#maybe i'm just lazy and a coward and trying to find excuses | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

whump-town · 11 months

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Wake Up/Go to Sleep

I'm rusty af and as always, the best I have to offer is angst (and Foyet). I've got zero creativity, zero motivation, and a lousy ass excuse of a story so enjoy what you will and disregard the rest

A measly 5,000 words

“Wake up.”

Hotch forces his eyes open, his heart kicking into summersaults, landing with hard thumps, weakly reminding him where he is. His vision is blurry and tunneled, his quick shallow gasps inaudible to his own ears.

“Hate to do this to you, pal.” With a grunt, Foyet hefts Hotch’s shoulders up from the ground, trying to sit him upright. “Shh, now, you’re fine.” Foyet awkwardly tries to move Hotch into position, fighting now extra weight as what little coherency Hotch had leaves him in a rasped, weak groan. “You just cannot handle a little fun, can you?” Foyet grumbles, shaking his head at the whites of Hotch’s eyes, where the pale lids remain slightly parted.

The apartment has fallen back into silence. Foyet had spent a lot of time waiting, he’d spent a lot of time in this apartment, and this silence was like no other. The walls were thin, for hours Foyet had sat here and listened to occupants of apartments around Hotch’s. Hearing their footsteps as they went from room to room or their voices fussing at misbehaving children or a couple's loud quarrels. But now there is silence. The silence of frightened children pulling bed sheets tighter around them and willing their stiffness, their closed eyes, and held breaths to be enough to ward off the nightmares just under their beds.

Foyet had been watching for a long time.

He knew that no one would come check under the bed of a man like Aaron Hotchner. Not even his neighbors would risk leaving the safety of their beds to stick their ankle out and risk being caught themselves.

Foyet has waited a long time for this.

Tom Shaunessy was a coward and Foyet had known it the moment that he’d seen the man. Everything about him screamed cowardice, but his eyes especially. Shaunessy could hardly look at what The Reaper had done. As he spoke to Foyet in the hospital, Shaunessy had looked everywhere but at him. Casting his eyes aside to the horrors, unable to even look at what the murderer he couldn’t catch had done.

That first phone call had excited Foyet and he couldn’t imagine letting something like that go. Not when this was it, not when Hotch was who Foyet had waited all this time for. The pieces were so simple to put together, it hadn’t bothered Foyet one bit to change up his tactics to explore this new, far more exciting avenue.

Hotch would be the fight he wanted. This would be like nothing before and it’s all coming together perfectly.

“Hey big guy,” Foyet taps Hotch’s face, smiling as Hotch’s breathing labors harder as he comes to once again. His pinprick pupils manage a slow, lazy climb to focus on Foyet. “Let’s get you outta here.”

After calling 911, Foyet had passed out. He’d done the research, he knew how many stabs were too many. He could look at pools of blood and know how much was too much, and how much was survivalable. But there is only ever one way to find out. Foyet imagines that Hotch knows these things too. Perhaps Hotch had never held the knife and found out for himself but Foyet has no doubt he’s an intelligent man. And if Hotch could see now the pool of blood being left to clot and thicken in his off-white carpet, he’d see for himself that he was toeing that line.

Too much and survivable.

But Foyet knew nine was survivable. He could have been a surgeon, he has very steady hands and is precise with a blade. Maybe he would’ve liked that, if he didn’t like this more. But taking a life is a far better thrill than saving one.

Foyet had waited long and hard for a good fight. And now Hotch had proven himself the proper opponent. The fight that Foyet had always wanted. A fight of equals. The night Foyet stabbed himself he’d never flinched, if he had, he would have nicked something, and dying wasn’t an option. Hotch had endured for the same reasons that Foyet had – for what comes next.

And Foyet could excuse a little fainting.

“Come on,” Foyet urges, tapping at Hotch’s pale face, “come on, don’t make me kiss ya’ sleepin’ beauty.” Glassy eyes roll in their sockets as Hotch just barely finds it within himself to find Foyet who smiles down at him, “hey handsome, you ready to go?” There’s no answer coming, not that Foyet is waiting for it. On three, he hefts Hotch up, pulling them both to their feet in a great struggle. Quickly Foyet abandons the idea that Hotch is going to walk himself out, so he prepares for plan b.

