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hellomynameistrash-blog · 7 years

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How Fusion relationships work

“How many Gems are you now?” “Six! Maybe more … if we meet the right Gem.”

In the episode “Off Colors,” Fluorite makes it clear she’s a relationship of SIX Gems and is open to more. I was joking around trying to think of what her fusion dance would look like if she added another Gem to this relationship, thinking it would be kind of adorable seeing one smaller Gem dancing to fuse with this huge amalgam. But then I wondered about a few things and I collected enough Thinky Thoughts to ramble for a bit.

For a long time before “Super Watermelon Island,” we fans were curious about Alexandrite’s fusion dance. We knew Garnet, as a Fusion herself, prefers to form Fusions with others when she’s already in her Fusion state–as in, she certainly doesn’t split up first to dance with the others one on one when she wants to form Sugilite or Sardonyx.

We figured hey, maybe it’s easier to synchronize two Gems rather than trying to synchronize three at the same time, and therefore maybe Alexandrite was formed with Pearl and Amethyst fusing into Opal first before dancing with Garnet.

In “Super Watermelon Island,” we see that’s not so.

Which is not to say that Opal and Garnet COULDN’T decide to fuse that way, but they didn’t in this case. And we can see that if they’re prepared to do it, a three-way synchronization can work without previously synchronizing the components into Fusions.

Fusions can fuse with individuals. With TWO individuals. And individual Gems can of course make Fusions. So basically, it’s free-for-all mix-n-match however the Gems involved are comfortable doing it.

And I got to wondering what that means for the Fusions themselves. Fusions are relationships. So theoretically, Fusions are the relationships of the component Gems with each other, even in more complicated Fusions like Alexandrite. But essentially, Alexandrite seems like she is the relationship of Amethyst and Pearl with Garnet, not so much the relationship of Amethyst and Pearl and Ruby and Sapphire. If they were to all four fuse in a single fusion dance, they would still make Alexandrite, but Pearl and Amethyst probably don’t HAVE much of a relationship with Ruby or with Sapphire individually. When Pearl first met Garnet in any meaningful way, she was already fused.

So when Pearl makes Sardonyx with Garnet, that relationship is by definition Ruby, Sapphire, and Pearl’s relationship, but practically speaking, it’s a relationship between Pearl and Garnet. Because her relationship with Ruby and Sapphire is nearly always in the context of them as their relationship. As Garnet.

That may seem like a weird point to press on, but stay with me here.

Garnet probably doesn’t have much of a relationship with Opal as an individual. She has individual relationships with Pearl and with Amethyst, and together their group is Alexandrite. They’re a four-Gem Fusion, but personality-wise, Alexandrite represents Garnet, Pearl, and Amethyst together far more than she represents Ruby, Sapphire, Pearl, and Amethyst together. When they start to fight internally, you certainly hear Garnet’s voice coming out, not the voices of Ruby or Sapphire. (And maybe, aside from the potential spoiler-related reasons, that’s why Alexandrite makes more sense with six arms instead of eight.)

Rebecca Sugar has repeatedly said in interviews that Fusions ARE relationships (though they also obviously have their own opinions that can be in contradiction with their components’ opinions, like Sugilite, and can “feel like one being” like Garnet said in “Keeping It Together”). And she’s also said Fusions are an interesting opportunity to explore who people are TOGETHER–the way humans can be together in a relationship and it changes who they are, how they think, how they function as a unit even though they can never be as much of a single entity as a Fusion is. This has me thinking about Fluorite.

She’s an established six-Gem relationship. I don’t know how they came to the conclusion that they wanted to live together, but Rhodonite’s question “how many Gems are you now?” suggests she’s been adding them steadily–that it wasn’t all at once. Very much like Amethyst and Pearl having a relationship with GARNET far more than with Ruby and/or Sapphire individually, I imagine that Fluorite’s additional Gems beyond the first ones–including potential future additions–would develop a relationship with the Fusion, not so much with her components. They may not even KNOW much about who they are individually because the relationship is that significant. That the relationship changes them so much.

