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jazzthatonewriterchick · 1 month

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Hit ‘Em Up! (18+ Fic)

Pairing: Cowboy!Gojo Satoru x Cowboy!Geto Suguru x Black!Cowgirl!Reader (Slow Burn/Enemies to Lovers)

Synopsis: You get to meet Geto & Gojo the Gunslingers, the notorious outlaws that have every town and law enforcement in a twist, when your bum-ass BF offers you as payment to avoid going to prison. Little do they know that this is only a part of your plan to get what you desire. But when you realize that the infamous gun-slinging, smooth-talking cowboys could be everything you want and more when they offer you a deal to team up with them, will you successfully be able to go through with it?

Warnings: Smutty Smut; 18+ (MINOS GTFO); poly!SatouSugu; Reader is Black & Fem; Mention of other JJK characters; Porn with Plot; Tragic Backstories; T/W for Childhood Trauma, Parental Death, Violence, Panic Attacks & Torture; Angst/Hurt/Comfort; Hand Kink; Masturbation; Voyeurism; Gay Sex; Polyamorous; Double Deepthroat; Mutual Oral; Fingering; CMNF; Spitroast; Riding; Unprotected PiV Sex; Creampies; Outside/Public Sex; Shotgunning; Multiple Positions; Spit Kink; Facials; MDom/fsub Undertones; Aftercare

Disclaimer: I own none of the characters mentioned in this fic. However, as this is my writing, I do not give permission for my work to be reposted on any other sites that are not from my own accounts. Thank you!

Writer's Note: Once again, thank y'all so, so, so much for the continued love & support! Just an update for everybody: I'll be going back to school in about 3 weeks so updates might slow down, BUT I will continue to upload when I'm free & have some time. Thank you again! And happy 4/20!! -xoxo, Jazz

Chapters: One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen PT I & PT II. Sixteen. Seventeen. Eighteen. Nineteen. Twenty. Epilogue. Soundtrack.

********

FIVE: NO TELL MOTEL.

“My, your such a good little cocksucker, aren’t you, sugar?”

Gojo’s silky voice forming those dirty, nasty words only makes you suck on his thick, hard, beautiful cock a little more eagerly than before. He kneels in front of you, his hips and toned stomach in your face, letting you freely drag your hands over his six pack much to his enjoyment.

He watches you with those alluring blue eyes as you gag all over his shaft and bounce on Geto’s dick at the same time. “And a good little cowgirl too,” the long-haired outlaw chuckles, soft moans and gasps leaving his lips as your warm, soft, velvety walls squeeze around him whenever you slam your pussy and soft, cushiony ass down onto him. “I should’ve known you’d be good at ridin’ dick too, little lady.”

SMACK!

His hand comes down to slap your ass, emitting a muffled moan from around Gojo’s cock. The white-haired outlaw groans, gripping the back of your hair and pushing himself deeper into your mouth. “Fuck, you’re so fuckin’ sexy,” he moans. “You seem to be missin’ somethin’ though…I’ve got it!”

He takes off his cowboy hat and puts it on your head, making Geto laugh as he begins to pump his hips up into you from below, fucking you back. “She looks so adorable,” he groans. “Just seein’ her like this makes me wanna cum.”

Gojo hums in agreement, thrusting into your mouth in time with his partner’s dick pumping in and out, in and out, of your pussy, sinking you deeper and deeper into immense pleasure. “Me too,” he says and lifts your chin up to look at him and the way the moonlight illuminates his hair, turning it silver. “And you’ll cum with us, won’t you, cutie?”

“Be as loud as you want, darlin,’” Geto moans, gripping your hips for dear life. “There ain’t nobody to hear you for miles. Just us and the stars.”

Hearing that and knowing the fact that it’s just you three alone among the moon, the stars, and the quiet forest makes me you want to cum. You can feel your orgasm quickly approaching the louder Geto and Gojo’s moans become and the more Geto’s dick glides against your G-spot.

“Fuck!” Geto gasps. “I think our little cowgirl is close, Satoru. That sweet little pussy is squeezin’ around me so tight!”

Gojo stares down at you adoringly and hungrily, slamming his hips into your mouth. “Cum with us, darlin,” he demands. “Don’t let us do it alone. Give us what we want like a good little slut, hm?”

Suddenly, the two begin to moan louder and warn you that they’re about to cum, using your holes to chase their highs. You can feel yourself being pushed closer, closer to the edge of bliss, about to fall off with them–

With a gasp, you sit up in your bed adjacent to Shoko who has her back to you and is snoring so loud that it overshadows the buzzing of cicadas outside your window. You are coated in sweat, a normal occurrence for summers in the West, but you know that it has everything you do with your dream.

“What the fuck?” you think, confused and flushed…and extremely bothered. Your pussy throbs annoyingly beneath your silk nightgown, even more so without your panties. It’s too hot for undies.

You’ve never had a dream like that before about anyone, especially two outlaws that you were supposed to merk earlier!

The only dreams you have are about your childhood, your mother, and the night both were taken from you. They don’t happen every night, but they are the only dreams you have. You don’t have happy dreams and can barely have a good night’s sleep without your mind going a hundred miles an hour.

But something about this dream, something about this duo, brings something out of you. A need to throw all caution to the wind. You don’t want to think that it’s because of your attraction to them. You tell yourself that it’s nothing; just a biological need as humans have. The dream meant nothing but to show you what you could be missing…right?

You look at Shoko, thinking about her words of wisdom to you earlier. Could she be right? Could these men be the ones to help you reach that happy ending? ‘Only one way to find out,’ you think.

You roll out of bed and, keeping your footfalls quiet, you begin to pack up. You pack some dried snacks, a canteen of water, and a clean pair of clothes in your bag before changing out of your sweat-soaked nightgown and into some clean, black riding gear. You then bend down in your closet to retrieve a dusty box hidden behind Shoko’s shoes and a key hidden beneath them.

You unlock the box and smile at the contents inside of it: a silky, pink bandana and a black cowgirl hat. You take out each and put them on, already feeling more like yourself. Like the Fatale Femme. After you finally finish, you take a piece of paper with an ink pen and quickly scrawl out a note to a sleeping Shoko before leaving:

Dear, Shoko,

I’m so sorry I’m leaving you like this and that it took this happening to tell you the truth. I’ve been wandering the wild West for years, hunting down outlaws and running from the law as a living.

I came to Blackwater to not only kill Valentine but to find Gojo & Geto the Gunslingers and get some answers for my plan to kill Benji the Bandi. I have been hiding my true identity from you in fear of bringing trouble to your door.

I care for you and those at the Blackwater saloon so much which is why I must leave. Please don’t try to look for me. If I’m alive, I will write and even visit (eventually).

Thank you for the friendship you’ve given me. Take care of yourself and don’t stay in Blackwater forever. The ain’t nothing here for you either.

Sincerely, Y/N aka the Fatale Femme.

You leave the note by her beside. Then, in a flash, you take your bag and head out the door. The complex is dark and quiet when you leave, making it easy o slip ou ino he nigh. Behind the complex, tied up to one of the lamp posts, is your precious black horse who has been loyally and patiently waiting here at her post for five months since you came to Blackwater on her back.

You’ve been leaving her here, only releasing her o ake he on lae nigh walks and feeding her apples and oas. Bu now, you’re ready to leave and so is she. Her ears twitch at the sound of you boots thudding in the dit and he tail begins to wag excitedly, knowing it’s you. You press a hand to her side and stroke her soft fur.

“Hey, Reneigh,” you coo to her. “You ready to go, darlin’?” You take her reigns out of your bag and clip them on her before getting her saddle from behind a tree. As you place it on her back, she huffs, steam coming out of her nostrils. “You’re right,” you giggle. “I should’ve left this dumbass town a long time ago.”

You kiss her snout, thanking her for waiting, before hopping ono her back after lacing one leg over her side. Once you’re on, you cluck your tongue against the roof of your mouh and snap the reigns once. Reneigh understands immediately and takes off down the road, he hooves clicking against the road. You guide her in the direction of the Maplewood Motel, knowing where it is due to the brothel you used to occupy at being two blocks up from it.

‘1211 at the Corner of Maplewood, Rm 201,’ you think, keeping the numbers in you head even when you finally make it to the small, quiet motel. Not a peson no animal stis when you leave Reneigh outside in an empty cubby where other horses have their own. “I’ll be back,” you tell her, earning a headbutt from her in response.

“You’d better,” she wordlessly says.

You keep your gun a your hip as you walk ino he moel, past the sleeping desk clerk, and then up the steps to the second floor. You ignore your pounding heart as you walk to room 201 and give three knocks. “Comin’!” a silky voice calls out. Gojo Satoru.

When he opens the door, he is only in his trousers and riding gloves, exposing his toned body and abs to you. That damn dream comes back to haunt you and you attempt give him a poker face despite your mind’s eye being filled with images of his naked body and cock.

You’re so entranced by his body that you almost miss his eyes. You’ve never seen them before since he’s always wearing that blindfold. They are a gorgeous, hypnotizing blue, as blue as the crystal waters in the Bahamian islands. They widen an inch at sigh of you at his door. “Well,” he begins, “this is definitely a pleasant surprise.”

“Who’s at the door, Satoru?” Geto calls from inside, sounding suspicious. He comes to the door too, luckily not shirtless but still looking hot in his cotton shirt and riding gloves, his long hair pulled back into a silky, glossy ponytail. “Oh, hey,” he greets, sounding shocked to see you. “So you kept the note.”

“I did,” you reply rather sharply, you pulse jumping anxiously. “‘Cause I need some answers. Before I agree to this, I’ll need some information first.” The duo looks at each other as if asking one another if they should agree.

“Anybody follow you?” Gojo asks, looking up and down the hallway. You shake you head and he opens the door ajar for you. “Come on in, then.”

You do so, not thanking him, but he doesn’t mind. When the door shuts, you take a look around the motel: it is rather spacious and clean with a small kitchen, a wooden table sitting near the window overlooking the horses outside, brown, shaggy floors, and a big king-sized bed matching the beige walls. The duo has made their home in this room, two backpacks, clean clothes, and shoes lying about the bed and floor.

Gojo follows you into the motel, clapping his hands together once. “First thing’s first: ya want some dinner?”

You blink at him, wondering if he’s serious. Wordlessly, you shake your head and he rolls his eyes at you. “What, you don’t want some good food before you start interrogatin’ us?” he chuckles. “We’ve got somethin’ cookin’ up over here.”

He nods at Geto in the kitchen, cooking something savory-smelling on the small stove. His hulking frame blocks it from view, but it makes your stomach growl. Gojo nods at the wooden table and the chairs there. “Go on, take a seat and get comfy. I’ll take your bag and get you some water.”

He goes to take your bag from you, but you grip it to your chest. “My bag is good here,” you argue. “And I don’t need anything, thanks.” Your stomach exposes you by gurgling loudly, making you flush.

“Uh-uh,” he sniggers before he walks off to get you that water and a plate. The duo leaves you to sit alone to sit as they fix you something to eat and drink, much to your surprise. You didn’t think outlaws could be such gentlemen…unless something’s up.

Minutes later, after listening to Geto hum a tune and Gojo crack jokes while he tosses on a shirt, your dinner is finally presented to you: a plate of Salisbury steak oozing with gravy, roasted potatoes, and green beans. “Here ya are, little miss. Made by yours truly.” Gojo gives a charming smile as he places a glass of water in font of you.

“He’s lying!” Geto calls from the kitchen. Gojo puts a finger to his lips, winking.

You stare suspiciously down at the delicious-smelling food and gingerly take your fork to stab into the smallest tater. Gojo watches you weirdly as you sniff the potato and then place it in your mouth, slowly chewing it. “Had to check if it was poisonous,” you explain with a shrug.

The white-haired outlaw looks hilariously offended by that. “Why would we do somethin’ so fucked?” he scoffs. “Jesus, girl, you are so paranoid!” You glare up at him, swallowing the potato. “With the work I do, you have to be.”

Geto walks over with two more plates and glasses of water, placing them on the table. “I agree, especially in the state this world is in.” He sits down across from you along with Gojo, folding his hands under his chin. “Hope you don’t mind, but I’d like the say grace first.”

Gojo dramatically groans, but bows his head anyway. Geto does the same while you keep your eyes open, watching them. “Dear Lord, thank you for allowing us another day to consume such a delicious meal with good company,” Geto prays. “Please give us more of these fine days with your blessing. Amen.” He lifts his head with a content, satisfied smile. It makes your stomach flip for some odd reason.

“Ugh, finally,” Gojo sighs. “I’m fuckin’ starved!” He goes to finally dig into his food, but then stops and instead raises his glass of water. “Cheers to new friends,” he chirps and then frowns when he sees your face. “Acquaintances then. C’mon, you’ve gotta toast to that one!”

Though you’d rather not, you did agree to be here. So begrudgingly, you raise your glass and so does Geto. “Cheers,” he chuckles and you clink glasses. “Enjoy, little miss.”

And you do though you don't tell him and your poker face is A1. However, the steak is savory and juicy, the potatoes are crispy on the outside and tender on the inside, and the beans are salted to perfection. If Geto wasn’t an outlaw, he’d be a great cook.