With a grunt, Foyet maneuvers Hotch around. He’s never really had to do this part before but he’s had more than enough time to prepare. Hotch makes no noises now, hangs limply over Foyet’s shoulder. Giving no response to the slap Foyet delivers to the back of his thigh as he asks, “you got everything you need?” There’s no need to respond anyway, Foyet is too busy laughing.

Hotch passes out and comes to again in Foyet’s front seat, as Foyet wrangles him out his suit jacket. His vision returns, tunneled and littered in black dots obscuring what little he can see, as the Foyet presses Hotch’s jacket against his chest, forcing Hotch’s limp arms up and around himself, holding the jacket to his chest.

The door slams shut.

—-----------

Hospitals are cold and sterile. The white walls absorb and diffuse, creating an atmosphere that’s nearly unaffected by the change of time, and the passing of guards. Hearts do keep time, a rhythm is predictable, measurable. A steady heart is.

“How long has he been down?”

“Twenty-five minutes.”

The thing about a stalled heart… on the one hand, it stops blood from accumulating further in the thick puddle of the emergency room floor. No pumping heart means the gushing flow has stopped, their John Doe isn’t bleeding himself dry anymore. On the other, it means there’s no blood getting where it needs to be. Blood can be moped up from the floor. For the most part, it can be scrubbed out of fabric. But bodies, people, need blood far more than the floor does.

Mr. Doe puts up a fight. They hit minute thirty-two and his heart finds a weak, but present pulse to beat to. Alive more on the stretcher than he had been as he was wheeled in the emergency room’s doors. They’d lifted him from the wheelchair he’d been pushed in on, and deposited him on white sheets with more color than his face. He’d been conscious throughout it, eyes open and loosely tracking movement. A nurse had spoken to him, and gotten minimal reaction to stimuli. They’d lost him after intubation, a predictable crash, dominos falling in line.

____________________

“He doesn’t look…”

“Alive,” Emily finishes, barely a whisper. She knows what dead people look like. There are days when she spends more time looking at corpses than the actual living breathing people around her. They should be a few more floors down, the morgue would be more fitting. This doesn’t feel like visiting a friend, it feels like identifying him. What’s left of him, that is.

Dave eyes Emily carefully and precedes into the room. How many of Hotch’s hospital rooms has he occupied now in his career? He’d worked for the Beaurea for over thirty years and hardly ever seen the inside of a hospital until he hired Hotch. Which was by no means a mistake, but it was certainly a decision. There’s not much left of that punk ass kid he hired.

Dave’s knee creak as he lowers himself into the chair pulled up the side of the bed. He’d seen Emily here earlier, but now she seems far more content to stand in the corner, further away. Admittedly, Hotch looks bad. He doesn’t just look bad, he’s living in a shadowy in-between. The doctors have cleaned him up on the inside but he’s not in the clear. “He’s a tough kid,” Dave says softly and clears his throat, the sentiment adding to the growing knot of emotion stuck in his throat. On one hand he count the number of times they’ve been in this position, but it’s more than twice. “Ever tell you about the car he drove into a lake?”

Arms crossed, Emily gives a shrug despite knowing exactly what Dave is talking about. Hotch broke both the bones in his lower right leg doing that, he’d hobbled around on crutches for weeks. Scared the hell out of Dave, who had wadded out to grab Hotch by his soaked suit jacket and dragged him to shore, coughing and spitting water up. The story is better than the reality. When Dave tells it, Hotch fought him all the way the hospital, arguing and bickering. That Hotch was downright furious to be carted up in an ambulance and made to stay in the hospital. The reality was that he’d barely managed to get himself to shore, and by the time he was at the shore, in water that would have come to his shins, he was hardly able to keep his head up. Between the freezing water, the sudden impact, and his broken leg, Hotch was in shock. Freezing and shivering. There hadn’t been a lot of fighting.

Dave tells her anyway and Emily doesn’t interrupt him. She’s torn between looking at Hotch and avoiding him at all costs. Half of her is morbidly curious. Laying here, he looks nothing like himself. It’s him, she supposes, but not recognizably, not in any way she’s familiar. So her eyes keep finding him, hoping on some small, silly hope, that his eyes will open and he’ll look back at her with a face she does know.

