#bitch why weren’t you all enslaved by the dragons | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

qqueenofhades · 5 years

Note

I know she wasnt one of your favorite characters and you dont watch the show anymore but what is your opinion on this whole mad queen Dany thing from a storytelling perspective? I personally hate it. But I am really attached to her character.

Short answer: It’s an idiotic giant pile of steaming bullshit.

Longer answer: It’s an IDIOTIC GIANT PILE OF STEAMING BULLSHIT BY A COUPLE OF MEDIOCRE-ASS FAKE-WOKE MISOGYNISTIC RACIST WHITE MALE HACKS WITH ABSOLUTELY NO STORY-TELLING OR COHERENT NARRATIVE ABILITY WHO THINK THEY ARE BEING ~LE RISQUE AND IN FACT ARE ACTUALLY JUST FUCKING DUMBER THAN A BOX OF TRUMPS.

(Deep breaths. Deeeeeeep breaths.)

Obviously, the question of whether Dany was going to be “mad queen Dany” was played with a little and could have been thoughtfully or subtly done (if these hacks possessed any writing ability, which as noted, they do not). But (again, bearing in mind that I don’t watch the show), from what I saw, she went evil in the span of like… an episode and a half? After Jorah, Missandei, and Rhaegal died, and she is justifiably upset and fucked into a corner by illogical plot decisions and contrived writing, apparently these misogynist fuckburglars were just like “oooohh that would Drive a Bitch Crazy!!! UNLEASH THE KRAKEN OF CRAZY!!!” Which perhaps isn’t unique to Dany, since they busily destroyed everyone’s character arcs and 7 seasons of development, but wow.

(Plus I have heard spoilers/hints about Jon having to kill her next episode, which is a whole new LEVEL of Yikes. We knew they were misogynistic asshats and the treatment of female characters had always been gross, BUT WOW.)

Dany’s arc, both in books and show, has had some other problems. I.e. the very cringy “white saviour” business and how POC were generally reduced to props for her story, whether “savage” or as “noble savages” or slaves who needed saving – as usual, the show made that much worse, because again, they cannot write and their entire ethos has been to hammer home Shock Value Grimdark as much as possible. Especially since they apparently claimed that Dany’s turn into madness was foreshadowed in season 1 when she had a “chilly” reaction to Viserys’ death. You know, the brother who mentally, physically, and sexually abused her and sold her into an arranged marriage for his political ambitions. According to these monumental crapsacks, that definitely means a woman is Crazy, if she doesn’t break down in tears over her abuser’s death. They have managed to send a fuckton of gross messages about women throughout the show in general, but that’s a new one.

Dany has, at this point, struggled for seven-plus seasons in show canon to make the right choices, to realize how hard it is to be a ruler, to deal with her Targaryen heritage, to help the entire North in the Long Night (honestly, why didn’t they end the show after that? It’s been nothing but downhill since). They already forced her to act irrational and to play up the Dany-Sansa feud, rather than acknowledging two complicated female characters and their different philosophies and allowing them to find actual common ground. So having us believe (again, when apparently the takeaway here is to kill everyone she cares about Because Bitches Be Cray and then have that drive her into murderous insanity) that within like…. 1.5 episodes, she’s supposed to be the End Level Boss is… wow. (After Cersei got killed by…. a falling ceiling, and don’t even get me started on Jaime and Brienne.)

As far as I can tell, these bogglingly incompetent hacks either got bored with the season/project (since they were offered the budget for 10 episodes but were like “nah we’re good with six!”) or indeed, this was the plan all along. I would not be surprised. They have been absolutely wedded to ham-handed Shock Value as their main plot tactic all along (it was one of the many reasons I quit several seasons ago) and mistake gruesome mistreatment of their female characters as Gritty Medieval Realism ™ or Strong Female Characterness ™. So we can’t say they weren’t on brand until the end. The assumption here is clearly that we were all chumps to “expect a happy ending from Game of Thrones!” …. which, I seriously doubt anyone was. In my version of the ending (TNR), it’s genuinely bittersweet. Not all the favorites make it, in the epilogue it’s clear that the post-war years have been difficult, and so forth. But it’s also not a pointless, nihilistic bloodbath of eight seasons of audience investment masquerading as Woke Postmodern Grimdark Super Smart Cutting Edge Ending.

