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fostersffff · 5 years

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Complete Black Eagle (read: Edelgard and Rhea) Thoughts

Now that I’ve finally finished both Silver Snow and Crimson Flower, I feel like I can put all of these thoughts out without worrying about a last minute twist. It’s entirely possible based on how much I’ve seen people talk about route differences that once I play Golden Deer and Blue Lions I’ll have changed my opinions, but barring some really wild and extreme stuff, I can’t imagine changing all that much. A ton of text under the break:

Edelgard

There was a Korean poll that was published recently where Edelgard was voted the #1 most disliked character in Three Houses... and also the #2 most liked character in Three Houses (behind Lysithea). It’s not a surprising result to see considering that she is the inciting antagonist, and that you don’t really understand why she does any of it unless you happened to start with the Black Eagles, but even then, IntSys felt it necessary to split Black Eagles into two routes, just in case you still didn’t want to side with her. But that’s what I think I found to be the most compelling thing about Edelgard: that she is a decidedly morally gray character, and how you feel about her comes down to looking at all of the things she does and asking “is this worth it?”

Part of what makes her so compelling to me is that no one understands her role better than Edelgard herself. She has no delusions about what she’s doing, and she never even makes an attempt to sugarcoat it to anyone around her. I made a post back when I first started the game about how I thought it was weird that her first support with Byleth ends with her talking about how she’s prepared to go down in the history books as History’s Greatest Monster without any context, but as the blanks fill in and time passes, it’s clear that she’s completely and utterly true to her word. "The ends justify the means” is the best description of her philosophy, but unlike a lot of characters (and people) who use that to justify their actions, she doesn’t take any solace in it, or use it as a way to offset the responsibility for all of the lives lost in the war. The end may justify the means, but it doesn’t make the means any less horrific, and even if the end result is a better world, it’s a small comfort to the countless people who died for it.

I think something crucial to sympathizing with Edelgard is that as far as she is concerned, she didn’t “initiate” hostilities with the church. When she kills Dimitri in the Crimson Flower route, she says “if only we were born in a time of peace, you might have enjoyed a joyful life as a benevolent ruler”, which sounds comically hypocritical in isolation coming from the person who declared war in the first place. But it’s because as far as she’s concerned, the systemic oppression resulting from the Church of Seiros’s influence on every Fodlan society means that true peace simply hasn’t existed since long before any of them were ever born. To Edelgard, there’s been a cold war between the Church of Seiros and humanity for a thousand years, and she took it upon herself to finally make it hot.

“Cold war” might sound exaggerated, but there’s something to that idea going on the evidence we’re presented with. At best, the church is ignorant to and/or idle on the suffering of the common folk and the corruption of the nobility all across the continent that exists because they grants noble status and political power to families that happen to have Crests. At worst, the church is intentionally passive about those problems because preserving the status quo and their absolute control is more important, and to act in any way to try to fix those problems directly could threaten their status as the center of power in Fodlan. Speaking of their control: isn’t it odd that the Church of Seiros was involved in each war for independence, maintaining their foothold in the old nation while also branching out and ensuring they were the dominant religion in the new ones? That the only time the church acts on their own (outside of an immediate threat like bandits) is when they are made aware of heresies, however mild, at which point they act decisively and without any shred of mercy, sending a sign to anyone who would dare try to cross the church? That, with the exception of Seteth and Flayn, the most devout members of the Knights of Seiros and the church have a fanatical devotion to Rhea specifically, and not Sothis or the doctrine of the church? The most insidious thing is that even if someone with the power to pose a threat to the church wanted to fight against them, the only people who could realistically muster up enough military might to challenge the Knights of Seiros would be nobles, and the fall of the church would also mean there would be nobody to legitimize their claims to nobility. Nobody would be willing to risk their noble status, and all of the perks that come with it, like that.

Except Edelgard.

This is actually what I like most about Edelgard, and why I was right to compare her to my favorite Fire Emblem villain: Zephiel. Zephiel’s goal in Fire Emblem 6 is the complete eradication of humanity and giving the world over to dragonkind, because he believes that humanity is a blight. He never says “I will lead this new world of dragons” or “My followers and I will live on to see the world of dragons”, which always led me to believe that he would eventually turn his sword on himself*. Edelgard, like Zephiel, does not intend to just conquer Fodlan and then just enjoy the spoils- once all of her affairs are in order (dismantling the church and nobility, re-establishing the church and turning nobility into a meritocracy, eradicating the Tunnel Snakes**) she finds a suitable successor (read: not her child) and then retires into the sunset (at least in the ending where she marries Byleth). And, if you don’t like Edelgard- or even if you do- this happy ending might rub you the wrong way, because even though her resolve was unshaken and she walks her path to the very end, it was still an incredibly violent path. This leads to another question that I’m sure people can argue forever: does Edelgard deserve to have a happy ending?

I’ve seen Edelgard described with a lot of terms that I don’t really think apply to her- like, at all- but I’d never seriously argue that she did nothing wrong. She is a dictator, and a warmonger, and regardless of which route you chose a tragic amount of life is lost as a direct result of her actions. Her alliance with the Tunnel Snakes is an entire can of worms of its own, because despite the fact that she has no control over what they choose to do on their own time, she is effectively still condoning their actions by relying on their power. The worst of it, as far as I’m concerned, is lying to her own people about who caused the destruction of Arianrhod and the loss of life there to prevent an internal conflict. I think with all that in mind, there are a lot of people who are locked into the conclusion that no, she doesn’t deserve to have a happy ending.

But! To create the world she envisioned, one where Rhea was no longer manipulating the world from behind the scenes, a world that would improve the quality of life for everyone in future generations, she was never going to have a choice in how she did things. Think of how openly and casually Rhea talks about how enemies of the church must be eliminated, without any room for discussion. Would a diplomatic call for the Church of Seiros to disavow the current system of nobility based on the possession of crests and for Rhea to step down as archbishop be met with anything other than hostility not only from the church, but from the Kingdom and Alliance as well? Even something as simple as publicly renouncing her own faith to try to motivate a cultural change just within the empire would’ve probably had Rhea dispatching Catherine to cut her down for heresy, just like she did for Lord Lonato. And the final, most passive alternative- returning to the empire after graduating from the academy, ascending her father to become the next puppet of the cabinet, hoping that she eventually bears a child with a major Crest or else watch her own children undergo the same torture she and her family went through. That’s just completely unacceptable, especially when that kind of self-sacrifice is only to the benefit of the nobles and the preservation of a rotten status quo that also only benefits those same nobles- and Rhea, of course. No matter what, she was going to have to sacrifice, and while what she chose would involve the most bloodshed, it also had the best chance of making things better for the greatest number of people when all was said and done, so her getting to have at least one ending where she is completely successful and is rewarded on a personal level doesn’t strike me as inappropriate at all.

A lot of what I’ve talked about with Edelgard has to do with the church, which is inescapable considering every single action she takes is motivated by the church. So ultimately, one of the most important questions to consider when asking “is all of this worth it” is “is Rhea really that bad?” Well...

Rhea

This bitch is fucking insane holy shit.

It’s kind of a nice feeling to feel suspicious of a character from their introduction, only for things to actually be way worse than you could’ve ever expected. For what it’s worth, this isn’t a case of me hating the character on a writing level, it’s just that I find everything about her character to be loathsome even under the best possible circumstances.

What makes Rhea so despicable is how simple and selfish her entire motivation is. Every single action she takes and emotion she expresses can all be traced to an obsession with her mother. It’s not that she believes she needs Sothis’s guidance to deal with a problem that neither she nor the whole of humanity can’t deal with on their own, or that the world will only be at peace if Sothis is around to protect it, it is literally just for her own sake. And on its face, I can deeply sympathize with going to crazy lengths to want to see your mother after she was tragically taken away from you. I also love my mom! But there’s a bunch of lines- both explicitly stated and implied- Rhea sprints past at an Olympic pace that I (and hopefully most other people) would not cross. These include:

Having twelve children*** and trying to turn all of them into your mother.

Having a grandchild and trying to turn them into your mother.

Maintaining direct control and influence over multiple sovereign nations over a span of a thousand years so you can continue to try to bring back your mother without anyone bothering you.

Keeping your closest friends/relatives/allies out of the loop on all of your completely unethical experimentation because deep down inside you either know how fucked up it is, or that they would try to stop you.

Ordering your subordinates to burn down the city full of innocent bystanders you are currently occupying to try to kill the grandchild who you put your mother into.