It’s like being left in the room with a ghost. There is an active haunting happening, unsettled spirits. Looking at Hotch… it doesn’t look like he’s settled. Doesn’t look like his own spirit, or even life, inhabits his body. She wants to leave too, but Dave entrusts her, foolishly, to sit watch so that he can go handle bigger things. Emily would much rather be at the emergency meeting with Strauss right now, even if the Director was there, that’d beat this. But Dave’s decided for her, bastard.

Dave has been gone for twenty mintues when Hotch makes a sudden noise that scares Emily. The room is so full of little noises, she’s grown acquainted to them. She hardly hears the heart monitor, looking up only on the stray beeps. She looks as if she’s got any idea what any one of these machines do, but she has only a rough idea. The leads can be tracked from his chest, so she’s fairly certain of what some of them do, but there are too many other wires. A net of them that she really doesn’t want to understand.

Hotch makes the noise again and Emily, despite her best efforts to look anywhere else, looks right at him. His eyes are open, hardly, but she can hear him breathing, laborious inhales through pale, parted lips. The sound occurs again and Emily watches, she sees his chest catch, the sound choked out again.

“Hotch?”

There comes no reply.

Emily looks out of the room, there are two nurses at the station, both far more prepared to handle whatever is happening now. But she’s not even sure what’d she say to them. It feels silly, ridiculous, to bring them in here and tell them what exactly? That has made a “weird” sound. None of the machines are making any weird sounds, surely if something bad was happening, they’d be the first to know.

Taking a tentative step closer, Emily calls his name again. Only a whisper, all she’s brave enough for.

His chest catches and Emily steps closer, even though she feels the instinctual need to step back. His hand is near the edge, fingers lightly curled by gravity, his wrist up. Not sure where she should be, Emily gets just close enough to nudge his hand with the tip of her finger, “Hotch?” She tries to be within his line of sight, she thinks he is.

He makes the sound again and Emily flinches as it changes, rasping as he tries to pull in air.

“Hotch?” His hand moves quickly, blindly, and wraps around her wrist. “Hotch,” she tries to pull her arm away from him but she can’t. She pulls but his grip is strong, unwavering in strength. She clenches her teeth, feeling the bones in hand grind together. “Please–” she strains, it hurts, feels like he’s close to breaking her wrist, but she can’t wrench his fingers away. “Let go.”

The panick is starting to take hold of her, her brain easily supplies all the weak places she could hit to get him off of her but her fingers stay over his, trying to pry his fingers away. As Emily grows more desperate, Hotch makes a significantly worse sound and then the pain in her wrist takes second place in things that are freaking her out. Hotch’s grip falls slack back to the bed, but his fingers are still visible in their previous placement on her skin. His chest stops rising and Emily stumbles back from the bed, her hand over her wrist, and her feet trying to rapidly take her away.

Emily squeezes by nurses as she runs through the door, not looking back at the sound of an alarm going off.

By the time Dave gets back, the skin on her wrist is purple and pink, actively trying to bruise and immiting a popping sound when she moves the joint. She holds her palm over the bruising when Dave comes up, because he’s already alarmed by the fact that instead of being lead back to Hotch’s room, he’s been deferred to a waiting room.

“What happened?”

Coming out of the room, Emily had been shaking. Typically, that much adrenaline comes along with a good chase. A place to run to, a lot of energy to physical exert someplace. Now she takes it all with her and she has no where to go. Now as Dave comes to a frustrated halt, hand slipping over his goatee and then falling to his hip, Emily feels the force bubble right back up.

“He ugh…” Emily stammers, “he just…” Anxiously, her fingers start kneading the agitated skin. “He… I just but I mean–”

“What happened to your hand?” Dave asks and by the way that Emily’s hand snaps to cover it, he already has a pretty good idea what she’s hiding. “Did anyone look at it?”

Emily narrows her eyes for a moment and looks away. “It’s fine.”

Dave nods his head, and takes the chair beside her. “I’m sure it is,” he sighs, leaning back. “Should probably still get it looked at.”

Emily glares at him, her hand protectively held to her chest. “He didn’t mean to,” she mumbles.

“I wasn’t saying he did.”