(Also in my version, Dany melts down the Iron Throne to help fight the Others, survives the final battle, forgives the fake Aegon, becomes Queen of the South, eventually gets married and has a son, deals with the death of her dragons and the contestations to her rule long-term, and doesn’t go goddamn crazy.)

I don’t care how Realistically Grimdark your media is (and I have written many posts on how I would like this whole trend to die with fire and I blame GOT for making other franchises think this is the way to go). In no universe is your audience going to think that sending everything to hell within less than 2 episodes of the final season is a satisfying and meaningful ending, and if you think so, you really have no idea how fiction works and should not be writing it. A GOOD ending does not need to be a rainbow-fluffy-bunnies one. But in no realm, as evidenced by the uproar that my entire dash is in, does this one qualify. The paranoid terror of social media and spoilers is making them go so far as to gaslight actors, film false endings, and then break their hearts when they find that a decade of their hard work is going up in smoke like this.

As far as I know, Emilia Clarke had at least two serious health scares while working on GOT, and when she found out this ending, she left the house and just wandered aimlessly for three hours and tried to drink her sorrows away. How is that acceptable to do on a professional level, far less what you may think of Dany or her character or anything else? When again, the takeaway from this is that anyone who ever identified with Dany or her struggle to overcome abuse, enslavement, helplessness, etc, and admired anything about her, was a chump to do that. Sure. “Mad Queen Dany” was one narrative possibility. But if they were going to pull it off (which, again, I cannot emphasize enough how bad they are at writing) this needed to happen way before. Not out of the blue in the last two episodes of the show, because Women Are Emotional LOL, Must Be Stopped.

I am so sorry to everyone who loved her, or any character on this show, but I honestly, deeply am not surprised. As bad as it is, I have… known for a long time that they were capable of ruining this on a fundamental level, have never actually understood the characters or cared about narrative coherency, and their treatment of women is disgusting on just about every level. But even I am gobsmacked at how badly they managed to fuck it up. That should tell you something.

Me to D&D, every time they have or will open their mouths for the rest of time:

#got critical #got spoilers #daenerys targaryen #anonymous #ask

313 notes · View notes

ragnarssons · 5 years

Note

Hola I have a question if you don't mind :) What do you think of Dany saying "Bend the knee or die ?" Thanks!

Hey :) no problem for friendly questions, so I hope that’s the intentionI think it’s about Daenerys on s7, since she never said that before that moment on 7x05. I find it extremely hypocrital to call Dany a crazy bitch for doing what every character in a role of ruling has ever done: it’s what ruling means. We’re talking here, about someone who is leading a war to get her throne back, against people who are her enemies. What did Stannis do when Mance Rayder didn’t bend the knee to him? Oh yeah, he executed him. Why? Uh idk probably because when someone is your enemy and when you offer a possibility of peace, that person remains your enemy, there isn’t much you can do! Tarly had several occasions to retract himself- he even wanted his son to bend the knee for the sake of their family. He didn’t, and until the last moment, he kept spewing hate in Dany’s face. Not to mention that they weren’t some noble men Dany came to see in their homes to ask them for anything: she CAPTURED them on the field of battle. What do people think Robb was doing with the soldiers who were fighting with the Lannisters/against him?? There was no way Tarly would ever become an ally to Daenerys, and she knew that after offering him a chance he didn’t take. People have to stop acting like Randyll Tarly didn’t act KNOWING the consequences of his actions and his defiance. Daenerys isn’t bringing a whole new concept in Westeros, like all the sudden she’s the crazy one, killing people: EVERY ruler kills people who threaten their rule and their security. Joffrey killing Ned? Joffrey would have had been 100% justified in killing Ned, had Ned refused to admit that Joffrey is the legitimate King and Heir to Robert Baratheon. Again, Stannis and Mance. Jon and Janos Slynt. But hey, these are “honorable” examples, contrary to Daenerys’ actions, for some reason.

Also people seem to forget that there is ANOTHER person whom Dany asked to bend the knee to: Jon (well they don’t forget it when they need to shit on her like “she should have believed this unknown man from the staaaart”). Did she burn Jon the moment he set foot in Dragonstone and showed no intention of bending the knee? No she didn’t, because Jon didn’t spew disrespectful remarks over one another, he didn’t threaten her claim nor did he present himself as an ally of her enemy- Cersei. Jon wasn’t captured on a field of battle where he actively killed part of her army and just participated in killing one of her allies’ Houses - the Tyrells. All in all, in the context of the scene, I always understood Daenerys’ actions on that scene: and you know who would understand these actions as well? Sansa. She was the one on 7x01 not understanding Jon when he chose not to punish the Karstarks and Umbers for siding with Ramsay. Sansa knows that disloyalty and betrayal (and the Tarlys are guilty of both), SHOULD be punished. She wanted her family’s betrayers to be punished. Had Small Jon or Roose Bolton survived, do you think Jon and/or Sansa wouldn’t have done ANYTHING to have them executed for their betrayal, the Red Wedding and bringing Rickon to Ramsay??

