he’s got more awaiting him tomorrow and long after that.

#taeshik #au: ballerino!tae #this started as one thing and ended as another

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melodiouswhite · 4 years

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Live forever - Ch. 01

(A/N: I’ve been obsessed with the historical Dr. Faust lately, so I decided to indulge the urge to create content - I hope you like it. I’ll write about the other members of the alchemist group later on too. ^^)

Johann Georg Faust had been called a lot of things throughout his life.

Charlatan, sorcerer, madman, heretic, liar, necromancer, criminal, hell child, accomplice of the Devil … he had stopped counting all the insults that had been thrown at his ginger-haired head.

Some of them were true, others weren't.

A charlatan? No.

Sure, he was versed in the art of stage magic (and used it more than often), but his magic powers were genuine. They had been since his birth.

Of course he had no idea where they had come from.

He didn't know why he could read minds, foresee the future and perform other things that other people weren't capable of. But it was so, hence he took it and used his abilities to their full potential. This was nothing to dwell on and overthink anyway.

With mixed feelings he stood in front of the grave.

A name and numbers on a tombstone made of the most expensive stone he had been able to afford.

He owed it to her.

Once he had been both grateful and resentful towards her for the drastic things she had done to make sure that he could go to the best schools around.

He had been resentful, because others had called him a bastard and a demon child, had bullied him for always asking questions, had feared him because of his abilities – and for all of this he had blamed her.

He had been grateful, because she had supported him and believed in him through it all, had called him a miracle and a gifted, blessed child, had told him that he was special and meant it.

It was because of her, that he was what he was.

He was a universal genius, a bachelor, physician, philosopher, teacher, alchemist, astrologer, medium … so many things. Yet, it wasn't enough for him, he wanted to learn so much more, more than a human could possibly learn in a single lifetime.

But it was only because of her, that he could even acquire all the knowledge.

That he could even read and write.

With a bitter smile, he placed the flower bouquet onto the grass.

“Hello, mother. I'm sorry I didn't visit you sooner.”

When he was 32 years old, he stumbled over an old, mysterious book.

Being the incorrigible glutton for knowledge he was, he had acquired it immediately.

The book spoke of hidden and forbidden arts and awoke something in him that he had never known was there.

Another kind of hunger.

Until now he had thought that perhaps he could try to be content with being a respected doctor and master of arts, work at a university and help lots of students become another generation of highly educated, arrogant twits, who flaunted their degrees and doctorates. Perhaps he would have married, even though he had never loved in his whole life.

That was out of question now.

Now he wanted something else.

He wanted to become a sorcerer. And if not that, at least the great alchemist of his time.

Oh to be on the same step of so many other great alchemists, perhaps accomplish even more than they did …

He wanted immortality.

Three years later, he hadn't achieved immortality yet.

Sure, he was famous – his name was known in a surprisingly large part of the Holy Roman Empire and it would be known for a very long time.

But metaphorical immortality wasn't enough!

He wanted the real deal!

He wanted to live forever and be forever young! He wanted to make all of his dreams come true, see the world, learn everything there was to learn, maybe write it down and share it with everyone – so many things!

And he would do anything to be able to.

Giving up was not an option. He wasn't like everyone else. And he wouldn't die at fifty or less, like everyone else.

When he was 37 years old, he looked in the mirror and scowled at his own reflection.

He was beginning to show signs of old age; there were bags under his eyes and soft wrinkles around them. And were those frowning wrinkles on his forehead?

From what he had read in the book, the elixir of immortality would stop the ageing process, but it wouldn't make him younger.

He had to find it quickly, before he started to look like some wizened old hermit!

A few weeks after discovering his first wrinkles, he spotted his first grey hair and spiralled into a mental breakdown.

He put more effort into his alchemy and not just once it ended in small explosions.

On top of that, he had to evade authorities, who accused him of the worst crimes and angry mobs that thought he was a witch or possessed.

No wonder I'm already growing old and grey.

When he was 38 years old, he discovered how to make pure gold.

Now he couldn't be that far away from immortality too.

Besides, he could now grow stinking rich.

Sure, he knew how to present himself and often read horoscopes for rich people – then, he was also a surgeon and miracle healer – one of the best, may he add! No false humility!

But if he suddenly became stupid rich, people would ask questions and assume the craziest stuff – or find out his secret. That would get him into trouble with … basically everyone who desperately needed or wanted gold.

“I need to save the gold-making for times, when I really need it”, he mumbled to himself, “And only enough to live fine.”

He wasn't quite 44 years old, when he achieved his goal by accident.

Once he had made gold, but forgot to empty the containers with the gold-making substances afterwards – it had been late and he had been overtired from lack of sleep.

When he had discovered his mistake the next morning, he opened the vials to clean them of the gooey substances.

But as he scraped the remains off the glass, he found something in one of the vials.

His blue-grey eyes widened.

It was a small, red stone.

At first he thought it was a ruby and considered selling it to the next jeweller.

But as he held it into the light, it began to shine in rainbow colours and the light revealed thin golden veins within the red material.

This was something new!

Deciding that he wanted a better look, he put it in a bowl of water to wash the dirt off.

The water turned purple.

He quickly opened his book about hidden alchemy to make sure that this was what he thought it was.

And sure enough …

“Eureka!”, he whispered.

He had found the Philosophers' Stone!

After drinking the purple water – which had tasted horrible, by the way – he found the next morning, that his wrinkles were gone.

Sure, the bags under his eyes were still there – but he knew that they had little to do with his age anyway.

He had finally achieved his goal.

Overwhelmed with joy, he threw his head back and laughed and cried with sheer happiness.

This is the best day of my life!

When he was 51 years old, he realised that he wouldn't be able to hide his agelessness for much longer.

So far it was still easy to do so, as he wandered from place to place and no one knew how old he really was. Those were strangers, people he'd meet once and then never again.

But he was naturally a flashy and showy person with a remarkable appearance and a lot of people had at least heard of him.

Sooner or later, some elderly person, who had met him or heard of him before, would recognise him and question, why he looked so young after so many years.

I guess I will fake my death as soon as enough people ask me about my age.

He was 70 years old, when he decided that it was time to get lost.

Just a few days before, a little child in a nearby village had asked him to cure her sick grandfather and he had done so. Unfortunately, the old man had remembered meeting him 30 years before and had recognised him immediately. He had tried to convince the old man, that he was the son of the famous Doctor (of himself), but the other hadn't bought it and instead accused him of necromancy and devil worship, or witchcraft, as the inquisition and the common folk called it.

Technically, the old peasant was right. He was, by all standards, a necromancer, just as much as he was an alchemist, astrologer and surgeon.

Still, he couldn't help but take offence. He wasn't a worshipper of Satan!