Though the food is good, your impatience gets the best of you the longer dinner goes on and you can’t enjoy it without your stomach roiling for answers. “Sooo do y’all wanna start talkin’ or should I?” you ask, rather impatient. The men look up at you, still eating. Insead of looking shocked, they look amused. “Well, if you insist on givin’ us the floor,” Gojo chuckles. “Whatcha wanna know?”

You swallow some wae to give you some courage, wishing it was liquor. “Just out of curiosity, as well-known as y’all are, why’d you decide to work with Benji and Valentine?” you ask, getting straight to the point.

Geto is happy to enlighten you as he sips on his water while Gojo finishes chomping on his steak like a wild pig. “When we met Benji, we were young and dirt poor, robbin’ anybody just to eat. One day, we robbed a banquet of rich folks not knowin’ that they were Benji’s people. He beat us to a pulp and had his crew tie us to railroad racks.”

You nearly choke on your piece of steak. Geto shrugs like it’s nothing. “However, he gave us a proposition: he could either kill us or we work for him and pay off our ‘debt’ to him. As two teens with nothin’ to lose, how could we say no?”

“We worked for him for two years, helpin’ him rob banks, beat people up who owed him money, etc, etc,” Gojo adds, “but we never killed no one. That was somethin’ we fused to do…until we had to.” His ocean-blue eyes look down at his water, fiaxating on it. You have a feeling that this is a hurt piece for them, especially when Geto gets up to clean his and Gojo’s empty plates.

You watch him walk to the kitchen in silence, his big boots thudding across the floor. He turns on the sink and begins to soak the dishes in hot water.

“We were in Bull’s Creek chasin’ down a guy that owed Benji money for savin’ his farm,” he explains as the water runs. “He had moved himself and his family into hidin’, but we found ‘em and dragged them all outside, hogtied…includin’ the kids.”

You bite back a gasp, a vision of your small town popping into your head the night your life changed: burning homes and businesses; kids crying for their parents in the street; families beaten in front of their children; your mother’s arms stretched out to you as her neck bursts with blood.

You swallow hard, not sure if you want him to continue, but you listen anyway. “We thought Benji just wanted the husband, but imagine our shock to find out he wanted everyone,” Geto continues as he scrubs one of the plates with a sponge. “Told Gojo and me to put a bullet in all of ‘em, make sure that thee we no survivors that could place his face. In reality, I think he just wanted to test us.”

“And ‘cause he’s a sick motherfucker that gets off on the death of innocents,” Gojo adds. He sounds nonchalant, but you can tell he’s angered by how hard he grips his glass. “We didn’t do it, so he forced us to watch his minions do it. They left their bodies to bake in the sun, not even givin’ the kids a grave.”

You’re silent, processing the awful yet confusing information. Could they really be different from the outlaws like Benji, Valentine, and the ones that destroyed your home? Could these two really have morals?

Geto finally stops cleaning and comes back over to the table. “After we realized how crazy Benji was, we left and haven’t seen him since,” he explains as he sits. “That’s when we made our business targetin’ the baddies across the West and made a name for ourselves. People started comin’ to us for help.”

That explains why so many corrupt people were showing up in the papers, dead. Maybe…just maybe…they could be different.

“So what about Valentine?” you ask, pushing your plate aside. “How’d you meet him?”

Geto leans back in his chair, crossing his leg over the other. “A year ago, he came to us askin’ us for help to get some trafficked money off of a Cherrywood train that was stolen from his land.”

“Such a big, fat fuckin’ lie,” Gojo sighs disappointedly, shaking his head. “But because we were stupid, we said yeah and he agreed to cut us half of the money if we helped him. We teamed up with his crew with no problem, not realizin’ that we had been set up from the jump.”

He then pulls a cigarette and a matchbox out of his pocket. Before he lights it, his blue eyes tick to yours expectantly. "You don't mind?" he asks and you shake your head, so he strikes a match, lights his cig up, and takes a puff. Geto walks over and Gojo passes him the cigarette which he gladly takes a drag of.

When Geto speaks again, you see the entire scene flash in your head down to the last gruesome detail: “As soon as we got on that train, he took everyone hostage, includin’ the conductor. We tried to stop him, but he and his guys massacred every person on that train and then escaped before the train went off the rails. It crashed, but we survived and woke up in a cell.”

He pauses, taking a sip of his water. With Valentine MIA, we were forced to do some time before the sheriff cut us a deal: if we help bag Valentine and keep up good behavior aka no killing, we stay out of prison.”

He shrugs passively. “Seemed easy enough, so we took it and now, here we are with you.” He gives you a smile as does Gojo, warm and friendly despite the horrible, complicated story they told you about Benji’s sadistic ways and being framed by Valentine.

You look between the two of them, even more confused than before. Their smiles fade as they read your expression, probably thinking the worst. You put your hands on the table and interlace them as you lean in toward them. “You barely know me and you’re tellin’ me this,” you point out. “Why?”

The two share a glance, probably not expecting this question. But Geto answers you regardless: “Because we want you to make this decision. We want your help, Y/N, but we won’t force you. If you want to walk out that door, you can.” He juts his chin at the motel door, your exit from this conversation AND possible agreement.

But something, whether it be their honesty or the way they look at you with such genuine warmth, keeps you there. You look down at your hands. They are shaking.

“You wanna know why I want Benji?” you ask, not waiting for a yes. “While it may be a stretch, I believe takin’ him out would let every other fucker on this God-forsaken planet know that their sins and crimes will not go unpunished. It would scare them to know that such a powerful man like Benji the Bandit was taken out by someone, let alone a woman.”

You raise your head to look at Geto and Gojo again, still seeing those genuine, soft gazes.

“I’ll help y’all,” you firmly say, “but on one condition: y’all help me get out of the county and to Willow Springs.”

Gojo raises an eyebrow, confused and curious. “What’s in Willow Springs exactly?” he asks.

You nearly smile at his question, picturing the beautiful town located in the North already. “Freedom,” you answer. “A life without constant runnin’ and dodgin’ the law. A quiet life out of the West…but the only way there is through the Devil’s Trail.”

Aka the hardest, roughest trail in the West. It is known for its treacherous heat, barren, dry lands, and predators lurking around every rock and cactus. There is no way you could ever survive on your own.

You look at Geto, crossing your arms over your bosom. “I thought about what you said: if Valentine does talk, I’ll need the protection, especially on Devil’s Trail. When we catch Benji, you’ll take me to Willow Springs. Then we’ll part ways, forget this ever happened, and live happily ever after.”

You stick your hand out to them, wordlessly asking for a deal. The two share a glance before they each smile. “You’ve got a deal then, little lady,” Geto says before he shakes your hand.

Gojo does the same and you ignore the tiny spark of electricity you feel zip up your arm when you hold each of their leather-covered palms.

“Now let’s get some sleep,” Gojo announces, looking pleased. We’ll need all the rest we can get ‘cause tomorrow will be a long day.” He nods at you, smiling. “But first, you need a room.”

#black fanfic writer #smutty smut #my works #black coded reader #my fic shit #black writers #jjk smut #cowboy gojo #cowboy geto #satosugu #satoru gojo x black!reader #suguru geto x black!reader #cowboy!au #cowboy!geto #cowboy!gojo #poly smut #poly love

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kreideprinz69 · 9 months

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And sadly that sentiment isn't just on Tumblr and Reddit. But also on places like TVTropes, where a person who might want to know more about Danganronpa's characters may be liable to go. On his character page, they used his actions in Chapter 5 to slap him with the Hypocrite label. Just... This perception of Nagito as the "Evil Makoto" or being a hypocrite about hope is honestly fucking vile. Of course Nagito feels despair in his heart. He has every goddamn reason to. If you gave Makoto or really any of the other cast members the life Nagito had, they would have turned out pretty much the same way. The revelation he received in Chapter 4 was probably the most soul-crushing one that ANY character in the series has received. Unlike the "Actually the world has gone to shit" and the "Your personalities and backstories were all implanted into you for a reality show" revelations in DR1 and V3, there is no silver lining he could cling to. As far as he's aware, he and all his classmates betrayed everything Hope's Peak stood for and became complete monsters that ruined the world. Including the man that he's infatuated with. He would have had no idea about the brainwashing being a thing considering how Monokuma and AI Junko tried to frame the revelation to the Chapter 6 survivors. ANYONE in that position, with all the extra baggage Nagito had, would feel their spirit break. Including Makoto. His actions in Chapter 5 do not make Nagito weak-willed or a hypocrite. They make him fucking human. And as a side-note, I think the fact that he came to cling on to the concept of hope as a coping mechanism for the shit that he was put through is actually a sign of mental strength, not weakness. Consider what might have happened if he reacted to the insanity of his luck cycle in a different way. Someone else in his position could have just as easily become an uncaring nihilist that gave up on trying anything.

i truly do not understand how people came to the conclusion that nagito is a hypocrite. his actions and motives are arguably some of the most consistent than anyone else in the game. some people lack a lot of media literacy comprehension </3 especially on reddit or twitter… dear god. i try to avoid a lot of it.

take this with a grain of salt because this was something i saw a long time ago; i remember hearing that nagito was supposed to sort of reflect makoto, not as like his “evil” version but just a darker take on him. Hope taken to the unhealthy extreme mixed in with ridiculous amounts of trauma. sounds so pleasant! but they have a lot of similarities and a lot of opposites, which i’ve always found very interesting and they make complete sense if you think about them!

nagito’s character really is just tragic. unfortunately a lot of people put him into a box and don’t try to make much sense of his actions. which trying to fit nagito into a box is already impossible, he’s purposefully a contradictory character- but when you really take a minute to think about all of his actions, it makes complete sense why he does the things he does. i will never understand the lack of empathy some people had for him in chapter 5, he had everything taken from him and his entire world just shattered. the actions he took weren’t good by any means, but he tried so hard to do what he believed was the right thing. ugh i feel just awful for him man. that whole chapter was so well written in my opinion, and it really tied nagito’s whole character together.

and with the part about him clinging onto hope, it’s definitely a sign of strength! he’s a very resilient person and doesn’t get enough credit for it. he had a whole villain origin story and managed to keep trying lol. now this is more of just a theory i’ve had and i don’t have much medical knowledge at all; but i’ve always wondered if some of his obsession with hope had anything to do with his dementia. OCD is a symptom of frontotemporal dementia, and i think the more crazed obsession with hope that we see during the killing game could 100% have overlap with that. i might make a different post going more in depth on that because i think understanding just how nagito’s brain actually works on a fundamental level, gives a lot more insight onto him as a character. there was definitely a lot of research and care put into his character so there’s a lot to pick apart!

#nagito komaeda #sdr2 #danganronpa

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butwhatifidothis · 3 years

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If you ask me, yes, it's incredibly annoying to have a POV character constantly bring up their sad and tragic past, because after the 5th time I stop feeling anything. If anything, Edelgard DOES feel sorry for herself a lot for sympathy, but it has more to do with her being sad about been seen as the bad guy (because people have the nerve to defend themselves in her shitty war instead of rolling over and dying) and her friends leaving her and the game wants you to feel bad for her instead of her victims because of THAT. Her backstory only comes up once. (which is why I forget it exists sometimes tbh since I feel at times like it was a slapped-together last-minute addition to make her an extra woobie villain and you can't have players sympathize more with fellow survivors of tragedy like Dimitri and Rhea)

Yeah! It’s like, it’s not like Edelgard doesn’t make herself out to be this poor figure, right? But she doesn’t hate herself. She doesn’t actually feel guilt or regret (her own words). She certainly doesn’t think she’s weak and she definitely is prideful and arrogant. She’s just also kinda sad that people will see her as a villain (because she is) and that she’ll “have” to walk her path alone, but if anything she thinks she’s strong and brave for being willing to do so. She doesn’t think she’s this evil creature - of course she doesn’t! She’s self-righteous! She’s self-centered! And you’re supposed to notice that! You’re supposed to notice how she makes things about herself when actively ruining lives and killing innocents (lmao bottom text)! Especially when compared to Dimitri, Claude, and Rhea, who always try to save as many people as possible (save for when Dimitri and Rhea are literally pushed past the brink by Edelgard!)! These are faults in Edelgard! I’ve talked about them enough times to know that!

Woobiegard, however, is constant and neverending about how guilty she feels about planning to ruin everyone’s lives, she such a horrible and weak and ugly monster. Nearly every move she makes is “desperate,” she always feels fearful or uncomfortable or unsettled around every single person who is her opponent. She’s able to understand every single one of the people she wants to get close to because her trauma is just so vast and all-encompassing that she knows exactly how others feel when going through suffering, because she’s just suffered so so much. Suddenly Edelgard making everything about herself is her “being empathetic” and her sadness at having to walk her path alone and being seen as the villain are both overblown to shit as well as no longer flaws.

We’re supposed to actually feel sad that Edelgard feels this way. We’re supposed to actually think that she is as big a victim as she thinks she is (which, mind you, is an even bigger one than what canon says!). We’re supposed to find her constantly making everyone’s trauma about her her her a showcasing of how big her heart is or some shit, not her being a self-centered bitch who can’t possibly relate to anyone without it being about her in some way. Her trauma is fuckin’ shoved in the reader’s face just in case we forget how poor and tragic and helpless and scared and self-hating and guilty and desperate Edelgard is, because god for-fuckin’-bid Edelgard actually being confident and sure of herself literally ever.

