#it is debatable whether that kind of torture is worse than death | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ruby-whistler · 3 years

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Srry but i noticed in one of ur dream posts u Referred to tommy's cat as hope. I must correct u, that cat was born pussbou and died pussboi. /lh Also tommy killing that cat was nothing compared to dream killing mushroom henry in exile btw just wanna say Also for ur posts about dreams trauma or wilbur manipulating him can u provide links to vods or other proof? Srry if i seem rude i mean that in a "genuinely curious way"

Aaa sorry if my ask came off as rude im just genuinely curious :(((

hi! dw, you don't seem rude at all, and i'm extremely happy someone with a different perspective has found my blog! i really appreciate that sort of attitude and am happy to answer :]

/dsmp /rp

the cat was called pussboy by tommy, but dream only called it "the cat" and then said that "it was hope", which is why it sort of became a symbol (his hope is dead, basically) - that's why i kind of made its name capitalized, because it was more of a metaphor than anything.

most c!dream fans call the cat hope because it's just really nice and really symbolic, and also really sad when you think about it. that's why the name was used in the essay, just to clear up the confusion!

tommy killing that cat was nothing compared to dream killing mushroom henry in exile

i don't really think so? mooshroom henry was entertainment more than anything, and even if it was bad, when watching the stream i don't remember seeing him mourn that much - on the other hand, dream was very quickly and very obviously attached to the cat, with it being his only companion in months of isolation, along with the hope that even when tommy left it would keep him company.

keep in mind c!dream has been deprived of stimuli and human contact for so long it's officially classified as psychological torture at that point.

i don't mean to compare trauma or even compare deaths - because honestly, what c!dream and c!tommy have gone through individually is incomparable and i think neither should be diminished in favor of the other since they're both terrible situations.

that's why i disagree that it "was nothing compared to" - it had an obvious effect on c!dream, and was still c!tommy killing an animal specifically to hurt him, no matter what reasons he had.

when i'm talking about effects people's actions have had on c!dream, i'm not talking about those people. i'm talking about him. :) /lh

as for the trauma, a lot of people agree that a lot of the things he says or does are trauma responses, and hence it's very possible that he's had trauma before he went into prison!

this includes being repeatedly called a tyrant via propaganda by about half of your friends who decided to betray you, trying to keep peace and being pushed deeper into villainy instead, repeatedly being put in between a rock and a hard place in order to make sure the people you care about don't start killing each other, then being betrayed by your closest friends after merely trying to keep peace (sapnap & george) and just in general having no control over your life or image and grasping at straws to gain it back.

i know a lot of people with trauma who heavily relate to certain trauma responses, which aren't always just shaky breaths and flashbacks, but trauma often also manifests itself in extremely ugly and destructive ways, both inwardly and outwardly.

trying to control the people around you is also very often a response to going through trauma, as well as emotional repression which is... rather evident on c!dream during season two. it only seems to get worse with repeated abandonment.

in the end, during the vault scene, the way he acts really just isn't at all the way a healthy person would act, and a lot of his really bad mindsets come from the way he was taught by the world around him.

the character is very reserved however, and since we don't have his pov we can't really say for certain - a lot of people claim it in good faith because they have a lot of evidence for it, and i think they're certainly valid in that.

that is just before the prison, however. from what happened during the prison arc? there is no denying he's traumatized at this point.

he's been emotionally and physically abused by c!sam since the very beginning of being imprisoned, and being in solitary confinement for over two weeks is generally considered psychological (and maybe also physical?) torture. that alone shows up in a lot of symptoms of his mental deterioration while in pandora's during people's visits, and quackity's "sessions" just absolutely drove the point home.

what he's gone through during this arc is absolutely incomparable to anything others charactes have faced before, and it's just plain suffering being endured by someone who is, despite everything, still a human being.

as for the wilbur manipulation thing!! it's talking about the whole vassal scene (though even beforehand a lot of their interactions are pretty iffy), and here's a post about that :]

I also have a small question about the analysis u last reblogged cus it says "why dream needed lmanburg gone rightfully" and like. The house analogy is poor because for one cus the land is infinite. And 2 cus punz's yard was literally larger then lmanburg. And also stuff about dream being a mediator? Can u provide examples?

i wouldn't say it was poor. dream's said a lot of times that he didn't care in the slightest about the land - a lot of his problems with l'manberg arose with the fact that wilbur basically built it on lies and tried to disallow half of the server to come there. c!dream was mad about the division and the fact that wilbur wanted "freedom" to have authority in his lands - over others, as can be seen in this post also.

the table analogy was fitting not because dream was some overlord, but because these were literally friends he invited to hang out and live in a place he wanted to call home. claiming a part of it for yourself and saying people of a certain nationality can't come in is directly opposing those goals.

in the early days of the smp, dream's always been a mediator between his friends - sapnap and george, who would often get into fights and go around killing each other! he would always do his best to stop the conflict, which continued after tommy joined when he took him to court and then later tried to mediate conflicts he was a part of, which resulted in tommy killing him unprovoked, stealing his gear, and starting the disc wars when dream was trying to get his stuff back. later, during pogtopia, he is also most concerned with peace over everything, and this seems to continue indefinitely after.

Today i was thinking about how messed up the final control room was. Like. Dream arranged the betrayal and punz and sapnap killed tommy and tubbo who like. Were literal children and their pals (because the author, wilbur soot, is dead/j but srsly if u take the streamers words tommy said he was 9 during the revolution sooo)

Sorry im gonna ramble about how dumb canon ages are for a second cus like. Streamers can say the characters are one way or another (wilbur saying he is mentally 30-something, etc.) But in the end the characters act like they(or at least their streaming personas) do.

i... honestly don't find it that bad? they were in a war, and the final control room was basically just supposed to end it quicker. the l'manbergians made it clear they were going to fight to the death, so they really left c!dream no other choice. and it's not like he didn't give them chances to give up.

also yeah the 9 year old thing was retconned, because in that case c!dream would've been 14 and i don't think that's true.

c!tommy and c!dream were both young and once again, in a war. the final control room was an attempt to assure victory, which both sides would've taken if possible, but only c!dream saw he had the option.

i do agree the whole child soldier thing was bad but... complain about that to c!wilbur, methinks. he talked naive kids into fighting for his personal power. however, the age argument isn't really valid either way. they had enough agency to sign up for it, and whether or not c!wilbur pushing the intense nationalism onto them had something to do with that is another debate entirely.

Bacl to final control room cus like??? Also fun fact punz took 2 of wilbur's canon lives. And like that probably is what started wilbur's paranoia which later lead to his spiral and i. Many thoughts full of lmanburg today.

i'm pretty sure cc!wilbur said what lead to c!wilbur's spiral was a "dark, twister view of possessions" and "disregard for his fellow citizen whom he claimed to love so much", but i really wouldn't say it was the control room; if anything the sudden loss of power after the elections seems to me like the trigger for his spiral.

I watched the exile arc live and. I feel dirty almost for feeling little to no sympathy for c!dream (srry ive been forgetting to add that aa) because of his actions toward c!tommy and like. The whole probation was so humiliating and unfair and c!dream was planning to frame him for the crimes he and puffy did under the the guise of "pranks" and c!quackity was planning to seize the vice president role.

i mean... to be fair, if you didn't watch the prison arc much yet or only watch tommy's perspective i understand not feeling that sympathetic - however, i encourage you to maybe watch a few prison visits, since they could help you see the whole picture better!

i also watched it live, and i also thought it was terrible, but i share very much the same sentiment for the prison arc because. absolutely no one should have to go through either of those things, you know?

i don't think probation was that humiliating? he was just. being asked to not start conflict with the other factions for two weeks. of course, what happened as a result is in no way justified, but i don't think probation itself would've been bad at all. either way yeah the framing and c!quackity's behaviour was. very yikes, i agree.

Also c!tommy antis are dumb because they say "he deserved exile angry emoji" i dont see u saying that about ranboo. Just say you hate cc!tommy and go. Also people say c!tommy was just as toxic to c!dream and i??? No. One is the victim and one is the abuser and like. :/// man. This part is rambly srry

i wouldn't say they hate cc!tommy? cc!tommy has a persona who people think is annoying at first ( but then they subscribe because he is super entertaining big man! ) but a lot of c!tommy's actions are straight up toxic to certain characters, such as c!funndy and c!jack. he has a very dismissive attitude towards others and their trauma and it does affect the people around them very negatively.

examples; his repeated bullying and behavior towards fundy:

Tommy: “Fundy, I’m just here to kinda let you know that I – if you weren’t Wilbur’s son, you would be out of L’manburg, alright? Just remember – you need to keep that relationship with your father. I saw how asshole-y and bratty you were acting in the courtroom the other night. You need to pull your shit together young man.”

......

Fundy: “I’m wearing glasses…are you making fun of my eyesight?!”

Tommy: “Yes.”

Sapnap: “Your father would be very disappointed.”

Fundy: “Wh – disappointed for wearing glasses?!”

Tommy: “You got glasses, like what are you wearing…”

Fundy: “What do you mean?”

Tommy: “Sapnap, Sapnap, over here. Fundy, Fundy, Fundy, I’m really sorry to say this – I’m just here to publicly denounce you.”

Fundy: “…What?”

( credit for transcript: @/findingjoynweirdstuff )

he's also responsible for a big chunk of c!jack's trauma, both with actions and words, and that's why i think certain people might dislike the character, and i don't think that's wrong of them. anyone can dislike any character they want if they don't attack people for liking them, in my opinion.

also c!tommy was most definitely toxic against c!dream in the cell. it's of course understandable but that doesn't change the fact he was constantly hitting and insulting him (without dream doing anything back for a long while until he snapped) which is toxic behaviour.

i wouldn't say he was "just as" though, so i agree with you on that. they're different and they behave differently.

i made a dream blob keychain today. Is it possible to send images if u wanna see? Idk cus i havent used tumblr before. I think that's all for now. Thx for letting me talk :D peepoShy -curious anon (but fr a connoreatspants c!dream redemption arc would be cool)

yooo that's cool! i don't really,,, know if it's possible to send images? try it out and if it isn't i'll try find a way to turn it on.

also, no problem! just please remember this is a c!dream sympathetic blog, and me as well as my followers are uhh,, oftentimes emotionally attached / personally relate to the character, so if you could avoid sending hate on the character (not that you have or that i expect you to, just a friendly reminder) in the asks that would be great! we already see a lot of it unwillingly so, i'd rather not see more, but as long as the discussion is civil i'm absolutely ok with you asking more and with me answering more questions if you'd want to! :)

if anyone else would like to reblog this and add some things i might've missed with my answers, feel free to, just go easy on her (she uses she/her pronouns!) and keep it factual.

i hope u had a good or at least ok time at school today :D

thanks! i gtg now because exam tomorrow but i'm going to try write the redemption essay tomorrow as well because ohhh boy i have a lot of ideas about what all i could write around the concept.

also sorry this was long, i can't keep my tongue on the leash :[

#c!tommy critical #c!wilbur critical #my asks #curious anon #long post #history #tw torture #tw manipulation

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just-jordie-things · 4 years

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hey ummm... could u maybe do 59 w Zuko 🥺?? i <3 ur writing by the way!!!

prompt 59: kissing so desperately their body caves into the other person’s ___

“He’s a fool!”

“He’s learning”

“Well he’s terrible at it!”

There was a pause as Iroh debated on what to say to you now, but as he tilted his head to the side, regarding you with an awkward look on his face, he nodded.

“...yes…” He agreed slowly.

You let out a growl of frustration, before furiously kicking at the ground, sending a chunk of dirt and grass flying into the air. You looked like a child learning earthbending, if that child was an amateur, and if you had been born an earthbender.

“I can’t believe him!” You shouted, and began pacing in circles again.

Iroh sighs as you repeat the same actions and words that you had been for the past fifteen minutes now. Normally you weren’t so hotheaded, but no one brought this frustration out of you like Prince Zuko.

“Spirits I could just-! I could-! I could kill him if he wasn’t already dying!”

Your voice cracked as you threw your hands around, and finally, Iroh sees that you’re beginning to break. You’d been so angry, it was only a matter of time before what you were truly upset about shone through.

“Lady (y/n), why don’t we go inside? I’ll make you some tea” Iroh suggests, calm and collected as ever.

Sometimes, you didn’t know how he did it.

Zuko was a challenge, that had never been a secret. In all the time that you’d known him- which was literally your entire life- he had always been hot or cold.

Some days he was kind and charismatic, and honestly fun. You fell in love with him all over again on these days. In one of the villages you’d travelled through, there had been a festival, and he’d danced with you in the streets like he hadn’t a care in the world.

Other days, he was stoic, and cruel. He could have his guard up so high that he might not even look at you. You almost hated him on these days. When he would let his own greed and desire cloud his judgments, and his personality. He once went an entire day without speaking or looking at you.

You had challenged him to an Agni Kai, although you weren’t a firebender, just to get a reaction out of him.

This had not been amusing to him, however. He’d called you silly and immature for challenging someone of his status and power to a duel.

After that, you went three days without speaking to him. It had tortured him more than fighting you could have, and once you finally gave in and let him apologize, he swore to never treat you that way again.

Things were different now, though.

You weren’t on a Fire Nation ship anymore, and your travels to capture the Avatar had been put on hold, or so you’d assumed. Since coming to Ba Sing Se, Iroh had opened a tea shop that was doing spectacularly, and you and the man had happily rebuilt your new lives.

You couldn’t help but feel that the way you lived in the Earth Kingdom was how you were always meant to be. You were more happy living in the lower rings of Ba Sing Se than you ever had been living as a young noble in the Fire Nation.

Zuko did not share the same sentiment.

Nonetheless, you persuaded him into joining you on walks about the city, or trips to the market for groceries. He seemed to enjoy that a little more than working as a waiter in his Uncle’s shop.

And then, you’d convinced him to free the Avatar’s sky bison! You weren’t sure how you’d done it, you’d merely mentioned that Aang and the others might leave Ba Sing Se before they catch the three of you if they had the means to travel- that being Appa.

Last night, when he’d returned to the small apartment, his mask in hand and a torn look on his face, you weren’t sure if he’d gone through with it. He looked so distraught that you thought he’d given up.

But he told you and his Uncle that he had freed the animal, and you could have kissed him, you were so happy for him.

You could see him changing before you, for the better, and it made your heart swell with love and admiration. A hope filled you, that maybe Ba Sing Se would be where all of you could be your happiest.

That didn’t last.

This morning he’d woken up with the flu. He was sweating, shaking, he’d even thrown up once or twice. He was burning up inside and cold to the touch, and you’d worried to no end over his well being.

You weren’t afraid of some little sickness, Zuko was strong and could get past anything, but you quickly learned of how he’d come to be so ill, and any sense of concern flew out the window.

You left his side, tore your hands out of his, and stormed out of the apartment.

Now here you were, pacing around outside with Iroh trying to calm you down.

“I mean- who gets sick because of moral conflict?” You asked, stressfully running your hands through your hair.

You’d been wearing your hair down instead of in it’s usual Fire Nation style top knot, and you often found yourself repeating this anxious action. Especially when it came to Zuko.

“He’s different, Lady (y/n), you know this,” Iroh reminds you, folding his hands together. “But you know you can talk to him about this-”

“I know,” You grumble, and suddenly drop to the ground, sitting down and hanging your head in your hands. “I just- I just can’t believe that his intentions are so corrupt that he can’t do one simple good thing without his body shutting down on him. I hate him”

“No, you don’t,” Iroh says calmly. “You care too much, I’d say”

You look up at him, your eyes glossing over with tears, and your lip beginning to quiver.

Iroh smiles at you sadly, and as he walks past you, he kindly pats your head.

“I’ll give you some time to yourself,” He says. “You come in when you’re ready for that tea”

You nod back at him, and push your head into your hands while you try to stop your tears.

I should be angry, you tell yourself. Not crying, like a baby.

I can’t believe him. He’s so insufferable and he could be so cruel, and here I thought he’d changed for the better. How can he change if he gets a little cold every time he does one good thing?

Your tears keep flowing, whether they’re ones of heartbreak or irritation, you can’t tell, but it doesn’t matter because they don’t stop.

“(y/n)?” A familiar raspy voice calls, and you wished you had the energy to whirl around and punch him right in his perfect face.

You settle for giving him the middle finger over your shoulder.

Oh, if you had done that a year ago, you’d risk a death sentence.

“Uncle says you’re upset-”

“What gave him that idea?” You asked bitterly, and turned to look at him with a scowl.

He didn’t falter at the mean look, but he did weaken at the sight of you in tears. And despite your protests, he sat next to you.

Zuko still looked like a mess. He was pale, and his skin was glistening with sweat, but he still had a blanket wrapped around himself to keep away the chills. That didn’t stop him from shivering every few minutes.

“Zuko, I really don’t want to talk to you right now-”

“Fine, then don’t” He replied, ever so blunt.

You groaned, and realized you’d have to leave if you wanted privacy. So you moved to stand and go inside, but he stopped you, grabbing your hand, and pulling you back down next to him with ease.

Even when he was weak he was strong, you thought, and you scoffed.

“But I still need to talk to you” He told you.

“I don’t want that either” You bit back.

“What did I do to you?” He asked, genuinely confused. “Just last night we were fine, you- you were happy, you hugged me! I thought I did the right thing…?”

You stared at him blankly, before shaking your head at him.

“You really don’t get it, do you?” You mumbled, mostly to yourself. “Zuko, you’re a wreck,”

He didn’t need you to tell him that, but it still hurt a little from how venomous your words were.

“I mean, seriously, I have never seen you look shittier. And do you get why, Zuko?”

You didn’t give him time to try to answer.

