#oh these tags are spoilery SORRY i take it back nobodys in any hospitals

[clumsyclifford]

i know that you’re so afraid

and it’s getting late, 'but i'll stay 'til you come down.

Luke lets himself in and is met with wreckage and a scream that is so guttural, so primal, that for a moment he feels truly afraid. (Or, Ashton's never been like this, and he's falling apart.)

TW mostly for lots of angst and crying and such. however also contains ashton yelling for a moment so if men yelling is something that triggers/upsets you then maybe skip this one. title from come down by noah kahan.

part 1 (tumblr) // part 2 (tumblr)

read it on ao3 here

~

Luke lets himself in and is met with wreckage and a scream that is so guttural, so primal, that for a moment he feels truly afraid.

Then there are sobbing sounds, the gut-wrenching kind that only ever happens when you’re home by yourself and everything has gone wrong, and Luke thinks maybe he understands a little better.

Gingerly, he steps over the throw pillows discarded in front of the door, picking them up as he goes. The living room is in a state of total disarray. Every blanket, pillow, and cushion they’ve ever had on any couch has been yanked off and unceremoniously tossed into a different corner; there are shreds of paper like oversized snowflakes littering the ground. In the middle of it all, on his knees, chest heaving and body shaking with his face in his hands, is Ashton.

“Ashton?” Luke says softly, and Ashton doesn’t look up. He makes a noise, though, a groan that sounds helpless and despairing.

“Fuck,” Ashton says, in a trembling voice. He rubs his hands furiously over his face and pulls one through his hair, which is unruly, like he’s been moving around a lot and hasn’t checked his reflection yet. “Fuck, you — you weren’t —”

“We finished early,” Luke says calmly. “What happened here?”

Ashton shakes his head. “Leave and come back, I’ll — I’ll clean up.”

“Don’t worry about cleaning up,” Luke says.

Ashton grunts viciously and pushes himself to his feet. “Go, please go,” he begs, “I’ll — please.”

He sounds scared, and that makes Luke scared. There are tear tracks all down Ashton’s face, glistening over angry red scratch marks, like he’d tried to claw the tears off. “Take a deep breath.”

“Don’t fucking tell me to take a deep breath!” Ashton shouts, and then his face falls into his hands again. “Luke, please, I’m not like this, I don’t want you to see me like this. Please leave. Please.”

“I live here too,” Luke says. “And I’m not leaving you like this.”

Ashton presses the heels of his palms into his eye sockets. “I don’t want this. Please go away.”

Luke moves gently towards Ashton. “You won’t hurt me.”

“Of course I won’t,” Ashton says helplessly, “but look at the fucking state I’m in —”

“Don’t stop on my account,” Luke says. “Keep throwing shit. Scream all you want.”

Ashton shakes his head, and a sob escapes through his lips unbidden. “Luke, I just need to be alone.”

“I don’t think you should,” Luke says carefully, stepping closer and closer. Ashton doesn’t move until Luke is within arm’s reach, until Luke reaches out hesitantly to touch his shoulder, and then he collapses into Luke, crying harder than Luke’s ever heard anyone cry. The sound tears at Luke’s chest, tugs mercilessly at his heartstrings.

“I’m sorry,” Ashton cries into his shoulder, “I’m so sorry, this is the worst of me.”

There’s nothing to say, really. This is the worst of Ashton, and Luke doesn’t love him any less for it. “It’s okay,” he whispers, holding Ashton tightly, like that will keep him from falling apart any more. “It’s okay. I know. I’m here, I’ve got you.”

Ashton won’t stop apologizing, and he also doesn’t stop crying for a good five minutes. Luke scans the living room over Ashton’s shoulder as he gently cards through Ashton’s hair. It looks like a tornado has ripped through the place. Something really, truly upsetting must have happened. More than one thing, maybe. In all the years they’ve known each other, Luke has never known Ashton like this.

“What happened?” Luke says quietly, when the broken sobs have turned into irregular whimpers and Luke feels exceedingly warm from Ashton’s body heat, numb from Ashton’s weight clinging to him. “Is there anything I can do?”

Ashton sniffs. “Mum called,” he says weakly. “Lauren’s in the hospital. Tripped and cut her leg and she had to get stitches.”

“Oh, Ash,” Luke breathes. It hurts Luke to know that Lauren is hurt; he can’t imagine how bad it must feel for Ashton.

“I can’t be there for her,” Ashton says, sounding angry and hopeless and defeated all at once. “I can’t go. I’m stuck here. Even if I left the minute I got the call, by the time I got there she’d be out.” Luke presses a kiss to the junction between Ashton’s shoulder and neck, and the tension seems to drain a bit from Ashton’s body. “I miss her, and I miss Harry and my mum and — and I miss Sydney so much, don’t you miss home, Luke?”