Emily looks at him, and then away.

Dave smiles sadly down at the ground. He’d already gotten a taste of the trouble Emily and Hotch could get themselves into together. Even though their relationship had been formed on distrust, even some hatred and anger. The two of them get on like flames on wood, Dave’s not even surprised that she would feel protective. Though, he’s not sure why Emily feels the need to protect Hotch from him.

“It really is fine,” Emily says softly.

“I believe you,” Dave says, “but Aaron–”

“I know,” Emily interrupts. “It’s not broken, he didn’t–” She shakes her head, “it’s just bruised but I’ll– I’ll go get it looked at.”

“Atta girl.”

____________________

Hotch’s breathing sharpens and JJ sits up a little, eyes anxiously darting up to the heart monitor. She watches his eyelashes flutter as he stirs. His hand twitches, jerking against the sheets. He makes a soft noise, inhaling through his nose, and bends his elbow, moving his hand across the sheets towards the left. Twice already JJ had seen him do this. Hotch grunts, agitatedly when his hand comes in contact with the rail. His fingers lazily fumble along the rail until he takes hold of it, wrapping his fingers around it. On the next breath, his eyes open and he looks up for a disoriented moment before turning his head towards the rail.

“You’re in the hospital,” JJ offers quietly, hoping not to startle him.

He turns his head a little at the sound of her voice but his attention remains on the rail. “I know,” he says hoarsely. He stares for a moment longer at the rail and his hand slips back down to the bed. Hotch turns his head to her and frowns. She has no idea what he’s going to say but she can see him thinking, the look on his face. “You shouldn’t be here,” he says softly.

JJ frowns sadly, understanding all that he’s not said. The crinkles of pain between his eyebrows and his eyes. They’re softer than the rest of him. Windows to the soul. “And leave you here alone?” she asks, brushing her thumb across his knuckles. “You wouldn’t leave me here alone, would you?”

Hotch looks away, slightly shaking his head.

“Then what makes you think I’d leave you?”

His mouth lifts a little and he turns his head away, shaking his head.

JJ knows someone else should be here. Dave or Emily would know what to say. They would take one look at him and understand whatever it is that he’s not saying. But JJ can’t. JJ doesn’t know what Hotch’s thinking. It’s just locked inside of him, behind his determined grimace.

“I brought juice,” she offers lamely, looking over until she can find her bag. She pulls the bottle out of her purse and holds it, crinkling the plastic around the bottle. “It’s apple,” JJ says, looking down at it. “I don’t know if you like apple juice but I– well I guess… I just wanted to bring something…”

Hotch doesn’t want apple juice. He doesn’t really like juice. If she was offering some tea or coffee he might consider it a little more. “I’m okay,” he says to the wall.

“Oh,” JJ says softly, “okay.”

Hotch hadn’t been interested in the slightest by anything they had tried to offer him. On the first night, Emily had gotten a few ice chips into him but his defenses were something else in those first twenty-four hours. His control was topsy-tervy. Boarding on crazed and belligerent and then nothing but tears and anguish. But they could be one in the same. They were. And while apple juice wasn’t the first thing she’d brought him or the first thing he’d denied from her, it was still disheartening.

There wasn’t a whole lot that JJ felt she could do. Which wasn’t a new feeling. Their jobs demanded something from them that it did not ask of her. She couldn’t tell like they could when someone was lying or read between meaningless gestures to understand something deeper. She couldn’t even look at her friend and tell what he was thinking, how could she do it with a stranger?

But she could do something. JJ enjoyed bringing snacks. She liked being the person hunting down the one specific thing that Reid would eat if he was too anxious or afraid or just sick. JJ liked knowing that she could be relied on in this way. That when everything else was going wrong she could meet this one need. Hunger. She knew their take-out orders by heart and if she needed to make an impromptu change, she knew what they would want.

Even Hotch. What coffee and a nap could not fix, JJ could. It wasn’t so hard, really, she thought. When it came down to it, a good snack is a comfort. Something simple. And she could appreciate that. JJ thought it was cute, and sweet even how she could spend five minutes making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and she would be in Hotch’s favor for weeks. He’d thank her endlessly.

But Hotch isn’t eating. He has no will to subsist off anything but what comes into his body through whatever they attach to him next.