“It’s because you’re so mentally conflicted on whether or not to be a good person, that it’s making you physically sick”

You shake your head and turn away from him so you can roughly wipe the tears off of your face. You hate that you’re crying in front of him, but at the same time, you don’t care anymore. You’re just so tired of all of this.

“And here I thought,” You mumbled, your voice weak and cracking from the tears in your throat. “Like an idiot, that we could actually be happy here. How can we be happy if you’re throwing up over it? Spirits, I can’t believe I’m still so naive”

“I’m sorry” Zuko mumbles, hanging his head.

Unknowingly, the conflict he’s facing only gets worse, because now he’s hurt you in the process, and it pains him to think he’s done something so awful that it’s brought you to tears.

“I don’t want you to be sorry,” You cried, “I want you to want to be a good person, and you are, I know you are, I’ve seen it, you just- spirits you just make it so hard to love you sometimes,”

At that, Zuko perks back up, turning to look at you with wild swiftness, even though you’re sobbing and hanging your head in your hands. You probably haven’t even realized what you’d said in your state of despair.

“And I don’t know what to do!” You cried out, looking up at him. “I don’t know how to help you- if I can help you- and I just- mmph!”

Before you could continue on ranting at him, he’d leaned forward and kissed you, his clammy hands flying to your face to bring your lips to his roughly, like he couldn’t have possibly waited another second.

And as angry as you still were at him, you threw your arms around his neck, fervently kissing him back.

You were still crying, your salty tears slipping between our mouths, but neither of you cared. In that moment, all you cared about was being as close to him as physically possible.

His wool blanket fell off his shoulders and suddenly you were pressed into his almost uncomfortably hot and sweaty chest, and yet, you couldn’t have cared less.

He was here, he was finally kissing you after years of anticipation for someone to make the first move.

You were all but in his lap when you finally parted, panting, your wide eyes meeting his with shock.

“I do want to be better,” He says, brushing a stray strand of hair away from your face as he whispers to you. “And I do want us to be happy here”

“You do?” You ask, hopefully, your own hands reaching out to cup around his face.

Zuko nods, smiling faintly at you.

“I’m so sorry, (y/n),” He apologizes, bringing his forehead down to yours. “Please forgive me”

“I forgive you” You hum back.

“For the past three years,” He clarifies. “For dragging you around the world and wasting what was supposed to be the prime of your life”

You chuckle, your thumb stroking around the edge of his scar, your eyes lovingly following the movement.

“I think that I followed you” You reminded him.

You were right of course, you had somewhat snuck onto the ship before his departure.

His lips quirked into a wider smile at the memory.

“Right, of course,” He murmurs. “How could I forget?”

“You were a busy man, Prince Zuko,” You hum teasingly. “Now come on, we should go inside and make you some tea before you get me sick, too”

You stand, taking his blanket before helping him up, and carefully wrapping the blanket around his shoulders like a cape.

“I love you too” He breathes out, and you pause for a moment, processing his words, before looking up at him with a brilliant smile.

You adjust the blanket, before standing on the tips of your toes to press a light kiss to his cheek.

Wordlessly, you take his hand and bring him with you inside. Your frustrations effectively melted away, replaced with a feeling of content and ease.

For the first time in a long time, you truly felt everything was okay. Even though nothing was alright in the world, you’d be just fine.

___

xoxo ~ jordie

#atla #zuko #zuko x reader #zuko imagine #zuko scenario

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that-spider-witch · 3 years

Text

On the topic of Book!Edward Hyde

Or rather: The topic of his existence (or lack thereof).

Browsing through the J&H tag, I’ve seen a lot of book readers be spiteful of every single adaptation of the character and its pop culture version because it misses the moral of the book: That Hyde and Jekyll were just one and the same, and that Jekyll was the one doing all the bullshit that went down and that Hyde was just a mask to keep his reputation intact.

Most of these rants go on to imply or outright accuse of any author doing the split personality take on the plot to have never actually read the original book, or that Edward Hyde never existing is something that the book leaves loud and clear, something irrefutably canon.

Having read the book too, I’m here to say: Yes and no. You could read the book and still get a “two character, one body” impression from it. Allow me to explain...

While the plot of “Jekyll is Good, Hyde is Bad” is truly bullshit and the very thing that the original novel rips into pieces, whether Hyde could be considered to have a will of his own is a little more ambiguous and it can actually be interpreted either way.

Note that I’m using the word “will” and not “personality”: Hyde is still Jekyll, they both have the same personality, but while Jekyll is a rational human being, Hyde is Jekyll but without the strings of societal norms, morals and impulse control holding him down.

Book readers who go by the take that Hyde never existed also claim that the book is very clear that the changes brought by the formula are just external: Jekyll is completely himself the whole time and “Hyde” is just a mask.

And this is true... At first. Depending on how you interpret Jekyll’s unrealiable narration, “Hyde” actually slowly develops something of a will of his own as Jekyll’s evil nature, given a body of its own by his dumb experiment, continues to develop.

Here’s a fragment of how Jekyll describes the experiment and the very first transformation:

“That night I had come to the fatal cross-roads. Had I approached my discovery in a more noble spirit, had I risked the experiment while under the empire of generous or pious aspirations, all must have been otherwise, and from these agonies of death and birth, I had come forth an angel instead of a fiend. The drug had no discriminating action; it was neither diabolical nor divine; it but shook the doors of the prisonhouse of my disposition; and like the captives of Philippi, that which stood within ran forth. At that time my virtue slumbered; my evil, kept awake by ambition, was alert and swift to seize the occasion; and the thing that was projected was Edward Hyde. Hence, although I had now two characters as well as two appearances, one was wholly evil, and the other was still the old Henry Jekyll, that incongruous compound of whose reformation and improvement I had already learned to despair. The movement was thus wholly toward the worse.”

“Edward Hyde” (who at this point still doesn’t truly exist as his own being and it’s just a mask for Jekyll to use) is evil because Henry Jekyll himself is evil. But while Jekyll-as-Jekyll has good personality traits as well as bad, Jekyll-as-Hyde is just everything that Jeyll finds evil about himself and nothing else. This paragraph also states very clearly that Jekyll’s intentions were never good.

If this was the only instance in which anything along the lines of “two characters as well as two appearances” was mentioned, then yes, there would be no room for debate on the whole “Hyde is just a fake identity and nothing else” because there wouldn’t be evidence of the contrary. It would be clear text.

Except that Jekyll, unreliable narrator that he is or not, also gives us evidence to support the theory that Hyde, while still not being a completely separate split personality on his own right, does develop a certain awareness of himself and a will to act somewhat separate from Jekyll’s.

Of course, this all still falls on Jekyll’s own fault, and even if we consider Hyde as something of an alter, he’s still nothing but the scapegoat that Jekyll uses:

“The pleasures which I made haste to seek in my disguise were, as I have said, undignified; I would scarce use a harder term. But in the hands of Edward Hyde, they soon began to turn toward the monstrous. When I would come back from these excursions, I was often plunged into a kind of wonder at my vicarious depravity. This familiar that I called out of my own soul, and sent forth alone to do his good pleasure, was a being inherently malign and villainous; his every act and thought centered on self; drinking pleasure with bestial avidity from any degree of torture to another; relentless like a man of stone. Henry Jekyll stood at times aghast before the acts of Edward Hyde; but the situation was apart from ordinary laws, and insidiously relaxed the grasp of conscience. It was Hyde, after all, and Hyde alone, that was guilty. Jekyll was no worse; he woke again to his good qualities seemingly unimpaired; he would even make haste, where it was possible, to undo the evil done by Hyde. And thus his conscience slumbered.”

Something all book readers will be familiar with is that Jekyll’s narration uses “I” when writing about most of Hyde’s actions, while also mentioning both Henry Jekyll and Hyde on third person. Jekyll tries to dissociate himself from his crimes this way.

But... Whether also done by Jekyll to still reflect guilt from himself or not, the text also refers to Hyde as having a nature of his own, albeit one irreversably connected to Henry Jekyll’s own hidden desires.

“Between these two, I now felt I had to choose. My two natures had memory in common, but all other faculties were most unequally shared between them. Jekyll (who was composite) now with the most sensitive apprehensions, now with a greedy gusto, projected and shared in the pleasures and adventures of Hyde; but Hyde was indifferent to Jekyll, or but remembered him as the mountain bandit remembers the cavern in which he conceals himself from pursuit. Jekyll had more than a father’s interest; Hyde had more than a son’s indifference. To cast in my lot with Jekyll, was to die to those appetites which I had long secretly indulged and had of late begun to pamper. To cast it in with Hyde, was to die to a thousand interests and aspirations, and to become, at a blow and forever, despised and friendless. The bargain might appear unequal; but there was still another consideration in the scales; for while Jekyll would suffer smartingly in the fires of abstinence, Hyde would be not even conscious of all that he had lost. Strange as my circumstances were, the terms of this debate are as old and commonplace as man; much the same inducements and alarms cast the die for any tempted and trembling sinner; and it fell out with me, as it falls with so vast a majority of my fellows, that I chose the better part and was found wanting in the strength to keep to it.”

There’s a clear divide here, with Jekyll and Hyde having something of a different outlook on life, something that outright doesn’t make sense if we are to consider Edward Hyde as just Jekyll’s alias.

Something to note here is that the divide between the two personas is not of a moral nature, but something much more mundane and selfish: To Henry Jekyll, his social status is everything, and his main drive to keep transforming into Hyde again and again is to enjoy a life of sin without repercussions. To Hyde, said social status can go to hell for all he cares, but still keeps the ruse because his concealment is ultimately necessary for his continued existence, something that the narration will go back to later.

After this point of the book, which is when Jekyll goes to sleep and wakes up transformed on his other body the next morning, the doctor becomes scared and goes cold turkey for two months, having decided to stop being Hyde forever and return to a normal life. It doesn’t lastlonger than that: Hyde returns not because he takes control, but because Jekyll turns himself into Hyde on purpose once again, by his own free will.

“I do not suppose that, when a drunkard reasons with himself upon his vice, he is once out of five hundred times affected by the dangers that he runs through his brutish, physical insensibility; neither had I, long as I had considered my position, made enough allowance for the complete moral insensibility and insensate readiness to evil, which were the leading characters of Edward Hyde. Yet it was by these that I was punished. My devil had been long caged, he came out roaring. I was conscious, even when I took the draught, of a more unbridled, a more furious propensity to ill. It must have been this, I suppose, that stirred in my soul that tempest of impatience with which I listened to the civilities of my unhappy victim; I declare, at least, before God, no man morally sane could have been guilty of that crime upon so pitiful a provocation; and that I struck in no more reasonable spirit than that in which a sick child may break a plaything. But I had voluntarily stripped myself of all those balancing instincts by which even the worst of us continues to walk with some degree of steadiness among temptations; and in my case, to be tempted, however slightly, was to fall.“

Something fun to note here: Jekyll describes Hyde, and/or himself when he’s Hyde, as being comparable to a child. First by merely noting that Hyde’s body is younger than Jekyll’s, then by comparing him to a “son” and Jekyll as the “father”, and now comparing the murder of Danvers Carew to a child breaking a toy.

Speaking of the murder, Jekyll is 100% guilty of it: Even if Hyde was a completely different being with his own traits and goals, which he is not, Jekyll would still be responsable by virtue of willingly going through the transformation again like an idiot.

That being said, the text continues to give Hyde some semblance of personality:

“Hyde had a song upon his lips as he compounded the draught, and as he drank it, pledged the dead man. The pangs of transformation had not done tearing him, before Henry Jekyll, with streaming tears of gratitude and remorse, had fallen upon his knees and lifted his clasped hands to God. The veil of self-indulgence was rent from head to foot.“

From this point on, everything goes to hell: Henry Jekyll is relieved that now that Hyde is a wanted murderer, he now has no choice but to stay as Jekyll and leave that sinful double life of his finally behind (”Jekyll is the Good half” my ass!). But, surprise surprise! He starts to transform unwillingly, and now he needs to constantly drink the potion to stay as Jekyll.

Fun fact: Do you remember which thoughts are the ones that trigger the first unwilling transformation after the murder?

“I sat in the sun on a bench; the animal within me licking the chops of memory; the spiritual side a little drowsed, promising subsequent penitence, but not yet moved to begin. After all, I reflected, I was like my neighbours; and then I smiled, comparing myself with other men, comparing my active good-will with the lazy cruelty of their neglect. And at the very moment of that vainglorious thought, a qualm came over me, a horrid nausea and the most deadly shuddering. These passed away, and left me faint; and then as in its turn faintness subsided, I began to be aware of a change in the temper of my thoughts, a greater boldness, a contempt of danger, a solution of the bonds of obligation. I looked down; my clothes hung formlessly on my shrunken limbs; the hand that lay on my knee was corded and hairy. I was once more Edward Hyde.“

The thought that he, too, was just like any other man. Something that his Hyde half knows as a fact, but that Henry “I’m superior than all these lazy peasants around me because I’m rich... I mean, because I have active good-will” Jekyll considers undignified, and therefore, cruel or evil. O Sweet, sweet Victorian hypocresy.

And it is from here on out that the narration acknowledges Edward Hyde as being his own character somewhat, somehow, at least as part of Jekyll’s conciousness.

After the transformation and the visit to Lanyon:

“My reason wavered, but it did not fail me utterly. I have more than once observed that in my second character, my faculties seemed sharpened to a point and my spirits more tensely elastic; thus it came about that, where Jekyll perhaps might have succumbed, Hyde rose to the importance of the moment.”

“Then I remembered that of my original character, one part remained to me: I could write my own hand; and once I had conceived that kindling spark, the way that I must follow became lighted up from end to end.“

“He, I say—I cannot say, I. That child of Hell had nothing human; nothing lived in him but fear and hatred.“

“When I came to myself at Lanyon’s, the horror of my old friend perhaps affected me somewhat: I do not know; it was at least but a drop in the sea to the abhorrence with which I looked back upon these hours. A change had come over me. It was no longer the fear of the gallows, it was the horror of being Hyde that racked me.“

It’s curious how Jekyll’s narration uses “I” when looking back at Carew’s murder, and yet it is just from here on out that he’s oh so repulsed by Hyde than he uses He/Him pronouns for him.

And, most of all, when he has locked himself up:

“The powers of Hyde seemed to have grown with the sickliness of Jekyll. And certainly the hate that now divided them was equal on each side. With Jekyll, it was a thing of vital instinct. He had now seen the full deformity of that creature that shared with him some of the phenomena of consciousness, and was co-heir with him to death: and beyond these links of community, which in themselves made the most poignant part of his distress, he thought of Hyde, for all his energy of life, as of something not only hellish but inorganic. This was the shocking thing; that the slime of the pit seemed to utter cries and voices; that the amorphous dust gesticulated and sinned; that what was dead, and had no shape, should usurp the offices of life. And this again, that that insurgent horror was knit to him closer than a wife, closer than an eye; lay caged in his flesh, where he heard it mutter and felt it struggle to be born; and at every hour of weakness, and in the confidence of slumber, prevailed against him, and deposed him out of life. The hatred of Hyde for Jekyll was of a different order. His terror of the gallows drove him continually to commit temporary suicide, and return to his subordinate station of a part instead of a person; but he loathed the necessity, he loathed the despondency into which Jekyll was now fallen, and he resented the dislike with which he was himself regarded.”

And what immediately follows is my favorite part of the book:

“Hence the ape-like tricks that he would play me, scrawling in my own hand blasphemies on the pages of my books, burning the letters and destroying the portrait of my father; and indeed, had it not been for his fear of death, he would long ago have ruined himself in order to involve me in the ruin. But his love of life is wonderful; I go further: I, who sicken and freeze at the mere thought of him, when I recall the abjection and passion of this attachment, and when I know how he fears my power to cut him off by suicide, I find it in my heart to pity him.”

This petty behavior of supposedly destroying and vandalizing Jekyll’s stuff to spite him is mentioned yet again just a few sentences later,along with the following line:

“This, then, is the last time, short of a miracle, that Henry Jekyll can think his own thoughts or see his own face (now how sadly altered!) in the glass. Nor must I delay too long to bring my writing to an end; for if my narrative has hitherto escaped destruction, it has been by a combination of great prudence and great good luck. Should the throes of change take me in the act of writing it, Hyde will tear it in pieces; but if some time shall have elapsed after I have laid it by, his wonderful selfishness and circumscription to the moment will probably save it once again from the action of his ape-like spite.“

This assertion from Jekyll that, as far as he’s concerned, he will be already dead when he transforms for the last time, is what closes the book:

“And indeed the doom that is closing on us both has already changed and crushed him. Half an hour from now, when I shall again and forever reindue that hated personality, I know how I shall sit shuddering and weeping in my chair, or continue, with the most strained and fearstruck ecstasy of listening, to pace up and down this room (my last earthly refuge) and give ear to every sound of menace. Will Hyde die upon the scaffold? or will he find courage to release himself at the last moment? God knows; I am careless; this is my true hour of death, and what is to follow concerns another than myself. Here then, as I lay down the pen and proceed to seal up my confession, I bring the life of that unhappy Henry Jekyll to an end.“

If taken at face value, these lines actually paint Edward Hyde as being somewhat able to think his own thoughts and do his own actions, while still just being the childish, “ape-like” part of Henry Jekyll’s mind. Emphasis on childish, not evil, the evilness is all on Henry. Edward Hyde is still nothing but Henry Jekyll’s psychological scapegoat, and the one that Jekyll technically leaves behind to deal with the mess he himself created by “dying”.