In a situation where she tries to reclaim her throne and spread her “power” (Slaver’s Bay) as a Queen or an adversary of the Lannisters, Daenerys needs to claim her power and her legitimacy- she needs to do that by showing her strength: hence why she has to take such strong measures. She ALWAYS took these measures against her enemies: but when it’s not a jerk enslaver (Kraznys), suddenly it’s scandalous and not badass (I mean, people only shit on her because of Dickon’s death, even tho he CHOSE his destiny and... why? because the actor was hot? A-okAY). I do think Daenerys will need to adapt her “methods” when/if she rules, because she won’t be able to rule with such a fierce… mindset. But Daenerys has already proven to be able to be kinder: hence her rule in Mereen, her decisions there, or even her whole storyline with Jon- she didn’t kill him, and SHE offered to help him without Jon having bent the knee. Conquest and ruling are two different things: we can’t pretend that Conquest shouldn’t be ruthless because otherwise, it’s not conquest. We can’t pretend that ruling is totally different. Guess what? Who knows that best? Well her name is Daenerys Targaryen because she was actually shown, for seven seasons, doing BOTH: conquering AND ruling. We can’t pretend that Daenerys hasn’t also proven her capacities as a ruler: and on these occasions, she does listen to her advisors (Selmy, Missandei, Tyrion, Jorah, etc… there ARE scenes where they all at some point, participate in changing her mind about something). I genuinely believe that Daenerys could be good at ruling. Her “Small Council” has always been 100% better than any of the Westerosi ones, her relationship with her Hand has always been better than any of the other ones on the show- INCLUDING Ned and Robert. She did make selfless choices for the sake of her people (locking her dragons in the Great pyramid, re-opening the fighting pits, hoping that the killings by the Sons of the Harpy would stop), she does know how to be kind and mercifull when there’s room for it (her scenes with Hizdar). Her whole journey has been about learning to conquer and to rule, hence why it’s so predictable that she might, at 80% end up on the Iron Throne- because the show shows us that it’s her Destiny, so much that even her whole storyline drives her towards that point. Daenerys is competent, she didn’t make a bad choice, she isn’t a “dictator” for killing HER ENEMIES on a field of battle. And tbh I would have liked to see any other character in her situation on that scene (you know, all the “badass, so complexxxx” male characters who never get shit).

#answered #anonymous

9 notes · View notes

therealdragonnerdagain · 7 years

Text

To the people who wanna talk shit about this blog in the forums . . .

Couple years ago, I said that Mass Effect 3 would have been perfect if not for that shitty ending.

I said that because I would have been willing to overlook the garbage that was in the rest of the game if the ending hadn't been such shit.

But anyone who actually read most of my Mass Effect 3 posts here would know that I complained A LOT about the whole of Mass Effect 3 -- specifically Shep's auto-dialogue, the botched Mass Effect 2 romances, and Kai Fucking Leng.

Mass Effect 3 also had some really gross stuff in it, like FemShep taking advantage of her rank to basically rape Vega (because I guess the writers thought male rape was funny) and all this other shit.

Yeah. Mass Effect 3 had its fair share of problems. The Ending was just the icing on an already sour cake.

Also, I understand what a "protagonist" is, asswipes who love talking shit about this blog.

I didn't mean that Solas was actually the protagonist. I meant that he stole so much of the story, he might as well have been the protagonist.

This was done to the point that Corypheus wasn't our enemy, he was Solas' enemy -- we and Corypheus just didn't fucking know it.

This was done to the point that it was never our Inquisition -- it was Solas' Inquisition. This is something the Inquisitor can even SAY during Tresspasser "Was it ever MY Inquisition?" Of course, Solas denies that he was ever really in charge, but he was in the background pulling a lot of strings, even if he didn't have the final say.

Also, people are saying Solas won't even be important in DA4, so we Solasmancers should stop bitching.