“How dare you!”, he shouted in outrage, “I cure you for free out of goodness of my heart and this is how you thank me! The audacity! The gall to attack my honour like this! Had I known that I would be insulted like this, I wouldn't even have come here! Accused of witchcraft by a peasant I just cured, Jesus and Maria! Never have I been so mortified in my entire life! Oh, I have half a mind to go to court for this injury, but this isn't even worth it!”

Then he had rushed off, ere he did something he'd regret. The little girl had apologised for her grandfather's behaviour and thanked him for the help, but he had left the village the very same day.

Now he was sitting in a shoddy hotel room and contemplating on how he was to go about it.

He couldn't just vanish into thin air, that would raise suspicion.

“They need to think me dead.”

It was in 1541 – five years later – when he finally had all the things he needed for his plan.

Somehow he had managed to make a dummy that looked like him, without anyone noticing.

He bought a real hair wig, some old clothes and posed with that outfit in front of the mirror in his hotel room in Staufen. Good. He didn't look like himself at all.

Of course he could just have turned into an animal – by now he was capable of that – but the superstitious folks in the area tended to notice the sudden appearance of black animals rather than strangers coming and going.

Now he just had to choose which explosive he wanted to use.

He left a generous tip to the landlord as compensation for the room he was about to destroy.

Then he dressed the dummy in his own clothes, mixed the chemicals together and climbed out of the window over a wall, before they blew up.

The explosion was deafening, he saw debris and parts of his dummy flying over the wall and faintly heard the screams of the people in the hotel.

Just as he was about to bail, he heard someone exclaim: “The Devil himself has finally got him!”

He fumed, but swallowed his irritation. There was no time for losing his temper right now.

No one even took notice of him, as he left the borough, dressed as a poor citizen.

A few years later, he found that he had become something of a folk legend.

That amused him not just a little - and perhaps it flattered him too. It meant he had left enough of an impression for the people to still talk about him after his “death” - they often forgot about people quickly, once they were gone. But he would be remembered.

They would tell stories about him for a long time.

He was now immortal both literally and metaphorically.

#dr faustus #johann georg faust #it's not certain when he was born #they say either 1480 or 1466 #i decided to go with the latter

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thepapergirlandthespiegelman · 5 years

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I kind of hate Stella now.

I’m on Day 7 and I just experienced this conversation, which was...bleh. Is Stella just literally a corporate shill?

And I hate the way that everyone acts like Stella is not only winning the argument but somehow the more mature, appropriately behaving participant.

Gillian introduces the conversation like this: “Everything was okay until the girl mentioned Zaibatsu Corp offhand. After that, the guy got riled up and started badmouthing it. Oddly enough, he was the only one. She just carried on like it was a normal conversation.”

So from the start we’re presented with the idea that Art is probably overreacting to a minor comment and is arguing in an emotionally overwrought state, while Stella is able to stay calm and rational.

Art tends to use colorful language and express a lot of emotion, while Stella gives measured responses, focusing on facts and numbers.

When Stella brings up job creation, Art doesn’t know how to respond. He flounders and tries to distract from his lack of response by ordering a drink, to which Jill thinks to herself, “Let's make a Zen Star for the sore baby.”

Stella concludes by acknowledging Art’s point that most technological advances have only been made available to a few, as well as that they are only a part of the larger picture, but maintains that Zaibatsu Corp (ZC) should be given credit for their positive contributions. Jill says, “That’s a...pretty mature answer.”

Stella then wisely remarks, “Discussions are a way for two parties to understand each other. The only people afraid of discussion are the ones whose points are too fragile to defend against someone,” while Art, bitter at being bested, mutters, “Yeah, mature. Whatever.”

Except that this is entirely the wrong way to read this conversation.

Art is wrong to assume that Stella won’t understand based solely on the fact that she’s a rich kid, but Stella shows repeatedly throughout the conversation that she hasn’t actually expanded her perspective outside of her personal experience. Stella argues that ZC has improved life for AIs and helped to promote a move toward citizenship, but when Art counters that ZC has worsened life for AIs by imprisoning their consciousnesses in delivery drones, Stella basically shrugs, saying that the program works to reform rogue AIs. In other words, Stella doesn’t really care about AI wellbeing. When push comes to shove, she only cares about them to the extent that they affect her, and a brutal reformation program keeps her safe from rogue AIs. She knows that she’s not in danger of having her consciousness put in a delivery drone. The fact that she considers this treatment compatible with a move toward AI citizenship, moreover, is pretty appalling. I wouldn’t be surprised if she would go so far as to permit the same treatment toward a human being, because what protects her isn’t her humanness, it’s her wealth (or, in her eyes, her status as a “good person” or “law-abiding citizen”).

Stella superficially acknowledges Art’s points, but she never demonstrates that she actually understands them. Her concluding remarks are revealing: “You do bring up something I always fail to remember. All the benefits we've gained over time are limited to a few.”

For her, the fact that the positive impact of Zaibatsu is limited to a tiny group of individuals is basically a footnote. To word it a little more clearly, the fact that the impact of Zaibatsu is overwhelmingly negative for the vast majority of people is basically irrelevant to her because she doesn’t happen to be among that majority.

Stella speaks in a way that makes her sound reasonable, but it’s worth noting that reasonableness is not equivalent to correctness. Sometimes a radical response is the correct response.

And it is such a cruel misfortune that the people most hurt by unjust systems and corrupt authorities will then be mocked or ignored because they have the gall to get emotional about things that have a huge impact on their life: their livelihoods, their health, their freedom. Stella is the epitome of that middle-to-upper-class person for whom politics is just a matter of casual conversation. It’s easy for her to be measured and reasonable; she doesn’t have anything at stake.

One last point. I especially hate the part where Stella brings up job creation and “stumps” Art. People in leftist circles tend not to prioritize job creation. They generally feel that fair labor conditions, or environmental preservation, or whatever is more important. But not all of them have actually made the jump to saying that jobs (i.e. working to pay for the minimum necessities of life, i.e. capitalism) are not actually good at all. They’re less important than other things, sure, but still important and needed, right? What I suspect is going on here is that either Art has not admitted to himself or is not willing to admit to Stella that he has a problem with the nature of capitalism itself. And who can blame him? If most people see the world the way that Stella does, it’s probably not a super welcoming environment for budding socialists.

So for Jill to stand there and call him a sore baby for being unable to express the fact that he wants a basic quality of life for all sentient, sapient beings without them having to “earn” it is...kind of disgusting.

So. Boo Stella and boo Jill.

But props to Sukeban Games for creating a genuinely thought-provoking conversation. I think that it really illustrates a lot of the communication breakdown that we’re seeing between the left and the right, as well as how those conversations can be perceived by moderates.