I’m not trying to get more people to interpret the book this way nor am I saying that the ”Hyde is not real and Jekyll is a lying bitch” take is actually wrong, because it is not. I’m just pointing out the book could actually be interpreted differently by different readers, and they’d still have sentences in the book to back their interpretation on.

Now, if we could all stop hating and throwing shade on every content creator out there who “got the book wrong”, that’d be peachy.

#let people have fun. its not that hard.#the strange case of dr. jekyll and mr. hyde #edward hyde #henry jekyll #dr. jekyll and mr. hyde #literature #gothic lit #this came out longer than I thought it would be

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thechangeling · 4 years

Text

The Box

Tiberius Blackthorn had gotten quite good at compartmentalizing. Pretending that things weren't happening, that they didn't effect him. Pretending that he didn't feel. It was almost like flicking a switch. If things got too painful or too real he just turned it off. Closed his eyes and told himself over and over.

This isn't real. This isn't really happening. This doesn't matter. I don't care.

She isn't really dead. I don't miss him. I don't love him. Over and over until the pain stopped. Ty could usually make it last for awhile. Until something brought up an unpleasant memory or feeling and then he had to start all over again.

Being around Kit again was certainly making this worse.

Kit, in true Herondale fashion was in deep trouble with multiple people. As it turned out, he was the first heir and now a bunch of people were trying to either kill or kidnap him. So now a bunch of shadowhunters and downworlders had banded together to help him defeat his enemies and keep him safe. Ty had made a huge fuss to Drusilla about being forced to help. But secretly they both knew that he would rather die then let anything happen to Kit.

So now Kit was here, back in the Los angeles institute and currently sitting at the breakfast table with that vampire friend of his and Dru. She seemed to be very adamantly telling a story and Kit was laughing hysterically. Ty felt his heart turning over in his chest at the sound. He had to fight the urge to smile.

It isn't real. I don't love him. This isn't real.

Having him this close was torture. Hearing him laugh, watching him train, watching him flirt, watching him try not to cry in front of the others. There were so many times that Ty wanted to just reach out and touch him. Run his fingers through Kit's hair, trace the curve of his cupid's bow, hold him in his arms. It was a burning, suffocating ache.

Ty leaned back against his perch up on the windowsill. He had asked Livvy to give him some space to be alone. He was doing a decent job of blending into the background with his black clothing and dark hair. Or maybe they were just ignoring him. Ty pushed away that thought.

Suddenly he felt the weight of someone hopping up beside him. They made no noise or attempts to get his attention. Ty could hear the faint sound of Under Pressure coming out of headphones.

Alyssa.

Alyssa Reyes was the werewolf from Maia's pack who had been assigned to essentially be the scholomance's liaison to the downworld and help educate future centurions about downworlder affairs. She hadn't exactly been happy about this situation and had been pretty hostile towards most of them for awhile. But she and Ty had bonded over both being autistic, and also being queer. He could honestly say that meeting Alyssa had changed his life.

He turned to face her. She was staring up at the sky, mouthing along to the words of the song. Her black wireless headphones were slud over her ears and her dark waves were tied up into a low bun. She was excitedly fiddling with the straps of her white crop top which contrasted nicely against her golden brown skin. He stared at her for awhile, just basking in her presence.

He was sad that she was going back to New York in a week. He was really going to miss her.

Eventually she turned her gaze on him, sliding her headphones down. "You have all the best hiding spots" she confessed with a smile. 'Also I figured it was time to come interrupt your lurking because it was just getting a little sad." Ty rolled his eyes at her.

"I wasn't lurking! I'm literally just sitting here!" He protested worrying instantly that they were speaking too loudly. But everyone else was deeply preoccupied with their conversations and also they were several feet away. He stole a quick glance at Kit again and practically felt Alyssa disapproval radiating off of her. Ty turned back to face her displeased expression.

When Ty had first met Alyssa she was scared and standoffish but had quickly warmed up to him. He often described her as having pure magic in her warm brown eyes, so much excitement and life practicing buzzing out of her. But now her eyes were cold and dark. She seemed angry.

"I have just about had enough of this Ty" she announced. It's clear to me how much you want him, how much you love him, so why don't you just go talk to him already?"

Ty sighed, avoiding her gaze. "I can't."

She flailed her hands haphazardly. "What do you mean you can't Ty? You can. You just won't! I'm so sick of this!" She shouted.

Ty spared a panicked glance back at the kitchen table, but they hadn't looked their way. Still Ty hopped down from the ledge.

"Here, follow me" he said to Alyssa, pulling her off the ledge. She didn't protest. She allowed him to lead her out of the kitchen and into the hallway.

"Look" he began, "I don't want to talk to Kit alright? I'm still mad at him. I'm not just going to let that go." He explained. Alyssa just stared back at him.

There was a long drawn out pause where neither of them spoke. Ty wasn't that concerned. Long drawn out pauses were kind of their thing.

"Ok" she said slowly. "I need to tell you something that you might not be ready to hear. In fact it's probably going to make you really angry. But I need you to listen."

Ty had no idea what to say to that. But Aylssa kept on talking.

"Ty you need to get over yourself" she stated simply.

Ty bristled instantly. Rage flooded through his entire being. Who the fuck did she think she was? And to hear this from Alyssa of all people. Didnt she understand why he was so hurt? Why he was so angry?

Alyssa kept going before he could yell at her, stepping towards him slightly. "Listen to me Tiberius Blackthorn. I understand your pain, better than anyone else most likely. I understand your anger. I feel it to. I feel it everyday. The way the world treats us it's like little jagged cuts everyday, slowly whittling us down into nothing." Her voice broke. Her eyes were brimmed with tears.

"But I need you to ask yourself something" she continued shakely. "I need you to ask yourself, did Kit Herondale really do this? All of this? Is all of this really his fault? Something that we talk about a lot in therapy is putting the blame where it belongs. Recognize what was caused by which person and how much fault really lies with the person you're mad at. I know you don't want to forgive him because you're hurting and your also so fucking stubborn love" she laughed despite the fact that her eyes were filled with tears.

"You refuse to move. And I know why you do that because you think if you move, you will be admitting defeat. Admitting weakness. But you aren't Ty. You are saving yourself" She reached for him but shot backwards, shaking his head. He couldn't believe her. Maybe somewhere deep down he knew that she was probably right but he didn't care. He didnt care about what he knew anymore. All he could think about was the pain he felt.

"Please" she whispered "It isn't healthy to hold a grudge for this long. It isn't good for you. It isn't good for your soul." Alyssa wiped her eyes and stood up straighter, hardening her voice. "I know you're fed up with everything, and the same things keep happening over and over again. But here's the thing. Kit isn't responsible for what Paige did to you or what your father did, or your uncle or anyone else." Ty instantly began to shake at the mention of Paige Ashdown. He could feel all if those instances coming back to him. All of those kid memories he had tried to repress.

Whenever Ty had something horrible and traumatic happen to him. Everytime someone laughed in his face, everytime someone whispered behind his back or called him a slur. Every time someone made him doubt if he was really loved. Every autistic hate crime, every murder, every debate over the concept of his soul and whether it really existed. Livvy's death. Everything that happened that day on the beach. What Kit had said to him. Kit leaving him. He took all of it, all the bad memories, all of the pain and heartbreak. He took it and shoved it into some deep place inside of him. He usually envisioned a box of some sort. He shoved it all inside of that box, shut the lid and buried it.

This isn't real. This didn't happen. This isn't happening.

Ty's entire body was vibrating now. Alyssa put her hand on his shoulder. "Listen to me. Kit Herondale is not your enemy. He isn't trying to drown you or ship you off to an institution or shove you into ABA. And I know what you're thinking, that's a pretty fucking low bar and I know!" She exclaimed. "I know! But we have to start somewhere Ty. We have to start somewhere or else we will never get anywhere. That kid is so fucking in love with you and yes he does not deserve a gold medal for doing so, but he is fighting like hell to win you back."

That much was true. Kit had been trying to talk to him all week, but Ty kept brushing him off. It wasn't enough, he always told himself. It wasnt enough. He wasnt actually sure if Kit really loved him. He just refused to believe it.

Ty shook his head at Alyssa, his fingers fluttering at his sides. He began to hit his hands against his thighs to ease some of the tention he was feeling. Alyssa squeezed his arm, taking a deep breath.

"I know you are sick and tired of explaining the same things over and over and answering stupid questions and always having to make adjustments and put in the effort when everyone else doesn't try. I am too! Believe me! But I think at a certain point you need to ask yourself if you can forgive him for not knowing?" She asked. "Can you forgive him for being ignorant and making a mistake and breaking your heart because you've hurt him too? Can you accept that he is not perfect?" She dropped her arm down and stared him directly in his eyes. "Because neither are you. Ty I know you dont wanna hear this, but you live in a very privileged bubble where most people let you get away with murder because you're a man and you're white, while those same people condemn me for being rude and intolerable." She said pointedly.

Ty bit his lip. He felt like he should argue with her but he knew she had a point. "You're a shadowhunter!" She glared at him. "You're a shadowhunter and your people have committed so many atrocities against mine. You and your family spent most of your time ignoring all of this and only focusing on helping your brother and sister. You joined an organization that has a history of doing terrible things to downworlders!" She shouted.

"Well so did you!" He shot back even though he knew it wasnt really the same thing. "And by the angel Ali if you really hate me that much then why are you even here?" Alyssa just shook her head at him and rolled her eyes. "Because I don't hate you genius. I could hold these things against you, but I don't. I forgave you for not knowing. As long as you acknowledge it and try to work on making things better, which you are, then I can let it go. Because like I said Ty, we have to start somewhere" she pleaded. "

"You have to be brave and let it go."

Instantly Ty sucked in a breath. He recognized the words she had used perfectly. They were from a song.

Their song.

Tears instantly gathered in his eyes. He let out a shakey exhale and she smiled sadly at him.

"Because right now all you're doing is hurting is yourself." Alyssa said with a shrug.

Ty squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. "I know" he whispered. He opened his eyes again, she was staring at him sympathetically with those warm eyes. "I just dont know how to do this" he admitted. "I don't know how to deal with all if it. I don't think I can."

Alyssa looked confused "Deal with what exactly?"

Ty took a deep breath. "The box" he exhaled. Alyssa looked even more confused. It was a little funny.

So he decided to tell her. He told her about the coping mechanisms he had been using since he was a child. He told her about the box and how many things he had buried in it, and what they were. She cried and held him tightly to her chest. He let himself cry along with her.

He cried for that kid who had the door slammed in his face, that kid who had his interests mocked and spat on. That kid who had his heart broken over and over again long before Kit Herondale. That kid who never felt accepted or like he belonged, not even with his own twin. He cried for Livvy. He cried for that kid on the beach who lost everything. Who wanted to apologize to Kit and make everything right because he was so fucking naive and stupid, and Magnus Bane told him to go away.

So he did. But it hadn't solved anything.

He also cried for Kit. His Kit.

Ty pulled away from Alyssa, wiping at his eyes. "The worst part is it's not just my pain that's in there. I put all of the stuff with Kit in the box too" he confessed. "Like I mean the stuff that's happening right now. He's in a world of danger and I can't feel that because if I feel it then I'm afraid it'll break me."

Alyssa contemplated this for a while. "I know Ty, but you have to face it. All of it. You have to open the box or else you'll never get through it." She said sternly.

Ty leaned up against the wall if the institute. When he spoke, it sounded like it was coming from somewhere far away. "Every bad thing that happens to him feels like it's happening to me. Everything from when he was younger. When he was alone." Ty was making an effort not to cry again.

"I want him to know that he'll never be alone again. Not as long as I'm alive."

Alyssa looked at him incredulously. "Well then don't you think you should tell him that?"

Ty didn't answer her, just stared ahead. He still needed to think. Alyssa seemed to understand that because she spared him one final glance and then walked towards the kitchen.

"I'm gonna go eat" she announced. "Come join us when you're ready."

And then she left Ty alone in the hallway with his thoughts.

You have to open the box.

This is real. All of this is real.

You have to open the box.

@older-brother-kit @zafirafoxx @idontgetit-whydoihavetosaymyname @ti-bae-rius @anxiousbookenthusiast @emiikas @eutony-in-whisper

#tda #the dark artifices #kit x ty #tsc #twp #the wicked powers #Kaitlin's oc #tiberius blackthorn

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thewalkingdead-imagines · 3 years

Text

My Take on TLOU 2

Warning: Major spoilers for tlou part 1 and 2 below!

Before I start: None of my criticism is meant as hate against anyone who loved the game. This is just my personal opinion, if you liked it or feel differently than me, that’s completely fine, to each their own! Also, this is solely about the plot, not the gameplay, the scenery, the graphics etc. because those were unarguably breathtaking and incredibly well done. Either way, here we go:

• Starting off with the elephant in the room: I absolutely hated that they killed Joel. I hated this so so much.

1. The fact that they killed him at all Killing off a main Character is rarely the right call and it most definitely wasn't the right one for tlou in my opinion. Joel and Ellie’s father-daughter relationship and its growth was what made the first game so special and by killing Joel, they killed a whole lot of the game’s essence already. Plus, and this is a personal thing, I (and I am 100% sure lots of others) loved Joel as character, which makes killing him off even worse. ...which lets me come to my second point

2. How they killed him First, the fact that they did it so very early on in the game. I spoiled myself on accident and knew he was going to die way before I even started the initial game but I can say that I was entirely shocked that it happened at the start. I thought it might be done towards the middle, which would have at least given us some time with him and a possibility to say “goodbye” in a way but instead you get very few moments with him at the start and then his death. That’s it. That alone is a punch in the face for anyone who loved this character and the first game. Then, they make him save Abby only for her to lead them into an ambush. I was also very confused that they made Joel follow her without questioning it, sure this one is debatable, but after years and years of being a hardened survivor, do you really think he would just trust a random stranger? He grew softer, sure, and he also grew to trust people more, but not enough to just follow a random stranger who said they had a whole ass group without questioning it at least for a moment. He didn’t even seem to be just slightly wary and to be honest, that just seemed unnatural to me. The brutality of his death is another punch in the face. Abby tortured him, for god knows how long. She first shot his kneecap off and then tortured him until he laid paralyzed on the ground, blood overflown and barely conscious. They did that to a character the whole first game lead you to love. Then they make Ellie come in to watch Abby give him the rest with a fucking golf curb while she pleads for his life. Sorry but what the fuck? We’ve seen Joel survive so fucking much, he’s survived being impaled by an iron rod for fuck’s sake and took out whatever people threw at him and he dies like that? Without even giving him the possibility to fight back? There’s so much going on in my head when I think about that moment that I honestly can’t even put all of this into words.

• I get that this all was done to set up the remaining plot and honestly, that was the next problem in my eyes. This whole story revolved around a revenge plot and how much you have to stop this circle of revenge. To me, that’s more of a predicable and overused plot but that might be a personal thing. My problem is even more that they made the whole story about this and that it felt like a severely forced teaching moment / moral of the story type of thing that lasted for 25(?) hours. I’m not against teaching moments per se, that’s not the thing, and I wanna be clear about that but I hate it when its a. forced b. way too obvious and feels unnatural, and to me that was the case in the second part.

• Now about 1/3 through the game, I didn’t want to completely give up on it yet. I thought/hoped there might be a chance for me to even somehow like it in the end. So I wanted to stay open and for a little I could still see that there was a bit of the essence of the first game left. I loved the cut scenes of Joel and Ellie so so much. I can’t emphasize how much I adore them. They did a great job with them, really. The scenes at the museum are pure perfection and they honestly made me despise the fact that they decided to kill him even more. I will never get over Ellie putting the hats on the dinosaurs and Joel, and I will surely not get over his gift to her. This guy went out and searched his ass off to find her a cassette with the first moon-landing, just to be sure that he has the perfect gift for her. This is beyond adorable. I’ve rewatched these scenes so often already and they honestly get me emotional each time. These scenes felt like the first game again, they gave you that cozy, warm feeling when you got to watch their relationship grow. I also loved the guitar shop (or their way towards it) cut scene, it kind of conveyed what I would’ve wished for for the entire game. A good bunch of action and horror when they have to make their way through but it still has the essence of their relationship and their story when they discuss the teenager’s deaths.

• In short, I really really wanted to see more of these cut scenes and kept on hoping for more until they switched everything up and a cut scene for Abby started.

• I already expected them to try and make Abby look better or made the thing she did to Joel kind of “understandable”, especially because I’ve seen that there were people who really started to love her character. So I kind of expected something big to happen. To me, it didn’t. So her father was the surgeon that Joel killed. Sure she hated Joel (fair enough, he killed her parent) but is that enough for me to understand, excuse etc. what she did in Jackson? Fuck no and that has several reasons. → Joel didn’t kill (nor fucking tortured!!) her father because of something small, like a few supplies etc. he killed him because he literally was about to kill his adopted daughter for a vaccine that might have not even worked out. He killed him to protect someone. Also: → Her father moreover visibly seemed to doubt that he would do this procedure if Abby was the immune girl, which is pretty much hypocritical bullshit. → Abby’s father didn’t give a shit about Ellie too, he could have let her wake up and make a conscious decision whether she wanted to do this, he didn’t. He just approved of killing her → He threatened Joel with a surgical knife → He would have stayed alive if he would have let Joel just go with Ellie / refrained from killing her So this honestly didn’t make me feel for her, this only made my rage for her grow. She had to know that Joel killed her father (and prevented the vaccine) because he didn’t want this little girl to die for something that might have not even worked. Then, he saves her ass from a sure death and she still decides to torture him to death? There was not one moment of doubt in Abby, not one and what makes it worse is that she doesn’t show any remorse about what she did at any time during the game

• I really hoped that they would stop after this but they really made you play all 3 days as Abby, the same time as Ellie. They really force you to play as character who has killed and brought so much pain over the characters you grew to love (probably as an attempt to force you to like her after seeing her side). So instead of using these hours to give you time to play with these beloved characters, they give it to her. Sorry but that’s bullshit.

