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#i have never wanted to commit an act of violence more than i do rn

ilynpilled · 1 year

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One of the key aspects of Jaime’s fixation on that delusional all over the place ‘targ fantasy’ with Cersei is no longer having to “hide” the relationship. Which is something that is important for Jaime as a character because he is generally getting very sick of “lies” & “facades.” And then we see that he ends up on Bran with it. A big reason this irrationality of his is huge imo is that i think he fears ever being in that kind of position again, and is trying to make it so he has it all. He does “loathe” that part, “‘the things i do for love’, he said with loathing”, the repeated immorality for sustaining love (and then in feast it is touched on more once he confesses to Ilyn after the Lancel convo that he was willing to do child murder when Cersei asked, his own soul is dark, and being with Cersei as a whole is incompatible with the desire to change that really, and that all this actions he justified himself for doing for love was all for nothing because she apparently never loved him like that if she deceived him like this in his mind, and he was just one of many other men she “used”). But here he is still at a stage where he desperately wants to make everything compromise: he still has Cersei, that light in the darkness “the only light in the world”, they are potentially out of the game in his mind “let father sit the throne, all i want is you”, he can send Brienne to save Sansa and keeps his vow, he never has to hide the affair and commit an act like that again etc etc. He wants this so bad that he does block out rationality, not just the obvious, but also everything else. So many of these desires are just inherently incompatible with each other (so many vows…), but he looks away from the information that so clearly shows otherwise. Cersei for instance wants to get him to kill Tyrion for her right now, a thought that “turns his stomach”, and what he refuses to do, so ofc the whole thing is delusional on his part. Feast arc is key in bringing it all on the surface (thank u tyrion confession catalyst)

The white dress scene is about this to me as well, other than mirroring the inn when he was 15: in Jaime’s mind he gave up everything for Cersei, and she will not do the same for him. It is the continuation of “leave me”. He notes the white and he compares it to the curtains and sheets in the room, he connects her to the white tower/kg which is tied to certain things in his mind. It symbolically places her into that new identity that he wants to have rn. It suddenly fits her neatly into his goal, this idea that he can still be “better”, this blank white slate and unsoiled cloak that he desperately wants to be and with her still in his life (which is the idea that he marries her and they leave everything behind and they would never have to hide it again, especially through things he is ashamed of like the murder of children, nor would it be a sin bc they are like targs) Cersei is not wearing green, crimson, gold etc. They can be the knight and the maiden. He can even rationalize certain rituals of violence by protecting the “purity and innocence” that she would embody (hence “i should have killed robert, not her”), they are one whole after all. All this is why he takes off the white cloak and hangs it to go and discuss, which implies that he may be ready to abandon it because he found an alternative path. It is up in the air, if they can compromise here, in his mind he could reach that delusional ‘have it all’. The “white” blank slate and Cersei both. BUT it once again crumbles, because of deep rooted differing desires and the falsehood and performance of the whole thing (on the part of both), like in the joanna dream, you cannot cover up an “ugly reality” with gold, and at the need to “hide it”, which we know he connects to Bran. It ends with him rejecting her and donning the cloak again instead, with Cersei doing the same with her hairnet, and telling him that she had lied to him a thousand times. It is also interesting to me that when Jaime rejects Cersei twice, his reasoning are: first it was the whole “not here, not infront of my dead kingsguard senpai >:(”, which ofc is extremely ironic in a lot of ways considering the relationship itself is actively disregarding his vows, and that Jaime never appeared to particularly care about location before (sept lmao). Then, the rejection in Feast is also interesting bc he pins it on “not here. not in front of the gods and father”, which is eyebrow raising considering Jaime is not very opposed to blasphemous actions (he isn’t opposed to it after this moment either), and is a generally atheistic character. I think he has a lot of other complex reasonings for rejecting the drug that is Cersei that he is not ready to face yet (not even the cheating, considering the first rejection happens before that reveal, and with the second he is not yet at a point where he is that darkly obsessed with it, nor did he confront it as something truly credible yet).

#he can be possessive but there is a lot more going on here #so so interesting that the opposite choice is made in the show #and they just continue things here lol #pushing away the white book to fuck her lol ok #jaime lannister

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barakittens517 · 2 years

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PT VII: The Truth

Summary: In which hindsight is 20/20.

PT VI: The Revelation PT VIII: The Memory

Words: 2,271

Warnings: mentions of past violence/minor character deaths

Pairing: Morpheus x gender neutral reader

Notes: holy mother of pearl folks we're really at 7 parts rn!! remind me to finish this up before i run out of gifs y'all lol :')

Tag List: @ponyboys-sunsets @i-am-not-a-raccoon-anymore @memento-mora @freedomsofdream

“You’re joking,” you deadpan. “Please tell me you’re joking.”

Morpheus gives you a solemn look. He does not have a punchline.

“... Why?” Your voice comes out barely above a whisper. Tears, for the thousandth time, threaten to fall from your eyes.

“I do not know,” Morpheus answers softly. “This is new to me.”

“How does he know?” you ask. Fiddler’s Green had never told you he recognized you, not even on the way back to the Dreaming. How many chances had he had to tell you what you are?

“I do not know,” Morpheus replies, “But I would not be so quick to blame him. Something else is wrong here.”

You’re struck with the overwhelming feeling that you are the wrong here.

You are most certainly not going to own up to the trail of bodies you left in the waking world, not now. You may know your purpose, but you also know Morpheus was not a fan of the Corinthian’s hobbies while away.

You’re convinced this has to be an elaborate joke.

You spent all this time without a purpose, and now that you’re knee-deep in your own sins, you’re supposed to be someone’s soulmate?

The dream lord has had enough of the stunned silences. He does not know why he couldn’t- and still can’t- recognize you from before. And he doesn’t know why you’re so distraught at the news.

Part of him wants to take immediate offense. After all, you’re supposed to be his companion, and you’re acting like it’s a fate worse than death. Is he truly that horrific of a being?

You haven’t moved. He hesitates for a moment. Considers the advice Lucienne, and Hob, and Death would give him. It doesn’t matter. He doesn’t have the patience to wait.

“We finally have some kind of answer, and you can’t even look at me?”

“It’s not… that,” you reply. “It’s not because of you.”

Morpheus scoffs. “Then explain it to me. It is clear you know more than you’ve shared, for whatever reason.”

“I don’t fucking know!” you yell in frustration, scaring a flock of birds from the top of the dogwood tree. Morpheus does not take this for an answer. He is silent as he moves to kneel in front of you. His anger radiates dangerously, and you wonder if he really will destroy you. After all, he has the blueprints. He could just… start over.

You flinch as he reaches out, roughly grabbing your chin.

“Look at me,” he growls, and you’re so in shock that you do.

You had snuck glances at him before, mostly while he had been speaking with Fiddler’s and Lucienne. They were pretty, in an unearthly way, and you’d been glad he had never caught you staring.

Now, however, you don’t even think to close your eyes. What you had taken for eerie blues at a distance are black up close, like two inescapable voids. They’re speckled with starlight, as mesmerizing as those pictures from NASA satellites.

Morpheus’ expression has morphed from anger to awe. “Why do they glow?” you hear him whisper in amazement.

You want to answer, to tell him that you have no idea, and that you’re terrified, but no sound comes out.

To live as an Endless is to commit a million sins, none of which require any sort of guilt, or regret. Morpheus is unaffected by whatever compels people to confess, and for a fleeting moment you think you’re in the clear.

But whatever impact was meant for the dream lord changes course and strikes you. What seems like an eternity of hate, of anguish and sorrow and longing and love, hit like a ton of bricks. Like a tidal wave.

Like the air has been sucked from your lungs, like your whole soul is being crushed. There are too many transgressions to even begin thinking of penance. Flashes of time, of a city of glass built into the sand that transforms to an orb, a prison that kept Morpheus from returning, from saving his raven. Jessamy.

He wishes for death. He wishes for revenge. He wishes for a thousand things that never came to pass, and still haven’t.

What you had considered forever in the waking world passes like minutes to the Endless.

The dream lord’s voice sounds warped and distant. You can hear your name being called, urgent and tinged with worry. The sound adds to your increasing anxiety- you wonder briefly if perhaps you’ve tried to off yourself in front of Morpheus, like the victims before you. That would make things… well, awkward, to say the least.

“Ellis!”

You come to your senses and realize you’re tucked safely against the dream lord’s chest. You must have fallen forward as soon as you were struck with whatever that was. You’re incredibly aware of the fact that this feels right. Like you were meant to be here your whole life.

You don’t even consider being embarrassed until you notice Morpheus’ face. He won’t make eye contact- obviously- but he looks as though he’s seen a ghost, or perhaps, something he shouldn’t have.

“Sorry,” you croak, and immediately push yourself away from him. You focus on the flowers instead. Those stupid fucking flowers. “That’s not supposed to happen.”

The dream lord does not reply. So, of course, you fumble for a better explanation.

“I swear, it didn’t used to happen this much, and it’s not… I mean, it’s not me. It is me, but it’s not me. It got worse after I met Rin, but he doesn’t have eyes- I mean, he has eyes, but it never… And I wasn’t trying to make it happen, it just does. And I didn’t ever try to do bad, uh, like, bad stuff with it.

But I would never, I mean… not to you, I guess, I mean- Jesus, okay, uh… That is why I didn’t want to look at you.”

You’re out of breath now, and you can’t read Morpheus’ expression well enough to know what he’s going to do next.

You sigh. “I would, um… I would understand if you just wanted to start over.” The thought makes you ill, but who would want a soulmate like you?

The dream lord looks genuinely shocked. “Start over?” he asks incredulously. You shrug.

“It would probably be easier,” you reply. It would probably be better, you want to say, but you don’t.

“Ellis…” Morpheus starts, and then stops. He doesn’t want to tell you what he experienced in the same fleeting seconds. “I’m not going to start over.”

Your breath catches in your chest for a moment- he wants you to stay?- before logic kicks in and forces you to consider what life is really going to be like.

You will always be a threat, even if Morpheus is capable of caring about you.

“There must be a way to fix this,” he says, and while you know he means well, it stings.

Fixing a thing implies a current state of being broken. Do you consider yourself broken?

“I don’t remember how it happened,” you comment. “I always thought I was just… I don’t know, made this way. I figured after meeting Rin that I was meant to be something like him.”

Meant to be a nightmare. Ha. You were too good-natured to be a nightmare, and too deadly to be a dream.

Morpheus shakes his head. “No, you aren’t a nightmare. You were meant to be…” his voice falters, deciding on an adjective that won’t offend. “... Mine. You are meant to be mine.”

You’re grateful to be sitting down- your knees would have given out otherwise. “Yours,” you echo quietly.

Morpheus stands, brushing the dirt from his coat. He offers you his hand, and you take it. Your heart is beating wildly in your chest, and you hope to high heavens you’re the only one that hears it.

“We will need to discuss this with Lucienne,” Morpheus states. “She may know how to find what you have forgotten.”

You nod in agreement and start on ahead, following the trail of flowers back to the main path. You plan on keeping your distance, as much as you can without looking suspicious. It’s not that you don’t like Morpheus- you’re beginning to like him too much. And you’ve only known of his existence, what, three days? And what, all because of a fucking notebook doodle and some flowers?

As much as you want to believe it could work, Verity’s voice comes ringing back, echoing your worst fears.

No one ever wanted you. No one ever will.

The universe will not miss you.

You pick up the last bits of self-preservation left in your heart and attempt to ignore the fact that your hand still burns from his touch. He had said that he wouldn’t start over, but you know it will always be an option. Who are you to blame him?

Morpheus seems to sense your apprehension and reaches for your hand again, pulling you back to stand in front of him.

“What, am I heading the wrong way?” you ask, playing dumb. It doesn’t work.

Morpheus frowns. He wishes so badly that he could look you in the eyes, and then you would know he’s telling the truth. He settles for brushing the loose strands of hair away from your face, a touch so gentle it leaves your face burning.

“I don’t want to lose you again,” he says softly, and your heart swells at the sentiment.

“And I want you to trust me.”

Goddamn, why did he have to go and ruin a good moment with that?

“Well, then, try and keep up,” you reply flippantly, turning on your heels. Morpheus lets you keep your distance this time, although his eyes never once lose sight of you.

He understands more than he did before, when he took a personal offense to your emotions.

While you drowned in his eternity of memories as an Endless, he could see each of your years spent in a century of the waking world. It wasn’t much in comparison, but to compare suffering is to compound it. You had been through your own brand of hell, one that you would never speak of.

The beginning was murky, but he recognized Ms. Jude from your dreams, and the orphanage you had loved so dearly. You had felt guilty, thinking you could never do enough- after all, they were still in an orphanage, weren’t they?

The Marwoods came next, and the monster that was Saul. Anger is not strong enough a word for what Morpheus felt, witnessing the years of unwarranted hate and abuse. He should have come for you first.

Then came David Marwood’s death, and Eden’s subsequent mutism. As much as it pained you, you could not stay with them. You had confronted Saul one final time, freeing the family of his demons. His death, at your hands, was an event that never left your mind. He had poured lye into a bottle of whiskey and dropped dead within minutes.

Your return to the orphanage did not last long. You thought perhaps you had control over your abilities. Ms. Jude had changed in the years since you left, and her motherly faith had possessed her to a traumatizing extent. You had begged her to let the children go to families that would love them, but she had become her own warped Mother Teresa.

After a particularly bitter conversation, she sent the children to bed and locked the orphanage up for the night. Only after you heard the firemen yelling outside did you realize she had set the dormitory ablaze.

Twenty-six children and one matron, dead on arrival. You were able to leap from the second story, soaking your clothes in ashen puddles on the lawn. No one even noticed you walk from the smoldering wreckage.

You stayed away from as much of society as you could after that- at first because the authorities had yet to rule it a suicide, and then because you were terrified any passing glance would send innocents to their deaths.

Lonely, guilt-filled decades preceded your voyage to the States. You had given up on finding any answers, resorting to a life on the edges of society. However, people had become suspicious seeing you throughout the years, never aging, never speaking. It was better to leave than face any repercussions.

And then there was the Corinthian.

Morpheus bristled at the sight of the blonde nightmare, so casual in his sins. He immediately saw through Rin’s lying by omission- of course you thought you were like him.

Morpheus’ heart sank as he realized the Corinthian wanted you to meet him. He wanted to hurt the dream lord as badly as he could, and collateral damage did not matter. You didn’t even know you would be a pawn.

He witnessed the death of the gas station attendant, of Blade Runner and Nimrod. Even though you had been protecting yourself, the guilt ate you alive.

His view of your memories ended seconds before he had forced you to look at him. He saw everything- the fear, the shame, the guilt. It has always been with you.

And now you’re supposed to be some kind of perfect soulmate?

He feels terrible for how he has acted. Selfishly, he would not trade a moment of having you in his arms, if only for those fleeting moments.

Now you are determined to stay away, lest anyone get hurt.

He can’t blame you. But he can- no, he will- protect you.

Come hell or high water, you aren’t going to be alone again.

#the sandman #morpheus #dream of the endless #Morpheus x reader #Dream x gn! reader #the corinthian #netflix sandman

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robininthelabyrinth · 3 years

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a lot of people in fandom have this idea that nie sect is some super progressive place and if only MY had dealt with the CQL captain guy better then he'd have had every opportunity to advance and be accepted but it didn't happen for him because he was too sneaky? hiding his 'real' personality? or something like that? what are your thoughts on this bc mine rn are teetering between 'yeah maybe' and being a bit annoyed at the way fandom has decided nie sect is actually perfect and can do no wrong

Okay, so the tone of this question is weirdly aggressive for whatever reason, but let me share my thoughts anyway.

First: the Nie sect is clearly not a place that is wholly lacking in the usual types of biases found in the cultivation world, including specifically against people with "questionable" backgrounds, i.e. Meng Yao's mother being a prostitute. We know this from there is bullying, name-calling, etc., both in the cave and, in CQL, from the captain. This is all bad.

However, this is modified by two things: the fact that there is ample evidence that this is the same everywhere else in the cultivation world (and is indeed worse, including for example in the Jin sect, per novel canon), and the fact that despite this, Meng Yao has managed to significantly advance his career at the Nie sect. Nie Mingjue stood up for him, took measures against those he saw as looking down at him, promoted him and treated him as his right hand man advisor - in CQL, we see him entrust him with his younger brother and listen to him over his own best instincts. He trusted him.

In a system where blood and birth is everything - Meng Yao isn't going to be made an heir to Nie sect because, well, he's not a Nie - Meng Yao has basically reached the highest pinnacle of what is possible to achieve with pure merit. Is there still a hostile work environment? Yes, because that's the culture they live in. But Meng Yao has Nie Mingjue - the big boss - backing him to the hilt. In CQL, we literally see that Nie Mingjue will start yelling at people he learns are putting Meng Yao down because of his birth.

That's the key point here - Nie Mingjue can't do shit about the stuff that doesn't get reported to him. From a modern corporation perspective, Nie Mingjue is basically doing all you can ask for: he's providing the correct tone from the top, he's ensuring that people who violate that are swiftly disciplined, he's modeled a better example through promoting and trusting Meng Yao, and he's provided a route for future complaints by establishing that he is willing to listen to Meng Yao's judgment.

Does that immediately make everything perfect for Meng Yao? Of course not! Nie Mingjue is fighting upstream against not only his own sect's culture, but the entire cultivation world's. But he's doing the best he can, and that, at least, is more than we see anyone else doing. (In CQL, Lan Xichen does something similar by personally modelling acceptance of Meng Yao, though notably, he doesn't take any action to punish those who were mocking him, which in CQL he had the right to do as sect leader. This makes being nice to Meng Yao a personal trait of Lan Xichen that others are encouraged to emulate, which is a good start, but doesn't go as far as Nie Mingjue since there's no reason to stop looking down at Meng Yao if you don't happen to feel like it.)

Conclusion: the Nie sect is a pretty good place to be at for someone like Meng Yao, as available places in the cultivation world go. While gaining acceptance would not happen immediately, there is no reason to think that it wouldn't happen eventually.

Now, onto your point about Meng Yao being "too sneaky" or showing his "real" personality being the issue - the issue, at heart, is not about whether Meng Yao was faking his sweetness. It's that Meng Yao chose not to tell Nie Mingjue about the captain's bullying, despite having previous evidence that Nie Mingjue would likely take his side against bullying, and instead chose to MURDER THE GUY. To be clear, in the modern corporate environment, even if you have a really hellish hostile work environment, even if you think your boss would side with the other guy over you and there's no point in making a report (which isn't the case here), even if all that is true, murder is not an appropriate response.

But it's not a modern corporate environment, it's the cultivation world, where murder happens a lot more casually - well, guess what, even if murder is okay (and it's not), do you know when it's pretty obviously NOT okay? In the middle of an attack on the sect by an enemy.

You don't really come back from that. Sorry. Doesn't really matter what your personality is, if you're willing to do that, you're out at best.

Where Meng Yao not showing his "real" personality comes in is actually later: he pretended to be righteous and just, just the way Nie Mingjue likes people to be (and that's totally okay because righteousness is an act not an intention; as long as he acted righteously, he was righteous, and who cares whether it came to him naturally). But maybe if he'd shown Nie Mingjue his true self, it wouldn't have been such a shock when he murdered a man in cold blood, and would have made it easier to forgive him later.

(I sincerely believe that part of Nie Mingjue's trauma at Meng Yao's action is the discovery that his trusted advisor, someone he thoguht of as a friend, wasn't at all the person he thought he was. I've compared it in the past to discovering that a good buddy of yours commits domestic violence - so often, you get people going "I never would have expected it from them, they were so nice to me" and are shocked and horrified because they feel they should have known, they should have seen signs, they should have figured it out.)