It’s like I said: that’s probably why Edelgard has so many of Dimitri’s traits slapped onto her in this fic, since Dimitri is a genuinely sympathetic character that the player actually feels bad for. He feels guilty for all he’s done, he’s empathetic (and related Byleth’s losing their father to his own loss of his own father, something that can be directly compared and not the fuckin’ six degrees of separation game Woobiegard plays), he is almost always fighting against his trauma and how it affects him - and his trauma actually negatively affects him in significant ways and have a sizable impact on nearly all aspects of his life. Edelgard isn’t Dimitri, but this fic wants to pretend that she is, so the author just slaps on Dimitri’s traits on her and hopes nobody’ll notice.

Woobiegard is like Edelgard only in the most superficial ways possible, and it’s baffling to think that this version of “Edelgard” is what’s in the most popular Edelgard-POV fic (by hits) on AO3.

#ask #anon #exqueuese me princess #o captain my captain #anti edelgard #Anti-edelgard #edelgard critical #just to be safe #not count Savior King cuz that's not an Edelgard-focused fic lmao #but yeah this is such a horrible read on her character. it actually makes her WORSE than canon does #cuz for all canon does try to downplay Edelgard's actions she fuckin' dies in three out of four routes. the girly gets fuckin' got #and the last route is the one where full-on tyranny is not-so-subtly said to be happening #but this fic paints her in this self-centered light and then says that's a GOOD thing actually #it's mind-boggling how someone can read this fic and think it's not fuckin' garbage in every way

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rachelbethhines · 4 years

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Tangled Salt Marathon - Rapunzel’s Return Part 1

We’ve finally made to season three and the entire reason why I made this review series. This season features some of the worst writing I have ever witnessed in a television program. And this season kicks off with the third worst episode of the whole series. Rapunzel’s Return is the iceberg that sinks this show and manages to assassinate everyone’s character.

Everyone’s.

Summary: Inside the House of Yesterday's Tomorrow (as seen off screen in "Rapunzeltopia"), Cassandra is greeted by the Enchanted Girl, a spirit who reveals that Cassandra is the biological daughter of the late Mother Gothel, who abandoned her on the night she kidnapped infant Rapunzel. Enraged that Rapunzel has been (unknowingly) overshadowing her for the entirety of her life, and that she will always be unfairly overlooked, Cassandra snatches the Moonstone Opal, absorbs it, and declared Rapunzel's destiny as her own. She manages to escape from the group and cuts all ties with them, with Rapunzel unable to wrap her head around the entire situation. The group returns to Corona and find that it has been taken over by Varian, who has aligned himself with Andrew and the Separatists of Saporia to erase the King and Queen's memories and enslave Corona's citizens.

Plot Hole Number One: Why Would Cassandra Just Blindly Follow A Ghost While Trapped Inside a Haunted House?

Outside of that one snarky remark, Cassandra never stops to question the literal ghost who is bossing her around. The ghost she met in a creepy haunted house. A haunted house that she was already suspicious of before ever going in and that has tried to kill her and her friends many times now.

Cassandra, the most distrusting and cautious of of individuals in the show thus far, just suddenly decides to leave her brain behind from this point forward for no given reason whatsoever.

If you have to dumb down your main character and have them behave OOC in order to get your plot rolling along, then you haven’t a good plot.

Plot Hole Number Two: Cassandra Sees for Herself How Awful Gothel Was to Her Here, So Why Would She Obsess Over the Woman?

Forgetting for a moment that Cass very well knows that Gothel treated her best friend like shit and tried to murder her other friend, Eugene, as evidenced by Quest for Varian; Cassandra can see for herself right here that Gothel is a crap person who never treated her right.

I mean there’s denial, and then there’s flat out stupidity. Cass being hurt by the this reveal is one thing. Cass believing that Gothel really loved her and blaming everyone else for her death is totally another and not based in any kind of sensible logic.

Plot Hole Number Three: Why Would Gothel Even Have a Child to Begin With?

Look, I’ll accept that the flower can deage Gothel enough for her to get laid and bare a kid, but that only brings up the question of why she would keep said kid?

She kept Rapunzel cause she needed her powers in order to stay alive, but Cass? What reason would she want to have Cassandra around? A baby can’t do chores for you and it's a hell of a lot of work to raise one. Plus the show repeatedly tells us over and over again that Gothel doesn’t really love her or even likes having her daugther around so... yeah, what is the point of this? Why didn’t she just drop Cass off at an orphanage to begin with?

You can’t make this type of reveal and have it go against the what we fundamentally know about the characters without explaining why they would partake in such actions.

This is Manipulative Writing

But of course the real reason why this flashback and “twist” exists is just to manipulate the audience into feeling sorry for Cass. It’s not here to actually enhance the story, further the characters, nor answer any mysteries in any real way. That’s why it’s such a poor plot point.

It’s setting up the viewers to have a bias so that they’ll more readily forgive Cassandra for her irreprehensible actions later. In short, it’s the same bullshit that the writers pulled for Frederic back in season one. Only it makes even less narrative sense here because this ‘tragic backstory’ is so divorced from later events in the story.

It’s also flat out lazy because all it’s doing it slapping Rapunzel’s backstory onto Cass instead of letting Cassandra be her own character with her own battles and character development to have.

And before you say, “well that’s the point”, then let me tell you it’s a stupid point. One that makes zero sense for the character and is insulting to the audience’s intelligence.

Plot Hole Number Four: Why Didn’t Gothel Just Stay Hidden Till the Soldiers Left?

Hell, why did Gothel even come back here? We already established that she doesn’t really care about Cass and it’s a plot point that’ll only be further reiterated as the season goes on, so why? Why would Gothel behave like this? How does this help her in her goal? Gothel’s suppose to be smart remember?

Plot Hole Number Five: How Does Any of This Logically Help Zhan Tiri?

So Zhan Tiri is the blue ghost girl and while the series tries to keep it a secret reveal for later, it’s pretty obvious from the get go, so I’ll just be calling the character by her name.

Anyways, Zhan Tiri’s plan is to show Cassandra her past, in order to make Cass angry enough to steal the moonstone and fight Rapunzel, so that the two powers fighting each other will then release her from her interdimensional prison.

Now ignoring how literally none of that was set up nor previously established, and ignoring that Zhan Tiri’s disciples were trying previously to stop the sundrop and her friends from getting to the moonstone, thereby undermining their master’s plan; just how exactly is any of this suppose to work?

Why would showing Cassandra how her mother was a shitty person somehow make Cass angry at Rapunzel, angry enough to try and kill her even, and somehow keep her angry for months on end, in order to fulfill this clearly illogical action that holds no personal benefit to herself?

I don’t mind Cassandra becoming a villain; I just want it to make sense.

This does not make sense.

Not only does it require incredible leaps of logic and Cassandra acting out of character to work, it also depends far to much upon conquincidence and things playing out just in exactly the right way to benefit Zhan Tiri and her poorly laid out plan.

Would it not have made more sense for this “evil master manipulating worlock” to just, you know, lie?

Like shouldn’t she be trying to make Gothel look good? Shouldn’t she be trying to make it all seem like Frederic’s fault (which it mostly is anyways)? If you want Cass to attack Corona and turn against Rapunzel, then why not lie about their involvement or tell some half truth?

Or better yet why not make Gothel and actual complex figure for real?

Ugh... I got to move on from this point, but believe me, we will be back to this dumbfuckery in later episodes.

Plot Hole Number Six: You Can’t Just Ignore that Cap Exists and Is the One Who Raised Cassandra for Most of Her Life

Like I’m sure finding out that you mom was a piece of crap who abandon you hurts, but that doesn’t automatically erase the fact that Cass’s dad was there for her, raised her, and loved her for the majority of her life. I’m not saying that Cap is perfect, but he at least tried to do right by her (and is consequently the best parent in the show) and Cassandra is old enough to recognize that fact. Pretending otherwise is a disservice to everyone. It’s a disservice to the Captain, to Cassandra, to Rapunzel, to Gothel, and to the viewers watching along with this BS.

Trauma Doesn’t Make You Suddenly Stupid

Look, I’m not downplaying Cass’s trauma here. She is allowed to feel upset and yes trauma is painful and effects us all in different ways. Also yes, past trauma can carry on through into adulthood and still harm you.

However that’s not an excuse for hurting others. Cass’s trauma isn’t any less traumatic than any of the other characters’, but neither is it somehow more important than any of theirs. She doesn’t get a free past to step on people just because she was sad once.

Cassandra is, once again, old enough to know this and more importantly smart enough to realize that what happened in the past, if even true, has nothing to do with what she is currently dealing with right now.

Like why is she believing any of this? Why is she still listening to the suspicious ghost that she met in a magical house that’s tricked her and her friends numerous times before? Why would finding out her mom was shit make her turn that anger against her best friend? What does any of this have to do with her current struggles with trying to build up her career or staying friends with Raps?

Remembering past trauma does not make your brain shut off. Even having a mental breakdown or panic attack still does not render you completely senseless and anything done under extreme pressure like that is temporary. You don’t wind up acting bananas constantly for over a year.

As a woman who suffers from complex-PTSD and is an abuse survivor myself, Cassandra’s story is deeply offensive to me. Not the least of which because it actively dumps her down.

This Is the Point Where Cassandra’s Character Gets Assassinated

Like I said in the opening, everyone’s character gets assassinated in this story. Cassandra just happens to be the first to die and it’s right here with this line.

Not only is this line incredibly cringy and poorly worded, and I have to just feel sorry for the VA here cause there’s no way to make this much stupid sound good, but it’s also completely divorced from what’s going on.

Cassandra is suppose to be explaining to her friends why she’s stealing the moonstone and her answer is “I’m this dead bitch’s daughter”? Like oookaaay, and that has what to do with it exactly?

Did Gothel have any connection to the moonstone? Does stealing the moonstone somehow bring her back or fulfil her revenge? What does grabbing the moonstone actually gain Cass and what does that have to do with her dead abusive mom?

The reason why Cass doesn’t work as a villain because she has no goal nor reason for doing what she does. She just lurches from plot point to plot point with no idea of what she is doing nor why she is doing it.

But watch as the show keeps digging in its heels and keeps insisting that Cassandra’s connection to Gothel is totally a sympathetic motive even as it makes less and less sense every damn time it's brought up.

What Does Destiny Even Fucking Mean Any More???

What Destiny?!

There is no damn destiny. There is no prophecy to fulfil, no world to save, no consequence for just having everyone sitting on their asses for two whole seasons. And even if there was a destiny to even steal; why would Cass even want it? What does actually she gain from any of this? And how does any of it connect back to Gothel?

This Should Have Been the Point of Resolution Not the Inciting Incident for Their Break Up

Look no idea is without merit. You can make the stupidest sounding idea engaging if you present it right.

This was not presented right.

If Cassandra being Gothel’s daughter was to hold any meaning to the story, then it needed to be what brought her and Raps back together again, not what broke them apart.

Rapunzel says it right here. Logically this should be common ground for the two of them. There’s no real reason for Cass to direct her anger at Rapunzel over this.

But this show doesn’t care about logic, reason, or treating it’s audience with intelligence. It’s just flashy bullshit “drama” that pretends to be deep but is really a shallow puddle once you stop to think about it for two seconds.

Let’s Talk About “Sisters”

Cass’s face just says it all doesn’t it?

The creator, Chris, wanted to make a story about two “sisters”, because he has two daughters and he thought that would be inspiring and speak to little girls everywhere.

It’s a nice sentiment. Shame he’s so utterly incompetent at it.

There was no build up to them being sisters. Instead all we got was a bunch of meaningless parallels and a very toxic friendship. Even with the Gothel reveal the connection to them being siblings is tenuous at best because there’s no biological relation and more importantly, they weren’t raised together.

Chris is basically trying to rip off the likes of Frozen or Guardians of the Galaxy here with Raps and Cass’s relationship but it doesn’t work when the two siblings in question didn’t actually grow up together. There’s no reason for Cassandra to project her anger at their abusive parent on to Raps because that parent wasn’t the one to actually raise her. And on top of that, said abuser is dead, and both her and Raps have separate guardians in their lives, so the jealousy angle doesn’t work either.

And to make it all the more confusing, Chris failed to inform his crew of this brilliant plot twist, so we now have two seasons of gay baiting put in by the storyboard artists hitting that Cass is in love with her “sister”, And because the hardcore Cazzpunzel stans are the only fanbase that hasn’t given Chris the boot, there’s still even more gay baiting to come.

Why are We Victim Blaming a Baby?

Seriously, Cass? You are twenty four and have a brain. Why are you blaming someone for being kidnapped as a baby? What kind of sense does this make?

Worse, there’s plenty of real shit Cass could get angry at Rapunzel over and this is what you go with show?

If anything Rapunzel should be the one who is pissed here. Cass got to escape and lead a normal life with a loving father all because she got kidnapped as baby. And now said bitch is trying to gaslight her while stealing the very thing she’s been risking her life to grab for a year now.