• Besides this, it also absolutely threw off the pace of the plot. You just wanted to know what happens to Ellie now that Abby on top of it all also killed Jesse (!!!) and instead you get thrown back to square one. • I’m not interested in her weird love triangle with Owen and Mel, I don’t care how she got from Salt lake city to Seattle and I don’t care about her work out program. All these plots just frustrated me more tbh.

• Now, I wanna add that I tried to ask myself if I would’ve liked her if she hadn’t killed Joel and honestly, I’m 100% sure I wouldn’t. I just really don’t like her personality. All this time she just seemed bitter and boring, moreover she repeatedly said that she helped those others for herself and to top it off, she also fucked a guy with a pregnant girlfriend (fuck Owen too btw). So again, how do you expect me to like her?

• I did like Lev and Yara. Honestly, if naughtydog wanted to do something so very new, they could’ve just made a whole story about Lev’s struggles within this post apocalyptic community. That would have at least been interesting and wouldn’t have fucked your favorite characters over, just saying.

• Now flash-forward to the scene back at the theater. Abby’s just killed Jesse, she’s got Tommy hurt on the floor and then you’re forced to play as her and hurt Ellie? Fuck that (Also, the way they had Ellie walk around in that scene? C’mon that’s not how she’d walk around a room while she’s searching for her enemy)

• This thing kind of leads to one thing that wraps up a lot of the end well, Ellie was panicked and broke down when she realized that Mel was pregnant, Abby said “good” when Ellie plead for Dina’s life and said that she was pregnant. I’m not saying that there’s a general difference between Ellie killing people and Abby killing people, it’s obviously shit either way but there’s a clear difference in how they handle it. Ellie is clearly distraught while Abby stays cold, and after everything (also everything else I’ve mentioned) they still wanna make you sympathize with Abby and be angry with Ellie for doing all this. A lot of the game is set up to this (at least that’s what i felt like). Just one example: Abby plays fetch with dog, Ellie is forced to kill dog (also, weird how you’re just forced to kill dogs when you play as Ellie and not Abby, huh?)

• While naughtydog tried to make YOU (as well as Ellie, honestly) see all the different points of views they make Abby entirely ignorant to it, without any remorse and still try to make you have sympathy for her. She does not try to be insightful regarding what she’s done to Joel and see Ellie/Joel’s side just once. She actually mentions that Joel deserved much worse and suggests she did everything right in Jackson. This ignorance and complete lack of remorse...I think this is one of by biggest problems with this plot. Also, that very last attempt to make you feel for Abby when she’s lost her bulk and stand at those pillars? Really? Kinda cheap

• Again, I get where they wanted to go with the story. I get that they wanted to show that you lose everything when you just seek for revenge and that the circle needs to be broken, but it was so one-sided in the end. Both, Abby and Ellie lost a lot, but Ellie loses absolutely everyone and Abby still has Lev. Ellie loses even two fingers, which doesn’t even allow her to play guitar, which is another fucking punch in the face. It was more about letting Ellie face the consequences instead of Abby and to me, that’s just the wrong call to make after the entire first game lead you to love her and Joel. So, it felt dissatisfying to let Abby go in the end. I get why they did that but it felt like this whole journey was for absolutely nothing. Especially after they ripped her from a life with Dina and JJ to go back to hunting Abby down. She lost everything and didn’t even get to end it.

• Generally, what this game did...I don’t think that this is something you do with beloved characters. You just don’t do them completely dirty and they did so with Ellie and Joel. People loved this game majorly because of Joel and Ellie’s story and relationship and were excited to see more of it in the next part and they screwed those people, their viewers and players, completely over. You don’t have to be a complete viewer pleaser, don’t get me wrong, but you also don’t need to completely shit all over them. After all, these are the people who buy and support your game, it’s just not fair to them.

• This might be a personal thing but I’ve seen so many creators ruin good stories just because they wanted to do something super creative, edgy and entirely new with it. 99% of the time that goes horribly wrong. Don’t get me wrong, you have to do new things to keep it fresh but at the same time you cannot lose what made a story special in the first place. You have to make sure to keep the essence of the story alive and at the same time do something new with it. Unfortunately, i feel like the creators of this game didn’t even want to keep this essence alive, they just wanted to do something entirely new and they belong to the 99% who managed to ruin it.

• You know what I would have loved as plot for the second game? If they would have let Ellie explore that her life can mean something and matter even without a vaccine. The first game even perfectly set the second one up for this. Resolving Joel and Ellie’s conflict + making Ellie realize that she’s more than just her immunity + a new adventure...that would have perfectly continued the story. It would have kept the essence of the game going and mixed it with something new. Now, they pretty much ignored how Ellie felt about this part (except for two cut scenes and a tiny bit here and there) which was pretty much her main issue since she got bit. The last cut scene with Joel and her outside...it just made we wish so much that they got the chance to properly talk everything out. And by now, I kinda just pretend that everything after this night didn’t happen.

• So honestly, I’m just very disappointed and upset. It felt like they were mostly just trying to prove that they had the balls to pull a plot like this off, to show that they had the balls to kill a beloved main character and have you play with their killer. Sure, that might be ballsy and bold, but to me, that’s not what good story telling is about. Good story telling is not a game of “my dick is bigger than yours”. But maybe that’s just my opinion.

And there’s one more thing: Happy endings aren’t always bad, lazy and unrealistic And depressing endings aren’t automatically creative, deep and good I feel like that’s something a lot of creators don’t realize

#tlou #tlou2 #tlou spoilers #joel miller #ellie williams #the last of us #the last of us 2 #tlou 2 #tlou part 2 #tlou joel

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tinamaetales · 3 years

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Fine, not fine

When the pandemic broke out in 2020, I was left with nothing to do. Our WFH arrangement during those times is not something I consider as a heavy workload so most of the time I just find myself alone with my own thoughts – which is one of the scariest scenarios for me. To kill time and distract myself from my own self-destructive thoughts, I decided to watch documentaries on Youtube but there really isn’t enough for me so despite not having a huge salary, I decided to subscribe to Netflix and from then on, I was able to watch a lot of movies, series and documentaries. I really wanna write a reflection on each of the stuff I’ve watched but I’m too lazy these days (and yet, here I am writing one).

As I mentioned, I watched a lot of stuff on Netflix but the last three that I’ve watched lately (before I start being invested with American Horror Story series), Angel’s Last Mission: Love, The Good Place, and Mystic Pop-up Bar tend to have a common theme – life, death, afterlife. I didn’t even do it on purpose; I was just really interested in the plot of their stories. What these 3 shows have in common is that they discuss about the morality and consequences and these days, I’m really interested in those topics. Lately, I’ve been questioning myself about what kind of person I am – am I good or bad? I also keep on having an internal debate with myself as to whether or not there is an afterlife and if there is, then where will I end up? Heaven or hell? Those questions are kinda giving me some headache these days but at least it’s a good distraction from my own self-destructive thoughts. Somehow, Philosophy seems interesting to me now (during my College years, I dreaded that subject but still managed to get a 1.25 final grade lol). Anyway, here are my thoughts about the shows:

Angel’s Last Mission: Love

Major lesson: Keep the faith

This kdrama has such a beautiful way of presenting its story that you will fall in love with it in just the first episode! (Also because Kim Myung Soo’s dimples are to die for, omg I’m so in love) Anyway, this drama’s plot is interesting: an angel who disobeyed the law (he’s not allowed to meddle with the lives of humans especially since he’s a guardian angel for animals) on his last day was given the most difficult mission – to make the fallen ballerina know what love is. As I am writing this, I can’t help but feel emotional because the show knows how to attack one’s heart. I will not be telling more of its plot for I might end up spoiling it so I’ll just provide my major take away from this kdrama. (This is one of those kdramas that I can watch again and again coz it’s beautiful)

I was raised in Catholic faith, which is really not a surprise for a Filipino like me since this country is heavily influenced by the Catholic Church, but ever since I’ve become an adult and finally opened my eyes and allow myself to stop living under the notorious gaslighting of people around me, I struggled with my faith in God. It’s really difficult living a traumatized life. In 2018, I seek for professional help and was diagnosed with Dysthymia and Social Anxiety Disorder. And despite therapy and medication, I have not yet healed and sometimes feel like my situation is getting worse. As such, I felt so alone in my struggles which became the reason why I relate to Yeon Seo’s character. People labeled her as a cold bitch and most of them are expecting her to just move on and heal without fully understanding where she is coming from. When Yeon Seo said “Do you know what it feels like to be left behind? It feels like I’m abandoned alone in an endless desert” it hit close to home. I know that one’s pain should not be an excuse for acting up and being mean but people should also understand that healing is different for all of us – we heal at our own pace at our own time. Pain can change a person – I know it fully well for I’ve become a completely different person because of all the pain I’ve been through. But what this show taught me is that God is a merciful God and He will not let us be drown into the abyss of darkness…..somehow, He will make a way to get us back on track and sometimes it’s in ways we never imagined it to be. Like how they sent angel Kim Dan into Yeon Seo’s life, God will also be sending us the answer to our prayers for He loves us and He is the only one who will never give up on us – even though we gave up on ourselves.

The Good Place

Major lesson: There is hope for humanity

I’ve been obsessed with sitcoms since 2019 (if I remember the year correctly) for they’re easy to watch and just fun but I never expected that a sitcom will make me become philosophical and somehow question my own morality: am I a good person?

For a show with only four seasons and fifty-three episodes, The Good Place sets the bar high for a sitcom. It did not drag its plotline but is able to tell the entire story in a way that leaves the viewers satisfied with it. The Good Place is a story *SPOILER ALERT* that revolves around the afterlife lives of the four main characters: Eleanor, Chidi, Tahani, and Jason who all end up in the “good place” because they earned enough points on Earth but there’s a catch, two of them are not actually meant to be in the good place. Eleanor and Jason both mistakenly went to the good place because they died at almost the same time as someone with the same name as them but the other two actually deserved to be in the good place. The dilemma started when Eleanor admitted the truth to Chidi, a Philosophy professor who specialized in Ethics for he is torn between helping them or snitching on them. But perhaps the biggest plot twist of all, *SERIOUSLY STOP READING IF YOU DON’T WANT ANY MORE SPOILERS* they are not really in the good place. All four of them are in the Bad Place disguised as the good place and they were specifically chosen to torture each other, just like what Jean Paul Sartre said, “Hell is other people” Now this gets interesting because while none of these four people have committed heinous crimes which can then make them deserving of a spot in the bad place, the actions they’ve done during their lifetime on earth has bearing. At first I find it surprising how Chidi and Tahani end up in the bad place considering that Chidi spent his life in the pursuit of goodness and Tahani is a philanthropist who raised millions of dollars for charities. But then, as the show progressed, I understood. Chidi’s vast knowledge of morality made him become an indecisive person which led towards the suffering of others. Chidi made other people suffer because he finds it difficult to make a choice. On Tahani’s part, she raised millions of dollars to help improve the lives of others but such is a self-serving interest – she did not do those things because she wanted to help but because she wants to make herself look good. On Eleanor’s part, while she did not commit serious crimes, she was a big ass jerk towards others during her time on earth. With Jason, although he is kind, his actions often lead to disasters and although unintentional, harm towards others. With these in mind, I guess it’s safe to say that humans are doomed for the things we do are most of the time self-serving. It’s hard to make it to the Good Place because in one way or another, we do some things that affect others in a negative way. But what this show also taught me is that while it’s true that hell is other people……humans have a chance to improve and be better when given the proper environment as well as when they help each other out. Just like what Michael said “The point is, people improve when they get external love and support. How can we hold it against them when they don’t?”

At first, this show kind of made me realized that I’ve been a bad person….that most of the decisions I’ve made in life are self-serving….I only do things that benefit me and I could not care less about other people but my biggest realization here is that, I acted this way because my unhealed pain and trauma is manifesting itself. I have been hurt way too much that it made me become a bad person and end up with the mantra that life is shitty anyway so why try to be good? And because of that, I felt bad. Now, I try my best to do good things, not because I want to feel good for myself but because it’s the right thing to do. I have come to the realization that just because I was hurt does not mean I have the right to inflict pain on others. I know that morality is not something that can easily be answered since it’s such a complex thing and humans are flawed but as what Michael said (he has a lot of great lines from the show, I can’t help but to keep on quoting him) “What matters isn’t if people are good or bad. What matters is, if they’re trying to be better today than they were yesterday. You asked me where my hope comes from? That’s my answer.” Please, please, please watch The Good Place! I guess it’s one of the best, if not the best, sitcoms ever.

Mystic Pop-up Bar

Major lesson: Grudges are the heaviest to carry/ the art of letting go

One word to describe this k-drama? HEARTWARMING. With only 12 episodes, this k-drama was able to provide me comfort and healing. I did not actually expect much from this as I only watched it because of Yook Sungjae but what I failed to realize is that this kdrama’s approach to storytelling will be heartwarming. The plot is pretty simple for a fantasy drama: a woman, Weol-ju, runs a pop-up bar in order to fulfill her mission of settling the grudges of 100,000 people but as the years went by, it became difficult for her to have people to open up. When people fail to open up about the grudges they are holding, then it will be difficult for her to help them in solving their problems. And since it is taking her way too long to finish her mission, she was given an ultimatum of having to finish her mission within a month – good thing is she found two people to help her with the case: the afterlife police agent Gwi and the human with special ability of making people open up to him just by having a slight physical contact with them, Kang Bae. I love the way these three main characters complemented each other and I sometimes wish that I was given the chance to be a customer at the Mystic Pop-up Bar not just to have them help me solve my grudges but because sometimes, all we need is people who will listen to us.

As mentioned, Weol-ju’s mission is to help people settle the grudges they are carrying and she makes it happen by having people go inside her pop-up bar, let them tell their stories to her and then she will eventually offer them a special drink (which she disguises as an alcohol) that will make them fall asleep so she can enter the dream world and do her work in settling the grudge. While watching this drama, I can’t help but wonder: why do people drink when they have problems? For someone who never drinks and is not interested in drinking, I’ve always been curious of it. They said that alcohol tastes bitter, so I don’t understand why it seems to be helping people in dealing with their problems? Some say that by drinking, it helps them escape their reality for a while. I did some research about this topic and according to Origins Recovery, alcohol contains anxiolytic properties which means that it helps in inhibiting stress or anxiety. As for the bitterness, I heard from someone that as time passes by, the bitterness become sweet unlike life itself in which as time passes by, it becomes more overwhelming. I guess drinking really helps people to take a pause from the absurdity of life despite its bitterness as well as the headache that follows after drinking. Moreover, who am I to judge people who rely on drinking when their life becomes a mess when I also have my own ways, sometimes self-destructive, of finding an escape from this horrible world that we live in? After all, when life gets too tough, we all just want an escape – even though it’s temporary.

With every episode, Weol-ju and her squad helped people settle their grudges and each time they do, it makes me feel emotional. This show makes me realized that all of us are carrying grudges we don’t talk about and when we do not have the avenue to vent it out, then it eats us up alive. All of us are no stranger to struggles, but it is important to be strong and courageous. We can choose to struggle alone but asking for help does not mean you are weak.

Let me end this blogpost by putting my favorite line from Weol-ju: “No matter what’s making you suffer right now, things will settle and pass eventually. Hang in there until then, and you’ll find yourself stronger”

TinaMae

#personal #tinamae tales #kdrama #k-drama #k drama #netflix #angel last mission love #l infinite #kim myung soo #mystic pop up bar #sungjae #the good place #kristen bell

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cantdwellonanyofit · 3 years

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Sledgefu Fic Dedicated to @stolperzunge

Hello @stolperzunge!! I decided to finally make an account. I’m the anon that has been messaging you Sledgefu asks for a couple of days XD

I finally wrote a fic, and wanted to share it with you. Let me know what you think! It’s based on all of the meta we have been talking about recently.

Please note the warnings in the tags. There’s some mention of suicidal thoughts, dissociation, internalized homophobia, and descriptions of gore related to the war. This was meant to be a oneshot and has turned into a multi-chapter fic already. :| Creative criticism is requested and would be appreciated.

Rating: Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh R? For now?

He couldn't sleep. If it wasn't the nightmares, it was the intrusive thoughts. The thoughts were always gently sliding their hands around his throat like an enemy sneaking up on him in the dark. Trying to snuff him out before his comrades could hear. The dreams were worse. They waited until he was lulled into a false sense of calm, warm, security. Finally too tired to fight them off. Blackness opened up to screaming women holding babies. Blood rained from the ceiling of a hut while a woman reached her hands towards him. She begged in a language he couldn't understand. But blind panic was the same in every language. He could see it in her eyes, and he couldn't wipe it out. He couldn't stand to put either of them out of their misery. So he planted his feet and watched until the hut crushed her in front of him. Paralyzed by his fear and angry at his weakness. He would jolt awake, and every morning the anger and shame followed him into waking life.

He used to be a morning person before the war. He'd wake up before sunrise with a cup of coffee. He'd take Deacon on his morning walk. He enjoyed the solitude of morning, and watching the world wake up around him. It was like he and the world slept and woke together in the same rhythm. Everything felt aligned. But now the silence was like screaming. His mind would race while he tried to deal with the onslaught of thoughts and dream laden memories. He began to confuse what he really witnessed in the war with what he dreamt. But he didn't much think it mattered. The feelings that overwhelmed him were the same. He hated himself. He hated what he had brought on himself. He resented his mother for not understanding. He was angry at his father for being forgiving. Didn't his father know what he had done? Who he had become? He crawled in his own skin every waking moment.