But the key thing here is - when your trust in someone is broken, it's broken. Nie Mingjue knows that Meng Yao isn't what he thought he was, and yet, for the rest of their relationship, Meng Yao persists in continuing to act as if he was that sort of good person...and gets pissed at Nie Mingjue for not believing it. Why should he believe it? Nie Mingjue wants to forgive him and to try to build a relationship with the person Meng Yao really is, and Meng Yao won't let him because he wants Nie Mingjue to go back to not having ever looked behind the curtain. Which is, of course, impossible.

If Meng Yao had been up front with who he was, maybe Nie Mingjue would have known to look for what Meng Yao wasn't telling him and been able to help prevent everything. Maybe he would have extended more sympathy to Meng Yao for the actual act of killing the guy. Maybe they could have made up again later.

Maybe not.

But what is inescapable is that Meng Yao's own decisions are what cost him his position in the Nie sect, and nothing else.

#mdzs meta #nie mingjue #meng yao #jin guangyao

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chemicalarospec · 2 years

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Things to say when you have a strong emotional reaction instead of “I’m going to/killing myself.”

Because it’s really bad for your mental health! (and more than just extremely awkward, possibly triggering for people around you.)

Changing your language to reflect things that you don’t feel yet still is a step in a right direction, instead of casually saying things that keep what you want off your mind (suicide) on it. Is this really the culture that we want to be spreading?

Partial replacements: Even “Kill me now” is one step up “killing myself,” and “I’m dying” one step up from that.

I see this used in both positive and negative situations so I tried to have a good balance of reactions in here. mix ’n match, use all caps as you choose, add swears, etc.

(if xyz happened) I would ascend beyond this mortal realm.

AHHHHHHHHHHHH

I am going to run into the woods and find a very small hole and climb inside and never come out.

The AUDACITY! to do this to me personally!

I am going to start stabbing.

I cannot believe this world!!!

brb going feral over this

I am going to set this place on fire.

Deeply unfortunately, I am feeling over this.

I am SCREAMING

I am!! feeling!! so much right now!!

I am going to commit multiple felonies.

frothing at the mouth rn

I contain boundless [ex. disbelief, loathing, or just “emotion”] at this.

this is not okay! I am not okay!

I want to flee the country. Or the planet.

I am going to kill someone.

This is the worst thing!

Hell. Hell on Earth.

I am committing petty crime as we speak.

I am overwhelmed [by this].

For what reason!!!

I want to shoot my enemies into the sun.

I need to commit acts of violence.

I am going to kill the president of the United States of America.

bonus super-simple one: “I want to die” -> “I want to cry”

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leviiattacks · 3 years

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No One Sticks Around | Levi Ackerman

note :: this was a request i just quickly wrote it because i managed to find some free time at 3am GODDD crying so hard rn i’m so upset over chapter 138 like i am in tears over it and school work T___T please i literally cried writing this because 138 made me so upset gn i’m a mess rn but if aot ends the way i think it does then idk maybe it won’t be that bad.

pairing :: captain!levi x cadet!reader genre :: angst, angst, ANGST word count :: 1.2k

warnings :: canon typical violence i guess?? not even really violence honestly but mentions of blood etc

He never understood why everyone had to leave him. Never understood why departure had to be defined as death. Never understood what he had done to be the one to witness each and every casualty caused by this misery but never become one of the bodies in the never ending bloody pile.

Living to be invincible wasn't as great as people made it out to be, neither was being as good as immortal on the battlefield.

Sometimes, Levi would look at his reflection and tell himself he had the urge to drop dead. He then would carry on to tell himself he knew he wouldn't be able to do that. He didn't want that really. All he ever wanted was to escape this cave of bloodshed.

The world was caving in and he couldn't do anything about it. No matter how powerful he was he couldn't. All he could do was watch in horror as he saw everyone else slowly die out.

He promised not to grow attached, there was no reason to grow connections or friendships.

Farlan and Isabel were bitter reminders of that.

That day he learnt death was worse when there was a shared familiarity between souls. Part of him died when he found them drenched in the damp downpour. Their blood soaked into the concrete beneath them.

The day he returned from that expedition he reeked of failure. He scrubbed his skin till it became red and he told himself to get a grip. Never grow attached Levi, no one sticks around. Those words remained stuck in his head .

But, he was stupid and made the same mistake again.

He had to redo the promise he made to himself again when he needed to put Erwin's life on a scale right next to Armin's. Another piece of him passed away when Erwin murmured his thanks. Silently, under his breath he told Levi he was grateful for all that he had done.

Levi didn't think he was grateful for it at all. In denial, he thought it was all a formality, after all, the both of them had been through thick and thin together. Erwin probably thought the least he could do before his death was to offer his thanks, that's how Levi saw it all.

Erwin died in his arms. He felt him sag and remain limp, he sensed his breathing falter and he shed a tear when it proceeded to discontinue.

When he returned from that expedition he scrubbed at his skin till it scratched and itched in irritation. He needed to be clean, needed to feel safe, needed to reassure himself that everything was okay. Everything would be okay if he followed his advice this time. Never grow attached Levi, no one sticks around. From then on those words rang in his head twice as often.

But, he was never able to learn in the past so what happened next served to be no surprise at all.

Present day.

He's only gone and done it again.

He's grown attached.

He knows it's wrong to choose you over Jean, he curses himself when he's fighting through his tears asking himself why he's being irrational and risking his own life for you, the weakest member of the squad physically, you've always been a hindrance when it's come to teaching combat. Somehow you scraped it into the top ten all those years ago because of your intelligence and problem solving skills.

As the years have passed you've also made yourself at home in one of the tiny crevices of Levi's heart.

Levi knows Jean is a greater aid to humanity than you, he knows it, he knows it, he knows it.

But, he can't go through the devastation of loss again.

His body acts before his mind can stop him, he darts to your rescue as Jean watches on in terror wondering why his Captain is acting illogically and picking you over him.

You're trying to look him in the eyes, telling him it's okay he can leave you behind and take Jean instead, "MY TIME IS UP. LOOK AT ME LEVI." Screeching and wailing the Earth is coming down to the ground around you.

He can't make himself look at you, he's not willing to change his mind.

Grunting in pain he stubbornly releases you from the grip the abnormal has on you, you're still screaming as you fall down the drop with him, your ear-splitting cries tell him he's made the wrong choice, but as he zips through the foliage aiming to return back to your base he eases up at the way you howl. It comforts him. He's sick and twisted for letting it have that impact on him, he feels like a monster but you're still alive, that’s all that matters. You'll return alive and he'll be able to shelter you from harm’s way.

"Don't let his death be in vain." He whispers the sentence into the shell of your ear and you freeze, his voice is cracking and you hold onto him tighter. You squeeze him in your suffocating grip and sob into his neck, you've both lost a comrade who shouldn't have died today.

By the time the two of you have reached safety he's still afraid to let you go, he hates himself for falling in love with you because the gap between the two of you can't be bridged. You're bound to die if you don't work on your strength and if you don't pass away before him it'll be because he'll stupidly sacrifice himself for you.

Trembling as he cautiously lets you off his back you ask him the long awaited question, "Why did you pick me over him?" Voice breaking up you attempt to keep your cool and find the reasoning behind the foolish decision he made back in the forest.

Levi turns to you hesitantly, his eyes are glazed over with tears and he doesn't know how to explain his selfish urge to you, in the moment he just knew he had to save you, knew he needed you to keep going.

Then he blurts it out without stopping to think of the repercussions of his words. "I'm not the kind of man to confess."

His hoarse voice tenses midway through, he has to cough in-between the sentence but his words are still able to sink in. They hang in the air and then what he means hits you.

You're worth more than humanity to him.

He loves you.

You nod acknowledging what has been said. "Your actions have told me as much." is all you can manage to choke out.

His eyes flick to your face, he's trying to memorize your features off by heart, he needs to commit them to his memory, he can't afford to forget how you look.

"Dying isn't an option for us." Your voice is soft and fragile.

He takes a hold of your hand and begins to draw circles atop your palm.

Edging closer to him at first you lean in to offer him a hug and tell him everything will be alright. Brushing his hair out of his face and stroking his scalp time passes excruciatingly slow

Gazing at you he Releases a shaky breath and unexpectedly grabs you by the shoulders lunging forward. His lips smash into yours, you give into his hold and the apprehension drifts away. Kissing him back you whimper into his mouth, you’ve never kissed anyone before but it all feels so right with him. His hands fly to the back of your neck tilting you deeper and you oblige. It feels like you’ve lived just to share this moment with him.

For now, he won't have to go back and scrub at his skin till it grows red.

For now, you have him and he has you.

Grow attached Levi, no one sticks around.

#levi #leviackerman #snk #aot #attack on titan #attack on titan levi #aot fanfiction #levi headcanons #levi x reader #levi x y/n #levi scenario #levi fanfiction #levi angst #aot angst #leviiattacks

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ashlingnarcos · 2 years

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unhinging my jaw like a massive fucking python rough draft Carrillo meta rambles, extremely rough draft Carrillo meta rambles

there’s really no reason for me to feel more nervous about writing for carrillo than for other characters but that’s where we’re at rn so I’m just. going to make a long ass list of things I know to be true plus other things I think are true plus other things I just pulled out of my ass smelling of roses ok???

violence as gateway to intimacy

i think for him intimacy and permissiveness are linked? in his head, it’s probably more that intimacy and shared values are linked. intimacy and trust are linked. intimacy and understanding are linked. but the specific instances of shared values, trust, and understanding that he responds to? are fucking war crimes, okay. it’s a really clear pattern for him, that once he receives assurances that the other person (whether that be Javi or Steve) is willing to cross moral boundaries to commit violence in service of the anti-Escobar cause, then that is, for him, basically the building block of a certain type of trust/intimacy/relationship. for him it’s about commitment. and a “we’re on the same wavelength” kind of thing. but it is, and this is key, expressed through permission to commit extreme, illegal, and arguably immoral violence

the pointlessness of one cruelty is key to understanding the thread of cruelty & revenge running through all of it

on the other hand I think there’s a streak of cruelty and vindictiveness in this which he himself never acknowledges? I’m thinking specifically of dropping people out of helicopters, over a forest. This isn’t something that he does to even have an intimidation factor. in all likelihood these bodies will not be discovered, given the remote location. also, while he attempted to extract information using fear of death, it clearly didn’t work, yet he still threw the last person out of the helicopter. so that’s about cruelty. even if it comes down to eliminating certain players, which frankly I don’t think it is as these were not super high level guys and could’ve easily done the old “rot in jail” thing—even if it WAS that, he could’ve just shot him in the head. to drop a man from that height, in a remote area, with nobody left alive to intimidate—that’s for one reason and one reason only, which is that you want him to suffer extra. that’s the difference between the helicopter and the bullet. it's about the fall. if we acknowledge that on at least one occasion, he committed an act of violent murder primarily out of revenge, vindictiveness, cruelty, sadism, spite, whatever, then I think it's perfectly fair to call into question how much of his other acts of violence are motivated at least in part by revenge & cruelty. I think it's fair to say that whatever the motivation percentage is, it's nonzero.

"i wouldn't judge him", loss, & responsibility looping back to intimacy

no but like there’s an element of responsibility, leadership, and camaraderie that is the other side of that violence coin. He specifically bonds with Javi over the killing of Gacha not only because it was a killing but because, in Carrillo’s own words, he is tired of sending young men to die, and it is implied that Gacha’s death is in some way rendering meaning to those deaths, preventing more of those deaths, or both. He speaks of widows and orphans and I don’t think he’s talking about them in the abstract, I think he’s talking about them as individual people, as a widow he personally had to talk to, a young orphan barely old enough to go to school that he’s tried to look in the eye. I think it must take courage, for someone who cares, to make the kind of decisions that will lead to more of these losses. I think even the most stalwart of hunters must sometimes doubt. I don’t think all the widows and orphans he speaks of really necessarily care whether the narco targets get killed—perhaps some do, but the children especially likely only want their fathers back. He can’t give them that, though.

Javi says that Carrillo has had several partners before, but in the show we mostly see him operating only as a commander or receiving orders—the closest to someone at his level, a peer, is Javi, and that’s just not the same. Trying to imagine how hard it would hit Steve or Javi if their partner died, that’s tough. We saw what Javi turned to after Carrillo was killed, how much of an influence that was on him. Now try to imagine what it must have been like for Carrillo, to have that happen several times.

We were not told, so we will never know, whether he stopped having partners because he himself couldn’t take it anymore, or whether he stopped having partners because no good soldiers were able and willing to take that risk.

us vs them & the magnifying effect of being cloistered

yeah so I think he dehumanizes his enemies to an extreme and that’s amplified by the way his whole world appeared to be separated into enemies and allies. Outside of his coworkers and his wife, who is he ever with? Who could he be with, when there’s such a large target on his back? Perhaps if he was less of a workaholic and got out into the world more, he’d experience more contact with people who aren’t engaged in the war, people who are trying to get by in a way that’s barely relevant to the war. As it is, his view is skewed because all he has are, broadly speaking, people who would gladly kill him if they could, and people who are risking their lives to further a cause he shares. That’s a world of extremes. In many ways, his sense of morality is less about rules surrounding specific acts and far more about teams. He approaches each person not as an individual but someone who he can place in the constellation of relationships that make up this war. It’s about context, it’s about history

I can see the bottom of the pool but just barely

You know how in Succession, Rhea says of Logan, “I can’t see the bottom of the pool?” As in, I don’t know how deep this darkness goes? I am both relieved and disgusted to announce that I have found the bottom of the pool. Unfortunately it is very deep, but it’s there. Notably, he told Pablo that he knew where Pablo’s family was, that he knew where Tata had shopped that day. Didn’t kill her, didn’t kidnap her. Clearly there is some type of divide in his head between civilian and non civilian, and she made it on the civilian side, however barely.

this part is specifically for the Javi x Carrillo shippers I know you're out there bless you’re doing the lords work

No but I’m serious the entire episode about getting Gacha and the way that Javi reacted to Carrillo’s death, what am I supposed to do with that??? There’s such an intimacy in the way Carrillo has left his fingerprints on Javi’s whole worldview and it’s so fucked up but there’s a form of memory there, there’s a kind of Javi carrying Carrillo forward. Leave me alone I’m fine. No but think about how he and Javi were just hanging out having dinner when Steve called with the information that led to the raid that killed Poison. “Cheap” okay but how is that not a date???? How is that not a date????? Genuinely how. These two clearly do not get much understanding and companionship on the level of “you know where the bodies are buried, both literally and metaphorically” and so. Just to have a little human understanding in what is usually an ocean of treachery—Carrillo has to eavesdrop on his own men to ensure their loyalty! He might have eavesdropped on Javi if he could, but I don’t think he could, and he went ahead and trusted Javi anyway. “Y yo en ti.” I am feeling so fine and normal about this rn okay

but what do we actually know about Carrillo's canon relationship and children?

Juliana had a pretty solid role in her own way as his wife. It’s a very traditional marriage, as far as I can tell, but it appears functional in every way except one. He’s relaxed and affectionate with her. Noticeably, I think the costume department gave her that green dress because it looks literally so much like an army uniform and I do think that Juliana serves in her own way. Her reaction to a knock at the door and her husband reaching for a gun is concern, but not panic. This is not something she’s unaccustomed to and it will by no means drive her away.

As for the fucked up part of things, aka she has no idea the lengths to which he will go and the literal children he will kill to achieve his goals, well, in a sad way I think that’s what makes the marriage work for him? He has a place, home, where he is very much just a straightforward good guy, adored, able to be domestic and happy. Doesn’t fear being judged.

But in a way I think that’s really wrong of him, to keep all of that from Juliana. If you’re living with a man, having and raising his children, taking his ring, sleeping with him, tending to his emotional and physical needs, that’s a level of support at which you’re definitely supporting him in his work and just the idea of waking up one morning to find out your husband is dead and also guess what he was a war criminal and you never knew…horror story. Genuinely think he did her wrong with that shit. It’s every woman’s right to Lysistrata the living hell out of a man whose actions she can’t support, but without knowing his actions, it’s like they were living in different worlds. Juliana was loyal in the face of literal assassination attempts and this is what she gets? She did nothing wrong, she deserved better treatment. And as I say, I see why he did it, but also, fuck you for that one Horacio in like a big fucking way

He wants control, right? He is used to getting it, at least among folks on his own side. He’s willing to be affectionate and soft, but on his own terms and with someone whose view of him he apparently tried to restrict a fair amount. So I’ll just let that thought marinate for a second…the gender roles and relations of it all too oof. OOF

There’s literally no interactions with his children. I can’t believe that he’d be massively neglectful given his general inclination towards duty and responsibility, but I also can’t believe that he’s home every night given how often and hard he works. It’s overtime on overtime afaik

Room to move and change

one question I’m always asking myself is, oh cool you have a character you love? How can you believably change them and/or fuck them up even worse?

The thing is, he’s a remarkably stable character throughout his two seasons. I can see his categorization of who is a civilian becoming smaller, his categorization of who is an enemy becoming larger, as part of a moral corruption arc. I really doubt at this point that he’d change in the opposite direction on those categorizations, and I doubt that he would narrow the list of things he’s willing to do to his enemies.

In terms of the other things that make him who he is, I could always try changing the external circumstances that provide the foundation of his life. I could remove his responsibility, which a pillar of his life, possibly even stripping him of military rank—who would he be if he wasn’t a soldier? That would probably severely fuck up his life and worldview. Similarly, he is beloved by his men and he is known for being incorruotible. What if that element was taken away? And as I’ve stated, I do think his home life is part of why he remains functioning despite the amount of stress and trauma that he’s enduring on the daily. So if you take away Juliana, you would likely get a man who a) tries to get that sense of stability, affection, and domesticity in other ways b) if he can’t, maybe is a workaholic to an unsustainable level ?? Oh don’t mind me I’m just crouching over my bubbling pot muttering about my potions and poisons I’m an old hag and imna ruin some lives it’s fine.

I should write a fic about his reputation being attacked specifically regarding his loyalty, his care for his soldiers, and/or his incorruptibility

NO but also what if he finally got Escobar? What then? Next up the Cali cartel? But here’s the thing, Cali doesn’t operate the way Pablo did. They would not have bombed a ducking airplane for starters. He would have a harder time justifying his all-out, no holds barred approach when it comes to them…unless he connected them to Los Pepes…which in turn would put some blame right back on him…no but would Los Pepes in the world of the show even get as much done as they did if Javi hadn’t turned to them jnthe wake of Carrillo’s death??? Man I’m losing it trying to think my way outta this one

Yeah I mean bottom line is I think there would be far less tolerance for his human rights abuses if he had a different enemy, one who tried to stay as clean-looking as possible and who treated the media aspect and the civilian casualties aspect way differently than Pablo did

Like ultimately the cops did take Pablo out, but in a way he took himself out by endangering his own operations. First eith his desire for love/political power, then with his increasingly bloody tactics. The part that really got him was the part in which he started killing so many civilians AND even some of his own allies out of a mix of rage, desperation, and paranoia. Without that, though, would Carrrillo as we know him even exist????

The tl;dr

Face: ten out of ten

Morals: zero out of ten but three bonus points for passionately pursuing what he thinks will better his country and caring for his men

Shoulders: ten out of ten

Javi chemistry: seven out of I don’t think they fucked and not all intimacy has to be romantic but like it deffo could’ve been you don’t gotta squint much

Marriage: ten out of ten but I’m docking it like six points because he kept her in the dark for the whole time about the war crimes

Bravery: eleven out of ten

Diagnosis: absolutely hopeless, he’s in a weirdlu politically symbiotic relationship with the worlds most powerful and violent drug dealer and all he wants is to kill him but the second he DOES kill him, he’s basically no longer the right man for the moment he’s basically the Pablo Acosta of unethical policing and I think he’d probably deal with it either by finding another white whale to hunt somewhere in the world or by, you know, doing a Pablo Acosta

#horacio carrillo #meta #mine #colonel Carrillo #not me coming in like a surgeon with a knife like who are we taking apart todayyyyy #also if you stan him without reserve and cannot bear to hear me say one (1) critical thing abt him don’t read it save urself the trouble #he is obviously my boy but I have shit to say

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dreamteamfanblog · 3 years

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Y'know, I don't actually have a well defined stance on the "Should We All Be Treating Dream Better In Prison" debate, partially because I haven't been watching the Smp regularly for a while and am most likely not up to date with everything and from what i've heard/seen I am kinda on the fence, so like, i'm not arguing for either the stance that Dream should be treated better in prison than he is or for the stance that nobody's obligated to be nice to him after the moral event horizon's he's crossed. Like. I am not making a stance on which is correct.