No You Haven’t Cass

Once again, you got to live a normal life with a loving Dad. You had plenty of chances to build relationships and further your career for 18 years while Rapunzel was trapped in a dang tower, and Rapunzel returning from said tower didn’t cut you off from anything. In fact Rapunzel being rescued from the tower actually presented more opportunities for you and you spent all of season one climbing up the ranks.

There’s Nothing In the Show to Back Up This Statement

Nothing is at stake. There’s no threat here other than Cassandra herself. Cassandra is dranger to the world here not the moonstone. If you wanted it to be the other way around then you should have kept the rocks active during season two.

So Why Didn’t We Go With the Original Set Up From Season Two?

As said before, there are real reasons that were set up during season two that could have motivated Cass.

Rapunzel is irresponsible and can’t be trusted to save the world

Rapunzel is a shit friend and Cass is better off going her own way and leaving everyone high and dry.

Cass’s hand was injured by Raps and the moonstone might be able to heal it

Cass sees the injustice in the class system and wants to fight back against the royals in order to help everyone, not just herself.

Cass might believe she’s stopping Zhan Tiri and not realize she’s being manipulated by her instead

Or is playing along with Zhan Tiri under the idea that she can stall for time figure out how to stop her.

Cass wants to play her and use the power of the rocks to save people only for it to go wrong later.

Possession (which was the original idea in the concept stage)

Like I said, there were plenty of ways to make this work. In fact some are so dang obvious that you’ll hear Cass fans try to claim that a few of those are what her real motivation was despite the the show clearly going against them later. The “fighting against the class system” is a real popular one despite the fact that Cass herself attacks a bunch of poor people repeatedly and doesn’t seem concerned about anyone but herself.

But I digress.

The real reason why we have this bullshit is cause Chris doesn’t want to hold his favs accountable. Rapunzel’s flaws can’t be called out in any meaningful way and Cass gets a convenient scapegoat in Zhan Tiri.

In short both Cassandra and Rapunzel have their agency stolen away from them by the narrative, while still trying to pretend that they’re “strong independent women”. Even though those two things aren’t compatible at all.

What Exactly Have You Been Denied Cass?

Remember Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs?

Lance, Eugene, and Lady Caine were all denied physiological and safety needs while growing up in an orphanage and then later on the streets as a thieves.

Rapunzel was denied psychological needs while being raised by her abuser.

Varian was denied everything on that dang list.

Cassandra tho?

Trauma or no trauma, Cass was still raised in a safe and loving environment for the majority of her life. She, at best, has been denied “self-fulfillment” needs and even then that’s a stretch cause throughout season one we see her time and time again gaining what it was she wanted.

Cassandra isn’t anything special. She’s not suffered any more than anybody else in the show and in fact has lived a pretty cushy life when all is said and done, especially when compared to other characters in the show.

The worst that she has to complain about is working a crappy job for a little while and having a shit mom that she can barely remember. Boo Fucking Hoo.

Note How Easy It Is For Cass to Control the Rocks Here

The show can’t even keep Cassandra’s powers consistent. Like everything else about the character, Cass’s powers come and go as is convenient for the narrative with little explanation as to why.

This Song Doesn’t Work Because It was Cut In Half Due to Time

I’ve talked about the problems with this song before in my songs from TTS ranking list. It’s choppy and consistent. Yet it only feels that way because it was cut down. It’s missing a full other verse, second chorus, and a bridge.

Which is inexcusable because there’s so much dang filler in this show!

We could have had time for the full song if they had just cut one of the non-essential episodes and made all of this a full episode on it’s own. Just save the Corona and Varian stuff for later if need be.

The management of this show is just atrocious.

Why Wasn’t This the Cliffhanger for Season Two?

Speaking of making all of the Cassandra stuff it’s own episode... Everything we just seen should have been in season two.

It’s more connected to what happened last season, it flows better, it would have had more time to breathe, and it would have given us more time in the Dark Kingdom. Given as that this is what season two was building up too, it would have been more satisfying there.

And if the writers still wanted a cliffhanger to end the season in order to draw crowds then this right here was it.

So We We Spent A Whole Season Getting Here and We’re Just Going to Leave Now?

The Dark Kingdom is Wasted!!!!

And because the Dark Kingdom is a bust, the entirety of season two now feels even more pointless.

Chris said he cut the Dark Kingdom stuff because it didn’t interest him.

Chris is a fucking fool.

Ignoring that different people will gravitate towards different things and you need to keep that in mind when writing for mass audiences; you don’t spend valuable time setting things up just to drop them later.

If you didn’t like that particular plot thread then you needed to just not bring it up to begin with. Once you’ve put it in there you need to commit to it.

Behold the Only Thing Useful Shorty Does This Whole Season

There is less Shorty overall this season which is ultimately a good thing, but it does highlight what a stupid decision it was to bring him along to begin with.

I mean did we really drag him around for a whole season just for this? Couldn’t some other Pub Thung or townsperson have found them? One that could talk.

Adria Gets Put on a Bus

Adria doesn’t get assassinated like some of the other characters, but she does get unceremoniously shoved off without any real closure. The character will return later in the season, but brainwashed and without any lines. Which is doubly insulting to the VA who voices her.

And Here Is Where Lance Gets Assassinated

Lance is drastically dumbed down in season three. Even more so than in past seasons. You could call it flanderization specifically, more so than assassination, but the effect is the same. Lance’s character is effectively dead from this point onwards.

Also this should have ended the Lance & Adria ship in the show for good. She flat out rejects him here, but nope.

Eugene is the Only Person Acting Like a Real Human Being This Episode Thus Far

Edmund spent his whole life protecting the moonstone. He lost everything to it. He was convinced that letting Rapunzel take it would be best only for her to lose it right afterwards. And what does he do? Immediately become the “comedicly bad dad” in show oversaturated with both comedic foils and poor father figures.

Meanwhile Eugene is the only one properly responding to what is going on. Don't expect that to last.

I Thought You Left Cass?

Remember that foreshadowing with Quirin way back in the pilot?

This is just that, but dumber.

There’s no reason for Cass to hang around out of sight only to stare menacingly at Rapunzel and company as they leave. It’s just a lazy hook to get viewers to believe that there might be more going on with Cass then what we’ve been told. There’s not.

So This Map Proves That the Dark Kingdom Is North East of Corona

Continuity and worldbuilding in this show is utterly garbage, so I’ll latch on to any little scrape of info that we get.

According to the map shown here, the balloon is heading Southwest back to Corona. That means the Dark Kingdom is Northeast.

So if Corona is somewhere in Northern mainland Europe that means the Dark Kingdom is either in a Nordic country (Norway,Sweden,Finland, ect) or Russia.

Meta Jokes About Being a Bad Writer Doesn’t Excuse Bad Writing

Get use to this. Season three is full of meansprited meta jokes that try to defend against the quite frankly valid criticism that the show has received. Or more specifically the criticism Chris had received.

Most of season three was written during the hiatus of season two back when Chris was seeing backlash from the fans due to his PR fiasco and that’s not even taking into account the crew walkout after season one.

Not only is that too late to be writing your final season, but it’s also reflective of how Chris can’t handle critique with grace nor listen to other ideas as jokes like this are in poor taste.

Everyone Acts Shocked Here but Honestly this Fits King Frederic’s MMO

This is the same guy who prosecuted poor people for eighteen years with his crack down on crime, and thrented the life an orphaned teen. Is anybody really surprised by this?

I Thought Your Real Name was Hubert?

I guess he just prefers the name Andrew. I don’t know. But what do know is that “the devil is in the details” is a thing my animation teacher in college use to say repeatedly, and no one working on this show seems capable of remembering or keeping up with details.

Why Are There Only Five Saporains?

Saporia was set up as an entire race of people who’d been displaced from their homeland for generations. They’ve been living as nomads for centuries according to season two. Why are there only five of them in this episode?

How did they overthrow a kingdom with only five people? How do they maintain hold of it with only five? How do they expect to further their bloodline and culture with only only five of them?

Why did we waste money on a bunch of one off villians that we sent packing in season two and not built more Saporian models instead?

Like you could have had the core five here, as like leaders, and then imply that there are more of them with background citizens and guards ect.

NO!!!

WE DO NOT IMPLY THAT A 15 YEAR OLD BOY WAS LOCKED IN A JAIL CELL WITH A GROWN MAN FOR NEARLY A YEAR!!!!!

I.... What?!

Who the fuck thought this was a good idea to put in a children’s show?

Did no one behind the scenes stop to think, “Hun, maybe we shouldn’t suggest that a teenager was trapped inside a small enclosed space with no way out twenty for hours a day with an adult who attempted to murder his girlfriend when lying to her stopped working. Perhaps someone might get the wrong impression.”?

Like I hate censors as much as the next person, but editors work in the business for a reason, and that reason is to pull the artists aside sometimes and go “Hey, that shit don't fly with normal folk.”

What’s worse is I don’t think the writers were even trying to be shocking and edgy here. I just think they were careless. They needed a quick exposition dumb to explain how Varian and Andrew know each other, and didn’t think through the implications of that line nor considered how Varian’s age changes the context of his situation.

Which is beyond inexcusable because it’s so damn lazy!

You wouldn’t need rushed exposition had you actually took the time to set up this plot point back in season two. Heck, you wouldn’t have needed to even set this plot point up had you not cut Varian’s original story out at the last minute. Finally, you should care enough about your characters to at least take their age into consideration when writing their development.

There’s also the fact that it makes most of the ‘heroes’ look like assholes.

We’ve seen these dungeons several times throughout the show. We know of their poor conditions. There’s little light, the food is slop, there’s no way to stay clean or use the restroom, prisons are never let out for exercise, ect. Like these are medieval style dungeons that are considered inhumane my modern audiences.

Just because the show tries to play off the horribleness of it for laughs doesn’t mean the audience is going to find it funny that they traumatized a fifthteen year old with it.... again!

Moreover Frederic had promised last time we saw him that he would give Varian help. He idea of ‘helping” Varian is supposedly to throw him into a nasty jail cell with a violent criminal? WTF? And there’s no indication that he tried anything to save Quirin either.

Not to mention that none of the mains act surprised by this revelation, nor comment about how awful Varian’s treatment is. As usual for them.

It’s just sicking and most of the atempts to explain away this line by the fans have been super pathetic.

“Frederic was giving him therapy while in jail” - there’s nothing to indicate therapy exists in this world and even if this were true it would be undermined by stupidly throwing him in a cell with Andrew.

“It’s not literal, Varian was in a separate cell” - once again there’s nothing to back this up and even if that were the case it’s not that much better because it’s still a dungeon cell with zero privacy and Varian would still be close enough to Andrew to talk to him thus invading his personal space to some degree or other.

“Well he tried to help but Varian wasn’t cooperative” - still not an excuse and there’s nothing on screen to back up this headcanon.

“It’s someone else’s fault.” - Who’s? Frederic is in charge of everything. The buck stops with him. If a guard did this without his knowledge then that means Frederic neglected his duties and his promise anyways.

“Well maybe it’s true, but Varian did a bad thing and teens who do really bad things get sent to prison in the real world too” - Not an argument. Teens aren’t typically jailed with adults and the conditions for modern jails are at least somewhat better than those in Corona. Plus kids being sent to jail in any form is major topic of controversy in today's time. I’ve already covered why trying teens as adults is a vile abuse of power in the real world; I shouldn’t have to mention that the current government throwing children in cages is a bad thing as well!

“Well that’s just part of the time period” - Doesn’t make it right, and sadly it’s not something in the distant past either. It’s currently happening right now in the US. It was happening when this episode and season was being written. The writers unthinkingly threw in a very real thing that affects hundreds of thousands of children and didn’t bother to follow up on it or comment about how wrong it is.

There’s just no excuse for the way Frederic and Rapunzel treat Varian in this show. There’s just not, and some of y’all really need to stop trying to do so cause it means you’re inadvertently condoning real life abuses of power.

You can like a character and except that they’ve done wrong. That’s a thing that you can do, you know.

Let’s Talk about Character Design

For the most part the art direction in the show is top notch. It really is the best looking animated show on tv today, and the character design is usually of this same quality. But they really dropped the ball with Varian’s design here.

The structural bones of it isn’t bad. Taken on it’s own it would be fine, but good character design is supposed to give context and enhance the story and this doesn’t do that.

We’ve haven’t seen Varian in a year, but instead of visually showcasing the passage of time by having him physically age we just get season one’s design but in bargain bin hot topic clothes and a drawn on barcode.

Even the color palette is wrong.

Varian’s is suppose to feature blues and earthy browns to go with his eyes and hair but instead we get bright reds, neon chimballs, and sharp contrasts with blacks and whites that just clashes with his base colors.

And what does any of this tell the audience? How does it add to the story? What can we glean from his new design about what transpired in the last year?

Nothing.

At best it just reinforces that villian Varian is a try hard edge lord, but we already knew that. We would have known it even without the villain arc cause he’s a teenager. Not that he looks it. The boy is supposed to be either 16 or soon to be 16 and he still looks fucking 12.

What’s more they spent money on this. They made not one, but two new models with two new outfits, but they couldn’t be arsed just to make him a little taller? And no, he’s not actually any taller in season three. He was always Rapunzel’s height regardless of animation errors and squash and stretch techniques.