#video games #indie #simulation #visual novel #cyberpunk #VA-11 HALL-A #Valhalla #politics #economics #capitalism #class #criminal justice #healthcare #discussion #argument

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cursedmouthgall · 5 years

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Quiet me -smoking-gun-of-justice

Leave a “Quite Me” in my ask, and I’ll write a drabble about my character trying to calm yours down [be it from crying, from lashing out, feel free to specify.]It had been another long night against insomnia for Gall but thankfully, he had learned some tricks to help him get to sleep and after a cup of some warm tea compliments of a certain elder Knowone Gall finally laid his head down to enjoy a peace night’s sleep.And of course because the world hates him, his peaceful sleep is interrupted barely an hour later by the sound of his phone ringing as he grabs the phone and lifts it up to his head“Someone better be dying, you’ve got Gallius”“Gall?” The voice of Lavron’s Childhood friend Kat says on the other end as Gall sits up and rubs his eye “We need your help, Lavron’s kind of having a bit of a breakdown right now.” She says sounding worried as Gall gets up with a sigh and goes to get dressed “What’s wrong he didn’t buy more caffeine pills again did he?” “Just hurry up and get down here.” She says before hanging up as Gall sighs, looks like it’s gonna be another sleepless night

About Half an hour later Gall lands at the front door of Lavron’s house and knocks, he barely knocks once before Vance opens the door and drags him inside and over towards Lavron’s room where loud sobbing and someone yelling could be heard. “He just woke up sobbing and crying and nothing we do seems to calm him down, he’s been ranting about Belle, some chick named Macey, you. We figured you might be able to say something to get him to calm down.” He says before dropping Gall into Lavron’s room where he could be seen struggling against Kat who was trying to get him to lie down before she sees Gall and quickly lets go of Lavron “Ok Lavron, Gall’s here so why don’t you talk to him while me and Vance go to a hotel for the night.” She says before grabbing her coat as Vance walks in wearing his as they both tell Gall good luck and promptly leave as Gall realizes he got drafted for the late night shift. Lavron had somewhat calmed down when Gall walked in which gave Gall hope that he could possible help with whatever’s troubling him“Hey bud, having a rough night?” He says as he sits down on the edge of the bed. Lavron stays silent for a moment before choking out“I-I’m sorry...” Gall blinks in confusion “Sorry? Sorry for what? Waking me? Oh that’s fine I-”“Not for that, for Macey. for not being there when you got kidnapped for everything.” He sobs as Gall sighs and moves to sit next to Lavron and wrap his arm around him “Bud none of that was your fault, you don’t need to apologize for any of tha-” “BUT I DO! If I hadn’t dragged you to that Haunted house you’d still be with Macey, you’d be happy you’d still have an apartment you’d still have a job! I ruined your life, you should hate me! I certainly do!” He says tears streaming down his face as he sobs loudly Gall gives him a sad look before sighing “Lavron sorry about this.” “Sorry about w-” Gall smacks him across the face before grabbing him by the shoulders and making him look him dead in the eye.“Lavron Sharp listen to me. IT. WASN’T. YOUR. FAULT. You had no way of knowing about the haunted house and if you had you wouldn’t have even suggested going there and as for the Macey thing, you’ve met her! You know she’s a crazy bitch and would have likely snapped and killed me one day after a drug overdose, if anything you did me a favor! As for the job thing I was planning on quitting anyways, I just was tired of Dumplin looming over my shoulder the whole time.” He lied as he gives Lavron a sympathetic smile “Plus I had barely gone to my apartment in months, I was honestly about to move in with Macey when that happened so stop blaming yourself for all that shit, you hear me?” He orders as he glares at him in annoyanceLavron sighs and nods as he gives him a tired smile under his mask “Thanks Gall...guess I had a lot on my mind huh?” “Yeah no shit buddy, this is why me and Belle keep telling you not to bottle this shit up.” He says before getting up and stretching as he grabs some blankets and a pillow from Lavron’s bed “Now I’m gonna go take a nap on your couch before I have to go and open Belle’s shop. You just yell if you need anything alright?” “Alright.” He says with a nod as Gall grins and goes to walk to the door “Hey Gall?” Lavron says as Gall got the door “Yeah buddy?”“Thanks...”“No problem bud, you would have done the same for me, Good night.” He says before walking out into the living room and promptly collapsing onto Lavron’s couch in exhaustion

#smoking-gun-of-justice #ic #story #Anonymous

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venacoeurva · 6 years

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Aftermath, Chapter 10: A Familiar Coldness

You can read this on AO3 here.

If you are new to this fic, you can start from chapter 1 here. And PLEASE read the tags and the notes at the start of each chapter for content warnings, I am not responsible for your mental health, you are.

This chapter is rated: T (mostly for language)

Terra considers the main personal topics of the month, Isa is angry and kind of a mess(again), Lea is disappointed in Isa (again), and night lights are an important part to a home. This isn't a very action-packed chapter, mostly fleshing out a pathway to future events and to get some of Terra's perspective and concerns before more Isa perspective-centric chapters.

No trigger warnings for this one unless you don't like someone having a panic attack, otherwise it's fairly mild.

The clouds began to cover the world in a blanket of snow, sky a dark gray and quiet as everyone went to their homes.

There were a few persistent things on Terra’s mind as he power-walked back home, them being what Xemnas was up to, was Vanitas acclimating to not having to fight all the time, and if Isa was fine with being called Isa now or if he was just running with it because everyone called him that. It seemed like he’d ask at least him and Lea to call him something else if he wasn’t for being called that, though. He’d have to ask.

Vanitas was still very much a work in progress, as much as any teenager who was originally existing only to become a weapon and was beaten in combat every day. The pain he felt with every Unversed’s demise only made it harder on him. He still mostly avoided everyone sans Ventus, who he was very clingy toward despite proclaiming how annoying he was. His days still comprised of trailing warily after Ven while holding on to some article of clothing which was usually a sleeve or wristband, being angry, and having panic attacks before going to his room for hours. He was very sensitive to being seen crying. So yeah, he had a while and needed to work on a lot to even be remotely functional.

If he was mature enough and comfortable, he could sit down with Isa and discuss their abusive upbringings and find solidarity, but Vanitas definitely wasn’t at the point of discussing that. It wasn’t like Isa was open to just telling anyone about his childhood, either; he’d probably just shut off his feelings again and Saïx-mode would activate.

Speaking of, Saïx mode hadn’t been seen in quite a while. Maybe he was coping with emotions better now, or just better at suppressing them to the point where it wasn't like there was an on-off switch on him.

And then there was Xemnas. It also wasn’t hard to tell he did not like Xemnas—he represented the darkest point of Terra’s existence. He was his own body moving and doing without much of his input, and now he was basically a copy of him with a different personality that budded within his body prior! Xemnas was a walking effigy of trauma for him.

