#due to circumstances beyond my control I have failed once again to go to the liquor store and obtain vodka | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

fatuilady · 3 years

Text

— 𝐜𝐫𝐲 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐢𝐭. (NSFW)

✦ word count : 1.7𝐤

✦ feat : 𝐆𝐍 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫 , [𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐧 𝐢𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐜𝐭] 𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐞

✦ cw : 𝐝𝐨𝐦 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫 , 𝐦𝐢𝐫𝐫𝐨𝐫𝐬 , 𝐨𝐫𝐠𝐚𝐬𝐦 𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐢𝐚𝐥 , 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐩𝐬 , 𝐝𝐚𝐜𝐫𝐲𝐩𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐚 , 𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐝 𝐝𝐞𝐠𝐫𝐞𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧

𝖎𝖓 𝖜𝖍𝖎𝖈𝖍 :

— a certain fatui member is insistent that those of his level of importance don't have time to spare to waste on crying. little did he know, his rival intended to take him up on his statement all with the intent to conclude just exactly how much it takes to make a harbinger cry.

'Harbingers don't cry. It's below somebody of my position.'

The fatui's most valued redhead wore his confidence through his infamous, upturned smirk. He held his relaxed arms knotted together in definite security, crossed against his chest as he lifted his chin to further assert his prior statement. Though he spoke in a self-assured tonality, cockiness resonated in his ultimatum.

It was surely said to coax a remark from you, it was too obviously laced with brimming arrogance to not be some form of verbal mouse trap. It was amusing, how he attempted to retain his mirage of false strength.

'Is that so?'

You pursed your lips, allowing him to add to his curiously delusive ideology. His impudence was mildly beguiled and for the first instance in the whole of your passive-aggressive rivalry, his nerve began to agitate every one of yours. Challenging him with a simple three-part chuckle, you observed him as he shifted his posture. Just how much would it take to change his thesis?

'Tears come from weakness, something that I refuse to display.'

On it's own, it was a rather insensitive statement, considering he was by no means unshakeable. You both knew very well that he was going to contradict himself strongly in due time.

He was going to eat those words.

And he was going to like it.

You tied each finger into the auburn wefts atop his head, stray hints of frustration collecting together as he writhes, shifting and squirming. It was something you had discovered in the moment: he was incredibly hair sensitive. The way your nails dug into his tender scalp, pulling on every fibre sent electrical pulses through his skin.

Tugging sharply, you craned his head to the left. From such stark force, he stumbled, both on his feet and on a choked out groan. It was laughable, how quickly the tables turned at your hands.

'Harbingers don't cry?'

His previously smirking lip now quivered as you projected your words right into his ear. Admittedly, he made his statement with an absent mind. Would he have expected such a one-dimensional outlook would leave him back exposed, red-kneed as his rivalling other half forced each of his four limbs into the hardwood?

Would he have expected to warm up so easily to the situation?

No, but it was more likely than he thought.

You alleviated your grip on his hair, consequently dropping him onto his palms. He flinched once more as his forearms quaked, barely able to support the weight of your hefty boot on his lower back. He should have been thankful you blessed him with permission to keep his pants, however the elemental energy you emanated stung his bare back, torturing him as he shivered with anticipation.

'Pathetic, really.'

With utmost care, he peeked behind him through the space between his quivering forelimbs.

Childe's usual front, being the fatui's most infamous prodigy, didn't allow him to show any sign of submissiveness, however, what he saw flushed him with a feeling he'd never even considered before. It was one of desperation.

One of want.

One of need.

A critical shadow cut across your face, cast sinisterly over your newfound sadistic smile. It bore into him, made him feel queasy, weak at the joints. It was wrong for him to feel excitement prickle upon seeing you assert him in such a way. It was wrong for him to betray the very rules of his nation in the name of his own masochistic desire. It was wrong for him to want to brand the outlines of your sick face into his mind with a hot iron. It was wrong for him to indulge in the very actions he enjoyed inflicting on others.

Yet, it felt right to entertain them.

It felt right to submit and toss the coin to it's most opposite face.

It felt all too right to fall prey to his feral instincts.

'P-please...'

The address was barely audible in ordinary circumstances, but in a barren room, it was alarmingly loud. So loud that Childe couldn't recognise his own voice. It was subordinate, faltering and breaking apart with every syllable. The eleventh harbinger had never uttered such a word in his life; it was an address to a superior, something someone of his recognised status would never dream of choking out underneath someone he held such strong taunting against.

You caught ear of what he uttered, much to his controversial dismay. It was indeed a delight to hear on your part. Pressing your boot further into the base of his spine, you revelled in his weary whimpers. For such an accomplished warrior, he seemed particularly weak to human touch. Perhaps it was a double-edged blade, performing so well that no opponent could touch him also meant that in this irregular instance, he upheld the resistance of a flimsy piece of parchment when it came to withstanding another's force. Entertaining this now obvious forbidden fantasy of his, you unsheathed one of the two foils, a particular favourite from your personal arsenal, from the holsters on your back. It was thin, made rigid with elemental energy in the same way that he materialised his own blades.

They suited you well in previous duels, never once had they failed you against the tyranny of the Fatui, so it was unlikely they would betray you against an unarmed, unhelped and so clearly sexually frustrated opponent.

Such a weapon would not have intimidated him usually, in fact, he also knew how to use it perfectly well and precisely. This time, it struck a kind of taboo enjoyment within him. You performed much differently to him in the dance of battle: he was a jack of all trades, you were more concentrated as a master of one. As you leaned into him once more, you traced the charged edge over his shoulder blades, feeling the muscles underneath contract and tense under your fervorous guidance.

Your control was indeed as masterful as he expected, possibly even too much for him.

'What was that?' You mused, through an invasive grin.

He gasped, the last of his depleting reasoning was begging him to come to his senses. It was quickly fading away into mere electrical impulses that made him twitch with every subtle move. Sabre now pressed to his throat, he felt the power of your vision burn into his skin, adam's apple resting uncomfortably on top of the honing edge.

You were waiting impatiently for a response, minutes elapsed and you quickly discovered you would have to coax it out of him. Digging the blade in further, you forced him onto his knees just so he could avoid an accidental demise.

Truthfully, he wouldn't have minded going out this way. If it was to a more despised enemy, he'd turn his nose at even the thought, but with you, his mind wandered like a lost puppy.

'p-please, m-m...'

He seemed as though he was going to choke out another few syllables, but caught himself, or more likely, became tied up on his own tongue.

'I want that in words,'

'f-a-ah~ p-please, [NAME] I-I'll beg, I swe-swear-'

Before he could finish his statement, you disenchanted your foil, allowing it to lose its structure, falling into a long strand connected to a handle. With a careless flick, it coiled around his neck thrice, all whilst leaving an arm's length of cord, more than enough for you to tug on sharply. He jolted upwards, vocals breaking as he wailed.

'Then beg.'

Childe's eyes widened, the sheer cold was like lightning, superconducting across his skin. It felt euphoric, pinning and placing freezing, soothing pressure on each and every torn muscle. Brimming tears started to swell in his waterline.

How utterly humiliating.

'[N-NAME]...m-ma-' he took a moment to swallow back the saliva pooling in his mouth at the sultry thoughts beating him up below, 'm-make me cry.'

'Is that what you want, pretty boy?' He crumbled at the nickname.

'p-prove m~me wrong...'

And there was all the confirmation you needed.

Taking your chance to dual wield your two rapiers, you disenchanted the other and with one forceful swoop, lashed it right across his bare back.

The initial sound was one of pain, but in mutual desire, he melted into the succeeding throbbing, the stinging coaxing unholy sounds to tumble so effortlessly from his lips. He was very well already on his way to Cloud 9, mind spinning with wishful stars as his vision became blurred.

'youre so pretty when you cry,' you cooed, knowing his pants would be far beyond uncomfortable at this point. Another lash.

'f-gahh~ pl-plea-'

Again.

'It's- too- too much,' you leaned down to kiss his blushing earlobes, listening to him sob over his embarrassing request, 'I- n-need t-'

Again.

'Touch yourself? how crude.' Biting the handle of the cord around his neck, you used your now free hand to hook around the front waistband of his pants. 'Go ahead. That is, if you're so desperate to be vulgar.'

You traced the wicked serpents tongue over his back this time.

A thought quickly came to pass. Your vision trinket illuminated a gentle hue as you crystallised the surface in front of him. Puzzled, initially, he only realised it's purpose when he suddenly saw his reflection gaping back at him, scarlet faced with glazed eyes. You had made the surface reflective with elemental energy, all with the purpose of allowing him to see himself come undone at the seams.

'Are you going to begin? or are you to embarrassed to watch yourself?' Leaning into his other ear, you could feel the hot air from his panting, 'would you rather me drag you like a dog all the way back to Snezhnaya so the Tsaritsa can look upon you in this condition?'

The sounds of his muffled moans and wet slapping of raw skin started to fill the room. Just like that.

'I hope you intend to clean this mess you're making, Ajax, you're leaking all over the floor.'

You were more intent now just to watch him cradle himself to desperately over your mere presence alone, how could you resist disrupting him with occasional thrashing, causing him to jerk his hand harshly.

The eleventh harbinger was foaming at the mouth, growing more non-verbal with every shot you took at him like he was merely just a discarded hilichurl training dummy. It was a cocktail of eroticism, pleading whines, tortured whimpers and shameful cries all shaken up as one.

Childe wasn't usually one to complete his process so quickly, mostly saving the build up, so this was something new for him. He made eye contact with you through the makeshift mirror, the look in his eyes telling you he was about to pop. He had discarded his concern for volume long ago, keen to ride out the feeling under your stern supervision. He figured it was drawing to a close soon, so gave it his all.

You didn't like that.

One of your whips wrapped itself around his working hand, tugging it forcefully away from his work. For a brief moment, he had allowed himself to indulge himself to a point where he forgot who's mercy he was under.

'Ajax.'

You trailed your tongue across his salty cheek, the intoxicating taste of your victory turning the flavour sweet.

'Just who said that you could finish?'

It was a guarantee that you would make him cry about it.

This was a mistake on his part.

But boy, was he glad he made it.

#genshin impact #childe #childe genshin impact #tartaglia #sub childe #childe x reader #tartaglia x reader #genshin sub #dom!reader #childe smut #tartaglia smut

765 notes · View notes

duckprintspress · 3 years

Text

Ten Things We Hate About Trad Pub

Often when I say “I’ve started a small press; we publish the works of those who have trouble breaking into traditional publishing!” what people seem to hear is “me and a bunch of sad saps couldn’t sell our books in the Real World so we’ve made our own place with lower standards.” For those with minimal understanding of traditional publishing (trad pub), this reaction is perhaps understandable? But, truly, there are many things to hate about traditional publishing (and, don’t get me wrong - there are things to love about trad pub, too, but that’s not what this list is about) and it’s entirely reasonable for even highly accomplished authors to have no interest in running the gauntlet of genre restrictions, editorial control, hazing, long waits, and more, that make trad pub at best, um, challenging, and at worst, utterly inaccessible to many authors - even excellent ones.

Written in collaboration with @jhoomwrites, with input from @ramblingandpie, here is a list of ten things that we at Duck Prints Press detest about trad pub, why we hate it, and why/how we think things should be different!

(Needless to say, part of why we created Duck Prints Press was to...not do any of these things... so if you’re a writer looking for a publishing home, and you hate these things, too, and want to write with a Press that doesn’t do them...maybe come say hi?)

1. Work lengths dictated by genre and/or author experience.

Romance novels can’t be longer than 90,000 words or they won’t sell! New authors shouldn’t try to market a novel longer than 100,000 words!

A good story is a good story is a good story. Longer genre works give authors the chance to explore their themes and develop their plots. How often an author has been published shouldn’t put a cap on the length of their work.

2. Editors assert control of story events...except when they don’t.

If you don’t change this plot point, the book won’t market well. Oh, you’re a ten-time bestseller? Write whatever you want, even if it doesn’t make sense we know people will buy it.

Sometimes, a beta or an editor will point out that an aspect of a story doesn’t work - because it’s nonsensical, illogical, Deus ex Machina, etc. - and in those cases it’s of course reasonable for an editor to say, “This doesn’t work and we recommend changing it, for these reasons…” However, when that list of reasons begins and ends with, “...because it won’t sell…” that’s a problem, especially because this is so often applied as a double standard. We’ve all read bestsellers with major plot issues, but those authors get a “bye” because editors don’t want to exert to heavy a hand and risk a proven seller, but with a new, less experienced, or worse-selling author, the gloves come off (even though evidence suggests time and again that publishers’ ability to predict what will sell well is at best low and at worst nonexistent.)

3. A billion rejection letters as a required rite of passage (especially when the letters aren't helpful in pinpointing why a work has been rejected or how the author can improve).

Well, my first book was rejected by a hundred Presses before it was accepted! How many rejection letters did you get before you got a bite? What, only one or two? Oh…

How often one succeeds or fails to get published shouldn’t be treated as a form of hazing, and we all know that how often someone gets rejected or accepted has essentially no bearing on how good a writer they are. Plenty of schlock goes out into the world after being accepted on the first or second try...and so does plenty of good stuff! Likewise, plenty of schlock will get rejected 100 times but due to persistence, luck, circumstances, whatever, finally find a home, and plenty of good stuff will also get rejected 100 times before being publishing. Rejections (or lack there of) as a point of pride or as a means of judging others needs to die as a rite of passage among authors.

4. Query letters, for so many reasons.

Summarize all your hard work in a single page! Tell us who you’re like as an author and what books your story is like, so we can gauge how well it’ll sell based on two sentences about it! Format it exactly the way we say or we won’t even consider you!

For publishers, agents, and editors who have slush piles as tall as Mount Everest...we get it. There has to be a way to differentiate. We don’t blame you. Every creative writing class, NaNoWriMo pep talk, and college lit department combine to send out hundreds of thousands of people who think all they need to do to become the next Ernest Hemingway is string a sentence together. There has to be some way to sort through that pile...but God, can’t there be a better way than query letters? Especially since even with query letters being used it often takes months or years to hear back, and...

5. "Simultaneous submissions prohibited.”

No, we don’t know when we’ll get to your query, but we’ll throw it out instantly if you have the audacity to shop around while you wait for us.

The combination of “no simultaneous submissions” with the query letter bottleneck makes success slow and arduous. It disadvantages everyone who aims to write full-time but doesn’t have another income source (their own, or a parents’, or a spouse’s, or, or or). The result is that entire classes of people are edged out of publishing solely because the process, especially for writers early in their career, moves so glacially that people have to earn a living while they wait, and it’s so hard to, for example, work two jobs and raise a family and also somehow find the time to write. Especially considering that the standard advice for dealing with “no simultaneous submissions” is “just write something else while you wait!” ...the whole system screams privilege.

6. Genres are boxes that must be fit into and adhered to.

Your protagonist is 18? Then obviously your book is Young Adult. It doesn’t matter how smutty your book is, erotica books must have sex within the first three chapters, ideally in the first chapter. Sorry, we’re a fantasy publisher, if you have a technological element you don’t belong here…

While some genre boxes have been becoming more like mesh cages of late, with some flow of content allowed in and out, many remain stiff prisons that constrict the kinds of stories people can tell. Even basic cross-genre works often struggle to find a place, and there’s no reason for it beyond “if we can’t pigeon-hole a story, it’s harder to sell.” This edges out many innovative, creative works. It also disadvantages people who aren’t as familiar with genre rules. And don’t get me wrong - this isn’t an argument that, for example, the romance genre would be improved by opening up to stories that don’t have “happily ever afters.” Instead, it’s pointing out - there should also be a home for, say, a space opera with a side romance, an erotica scene, and a happily-for-now ending. Occasionally, works breakthrough, but for the most part stories that don’t conform never see the light of day (or, they do, but only after Point 2 - trad pub editors insist that the elements most “outside” the box be removed or revised).

7. The lines between romance and erotica are arbitrary, random, and hetero- and cis-normative.

This modern romance novel won’t sell if it doesn’t have an explicit sex scene, but God forbid you call a penis a penis. Oh, no, this is far too explicit, even though the book only has one mlm sex scene, this is erotica.

The difference between “romance” and “erotica” might not matter so much if not for the stigmas attached to erotica and the huge difference in marketability and audience. The difference between “romance” and “erotica” also might not matter so much if not for the fact that, so often, even incredibly raunchy stories that feature cis straight male/cis straight female sex scenes are shelved as romance, but the moment the sex is between people of the same gender, and/or a trans or genderqueer person is involved, and/or the relationship is polyamorous, and/or the characters involved are literally anything other than a cis straight male pleasuring a cis straight female in a “standard” way (cunnilingus welcome, pegging need not apply)...then the story is erotica. Two identical stories will get assigned different genres based on who the people having sex are, and also based on the “skill” of the author to use ludicrous euphemisms (instead of just...calling body parts what they’re called…), and it’s insane. Non-con can be a “romance” novel, even if it’s graphically described. “50 Shades of Gray” can sell millions of copies, even containing BDSM. But the word “vagina” gets used once...bam, erotica. (Seriously, the only standard that should matter is the Envelope Analogy).