It’s a waste. Just like nearly everything in season three.

This Is Such a Cop-out

Speaking of things being a waste. Wiping Frederic’s and Arianna’s memories is taking the cowards way out. It’s them escaping any sort of meaningful consequence for their past actions and robs them of the chance to grow and develop as characters. All cause Chris didn’t want to deal with people pointing out the bullshit his self insert caused.

Well guess what, I’m still pointing out Frederic’s BS, only now I’m extra angry cause I was robbed of a genuine character arc, so fuck you!

Was Varian Actually Needed for This Plot?

No really. What does Varian even do here? The wand of oblivium is Saporian magic and they could and apparently did wipe the king’s and queen’s memories without Varian’s mindwipe concoction. That alone apparently gives them the power to run the kingdom.

All Varian does is give them some alchemy based weapons and a bomb he accidentally invents. Both are things that the Saporians could have made themselves given how they know apothecary according to Rapunzel Day One.

I’m currently in the middle of writing an AU fanfiction where Varian winds up in another world before the events of this episode, and let me tell you it is incredibly easy to write him out of the majority of season three without changing the plot much.

Given how Varian is meant to be a main character this season, that’s not a good thing.

So How Come None Of the “Heroes” Give a Shit?

Like I said above, none of the protagonists show the least bit of concern for what Varian is going through. Even though ignoring his needs is precisely what lead to this mess in the first place. It not only makes them look heartless, but it also makes them look plain stupid as well.

Why is it so hard to just even pretend to care about the fact he’s been orphaned? Half of them are orphans themselves for fucks sake!

Varian’s Not the One in Charge Here Rapunzel

I know Varian is the bigger threat and has more of a personal connection to Raps, but it’s pretty clear that Andrew is the mastermind behind this coup. What good does shouting at Varian do? What makes Rapunzel think that any of the Saporians would listen to him even if he did change his mind? What makes her think ordering Varian around after she helped ruin his life would get him to change his mind. Like, my gosh is Rapunzel dumb!

Why Are We Victim Blaming a Child Soldier?

That’s what he is at this point. He’s a weapons specialist for a rival kingdom fighting for control of the government. A government that has abused its own people leading to such an uprising.

A teenager may not be as blameless as a baby but it's still beyond callous and cruel to blame kids and young teens who join extremist groups in war torn lands out of desperation.

Is This Suppose to Be the Inciting Incident for Varian’s Redemption, Cause If So, That Makes No Sense

This look of regret is the only indication that Varian is questioning where he stands before his redemption in part two. Except there he points out that he’s been thinking about it for while now, even before Raps showed up. Only there’s nothing to suggest why Varian would suddenly change his view point and motives. So the audience is still in the dark about his thought process even with this “hint” and I use that word loosely.

Conclusion

So that’s the end of part one. I hope to have part two up before the week is out.

#tangled #anti-rapunzel #anti-cassandra #anti-tangled #varian #tangled the series #rapunzles tangled adventure

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yourdeepestfathoms · 4 years

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Freezer Burn

I’m having to rush to post this because I’m at the river again, so I’ll clean this fic up and add a Read More when I get home. For now, enjoy!

———————

“It’s so pretty!” Kitty cried, bounding from the car towards the glittering frozen lake.

“Oi! Wait up!” Anne yelled, tugging on her puffy green coat and racing after her cousin. Cleves and Maggie were close on her tail, eager to get out in the open.

“Be careful!” Aragon shouted, helping the others take out all their things, thick wasn’t that much- a few chairs, some blankets, snacks and water bottles, items for games, and, of course, the ice skates.

Jane shook her head fondly with a laugh. “And there they go.”

“Dummies.” Aragon sighed, then smiled. “Come on. Let’s go catch up.”

They crunched through the thick layer of snow over the ground, chatting over what they were planning on doing. Behind them, another pair of footsteps trudged after them.

“Will you stop moping?” Jane sighed, swinging her head around to the girl who mimicked her appearance nearly exactly.

Joan wrinkled her nose. She folded her arms up closer to hold herself tighter and shuffled her feet nervously, then immediately regretted that decision when a few chunks of snow got into her boots. She shook her foot with a pitiful expression plastered on her tired face.

“It’s cold.” She said for the hundredth time.

“We know, dear,” Aragon said gently, although Jane could tell she was a little frustrated from the way she flared out her nostrils. She had been looking forward to this trip for a long time and definitely didn’t want it to be ruined for her. “But you’ll warm up soon.”

“How?” Joan said miserably. “Also, this is dangerous! An actual ice rink would be a lot better...” She looked around, as if she were expecting a glacier to suddenly appear and crush all of them.

“But expensive.” Jane pointed out.

“And packed.” Aragon added. She was getting more irritated by the second and kept glancing longingly at the frozen lake behind her. “Come on, it’s not that bad. You’ll have fun!”

Joan made a face and looked like she was trying to pull a scenario where she did have a good time, but wasn’t finding anything in the whirlwind that was her mind.

“But- but-” She scrambled after Jane and Aragon as they continued their trek. Cathy, Maria, and Bessie had already gone ahead and made it down to the bay, where they were currently putting on their ice skates (although Bessie was insisting that she didn’t need them). “What if we- we could- we could fall through! Or get hypothermia! Or frostbite!” She cast a nervous glance at her glove-covered hands, as if she were imaging what it would be like playing the keyboard without all her fingers. When she looked up again, Jane and Aragon were several paces away. “Wait!”

She caught up to the two queens, walking alongside Jane, who practically seemed like the pompous, more confident version of her. When they reached the shore, she took one glance at the lake and then backed up several steps.

“Come on, Joan,” Jane said with a sigh. “Don’t be such a buzzkill.”

Aragon laughed. “Real mature, Jane.”

Jane grinned at her, then crouched down to get her ice skates on. Aragon does the same, while Joan, unsurprisingly, hangs back. She’s now directed her attention to the others, who have already begun sliding on the ice. She took another step back.

“Joan, dear, everything will be fine.” Aragon told her. Joan gave her a betrayed look. “Jane, are you done?”

Jane laughed. “Go ahead and start without me. I’ll be there in a moment.”

Aragon nodded and hurried out onto the ice without a second of hesitation. Jane stood up a moment later, wobbling slightly on the ice skates. Behind her, she heard Joan mutter a soft, “Please be careful” before she joined the others on the lake.

Joan is left alone on the shore, sitting in a spot she’s dug out for herself without any snow. She hugged her knees and watched everyone have fun, but she couldn’t bring herself to join them. A million bad situations were running through her head: The ice cracking and everyone falling in, hypothermia, frostbite, falling through the ice again, a sudden blizzard and they all freeze to death, drowning- all of them drowning was her most persistent fear. And it was something they should be worrying about, too, but she guessed it didn’t cross their mind at all.

She sighed and rested her chin on her knees. She could already imagine what they were thinking about her: Why is Joan always so mopey? and Why does Joan always have to ruin this for us? and Why did Joan even come along if she’s going to act so miserable? and What’s wrong with Joan?. They were all just going on in their heads about how terrible she was, she just knew it.

Well, she didn’t need them. She could have fun on her own!

Joan stood up and explored down the perimeter of the lake, far enough to where she couldn’t hear the other’s voices, but close enough to where she could still see them. From her position, they were just colorful dots sliding haphazardly across the ice. Even from a distance it still made her nervous. How could they do something so stupid and dangerous?

She sighed and poked the ice with her foot worriedly, then immediately drew her leg back. She frowned and continued down the bay, deep in thought.

You’re dragging them all down, Her mind mumbled ruefully. You want them to like you, and yet you continue to act like this. A buzzkill. Is that what you want to be? The person who ruins everything for everyone?

Joan shook her head softly and glanced over her shoulder, hoping to see one of her friends coming to hang out or play with her. She perked up when she saw that someone was skating over to her, but then immediately deflated when she saw the hot pink of the jacket they were wearing.

“What do you want?” She grumbled at Kitty, who skidded to a halt in front of her on the ice.

“Ah, so you guessed I’m not over here for your bubbly personality,” Kitty said with a light giggle that earned her a scowl that could melt the ice beneath her feet. “I just wanted to talk.”

“About what?” Joan asked skeptically, eyeing the youngest queen up and down. She didn’t look like she was going to try anything, especially on those ice skates. Although they could probably cut her if she put them against her skin with enough force.

“Oh, you know,” Kitty twirled her wrist. She glanced momentarily back at the others. “Okay, I’ll just cut to the chase.” She inched further to the bay. “Joan, you’re kinda...bringing everyone else down.”’

“What?” Joan said sharply.

“You’re trying to convince everyone that they’re going to die or something.” Kitty clarified. “It’s weird. And kinda creepy.”

Joan crossed her arms. “Because being on fragile ice is dangerous!” She snapped, but Kitty rolled her eyes.

“We’re trying to have fun.” She said. She peered at Joan for a moment then tilted her head at her as if she were a peculiar art sculpture. “You know, I think I’ve finally got you figured out.”

Joan stepped back a little. “What?” She growled.

“You’re like a bomb.” Kitty declared. “That puts everyone in danger. And we’re all just waiting for when you’ll finally go off.”

Joan flinched as if she had been sprayed with the venom loaded in the young queen’s words. She took another step away, but Kitty just slid closer to her like a hideous poisonous snake just waiting to sink her fangs into her prey’s throat.

“You don’t think I don’t notice the way to eye Jane and I all the time?” Kitty went on. “It’s so creepy. You’re so jealous. You’re gonna pop one day and I’m scared you might hurt one of us.” She extended a hand and set it on Joan’s shoulder, smirking softly at the shivers she felt pulsing beneath her palm. “And I’m very worried about you. You need help.”

Joan clawed off Kitty’s hand and glared at the queen. She ruffled herself up to her full size, but even Katherine Howard was more intimidating than her.

“Get the fuck away from me.” She seethed. Kitty looked unfazed by her rage; her face continued to wear the mock-concerned expression that made Joan want to gouge her eyeballs out with her thumbs.

Oh dear, Joan thought, alarmed. Is that what Katherine meant? She glanced momentarily at her hands, half expecting them to be dripping with blood and eyeball fluids. No- no, of course not! Katherine doesn’t know anything about me! I’m not a bad person!

“Joey? Joey?” Kitty is waving a hand in front of Joan’s face. She smiled innocently at the scowl she earned. “There you are! You kinda drifted off for a moment.” Her mock-concern returned to her facial features. “Are you feeling alright?” She extended a hand to feel Joan’s forehead and it was slapped away.

“I said to leave me alone!” Joan barked. She advanced on Kitty, but jolted backwards the moment her foot touched the ice. Kitty laughed loudly- it was a terrible, high-pitched cackling noise that rattled in her ears.

“I expect no less from you,” She said, smiling crookedly. She slid back against the ice, moving elegantly on her skates. “Bye, Joey!”

Joan was left fuming, but her rage was quickly snuffed out when a cold breeze blew past her. She shivered and wrapped her arms around herself, staring down at the faint reflection glimmering back at her on the ice.

That bitch. Her mind seethed. The usual drizzle that cascaded through her head has picked up into a downpour of angry thoughts; Kitty being left out here ‘on accident’ and turning into a hot pink popsicle, Kitty getting pelted in the face with a snowball that has a rock hidden in it, Kitty falling through the ice and freezing to death.

She quickly silenced them, however. As much as she didn’t like the youngest queen, she didn’t want her dead. Not exactly. But she wouldn’t be devastated if she got hypothermia by some chance.

I’m not- I’m not a fucking bomb! If anyone is a bomb it’s her! She raged internally, stomping her foot against the frozen dirt blanketing the bay. With her trauma and tragic backstory and sadness! Oh, who am I kidding? She’s living in the lap of luxury. She’s anything BUT a bomb. She’s just a pampered pink Pomeranian! Haha...nice alliteration.

She shook her head, leering at the ice, which bounced back with a painfully bright glare. She scrunched her eyes shut and sighed.

I’m not dragging everyone down, either... I can have fun!

She stepped onto the ice, immediately backed away, and then took several seconds to try again. This time, she manages to get both feet onto the surface and stand there. The ice creams beneath her, but doesn’t crack. She took another step after a moment of waiting, then another, then another, until she’s far away from the shore. A feeling of pride welled in her chest, beating down the underlying sensation of fear and anxiety and worry.

Haha! Suck my ass, Katherine! Her mind declared triumphantly. Who’s a coward now?

She wasn’t up to skating, especially without proper skates, but she at least tried to slide a few inches. It was pretty fun- she could see why the others would enjoy this, but she definitely preferred to be at a proper ice rink.

Joan scooted herself around to face the distant figures of the queens and ladies in waiting, and was upset to see that they weren’t even looking in her direction. She really wanted them to see how she WASN’T a buzzkill and she DID know how to have fun, but they didn’t even seem to care about her anymore. They were too busy messing around on the ice and playing with some hockey sticks that were brought along to notice her.

Joan sighed and shivered as a cold breeze whisked past her. She waited for a moment longer, shifting her weight when her knees got tired, and heard a terrible, nightmarish sound from below her.

Crack-crack-crack.....

