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#it happens tho because like their suicide being the result of abuse or whatever and thus like
doppelnatur · 3 years
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Now after reading Moby Dick.... Maybe my weird queer siren suicide story can be salvaged into something?
Like. Rn it's mostly meditations on like.... Trauma suicide and agency but. I can have a lil plot. As a treat?
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papers4me · 4 years
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Fruits Basket SE2, ep13
Back in SE01, ep12, Yuki wished for a warm home, close friends, & knowing/accepting himself. From that ep, we’re watching him reach his dream bit by bit in every passing ep.
-Writing Character plot line:
When writers start planning a multi-character story, they decide from the beginning the broad plot lines & progression for each main character in order to avoid repetition & to distinguish the main characters’ journeys from each other. All main characters will walk down the path of self-discovery, self-confrontation,  facing fears or traumas (opening the lid). However, their paths are either straight forward, or very slow, or full of big setbacks. It’s part of what makes the story compelling. I suspect the following progression when it comes to the main trio:
(1)Tohru’s very Slow Progression:
Seeing that half SE02 passed with very minimum spotlight on her issues, her progression can be very fulfilling once her arc kicks in. Also, tohru’s story is tied with kyo’s via kyoko’s fate. She is also tied with Akito. As tohru is the female protagonist, Akito is the antagonist, their issues/traumas should mirror or contradict each other, & we can see that both characters aren’t fully explored yet. So, there’s still a lot to uncover for tohru. Moreover, due to the plot’s needs & climax rules, tohru must develop very slowly.  I love slow burns so much!! but they can either be hit or mess. The result depends on how executed the progression is. Everybody keeps assuring me it’s worth it & I can’t wait!
(2) Kyo’s will be the Full of Setbacks Progression:
We already saw that in ep 9. He found hope & realized his love for tohru, admitted that he met good ppl who genuinely loved him (all positive progression). He, also, realized his pain over his mother’s suicide, suffered guilt over not helping his mom get over her depression, realized his failure in not keeping kyoko’s promise (whatever it is), guilty over watching/causing kyoko’s death, accepts punishment via confinement to atone for what he believes are his sins (negative progression). The best part abt kyo’s journey is that the negative progression is totally understandable & realistic. Not there for cheap thrills or simply the writer’s wish to present a different story than yuki’s. It is logical & engaging as well. His progression is also tied with tohru via kyoko, so he might take the backseat for a while until tohru reaches the point where he’s forced to come clean & confess abt kyoko (aka the climax). 
(3) Yuki’s Positive Direct Progression:  *i put yuki last so I can easily move on to talk abt student council.
By “direct” I’m not saying that his path is easy, I’m saying while he’ll struggle for sure, he’ll always choose/do right or get help/push in the right time to do right. He’ll win each setback. He’ll be the most perceptive, learn from others around him. I also believe (I could be wrong) that yuki is free from the restrictions of the plot. His story is related to other characters but not tied to them. Meaning his development isn’t restricted until others reach a certain point in the plot. This makes for good direct character development arc which I believe is the writer’s intention.
-Yuki’s arc will consist of three general steps (as he wished in Se01,ep12): Finding true self, Finding best friends, Finding romance. We already saw him opening the lid, realizing his abuser isn’t controlling him, accepting tohru’s help, realizing his big dependency on her which is a huge self-awareness point cuz this ep shows yuki moving away little by little from tohru & finding his own friends/world. Finding true self will take over all his arc, we’ll see more each ep. Finding friends has happened this ep. Finding romance is the last step. Yuki will have his own version of everything he was/is jealous of kyo for. He already got his own yun-yun.
-The student council: Kakure & Machi are the main characters. You don’t introduce a boy & a girl at the end of SE01 & the opening of SE02 without them being major characters. It’s classic anime/show move. Kakure will be Yuki’s best buddy, Machi will be his love-interest. It’s as clear as day light! but this doesn’t make it less interesting at all. It’s all abt the journey. The other two in the council, i guess only exist to push things faster. Without kimi, yuki calling machi by her first name would’ve taken way longer. But thanks to Kimi, Machi is the only non-sohma/important female character with her first name in yuki’s world. One step towards putting Machi as yuki’s love-interest by making her equal to yuki. Remember yuki is still struggling to call tohru by her first name as he feels indebted to her & extremely dependent. But Machi is just Machi. Not Miss kuragi. Kimi did her job. Duno abt the chibi kid tho, lol.
-Yuki’s jealousy/self-depreciating feelings:
I love when characters have negative thoughts! cuz it makes good story telling. Yuki has expressed before how jealous he is of kyo (kyo is jealous of yuki as well, but these two don’t know that abt each other). Now, yuki jealous of kakure, someone he doesn’t have a past with. Moreover, yuki isn’t only jealous of them, he believes that them having a spotlight means he’s in the dark. “he glows with light I don’t posses, so bright, I’ll disappear”. That’s a negative & destructive thought. logically, Kakure/kyo having friends isn’t related to yuki not having ones. He can have friends regardless of them. But yuki doesn’t see that, he doesn’t see his ability to make his own friends, his head is filled with inferiority that seeing others glow automatically means he doesn’t. Yuki learning to not tie his self worth to others is huge step. Kakure does that. Yuki learned.
However there is a lesson here that yuki lectured kakure abt but he himself is yet to fully learn/realize. Seeing others happy, doesn’t mean they’re truly happy or you know what they’re going through. Kyo looked like the winner here to both kakure & yuki, walking home with the girl they’re both interested in & they both assume he’s happy. (kakure seems somehow interested in her/not even going home & waiting for yuki to confirm tohru’s status with kyo). The reality is far from what kakure thinks. Kyo isn’t happily in love at all. He’s facing confinement & is feeling guilt every minute. Yuki thinks kyo is better than him & that kyo’s struggles in loving/dating tohru are unbelievable/stupid. Not knowing the story of kyoko’s chilling words “I won’t forgive you”. Kyo, too, is guilty of the same sentiment, thinks yuki is better than him, not knowing the struggle he has. The lesson here is everybody struggles. Don’t take things at face value & undermine others’ pain. But that is a lesson to be learned way later.  After all learning that means understanding the other better. It means the story ends. XD
Side Notes:
seeing kimi’s design made me sad. How come furuba team never gave tohru cute upper eyelashes! sometimes tohru’s eyes seem weirdly eyelashes-less.
Kyo is kyonkyon. Yuki is yunyun. What is tohru’s nickname?
I love predicting plot & being either right or wrong! So fun!! I enjoy all the journeys all characters go through!
Machi has a story. All stoic silent characters do.
Comedy take over 70% of this ep. It’s understandable as the writer needs viewers to quickly get attached to these new characters introduced late in the story.
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demonicintegrity · 4 years
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oKAY heres the details on that depressing Devildice human highschool au i made with a friend back around 2017/2018. Kinda a mess so bare with me. long post with themes of abuse, depression, and other nasty stuff.