8. Authors are expected to do a lot of their own legwork (eg advertising) but then don't reap the benefits.

Okay, so, you’re going to get an advance of $2,500 on this, your first novel, and a royalty rate of 5% if and only if your advance sells out...so you’d better get out there and market! Wait, what do you mean you don’t have a following? Guess you’re never selling out your advance…

Trad pub can generally be relied on to do some marketing - so this item is perhaps better seen as an indictment of more mid-sized Presses - but, basically, if an author has to do the majority of the work themselves, then why aren’t they getting paid more? What’s the actual benefit to going the large press/trad pub route if it’s not going to get the book into more hands? It’s especially strange that this continues to be a major issue when self-publishing (which also requires doing one’s own marketing) garners 60%+ royalty rates. Yes, the author doesn’t get an advance, and they don’t get the cache of ~well I was published by…~, but considering some Presses require parts of advances to get paid back if the initial run doesn’t sell out, and cache doesn’t put food on the table...pay models have really, really got to change.

9. Fanfiction writing doesn't count as writing experience

Hey there Basic White Dude, we see you’ve graduated summa cum laude from A Big Fancy Expensive School. Of course we’ll set you up to publish your first novel you haven’t actually quite finished writing yet. Oh, Fanperson, you’ve written 15 novels for your favorite fandom in the last 4 years? Get to the back of the line!

Do I really need to explain this? The only way to get better at writing is to write. Placing fanfiction on official trad pub “do not interact” lists is idiotic, especially considering many of the other items on this list. (They know how to engage readers! They have existing followings! They understand genre and tropes!) Being a fanfiction writer should absolutely be a marketable “I am a writer” skill. Nuff said. (To be clear, I’m not saying publishers should publish fanfiction, I’m saying that being a fanfiction writer is relevant and important experience that should be given weight when considering an author’s qualifications, similar to, say, publishing in a university’s quarterly.)

10. Tagging conventions (read: lack thereof).

Oh, did I trigger you? Hahahaha. Good luck with that.

We rate movies so that people can avoid content they don’t like. Same with TV shows and video games. Increasingly, those ratings aren’t just “R - adult audiences,” either; they contain information about the nature of the story elements that have led to the rating (“blood and gore,” “alcohol reference,” “cartoon violence,” “drug reference,” “sexual violence,” “use of tobacco,” and many, many more). So why is it that I can read a book and, without warning, be surprised by incest, rape, graphic violence, explicit language, glorification of drug and alcohol use, and so so much more? That it’s left to readers to look up spoilers to ensure that they’re not exposed to content that could be upsetting or inappropriate for their children or, or, or, is insane. So often, too, authors cling to “but we don’t want to give away our story,” as if video game makes and other media makers do want to give away their stories. This shouldn’t be about author egos or ~originality~ (as if that’s even a thing)...it should be about helping readers make informed purchasing decisions. It’s way, way past time that major market books include content warnings.

Thank you for joining us, this has been our extended rant about how frustrated we are with traditional publishing. Helpful? No. Cathartic? Most definitely yes. 🤣

Have a question about writing? Drop us an ask!

Like what we do and want to support us? You can buy us a ko-fi - or get access to exclusive content by backing us on Patreon!

#duck prints press #original content #writing advice #sort of

165 notes · View notes

itsclydebitches · 3 years

Note

Rewatching RWBY there's this chilling lack of empathy through the volumes that I used to just wave off. Yang has no empathy for Tai, Blake is just entirely about what Blake needs, Weiss almost kills a woman at a party and her takeaway is 'my dad is mean so I'm going to run away'. Qrow sinks hard into depression in vol. 6 and Ruby's reaction is to yell she's never needed him. No one has EVER helped a civilian. It's so prevelant. Knowing how 7&8 go really changes the earlier writing.

I think there was a great deal of well-written empathy in the early volumes — after all, this cast was designed as the kind, well-meaning heroes — but that care was expressed almost solely within the group itself. Ruby sits by Jaune in the hallway and says "Nope!" to his self doubt. Weiss offers Ruby a hand up after she fails to kill the death stalker. Yang seeks out Blake and gets her to open up about what's bothering her. Now, I want to emphasize that there's nothing inherently wrong with this. It actually makes perfect sense. These are our main characters and they're written as peers co-habiting the same space. Of course whatever emotional growth we get, which automatically includes moments of compassion, would be directed towards each other. Similarly, the dynamics originally introduced — that of teachers and parents — likewise (rightly) puts the burden on the adults to provide the comfort, not the other way around. Port snaps Weiss out of her arrogant mindset. Ozpin reassures Ruby about her leadership worries. Tai is there to support his daughter when she's recovering from a lost limb. That's the natural order of things, so to speak.

The problem, to my mind, begins to occur when the group exits those dynamics. They're no longer students, they're licensed huntsmen. They're no longer kids, but equals who never needed adults in the first place. They're no longer doing things for themselves and their friends on personal downtime, they're doing them for the community at large as a profession (to say nothing of the world-altering war they've insisted on shouldering responsibility for). That's what a huntsmen is meant to be, a defender of the people, not someone who uses that power for personal interests alone. All of this is a huge change from where we started out: cutesy kids going off on comparatively low-stakes adventures because one or more of their teammates are invested, only just beginning to realize that they're signing up for a job where their desires come second (that fireside conversation at Mountain Glenn).

This change invites — demands, really — that the audience read them differently too. Qrow's spiral in Volume 6 is a good example of this. If Ruby is demanding to be treated not just as an equal in terms of maturity and experience, but also as the primary leader of this group, then the viewer expects her to treat her uncle as an equal too, not dismiss his hardship. I've seen numerous fans defend that arc with some version of, "He's her uncle. He's supposed to take care of her. He's failing" but that, according to the show, is no longer the dynamic. Qrow is now just a member of Ruby's team, someone she's responsible for as their leader. It's easiest to see the problem if we switch out Qrow for any of the other members. If Blake developed a drinking problem, do we think Ruby would just shout at her until she magically got over it? If Jaune endangered the group, do we think they'd all be angry about it, rather than trying to figure out the source of what caused the mistake? We don't even need to think hypothetically for that one because we saw it on screen. Jaune attacked Oscar and drove him off, not just threatening him, but arguably endangering the whole team by requiring a search party. Fans have long insisted they had to steal that airship right then because being in Argus was too much of a risk, but if we buy that reading (which I personally don't, but), then that means Jaune made things exponentially worse by forcing them out into that super dangerous city, rather than allowing everyone to stay hidden inside. He made a massive mistake which, according to the logic of Qrow's arc, should be met with frustration, disdain, and eventual demands to get over his anger at Ozpin or ship out. But, of course, he received nothing but concern. Yang was worried about him, not Oscar. The search becomes about his grief for Pyrrha and his team's willingness (as well as Pyrrha's family member) to provide more comfort. Suddenly, the tendency to express care solely towards those within the group becomes a flaw the story won't acknowledge.

And then it spirals. The thing to remember is that no single act here is bad on its own, especially when we consider that yes, we want flawed characters. Rather, it's about the pattern. Ruby is allowed to get mad at Qrow for his behavior and chuck her scroll in frustration. She's human. I'd be crazy frustrated too. However, if Ruby is meant to be written as a caring, sympathetic character, she should not only respond to the situation with frustration, yelling, a refusal to listen, and demands that he follow her lead, no questions asked. We can, and should, acknowledge that Weiss was the victim during that party. Her father was hurting her, the woman was beyond insensitive, Weiss was triggered in regards to a horrific event, and her power acted on its own. However, if we want to write Weiss as a compassionate, mature huntress to-be, she should acknowledge that she nearly killed someone — even an asshole someone — and vow to work on her control because she's not willing to put someone in danger like that ever again. Both of these moments have a "They could have been handled better" response attached to them — the former more-so than the latter imo — but these moments are made far, far worse due to later events in the show, events where the characters are cruel without any justification attached. Weiss didn't mean to attack that woman, but she did mean to ignore Whitely and threaten him with her weapon. So once we see that, it informs our understanding of what came before it. "Oh. The fact that Weiss never reacted to nearly killing someone isn't just a bit of missed potential, it's an early indicator that she... doesn't seem to care. If she endangers people, threatens people... that's fine with her." The group has a right to be frustrated with Qrow. The group did not have the right to magically steal Ozpin's entire life story, assault him, and blame him for the world's problems until he felt his only course of action was to run from them. So when we see that it becomes, "Oh. The fact that the group treated Qrow so poorly isn't just a one-time mistake born of a stressful situation and young adults being out of their depth in regards to alcoholism. They really will just abandon anyone the moment they start making mistakes." Anyone outside of their group, that is.

To say nothing of how all of these moments interconnect. Yang's recovery isn't just about getting used to not having an arm, it's about getting used to having a new one. Weiss' party isn't just about nearly killing someone, it's about not committing manslaughter because someone else stepped in. The Volume 6 arc isn't just about trying to escape with the Relic, it's about trying to get it somewhere safe. Fans frustrated with Ironwood's treatment don't harp on these details out of some desperate attempt to make him look good post-murder spree, rather, they recognize that he's a character that's been around since nearly the beginning, originally written as a good guy, and thus has accumulated a number of key connections with the cast. So when none of those connections are acknowledged during an arc about trust... that makes the group look very uncaring. Yang doesn't care that he gave her the arm, Weiss doesn't care that he saved her from hurting/potentially killing someone, Qrow doesn't care that he's trusted Ironwood for years (in a rival-bros way) and that they've been heading towards him this whole time. And when Ironwood begins to spiral, they don't do anything to try and help him, let alone acknowledge that their own choices, that lack of trust and empathy, had a hand in getting them here. "But it's not their responsibility to fix him!" Isn't it? Even a little? Just as human beings seeing an ally struggling under horrific decisions and circumstances? Sure, they don't have to try... but that doesn't make them look very heroic to my mind. And we can't even shrug that off by simplifying things with, "Well, Ironwood is evil now so who cares about him." They simultaneously don't care about finding Qrow who is missing, then captured. They don't do anything to try and find their missing teammates, with the exception of sending May to do it instead. They don't help the army fight off the grimm. Don't try to make sure Pietro and Maria had portals to escape through. Barely hesitate when the newly resurrected characters goes, "Kill me. That's the easiest thing for everyone." And these are just a few of the big ticket moments. It doesn't even begin to cover all the details we get that paint a picture of, "Wow okay. They just really don't care about people outside the group, huh? I mean, they say they do, in a life-or-death way, but they're not putting forth effort to show it on a daily basis."

And if you pick up on all that, if you acknowledge how much the group has changed based on where they started out, you might wonder when in the world that started. Surely we didn't just flip a switch around Volume 6. So you re-watch early stuff and, sure enough, there are moments that feel like setup for what's to come later. Not intentional setup (quite obviously), but a lack of care towards details across the series that, once the dynamic changed, became far, far more pronounced. Characters should be at least somewhat recognizable from start to finish, especially characters who have only experienced about two years of in-world time, so if we now get to see Ruby blandly commenting on all the people who are dying, or Weiss using her weapon as a means of coercing her little brother into doing what she wants, or Yang and Jaune dismissing Ren until he gives in to their point of view... we're going to look for the beginnings of that behavior early on. As you say, we were able to wave all those little details off due to a number of important factors. Now though? Now they feel like they hold a lot more weight, simply by virtue of that early material proceeding what we have now.

#rwby #rwde #mymetas

85 notes · View notes

whentheynameyoujoy · 4 years

Text

Yup, Sure Was a Finale

I had an epiphany. The reason why I never re-watched the final two parts of Sozin’s Comet even though I’ve popped in episodes at random many times over the years isn’t that I can’t bear the sadness of seeing one of the best, most engaging narratives out there come to an end.

It’s simply that the finale isn’t all that good.

Some honorable mentions of what was enjoyable.

(+) This

Just this.

(+) The Church of Zutara has another convert

“Are you sure they don’t get together?” Hubster, 2020

(+) The tragedy of Azula

And the fact that it’s acknowledged as such. I hope Zuko will do his best to get her help and have a relationship with her…

(+) Sokka being a big bro

And the whole airship sequence in general. It’s wonderfully paced and plotted, with moments of humor, real stakes, Toph being both badass and a scared crying kid, Sokka strategizing and protecting, Suki saving the day, and non-benders being instrumental in thwarting the bad guy firebender’s plans. Would be shame if Bryke never portrayed them this capable ever again…

And now for the main course.

(-) Blink and its over

The wrap-up feels too quick (hashtag Needs More ROtK-style False Endings). A part of this is due to how fast the story goes from the thick of the action to hastily tying up a bunch of loose ends, but the larger issue is how Book 3’s uneven pacing comes home to roost. After spending half a season on filler episodes that at best subtly flesh out established characters while dancing around a huge lionturtle-shaped hole, and at worst contradict the theme of “no one is born bad” with “you’re a hot mess because your great-grandfathers didn’t get along too well”, the frantic “go go go” rush of the second half screeches to a halt with “they won and everyone was happy because now the right people have power and it will be all good from now on yup nothing more to deal with baiiiii”.

Yes, I know, it’s a kids’ show. But goddamn, this particular kids’ show has proven so many times it can do better than the expected tropiness. Showing the characters in their roles as builders of a new world was the least that could have been done.

Oh well!

(-) Ursa

We’ll never know. There will never be a story that delves into this. Yup. Shall forever remain but an intriguing mystery. Is good, though. Mystery is better than a story where Ursa shares her son’s penchant for forgetfulness. Imagine how embarrassing that would be. Speaking of which…

(-) What does Mai see in this jerkbender?

Look, I like to harp a lot on the mess of inconsistent writing that’s Mai but let’s unpack this scene from her perspective, shall we?

Zuko forgot about her! It totally slipped his mind that the one person who prioritized the safety of his dumb ass was rotting in the worst prison in the Fire Nation—because of him! And she was rotting there long enough after the final Agni Kai for the news of Zuko’s upcoming coronation to spread and her uncle to feel sufficiently secure to release her. But then the coronation scene is attended by every single member of Gaang & Friends that was imprisoned?

So what this tells me is that either a) the invasion force had the ability to break themselves out the whole time and for some reason decided not to exercise it until after the war was over, b) Zuko forgot about them as well and no one thought to remind him there were prisons full of POWs until Mai arrived, or, and that’s even better, c) Zuko took care to free every single resistance fighter while making sure Mai would be the one to stay behind bars.

Never thought I’d say this but Mai? Honey? You deserve so much better.

(-) “What does Katara want?”

Asked no one in the writers’ room ever, apparently.

This is not so much anti Cataang as anti romance stories that pay attention to the needs, opinions, and wants of only one partner in general. Over the previous 60 episodes, Katara actively expressed romantic interest in Aang exactly, wait for it,

Once.

And it got retconned out of relevance by the following two interactions where the possibility of a romantic relationship came up, making the Headband dance pretty easy to reclassify as just one of those examples where Aang “teaches” Katara to have fun (as if one of the main obstacles to her having fun wasn’t him constantly fooling around and offloading his duties). And because the writers not only didn’t succeed in portraying Katara’s internal state of mind, but also failed to root her reluctance to pursue a relationship in outside circumstances that could change, her sudden state of unconfused once Aang steps into the spotlight has a single canonical explanation that as much as approaches coherency.

The fact is, though, that trying to interpret canon Cataang from a Watsonian perspective is an exercise in foolishness. Because there is no Watsonian justification for the ship and never has been. Bryke simply conceived of Katara as nothing but a tropey prize for Aang, never saw her as anything beyond that, and were perfectly happy to go on and immortalize her as a passive broodmare for the rest of her life.

And I fully intend to die mad about it.

(-) Iroh dips

OK, it’s been long apparent that the show doesn’t intend to do anything about Iroh’s complicity in AzulOzai’s regime in any meaningful way, and that his sole motivation for doing anything whatsoever is Zuko whom he views as a replacement son which is supposed to be good for some reason. But the finale has him abandon even that, and instead turns him full-on YOLO, idgaf anymore. It really throws Iroh’s supposed love for Zuko into doubt when his last act in the entire show is to take a half-educated 16-year old with no political savvy or an heir to secure a dynastic continuity and plomp him on the throne of a war-mongering imperialist regime where the entirety of the militarist and ruling class is guaranteed to fight him tooth and nail for power.

(I sure hope Mai’s ready to start popping out babies by tea-time otherwise the whole country is fukd in about a week)

Christ, how hard would it be to have Iroh keep the throne warm for a few years while Zuko is getting ready to succeed him? Not only would it make the whole FN reformation bit quite likelier to occur, it would require Iroh’s hedonistic ass to actually sacrifice something for once. And not having Zuko ascend to power, instead spending some time bettering and educating himself first, would be a wonderful message that no matter what you endured and overcame, you never stop growing. A kids’ show, remember?

(-) The conquering of Ba Sing Se

Gee, I feel so blessed to have my attention diverted from battlefields which actually matter to an old dude vanity project I would have been perfectly happy to assume resolved itself off-screen.

The White Lotus in general just bugs me. I was fine with the individual characters and their overall passivity when they were portrayed as lone dissenters living under circumstances where it wasn’t really possible for any single person to mount a meaningful resistance. But as members of a far-reaching shadowy organization that’s left the real fight to a bunch of kids for 59 episodes straight and didn’t turn up until a perfect opportunity presented itself to take control of the largest city in the world and bask in the spotlight?

Yeah, no.