I mean, you’ve probably met people who are in relationships and have been part of that unit since a very long time before you met them. They’ve grown into each other, become comfortable with each other, and developed a collective “we” identity that connects to their family, their living situation, their thresholds of intimacy, their interests–everything. You would have no way to know the individuals in that relationship how they would be if they didn’t have it–just like it’s hard to imagine who someone might be if they weren’t an artist, or weren’t a mother, or weren’t chronically ill, or weren’t the gender or sexuality they are. You can’t pluck one element out of them and then try to re-imagine them around the hole that leaves–not unless that element actually does disappear and they readjust their identity around it. I think our relationships can be like that too–that they affect our identity.

Humans’ relationships aren’t as literally transformative as a relationship that can literally become its own person, but our relationships essentially have lives of their own too. Garnet didn’t describe Fusion to Stevonnie as “an experience” for nothing. Most of us don’t “feel like one being” as part of a relationship, and there are some ways in which that can be unhealthy for us if we repress important parts of ourselves to become subsumed in something we wouldn’t like if we were fully conscious of what we were doing. But in general, it’s not a bad thing to have one’s relationship regarded as an important element of who they are. It’s certainly part of how the outside world thinks of them and treats them.

With someone like Fluorite, I think it would be super interesting to see how a single Gem has a relationship with an existing relationship and becomes a part of it. But even though I think Fluorite, and Garnet, and even in some ways Malachite, can be regarded and treated as individuals while fused–requiring those who have relationships with them to take them as a whole–you would also have to have at least some kind of relationship with that relationship’s members. You’d understand them as a package deal, but you might have different feelings about its members. Steven, for instance, loved Lapis and disliked Jasper, but understood Malachite as someone he needed to fight.

Now here’s the sad thing. Garnet states that she’ll “always exist in” Ruby and Sapphire, and that she embodies their love (even though they can still experience that love when they’re not fused, too). But I imagine that if Garnet were separated for a long time, Steven would miss her a lot. And I can imagine if one of Steven’s guardians decided to, say, form a new Fusion with Fluorite and stay that way, he would miss her too. You can’t have both the single Gem and the perma-Fusion in your life consistently.

Most of us have been there. “Losing” a person to a new relationship and nothing is ever the same with them again. They give themselves to the relationship, they go everywhere together, and you can’t invite one without them bringing the other(s). Sometimes, you probably miss that person and want them back. But when they’re part of the relationship, that’s part of who they are, and even when they’re not with their partner(s), they’re part of that relationship. Sometimes that can feel sad, especially if it means your special relationship with that person had to end, lessen, or significantly change.

Fusion relationships are very different from ours in a few obvious ways, but they’re not so fundamentally different that we can’t draw the parallels. Sometimes you wish the Fusion wasn’t there because you think the relationship is bad for those involved, like Malachite. If you’re Steven, you want your Lapis back and you want Jasper out of both of your lives. You might try to advise Lapis, you might try to protect her from Jasper, but she’s the one who has to decide what her relationship is. You can only hope she sees reason, or you could lose her in more ways than one.

With loving relationships, like Garnet, you want them to be together. Not necessarily because you like Garnet better than you like Ruby and Sapphire–it’s fun to see them now and then, sure!

But you know they prefer to be together, and that they experience anxiety and pain when they’re apart, and that they’ve chosen a life together where some of their individuality is given up for that closeness. You respect their decision and have a relationship with their relationship.

For humans, our relationships do not literally combine the traits of multiple people into one person that then has its own conscious will. The individuals in the relationship still function, while “the relationship” has no physical manifestation despite its influence being felt in the components. But it still changes the “color” of their lives together and brings the people involved close together to serve many shared goals, just like a Fusion.

So when a hypothetical new Gem does come along and establish a relationship with Fluorite, I think she would dance with her. Not with her components individually, but with her. We know Garnet as Ruby and Sapphire’s relationship–not as Ruby and Sapphire combined, but as the result of that combination. For a fused Gem, the Fusion is the new identity who can now make decisions and have experiences, even though they ARE an experience at the same time. It isn’t the same as individuals deciding to do the same thing. They made the decision to become the thing that decides on its own. And that Fusion, in the reality of their life together, can sometimes decide that’s no longer what they want to be. Or they can realize they’d rather be this than anything they were supposed to be and that they’d rather do this than anything they were supposed to do.