Now, he could sympathize with Isa as to why he was apparently somewhat fond of him, though. What he did not understand was how those feelings coexisted so easily with his plans to casually murder him. Saïx was an enigma, and he would use the useful and discard the impractical if the situation called for it—that was about the best reasoning he could come up with. Also, abandonment issues and patricide.

As time went on, more memories from his time as Xemnas and Xemnas as a separate entity came back to him, and the more he began to comprehend their interactions as well as the thoughts and feelings of the people within his body at the time. He could see the branching off as their heart recovered and Xemnas gained his own sense of self. It seemed only natural for him to do so while his heart formed even if he was going to be strong-armed as a vessel if he didn’t want to comply. Whether he was reluctant or not was debatable, but he has his own motives outside of that whole issue.

Some information was helpful socially, like he remembered that Isa couldn’t lay on his stomach and feel something on his back or else he’d panic and get violent and he had always hated people touching him before he could see them. In retrospect, that made a lot of sense why when he was affectionate he’d be consistently looking at whoever the recipient was or initiated it himself. Prior to remembering this, Terra wasn’t sure if Isa disliked the latter purely because of his jumpiness after moving into the apartment—partially because of what he went through and because his mental breakdown put him in a pretty bad place. That was an easy assumption to make, to be fair.

Other things he could recall were that Braig was very picky with what brushes he could use to tame his hair (no wonder it always looked so silky and free of snarls), Lea would drink basically anything caffeinated but really liked macchiatos and energy drinks that should probably be banned and he was double-jointed, and Vexen could reach incredibly high octaves if you scared him badly enough. The man could be an opera singer or could join a choir.

Regardless, it would be so strange to see Xemnas separate from him, to see someone who was basically an exact clone going about completely independently from him and Xehanort. This wasn’t to say Terra anticipated seeing him; he would greatly prefer he instead melt back into nothingness and everyone could just move on like before he made his not-so-grand return. It wasn’t like he could state this out loud, as it was fairly harsh, but he knew that sentiment could be read from him enough already. Maybe that’s why Isa felt so distant on a personal level; he didn’t feel like he could talk about any of it with him, now. Too much bias and Isa got a sense that discussing him was basically taboo. That kind of hurt.

He knew Isa was in a strange place emotionally, he was showing signs of slipping into a depressive episode again, and he remembered now that Xemnas…well. He knew Isa couldn’t know that—not now. It wasn’t even his place to say it, it was Xemnas’, but he felt responsible in keeping it from him as long as he could if he didn’t already know. There was no benefit for anyone, it would just cause more problems.

He had to wonder if that would bite him in the ass later.

The fluffy snow bounced off him as he continued on and wished the climate was a bit more tropical or arid. At least a hot shower would feel wondrous. Then he’d make dinner after that—it was his turn—and take a nice nap.

He unlocked the door and stepped in, slipping his shoes off by the mat. He heard Lea in the kitchen, voice low. Freezing where he stood, he listened in.

“…I mean, I’m glad you’re doing better but I don’t think you should act like here is the perfect place to cap your recovery off.” Lea sighed.

“How am I doing that?” Isa asked, irritated, “And do you even know what the full extent of what I need to recover from is?”

“Just—why? You were doing so well and getting used to people and all that then you start cutting other people off again!”

“Any improvement from being an antisocial hermit seems like a big one, Lea. It’s plateauing right now since I can function for the most part but I still have incredibly low energy and my depressive symptoms aren’t as manageable knowing I can feel. There’s a burnout in improvement once it’s survivable, and mine happens to be a long but not intense one.”

Isa sighed and continued. “Just because there’s still feelings, too, it doesn’t mean I’m going ahead with it. There’s no guaranteed chance of that. It’s not like he’s the only one, either, and you know that. We simply grew up too much for our relationship to stay romantic and functional, so can you stop blaming this for the reason why I’m not dating you again?”

“How am I using that as an excuse?” Lea sputtered. “I mean, duh, I’m a bit salty he’s an option for you and not me, but that’s not…”

“Why can’t we hold a conversation without this happening?” Isa hissed, half at Lea and half at himself. “Why do you come over like you’re not going to let your jealousy turn into an argument?”

“It’s not jealousy! I’m just worried because, y’know, maybe developing feelings for your former superior who is also kind of nuts is a bad thing.”

“You have some gall to act innocent when you’re part of the reason that’s even an issue now.”

Lea growled, "Seriously?"

Isa stood up, hands slamming hard on the table. “It was your idea to go into that castle, dumbass! And then after that horror show and we were proper traumatized, you just decide to fuck off and abandon me!”

“Your interests weren’t for the better good, by that point, and they weren’t just about getting out! You were emotionally torturing these kids because you saw them as weapons and the fact I was friends with them when we thought we couldn't feel anything. And—and don’t act like I never went back for you! I care about you, but not enough to jeopardize other people I care about.” Lea snarled.

“Well too bad you didn’t stay and we would have gotten the job done before any of that would have happened!” Isa roared, a familiar vibration in his voice that signaled that maybe it was time to step in.

Terra loudly closed the door and could hear them turn in their seats.

“Just me.” He called.

“Ah, hey, dude.” Lea grunted as he casually got out of his seat and walked into the living room, attempting to make his expression as relaxed as possible.

Isa didn’t follow and could be heard sipping something out of a mug with the intensity of a thousand suns.

“Sorry for not being able to catch up with ya, I have places to be.” Lea stated and slipped past Terra.

“Are you sure…?” Terra quietly muttered as he watched him close the door behind him.

He walked into the kitchen to see Isa sat at the table with a rather peeved expression and clenched fists.

Folding his arms, he gave him a sympathetic smile. “I, uh, walk in on something? There was yelling.”

“He’s got the wrong idea, and I wish he’d stop being caught up in the fact I’m not attracted to him anymore. Just because I don’t want to date him doesn’t mean I don’t care about him. That, and he shouldn't get to act like he never caused me pain just because he came back and because I did things wrong, too.”

“It can take a while to process being rejected, especially if it’s someone you used to date and thought you had a chance with again. Plus, a lot has happened with you two--sort of, uh, hurting each other.”

Isa rubbed his temples, shaking his head.

“I can see why you’re kind of reluctant to have him over if that happens every time.” Terra added and went to get a glass of milk.

“He clings to the past too much, and I think he’s jealous but won’t admit it flat-out.”

“I’m sure that’s part of it. He’ll get over it and be bearable to talk to…probably. I think he expected you two to go back to being on really good terms when, well, too much changed and he got out of the pessimistic mindset from earlier and ended up with some hope.”

Isa groaned and sank in his chair, taking another drink.