Similarly to the lionturtle-ex-machina, the White Lotus represents a huge missed opportunity for a season-long storytelling. Here’s just a brief list of what they could have been doing throughout Book 3:

orchestrating a Fire Nation uprising;

gathering those directly persecuted by AzulOzai’s regime to help Zuko keep his hold on power once he’s crowned;

establishing themselves as a viable alternative to Ozai;

sabotaging Fire Nation’s war efforts from the inside;

countering Fire Nation propaganda (Asha Greyjoy’s pinecones, anyone?);

running a supply network to alleviate the suffering of Earth Kingdom citizens.

Instead, they sit on their asses until the time comes to claim personal glory.

You know what, good on Bryke for making me conclude that in comparison, the Freedom Fighters were perfectly unproblematic, actually.

(-) Fire Lord Dead-by-Dawn

Yes, a kids’ show, I know! But ffs, this is the same kids’ show that came up with Long Feng and portrayed courtly intrigue, kingly puppets, secret police, spy networks, and information wars. Was it really too much of me to expect something other than “enlightened despot solves everything”? Especially if said enlightened despot has persisting anger issues, no personal support system, no base of followers, and no political experience whatsoever?

If Zuko’s actually serious about regaining the Fire Nation’s honor (i.e. by dismantling the country’s military machine, decolonizing the Earth Kingdom, paying reparations to everyone and their lemur, and funding any and all cultural restoration projects Aang and the SWT come up with), then there is no way, no way in the universe that he doesn’t face a civil war, deposing, and execution within a month.

One reason why his future as a Fire Lord seems rather bleak is that little’s been shown about the actual subjects of AzulOzai’s regime. While we get a vague reassurance that “no Toph, they’re not born bad” (le shockings), they largely remain a voiceless uniform mass of brainwashed clapping seals. What is their view on the Fire Nation’s crimes? Do they associate their condition with their country’s war-mongering? How will they react when Zuko starts dismantling the country piece by piece to rebuild it, bringing it to economic ruin? What will they do when noble Ozai loyalists come out of the woodwork and begin rounding them up under the banner of “Make the Fire Nation Great Again?”

I have no idea, and Zuko doesn’t either because he’s unironically more qualified to rule the Earth Kingdom than his own people.

You know what would have been better? Fire Lord Iroh, White Lotus pulling the strings to maintain the regime, and Crown Prince/People’s Champion Zuko travelling the Fire Nation with Aang and an army of tutors to promote the new boss, only to realize that absolute monarchy is kinda crap for the people he’s one day supposed to rule and gaining their support by ceding some power to them.

I’d laser holes into my TV due to how much I’d enjoy watching that.

(-) All hail Avatar Rock

Literally and metaphorically. Aang doesn’t sacrifice anything, gets everything, and the clever solution of going about getting said everything is handed to him on a silver platter, requiring no active participation on his part whatsoever.

He doesn’t work to unblock his chakras, spiritually or physically.

He only speaks to his past lives to get a pat on the back and a bow-tied solution he could mindlessly follow.

Energy-bending doesn’t require any sacrifice from him, leaves no lasting marks, and only serves for the narrative to praise him as the rare individual that’s unbendable and thus so very very special.

The most infuriating thing is, however, that Aang is clearly shown as being able to beat Ozai without either the Avatar state, or energy-bending.

And he chooses not to. From this moment on, Aang no longer fights to save the world. He fights to preserve his beliefs, going directly against the instructions of his past lives and effectively reneging on his duties as the Avatar.

Again.

It’s not like you can’t portray Aang’s faithfulness to his spiritual beliefs as the key to beating Ozai and saving the world. But that’s not what the show did. There is no link between Aang sparing Ozai and securing a better future, quite to the contrary—Ozai’s survival ends up being a massive problem for the continuation of Zuko’s rule, and consequently a threat to the world at large. His survival benefits Aang and no one else.

Aang’s spiritual purity and his status as a savior of the world are allowed to coexist only due to a deliberate stroke of a writer’s pen.

And I hate it.

Welp, nothing to do about it now except to bury myself up to my tits in fix-it fics I guess.

#atla #atla rewatch #meta #zutara #anti bryke #anti-kataang #anti-aang #anti-maiko

698 notes · View notes

shhhhsh · 3 years

Text

About Tim’s New Story….

I just really hope they address Tim’s mental health. Like, DC just been ditching really good plot lines in favor of being “woke” or pandering. Just look at all the live action shows.

Now I’m not saying they can’t make Tim queer/bi/gay, but (as someone pointed out to me) Tim’s previous story writer was bi and he still chose to write Tim as straight & in a healthy romantic relationship with Stephanie Brown. I’ve seen several people who identify as queer/bi say that to have Tim go “ ooooh I’ve fooled myself into thinking I was straight, but now I’m freeeee” sends the message that Tim’s previous relationship failed b/c he was with a woman and not because of Tim’s poor mental and emotional health.

To go back to my previous statement; by him not writing Tim as bi tells me that he didn’t want or care for Tim to be bi, but instead saw Tim as, or preferred him to be, straight. The writer had free control to write Tim how ever he wanted and yet he chose to keep Tim straight. And he actually liked & wanted Tim/Steph. Again, I’m not saying Tim can’t be queer/bi, I’m just saying I find the motivations for this possible change very fishy. Almost as if the new writer is trying to get brownie points for pandering to a portion of the fans.

I think this way b/c in every other media where a character is revealed to be LGBTQ they just did it. They didn’t beat around the bush or do any queer coding/baiting. They either announced it, just made the character that way right out the gate, or just dropped the bomb w/out warning (as seen in Netflix’s Voltron, Amazon Prime’s Invincible, and Nickelodeon’s Legend of Korra respectfully).

DC currently has a bad habit changing things to be “woke” and bragging about it or shoving it in our faces. DC is becoming the “pick me girl” of superhero media. If you want to do it, just do it. Again I just get the “look at me, look at me” & “carrot on the stick” vibes from them now. If you truly feel in your heart to do something you would just do it without the need for recognition or to be so dramatic about it.

Now what I much rather see & think it’s a natural progression for Tim:

I personally believe that if Jason, Dick, & Damian can get a story that attempts to give them character development beyond romantic relationships (romance was more of a B-plot to the character driven A-plot anyway) I think they can give it to Tim as well.

I know that the Bat-Family all struggle with some form of mental health problems (most commonly paranoia and PTSD). However, I would like to point out that trauma is was what brought the others into the vigilante lifestyle, while Tim & Barbara became traumatized because of the vigilante lifestyle. Yet, Barbara was shown overcoming her trauma and using it as motivation to get better. Tim is yet to have this moment.

We all know that Tim struggles with depression, self-esteem, and suicidal tendencies. I mean heck, him becoming Red Robin only happens because of Tim’s degrading mental health. I hate to say it, but Tim is very psychologically broken and has been show to get so depressed that he can’t even get out of bed some times. To my knowledge, Tim is the only one in the Bat-Fam that struggles in his head with the idea of not being needed, useful, or forgotten when in reality that is furthest from the truth (Steph, Jason, & Damian also feel like the black sheep periodically, but that is because they have been presented with real evidence that would lead them to logically believe this. I.e being actually forgotten or dismissed for past mistakes despite great efforts to better themselves).

While yes, Dick did Tim dirty by replacing him without having a proper conversation first, the motivation was because he saw Tim as his equal and not Damian. He thought highly of Tim, but Tim couldn’t see that over his offense. Tim is so beat down by life that he see’s everything with negative lenses. Everyone came to check on Tim’s mental health but Tim took it as an insult instead.

And even though now Tim has reached some form of “peace” in his life, that only happens because the people he lost came back (Bruce, Conner, Bart, Cassie, etc). Tim never fully learned to handle grief, to handle his emotions, instead he represses them. Again in the Red Robin run, the main reason he doesn’t believe in any form of God is because he can’t logically justify the pain he has gone through. He is hurting and doesn’t know how to deal with that. In his original Robin run, when he tried talking someone out of committing suicide……the words and comfort he gave….that wasn’t something that was just inside Tim, this is something that was told to Tim. This is followed by him calling Dick to get the same pep-talk he just regurgitated to someone else.

In short: Tim is hurting. Deeply. And having been someone who’s emotional & mental sanity was pushed to the brink and attempted to jump off several times, I think it’s really sad that DC just ignores it. Now as someone who’s gotten the help they needed & now helps other people who struggle with the same issues as myself & Tim, I think that they’re going to say a lot of Tim’s problems come from him not being “aware” of his own sexuality, which is just sad.

In the story in question, Barbara talks about Tim not having a solid identity. People are more than their sexuality. People are capable of making future decisions for themselves without it hindering on their sexuality. If Tim was real, I would brake down his struggle as so:

Tim refuses to go to college and do something more with his life because he cannot see anything beyond his current circumstance. And the only reason why Tim cannot see anything beyond his circumstance is because he has no internal sense of purpose, identity, and acceptance beyond the cape & cowl. And when Tim finally found that in being Robin, Tim held onto it as a lifeline. There’s a reason why everyone says Tim is basically Bruce 2.0: it’s because he is Robin/Red Robin/Drake & Tim is the mask. At a young age, he did not grow up having these things instilled into him due to his parents neglecting him at a very important age in his development. Tim raised himself, and for a lack of better terms; an idiot cannot teach themselves to be smarter, an idiot becomes smarter by learning from the intelligent. A child can’t teach themselves to be an adult, they have to learn from others to grow & better themselves.

Now a parent doesn’t necessarily have to sit down and give a lesson about how to be an individual, but children learn how to live life by watching their parents. A good example of this is the rest of the Bat-Fam; they all grew up with some form of parental figures that taught them how to behave (for better or worse). Of course children have their own personalities, which is why two kids can go through the same type of trauma but come out differently, but it is a battle of nature vs nurture. Steph, Jason, Cass, & Damian grew up in abusive/unstable homes, while Dick, Barbara, & Bruce grew up in loving homes, but their personalities & character dictated how they responded to trauma. They took what life gave them and decided what to leave or take.

Tim had nothing to work with & is basically playing catch-up with the rest of his peers.

In a weird sense, Tim is like Zuko from The Last Airbender: only living to serve their father’s purpose. Anything outside of that they don’t know what to do. They’ve been trained to be something externally without been given a chance to figure out who they are internally.

Again you are not your sexuality, your sexuality does not determine who you are as a person. When a person struggles through life, it is due to the conditions of thier soul. Everything starts internally and shows it’s self externally.

I want to make that very clear because I am truly scared that in DC’s attempt to claim “clout” they are missing the bigger picture. Tim doesn’t have identity problems simply because he “doesn’t know” he likes boys, but because DC never gave him is own identity to begin with. Robin was never his own identity, Red Robin was never his, & Drake was his first attempt to make his own but he quickly gave it up so that he can be Robin once again. What is Tim going to do once Damian gets back? Is Damian going to get his own identity before Tim? Or is Tim just going to go back to one of his old identities?

I would like for Tim to personally move on from being a vigilante and rejoin civilian society for a while. Go to college, do something for himself and only for himself. Give Tim the self-discovery story, let him heal, and grown to be his own person. Besides you can never have a functional romantic relationship if you are not a functional individual. Self love > romantic love.

#red robin #batman #dc comics #tim drake #batman and robin #bruce wayne #dick grayson #jason todd #damian al ghul #damian wayne #stephanie brown #batgirl #cassandra cain #batfam #robin #I just want a good and meaningful story that doesn’t have some secret agenda #just do right by Tim #beware the pandering #not everything has to be about romance

45 notes · View notes

willownoir1112 · 3 years

Text

Hiya everyone! Wyn here with a late day seven of White Rose Week! Due to circumstances beyond my control, I never got a good chance to post this... Angst train that I should have done earlier this week, but didn't because it's angsty. Anywho, I hope you all enjoy, and I'll see you tomorrow with the bonus day!

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Apart

Everyone knows who Ruby Rose is. She used to be brave, she used to be daring, she used to laugh in the face of danger. She used to carry a giant scythe that her enemies feared. She led a group of heroes who saved the world from a great darkness, only to be irreparably broken less than a year after their victory.

Calm yourself, Dolt. Penny and I will only be gone a week.

She's a constant presence at the airship port. She goes there every day and sits in the same seat by dock 34. She always has the same book in her hand, she always wears the same outfit, she always has cookies for children who run up and ask. Otherwise, she is silent day in and day out, her nose stuck in the book that told the stories of brave knights and beautiful princesses, of courageous heroes and ignoble villains. Forty years has she waited for an airship that will never return, the woman she has been apart from all these years one of it's many lost passengers.

Ruby, if you insist on being childish about it, then simply wait here. My airship will return to dock 34 in a week's time.

She always smiles at the children, even though it is hollow and empty. She always has kind words for them when they run up to her laughing and asking for sweets, even though her eyes are lifeless and dim. The guards never bother her, and look out for her every single day. They make sure she eats, has plenty to drink, and is always comfortable. Any adult who looks into those once shining silver orbs see the shattered soul behind them, and leave her in peace. No one can sit in the seat she has claimed for so many years now once she leaves for the evening, for they all feel in their own souls the depths of her sorrow and loss that radiates from the piece of furniture. A loss that has broken the once vibrant woman and turned her into an empty shell.

Miss Rose, Miss Schnee is never coming back.

Only the longtime head of security, Jaune Arc, remembers the moment when Headmaster Ozpin came to inform her. He himself had been by her side, along with her sister and both their teams when she was told that the love of her short life was never to return to her. He tells his newest recruits the story, and always, always it ends the same way: watching his best friend's soul shatter before his very eyes. Of watching the light leave them forever, even as she screamed in denial. None of his recruits dare to point out that his own eyes are as dead as her's. No one has the desire or curiosity to speculate as to how two people with souls as dead as theirs can still live.

If they did, they would finally realize that they are both simply empty shells, going through the motions of lives they stopped living forty years ago...

When I return, I will be a free woman. And then, we will get married as we wish.

It was a horrific sequence of events that took Weiss Schnee and her companion, Penny Polendina, away from Ruby Rose and Jaune Arc. James Ironwood, who was consumed with his hatred for the two women along with those that they loved and held dear, hijacked their airship and forced it to crash into Atlas Academy's CCT tower. The two young women were among the many dead from the madman's horrid actions, actions which broke the two people who loved them the most. Ruby especially broke, and now repeats the same actions every single day without fail, despite them always leading to the same sad, heart wrenching conclusion.

I love you from now until forever, Ruby Rose. No matter what, I will return to you.

Ruby returns every single day without fail, always sitting in the same seat, despite her own slowly failing health. She never even flinched when the doctor came and told her the cancer was now in her brain, as well as all her organs. She simply continued to read her book as she continues her vigil, while the world around her moves ever onward. An engagement ring still adorns her now bony finger, a promise made over forty years ago still driving what is left of her failing heart and shattered soul to wait for the woman she loves. She never attended her father's funeral, or her sister's when they each died a Huntsman's death. She never stopped even when Weiss's best friend Blake begged her to come with her and her children to Menagerie. To learn to live her life once more, despite being apart from Weiss. She never even looked up from her book when she was informed that Ren and Nora too had passed, Ren of cancer and Nora of her own grief. She had put her life on hold when Weiss Schnee left for Atlas, promising that they will be together forever upon her return. But her life stopped when the light left her eyes instead. Her life has been a series of repeated motions that have never deviated no matter the circumstances of the world around her.

Jaune, I can't leave my sister like this…

Then leave. I know her pain, Yang. I'll keep her safe.

Jaune Arc has outlived his entire team. He has outlived even Ruby's sister Yang and her teammate Blake. He and Ruby are all that are left of the Heroes of Beacon, and he keeps their leader safe in all their memories. And every night, he sits next to Ruby for a time, comfortable in the silence between them as she rereads the same book, and he looks towards the empty horizon. Both of them are waiting for women who will never come home to either of them in this life. He then takes her home, only to repeat the same cycle of never ending sorrow the next day. A seemingly endless cycle that has lasted for over forty long years.

We will never be apart, Ruby. Not as long as you keep me alive in your heart.

No one knows exactly when Ruby and Jaune finally gave up on life. It was once again the beginning of the day, and Jaune has taken to simply sitting next to his leader since he was forced to retire. He soon is also repeating the same motions, while wearing a uniform that is no longer his, while keeping the silent women who would only break said silence with kind words for the children who would notice her company. They never spoke to one another, yet no one would deny they knew they sat alongside one another day in and day out. They were broken apart from the ones they loved the most by one man's rage, and were broken in spirit as well. A little cat faunus girl wandered up to the two of them, hoping the old woman who smelled of delicious cookies would share one. Instead, everyone nearby was alerted by her sudden screaming and begging for the two of them to wake up, to stop staring blankly into the still empty horizon. All anyone remembers is her weeping, her screaming, her grief. The adults who gather around her, who console the little girl, hope that the two heroes, who both died with smiles upon their faces, are finally reunited with Weiss Schnee and Penny Polendina in the afterlife.

No one could see the long overdue airship finally return, almost forty one years to the day that it departed. They couldn't see the ramp extend, or the white haired woman or the ginger haired one rush out. They couldn't see Ruby and Jaune both rise up, despite the loss of their mortal selves. They were once again young and healthy, and their eyes were alight in their joy. None of them would ever witness Penny crashing into Jaune's arms while sobbing, or Weiss walking up and simply taking Ruby's offered hand with tears in her own eyes.

"You dolt! You were supposed to live for us both!"