Well, if Solas isn't important, then why weren't we given the option to deal with him in Trespasser and end his story there?

We are given the option to murder knife, join, or spare Morrigan and Anders (the other "evil" apostates) but we are not given the option to deal with Solas in a similar fashion? That's bullshit.

And if Solas isn't that important, it will just be a symptom of yet more sloppiness on Bioware's part.

See, all this happened because

1) Bioware did not have a plan from the beginning. They didn't plan for this series to be more than one game, then couldn't decide whether or not to bring the Warden back -- because some people had a dead Warden (myself included).

They got around this by inventing Hawke, who was then supposed to pick up the rest of the series as the main protagonist, leading the Inquisition and so forth.

But things changed AGAIN. Probably because lots of fans didn't like being forced to play a predefined, human character. Dragon Age 2 was nothing like the first game we all loved. Dragon Age 2 was basically Pseudo Final Fantasy, with it's own Cloud (Fenris) and everything.

So Bioware tried to go back to its roots with Inquisition, scrapping Hawke as the protagonist and inventing the Inquisitor, yet ANOTHER human noble character.

People didn't like being forced to play another human noble. Most of us (myself included) got into this series because we loved choosing who we were. I have always identified with oppressed outsiders (because I am an oppressed outsider) so I always play elves. I did not wnat to play a human again.

Bioware listened and added multiple races, but by then it was too late: the series had become a butchered clusterfuck, a thin shadow of what it had been.

2) The second reason all this happened? EA thought it would be great to take an rpg with depth and maturity and water it down into some streamlined mess. Somehow, they equated butchering a story with appealing to a wider audience and gaining more money.

So we have this MESS before us today that is Dragon Age (god, I fucking HATE EA), where every protagonist after the Warden has a clusterfuck story where they never defeat their own arch-nemesis and instead pass them off to some other hero.

I'm sorry, but Solas DOES belong to the Inquisitor as a villian. Just as Corypheus *really* belonged to Hawke (because Inquisition was originally a continuation of Hawke's story).

Just as we would have been pissed had Hawke stepped in at the last minute to kill the archdemon, thus stealing the Warden's enemy (who we worked so HARD to defeat) from them.

The Inquisitor is *not* coming back as a protagonist. Bioware has denied the arm has anything to do with it (they don't want to look ableist but being anti-indigenous is fine and dandy!) but no matter the reason, the Inquisitor's story is over and they are not going to be the protagonist anymore.

This means I don't get to end Solas' story as the Inquisitor.

That SUCKS.

That's like . . . ending Morrigan's story as Hawke, even though I romanced Morrigan in the game before and had history with her (and I did on two playthroughs romance Morrigan, so I waited for Witch Hunt just like everyone else).

That's like . . . ending Anders' story as the Inquisitor, even though Hawke had personal history (including betrayal) with him.

Remember what it was like after DA2 dropped? Remember all the gamers who HATED Anders and were foaming at the mouth about his betrayal? Imagine for one SECOND if they were not given the option to deal with Anders as Hawke and he instead carried over to Inquisition? As will Nerd Rage, the outrage would have been perpetual and unending.

And yet, I, a Solasmancer, am expected to just accept the way the story was handled, without criticizing it or even lamenting it. I, a Solasmacer, am expected to just . . . quietly accept something I don't like.

I suppose Nerd Rage is purely reserved for straight white homophobic dudes who want to kill Anders because he hit on them once.

Why are Solasmancers ridiculed and mocked for wanting to end Solas' story AS Lavellan? Why in FUCK is that such a god-awful thing?

It pisses me off because I already decided -- long before Trespasser was released -- that I would no longer be buying anymore Dragon Age games. Their anti-indigenous hate-screed (on top of the over-all sad dumbing down of the game into an MMORPG) had already convinced me to quit the series. So learning that my character would not get a proper ending to her story until the next game was beyond annoying.

But whatever. Go on mocking me on fextralife and bsn and whatever forum you like.

What I can't understand is why people even pay attention to my blog. I am just one fan ranting bitterly to myself about how a video game disappointed me.

I'm just one fan. I'm not hurting anyone.

And I'm allowed to have whatever fucking reaction I want to these games.

I'm allowed to have an opinion.

Hard to wrap your head around, I know.

EDIT: And to Steel Can.

I have watched for years as you behaved on the forums like a racist asshat about people of color, hiding behind your hatred of the Dalish to justify it. I wish you’d just shut the living fuck UP.