If a Gem has a relationship with a relationship, it’ll always be with the relationship first. The new relationship will need to be understood as coming into a shared, existing intimacy. Pearl and Amethyst don’t individually get consent from Ruby and from Sapphire when Garnet acts on their behalf to form Alexandrite. Garnet feels and acts differently from Ruby and Sapphire sometimes, and their choice to fuse into her has influenced the subsequent decisions they make as her.

They may or may not disagree with how Garnet acts sometimes–like, if you were to ask Sapphire or ask Ruby what they would have personally done when Garnet did something different, you might get some answers that are as different as Amethyst and Garnet’s answers would be from Sugilite’s. But within the context of the relationship, with the relationship actively existing, it has the power to influence how the individuals feel. They have a relationship, and then that relationship can feel and think in unprecedented ways–with some of them not being so good. Being in a relationship with an abusive person, for instance, can sometimes make the abused party accept treatment they wouldn’t outside the relationship, or might have thought they wouldn’t tolerate before the relationship was established. And sometimes it’s neutral, like what a married couple decides they want in a shared home is different from what kind of place each might buy individually.

But what’s important about this is that fusion of goals, opinions, and thoughts in human relationships isn’t necessarily a sad thing. It’s a natural thing. We all influence each other. Allowing yourself to be influenced does not mean the relationship has eclipsed your life, or that you’re in an unhealthy dependence, or that you’ve lost your individual will–you’re still part of what you’ve made together. And if you’re happy in your relationship, anyone who comes along afterwards needs to understand who it’s made you, and be accepting of it, and most of all, be willing to have a relationship with your relationship. Not just one of its parts.

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hellomynameistrash-blog · 7 years

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Sugilite: What was Sapphire’s deal?

For a long time since the reveal of Ruby and Sapphire, I’ve been seeing posts that (jokingly or not) suggest that Sugilite’s behavior, as a Fusion of Ruby, Sapphire, and Amethyst, was the result of the rambunctious Ruby and Amethyst dragging Sapphire along for the ride.

I kinda get why people say that, because obviously both Amethyst and Ruby are prone to anger and sometimes lack filters and coping mechanisms. Meanwhile, Sapphire seems so calm and in control. Surely Sugilite was mostly Amethyst and Ruby getting carried away.

But y’all have seen “Keystone Motel.”

“This will pass. She’ll eventually just burn herself out.”

Sapphire, when she’s upset, pretends to be above it all, ignores others’ emotions while denying the effects of her own, and even resorts to shaming those she loves when she’s not happy with their behavior.

She can be callous. Cold.

Sapphire is just as responsible for everything that went on with Sugilite as Ruby and Amethyst were.

Now here’s the thing. Fusions can feel like they’re one being–especially when they get used to being fused–and though they’re “a conversation” and “a relationship,” they’re also capable of functioning like a single consciousness despite that they technically can never quite be “individuals.” So I do hesitate to pick apart “what comes from which Gem” when examining Fusions’ behavior. However, much like you can analyze the traits of a child and surmise which parent they “get it from,” you can sort of do that with Fusions. But there’s another element you have to keep in mind when you do this.

A manifestation of the fusers’ influence on each other.

Guide to the Crystal Gems is the source of this tidbit–a canon source authored by Rebecca Sugar. You don’t really see the “influence” aspect discussed explicitly in the show, but this implies that Fusions aren’t just what their components are, but what they inspire in each other. What they think of each other, what they expect from each other, what they want to be together. What they bring out in each other, regardless of whether that element is usually part of the individuals.

Look at Smoky Quartz. Before they appeared, Steven and Amethyst had just had an arc with a competitive and self-deprecating tone which led directly to forming Smoky for the first time. They literally fought each other over who was the worst, had a discussion of not living up to what they were supposed to be, and aired their grievances over the proper path to improvement.

“Us worst Gems stick together, right?” “That’s why we’re the best.”

Amethyst and Steven literally formed their collective identity based on their low self-esteem and feelings of inadequacy. They play it like a big joke, of course, cracking puns and offering distractions, but when Sardonyx presses them during their second appearance in “Know Your Fusion,” Smoky heaps on the self-abuse.