The one that disturbs me the most is what’s implied by the ending of Crimson Flower. In Silver Snow, Rhea tells Byleth that they were stillborn, and that their mother begged Rhea to put the Crest Stone into Byleth to give them a chance to live. But at the end of Crimson Flower, Rhea’s death causes the Crest Stone on Byleth’s heart to fade away, which should result in their death. But after a few moments, their heart starts up normally and they go on living as normal. They lose Sothis’s power in the process, but they’re just as healthy as they were before they obtained it. This leads me to believe that Byleth may have actually been born healthy and that, after their mother had passed from complications due to childbirth, Rhea placed the Crest Stone on their heart anyway. Or- it’s even possible that Rhea killed the mother herself, removing her Crest Stone heart after sensing that Byleth might be a better vessel because of their parentage. After all, Rhea is the only person who truly knew what happened in there. Jeralt had no idea about the exact nature of Byleth’s heart, only that they had no heartbeat, and Seteth and Flayn didn’t know about anything at all. Obviously, that’s all just speculation, as far as I’m concerned something like this is totally in line with Rhea’s character.

Now, to revisit the question of “is Rhea really that bad”, Edelgard doesn’t know about any of Rhea’s personal fucked up shit. What she knows about is what the church has done and what has happened under their watch and thus with their implicit blessing, that Rhea is actually The Immaculate One, and that she has been the sole driving power of the Church of Seiros since the church was initially founded. On a personal level, her own life and the lives of all of her family members were destroyed by the Church of Seiros’s influence on society via crests. And it should be noted that Edelgard’s not stupid; she’s very likely aware that the Tunnel Snakes are the ones who performed the blood reconstruction on her and her siblings at the behest and/or with the consent of the Empire’s cabinet and Lord Arundel, and she even addresses how awful they are and that she really wants no part of them when she approaches Jeralt and Byleth as the Flame Emperor. But, back when I first suspected that Edelgard was the Flame Emperor, I made a joke about how she has to deal with the fact that the Tunnel Snakes are dabbing on a mountain of corpses while Rhea is cripwalking on an even bigger mountain of corpses. But that wasn’t accurate- it’s not just that Rhea’s mountain is bigger, it’s also composed of people who are still alive, but suffered because of the Church of Seiros: Dorothea’s childhood spent as a wretch because she was born a commoner, the abuse Bernadetta endured from her father to make her noble wife material, Caspar and Sylvain’s brother being shunned from their families for the crime of being born without a Crest, Lysithea suffering the exact same procedure as Edelgard to increase her family’s noble standing, Hanneman’s sister dying from trying to bear a child with a Crest, to say nothing of the characters I haven’t seen the stories of yet. In the grand scheme of the game’s universe, this is only a sample of about 30 characters: what about the potential hundreds of thousands of other lives with stories similar to- or possibly worse than- the main cast? And what’s more, Rhea is not gloating about how big her pile is. She’s so utterly preoccupied with her mother that doesn’t even notice the mountain beneath her, and that might actually be worse.

Both

Finally, I want to briefly touch on the way both characters interact with Byleth, and how they handle things when they’re made into the villain. No matter what route the player chooses, Byleth does something for Edelgard that she has never experienced before: unconditional protection. She was prepared to fight the bandit, and she saw him coming from a mile away so I imagine she could’ve handled it, but Byleth still jumps in front of her to protect her. This is why Edelgard puts so much stock into Byleth, much to the chagrin of Hubert. It’s not that she doesn’t trust that Hubert and the rest of the Black Eagles are capable of helping her, but to them, she is Edelgard von Hresvelg, heir apparent of the Adrestian Empire. Even if their friendships with her would suggest otherwise, there is an ocean of difference between them because of their stations. But to Byleth, she was “simply Edelgard”. She has never experienced that kind of interaction in her entire life, and especially not when there was danger involved. This is so ingrained in her that even in the route where you most directly oppose her, after having spent a full year getting to know and understand her and still choosing to fight against her, her last words are “I wanted to walk with you.” Even that phrasing- that she wanted to walk with them, not that she wanted them to walk with her- says so much about how strongly she feels about Byleth. Is it waifubaiting? Oh baby is it ever, but it doesn’t make it less solid

On the flipside: something I really genuinely hate in games (and stories in general, but it crops up the most in games) is when people have unflinching, unwavering faith in the player character for no good reason. It’s why I think Persona 4 is a worse game than 3 despite being better in almost every other meaningful way. This almost certainly has to do with me not liking Rhea from the start: appropros of seemingly nothing, she is as dotting as any mother would be, she entrust you with an entire class of students lives with zero credentials, and in addition to that she is constantly assigning Byleth the most important tasks because she just has so much faith that they’re destined for greatness. Unlike the situation with Edelgard, helping fight off some bandits is not reasonable precedent for trusting someone this much. And the biggest reason I appreciate Rhea as a villain is because all of this turns out to be a ruse. All of this is in service of currying Byleth’s favor, to get them to trust her, to make them feel special, so that when she asks them to sit on the throne so Sothis can take over their body, they wouldn’t think anything of it. And you know it’s all been a ruse because of how unbelievably fast her turn is if you side with Edelgard. There’s no consistency between the Rhea who gently stroked your hair and sang you a lullaby when you were recovering from your trip to the shadow realm and the Rhea who calls you a failure and is going to rip your heart out of your chest.

*I’m extrapolating a lot of information about Zephiel and the world of FE6 in general because we just don’t have access to as much lore as we do in Three Houses, but I think what I’m saying are reasonable conclusions

**I call Those Who Slither In The Dark “Tunnel Snakes” for a number of reasons: it’s shorter, it functionally means the same thing, and it’s funny to me

***I refer to the vessels Rhea created as her children because that’s what I understood them to be when I first played Silver Snow, but upon rewatching the cutscene what she actually says is “I tried to bring her back by creating a body, and then burying a Crest Stone within it”. This could mean her own children that she bore, but it could also mean a number of other things, like vessels “created” from normal humans she acquired. For my own headcanon, the utter detachment she shows for Byleth when they side with Edelgard leads me to believe that they are, in fact, her biological children, but she refers to them so clinically because she felt nothing for them except disdain for not being able to house Sothis.

#Fire Emblem #Fire Emblem Three Houses #FE3H #Edelgard #Rhea #Nintendo #video games #seriously this is the most analytical writing I've done since college what the fuck IntSys

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fucknofortunato · 4 years

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A Real Long Rant about Goals or Andrew Talks Forever About His Past

I absolutely love playing Dungeons & Dragons and I really really enjoyed working at the Disney Theme Park. I think my love for both of these things comes out of the fact that they are the closest I’ve come to voice acting. Dungeons & Dragons combines my two aspirations in life which is to write and voice act, resulting in a usually somewhat fun experience of a game and getting to express myself in the ways I truly want to. I get to craft a story and get real-time feedback on it as the players either get invested or look for other things to do. But alas, this is not about Dungeons & Dragons.

The thing with Disney was that I didn’t want to be the carnival barker. It was a scary thought that I wanted to avoid and tried to just end up being a cashier. Being a cashier was my comfort zone, but I soon found that being a cashier inside a theme park was a far far different experience than what I had done before. My comfort zone was more so just an uncomfortable area where I was pretty aware of what needed to be done. Then they put me out on the carnival barker area and almost instantly, everything I feared faded away. I just had to be silly, shout out to people, and announce what was going on. This was essentially voice acting out into the abyss, where every so often someone catches wind and comes along.

As time moves on, every day I feel I am either distracting myself or locking eyes with the fear of failure. This fear glares into my very soul and paralyzes me, making me feel truly inadequate and unsure of what I should do next. If there are several options before me, which one do I actually choose? Will someone help me? Have I already chosen wrong?

Almost my entire life has been feeling like I’m racing the clock. Many of my dreams have been cast to the side now and it’s steadily feeling like I’ve given up on so much more. I’ve written about this before, but I feel like I’m standing before a tree bearing fruits that show my future. It was a theme explored in Aziz Ansari’s Master of None show on Netflix. Except, I’m constantly feeling like I’m misreading the fruits. They show a potential future for me if I choose to pluck out and grab it, but I don’t think I can actually grab it. When I was young and plucky, this tree was full of so many fruits. Drawing comic books, writing cartoons, being an astronaut, being a pilot, becoming a star chef, travelling the world, being an actor, being a voice actor, and probably more that I’ve since forgotten. Several times I’ve written out little guides at 3am in the morning, unable to find the respite of sleep and turning to my computer to try and map out a path to follow to achieve as much as possible.