But I will say the debate in Dream's favour makes me a bit uneasy solely for the fact that it really seems like the long standing Dream Apologism (or at least tolerance) tendency back in full force. That's not me saying "We can't criticize the way the prison is set up rn", I myself don't know how I feel about the conditions in the prison. It's not the suggestion that conditions should be better in of itself that puts me on edge. It's the sheer unadulterated passion and fury and intolerance towards characters who aren't Dream next to this very lackluster mumbly noncommittal "hahh yeah that was really bad and not good :(" certain parts of the fandom extend when it comes to what Dream's done.

I see lots of people incredibly passionate about how Dream's mental health is bad now and he's not getting enough nutrition and he's being mistreated, and i'm not going to go on record and say I even disagree necessarily but I will ask where that energy is from these exact same people while Dream's continuing to regularly commit atrocities?

A lot of the "Dream Deserves Better Treatment In Prison" crowd will vaguely acknowledge that Dream is Bad and has done Bad things, but they never match the passion they extend in Dream's favour to criticize him with the same fierceness when it comes to things like his consistent and continued abusive behaviour towards poor Ranboo, the fact that he beat a child to death while locked in the prison together then laughed about it (then smugly taunted about how he could do it again and again and the people on the server were still his puppets), murdering Ghostbur/reviving Wilbur with no remorse or hesitance, etc.

I mean sure all but the most diehard out of touch Dream Apologists will very briefly acknowledge these things with a neutral-negative tone but it's literally so blatantly lackluster besides the same people's impassioned fury over how Dream's treated in prison.

And this isn't a new thing!

People are quick to downplay Dream's corruption in the early days of the Smp before the revolution, people are quick to minimize Dream's role in everything Schlatt did, people were a bit too hasty to insist back when the exile conflict first happened that he very possibly really was just upset with Tommy for griefing and probably wasn't even planning to hurt L'manburg or use Tubbo (which...we know is false now and honestly knew was false then too lets be real), hell, there was this whole cognitive dissonance mental gymnastics thing going on throughout season two where people tried to juggle both the fact that Dream's actively psychologically torturing a child all season and the idea that he's not really a tyrant per say and we don't necessarily need to shove him out of power cause has he really done that much to deser-

you get the idea

It's not apologism per say. When pushed people will acknowledge that Dream's a bad person or that specific things that are pretty impossible to ignore were really awful of him.....then cha cha slide right into "But is it REALLY okay to do/say/feel ____ regarding him???".

It's not apologism. But it is tolerance. And the expectation that his victims be tolerant as well.

During the early days of the Smp, Dream unfairly asserted an authority over people who did not want him to govern them. He dished out punishments, made up rules, dictated the lives of others, involved himself in conflicts that were not his business, etc, and when he was told to leave just a few of these people alone in just a tiny little area of land because his governing was unwanted? He asserted himself supreme authority, named his friend king, and then repeatedly killed and destroyed the land of like four people who literally just asked him to leave them alone and stop bossing them around for no reason. He was oppressive, he killed, he stole, he destroyed everything around him with no mercy because someone asked him to stop bothering them and not enter a plot of land that literally took up like a hill in a plains biome and nothing else at the time. There are one person houses on the server bigger than the original L'manburg land plot. Dream was a tyrant who took five canon lives in one day because he was so entitled he couldn't fucking handle the hit his overblown ego took over such a reasonable request. However many people, even people who will vaguely acknowledge that Dream wasn't a good leader back then, will actively ignore or even openly flippantly downplay his atrocious behaviour while also getting weirdly fixated on, like, the 'drug' van thing. Wilbur is a very corrupt person and he has been since before the Pogtopia arc, I will die on that hill, but within the context of the Independence War....L'manburg was entirely in the right? And didn't really do anything?? Like first off I really don't care how often they do the whole bit of calling them drugs, they're potions, the implications are not the same. Secondly, they literally just scammed Tubbo, and not even out of much all things considered, which are like, standard Dream Smp shenanigans, come on now, and like, when it was blown up and made into this big thing where now Tommy and Wilbur are going to jail.....everyone was kinda just like "wait what the fuck". Like. Eret and Tubbo both literally switched sides to side with Wilbur and Tommy midway through the arrests cause like...what the fuck. Like, as Wilbur himself pointed out, they didn't even do anything illegal, Sapnap just decided on the spot that it was and he's taking them into custody. Tubbo was literally the one person scammed and he was a L'manburg citizen from its very conception. The fact that people have always been so ready to minimize Dream's corrupt bs at the time while fixating on bUt ThE dRuG vAn is really weird. And while most people don't take it so far as to claim that independence was a bad thing to ask for full stop, they're also way too fuckin' keen on making L'manburg's side look a lot less innocent than it was and making Dream and his soldiers look a lot less corrupt, unreasonable, and power hungry than they clearly were at the time, instead implying that L'manburg somehow took things too far or had disingenuous origins despite not actually doing anything illegal or super immoral anyway, they were literally just asking Dream to back off from their absolutely tiny little patch of land and stop telling them what to do, and Dream was the one who declared war outright and then started murdering/stealing/pillaging/burning-and-exploding shit all over the place. A lot of people, even as they acknowledge he's Bad, expect an unreasonable amount of tolerance for Dream while being rather overly critical and judgmental of the other side of the conflict in question to an unfair degree. They aren't defending Dream per say, they're just fixating heavily on the other party's perceived wrongdoings while Dream is doing horrific atrocious things and just kinda gets vaguely handwaved at. Sometimes this dips directly into the "Dream was bad obviously, but was starting a revolution and war against him really necessary when it caused so much bloodshed :( ?" argument as well.

This carried on very neatly into the Manburg-Pogtopia arc, Dream's tyrannical oppressive destructive violent acts are acknowledged by a little "Dream's bad and all" and then is followed up by heavy criticism of the other side for doing something completely reasonable as the "Well, Schlatt was TECHNICALLY legally elected!" argument takes hold and it's implied that Pogtopia maybe shouldn't have staged a coup, I mean, that wasn't legal, y'know? Are they Just As Bad actually? Or if not just as bad at least also bad and therefore worthy of criticism? What right did Every Single Member Of L'manburg have to overthrow a democratically elected leader even if he did wrongly imprison them, exile his political opponents, tear down historical monuments, raise taxes unreasonably, and execute a child in front of a crowd? What about the Law? Aren't Pogtopia technically usurpers??? Isn't that Wrong™? I cannot stress enough how often i've seen people trying Really hard not to look like they're defending Dream while actively downplaying his actions and criticizing the rebellion on its legality as if Schlatt was not literally the only citizen of L'manburg left because he executed/exiled/chased-off literally every single other person in the nation wanted him gone because he was a tyrant and obviously his Legal Election doesn't counteract that despite people's attempts to argue that while Dream was bad (and schlatt too, though we'd be lucky to get any sort of description of what 'bad' entails here, much less one that does justice to how monstrous these people are) did we really have a right to force them out of office so harshly with violence?

Or going into the exile conflict, I like, instantly clocked that the plan was to isolate/hurt Tommy, drain L'manburg of whatever resources he wanted out of them, then destroy them. I think most people with two braincells to rub together at least picked up on some of his plan, and of course it's very obvious that what Tommy did was not exile worthy and that Dream would have picked up any excuse he could think of here. But of course you had a ton of people downplaying Dream's actions/intentions/motives. And somehow the weird hyper criticism of the victims got even more severe. Like. To the point where some parts of the community almost seemed to be engaged in a contest to see who could find the most ways to tone police Tommy, Quackity, and Fundy the most for being upset about tyrannical governmental abuse that put all of them in danger and functionally destroyed one of their lives. Like. They will literally downplay or brush right past Dream's shady horrendous bs so quick to jump right into their best point of how Tommy brought this upon himself or was too emotional or needs to learn how to control himself or is so Selfish because he dared be....baffled and angry by the random unfair disproportionate punishment when he didn't do anything wrong. This exact same bullshit extends to when Quackity and Fundy get upset and snap over the exile decision, people sweep right past how horrifically agonizingly atrocious Dream's actions were and then immediately start calling Quackity and Fundy hysterical at the absolute best but much more commonly manipulative or power hungry for the high crime of being deeply upset that a good friend of theirs was just unfairly exiled on the whims of a tyrant, to the point where there were people outright criticizing them for the fact alone that they dared be upset/question the decision instead of immediately politely accepting it and just letting the leaders responsible get on with their lives with no complaint!

And then the rest of the season was the same shit with people acknowledging Dream as bad but pearl clutching at any sign of action against him or people not being polite and tolerant of him. I think I damn near cracked when people watched Quackity call Dream a tyrant and insist he couldn't get away with treating people the way he does and immediately jumped into how dumb and reckless and mean spirited and power hungry and whatever Quackity is. Literally any time he spoke out against Dream for like any reason in any way! This also extended to anyone else whenever they weren't super palatably polite and tolerant of Dream and wound up immediately labeled all sorts of distasteful things because they actually tried to take action against him or even just had the 'audacity' to say some mean things to/about him or the people who help him commit atrocities! Dream gets away with just vaguely being Bad™ but his victims, whenever they aren't the picture of grace or respect or obedience for two seconds, become any number of very specific and very passionate insults and accusations.

They aren't Dream apologists, they don't condone or defend his actions, they acknowledge him as Bad, but they're so much more angry whenever people DO something about it!

Dream is bad™ but wasn't L'manburg escalating to independence like that so quickly in bad faith, especially after the Drugs™? Dream is bad™ but like he has a point that Schlatt was elected so did the people really have a right to stage an illegal coup there? Dream is bad™ but Tommy shouldn't have been so angry and reactionary when Dream tried to get him exiled for no reason, right? Dream is bad™ but can we really say it's right for Quackity to engage in mild skirmishes with him and insult him??

This weird tone policing in which anytime one of Dream's victims is harsh or mean with him they're suddenly *insert wide range of very harsh insults/accusations* is really weird. Dream is bad™ but if anyone does anything about it besides quietly/politely asking him to please stop that sir? They get harshly critiqued to hell for it wheras there's never any suggestion for what they should be doing besides Giving Him What He Wants Very Politely Until He Goes Away. Any insults or acts of rebellion or god forbid violence against Dream is so unacceptable and the people who do any of the listed things are just indescribably bad. Even when Dream hurts and oppresses everyone to this very day and shows no remourse about a single thing, I still see people out here doing this shit.

And, well, I see a lot of the "Dream Needs Better Prison Conditions" crowd be very critical of people who aren't Dream and literally every time they do anything that could be considered even remotely Mean To Dream and they get so much more heated about that then about the actual horrific things Dream has done.

So while I don't take a stance on the point itself at the moment, i'm at least very wary of the whole situation because there's this long standing precedent of fixating in on people not being palatable™ and respectable™ in how they handle interacting with the person responsible for brutal and consistent oppression against them, this long standing precedent when it comes to narrowing in on how Dream's effected by the people who's lives he's ruined acting out against him or not treating him well and absolutely refusing to extend empathy to the other party who, even when they do end up doing 'bad' things at any point, never do anything near as bad as what Dream's done and yet get significantly less sympathy or tolerance than he does. And while i'm neutral on the topic itself i'm deeply suspicious of this whole debate by nature of this precedent and how a lot of the Improve Prison Conditions For Dream crowd are openly much more empathetic towards him than any of the people he victimized and are more likely to brush by his honest to god unforgivable sins than literally anything at all from the objectively much more sympathetic/justified people he's hurt. It just all feels very familiar and i'm inclined to feel like a lot of the debate can read as worryingly disingenuous on that premise alone?

#dream smp #dream smp discourse

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winifredsandersonsbitch · 4 years

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“Another Soldier”

Warnings: Season 7 SPOILERS!! Mentions of suicide, violence, cursing. Graphic below the cut.

Description: You and Buffy have... different ideas of what it takes to stop the First, especially concerning all of the young potentials in your care.

Notes: I’m trying to think of ideas for a short series rn, so let me know if you have any! I don’t want to commit to anything big because I am getting a little burnt out in other aspects of my life, but I’d like to try something with more continuity.

It’s awful. Chloe hanging from the ceiling, her feet dangling in midair, literally makes you sick to your stomach. You help Buffy cut her down and bury her, but all the while you’re focusing on not throwing up.

You should have done more for her. You should have noticed that she was being so closed off. You had noticed that she was afraid, unsure of herself, but with so many girls in the house your thoughts had slipped to pasta dinners and sorting out disputes.

When you return inside, the girls are gathered downstairs.

Buffy lets loose. She calls everyone out. The girls, Spike, Willow, Anya. You. She’s telling you you’re not strong enough, that none of you are going to be enough if you don’t get your act together, and you know what she’s trying to do. But, God. Can’t she see that what they all need is support? They’re scared, like she was all those years ago. Like she is now.

You tell her so, and she bites back.

“This isn’t a fucking sleepover anymore, okay? You aren’t here to play den mom. I don’t need my older sister, I need another soldier. Either get with the program or get out.”

“Watch who you’re talking to,” Spike says from his place in the doorway. He’s leaning against the doorframe almost casually, but no one has forgotten what he’s capable of.

The girls look frantically between the two of you, expecting a fight to break out, but you keep your voice even. Calm.

“This older sister has helped pay the bills on this house for the past seven years,” you remind her. “These girls are risking their lives for a cause they didn’t choose. You’ve had years to adjust. Give them a few weeks.”

“We don’t have a few weeks.”

When she’s finished and gone upstairs to her room, you take the floor. They don’t want another speech, but you don’t care. You know you’re not their leader and it doesn’t matter. It only matters that you have even less power than they do in this situation and that, despite that, they will still see you try.

“Buffy’s right,” you tell them. You’re brushing out Dawn’s hair and braiding it like she’s six, calmly plaiting it until she has a crown that wraps around her head. She lets you, too. Doesn’t complain about being too old for it, just accepts the small comfort. “She’s not right to talk to you like that or to be so cruel about it, but she’s right. We’re all weak, compared to this thing, and that’s why we need to stick together. It’s trying to split us up because it’s afraid. You are making the first evil in the world afraid. If you weren’t, it would leave you be.”

Some of the girls are looking up at you with wide-eyes, others avoiding you all together. Kennedy shakes her head, but you don’t let her interrupt. You know she wants to be in charge, that she thinks she can do better, but she hasn’t seen the things that you have. You can’t bully other people into believing your cause. You can’t ask them to risk their lives if they’re not invested.

“It will come to you, one by one as it said, but it’s not here. It can’t hurt you unless you let it. It wants to separate you, so stay together.”

You squeeze the hands of the girls next to you. You don’t know if they’re hearing you, but you had to try. They start filing out, getting ready for bed, and you head outside to sit on the front porch. You allow your head to fall into your hands, massaging the back of your neck. It’s been a long day, a long year, and you’re not sure how much you can take.

“You’ll never be good enough for them.”

You look up to see Joyce smiling at you sympathetically, her hands clasped in front of her white cotton dress. When Buffy came back and finally told you that she had been in heaven before she was brought back, you had imagined Joyce somewhere similar. An angel, watching the three of you grow up, in perfect bliss, no more worries. But this, as much as it looks like Joyce, as much as you want to believe that you’re seeing her again, isn’t even close.

“You’re not my mother.”

“Come on, dear.” She sits down on the step next to you. “Don’t be cruel. I’m trying to help. You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself. These girls, they’re not Buffy. They’re not ready, no matter how much you sweet talk them into thinking so. You’re sending them to be slaughtered. At least your sister’s being honest about it.”

You’re sick of this. Listening to whoever thinks they can have an opinion on your life. You stand up, wipe your hands on your jeans, and stare down at the projection of your mother.

“You know what, you stupid simple bitch?” you snarl. “I believe in what I told those girls. I think you’re scared of them. And right now, you’re scared of me.”

“Please, dear, calm—”

“I’m done being calm. Go fuck yourself.”

“Hope you’re not talking to me,” Spike says, and just like that the First is gone in a blink of light. He takes its place next to you on the step, wraps an arm around you. “Was it...”

“Yeah.” You let him hold you, curl your fingers into the fabric of his shirt and breathe him in.

He doesn’t try to say anything else or ask questions, just gives you the time that you need to collect yourself.

“I’m glad you’re here,” you murmur finally, kissing his clothed shoulder. You’re not trying to start anything, too exhausted to even try, but you want him to know.

“We’re lucky you’re here,” he says. His fingers comb through your hair like yours did with Dawn’s, lulling you to sleep. “You’re good with them, love. And that can’t be easy, considering what dirty little—”

“I have a lot of practice with little sisters.” You cover a yawn and cut him off, aware that there’s probably still a girl or two around here somewhere. You pull a blanket over the two of you on the couch. “Do you think they listened?”

“I guess we’ll find out.”

#buffy season 7 #buffy the vampire slayer #spike x reader #scoobies #btvs #fanfiction

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buniyaad · 4 years

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so when i think about patolli and william’s relationship from patolli’s perspective, i cant help but see patolli seducing william as a subconscious act of vengeance carried out against the humans. like william may have been the perfect body to possess, but patolli DIDN’T have to do half of what he did because william was already weak enough emotionally to give himself up to patolli willingly since he always had a feeling patolli was hibernating in his head. patolli could have taken advantage of his naivete and forcibly possessed william even earlier than intended, but he didn’t. patolli WILLINGLY fucked with william to the point where william was like “you have my heart, my body, AND my bussy” and patolli didn’t even have corporeal control until AFTER julius had ‘died.’ patolli played william until william was all his, body and soul, and he really ABSOLUTELY didnt have to go that hard, cuz william had already suffered enough abuse and neglect that he may have even WELCOMED death at one point just to make patolli happy. but patolli didn’t make it easy for william. if anything, he did everything to destroy william’s credibility and forced him onto the precipice of death and made him commit a soft suicide just so patolli could reign. it is SUCH a tragic chain of events bc william was both the victim and the aggressor and whereas patolli had a motive for his violence, william did not. he committed violence bc he was a coward, bc he couldnt choose between patolli who was his other half, and julius who was his father figure.

and the reason why i think patolli seduced him on purpose is because i think he knew, deep down, that licht WASN’T in the wrong for falling in love with tetia. bc at the end of the day, love between species IS possible, and tetia WAS genuine in her love, and patolli was just jealous, plain and simple. but where licht DID fuck up was trusting his love would lead him to salvation, which ended in nothing but death and destruction. and that’s what patolli DIDN’T do, bc even tho he genuinely grew to love and care about william, he chose NOT to let his love dictate his heart, and so he killed william (metaphorically).

because patolli didnt have to be kind. he didnt have to give william the warmth and love that he did, didnt have to make william feel like his purpose was more than just serving julius. patolli gave william something to devote himself to, and more than that, patolli gave william genuine, honest, unfiltered love and it’s the love william wanted the most because it was all-encompassing. and it was also the love that metaphorically killed him in the end when patolli took over his body for good, because william couldnt handle the guilt.

it’s so hauntingly ironic that patolli’s vessel ended up becoming the wizard king’s surrogate son, bc that means william was essentially wizard prince, and after reading about william’s state rn and knowing that he’s being offered up as a sacrifice, i cant help but believe william has now fully inherited tetia’s role.

patolli’s rage stems from the argument was that the elven genocide was a result of licht putting his guard down after falling in love with tetia and befriending lumiere. but didnt patolli end up doing the same shit in the end? loving and emotionally abusing a human who was willing to spiritually die for him in the end, sure patolli never had to trust humankind to get his shit done, but he fucked with william when he absolutely had no reason to. he gave william the love he so desperately desired when he could have subtly tortured him. instead of abusing him outright, he killed william with kindess and with love.

i hope that william survives this arc bc i want them to reunite and see each other after this separation. they know each other for what they really are now. i know that william doesnt hate patolli, but i hope PATOLLI has finally realized that the love of his life, his other half was always william because it was WILLIAM who willingly gave up his will and body to him, and out of all of his followers, it was the human who loved and devoted himself the most. bc as much as patolli hated tetia, even he knew that her love for licht was genuine.

hopefully william’s kidnapping will spark that realization in patolli that this time, it’s not just william going to sleep in his head, but that he’s about to be violently murdered to bring about the apocalypse. patolli doesnt have to care about the humans bc they dont matter. they still mirror licht and tetia bc i believe, in my heart, that patolli does truly and honestly love him. he didnt do the right things at first bc his mission came before his love, but now the mission is over but his love is still there. i think this is the moment where patolli has to come to terms with a decision not even licht had to face - to let the dark triad kill william and set off the humankind genocide as the ultimate revenge, or to fight back and save william not bc of the lil humans but bc he genuinely loves william. here’s to hoping that patolli will also make lots of emotional love to william after murdering zenon in cold blood ameen

#patolli #william x patolli #william vangeance #black clover #real talk

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venusmages · 3 years

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Cyberpunk 2077 non-spoiler review

Anyways here’s my writeup about my least favorite parts of 2077 for people who are interested in seeing if it’s for them. Both going to talk about content as well as gameplay. This is for PC version, too, because I know last gen consoles are suffering terribly rn and I wouldn’t recommend the game if you’re not going to be playing on PC. At least not until it’s on sale or the issues have been resolved. It really, really shouldn’t have been released on last gen consoles at all in my opinion - or at least should’ve been released on consoles LATER.