“I guess zero plus zero equals zero. They say two wrongs don’t make a right–I guess I’m living proof that that’s true! I’m just one big super-wrong good-for-nothing dud with a yo-yo!”

Delivered with a smile.

Supposedly it’s a common trait of youngest children to be the comedian of the family–if you’ve spent your whole life feeling like those who came before you have won all the awards, done it all before you, and met stratospheric goals before you even found your feet, you might feel like there’s no point in performing well, so you joke about it and poke fun at everything, including yourself. Amethyst and Steven have both spent a lot of their lives feeling like the youngest child who’s a bit of a screw-up with whom everyone must be patient. Smoky doubles that feeling, and when they start to feel inadequate, out come the self-deprecating jokes.

Sugilite is more complicated because she’s a three-Gem Fusion, but I’d like to first refer to my “How Fusion Relationships Work” post and assert that Sugilite is far more a relationship of Amethyst and Garnet than she is a relationship of Amethyst, Ruby, and Sapphire. If Sugilite were to internally argue with herself the way Alexandrite did in “Fusion Cuisine,” you’d probably hear Amethyst’s and Garnet’s voices, not Ruby’s or Sapphire’s. I could be wrong, but I think Sugilite is better understood as Garnet and Amethyst’s Fusion. Therefore, to find out what comes from Sapphire and what comes from Ruby in Sugilite, it makes more sense to pick apart where their traits feed into Garnet first.

Sardonyx and Sugilite are both Garnet Fusions. And Sardonyx and Sugilite have both shown an incredible capacity for showing off for Steven. We know Pearl loves to perform, but Sardonyx seeks to impress through grace and precision, while Sugilite is about power. That is likely a strong Amethyst trait–she REALLY wants to be strong, and she thinks Garnet is this incredible pillar of strength. Amethyst’s beliefs about Garnet and desire to be strong would feed into making Sugilite the powerhouse she is.

And Amethyst also has abandonment issues.

“What about ME, huh? I had someone who was always there for ME until she started hanging out with YOU!”

What was Sugilite’s apparent main complaint?

“You left me behind!”

She was left alone with no one to perform for, no one to encourage her or make her feel cool for being strong enough to take out all those pillars.

This seems like an awful lot of Amethyst, but what about Garnet?

“We don’t need to be careful. We just need to be huge.”

Get the job done, Garnet. Who cares about Pearl’s feelings? Who cares if there might be some speed bumps? It’ll turn out with the result we need, and that’s all that really matters.

Well, that’s some Sapphire there.

That’s probably exacerbated further when all the frustration and feeling of being left out was amplified by Amethyst’s perspective, and it’s all directed at Pearl. What might Sugilite be thinking about Pearl? “She’s to blame! She took Steven away and abandoned me! She called me ‘too much’ because she’s just too little! And now she wants me to unfuse just when I’m enjoying myself! She’s probably just jealous Garnet didn’t pick her instead!”

There’s a ton of feeling in there and not a whole lot of thinking. And feeling is something Ruby does extremely well. Meaning she does a lot of it, and she doesn’t think about the past or the future. Now is all she can think about, and her incredibly important, long history with Pearl and any future consequences are beside the point in the face of all that emotion. Sugilite feels hurt and angry and vengeful now. And she has a ton of power that this little Gem Pearl wants to take from her. She won’t let it happen.

But here’s something complicated. Ruby is emotional, but she isn’t selfish. She’s almost entirely selfless. I mean that literally, too–at the beginning of her life with Sapphire, she expressed that it didn’t matter if she was broken because there are tons of her. Even more recently in her life, in “Jailbreak,” she cared about what happened to Sapphire but had no thoughts for herself.

“Did they hurt you?” “WHO CARES??”

And if you listen to her rant about Blue Diamond in “Gem Heist,” Ruby still offers an onslaught of anger that has almost nothing to do with slights against her.

“She’s a shatterer! She yelled at Sapphire, she hates fusion and love!”

Hear that? Blue Diamond had specifically threatened to shatter Ruby, but she doesn’t say “she threatened to shatter me.” She just uses general terms about her being “a shatterer” before launching right into how Blue Diamond mistreated Sapphire and hates their union. And, going back to “Keystone Motel,” it’s more of the same from Ruby: she’s angry not because Pearl personally hurt her, but because Pearl disrespected fusion. Disrespected Garnet.