He didn't go to Sid with his problems. Sid was busy creating his life with Mary. Gene couldn't bear to burden Sid with his troubles when Sid was just trying to forget and move on. He knew Sid also had trouble with sleep. But unlike Gene, Sid tried not to torture himself about the things he saw and did in the war.

"You can't dwell on it. You can't dwell on any of it.” Ack Ack had said. And it seemed like everyone but Gene was able to abide by that law. The only person in the world who seemed able to pull Gene out of his moods had abandoned him. When Gene woke up on the train to a gentle shove, he expected Snafu's big blue eyes to be staring a hole in him. Like they always did. But instead, he realized another soldier had nudged him awake to ask if he was meant to be disembarking the train. They had arrived in Alabama. Gene looked around confused for a moment before the soldier repeated himself. But Gene wasn't listening. Where had Snafu gone? He couldn't have left without waking him. It wasn't possible.

But it had been possible, and now here he was. Alone. Like he deserved to be. God was punishing him, and Gene couldn't blame him. He'd killed countless people. And by the end of the war, he didn't much care about the damage he caused. He wanted to kill every Jap left with his bare hands. He wanted to make them feel as helpless as he did. He often thought back to his conversation with Leckie.

"God created Japs too, right? Yellow slants who've tried to kill me on many occasions. Japs come from the garden of Eden too?"

God had sent Gene on a mission to kill Japs for what they had done. But he also sent the Japs to bomb Pearl Harbor in the first place. And Gene no longer had any idea what God wanted from either side. Were they all meant to die? Had he survived by accident when God had deemed him disposable? And now God cursed him with these thoughts and dreams. To haunt him for daring to make it out. Maybe they had all been too dirty for God's love in the first place. He knew he'd never again feel the safety of that embrace. He tucked his bible away under his bed months ago after unpacking his suitcase. He couldn't bear to open it. He worried it would burn his hands if he even tried. He was no longer welcome in God's plans. He just knew it.

So, with no faith, no plans, no life, he withered away. He spent hours staring at the walls, off into the distance as he sat outside. And he tortured himself with his thoughts and his lack of purpose. He had no idea what he was going to do with the rest of his life. He wondered if God meant for him to commit suicide. If he had somehow messed up God's plan for him to die. If someone else had died in his place. If he no longer had God's love, then killing himself wouldn't matter. But he lacked any motivation to go through with it. It was as if he was meant to remain stuck between life and death. A ghost among the living.

He knew God had more than one reason to reject him. Not only had he lived when he was meant to die, but he had been born homosexual. He was doomed from birth. He knew something was wrong when he was 6 years old and Betty Cannon had kissed him on the cheek, and he had cried. Sid would nudge him and point out the pretty girls at school, and Gene couldn't have cared less about them. He'd tease Sid for being a pervert and they'd laugh. His sinful nature was further solidified when he gazed at the nurse on Pavuvu. He demanded himself to feel something for her. She was beautiful. She had a kind voice. His mind recoiled as he tried to imagine kissing her, sliding off her clean hospital whites. He felt repulsed. "Alright, you had your looksey," the lieutenant had jeered. If Gene could've glared a hole through that lieutenants body he would've.

If he could've grabbed that asshole by the head and slammed it repeatedly into every damn cup on the table he would've. ‘I feel nothing, I see nothing, I am nothing,’ he would've screamed at him. Can't you see it written all over me? I'm a sinner, you fool. He couldn't ignore the fire in the pit of his stomach every time Snafu leaned against him. Played along with his jokes. Watched him. Snafu always watched his every move. And it drove Gene crazy. Gene thought about what Snafu's curls would feel like in his fingers. What his sweat would taste like as Gene ran his tongue along Snafu's neck. Along that fucking smirk. He went mad with lust thinking of all the things Snafu could do to him. So when he gazed at that fuckin' nurse and felt nothing another piece of him snapped off and was taken by the ocean. He was ruined, and God knew it.

All through his thoughts Gene found himself biking. As he came to, he realized he was approaching Sid's house. It had to be no later than 0500. He hesitated at the start of the driveway. This was crazy. He couldn't bother Sid. But then he felt his right foot swing over the left side of his bike to land beside his left foot on the ground. He began steering and walking towards the front door. He was like a man possessed. Before he could stop himself, he knocked three times in succession. He waited. What the hell are you doing? His mind screamed at him. He was about to knock again when the door slowly opened. Sid was holding his rifle, but quickly lowered the butt of it to the ground when he realized who was at the door.

"Eugene, you scared the daylights out of me. I heard the bike coming along the drive and just about jumped in the bushes to scout." Sid was laughing, but Gene was not. Sid's smile slowly faded. "Get in here," Sid made to grab for Gene's arm but Gene blurted out, "Can you take me to the train station?" Sid's brows came together in confusion. Or maybe it was concern. Sid's hand halted in the air, "You need me to do what now?" Sid's hand landed gently on Gene's bicep. He tugged him gently through the doorway and into the kitchen. "Have a seat." Sid moved to the stove and grabbed the kettle. "We can have coffee and talk it."

Gene was already shaking his head. "I don't need to talk about it. I need you to do this for me. I don't have a car and it'll take me days to bike there." Sid was pouring coffee anyway. "What are you going to do at the train station?" Sid asked.

"Ride the train." Gene answered, curtly. Sid laughed, and set the cup beside Gene. Sid added hot water to his own cup which had likely gotten cold while Sid had watched a stranger approaching his home from the window. Gene could tell the curtain was off-kilter, as if someone had pulled it aside in an attempt to spy without being seen. Gene felt guilty for worrying Sid. He'd have felt guiltier if he woke Sid up, but it seemed Sid had no better luck sleeping than Gene did. "Ride the train where, you smartass." Gene debated whether he should be honest about his intentions. He trusted Sid. He and Sid had been friends since Gene could remember. Sid had always been on Gene's side. But this would be asking something else entirely of Sid. It would be asking Sid to see him for all of his sins, and accept him anyway. If God couldn't manage, he doubted Sid could. "Louisiana." Gene answered. He provided no context. He planned to provide no further geographical context. Sid didn't know about Snafu. He wouldn't even have guessed what Gene's plans were even if Gene told him he was going to New Orleans. But this secret pounded loud in his ears. Matching the beat of his heart. He felt like he was shouting the word Louisiana so he could be heard over the thumping of his heart. He was laid bare in front of God and his best friend. And he planned to deceive both of them. He really was beyond saving.

"Louisiana?" Sid answered. "What's in Louisiana that has you sneaking up to my front door and demanding I drive you down to the station this instant? Did you meet someone you haven't told me about?" Sid's eyes were mischievous. They were full of hope. Hope that Gene had something or someone out there to look forward to. Would they be so full of hope if Sid knew it was a man that Gene ached for? "You could say that," Gene found himself replying. He was skirting the truth. He was living in half truths and short responses. He was a man to be hanged but he kept outrunning the law. "You sly dog!" Sid slapped his knee and scooted his chair back so fast it made an awful screech. There was a thump from where Gene assumed was the bedroom, when Mary emerged from the doorway in her silken robe. Gene would've blushed had he been his old self. Had he been anyone at all anymore.

"What in the Lord's good name is going on out here?" She didn't seem to be mad, but rather playing at it. "Eugene Sledge, is that you causing trouble in my house?" Gene caused trouble everywhere. That's what the devil did when he got inside your soul. He made you destroy yourself and those around you. His lips lifted in one corner in a true Snafu impression. "Sorry, ma'am. I didn't mean to cause such a disturbance." He stood and bowed gently to her. "Sid and I were just about to head out to the train station." Gene looked down at his untouched coffee and thought to hand it to Mary. She might as well enjoy it before it gets cold. Sid stood up and grabbed his coat. It seemed letting Sid believe this was for a woman had propelled him into action. "I won't be long," he kissed Mary on the cheek. Sid grabbed his keys from the same hook his jacket had been on. "Well, come on now lover boy we best be gettin' on." Gene couldn't move fast enough to get out of his seat. He needed to keep moving before his mind came to. Before he hopped on his bike and rode all the way back home and never came back out again. This was his only chance to act. "Lover boy?" Mary smiled, "Gene, that's wonderful. I wish you the best." Gene cringed inwardly. "Thanks." He mumbled. It was a benefit to him that everyone thought him shy. His guilt could easily be mistaken for sheepishness.

He nearly squeezed himself through the front door at the same time as Sid. He took long strides to the car, and grabbed the handle before Sid had even reached the car to unlock it. "Alright, alright, I'm comin'!" Sid had picked up the pace to unlock the door and climb in. He leaned to the right and opened Gene's door for him. Gene immediately flung himself into the seat and fastened his seatbelt before he could run away. Strapped himself in good. "I'll take your bike home later for you." Gene nearly threw up. He hadn't even told his parents he was going on a walk. And now he was planning to leave the state entirely. His mother would call the police. "Shit, Sid. I forgot to tell them I was leaving. I didn't even leave a note." Gene began attempting to unbuckle himself. He needed to get home. If the police came for him and found him with Snafu they'd be arrested. They'd be blue discharged. He didn't know which one was worse. Sid stopped his hand, "I'll tell 'em when I drop your bike off. Don't worry about it. I'll be home and back to your place before they even realize you're gone."

Gene steadied his hand under the pressure of Sid's. Sid would probably never touch his hand again if he knew. He'd never jokingly wrestle with him. He'd be too afraid he'd catch what Gene had. That Gene would be attracted to him. That Gene would ruin everything like he always did. This was just another secret he would have to take to God before he was banished to hell. Why couldn't he get the devil out of him? But despite his inner chastising, Gene let his body rest in his seat. Sinking into the leather and willing himself to calm down. No one knew. No one would know. Sid would take care of him like he always did. Sid, who trusted him, while Gene wore a liar's face. Gene had no idea if Snafu was even still in New Orleans. Gene had no idea if Snafu even wanted to see him. Snafu had left him on the train after all. Gene had probably read into ever stare, every gentle touch, every time Snafu seemed to cut in the shower line until suddenly Gene and Snafu were undressed and standing close. Every time they searched desperately for each other on the battlefield, or in the line of fire, until they knew the other was still breathing. Both sneaking glances, but doing well to hide it. He had imagined all of it in his sick homosexual mind.

"You alright?" Sid asked, glancing sideways at Gene. Unbeknownst to Gene, he had been wearing a pained expression and holding his breath. "I'm sure she'll be delighted to see you. You don't need to be so nervous." Gene almost laughed. Sid had no idea what he was saying. He had no idea at all. "I'm just tired. I haven't slept well in ages." Gene responded, changing the subject. He couldn't stand telling Sid anymore lies than he had to. And there was no way to explain the worry without explaining the truth. "Yeah, I hear you there. Some nights I get a couple hours. Some nights it feels I get a solid couple minutes. Mary's understanding about it." Gene's mind wandered to whether he and Snafu would keep each other up at night with their nightmares. With their stirring. Maybe they'd both stay up together knowing what it was like in each other's brains. Maybe they'd get real good at distracting each other instead. Gene would give anything to let Snafu use him as a distraction. Gene could wrap his legs around Snafu. He could let Snafu move inside of him until they both forgot about everything but each other.

"I'm happy you two have each other," Gene shouted over his thoughts. Sid laughed at him. "Well, I'm overjoyed you want the whole world to know how happy you are for us, Eugene." He was ripping apart at the seams and it was only a matter of time before he lost the ability to pull himself to reality. He had to get away from Sid. From this town. From these burdens. Luckily, the rest of the drive remained uneventful as Sid let Gene get lost in his thoughts, and Gene willed his thoughts to stay in his head. He worried every thought was writing itself out on his face. On every inch of exposed skin. And when he stepped out of the car to say goodbye to Sid, the truth would be there staring back at him. And Sid would stare on, horrified. Until he called out for the police, and Gene was taken away. All his rights stripped, as if he had never existed at all. Just as God had intended.

They pulled into the station, when Sid slammed on the breaks and the car jolted. "Eugene, you don't have any bags with you! How did I not notice? What the hell are you going to do? You can't show up to your lady looking like that." Gene's head snapped to look at Sid. "How dare you? I've never looked so good?" He left his mouth slightly agape in mock horror at what Sid had insinuated. Sid laughed in return. "You haven't shaved, and I think you slept in those clothes." Gene hadn't even thought about clothes. About belongings. He guessed he'd have to start over when he got to Louisiana. "I bet they dress differently down there anyway. I'll consult the best shopkeepers around when I arrive." Gene wanted to get on that train before he changed his mind. If they left to go to his house to grab clothes he'd never come back.

"Do you even have any money?" Gene could've kicked himself. He really brought nothing. He wouldn't even be able to leave if he wanted to. Sid leaned slightly and dug in his coat pocket until he pulled out a wad of bills with a rubber band around them. Sid had a lot of distrust for banks, and often kept cash on him or hidden in his home. "No," Gene was already protesting. He would go home. He would forget this foolishness. "Yes, take it." Sid was pushing the money into Gene's coat pocket. "Absolutely not, stop it. I won't take money from yo-" Sid unfastened Gene's seatbelt and then pushed open his own car door and stepped out. "Sid!" Gene threw his door open and their eyes met over the roof of the car. "I can't take this." Gene couldn't lie to his friend and then rob him of his money too. "Eugene. If you don't take the money and get the hell out of this town I will take it personally. You can't stay here and keep doing this. Look at you. This is your chance to start over. Don't you want that? I'd do anything to get you back. This is the least I can do for you. Now get your ass up to that counter, get your tickets, and get out of my hair before I drag your scrawny ass up there and embarrass you in front of all of these decent folk."

"Sid--"

"I mean it!" Gene snapped his mouth shut. "I won't take no for an answer. Now get."

Gene came around to Sid's side of the car. "I'll never be able to repay you." Sid wrapped an arm around him in a gentle hug. This may be the last time Sid would ever touch him without disgust. Without questioning what dirty thoughts Gene took away from these interactions. Gene loved Sid, but never in that way. He was his brother. But Sid would never understand that distinction. Sid would be horrified by every time Gene had ever touched him. Gene hugged Sid, hard. He loved him like family. The thought of losing Sid crushed him. He tried to pour every ounce of his love into Sid with one hug. 'Please,' he mentally begged, 'Please know that I'll never be able to repay you for all the love you've given me. I've lied to you. I've deceived you. You're pure, and I'm rotten, and I deserve none of this.' Sid hugged him back with a similar strength before pushing Gene gently to arms length and putting a hand on each bicep. "You write to me, Eugene. You tell me everything." Gene nearly crumbled under the weight of his lies. He'd never be able to tell Sid everything. Even if he died to.

"I will," he lied. He was becoming a pro at this.

Sid stepped to the left and turned around to rest against the drivers side of the car. Giving Gene the room to leave and head towards the counter. Gene took the opportunity before he could stop himself. He approached the long line to wait for his turn. He stole a glance at Sid who waved goodbye at him, and got in the drivers seat. Sid must've wanted to keep his promise to return to his house for Gene's bike, and notify Gene's parents before they worried. Gene again mentally thanked Sid for every single thing he ever did for him, and moved one step closer towards his future.

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faerings-dreamscape · 4 years

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Can you explain all of the fae courts for me? I’m really curious :) if not, thanks anyways

I apologize for taking a bit longer than usual to post this!!

Here is a summary of the courts:

Spring Court:

Cheerful, celebrate life, engage in pranks and parties for amusement. Love the flowers, spread happiness and joy. Also enjoy dancing. Don’t like to think about death (even when it comes to others), and other courts can sometimes view them as naive. They are polite (for the most part), seductive and curious.

Summer Court:

Well mannered, polite, but not as cheerful as Spring. Not afraid of death, but wish to enjoy life anyway. Smart, but hot headed. Will punish those who do them harm or insult them. Are most likely to kill out of fury rather than torture. They don’t like to admit these actions, though. They wish to respect life more than take it away.

Autumn Court: (my favorite, honestly)

This court is mysterious, strange, yet beautiful. They don’t understand why death is hated or feared, and view it as the natural course of life. They are not hot headed, but hold grudges. When disrespected, their cruel side shows. Most likely to curse and torture out of amusement. However, while they have this cruel side, they also can give the best gifts out of all the courts. When respected, they will show it back if not more. Those who gain gifts of Autumn are most fortunate.

Winter Court:

Hearts of ice (can be literally or figuratively). Death is expected. They don’t celebrate life, and instead celebrate death. Are cruel and quite proud of it. Threatening, dark and eerie. Definitely frown upon humans, if not show hatred towards them. Some of this court think Spring is naive and stupid. They gain amusement out of their own cruelty.

The Courtless:

There is not a single definition for the courtless, as they all do as they please. Some can be worse than Winter while others are even more kind and joyful than Spring. There is no telling.

Seelie and Unseelie:

There is a debate whether these are man-made or not, but the summary is: Seelie are considered holy, good, and pure. While Unseelie are considered evil, tainted, and terrible. Spring and Summer could be considered Seelie while Autumn and Winter, Unseelie. While the definitions of Seelie and Unseelie are blunt, the reality is not so. Unseelie can be kind and take in humans to provide for them (though probably claiming them as “pets”.) While Seelie can play evil pranks on humans without realizing their actions are truly harmful- and definitely not admitting it. These two are complicated, and all different like snowflakes in the winter.

Other Courts:

Faerie has many courts, whether small or large, and way too many to note. There could be water courts, courts of fire, courts of war, but these all aren’t paid much attention to by humans like the seasonal courts are.

Again, sorry for the delay on the answer, I hope I helped!