Head turned from her, Hotch closes his eyes but the crinkle of plastic keeps playing through the room. JJ’s anxious hands toying with it. “Okay,” Hotch sighs. He turns to look over at her, not even sure how to ask for the juice, but she’s already looking up, face lit up.

That feeling in his stomach acts up, guilt tightening in his chest. He’s selfish. Hotch watches her without a word. JJ’s so excited that she moves quickly, grabbing at a paper cup and twisting the lid off the juice. Moving like she’s afraid he’ll change his mind if she’s not fast enough.

“Here,” she presents the cup with a smile, tapping the straw so that it falls forward towards his mouth.

Something in his voice whispers the threat of poison, coils tightly in his stomach. Nausea creeps up, thick in his throat. He pulls only a tiny sip from the straw, forcing it down despite his immediate desire to throw it up.

“It’s important to get fluids in,” JJ says and then glances up at the IV pole, the medications, and hundred other things coming in through the line. Maybe it’s not the same but the way she figures, it’s not gonna hurt, and he can’t stay here so he’s got to start eating and drinking sometimes. JJ places the cup on the tray, close by, and when she turns back he’s still watching her. She’s familiar with this face. The exhaustion that leads to tears, that worn down look on his face.

Hotch exhales shakily and averts his eyes. “You should go home,” he rasps, barely containing a wince as he raises his left arm weakly to his chest. “With Will and Henry…”

JJ pulls in a breath, turning her head as tears unexpectedly begin to sting her eyes. She hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Will and Henry. What would she do if they were sent away? How would she survive? And it felt selfish to even think about them, to have them waiting at home for her. JJ sniffles and wipes her wet face with the back of her hand. “I will,” she promises, taking her seat again and reaching forward for his hand. Hotch closes his eyes when she takes his hand, turning his head away. “But not right now.”

Hotch keeps his head turned from her for a while. Enough time passes that JJ thinks he might have fallen asleep again but then he sniffles and lifts his hand to try and dry the tears that have fallen against his will. The hand she’s holding moves just enough and he squeezes her hand. When he turns, his eyes don’t meet hers right away. He looks to the wall to her side, mouth opening as he struggles to find the words. But then he looks at her, irritated wet eyes, “Thank you for staying.”

Another round of tears nearly takes her out, they block her vision when she stands, leaning over him gently so that she can hug him. JJ kisses the top of his head, “You’re my friend, Aaron.” She looks at him, down into disbelieving eyes. “I’d do anything for you and you’d deserve it all.”

“JJ–”

“Don’t argue with me,” she says sternly. JJ sniffles and wipes her eyes dry, “I mean it and I won’t be argued with.” She puts her hands on her hips and looks at him, a face he’s often enough. A very motherly glare. “So just deal with it, kapeesh?”

Hotch doesn’t even try not to smile. It’s little, hardly a smile at all but it’s a grin at the very least. “Yes ma’am.”

“Ok then,” JJ says sitting back down. “Now back to sleep,” she commands, “it’s late.”

____________________

Hotch is sleeping. Morgan’s checked and rechecked, he’s just barely an expert but this isn't fake. Hotch had been playing at sleep for the last two days now, successfully warding off his visitors. Morgan had been his roommate for the first four years he was on the team, he could tell when Hotch was really asleep. Somehow, Prentiss could too. Morgan wants to know why, and he’s got a pretty good visual given every story Prentiss has ever told him and Hotch’s extreme need to relieve some stress.

“Princess,” Morgan whispers, glancing slightly at Hotch but he’s been too quiet. “Are you awake?”

She ignores him, keeping her eyes closed. It’s ten at night and Hotch is sleeping, as far as Emily’s concerned, Morgan needs to shut the hell up and either get a nap while it’s silent or go chatter somewhere else.

“Emily,” Morgan says a little louder. “Come on, I know you’re awake.”

“Shut up,” she mumbles, cracking her eye open just enough to glance at Hotch.

“Can I ask you somethin’?” Derek says, sitting up.

Emily sighs and opens her eyes, glaring across the bed between them to Derek. “What?” she demands.

“Earlier,” Derek says, “you said you were in Hotch’s apartment and that nothing looked out of place…”

Emily nods, slowly. “Yeah, okay. So what?”