“It’s FUSION, Sapphire! What’s more personal to us than fusion?”

She’s so, so angry, but it’s on behalf of their relationship, not on her own behalf. She’s not mad at Sapphire for wronging her. She’s mad at Sapphire because this is about fusion. Without fusion, Ruby doesn’t even think of herself as worth something to be mad about. But the fusion she’s contributing to? Wow, nobody better EVER say anything against THAT, or insult it for ANY reason!

So, no doubt this is magnified in Sugilite.

“I AM myself, and I’m SICK of being split up!”

Amethyst’s respect for power, Ruby’s respect for fusion partnerships, and Sapphire’s respect for outcome over process all contribute to Sugilite’s motives. But Amethyst’s sullenness over abandonment, Ruby’s single-minded emotion, and Sapphire’s callousness make those motives manifest in a destructive way.

When Garnet is just Garnet, she has effective coping mechanisms most of the time, at least when it comes to losing control. But Ruby’s EXPLOSIVE emotion is very present in Garnet–we repeatedly see her punch first and ask questions later, or break things just because she’s pissed off. Sapphire’s soft-spokenness and withdrawal from full engagement are also very present in Garnet, and we see her withholding emotion or letting her overconfidence make her stubborn. But she’s balanced, and she carries leadership without cracking, and she rarely makes her problems into other people’s problems.

But when Garnet is part of Sugilite, emotion is streaming in from Amethyst AND Ruby, and neither of those Gems likes to think outside the present. If you said Sapphire’s future vision and composure is “drowned out” by such passionate energy, you wouldn’t be far off, but I think it’s more nuanced than that: Sapphire’s traits manifest differently. Amethyst respects the heck out of Garnet, and Ruby feels like Sapphire matters far more than she does. Sapphire holds a good deal of the self-respect in Sugilite–the part of her that thinks she deserves attention, dignity, and honor. There’s still some aristocrat in her. In Sugilite, that respect is up against an overwhelming amount of self-directed belittling and inadequacy. So you get someone who knows she should be respected but feels that she doesn’t deserve it.

Ruby and Amethyst may be the source of Sugilite’s fury and pain, but without Sapphire’s cold indifference, she wouldn’t have ever posed such a threat. Some of the most brutal aspects of Sugilite may have their roots in Sapphire.

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hellomynameistrash-blog · 7 years

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Where did we go, what did we do, I think we made something…..

entirely new….

Honlo, if you don’t want this cursed image on your blog you can delete the caption when reblogging

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hellomynameistrash-blog · 7 years

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Steven Universe: How much damn easier it would’ve been

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hellomynameistrash-blog · 7 years

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rwby ship tag masterpost

this started just for me but i mean?? might as well right??

alright, so rwby’s pretty well known for having cool names for their ships and it’s always expanding. that means that people are always finding new ships and ship names that they wanna track and that also means people are finding notps that they wanna block

so here’s a masterpost of ship tags and names i’ve seen used!! the last time we did one of these was SO long ago. i’m definately missing some so either edit it in yourself or message me, yo

fyi the fndm sometimes shoves words together and a ship name can be either one or two words (ie white rose vs whiterose). they’re presented here as one word but you can probably tell which ones can go either way

LAST UPDATE: 8/17/2016

f/f ships

blake x weiss: checkmating, monochrome, checkmate blake x neon: blacklight blake x ruby: ladybug blake x yang: bumbleby, bumblebee cinder x blake: hellcat cinder x glynda: glynder, glycerin, goodfall, fallwitch cinder x neo: spicecream cinder x raven: fallen raven cinder x ruby: cinderruby, fallen petals cinder x weiss: snowfall cinder x yang: firearms emerald x arslan: jade lions emerald x blake: catburglar emerald x cinder: emberald, crime girlfriends emerald x neo: spumone neo x glynda: whipped cream neo x weiss: weisscream neo x yang: baked alaska, silence is golden, bananasplit nora x blake: valkitty, thundercat nora x pyrrha: valkos, electromagnet nora x yang: pink lemonade penny x nora: gingersnap penny x ruby: nuts and dolts, mechanical rose, redbot pyrrha x blake: purrha pyrrha x ruby: pyrruby pyrrha x weiss: schneekos reese x blake: blackboard raven x summer: disappearing act, nevermore, rosebird ruby x may: happy campers ruby x weiss: whiterose, iceflower ruby x yang: enabler (shippy), strawberry sunrise (platonic) velvet x blake: blackvelvet, scarladonna velvet x coco: crosshares, chocolate bunny velvet x penny: energizer bunny velvet x ruby: buns and roses, redvelvet velvet x weiss: dustbunny velvet x yang: shotbunning weiss x coco: godivas, iced coco winter x blake: snowleopard winter x cinder: volcanic winter winter x ruby: platinumrose winter x yang: snowdragon yang x weiss: freezerburn yang x coco: hot shots yang x neon: nyang cat