"I'm sorry Weiss, but life isn't worth living without you."

"And Heaven is empty without you, Ruby…"

#white rose week 2021 #white rose #ruby rose #weiss schnee #angst #my writing #i will go down with this ship

42 notes · View notes

morvantmortuary · 2 years

Note

Completely one hundred percent self indulgent because right now I am crying, panicking, feeling hella guilty and like a failure. I just got kicked out of school because depression took over my life and caused my grades to suffer. As a result I knew what I needed to pass, and I failed by four points, resulting in what they call permanent suspension aka expulsion.

I’m so afraid to tell my family, I was supposed to be better, to succeed and right now I feel like a failure and I just I need some Morvant comfort? Doesn’t matter who really.

I’m the Criminal Justice major from some time ago, and now I’m too fucking afraid to try and even look at going to college for Mortuary Science, I just deleted all of the school apps and stuff from my phone and laptop, making the permanence of the situation kind of hit me all at once now.

Ooh, honey, I'm sorry I didn't see this until just now. D: I hope you've managed to find some equilibrium in the time since you sent this in, and I just want to start this off by putting my academic day job hat on for a sec and saying a few things - this got long, as always, so it's going under the tag <3

first off, you're not a failure, you're absolutely not <3 I know plenty of people who got put on academic probation or straight-up booted from school because their grades suffered due to real life circumstances beyond their control (including my own parents, back in the day!). it's going to be okay. it super duper sucks in the moment, and I'm sure this feels like salt in the wound after you've already been dealing with your depression for a whole semester. but it's not a forever thing, I promise. even if you don't return to that school, that doesn't mean at all that you're Done, The End, can't try this again unless you decide that's what you're doing. and if you do, that's okay too! maybe you need a break from school for a while, or maybe you want to go try something else!! those are also perfectly valid paths, although it does mean you'd have to figure out what you're doing in the meantime, but that's a different kettle of fish we don't have to tackle right this second <3

you don't have to think about Mortuary Science right now, though. in fact, I'm maybe going to encourage you not to, for a little while. not because you can't do it - I have every confidence you can - just until you get your feet back under you, metaphorically. you've just had a big shock to the system after a semester of your mental illness taking a toll. you don't have to want to tackle this next thing right away, and you don't need to take on something else right now that might add to the sense of your world shifting more than you're ready for.

I also want to say, you only missed the mark by a few points. you really, really did try!! I know that doesn't feel like enough right now, but I am downright agonized on your behalf because you really did great in trying to get your grades back up!! especially when you already weren't feeling like your best self and had a lot on your plate!! I know you're upset right now, but I'm really proud of you because I'm sure you did your damnedest to get yourself where you needed to be, even if it didn't turn out like we wanted this time. That effort still deserves recognition, and you should (when you're ready) be proud of yourself for trying so hard and coming so close. That's no easy feat, and you still did the work, so it still deserves to be acknowledged. <3

here's the thing about telling family: families are hard. but you did your best, and the school wasn't willing to budge on those last few points. that's all it comes down to. you can wait and tell them when you're ready, but whatever they say, you can know that you still did your best given the circumstances, and that's okay. that was all you could do, genuinely. if they wanna give you shit, you tell them to try and bring their grades back when they're dealing with life-interrupting illness, because you were. Depression can make it impossible to function sometimes, so the fact that you were able to get as close as you could to that arbitrary-ass grade point while dealing with that??? 100% badass.

the thing about secondary education is that, as an adult, you're the one who's going to be making the decisions for yourself. your family can feel however they want to feel (and if they're at all financially involved, well, I'm sure some conversation is going to have to happen there too). But all adults disappoint their parents at some point. I repeat: All Adults Disappoint Their Parents at Some Point. If yours is just about grades when you're grappling with serious mental illness, your parents should thank their lucky stars they have offspring who's so dedicated to their education and trying so hard to do the right thing about it, because I know lots of people who just!! didn't!!!

tl;dr from me - you are going to be okay, sweetheart. <3 I know this must be so frustrating and disappointing after this semester, but you tried your best, and I am so proud of you for that!! even if the results weren't what you were hoping for, you did the best you could do at the time, and that's what counts. what comes next will come next. If you decide you wanna go for Mortuary Science after all, you can!! it will just be later, when you've had some time to recover, and when you get to the part of the process where you have to talk about this semester, you just tell them "I was dealing with illness at the time that seriously impacted my ability to function properly and took a toll on my academic work, it is not reflective of my work during a normal semester" because that's 100 percent true. If they're not dicks, that's all you'll need to say about it.

but okay, you didn't come here for just me to hurgle at you. <3

The Morvants as a whole would first be concerned about the fact that you obviously weren't doing well. But if you came back to the Mortuary as devastated as you were due to this development, the response would be two-fold:

First, they would all be determined not to let you feel too badly about this. <3 Maxi, after he had wrapped you in a blanket and sat you next to him on the couch with the closest thing to your favorite junk food he had on hand (although he'd more than likely keep the actual thing itself around as soon as you started showing up more frequently), would happily point out that secondary education doesn't have to be linear!! He just had his Associates in MS for a long time, himself, and he didn't go back and finish his Bachelors until after he had brutally murdered his father and sacrificed him to They Who Provide later, when he had more time for that sort of thing and was in a better state of mind to go. Sometimes you finish different parts at different times, or don't get to finish until later, but that's no promise you won't finish at all. :)

On your other side, Hex would be sitting with a box of tissues, wanting to let you get it all out until the initial storm of disappointment and frustration and worry was over. Emotions are difficult, especially when you aren't already feeling well to begin with. He'd point out that he didn't finish his Bachelors, ever -- granted, he doesn't want to do what you want to do, which you definitely need more certification for -- but he'd just want to make sure that you knew you could go do something else, even if it's just for a while, and it wouldn't mean you failed. It would just mean you could decide you needed a break from that kind of work/life for a while, and that would be okay by him, obviously. He'd even offer to help you figure out what you wanted to do in the meantime, if you decided you need to step away. <3 (He would then quietly ask Maxi if this means they needed to go Have A Talk with the registrar at the school, and Maxi would say he was pretty sure it was all automated by now thanks to the school's computer system - academic status isn't always decided by a person if it's below a certain specific number, even if it's really close. Hex would then ask how likely it was he could maybe get into the school's computer system and... take some creative liberties with the grades. Y'know. Just shuffle some points around here or there. Maxi, admittedly, might not entirely dismiss this idea out of hand. It was just a few points, after all. And you were obviously more than willing to do the work. Who's to say it couldn't just be a computer error, the first time???)

Rora would be looming behind the three of you on the couch, mostly so she could stand there and pet your hair, or if that's not something you like, rub your shoulders. Also the boys were already sitting next to you and she gets jealous. Rora would point out that she hadn't even technically finished high school yet, on account of Death, so you were still doing better than her in that department. <3 She would tell you that lots of things can change, and quickly -- just because this semester ended this way didn't mean you couldn't start again somewhere else, when you were ready. In the grand scheme of things, school is only so long, and then you spend much longer than that actually doing the work you trained for in what it is you want to do. She would tell you that you had every right to feel upset, but not to blame yourself; this is only a temporary hiccup, in the long run, and you'll spend much more time afterwards doing what you're trying to learn than you will trying to learn it. Though it feels big and impossible right now, in a few years, this will just be one hard semester that you will have recovered from. Even if this means you try somewhere else, even if this means things don't go straight from Point A to Point B, the important thing is that you still will keep going when you're ready. After you'd had a suitable amount of comfort food, she'd offer you some wine, or another beverage of your choice, and then ask if maybe you didn't want to take a bath -- she'd be more than happy to wash your hair for you, or would offer to rub further down your back as you soaked in the water and the steam. Something that would help you destress, and remind you that as much as this hurts right now, you are still yourself, and that's the most important part.

In the meantime, there was no reason you couldn't spend the rest of the semester with her and the others. <3 Maxi of course would kind of have to hold off on letting you assist with reconstruction and body prep, for state licensing reasons, but he could walk you through the parts of funeral planning that could give you practical experience and let you look at his old notes to decide if this was something you still wanted to do (granted, they're almost two decades old, but they're very detailed!!). Hex would want to encourage you to try some new things, when you felt like it. Find something that you want to learn that has nothing to do with school, or a job where you would feel comfortable picking up some new skills to add to your resume when you felt like it was manageable between now and the Fall. Rora would want you to focus on feeling better physically and mentally, whatever that looked like - you couldn't jump back into things if you didn't feel like jumping. She'd want to make sure you spent time with her outside in the garden, even if you just sat with her in the sun while she weeded or tended to her plants. She'd also want you to take plenty of naps (in her room, on the couch, wherever she could show up and sit with you and swat at her brother whenever he tried to kidnap you for cuddles) and would want you to eat indulgently, whatever that looked like for you up to and including badgering Hector and Maxi to cook for you, which they would have done anyway, but Rora is taking your physical recovery as her job so she's putting them on her schedule lmao.

I hope any of this helps, nonny. I promise you're going to be okay, and we are all still proud of you for giving it your best shot. <3 keep us posted, but don't feel like anything has to be decided right now today, y'know? <3 we love you!!

#nice people #nonny!!#depression discussion #maxi morvant #rora morvant #hector morvant-casares #maxi morvant x you #rora morvant x you #hector morvant-casares x you

4 notes · View notes

o-wise-corvid · 3 years

Text

Okay so there’s some mentions of children in pain and going through some severe physical stuff. Dark Side torture to build their hatred type stuff. DONT read if that’s too much.

People who were wanting more: @captainrexisboo @clonetrooperrights @koskareevesismyqueen @gospelofme @jgvfhl @ct-27-fives

WARNINGS: mild mentions of torture/ broken bones/ character in pain

Chapter 1: Two, Three, Four, Five

“Get your elbow up! Block with your shins and forearms... Use your points! There you go!”

To be possessed of such a small frame, Gaia never failed to impress Cody with the way she could change direction. She could run full tilt at a training droid, her whole body leaning into the sprint, then check herself, pivoting on a dime to swing up behind it. One firm kick and there was a clanker head lying at his feet.

She ran with what he could only define as commitment, pushing her entire being into a single goal. That wasn’t something he’d taught her to do, but something she’d brought herself; Cody encouraged her natural talents as often as he encouraged the practiced techniques he’d been showing her for over a year.

Gaia rode the toppling chassis to the floor, crouching on its back with a triumphant smile on her face. “How was that?”

Cody grinned at her. “Very nice. Those reinforced gauntlets really help with the punches, don’t they?”

Gaia inspected the new armor that sheathed her arms from knuckles to elbow, matte black instead of shiny. Which was a good choice given the wear the things had already gotten after one day. “Yes. No more broken knuckles.”

“No more broken knuckles,” he agreed, scooping her up. Gaia laughed and rested her small hands on his chest plate. Cody could swear she’d grown since the day before, her weight already not so easy to manage as it had once been. “But what did Papa tell you about broken bones?”

“They grow back stronger,” Gaia recited dutifully, dark eyes serious. Too serious for one so young. “Did you ever break your knuckles, Papa?”

Cody opened his mouth to answer, smiling at a memory of another brother, Kix, belligerently scolding him about his frequent visits due to how he fought droids. But another voice interjected.

“Captain.” Sixthree wobbled over anxiously, arms lifting in manufactured excitement. “You are being summoned by Lord Vader. He wishes you to bring the young lady along.”

Icy tendrils of fear shuffled their way through his body and he tightened his grip on Gaia reflexively. “Bring her with me? You’re certain about that?” he tried, despite knowing the droid would have relayed the message accurately.

“Yes sir.”

“Papa.” Gaia pulled his face around to look right at him. She touched her forehead to his. “I know what to do. Let’s go.”

He couldn’t help but smile. Her accent had changed, picking up the thicker vowels and light r’s that Jango Fett had passed down to all his Clones. In such a clear, delicate voice, it sounded especially sweet.

“I know you do,” Cody told her, lowering her to her feet. “What do you call me?”

“ ‘Sir’ if I speak at all, sir,” Gaia snapped, spine straightening like a flagpole.

“Do you look at me if you’re asked a question?”

“No sir.”

“Do you fear me?” He put a little edge in his voice, looming to his full height as he paced a tight circle around her.

“Yes sir.” Gaia didn’t track him with her eyes, didn’t blink, didn’t flinch. She was good, he had to admit. She’d picked up on what survival meant so quickly and she’d practiced everything to the point that she performed without thinking.

“Do you fear Vader?”

“Even more.”

“How do you address him?”

“My Lord.”

“Alright,” Cody finally murmured, as satisfied as he was bound to get. He touched Gaia on the top of her head, feeling the tight pattern of her braided hair under his glove, then sheathed his face in his helmet.

They stalked through the ship as one. Gaia had assumed a posture and cadence to her steps that mirrored his own, which carried a menace that even ranking officers knew to give room. She had figured out an expression of intensity that looked positively chilling on a little girl and wore it whenever she was in public. Cody admired the girl’s drive and grasp of her circumstances, even though their routine was beyond familiar.

Vader was awaiting Cody in the hangar bay, just as imposing as he’d ever been. Gaia didn’t react to his presence as they entered the long, mostly empty expanse. He wondered how she perceived him in the Force, what he felt like to the other senses that she was gifted with. From the outside, she looked inscrutable, her boots clicking in time with Cody’s as they approached the hulking figure. When Cody stopped, so did she and they both snapped a salute.

“Captain,” Vader rumbled. His sloping helmet shifted so that his attention was obviously fixed on Gaia. “Cadet.”

“My Lord,” Cody and Gaia said together and they both gave a short bow.

Vader stepped over to Gaia, sinking down on one knee until he was more level with the girl. She stared stoically ahead. “I see your training is progressing well, young one. Tell me, what do you sense in this room?”

Gaia frowned a little, but her expression was one of concentration rather than concern. “You, my Lord. The Dark Side is strong with you. The Captain. And... two others.”

Vader actually chuckled and the sound made the buzzed hair on the back of Cody’s neck stand on end. “Well done, little one. Your training has indeed progressed.” Rising, he affixed Cody with his soulless stare. “You are being tasked with the training of two others, Captain. Your success with this one is evident. I am leaving these in your command.”

Two Stormtroopers came hurrying up, each gripping a squirming person in their arms the way someone holding a feral animal would. Cody could see that they were children due to their size but because they were thrashing so wildly, there wasn’t much he could tell about them apart from the fact that they were both Zabraks.

Vader nodded to the Stormtroopers to set their burdens down, which they did, and then hurriedly backed away. Which Cody almost snorted at because it wasn’t like the kids could bite them through their armor. But then he noticed the scrapes and gouges in the white helmets; one of the eyes was shattered.

“Mind the horns, sir,” one of them offered nervously.

One of the Zabrak children twisted around, flailing a little with bound hands and legs, and actually growled at Cody. His blue eyes burned against his dusky skin, bits of plastoid shavings and visor glass stuck in the crown of amber horns along the boy’s scalp.

“I’ll have them tamed in a month, my Lord,” Cody said confidently though he had to admit that both boys looked fierce enough to take on Wookies.

“We shall see, Captain.”

Cody and Gaia glanced at each other, as Vader turned, the Stormtroopers sweeping into his wake. “Can you help me get them to our quarters?” he asked quietly. “I can get one; two might be a lot.”

Gaia grinned and stretched out a hand toward the boys. The other, green-eyed one shot up, dangling by his ankles. Cody almost laughed. Gaia wasn’t one to overdo it if she didn’t have to. Lifting the boy by his binders was easier than trying to just lift his entire body.

Cody snatched up the blue-eyed one in much the same way, keeping him at arm’s length as much as he could. The Zabrak swayed and snarled nonetheless, trying to reach Cody with his horns. Once, Cody was sure he felt the Force flutter weakly at his armored side.

Gaia had a worse time of it. Her size was the biggest problem. Green eyes squinted furiously at her and her legs flew sideways as if she’d walked over an oil slick. Gaia caught herself without dropping the Zabrak on his head and glared hotly at the boy. “Do it again and I’ll break your ankles.”

Cody looked at her worriedly, glad for the concealment of his helmet. He’d never heard such a deadly note in the girl’s voice and it chilled him. He knew she was under the charge of a slightly Forceful woman who visited the ship once a month, but what exactly happened during the hours Gaia would be away from him there, he could never say. He knew how she returned, though; it was usually hours before she finally responded to him verbally. She always crawled into his bunk on those nights, clinging to him like her sanity depended on it.

When they were finally inside his quarters, Cody flipped the blue-eyed boy as gently as he could onto the bunk, carefully righting him so he was sitting up. Gaia did the same with the other and then threw her arms around his neck. The boy’s eyes flew open wide.

“I wouldn’t have done it,” she hurried. “I promise. You have to make everyone out there feel like you would though. If they don’t think you’re bad, they won’t trust you. Do you understand?”

A wave of fierce pride seemed to bubble up from somewhere near Cody’s feet, thawing the frost of Vader’s presence out of his veins. That was his ad’ika, his Gaia. If she could keep that moral core, that goodness, and survive what could be a very horrible existence with it in tact... What a warrior she could be.

Both boys were listening now, glancing between Gaia, who knelt between them on the skinny mattress, and Cody. He took off his helmet and set it on the Gaia’s bunk. Guess he’d be needing to add two more. His quarters were starting to get really cramped now that he thought about it. He felt his lips tug to the side; Fives would’ve loved it, though, wouldn’t he? Fives always did prefer to keep everyone close, within arms reach if need be.