For those of you that are reading this and know that feeling all too well, you’re probably aware that it’s essentially the New Year’s Resolution but set at any point of the year. In about a week, or god forbid even the next morning, that entire train of motivation has run out of stream and stopped short on the tracks. I’ve since learned that I don’t truly have the motivation to cultivate my hand at art and nor do I have the skill to consistently draw. I wanted to illustrate and make comics, but I’ve come to learn that I just enjoy the story crafting of it more. Writing has become a hobby that I barely touch, if but only because it should be a craft I love and not a device to become famous. I’m not particularly talented at writing up articles or on a moment’s notice. I leave many projects unfinished and start Writing Prompts only to never finish them unless given a deadline. Even then, that shorts out after a bit. I love the feeling of being on a plane and enjoy being up in the sky, but being a pilot isn’t necessarily on my list anymore. Being a flight attendant still sounds nice, but that’s supposed to be my fallback. It’s a dream job for travelling and something I truly want to do, but there’s something I want to do more. A craft I really love and would love to keep doing. I want to Voice Act.

I still want to express my voice and give life to characters. A long long time ago, my friend was talking about the people in our group of friends that did Dungeon Mastering. He said that I might not have the greatest battles or dungeons, but when I spoke, I brought my characters to life. That they enjoyed the menagerie of people I would present them with. That’s something I’ve always held close to my chest and probably the time I realized that DMing was just an outlet for me to practice Voice Acting.

I went through a long stint of no longer playing D&D. Friends moved on to a better dungeon master, I moved away (not far, but an inconvenient distance), and had a job that conflicted with my scheduling. I found a new group online and found that I was now entirely limited to express myself only by voice.

Alright, I kinda rambled a bunch of stuff there and the steam of it is starting to fade, but the point of the matter is that I’m back at that tree again. Every year I feel like I’m getting incredibly close to the hourglass running empty. I wanted to try and break into Voice Acting in my early 20′s and I had a plan to run off and give it a shot. Of course, in the end I chose not to and I did it for the dumbest reasons. I was going to join something called Americorp, which would have sent me across America and helped communities. More importantly, it would have made me deal with all sorts of people and truly expand my network of those I know. The plan was to try and join the military, a third attempt, afterwards to see if I could finally get in, have a potential career path, and pay for college.

At the last minute, a combination of abandoning a crush and the joy of getting my first apartment with some friends caused me to abandon the idea. It felt like a tough decision and I knew I had weighed it improperly. I had been approved and all I had to do was say yes and it would have been about a year of work. There’s an age limit to Americorp and I had literally just squeezed in under it. So I chose not to and now I’ll never have an opportunity like that again. But it’s okay because there’s so many people out there that have never done it and never will and they get along fine. Living on regrets is not a way to live.

After a year in the apartment, I further discovered it was truly one of the biggest mistakes I’ve ever made. I made a new really good friend, but I lost an older good one and found out a whole group of the new friends I had made weren’t true friends and were very temporary. I found love out of the situation at least and that made me a little more happy in this future to settle with. I decided to abandon my dreams of escape, a combination of fear and keeping the status quo.Yet as time went on, I constantly found myself at the crossroads. This time, every decision meant leaving the tree and standing before the tree itself was now a choice I hadn’t considered. I thought maybe I could still stay here and find something that spoke to me. I thought maybe I could live here and still travel out to another job, that being a flight attendant could do it.

My ego would be struck a fatal blow as I finally put as much effort as I could muster into it to discover I don’t have what it takes. All the flight agencies were taking on new Flight Attendants but I was no longer desirable, if I had ever been. My age was catching up with me. My mistakes were haunting me. I am once again at that tree, but now I’m starting to see I’ve taken roots. I need to break them.

I need to break my roots, I need to break free, I need to take risks, I need to stop writing about what I need to do and I need to just do it. I need to decide if I want to go into the Military if this time works. I need to decide if I want to just up and move to the middle of nowhere to try and make new roots and just go full blown non-stop machine pursuing that career of voice acting. I still want to go to college, but do I have time? Can I postpone it another 4 years? Can I go to college in California, Washington, or New York? I need to practice, I need to make demos, I need to network and watch for openings. I need to do something and I need motivation. How do you gain motivation?

I feel like I don’t know what to do because in life there are no right answers. I mean, at some points there were right answers and I chose wrong. I waited way too long to truly wake up to what I’ve been sitting on. At this age, can I escape my burnout? No solution is a happy solution. I hurt myself or I hurt others, there’s never a scenario that hurts no one. I hate being on a plan when I’m never solid in what I want. Except to Voice Act. I may have given up sometimes, but not because I don’t want to Voice Act, but because I feel like I can’t professionally. I don’t want to make a ton of money, I just want to enjoy making art and doing voices and have a place I can comfortably call home. I want to belong somewhere. I need my motivation to stay alive. I need to practice and not worry about other people seeing it as something to be part of. To jump in and bother and subtract from what I’m doing. I want to just speak aloud. Like when I play D&D.

#rant #voice acting #dungeons and dragons #art #goals #life #what do i do

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i-will-physically-fight-you · 5 years

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I just gotta be real for a hot second.

Warnings: discussions of suicidal ideation, depression, anxiety

2015 remains a pinnacle year for me. I have a lot of good memories associated with it, and it’s around that time I started hearing about this certain band. A single of theirs hit mainstream and suddenly they’re the talk of the town. My natural inclination when encountering something popular is to turn my nose up at it. If it’s popular it’s overrated. You know what’s popular? Music. For most of my middle school and high school years, I didn’t get what was the big deal about music. Why was everyone obsessed about it, and specifically boy bands? So I mainly ignored the hype.

And by “mainly” I mean the curiosity got the better of me one day so I searched some of their songs on Youtube. It was...different than anything I’ve ever encountered. It was abrasive, eccentric, bizarre, take your pick. I tried to love them but I couldn’t even though I resonated with the lyrics. And I’ve never been one to try to fit with the crowd. Like I said, I went against the crowd. So aside discovering a song of theirs in an amv and loving it, I ignored them for about three years.

But then last year my sister kept playing one of their songs on the ukulele and I...liked it. So I sought them out again on my own terms. I slowly fell in love with their music. It helped they released an album in the autumn. My sister loves them and it became a bridge between the two of us. We don’t have many of those.

But again, super causal. It wasn’t until the new year hit and my mental health sunk like a tank. I’ve been struggling with depression and anxiety since the start of middle school. It’s sad to think roughly half of my life has been consumed by it. But living with it after awhile, you begin to learn the ebbs and flow of it. But this? This was a whole another type of monster.

I wish I could time travel back to the start of this year and tell past me, “Honey, you got a big storm coming for you. I know it’ll seem that it’ll never get better. But I promise things they will and I’ll be holding onto you.”

I would have days where I would just bawl for three or four hours straight. The slightest thing would make me cry. When I wasn’t crying, I was an unemotional husk of a person.

I would be thoroughly convinced my friends and family were going to be extremely angry at me for minuscule things. I would experience moments of intense panic, where my heart raced to the speed of my careening thoughts and I was so cold that no amount of layers or blankets would warm me up.

I remember a day a moment like this happened, where I ended up taking a nap in this state for two hours, woke up exhausted beyond belief and then showed up to work having to pretend that yes, I’m a functioning human being who is not falling apart, no siree.

I could barely muster up the motivation to write, and when I did it was mostly heavy and dark. Floating With the Sunset and Guiding Lights come to mind, especially when I realized I was unconsciously struggling with the very same thing as the characters were; suicide ideation.

What I mean by that is I was so convinced that my life had no purpose or meaning--that I was never going to amount to anything, so why bother? Why bother living if it involved this level of mental torment that I was going through? And of course, the small detached unemotional part of me knew this was wrong. I always had a fear of dying--so all I could think of was how living was going to be a prison sentence because I was too chicken to actually do the thing.

Not to mention, my one remaining brain cell knew my family and friends would be devastated by my death, never mind I didn’t know even know how to go about the whole dying thing. Just realizing I was even contemplating such a thing terrified me.

I knew this was the sort of thing you should tell people about but the idea of admitting it to someone was even more terrifying than the thought of it because oh god, what will they think? If there is one thing you must know about me, is that I fear disappointing people and I felt like I would be disappointing a good number of people by admitting that not-living sounded like a good option at the time.