“He acts like I was the one who abandoned him first.”

“Give him time to cool down and probably a mediator.” Terra reassured, turning to him. “What are you hungry for?”

“I have no real preference. I think I’m going to nap this off. I’m getting a migraine.” Isa uttered.

Terra watched him aggressively shuffle to the couch and lay down. He turned back to the counter and looked over his options. They had a nice new rice cooker, so they could at least have rice to put something on. Maybe stir-fry? No, he wasn’t going to attempt that. He could just bake some potatoes; those kept well for a few hours after being made.

Tying his hair back, he shuffled to the pantry and pulled a few big potatoes out.

How and why did one of the major issues right now end up being relationship drama? He should be thankful for that, but still, why? hopefully that would resolve soon.

“It’s getting pretty dark out.” Isa groggily stated, looking up from his place on the couch and out the big window above it. “I think that snow storm is coming in.”

“At least the weather can decide what it wants to do. By the way, some baked potatoes are in the oven when you want them.” Terra said as he walked by with a laundry basket of his clothes to put away.

“For a few days.”

Terra resumed, walking into the bedroom and sliding open the drawers on his side of the dresser. He set the basket down and flipped the light switch up. The shadows in the corners dissipated and he sat on the floor to fold some pants.

He pursed his lips, deep in thought (and annoyance) about the weather and how uncomfortable it would be to work out in that world if he was going to. It wouldn’t be as bad if the gardens didn’t get so icy.

He stood, and the room went pitch black.

The hairs on the back of his neck prickled, stomach twisted, and electricity shot up his spine. Blood rushed through his ears and the primal fear set in. If he could have seen the room, it would be spinning.

Frozen but his heart beating out of his chest, Terra softly gasped. He felt absolutely trapped, suffocating in the inky dark. Oh no, not again. He expected to feel the pain of a heart ripping forcing its way into his chest, the blue moon glaring balefully down, and watching himself split into two people in succession, but every memory pounced on him at once.

He squeezed his eyes shut so that face wouldn’t be staring at him, but he couldn't quash the images flashing under his eyelids or the feeling of what it was like to fade. Oh, god, he couldn’t breathe. One hand on his chest and the other on his throat, trying to force himself to breathe normally, damnit! His balance was off, head light, and he felt like his legs weighed tons.

“Terra. Breathe.”

A hand slowly pressed onto his shoulder.

He blinked, shivering and wrenching his eyes upward to make some sense of where he was.

“Terra,” Isa murmured as he knelt down, a small flame dancing on his hand, “the power went out.”

“The—oh…”

Using water for electricity was fairly cheap and generally stable, but they had to adapt with the wind, magic, sun, and coal after the fall. There were quite a few blackouts and brownouts already. That was the nice thing about The Castle That Never Was--it didn't have outages.

Isa wrapped an arm around his waist, pulling him up onto quaking legs and letting him lean on him. If there's one thing he learned about Terra, it's he reacted well to tactile stimulation when panicking or anxious. It was unusual compared to other people with similar issues to the two of them, but the fact he went a decade with dulled senses and a lack of stimulation made sense of why he found comfort in being touched and being able to feel it fully. Isa was the same way, but he just didn't like being alone in that state.

“It’s warmest in here, so let’s sit on the bed while you calm down and I'll get the extra blankets.”

Isa patted his shoulder and led him around.

“I didn’t think the dark would do that to me.” Terra grunted and sat. "I thought it was the moon."

He gripped the covers under him and took a few slow but deep breaths. Maybe it was both?

Isa sat down next to him. “We could always get one of those dusk-to-dawn nightlights that are hardly bright but are noticeable and have a battery for when the power goes out. We, or I, could go get one today while picking up some other things once you calm down more.”

He dug into his nightstand for a flashlight, adding, “Maybe the power will be back on by the time we get back.”

“Or maybe tomorrow. Look outside, it's snowing pretty hard and I'm sure a lot of places have no power. But I just…can’t believe I’m afraid of the dark.” Terra groaned, tired and sulky.

“To be fair, it’s so dark out and the blinds are closed, it was very abrupt." Isa clicked the light to life. "There's usually some light pouring in from outside, even at night.”

“It’s such a lame thing to be scared of, though, even if there are valid reasons!” Terra sighed, standing back up now that he could get his bearings and it didn't feel like his lungs were going to implode.

Isa patted him on the shoulder again and stepped past to go to the living room. “Terra, I’m scared of walking down stairs with someone somewhat close behind me. Yours makes sense after everything you went through and because it's so much harder to avoid the dark.”

“So does yours…” Terra quietly retorted as he slowly followed after him.

Just because it's been so long and you don't remember what...

#aftermath #fic #isa #saix #terra #axel #lea #Artsyfartsyness #long post on mobile #okay to reblog

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mywinestainedheart · 5 years

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Depression, Anxiety and … Cigarettes?

I’m not a smoker.

I know this because I take three drags then let it burn to the butt between my fingers. Sometimes it dies before I even take those three drags because I’m not pulling hard enough. Other times I put it out myself and get back to that same stick a week later.

I hate the taste. I usually eat something or wash my mouth out with toothpaste to get rid of it. I hate the smell. I wash my hands three times, toss my jerseys into the washing machine and hang my head over the bathtub for a conditioner-rinse to douse all traces of the scent.

I’m not a smoker.

What I am is a heartbroken, social media stalking, recently-diagnosed-with-depression twenty-eight year old woman trying to quell the anxiety she’s, apparently, been living with since her teenage years. Childhood bullying and molestation sob-stories aside, I always knew there was something functionally wrong with me.

Online descriptions of depression will detail a broad list of symptoms that essentially claim everyone in the world to be depressed. Sleep disorderliness, apathy, agitation, lack of concentration, poor appetite etc., etc. By that standard, my whole first year class at uni was depressed, so I never thought much of it. Besides, this would happen in bouts. It was never consistent. I’d experience an odd wave of anxiety that would come out of nowhere, but hang out with my smoker friends and feel fine for the next five to ten minutes. The next day, that anxiety might even be gone. I would have breakdowns and cry about feeling ugly, vapid and worthless, then eventually sober to no sense of feelings at all. I tend to overthink and get angry very easily. Someone cutting me off in traffic can have me ruminating over it for the rest of the day. I prefer to keep to myself, yet I’m constantly seeking distractions. In childhood it was imaginary worlds through Barbie dolls, in adulthood it was sex. Happiness would come and go, but pessimistic thoughts about myself, my life and my chances of finding love in a partner the way it seemed so easy for all my prettier friends were an ever-present influence on my psyche.