“You’re... wait...” The one Cody had hauled in was frowning, trying to make this new information make sense. He stared at Gaia as if he’d never seen anything so perplexing in his entire life and then his gaze shifted over to Cody. “You’re a Clone.”

“Yeah.” He knelt down and Gaia scrambled off the bed, looping her arms around his neck from behind. He patted her clasped hands and locked eyes with both boys. “I won’t lie to you. This place is dangerous. For all of us. Clones aren’t supposed to be like me. They’re all under the control of the Empire, in here,” Cody tapped his temple for emphasis. “Gaia, here? If she was what they wanted, she really would have broken your ankles. It’s not easy, being us and being here. But together, we can make it. Think you can find it in yourselves to trust us?”

“How long have you been here?” It was the blue-eyed Zabrak who spoke. His accent was as sharp as his canines.

“Over a year,” Gaia replied with a tightening of her arms around Cody’s neck. He wasn’t sure, but it felt like she was somehow guarding him, like she was prepared to launch herself over his shoulder if one of the boys tried anything. “Papa Cody helped me. He’ll help you, too. And when they start teaching you how to... do things, it won’t be easy. But he makes it better.”

The boys looked at each other and then both sighed. “Okay... what should we do?”

“Pick your names.” Gaia beamed at them both. “You can pick anything.”

Cody chuckled, Gaia’s excitement tangible as she bounced on the balls of her feet. “My brothers, the other Clones, all chose their own names before the Empire happened. It was something we all looked forward to.”

“Soren,” bubble the green-eyed boy. He beamed at his brother. “Like that pilot.”

The other boy rolled his eyes indulgently. “I know.” He looked down in his lap as Cody gently unfastened the binders around his wrists. “Who was your favorite?”

Cody frowned. “Favorite...?”

“Brother.”

Gaia was looking at him now, too. She knew, Cody suspected. He’d told her so many stories about his little brother, the one who’d earned Jaig eyes his first tour. The brother who’d walked out of the barracks fresher one morning with bleached, barely-there hair and a strut like some sort of Coruscanti model. The brother who’d stood up to a rogue Jedi, defying orders despite the knowledge that doing so might’ve meant his own life.

“Rex,” he said in a tight voice.

“Can I have it, too?”

Cody swallowed, which was difficult, but nodded. “Sure. I think... I think the other Rex would be happy to share his name with you.”

The next six months skipped by very quickly. Gaia went through a growth spurt, shooting up to only an inch or so less than Cody. Soren and Rex took to their combat training like they were born for it. Their physiology leant itself to acrobatics and the boys both favored using their own heads as weapons whenever they could.

Cody finally took the leap and shaved his head, actually feeling pleased at the result. The kids all took turns helping him, giggling and getting into a shaving gel fight before everything was said and done. Then they took turns “buffing” his smooth scalp to make him “shiny like Sixthree”.

Gaia took to guarding her new brothers like they were her own flesh and blood. She talked gently but firmly to them prior to their first session with the woman Gaia called The Teacher, and while both boys looked markedly frightened, she promised them vehemently that she would be there the entire time.

Cody tried not to think about the way all three had looked upon returning for their sleep cycle. Acid burns had peppered the left arm of each child, and Gaia sported an angry red and purple slap mark on her left cheek. He’d arrived back at their jammed quarters after a day spent forcing himself not to think about what was happening with... with his children, only to find them huddled together on his bed while Sixthree tried to soothe them while he applied bacta to their blistered skin. Gaia had thrown herself into front of the door when Cody had turned on his heel with murder in his heart, barring his way and begging him to just stay.

“Papa, what happens if you do kill her?” Gaia had demanded quietly. “They’d kill you. And then what about us?”

His awe of the girl never seemed to lessen, but only expanded more and more every day. She was so strong and so smart, protective to a fault, even of him. He adored her in a way that was no more or less than the boys, but was something different. The boys were like shadows of his childhood, ghosts of little brother cadets possessing different bodies. They felt familiar and like parts of himself that he’d lost. Gaia was more like a miniature, not quite realized version of something that Cody had never actually experienced: a mother. But this would have to be how mothers were. Right?

Two more kids were brought to the ship a week after the head shaving event. Both were just as feral and unwieldy as Soren and Rex had been, especially the youngest one to date, who was only nine. He was the most difficult of them all. And Kali was the one who had tried to Force choke him the second she’d laid eyes on him.

Shriek, the boy, had done exactly that the second that Vader and the kid’s handlers had departed. To say that the boy had a pair of lungs on him was an understatement, but it wasn’t the volume that sent Cody to his knees. Images of his brothers screaming in agony seared his brain like hot knives. Rex, falling and tumbling, the fear in his voice split Cody’s skull. Kix taking blaster bolt after blaster bolt, toppling to his knees with lifeless eyes before anther brother took his place. Wolffe stretched with his limbs pulled taught, Grievous placing a lightsaber at the junction of his shoulder and arm as he unsheathed it. The screams layered, the same but different faces bleeding over and around each other in an unending torrent of pure misery until... the varactyl scream.

Soren surged into action, clapping a dark hand over Shriek’s mouth so hard that it made tears spring into the boy’s dark hazel eyes. Rex tackled Kali, who had flown to her feet and was running away like a frightened animal. Gaia planted herself between the boy who would be called Shriek, arms raised defensively, face taught with concentration.

“Get... out... of his head,” she struggled to say, sinking down on one knee as if some huge weight was pressing her into the plastisteel floor. She whooped in a breath and then growled through gritted teeth, arms trembling furiously. Cody had relied on later recounts of the event to fill in the gaps in his memory but that moment, the relief as... it withdrew from him, was one that remained crystal clear.

No one had moved for a long while after that, all five just breathing loudly. Shriek lay stiff and shivering in Soren’s arms. Kali had allowed Rex to turn her loose, her purple lekku draped over each shoulder as she slumped to her knees. Gaia had collapsed to her hands and knees, but not before knocking her foot against his arm. Are you okay?

He started to tell her he was okay, but he knew he wasn’t, so he didn’t say anything. Such tenderness also wouldn’t have looked good to outside eyes. Instead, Cody straightened out of the curled ball he’d been reduced to by a child and tried to get to one knee. A lancing stab of white hot fire shot through his head, cracking over his right temple and behind his eye. The noise that tore out of him was startling even to him.

“I’ve got to get him to medical,” Gaia said quietly, glancing at Soren and Rex. “Take them to our quarters. Gag that one.”

Kali didn’t resist and instead benignly followed Rex and Soren as they hefted Shriek between them, careful not to glance worriedly back at Gaia as she struggled to get Cody standing again.

“Come on, Papa,” she whispered, fitting her shoulders under his arm. “Help me.”

Energized a little by the girl’s plea, Cody got his feet under him, live blaster round loose in his skull and all, and kept himself righted long enough for Gaia to half drag him to medical. How she did it other than through the Force, he was never able to really comprehend afterward. It was only the next morning, after he came to with five small faces watching him intently did he realize that he’d been unconscious.

“Captain, sir,” Gaia roused the group with a sharp salute and they all lined up beside his bed. Each was dressed in matching simple black body glove, kama, and black vambraces, their faces ghostly in the too bright lights of the medbay.

“At... at ease,” he said, groaning quietly at the sensation of light in his eyes as he slowly pushed himself up on the bed. The five children obeyed in flawless, unnerving synchronization.

“Cadets Kali and Shriek have made a change of opinion since last you spoke, sir.” Gaia intoned in what he could only describe as a menacing voice. But the names... that was promising, he hoped.

She broke rank and placed behind the line, her recent gains in height very evident amongst the others. “Haven’t you?” she snapped pointedly, glaring into the faces of the vibrantly purple Twi’Lek and pale young human as she gave each of them a healthy smack on the shoulder that was anything but friendly.

Again, Cody felt the gnaw of worry mixed with shock at how good Gaia was at this.

“Yes sir,” they both answered, addressing Gaia. That was a nice touch.

She turned to Cody, betraying not announce of emotion other than agitation. “We will leave you to your rest, sir. I would like to put the newbies through their paces, sir, with your permission.”

“Permission granted,” Cody said in as flat and hard a voice as he could muster.

Waiting until the kids had trooped out in single file, he reached over to the pile of discarded armor that someone had removed from his body and grabbed his communicator. “Sixthree?”

There was a pause and then the too chipper voice of the protocol droid responded. “Captain. Oh, I do hope you are sufficiently recovered?”

“I... yeah, I’m okay. Listen. We’re gonna need a bigger room. Six beds. A master suite for myself, a group room for the... squad.” He dropped his voice to a whisper. “Maybe room for a proper kitchen and place to eat. See what you can do about that, yeah?”

#star wars #star wars fanfiction #sunshine squad #commander cody #my oc’s #oc’s #original character #darth vader #the clone wars #fives #kix #clones #captian rex

30 notes · View notes

thorne93 · 3 years

Text

The Stars Made Us (Part 31)

Prompt: In this world, you’re one of the “lucky” ones who got a soulmate, but what if the universe gives you more than you bargained for?

(Prompt challenge – You live in a world where your soulmate can write on their skin and you will get the writing on your own and vice versa. Where they can wash away the ink on their own skin, however, the writing is forever scarred onto your skin until you meet face to face)

Word Count: 2760

Warnings: angst and language throughout, death, torture,

Notes: This was supposed to be for @sorryimacrapwriter and their challenge like a year ago, I think? I still loved the prompt though and have been working on this story for quite some time. This aesthetic was made by @dontshootmespence thank you so much! Beta’d by @like-a-bag-of-potatoes, couldn’t have done it without you, as well as @carryonmyswansong and @arrow-guy and @mrs-dragneel-stark-solo

Also, I’ve never really liked the whole soulmate AU thing idea, but this felt so right and it was amazing to write. I hope y’all love it too!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As they walked forward, on their left, a giant window came into view. Only this window didn't look outside. It was tilted away from them at a 45 degree view. A view into what appeared to be an operating room - with you in the center on a bed. You were strapped to an odd hospital bed as you looked up, you saw them and your eyes went wide. You couldn't talk, as this woman had covered your mouth.

You wanted to tell them to get out of there. You'd only recently woke up in this room, but you didn't want them to be here. Whatever was going on, they needed to leave.

"So lovely of you to join us," a woman's voice came over the speaker.

"Who's there? Show yourself," Charles demanded.

"Oh, what's the matter, Professor X? Can't stand not being able to read my mind?" the woman asked again, but this time she did step into their line of sight, right in front of your bed. She looked up at the two men.

Charles recognized her instantly. Stephen, however, did not.

"Rebecca?" he breathed.

"Who the hell is Rebecca?" Stephen asked, looking between Charles and Stephen.

"Typical of the great Dr. Stephen Strange not to remember me," she said. "Just can't fit anyone but that over inflated ego in your head, can you, doc?"

"She's an old student," Charles informed, almost to himself.

"Ah, ah," she warned. "That's not the whole story, is it, Professor?"

"Charles, what is she talking about?"

"Why don't you tell him? Tell them both," Rebecca urged before walking to your side of the bed. "I'll make it worth your while."

"Rebecca, let Y/N go. I don't know what you want, but you can let her go. You can have me," Charles said desperately.

"Oh, how sweet," she said with a pouting face. "I don't think so. I went through a lot of trouble to get her here. Years of watching her, watching you, watching the doc..."

Stephen and Charles traded a look of confusion and worry.

"Tell them about me, Professor," she encouraged. She hit a button and you began screaming through the gag she'd placed on you.

"Alright, fuck this," Stephen said, starting to conjure a portal but nothing was happening. "I don't... I don't understand--" He looked to Rebecca in horrified confusion.

"Oh, did I forget to mention that? Oh, yes. You can't portal your way in here or use the mirror dimension or any of your other cute parlor tricks, Dr. Strange. And, Professor, you don't go about trying to read my mind. I reinforced this room, this whole bunker the same way Sebastian Shaw did on his submarine. You won't be able to penetrate my mind or anyone else's for that matter, so give up."

The two men glared at her, their fear and anxiety spiking.

"Alright, what do you want?" Charles demanded.

"What do I want? I want my life back, but you two made that beyond possible. But what you can give me now... I want to watch you two suffer. So... tell them about me, about how we met, or--" She hit a button, sending more shocks through you, causing you to scream before crying. You glared at her, wishing you could just end her right then and there.

"Okay! Alright! I'll tell them." He sighed. "Rebecca came to me when she was 16. She wanted to learn how to control her powers. She'd gotten into trouble with the law, and I offered to teach her. But things weren't working out well. She can clone herself, and one day, at a store, she shop lifted. It was just a few snacks, but she did it using her powers, and she used them again to evade the police until they finally caught her and brought her back to my doorstep. I tried to ask her what had made her break the law again, when she didn't give me a satisfactory answer, I just wrote it off. But she kept breaking the rules, breaking the law. One night, she came into my study. I was focused on my work so I didn't hear her thoughts..." He drifted off, his eyes cast down in shame as if he couldn't bear it. "She came in trying to seduce me. She put her hands on me, she was dressed scantily. She'd turned 18 a few months prior to this and she must've thought it would be okay to come onto me." He gave her a look of anger and rejection. "I told her I cared for her as a student and that was all. When I rejected her, she became furious. She said that I wouldn't help her better her power, that I didn't care and the school was a waste of time. Given the circumstances of trying to harass me in my office, I accessed her mind." He looked at her, as if trying to get her to remember.

"And?" Stephen urged.

"And I didn't find a girl who wanted to learn how to control her powers, I found a girl who wanted to learn how to evolve her powers. She wanted to learn how to use them so well she'd be left undetected. She planned on moving up from stealing candy bars and chips. She had thoughts in her head of museum heists, bank robberies..."

"I was a bad girl," Rebecca suddenly said as she began pacing.

"Is this true?" Stephen asked, looking at the woman. "You seduced your headmaster and broke the law and you're mad at him?"

She stopped in her tracks to whip her face to Stephen. "I'm mad because I loved him. I thought he loved me. All the signs were there. Just because I wanted to do more with my power, he expelled me."

"With every right," Charles said defensively. "You were planning on killing if you had to, just to use your powers to do harm. I never once gave you the impression that I loved you."

"Oh, don't be so innocent. I saw the way you looked at me. I saw the way you looked in my bedroom at night. You saw into my head all the fantasies I had and never approached me."

"Rebecca, I checked your room because you snuck out after curfew almost every night. I never read your mind except for the night you tried to harass me, and I never, ever, looked at you like any more than a student."

"If that's what you want to believe."

"Wait, so you were expelled from a mutant school, what's the big deal?" Stephen asked. "That warrants abducting Y/N, hurting her?"

"Yes, it does. Charles knew I needed help, but he wouldn't listen, he wouldn't help me."

"I tried, Rebecca, I truly did, but you insisted on breaking the law and breaking the rules."

"You ruined my life. I could've had a good life if I'd graduated, but no, I was 18, with no high school diploma. I had to get a GED. But I tried to move on, tried to forget about how you threw me out like yesterday's garbage, so I enrolled in medical school. That's where Dr. Stephen Strange comes in. World renowned neurosurgeon."

"I've never met you," Stephen assured with a befuddled look, shaking his head and narrowing his eyes.

She let out a laugh, clearly humorless. "Ah, to be so easily forgettable. Not like you, Y/N." She looked back to you and hit that button on the small remote again. Your back arched off the table as you tried to move away from the shocking, but you couldn't escape it due to the restraints.

"Try to remember, doctor," she encouraged. "You wouldn't want a vegetable for a girlfriend." The shocks continued and you felt your eyes rolling back in your head from the pain.

"I--I--I--I don't remember," he stammered, upset, trying to think. "You're not a patient, you're not a family member of a patient, you're not a student--Wait, that's it. Yes you are, or were."

"Ding, ding, ding!" she called out and the shocking stopped. You were glistening with sweat as you took your first breath that wasn't wrapped in pain. "That I was, the was is all thanks to you."

"What happened? What did you do?" Charles asked curiously.

"She was a student, a resident student of mine that had made rounds."

"And? Tell them what else I did," Rebecca urged, walking slowly again around your bed, listening.

"She was a student, but a careless one. I'd ask her to cut right, she'd cut left. She disobeyed me almost constantly. During a procedure, I asked her to do something, and failure to do that almost costed a man his life."

She rolled her eyes. "He was fine."

"Yes, thanks to me, not you," he said angrily, facing her through the glass that looked down into the room. "I told you to tell me exactly what you were going to do, and you didn't do it."

"So what? No one else was doing it."

"Wrong," he deadpanned, irate. "Every one of your fellow students narrated exactly what they did during surgery. I let them make incisions, cut arteries, tie them off, because I believe the only way to learn is to do something under my strict supervision. I asked you to tell me everything you were doing, before you did it. You failed to do that time and time again. You were defiant, disobedient, and flippant. I had no choice to do what I did."

"What did you do?" Charles asked, wondering what could be so horrible.

"I'll tell you what he did," Rebecca interjected. "He failed me on my surgical rotations. He wouldn't sign off on work I'd done. He even went to my dean and gave them a long explanation why they should expel me from the program. And being who he is... they listened."

Charles and Stephen looked at each other.