Derek sits up a little more, his blanket falling off his shoulder and down into his lap. “How’d you know something like that? What would be out of place and what wouldn’t?”

Emily sighs and rolls her eyes, “I don’t know Derek. Probably because I’ve been to his apartment once or twice. Is that a big deal? Are you jealous?”

Derek huffs a laugh, “hardly.” He smiles, “I was just wondering… I mean I’m his friend too but I don’t know if I could tell if anything was out of place in his apartment.” He shurgs, “but I’ve been there only a handful of times.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“Nothing,” Derek smirks. “Nothing at all.”

Emily scowls at him, “you’re such a pervert. Why is that where you nasty head goes everytime?” Emily tugs her blanket up around her, puffing, “I would never… with Hotch? Come on, now.” Derek doesn’t look convinced. “And Hotch would never. He has a whole complex about power, he’d probably think it’d be manipulative. And besides it’d be –”

“Fraternization,” a hoarse voice supplies.

Emily immediately sits up. “Hotch?”

He hums, slowly pulling his eyes open and blinking a few sluggish times.

“Hey man,” Derek says, he’s already standing, his hand on Hotch’s arm.

“You’re supposed to be sleeping,” Emily fusses, standing too, crossing her arms.

Hotch looks blearily between them and raises his eyebrows a little. “Was trying,” he rasps, voice giving out on him. He tries to clear his throat but his mouth is painfully dry and he winces.

Emily shoots Derek a dirty look but he ignores her, turing his back to them to fill a cup of water for Hotch. “I’m sorry,” Emily says, “we’ll be quiet.”

“Here,” Derek offers, and he waits for Hotch to raise his hand. He’s not yet been able to hold the cup himself but his fingers loosely curl around it, and Derek does the extra work.

“Thank you,” Hotch says softly, and Derek nods back, putting the cup down.

“How’re you feeling?” Derek asks, pulling his chair closer and sitting back down.

Maybe proof of the drugs coursing through him, Hotch hums, eyes already closed, and the corner of his mouth twitching up. “Don’t put me under oath.”

Derek barks out a laugh and Emily frowns at him. “You’re making jokes?” Derek chuckles, “damn, you must be feeling good.”

“Mm.”

“Alright,” Emily interrupts, “we should be sleeping.” Her voice lowers as she looks at Derek, “not talking.”

Derek raises his hands and Hotch cracks his eyes back open, drowsily taking stock of them. He blinks sluggishly, licking his dry lips, “Why’re you here?”

Derek and Emily shares a glance over him, one that he can clearly see.

“We’re security,” Derek says, finally.

“Security,” Hotch repeats. He smirks a little, eyes dragging over to Derek, “...must not be that important.”

“The Beaurea doesn’t think so,” Emily mumbles, taking her chair back.

“He won’t come back,” Hotch says. Turning his head to look at her is a physical exertion, more energy than he has to dispense. “His jobs done for now.”

Emily only glances at him, moving her eyes instead to her lap, scratching at her nails.

“Yeah well if he does, he’s gonna have to deal with me,” Derek huffs.

And without seeing him, Hotch knows Derek’s glaring at the door. Half willing, half daring Foyet to come. But Emily doesn’t share his boldness.

“He won’t come back,” Hotch repeats and Emily looks up at him.

She believes him, she trusts the profile that he’d written, but that doesn’t do much to combat her fear. It’s not as logical as the rest. “He’d better not,” she relents, tucking her arms back over her chest.

The conversation feels far from over, but Hotch can feel his ill-timed fluttering of his heart trying to beat in his chest. He knows that Foyet won’t come to the hospital. The intent was never to kill him, and as long as Foyet wants him alive, he will be.

Hotch’s eyes shut on their own accord, his body submitting without a consult to the rest of him.

“Night, Hotch.”