NO. The Dalish don't expect nor force city elves to worship their gods when they join them. Play a Dalish in Origins sometime. You might actually learn something -- not that you care to learn that you’re wrong.

You're trying so DESPERATELY to justify the religious oppression of the elves. You're trying so DESPERATELY to justify the shitty way Lavellan was treated for her beliefs by everyone in the game -- even her friends -- by building false equivalences (the white man’s favorite passtime) and pretending the elves are just as bad as the humans.

But they're not. This is something Manifest Destiny, racist white men, would have you believe. They need you to believe it in order to justify history’s crimes. They need you to believe that indigenous people were violent savages who warred upon each other, so this made it “okay” and even “good for them” to be invaded, enslaved, and oppressed.

I mean, it’s not like white people didn’t treat the Irish and the Scottish like garbage or anything. White people were always good to each other. They never tortured each other in dungeons and beheaded each other over loaves of bread . . .

Dalish elves were not forcing anyone to their religion when they joined their camps. Pol never gets vallalsin in the ten years he’s with the Dalish. Because he doesn’t have to. When you meet him in Origins. he is being taught to hunt and survive. The Dalish Warden tells him to just make himself useful, and he is welcome. No religious conversion required. He is not forced into elven religion.

And even if Pol was forced:

Nothing can justify what was done to the elves.

Nothing can justify imperialism, invasion, genocide, cultural genocide, and slavery.

Just as nothing can justify what was done to real indigenous people.

I bet you hated the Thalmor in Skyrim and sided with the Stormcloaks to protect their religion even while hating the Dalish -- a people facing religious oppression -- in Dragon Age. Because only white men are allowed to have cultural, religious freedom, and any culture that’s not white isn’t worthy of respect, right?

But why am I wasting my time, Steel Can? Your sorry racist ass will never understand. You enjoy shitting on real indigenous people and using Dragon Age to justify it. Because Bioware's racism gave you the tools to do so.

That does not make you or Bioware right.

Also, Red Crossing started when two HUMANS killed an elven woman while trespassing on Dalish land.

#kiss my ass #dragon age #solas #bioware critical #dalish rant #solas rant

25 notes · View notes

selfproclaimedunicorn · 7 years

Text

In which I am against House Targaryen (part 1)

part 2, part 3, part 4

Yep, after continuously being like “I could talk about this but it’s not why I’m making this post” I’m finally going to spill all my salt about House Targaryen.

Now, on to me finally giving all my anti-Targaryen opinions.

House Targaryen is the literal worst.

Laying aside my Valyria-skeptical leanings, I’ll allow the Targaryens Dragonstone. For the sake of the rest of my opinions, I won’t harp on my “they shouldn’t have had it in the first place!” BC that’s honestly a byproduct of my dislike for the House.

Dragonstone was never part of Westeros prior to the Conquest. It was a former Valyrian colony that Aenar* decided was far enough away from the peninsula that they would be safe. This was a stroke of dumb luck, as all other dragonlords not at “home base” so to speak didn’t fare well once The Doom essentially wiped out the Empire. They (the other dragonlords not in Valyria at the time) and their dragons were pretty much all killed by resentful smallfolk. And, tbh, if these Uncanny-Valley-Draco-Malfoy-Elves were threatening you with dragons, colonizing your land, killing your people, raising your homes, and enslaving you I’d be beyond surprised if you weren’t resentful. I don’t want to get off track too much, so let’s vear on back to where I started: Dragonstone as a Valyrian Colony.

The Targaryens left 12 years before The Doom. They left somewhere they were important in the same way House Bolton or House Blackwood are important in Westeros, to somewhere they were basically worshiped as gods. The Targaryens got pretty far up their own asses. And before you say “you’re exaggerating,” I present you with this:

“…on Dragonstone, where the Targaryens had ruled for centuries, because there the common folk viewed their beautiful, foreign rulers almost as gods.”

You want to know what the part of that quote I cut off was talking about? The fucking First Night. You know, that thing Roose Bolton is rumored to do where you sleep with a woman on her wedding night BC “I’m your liege lord, fuck you” and everyone seems to agree is a bad idea. Yeah, they did that for centuries. Unchecked centuries of doing whatever the fuck they wanted, inbreeding like crazy, and growing massive egos.

These are not the kind of people you want in charge of you.