Heck, I could barely admit to myself that was happening in this journal entry in January, before it went even further downhill:

“Rest assured I have not the stomach to actually do anything. I’m too afraid of what lies in the Undiscovered Country to travel to it. That’s why the answer to that daunting question is: “No, of course not.”

Still, who hasn’t thought of traveling to the land where no traveler has whence returned? Even if it wasn’t a serious consideration, I think all humans have the thought at some point in their lives. Maybe not—after all I am just but a human who has no idea what goes in the minds of her fellow humans. But I think it’s a good possibility.

Humans are inherently curious creatures; really it should be “Curiosity killed the human” rather the cat. I think we’re curious enough to wonder what would happen if we did travel to that country earlier than “planned.”

But aside from the stray intrusive thought, I have not dared to go further down that dark path. This is for several reasons. One because of that fear. But another because I have seen the aftermath of when someone takes a trip to the Undiscovered Country. It has not yet been anyone super close to me and yet the devastation hits me at full force despite it. But I also had interaction with a few people in the last couple years, of how I impacted their life without even knowing it.

You never know how small of an interaction can change another person’s life forever. You never know and I think it’s a shame a lot of times those stories don’t get shared until after someone has already left. I think it can be important those stories are shared with the person—it can help them recognize that they are more important than they possibly realize.”

A small part of me thought that my life would be over at the end of May. Not that I planned on causing that to happen by my own hands. Just that some comic force might decide to put me out of my misery by then. You could say I’m a bit elated to be alive right now, because I didn’t expect to get this far.

What this have to do with music again? I’m glad you asked. Remember that band that spiked in popularity in 2015 that I ignored for three years and then reluctantly started listening and enjoying their music? Yes, well if I resonated with the lyrics in 2015, then those lyrics could’ve been lifted verbatim from my pages out of my journal in 2019.

This music was like a light in the darkness. It unashamedly discussed heavy topics like depression and suicide and I needed that. In our society, those topics are seldom openly discussed to the point it feels almost shameful to admit to such a struggle. But these songs openly screamed about them, they were brutally honest about the struggle. What’s more, they advocated to keep on living and I needed that. I needed that so much.

I knew the band was visiting my area sometime this summer and I thought, I can live until then. I can make it until then.

Sometime mid-May, the storm broke. The sun came out and Mr. Blue Sky started blaring from the heavens. I think it was because several outside factors that were putting a strain on my mental health had gone away around then along with events I feared would go horribly wrong...did not go horribly wrong. In fact, they went well all things considered. I’ve still gone through days riddled with anxiety and depression since then, but nothing as dark and grim as those days had been.

I don’t want to want to die anymore. It’s weird to think only two months ago, I craved such a thing. I want to live so much, you guys have no idea. Of course the future still terrifies me. But that’s a reassuring fear, one I hold like a security blanket because it’s been a part of me for so long I know how to deal with it.

I started a handwritten journal where I record the day’s events and end each entry with the positive highlights of the day. Of course I haven’t done it in a solid week, but it’s done wonders for my mental health. I’ve been seeing a therapist and that has helped a little. I’ve started reaching out and trying to maintain friendships in real life. To those online friends that have stayed with me and even reached out in concern about my vague distressing tumblr posts, you helped me so much and I am grateful for our correspondences.

I made a post about debating whether or not I should see a favorite band and in the end, well...it feels like the right decision. I’m fulfilling a promise to myself back then. It feels like the act of seeing this band is like the closing chapter of the book. Not the final book, mind you, but a book in like a seventy-something series, if everything pans out of course.

As to those who might be still struggling, deep in the throes of such darkness and torment: It’ll get better.

I know that’s like the most cliche thing to say and I sure didn’t believe it back then. But it’s true. It was true for me and it’s true for many others.

Also don’t be like me, be brave enough to speak to someone about what you’re dealing with. You aren’t alone as you think are. Yes, no one will ever know what’s it like to struggle with your demons, nobody will think what you think, but they might’ve fought battles similar to the one that’s currently raging inside your brain. They might know what it’s like to wander through such darkness. Even if they haven’t, they can still support and love you through it regardless.

Lastly, you have worth, you have importance, you have meaning and if everyone tells you otherwise (including your own thoughts) don’t you dare listen to them for a second. Remember, you are loved beyond belief, don’t ever doubt that <3

#kat talks #suicide tw #depression tw #anxiety tw

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winsister91 · 6 years

Text

Marriage Guidance

Part of the SOWINFREDSISIE Celebration!

(Yeah...remember that? We’re still slowly working through these. We are aware it has been literal months. Soz.)

Summary: @feelmyroarrr (won’t let me tag, sorry :( ) asked: Ohhh congrats both of you! How about having to pretend to be married to the Winchester but having to pretend you don’t really fancy them.

I wrote for Sam and @sofreddie wrote for Dean (link when fic is posted).

Characters: Sam x Reader, Dean, OC Dr. Wells

Warnings: Um...this fic is stupid? I wouldn’t say it’s angst and I wouldn’t say its fluff. An attempt at crack if anything. Oh, and no doubts swearing coz I’m just like that. Oh, some mild blood and violence briefly.

Wordcount: 2000~

My Masterlist!

~ Sam and forever tags are open! ~

“Wait, what?” you stopped the youngest Winchester mid sentence, “J-Just run that by me again?”

“Well…” Sam shrugged, tilting his head curiously at your sudden reaction, “It’s the easiest way in without breaking in.”

“B-but,” you stuttered desperately, hoping to god the hotness on your cheeks wasn’t evidence that they were turning pink, “Pretend I’m your wife and go see the fucking marriage counsellor?”

You gestured to the small building Dean had pulled up in front of. A perfectly innocent looking place with a professional looking business name. However there was some suspicions that the counsellor himself was Werewolf. This didn’t exactly fill you with any confidence regarding this plan.

“Yeah I wouldn’t wanna be married to Sam either,” Dean tittered, “But Sam’s got a point, it’s a clean way in.”

“Are you boys forgetting what this guy possibly is?” you blinked rapidly in horror, “We could walk in and become this guy’s meal for his lunch break.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Sam flashed a reassuring smile at you, “We’ll conceal some silver weapons on us, it’ll be fine.”

You sighed heavily in defeat, rubbing your temple as you felt like the only person on the planet who thought this was a ludicrous idea, “Go on then, we get in there, then what? Get our marital issues out in the open?”

“Improvise,” Sam shrugged, “They’ll probably just ask us to make an appointment. So you keep them talking to buy us time and I’ll ask if I can use the bathroom and... scope the place out. See if I can find anything that confirms this guy is the culprit.”

“Wonderful,” you whined, “Foolproof, love it.”

“Here,” Sam opened the glovebox, retrieving a small box from inside.

You recoiled, instantly recognising the box and knowing what it held. Sam opens it to reveal his mother’s wedding ring.

“You can wear this,” Sam stated nonchalantly.

You felt the blood rush from your face and you freeze on the spot. You could just see Dean’s eyes twinkling with glee in the corner of your eye. He was loving this. Many a drunken night ago, the eldest Winchester had fed you one too many tequilas and all your concealed feelings for Sam came pouring out. You could see the corners of Dean’s mouth twitching, swiftly followed by him silently mouthing the word “awkward” at you whilst you stared down at the ring Sam offered you. You’d fantasised many a scenarios of Sam asking you to be his wife, precisely none of them were like this.

“S-Sam,” you shook your head, “O-okay we’re getting a bit too serious about this now, we don’t need-”

“Just put in on,” Sam laughed, forcing his Mother’s memento onto your ring finger, “It’s all we have that’ll be convincing.”

You grimaced, staring at the beautiful golden band. This isn’t right. This isn’t right. Help. Abort. ABORT.

“C’mon let’s go,” Sam opened the car door and quickly steppd out, popping open the boot and rummaging for some silver weapons quickly. You couldn’t find the motivation to move, you were completely frozen to that seat.

Dean tittered to himself in the driver’s seat.

“Shut up,” you snapped quickly, “He can’t make me do this. I won’t. I refuse!”

“Aw, but I’m afraid he is making you do it,” Dean giggled gleefully, as Sam tapped on your window, beckoning you to get out, “Hang in there soldier.”

You shot Dean your most dangerous glare as you reluctantly threw the car door open and climbed out.

You took a pistol loaded with silver bullets from Sam and stashed it inside your jacket. Clenching your eyes, you hoped that something would come up and stop you both from doing this. Alas, with each step towards the building, you felt your heart sink lower and lower.