If you like Saints Row, GTA, Mass Effect, Shadowrun, or the Cyberpunk genre in general - I definitely think this is something you might want to take a peek at! I wasn’t anticipating the game until about a month or two before release - so maybe that’s why I’m having a blast - but It’s one of my favorite stories from the past decade as far as sci-fi goes. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it, and It’s really impressed me. I can’t even go into detail about all the things I LOVE because I really want folks to experience it themselves. Just know there’s a very intricately detailed world, all the characters are memorable and insanely well realized and complex, and the story is great fun. Also made me cry like 5 times. It’s become one of my FAVORITE games very quickly.

I’d also recommend Neon Arcade if you want someone who’s been covering the game for quite a while, including the technical and game industry aspect. He does well to go into some detail and even though he’s a fan, I’ve found him to be largely unbiased. I’m not going to go into industry politics here because I feel that’s up for everyone to decide on their own terms.

No spoilers, things to keep in mind, content warnings, etc. below!

CONTENT WARNINGS and issues with plot/story

this setting is dark. very dark. if you struggle stomaching things like dystopian landscapes, body horror, physical, mental and sexual abuse, corporate and gang violence, abuse of children, harsh language, and concepts that mess with the perception of reality - this game might not be for you. It’s a very mature setting, and I don’t mean that in the Adult Swim kind of way. I mean it in the ‘oh shit, it went there’ way. In my opinion I haven’t run across anything in it that was handled distastefully when it dipped into the depressing, but dark and gritty isn’t everyone’s cup of tea and I wanted to give a disclaimer.

The game’s universe in advertising and working for the lower class also exploits sex/sex work quite a bit. This is part of the lore itself because in this universe everyone’s become desensitized to sex and violence to the point that marketing embraces it and makes it ridiculous. I feel it’s very obvious that it doesn’t condone this message and is instead a commentary on consumerism - but people still might be uncomfortable seeing a lot of suggestive stuff all over the place regardless.

Women in game are naked more often than men - even though there is nudity for both. This is likely a mix of appealing to the Gamer Boy demographic (even though the story does NOT actually), or the fact that media is way more cool with seeing naked women than seeing full frontal nudity on men. They probably had to tone some of it down to avoid going above an M rating.

The story is amazing, but sometimes it dumps a lot onto you at once. It’s one of those sci-fi stories that you have to really be following the names, faces, and concepts continually to get it all down. There’s a lot of betrayal, background players, etc. I think by the mid-way point I’d mostly had it, but It’s pretty dense. However it’s still amazing. You might just need two playthroughs before every tiny detail clicks - because there’s a LOT of details.

Honestly I think it would help to read up on the lore first so you’re not going ‘what’ constantly. But people have seemed to manage fine without that also! Neon Arcade has a really nice series of videos (like 2 or 3) that get you up to speed with the universe. It also helps you decide if the tone is right for you.

I think the main story should’ve been longer, also. I don’t mind a 20 hr story, especially in a massive RPG, but It feels like they really struggled to cram as much into that time frame as possible. It skirts the edge of being nice and concise, snappy, and tight - and needing just a few more moments to take a breath and wait a second. This is helped if you do a lot of side quests.

The straight male romance option, River, is INCREDIBLY well written but he doesn’t tie into the main plot in any way whatsoever. It’s very strange and feels like they either ran out of time with him, or slapped together a romance with him at the last second. All the other romances at least know what’s going on with V’s story - meanwhile River has no idea, and you can never tell him. He’s an amazing guy though and I highly recommend his questline. He appears in ACT 2.

In general I’d say not to bother with the romances. There are only 4 total, and while the romancible characters on their own are really well written, the romances themselves are just kinda meh. One romance you don’t even meet until act 3. I don’t think they should’ve been included in the game at all, because they definitely don’t feel as fleshed out as everything else.

CDPR also sometimes forget that women players or gay men exist. Panam and Judy have a lot more content than River and Kerry for example. I don’t think this is intentional, they just have a large fanbase of dudebros. It only shows in the romance content and the nudity thing though.

Johnny, Takemura, and Claire should’ve been romances and I will fight to the death on that.

There are gay and trans characters in the game and their stories don’t revolve around their sexualities. It’s very Fallout: New Vegas in it’s approach to characters: IE. you’re going to love them. All of them.

V’s gender isn’t locked to their body type or their genitals- but to to their voice. I don’t think it’s the best solution they could’ve used but given how the game is heavily voice acted I assume that was what they had to work with.

Some of the romances are locked to both cis voices AND body types (not genitals if I recall but body shapes). That’s disappointing but I assume it was because of scripted scene issues and/or ignorance on the dev’s part considering the LGBT NPCS are so AMAZINGLY done. There’s no homophobic or transphobic language in the game - though there are gendered curse words and insults if that bothers you.

Some characters MAY suffer from ‘bilingual people don’t talk like that’ syndrome. But it can be hard to say for sure given that translators exist in this universe and the way they operate aren’t fully described. It’s only momentarily distracting, not enough to take away from how charming the NPCs are.

The endings are really good don’t get me wrong but I want fix it fic :(. All of the endings out of like 6 (?) in the game are bittersweet.

Both gender V’s are very good but female V’s voice acting is out of this world. If you don’t know what voice to go with/are neutral I’d highly recommend female V. Male V is charming and good but he feels much more monotone compared to female V.

V has their own personality. To some this won’t be a detractor - but a lot of people thought they’d be making absolutely everything from the ground up. V is more of a commander shepard or geralt than a skyrim or d&d pc, if that makes sense. You can customize and influence them to a HUGE degree, some aspects of V will always be the same.

Streetkid is the most boring background - at least for it’s introduction/prologue.

GAMEPLAY/TECHNICAL

If you can run your game on ultra, don’t. It actually looks best with a mix of high and medium settings. Unless you have a beast that has ray-tracing - then by all means use ray tracing and see how absolutely insanely good it looks.

There are color blind modes for the UI, but not for some of the AI/Netrunning segments in cutscenes. Idk how much this will effect folks with colorblindness but those segments are thankfully short.

There was an issue with braindances being an epilepsy trigger because for some reason they decided to mirror the flashing pattern after real epilepsy tests - probably because it ‘looks cool’. I don’t have epilepsy but it even hurt my eyes and gave me a headache. Massive oversight and really goddamn weird. Thankfully this was fixed.

There is no driving AI. Like at all. If you leave your car in the street the traffic is just going to pile up behind it. It’s one of the very few immersion breaking things I’ve encountered.

Sometimes when an NPC is driving with you in the car, they’ll drive on the curb and/or run into people. It’s kind of funny but can occasionally result in something weird. Feels very GTA - but nothing excruciating.

The camera angle feels a little too low in first person mode when driving on cars. You get used to it though.

The police in this game feel slapped on and I hope they improve it. Right now if you commit a crime, you can never tell what will actually trigger it. And if you just run away a few blocks the police forget about it.

Bikes are just way more fun to ride than the cars are.

You CANNOT respec your character after you make them. Ever. it sucks. Go in with an idea ahead of time what you wanna do - it’s better than being a jack of all trades.

as of now you also CANNOT change their appearance after you exit the character creator. This, also, sucks. Make sure you REALLY like your V or you’re gonna be replaying the openings over and over like I did.

Photomode on PC is the N key. Had to look it up. The mode itself is great though

Shooting and Mele fighting feel pretty standard. I don’t have a lot of shooter experience besides Bethesda games so anything feels better than that to me. So far I’ve enjoyed stealth and mele the best, but that’s just my own taste! The combat and driving aren’t groundbreaking by any means, but they’re still very fun. I look forward to running at people with swords or mantis blades, and zipping around the city on a motorcycle to see the sights. The story, lore, and interesting quests and characters are the real draw here.

I haven’t encountered any game breaking bugs in 80-ish hours of play time. One or two T-poses, a few overlays not loading or floating objects - but nothing terrible. Again, my experience is with Bethesda games. This is all usually fixed by either opening your inventory and closing it again, or exiting out and reloading your save.

The C button is mapped for crouching AND skipping dialogue by default. That’s terrible. Change it in the settings to be HOLDING C skips dialogue and you’ll be gucci.

There’s apparently a crafting system. I have never been inclined to touch it. But I also play on easy like a pleb so IDK how it all scales otherwise.

The mirror reflections can be a little bit weird, at least on my end. They always end up a teeny bit grainy despite my computer being able to run everything on Ultra Max. You can still get good screens out of it though!

So many people text me to sell me cars and I want them to stop. Please. also the texting menu is abysmal. The rest is ok tho

It’s pretty clear when you’re going to go into a ‘cutscene’. all cutscenes are rendered in-engine BUT you often will be talking to other characters at a specific angle or setting. The game locks you into this usually by having you sit down. It works for me - after all we do a lot of sitting- but it IS very obvious that it’s a way for the game to get you in the frame it wants to display.

That’s all I can think of rn! If you’re interested but wanted to get a slightly better idea of whats going on, I hope this helps. I’m really enjoying it and despite my issues it’s exceeding my expectations. I’m going to be thinking about and replaying this game for quite a while.

#cyberpunk 2077 #cyberpunk 2077 review #2077 review #cp2077 #rosetxt #txt

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wxldchxld · 5 years

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let’s talk about characters that have meant a lot to me and been totally shit on. like everyone else on tumblr rn. (warning this gets kind of personal)

So anyone that has known me for a long time has known that Daenerys was the reason I got into Game of Thrones (the show). I have a very long history of loving dragons that started out with books like The Enchanted Forest Chronicles and Heartsblood (which is not a book i hold in high regard as an adult, but meant a lot to me as a kid). Anyway, I didn’t really actually start watching the whole show until season 6. Before that, I skipped between scenes that featured Dany and her dragons and didn’t really invest in any of the other characters.

I’m not someone who is super easily emotionally shaken by media. I might cry at a book, I might yell at a show, but very few things have been able to make me have some sort of lasting emotion that affects my mood beyond the credits. That being said the destruction of Daenerys Targaryen has been kind of devastating for me. This character who I’ve been invested in for years has been slowly dismantled and now thrown into the fire to burn.

What bothers me most is that I’ve always felt connected to what I thought was one of the morals of Dany’s story. As someone with a hereditary mental disability who grew up in a household with a father suffering that same problem, who did not get treatment and was violent toward us because of it, I am deeply hurt by the “mad queen” plot they’re determined to reinforce. To me, a big part of who Dany always was revolved around knowing what her brother and her father were like (if not directly, then by hearing stories and such). She has always struggled with the impulses to be like them, and she has always done her best to be better than that. She demanded Khal Drogo stop his men from raping and murdering the women they’d taken hostage, she freed the unsullied when that could have cost her literally everything if they’d have decided not to fight for her as free men. In conquering cities and achieving her goals she has fallen and she has committed acts of horrible violence as an act of revenge rather than justice, but we got to see her war with that. When she is presented with the burned bones of a child, she doesn’t just say well dragons will be dragons, she locks her own children beneath the great pyramid and it breaks her heart.

Dany’s story has always been about things like liberation, survival, and the desire to do better. To see her character be reduced to something like this---I don’t care HOW they would have done it or with what kind of set up---is really upsetting for me.

I’ve said this to a few people and I’ll say it again: the stories we tell about mentally ill people matter. The show has made a point to demonstrate that Dany’s family is “mad.” But you don’t just get to say someone is crazy and that they’re like the bad crazy and there’s no more explanation than that, and pretend like you can avoid people making real world connections to it because you didn’t put a medical name to it. I’m not going to try and diagnose Dany or her family, but I am a person that struggles daily with a mental illness, and a person who suffered as a child because of a patriarchal figure in my life being mentally ill and refusing to admit that. So when I see them basically saying that after all she’s done, after how far that she’s come, in spite of all of her dreams and desires and ideals for a better world, that Dany can not avoid going “mad” and committing the same sins as her father it’s a big fuck you to people like me.

What’s going to be even more frustrating is how they’re going to deal with this. There has not been any sympathy for Dany in the last two seasons. Dany has become more and more isolated as people trust her less and less and treat her like a child who needs to be handled rather than a human being. This is one of the major reasons (beyond them being literally related) that I never could get behind Jonerys or whatever it’s called. I felt like Dany threw herself into that relationship way too hard and way too fast all because she didn’t have anyone else that she could look to as an equal and lean on emotionally.

This season has been even worse. Dany has been consistently defied, disrespected, and treated like a mad woman. And now they’re going to paint her as crazy and Tyrion, Varys, Arya, and Sansa are going to be like I KNEW IT WAS COMING TO THIS. And there isn’t going to be any part of the story where they reflect on what they could have done differently.

Is Dany to blame for her own actions? I don’t think so. Honestly. If Dany is suffering from some sort of metal break down she is NOT responsible, nor is she a bad person. She is a victim of an illness that was triggered by several stressers, including things like rejection, isolation, and the loss of two of her children as well as her oldest and dearest friends. But she’s not going to be treated with sympathy from a narrative stand point. She’s going to be treated like a rabid dog that needs to be put down and everyone is going to go “oh what a shame she could have been so great” and no one else is going to take responsibility for the part they played in pushing this mentally ill woman to the edge and demanding that she not fall off it.

I personally don’t like the entire plotline, so I’m not going to argue the last point that I just made about other people sharing the responsibility. I think even going down this road at all was wrong. It was insensitive to people struggling with mental health disorders and survivors of abuse, it was racist in the way it portrayed the Unsullied and the Dothraki as mindless savages, and from a narrative stand point it was just poor writing. They took six years of character development and they jumped on it like some asshole kid kicking over a sandcastle at a beach just to see people be shocked and emotional. And they’re going to look at this, ignore all the criticisms, and say “that was good tv because it inspired emotion.”

But stories carry weight. We invest our time, our money, and our emotions in them. They have meaning, they have symbolism, they have parallels to the real world. Being emotional or entertained enough to sit through an hour and thirty minutes without changing the channel isn’t what people want. It’s not a satisfying return on all we’ve invested.

#ooc #massive rant #got spoilers #game of thrones #game of thrones spoilers #honestly spoil it for yourselves #bc it sucked #and it was just really bizarre too #like i genuinely didn't understand some scenes #i was very confused at the end especially

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sinesalvatorem · 6 years

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Response To Endecision, Pt 6 (Finale)

(Endecision’s post can be found here. My masterpost about these responses can be found here.)

At the end of her post, Endecision has included her final messages to her before I blocked her on the suggestion of Kelsey @theunitofcaring. The reason I ever wound up blocking her is because I had this conversation with Kelsey:

Me: Also, uh, sorry about everything from 2015.

Kelsey: that was not your fault at all. I wish I had had more of my shit together or at least been more aware sooner of the ways in which I didn't. you deserve better

Me: It's more acutely on my mind rn since [Endecision]’s last message to me is >Kelsey almost died because of you. Do you feel good about that?

[Addendum - I didn’t include the part about someone else being broke in this message because it might have been private to them and was irrelevant to my apology to Kelsey.]

Kelsey: holy shit that's a horrible, horrible thing for her to say and I'm so so so sorry what the fuck how dare she

Me: It's actually not an unusual example of things she says? Half the time we interact, she's optimising for me feeling bad. Which is why I try to avoid living with her.

Kelsey: yeah that makes perfect sense on your end but /what the fuck/

Me: Since other wise I'm too, like, mentally poisoned to function.

Kelsey: there is literally no one it's ever ever ever okay to say that to yeah no kidding anyone would be!!!!!

This conversation eventually ended with her suggesting that I block Endecision online while getting an intermediary to allow both of us to communicate on immigration matters while not allowing her to say things like this to me that are clearly calculated to cause me pain, as well as her acting as my escort while I collected my belongings from my house to move out.

But back to Endecision’s post:

I wish I’d talked to people about this a long time ago. It was hard to. The whole situation has been incredibly isolating.

This was roughly what happened for me as well. I desperately wanted to talk about all the abuse I was experiencing, but I didn’t want to reveal any of Endecision’s personal information, or out her as an abuser in a way that would make it hard for her to make friends. (I later realised that 1) it was not my job to trick people into thinking she wasn’t abusive so that they’d be friends with her, and doing so was immoral and endangering regardless, and 2) she actually has no trouble with having people be friends with her and date her while being fully aware that she’s terribly abusive, so this was apparently never a problem to begin with?)

But I don’t say this to argue about who had it worse or anything, but because I actually really empathise with having something that’s eating your life and poisoning everything for you and that you can’t talk to anyone about. It’s horrible and painful and frustrating. This is the main reason I begged her to let us go to a counselor, or couple’s therapy, or even find a mutual friend to talk to. But she refused every possibility of telling other people secrets. Which doesn’t mean I don’t believe her about how bad the isolation was - I expect it was terrible, but being extremely paranoid meant she wasn’t willing to let either of us break it.

Until very recently I threw up my hands, said “fuck it”, and decided I was actually going to talk about why I was constantly depressed and on drugs and running away from home and just generally had everything falling apart. And, as much as I know Endecision hates me for it, I can’t possibly regret it. I couldn’t have survived not doing this for any longer. I actually legitimately regret every degree of privacy she lost as a result of this, but I couldn’t take this any longer.

We were fighting a lot at the end, she would leave the house and not talk to me for days, I would worry that she was going to kill herself or overdose or something.

I ran away from home constantly because I didn’t feel safe living in the same house as her any time she was angry, given her propensity to take it out on me, that fact that every facet of my abuse was escalating, and that she had a knife and (according to her) only avoided physically attacking me because she didn’t expect to win. I had no idea how long the absence of physical violence would hold for, and the emotional abuse alone was enough to make me life-ruiningly anxious when I had to be around her.

When we fought, I would try and try to tell her what had been bad for me, and she would stare at me silently and sometimes just walk out, and I would despair of ever getting anything across.