Luke nods. Generally he tries not to think about how much he misses home, tries not to think about how even after all this time, home is still Sydney, not LA. It hurts, all the more because there’s not a lot Luke can do to remedy it. He can visit, sure, but if he wants to sustain this career he has — if he wants to live his dream — the chances of him ever moving back home are slim to none.

“You can still go,” he tells Ashton, rubbing rhythmic circles into his back, over the rough cotton of his shirt. “And she’ll be okay, you know. It’s going to be okay.” Ashton shakes his head and pulls away from Luke, unreadable from all the emotions flitting across his face.

“I know she’ll be fucking okay, Luke, but I can’t be there when she’s not!” he snaps. Luke tries not to flinch. He’s not scared of Ashton, but he can see how someone could be, in a moment like this. Ashton notices anyway, because Ashton always notices, and he squeezes his eyes shut, fresh tears trekking down his face. “Fuck, I’m sorry. I’m — I told you I didn’t want you —”

“Ashton, Ashton, no,” Luke says, bringing a hand up to Ashton’s face and tilting their foreheads together. Ashton’s erratic breath leaves staggered puffs of air against Luke’s face, and Luke thinks he might cry, too, except he can’t, because Ashton is crying. They can’t both fall apart; there’d be no one to pick up the pieces. “No. I’m not scared of you. You’re upset. You’re allowed to be upset. Your sister’s in the hospital.”

“I can’t be like this with you,” Ashton whimpers. “You’re all I have, and I’ll scare you off —”

“I’m not all you have, and you could never scare me off,” Luke interrupts. The tears on Ashton’s face are tracing the outline of Luke’s thumb as they make their way down his cheek; Luke cradles Ashton’s face as delicately as he can and wipes the tears away. “We can both go. Even if you get there after she’s out, she’ll be happy to see you.”

“I’m useless,” Ashton says hoarsely, “can’t do anything, can’t even be there to hold her fucking hand while they stitch her up —”

“They wouldn’t let you be there for that anyway,” Luke says. “Ashton. Ash. I’m — I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry.”

Ashton breaks down again, falling limp against Luke, and Luke lets him cry it out. He doesn’t say anything. There’s nothing that bears saying. This news is poison, and Ashton needs to flush it out.

“Aren’t you scared?” he murmurs brokenly into Luke’s neck. Luke exhales.

“Of you? Never.”

“I am,” Ashton whispers. “I don’t want this to be me, but I think it is.”

“This isn’t you,” Luke says firmly. “If it were, I’d have seen it a lot sooner. You’d have done it a lot sooner.”

“I tore up my songwriting notebook,” Ashton confesses, sounding terrified to say it out loud. “After I hung up with my mum, I tried to write — I thought maybe — if I could put it in words, but — I can’t. I couldn’t. I was so angry I just — I just ripped it in half. Tore up all the pages.”

That’ll be the scraps of paper all over the floor, then. “It sounds like you needed to rip something up.”

“What kind of person am I that I need to break something when I’m upset?” Ashton says, horrified.

“Don’t do this,” Luke says, tracing arbitrary lines and shapes into Ashton’s back as if he’ll unlock the pattern to make Ashton feel better. “You weren’t just upset. You’ve had a bad day. Bad week. And you haven’t done anything about it. It built up. That’s normal.”

“But what if you’d been here?”

Luke doesn’t know. What if he had been here? Would Ashton have kept it to himself, retreated to his room to cry in solitude? Or would he have screamed anyway, filled the house with heart-wrenching cries, demolished the living room as Luke stood by and watched?

Luke wonders which would be worse.

“Don’t do that either,” Luke says. “I wasn’t here. I am now. You went a little crazy. You’re allowed.”

Ashton huffs, and Luke thinks maybe, just maybe, there’s a laugh hidden somewhere in there. “That’s a nice way of putting it.”

Luke leans away and presses a kiss to Ashton’s forehead. “Can you breathe?” Ashton nods. “Want me to look up flights to Sydney?” Ashton nods again, leaning his head heavily against Luke’s, rough hands wrapping around Luke’s neck like a lifeline, like a noose, like both. Luke thinks he would die for Ashton, if it came down to it; not figuratively, but actually trade Ashton’s life for Luke’s own, and of all the scary things of today, that one is the biggest. He takes a deep breath. “Okay. I can do that. We’ll clean this up later. How about we order pizza for dinner, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Ashton mumbles. “I’m so fucking sorry, Luke.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Luke says. “You have nothing to be sorry for. I know this isn’t you, and I know you feel badly, but you don’t have to be sorry, not to me.”