This is not gonna go well. It can’t possibly go well. We’re either getting eaten or I’m gonna blurt some bowl full of crazy out.

Sam held the front door open for you and you both entered, walking into a small reception area. Nothing special or out of the ordinary jumped out at you. A small sitting area, the surrounding walls painted with a safe and neutral beige. Sam dragged you up to the counter where an over-smiley blonde lady sat expectantly.

“Hi!” she cheeped in an irritating tone, “How can I help? Do you have an appointment?”

“Uh, no,” Sam smiled casually, “We were hoping to make one?”

“Well aren’t you guys just in luck,” she clapped her hands making you jump with a start, “Dr Wells has a free slot right now if you’d like?”

“Uh…” Sam stuttered slightly, briefly glancing to you. With all the power you can muster you tried to force the message ‘OH HELL NO’ telepathically back to him.

“Sure!” he laughed unconvincingly, and your heart sunk more, “No time like the present.”

“Can I take your names?”

“It’s uh...Sam and Y/N Winchester.”

Your heart skipped a beat hearing your name referred to as a Winchester, but then you remembered the situation you’re in and come crashing back to reality.

“Great!” the receptionist typed away on her little computer behind the desk, “I’ll just let the doctor know and you can go right on through.”

“Great,” you drawled sarcastically as she swiftly left through a door.

“Could you be any less convincing?” Sam whispered harshly at you, “Can you just try a little?”

“Sam!” you hissed back at him, “We’re going to see a marriage counsellor. And. We. are. NOT. Married!”

“It’s okay, we’ll just improvise, like I said,” he tried to reason with you, “I’m sure we can make up some marriage problems stuff.”

“What, like my husband is a freaking pain in the ass who doesn’t listen! You didn’t even use a fucking fake name!”

“Just go with it, please!”

“Oh I’ll go with it, you just watch me go with it.”

The receptionist suddenly popped out from behind a different door and cheerily beckons you through. Sam watched you with narrowed eyes as you barreled on ahead in front of him with heavy stomps.

“Good afternoon,” an elderly gent with white hair and a neatly trimmed goatee welcomed you in the room the receptionist lead you.

“Hi!” you beamed over-enthusiastically, prompting Sam to throw you a worried look.

The man beckoned you to sit on the couch opposite his arm chair. He smiled warmly at you both and spoke with a soft calm voice.

“I’m glad we could fit you in on short notice. What made you decide to seek marriage counselling?”

“Yeah, what was it Sammy?” you folded your arms and glared at the Winchester.

“U-uh,” he stared wide-eyed at you for a moment before turning back to the doctor, “I- W-we feel like we’ve hit a-a road block in our marriage?”

“Oh really?” you tilted your head at him, not giving Dr Wells the chance to speak, “I thought it was to do with the fact I’m constantly tidying up after you. You stay up all night on your computer. You don’t clean your damn hair outta the shower plug. You never re-fill the damn coffee machine when you’ve drank it all!”

“W-what!?” Sam looked at you mortified, the biggest ‘what the fuck’ face you’d ever seen in your life on him.

“Well that’s what we do in these things right?” you narrowed your eyes and glared into his soul, “Vent out our frustrations?”

“Right,” he narrowed his back and counter glared, “So I can tell the good doctor here about how stubborn you are? That you blast music out at stupid hours in the morning? That you randomly go out on all night drinking benders with my damn brother?”

“Oh dont worry,” you huffed, still mad at Dean for teasing you, “Your brother’s a damn jackass too.”

“O-okay…” the doctor tried to step in tentatively, “I can see we’ve got a lot to delve into here.”

“Shut up!” you and Sam shouted at the doctor in unison.

“I don’t know what you’re getting all pent up about Sam,” you shrugged very matter of factly at him, “It was your idea to come here!”

“I don’t believe this,” Sam sighed in defeat, rubbing his forehead. This wasn’t what he planned. “L-look, Doctor h-have you got a restroom I can use?”

“Sure,” he answered, leaning back in his arm chair to take a breather, “Just up the stairs on your left.”

You continued to glare at Sam as he got up and motioned to leave, he shook his head, still in total disbelief and the door clicked closed behind him.

You sighd heavily, a thick tension filling the room. All that could be heard was the obnoxiously loud ticking from a clock on the rear wall. The Doctor observed you, making you shuffle uncomfortable on the couch.

“I get the feeling you don’t want to be here,” he chuckled.

“Way to go Doc,” you growled, every fibre of your being wishing Sam would hurry the fuck up already.

“I can see there’s a current hostility sure, the key is finding where that stems from. Do you resent your husband?”

“What the hell are you talking about? No he just fucking annoys me.”

“You say he stays up all night on his computer. He says you go out drinking with his brother. Do you feel his brother pays you more attention? Are you attracted to him?”

“Dude!” you cried in horror, “Ew!”

You couldn't deny that Dean is certainly a looker, but knowing him like you did, you could never yourself with him like that in any way.

“Are you still attracted to your husband then? Do you engage in sexual interaction?”

“Ha!” you squealed comically, “Oh Doc. Oooh if only you knew. I try so hard getting him to look at me and there’s just nothing. Nothing.”

“Are you scared he’s looking elsewhere?”

“I know he’s not looking elsewhere. He doesn’t have the time too. Listen, you don’t know the full story here and you’re not likely to ever find out if I have anything to do with it.”

Dr Wells looked at you puzzled, unable to find a suitable reaction to what he was hearing.

“All you gotta know is that big lug up there,” you pointed to the ceiling knowing Sam was probably creeping around and snooping somewhere on the upper floor, “Is the fucking love of my life, and I can’t even get the damn guy to look at me.”

The door suddenly burst open and Sam stumbled through. Your eyes widened at the sight of his jacket now spattered with copious amounts of blood.

“W-werewolves,” he gasped while he panted for air.

Dr Wells jumped to his feet, his face suddenly contorting into a mangled embodiment of rage. His teeth grew long, sharp and deadly, and a menacing roar bellowed from his snarl.

You hastily fumbled in your jacket for the pistol Sam gave you previously, but there was no need. As soon as Dr. Wells lunged for you, Sam was there, stopping the creature in its tracks with a silver blade to the heart.

You froze in disgust as the Doctor’s blood sprays back on you, and his body then slumps to the floor.

“You okay?” Sam rushed to you, “He didn’t get you did he?”

“No…” you mumbled, grimacing as you looked down at your ruined shirt, “Just bits of him got on me.”

Sam sighed with relief, dropping onto the arm of the couch to rest for a moment.

You followed suit, dropping onto the sofa next to him.

“Who’s that?” you pointed to his blood spattered shirt.

“The receptionist...” he answered bluntly.

“Right,” you nodded. Well, case closed at least.

“Um…” Sam looked at you questioningly, “What was that stuff you were saying before I came in?”

“W-what?” you blurted out, hairs standing on end, “Nothing. I said nothing.”

You instantly retreated, heading straight for the exit. You needed to get back to that car and kick Dean’s ass too.

“But!” Sam jogged after you, “I could’ve sworn I heard you say-”

“You heard nothing Sammy!” you squeaked, barging out of the exit and proceeding to scream obscenities at Dean.

Sam stopped inside for a moment, sighing deeply and shaking his head.

“She definitely said...” he mumbled to himself quietly, “....I love you too Y/N.”

Tags! Forevers Posse: @sofreddie @chelsea074298 @ria132love @untitled39887 @chicagolove88 @akshi8278 @sis-tafics @younoeatcheeseyounobefat @mandilion76 @teamfreewill92 @supernaturalmagicfolk @emoryhemsworth @musicistobeheard-blog @pheonyxstorm @mrswhozeewhatsis @turnttoverr @itspronouncedsatanbitch @the--real-wombat @xagateophobiax @samisimportant @jensen-gal @castiel11235 @waiting-to-find-myshadows @19agbrown @mogaruke @nyxveracity @cole-winchester @esoltis280 @maui137 @internationalmusicteacher @meganywinchester

Sam Lovelies: @andkatiethings

#supernatural #fanfic #spnfanfic #sam x reader #sam oneshot #sam drabble #sam fluff #sam angst #sam crack #dean winchester #dean fluff #dean crack #SONWINFREDSISIE celebration #i'm sorry

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pomegranate-salad · 6 years

Text

Seeds of thought : Wicdiv #32 & #33

Work work work work work. I’ve never worked so much in my life. The college student easy life is a lie, kids. So I’m doing a 2-in-1 type of thing on the last two issues. I didn’t have much material on issue 32 alone anyway and I think these two issues make more sense as a two-parter finale, so I guess it works well. Thoughts and opinions under the cut, spoilers of course. And fuck Woden.