I was only ever quiet when I was trying to avoid saying anything that would further upset her. I chose my words very carefully in all our arguments, because I wanted to be as kind and emotional-labour-performing as I could, and any time I said anything even slightly wrong she would become vastly angrier.

I never tried to openly express how I felt to her in an argument, because she would always accuse me of trying to make the situation about me, even if what I was saying was that I felt deeply sorry for having done something she disapproved of. And, whenever possible, I just tried to hide from her, because I knew nothing I could say to her would ever make things better, and every interaction with her would always be her rending my soul as much as she possibly could.

My friend noticed something was wrong and was helping us talk to each other and things were getting better, until I sent those last messages and she ran away for good, which is a decision I still find baffling.

...OK, and this is the point at which I can no longer keep my charitable composure. How fucking dare. Things were getting better for her. A meeting was arranged for us to work out our differences, in which she took every opportunity to take thiny-veiled stabs at me and I freely gave concessions in good faith that she effectively spat on.

I gave up on living in the bedroom, and she started coming out into the living room I was now occupying to yell at me. I opened our relationship after working for weeks to make myself just accept arbitrary amounts of emotional pain, and then found out that she had just gone ahead and had an affair anyway, and had no plan to tell me. I was constantly anxious and suicidal, and basically everything she did to or around me made it worse. I was open on my blog about how much I hated living at home, so she was fully aware that I was in this state and still pretends that everything was going great.

Because everything was getting better for her. I sold my soul to make things better for her, because I thought she gave a crap about me and would try to hurt me less. But such was my naivety. She clearly, fundamentally, does not care about whether my life is any good. Because she watched it unravel harder and faster than ever before and thought “Ah, yes, this means everything is getting better”. Because the only thing that matters is whether things are good for her. And, when someone who is clearly doing worse and worse eventually cuts and runs, this is “a decision [she] still find[s] baffling”. Un. Fucking. Believable. Pathological narcissism at its goddamn finest.

What I want now is not to hurt or “poison” or trap her in this situation, but to get the fucking immigration done because I made a commitment to that (and expect to be blamed if it fails), then get as far away from her as I can.

You and me both.

#life as her wife #tragic backstory #abuse cw

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notsoguiltykpop · 7 years

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Of Books and Dirty Cash pt 17

Librarian/gangster!Au

Yoongi x Reader

Before you moved to live on campus for college, you had never heard of a librarian who had a reputation for yelling. But not only does Min Yoongi yell, he’s also dangerous, and part of something much, much darker. When curiosity gets the better of you, you end up involved in much more than you bargained for.

You can also read part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18

Warning: This chapter has guns and violence, if you are concerned that it might bother you, please message me! I’d be happy to give you more details or a summary of what happens <3

You could hear sirens outside. The florescent lights were blinding in the building, especially after being outside. A police officer walked over to you, kneeling down so he was level to where you sat. He was young, a little unsure. He was also the first person to take you seriously.

“My name’s Jay.” He said. “I just looked over the form you handed in. It says you have hard evidence?”

You nodded. When you walked in, you had tried to talk to the lady sitting behind the counter, and she had handed you a piece of paper to fill out.

“Fill it out and bring it back up. We’ll take it from there.”

You had tried to tell her it was important, and she had given you a blank stare until you took the clipboard.

“You’ve been through a lot, haven’t you?” Jay looked sympathetic, and you nodded again. “Look, I’m going to take you into the back and ask you some questions–”

“I want full immunity.” You interrupted, and Jay gave you a small smile.

“You’re not in any trouble. Reporting a crime isn’t committing one.”

You shrugged. “Some of the things I tell you might be incriminating, I don’t know. I want full immunity.”

Jay sighed. “Okay. Wait here, I have to talk to my supervisor.”

It wasn’t long before you found yourself in a room with a one-way mirror, sitting at a table across from Jay and another officer. The women looked bored as she looked at you, the files you brought in with you sitting in the middle of the table.

“I’m sure you understand, we need a recording of what you tell us for the court—“ Jay started, and the women rolled her eyes.

“Quiet, new kid.” She snapped at Jay. “Now you,” She said, looking you dead in the eyes. “You better have a good reason to be here. It’s a felony to report a false crime.”

You fidgeted nervously, hands clasping and unclasping. “Before you look at the files, I want to explain myself.”

“That’s fine.” Jay said, giving you an encouraging smile as he ignored the glare his supervisor gave him.

“I never meant to get involved with any of this. Not gangs, or mafias, or whatever it is that I’ve recently found myself in the middle of.”

“Get to the point.”

You cleared your throat. “I wouldn’t have done this if I thought there was any way around it, so I’m hoping you won’t make me regret that decision. This should count as probable cause to arrest them.” You pushed the files towards the two officers. “I just want to be left alone. I want to know that the people I care about aren’t in danger because of me.” Your thoughts were going a mile a minute, and the silence of the room felt deafening. Would Yoongi forgive you for this? Would he understand that you didn’t have a choice? No, probably not.

Jay opened the file on top and his eyes widened. “How did you get all of this?” He asked. His supervisor finally looked mildly interested and took the paper from him.

“It’s a long story, but I don’t think you need to know that to arrest them.”

Five hours earlier.

This was insanity. Now that you thought about it, everything you did recently was insanity. Was this what people meant when they said love made people do crazy things? Or maybe this was a twisted kind of self-preservation. Either way, the building that acted as Jaebums base was just as intimidating as you remembered. It was horribly stereotypical, tall and brick, looming over the surrounding buildings.

You took a deep breath. You could do this. You hoped you could, anyway. There were two men stationed outside of the back door, one with what looked like a machine gun. It was on the side of the town that the police didn’t go, so you weren’t exactly surprised to see it—not that that made it any less intimidating.

“I’m here to talk to Jaebum.” You said, sounding far more confident than you felt.

The one with the gun laughed, but didn’t sound particularly amused. “And who do you think you are to make a request like that.”

“Someone he wants to talk to.” You replied. “Tell him I’m here in regards to Bangtan and our deal. He’ll know who I am.” You didn’t actually know if he would know who you were, but it seemed worth a try.

The man without the gun narrowed his eyes at you before slipping through the door and into the building. He was back a minute later, muttering something to the other man. They both looked at you for a second before the first man said “Come inside, he’s waiting for you.”

The door slammed shut behind you, and you winced at the feeling of being trapped. You had known it would happen, but the gun pressed against your back wasn’t helping your nerves.

“Keep walking.” The man behind you grunted, so you did. The room you found yourself it was almost like a hotel lobby, and you wondered if that was what the building had been at one point. Now, the wallpaper was pealing from the walls and most of the carpet had been ripped up to reveal the concrete below.

Jaebum was indeed waiting for you, sitting with his legs crossed in a chair that looked entirely out of place in the dilapidated room.

“You’d better have a good reason to be here.” He drawled. “Did you turn them in to the police?”

You shook your head, and his face changed drastically. “I will.” You said quickly. “But I wanted to renegotiate our plan.”

Jaebum let out a bark of laughter, standing from his seat. “You want to renegotiate with me?” He walked in a circle around you, and you willed your heart to stop racing. You were going to be fine, you just had to stick to the plan.

“Yes. The deal is going to require me to put my life in danger, in return for what?” Jaebum stopped directly behind you, and you could feel his breath on your neck.

“Your life, for one thing.” You could hear the smirk in his voice. “And your precious Yoongi.”

You shook your head. “That’s not enough. I’m going to rid you of Bangtan forever, the least you could do is make sure I live comfortably the rest of my life.” More people were filing into the room, and you recognized some of them. Bambam looked thoroughly amused at his place standing near Jackson, who looked mildly concerned. He shook his head at you, just a fraction, but you knew what it meant. This was a bad idea. You never should have stepped foot back in this building.

“Did you hear that?” Jaebum called to the rest of the room. His voice echoed off the bare floor and walls, and it was met with laughter. “She’s not just happy with just her life. She wants more.” He spun you around suddenly, slamming you against a nearby wall. Your head hit with a thud, but his forearm pressed against your neck restricting your breathing was more concerning for the moment. “Maybe you need to learn how to be grateful for the things you have.” His other arm was in a cast, but you still didn’t think you had much of a chance against him hand-to-hand—especially with all the other people in the room. It would be one against about twenty. You clawed at his arm, but it didn’t do much good.

“Jaebum.” Jackson said. “If you kill her now, it won’t do us any good.”

Jaebum let go of you just long enough for you to take a breath before he shoved you, tripping you in the process. You looked up from the floor to see him pointing a gun at your head.

“You just lost yourself time.” He growled, kicking your side. “You’re going to get those files and turn them in. Tonight.” He leaned down so he was nose-to-nose with you. “Or I won’t just kill Yoongi. I’ll kill every person you ever cared about and make you watch.”

A/N So I don’t know about other places, but where I live, there are areas that the police will not go under any circumstances. Like that’s how you know if you’re on the wrong side of town, if you look around and it’s not crawling with police, you need to get out of there bc it’s where the gang wars happen (not even joking rn). So that’s the kind of place that Jaebums base is located! Haha, wow it’s been a while since I updated this! And don’t worry, Reader still has a plan. Thank you for reading and sticking with me all this time! I love you all so much. <3 As always. let me know your thoughts on it! <3 <3 <3

#yoongi scenarios #suga scenarios #yoongi imagines #suga imagines #min yoongi scenarios #min suga scenario #yoongi fluff #suga fluff #yoongi angst #suga fanfic #bts scenarios #bts imagines #got7 scenarios #Of Books and Dirty Cash #librarian!au #yoongi the librarian #bts gang au #yoongi drabble #suga drabble

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blooblooded · 5 years

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Idiot Rich Guy Does Stuff

Really can tell the exact place where I gave up on this lol but it started out so good. I wish I didn’t get bored and give up so easy. Anyways, this has got everything....West being young and stupid...Vega being responsible...Dana fucking hating West’s guts...Marshall Singh shows up....

West’s biggest thing is that he’s so loving, generous, and protective, but underneath that is anger and selfishness...but he’s great. He’s one of the few people I’m like “well it’s time to spend a paragraph describing a stupid outfit”

The sound of gunfire woke 12 year old West Agapama in the middle of the night.

Given what his family did for a living, this was not terribly unusual. It happened several times a year.

(I can’t write about this violence rn. TLDR Westy wakes up to his entire family getting slaughtered by a Squad of secret police kids who are too feral and bloodthirsty to follow orders correctly. They were only supposed to kill his dad but it gets out of hand. West’s missing sister Iphigenia breaks out of her brainwashing and saves her youngest brother’s life by locking him in a cupboard)

INTERLUDE

The boy grew older and angrier, but he hid that anger beneath a charming, playful shell. He played the role of wealthy idiot well and all of Eden knew of him in that way. And all the while, he learned how to bring down a hammer and how to kill.

WEST TRIES TO ADD RESPONSIBILITY TO HIS LIFE

During his first year of college, West rolled out his most ridiculous pick-up line to date. He tried to tailor the things that he said to his crushes well, since he did not want to appear to be a creep. Usually he got dates easily. He did not keep them for long. He was just too much for people: too excessive or too strange. He put his entire heart into things and could not contain himself. College kids did not want that kind of authenticity in a casual date.

So after the class the two of them took together was over, West approached the girl who he intended to take out for coffee. Other students left and gave him a wide berth. It used to bother him. He kept telling himself that people did not like him because he was so much better than they were, but he knew that it was because he radiated danger like a poison dart frog. Even the way he dressed drove people away. The girl always sat at the front of the classroom and raised her hand to answer every question. She did not hear West walk up behind her, even though he was wearing cowboy boots with metal soles.

“Hey,” he said, about to roll out the line that he knew in his gut would reel her in. “You seem very responsible.”

She turned to blink at him with her tablet held close to her chest. “Thank you?” she said suspiciously. She was broad-shouldered, almost as tall as he was, with a calm, sensible aura. Initially West had been attracted to that calm way that she carried herself, but it didn’t hurt that she was good looking as well. It looked like she had just started growing out her short brown hair. “Do you need something? I have to be on the 12th floor in fifteen minutes.”

“I’m West.” He smiled.

The way that she looked at him told him that she already knew exactly what his name was. “Vega Church.”

“Pretty name.”

“I picked it out it myself. What do you need? I can’t be late to my next class.”

“Can I walk you there?” West felt himself cringe inside. He was being too forthcoming, as usual. He couldn’t stop himself, he never could. Even though he had stopped drinking and stopped using recreational substances, it was like there was too much of him. He was too much. He put himself out there too fast and people didn’t like it; it was the reason why he didn’t have any actual friends.

Vega furrowed her eyebrows, probably weighing the probability that she was going to get murdered. She knew who he was, everyone did. Everyone knew what his family had once been, everyone knew the ruin they had come to. And everyone knew what a ridiculous idiot he was.

Well what could they expect of a 19 year old billionaire with no family to control him or reign him in? He did what he wanted, he lived how he wanted. As a teenager he had been irresponsible and reckless-- still angry. He was still angry, would never stop being angry. That anger manifested itself in the loose way he lived his life. He wasted his money and poisoned his body and became a well known laughingstock. He hired goons to help him commit petty crimes to achieve notoriety, but that notoriety just made people think he was a flamboyant wastrel.

If he had it his way, he would just party and kill and wreak havoc until he died. But every night when he closed his eyes he dreamed of his slaughtered family. Every night he went to sleep in his big, empty house and dreamed of the blood that had been spilled inside of it. And every day when his mind became blank, the terrible knowledge of what had happened to his sister and so many children like her did not let him rest. Iphigenia, in her last words to him, had said that the real leader of the colony was using children to maintain social control, and the guilt of knowing that was too much for him to deal with. The things that were happening to people in Eden were unacceptable but he was too immature and wild to do anything about it.

Well, he tried to do things about it. He tried poorly, through the only way he knew how: violence. West had killed 3 men already; all criminals with whispered ties to the central government. After paying off informants to find them, West had dragged them one by one to one of his family warehouses to try and make them talk. Who was truly in charge of Eden? Why were secret police utilized when there were already so many cops who operated against the good of the people? Why had his family been killed?

He got no answers. West remembered the heft of his hammer in his hand as he brought it down. The act didn’t bother him as much as the memory of how one of the men had laughed at him.

He had to become more serious. It was one of the reasons he felt attracted to Vega’s responsible nature. He needed someone like that in his life to temper him so that he could actually do something.

“Look,” Vega said after a lengthy pause. When West looked closely at her face, something glimmered across it that made him dizzy. A sort of haze. “What do you want from me?”

West shook his head to clear the dizziness. Perhaps it was from standing under the classroom’s bright lights. Unlike the rest of Eden, the Education District’s lights did not mimic sunlight and could cause headaches. He was not a fan of school but was attending business classes in order to further his goals. “To get to know you.”

“Why?”

His smile never faltered. “Suspicious, much? Why does anyone want to get to know anyone? Or talk to anyone? You’re cute and I like the way you talk in class, I think it’s insightful. Haven’t you ever been on a date?”

“Sure I have,” she answered. She placed her tablet into a messenger bag on her shoulder. While West wore a pink crop-top and capris, she wore a white button up and knee-length black skirt. She didn’t smile at him, not even a little, but her eyes were kind. “But I have this policy of only dating people whose lengthy illegal exploits aren’t published and gossipped about in the tabloids, since I’m on the Criminal Justice track and have goals I want to accomplish. I’ll be Commissioner one day if I play my cards right. It would be stupid of me to associate myself with somebody like you.”

People who had the last name ‘Church’ did not become Commissioners. People who had the last name ‘Church’ never did much of anything at all. West noticed the scuff marks on Vega’s sensible second hand shoes.

“Harsh,” said West.

“I guess,” said Vega, tucking the short curls of her hair back behind her ears. It was an earnest motion. “I appreciate the offer though. You’re sweeter than they make you out to be online.” She straightened her bag, turned, and walked out away with careful little steps. When she walked, a modicum of shyness revealed itself.

After a moment’s deliberation over his own creepiness levels, West hurried after her so that he could hold the classroom door open for her. The corners of Vega’s mouth twitched slightly like she was trying not to laugh.

“Don’t worry,” said West, as he shut the door. “I’m not going to stalk you to your next class like some kind of murderer. You called me sweet-- what was I supposed to do, not be a gentleman and get the door for you? Can’t let you say something nice about me without doing something you can remember me by when you’re the Commissioner one day.” He meant this as a flirtatious joke but it came across sincerely. He gulped.

Despite everything, he was still only 19 years old and did not yet know how to balance all the warring parts of himself. He had been alone for 7 years. That does something to a person.

Vega paused. The glimmer passed over her face once again-- what was that? She could be a person with Abilities, the exact kind of person West was on the look-out for, but he had no way of knowing what traits to look for. They could not be all the same, could they? He knew nothing about the matter but knew he had to know everything if he was going to make Eden a better place.

Here was another person who had been alone all her life. Another person whose lofty goals would never be achieved. Against all logic, West actually wanted her to achieve those goals. His initial physical attraction towards her faded, only to be replaced by...what was it? Did he want to be her friend?

“You said that like you believed it,” said Vega, who would be late to her next class if she did not get a move on, but still hesitated. She tucked her hair behind her ears again, which must have been a self-conscious tic, despite her earnesty. “You can’t just say things. You don’t know me.”

“If you say things out loud, you manifest them into existence.” It was a goofy thing to say. West felt himself cringing inside because he still wanted her to like him. “I’m a good judge of character. You’ll get what you want one day, I’m positive.”

She gave him a sensible, slightly bewildered smile. And because she was so sensible, she did not waste any more of her precious time talking to him. She left so that she would not be late.

But the next class period that they had together, Vega abandoned her usual seat and chose to sit near the back, next to West. This choice-- which appeared to be a huge downgrade on her end-- marked a clear point in West’s life as it began to change for the better.

Because for whatever reason, people began to take him more seriously.

MEET THE DEMONIC PRESENCES THAT CREATE AYDA

West returned to his large family home one day after school. He was happy. He was 20 years old, doing well in college, making money hand over fist shipping contraband items to the nearby Colony of Serenity, and had stopped for frozen yogurt after class. It was strawberry yogurt. Life was very good to him.

He messaged Vega when he got off the metro. She was living with him now, and worried about him often. The two of them weren’t dating or anything, although many people assumed that. He could see why: their relationship was strange. He gave her tens of thousands of credits, payed for her classes, her gender affirmation procedures, everything. He thought of her like she was a family member and all he wanted was to know that she was on her way to success.

Of course, she could get kind of annoying with her anxiety over what he did or did not do. After all, she was a cop who was connected to a guy who was a smuggler attempting to resurrect his family’s organized crime empire. People believed that he had her in his pockets, which...was sort of true. But Vega was not loyal to him because of his money. She was loyal to him because she loved him just as much as he loved her.

West ate his yogurt and walked to his front door, playing with his comm and not realizing that anything was out of sorts. His home was on the Surface Level, of course, and sunlight filtered down on him through the Dome. The Agapama family house was built in the same blocky Brutalist fashion that every structure was built in and had 12 bedrooms. It was very, very lonely. West tried not to think of that. He had to have constant distractions or else he would grow depressed and angry.

He was dressed in black jeans, an orange tank top, and an oversized green sweater that opened at the front and hung down to his knees. His shoes were just normal sneakers, since he had to do a lot of walking that day. Purple polish was on his nails, which didn’t really go with his outfit, but couldn’t be helped since he had been in too much of a hurry that morning to repaint them. Nowadays, West could dress outrageously as he wanted and still got respect from his peers. Word was getting out about what he could do to a person, what he had done to people.

Only last week, one of the guys he employed had told him that some low level Prospas thug had broken into one of his warehouses to terrorize the employees. To send a message. Well, West had sent that message right back. He was not afraid to kill.

He contemplated this as he let himself into his house. He was not paying attention to his surroundings, because he felt safe in his own home.

Which, given what had happened there during his childhood, was not exactly wise of him.