“But I am anyway.”

“I forgive you,” Luke says, even though there’s nothing to forgive. Ashton closes his eyes and breathes out like someone’s just released pressure on his chest. “Please don’t be sorry anymore. You haven’t done anything that bears forgiving. I forgive you for nothing.”

“Thank you anyway,” Ashton says, deathly quiet. “I’m so — I don’t know what I would do without you, Luke. I really don’t.”

“Lucky for you, you never have to find out,” Luke says, pulling Ashton into a hug. “I’ll find a flight and we’ll bring a bunch of ridiculous presents to Lauren, and we can stay for a little bit. You’ll see them soon. It’ll be good for you.”

“As long as you’re there,” Ashton says softly. “You keep me together.”

You keep me together too, Luke doesn’t say, even if they both know it’s true. That’s the deal, I think.

He closes his eyes and listens to Ashton’s breathing, finally steady, counting the seconds between each inhale. It’s more soothing than the ticking of a clock, and it washes over Luke. This should scare Luke, but it doesn’t: if he could, he’d measure his own breaths against Ashton’s, so when they stopped, so would his.

#this is really upsetting i have to say #but you would not BELIEVE the day i had that led me to write this #was it terrible? YES IT WAS! #luke hemmings #ashton irwin #lashton #lashton fic #5sos #5sos fic #fic #my fic #emo lashton #this series has gotten SIGNIFICANTLY more emo #the first installment is like. NOTHINGGGG compared to the second and third #and i am sorry for that #can you tell i am goin thru it #i literally had a terrible day #i mean my sister isnt in the hospital #fun fact though she WAS in the hospital #oh these tags are spoilery SORRY i take it back nobodys in any hospitals #anyway this is for sam #can you believe im posting a fic like four hours before im going to be posting a chapter #maybe ill post the hello hello chapter tomorrow night #just to space stuff out a little more #im always like 'i should save some fic and not post stuff the moment i write it' #and then i never do that #thats a LIE actually i still have post you blues in my ao3 drafts #youll get that eventually............ #probably before august 30th because i think thats when the draft expires #i dont know how to like fuckin. renew a draft

[groundramon]

Homph I finished tri and I wrote down my thoughts as I was watching because I had too many funny shitposts and nobody to share them with bc charlie hasn’t watched tri yet

PS i wont be reblogging tri spoilers (besides MINOR stuff like, digivolutions of already confirmed digivolution lines or non-spoilery shitposts, but I’ll try to tag shitposts as #tri spoilers anyways [digivolutions specific to tri ill tag as well but not ones that were already basically confirmed]) for a while so ur safe here!  I’m just gonna like everything/most things because then I can rb em to hisyaryumon lmao (also u should check out hisyaryumon....its me n charlie’s digimon blog)

EP 1:

- ok. alright. ok. good. they’re dealing with kari’s emotions now instead of just. nothing.  ok. alright. cool.  Still dont like how obscure/”artsy” they’re being with it, this is digimon not kagerou project, but ok.

- Also. I stand by tk and kari being one of the few good straight ships in digimon.  just saying.

- kari: this is my fault... me: god damn it shut up you little brat also me: god relatable ALSO me: ill take whatever display of emotions i can get

- I love how nobody believes tai is dead like.  They’re upset and worried but they’re also like “nah. he cant be. that fucking asshole just left us in our time of need” (actually only matt is the last one)

- Gabumon i would die for you also im crying and I think that’s the first time tri managed to make me fucking CRY

EP 2:

- I had thoughts but then the 02 kids happened and I entered another plane of reality.  I don’t feel real right now

- the only one I can remember is evil!gennai being a dumbass and being like “SUFFER AND SQUIRM YOU PATHETIC HUMANS AS YOU FIGHT OVER THE LAST SEAT” 1. humans are KNOWN for their ability to care for others you dumb obvious fuck and 2. is. is the entire tube going? because that tube can fit too people if they squish.  This isn’t a joke I’m serious it can.