- Lucifer Angelo grew up in a pretty bad place in Texas. The details werent fleshed out other than that it was a pretty ignorant place.
- The important fact of the matter is that his dad (who we never did settle on a name for lol) was a Christian preacher. Charismatic man, but an absolute shithead to Lucifer. Even with his other kids he was strict and pushed his ideals and plans onto them. Also had a temper and a loud voice.
- Preacher Angelo was once a pretty alright man, although very self-centered and was pretty condensing. He had a marriage early on in his life and had a few kids, named after archangels. Marriage fell through, and he starts drinking and moves on the next one a bit after. Have a couple more sons named after archangels. It also falls apart. On number 3? he has the final sons to complete his arch angel themed kids. At first it was just in honor/inspired by the angels and his Christian lifestyle, tho i think around the second marriage is where he just started getting delusional and started thinking himself as godlike and thought his sons will spread his word and whatever. Needlessly to say, his partners once they found this out went :/ and it went downhill from there.
- Man we really just took every flaw and worse thing to have in a parent and shoved it into this bastard lmao
- Lucifer was actually the product of an affair within his final marriage. Ofc cheating was a dealbreaker and they divorced. The girl he was cheating with stuck around a little bit, but died in childbirth due to complications. Thus he was left with this child that wAs BoRn FrOm SiN so he named him Lucifer. He would be his son of sin while his other sons would be Perfect People. (Even though they and their mothers started to want nothing to do with him lmao)
- He got by and took care of Lucifer decently but because this was an AU of Angst(TM) Preacher Dickhead became an alcoholic, had money troubles over time because economy troubles or whatever, and took out his temper on his son more and more. Luci was taken to church every Sunday by his dad.
- Kingsley Dyce was born in Lousiana to his parents Patrick and Fahri. We had a whole separate story for Fahri’s family and how they met, it was cute but that’s completely irrelevant right now. They lived modestly and were technically stable but there wasn’t always extra money for fun stuff and there were times were they were just getting by, but they never let Kingsley onto it.
- Kingsley (nicknamed King or KD by his friends) was a pretty cool kid. Had fun in Louisiana despite being a bit flamboyant and full of himself, made good friends. His relationship with his parents were fairly okay. He was a total mama’s boy, loves his mother to death and would do anything for her. As he became a teen his relationship with his father got a bit more strained because Patrick was a very Traditional person and into his teenage hood Kingsley had a habit of dancing not-so-masculine or modestly. He also was getting into makeup.
- Stepping back tho, as a kid he was in the church choir. His family is Catholic and his parents took him to church every Sunday. His favorite activity was to rollerskate. He and his friends were always skating to each other’s houses or skating at the rink. Skating, video games, and singing was his life.
- During his 6/7th grade his family moved to Maryland because of a job opportunity. King was suuuupper bummed. Maryland isn’t like Louisiana at all so there was an adjustment curve. Despite that, he didn’t have a hard time make friends. (insert humanized casino crew here)
- Side note: KD had a tooth gap as a kid and got braces during middle school to correct it. It gave him a lisp. He also had glasses and a questionable sense of fashion throughout middle school. This isn’t super relevant but its important to me that you can imagine this kid as the doofus he was. He also was roughly at an average height.
- In 8th grade there was a new kid that came into his class; Lucifer. Luci’s dad had also moved to Maryland for a job. Despite his entire class wondering what the hell was this southern emo kid’s problem, he wasn’t overtly bullied, just ignored. KD however, was intrigued by this asshole and made it his goal to figure out his issue and be all up in his business.
- Luci is currently dealing with some of his hardest years here. In Texas he had a hard time making friends, was bullied, and wasnt surrounded by the best sort of people. His abuse was getting worse as his father struggled more and more, and the move wasn’t the greatest fix considering he was still drinking and getting himself into debt. Luci didn’t care about school nor about life in general.  But then this asshole waltz into his life and boy golly was he feeling things about it.
- The relationship at first just KD latching onto Luci and talking to him about any and everything and trying to drag him around town. Slowly, Lucifer began to be amused by this jerk and his friends. He also didn’t live too far away so KD was able to easily bike to his place even though he never wanted KD over.
- KD picked up on the abuse Luci was going through, and honestly didn’t know to confront it. At first it was just sharing food cuz Luci wouldn’t eat and chatting to him because he got uncomfortable seeing Luci alone with head down all the time. Eventually he talked to his mom about it and the two of them kept inviting Luci over. Fahri became the mom Luci never had and Patrick despite working long hours and extra shifts, would take time to give Luci practical lessons and be a better masculine figure in his life. Luci was slowly being given a family but he also was pulling away from it. He was in the midst of a depression and he was pretty mean to everyone to deal with it, and pulled to himself more as he began to love KD and his family. The new friendships doesn’t cure depression, nor was it helpful against abuse.
- TW under break for more details of abuse, neglect, depression, and suicide
- His abuse was verbal and physical. He got yelled at for being a failure, yelled at because he didnt care about school, drunk his fathers booze, got into trouble and lashed out. He got beat for back talking and whenever the drunk asshole wanted to fight with him. It had been going on for years. He was also neglected pretty bad. Food wasn’t super plentiful in the house, he lived on fast food and luci didnt know how to cook. There was more booze in fridge than food. Power/water would sometimes not be on if his father forgot about certain bills. It was bad.
- Some time during this 8th grade year he also developed a crush on KD, he didnt voice it because his dad was homophobic as shit but also because he certainly didnt know how to navigate love and didnt want to ruin his relationship with KD. So he repressed it.
- Also during this 8th grade year Luci tried to commit suicide. He had texted KD before hand too, with some note that boiled down to he cared a lot about KD but couldnt stand anything in the world/his dad/bringing KD down/whatever and it was obviously a suicide note. KD freaked out and immediately got his ass over there, kicked down the door, and found Luci in his dad’s room with his dad’s gun to his head. I don’t think we ever settled on the details of the situation but it was traumatizing for both individuals to say the least.  KD was able to talk him out of it.
- That incident made them inseparable. Luci never had someone care for him like that, cry for him like that. KD had grown attached and close enough to consider him his best friends, the incident only solidify his want to make his best friend’s life better. It was a rough few months after that and KD was sworn to never tell his parents what happened.
- TBH that was about the worse of it, this was an high school AU and high school became a bit better for them in certain regards. KD got his braces off, got contacts, and had one helluva growth spurt going into HS. Luci went deep into a punk-emo phase his freshman year which killed his fashion, but was slowly becoming a bit more confident in himself. KD and his parents were able to help him a lot. Emotional support, practical life lessons, and food was always a given.
- Its a bit of an up and down throughout high school. KD gets into makeup, heels, dancing, and bisexuality and it causes a major strife with him and his dad who wanted a “real” son. The relationship went through major struggles and would take a couple years to really heal.