"You two ruined my life," she all but snarled. "Now, I'm going to ruin yours. I never thought the universe could be so generous, and yet here we are. I have a 2 for 1 special. Two men, for 1 woman. You both love her so much, that much is clear. I've had the pleasure of waiting, watching. Imagine my utter delight when I find out you have the same soulmate."

"Rebecca, Rebecca, wait," Charles begged as he watched her move around the room. "Whatever you want, whatever you need, we can help you."

"The time is over for help! We are way past that! No, when I got expelled from school, again, I realized it was my life mission to destroy you two. You two who had so much. Both doctors, both living it up in fancy homes, both prestigious in your fields. You had so much and instead of helping people who needed it, you turn your back on them. You lie to them. You ruined my life. I could've had everything, but you took it away from me."

"Rebecca, there has to be another way," Stephen's voice said.

"No! There is no other way! In fact, I think this is the only fitting way to end things, don't you?"

"What? No, no, no, no, no," Charles began, pleading. "No, we can fix this. We'll do whatever you ask."

She laughed callously. "That ship has sailed, Professor, but good try. A+ effort." She rounded your bed and went to a cabinet. "No, I think it's time that your life looked like mine, looked like others that you've failed. I think it's time you two lost something you loved."

"Just take us! Don't hurt her!" Charles demanded, his plea erratic and heartbreaking for you. You began crying. Not for yourself, but to see them go through this.

"Oh, no, that'd be too easy. I don't want to kill you two. No, no, that's much too simple. I want you to watch as the one woman you love dies in front of you and your powerless. To feel that you can't do anything at all to save her, to fix your life. You'll get to know how it feels, finally. All your power, money, and status can't do anything. Fitting, seeing as all of that destroyed me."

She smiled as she held a crystal in her hand.

"I'd tell you to say your goodbyes, but frankly, I don't think you deserve them." She put the crystal in an odd chamber, almost like a birdcage and walked back to the back of the room and went into a smaller room, closing the door behind her.

You started to panic, trying to get out of the restraints. Stephen and Charles looked on in complete terror. They had no idea what was about to happen.

"Goodbye, Y/N," Rebecca said before something smashed the crystal in the birdcage. A mist began to fill the room and you fought and fought against your restraints. You wished you could tell Stephen and Charles to look away. They didn't need to see this, but you couldn't say a word. Your mouth was taped shut.

A small, selfish part of you though wanted them to continue looking at you. So the last thing you would see was their eyes, albeit full of tears and anguish, they were still the gorgeous blue eyes you'd fallen for.

You hoped and prayed that even though Charles couldn't read your mind, maybe he could read your eyes. You looked to both men and tried to convey the feelings of love and adoration that you had for them.

All of this happened in the matter of a few seconds, before you knew it, some sort of hard substance was making its way up your body.

You wanted to tell them you'd be okay, you wanted to make them feel better, but all they saw was you being covered in a cocoon of what appeared to be molten rock. They slammed their fists on the window, screaming your name, trying to get to you -- but it was futile.

You were covered with stone, from head to toe. You'd never see Charles and Stephen again, and the last thing you'd seen was them fighting for their life to get to you.

But it was too late. You were gone.

The two men, upon seeing your body covered head to toe in stone, felt their world implode. Charles screamed, incoherently as he turned around, his hands on his head. He slid down to the floor, tears running down his cheeks.

Stephen felt cold all over, as if the whole universe just disappeared for him. He'd faced Dormammu, an entity that was going to suck Earth away, consume it. This didn't compare to that. He felt numb. He knew he should be angry, he should be crying like Charles, but all he could feel was... darkness, an emptiness inside him.

Charles didn’t know how he was going to face another day without you. How he’d face the next five minutes without you. His chest felt tight, as if he couldn’t breathe. You two were just barely starting the journey of your lives together, fully, and now you were gone. Charles couldn’t get enough of you once you met. He hated himself for ignoring you for a year, and now that was a year he’d never get back, and he hated himself all the more. A flurry of anger, heartache, regret, and grief flooded his system. He wasn’t sure he was ever going to stop sobbing.

Stephen felt powerless, uselees. He was a doctor for God’s sakes and he couldn't save the one person who meant more to him than anyone else. He truly didn’t believe in all this soulmate nonsense when the scarring was showing up on him, but it only took a small bit of time near you to see exactly why the universe had cherry-picked you for him. You were strong enough to withstand his anger and his ego. You were gentle enough to get him to calm down and talk about things. You were funny enough to make him double over in stitches when he didn’t feel like even smiling. You were kind enough to make him want to be a better person, to save lives for more than just pomp and show. He wanted to be a good person for you, but also because of you. And now, all of that light, all of the good you did for the world and put into the world was snuffed out.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Forever Tag:

@essie1876

@magpiegirl80

@letsgetfuckingsuperwholocked

@iamwarrenspeace

@marvel-imagines-yes-please

@superwholocked527

@missinstantgratification

@thejemersoninferno

@rda1989

@munlis

@thefridgeismybestie

@bubblyanarocks3

@igiveupicantthinkofausername

@kaliforniacoastalteens

@feelmyroarrrr

@kaeling

@friendlyneighbourhoodweirdo

@damalseer

@heyitscam99

@yknott81

@sorryimacrapwriter

@glitterquadricorn

@xxqueenofisolationxx

@little-dis-kaalista-pythonissama

@bittersweetunicorm

@alyssaj23

@sea040561

@princess76179

@thisismysecrethappyplace

@sarahp879

@malfoysqueen14

@ellallheart

@breezy1415

@marvelmayo

@lyniboy

@paintballkid711

Charles Xavier

@bohemianrhapsody86

@lenawiinchester

TSMU

@tilltheendwilliwrite

@allinhishands

@solaramoonset

@halfofwhatisayismeaningless

#the stars made us #charles xavier x reader #charles xavier fic #charles xavier #stephen strange x reader #stephen strange fic #stephen strange

44 notes · View notes

werezmastarbucks · 4 years

Text

dayton

honeymoon masterlist

word count: 2631

music: air catcher by twenty one pilots

The tiniest part of you wanted to go to Columbus, because you loved that place. But the bigger part, the one that connected your brain to your hands clutching the wheel, told you if you fail, you’ll have all the time in the world to go back to Columbus. To wherever the fuck you want. Kai said he can operate practically any type of transport, but doesn’t like ships. Flying was fine with you as long as he really knew not to crash a plane. You had to constantly remind yourself that he had many years to learn everything.

As you drove, you were revising the CDs Kai found in the car. He was putting the disk in and pressing play, or sometimes he just read the names of the bands. He opened the window and threw away all the CDs that were named trash. Now that you two were misplacing them, they were supposed to stay there on the road after Kai sent them out of the window, you were asking. Right? But, crashing on the ground, they were damaged, so did it fall under the order part of the spell? Were they to return into the car after you deliberately got rid of them?

“You’ll know tomorrow”, Kai replied playfully. Surely he knew how that works, but it seemed he was unwilling to just tell you everything about this prison, and wanted you to discover things for yourself.

Dayton was empty, too. Just like Roanoke and Huntington on the way through. You found this stillness somewhat soothing. You didn’t like gatherings and crowds, didn’t like noise and people. You decided to dive back into the three foot world, and just enjoy the empty roads for once, and start worrying when the realization of utter loneliness settles in.

You looked on your right, where Parker was sitting, staring at the cover of “East of the Sun, West of the Moon” by a-ha (do not throw them away under any circumstances!) in his hands, with one brow raised, belt across his chest. You still felt like you were alone here although he was next to you. He still didn’t feel like a human person - more like a part of this world. As inanimate. He was remarkably quiet, and you knew it wasn’t for good.

On the Germantown Street, you stopped the car, feeling tired. The sun was about to set down completely, the May angle leading it onto your left. You got out and stretched, and Kai stepped out of the car a minute later.

“Where will we sleep? Any good hotels?”

He shrugged.

“I haven’t been in Dayton”.

“You haven’t been to Dayton?” you repeated.

“That’s what I said”.

“Ever?”

“Ever”.

He looked around and stared at the sky again. Parker has been glitching like that since last night, when he stared up as if trying to cope. You looked at his upturned nose and his youthful face, thinking, he is in his forties. This dude is going to be fifty years old soon, and he is a nut case, and I have him on my hands.

He looked back at you.

“Adventure begins here”, his tone was half-questioning, and he smiled. The way it curled his capricious mouth, his eyes glowing, told you he didn’t really believe in getting out. You’ve only spent here a day, but he gave up already. He knew there was no getting out, and he just took it as a long journey, to keep his girlfriend sane. You had no idea where he thought he was going.

You walked back to the car and took your bag and the phone. Kai’s eyes wouldn’t leave you.

“You’re changing the car again?”

“Uh-huh. Why not? It’s not like someone’s going to report them all?”

He smiled again.

You walked down the street, ghostly and quiet. No stray dogs, no garbage being thrown around by the wind - but that’s likely due to Dayton being very clean. Kai wouldn’t bother taking the bag out of your hands, walking with his head turning right and left. You felt like in a museum, observing the 90s’ fashionable displays and stores. The eerie sight of clothes you had a habit of associating with your mother’s youth, and the lighthearted, distant, happy past years, the square thick screens and simpler times, were now a reality for you. You could reach and touch that sky-blue blouse on a slim mannequin, wearing posh plastic necklace, a picture from an aesthetic lookbook for inspiration. Aesthetic and nostalgia, that’s what the nineties were to you, but now they were here, brought right upon you, by magic, and they were very real.

You slowed down in front of one of the windows of the Dayton Mall, a low, nice-looking white and green store, and looked at the leather jacket displayed.

The bag dropped on the ground as the understanding slowly creeped into your mind. Kai was standing few steps away from you, with his head cocked, watching you yet again. He seemed like a tour guide, a museum security guy who was more concerned about whether you enjoy this experience rather than keeping it all intact.

“I can do whatever I want”, you said slowly.

“Absolutely everything. There’s nobody to stop me”.

“Don’t headbutt the glass”, Parker warned you, and there was this note in his voice that told you he’s talking from personal experience.

You took off your hoodie, the evening air a bit cool for only a tank top. You wrapped your hoodie around your hand and swung it, breaking the display.

The glass shattered loudly, pieces of it falling to your feet with ringing. Interesting, you thought, you get here, into this world of opportunity which poses as prison, and the first thing you do is vandalize.

The jacket wasn’t even that cool, so you didn’t aim for it. You looked down the street full of windows, and you could feel your blood boil. There was something inside of you, trying to get out, like the fuse that suddenly got lit. Everybody has it. Anybody would do it. You turned back to look at him - no need to mention his name, there is nobody else but this guy - and he grinned half-invisibly. It was a grin of indulgence, a hidden smile that lit his face when he did something bad: you recognized it from last week, when he said he’d kidnapped Elena on the first week after he got out of prison. It was the smirk that bloomed on his face as he spoke about how he gutted his own mother, and god save you, it was the same smile he had after you opened your eyes and still had a taste of his mouth in yours.

You ran along the Germantown Street with the red pipe wrench you fished out of a car you found in the street. It was heavy in your hands as you swung it, crashing it into the glass, bothering the headless and armless mannequins, startled and falling down, creating the mess on their places. The glass was cutting your hands, flying in all directions, spitting sharp shrapnel like rain. With each broken window, your shoulder ached more and your head ached less, and you felt less like crying. Maybe there was a wake among that act of desctruction, but you missed it amongst the wild excitement of complete permissiveness. Parker walked after you, smiling quietly, as you raged around him, carrying the bag, and looked around. Finally, when you got tired, he sat on the asphalt next to you and looked at your hands.

“You’ve tapped one percent of what you can do here”.

His sly hand took your palm, and your skin stung a little. It wasn’t as bad as that burn yesterday. You watched your own hands not believing pain could live longer than physical manifestation of it. Kai’s fingers wrapped around the cuts tightly, making you sigh sharply. He was so full of magic now, fresh prince of everything, that it radiated out of him. You could swear you felt it coming from his hand to yours. The cuts started sucking on themselves, and the ache stayed deep inside slender bones, phantom.

“Another”.

“You shouldn’t waste your magic. Who knows how long we’re going to stay here”.

Kai gave you a meaningful look.

“Well, we decided we’d find a way, right? So, I’m doing it soon”.

“You know you’re lying. You’re only going to Oregon because I asked you”.

“See how nice I am?”

Your palm snaked out of his hand as soon as he healed you.

“That’s what I don’t like about it”.

Parker eyed you down.

“You’re really hard to please, aren’t you?”

“I’m a bit grumpy cause I’m stuck here with you”.

“I have told you before, I never asked you to”.

You didn’t really have the energy to fight now. You wondered how you’re going to cope with his breakdowns in the future - and they’re bound to happen from time to time. Maybe become just like him, emotionally volatile. Seems easy enough. So far, everything here has been too easy, and you were waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Darkness fell on Dayton, and there was intense white glow somewhere beyond a row of buildings in Madden Hill.

“There it goes. I think it’s a cool hotel. You should go to sleep, you have a long drive tomorrow”.

He got up and offered you a hand.

“It’s weird you’re not driving”, you noticed.

“I don’t like driving”.

You stood up without his help and he frowned again, like he was noticing every little thing crossing your mind.

“How is that? I thought you liked being in control”.

“I am. I’m making you drive me everywhere”.

You sniffed.

“I do it because I like driving”.

“Then it’s a win-win, right?”

He patted you on the back and removed his hand as if afraid you’d bite.

You walked on towards the glow, crossing lit and dark streets. Here the lightning is automatic, and here is not, Kai was commenting. He was commenting on everything which indicated he was in a good mood.

“That’s the best ‘94 can do?” you inquired, looking at the tall rectangle building.

“It’s a Hilton”, he noticed.

“It’s an ugly ass hotel”, you grumbled. Kai snickered and followed you inside.

“Are you hungry? I’m hungry”.

Parker knew his way around everything. He knew where the kitchen was, and, while you were coming up choosing a room, he went on raiding the huge space filled with food.

He was devilishly good with it, too.

That evening, after you’ve eaten, you went strolling around the place and found out one more thing: you didn’t like being without him while you knew he was around.

Empty space that was supposed to be filled with people creeped out your unprepared mind. The stairs sounded hollow, and you expected somebody to jump out of the long, empty corridors. In the windows of the hotel, there shone an empty city, lit for nobody. Shadows and silhouettes were floating around in the dark sky. You decided not to butcher every thing that came into your way and fought the desire to break the window to look outside. What will become of you if you use the foot and fist method for everything just because there’s no one to stop you? Kai wouldn’t mentor you. He’s more of a devil on the left shoulder than the voice of reason. He will definitely be willing to spoil you until you’re flexible material he can use.

You now had a great opportunity to reflect on all that, Parker included, and decide on your course of action, separate yourself from your cell mate. But instead of staying away to think you found yourself drawn to the place where he was, because the empty ugly Hilton was scary.

You returned into the room and found him, sitting on the floor of the big top floor suite, with the little bedside light next to him, crouched over something. Walking closer, you found it was the charger from your phone, and something remotely resembling a part of a boombox. One of the loud speakers from it was torn out, and laid at his hand, and you couldn’t understand a single thing he was doing.

“What is it?”

“I’m making you a portable speaker, like one of those bluetooth things kids have”, he said shortly.

You looked down on him, a little surprised, because he’s never acknowledged his own age or the era he’s lived in before. Preoccupied, he looked very smart, and completely normal. He even rolled up the sleeves of his hoodie.

“How?”

“See this thing? It’s from that player”, he motioned his hand towards a player lying afar on the floor. Looked like he’d kicked it away with force.

“I’ll adjust the wire so that it can see your iPhone, and voila”.

“But I need the charger”.

“It’s gonna work”, he nodded.

“Are you sure? Kai, I can’t lose my phone!”

He sighed, and looked up at you.

“Did I mentioned I studied at MIT?”

“No. You know there’s been a shooting?”

You didn’t know why you mentioned it immediately.

“Wasn’t me”.

“Clever motherfucker”.

Kai shifted as if you touched him. He looked at you as you walked away. Coming close to the bed, you felt you were almost collapsing with exhaustion even though you didn’t do much.

Just before you fell asleep, you looked at the time on an electronic clock next to bed. It was almost midnight.

You woke up as if someone hit you. The silence was pressing on your ears, pressing your head, and moreover you didn’t know where you were. Without opening your eyes, you tried to remember the place and what happened. The darkness was blue and black, and it was so warm you tried to pull the covers off of yourself, and failed.

Kai moaned, displeased, right behind your ear, and you realized his arm was wrapped around you, and that’s why you felt like you were lying in a cacoon.

You rolled halfway, not without a struggle, and saw his face very close.

“Kai, what about personal space?”

His body was so close you could feel the heat coming off of him. Of course, he’s one of those boys who turn into stoves when they sleep. Somehow his body just did that, so that you didn’t really know what he was unhappy about. You were scared of how well your shape adjusted to his, and you were lying comfortably in such a position that you usually get when you wake up in the morning. Even if bed seemed uncomfortable last night, in the morning you don’t want to move an inch, and the pillow seems perfectly soft.

Still, you could feel his invasive mass, almost pushing you off that king sized bed, cornering you to the edge, like he was trying to scope you and win over the bed at the same time. You felt for his hand against your ribs and found he formed a fist, clutching the fabric of your shirt, like you were about to roll away.