- oh yeah also when i saw whomstever the fuck his name is (adult guy who i love but fuck names) and he was all bloodied i was like “its a cold day in hell when i see blood in digimon” (I think there was blood in an earlier ep but shh idc)

EP 3:

- didn’t nishijima start off as a fucking life coach to these kids.  What the fuck he was supposed to help them find a career not emotionally scar them by bloodily dying in front of one of them

- im realizing that the reason hackmon was always in his cloak, in the shadows, standing still is that they cannot animate him in any normal position for the life of him.  I drew him with better anatomy when i was 14 and didn’t have a tablet.  No seriously, look:

I didn’t say it wasn’t bad, you guys are just underestimating how bad the anatomy on this poor creature is.  Why cant ppl draw dracomon or hackmon correctly imma cry

- ordinemon has the best reaction faces

the best part about these two screenshots is that they literally cut one to the other, first the first one to the second one and then it cuts back to the first one.  They were really proud of these stupid ass expressions.

- I started overcoming my dissociation shock from the second episode and my hypercritical mind was analyzing the shit out of everything that happened (it is Not happy) but then evil!gennai called kari and evil goddess and idk if he’s exaggerating to make her feel bad or if she’s literally a fucking god of chaos and destruction and either way im like

she did kinda like.  Watch wizardmon die, watch tai die, watch gatomon get absorbed.  The dark ocean is just a metaphor for depression and honestly if 02 wasn’t all over the fucking place I think Kari would’ve had some pretty decent development in it.  Actually you know what, I’m using that as an angle to approach Tri at now, wish me luck bc i might actually give it more leeway now

EP 4:

- I’m not dissociating but I forgot to say anything again and I already forgot what happened

- Cant believe mei is fucking dead

EP 5:

- I like to imagine that Tai got there like a few minutes ago, but he was like “well damn guess yall figured it out without me.  alright ill just. see if I need to do anything” and then meicoomon was Still Bad so he waited for when she struck just to make the most badass entrance possible.  Fucking extra ass bitch

- I forgot to write anything again but uhhh I wasn’t satisfied so anyways lets just get into the Juicy Details

Originally I was actually planning to be kinder to Tri than I expected.  Was very invested during it.  ‘Round the end of the last ep I realized hmmm no this isn’t working out.  Where are the 02 kids.  You should’ve brought them in to save the day.  That would’ve been SO cool and SO fun.  Fucking cowards.

god I’m kinda tired so I’m going to address a couple things I still had problems with, note that this isn’t everything it’s just everything I felt comfortable yelling about without rewatching past eps.  Like I forgot nishijima was all bloodied and presumably died in the last part until they brought it up and I was like “????” ALSO DID THE LADY WHO WAS HIS PARTNER OR W/E KILL HERSELF WITH THE GUN SHE FOUND, I JUST REALIZED LITERALLY AS I WAS TYPING THIS THAT SHE FOUND A GUN AND THEN I THINK IT CUT TO BLACK AND I’M

DID SHE FUCKING KILL HERSELF WHAT THE FUCK

anyways my problems:

1. They did joe. really dirty.  I’ll write a more proper rant on this sometime later (mostly bc charlie is MUCH better at talking about joe than I am) but basically I can tell you that his character development in the movies squandered his OG character development.  He’s basically an entirely different person.  Like Tri joe isn’t bad, besides being largely neglected (yes he has a whole half a movie to himself, no that doesn’t make up for it all), its just...not OG joe.  He’s a fine character just not the same character, and its NOT fine when you put the two together.

2. THEY DID THE 02 KIDS EVEN DIRTIER IM SO BITTER sorry you nostalgia-blind, money-hungry fucks at bandai, but the 02 cast is PART OF THE ADVENTURES UNIVERSE.  The only people who hate 02 are ones who like the characters but hate the mess of the storyline at the end, or are completely irrational and elitist about their love of the digimon series and would greatly re-evaluate their opinions if they watched the original series and 02 back to back.  They couldn’t even show them in some kind of group montage at the end??? Standing in the background when they call Mei???  Why couldn’t they call mei from a home phone also, but that’s a less important problem idc that much.  It was a cute scene besides the lack of 02 characters.  Whatever.  AND THE PROBLEM IS LIKE kari and tk?  This entire time???  Were like “oh they disappeared. oops” instead of being frantically searching for their lost friends???  Like i get tk and kari probably have fucking ptsd and can’t express any emotions because they watched important people die in front of their eyes at an incredibly young age but also 1. they didn’t address the ramifications of ptsd, so fuck that theory/excuse and 2. THAT??? WOULD ONLY MAKE THEM LOOK HARDER??? and put on a brave face as they look, but inside they’re so scared and so worried.  Not just “oh sweet, they were found/saved, theyre in the hospital but that’s fine” like WHAT theyre fucking assholes if that’s what they’d canonically do lmao.  God I am SO bitter over the ENTIRE thing with the 02 kids, it would’ve been BETTER if they were deleted from the fucking canon entirely.  Would I have still been bitter?  Yes.  But at least I wouldn’t be madder at TK and Kari too.