- Luci struggles a bit with drinking and deals drugs and booze to get his own spending money. He starts somewhat taking his school seriously, but even though he does work in class he doesnt always do homework or projects and whatnot. He has a habit of physically intimidating other students and occasionally tries to pick fights.
- The “casino gang” also have their own things going on. If a recall correctly, Wheezy was also in a neglectful house, Pip and Dot ( ??? and Dorothy) were twins from a wealthy well off family but were ignored and were terribly bratty, Piroeutta was just an quiet Russian outcast, Mango had 7 siblings and no space to himself and who was bullied for his large off-putting appearance, Chips was just loud, and i completely forgot what everyone else’s deal was. KD and Luci mainly hung out with Chips, Piro, Pip, and Dot. They were still pretty close to the others but those four were the only ones they regularly hung out with at lunch and outside of school.
- There are a couple things that could happen throughout high school. My personal fav i can remember is a particular angst with KD trying to get with another dude and Luci being Upset and lashing out at him at a party result and ugh that scenario was angsty but also turned very cute???
- Regardless, when they do get together they’re unstoppable tbh.
- and yes, the gang would readily throw hands with anyone who said shit. Barely any of them care about suspensions.
- I kinda forget a bit of stuff. I know misc. scenarios here and there both fluffy and angsty, but this post is already long enough lmao so feel free to hit up my ask box with any questions/comments. I dont really think Ill come back to this au?? If i do Im gonna edit a ton of stuff because looking back certain themes and scenarios seem borderline insensitive and/or poorly thought out. I did found a fic of this au on my phone with KD and Luci as adults tho and Im v tempted to rewrite some of it and finish it because it was good.
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umbillicalnoose · 5 years
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i think that you would think im pretty and would like my poetry and i want to share it with you. im shy.
to be honest, im very apathetic these days. im not the nice “cutesy baby flower petal boy” i used to be. a lot has happened & im bitter & sullen & all in all, a pretty shitty friend/person to know. i used to possess some redeeming qualities, believe it or not, even if they were construed by the subconscious in an attempt to be likeable - a facade, even tho its only a facade, is still tangible, still there, is still something, even if not authentic. is poorer character forgivable in the name of presenting more authentically? but nah. that makes it sound like im putting effort into being a better person, which im not. im just sort of fried & done. its been a very long time since i played the role i built for myself on here of the “small fawn boy who wants to help girls” lmaooo. how embarrassing. altho, i was just a kid, & i guess, if you had a tumblr as a teenager, you went thru some cringe (i know the use of that word has fallen in on itself & adopted its own definition but for lack of a better one) ass phases, whether it was kinning or malingering mental illness or oh fucking christ, all that gender bullshit, etc etc. from what ive observed, tho, loosely following kids im still casually friends with that i met on here, i think we’ve all managed to Grow The Fuck Up, at least a little. most of us have jobs or r in school or have partners - growing up & moving on is a very surreal experience to watch/go thru. im moving at my own pace & ive accepted that - im still currently using & starving myself & concocting a suicide plan every day but at least i use clean needles as much as possible, i actively & honestly do strive for the bare minimum calorically, & um able to work with the mentality of “well ill have this when i need it but todays not that day” a lot more readily, in relation to suicide shit. ive finally found a therapist who Really Gets It, is a frontrunner internationally on ritual & extreme abuse & mind control. its pretty incredible what a few years with a good therapist can do. anyways. im sorry, i know you didnt ask for all this & im not even sure why i divulged. i guess, what tipped me off, was your attempt at sounsing “cute” - dude, cut that shit out, i promise youll be a lot better off. & i know everyone interchanges aspects of their personality based on who theyre talking to/who they percieve themselves to be talking to, but i feel like not a lot of people give enough credence to the internet & its hand in shaping/molding young people, kids, vulnerable dumbasses, especially tumblr (tho, i get that its a relatively new phenomenon) - u get a bunch of the “weird”, “alternative”, ““ostracized” kids together on a website, of course its gonna nurture a culture of hypervalidatoon & pretending to be sick in order to fit in to the point that its not an act anymore & exacerbation of symptoms & basically, just sucking each others dicks, sitting in ur own shit, & never ending coddling. & then, you have the older group of kids, who have played this game before but instead of helping or ignoring the Dumbshit kids, they indulge their own normally-buried-but-unleashed-by-internet-anonymity sadism/human instinct to just be fucking dicks & so now you have this vicious cycle of anger & hatred & fucking melodrama up the urethra. im sorry, i know im comig off as/am being harsh but god fuckin dammit yknow? also, this isnt directed at you, specifically, more of a generalized thing, @ myself included. so uh. i mean, if u still wanna share it with me after reading all this, id be happy to read ur poetry. i used to be over the top nice & then reverted to Major Asshole & am now trying to find that sweet middle spot - honoring & allowing myself to share my pain without putting it on others. which is really hard!! cuz becoming a Dick was difficult in that it forced me to be more honest with my true self & as such, more vulnerable - now in trying to become Kinda Nice again because despite being a pulsating scrotom, ive had the intense desire for friendship & human interaction, while simultaneously doing things that i was consciously aware was pushing others away - but then, if i pretend to be nice, where does that authenticity i worked for & was so scared of go? & i dont mean telling someone their new haircut looks nice even when it doesnt - thats just not being a dick. but i guess, those r the normal trials & tribulations of any relationship & adolescent developing identity. which is weird too - dealing with “normal” issues, i mean. whats the point if your life/limbs/breaking point arent at risk? whats the point when your best friends already dead. im sick of people calling "survivors” (despise that word, so fucking female-originated & overdramatic) “brave” & “strong” - surviving is not brave or strong. its just survival. you wouldnt call an animal brave for running for its life from a predator but you would call a dog courageous for going into a burning building to save its owner. premeditated action on the notion that you are probably going to be hurt is brave. being subjected to pain with no choice is not. theres no “silver lining” or anything “good” to be drawn from it either - sure it may have made x a more compassionate person or made y more introspective & gentle but you know what would have been even fucking better??? if the shit hadnt happened in the first place! let x be an asshole & y be self absorbed - the “benefits”, so to speak, do not outweigh the cost, not by a long fucking shot. its not only patronizing to hear garbage like that, but a slap in the face to know that anyone could possibly see anything good coming from that nightmare & that the characteristics, good or bad, you developed either in response to or as a result of, are worth praise. dont tell me im strong for doing what i had to to escape a torture chamber - tell me im perseverant for studying my ass off & passing that test last week. in the words of one of my dearest & most fucking brilliant friends, “pain doesnt owe me/you purpose - the need to intellectualize & assign meaning to pain & death is not only futile, but harmful.” & honestly, i think that it stems from weakness (in most cases - i realize theres a plethora of other reasons such as those who r just desperate for something to hold on to or r hyperintellectual & analytical or who have been pressured by external “support” systems to find the “good” etc etc) - while the majority of people view the person who “can find the good in everything” (strictly speaking only in relation to trauma/tragedy here & more in denunciation of those that celebrate this trait as opposed to vilifying “survivors” who respond this way, though in my experience, its very very very rarely the “survivor” that perpetrates this ideology ) as strong, i sort of see it as a weakness - their inability to sit with & absorb their own pain or that of others is so strong that not only do they have to frantically pull rainbows out of the teeth of a meat cleaver, they also have to exist within this strange (tho, not malicious - more subconscious) superiority complex. like, nah, dude, some times shit is just awful. you cant tell me anything fucking good came out of a four year old girl being kidnapped, gangraped, & tortured for two years, before being impaled & left to die on a stake. her mom opened a non profit organization? oh well thank fucking god for that!!! those that believe the latter to be more “enlightened” or whatever the fuck r the same people who say shit like “dying is easy - living is harder” & i get that that its supposed to be interpreted metaphorically for the most part - giving up is easy, trying isnt (which also.....isnt true??? admitting defeat & fully accepting the fact that ur fucking helpless is beyond hard lmao???) - but pretend youre somewhere, anywhere outside ur sunny little fucking yoga studio full of white women whos biggest issues r the pta & johnny whos failing math, & lets say your life is in real, imminent danger, a gun is to your head & i want you to not scream or cry or beg for ur life since dying is “easier”. if dying is so easy, why do the majority of ppl cling to it with such desperation - why is suicide illegal? why do some ppl go thru 100s of chemo treatments even tho the doctors say theyre just prolonging the inevitable, ppl who cut off a diseased arm so it wont spread, those who walk dozens of miles every day for food & water, etc? & i know & understand the survival instinct better than anyone, even when i wanted to die more than anything, my natural instincts would kick in with no conscious neural input & id do what i had to do. im not condemning those who cling to life (ok - a little. ur wasting resources out of ur own fear. but i also realize thats just me being a Fucking Asshole As Always cuz technically, im doing the same thing tho its more due to lack of opportunity rather than fear. i just think, societally, death should be more normalized, discussed, & not made out to be so unknown & scary), instead just reprimanding those who say shit like that (inspirational facebook quotes). especially cuz most of the ppl who do spew that shit have never gone thru anything even remotely difficult - their worst nightmare is a Big Scary Black Man grabbing them on the street, mugging them, & touching their tits. & i also know that these stupid ass sayings are to be applied to bullshit like exercise & fitness (“no pain no gain” is another one of my Favorites) & not fucking torture or even just ur run of the mill rape, even that would probably smash the rose tinted banana republic shades off their beverly hills tanned faces. but ive heard the no pain no gain one a handful of times in the last few weeks, specifically from doctors performing procedures in preparation for my bottom surgery. & i know its supposed to be encouraging & they have no way of knowing, but its just like, buddy, u have no idea who youre fucking talking to. & im starting to understand what THEY mean when they say it - pain with a reward is infinitely more tolerable than pain just for the sake of pain; like, a tattoo, it hurts, but u know, when its done, its gonna be sick as fuck. when u r able to fall back on the idea that its for something u rlly want, its A Lot easier to handle as opposed to pain thats Just Pain - theres no reward for it except, i guess, that the more u experience it, the closer u r to the end of it lmao. i mean, i still hate when ppl say it cuz for most of my life, pain was just pain, & the “reward” was the opportunity to go home at the end & so whenever ppl say that, my mind just immediately resorts back to that & im just like haha fuck u. but im trying to remember my experiences r definitely not universal & im starting to sorta understand what they mean i think. but, flipping gears here, & going back to the sentiment of “everything happens for a reason”, the base philosophy of psuedo deep Fuckwads - a girls dad didnt fuck her “for a reason”, everything doesnt happen “for a reason”. like ok, hypothetically, the kid he impregnated her with & that she was forced to have at 12 may surpass all odds & not become a homeless junkie & instead become a world renowned doctor who finds the cure for cancer. but she wasnt raped repeatedly from the age of six for that “reason”, no matter what anyone says & honestly, the liberation of the masses does not justify the suffering of one, especially a child. in my eyes at least. but again, im a bitter asshole. sorry i just Went The Fuck Off here oh my god.....if u read all this, thanks, pal. if not, thats cool too. but yea, send me ur stuff, id totally be down to read it. as for me potentially thinking ur cute, i have to look at my disgusting shitstain of a “face” every goddamn day so everyone else to me is fuckin aphrodite. but im also tryin to not put so much worth into physical appearance- its not something that should be complimented cuz its just smth a person was born with which is the same reason it shouldnt be insulted. this is gonna sound gay & stupid but i personally find that a persons essence & personality really permeates. you can meet someone who, objectively, isnt all that great looking, but once u get to know them, u really see their beauty - how the sun catches in their hair, their dilated pupils looking up at u from under long eyelashes in the dark, the birthmark on their right shoulder that they despise but that is so Them, the gap in their teeth, etc. & idk how to phrase this without it sounding like “well ur ugly but at least ur a good person”, cuz that only reiterates the societally indoctrinated emphasis on appearance & my kneejerk reaction to assure the person in question that thats not what im saying is only another result of that!!! its inescapable!!! but no, really, its not just a matter of “its on the inside that counts” - physically, they change or maybe, actually this is more likely, when i first meet them, my “default” eyes r just looking for features that i know im immediately attracted to (tall, blonde, sickly as in sunken eyes sticklike pale but still looks like she could & will beat the shit out of me) but as i fall in love or get to know them better, my eyes adjust & i notice & adore the beauty that was there all along. so uh. idk if ill think ur “cute”. but probably, yes, ill think ur an angel.
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him-e · 6 years
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In the show Dany says that Drogo raped her. But I was wondering, do you think that is something that GRRM will have her say also? Tho he did rape her, I believed she genuinely grew to care for him but I just can't decide if her speech in s7 is one GRRM will come up with or if he will keep her seeing as someone she cared for? i was just wondering what your opinion was?
Show!Dany also grew to love and care for Drogo, but now she’s reached a point where she can “look back” and admit to herself and to others that she was raped. (I think she no longer needs any coping mechanisms, and whoever Drogo was, whatever place he had in her life pales in comparison to the dragon that carries his name, so in a way I think Dany has exorcized Drogo’s demon by claiming for herself the strength he represented, becoming the khal of khals he couldn’t be).
The problem with GRRM is that he makes Dany’s relationship with Drogo much more ambiguous than it is in the show, where it’s explicitly depicted as rape (at least until Dany turns the tables on him sexually; then it becomes just as romanticized as it is in the books). In the books, Dany superficially gives verbal consent the night of her deflowering—I say superficially because what kind of consent can a terrified child bride cornered in a marriage to someone who basically acquires the right to treat her as his property give, exactly?