West walked into the kitchen with the intention of putting his unfinished frozen yogurt into the refrigerator for later, and froze.

The intruders also froze. There were two of them, a girl and a boy, West’s age or maybe a little younger. Big, and muscled like they had been training for a long time. Both of them had their heads shaved, and they wore the same grey sweatpants and white tank tops. The boy’s tank top was covered in blood. Their expressions were fierce, maybe a little cruel, and frightened in the way that hunted animals are frightened.

Before West could move, or even think, sharp pain blossomed behind his eyes. He found himself forced down onto his knees, his own body betraying him. The intruders walked over to stand above him with the careful precision of people who have been trained to move a certain way. They were totally silent and made a great deal of eye contact with one another, as if they were communicating without speaking.

There was nothing in West’s mind. He did not know how much time passed. All he could do was stare at the white linoleum floor.

“OK, no,” the girl finally said, and West’s trance ended. “Talk. Out loud. We’re doing this right.” She squatted down so that she could look at West’s face. Her olive skin still had some acne around the jawline and her eyes were brown and as long-lashed as a cow’s. Peculiar circular scars were on both sides of her head, near the hairline. “Are you--” But then she noticed West’s melting frozen yogurt and she went green. She rushed to the sink and began throwing up.

If anything, that just freaked West out more. He still could not move his own muscles. He tried to speak and could not do that either. These people were obviously controlling him with their minds, and he could only assume they were there to kill him. But they were in normal clothes, not in uniforms. When the secret police broke into his house all those years ago, Iphigenia had been in all black and wearing a helmet. And throwing up did not seem like the behavior of a trained killer on a mission. His pulse pounded as he tried to think.

The boy put his hand on the girl’s back as she was vomiting and she swatted him away. He was tall and slightly chunky, with a strong nose and thick eyebrows. “You’re West,” he said, clearly not looking for an answer because West could still not speak. His own voice was raspy like he hadn’t used it much for a while, like he didn’t talk much. “Don’t be scared.”

That was not a comforting thing to hear.

“I’m Argo,” said the boy awkwardly. This was not a person skilled in normal human interaction. “My girlfriend is Sweetie. We’re not gonna hurt you. Probably.”

The girl, Sweetie, straightened up and splashed her round face with water. “This is getting worse.”

“It’s the same.”

“It’s worse!” She must have done something, because Argo shuddered and cringed like he was in pain.

West couldn’t even gulp. Not only were there secret police agents in his house, but there were unhinged secret police agents in his house. He was going to die, not because of some organized government hit on him, but because one of these people was going to do something crazy.

This was so close to what he had wanted for so long: real answers about what was going on in Eden. Real answers about the person in charge, real answers about the secret police. If only he did not get killed, he could find out everything.

They had to be psychics, capable of intercepting his thoughts, because both intruders suddenly gave him a strange look. “We’re gonna let you up,” said Sweetie, warily. She held her arms over her stomach. “Don’t scream or nothing. If you scream I’ll hurt you bad.”

And then he could move again, but he chose not to get up off his knees. How to gain their trust and make sure they didn’t run away or kill him before he found out everything he wanted to know? He began with a joke: “Argo and Sweetie aren’t real names.” He said it with a cheeky smile that he had to force his lips to make, to make sure they understood he was being funny.

Argo gave a short, bark-like laugh. “West isn’t a real name either, it’s a direction, rich-guy.”

“Our real names are 9045A and 3502A,” said Sweetie.

Those numbers weren’t consecutive, but could pertain to rank. Numbers, not names. Names that were not names. West filed that away for later. His knees hurt from kneeling. “Nice to meet you,” he said.

“Oh, I already know all about you,” Sweetie told him. “Little you. I peeled the thought of you out of a girl’s memory when I was just 12 and I kept it safe. I thought, oh, so much money, so much love, what’s better than that? Those memories didn’t have anything bad in them. No pain, no violence. No suffering. Only love. You were the first one I thought of when I tried to come up with somewhere safe.”

They were psychics and the girl, at least, must have known Iphigenia. West should have focused on this scrap of information about his sister but he couldn’t. 12? There were 12 year olds doing god knew what for the government? Killing people? Hurting people? He didn’t even feel angry, he felt tired and sad. He stared at these intruders.

‘Somewhere safe’, she had said. West held that inside of him.

“Turn that frown upside down,” said Argo in a sing-song tone. He itched his nose.

“We needed somewhere to hide,” said Sweetie.

West slowly got to his feet, not wanting to startle them. He didn’t need to worry; they weren’t afraid of him. “You can hide here,” he said, thinking all the information he could get out of them. Also thinking of how the word ‘hide’ implies that someone out there is searching. He shook that fear away, it did not serve him yet. “For as long as you need. But why are you hiding?” He knew it was a stupid question the moment he asked it. When neither of them said anything and instead, appeared to be speaking to each other in whatever telepathic language they shared, he knew that it was a hurtful, stupid question. “Sorry. You don’t need to tell me.”

Even now, he was too much. The two ways that he wanted to behave were too different. On the one hand, he wanted answers, he wanted to ask the questions that he needed to ask so that he could move forward and formulate plans. Formulate revenge. On the other hand, which was a much more human hand, West Agapama’s defining traits were his love and empathy. He wanted to give, not to take.

He walked over to the kitchen table. It was old and huge, once big enough to fit him, his parents, and his 6 brothers and sisters. Now there were only two chairs. He sat down to give the intruders some room to...talk.

With this time he considered the safety of his home. He was positive there were no cameras he did not know about, just like he was positive every window was bulletproof and that there was no way in except through the doors. As of late, Gena Voorst had started considering him a threat, and he had begun to make sure that none of her cybernetically enhanced goons could get in and hurt him or Vega. He had been so sure everything was safe, but it was not safe enough if these two could waltz right in.

How suspicious would it be to start building up the safety measures? He could cover it up by making some elaborate renovations story. Just young Westy being flashy and ridiculous again, nothing to take notice of…

The psychics were talking totally telepathically and he watched them. The blood on Argo’s tank top did not belong to him or to Sweetie, so some act of violence had precluded them finding him. Both of them had black rags tied around their forearms like bandages.

Everyone knew a little bit about how some people were born different. Born with Abilities. But people like that really never showed up in public, for whatever reason. It wasn’t that they were persecuted or anything, they simply never showed up. West knew more than most, and he felt like he didn’t know anything at all. After knowing Vega for months, she finally told him about how she was a psychic, but only barely. That was the glimmer that was always on her, the thing that made it hard to look at her sometimes, especially when she was stressed. She didn’t know how to control it, but she was only 20. West wanted her to learn.

One had to admit that it would be useful to employ the talents of people with Abilities. As of yet, West’s men were all skilled in the aarts of violence and espionage. He was working on building their loyalty with his money and charm; how else was he to compete with the Voorsts and the Prospases? But imagine what he could accomplish with a dozen people who could paralyze with a thought or summon electricity at a glance.

Imagine even two.

That thought was bad. Dangerous. And it made him bad as well to have even produced it.

At length, Sweetie turned her big brown eyes upon him. Her name must have been given in irony, because she radiated childish cruelty. “It doesn’t really matter what you know. You won’t remember it anyway when we’re done with you.”

Again, West wondered if they were going to kill him and hide out in his house. For Vega’s sake, he hoped not.

The girl continued. “I started feeling weird a while ago. I was sick all the time and I couldn’t stop sleeping. We couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me until I missed my period. And that’s no good at all where we come from. Everyone turns a blind eye if you’re just fucking, ‘specially if you’re A class, but getting pregnant? I was gonna get Retired for sure, no matter how good I am.”

Of course, a psychic being pregnant brought up the kind of metaphysical questions about conception that people always argue about. Luckily West did not care about such things. Nowadays people were even designing children for exorbitant amounts of money and growing them in tubes. They called them ‘Artificials’, which was a bit derogatory. The first ones began to be, well, created about 10 years ago.

He did not know what A-Class meant, nor what getting Retired entailed, but he nodded like he understood.

“Zap figured it out this morning,” Argo said, and he looked down at the blood on his shirt. “So I killed him in our own room. And I killed Frisky too, while she was still asleep. We cut out our chips and busted the fuck out of there. Sweetie knew about you from when she was working on Bounder, but that was before I was around. She thinks we’ll be safe here if we’re careful.” He did not seem to believe this, judging from the way he kept looking over at the windows.

Sweetie had a strange look on her face. “But before. Before that. We talked when I first figured it out. Like wouldn’t it be nice to have a baby together? I used to dream about being normal. We promised each other that we would protect it or we would die. I don’t know. I think I already love it.”

Loyal words from creatures that seemed devoid of human normalcy.

“No one can get in here, if I turn on my security system,” West lied, wanting to keep them talking. Bounder must have been his sister’s name there. Why did they take away their names? Stripping kidnapped children of their identities? What was their purpose?

Argo snorted derisively. He took off his blood covered tank top and tossed it in the sink. His bare chest had a number of old scars and it looked like he had been shot at one point.

“I have plenty of room here,” West said lamely. “I want to help you as much as I can.”

They found that hysterical and began to laugh at him. Their laughter was also cruel and hearing it made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. It did not take too much intuition to figure out that these two had hurt a lot of people, and enjoyed doing it. All of his instincts urged him to stand up and do everything it took to get out of his own kitchen. But his logic and emotions kept him from doing so.

Even if something bad happened to him, he could endure it. This lead had fallen into his lap by chance and he could not just abandon it because he was scared. Usually West was not lucky. He was not sure if this was luck, but it was something. It was more than he once had.

Sweetie stopped laughing at him. She put her hands on her hips in a mocking caricature of the way one scolds a child. “You are just too cute. You think you have a choice.”

Now the instinct kicked in. West moved quickly, standing up so fast that his chair slid back.

And then his mind went completely blank.

INTERLUDE II

The next couple of months were only a fuzzy blur, but West knew that he had a good time. He genuinely believed that he had married Argo and Sweetie. The control that they had over his mind was overwhelming, but he had never been so happy in his life. They did not allow him to experience fear or anger or sadness; he existed in a state of joyful, loving chaos with the two of them.

And together, they formulated a way to eliminate the existence of the secret police.

I CAME HERE TO HAVE A GOOD TIME AND HONESTLY I FEEL SO ATTACKED RN.

Up until that point, West had not known how bad things really were.

Up until that point, he had not known the extent of the brutality these people were capable of. He was aware of it, in theory. But he had not experienced it and for months his mind had been so clouded over that he had been incapable of realizing the kind of danger he was really in. The kind of danger that all of Eden was really in.

They were dealing with the kind of people who could tear someone’s body apart with their mind. What were psychics compared to that? Nothing. There was nothing so terrifying as an Elite member of the secret police.

He, Vega, and the boy who had narrowly escaped being disemboweled huddled in one of the Agapama safehouses, waiting for news that it was safe to come out. There were safe houses all over Eden; hidey holes of all sorts. This one was impossible to find. It was build in between two city Levels, nestled inside the very structure of the Colony. It was little more than a metal hatch, but it was totally secure. If anywhere was safe, it was.

He did not feel safe. He did not know what was going on and it made him feel helpless and angry.

The boy, Percy, was drenched in blood. He was shaking and his eyes were so wide that the whites showed all the way around. He sat with his knees drawn up to his skinny chest in a corner, as far away from West and Vega as possible. When Hax had dragged him out from beneath the bed he was hiding under, she had used her Ability to force him to urinate on himself, so he smelled. It was hard to see how he would recover from what had happened to him, despite being unharmed.

West wondered if this made him more or less likely to work with him. He needed a technopath desperately if he was ever going to start getting to kids who had Abilities before the government did. He still did not know who was really in charge of Eden because Argo and Sweetie did not know, but he was on the right track. He just needed this kid.

He glanced over at Vega. She was in her uniform and looked seethingly angry or maybe scared, which was unlike her. It was likely that she was thinking about Percy’s murdered roommates, the dying secret police agent who had been Hax’s partner, and her own helplessness. When she caught him looking at her, she shook her head curtly. The glimmer passed over her and for a second, West could not see her.

It was not a useful Ability. He understood why she had not been snatched up as a child.

“What’s wrong?” he asked her quietly, because he could not ever shut up, not even if he wanted to. He could never just shut his fucking mouth and be quiet.

Vega’s teeth were clenched and chattering. She glared at him. “This is all your fault,” she hissed. “Do you know I haven’t been able to get through to you for months? You’ve been completely unlike yourself. This is the first time since those two showed up that your eyes aren’t completely glazed over and of course it’s when we’re about to die in a hole.”

“We aren’t going to die in a hole.”

“You’re right. It’s a tomb.”

She was not one for being dramatic, so she must have been really scared. But West understood. He was scared too, and not just because of what he had seen that night. He was scared because he could only vaguely remember what he had been up to.

He had paid one of the geneticists to create an Artificial daughter for him. He knew that. He knew that she was growing inside a vat right now, just like he knew baby Ayda was growing inside of her mother.

That made his heart skip a beat. The blood pounded in his head. At least he hoped that baby Ayda was still OK; she only had a month until she was born. He had seen Sweetie’s face crumple up in pain when she had confronted Hax. Surely even that girl wouldn’t harm a pregnant mother.

But he knew that wasn’t true and he had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep himself in check. The girl he had seen wreaking havoc inside of Percy’s dormitory was exactly the kind of person to kill an 8-month old fetus. She had made Percy’s room-mate’s organs explode inside of him and had killed her own injured partner as he crawled toward her crying and begging for help. And all the while, the look on Hax’s round, pretty face had been one of complete serenity.

But when Hax saw Sweetie and Argo, that serenity had vanished. Her face turned red and a vein pulsed in her forehead. She was frightened of them. ‘Torturers’, she had called them. It disturbed West. Could they be worse than her? Impossible.

He didn’t really know them, though.

“I’m going to die because of you,” said Percy, his tone flat as if he could not believe it. He was only 17. He stared directly ahead and was not blinking as much as he should have been. The blood on his face and hair had dried and started to flake. “You’ve killed me.”

“We saved you,” West told him. He did not want to explain this again, to someone who did not appreciate him. Percy was a deeply unpleasant person to speak to, despite his value. “We went back for you, do you know where you’d be right now if we hadn’t? You’d be in some dark little room about to have every thought blasted out of your head so that the city could use you as a dog. You should be thanking me. You should be happy you’re coming home with me, where you’ll be safe.”

“Shut up, West,” said Vega.

His feelings were a little hurt. She had never told him to shut up before.

Percy finally looked at West. He did not look angry. Not yet. He couldn’t, not with all his shivering and shaking. The way he was holding himself for comfort was sad to see, and West was reminded that Percy was another Church. Another person who did not have that foundation of love built into him from day one from family.

“That girl is going to find me,” he said.

“No she isn’t. We’re safe.” West did not believe this for a minute, but he liked the sound of his own voice. It was comforting. He ran his hands over his hair, which he had recently bleached and then dyed turquoise. That act of vanity had seemed so important to him less than 24 hours ago. “I’m here to protect you, anyways.”

Percy seemed to be looking right through West. He looked very young, too young to have gone through what had just happened to him. His blood-covered and soiled pajamas were too big for him. But it didn’t matter. He was needed so that West could make sure it didn’t happen to anybody else.

As the three of them hid in that chilly little metal cavern, this was nothing more than a far off dream.

After another hour, there was a knock at the hatch above them. Everyone flinched. Percy covered his face with his hands. West stood up so that he could look through the tiny glass window in the center of it, then sighed in relief. He opened the hatch so that his comrades could slide down inside.

With five people in the hole, there was definitely no room. West found himself smashed up against the wall so that he didn’t touch anyone who was mad at him. Both he and Vega were taller and broader than most people in Eden. Argo was large as well, with his muscular frame. Sweetie’s huge belly took up even more space. Immediately the hiding place smelled more strongly of sweat.

“Hello friends,” Sweetie said, panting a little. “Everything is fine, no need to thank us.” The small circular scars at the sides of her head were flushed red. Who knows what she had been up to, when she should have been resting. West could not help himself because he was so worried; he reached out and put a hand on her stomach to try and feel Ayda moving. She smacked his hand away with an annoyed look before he could feel anything.

Percy shivered harder and his breath came fast.

“What do you mean, ‘everything is fine’?” Vega demanded. Her teeth had stopped chattering but her face was still shiny with sweat, betraying her fear. In her police uniform, she should have looked fierce. But after seeing Hax in her terrible black uniform, Vega comparatively could have been a girl playing dress up. Her body language was tense, while Sweetie and Argo’s was languid. Still, she questioned them. “We’ve been down here for 5 hours, what have you been doing? Is it safe for us to go home or is that girl going to find us?”

Argo barked his mean, short laugh, rolled his eyes, but didn’t say anything. He talked less and less these days, always preferring to use telepathy instead. Psychics were strange creatures, that was one thing West could pick out of his hazy memories of the last few months. Out of the two of them, Argo was the touchier one. He scooched himself closer to West, despite the ramped quarters, and put a hand on his thigh and then squeezed it. Instantly, most of West’s fear floated away to be replaced by a warm sensation of love and security.

He knew they were doing things to him. Especially now. Altering his thoughts, altering his feelings. He was still himself and he was still able to think clearly but...but something. Was it really so bad to be loved? Was it really so bad to have a family?

“Don’t ignore me, I’m not joking around with you,” said Vega, using her cop voice. That prompted another laugh and the blood rose to her cheeks. She still had her taser on her belt, but if she tried to pull it she would be paralyzed and brain dead before her finger pulled the trigger. “Tell me what’s going on right now. I saw that girl kill two people, and she had killed a third. I saw what she did to Percy and I saw what she did to you. She was shouting that she would find us, so I need to hear you tell me that we’re going to be OK.”

“You’re OK, stupid,” said Sweetie. She continued to pant. The pregnancy was hard on her. “We’ve been creeping around up there for hours, intercepting thoughts. You don’t need to worry about Hax at all, you don’t know her like we do. Yeah she’s unhinged and bloodthirsty, but she’s a coward too. We used to play with her all the time, she’s very well trained. She’d never act without orders, and after the monumental embarrassing fuck up tonight was, she’s not going to be assigned new orders-- and and and, they’ll likely decide to drop Mr. Numbers here’s file.”

“Play with her?” Percy said shrilly and without warning. Beneath the blood, his tan skin had turned white. “What do you mean you played with her?”

“Hurt her. We hurt people when they are bad.” The admission was casual and lacked shame. Neither her nor Argo were capable of that emotion. She rested her palms on her huge belly, paused as she felt for something, and then smiled. Whatever she felt made her breathing regulate. “Would it make you feel better about what you saw if I told you some of the things we’ve done to her? Hax was bad all the time so we saw her a lot. Sometimes when people hurt others, you gotta hurt them even worse so that they learn. She’s a screamer.”

Vega closed her eyes and leaned her head against the wall when she heard that, as if everything she had suspected had just been confirmed. It was time for them all to crawl up out of the hole and go home, but Vega suddenly looked sick and tired instead of scared. Percy continued to shiver and hug himself for comfort.

Influenced as he was, West was unable to process that the people he loved were monsters. He was more lucid than he had been the past few months, simply because their control over him had lapsed due to the stress they were under. But even if he was not being influenced, it would be difficult for him to reconcile this knowledge with the things he knew about his partners. He knew that they had escaped a terrible place because they were tired of being mistreated. He knew that they loved each other and they loved him. He knew that they were willing to kill and die for Ayda, and when the as of yet unnamed Artificial baby came along, they’d do the same for her. Those traits meant that they could not be completely bad, could they?

And he felt safe and happy when they were around. That was it. That was all there was. West had always been ‘too much’, but with Sweetie and Argo, he felt balanced. He was in love.

He hoped he was in love.

It had been a terrible night but they all had a beautiful future ahead of them. Everyone was going to have a beautiful future, where they didn’t get hurt any longer. West was going to make sure of it. He was going to do anything to make it happen.