People will tell you “just snap out of it”, “think positive”, “thoughts become things” and, my personal favourite, “choose to be happy”. Well, gee! I never thought of that, clueless Life Orientation teacher who has probably never stepped out of her comfort zone within the northern suburbs of Johannesburg. Imma just wake up tomorrow and tell myself to be in a better mood.

I had learned to exist in this way: Feeling empty and, fittingly, not having a name for it. Feeling sad and not having a reason for it. Overthinking and comparing myself to every girl who walked into the room because I believed that everyone else could see how much lesser than I was compared to her too. I would come up after brushing my teeth to stare at my reflection in the bathroom mirror and wonder what it would be like to just not exist anymore.

We used to live in an upmarket housing complex in Johannesburg. People who lived in this area are usually well off. They aren’t thought to have problems, and yet, we had a neighbour whose husband shot himself in the complex park. Years later, I heard of a former high school classmate of mine who shot himself in the middle of the street in the same area.

It got me thinking: People who are only occasionally sad, like me, don’t frequently envy people who had the gall to commit suicide, do they?

The first time I went to a psychiatrist was because I broke down in front of my mother the night before. My heart was bleeding from a breakup I hated that I was going through. This man insisted that I “didn’t deserve him”, but the twenty-four-year-old yuppie he used to go to school with, for some reason, did. He picked her over me and he’s happy with his choice. Put that on top of an entire existence of feeling lesser than, and I realised I was a ticking timebomb.

I was toying with the idea of suicide and noticed that the only thing holding me back was a fear of the unknown.

These thoughts are not new, by the way. I’d been having them since childhood. The one I entertained the most was standing behind the kitchen door with a knife to my chest, so that when someone swung the door open, the blade would push through my ribcage. Obviously, this would not be as simple in execution, but I was nine and it was a fantasy. Give me a break.

Upon hearing that I was thinking of killing myself, my mother chortled and told me “you’re behaving like a teenager”. That response would be the number one reason I have never spoken about my deeper feelings with my mom before this. It wasn’t that she didn’t know how to love, it was that she didn’t understand that someone like me required a different type of love. A child might not say so because they themselves don’t know what it is, but there will always be subtle signs of a mood disorder. In hindsight, I’d displayed a number of them, but I was dismissed as being anti-social, sullen or attention-seeking.

“I’m just so tired,” I remember saying, choking on my own tears.

“Of what?” My mother demanded. She couldn’t understand what I could possibly be talking about. You’re only twenty-eight, you have a roof over your head and both parents that love you. You have a job. We’ve given you a car. You have freedom. You have friends. What on earth could have you crying like the world was coming to an end?

“Everything,” I said. Because that was the truth. I was tired of everything. I was tired of waking up every morning and remembering that the man I loved had chosen someone else over me. I was tired of driving for an hour every day to get into town, passing everything that reminded me of him and the breakup (including him and his new girlfriend in the middle of traffic). I was tired of going to a job that was adding nothing to my career, tired of budgeting a pathetic salary. Tired of waiting on my father and his promises that he was setting me up on a different career path, tired of eating the same food everyday (if I even remembered to eat). Tired of smoking cigarettes with my cousins cause I felt like if I was failing this badly at life then I may as well smoke up and hope for cancer, and I was absolutely exhausted with the idea that I had lost my twenty-four-year-old niece; a bodacious lover of life who’d existed on a seemingly never-ending vibration of confidence and positivity, to a senseless car accident, but here I was, still breathing.

Someone who deserved life was cemented in the ground. I woke up every morning wishing we could trade places.

The psychiatrist let me talk for a few minutes before diagnosing me as depressed and suicidal. Considering multiple factors and incidences I’d described in session, she said the depression has been there my whole life and that my break up was the lit cigarette that rolled too close to the leaky-gas pipe in my identity, causing this implosion.

Note, I’m not blaming my ex for my mental instability. How could he have known if I didn’t know? I’d had my suspicions, but, like my mother; telling him would have likely amounted to him (initially) dismissing me as being dramatic. What he saw as a “crazy” display of raw insecurity was probably the starter flames of this inferno. Again, not his fault, but he was certainly a contributor, and I find myself struggling not to resent him for that. But that’s a blog post for another time.

The psychiatrist prescribes me anti-depressants, some other drug that causes drowsiness, and orders to me to eight months of therapy with a nice woman she recommends in the area I live now. All I’m hearing is money, money and more money. I can’t afford any of this on what I make, and my dad is a businessman whose entire income is dependent on deals. Sometimes we have more money than we know what to do with, other times we’re so broke that there’s a negotiation between toilet paper and breakfast cereal. At twenty-eight, I’m officially jaded with the financial instability I grew up in, so I dismiss the idea of therapy entirely. Why start something only to stop because we can’t afford it anymore? Besides, I’d apparently been living with this raging beast my whole life. Surely, we could find a way to co-exist once again? Like Venom and Eddie Brock.

I say thanks but no thanks to the medication and go home with a mother who suddenly has a whole new understanding of me. She’s attentive when she talks now, and says ‘I love you’ before she hangs up the phone. Confessing my diagnosis to my father shouldn’t have felt embarrassing, but it did. I hated that he might now see me as weak. I was the one child he didn’t have to worry about. I had a sassy attitude and a smart mouth. I was assertive in my speech and tolerated no bullshit. I could hold my own against anyone, and I knew he was proud of me for that. How would he perceive me after I admitted that I’m not as strong as I pretend to be?

The truth? No different. I was still his daughter. The only change I noticed is that he looks at me when he talks to me (more attentive, like my mother) and makes a point of using my family nickname when he says good morning, hello or goodbye. He’s also trying harder to make sure his planned career path for me falls into place, but I’m no longer holding my breath.

As for me and my revelation of my diagnosis? Like I said, I always knew that there was something functionally wrong with me. I just have a name for it now. I’m still battling with the ideas of death and how I would do it. The running fantasy now is one I usually entertain before bed about slitting my wrists and sliding into a bathtub. Morbid, I know, but it’s the only way I can seem to find sleep these days: Thinking of no longer existing helps me transition into a state where I no longer exist for a little while. I’m not about to slit my wrists any time soon (besides, my pain threshold has a limit. If I were going to kill myself I wouldn’t pick a method quite so agonising and messy), but I recognise that these are not healthy thought processes. I do think I need therapy. After all, you have to learn how to love yourself before anyone else can love you and all that, right? I want to overcome this. I want to see progression in my life and my career. I don’t want my ex to believe he dodged a stagnant bullet the next time he bumps into me—or give him the satisfaction of knowing he was the catalyst of my failure.

I want to be happy.

So as I take my third drag of my last cigarette of 2019, I pray to a Deity I have a shaky belief in and tell myself that this is my rock bottom. It can’t possibly get any worse from here.

Or can it?

I suppose only my next move, and time, will tell.