This reeks of plot device on GRRM’s part to make the situation conveniently less horrible to the reader, but it’s just window dressing, really. It doesn’t change the fact that later on, one-time verbal consent or not, we are treated with lovely images of Dany burying her tears in her pillow as she’s forced to submit to Drogo every night, and literally contemplating suicide.
It’s all absolutely awful until it isn’t, and like Dany’s soft skin suddenly thickens and she no longer hurts from riding, she also learns to take control of her sexual encounters with Drogo and from that moment on it’s an upward spiral. But like, she didn’t have a real choice in any of this. It was either toughening up or continuing to be absolutely miserable until she succumbed. She basically had to find a way to make her spousal rape less intolerable, and the fact that this is often passed off as some kind of empowering sexual awakening is quite disturbing imho.
It’s hard to say whether or not book!Dany will acknowledge she was raped, because it’s hard to say whether or not Martin is willing to present her experience as unequivocal rape. To me, it’s not equivocal at all, but the fact that so many readers still see that first night as romantic and what follows as merely the result of a lack of communication between a sexually inexperienced Dany and a gruff dothraki warlord whose sexual ways are “like that” because of his culture is enough to call it ambiguous.
Add to this the fact that Dany almost never dwells on what happened to her, and if she does she tends to place all the blame on Viserys and none on Drogo (e.g.: “Do you know what it is like to be sold, squire? I do. My brother sold me to Khal Drogo for the promise of a golden crown. Well, Drogo crowned him in gold, though not as he had wished, and I… my sun-and-stars made a queen of me, but if he had been a different man, it might have been much otherwise”).
This is actually a believable coping mechanism; I think Dany cannot reconcile the feeling of safety, belonging and actual power she felt at Drogo’s side with the brutal first weeks of their marriage, and is subconsciously protecting the good memories she had with him because they’re her only pattern for happiness in marriage, family, children and all that jazz. It was a time in her life when she was finally safe from Viserys’ abuse but before the weight of her chosen-one destiny fell on her, leaving her barren, with three dragons to raise and an army to find all by herself. It was her first taste of adulthood and womanhood but without the isolation and enormous responsibility she had to face later. So she cherishes it. And maybe she’s simply not ready to admit that she was a victim—that kind of victim. Not yet.
If this is indeed Dany’s psychological state in the books, and not a normalization of rape on the author’s part, I would like to get stronger hints of it in the text, some kind of telltale internal conflict in Dany’s pov, anything. Because this would actually be a great angle to explore abuse from, if done well. It’s also another roadblock that Dany has to overcome in order to complete her narrative arc and fulfill her destiny. It’s a bit like her refusal to mentally engage with her father’s crimes. There are some blind spots in her pov (if I look back I’m lost) that I’m sure are meant to be eventually resolved, and I think not being able to see her time with Drogo clearly is one of those. And from an authorial intent perspective, I think it’s vital that GRRM stops being ambiguous and starts calling things with their name. (because admittedly he’s not great at conveying consent in the books, and this would be a good opportunity to course correct it.)
So yes, I definitely hope she gets a similar speech in the books too. It doesn’t have to be an actual speech, as long as it’s a moment of clarity. I don’t expect her to deny the love she felt for Drogo, and tbh I wouldn’t want her to (humans are complicated, and it’s not rare for victims to feel genuine love for their abusers, esp. if they’re physically or emotionally dependent on them, like Dany certainly was back then). I just think it’s important that she finally has the ability to see the context in which she came to have those feelings clearly, understand her complete lack of agency in that situation, and that Drogo was just as responsible as Viserys was for her being sold as a broodmare. It’s possible that her future book arc brings her back to where it all started (Pentos and Illyrio), which might be the right opportunity to mentally revisit those events and have that existential revelation.
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spacemuffinz · 6 years
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The problem with the world today is everyone is too afraid to punch a bitch. Everyone just wants to be a bystander.
I was physically and mentally abused from age 2. Which literally broke me. I was brainwashed. Gaslighted. Scared to sleep. Scared to be alone. Scared of adults. Scared of kids. Untrustful. Unsocialized. I was basically afraid of everything and everyone. I never learned how to make friends. I was never allowed to have any. I was never allowed to talk to anyone. Felt like no one wanted to talk to me. I would just exist in my own head and draw a lot and listen to music. I shut everything out forever. Behind a wall of bitter anger and bitter comedy and shitty bitterness.
I had one friend who was a few years younger than me cuz she lived next door and we went to different schools but she always got along with my little sister better cuz they're closer in age.
and then I was bullied so fucking hard in school. Since day one in kindergarten. A boy put paint in my butt-length hair. And then i got punished for it when i got home.
I was suicidal by 4th grade. Chronically depressed. Bad grades. No self esteem. No will to live. Just fucking broken. I didn't know who to ask for help or how. Everyone thought it was just adhd. And i got beat for being "obnoxious". No one helped me with my homework. "I wouldnt need help if I'd pay attention in class". I have a comprehension disability. Knowledge doesnt stick for long. And i told my parents about my school bullies and they were basically nonplussed. Didnt give a single fuck. Its just school. Its just 30 hours a week of soul flaying torment. Its just your whole tiny world against you. but kids in africa only eat ricewater once a week so youre not allowed to have feelings pertaining to your own shitty life cuz everyone has it worse than you.
The abuse never stopped. The kids made fun of me for being abused and unloved. The kids at my babysitters would shove me and lock me in the small toybox all the time. And it was me vs 4 people. And when I'd tell on them They'd say i was lying and colaborate their stories. So i just gave up and let them do whatever they wanted to me. School kids would fake being my friend just to squeeze my horror stories out of me for their own amusement. They'd call me a freak and dumptruck and dumb stupid shit and it fucked me up so hard. Especially cuz i was also the fattest girl in my grade. And poor. And all my clothes were trashy. I was the weird lone emo goth kid in my whole school. So then kids started calling me a lesbian. I didnt want to go to school. But i didnt want to be at home. Ever.
And then i was forced to go to church even tho i hated it and made friends with the way older choir teacher cuz i love music and then he took _serious_advantage_ of me. But no one believed me even tho he went to prison cuz i was fat and ugly and a lesbian and i obv just wanted to ruin the poor guy's life for no reason.
And the whole time all that was happening, i was conditioned into never fighting back. Ever. My mom never even stood up for me. Or herself. So why should i. And all my stuff was taken away. Including my bedroom door. And tv and radio and bedframe. And my windows were nailed shut so i couldnt run away. My 2nd story bedroom. and i was grounded to my room for the whole summer without any ac or fan. Because of an F in math. Basically solitary confinement other than food and toilet. When i was 12..
So I rolled over and took it all. Like ur supposed to do. Right? If u fight back then ur just like the bully D: and what's a smol fat girl going to do to a grown man. Sometimes he'd beat me so hard i would just pray for death. I'd tell him to just finally kill me like he'd threatened to my whole life.