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lilacandladybugs · 4 years

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What’s your current relationship with god? I’m very curious lmao

I’m sorry if this sounds incomprehensible and rambly and disjointed or pretentious. I care a lot more about this than almost anything else in the world and I wish I could do a better job of explaining myself. But I feel like why I believe in God or what my relationship with him is like is like trying to explain who I am. And I’m just the accumulation of everything I’ve ever experienced or that I think and I feel like it’s really important that I communicate it correctly so here is my attempt.

Here’s a video that’s really good that I think will give some good background information. If you don’t want to read all of this, the video is probably enough to explain.

youtube

TLDR: This isn’t the way things are supposed to be. Death isn’t supposed to happen, it isn’t a part of the natural order of things. God loved us so much he died to fix it, and rose again to defeat death. God loves me and I love him, and I’ve never found peace or fulfillment like that in anything else.

I hope this makes sense anon let me know if you have any questions or if I misinterpreted your question.

TW suicide // grief // abuse // rape mention (not v bad or graphic or anything)

Long version:

I think I've always thought that there's something naturally (for lack of a better word) poetic about existing. Not really meaning that it's good, but kind of that everything feels really purposeful it seems to flow together like an old epic. Everything seems intensely meaningful to me.

I've always thought that life was tragic. That death is a fracture in the way things are, like we live in the ancient ruins of a long lost civilization.

And I've always thought that life seems like an incomprehensibly wonderful gift, because how can there be tragedy if there isn't anything worth losing? But somehow it seems like peace is the basic way things are, that normalcy isn't normal at all but like this status quo of goodness which makes bad things happening not only heart breaking but surprising.

Reconciling all of those ideas is really confusing.

I'm a strong proponent of thinking analytically about what you believe since the answer we choose to the question of whether or not God exists is like quite literally something we bet our lives on. We bet our life that God exists or that he doesn't, that things have meaning anchored in an external source or that they don't.

So while I grew up a Christian I've never felt really dead in it. I want to be uncomfortable. I want to be stubborn in asking questions and I don't have a problem with questioning authorities on why they believe what they believe—especially if they really confidently assert it. I want to be able to know things and understand them.

My junior year of high school three of my closest childhood friends died, and several others almost died. I remember sitting up at like two am listening to twenty one pilots self titled album just like seething and exhausted asking lord why would you abandon me like that?

Some other really horrible things happened to people that I cared about, I felt abandoned and rejected by Christians just for being broken, some of them caused it or contributed to the trauma and abuse. How could people who claimed the name of God do that?

My debate partner's best friend killed himself the same year that my friends died, and he became an atheist and I stayed a Christian. We fought about it a lot. I really seriously considered becoming an atheist.

The thing that I couldn't accept was the lack of eternality.

Really ironically I think I stayed a Christian for the same reason that my friend became an atheist. We were both asking why all of the living world is crying out in anguish. We both wanted to die. We both were angry. We both were horrified.

My friend thought that the question of “where is God?” was harder to answer than “why is there meaning to death?”

I'm a Christian because I'm horrified. He's an atheist for the same reason.

If you don’t feel like reading it, here’s the TLDR: there is no reason for someone to do something or not do something if God isn’t there to tell them to. There isn’t a moral grounding for law.

Arthur Leff was an atheist law professor at Yale in the eighties, and he wrote about the moral grounding for laws in his essay, Unspeakable Ethics, Unnatural Law. The question he was asking was what can we do to ground morality? What can we do to prove objectively that there are things one ought to do and things one ought not do?

I am unwilling to accept that. There is something evil about abuse, neglect, rape, torture. There is something about these things that violates human rights, human dignity. There's something about them that goes against objective moral law.

But without God there is no moral law. So I wouldn't be able to say, "you should never rape someone, because rape is wrong." And everything that I had experienced flew in the face of that.

Dr. Leff wrote this about that question;

“All I can say is this: it looks as if we are all we have. Given what we know about ourselves and each other, this is an extraordinarily unappetizing prospect; looking around the world, it appears that if all men are brothers, the ruling model is Cain and Abel. Neither reason, nor love, nor even terror, seems to have worked to make us "good," and worse than that, there is no reason why anything should. Only if ethics were something unspeakable by us, could law be unnatural, and therefore unchallengeable. As things now stand, everything is up for grabs.

Nevertheless:

Napalming babies is bad.

Starving the poor is wicked.

Buying and selling each other is depraved.

Those who stood up to and died resisting Hitler, Stalin, Amin, and Pol Pot-and General Custer too-have earned salvation.

Those who acquiesced deserve to be damned.

There is in the world such a thing as evil.

[All together now:] Sez who?

God help us.”

In the end, it comes down to this; Do I believe that the complexity of the universe is because there was someone intelligent actively involved in its design, do I believe that information, reason, logic, emotion, and morality exist and are reliable because they have grounding in God’s identity? Do I believe that God is who he says he is?

And I guess the answer to those questions was yes.

I saw God. He was there in the stillness - in the sunrise and sunset and at 2 am after I couldn't cry anymore. I felt him. And I know part of his goodness that I wish I never had to know. I felt like I was lying breathless bleeding out in a gutter watching the stars. Almost like a pause - just a moment in time where I was hurt enough, still enough to hear his voice.

One of the most important things I learned is that life is not hopeless. If life is a story, then the last chapter of the book has already been written. This is the premise of the song It is Well with My Soul by Horatio G. Spafford.

“When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,

When sorrows like sea billows roll;

Whatever my lot, God has taught me to say,

It is well, it is well, with my soul.

My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought

My sin, not in part but the whole,

Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,

Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, o my soul”

The powers of evil and darkness can take away my friends, my sanity, my family, and even my life, but God has already saved me, and I can find peace in spite of my circumstances. Three of my friends died, but God has already conquered death. I feel powerless, but God is powerful. I feel abandoned, but God loves me so much that he died a horrible torturous death for me. Living in light of that is peace.

Whenever I felt like I couldn’t keep going there would be something to stop me. I heard his voice in music, and in my friends that held me when I cried, and in morning glories on my morning walk. I kept lists of all of the times this happened, every time that someone encouraged me to keep going, every time that someone would quote a Bible verse when I was crying out for God to answer me, every time that the world paused. Everything asked me the same question, do you think it means nothing? Do you think that there is a direction that we’re going? Are we coming from nothing and going toward nowhere?

I had friends who heard him too. He was so gentle to us. I wasn’t able to go to church, I wasn’t able to listen to worship music but the LGBTQ+ community took care of me, they were isolated from church as well. There was enough for me in that God promised he would take care of me, and he did. He died for me. He talked to my trans friend and said, “listen, your parents have rejected you and said you’ll never be your son, but I am a good father. I love you. Be my son instead.”

God mourned with me. He saw everything and he was angry. I was able to breathe because I knew that in the end there will be justice for abuse victims, because God said that he is the holder of justice, and vengeance will be his.

When one of my friends was hospitalized I stood outside during the beginning of a thunderstorm and watched the clouds and the sky darken and lightning flash across the sky.

Even the wind and the sea obey him. He asked me if I trust him.

I guess my answer was yes.

In spite of everything that I went through, I was more thoroughly convinced that I ever was before that things matter. I was convinced that abuse is evil. I was convinced that death is an abomination. I was convinced that these laws of morality are woven into the fabric of the universe. I was convinced that God died to save us from that reality. I was convinced he loved me.

I still am

#asks #about #eslyea #religion tw #religion #christianity #christianity tw #suicide tw #grief tw #suicide #grief #rape #rape tw #just mentioned but still #thanks for asking #c:#hope this is coherent

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guinevere-beck-fanboy · 4 years

Text

Joe Goldberg Character Analysis

This is my character analysis of Joe Goldberg, the villain protagonist of the Netflix show You. I will tell it in order of chronological events of his lifetime:

1. Joe as a child

As a child Joe lives with his mother and his father. His father physically abuses his mother and seems to have extreme paranoia and jealousy issues.

Joe loves and cares strongly for his mother as shown by the fact that his father once tortured him to try and get him to spill some secrets of his mother and yet little Joe withstood the torture and didn’t spill. Also when Joe and his mother leave to live with his mum’s new boyfriend who ends up beating her up, Joe takes a gun and shoots his step father dead to save his mother.

We also see that being with his mother means the world to Joe as he gives us a big speech about her being his “home”. This naturally leads onto Joe hiding from social services when they come to take him away from his mother after she takes the fall for his step father’s death.

Joe ends up in the care of Mr Mooney, a book store owner, owns a book store named after him “Mooney’s”. Mr Mooney raises Joe to be the manager of Mooney’s when he grows up. He gives Joe duties in helping him run his shop and once when Joe failed them he locked him in a cage in the basement of the shop. After a while Mooney let Joe out and persuaded Joe that he had become better as a result of being in the cage and that Mooney locked him in there in the first place out of love.

2. Joe as an adult, prior to the pilot

Joe grows up and dates Candace Stone. He cherishes their relationship as seen by the fact that when she tries to leave him he kidnaps her and takes her on a picnic to try and reawaken her feelings for him.

Joe finds out that Candace cheated on him for a man named Elijah Thornton. Joe hunts down Elijah and finds him on the side of a rooftop. He confronts Elijah and states that he has read Candace’s phone and has seen Elijah push her around and be cruel to her.

Joe commits his second murder and pushses Elijah off the rooftop, to his death. Why did Joe do this? I can see three possibilities:

1. He was mad at Elijah for homewrecking his relationship with Candace

2. His claims about Elijah were true, he had pushed Candace around and was a jerk to her so Joe got mad

3. A combination of these two things

One thing is for sure: this murder shows us that Joe has extreme anger issues.

Joe actually is shown feeling extreme guilt for this murder. As soon as Elijah lands and dies Joe pulls a shocked and horrified expression. When he visits Mooney for help he looks haunted and with clear regret in his voice says “I killed him..”. Mooney tells Joe he thinks he was right to kill Elijah.

3. Joe and Beck

Next thing I’m going to analyse is Joe’s relationship with Beck.

Joe is deeply obsessed with being in a relationship with Beck. He stalks her and steals her phone and reads all her text conversations to keep track of her. When she discovers his creepy box he takes her captive to not lose her and get her to love him again.

Beck rejecting Joe really sets him off. That is what led to him murdering her. Beck broke up with him, so he choked her to death. What makes me say that, that was the motive? Well..

In season 2 when Forty quotes what Beck said when she was rejecting Joe to him (under the impression from the book Joe and Beck wrote that she said those things to Dr Nicky) Joe attempts to strangle Forty to death as a result of what he is saying, remembering how Beck said it to him.

Earlier in season 2 we saw Joe see a hallucination of Beck, with dark marks on her neck. Implying that he killed her via strangling.

Despite Joe’s horrific treatment of Beck I believe he does actually care about her. When he breaks into Dr Nicky’s office and hears her audio files reveal her saying she thinks she would be better off without him he decides to let her go. Despite desperately wanting to kill Dr Nicky he chooses not to as Beck told him she doesn’t think he is capable of murder.

Speaking about Joe’s near murder of Dr Nicky, I believe it is a parallel to Joe’s murder of Elijah.

Joe murdered Elijah after Candace cheated on Joe for him. Joe was going to murder Nicky after he found out Beck cheated on him for Nicky.

Also as Joe is contemplating murdering Nicky, he remembers what Mooney said to him after he informed Mooney he murdered Elijah (”some people deserve to die Joe”) and contrasts it with Beck’s “you’re not a killer Joe”.

To top it off I believe the Elijah and Nicky cheating storylines take place in the same episode.

The only difference is that Joe goes through with killing Elijah but doesn’t go through with killing Nicky. What is this contrast supposed to show? That Beck has a more moralising influence on Joe than Candace did? I’m not actually too sure.

4. Joe and Benji

Now onto Joe and Benji.

When Joe first begins his quest to meet and get together with Beck he discovers that Benji is her boyfriend and a horrible one. He is never around for Beck other than for sex and cheats on her. Despite this Beck stays with him.

Joe kidnaps Benji and locks him in the cage in the basement of Mooney’s. Why is this? I can see a few possibilities:

1. Like how Joe thinks Mooney locking him in the cage changed him for the better, he wants to make Benji a better person. Joe seems appawled at Benji’s mistreatment of Beck, so this is possible.

2. The obvious possibility: Joe just wanted Benji out the way so he could go out with Beck.

3. Joe wants to free Beck from Benji’s awfulness.

4. A combination of two or all three of these possibilities.

I personally think at least the *main* motive for the kidnapping is definetly number 2. Joe does loads of horrible stuff throughout the season that he says he is doing “for Beck”. Each one of these things however, are things that obviously will help Joe out in his quest to get and keep Beck. Another example of one of these acts is him killing Peach. Joe claims to be killing Peach because he wants to free Beck of Peach’s abuse, but Peach also gets in the way of Joe’s relationship with Beck. Therefore by killing her Joe protects his relationship with her. It would be a fairly big coincidence if Joe really was doing all this for Beck and just happened to be better off after doing them.

Based on this we see Joe’s obsession to get and keep Beck entails a lot of selfishness. Him getting to go out with Beck means more to him than a human being’s freedom.

Despite being a murderous man, murder isn’t something Joe finds 100% easy to do. As stated with Elijah, Joe is filled with guilt after murdering him. This is why I think Joe doesn’t kill Benji as soon as he kidnaps him. However after awhile he gathers up the strength to do so and does. Like the kidnapping, the murder was done at least mainly, to get Benji out the way of him and Beck being together.

Therefore the murder shows us even more how selfish Joe is when it comes to dating Beck. Not only is a human being’s freedom of less importance to him than going out with her, another human being’s life is also.

5. Joe and Peach

Joe as we see really doesn’t like Peach. It’s fairly obvious why: as said before she is getting in the way of him having a nice relationship with Beck. He well and truly despises her for this. Although maybe the fact that she really does treat Beck like garbage might play a part in this, the main factor is definetly her being in his way.

This shows us again how selfish Joe is when it comes to Beck. Another human life he has taken to preserve his relationship with her.

6. Joe and Karen

Joe becomes a real heartbreaker here.

Joe goes out with Karen not because he is into her but because he is heartbroken after giving up on Beck. Then when Beck is into him again ... He dumps Karen and goes out with her.

7. Joe and Paco

Joe and Paco.

I’ve seen people debate over whether Joe really cares about Paco. I say yes, he does.

I think Joe’s murder of Ron proves this. Joe sees Ron about to beat up Paco and Joe then kills Ron. Joe gets nothing out of this, if anything he’s now in a worse place as he has another murder to cover up. But he does it anyway. Because Joe truly cares about Paco. Everything he did for him was out of genuine care and kindness.

Joe sees that Paco is being abused by his mother’s boyfriend and is distressed at seeing his mother being abused so Joe decides to try and fix things for Paco. And in the end he does.

8. Joe and Claudia

Joe and Claudia’s relationship is fairly simple. He initially sees her as a part of the problem for not leaving Ron. He seems to think she keeps him around due to stuff related to her drug addiction. So Joe and Karen get her off the drugs and Joe thinks its all over. Except Ron is still in the picture.

Joe meets Claudia in the hospital after Ron gives her a concussion and angrily confronts her for the fact Ron is still in the picture. Claudia explains to Joe that Ron is a parole officer and has connections that can see to it that Paco is removed from her custody regardless of whether he should or shouldn’t be. That is why she does not leave him, she doesn’t want to lose her son. After hearing this Joe is apologetic. He has realised that Claudia isn’t to blame.

9. Joe and Ron

Joe and Ron are natural enemies. Joe is determined to fix Paco’s life and Ron is the one who has broken it in the first place.

10. Joe’s less murderous persona in the second season

In season 2 Joe shows a much less murderous side. He decides to try and not kill people and when he does he gets very disturbed. Why has this change come about?

I feel like this is revealed after Joe kills Jasper. He sees a hallucination of Beck that tells him off for killing Jasper and for killing her. Joe says sorry, in a very regretful, quiet and dramatic way. She also states that he is scared he will hurt Love like he did Beck.

Joe does not want to kill anymore because he feels guilty about killing Beck. As stated before, Joe did care about her and then he killed her. And he doesn’t want to do the same to Love. So he wants to stop killing altogether.

However in the end Forty quotes Beck as she was rejecting Joe after locking him in his own cage. This drives Joe over the edge and he tries to murder Forty. He loses himself remembering Beck’s rejection of him and fails to no longer be murderous. Even if Forty did stop Joe from succeeding in the kill, he still tried to.

He again loses himself when he suspects Forty has cracked that he was Beck’s murderer. He gets out a shard of glass and attempts to murder him out of fear of the consequences of Forty having this knowledge.

Forty then tells Joe that he loved a woman named Sofia and she rejected him so he murdered her. Joe relates strongly to Forty and embraces him. Like Forty, Joe cared strongly for Beck and was attracted to her, and ended up murdering her for her rejection of him. He relates to Forty and is touched.

11. Joe and Ellie

Joe for some reason from the get go really cares about Ellie. I actually can’t put my finger on why but it seems clear he does. He takes it upon himself to protect her from Henderson, the child raping pedophile who she is an aquaintance of and saves her after Henderson drugs her and makes her unconscious.

At the end he prevents her from going into care and funds her new independent life for her again showing how much he cares.

12. Joe and Delilah

At first Joe and Delilah are merely aquaintances, but after they hang out one night and have sex they end up becoming close friends. As well as Ellie, Joe strongly cares about Delilah. He was willing to give up on his life in the USA and spend the rest of his life in Mexico so that he wouldn’t have to kill Delilah to prevent himself being arrested for killing Henderson.

Also another thing to note is that Delilah is a parallel character to Karen Minty. Joe has sex with Delilah after Love leaves him like how Joe had sex with Karen after Beck left him.