Cobwebs were spread out from the ice below one of Joan’s feet. They were thin, but deep trenches, like dreadful claw marks created by a horrible monster. Suddenly, nothing makes sense and that only makes her panic even more. The fear of the unknown keeps her mind from functioning rationally. She can’t breathe, she can’t run, she can’t escape.

Stay still. Her mind whispered to her. It’s not a drizzle nor a hurricane anymore, but a vicious hailstorm. Maybe you can call for help.

She looked back at the others, who were still sliding and skidding around without a care in the world, so oblivious to the danger she’s in just several meters away. She opened her mouth to yell for them, but nothing came out, not even a whimper or a whine. And even if she could, what could they do? If they got too close, the whole lake may collapse and they’ll all fall in. Why would they even help her, anyway? They’ve all proven that she’s just a nuisance. In fact, they would probably enjoy watching her freeze to death.

A star-shaped crack burst out from the first one, and a whimper finally surfaced in Joan’s throat. She looked up at the dark grey sky, a hot tear ran down her left cheek, and then the ice gave way under her feet and she plunged into the freezing water.

For a brief moment, she felt burning hot, but then the cold hit her like a thousand knives, sharp and insistent, driving the breath from her lungs. She tried to flounder to the surface, but even with the adrenaline rush momentarily teaching her how to swim, she still couldn’t get out. She couldn’t find the hole she fell through. She was trapped under a thick, impenetrable floor of ice.

Joan screamed, clawing desperately at the sheet of ice above her, but it does no good. Even when she hits at it, it doesn’t dent.

With a jarring shock, she realizes that this is how she died.

As her mind began to waver, succumbing to the cold, she cried for her parents to help her, but it's no use: they couldn't help her. They’re gone. Dead. And even if they weren’t, they wouldn’t help her, anyway. So, she cried for John, she cried for Jane, she cried for Aragon and everyone else, wishing that she had been more likable, that she didn’t stop them from doing stuff because she thought it was too dangerous and making them mad in the process, that she hadn’t have worried all the time, that she could actually call them her friends without her stomach sinking in a horrible, disbelieving way.

But it didn’t matter anymore. In just a few more moments, her lungs would finally give out, and then it would all be over.

———

“Holy shit!”

“Is she down there?!”

“What happened?! What’s going on?!”

“Oh my god—!!”

“Should I call an ambulance?!”

“What are you-”

“Where is she-”

“What is-”

“Mum, what are you doing?!”

The queens and ladies in waiting watched as Jane haphazardly sprinted across the frozen lake to the jagged hole created near the center and fell to her knees so hard cracks spread out beneath her. She crawled to the edge of the icy abyss and peered down, then scuttled backwards and frantically began scanning the ice until, suddenly, she raised her hands and began hitting at the surface. After a few swings, the ice shatters and she nearly fell in while grabbing at something. A moment later, she’s dragging something out of the water.

Joan.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Jane cursed, staring in horror at the curled up body before her. She glanced momentarily at the others on the bay, then back at Joan, who was shivering in a horrifying way that reminded Jane of the way she had trembled after she gave birth to Edward.

Suddenly, Joan coughed and water came flooding out of her mouth. The freezing shock seemed to register in her body and she let out a strangled cry that’s thick with frigid lake water. She gargled on it, too weak to scream or even cough anymore.

“Hey, hey, I’ve got you,” Jane told her, cupping one of her cheeks and turning her face up to her. The shade of blue her skin has turned to terrified her. “Fuck... Fuck!”

Jane scooped Joan up into her arms and made a beeline for the shore. She could hear the ice breaking all around her, and for a few horrific moments her feet would dip into the freezing water below, but she managed to get back to the others.

“Holy shit!” Cleves cried, bug-eyeing the blue, shivering body in Jane’s arms. “Fuck, is she- is she okay?!”

“No!” Jane snapped, racing past them back to the cars. “She’s going to fucking freeze to death!”

The others hurried after her, exchanging looks behind her back. It was a little...odd for Jane to be so concerned about Joan of all people. Most of them would have guessed she would enjoy watching the music director sink to the bottom of the frozen lake and drown. But here she was, carrying Joan through the snow like a frantic search-and-rescue officer.

They all skidded to a halt in front of the cars. Joan was shivering even more than before and her teeth have started to clatter up against each other loudly. Her moon silver eyes were glassy and glazed over, but they stared up at Jane with hope that the woman wouldn’t let her die- that she would save her. And Jane looked determined to do just that.

“What do we do?” Jane snapped her head at Cathy, who jolted slightly under her sharp gaze. “How do we help her?”

Cathy stumbled over her words for a moment before she’s able to get her head on straight. “Well— first of all, stop being so rough with her!”

“I’m not being rough!” Jane growled. “Just tell me what to do!”

“We should take her to the hospital,” Maria piped up.

That seemed to wake Joan up, because the girl suddenly whimpered and shook her head stiffly.

“N-no,” She choked out through her chattering teeth. “N-n-no h-hospital...c-can’t...go...n-no, J-J-Jane d-don’t l-l-l-let them—”

Jane looked down at Joan and knew exactly what she was fearing. She gave Maria a hard stare.

“We’re not taking her to the hospital. That’ll make her worse.”

“Actually, believe it or not, hospitals do the exact opposite of that.” Anne pointed out.

Jane looked at her like she wanted to rip her head off and feed it to some vultures.

“Yes, so she can panic and have a possible heart failure from her anxiety?” She said. “Not happening.” She whipped her gaze back to Cathy. “Come on. You’re supposed to be the smart one who knows everything. Tell me what to do. How do I help her?”

Joan made a miserable noise in Jane’s arms and the queen held her closer to her chest. She buried her half-frozen face against it, desperate for warmth and clearly not caring if it took burrowing against a bosom to get it.

“Skin-to-skin contact.” Cathy blurted. “It’s- it’s not the only way, but it’s the best way. Body heat would be more efficient than blankets.”

Everyone seemed to share a moment of secondhand embarrassment, aside from Jane, who just looked determined. She nodded.

“Alright.”

“Okay, so who’s getting naked?” Kitty said jokingly, trying to lighten the mood, but Jane scowled at her and she hunched her shoulders in and looked away.

“Wait, hold on,” Anne said. “You’re not- look, I get it, we don’t want Joan to freeze to death, but getting naked with her? Can’t we just wrap her up in some blankets and then put her in a hot bath once we get back home?”

Cathy shook her head. “Putting her in hot water could make her heartbeat irregular. She may go into shock and, well-” A grim expression flitted through her eyes. “Die.”

“Good thinking, Anne.” Jane spit. “I’ll do it.”

“But-”

“She’s seen me give birth before,” Jane said to Aragon, who was trying to reprimand. Her eyes softened slightly when she spoke to the first queen, who, unlike everyone else, genuinely looked worried about Joan. “Look, I know you’re close to her, but it’ll be less awkward like this. She’s seen my vagina already- there will be less harm in me seeing hers.”

“I mean- that’s one way to put it.” Maggie tilted her head, blinking.

“I hope you won’t be looking down there.” Cleves added.

Aragon opened her mouth, possibly to argue, but just ended up saying, “Alright. But I’m driving you guys home.”

“Sounds good to me,” Jane said. She nodded at one of the cars and Cathy scrambled to open it. She turned around at the others after setting Joan inside. “A little privacy?”

The others jolted and immediately began dispersing. Jane turned her attention back to Joan, who suddenly looked much worse. She gently touched the girl’s icy cheek and she leaned into the touch.

“You’re going to be okay,” Jane whispered.

Joan doesn’t answer, but she does shudder when a breeze of frigid air whisked through the open door. However, it cannot compete with whatever shard of ice has taken lodging in her core. Jane shut the car door after Aragon handed her all the blankets they brought with them, then got to the process of peeling off all of Joan’s layers, including her undergarments. She wanted to keep them on to leave the poor girl some dignity, but they were practically frozen to her chest and groin, so they had to go, too.

After draping a green blanket that’s dappled with white spots over her shaking patient, Jane removed her clothing and then realized what exactly she was doing. She bit her lip, feeling flutters of embarrassment flit in her stomach, but she shoved them down. She could wallow in humiliation later.

A soft gasp escaped her lips as Joan’s freezing skin pressed against her warm stomach. She was still very wet, even without all her clothes on, so Jane started to wipe off her horribly blue skin with one of the blankets while holding her close to her. Joan nuzzled into her chest and Jane winced in embarrassment, but, once again, pushed it aside. Joan needed her warmth if she wanted to live.

“You’re going to be okay,” Jane whispered. She wrung out the wet blonde mop that was Joan’s hair and cold water came splashing down onto the blankets swaddling both of them. “I promise. You’re going to be just fine... I’ve got you.”

Aragon got into the driver’s seat a moment later, but didn’t look back at them, which Jane appreciated. She and Joan may have been both completely covered in blankets, but she still preferred to not be ogled at.

“How is she?” Aragon asked, pulling out of the small clearing.

“Still cold.” Jane answered, looking down at the head resting on her chest. She slipped a finger under Joan’s chin and lifted her head up slightly. “Joan? Joan?”

“‘S m’name,” Joan managed, peeling open one cloudy grey eye. “J-J-Jane?”

“Joan,” Jane said again, this time relieved. “You’re awake.”

“Th-th-think s-so,” Joan mumbled, then her body shuddered in that horrible, frightening way. She coughed weakly, which seemed to grate through her chest like icicle spears. “H-hurts...”

“I know, sweetie,” Jane whispered. The pet name gets Aragon to glance over for the first time, but her eyes quickly dart away when Jane looks up at the rearview mirror. “But you’re going to be okay. You just need to stay away for me.”

“Tired,” Joan panted, flopping her head back onto Jane’s chest. She was like a miserable, wet, shaking, bundle of anxiety in her arms.

“Here,” Aragon reached back. “Put this against her chest.” In her hand was one of the pouches they brought with them. It would heat up when squeezed.

“Thanks.” Jane took it and slipped one hand under the blankets to hold the pouch to Joan’s chest. Immediately, the girl whined faintly, attempting to squirm away, be failing and giving up after a moment. She resumed shaking and chattering her teeth and panting weakly for the rest of the drive. When her eyes would open, Jane noticed that they looked deeply troubled and stricken by something other than the hypothermia she was infected with. She wanted to ask about it, but knew it was hardly the time.

“Jane, Jane...” Joan began to mumble at some point in the drive. She pressed her face into the warmth of Jane’s neck, exhaling a shaking breath. Her fingernails scratched against the queen’s bare skin, desperate for a hold. “J-Jane...”

“I’m right here,” Jane whispered to her. “It’s okay. I’ve got you. I’m right here, honey.”

“Jane...” Joan muttered again, this time more contently. She blinked a few times and looked down. “You’re naked.”

Aragon snorted, but immediately tried to smother it. Even Jane had to bite back a smile.

“Yes,” She said. “I am.”

“That’s weird.” Joan said. “Am I naked?”

“Yes.”

“Hm.” Joan closed her eyes and shivered against Jane’s stomach. “You’re really, really warm...”

“I know, love.” Jane stroked her wet hair. “And soon you will be, too.”

“By cuddling naked?”

Aragon laughed this time.

“Hush,” Jane told Joan softly. “You’re doing so good. Just keep breathing and I’ll make sure you stay warm.”

“I like that plan...” Joan mumbled tiredly.

When they finally reach the house, Joan has slipped off into a daze. She’s still shivering, but not as badly. Aragon smiled slightly.

“You did good, Jane,” She said. “I’ll take her from here. You can get dressed and then join us inside.”

“Yes, because I was definitely planning on walking up to our house naked.” Jane rolled her eyes playfully.

Aragon laughed and then picked Joan up, making sure she was still swathed in all the blankets. The moment she’s gone, Jane felt a strange chill run through her and her arms seemed a lot more empty. She shook her head, deciding to just cuddle with Kitty later to get over it.

But why did it feel like Kitty wouldn’t satisfy her...?

“Thank you, Jane.” Aragon said to her. “Really.”

Jane smiled at her, although she couldn’t take her eyes off of Joan.

“It was no problem.” She said. “Just— take care of her, okay? God knows she needs someone to...”

#six the musical #six the musical fanfic #six the musical fanfiction #six fanfic #six fanfiction #katherine howard #anne boleyn #jane seymour #catherine of aragon #joan on the keys #maggie on the guitar #anna of cleves #maria on the drums #catherine parr #bessie on the bass

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ladyantiheroine · 3 years

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Tragic Backstories

Hey my fellow writers, I have a question: Does anyone have any ideas for a character’s backstory that doesn’t involve dead parents/loved ones?

Don’t get me wrong, a character mourning the loss of a loved one can be very powerful and can work as an internal wound/motivation for a character. But it seems like “dead loved ones” is an easy backstory trope writers fall back onto, and I’ve seen a lot of stories that just kind of slap it on to make a character more sympathetic without it really effecting them or the story much.

So could ya’ll share some ideas for a past wound/trauma/backstory that doesn’t involve grief and dead loved ones? Kind of want to expand my trope horizons a bit.

Thank you!~

#writers of tumblr #writing #writer's problems #writer's block #backstory #characters #tropes #dead parents

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sincerelyreidburke · 4 years

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On Quinn, his childhood, and mainstreaming

TW: this post will contain ramblings about Quinn’s childhood, which, for those who may not know, was a pretty rough one. Specifically, I want to talk about his “mainstreaming,” or the process by which caretakers and guardians forced him at a young age into hearing culture.