But no.
I realize now at fucking 30 that most if not all of my problems would have either been solved or at least a lot different if i learned how to punch a bitch out. But i have no spine. Or nerve.
The reprimand is easier to deal with than the ptsd and bpd that resulted.
If it was just shitty kids or just shitty parents it'd been fine. But it was both. I had no solace. Or safe space. I was just everyone's prey. And it permanently damaged me. They were all just sadistic narcissistic sociopathic pieces of shit. I was just a sad and lonely girl.
Please. Don't be like me. Fight for yourself. Fight for your rights. Fight for those smaller and more defensless than yourself. Be a good human.
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yaminerua · 6 years
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I was rewatching Thriller earlier for like the bazillionth time and then I started remembering back to when 10 year old me went to my primary school’s halloween disco. I think I was attempting to replicate the way Michael looked in the video for The Way You Make Me Feel. Only I looked kind of terrible cos I was just using whatever I had and the shirt wasn't even the right kind of blue.. Lmfao you tried, past me. Anyways, I guess I was kind of known at school for being That One Kid who’s way into Michael Jackson. Like it was well established by that point and everyone in my year was well aware of and highly amused by it so I got made fun of a lot for it but I had tougher skin back then and could brush that shit off much easier. Didn't really make it easy for myself for being really fricking obvious about my obsession either. Ive never ever been subtle about anything I love. Anyways since it was a Halloween disco obviously the inevitable happened which is that Thriller got played and my classmates were all like lol hey Lauren do a dance. Man I knew I was kind of shit at dancing but like I said I was a tougher cookie then than I am now and I had confidence then that gradually got bullied out of me but the point is I had it once. So when the opportunity came to do a little dance I was like heck yeah. And I probably at the time didn't even realise everyone else was just laughing at me but they formed a circle around me on the school gym hall floor and let me do my embarrassingly bad attempts at dancing and at the end of the night the DJ guy called me up to the stage and gave me a box of maltesers chocolates for being a 'wee star'. I still have a photo somewhere if me posing with the chocolates at the end of the night. I had fun that night. Really had fun. And even tho everyone was probably laughing at me making a fool of myself, in the moment I felt cool, I went for it and got a box of chocolates as a result. The bullying became pretty relentless in the time afterwards so gradually I stopped being as confident. It kind of wavered. Sometimes I didn't care and just went for it (like when I entered the school talent contest trying to do an MJ song and nearly hit my teacher with my shoe when it came flying off my foot in an attempted kick of the leg dance move lmfao) and other times I got overwhelmingly self conscious and chickened out. I didn't go to the Halloween disco the next year because I had become too self conscious. My parents were at the disco tho with some other parents who'd volunteered to help with food and drinks and stuff. And my mum and the neighbour across the street both told me that when it came time to play thriller again the dj had remembered me from the previous year and was all 'where's that wee Michael Jackson girl?' My dad still brings it up sometimes pfff. I felt embarrassed at the same time as regretting not going. I wish I'd gone to more school dances/discos but I became super self conscious and missed out on a lot. I'm still fond of that memory tho because in the moment I had a lot of fun;;;; the picture of me that was taken back then also years later got submitted into a mosaic of the This Is It promotional image of Michaels silhouette built up of thousands of pictures of fans showing their love after... Well... You know. I think my picture in the mosaic was placed somewhere near his legs but I can't remember exactly. It meant a lot to me to be able to be a tiny part of a tribute to him. I went into more detail about it in a Twitter ramble a few nights ago but gosh he was really such an important pillar of strength for me during my younger years, especially through everything that was happening at home. Dancing, even if I was never good at it, and singing to his songs provided an escapism I sorely needed and honestly could probably benefit from going back to now. And regardless of what people believe or hear about him, I genuinely felt that his love and care for children was real and genuine and sincere and that he would never hurt a child. It felt like, even tho I didn't know him and would never know him personally, he was there for me and for all the kids going through awful stuff, be it in their homes or communities or anywhere. It made it feel like even though I couldn't talk about it to people, and had to endure all that shit in silence, that there was someone out there who would care if he knew. Maybe it sounds silly. I don't really care how it sounds. It was important to me when I was small and it gave me so much that I really needed that I couldn't get anywhere else. his death still hurts 9 years later. It's going to be 10 years next year and I am never going to be ready for that. It literally felt like the world just stopped and it still feels like yesterday when I settled down to sleep in this very room and my brother came up the stairs to break the news. I can still remember how hard I cried. I cried solidly for hours until i passed out. I'd always in some way hoped that maybe one day I'd be lucky enough to meet him. To say what I'm sure he probably heard a thousand times in a thousand different ways about how important he had been, how positive his impact had been for me as a child and ever since. That can never happen now but.. Ahh;;;; Someone recently had commented about how next year will make it 10 years since that awful day and I guess it just. Triggered something in me. I hadn't been very outspoken about how much I love the guy because people would always be shitty about it and I was afraid about what people would say because I got bullied relentlessly for it in both high school and primary school but honestly. Fuck that. I don't care anymore. He was important to me and he still is and I'm not going to shy away and pretend that isn't a fact. Genuinely tho...... I'm genuinely 95% certain that if I'd just had the same space now as I'd had to just go and dance til I dropped and sing til I cried as a kid to get out all that was happening inside I'd maybe be a little less fucked up. It was cathartic then. Therapeutic and honestly i want to get that back. Just. Lock myself in a room for hours and get completely lost in the music and then come out of it feeling... Better. Lighter. I don't doubt that maybe if I'd been able to do that when I was going through what I was going through in 2011/12 I might have come through that abuse a little less broken and suicidal but who knows. Maybe not. I'm where I am now and I'd like to think there's still a little hope that things can be alright. This house doesn't have the space nor the privacy tho to do any sort of dancing. Doesn't even have the right kind of floor to spin around on like the old house did before its renovation in like 2008. That and I'm also laughably out of practice and super unfit so I'd probably die like halfway through a song when I used to be able to go on for hours before I got tired. Aaah... One day maybe I'll get to see if that old magic can still help me like it did then. For now........I should probably sleep instead of getting weepy and nostalgic.
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empyreanchimera · 7 years
Text
hoo boy okay so this is a piece i started writing a few months ago during a really Rough Time that came about as a result of some very sensitive reading material i was forced to deal with in a class i was taking... i ended up in a really bad place and had to drop the class so i’m not proud of how it all went down, unfortunately
i was trying to come to terms with Things and shink was lovely enough to let me borrow owen for this drabble as a means of exploring a little about elijah’s past. it helped me vent out a lot of my bad feelings at the time but i never managed to finish it until now... i felt bad for leaving it hanging tho so i decided to come back to it and give it another shot.
owen belongs to @asianwashington (cant @ u for some reason?) / @devilishlyclever
tw: past mentions of rape/sexual abuse/physical abuse, attempted sex while intoxicated (not fulfilled)
It takes one drink for Elijah to feel brave enough to even willingly take a seat next to Owen. True to his nature their conversation isn’t exactly… amicable, but he’s not surprised when Owen expects it from him and responds in turn. It’s who Elijah is, and it’s who Owen is, and after three drinks Elijah decides he doesn’t really want to be Elijah anymore. But he can’t – and won’t – go back to being Addison, or Chimera, or anything other than what he is right now. Owen calls him Agent Buzzkill and he can’t help but laugh, because he figures that’s the only person he’s good at being.