THE LAST LAUGH

“Well this looks ridiculous”

This was my - and I assume an unneglectable number of people’s – first reaction to the last page of issue #33 in which we see the severed heads of Lucifer, Inanna and Tara displayed on an altar. This scene was probably effective on some, but for me it immediately called back to Disney’s Haunted Mansion and Futurama, and I was effectively done for : there was no way I could take this visual seriously.

There’s no two ways around it : this scene is silly. First we have what should be one of the biggest reveal of the entire series casually thrown at us by a character who’s not even looking at the audience, Then the camera cuts to this grotesque display of living heads, and the scene is complete with a classic Luci one-liner that seems aware of how out-of-place this entire sequence is. Really, all that’s missing is the laugh track.

You could say anticlimactic ; but really should it be called that when it’s the creators themselves who intentionally destroy the dramatic potential of their own scene ? If you’re not convinced this was intentional, try a little thought experiment and imagine rewriting this scene to amplify its dramatic intensity. By doing so, my conclusion is that this ending had every chance of being a huge finisher like the ones we saw in Fandemonium and Rising Action, but every writing and artistic decision was deliberately made to be as wrong as possible, to ruin every emotional weight this scene could have had.

This is not an anomaly : in these last two issues, the creators seem to have engaged in the systematic destruction of every dramatic beat by way of grotesque and ridicule. It’s an undercurrent that ran through the entire second part of Imperial Phase, but only reached its full potential toward the end.

It started on the very first page of issue #32, trivializing Amaterasu’s death when the issue before that still gave it all the gravity fitting to the first death of a Wicdiv arc. Then Dio’s last moments of bravery reveal themselves to be a total waste, on top of ruining One More Time forever. Even Woden’s bad guy monologue is sort of too shitty to really muster the kind of epic hatred you’d want to direct at this character. Then we have Sakhmet’s death, caused not by her lover or her sort-of-nemesis Baal, but by a thirteen year old on her first kill. And that’s not even touching on the awful reminder of her fate we get at the end of issue #33. Then there’s of course the beep machine, and issue #32’s hilarious finish, which I think call for no commentary. Issue #33 is divided in two big reveals, the first one forcing on the us the awful visual of David Blake’s head on Woden’s suit and one of the most fist-curling yet somehow pathetic bad guy monologues in history, and the second one being that ridiculous finish scene. The two are even separated by an intimate scene between Cass and Laura that literally gets cut because there’s a stranger tied up two feet from them.

So if these issues somewhat feel like they’re played all wrong, we know where it comes from. They feel like a multipart climax that got flipped on its head, so not a punch would land or beat would work. That’s not to say there aren’t some really impressive character moments in there ; but for each of them, there’s an inversely proportionally bad joke or ironic twist sweeping right in to undercut the whole thing.

And that’s something worth examining, not as a mistake but as a creative direction. Humour used to be a respite in Wicdiv, a welcome break from all the bleakness and emotional scorching of the characters. Each of them had their own wit, from Luci’s cool girl referencing to Baphomet’s failed swagger, to even Cass’ dry deliveries. But now, humour is just another weapon to hurt us. It prevents us from caring about our characters, from connecting with their emotions, from taking the story seriously. As I was reading through what I knew were Dio’s last moments, all I could focus on was Woden’s villain’s speech and the fact that he was right, and that Dio’s death was probably going to be a complete waste, because that’s how Wicdiv works now. Just compare the weight of Amaterasu’s and Dio’s respective death scenes : they’re not even separated by a full issue, yet the light that’s shone on them is completely different. No matter how much dignity went into crafting Dio’s last scene, it doesn’t matter when it’s put back to back with the textual affirmation of its uselessness, the fact that we don’t even get to give him a proper goodbye, and even after that, Laura’s awful line about his life support. In 2017, I don’t think I need to explain anyone the power of humour in trivializing the most terrible situations and undercutting people’s empathy for each other. This is what Wicdiv has been doing to us these past two issues, against our will. Stopping us from caring. Keeping us at bay even when we’re trying to connect and get involved in the story and characters.

What does this change in the use of humour mean ? Personally, I link it to the change of our purported hopes as an audience. At the beginning of the comic and up until Imperial phase, we were still allowed to believe, like Luci, that a solution could be found, that the 2-year sentence wasn’t real, nor was the great Darkness. That it was going to be okay. But right at the moment when the characters allowed themselves to think that there could indeed be a solution, we, as an audience, started to know better : there was no loophole, no escape, no way to prevent the inevitable, whatever that was. We could no longer hope that things were going to be okay. So what do you hope for when things cannot be okay ? You hope that they’ll be worth it. If you have to die, let it be a worthy death. A beautiful one. If you have to go, go in a blaze of glory. If you have to fail, let it be at the hand of a worthy foe. Let it be worth it.

But it isn’t. And that’s what humour’s there to prove. When our hopes were that things would be okay, the comic responded with tragedy ; now that we simply want them to be worth it, its weapon of choice is ridicule. As such, it’s definitely not a coincidence that the 455AD special preceded Imperial Phase part II, as it sets the tone for the entire arc, up to its back quote : when it’s clear Lucifer won’t be able to outlive his death sentence, all he want is to be allowed to burn. But he won’t be. He will bleed out and his body will be dragged across and city and cut to pieces by an old lady then fed to the river. Such is the fate that awaits our character. Pathetic and grotesque in equal parts, useless unless it serves someone else’s purpose, following rules you do not understand.

If Imperial Phase is the arc in which the gods are allowed to think themselves kings and queens, then the creators are the King’s fools, the ones allowed to tell them their real value because they do it through jokes and flip-overs.

This arc is a constant battle between the story the characters wish they were in and the one they’re actually in. That’s why it would be wrong, for example, to think of the beep machine as a McGuffin : its thematic utility goes beyond a plot device. When just last arc, it was the subject of a joke to relieve the tension between two characters, now it knocks them back to their actual scope. Something so small and silly is the kind of device they deserve. The big, ugly, scary machine ? It does nothing. Did you think you’d be handed a huge plot revelation as the crowning achievement of this arc ? Of course not. Instead, what we get is a sad, banal story of parental abuse from a man who’s not over leaving his youth behind.

Yes, even the David/Jon Blake storyline, arguably the one preserving most of its dramatic intensity over these two issues, cannot help but feel like a sad joke when you consider that David Blake’s motivations are basically the evil queen from Snow White’s. This is what caused all this. This, an old wrinkled lady, and a thirteen year old on a mission from God. Those are our villains, everybody. As for dying a worthy death, our heroes’ options are a pool of blood or a mounted head on an altar.

None of this is worth it. At this point, it’s even hard remember why “this” sounded so appealing in the first place. And all this goes to contextualize even more Laura’s breakdown speech halfway through issue #33 : she wanted everything they had, and she’d have given anything for it. For power, for glamour, for this. For this joke of a fate that’s not even that funny. That’s what cost her the death of her family, multiple friends, and the rest of her life.

It’s also fitting that Jon finally voices something that has been on my mind for a long time : just how little do you have to think of yourself to think two years of superpowers would be worthier than a fully-lived life ? Through this character who, just like the other gods, is too good for this deal, but unlike them, seems to realize it, it’s yet again the sheer impossibility to make this deal worth it that’s shown to us. Because what becomes clear after this reveal is that if Ananke allowed you to become a god, it’s so she could see that you’d waste away your potential. House always wins, and when you burn the House down, another opens up next door.

So this is where we are : our hopes of seeing any of it be worth it have been ridiculed, and all that’s left to uncover is precisely which joke our heroes have been the butt of. Cruel ? Maybe. But if fiction so often serves as a way to quench our thirst for grand emotions and epic stories, it’s precisely because outside of it, it feels much more often like one big joke than a sweeping tragedy. After all, Henri Bergson said it best : comedy is much truer to real life than drama.

WHAT I THOUGHT OF THE ISSUES

I KNEW IT IT WAS ME I FIGURED IT OUT I KNEW IT WAS DAVID BLAKE I AM THE GODDESS OF FATE BOW TO ME MERE MORTALS !

Alright, I’ll stop.