I would also say she is a parallel character to Claudia. Claudia is Paco’s carer and Delilah is Ellie’s carer.

13. Joe and Henderson

Henderson is a parallel character to Ron. Joe’s child friend in season 1, Paco was tormented by Ron and his child friend in season 2, Ellie is tormented by Henderson. Joe decides to protect the kids from their tormentors.

Like with Ron, Joe and Henderson are natural enemies.

14. Joe and Love

Because Joe is determined not to hurt Love the way he did Beck, I think he cares about her in a similar way he does Beck. Like with Beck he also wants to be in a relationship with Love.

After Love reveals her true colours however Joe seems to be angry at her and dislike her. This goes to the point that he even tries to murder Love.

I believe the main reason for Joe’s dislike of Love is not so much because she is a murderer but rather *who* she murdered: Delilah.

As established before Joe well and truly cares about Delilah and Ellie. Now Love has killed Delilah and as a result truly hurt Ellie. As a result Joe is absolutely furious at Love and is out for her blood.

In addition to this Joe’s reaction to finding out Love’s true nature is “you killed Delilah!” not “you’ve killed people!”, “you’re a murderer!” or “you killed Delilah and Candace!”. Love showed him that she killed Candace and told him she killed her and Forty’s au pair Sofia. Yet Joe doesn’t react to that, only that she killed Delilah. And he also asks “what about Ellie?”. His objections to Love all seem to be about Delilah and Ellie, not generally the fact that she’s messed up like him.

Also as I am writing this I just had a thought; what if Joe is weirded out by Love? She is obsessed with him and is willing to murder to be with him as she has shown? Yes Joe himself is like this, but now that he is the victim of it, maybe he finds it weird and freaky and that has a part in this?

That being said I still think he is mad about Delilah and Ellie as bringing them up is his initial reaction to Love’s revelation.

During Love’s lesbian friends wedding Joe realises that he and Love are alike and they have both done similar horrible things.

That being said its clear that despite Joe’s realisation that he does not have the right to judge Love, he is no longer attracted to her. And I think that this is because of the revelation, he was attracted to who he thought she was prior to it, he doesn’t find who she actually is very attractive. I reckon personally that this comes down to him being freaked out by her obsessional yandere murderous nature.

15. A general summary of Joe Goldberg

To summarise Joe as a human being, I’d say he is a horrible person without a shed of doubt.

But despite overall being horrible, he is a caring and considerate person. I think his general charm in interacting with other characters whether they be major or minor is genuine. However that doesn’t mean he is a good person because..

He is also very selfish and very aggressive. He is prepared to do great harm to others to get what he wants, and if you annoy him like Elijah did you’ll regret it.

When it comes to his friends (Paco, Ellie, Delilah) and his love interests (Beck, Love) though he is far less selfish and actually quite selfLESS. His murder of Beck didn’t come down to selfishness, it came down to him being horrified that she was rejecting him. The great lengths and sacrifices he makes for them speak a lot to his care about them.

16. Parallels

One last thing I want to explain is something I’ve touched on all throughout this post: the characters of season 1 and 2 are parallels. The parallels are:

Beck and Love: Joe’s love interests

Paco and Ellie: Joe’s kid friends he protects

Ron and Henderson: The tormentors of the kids he protects them from

Claudia and Delilah: Carers of Joe’s kid friends

Karen and Delilah: After Beck leaves Joe he has sex with Karen, after Love leaves Joe he has sex with Delilah

(Possibly) Peach and Forty: In that they are each competition for Joe when it comes to the love interest, Peach is a love rival while Forty tries to have Love to himself. The parallel could also be a way of portraying Joe’s character development, when Peach got in his way he murdered her, while Joe tries to get along with Forty being in the picture.

#you #joe goldberg #character analysis #character study #guinevere beck #love quinn

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fantasyoverreality98 · 4 years

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Fight the Darkness Pt. 2

Masterlist

Pairing: Gaius x MC

Summary: Amy reveals part of the reason why she sought out Gaius, and her internal struggle grows.

Word Count: 3,304

“We’ve been through this before, Amy. There was nothing you could have done to save Jax. Please stop torturing yourself over it. It’s only making your powers grow stronger.” Adrian pleaded with her, gripping her wrists a little too tight. Tears shone in his eyes, desperation clear in them.

Amy shook from the emotions flowing through her. “I can still do it. We can still bring him back.” She imagined Jax standing in the room with them, as though nothing had happened. Then she was back in the opera house. Jax jumped in front of her, the blade sinking into his flesh as Rheya aimed for her heart.

This wasn’t how it was meant to be. Their plan was supposed to flow smoothly. Gaius had been perfect, they all had been perfect. Rheya couldn’t have known that it was a setup.

“Amy. Stop.” Kamilah stepped beside Adrian, putting her hands over his. “Look at me. We’re here for you. We’ll always be here, but you need to let Jax go.”

She sobbed, sinking to the floor as a psychic blast burst through the office, destroying everything but leaving her three friends unharmed. “It isn’t fair. It’s not fair.”

“We’re here for you, Ames. All of us.” Lily was the first one to join her on the floor, keeping a distance as she spoke. “You’re in Adrian’s office. We defeated Rheya five years ago. Breathe, Amy. Breathe.”

Adrian and Kamilah stood behind Lily, both too afraid to move. The flashbacks had been getting worse. They exchanged a look, words not needed to communicate their worry.

Amy tried her best to stop hyperventilating, but it felt like the world was weighing down on her chest. Every breath was a struggle. Jax’s body turning to ash was all she saw, the grief crashing over her all over again.

It felt as though the world itself was about to end, and there was nothing she could do to stop it, just like she could do nothing to bring Jax back.

“Amy? Amy!”

Her eyes flew open, a gasp slipping past her lips when she saw the destruction all around her. It took a moment for her to realize that it wasn’t her doing. Instead, she was still in the crumbling house Gaius had taken her to the night before.

“What?” It had only been a dream. She had no reason to overthink it. That had been twenty years ago.

Gaius tightened the arm he had around her. “You were talking in your sleep.” He studied her face, reaching his free hand up to brush her hair aside. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

Amy nodded, leaning down to give him a quick kiss before she struggled to her feet. Her muscles ached from the previous night. Trekking through a bunch of trees wasn’t one of her favorite pastimes. She glanced outside, sighing when she saw that the sun was still shining. Sunshine was one of the things she missed most about being human.

“We should talk about last night.” Gaius was still laying on the couch, watching her pace the floor.

She glanced at him over her shoulder. “My being here, the fact that I still have some of Rheya’s powers, or the part where we had sex on a couch that’s probably older than I am?” There was less enthusiasm in her answer than she would’ve had last night.

To her surprise, he didn’t roll his eyes. “All of the above. But I’m most curious about your powers. Can you walk in the sun as she could?”

Amy laughed. “Of course not. The day I can walk in the sun is the day we’re all doomed.”

“This isn’t a time to make jokes.” She hated the way he was looking at her. As though he feared her. As though she was a monster. Amy turned away. “You can tell me if something is bothering you.”

“I told you. I’m fine, Gaius.” The air seemed to tremble, but she told herself it was just her imagination. Another storm must be on its way. “Do you want to talk about us now?”

He sighed, finally standing to make his way over to her. “What is there to discuss? You told me that you have feelings for me.”

“So, are you saying the feeling isn’t mutual?” She laughed when he rolled his eyes. “Did you know that you roll your eyes a lot? I mean a lot a lot.”

Gaius took a step closer to her. “That is because, as I said last night, you are insufferable.”

Amy hummed quietly, fixing his clothes before she looked up into his eyes. “You know you enjoy it.”

“Three thousand years, and I somehow managed to fall for the most irritating person in the world.” Still, despite the exasperated tone of his voice, he grinned.

“Do mine ears deceive me? Or hast thou confessed thy affections for me?” She smirked when he glared at her. “What? I loved Shakespeare in school. It’s kind of disappointing to me that you don’t talk like that.”

Gaius shook his head, closing the distance between them. She had a feeling it was mostly to get her to shut up. Still, she wasn’t going to complain. Thousands of years of experience made him a pretty excellent kisser.

The two of them fell back on the couch again, another puff of dust floating in the air. Amy ignored it this time, sliding one hand up the back of his neck into his hair. She had spent twenty-five years dreaming about a moment just like this. About a time where the two of them could be themselves and not have to worry about the judgement of any of the others. Kamilah would most definitely not approve, and neither, she assumed, would Adrian. Lily was in a bit of a gray area.

When they had been traveling to their almost certain dooms, on a boat that had seen better days, Amy had finally caught a glimpse of the true Gaius. He was just as broken as her, his complete and utter shock when she kissed him on the cheek making her want him more than before. Every rational part of her had screamed at her to stop that night, to not do anything that would disgust her friends and anyone in their right sense of mind. But she hadn’t cared.

A small part of her had worried that the others might suspect, and yet a larger part of her had almost wanted them to know. She had slept with the enemy, and she had absolutely no regrets about it. It had disappointed her when he left without saying goodbye after Rheya’s defeat. All night, she had waited for him. He never came.

As Amy had suspected, another storm rolled in half an hour later. Gaius ignored the rain that once more seeped in through the cracks in the ceiling, his lips traveling down her neck as she slipped a hand under his shirt and traced the length of his spine.

In this moment, she could momentarily forget about her friends searching for her back home and of the grief that still gripped her every time she spent too long thinking about Jax. He had been one of her best friends. She and Lily had both struggled to cope with his death, relying on each other for the first few years to make it through.

“As nice as this is, I think we should figure out what we’re doing next. You said you planned to move on from here in a few days.” Amy hated forcing Gaius to stop, but she had no intention of having sex on this filthy couch again.

Gaius sighed, pulling away. “I planned to travel to Greece. It has been a long time since I’ve been there.” He looked over at her. “I understand if you don’t want to come along. The journey will not be easy.”

Amy stood from the couch and walked over to the window, stepping into the place where sunlight had shone an hour earlier. “Stop trying to get rid of me. I told you that I’m coming with you.” She turned around to face him again, shivering from the cold that swept over her. “There’s nothing for me back home. The others want nothing to do with me.”

A flash of a blade. A blur of dark brown hair. Ashes. Screams.

She shut her eyes, trying to drown out the symphony of chaos building inside her head. Twenty-five years should make it easier. By some miracle, she had gone this long without embracing the darkness. All she had to do was hold out just a little bit longer. Day by day, month by month, year by year. It had worked so far.

“You need to tell me what the problem is.” Gaius was standing a few feet away when she opened her eyes again, worry etched into his features. “Amy, why did you search for me?”

How had last night not helped her? She’d thought that this reunion would help with the inexplicable struggle she’d been facing the past six months, but it seemed to have made things worse.

Amy shook her head, walking past him to grab Jax’s sword from its resting spot near the door. The packets of blood in her backpack made her stomach clench. Without bothering to ask Gaius if he wanted any, she ripped one open and drained the bag of its contents in seconds. A quiet moan of satisfaction slipped past her lips, and the world was righted.

“Now, what do you say we get a head start on our quest to Greece?” Amy grabbed another bag of blood and threw it over her shoulder at Gaius. She smiled when he caught it, watching her with a mixture of awe and fear.

“If you wish for us to go anywhere, you need to start answering my questions.” He drank the blood within a few minutes, licking the remnants off his lips.

She hesitated, debating whether to tell him the truth. It seemed like he could help when she first set out in search of him, but now Amy was having second thoughts. They really didn’t know each other well. Their physical relationship didn’t ensure an emotional connection. He might see her as a threat instead.

But the only one who could truly understand what she was experiencing was Gaius. He had once been poisoned by Rheya’s influence, by the darkness that occupied her. If not him, then who?

“It’s growing stronger.” Although the answer was once again vague, she knew that no further explanation was needed.

Gaius took a sharp breath, eyeing the sword on her back. “What happened in New York?”

“It doesn’t matter anymore.” The truth was too horrifying to admit. All she wanted was a distraction. All she needed was to join Gaius for her own redemption.

The sun no longer shone outside, the storm ushering in clouds and nightfall. Amy packed up her bags, taking one last glance at the couch before she left the old house. For one brief moment the previous night, she’d been able to forget about everything. She could lose herself in Gaius. She could remind herself that light still existed somewhere inside of her, and that, somehow, he was the only one who could bring it out.

Her skin seemed to glow under the moonlight, the little bit of blood renewing what she had felt when first arriving in the town the night before. Amy grinned to herself, peering at Gaius, who walked alongside her with his face set in a stern glare.

Sounds echoed all around them, a few passersby pausing to take in Gaius’ clothing. Amy rolled her eyes and vowed to convince him to get a new outfit during their next stop. She’d had enough of the extremely outdated getup, complete with that absurd cloak.

“How do you know that it’s growing stronger?” Gaius mumbled once they’d passed another human, this one looking even more curious than the last.

They walked in silence a minute before she spoke. “What happened last night? That was a mild reaction compared to what happened before I left New York.”

“And you somehow believe that I hold the key to fixing your problems?”

“No, I just know that you’re the only one who’s been influenced by Rheya’s darkness that I trust enough to confide in.” Amy fought back a smile at the shock on his face from her admission. “It’s nice to see that I still manage to take you by surprise. Even after last night. I have a lot more where that came from.”

He rolled his eyes. Again. “Would it kill you to stay on topic? This is meant to be serious. Are you saying Rheya’s darkness is controlling you?”

Amy chewed on her bottom lip as they continued to walk away from the town. She opened her mouth to answer, when a lone howl pierced the air. “Please tell me that’s just a wolf,” she mumbled, turning back to face Gaius. “Why were you here in the first place?”

His mouth was set in a firm line. “There was a pack of werewolves tormenting this town when I first arrived thirteen days ago. One or two of them may have managed to get away, and I assume they aren’t very happy with me.”

Great. Dealing with pissed off werewolves was the last thing she wanted to deal with right now.

The bushes behind them rustled, and Amy unsheathed her blade as a massive figure leaped in front of her. On instinct, she thrust the sword forward, watching it disappear inside the werewolf’s chest. The creature dropped to the ground, and she staggered back, feeling a weight on her chest as she remembered how it felt to have a sword go through her flesh.

Amy bent over and placed her hands on her knees, breathing heavily. She shut her eyes in an attempt to block out the noise inside her head.

It wasn’t until she felt a hand on her back that Amy broke free from her thoughts. She looked up at Gaius, tears burning her eyes. No longer was there mild annoyance reflected in his face.

She hated this. The past six months, she barely felt like herself. Entire hours were missing from her memory. Some nights, she had walked the streets of New York completely unaware, only gaining her focus when the sun was high in the sky, and she had to hurry to find somewhere to wait until nightfall before she succumbed to the sunlight.

“Good job,” she said, nodding to the second werewolf body that lay near the first one she’d killed. “I knew you could do it.”

Gaius stared at her. “Same to you.” His smile looked forced, but she wasn’t in the mood to dwell on the topic of her internal struggle. All she needed was to take some time to calm down. Whatever she was going through, it would pass.

Amy walked over to the first werewolf body and grabbed the handle of her katana, planting her foot on the creature’s chest as she pulled the weapon free. Something moved further within the trees, and she tried to steady her breathing.

“Do you think we could find somewhere less…haunted for our next hideout?” She cleaned the blade before sheathing it, praying there weren’t any more vicious beasts lingering nearby.

“You complain now, but were you not the one who insisted the couch was perfectly fine last night?”

His response surprised her, and she started to laugh, delighting in the warmth that spread over her. She clung to it with every fiber of her being.

“I needed my fix. Do you know how long it had been since I had sex?” She started to step closer to him, but hesitated.

Gaius noticed her hesitation and some of the awkwardness between them returned. It took a moment before he finally stepped closer, his breath visible in the cool spring air. “Amy…may I kiss you?”

“As if you even need to ask.” Relief washed over her, and she grabbed him and pulled him closer. They both seemed to feed off the adrenaline slaying the werewolves had given, their lips moving urgently against each other.

It wasn’t until the sounds of the spooky forest grew too loud to ignore that they separated. Amy reached up to run her fingers across his cheeks, stopping when she reached his jaw. She gulped, terrified of the way she felt about him. She had dreamt of him far more than she cared to admit.

“We should get moving.” Gaius held her face in his hands for a few seconds more before moving away, looking like he didn’t want to leave this spot. “I’ll try to find us a more comfortable place to stay.”

“All I ask if that we get a proper bed.”

The chances of them finding an abandoned place to stay that had a bed were slim. Still, Amy held onto that hope as they walked long into the night. There was nothing but empty field as far as the eye could see. When the sky started to grow lighter, her worry increased.

Amy watched the sky, searching for an indication that the sun was going to rise. “Remind me again why we’re walking across Europe? All it took was a short ride for me to get to the town.”

“Believe it or not, I enjoy the scenery. And we aren’t walking across the whole continent. Just until we reach a city and then we can take a plane from there.” Gaius sounded serious, but she had a hard time believing him.

Much to her despair, the only place they managed to find before sunrise was a tiny cabin beside a swamp. It would be hilarious were it not for the fact that she had to spend the rest of the day there.

“Somehow, this is even worse than the last place.” Amy plucked an old rag from the kitchen counter and wrinkled her nose in disgust. She threw it back down and turned to explore the rest of the two-room hovel.

At least there was a bed.

“Must you complain about the accommodations all the time?” Gaius dropped his bag on the floor and took in his surroundings. “There’s a bed, just like you requested.”

Amy glared at him, not impressed with the situation. The bed looked like it had been unused for several years, but it would have to do. If this was how her life would be for the foreseeable future, then so be it.