3. I stand 100% by the notion that Digimon is not and will never be cut out to be an adults’ franchise.  It wasn’t designed for adults, and it can’t be skewered towards adults.  These particular characters were designed for kids to relate to and find entertaining.  They do not work when placed into an adult setting.  Like, can you imagine a character like Ed from FMA going to the Digimon world?  I guess in a way that’s just Marcus but like.  Just imagine the FMA cast in Digimon Adventure.  It doesn’t work.  Digimon Tri is basically that except real.  Also Data Squad was darker than Adventure so my joke doesn’t even work.

I guess my primary point is that Tri isn’t mature enough of a setup for an adult audience.  It puts a focus on being “complex” and “philosophical” instead of working within Digimon’s constraints and making something good and adult out of that.  Like!  Digimon is a fucking TOY COMMERCIAL.  Don’t give me messages about the futility of human life.  I want bad puns and emotional characters.  That’s what Digimon has ALWAYS been, and ideally always will be.  Tri could’ve made itself more mature by dealing with the ramifications of the Digital World’s events, how it affected the kids psychologically and dealing with healing old scars.  It would’ve been a more mature take on a story we loved and would use things we loved about the story already - the fact that it took so much time exploring characters’ emotions and was surprisingly mature for the time - to make itself better.  You need to take the aspects that drew adults to the show and amplify them, not just slap on a complex story and unfunny dialogue and be like “oh this is fine, right?”

It’s not that Digimon can’t exist as an adult property, its just that if it repeats what Tri did, it’s got no merit and in my eyes the franchise is dead.  If it survives I guess I’ll be happy that people can still enjoy it but I find it unsustainable and unsatisfying to fans of the older series.  Tri is just a fuckfest of highly specific nostalgia that tries too hard to appeal to old fans without capturing what made the original series so magical, and in part thats because the original series WASN’T FOR ADULTS.  I don’t know about the Digimon Story games, bc they’re T-rated so perhaps they’re a better take on an adult Digimon story than Tri?  But you either need to make your own characters and lore specifically for an adult-oriented Digimon season, or perish.  Also, please make it a series and not a group of movies.  Getting four eps every 6-9 months was hell.

I stand by saying Appmon is a more faithful Digimon season than Tri to Digimon’s original spirit.  I believe it holds more potential for success than Tri and better embodies the spirit of the older Digimon seasons.  It’s dumb, its corny, it has horrible puns, but I LOVE it because it also has a deep dark story and emotional moments.  If you dislike Tri and you agree with things I said that make it unlikeable, I highly recommend giving Appmon a chance - if you watch a few episodes and think “oh yeah, I guess this is decent” you’re going to like it.  It’s everything Digimon has always been and hopefully always will be, just with a different concept.  And hopefully the end of the series doesn’t leave a sour taste in my mouth and I have to redact this statement haha since I’m not done with it yet, but I’ve heard good things about it so I’m hoping not so.

Overall, if you watch Tri, don’t get your hopes up.  It resolves everything okay-ish but it’s a pretty forgettable anime on its own and simply doesn’t work as part of the Digimon franchise.

I am, however, pretty interested in what evil!gennai said at the end about Diaboromon and Daemon.  It raises interesting questions about the timeline too.  We know Daemon is in the dark ocean, so perhaps that’s a hint at a future project?  (They did confirm a future project btw, in conjunction with tri being over)  But what about Diaboromon?  I dont believe that Our War Game (I think thats what its called?) took place after Tri, based on the outfits and ages and stuff, but I also don’t remember the movies that well.  Could Diaboromon still be out there too?  It’s interesting.

However, because of the lackluster performance of Tri, I don’t have my hopes up and I really hope that this “next project” goes in a different direction.  Although I guess if they include the 02 kids, I’ll be somewhat less salty...

Side note, did they ever explain why the gennais went evil?  Like ?  That’s a pretty important thing.  The gennais helped SAVE the human world in 02.  And I get that apparently Tri is ignoring 02′s ending but still.  It’s shitty, because Gennai was still a good guy in the original too (and also they cant just keep is younger look and act like 02 never happened)  MAYBE its something I missed but I dont think so.  God there’s just.  So much wrong with Tri.  I’m very displeased and very bitter and I wanna get back to Appmon asap.

It’s got good moments, its got bad moments, I dont know, I don’t care.  There’s nothing wrong with you if you like it, there’s nothing wrong with you if you don’t, and there’s nothing wrong with you if you flip flop and are split like me.  I just wish Tri fulfilled its potential instead of becoming a boring mess.

#stormy speaks #digimon