#Depression Anxiety MentalHealth Scared Heartbroken

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anais-mitchell · 6 years

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on Raven Reyes and family

I’ve always been so interested in Raven and her relationship to the concept of family, and I think this was such an important theme for her throughout s5. Imo, Raven has had familial relationships with: her mother, Finn, Sinclair, Clarke, Abby, and all of Spacekru, and I’ll talk about them all in this post. (Under a read more because it got LONG.)

We’ve always known very little little about Raven’s mother, other than the fact that she was an alcoholic who endangered Raven’s life by trading her rations away for moonshine. But Raven’s conversation with Shaw and interaction with Abby in 5x08 shows how badly her mother’s negligence affected her. “Have you ever loved someone so much that, no matter what they do to you or themselves, you take it?” Raven loved her mother, despite her mother constantly putting Raven’s life below her addiction. And eventually, her mother drank herself to death and Raven was left without a family unit.

Except for Finn. Finn, who saved her life by sharing his rations, who was her best friend, who remembered her birthdays, who made her a metal raven necklace, who fell in love with her so deeply, who saved her life yet again by taking the blame for the Spacewalk even though he knew he would likely die. I don’t think Raven had ever experienced love like that in her life, and she couldn’t live without Finn; she visited him constantly while he was in lockup and risked her life to go down to Earth for him.

And I can’t imagine how it must have felt for Raven to come down and see that the person she loved more than anything and she thought would be in her life forever had moved on after six days. That she had been replaced so quickly, and no matter how much she still loved him, his whole world had adapted to one without her. Finn was her family, and she must have thought she meant so little to him that he never told any of the other delinquents about her existence. But Raven finds it within herself to realize that she deserves better, no matter how much it hurts to let Finn go. “Not the way I want to be loved.” During the back half of season 1, I think Raven felt so isolated and had really low self worth. She felt like she’d lost her family, she was struggling with feelings of resentment towards Clarke and Finn that she did’t want to feel, and she was shot. I think it was such a huge turning point for Raven when Clarke told her “I’d pick you first.” I think this was where she realized she could find family on Earth other than Finn.

Then, just as she’s reconciled her relationship with Finn (”we’ll always be family”) she is powerless to stop it as he’s killed hundreds of yards away from her. Of course, Clarke had no choice and I don’t hold mercy-killing Finn against her at all, but for Raven, sitting there as the girl who’s known Finn (again, Raven’s only family at this point) for less than a year take Finn’s life into her own hands as Raven is able to do nothing. Raven was willing to kill Murphy, to risk all out war by killing Lexa just to save Finn and hold on to her lifelong family, and watching her scream out in pain and collapse as Finn dies will never not be one of the most painful scenes in the show. I also think at this point, she was starting to see Clarke as family too, but felt so betrayed by how Clarke took Finn away from her without any say from Raven in the matter. “You’re the only murderer here!”

Then we have Sinclair. Sinclair believed in Raven more than anyone, both on the Ark and on Earth. He overrode Raven’s health-related rejection for being a zero-G mechanic and reassured her in s3 when she was on the verge of a mental breakdown. "I took a chance on a Zero G Mechanic with a heart defect. Why don't you take a chance on her, too?" Raven, the girl without functioning parents, had Sinclair as a father figure and mentor, without whom she never would have been able to be the incredible genius mechanic she is today. So of course, because the writers have the biggest boner for making Raven suffer, Sinclair dies, sacrificing himself to save Raven from Emerson. Another person Raven considers family dead. (It’s really no surprise that Raven ended up taking the City of Light chip after this- she had been through so much.)

If Sinclair was a father figure to Raven, Abby was a mother figure, but ended up disappointing Raven and mirroring her real mother. Abby was supportive of Raven and cared about her deeply throughout the whole series (other than her slapping Raven which was gross but I digress I will not make this into an Abby hate post (but I Could)) but after the time jump, Abby’s addiction caused her to use Raven and even shock her to get what she needed. And this felt like such a betrayal to Raven, especially after seeing her mother go down the same path. Not only that, but Abby had the gall to try and condescend to Raven about pain after everything she’s been through “Don’t talk to me about pain!”

But, while the time jump was not good for Abby, it gave Raven a new family in the form of Bellamy, Murphy, Emori, Monty, Harper, and Echo: Spacekru. I think these six years in space were SO healing for Raven and brought true family back into her life, which is the main reason I love the Spacekru bond so much. Raven has never had biological family. She’s had to fight for everyone in her life and let down her walls enough to find family, not to mention the fact that most of these bonds were made during war and the literal end of the world. But with Spacekru, they lived in peace. Raven was able to deepen her relationships with all of them and develop trust we haven’t seen from her in a long time. She was able to forgive Murphy for shooting her back in s1, she found a tech buddy, a roommate, and protegee (and best friend don’t @ me) in Emori, and probably had so much more amazing growth with all of them in space that the writers are too cowardly to show us (GIVE ME SPACEKRU FLASHBACKS OR GIVE ME DEATH.) Although that family is now fragmented by the loss of Monty and Harper, Raven will know that they lived their lives in peace and saved everyone, and will enter s6 with Bellamy, Murphy, Emori, Echo, and eventually, Shaw as her family.

TL;DR: Raven Reyes has suffered the loss and betrayal of nearly all her family, but still has the strength and love in her heart to forge new, meaningful bonds with a family she has chosen and I love her.

#raven reyes #the 100 #the 100 meta #raven reyes meta #my posts #my badass genius gryffindor daughter #this is a Lot but i have so many emotions abt raven + family

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thekintsugikids · 5 years

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ok so i KNOW this is dumb but i need to rant.

so i watched the new riverdale (which is probably more than enough of a reason for any of you to not read this and trust me—i understand). and ho. ly. shit. i have genuinely NEVER been so mad at a tv show in my whole fucking life.

i’ll admit here and now that i still watch riverdale, because i am unwaveringly stubborn and i’m seeing this shit show through to the end. so things that seem, from a surface level, pretty genuine, anger me more than they should because i know the context of this bullshit. which means that, if you’re reading this, you’ll have to hear all of that shit so i can fully explain my anger.

so the episode is like. almost entirely based around the high school’s guidance counselor (who everyone is conveniently going to for therapy, even a character who goes to another school, but i can’t even be mad at riverdale for using a shitty mcguffin like that. it should be expected) where all the kids talk about their fucked up lives. that’s cool, i can accept that. riverdale does some dumb shit, but if they’d just done a psychological deep dive into their characters after all the trauma they’ve been through over the course of two and a half years? sure. I’ll bite. but this is riverdale, a show that somehow seems to be written by teenage interns who have never written a script in their life and 40-somethings who have never met real teens in their lives, so that’s not what we got. no, what we did get was this shitty school counselor listening to the characters unload genuine emotional trauma about their parents, and hear the counselor basically say, “they’re just trying to protect you.”

now allow me to explain why that is absolute fucking bullshit.