Gather round, my friends, because we’re going to take a trip to Tragic Backstory town to talk about Quinn’s childhood. I’ve been thinking a lot about why Quinn is the way he is, and how he manages to stay so resilient despite, to be blunt, all the trauma he’s been through.

I believe, if you go way back in the recesses of the Quinn tag, you will find two different posts which talk about his childhood. This one was the first instance of someone asking for more specific info about Quinn after his first appearance in fic, and though it contains some outdated information about his theatre career, it’s otherwise reliable for learning. The same goes for this one.

What we know: Quinn spent his formative years in foster care after the abandonment/neglect of his biological parents. By approximately age 12, he and his sister were placed under the reluctant guardianship of their paternal grandparents. Quinn’s grandparents really didn’t want to spend their 70s looking after the products of their son’s bad choices, but I imagine it goes down in a way where the state leaves them without much of a choice.

So Quinn and his sister move in with them, and that’s where he’s living at the time he starts college. I think it’s necessary for Quinn to have at least some of a scholarship in order for his grandparents to even consider financing his higher education. As I’ve said, they’re not jazzed about being guardians. But they also have money— and they get checked up on every so often— so Quinn and Tess are never exactly neglected from a monetary standpoint. I imagine there’s a lot of financial guilt-tripping when they do have to invest in them, but...... okay.

Anyway. The actual thing I wanted to talk about in this post is the fact that Quinn is mainstreamed.

Reading my writing, it’s incredibly obvious that he’s mainstreamed, and has been for a long time. If you don’t know what mainstreaming is, I will now define it for you. Mainstreaming is the process by which, from a young age, a deaf or hard of hearing child is “integrated” into hearing environments. This is mostly done for the purpose of attempting to get them used to going to schools that aren’t necessarily acceptable.

I’ve said before and will say again that I’m hearing, and therefore I’m not and never will be fully able to understand Quinn’s experience. But from reading a lot online and speaking to people who are better acquainted with Deaf culture, what I gather is that mainstreaming is considered to be an unfavorable practice from the Deaf perspective. The tried and true saying is that d/Deaf people can do anything a hearing person can do..... except hear. So the idea is that if possible, you very much want to raise a d/Deaf child in their own culture rather than attempting to have them assimilate into hearing culture.

Which leads me to this: the reason Quinn is mainstreamed is because, when he was young, he didn’t have anyone to advocate for him who knew enough about Deaf culture or wanted to put in the effort to help him create his own experience, one that wasn’t catered to hearing culture.

Quinn gets his first hearing aids early. I don’t know exactly what age he is, and I think I’ll stick to not slapping an age on there. It’s somewhere between the ages of 4 and 7, depending on how quickly his hearing gets bad. A big part of the reason he gets tossed around between foster families so much is because they see his hearing as a burden. He has a counselor from the state who teaches him ASL, and also participates in his mainstreaming.

By the time he gets to his grandparents..... Quinn hates those hearing aids. He’s incredibly sensitive to sound, and he just vastly prefers not to wear them. But he’s spent the past little while in the care of foster parents and state workers who insist that he mainstream. Put simply and bluntly, people consider Quinn’s Deafness too much of a burden when the possibility of mainstreaming exists.

Quinn’s grandparents are adamant that he continue mainstreaming. We saw briefly in this ficlet that Quinn does eventually manage to convince them to let him participate in Deaf community events around Grand Rapids, but a.) that takes several years of convincing, and b.) events like the one you see in that ficlet are pretty much the only time they let him embrace his culture.

Is this messed-up? Yeah, absolutely. But these are the same people who wind up cutting all contact with him when they find out he’s gay, so they’re really not the standard of good guardianship or behavior.

I don’t think Quinn sees his grandparents as abusive, at least not until he gets out and gets to college. He definitely recognizes that he doesn’t live in a totally safe environment, given the amount of lying to them that he does, but he doesn’t fully recognize the level of messed-up that his situation is until he’s a young adult.

One might ask, why was Quinn mainstreamed before he got to his grandparents? And the answer is this...... Quinn was already using hearing aids when he got to them, but he was really not doing a whole lot of verbal speaking. ASL was (and still is) his preferred method of communication, and he probably had an aide at school, even though he was going to public, non-specialized school. He was sort of halfway mainstreamed.

Quinn should have had a Deaf advocate while he was in foster care, but he just didn’t. His case was never handled well, and he didn’t have the support he needed. When his grandparents came along, they pretty much just drove the process home. And that is how Quinn winds up going to a mainstream college.

Would Quinn change it, if he could?........ Ahhh... hard to say, because when you think about Quinn’s life, a lot of things happen to him because he is mainstreamed that otherwise wouldn’t happen. He and Nando are the biggest thing, I think, because it’s pretty unlikely he would have wound up going to Kiersey had he not been mainstreamed. Yes, Nando absolutely does take very significant steps (even pretty early on in their relationship) in order to learn about Quinn’s culture and the way he best prefers to communicate.... but I think if Quinn weren’t mainstreamed, their first meeting would have gone a lot different.

Also, theatre. We know that Quinn eventually participates in Deaf theatre, but he gets his start in hearing theatre. I don’t think he would want to give that up, because yes, he hates his hearing aids and all that jazz, but I think one of the very few things he’s grateful for is that they let him act. Not that he wouldn’t be able to act without them; he just would have a lot more difficulty finding theatre companies where they would welcome him in.

And by the way, why did Quinn ever start theatre in the first place if it’s (for the most part) so oriented towards hearing people? Well, good question. For him, it began on social media. Reading about shows, watching clips and stuff, listening to soundtracks. Music— particularly Broadway music— is something Quinn loves even in his pre-hearing aids stage. He likes to “feel” it, and he learns to like to listen to it as well.

So by the time Quinn gets to high school, he’s well acquainted with online theatre kid culture. He sees that they’re putting on a musical, walks onto the audition stage, and.... is a natural. The rest, with regard to his acting career, is history.

Anyway. I’ve gotten on a bit of a tangent, but please know that by no means do I intend to say with this post that “oh, Quinn was mainstreamed and that sucks, but actually it was a good thing because he gets Nando and his acting career because of it.” Yes, Quinn’s life would look a lot different if he weren’t mainstreamed. But it happens to him, and that’s how his life goes, and he manages to hold onto his culture pretty well, all things considered.

So Quinn wouldn’t change his life. I bet he would have liked to have an aide in high school, but he likes theatre and he likes his college, and he likes being himself, in all the nuanced and unique ways he is himself.

And yeah, he hates those hearing aids. When he doesn’t have to be listening, he’s never listening. As an adult in Arizona, he’s a lot more immersed in Deaf culture again than he was able to be when he was living with his grandparents or going to college.

But anyway. I basically wanted to share this post to explain in a little more detail exactly how Quinn winds up where he is when you first meet him at Kiersey. I know literally nobody asked for this, but I hope at least somebody learned something about him from it.

#mini quinny #crickets #i guess this also has a bit of theatre in it #quinn theatre hours #tw audism

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velcro-rave · 7 years

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post-emoji movie Trauma

WARNING: the following text contains spoilers and can be considered disturbing to some readers. especially my brain, because it’s leaking out my ears after typing this.

This is the first movie ever I’ve gone to see on opening night. And let me just say that, for the record, I’m glad I went to watch with friends. Without them, I would have most likely calmly exited the room, climbed up to the roof, and dived straight off.

I’m honestly fucking terrified of how much this shitty movie has pushed me to the edge. I’ve never felt more ANGRY in my life and at the same time wanted to just curl up in a ball and cry myself to sleep. This is so fucked up. What made it possible for this level of psychological warfare to be used so casually by Sony? Why did they decide this was ever a good idea to present to the public? I’m still shaking (and not from the overpriced Coca-Cola I was sold). Whether it’s out of rage or fear, I don’t know. Not even throwing myself into the deep fires of hell can attempt to restore the intrinsic warmth I felt before I witnessed this crime of a movie. They say that there’s a special place reserved below for people who cause enough pain to humanity, and it is at this point where I pose this question to the following:

Tony Leondis. Eric Siegel. Mike White. Michelle Raimo Kouyate.

Why?

Did you want this to happen to me? Was this the plan all along? To destroy everything you could possibly love in the process of creating this film, to make the audience suffer without any remorse? You got PATRICK FUCKING STEWART as a voice actor, and what is it you do?

Yeah, you make him play A WALKING PILE OF SHIT!!!!

Someone could’ve ran up to me after I left the theater, put a shotgun directly up to my forehead, pulled the trigger, and that would have still not come close to how much my mind had been blown at the shocking reality that this movie, this spawn, could exist in the known universe and continue to be shown to innocent people. There were kids there. Hopeful, happy, young kids with iPhones who thought it was a great idea to head off to the movies and watch a funny relatable movie about emojis without a care in the world. Communicating ideas without the use of words is the “staple” of their generation, as the movie so proudly portrays (even comparing it to ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics!), and there’s no reason a family shouldn’t agree to bring their children to this beautiful, heartwarming adventure, right? WRONG.

Nothing could have prepared me for the horrific amount of groan-worthy jokes this movie tossed out. I’ve been wracking my brain for an entire hour trying to remember the most potent ones, but they were so easily forgettable that I can only recall a few offhand. They were tragic. Whenever an opportunity for a shitty pun showed itself, you can bet your ass the writers took it and ran with it to lengths beyond the realms of humor. From the character known as Hi-5′s nonchalant Bye Felicia! to his two puns about snapping (as if one wasn’t enough), I wanted to get up and scream at the ceiling in the hopes that my cries of agony would disrupt the structural integrity of the building and have it fall on top of me, finally freeing me from the slow-cooker of torture that is The Emoji Movie.

At a certain point, Hi-5 (by the way James Corden, I thought you were cool. I thought you were here for us, for all of us as an entertainer, but you just had to take part in ruining me and the world as we know it by accepting this role. I will never forgive you.) mentions something about his heart beating. His… heart? This walking, talking hand has a heart? Does he have lungs? What other internal organs could fit in there and be capable of being slapped around constantly as a result of his stupid ass decisions? Why doesn’t he have arms like Gene or Jailbreak, does his body somehow take into account that he’s already a living appendage? This movie is making me sit and contemplate the anatomy of a fucking animated HAND, and that’s not even as preposterous as a thought can get while watching.

On multiple occasions throughout my viewing experience, I had to take a break to just lean back and sigh, both in anguish of what was happening onscreen as well as the sheer exhausting aspect of it all. The voice acting couldn’t have been more unreliable. Every other line it was a gamble between it being a poorly executed pun delivered so flatly that not even the 4-year old up front let out a little giggle, an obvious statement about what they’re planning to do next, or the most unremarkable snippet of backstory ever revealed. I’m sure all those scenes between Gene and Jailbreak where they gaze at each other were meant to be construed as romantic, but her blasé response to each of his approaches because she “isn’t some princess waiting for her prince” or how “women are deserving of more respect” completely knocked the mood off whatever pedestal it was stepping up to. I get it, these are actual important themes that need to be recognized, and I would be more than happy to see this acknowledged in a movie built on as many metaphors as Zootopia, but the timing of her commentary was the worst I’d ever seen. The constant interruptions made it seem like her words shouldn’t be taken seriously at all!

Unsurprisingly, character background was virtually (unintentional pun. I’m incredibly sorry.) nonexistent, and everything that’s possible to be wondered about the universe could pretty much be answered with a big shrug. For example, why does Hi-5 have a band-aid? Did he get stabbed or something? When did Gene begin to show signs that he was capable of other emotions? Was the Just Dance girl deleted after the trash bin emptied itself out? We didn’t see any signs of the characters going back for her after Hi-5 had to shake off the troll, so did they just leave her there to die? If Jailbreak had been working for a long time to get out, why didn’t she use more of her hacking skills? She pulled up her hologram window things maybe three times total to escape or hide somewhere, does she seriously not have anything else in her repertoire that could potentially help Gene and Hi-5 get to where they need to be quicker? There’s so many questions that don’t even get passively explained. Then again, I’m arguing against the same people who genuinely advocated for the setting to be called Textopolis.

AND WHOSE FUCKING IDEA WAS IT TO MAKE THE MAIN CHARACTER “MEH”??

The ONE emoji with zero interesting qualities and the most monotone parents that, for some fucking batshit insane reason, were given more than the minute of screentime they deserved. I understand for a quick gag, their emotionless response to everything could be funny, but their conversations would just stretch on and on and on. As for Gene, I trusted you, T.J. Miller. I can’t believe you betrayed me, especially after such a hilariously perfect role in Deadpool. Never in my life have I felt so disappointed in a single person. There is no justifiable reason for you to be proud of what you’ve done here. To be honest, I’m pretty sure I astral projected at least three times as I struggled to repress the memory of this trainwreck before it even ended. When I wasn’t desperately clawing at the armrests mid-convulsion, I was staring vacantly at the center of the screen, wondering how this week could have gone so wrong.