It’s strange to realize that everyone in this room knows about what he did. He’d hidden it for so long, lying through his teeth and playing the part of the grieving survivor. When it had come out, it was almost as relieving as it was terrifying. He could finally stop pretending that he cared. He could stop crying over a grave he’d much rather spit on.
He knows it doesn’t matter anymore. The suicide mission is over. The galaxy is falling apart at the seams and Reapers are everywhere, burning entire worlds while Shepard struggles to pull together a resistance that is probably doomed to fail. Everyone here is existing on borrowed time, laughing and drinking and probably trying to convince themselves that they aren’t surrounded by death and destruction and sacrifice. Somehow he doubts that what he did ranks very high on the list of their concerns.
He wonders what Owen thinks. He wonders if he thinks about it all. They never really talked about it back then. Even the night they shared before the Normandy went through the Omega Relay – it was quiet, and he’d never asked. They’d shared a drink, and a kiss, but nothing else. No secrets. No lies. No explanations. No expectations.
It was simple. He’d liked it that way.
It takes five drinks for him to finally kiss him again. He grabs his wrist and pulls him and suddenly they’re in the guest bedroom and he’s got Owen against the wall, fingers tangling into his hair as he kisses him too hard. Maybe they’d take this slower if he were sober and the world wasn’t ending and he wasn’t so fucking scared that this could never happen again. Maybe tonight was the only thing he could have before he died. Maybe Owen felt the same way.
He drinks a sixth from the whiskey on the bedside table and Owen is sitting on the bed and he’s on top of Owen, straddling his lap and kissing him because it’s the only thing he knows how to do right now. His head is swimming and he feels warm and things seem a little less scary for the shortest, fleeting moment, and that’s all he needs to grab Owen’s hands and put them on his waist. He’s too drunk for his skin to crawl at the contact, and for once, it feels like it should and he feels normal. He doesn’t feel broken, for once in his miserable fucking life.
When Elijah pushes his hands down, encouraging him to grab at his ass instead, Owen breaks the kiss too suddenly and Elijah’s frustrated at the loss. He tries to kiss him again, but Owen’s hands suddenly pull out of his grasp and he’s got him by the shoulders, holding him back. That warmth is trickling away and he shudders.
“Elijah, you’re drunk,” he states almost matter-of-factly, voice lowered in the silence of the empty room. “We’re not doing this right now.”
Owen looks slightly unfocused, but his expression is serious, even if his words are a little slurred. He’s clearly not sober, but it’s obvious he’s nowhere near as drunk as Elijah is. Elijah wonders if he should be embarrassed, but he wants to ride the high as long as he can before everything comes crashing down on him again.
“Why not?” Elijah can’t help but sulk, swaying a bit but otherwise staying upright thanks to the grip Owen has on his shoulders. His skin is flushed beneath the freckles and his eyes are glazed over even as he tries to focus on Owen’s face and read his expression. “S’wrong? Don’t you wanna fuck me?”
“I’m not sleeping with you when you’re drunk.”
Elijah’s scowl deepens, and he shrugs Owen’s hands off of his shoulders, before scooting a little closer so he can straddle his lap properly.
“It’s now or never,” he says, sliding his hands up Owen’s arms, before slipping them around the back of his neck and burying them in his hair. He can’t maintain eye contact anymore, though, and he finds himself staring at a spot on his collarbone. “I won’t wanna do this when m’sober.”
“If you have to be drunk to want to have sex with me—”
“I don’t,” Elijah interrupts him, eyes snapping up. Fuck. Owen looks… he doesn’t know. He seems hurt, like he’s coming to the realization that Elijah can only stomach the thought of fucking him drunk. But it’s not Owen, it’s Elijah, and he doesn’t know how to explain that.
“I… I wanna do this. But it feels better when m’drunk,” he finally says. That doesn’t seem to alleviate whatever misgivings Owen has about his desires, though, and he continues, choosing his words carefully even as he slurs them. “It hurts when I’m sober.”
The look on Owen’s face quickly changes to alarm, and Elijah realizes too late that the words that left his mouth weren’t the right ones.
“Elijah, sex isn’t… it’s not supposed to hurt,” he says after a moment, hands going to close around Elijah’s wrists if only to maintain some sort of contact between them. Elijah’s fingers twitch in Owen’s hair and he resists the urge to yank his hands away.
“It does when I do it,” Elijah replies, forcing out a small huff of laughter to try and make his words sound a little less grim. “Don’t like how it feels. Figure that’s normal for some people. If m’sober then I get all twitchy an’ it’s embarrassing. Booze helps me loosen up, you know?”
Owen’s watching him too closely for his comfort, and he realizes that he’s reading his expression the same way he’s trying to read his in return. Elijah is drunk out of his mind and Owen is tipsy at best, and that’s enough to know that he’s not going to win this one.
“When was the last time you had sex?” Owen asks after a moment of silence, and Elijah feels his stomach sink.
“I… dunno. Less than a year ago, I guess? Time’s been a lil’ fuzzy since we went through the relay with Shepard.” He finally slips his wrists out of Owen’s loose grip, scooting back an inch so they’re not pressed as close together anymore. “We don’t gotta make a big deal about it, do we? I mean, s’just sex. We might die tomorrow and I wanna have a little fun. S’that a crime?”
“I told you, we’re not doing this when you’re drunk,” Owen replies in a voice that’s forceful but not unkind. It’s enough that Elijah can’t help flinching out of habit, though, and his tone softens after that. “I just… I want to know who made you feel like you have to be drunk to enjoy yourself.”
“I did. S’normal for some people,” Elijah repeats, shrugging weakly. He’s trying to convince himself about as much as he’s trying to convince Owen. “Least I think so.”
Owen’s too quiet and it’s hard for Elijah not to squirm under his scrutiny. That warmth he was clinging to is starting to fade and he knows he won’t be able to hold on much longer. He’s not ready to retreat, but he knows he should before it’s too late. He can’t take it all back, but he can stop himself from making it any worse.
“If we’re not gonna do this, I should just… go,” he says, unsure if he’s more disappointed or relieved. Perhaps a little bit of both. When he goes to slip off of Owen’s lap and leave, though, Owen gently grabs him by the forearm, stopping him mid-movement.