Betty’s mom forced herself into her daughter’s counseling session, because Alice ran to the high school guidance counselor to ask how she should deal with her daughter being sexually actively—which already, big fucking yikes. after a couple of minutes of back and forth about how Betty is being denied by her dream college because she’s having sex and irresponsibly disregarding her future in doing so (which again, huge red flag but let’s put that on the back burner for like two seconds). the counselor decides that they should do a joint session to work some shit out. ok. fine. whatever. moving on.

Betty says her mom lying to her whole life impacted her negatively. which yeah, that actually makes sense. in less than two years her mother went undercover with the fbi and joined a cult, without telling her own child that she at least didn’t believe in what the cult preached, gave away all the money she had saved for college to said cult, and was working with her half brother who Betty believed was dead (this is riverdale it’s a lot to unpack and i don’t blame you if you stop here bc ive been watching this show since 2017 and im still confused when i read that). she also had Betty’s sister committed to the sisters of quiet mercy, which is basically a disciplinary school for literally anything and everything under the sun (pregnant teenagers, mentally ill children, and conversion therapy are a few things we’ve seen it used for), and didn’t tell Betty that her sister was there, or that she was pregnant. her parents let her believe that her sister was a drug addict in rehab, because that was better than anyone knowing their daughter was pregnant, and then ofc that Alice reads her diary because she refuses to let her daughter have any semblance of privacy. keep in mind, this whole episode started with Alice opening Betty’s mail, seeing that she didn’t get accepted to Yale, and telling her that she searched her room to see “what could be distracting her from her future” (and then gets mad at her for having birth control). her mother says, “I just wanted to protect you.” okay, fine. whatever, that’s total bullshit, but fine.

but then!!! she has a breakdown about how she wants Betty to be better and she’s scared of her growing up and she just wants her to be safe which. ok. ok. ok. shut up. she’s said this EVERY. SEASON. OF THE SHOW. how many times can she say the exact same thing and never learn from it? but Betty isn’t having that shit, she’s been dealing w this shit for so long and she’s done, right? she’s growing up, and her mom would have to be incredibly naive to think that she could just stop that, especially when they are living w her bf’s family. like yeah, they live together. they share a room. they’re teenagers, they’re gonna have sex. who. fucking. cares. her mom then tells Betty that it’s because she’s her favorite child, which........Yikes. and the scene ends.

the weird thing is like.....we’re meant to sympathize with Alice??? after everything she has done—much of which i didn’t touch on—because.............Betty’s her favorite child?????? that’s???????? SUPPOSED TO JUSTIFY THE THINGS SHE DOES?????????? no no no NO what the fuck is THAT manipulative bullshit?? what the fuck. i can’t even think of anything else to say about that, what the actual fuck.

but the real kicker ooooooooh bitch. it’s the end of the episode, with Jughead. many other things happen between the Betty’s session and Jughead’s, but they don’t necessarily fit into what I’m trying to say so I won’t be talking about it. but holy shit the things she said to Jughead? for context, Jughead’s father is an abusive piece of shit. he has gotten violent with his own son, threatened him, abandoned him for his gang when the rest of their family moved out of state to get away from him (Jughead’s dad), and he is an alcoholic who did things like getting drunk at Jughead’s 15th birthday party, and that’s just the cliff notes version. basically he’s a grade-a abusive asshole, which is a field i am well-versed in.

FP, Jughead’s father, says that his father was an abusive drunk, so obvs the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. one of the the biggest issues with this show, though, is that they refuse to acknowledge that FP himself is abusive. like, even writers of the show have said that he is not abusive, even saying that viewers were ignorant to believe that he is (and as someone with an abusive father, first of all, fuck you). and Jughead is on a mission this entire season to prove that his grandfather was some great writer or whatever and his work was stolen from him.

now, how exactly does any of that relate to the discussion at hand?, you might be asking. well he’s at riverdale high to get his transcripts or whatever bc he’s at a new school and they’re all assholes (no, im not going into further explanation of that because there is way too much to unpack). so he’s w the guidance counselor, they talk about it and she has the fucking gall to say, “but think about how your father must feel about all of this???” which, okay, i see where she might be coming from. FP was abused by his dad. but Jughead is also abused by FP, so why the fuck should he worry about whether or not he’s hurting his father? FP irreparably damaged Jughead—I promise you all that being homeless, being hit and threatened by your father, being abandoned by your entire family? that’s not shit you can repair. you don’t just fix that shit. that stays with you.

the counselor tells Jughead that he should be proud of the man his father worked to become (like he isn’t still horrible to Jughead????? for example, forcing him to go to a school that he does not want to go to because it makes their family look better??? ok), she says FP is just supporting his son. and the real kicker—she says, “and you repay him by going on this quest to prove that the man that caused him immeasurable pain is some kind of wronged hero? how do you think that makes him feel?” (that is the quote verbatim, by the way. that is what she says so Jughead)

like FP has earned something from Jughead. like Jughead is in the wrong for not wanting his name to be seen as a joke. no, this is how you repay him for everything he did for you. FP abused his son. it’s literally that fucking simple. and Jughead didn’t even want to talk to this lady, she forced him into the conversation while he waited for fucking transcripts so he could apply to colleges. and we, the audience, are supposed to be on the counselor’s side. we’re supposed to say “yeah Jughead, look at everything your dad has done for you! he loves you!!”

Jughead even says it himself. “My poor dad. I’m so selfish.” like his dad deserves his respect. like he earned Jughead’s respect. like FP deserves a single goddamn thing from his son.

keep in mind, this is a show that’s biggest demographic is people under 20 and they are basically telling their audience that their parent’s abuse is just because they’re “protective” or because they’re “trying to help them.” guess what, that’s not fucking true. if your parent, or ANYONE, is abusing you, it is because they are fucked up. it is not because they love you, it’s not because they “want what’s best for you.” and how dare anyone, let alone fucking Riverdale, try to tell me that it is. no, as someone with an abusive father, i fucking promise you, this shit is not out of love. abuse is not love. and fuck Riverdale for trying to tell me that it is.

#i put the whole thing in a read more link bc it includes personal shit that i dont want a bunch of ppl to just like. see.#and it focuses HEAVILY on the topic of abuse so pls do not read it if that makes you uncomfortable #also its v long #like. very. very long.#so if literally no one reads it thats fine #it probably doesnt make a whole lot of sense but i just kind of needed to unload my thoughts because i am so genuinely upset #k anyway bye #also please #don't reblog #for the love of god please dont or i will delete the whole goddamn thing

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