But while seeing yourself being right is immensely satisfying, it cannot help but damage your read a little ; like I said many times before, I want writers to be smarter than me, to be able to take me by surprise. So if I’ve managed to guess something, that’s great for my ego, but it also makes me a bit sad : that’s just another plotpoint that won’t reach full impact with me because I had so much time interiorizing its potential.

And that’s sort of my problem with these two issues : they revolve around two kinds of plotpoints, some that didn’t surprise me (Dio and Sakhmet’s death, Woden’s identity, the reason for Laura’s attitude) and other that were impossible to guess (the beep machine, Minerva’s “identity”, the talking heads). Meaning that while reading those, I was pretty much letting the plot carry me without being able to pause and care. As I’ve said above, part of it is intentional, but it also means that there aren’t many punches in these issues that landed for me. I’ll definitely count Laura and Sakhmet’s last conversation as well as Cass and Laura’s fight as a success, but the “big” intimate moment of issue #33, the conversation between Cass and Laura, didn’t do much for me, probably because it seems to me that anyone with a functioning brain and ears knew exactly why Laura wasn’t her best self since she had become Persephone. I understand why Cass didn’t see it – as we’re discussed before, she is a factual thinker, meaning she can’t grasp with Laura’s guilt when it is so obviously unfounded – but I still don’t understand the decision to make this a big character moment when literally every sentence Laura had pronounced since the beginning of Imperial Phase revealed what she was going through. There’s nothing more infuriating that being fed information you already think of as canon. If you ask me, this moment is much more important and interesting for what it isn’t, that’s to say a romantic scene, than for what it is. Seeing Laura being rejected by Cass, and therefore breaking the pattern of dragging people in her self-destroying orbit, is much more defining than her whole speech on guilt.

The problem is that most of the work these issues do is retrospective : if the Jon/David scene on its own has limited impact, the new depth it gives to all the Woden scenes we’ve already been through is vertiginous. Like I said, I did consider what the meaning of David Blake being Woden would be, but that’s another thing to be confronted with the actual fact. When you consider that David is talking to his decapitated, imprisoned son when he’s pouring out his thoughts make issue #14 go from merely quite repulsive to one of the most skin-crawlingly nauseating pieces of media ever written. I can’t imagine what the creators went through crafting this issue while knowing the entire story.

As for the rest of the reveals, it’s a little hard to weigh on them without devolving into hardcore theorizing. We’re basically at the last stop before the comic has to lay out its hand ; it already managed to delay it through two entire arcs whose very point was to see how long they could get this blind game going. But for me as a reader, it also means I’m at the point in the story that’s the least interesting to me : the one where I have no choice than to follow the train as it’s well on its tracks, without any possibility to pause or jump ahead. I have to wait for the full story to know whether any of these twists paid out or not ; at this stage, I have both too much and too little to really be able to do something with it emotionally or intellectually.

So as a final verdict because I have to go back to cramming for administrative litigation, I’d say these are two issues I’ll have to revisit once the comic is over, because I suspect they’ll be a lot better with the full story in hand. Most of its impact is on the issues before them and in the groundwork they lay out for the final year. So as a stop point, they may not hold much interest, but I can definitely see them be one of the comic’s most astute cogs once it’s done and over. As a two-parter finale, I like it more than the Imperial Phase (part I) finale : it’s more coherent in its construction and doesn’t try to bite off more than it can chew. It’s mostly plotpoints and twists, meaning it’s my least favourite kind of read, but once I’m able to put that aside to see it instead as a character work thread in a bigger design, it’ll probably hold my interest much more. But as of right now, I can at least commend it for how much it makes me want to reread everything from the beginning. Which I definitely do not have the time for right now. Damn you. Damn you all.

#wicdiv #seeds of thought #suprise fellow fans i bet you thought you'd seen the last of me

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astrologista · 7 years

Text

Acceptable Losses

for @starspatter

“Imagine Bruce confronting Clark over his son's death though... And Clark being so far gone at this point that he's all "sacrifices must be made for peace" and Bruce being like "You really have gone insane" and storms out.”

---

((( This ficlet references events from the Justice League episodes “A Better World Pt 1 and 2″ and the Batman Beyond 2.0 issues 17-24, and the Justice League Beyond 2.0 issues 17-24. If you haven’t seen/read them, the Justice Lords AU may not make sense to you... I guess... sorry ‘bout it :^) )))

---

A day after Wally was taken from them, Bruce had started work on what he was tentatively calling the “bat-bunker”.

It existed miles below the Cave, accessible by elevator only, in a natural cavern that had sat barren since he first began this mad game of cops and robbers.

The bunker was outfitted with sensors, with cameras, a complex ventilation system that promised fresh air for many years (none too simple to design), fresh water from an underground spring, and everything else needed to sustain life, for years, as necessary. It also happened to contain several of Tim’s favorite video game consoles, stores of shelf-stable snacks and canned food, stacks of comic books and a cabinet full of DVDs (mostly superhero movies). It was designed to be nothing less than a gilded cage for a bird. A place where his child would be totally safe from the traumas the world had yet to endure.

Wally West had been too young to die. Bruce wouldn’t see it happen to Tim. He’d lock him away and throw away the key first, no matter the misery or frustration it caused. Tim would thank him someday.

The plan, while well-intentioned (he thinks), never comes to pass. Lord Batman needs his soldiers, he needs everyone he can muster - and his family, most of all. The bat-bunker sits forever dormant, another awkward symbol of care that it’s better Tim never sees.

---

“We’re fighting a new kind of war, Tim.”

The new suit is safer, in some ways. The reinforced cowl (there will be no bullets in the brain), the bandoliers crossed over the chest (there will be no shrapnel in the heart), nominally treated against the worst effects of heat vision (not completely heatproof, but what else can he do against five-thousand-degree alien heat vision?). Multiple tracers, hidden in the lining, woven into the cloth. Every feature seems to be motivated by a fear, a worry - there’s love, there, too. Bruce had input into every Robin costume yet devised - but this was the first he had designed without input from a cheerful child, instead crafting it to his whims and catering to his neuroses in the process.

Bruce hands him the costume with an expression that brooks no argument. “You’re not Robin anymore. We’ll call you Red Robin from now on.” he tells him.

Tim takes the costume into his arms, holds it as if it’s fragile, something sacred. “Okay, dad.” he whispers reverently.

Lord Batman only nods, sharply. “Good boy.”

---

It’s easier to control Tim now, than it was before everything. With the onset of global war, Tim learns to be quiet, to be stealthy - as he always was, but in a somber way, in Bruce’s shadow, always, now.

They are the only resistance against Clark’s - Superman’s reign of terror, his iron grip upon the world. Those who do not agree can expect to be lobotomized at up to one hundred yards - or more - that is, if Superman decides that they deserve to live.

Dick and Barbara can no longer tolerate the stress, can no longer tolerate Bruce. They promise they don’t agree with Lord Superman, but that they can no longer remain on the side of the resistance. It’s a safety issue. Barbara is carrying Dick’s child, and it is safer for them to outwardly support the regime. Dick becomes a Commander, and Bruce is not allowed contact with their child outside of the photos and vids Barbara occasionally sends.

Oddly, the only one who stays - other than Alfred, of course - and Tim, now his good right hand - is Diana, but she is not the Diana he knew. This is the Diana from the other universe, the one where Wally did not die. She brings the strength they need, mother-hens Tim, and Bruce marvels at her undying determination in the face of total war.

He’s already fallen in love with her.

---

“Can I go?” The time had come - their tight knit group had begun to unravel. Perry White had been speaking against the regime through his underground newspaper for too long, and Superman, who had long since lost his mind in Bruce’s eyes, was prepared to deal with him once and for all. They had to put a stop to it - a man’s life was in danger simply for speaking his mind.

The new costume fits Red Robin perfectly, but Bruce had been so sure that Tim had outgrown pleading and whining for inclusion.

In his mind’s eye, he can see Luthor aim the gun - BAM - gone is the Flash, that bright, quippy young streak of red that lightened the burden in their hearts, hell, even made him smile just a few -

“No.” It’s a final no, an end-of-conversation no. Tim should know by now that this is all for his safety. They live in a world where Clark has decided that the world’s citizens are his wayward children, not knowing what is best for themselves. Therefore, he appointed himself to be their savior, whether they want it or not.

Maybe he and Clark aren’t that different after all.

“Tim, I have another job for you, and it’s to be done right here.”