INTERLUDE III

Baby Ayda was born, and five months later, Cassiopeia was pulled out of her incubator.

But one month after that, Sweetie and Argo were just gone. They went out and never came back. West never found closure, he never was able to truly process his feelings for them. The loss was an indescribable phenomenon that nobody he talked with could hope relate to. It culminated in him feeling completely alone again.

He had the girls though. And he had his sense of purpose.

TERRIBLE CHILDREN

It was hard to be a dad. It was even harder to be a single dad.

Even with all his money, all his love, and his growing patience, the fact remained that Ayda and Cassiopeia were difficult children. West had never been disciplined by his parents, and now he did not discipline his daughters. He did not know how to.

“You need to be tougher on them or else they’ll grow up to be sociopaths,” Vega told him. Of course, Vega had been smacked by Church nuns when she was a kid, so she never attempted to discipline the girls either. They grew up without hearing the word “no”.

Percy, who still lived with West despite his perpetual dislike of the man, ignored the girls. Or he tried to. When Ayda approached him, he would become scared and tell her to go away, which made everyone involved angry. His addition to the household was a negative one, but unavoidable. Where else was he supposed to go?

When the girls were 4 years old, bedtime became a perpetual struggle. West had to physically pull them out of the bathtub, which resulted in crying and fighting. Then he had to bribe them into their pajamas with promises of treats. Already Cassiopeia was becoming a shrewd bargainer.

“I want hot chocolate,” Casey told him, as he dried off her kinky hair. Even though she was an Artificial, he hadn’t manipulated her genes, so she looked exactly like he did. She had the same dark brown skin, the same big smile, the same curl pattern. Some of the kids he saw other wealthy people creating did not look quite human, so West was glad for his insight while telling the geneticist what he wanted in a daughter. “Two chocolates.”

“OK, only if you get to bed.” West separated his daughter’s hair into sections and rubbed a leave-in conditioner into it before he tied it into afro-puffs. She was out of the bathtub and already wearing her purple nightgown, so half the battle was won. It was a good night. They were actually listening to him; if they decided to gang up on him and ignore basic bedtime rules, there was no chance. He was 25 years old and he listened to any order his preschoolers told him.

He was too young to be a father, but it was too late to think about that. Ayda had come to him by precious accident and Casey’s creation was lost in memories of excessive joy and passion. They were worth it; they were worth everything. It did not change the fact that he felt too young.

“I want ice cream,” said Casey, and she winced and pulled her head away. She was sitting on the white marble counter of the bathroom the girls shared and although she couldn’t climb up there by herself, she could certainly sit down.

“I’ll get you some ice cream,” West told her, “Pistachio ice cream. Only if you and your sister go to bed. And you’ll have to brush your teeth again.”

Casey looked at him dead in the eye. “Chocolate. I don’t want to go to bed.”

That did not bode well. West picked her up off the sink and put her down, where she immediately started to open and close every drawer in the bathroom. No, not close: slam. He did not sigh or show his frustration, even though he had only had about 5 hours of sleep the night before. Casey was done. Now for the infinitely more difficult child.

Ayda, well, was her parents’ daughter. Which was to say, she was impossible to read. While Cassiopeia was perpetually joyful, mean, and clever, Ayda was moody. At times she was loving, but when she got mad at West or Vega, she would throw tantrums that turned their moods black as well. Even at her young age it was clear she was a psychic. When West thought about how hard he would have to fight in order to protect her from facing the same fate her biological parents did, he felt sick and terrified.

The trick was to teach her how to hide and control her powers so that nobody found her. It was difficult enough to potty-train two toddlers, how was he supposed to introduce her to the knowledge that if she did this thing that came naturally to her, she might get taken away from him. Vega tried to explain to him how she controlled her own weak Abilities, and Percy was unable to articulate what he did.

West’s criminal empire had expanded greatly by that time and he had countless men and women who were loyal to him. But what did that matter against an enemy who might steal his child and raise her up to hurt people?

He still didn’t even know his enemy’s name.

At 4 years old, Ayda was still sucking her thumb and refused to stop the habit. You couldn’t bribe Ayda like Casey. She was stubborn. You had to use the kind of psychological manipulation that West didn’t want to use on a little kid. And even then, sometimes that failed.

West crouched down next to his eldest daughter, who was sitting on the bathroom floor in her green onesie, watching him. Ayda had her mother’s big brown eyes, olive complexion, and silky straight black hair. She’d cried the last 3 times West had tried to trim her hair, so it was very long. She cried a lot, and her emotions always bled on to West. She blinked at him with her thumb in her mouth, then watched her sister pull hair bands out of a bathroom drawer and throw them on the ground.

“Daddy wants you to take your thumb out of your mouth, Ayda,” said West gently.

Ayda made a face and didn’t listen to him. The way Casey was making a mess was evidently more interesting.

It was time to resort to psychological warfare. “If you keep sucking your thumb like that, it’s going to make your teeth crooked,” West told her, and felt like crap for saying it, even though it was true. She was about to go to kindergarten. If she was still sucking her thumb, the other kids would make fun of her, and that would send him into a tailspin. He already knew that Casey would be a terror to her peers, but a different kind of terror. Ayda? She was so sensitive, but in a different kind of way than most people are sensitive.

Ayda whipped her thumb out of her mouth. Her lower lip wobbled.

“I want ice cream,” said Casey, squeezing toothpaste onto the floor. West didn’t reprimand her. He knew he needed to. He couldn’t, it was easier to just clean it up later.

One day he would really regret not disciplining his children. That day would not come for several years, by which time it would be already too late. They would grow up to be spoiled rotten monsters, and he would still love them more than anything else in the world.

He was more afraid of not being able to protect them than he was of not raising them right.

FUCKING BASTARD CRASHES A FUNERAL AND MEETS DANA NGUYEN

When West was 27, he walked in on something he had never seen before.

He walked in on Vega crying in the living room.

She was such a serious, stalwart stone of a person who had overcome so much in her life that he did not think she had the capacity to cry. Over the last few years, she had risen through the ranks quickly and was already a Captain. Her ambition and loyalty was what set her head and shoulder above her peers. When they had first met, she said that she was going to be Commissioner one day, and West had never doubted her. He supported her efforts in the same way she supported his: never interfering, never crossing into the other realms.

The way she cried was not pretty and it made West freeze and choke up because at first he thought that she was hurt. Vega curled herself up on one of the ornate red velvet couches and cried without touching her face. She stared straight ahead as she did so, her black eyeliner running down her cheeks. It was a Thursday, a work day, and she had not yet changed out of her uniform.

West scrambled over to her and knocked a lamp over as he did so. The very thought that she was upset pained him. She had seen him cry or rage so many times and had always been his emotional rock. He threw his arms around her. “Are you OK?” he asked frantically, going over a list of reasons Vega might get upset. “Did something happen?”

She was not a hugger like he was, but she didn’t shove him away. “C-commissioner Vasquez resigned t-today,” she hiccupped. “The p-position has already been filled.”

He released her. Oh. Of course. “I know that’s disappointing,” he told her, as gently as he could. She kept blinking away tears. It was clear that she was holding a lot of it in because she did not want to be seen crying, not by him, and especially not by the girls. “But you expected that, right? You were just telling me about how it’s going to take you another 10 years to work up the ranks, to get that kind of experience.”

“That’s not it,” Vega said. She rubbed her eyes with her hands and only smeared her make-up worse. She swallowed. “The p-person who was appointed does not have enough experience. A n-nobody. Literally just a sergeant I’ve never even heard of before, someone with no managerial experience, n-nothing. She must have b-been appointed based on some high-up

S reference, but n-nobody knows who.put it in for her-- Malena d-dropped the papers off in Vasquez’s office this morning and that was that. No warning, no gossip. I’m n-not upset this woman was promoted, I’m upset because it seems-- it seems like hard work doesn’t matter at all, compared to who you know, compared to who likes you. It seems like my hard work d-doesn’t matter at all.” She kept hiccupping because of her attempt to keep the volume down.

This was unfortunately the nature of the game in Eden. Lots of people worked hard, some harder than others. Most people worked hard their whole lives without getting much of anywhere, nor making much of anything. Getting ahead depended almost entirely on who you were and who you knew. Being successful was something you were born into. Nowadays it was literal, with children being engineered to be stronger, smarter, and better looking. What hope was there for someone who just worked hard?

West didn’t like the system, but understood how he benefited from it. Understood exactly where his millions of credits came from-- it was not his labor which he profited from, it was his control over other peoples’ labor. He watched Vega try not to cry and didn’t feel guilty; rather, he felt the desire to take over and help her out. He was a fixer, he always had been.

He took one of her hands to comfort her and Vega brushed him away. She looked at him with the air of a woman coming to a final decision. .

“Sometimes I think being friends with you is holding me back,” she told him, in a measured, hesitant way that revealed she had been thinking about this for a long time. West felt his heart fall to his stomach. “Everyone-- I mean, everyone at work thinks I work for you. That you pay me off. I’m never going to get what I want, even if I’m better than I need to be because they’re always going to think that I’m a bad person.”

There was nothing to say to that. West had been lonely for so long. He had gained a friend, then gained partners, then gained his daughters. Then he had lost his partners. The prospect of losing his friend was terrifying to him. He would not be lonely again, not ever, but deep down inside this confirmed what he was afraid of: he was too much and he was unlikable. He was too much and he made life painful for the people he cared about. He wanted to be a good person and he wanted to make the large scale changes he dreamed about but deep down inside, he knew who he really was.

In his ideal life, West did not care what other people thought about him. Vega’s feelings that he was detrimental to her life however, struck at his weak spot. The only way he could stop thinking about something like that was by distracting himself, by leaning into the next best thing and tricking himself into thinking he was being productive.

He stood up from the couch. “I’ll find out what I can about why this happened,” he told her.

West never broke his promises.

The new Commissioner’s location was not difficult for him to find. He knew immediately that something strange was occurring and it fascinated him. It looked like another piece of the authoritarian puzzle. He searched her name-- Dana Nguyen-- on his comm (no need to involve Percy’s technopathy in this) and beneath the countless announcements of her promotion, was an Obituary. Nguyen was a recent widow.

It turned out that her wife had killed herself only two nights before. The memorial service was that evening.

Coincidences existed but this could not be one of them.

Was the suicide a set up? The dead wife was, after all, another cop. Or was it an act that had made someone in a position of power feel such sympathy for Nguyen that it made them promote this unqualified woman to one of the most important jobs in the city? West had not found much on Nguyen. She was just another working class cop from a long line of working class cops. The pictures he was able to find of her showed a plain, dull looking woman, although one he found showed her smiling and drunken at a party with her wife.

Who did this woman know and why did that person think she was important? As West dressed himself to crash the memorial service, he found himself feeling happier and more confident despite these questions.

Commissioner Vasquez had been a thorn in his ass for years, an old fashioned type of cop who was constantly implementing programs to crack down on organized crime. It affected Richard Prospas more than it did West’s organizations, but he had still lost tens of thousands of credits in profit because of Vasquez’s targeted searches of his warehouses and trucks. Since Nguyen was so new and underqualified, West would be able to run circles around her and get more of a leg up on his competition.

Making money wasn’t his first objective, but it was important to him.

West put on appropriate attire for a memorial service. The nature of his work left him attending more than his fair share of services for his employees who were killed by bastard cops or rival goons. He wore a black velvet suit with a black tie. Black snakeskin loafers, without socks. Black eyeliner and nail polish. When it came to events like funerals, he tried to tone down his ostentatious presence, because the attention was not supposed to be on him.

Eden didn’t really have funerals. In the old days, there had been different ways of preparing the bodies of the dead. Burying them in the ground and such. But now everyone lived underground, and there was no place to plant the dead. Cremation was mandatory. The smoke was piped through miles of tubing, from the basement of the Hospital, all the way up past the Dome. Nothing was left of anyone other than ash and bits of bone.

As he rode the metro from the Surface, all the way down to the dark guts of the Colony where the service was unsurprisingly taking place, West remembered his new knuckle tattoos and had the good grace to tug his sleeves down a bit to cover them up. The tattoos read “LIVE” on his right hand and “RICH” on his left. He didn’t want any prole to see that and get any wrong ideas about him. At this point in his life, he was well aware of how to public perceived him to be a capitalist scumbag and a dangerous idiot. At least nobody laughed at him anymore.

It took 45 minutes for the metro to make its descent into the Lower Levels. West felt his ears pop. He did not like going all the way down, it made him sick. At over mile underground, the Lower Levels were unbearably hot and the air was foul. The engineers were constantly working on the air filtration down there, as well as on the fans. It was no wonder that the people who lived and worked down there their entire lives were so miserable. A handful of working class activists had recently committed ritual suicide to protest the poor conditions down there, which seemed a bit useless if you asked him.

When people stared at him on the metro, he made eye contact until they looked away.

The location of the memorial service had been listed online. Why wouldn’t it be? He had expected it to be located in one of the many misery-filled churches that people in the Lower Levels loved so much, but it was taking place staunchly inside of a community center instead. This inferred that Nguyen, and perhaps her late wife as well, adhered to the same state atheism that West did. Good. Churches made him nervous and when he had to hear some holy man talk about the afterlife, he couldn’t help but roll his eyes.

He walked into the community center like he belonged there and sat near the back. There were not many people in attendance-- mostly cops-- and he scoured the crowd for the widow up at the front.

The chair he was sitting in was metal and uncomfortable and the air around him was stifling. West pulled at his tie while fanning himself. A child was crying loudly and nobody was doing anything to quiet them, something which always set him on edge. He hated to hear kids cry. It made him want to step in and do something about it, which was overstepping his bounds. He shifted his sturdy body.

The speaker was a little wiry cop who had been close friends with the deceased. He talked about her life in a fashion that was fond and without bitterness. She had been passionate, full of life and love. She had been a brilliant mother. She had been a good cop.

What was a good cop, any way? One who didn’t bug out and shoot unarmed civilians? Seemed like a low bar.

West kept fanning himself and wondered what the C02 in the air around him was doing to his brain. The pollution down there had to be part of the reason why so many people in the Lower Levels were religious. They were all packed in together without fresh air or sunlight and it was affecting their brains. Between the heat and the crying kid, he could hardly pay attention to what the speaker was saying.

He did notice, however, that Nguyen did not choose to step up front and speak. Usually bereaved spouses did that. This added to his theory that there was something going on with her. Perhaps she was just grieving, but he didn’t think so. After all, he had spoken words after the deaths of his parents and 5 siblings, with a 6th presumed dead (‘Retired’, as Sweetie and Argo would have put it.) He could not imagine a worse grief than that, and he had still been able to do it, even at 12 years of age.

It was important to live life as fully as possible. Even for depressive plebs such as these, it was feasible to find happiness. Instead of worrying about whatever happened after death, it was better to worry about life. It was better to avoid loss until the final moment, it was better to cling onto life with both hands.

As he considered all the loss he had experienced, he almost wanted to tear up. He had never been a man able to control his emotions. He always laughed loudly and always let himself cry when he needed to cry. It would be fitting, at a memorial service, but it would rouse the suspicion of the pigs. It would also mess up his eyeliner, and he couldn’t have that.

After about 45 minutes of the speaker going on and on about the dead woman (much to West’s chagrin, the cheeky bastard did start talking about an after-life), it was over. West remained in his seat as the crowd began to disperse, most of them paying their respects to the widow. He watched the way that nobody spent much time speaking to her, and wondered about that. Dislikable? The speaker lingered the longest and he gave Nguyen a chaste kiss on the cheek before he wandered away to comfort someone else.

Nguyen was not moving around much, she stayed in her chair as if she was stuck there. She had two children with her, probably hers. The boy one was the one who had been crying hysterically throughout the service, and was still crying. The girl was pallid and listless. They were of an age with his daughters, give or take a year or two. From time to time, the widow would touch her face, but that was it.

It was as good a time as any to approach her. He stood and started to walk to the front of the room. People were recognizing him. It was not his fault, he was very recognizable. They all parted before him because of that reputation. When West moved, he moved with purpose and determination. In his youth he had been jauntier, but that was before everything happened. He circled around Nguyen to face her because he did not want to startle her.

“I just wanted to let you know how sorry I am for your loss,” he began, sincerely. West arranged his expression into something he hoped was consoling and was well aware that many other eyes were on him. Let them watch. He was the very picture of well mannered in situations such as this, and all he wanted out of the woman was to get a feel for the kind of person she was so he could start getting answers. “If there’s anything I can do for you during this time, don’t hesitate to let me know.”

“What the hell are you doing here?” Dana Nguyen said, slurring a little like she had been drinking recently. She was a short scrawny woman a couple years older than him, with cropped black hair and dark eyes hidden behind square glasses. The black clothing she wore was ill-fitting and masculine, and she was not wearing makeup. She stood up aggressively and wobbled on her feet. In the seats next to her, her little boy cried and cried, while the girl chewed on the ends of her hair. “As if things can’t get any worse.”

Her expression was not one of grief, or even sadness. She had her teeth clenched and her eyes were dead.

“I’m sorry,” said West. He took a step back because she was too close to him. “Your predecessor and I did not get along, I’d like a relationship of a different nature for the two of us.”

“Predecessor?” Nguyen asked, then scoffed. She had definitely been drinking, she smelled like liquor. “Vasquez. Right, I want to break bread with a smuggler and a murderer about as much as he did. Why do you need me, huh? Everyone knows you already have a spy within us. I used to see her whenever I worked nights; completely stuck-up, she ignores everyone who isn’t an officer.”

At this mention of Vega, West felt his calm and concerned smile tighten.

Nguyen continued. “Yeah, no. Didn’t ask for you, didn’t ask for this. Didn’t ask for any of it.” Her kid’s crying must have finally irritated her too much to keep neglecting him because she jerked her head towards him and barked, “Christopher!” in a frustrated tone. That just made the child wail harder. He lay down on the floor and cried like he could not control himself. Nguyen pressed a hand to the side of her head.

Two nights. That kid had probably been crying since he found out his mother had died. Again, West found himself thinking of Ayda and Casey. Nguyen’s children seemed so unfortunate and ill-behaved compared to his own.

It was so hard to not say anything about the crying kid, but he did not want to piss anyone off by getting too involved.

He smiled ingratiatingly at this small unpleasant woman, who was now one of the most powerful people in Eden. A future policy maker, a person who would have say over his future and the futures of his daughters. “I’m just offering my condolences, Commissioner.”

Nguyen’s mouth twisted when she heard the title.

She scooped her up son into her arms to try and comfort him, but did a poor job of it. The boy struggled and fought her, escaping from her grasp and returning to his younger sister. Copying his mother, he hugged his sickly sister tightly until she whined and pushed him away.

“Keep your condolences,” Nguyen told him. Her body language continued to speak of frustration and pent up aggression. Her hands kept opening and closing into fists and her shoulders were tight. Like a dog that wanted to snap but was chained up. Whoever put her in her new position had her on a tight leash. “What good are your condolences to me? You have balls for waltzing in here through a room full of cops to harass me.”

“Thank you. See, I’ve never been caught doing anything wrong. All I do is move things from one place to another.”

“Give it some time.” It was a threat.

“You’re accepting my offer of friendship?”

“People are right when they say you’re funny,” Nguyen said humorlessly.

West shrugged amiably. He knew he needed to leave. If he did not, things would soon become ugly. He could already hear whispers around them, buzzing snips of hateful gossip. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Commissioner,” he said it again just to see her face twitch and confirm his suspicions. “I’m sure we’ll meet again. I do feel that I won’t be the most pressing of your problems.” Another dig at her.

The kind of grim, accepting terror hidden beneath Dana Nguyen’s false aggression had been put there by somebody, that was for sure. She had revealed very little in her words, but faces and body language showed more than words ever could. Now West felt sure that someone had forced her into the position of Commissioner, either as a punishment or to keep a close eye on her. Something to do with the dead wife. Now he doubted that she had killed herself, targeted assassination seemed more likely.