m/m ships

fox x sage: spicy trickster fox x yatsuhashi: keylime pie jaune x neptune: noah’s arc jaune x ren: lie and cheat neptune x sage: seaweed ren x sun: lie and steal scarlet x sun: strawberry banana scarlet x neptune: red sea scarlet x sage: cherry tree sun x jaune: cheat and steal sun x neptune: seamonkeys sun x roman: monkey business sun x sage: seasoned thief taiyang x qrow: taiqrow

m/f ships

adam x blake: tauradonna adam x neo: dairy queen flynt x weiss: coal dust fox x coco: shades and blades, foxtrot fox x velvet: fauxfur jaune x pyrrha: arkos jaune x ruby: roseknight, lancaster jaune x weiss: weissgold, whiteknight junior x yang: call me sir mercury x emerald: emercury mercury x neo: icecream scoop mercury x yang: kickboxing neptune x weiss: neiss, arctic waters, titanic neptune x yang: combat goggles ozpin x glynda: ozglyn, ozwitch qrow x cinder: fallen crow qrow x winter: snowbird ren x blake: ninjas of love, blacklotus ren x nora: renora, team sloth ren x ruby: redlotus ren x yang: sunflowyr roman x blake: sephora roman x cinder: torchfall roman x glynda: torchwitch roman x neo: icecrime, romeo sage x yang: wisedragon sun x blake: blacksun sun x penny: optimus primate sun x ruby: strawnana, redsun sun x yang: suns out guns out, solarflare, sunburn sun x velvet: bunanas taiyang x raven: midnight sun taiyang x summer: summer lovin yatsuhashi x coco: beanie babies yatsuhashi x velvet: cinnabun yatsuhashi x yang: yatsuyang

poly names

blake x weiss x ruby: newspaper blake x weiss x velvet: sepia, cappuccino blake x weiss x yang: bees schnees coco x fox x velvet x yatsuhashi: cfvy shop jaune x nora x pyrrha x ren: jnpr berries neo x yang x weiss: melted weisscream ruby x weiss x blake x yang: pollination, pollynation sun x blake x velvet: menagerie sun x blake x yang: sunnybees sun x blake x yang x neptune: bumbleseamonkeys sun x neptune x sage: seasunning sun x neptune x weiss: schneemonkeys yang x malachite twins: yellow m&ms yang x blake x ruby: bumblebug yang x weiss x ruby: freezerbrose

bonus mega poly (bc wow that second name made me laugh)

rwby x jnpr: rainbow, snow white and the seven dweebs

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hellomynameistrash-blog · 7 years

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this post reminded me of voume 1 weiss tbh

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hellomynameistrash-blog · 7 years

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there’s no such thing as ghosts

(reposting bc i fixed the transparency on jasp)

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hellomynameistrash-blog · 7 years

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Asthmax

The requested fic in which Max has asthma, but keeps it a secret from the campers, until he has an attack

Max looked at David incredulously.

“Really? A hike?” He deadpanned.

“Yes! You guys will love it! We’re going to hike to the top of the Lake Lilac hill and back down at the end of the day! Doesn’t that sound fun?”

“Yes!” Nikki cheered.

“No!” Neil snapped.

“No.” Max said.

“Guys! We might see a pack of wolves! Or a moose! Or bigfoot! Aren’t you excited?” Nikki asked, bouncing on the balls of her feet.