That earns him a pointed look, rebellion brewing low but buried deep under layers of loyalty, of love. As Bruce steps into the car, he prays that Tim knows better now, after all the close calls they’ve had, he should know to follow Bruce’s orders without question. The last thing they want is to lose another -

---

They were too late to save Perry.

As per usual, Superman addresses the television cameras as what’s left of Perry is led out of the small shack that now constitutes the Daily Planet. He’s in cuffs, but there’s no need for them - he won’t be fighting back any time soon. “Mr. White will be cared for at a secure facility. We must do our best to keep our world safe, all of us. Spreading lies and defamation is poor stewardship, and will not be tolerated. Nor will a bad attitude... remember to report all incidents of poor sportsmanship, jaywalking, or misplaced aggression to the police. We will handle the perpetrators as necessary. ...There is no reason for anyone to be hurt. Citizens, good day.” Dispassionate, as usual. Robotic. (It may as well be one of his doppelgangers delivering the speech. Perhaps it is.) It’s a script Bruce has only heard a thousand times. And as the crimes listed become more and more trifling, he becomes more and more sickened by the Orwellian horror their world has become - and even more so by the part he played.

Diana comforts as always. “We gave it our best, Bruce. Someday, we’ll put a stop to this.”

As they retreat, Bruce keys his communicator. “Red Robin, report.”

“Eh? Yeah, Batman. I’m here at the Batcomputer... checking those samples... like you told me...!”

Clear sounds of a fight echo in the background audio and Bruce’s stomach clenches painfully. This is how it started with Dick, too - the lying.

“No... you’re not.” Bruce breathes, quickening his pace to a run while Diana flies beside. “You’re not...!”

---

Bruce has at least five main methods of tracking Tim. His boy is never hard to find. In the worst case scenario (and there is always a worst case scenario), he can even track Tim’s biosignature within a radius of twenty miles. Lucius is already overworked, but Bruce had insisted that that number be boosted to forty by week’s end. Tracers fail; and some methods are unreliable. He laughs at the days when he used to slip a mini-GPS into Dick’s utility belt and call that “safe”.

“Batman, listen to me. I’ve been working on this for months. I couldn’t tell you and you know why. I’m going to rescue Emil Hamilton and the researchers - we already know they want to join the resistance - that way Lord Superman will have a way harder time with R&D, as you know. He’s got a lot of scientists on his side, but only Hamilton’s team are the experts on Kryptonian technology -”

The words go through Bruce, as he pushes the car to its limit, honing in on Tim’s location. The boy is babbling - this shouldn’t be happening - he thought Tim had learned to be quiet - to work in the shadows - to keep himself safe.

Maybe there would be a use to the bat-bunker, after all. His heart couldn’t take much more of this.

“I can do this. I’m going into the central lab now where me ‘n the scientists agreed to rendezvous. Maybe I kept this secret for more than the fact that I knew you’d try to stop me. Maybe I wanted to make you proud.” Tim’s voice is small, sad. “But you’ll see. And you said I couldn’t do this all on my -”

The communication feed cuts and Bruce is running, full tilt, into the research facility. Heedless of alarms, of sensors set off. Diana follows, “Bruce! Wait!” Cursing quietly, she covers his back against the stream of guards that respond to their entry. This is the only situation in which Batman can’t remain quiet, stealthy.

Wally was killed in cold blood, and it could happen again. The youth, the brashness, the color red. The symmetry. And now, it was only red swirling in Bruce’s vision. Red, at the world, the Hell that Superman had constructed for them to live in.

It doesn’t take him long to find the lab.

“We knew Red Robin wanted us to join the Resistance.” Hamilton explains. “But we know what Superman does to dissenters.” The professor looked genuinely afraid. “We turned him over as soon as he showed.”

Bruce growls and throws the man aside, throws him to the floor. A disgusting coward. But he knows.

He knows the worst fears have now been realized. The world opens up, as if to swallow him.

“Batman, I’m sorry.” the scientist gasps. “He fought. So they dealt with him.”

---

There is no such thing as safety.

“It was unfortunate, wasn’t it?”

Clark is there, but Bruce wishes he weren’t. For the first time, Bruce wishes the man were dead. For doing this to him, to their family.

It’s their only ceasefire. Ever. Clark brings him his son’s body and places it - places him - into his arms. Now that Bruce looks, the costume is too big on Tim.

It never should have been made.

Diana can’t hide her tears. Bruce is unable to look - instead, he looks to Superman; his friend, more than just a coworker, but a brother - they grieved together, when they lost the Flash. The old Clark would know what to say, would try and fail to ease his pain, but he would try.

“Acts against the government are intolerable and damage the integrity of the public order.” The same, mechanical voice of Lord Superman. As if he’s reading off cue cards. His face, a stony mask. No indication that he cares what Bruce has lost. “To discourage further criminal activity, we have a zero-tolerance policy. His sacrifice was necessary to keep everyone living here safe and sound.”

“Safe and sound?” Bruce hisses, his voice low and growling but tight with the fresh pain of grief. “Who are you protecting? Who are you really protecting, Clark?”

All the trackers and tracers in the world can’t save him. Tim is lifeless in his arms.

At some point Bruce thought that there might still be a chance. That the real Superman still remained somewhere within, knowing that his actions were capricious, unfair, and ultimately unjust. That maybe Tim’s death really would be a sacrifice, a catalyst, to save the world from tyranny. (And still it was too high a price to pay.)

The only indication that the real Clark still existed is the fact that he didn’t kill them where they stood.

Tim’s body is heavy, so heavy in Bruce’s arms. He grew so much, since everything changed. But now...

“Madness, Clark.” Bruce can finally look down now, at the slack jaw, the pale face (pale like an old joke) - the rigor of death setting in, he can feel it. Tim was always too brave, too determined to prove himself - and now he never could again. “It’s madness.” He can shed his tears later. Alone. Maybe in the bat-bunker.

“Stop this.” he begs Clark. Before anyone else gets hurt.

If there was a hole in Lord Superman’s armor, it’s been patched long ago. The red uniform on Tim is just as red as the one on the Flash. Bruce can tell this doesn’t go unnoticed by Clark.

Diana is silently mouthing a prayer. A prayer of her people, most likely, a prayer for Tim.

Clark looks to the East, where the Sun is just rising. For half a second, he looks like their friend once more. The spell broken.

But it’s too late for that. They’ve already gone too far, the wedge driven too deep. In a year, Lord Superman would arrange for Batman to die, and succeed. And with a horrible sense of foreboding, Bruce even felt that he knew. Deep in his bones, he knew Lord Superman was now on a collision course with him. Set to destroy him... destroy them both.

“I’m sorry, Bruce.” And it’s Clark’s voice they hear, at last. Low. Ashamed. But there. Broken through the layers of contention between them, moved by the loss of the Robin he knew.

His final gift is to depart quietly, leaving them - physically - unharmed.

For all that’s worth.

---

Dick weeps when Diana tells him, and Barbara does too. Their son John is not told exactly what happened to his Uncle Tim, but it doesn’t matter. He’s too young to fully understand.

Bruce dresses the mannequin in the case in his son’s costume. It fits the mannequin quite well. This is where it will stay, where he can always see it.

“You made no mistakes, raising him, Bruce.”

Diana’s words are soft, but to Bruce (and only to him), they feel somehow accusatory. Especially when he feels he has done everything wrong.

“You kept him safe.”

“Diana... there’s no such thing as safe.”

Not in this world. Not in this life.

Tomorrow he’d go to the bunker and sit among all of Tim’s belongings that he’d meticulously picked out for him, especially for an extended period of time, books carefully curated into a variety of genres such that he would be in no danger of going mad down there, alone, constantly watched, fresh air provided so he would not suffocate, food so he would not starve, every need attended for. An absolutely... safe... area.

An area, he would tell himself, was decidedly not a larger and fancier grave, nor the tomb of an Egyptian prince, taking his worldly possessions with him into the afterlife.

It was safety.

Safety that Clark wanted to bring.

Safety, that Lord Superman had taken away from them.

An anguish that would never stop, born of a war that would never end.

#dcau #specs fic #jeeeez it feels good to write #yeah this one's dense #probably not easy to understand if you haven't read the issues #i would recommend watching the episodes of justice league and then reading the issues and THEN reading this #you might enjoy it more iunno #and yes... i wrote another story about the bat bunker and tim's reaction to it #but it's on my external hard drive at home so #yeah maybe one day ill get back to that one

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