And I know that inevitably someone will say “you can’t hold this stuff that happened thousands of years ago against the modern, post-Conquest House!” But bitch, I have news for you: yes I can. I’m that petty. Furthermore, if Dachshund Teapot the Unburnt “Khaleesi” can hold Jon accountable for Torren Stark’s actions I can hold her whole House accountable for their ancestors'. Especially when these centuries set a fucking precedent. What precedent? The precedent for being The Worst™, Strawman Targ Fan.

Now that we’ve covered Dragonstone and the foundations of being fucking awful, let’s talk about that fuck Aegon I. For some reason, a lot of Dixon Teatree’s stans think that the Hivemind*** are perfectly fine with Aegon the Conquerer. They don’t seem to understand many of us, “the dirty antis,” are anti-Targaryen and not just against their White Feminist™, colonizing, yas-qween-slay, overrated “rightful queen.”***

Aegon I can get fukt. I am repeating myself here, but Dragonstone was not part of Westeros at this point. He just decided “I want that” and decided to just take a continent. No Valyrians had colonized Westeros, none had really lived on Westeros, he had no right to Westeros. They, the Westerosi, were doing just fine before the Conquest. None of that mattered. Now, were there reasons beyond “I want a continent now, daddy!”***? Potentially. GRRM hasn’t told us if there were or not, and it’s likely he never will. Regardless of if I’m wrong and he tells us one day, I will never see Aegon as justified in his conquest. Because, you know, everyone was fine before he came along.

The Targaryen Conquest directly killed 2 Great Houses, indirectly killed another, and slaughtered countless. There was no reason for this. No one needed to conquer Westeros and create the Empire that is The Seven Kingdoms. But, you know, here we are: stuck with a corrupt, inbred, legitimately crazy dynasty that I am honestly surprised never created a Charles II of Spain! The only ill affects of the Hapsburg-level-inbreeding seems to have been the “50% of the time they’re mad,” proliferation of all the bad genes BC a low per cent of genetic diversity, and it getting really hard to have kids around 230 AC-ish.

Now, let’s move to my next point. That is, more specific members of House Targaryen besides Aegon I who are fucking awful.

*the first recorded Targaryen as seen here

**see here

***have I mentioned I don’t like Daenerys, BC I really don’t like Daenerys

****read this in Veruca Salt’s voice

#anti targaryen #game of thrones opinions #the anti Targaryen Manifesto

42 notes · View notes

ecotone99 · 5 years

Text

[RF] Ships On The Horizon

Ships On The Horizon

6 min read - 1506 words

Rain trailed down the window as a tear trailed down my face. I remember feeling lost and alone as fears of self doubt consumed me. My depression was back and it was useless to fight it off. This wasn't the first time I'd felt this way; I was sure it wouldn't be the last. It was another cloudy, rainy day and the mood surrounding me was fitting for the occasion.

I had placed stickers depicting a fleet of ships along the window near the bottom to help me imagine an adventurous world wrapped in the arms of the sea instead of the hell that kept me trapped, doomed to repeat each day as though it were yesterday. Yesterday. The word itself had a nice ring to it, beckoning a yes when all I could feel was no, not today.

As long as I could remember, I felt like I didn't belong. Much like the fleet of ships, I was out of water and without a captain. I felt just as much out of control of my life as ships without a captain would be, pushed and pulled by the tides on a windless day, at the mercy of the sea.

However, my life was nothing like a ship. I was stuck in the helpless, hopeless monotony of every day life, but not a normal life. It was the life of a deeply saddened soul waiting for anyone to come pull the pin on the proverbial grenade and allow an explosion of life into the core of their being.

Father was no help. He took Mothers side regarding most aspects of my life and made no effort to help free me from the enslavement of my own mind. Every day Mother would come into my room to belittle me and ask questions to which I had no answer.

"When will you stop being such a broken mess and get outside? Clearly you like this life and want it to remain this way. You'll never amount to anything laying in bed all day."

Sadly she believed that sharing these thoughts with me would help make me see some sort of light and wonder why I'm missing out, maybe even give me hope to get out there and try something new. Unfortunately, that's not how the depressed mind works and mine was no different than any other mind suffering from depression.

Some days the bottomless pit of despair wasn't there. On occasion, which I have not the slightest clue how these occasions came about, I would feel blissful and a deep yearning to get out into the sunlight and explore. I would roam the park terrorizing the pigeons and skipping stones across the pond. These are the days I cherished, especially knowing they were soon to come to an end and my bed would become my ship and I it's captain. Unable to move myself or yell to the crew to take over for a while, I would lay there motionless. The only feeling I felt was the slow, cold, melting tears.