“No? That hill is a million miles up! I’m an introvert! I’m not built for that kind of team-building BULLSHIT!” Neil yelled.

“Now, Neil! Don’t worry, it will be tons of fun! Right, Max?” David said, leaning towards Max.

“Go fuck a bush.” Max glared.

“Language, Max.” David said.

Twenty minutes of preparing backpacks, handing out water bottles, and prying Space Kid out from where he got his helmet stuck in a knothole later and they were on their way.

Nikki was running up ahead, sniffing rocks, climbing trees, and just generally keeping David’s hands full. Neil, Max, and Gwen lagged near the back.

About two hours of walking later, halfway up the hill, Max began to cough. Not a lot, just a subtle cough into his elbow every few minutes.

“You alright, Max?” Neil asked, looking at him funny.

“Yeah, I’m good.” Max said, he could see Gwen casting him a worried look but he ignored it.

Five minutes later the coughs were more persistent. Max was having trouble matching Neil’s walking pace.

“Max, do you need to stop?” Gwen asked gently.

“Fuck,” Coughing, “off.” Max glared.

Max made it up the mountain without any further problems.

“Wasn’t that fun!” Nikki asked, excitedly.

“Not really.” Max said, before lapsing into another coughing fit.

“Max, are you sure you’re okay?” Neil asked.

“I’m fine!” Max snapped, noticeably more irritable than usual.

Nikki and Neil looked at each other but didn’t say anything.

They, unfortunately, didn’t stay at the top of the hill as long as Max would have liked. He wanted to take a longer break and catch his breath properly but they were running out of daylight and there was a four hour hike back down. Max was really struggling to see the appeal of this escapade.

Nikki was, again, leading the group with an overzealous David. How can anyone have that much energy after a four hour hike and only a one hour break?

Max was having a hard time getting a good breath. Everytime he tried to breathe too deeply he would start coughing, and the amount of air he could take in before that happened was decreasing.

Neil kept glancing at him and Gwen was walking uncomfortable close to him. He didn’t like this.

Suddenly, Max couldn’t get any air in at all, he fell to his knees and began to claw at his throat desperately trying to open his airway.

Neil was shouting. Gwen was holding Max’s arms back from his throat. David ran up to Max, but Max’s eyes were too blurry with panicked tears to see his expression.

“Max! Where is your inhaler?” David asked urgently.

Max tried to tell him that he didn’t know. He couldn’t remember. He couldn’t breathe.

“It’s okay, David, I grabbed one of his before we left!” Gwen said, handing it to David.

“Someone give me a water bottle and a knife!” David demanded. Harrison tossed David his water bottle and Nurf gave him a knife. David made fast work out of cutting a hole in the bottom of the bottle and shoving the inhaler in it as a makeshift spacer. He tried to put the end in Max’s mouth.

Max pulled his head away, he didn’t want that anywhere near his mouth.

“Max! Please!” David urged, trying again. This time Max let him put the spacer in his mouth. David puffed it once. “Okay Max, in and out. In and out. In and out. In and out. In and out. In and out. Good. We’re going to do it again okay?”

Max nodded vacantly.

“Okay, ready? In and out. In and out. In and out. In and out. In and out. In and out. Better?” David asked, pulling the spacer away. Max nodded again. “Gwen can you hand me another bottle of water? Max needs to rinse his mouth out.”

“Sure, here.” Gwen said, handing him a bottle of water.

David handed it to Max, who rinsed his mouth and spat the water in the dirt nearby. He was becoming aware that all of the campers were staring at him. A few of them looked scared, he guessed they weren’t used to asthma attacks. Nikki was crying. Max looked away, he didn’t want them to find out like this. He hadn’t wanted them to find out at all.

Suddenly he was being hoisted off of the ground and onto David’s back.

“Put me down, dipshit.” Max said, sounding tired and strained, “I can walk.”

“I know, but it’s a three hour hike from here and it’s getting dark. Besides, you’re always tired after an attack. Just let me carry you, nobody will blame you for it.” David assured him.

Max punched David’s back, but was too tired to use any real force. He let himself fall limp against David’s back and be carried down the hill.

David was right about him being tired, as much as Max hated to admit it. It was only half an hour before he was asleep.

613 notes · View notes