This was basically a 91-minute long advertisement. The whiplash of traveling between product placement to product placement nearly made me throw up, which was ostensibly the only thing that could’ve made this worse. Dropbox, Spotify, Candy Crush, Just Dance, YouTube, Facebook, and the almighty Twitter, I hope you’re happy with what you’ve wrought. The “emoji-pop” dance assaulted my eyes so suddenly, acting as the unnecessary cherry on top of the feel-good ending; I think that’s when I officially lost all hope in enjoying the rest of my night.

It’s honestly taking every ounce of my being to hold onto the little bit of life that I have after the Emoji Movie ripped my soul to shreds. The amount of violation I felt as my ears were subjected to endless pop culture references that were relevant years ago, nightmarish depictions of the content of each app on Alex’s phone, and the fact that the god damn Eggplant was in the Unused Emojis room when everyone knows that’s not the case is indescribable. I now have to live with the fact that every time I switch keyboards on my phone, those blank yellow faces will serve as a dark reminder of what I’ve gone through. To any of you reading this that have also watched The Emoji Movie, I am so sorry. I know how difficult it is to process. My recommendation to each and every one of you who haven’t had the chance to witness this sickening spectacle is to KEEP IT THAT WAY. Don’t give in to the peer pressure; this abomination parading itself around as an endearing motion picture will wholly and truly rattle you to the core. My only solace was the complete absence of dabbing or whipping (apart from hearing the song), and I’d like to thank every deity above and below for that small act of mercy.

Here’s to you, Sony. Thanks for ensuring that I not only sink deeper into my depression, but for forcing my mind to house the images I’ve seen today for as long as I live. I wish I could physically bring myself to chuck my phone in a garbage fire, but my entire body has gone numb. Here’s to you, and to all the writers, producers, and directors of this movie that made me sit in a corner pondering how I can possibly live in a future where this monstrosity exists.

Gravely, sincerely,

fuck you, and goodnight.

🖕

#long post #rant #p #the emoji movie #emoji movie #FUUCKKKKKK.#I feel like banging my head against the wall until I pass out #food mention #I would appreciate it if any of you could recommend a good therapist #god knows I need the help #goodnight #2017 #tumblr keeps getting rid of readmores i'm really sorry if this takes up your dash

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sarahburness · 7 years

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Why I Drank, How It Destroyed Me, and How I’m Healing My Self-Hatred

TRIGGER WARNING: This post deals with an account of sexual assault and self-harm and may be triggering to some people.

Hi, I’m Adriana and I’m an alcoholic.

When I look back at my life, I realize it was inevitable that I’d end up here.

By the time I was nineteen, I’d already had a history of self-harm through cutting, a bi-product of my depression and anxiety. I was anorexic. I’d had a near cervical-cancer scare not once, but twice within a six-month period, leaving my gynecologist back in Sydney speechless. “I have never had a case like yours.”

I’d survived an abusive relationship that, I believed, left me with no other choice but to end my own life. If I were going to die, I’d rather die by my own accord, not his. So, I swallowed forty panadol pills, two at a time, within thirty minutes. I felt my body slowly shut down as each minute passed by, and ironically, it was the first time in a long time that I felt alive.

I’m not writing about the sugarcoated life many have engaged with on my social media feeds over the years. I am here to introduce you to my self-hatred, which you don’t see each time I post a filtered photo on my Instagram page.

I fell in love with the wrong person when I was seventeen. The first six months together were filled with happiness. I was convinced he was the one I’d spend the rest of my life with, and at seventeen my hunt for a husband was over. Hashtag winning.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Over the course of the ten months that followed, he routinely beat me, and I covered up the evidence to protect him. He psychologically raped me, repeatedly telling me, “Who’s gonna love you when I’m done with you?” He even sodomized me.

He threatened my life if I didn’t listen to him or if I dared to tell anyone the truth. I had two friends who begged me to walk away, but no matter how powerless I felt, their concerns meant nothing to me. So over time, they gave up trying.

He told me when to speak—“Don’t be too funny, Adriana. I don’t want people liking you more than me.” He also told what to wear and I had to ask permission if I wanted to go out. Worst of all, he stripped me of my right to feel human, true to the nature of how insidious an abusive relationship can be. In this case, love really was blind.

I internalized the trauma to such an extent that I carried the shame, guilt, and pain with me throughout my twenties. I forgave him long before I forgave myself, which led me to a path of unconscious self-destruction.

It was my fault for holding onto those first six months and hoping the real him would return. It was my fault that I let him treat me the way that he did. It was my fault for not leaving, particularly after the first time he hit me. It was my fault because surely I was doing something wrong that would trigger him to hit me. It was my fault because by staying, I was asking for it.

So I did what most young people do when they’re nineteen and single: I started my clubbing career and my relationship with Jack Daniels. A year before, alcohol repelled me; now it was my savior. This also led to the introduction to a string of dysfunctional people I’d come to call my friends.

You know, you should never judge a party girl. Every party girl has a backstory, but in my case, no one cared enough to find out. They just bought me more drinks.

People would say they envied my life—how I had zero Fs for the world around me—but what most people failed to see was that, in reality, I had zero Fs for myself.

Then I entered the permanent hangover I now call my twenties.

I started going to festivals and was introduced to ecstasy. I still remember the first time an e hit my bloodstream. Like most users, I tried to relive that feeling every time I popped a pill. Eventually, ecstasy became boring and I started experimenting with pure MDMA. It was a little bit riskier and more dangerous, but it didn’t matter because I didn’t matter.

I was then introduced to cocaine when I was twenty and that became my favorite drug of them all. Cocaine meant that I could drink more. It also meant that I had something in common with people who I usually wouldn’t associate with.

Cocaine turned me into a version of myself that was confident and unstoppable. When I was high I used to think to myself, “Imagine you were this confident and unstoppable but didn’t need cocaine to get you there.” Just imagine!

I often found it funny how the drug commonly referred to as “the rich man’s drug,” yet it left me feeling emotionally bankrupt.

At twenty-one, I was partying in Las Vegas with some friends when I got busted with an eight ball of cocaine—and got away with it. Fortunately, I was given a slap on the wrist and banned from entering half the hotels in Vegas, for life. Personally, I was more devastated because that meant that I could never be a Playboy bunny

I remember the undercover policewoman taking me down to the public toilets, handing me over the bag of coke, and asking me to flush it down. I took this as an opportunity to bribe her into letting me keep the bag.

You’d think that an incident like that would encourage me to hang my party dress and clean up my ways. But it didn’t. I continued down this path, playing roulette with my life.

Not all was tragic. I did find myself in a loving relationship a year later, and for three years lived a ‘normal’ life. He loved me and I loved him as much as I could. But what is love when you don’t love yourself? This voice inside my head constantly whispered, “You’re not good enough for him.”

Once that relationship ended, I was straight back to my self-destructive ways, drinking heavily on most nights.

On one occasion, I decided it would be “cool” to bring a guy home and skull cafe patron out of the bottle. Mind you, I was already intoxicated. The next morning I woke up peacefully in my bed. A few hours later, I received a message that read, “I need you to take the morning after pill asap.”

I thought, hmm, it’s not my ideal situation; sh*t happens I suppose. It’s $30 in Australia, and you can buy it over the counter, fortunately, but the problem was, I couldn’t remember having sex.

To this moment, I don’t. I had blacked out.

I felt so exposed, vulnerable, and disgusted with myself. Then the shame kicked in. Who the hell did I think I was? What was I becoming?

I decided I needed to stop drinking and I was successfully sober for three months. I survived parties, lonely nights, and even the ultimate test, a big fat Croatian wedding.

I never considered that I had a problem with alcohol. I thought that alcoholism was a condition you could learn to control.

In my late twenties I decided to move myself from Sydney to London to “find myself.” We all know the saying that you must “lose yourself” in order to “find yourself,” and I did just that.

London is a fascinating city to lose yourself in. There was always an occasion to drink. I wasn’t one of those wake up and drink right away type people. I was more self-respecting than that; I waited till lunchtime and continued until I blacked out! But as a high-functioning alcoholic, I still made my work deadlines.

I was always around people who didn’t just use drugs; they abused them. And no matter how much I knew the difference between right and wrong, I was perpetually on a quest to distract myself from myself.

There was no one more delighted to meet another person who was more messed up than me. “Great,” I thought. “Let’s talk about your problems; I’m not ready to talk about mine.”

I slept my way around, seeking someone who would understand and rescue me. I was bed hopping, using sex as a way to validate myself and feel worthy. It was nothing less than a cheap thrill.

I attracted males who were misogynistic and dominant, and resembled the character of my first love. Everyone had an agenda to take a piece of me. I was aware of this; I just didn’t care.

I had one who would eventually tell me that that maybe I shouldn’t be so upfront and honest about my past with the next guy because “it may turn him off.” But it was okay for him to turn me over in my sleep, get on top, and insert himself inside of me because he was in the mood. This was the many occasions that I was raped.

Then there was the one who slapped my face as I told him to get out of me, but he kept going, smiling as he watched the tears roll down my face.

Before I forget, there was another who was more than willing to buy me cocktails all night while telling me he couldn’t wait to take advantage of me later on, but made me call my own cab when I threw up all over his bedroom. Apparently we had sex too.

We can sit here and go on about my clouded judgment when in actual fact, this dialogue and connection was just my comfort zone.

A year ago, completely fed up with myself and my chemically addictive ways, I decided it was time to kill myself. I was emotionally exhausted and starved. My body no longer felt pain and I could longer taste alcohol. I was so deep in depression I could feel it in my blood.

I planned my suicide, step by step, over several days and kept reminding myself that the world was better off without me helplessly roaming within it, without a purpose, doing more harm than good.

I was a bad person because I was a broken person, as many boys had told me. I may not have intentionally hurt those around me, but I had a decade-long struggle during which I perpetually hurt the one person I never knew how to love, myself.

I started writing my suicide letter and decided I needed some background noise. On the front page of YouTube was a video titled “How to overcome procrastination by leaping afraid,” by Lisa Nichols. This video would end up saving my life and distracting me from my open wounds that were so desperately trying to dry up.

There is nothing that scares an addict more than sobriety and having nothing to turn to when that darkness from your past begins to appear and say, “Hey, remember me?” But I knew my problem with alcohol was fuelling my depression and, therefore, contributing to my self-hatred. I had to break this cycle of hate.

I sat in my silence and said, “Adriana, you have two choices right now: You can continue down this path, knowing you’re going to keep doing the same thing, getting the same results; and I’m pretty sure that’s what Einstein defined as insanity. Down this path your addictions will kill you or you may do it yourself—whatever comes first. Or, you can do something you haven’t done in the last ten years: give sobriety a chance and see if things are different on the other side.”

I was twenty-nine when I said enough. My grandfather was sixty. Some people never have an age. Some people simply drown and instead of living to their full potential. They just exist.

Every year on my birthday, I would blow out my candles and wish for love. Last year, my wish came true and I started the tumultuous road to recovery, healing, and self-love. It may be a cliché but it’s true: Who’s going to love you if you don’t love yourself first?

I knew that the life I dreamed of was on the other side of my fears and getting sober was a stepping-stone. I just celebrated eight months of sobriety, and although this may not seem like long, it’s the longest I haven’t poisoned my blood in ten years.

It hasn’t been easy. I have cried alone in my room. I had cried walking down the street. I have cried at parties and events. I’ve had breakdowns in several AA meetings. I have cried during a yoga class when the tears were triggered by the damage I had done to my body. I felt it all.

I heard voices telling me I’d fail and I should just stick to my old ways, the ways I knew best. I almost relapsed twice in the first three months because I was tempted to show my new friends who my old friends knew me to be.

But I am healing and getting stronger.

I’ve learned that we find our greatest strengths in our darkest shadows, and there is no way you can know what happiness is until you figure out what it isn’t.

The relationship we have with ourselves is the longest relationship we’ll ever have. Yet, we spend prolonged periods of time neglecting ourselves to suit the world around us.

We chase happiness in momentary triumphs instead of simply choosing it by putting in the work to keep ourselves self-aware and on our own paths of personal enlightenment.

We avoid taboo topics like addictions because they make people uncomfortable, but are more than willing to engage in these addictions because they make us more comfortable with ourselves.

We are united by owning our struggles and sharing our stories, and divided by our quest for perfection and appearing perfect to the world around us. Perfection is an illusion, and God, did I learn this the hard way.

I don’t deny my demons because instead of feeling ashamed of them, I’m now proud of how I’ve overcome them. And I know my greatest strengths have surfaced from my deepest struggles. Because of what I’ve been through, I’m more compassionate with others in similar situations and I’ve also developed a strong sense of determination to do the inner self work required to get past my trauma.

How many of you can look yourself in the eye and say I love you without knowing deep down that you just lied? I’m still learning, but courtesy of sobriety, I’m getting there.

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About Adriana Kupresak

Adriana Kupresak is a travel and lifestyle Blogger based in Zagreb, Croatia. As a recovering alcoholic, revealing her personal wounds have given her the most praise and strength in sobriety. She regularly contributes to The Huffington Post, Elite Daily, Jetset Times, and Rebelle Society.

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from Tiny Buddha https://tinybuddha.com/blog/why-i-drank-how-it-destroyed-me-and-how-im-healing-my-self-hatred/

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