“What personal space?” he murmured.

Fair enough. In this world, that was all yours and nobody else’s, this crowdless, lifeless planet, thounsands and thousands of miles of nobody’s land, in this spacious cursed desert, there was not space enough for the two of you to move separately. You had felt it while wandering around the hotel, when you decided to run back to where he was just to see another human next to you, to make sure you’re not alone. This prison was as claustrophobia igniting as it was hollow. There was no personal space here.

#kai parker #kai parker imagine #kai parker x reader #vampire diaries imagine #tvd imagine

52 notes · View notes

traumasurvivorshelpingsurvivors · 3 years

Note

(TW for meds, insomnia, hospital, accident, death, pandemic, violence) This is an ask for reassurance and advice. I currently take medicine that was prescribed to me after my trauma to treat insomnia. I thought this would just be a "band-aid" solution but it feels like life kept spiraling downhill and I've had to continue to stay on the med for now. I won't get into the details but after my first trauma (which was a personal trauma, no one else was hurt or impacted but me), I then had a (1/10)

sudden death in the family, my mom was paralyzed after an accident, and I also had to start taking care of a family member in the late stages of Alzheimer's. When my mom was paralyzed and my other family member died, I was put on a psychiatric waiver from my classes because my school said I was too unstable to keep attending. I tried to seek help from my school's counseling center twice. The first time, they wouldn't see me because I wasn't enrolled at the time (this was after my first trauma which involved hospitalization so I wasn't taking classes).

The second time (after the death + accident + becoming a caretaker), they literally said that my problems were "too severe" for them to deal with but wouldn't give me any other resources. So rather than receiving proper long-term counseling, I've had to rely on my medicine. Like I mentioned, it's prescribed to me by a doctor, I don't abuse it, I'm on a small dose, and I don't get any side effects from it. But I just see it as a personal failure because I think to myself "If only I had gotten better help before, I wouldn't be relying on medication now." Plus even with medication due to my life being so unstable I still encounter issues with sleep and have sleep-related anxiety in general. I don't feel ready to come off my medication for now, because I feel like a change in medication would be a bad idea given my current circumstances and tbh the pandemic has made things that were already stressful even more stressful, for example there's been vaccine shortages where I live, lots of fights and violence in broad daylight, and just... really bad policies that have kept the pandemic out of control compared to other places.

I'm not living in a stable environment, I've always hated this city and the pandemic made me realize just how little I can keep tolerating it. I'm currently going to a new school I'm hopefully graduating from soon and still get extreme stress on a daily basis thanks to having to take care of my family members on top of loads of schoolwork. I did see a counselor (only short-term though because they ended up moving out of this country) who said my dose is safe and that they believe that once I eliminate some of the stressors from my life (like finally graduating school and leaving this bad environment) and can focus on my trauma recovery without as much stress, I will eventually not need the medicine anymore, and will be able to gradually wean off of it.

I have researched about this online and would do it carefully under the guidance of a medical professional, plus like I mentioned before I'm on a low dose and never abuse it. There's been times where I've fallen asleep without it and also some times where I've been able to go for months on a reduced dose comfortably, until some obstacle sets me back and I'm back to feeling like I need the full dose again. I still have a LOT of fear like "What if I'm STILL too mentally messed up even after life gets less stressful for me? What if I run into new traumas? What if it's too difficult for me to stop needing my medicine to sleep? What if the problem is all ME and I'm just this messed up person beyond repair who failed at being a human thanks to my trauma ruining me?" and I get extremely, overwhelmingly panicked over those thoughts literally every day.

One fear in particular that I have is that I know when my relative with Alzheimer's dies, it will be absolutely devastating. I just wish my initial trauma would have never happened to me, because now it feels like my brain is far too messed up to handle ANYTHING else, whether it's just school or if it's something more serious like more deaths/accidents in the family. I feel like if someone else were going through this I would support them and encourage them but I can't give my brain the same treatment I would give to someone else. I just feel like I'm stuck in this situation and it all goes back to not getting the right help from the right people at the right time.

Can I have some advice and reassurance about how to approach all of this? (Also, I wanted to add that I have severe health anxiety, so if possible I would appreciate if you could please try to avoid saying things that would make my anxiety worse in regards to health topics since I see a lot of "worst case scenario" type stuff online that causes me to panic and I want to focus on positive possibilities instead, please) Thanks!

---

Hi Anon,

First of all, it sounds like you’re dealing with a lot of stress and holding up really well considering that. I know it may feel like you’re not doing well at all, but it sounds like you’re still getting through school and taking care of family, both of which are not easy things. You should feel good about the fact you’re doing a lot better than many people would be in the same situation.

The fact that you are taking a medication isn’t a failure at all. If someone was depressed and taking an anti-depressant medication to treat it, that wouldn’t be a sign of weakness. If someone had a lactose intolerance and sometimes took a medication so they could eat cheese while minimizing the effects, that wouldn’t be “wrong”.

It sounds like your school’s counselling center failed you. That really sucks. But it isn’t your fault that they wouldn’t help you or even get you access to other resources - it sounds like you did what you could to get help, especially considering everything that you were going through.

You are not a failure because you need a bit of help, especially with everything you are handling right now. It would have been great if you had gotten the help you needed before, but now you should be focused on doing what you can to reduce the stress in your life. Graduating school is obviously a big thing you can do to help yourself. But also, if there is a way you can get more help taking care of family, you may want to make use of that. If there’s another way to access counselling, you may to try that. If meditation, mindfulness exercises, or any other stress management techniques are helpful to you, those are a possibility as well.

There is no shame at all in taking a medication to help you sleep, but I also have confidence that things will get better and you will be able to wean off of it in the future (but it’s okay if you decide not to do this, too). You’re doing great. Things will get better.

You’ve got this.

- Mod Ess

#trauma talks #insomnia #pandemic #death #tw death #accident #violence #Mod Ess

3 notes · View notes

deliciouslydebauched · 4 years

Photo

BIO

{This in particular can help to give an overview of this character for those unfamiliar with the Fable franchise, it's a very simplified list of facts about a fairly (in my opinion) complex character, both a mixture of direct facts and my own character headcanons.

Immortal ex-pirate and theif, as well as the Hero of Skill, Reaver is the leader of all industry in the Kingdom of Albion having founded Reaver Industries. Through using twisted business tactics in his factories such as child labour, severely low wages, and shooting workers who disobey, he has accumulated unfathomable wealth and became an invaluable asset to the Royal Family, even if they do not always agree with his principles. He is one of their closest advisers as although his suggestions may lack sentiment for the people, they always result in a growth in the Royal Treasury funds.

Narcissistic, egotistical, and displaying a near psychopathic disregard for life, this debauched elite should not be crossed. Although elegance drips from his youthful appearance, finely tailored suits and theatrical persona, Reaver will double cross and use anyone necessary if it benefits his power, financial status or generally entertains him. This can be seen through his 'selective member' parties thrown weekly in which guests observe an unwilling victim battle to their death against brutal creatures, all while dining on whiskey and submitting themselves to whatever lustful pleasures they or their host are in the mood for. Reaver is not immoral, but amoral, seeming to bear no concept of morality. And as the most skilled marksman in the land- the Hero of Skill shan't miss your pretty head if he deems you one fitting of aiming the trigger towards.

Time, loss and greed are a lethal combination. The mortal man that used to exist is long gone, long decayed beyond recognition. All that is left is a soul without a glimmer of light.

"What a weak, despicable man he is. But I am not he. I am Reaver. And I will sleep much better after this chalice of wine.’

-------------------------------- Full Name: Unknown (Goes by Reaver in present time)

Titles: Pirate King, Hero of Skill

Nicknames: Suppressor of the people’, ‘thief’, 'nobhead' and an array of other unpleasant nicknames amongst the peasantry

Age: Roughly 300 years old

Gender: Male

Sexuality: Pansexual aromantic

Birthplace: Oakvale

Residence: It changes regularly. For many years he travelled the seas on his ship ‘the reaver’, only to then settle into a mansion in Bloodstone which he abandons by the end of Fable 2 to travel to Samarkand. In Fable 3 he has returned to Albion to reside in a mansion in Millfields, which he then again abandons.

Financial Status: Upper Class (perhaps only beaten in wealth by royalty)

BODY & BASICS

Height: 6’2

Build: Slim yet toned, although hidden beneath extravagant clothing.

Hair Color: Black

Eye Colour: Brown Scent: Gunpower, expensive colognesTattoos: A small black heart on his left cheekboneScars: None

Alignment: Chaotic neutral/ lawful evil (depends on the circumstance)

FACTS AND HEADCANONS (1) Reaver gained his immortality through striking a deal with the Shadow court, but in doing so did not realise the price he would pay was the destruction of his family, fiance, and all other inhabitants of his home town Oakvale. (2) He must provide a yearly sacrifice to the court to maintain this youth. This is something he has quoted to be becoming an increasing 'burden' as time passes. However once he stops fulfilling this action the court's judges will come for him instead. (3) Reaver is not his real name, but a name taken to symbolise his separation from the weak mortal man he perceives himself to have been many years ago. To reave is, "to take away by or as by force; plunder; rob," common practices of a pirate; hence, his name, Reaver. Reave also means to rend, break, or tear; a reflection of Reaver's violent nature. (4) He was known as the 'King of Pirates' for a period in his life long ago due to killing the previous pirate leader in Albion Captain Dread; however this is a part of his past he now hides away. It wouldn't seem appropriate for a 'respectable' business man to be associated with such a thing now would it? The only calling of his past seems to be that most mansions owned by Reaver tend to be situated by the sea, or some form of lake. (5) Being born as the Hero of Skill gives Reaver inhuman powers of accuracy and speed in combat. His preferred weapon is a gun, this was how he captured ships in the past, it is said that he would capture them by shooting the captain from across the water no matter the distance or conditions. The more impossible the shot was, the faster the crew would surrender.' He never goes anywhere without a gun, and his seemingly graceful walking cane in fact sheaths a sharp blade to be pulled out when necessary. (6) Reaver was indeed once a normal man, but his with every passing century the humane aspect of this individual seems to lessen, as if his very emotions are becoming muted. This may account for his lack of remorse, or capability to stay calm in the face of enemies, instead seeming to find those who loathe him most humorous. He also seems genuinely unphased and unconcerned about turns of events, merely making sarcastic remarks or moving on when his plans do not succeed. (7) It is virtually impossible to get Reaver care for you. He only looks out for his own best interests and survival. This can be put down to years of a blackening heart, as well as the eternal burden he carries over destroying his village all those centuries ago. (8) Clothing Styles: Changes throughout the decades. Currently finely tailored suits of blacks, whites or deep purples, usually with real fur lapels. Leather gloves and boots and a holster beneath his jacket to keep his ‘dragonstonper 48’ pistol in. He brings a cane with him most places and he wear tops hats with a steampunk themed pair of goggles wrapped around the top, an accessory to emphasise his position as head of industry in the kingdom along with his style of bow ties/ cravats. Reaver takes great pride in his clothes, dare to dirty them and he’ll likely have you shot. (9) Reaver has severe struggle sleeping due to plaguing flashbacks to the night his home was destroyed. He has never told any other, but this is one large reason he has a deep craving for the 'night time' company of others, ranging from single people to large groups accompanying him in his bed chambers most nights. If this isn't possible, he tends to sit up and write or drink, or go for walks alone. (10) Reaver is known as the 'Hero of Will', but what does that mean you ask? In Fable, Heroes are extraordinary humans with knowledge and the power over the three heroic disciplines of strength (physically), skill (speed and accuracy with ranged weapons), and will (magic). Heroes are not all the same in talents, each one is usually only able to master one of the disciplines, although there are a rare few who can master all as they are descendants of an ancient bloodline of heroes known as the 'Archon's Bloodline'. Reaver is a hero born capable of mastering 'skill', and was needed along with the hero of will, strength and an Archon bloodline member to defeat Lord Lucien, a man who was threatening to destroy the world. Reaver, being Reaver, only agreed to help after several failed attempts to betray the other heroes for his own gain. Not to mention if the world came under the control of Lucien he'd have had difficulty finding sacrifices to keep his immortal youth. So begrudgingly he helped save the world. How nice. (11) Reaver holds no guilt over the killing of the citizens in Oakvale (except for his fiance, that he regrets deeply), he would do it again in a heartbeat. However, he is still only human, and therefore although experiencing no guilt, he is haunted by their deaths in his consciousness, making him experience a vulnerability that is very out of character for him. He can feel the weight of the sin. Unlike people he kills in the present who have wronged him or offended him, the people of Oakvale had done nothing to him personally. They were just people. And although Reaver kills without hesitation, he never kills without reason. Therefore although feeling no regrets over the event, it is something he would prefer to simply forget.

#fable #roleplay #fable2 #fable3 #fable4 #reaver #fablereaver #sparrow #theresa #fantasy #bios

11 notes · View notes

twobladedswordsandmauls · 4 years

Text

"Steven wasn't dead, Steven couldn't be dead" Greg thought these words over and over again "He'll wake up in the morning in his, the Rain will have ceased, and he'll see Steven heading to the Big Donut for breakfast.

Only, there was a pink glowing Ghost that meant that those words weren't true. Steven was dead, but it was all Greg could do to not think about it.

===============================

Pearl walked out of the temple into the house. She saw Greg laying on the couch and... they REALLY needed a better name for Steven's Gem half.

She went up into the loft.

"What should we call you?"

The pink Being's eyes turned into flowing horizontal lines, once this this stopped, it stared at her.

"Inquiry?"

It took Pearl a second to get what the Being was saying? It wanted clarification to the question.

"You mentioned being different from Steven, so... what is your name? What should we call you other than Steven?"

The being's eyes turned into flowing horizontal lines for a second again. Pearl decided she'd need to ask about that as well.

"Given the current circumstances of my existence, as well as the nature of how I exist. I think "Ghost" will be a sufficient moniker"

Pearl was a little surprised, under all the technical speak it was actually fairly close to how Steven named things.

"Are you- are you the part of Steven that made all those silly, description names?"

"That was a team effort, but I always did it best"

Complete monotone again, still sounded a lot like Steven. Pearl still had one more parcel of information to procure.

"What are you doing when you make your eyes like that?"

"Inquiry? Information insufficient in "like that" variable"

"Um" the being was back to talking like a misused control panel, or maybe it never really stopped "when you make your eyes go blank and have horizontal eyes flowing across them? Why do you do that?"

Ghost's eyes did exactly as described in response to the question.

"YES, that. That is what I was refering too!"

Ghost didn't seem to react at all before speaking, just continuing his stare.

"I do that when I am manipulating the information I have access to"

"So, when your thinking"

"Correct"

Pearl didn't really know how to continue from there so transitioned into the only thing she could beyond the weather.

"How are you holding up?"

"My physical form will poof in 5 years, 4 months, 1 week, 5 days, 11 hours, 12 minutes, and 26 seconds from now due to stresses generated from recent operations. I have created several new programs to mitigate this, and I am looking for a solution to the missing variable set. Programs that were normally part of the missing variable set have been moved during the incomplete activation of fail safe program. These files are operating abnormally due to the lack of biological interface. These programs have been quarantined as they conficted with other programs. They are being integrated into a program set to replace biological interface. Time to completion is 3 weeks. Time to install is one day. End report"

Pearl was shocked by the immediate answer, but she didn't think Ghost was ready to talk about his feelings just yet, she wasn't sure he even had feelings in the first place.

(Prev/First/Next)

#steven universe #the ghost of Steven au #Part 8 #collapsedverse

5 notes · View notes

hellzyeahwebwielingessays · 4 years

Text

Super Heroes are a HUMAN power fantasy Part 2

Super Heroes are a HUMAN power fantasy Part 1

Master Post

There were several points a bit more tangentially connected to my arguments in part 1. As a result I decided to leave them until now and hit them up in bullet points.

These are arguments against the superhero genre chiefly perpetuated by the tryhard trinity of Osvaldo Oyola , J. Lamb and Noah Berlatsky.

On the topic of the genre portraying ‘might making right’, the truth is this is part of the ancient inspirational aspect of these figures and can be found in stories like Rama and Sita, Rama of course ultimately never giving up his quest to be reunited with his lover. Which was not a Western influenced story.

Yes the genre involves ‘punching as conflict resolution’. I’m sorry, but that is part and parcel of the genre and the wish fulfilment/fantasy/narrative entertainment value of the stories. If you DON’T like that then frankly it’s like complaining that a romance story involves kissing.

It has been claimed that a black hero wouldn’t punch someone but again, the genre is entirely about people with powers using them to help people by preserving their life. And if they have no other choice but to K.O. a mugger who’s going to stab someone then a black person, or any decent person, would/should do it. But examining the meaning and repercussions of that realistically given the fact that they aren’t white in a white society is something that could benefit the genre.

A common critique of the genre is that crime happens sometimes because of a racist system, therefore fighting crime innately supports racism. Look, obviously we should remove institutionalised racism from the law. At the end of the day though if someone of any race is committing a crime which HURTS people they should be stopped, the reasons which drove them to that should be taken into consideration, but Spider-Man shouldn’t NOT stop a mugger because they’ve been driven to do that through desperation. There is often no time for that and without being able to talk to or trust strangers he or other heroes need to act in the moment.