As soon as she dropped on the mattress, a cloud of dust erupted from the sheets. Amy coughed, waving her hand in front of her face. She turned her head to the window near the bed and saw the sun beginning to rise.

“What should we do to pass the time?” She sat up on her elbows to look at Gaius, who stood watching her from across the room.

“I have a few ideas.” He eyed her in the same way he had on that boat so many years ago. The desire for her reflected in his face made her instantly forget about everything else. New York, Rheya’s darkness, the horrible living conditions…they all faded away.

Amy sat up further, patting the spot beside her. “Why don’t you come over here and we can discuss those ideas further?”

Gaius did as she said, taking a seat on the bed. He’d barely sat down before she tugged him to her. They had a long day of waiting ahead of them, and nothing but each other to keep themselves entertained.

Perhaps she could put up with the bad living spaces if it ended like this. Only time would tell.

#choices: stories you play #choices fanfiction #gaius augustine #gaius augustine x mc #gaius x mc #bloodbound #bloodbound 3

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in-the-whisper · 3 years

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Here’s a video that’s really good that I think will give some good background information. If you don’t want to read all of this, the video is probably enough to explain.

youtube

I hope this makes sense anon let me know if you have any questions or if I misinterpreted your question.

TW suicide // grief // abuse // rape mention (not v bad or graphic or anything)

Long version:

I've always thought that life was tragic. That death is a fracture in the way things are, like we live in the ancient ruins of a long lost civilization.

Reconciling all of those ideas is really confusing.

The thing that I couldn't accept was the lack of eternality.

My friend thought that the question of “where is God?” was harder to answer than “why is there meaning to death?”

I'm a Christian because I'm horrified. He's an atheist for the same reason.

But without God there is no moral law. So I wouldn't be able to say, "you should never rape someone, because rape is wrong." And everything that I had experienced flew in the face of that.

Dr. Leff wrote this about that question;

Nevertheless:

Napalming babies is bad.

Starving the poor is wicked.

Buying and selling each other is depraved.

Those who stood up to and died resisting Hitler, Stalin, Amin, and Pol Pot-and General Custer too-have earned salvation.

Those who acquiesced deserve to be damned.

There is in the world such a thing as evil.

[All together now:] Sez who?

God help us.”

And I guess the answer to those questions was yes.

“When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,

When sorrows like sea billows roll;

Whatever my lot, God has taught me to say,

It is well, it is well, with my soul.

My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought

My sin, not in part but the whole,

Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,

Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, o my soul”

When one of my friends was hospitalized I stood outside during the beginning of a thunderstorm and watched the clouds and the sky darken and lightning flash across the sky.

Even the wind and the sea obey him. He asked me if I trust him.

I guess my answer was yes.

I still am

#ask #what's your current relationship with god? i'm very curious lmao

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88y53 · 4 years

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REVIEW OF PUNISHER: MAX -- INTENTIONALLY NIHILISTIC

Comic books are a medium just like any other form of storytelling, not just reserved for superheroics. However, it’s safe to say the niche wouldn’t have survived without them.

Garth Ennis seems to be in resentful denial of that fact.

It’s no secret that Ennis holds nothing beyond absolute contempt for superheroes, with only three known exceptions, chief among them being the Punisher. They say that you should write the kind of stories that you want to read, and I think Ennis did just that with this Punisher. I don't think he even really hates superheroes, but more of what superheroes epitomize — wholesome do—gooders possessing incredible powers with integrity and idealism, and he seems to just love it when those kinds of characters either fall into existential despair at how ineffectual they are, or just die. Brutally.

Frank Castle AKA The Punisher - a noted Marvel anti-hero and murdering vigilante who, in the wake of his family’s death, chose to martyr himself and become the sin-eater of society - is here recast as a psychotic Serial-Killer Killer Sociopathic Soldier who is unabashedly addicted to war, fighting criminals that represent the worst dregs that modern society can offer.

Ennis himself once said something to the affect that the difference between the villains and the heroes in his stories is that the "villains aren't lying to themselves," and from the start it's obvious that any time Frank shows any kind of sympathy towards someone, he's just going through the motions to further convince himself that his war is justifiable.

It's not. He's just psychotic (who possibly made a deal with the devil or went completely insane, but that’s something else entirely).

This series wears its juvenile interpretation of “maturity” on its sleeve, with stylistic and gritty writing that masterfully tricks the readers into thinking there is depth where there is none. The caricatures that masquerade as characters range from misogynistic to downright racist, without an ounce of relatability that could make them the slightest bit sympathetic, that are all merely walking targets that only exist for Frank to viciously dispatch in the most ruthlessly efficient way possible. The women, meanwhile, mainly serve as objects to be abused or to be madly in lust with Castle’s raw animalistic masculinity. Sometimes both.

I can only think of one villain that has any kind of realistic motivations behind their actions and it was that IRA dude who’s portrayed as an idiot for sincerely believing in his actions. The rest (when he’s not just shooting random gang members) are all vicious killers who feel their entitled to get what they want and to be as awful as they wish (like Barracuda, who basically exists so Ennis can write the word “nigga” for as long as he finds it amusing). Now, sometimes that can be compelling, but not like this. A good example is the Enron expy; the actual Enron scandal can largely be chalked up to out-of-touch executives who became victims of their own impulsive decision-making and not truly recognizing the consequences of their actions. The Dynaco executives are all coked-out yuppies that are fully aware of the immorality of their actions, but just think they’re untouchable.

What's worse, Ennis chooses to portray Frank's world as the real world, and the safe existence that everybody else leads is just a fantasy that regular people have deluded themselves into leading that is all too easily ripped away at the first trauma.

Ennis is a noted military buff and it shows in his descriptive ways Castle stalks his victims like he is still in the humid wetlands of Vietnam. Now, whether the writer is attempting to glorify or condemn Frank is a matter of debate, but one could argue that Ennis himself doesn’t even know. The Punisher will contemplate on how much he hates himself and the world while massacring human beings with the detachment one would use to kill an irritating mosquito.

It says something when a Terminator can have more believable emotional depth than this Punisher, who possesses a near-permanent Clint Squint scowl, which is about as close as he gets to emoting.

Ennis, to his credit, did feature sympathetic characters and veterans who're on the side of good — and I'm not impressed. They’re shown to have never re-adjusted to civilian life and are just as corrupt and cynical as Frank is, but are just better at hiding it. There's not a single good person in the series that doesn't die horribly due to their own naive stupidity.

I think what cemented my loathing for this comic was the oft lauded Slavers arc for how it portrayed the victims: people who're absolutely fucked. There's no hope for them healing, or becoming activists, or any kind of good coming out of the whole ordeal.

It's as if therapy doesn't exist in this world.

And the less said about his double-standards when it comes to male rape victims, the better.

Maybe this wouldn’t be so grating if Ennis wasn’t so fucking pleased with himself for going against conventions and being oh so “realistic.” And hypocritical, too — out of all of the superheroes he hates, Garth Ennis holds particular disdain for Captain America, whom he considers an insult to “real heroes” of WWII. Ignoring that the character was actually created before America entered the war (so was actually a huge anti fascist statement, and was enjoyed by real G.I.s), but generally evolved into an avatar for everything that could be good about the country he represents (something an Irish-born WWII-buff Americophile like Ennis should love). Conversely, the intention for the Punisher was to be a tragic anti-hero, and as an symbol of the failure of the American military and legal system. The Punisher as a concept is an massive anti-war statement, which has been perverted beyond all recognition.

I can understand that storytelling in Europe has different standards and history than what became dominant in the Americas, but I don’t have to like it.

This series clearly isn't for me, and I think it did irreparable harm to the Punisher as a character because he was supposed to be a more tragic, Rambo-esque tortured soul.

Over all, I would recommend this series if only for its attention to realistic action, and more broadly, because it’s almost complete antithesis to the human condition.

#Punisher max #Marvel Max #Punisher

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imagine-organization-xiii · 5 years

Text

Org XIII Members Reacting to Their (Pregnant) S/O Being Killed By Sora

Okay, so I’ve decided to combing both of these since they were so similar and I feel like it would be super repetitive if I did both separately. I hope both of you enjoy them! I tried to make the headcanons extra long in order to make up for combining them. <3 Excluding the babies because, like the anon said, they are far too precious for such pain.

This was super long so i’m putting some under the cut!

Thanks again to the person who should actually be running this blog instead of me, @4ddictwithapencil

Xemnas

When Xemnas finds out you’re dead... it’s a tough day for everyone. He’s blank, stoic, almost like a bomb that is ready to explode at any moment but you don’t know how long you have until that moment. Everyone else almost wishes that he would yell, scream, destroy something, etc., but he’s just... emotionless, and that is so much worse.

Sora would do best to avoid him because he would definitely smile and probably laugh as he physically tears the poor boy to pieces, even if it happened to be an accident.

But then it gets a thousand times worse. Xemnas walks into the lab to find several of the members arguing amongst themselves and he asks them what’s wrong. Turns out, they had figured out that you were pregnant and had no idea how to tell him - or even if they should tell him, unsure if it would make things worse. After they reveal this news, Xemnas disappears for a few days. When he comes back, he’s the same old Superior as he always was, but there’s something about him that seems darker and always on edge.

Xigbar

Xigbar wasn’t there when it happened. He didn’t find out until later. If he had been there, it wouldn’t have happened. When he finds out who did it…. it would be no use in running. He’ll search the whole world until he finds the killer and won’t rest until the person is dead. He knows Sora’s name but won’t refer to him as such. It’s just your killer, almost less than human to Xigbar now that the kid had taken you away from him.

Xigbar will not stop hunting down Sora until one of them is dead. He is determined to seek his revenge and avenge your poor soul because you were good - too good - so much better than him and you didn’t deserve to die. If he could, he would go back in time and take your place in a heartbeat.

The two of you had never wanted a baby, but when he happens to be going through a few of your things and found a letter you had been in the middle of writing to him as a surprise to tell him that you were pregnant... well, something snaps in him. He’s goes insane, practically inconsolable.

Xaldin

Xaldin has this thing about love and emotions, right? He doesn’t like them. At all. His heart had been broken before so it was a gift that he would even try to give you his heart in the first place. He loved you, as much as a Nobody could love another person, and to find out that you were dead was too much for him to take. Would become like the beast, cold and emotionally distant and even more terrifying than he already was. Everyone feels sorry for him, but there really isn’t much that they can do, not that he would let them help anyway.

He literally revels in despair and likes to defeat his victims physically as well as psychologically. He will do anything and everything possible to torture Sora into a guilty mess.

When Xaldin finds out you were pregnant, he doesn’t really react how any of them expect. He falls into a fairly awful depression (only after he kills Sora or dies trying), though you wouldn’t know it by just looking at him. He never wanted a kid and he never pictured himself as a dad, but realizing that it was close to being real - close to him being a parent - he sorely regrets not being able to see his own child with his own eyes.

Vexen

Surprisingly takes it all in stride, in a way no one never expected. He had an attachment to you, sure, but he tries to tell himself that it was just physical, but that doesn’t really help to lessen the sting of the fact that you’re gone. Throws himself into his work in a way that terrifies Zexion, who tries not to be in the lab at the same time as him anymore. Debates on whether or not there’s some experiment or breakthrough that he can make that would bring you back to life, but he knows it would be useless. Neither of you would be the same.

Wants to kill Sora slowly, painfully, maybe freezing him to death so he can feel even a fraction of the pain that you felt. Knows it would be useless because nothing could really take the sting away, even revenge.

Zexion is the one who finds out that you’re pregnant. He isn’t quite sure what to do so he tells Lexaeus and the two of them decide not to tell Vexen because they’re afraid of what he might do. Vexen never finds out.

Lexaeus

Lexaeus is so heart-broken when he sees you fade away before his very eyes. He almost thinks that he’s imagining things, because this isn’t real, it can’t possibly be real. There are several beats of silence when Lexaeus just stares at the spot that you once were and Sora is almost shocked, having not realized that he was literally killing you until the moment you’re gone. Then the two lock eyes and all hell breaks loose.

Basically turns into the Hulk

Everyone knew that Lexaeus was strong and powerful, but no one had ever seen him lose control like he did. It takes several of the other organization members to bring him back to himself even after Sora has already run away. Even then, he shoves aside everyone else and he storms off. It’s over a week before any of them see a glimpse of him again.

He had already known you were pregnant, but neither of you had told any of the others. Xaldin is the first one who manages to get the news out of Lexaeus and suddenly they all understand. Lexaeus would have made a phenomenal father and they all know it. The idea that he’ll never get a chance to be one is heartbreaking.

Zexion

Completely, overwhelmingly devastated. Doesn’t even believe that it’s true and is in denial for a scary amount of time. When he realizes that it’s true after being brought back to reality by Lexaeus, he just turns into a little ball of rage and tears. He doesn’t want to show emotions and is half tempted to try and use his illusions to alter his own memory to forget you - or even make an illusion of you - but he’s sure that might just drive him crazy.

Sora is going to seriously regret ever laying a hand on you because Zexion will do his best to make his life a living nightmare. he’ll try to figure out what to do to make Sora live out his nightmares, using illusions and visions to try to drive him insane.

The two of you were so young that you never wanted to have a child. If you were pregnant then it was by complete mistake. He’s really devastated about the whole situation and wishes that you would have been able to live the rest of your life with him.

Saix

Instant berserk mode. This wasn’t just watching you die; it was a failure on him to not have been able to save you. With no one to help him control himself, there would be no survivors. Sora would be lucky to come out unscathed and would be an idiot to face Saix again after being responsible for his s/o’s death.

When he was with you, he felt a glimpse of what it was like to be human again. Now that the connection is gone, he doesn’t know how he’ll ever get his heart back because part of it went with you.

When he finds out you were pregnant, completely by chance since he finds a book in your bedside drawer about what to do if you were expecting a baby, he goes insane and almost destroys the castle that never was. Xemnas is forced to step in to pull Saix back from the brink because there’s just... no way he can control his own emotions without a little help.

Axel

Axel would lose his mind. He’s normally so chill and playful, they’ve never seen him as angry as they did when he found out that you had been killed. Have you ever seen a person get burned alive? Well, you will if you’re around Axel when he finds the person who killed his s/o. Will definitely become a depressed mess.

He doesn’t want to hurt Sora. He knows that there’s something about this kid that’s going to save the universe and he’s hesitant to do any harm to him, especially since he’s just a kid, but... he comes close. So close to just destroying Sora right there because he is distraught. In the end, Axel is heartbroken, but ultimately leaves Sora to live because... he tries to kill him but doesn’t have it in him.

And when he finds out that you were pregnant, something in him just snaps. No one would ever dare mention you or the baby because his gaze would just turn into something that could make you burst completely into flames.

Demyx

Goes crazy but like hysterical crazy? He won’t be able to kill Sora but he’ll laugh hysterically as he fights to the death. The others think it’s actually kind of sad, but he’s so out of control that there isn’t really anything that they can do about it. Does Demyx care that he’s out of control? Not in the slightest. The sheer power that comes out of him shocks literally everyone because they always end up underestimating him. He destroys the battlefield that you fought on almost immediately after you fade from existence, but is so enraged and distracted that he doesn’t see Sora making an immediate escape.

He had never thought he would get a chance to be a dad, but when he found out you were pregnant?? He was so damn excited. The idea of being a dad was so fun and he had everything planned out. He would even talk to your stomach at night before you went to sleep, but now he feels a bit like a part of himself has died.

Luxord

You both thought it was a game, fighting against Sora like that, teasing each other through the fight and acting as if you didn’t have a care in the world. But then you make one wrong move and you pay for it with your life and Luxord just goes still and quiet as he stares in horror at the spot that you were once in. He lets out an enraged roar and pretty much goes berserk immediately. Wonders if he can make some sort of deal with the devil to get you back, but even he isn’t that powerful.

He finds out that you’re pregnant much after the fact, when he finds a pair of baby booties you had been knitting that you hid in the back of your closet. It was supposed to be a surprise that you had for him. It still ended up being a surprise, but it was a bad one. He lost a child he didn’t even know that he had.

Marluxia

Marluxia always has this vague aura of calmness about him, so he wouldn’t flip out but he also wouldn’t be completely stoic. There would definitely be tears with this boy, tears and silent, enraged crying as he faces down Sora and fights to his last breath. He’s still serious business, as always, but everyone can tell that the strain of sudden emotion is getting to him. Wants to kill Sora. Wants to kill him without hesitation and remorse, but finds that he can’t. There’s something that stops his hand right before he takes that final swing and it’s enough of a pause that Sora manages to get away.

He spends a long time mourning you and your baby in his garden. He’ll plant a whole section of just your favorite flowers and the flower that you would definitely have named the baby after. He guards those flowers with his life, as if they are some sort of substitute for you but they will never come close.

Larxene

Larxene thinks it’s some kind of sick joke that the others are trying to play on her when they come back to the castle and explain that you were killed by Sora. But then you don’t come back and everyone is frustrated and she realizes that it isn’t a joke and now she has to live the rest of her life alone and unhappy.

Definitely knows that you were pregnant because the two of you had discussed finding a donor beforehand and you had just found out that you were pregnant. You were happy, though she was nervous - but you were both excited at the idea that you would be parents eventually. It had been so hyped up that now, the fact that she wouldn’t get to hold her own child in her arms because you were dead, puts her in a nearly catatonic state.

Another one of the members who is just ‘will kill Sora or will die trying,’ because she really sees no other option for herself. If she doesn’t avenge you, then what does that say about her? That she’s weak? A coward? No. So she’ll fight for you until she can’t fight any more.

#anon #hexnicki #organization xiii #organization xiii headcanons #kingdom hearts #kingdom hearts headcanons

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