“Elijah.” The way he says his name makes his stomach twist uncomfortably. “Please… talk to me.”
He looks away, focusing a little too intently on the pattern of the duvet. His vision is swimming, and it’s hard to figure out what it is he’s looking at.
“I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“I just want you to be honest.”
The two of them are at an impasse for a long, tense moment, before Elijah finally breaks it with a weak, bitter laugh.
“Listen, I’m too fuckin’ drunk for this kind of conversation,” he says, smiling ruefully. He’s not sure he has the mental faculties required to have a deeper discussion, and he’s just drunk enough that it’s easier to just let it spill out than try to protect it so ferociously. “You’re gonna try to get me to talk about it, and I’m gonna avoid it, and we’ll get upset with each other and I’ll tell you everything and then I’ll cry and it’ll be this beautiful moment of healing and revelation. Right?”
He’s not entirely sure how he made it through that without stuttering or slurring his words beyond recognition, but he supposes he’s got enough sobriety left in him to be a fucking asshole. Figures.
“That’s not what I want and you know that,” Owen replies. He seems to pause, hesitating, before he speaks again. “I had some ideas about what… what happened between you and your squad. But… I didn’t realize…”
Elijah’s stomach sinks even lower. He can see him fighting to control his expression, multiple emotions warring for control. He seems alarmed, confused, sad. Elijah doesn’t like any of them; he almost wishes Owen would just get mad. He could handle anger. He couldn’t handle anything else; not sadness, or questioning, or pity.
God, he doesn’t want pity.
“I’m so sorry, Elijah.”
“Don’t feel sorry for me. Don’t,” Elijah manages, barely able to sound angry – his voice cracks and he shakes his head vehemently. He feels sick, and he doesn’t know if it’s the alcohol or the conversation. It’s probably both. “I made my peace. I get to live with it. They’re all dead and I’m fuckin’ glad. They can’t hurt me anymore. I won’t let them. I don’t want to talk about it and I don’t want to fucking relive it and I don’t—I don’t—”
His voice breaks and he stops, looking away. He’s shaking. He hates it. He hates that he can say these words and make these assertions but never actually feel them. He killed all three of them. He watched the life bleed out of Sharpe and he’d been so relieved, so glad to realize he’d finally managed to release the chokehold the man had had on him. But it hadn’t repaired the damage and it didn’t stop the nightmares or the flashbacks or the phantom pains and the fear that he’d never be able to move on. And sitting here in this half-lit room with Owen watching him as he falls apart reminds him that he hasn’t moved on. He could pretend all he wanted to, drink until it didn’t hurt. He could convince himself that it was what he really wanted, but it didn’t change anything. He’d wake up in the morning and hate himself even more for being so weak.
“I’m not the only one,” he finally says. “It happens all the time. There’s nothing special about me, or what happened, or how I deal with it. So don’t make it special. Just let me deal with it the way I need to.”
“I’m not going to tell you how to cope,” Owen responds after a time, voice going quiet. “But just because it happens to other people doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to hurt. Don’t bury yourself like that. Please. You deserve so much better than that.”
At some point Elijah’s hands had found their way to Owen’s shirt, and he grips the fabric tightly as a means of grounding himself to now, and here, and to Owen. Somehow he needs that anchor, or else he was going to slip away. It’s hard to believe that once upon a time he hated Owen; he wanted nothing to do with the snarky pirate who had wormed his way into his life like a recurring rash. He’d hated him for so long, up until he couldn’t, and now he doesn’t think he’d ever be able to do this with anyone else. It’s only Owen, and him, and the six glasses of whiskey that have made him brave enough to try, only to fall to pieces. What a fine mess he’s become.
“They hurt me. It wasn’t enough for them to beat me, they had to… they had to hurt every fucking part of me they could get to,” he says after he can’t hold it in any longer, forcing the words out and bringing out the ugly truth and the pain with them in the process. It’s something he hasn’t done in… No, there is no time to define because he hasn’t done it at all. He’s never sat down and broken his heart open in front of anyone else and talked about these things in a way that would force himself to admit that they happened. Owen is the first, and that makes it terrifying.
“I tried to get away so many times. Every time I thought it was going to get better, it would just turn around and get worse all over again.” He’s honestly shaking now, and Owen’s hands close over his own and it helps just a little bit. “Three years. Three fucking years. I—I let them do that to me, all of those awful fucking things for that long before I finally did something about it. I hate them, but I… I hate myself so much for ever letting it go that far.”
Finally, Elijah deflates, the anger and sadness and pain finally starting to release now that the words are out of him, no longer stuck in his throat where they can choke him. His head drops, forehead resting against Owen’s shoulder, biting down the urge to break down and cry. If he starts crying, he knows he won’t be able to stop, and Owen isn’t here to be his security blanket or his counselor. He regrets ever putting him in this position to begin with.
They’re both silent for a long time, the room quiet save for their breathing and the distant sounds of the party still going on downstairs. There’s heavy dance music playing and he can hear Tali and Liara laughing in the lounge. Everyone was having a good time, drinking and talking and connecting while Elijah was sitting in a dim bedroom talking about painful memories to a man who didn’t deserve this kind of shit from him.
“I’m sorry,” he finally whispers. “Please don’t hate me for this.”
Owen lets go of his hands and his arms circle around him, pulling him close until Elijah can bury his face in the other man’s hair, tension finally draining from his body as he leans fully into the embrace. He’s never liked being touched, but he needs this. He needs the safety afforded from letting someone he trusts hold him, if only to remind him that there’s at least one person in this fucking galaxy who isn’t out to harm him.
“I don’t think there’s anything I can say to make this better for you,” Owen finally says in a low voice, grip on him tightening somewhat. “I could tell you it’s not your fault until I’m blue in the face and I know it won’t help. But I don’t hate you, Elijah. I would never hate you for something like this.”
Elijah doesn’t say anything, feeling a phantom clench in his chest at his words. It hurts for a moment, comprehending Owen’s words, knowing that he’s with one other person who’s seen the worst part of him and has admitted that he doesn’t hate him for it. He knows he’s being foolish, assuming judgment based on things that no reasonable person would fault him for, but it’s not a feeling he can simply make disappear. He hates himself; why shouldn’t someone else?
“For what it’s worth… I’m here for you. Just tell me what you need.”
Elijah doesn’t reply right away, struggling to find the words and ultimately coming up short. He doesn’t know what he needs. He’s never thought about it; never considered the possibility that he could move on. He didn’t think he’d ever have the option. He didn’t think he’d ever find someone who would see these parts of him and not walk away.
Finally, after some time, Elijah takes a shaking breath and speaks.
“Stay with me?” he asks. He sounds so weak, and he feels so small. But he doesn’t think he can handle being alone right now.
“I’ll stay,” Owen replies, and the relief is enough to bring tears to Elijah’s eyes.
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
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