Superhero fiction on one level is childish, but on a deeper level they’re representative of universal truths and desires which are often boiled down to fairy tales or simple stories. The above shitheads also claims that superhero fiction is written and consumed by children, when the truth is that in the last 20-30 years the opposite has been more true. THAT is partially why sales have been dwindling over the years.

Superman’s values are innate to the heroic and altruistic desires and ideals ALL humanity has expressed throughout its history. They are not inherently ‘white’

Apparently superheroes are white constructs because they reinforce the ‘status quo’. To quote the Atlantic article (see part 1) again:

“What status quo do superheroes reinforce? These heroes fight because everyone is entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The only fascists here are the supervillains who disagree.”

Also Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman were created specifically to change the status quo of the fictional worlds they were created in. At the same time the entire Marvel pantheon were about changing the status quo of the genre by introducing people who were flawed and different and more human than the DC heroes

Superheroes, despite the assertions by the above fuckwits have at times interrogated the justice system. But generally their lack of interrogation is I think for the same reason their science is so wonky. They don’t know better. They just boil it down to the simplest terms. Muggings and villain threats abound. Hero prevents those. They don’t know enough to tackle something much deeper than that. This ties into the fundamentally flawed aspect of most critiques wherein they are looking to superheroes as intellectual pieces of academic and critical study when...that’s not what they are...at all…

One of the above douchebags once said:

An African American Superman, with kinky, close-cropped black hair, thick, half-reddened lips, high cheekbones, and wide nostrils all bathed in dark Lindt chocolate, resists White supremacist logic, negates Black inferiority mythology, and threatens the established order. Superman’s disconcerting physicality, tempered by his omnipresent cheerfulness calmed and invited White comic readers to imagine themselves as gaudy Caucasian perfection, the Anglo-Saxon ideal. Static in panel, without speech bubbles or thought balloons, Superman Black warps the absurdly developed skeletal striated muscle and eternal hopefulness fans rejoice into a clear and present danger to the American experiment, an unholy figure derived from Tea Party paranoia, Barack Obama’s calculation and Terry Crews’ musculature. Public Enemy’s prescience abounds – were Superman Black introduced on the game-changing Action Comics’ cover, White America would have yet another reason to fear a Black planet.

This entirely depends upon who is doing the perceiving. To someone of a different mindset a Black Superman could be just that. The same thing Superman is except he happens to have black skin.

Also, the author needs to take a major chill pill, Jesus Christ.

Here is another quote from one of them:

Only in White male power fantasies can people blessed with skin privilege and bodies carved from living marble wield heat vision or super speed or unbreakable claws against indigent criminals from broken homes who lack high school educations.

This is again grossly incorrect because the idea of individuals having superhuman abilities and using them to fight criminals predates American society, and if one accepts figures like the Hydra to be stand-ins for threats to human life then the superhumans have been fighting what the criminals represent for eons before the advent of American society. The criminals they use their abilities against are rarely stated to lack education or come from broken homes, but yes okay let’s say that they are that.

Having super humans go up against them and defeat them isn’t a white male power fantasy because their abilities are used to subdue and NOT kill. Injure perhaps but in real life sometimes force is sadly necessary and if someone is robbing a bank or holding a gun to someone in an alley it is justified no matter what skin colour anyone involved in is, or what society you find yourself in, for the perpetrator to be stopped in order to safeguard life. Just because the perp resorted to what they did due to social ills beyond their control, that doesn’t justify their actions at that moment. Stealing someone’s money or trying to murder them is never ever going to be acceptable no matter if we live in a white society or not.

Only in White male power fantasies would women display abundant porcelain cleavage or don starry microskirts to fight crime.

Yeah um, preeeeeeetty sure that actually that’s more of a male SEXUAL fantasy and less than a WHITE male POWER fantasy. That was never the topic of conversation.

Shuttle diplomacy or natural resource husbandry rarely bring metal-faced technological sorcerers to heel in superhero comics; superheroes often save planet Earth through fantastic violence judiciously applied.

Yeah, that’s part of the narrative FANTASY element of the genre that is intended to be escapist. Condemning it for being otherwise is asinine.

More than this, guess what, there are people whom Dr. Doom is a metaphorical stand-in for. And an awful lot of them legitimately can’t be negotiated with. I am of the belief that in the REAL world we should negotiate and use force when there is no other choice and even then only use what is necessary. But the Dr. Dooms and Lex Luthors of the comic book world represent grander themes of evil and social ills, whilst at the same time existing to challenge the heroes physically and mentally. They represent the unmovable types of evil that legitimately can only be dealt with via physical means.

This was the type of circular logic I talked about before. It is looking at the villains as stand ins for EVERY type of situation and therefore the super hero’s use of violence as ‘problematic’, when in reality the superheroes’ use of violence isn’t problematic because it is justified by the extreme circumstances they find themselves in.

Because those situations don’t exist in real life...like in World War II...which was literally about people using force in the face of failed negotiation to halt the advance of fascism…

I submit that the superheroic reflex to subdue evil with violence directly descends from Thucydides and Alexander, from Richard the Lionheart and Dwight Eisenhower.

Yeah...except it isn’t. Again...it came from the same place as Hercules and Sun Wukong, and those came from the natural human biological imperatives to survive.

Superheroic morality requires Western Civilization’s literary canon and political history to justify its callous disregard toward collateral damage. To be clear, superheroes routinely consider innocent noncombatants’ lives (if not their property) when they confront cosmic despots or sociopathic steroid abusers, but comics document the never-ending battle in colorful tomes largely sold after Nagasaki and My Lai, after the time when total ignorance of American military supremacy was vogue. When Wally West as the Flash pulls a hysterical single mother out of her overturned silver 2001 Honda Civic and carries her to safety from Apokoliptian cannons at breakneck speed, comic fans favorably regard his heroism; any dialogue from the frazzled thirty-something file clerk will remind readers how grateful she is to escape otherworldly horror with her life. Superhero comics don’t care about the destruction of this woman’s sole transport; when the gas tank explodes behind the Flash’s blurred strobe, this woman loses her credit cards, her driver’s license, her insurance documents, her six-year-old daughter’s vanilla birthday cake with its beloved artificially flavored strawberry icing. The comics don’t recognize the heroism of this brave woman’s seven-month struggle to rebuild her finances and maintain her identity following Darkseid’s incursion; all we know is for that poor woman, the Flash saved the day. He’s a superhero. Isn’t she grateful?”

Collateral damage and the disregard for it IS regarded. Hence the existence of Damage Control. Furthermore, that is AGAIN part of the escapism and fantasy element of it. THAT is the suspension of disbelief element of superheroes and taking it THAT realistically and criticising it for it is frankly just mean spirited and simply looking for an excuse to hate it.

Furthermore the reason the rescued woman isn’t focussed upon is because it’s not HER story. If you write a story about a protagonist THEY are your focus. Everything is for their benefit. That’s true of older non-white folktales as well.

And yeah readers are supposed to regard the Flash as heroic and the woman grateful because her kid’s birthday cake isn’t realistically as important as her life!!!!!!

This is criticising superhero fiction for being unrealistic even when it is being actively so The woman WOULD probably be grateful that she’s not fucking dead!

I wouldn’t mind seeing the survivors of something like this try to rebuild their lives. And superhero fiction has focussed upon that from time to time, but again...that’s not the point of the story. Criticising the genre fro this is like criticising Harry Potter for having the audacity to focus more upon Harry’s trauma in the wake of Cedric Diggory’s death than his parents’. Harry is the star. He gets the focus.

Superman is a White boy. Superheroes are White people. Superhero morality exacts the Melian Dialogue’s ‘might makes right’ overwhelming force realpolitik with every onomatopoetic Biff! Bam! Pow! gut punch and karate chop combo.

See what I’ve said before about how superheroes are not fascists and how force is often necessary

There exists no genetic propensity for group violence in the human genome. None.”

Er....yeah...there kinda is...that’s part of why wars happen.

racially-informed vigilantism.

This phrase in one of the articles itself sums up it’s own contradictions. Racially informed vigilantism is just one type of vigilantism, a type the superhero doesn’t subscribe to. A superhero would sooner join the likes of the Joker than the KKK style vigilantes and would be all too happy to apprehend them.

One of the articles seems to be conflating basically ALL criminals super heroes fight with people who’re labelled criminals due to racial profiling. Yes superheroes operate to an extent like police officers but you can’t truly complete the analogy whatsoever.

Few of them have legal sanction, which is partially why so many refrain from actually killing anyone as officer’s are allowed to do under certain circumstances. More than this when they take down criminals their methods are entirely different from regular cops. Apart from very loud and overt super villains who may or may not be on a rampage, most of the time when they tackle regular criminals it’s due to them either being informed of a crime that is going to happen (like a hijacking or something) or they literally see something happening whilst on patrol. They don’t profile people beyond what their super sensory abilities or logical observations tell them. Which is to say if someone is following someone else a little too closely then maybe, just maybe they are planning something. If their Spider-Sense or super hearing or something alerts them to something they will act.

Taking that, ignoring it, and then supplanting the superhero for a regular cop who would racially profile people and/or supplanting the criminals they tackle for racial minorities because those are the people who (stereotypically in the real world) would be targeted as criminals is very inappropriate. Not least of all since superhero comics obviously don’t present a wholesale realistic depiction of the real world so what they present isn’t entirely interchangeable with that. And what is more, erasure of minorities was so prevalent that overwhelming majority of all the criminals they ever encountered were themselves white, so again exchanging those for racial minorities who’re profiled as criminals is highly questionable.

It’s all just such a MASSIVE reach!

But I think the panels also work to point out that Miles himself “does not belong” in the superhero tradition. He, like most black and brown superhero characters in mainstream comics, is an outlier. In other words, people like Miles or Trayvon are unfortunately more likely to be victim of a “heroic” vigilante than to be one.

This is conflating the superhero vigilante with the majority of real world vigilantes who are overly violent (and frequently hard conservative) individuals who do take overly simplistic views of the law and use those to profile people. And it’s doing so whilst taking superheroes too literally, bringing their own personal interpretations to the mix and then overlaying them onto the superhero concept before finally accepting it as fact.

Police officers use violence against racially profiled people who exhibit unrest due to a societal system stacked against them. Well shit, Batman punches the Joker. It must be the same thing obviously!!!!!

Look. Without our stories, without the true nature and reality of who we are as people of color, nothing about fanboy and fangirl culture makes sense. What I mean by that is, if it wasn’t for race, X-Men doesn’t make sense; if it wasn’t for the history of breeding human beings through chattel slavery, Dune doesn’t make sense; if it wasn’t for the history of colonialism and imperialism, Star Wars doesn’t make sense; if it wasn’t for the extermination of so many indigenous nations, most of what we call “first contact” stories don’t make sense. Without us as the secret sauce, none of this works, and it is about time that we understand that we are the Force that holds the Star Wars universe together. We’re the Prime Directive that makes Star Trek possible. We are… in the Green Lantern Corps? We are the Oath. We are all of those things. Erased, and yet without us? We’re essential. This is an incredibly important project, because it puts front and center, not only a community that has long consumed and given power to these practices and consumer categories, but it’s a community without whose suffering and struggles, none of [these narratives] would make sense.

I agree with a lot of this but there are some problems with it.

a) X-Men makes sense also because they are a stand in for almost ALL marginalised groups. Racial minorities, disabled people, queer people etc.

b) Actually Star Wars makes complete sense with or without colonialism or imperialism, at least the kind which directly relates to the issues of racism. Imperialism, conquest, these are things which are much older than American society, dating back to even before Ancient Rome. It’s about freedom fundamentally and freedom is a desire shared by ALL human beings innately because at the end of the day we are animals who wish to be free and not caged. Being caged metaphorically within a tyranny is thus something we abhor

c) The Star Wars universe doesn’t begin and end with the story of imperialism. It’s about how Democracy can be turned into an dictatorship and how that has to be prevented, or re-addressed once it happens

When white comics readers claim that they did not need white characters to relate to and enjoy comics (as a way to argue against positive race-bending), that point to their love of Luke Cage or Spawn as evidence of their ability to enjoy characters across race, what they are failing to note is how black, Latin@, etc… identities in the superhero genre are framed by a system of white supremacy.

Again I don’t understand this one. I as a white reader can enjoy Luke Cage rescuing someone from a burning building because doing that is part of white supremacy????

It presumes a white power fantasy is inherently different to a black one. But the power fantasy element of the superhero relates to them having powers and using them to help others and defeat villains. A power fantasy by another race would still have that because it is inherent to the human power fantasy. Non-white power fantasies would logically have all that and more!

Much like Noah Berlatsky explains in his book Wonder Woman: Bondage and Feminism in the Marston/Peter Comics, 1941-1948, part of what made Marston’s original Wonder Woman stories so wonderful, was his expectation that girls and boys would identify with the heroine, to value and idealize her compassionate strength and victory through submission, rather than through cyclical and ultimately futile fisticuffs of male dominion.

Many female readers enjoy the action scenes. Action scenes are good because it enables us to have a healthy outlet for aggression without taking it out into the real world. It is also NOT an inherently male dominion thing. Again this is THEIR projection. Fighting and violence is innate to human beings because we are animals biologically programmed towards it for the sake of survival. That goes for males and females. Furthermore far from fisticuffs just being about male ‘dominion’ the Wonder Woman, Batman and Superman comics were a reflection of impending war. A war that sadly required violence to be solved. That’s what the superhero typifies. Wish fulfilment action in situations where violence was (usually) a necessity. Diplomacy is good and should be our first resort. In life though sometimes things do come down to necessary violence.

There are many ways to craft a racial minority superhero, but if we consider racial authenticity as a foremost concern, today’s Hollywood is simply not prepared for that intellectual labor. The real diversity conundrum isn’t how to include the minority metahuman in the existing comic framework; that’s an art project, a casting decision solved by calling Michael B. Jordan’s agent. The real question is how to write that superhero in a way that moves the medium forward, past the Reaganomics antiheroes of Alan Moore and Frank Miller and past the hyper-emotive Silver Age redux of Geoff Johns and Brian Michael Bendis. Respectable, authentic diversity in superhero comics should redefine the nature of the meta-protagonist to his powers and his audience, with exhaustive attention to cultural detail. I’m not convinced that a Black superhero would wear tights. I strongly doubt that a Black superhero would solve conflicts with his fists. The Black superhero knows that his community watches him religiously, and that any false move will have public repercussions he cannot expect or control. If anything, the Black superhero template plays out on our nation’s cable news channels at all hours. President Barack Obama, with all his clipped vocal inflections and measured language and natural equivocation and faulty dealmaking and perfect family and limitless patience is the closest public figure to a Black superhero America has yet experienced, an international celebrity unthinkable before his ascent. Watching President Obama today, one feels expectation crush into his bones like a gravity well. No matter the political stimuli, Republicans oppose him. The concept of the Obama Presidency struck American conservatives like a Bernard Hopkins’ kidney punch, and in return, President Obama absorbs the vitriol of our coarse public debates more than any President to date (and progressives never tired of calling his predecessor a National Socialist). The agony and the ecstasy of Grant Park has given way for many Americans to the sobering fact that American authority, her global military supremacy and international economic primacy, is controlled and represented by a Black man. Disliked, hated, or worse, the Establishment is Black. I need the Black superhero in print and/or on-screen to reflect that paradigm shift. Superheroes in the popular imagination are Establishment figures; if the Black superhero I’m presented can’t interrogate what it means when the Establishment is Black, of what utility is her story?

A minority hero wouldn’t wear tights or punch people...why?

What do tights have to do with anything? As for solving problems with his fists this is conflating the threats superheroes face with ANY threat, when they are almost always situations which legitimately do require necessary physical force to resolve. If the black superhero patrols an area and sees someone about to stab someone else, yeah he should punch the stabber to save the innocent person if there is no time for anything else.

This is basically asking for the core foundation of superheroes (which transcends racial constructs and is innate to human wish fulfilment and mythic tradition) to be scrapped in favour of something else entirely. Barrack Obama isn’t a superhero. He is many, many things but what Mr. Lamb here is asking isn’t so much for a different template but for something just wholesale different. He doesn’t actually WANT a superhero story in the first place!

Super heroes aren’t establishment figures. Superheroes don’t uphold the law regardless. They uphold the law in so far as a greater need to safeguard innocent lives. Conflating them as inherently establishment figures ignores their origins and over literalises what they do.

At the same time the utility of their story is first and foremost as a story: to entertain and inspire.

It is inherently worthwhile for a little black kid to sit down and open up a comic book where someone who looks like them is being a good person, is helping people, is defending the weak. I agree that minority heroes shouldn’t just be white heroes who happen to have different skin colours. I think they need to reflect the realities of what it means to be black or Asian or Pakistani in white society is necessary and a superhero should do that and should have that inform how they interact with their powers. It doesn’t mean the whole genre needs to abandon what it fundamentally is or that those minority heroes should not do the things a superhero fundamentally do.

Ultimately, yeah these characters were created within a white context, but my point is fundamentally the same thing was created in non-white contexts as well throughout history.

Super Heroes are a HUMAN power fantasy Part 1

Master Post

#Osvaldo Oyola #Noah Berlatsky #Marvel #DC #DC Comics #Marvel Comics #Super Heroes #Superheroes #Wonder Woman #Robin Hood

12 notes · View notes