On this day, Mother was in a spell. I could hear her vacuuming rooms and slamming doors while running her normal errands around the apartment. Cleaning away and listening to loud gospel speakers preaching the good word to her while she mindlessly worked away, probably not even hearing the sermon. I could hear the sermon. It did nothing for me.

The rain continued, as did my tears. They weren't flowing tears but more so the kind of tears that are fashionably late to the party and take their sweet time rolling down my cheek only to lose momentum near my chin or neck and find themselves absorbed into my blankets or shirt. The kind of tears that evaporate as the next tear is welling in the eye, slowly moving towards the corner like some sort of well timed assembly line.

We lived in an apartment building on the twenty first floor. On the blissful days, I would find myself riding the elevators and meeting people from the building that I had never met before. It was interesting to ask about their professions and get a cliff notes view of their daily tasks as they'd ride the elevator to their destination. One minute I'd be conversing with a divorce lawyer taking her time to go see a client and when the elevator stopped at her floor, she'd do a do-si-do with the diner worker who was running late for his double at Arnold's. This would continue until the bliss wore away to the sad nothingness.

The cleaning stopped. I could hear my mom clapping and saying amen to the pastor on the television. It always amazed me that she would show support to the most random people she had never met, yet her support for me was virtually non-existent. How do you carry someone for nine months and live another sixteen years with them without feeling the slightest bit of concern about their inability to get out of bed or smile for weeks to months at a time?

Father was almost never around. He spent most of his time working and that usually meant business trips. I suspect he also had trouble with Mothers ability to start a fight over any trivial inconvenience at any given time. I often wonder why they've stayed together. They almost never see each other and when they do its mostly fighting about the news, religion or the fact that I'm almost always glued to my bed.

Water pooled outside along the windowsill making the ships seem as though they were marooned on an odd and unexpected shore. I felt as though I was marooned in waters that were infested with unknown sea creatures that could take the life of even the most daring and agile of pirates. Every once in a while a bird would land on the sill and I'd imagine that the ships were under attack by an extremely birdlike dragon. Sometimes the bird would be carrying a worm or a bit of straw or other garbage to make it's nest out of. It would look like the bird was tearing the ships apart and stealing bits to take back to it's nest.

I could hear footsteps just outside my door and soon Mother was in the room belittling me as she moved about cleaning anything she felt was not tidy enough.

"I don't know why I haven't packed you up to live with your grandparents. You laze about all day and don't respond to me when I'm talking to you."

She picked up a shirt, some trousers and socks and placed them in the laundry hamper.

"Your Father works all day and I'm stuck cleaning up after a toddler in a grown boys body. Will you look at me when I'm talking to you? Are you just unwilling to grow up?"

She walked towards the window, picking up more of the clutter along the way. She stopped and took notice of the ships along the windows bottom edge.

"This is what I'm talking about. You stare out the window and waste away with childish pictures stuck to your window. How about we change your scenery. Hmm?"

I could feel panic but I was unable to move or stop her from ripping the last piece of joy out of my miserable life. I watched as she began to peel back the fleet of ships and stack them one by one in her hand.

"This is why you will never grow up or learn to do what's good for you."

She ripped another ship away from the fleet.

"It's time for the make believe to end."

Another ship laid to waste by the sea that is my Mother.

"Now you can actually see outside of this window."

She peeled the last ship away, flattened it on the stack and I watched as her hand became the Kraken that doomed my fleet of ships to a fleshy grave.

"Get up. Now!"

I pulled the blankets back and sat up looking my mother square in the eye. I could feel a deep rage beginning to build and I knew I was about to do something that I wouldn't be able to control after it started. My blood was boiling and there was a whooshing noise between my ears.

"Maybe if you weren't such a cold bitch you'd still have a son, you heartless fucking witch."

As I said the words I could feel myself coming unglued from my bed and walking towards the window. It was like I was under a spell or watching a movie so horrific I couldn't look away. I felt the weight of the window as I slid the pane up. I can remember the weight of pushing myself out into sheer nothingness and then the weightlessness that followed. For twenty one floors of air rushing past my young body I thought about nothing but what it would be like to be a fleet of ships on the horizon.

submitted by /u/andipanic [link] [comments] via Blogger http://bit.ly/30OK3kI

#Blogger #Story

0 notes