So who was both powerful and stupid enough to give an ill-intentioned favor to a person like Nguyen?

It all seemed personal. Nguyen was just too low a person to have been deemed deserving of her position. She had no money, no connections, and lacked charisma.

West felt positive that he would be able to manipulate this woman in the future though. Too inexperienced, not educated enough to be playing with the top contenders. And deeply unhappy as well-- drinking before her own wife’s memorial service, unable to control her children. Perhaps in time he would be able to pull more information from her.

He gave her a kind smile and took his leave. The whispering around him intensified and he let it flow off him.

As he walked away, he considered the type of person who would take any kind of interest in Nguyen. It did not yet occur to him that that type of person now included him

INTERLUDE

Despite everything, Vega began to spend less and less time with West, more and more time at work. Once again, he was surrounded by people but was still alone and friendless. Something was wrong with him, something that kept people from connecting with him at an intimate level despite his best efforts.

He did not understand why he remained this way after so many years.

DON’T FORGET WEST IS A PIECE OF SHIT CAPITALIST

West enjoyed meeting with his rivals. He was a civil man when it came to interacting with them face to face, pleasant even. When he was younger, he was a lot less pleasant. He had wanted to eradicate anyone who threatened his businesses back then. At 32 years old, he understood that their existence was essential to his existence. It was possible to coexist for short periods of time, especially if a good meal was involved.

For example, West understood that without maintaining a good professional relationship with Richard Prospas, he could lose access to the man’s products, which West shipped to the nearby Colonies of Serenity and Green River, then sold to them at a 20% profit. In fact, it was more profitable for Prospas to sell half to West to distribute, than to sell all of it to the supermarkets in Eden. Both of them won. The only problem was that Prospas was a moody sort of fellow, and would often threaten to stop providing West with anything at all over perceived insults. It was in West’s best interest to buddy up with him.

They met over dinner at a fine restaurant. A restaurant that was supplied by Prosperity Inc., of course. West always chose to dress conservatively to these meetings; black linen jacket, black slacks, and a green tie to give his outfit a pop of color. Serving as a reminder of his own capital, there were diamond studs in his ears and big golden rings on nearly every finger. He looked good, but not good enough to be threatening.

In contrast, Prospas was a very average looking man who always wore a suit. He had dark skin and a slightly receding hairline that was likely a result of his nervous disposition. Seeing him on the street was nothing special, which was why he had engineered his Artificial children to look like literal vampires.

“How’s the baby?” West asked his competitor, remembering that he had a one year old.

“Wonderful. I’ve never seen such a happy child. He doesn’t even cry, not like the others.” Prospas was tense. He kept looking over his shoulder to check for his bodyguards who sat at a table near the restaurant’s door. This was a bad sign, it meant that he did not trust West to not call in his own goons to kill everyone.

Well, West didn’t trust this guy either, which was precisely why he had 5 of his own people lurking outside the restaurant, ready to bust in the second things went south.

Civil business.

(TO FINISH THIS I WOULD HAVE TO UNDERSTAND THE ECONOMY IN EDEN WHICH I STILL DON’T. THE POINT IS WEST IS A DIRTBAG RICH GUY AND IT’S PARTIALLY HIS FAULT THAT PEOPLE LIKE KIP AND LEE ARE RADICALIZED COMMIES)

CURSE YOUR SUDDEN BUT INEVITABLE BETRAYAL

When West was 33, he faced true consequences for his actions for the first time. Many times he had avoided certain death. He had seen it in the in the faces of faces of the cops who pointed their guns at him when they raided his warehouses or his trucks. He had seen it in the faces of his enemies; men and women who worked for the other great rival families of Eden. Never had he seen it in the face of someone he believed was loyal to him.

Betrayal was for other people. West was friendly and paid generously. It was not at the top of his list of things to concern himself with.

He preened in front of his bathroom mirror. It was early in the morning; in an hour he would ride down to the Education District with the girls. They complained about how embarrassing he was, but he always wanted to make sure they were safe. There were bad people out there, unscrupulous people. His daughters were too young to know that yet, but he had learned that first essential lesson when he was precisely their age.

West leaned close to his reflection so that he could inspect his skin. He was still young and unwrinkled, and he invested a great deal of time in his appearance. He washed his face, then moisturized. Since it was so early, he still wore his bathrobe, slippers, and nothing else.

There were so many choices for him in his wardrobe that he did not plan his outfits in advance any longer. The inspiration simply came to him. That day he had a meeting with Richard Prospas over shipping futures; the nearby Colony of Serenity was consuming more of Prosperity Inc.’s product than West could ship. He considered wearing something outlandish, since that always threw his dour, angry rival off.

A knock came at the door.

He was not expecting any company. Perhaps a delivery; while West could not remember ordering anything, it was possible that one of the girls had. Ayda was especially bad with online shopping, she spent nearly every minute of her free-time staring at her tablet. It was early though, too early for a delivery. It was also too early for any of his degenerate enemies to be up and about as well.

West tied his bathrobe tighter around his waist. He left the bathroom, his slippers making slap noises against the floor as he walked. A couple of years ago he’d re-finished the floors upstairs due to 10 year old Cassiopeia leaving the faucet running and flooding everything. The floors were now covered in white carpet instead of the ancient hardwood he had known when he was a child. It took some getting used to.

As he got older, he lost more and more memories of his youth. He had forgotten the face of his father, but still remembered what the wood floors felt like when he was 8 and Eden went through a terrible cold spell.

As a single father, he did not have time to contemplate his own loss, anger, and sadness anymore. That’s what he told himself.

As he went down the steps, the rapping at the door persisted, hard and sharp. It was strange, since there was a doorbell right there. “I’m coming,” West muttered to himself as he thought about exactly how frighteningly he would smile at this person who was disturbing his morning ritual. His home was large and it took him time to traverse it. The flooring was not the only thing to have changed over the years. The walls were now covered in pictures of his children and he had removed all evidence of his dead family.

He could not stand the way those old pictures stared at him. So maybe he was still sad.

West opened his front door, fully expecting some idiotic delivery-person who he could yell at. Instead he found himself looking down at the Police Commissioner and a handful of uniformed goons. Dana Nguyen smiled at him in a way that made it clear she was unused to smiling. It was nasty and behind her glasses, her dark eyes glinted with malicious victory like she had caught him doing something wrong.

He blinked at her mildly, intending to infuriate her. Over the last 6 years, she had been completely useless at her job. Somehow violent criminals kept disappearing or turning up dead, but it was no thanks to her-- there was some kind of vigilante operating in the Lower Levels. West was right in his first impression of her: nothing but a puppet for somebody far more sinister. He could see her powerlessness in the pathetic way she was looking at him. She really believed she was up to something, this early on a weekday morning.

“I’m sorry,” he told her. “I don’t have time to play games with you right now,” And he closed the door on them.

Just to fuck with her.

There was another barrage of incensed knocking. West snickered and re-opened the door, then crossed his arms over his chest.

Nguyen’s nasty smile stretched wider. “I guess you think you’re funny,” she told him in her low-class voice. Such a vulgar little woman. Her role in the public eye forced her to be more feminine and it did not suit her. She had grown her black hair down to her shoulders and she wore a bit of makeup. Her button-up shirt was wrinkled like she had slept in it.

“I am funny,” West replied. He cocked his head. Four cops on his doorstep, including the Commissioner. Did they think they could threaten him? His business-- both the legal and illegal aspects of it-- was doing better than ever. It had been over 3 months since any of his people had been busted by the police, and none of them ever snitched on him. “What do you want? I’m busy, I don’t have time for whatever it is you think we’re doing here.”

With her hands on her hips, Nguyen said, “I’m here to take you directly to the Prison District. From there you can contact your lawyer, though I don’t think the trial will go in your favor.” She showed her teeth.

West laughed in her face. “Oh, I think you’re the funny one, Dana. You think you’re taking me to prison? Have you been drinking this early in the morning? You need professional help.”

His comment made one of the police goons, a big soft woman with a kind expression, shift nervously. Nguyen did not react.

Behind him, he could hear footsteps coming down the stairs: one set quiet and steady, the other loud and rapid. The girls had heard the commotion. They stood behind their father to peer out at the strangers on their doorstep. Neither one of them was ready for school yet.

Suddenly West felt anxiety rise from the pit of his stomach, where it had not been before.

“What are you people doing here?” Cassiopeia asked insolently. She had recently hit puberty and was growing tall and strong. Unlike many adolescents, she was eternally graceful, comfortable in her own skin. “Don’t you have some doughnuts to eat instead of making our doorstep look ugly?”

Ayda, undoubtedly the source of West’s anxiety, was silent.

“Tell your kids to go back inside, Agapama,” Nguyen ordered. West bristled. He did not listen to commands. Nobody gave him commands. Nobody had told him what to do for years. “I don’t want a scene here.”

West fought his growing anxiety away with that familiar old emotion, anger. He drew himself up and squared his shoulders, as frightening as a man could be while wearing a pink bathrobe and slippers with hearts on them. He towered over the diminutive Nguyen and took a step closer so that he could physically intimidate her. “Who do you think you are?” he asked her, raising his voice.“You think you can come to my house without a warrant and threaten me in front of my kids? What a blessing it is that you hate your career, because I’m going to destroy it, you’re going to be begging for scraps by next week. Whoever plucked you from your job as a desk-monkey and put you up top is a real idiot. What are the charges, huh, Dana? Smuggling? Assault? Murder? You don’t have anything on me.”

Remarkably, Nguyen did not show any fear at his display of aggression. She did not even cringe away from him. Her chin was up and her eyes were bright, triumphant even. For the first time since he had met her, she was proud of herself. “Felony tax evasion,” she said, like she had won.

That was impossible. Percy did West’s taxes for him, as he had for the last 8 years. He’d gone to school for accounting, after all, and he was excellent. Being a technopath helped a great deal in that area. He claimed to be able to see every loophole and break and saved West thousands of credits a year. Punctual and practice; he was not the sort to make a mistake. Dotted every I and crossed every T.

This was all a huge misunderstanding. West felt relieved. He was happy that he had someone like Percy to have his back in this situation. In the beginning, Percy seemed to fear and resent him. Something to do with the trauma and the being forced to live in the Agapama mansion for a few years. For god’s sake, who complains about living in a mansion? It took a long time, but West knew that Percy was finally loyal to him.

It did not occur to him that he was being stabbed in the back.

“Fine,” he told the moronic Police Commissioner, this woman who could not possibly understand the powerful loyalty that every single person who worked for him had. “I’ll go with you to the Prison District. And from there I’ll call my attorney, as well as my accountant. You’ll be eating crow by noon, you’ll see.”

As it turned out, Percy had betrayed him. Not only had he spent 8 years filing fraudulent tax returns, but that morning he had used his Ability to steal 500,000 credits from West’s account before disappearing down into the Lower Levels.

West found himself sentenced to 18 months in prison.

The Assistant Warden was a runty man with a kind face. He had an irritating habit of running his hands through his dark wavy hair while he was talking, but West could not focus on that. He was in shock. He was in the Prison District, about to lose his freedom because of that Judas of an accountant. This could not possibly be happening to him.

It was happening to him.

He sat slumped and defeated in a chair in the Assistant Warden’s small depressing office, where he was supposed to have an initial interview and do some paperwork before getting processed. Processed. West did not like the sound of that. Most inmates did not do this administrative stuff here, but because of West’s status, the Assistant Warden had taken it upon himself to get him settled in.

“Are you doing alright, Mr. Agapama?” asked the man, whose name was Marshall Singh. He had the look of a middle-school counselor instead of a correctional officer, and he sat cross-legged in a beanbag chair behind his desk instead of a normal one. Every decorative choice in his office hinted at it being the lair of a deeply disturbed individual, from the kitten poster that said ‘Paws and Reflect’ to the rubber stress ball which had eyes that bugged out if someone squeezed it. “Do you need another tissue?”

It was thoroughly humiliating and West had not even had his medical exam yet. Yes, he had cried a little when he said goodbye to Casey and Ayda in the District’s entrance, before Singh led him behind the dozens of heavily locked steel doors. Well, he had cried a lot. The girls would be staying with Vega during the course of his incarceration; she was the only person he could trust. Poor Ayda did not understand what was happening and Casey was angrier than he had ever seen her. When he hugged them for the last time, he had not wanted to let go. He had squeezed them like they were the last people on earth.

“Those were your daughters?” Singh asked, gently trying to open a conversation with the uncharacteristically reticent West. “I have a daughter as well. Lucy. She’s 8.” He picked up a tablet and showed a picture to West; a solemn child who had the misfortune to share Singh’s big nose.

Was this supposed to make West feel better? He wondered if he was going to start crying again. If he couldn’t toughen up soon, he was going to get eaten alive. Every story he heard about what happened in the Prison District was enough to frighten even him. There were thousands of people housed there, for crimes as innocuous as tax fraud, all the way to arson or necrophilia. Riots occurred often and people got killed. He always recalled reading about how inmates were getting killed by other inmates. Expose after expose had been written on the horrific abuses perpetrated by the staff themselves and nothing was ever done about it.

West had never paid much attention to the politics and news regarding incarceration, but now he wished he had. He slumped lower in his chair.

“OK,” Singh said at length. “Well. I see that you are upset. That’s fine, that’s natural. I promise that everything will be OK. I promise that the staff here cares about helping you as much as you can. You’ll actually come out of here far better off than when you started. Everyone in the District gets assigned a case manager and--”

Before he could finish, the door to his wannabe-guidance-counselor office slammed open and a beautiful woman stalked inside.

She was not yet 30, and carried herself with predatory intent. Her straight black hair fell to the middle of her back. Like Singh, her high rank allowed her to wear casual clothes rather than a uniform, but regardless she dressed in all black; black slacks and a black turtleneck. On her feet were heavy boots rather than ordinary office shoes. Her face though....Her face was round and lovely as the moon, but it was void of anything but familiar childish cruelty.

West’s blood ran cold.

“Marshall,” she said, completely ignoring West and walking by so that she could get into Singh’s personal space. He did not appear to mind and looked at peace with this woman was breathing down his neck. She put one of her hands around his wrist like she intended to pull him up out of his comfy beanbag chair. “What are you doing right now? There are reporters here again who want a statement on what happened with Olowe. I need you to go out there and talk to them because I can’t come up with a creative enough lie.”

The disturbingly tranquil Singh removed himself from her grasp and nodded at West. “Mr. Agapama,” he said, and the young woman’s attention was drawn to him. A glimmer of curiosity flickered. “May I introduce you to our Warden? She’s here to help you during your stay as well, she cares a great deal about everyone’s welfare here.”

“What the hell do you think this is, Singh, a hotel? Don’t talk to this guy like you’re his buddy. We’re not here to help these scumbags, we’re here to punish them for being bad people.” The Warden’s thin black eyebrows furrowed as she regarded the new man in her custody. “I’ve seen you before.”

If she recognized or remembered him, he knew that she would liquify his organs with her Ability or contort his body against his will

West tried to smile his charming, friendly smile but found that he could not. He could not speak, he was too afraid to. The memory of this woman’s face-- of Hax’s face, not whatever she was called now-- was so crystal clear although it was 12 years old. When he ran from her, back then in the Education District, she had been covered in blood and screaming her head off about how she would kill Percy.

That desire, at least, was one thing the two of them shared.

Somehow she had been elevated to the position she was in now, instead of being shot in the back of the head the second she started aging. Sweetie once told him that it was impossible for secret police to get out, that the only way out was to die and that for some of them, dying was better than staying alive. Surely Hax had not escaped and then been allowed to work in a position of power.

She was frowning now, completely focused on West with an intense energy. If Nguyen was like a dog straining against its leash, Hax was like a wolf. Her red lips parted. The urge to cause harm was evident in the small movements of her hands. Beside her, Marshall Singh serenely checked his communicator, unaffected by her negativity. The two of them made for a strange pair. One sincere little hippie and one violent murderer.

West swallowed his fear and reached for his most familiar facade: the rich-guy idiot. “Of course you’ve seen me before,” he said and somehow his voice did not shake. “I’m on TV all the time. You’re probably remembering me from the interview I had with Judy Wong 2 weeks ago. You know, the one I did when I was wearing that purple cape? I looked great in that.”

Hax’s eyes narrowed, but she shoved her hands down into her pockets. The way that she moved, so unpredictable and confident, reminded West of his former partners. Whatever happened to the children who went into the secret police, they all came out moving like killers. “Hurry up and get this stupid gangster processed, then take care of the reporters,” she ordered Singh. “I’ll be in my office.”

It was not until after she was gone that West realized he had barely been breathing.

He did not know how he was going to survive 18 months. She would remember him eventually. She would remember seeing his terrified face as he watched her drag Percy into the dormitory hallway and made him writhe on the floor in pain as she twisted his body with her mind. If his sister had been able to break her psychic brainwashing and regain her memories of him, then Hax could as well.

Marshall Singh, so aware of the introspection of others, smiled at West and gave him an amicable nod. “Don’t look so nervous, take a couple of deep calming breaths. You’re going to do just fine during your stay with us, I promise.”

BANG BANG MAXWELL’S SILVER HAMMER CAME DOWN ON HIS HEAD

18 months go by quickly when you are being mistreated and are terrified for your life every day. West did not mind it so much when it came from his fellow inmates, but staff was a different matter entirely. Whenever one of the correctional officers refused to give him basic necessities or tried to humiliate him, he committed their name to his memory. It was lucky that his status afforded him some protection-- most of them were too afraid of what he would do to them when he got out to really mess with him. Some of the other inmates were not as lucky.

Whoever had made Hax the Warden of the Prison District was a fool, he knew that for sure. The environment she fostered there was one of chaos and sadistic cruelty. Like Dana Nguyen, she was ill-suited for her position of power. She habitually looked the other way when inmates were mistreated by staff and completely ignored violence perpetrated by inmates. Without Marshall Singh there to run damage control, the entire District would probably go up in flames.

So West was very happy to get out. He was even happier to see his daughters. During his incarceration, he had missed out on too much. They grew too fast. It hurt him to even think about how he had not been there for them for so long.

“I couldn’t control them,” Vega had told him, stress radiating out from her. She was only 35, like he was, but being forced into the role of guardian for two teenagers had put lines under her eyes. When she picked West up from the Prison District, she had actually cried. “You have to start disciplining them. Casey’s getting in trouble at school, she’s bullying other kids and got suspended twice for bringing knives to school. It’s terrible. Ayda-- you’re not going to like this-- Ayda has been hanging out with Gena Voorst’s girl.”

“The one in the wheelchair?”

“Yes. She has cybernetics now.”

After living with murderers, rapists, and thieves for 18 months, West was not concerned to hear that his daughters were bullies or spending time with the child of one of his rivals.

He still did not want to discipline them at all. He couldn’t. He loved them too much to even take away their communication devices and tablets.

There was, however, one person who he did want to discipline. Someone he wanted to punish.

Someone he wanted to kill.

West retrieved his hammer.

It was easy to find Percy. He had been hiding like a rat in the Lower Levels, living off of West’s stolen money. What had he thought was going to happen? Perhaps he thought that he would be able to get away with it, perhaps he thought that West would die in prison. The technopath was intelligent only in his realms of expertise. When it came to understanding human nature, or the normal behaviors of others, he was useless.

(I DONT WANT TO WRITE THIS. TLDR WEST BUSTS INTO PERCY’S APARTMENT AND IS ABOUT TO SMASH ALL HIS FINGERS BUT PERCY CONVINCES HIM NOT TO BY REVEALING THAT HE HAS BEEN COMMUNICATING WITH THE TECHNOPATH IN THE SECRET POLICE. PERCY REVEALS SILAS’S NAME AND PROMISES TO HELP WEST LOCATE CHILDREN WITH ABILITIES)

#writing

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