#criminal minds #aaron hotchner #emily prentiss #derek morgan #criminal minds fanfiction #david rossi #jennifer jareau

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souloftheintrovert · 1 year

Text

i find it hilarious how rap literally means rhythm and poetry and yet these are lyrics from rap songs:

(i added a cut because 1. length and 2. this post is really negative)

“I'm her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her. She, she, she, she, she, she, she. Take a pic', it's me, me, me, me, me, me, me. Tell your friends "this her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her.” (her, megan thee stallion)

“Bad bitch, I could be your fantasy. I can tell you got big dick energy. It ain't too many niggas that can handle me. But I might let you try it off the Hennessy.” (big energy, latto)

“Yeah, she like how I throw them racks, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Keep on throwin' that cash, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Keep on throwin' that ass, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Benz truck in the back, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah” (trollz, 6ix9ine)

“Yeah, coward-ass niggas ain't, yeah. Coward-ass niggas ain't, uh, yeah. Coward-ass niggas ain't made up like Baby.” (dont let em lie, dabitchass)

that’s not poetic. i can’t even sarcastically say that’s poetic. that’s just noise, laziness, and a not-so-subtle cash grab. and the best part? everyone i listed isn’t even that good at rap.

megan is fine, but if it wasn’t for her iconic “ah” then she would blend perfectly into the background.

latto reminds me too much of saweetie and vice versa. and if you want me to try and believe that their music isn’t made solely to get a few hundred k, then they should at least try to stand out just a fucking little bit.

saweetie has a little bit of an excuse considering the fact that i don’t think she takes her music seriously. like it isn’t a joke to her, but she’s not too concerned with it. i mean, she doesn’t seem too upset nor concerned that she only sold 2k copies of her new project in the first week. she’s more of an influencer as opposed to a rapper, and she’s fine with that.

latto, on the other hand, doesn’t have much excuse. her rapping isn’t that good as she sometimes struggles to stay on beat, like she’s “rapping” and there just so happens to be music in the background. and i don’t really see anything in her that stands out, something that makes her original. “her whole thing is she’s a bad bitch.” okay? that’s every female rapper’s gimmick. what makes latto… latto? what stops her from blending into the background? nothing.

6ix9ine is known for his controversy and i refuse to believe otherwise. he doesn’t “rap,” he just talks fast. he is on beat, but that’s not a compliment. every rapper should be on beat. as far as i’m aware, he hasn’t done much in 2022. he released a single, GINÉ, on April 15 and dipped. the song has about 14 million plays on spotify, and considering that it came out all the way back in April… isn’t so good.

and dababy? HAHA. DABABY?

fun fact: baby on baby 2 came out september 23, 2022, damn near 3 months ago, and not one song on the album has 10 million plays on spotify. socks has the most, with 6.1 million. which ain’t that good when you have damn near 30 million monthly listeners and are “#106 in the world,” according spotify. where your listeners at, bro? but when you compare that to 5sos5, by 5 seconds of summer, who has only 19 million monthly listeners on spotify and is “#247 in the world,” it’s almost embarrassing for dababy. complete mess has the most plays on the album, having almost 50 million. baby on baby 2 and 5sos5 were both released on September 23, 2022. and i’m almost positive that they were both released at 9:00pm est. i wouldn’t be surprised if they were released at the exact same second as each other, and yet… dababy has more monthly listeners on spotify than 5 seconds of summer. complete mess has exactly 42,357,945 more plays than socks, the most played song on baby on baby 2. the albums were released on the very same day, probably on the very same second. this. is. astounding.

fuck dababy. if he wasn’t a complete asshat then maybe i would feel something for him, but i’m just glad that the album flopped! i actually have some sort of hope in humanity now!!

#.souloftheintrovert #rambles #rantble

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frumfrumfroo · 3 years

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"#also american franchises based on ya novels need some seriously enticing incentives for me to give them a chance" If you don't mind talking about it, I'd love to hear this explained more! I'm really curious about why this is and what about American YA franchise novels puts you off...? Also more generally, what makes these types of stories cowardly and how writers can avoid being cowards/making cowardly choices/examples of when they do? Like what is a cowardly choice and what is a brave one?

Well, it’s basically a pile up of red flags for me. First, that I don’t like YA. By which I mean the American publishing industry standard that constitutes the ‘genre’, not the concept of stories for young adults.

There’s an (enforced?) house style of basic, utilitarian prose I find extremely boring to read and YA novels are overall simplistic even when they engage with nuanced ideas. Obviously that’s by design because they’re meant to be really accessible, but for me it’s frustrating and unsatisfying. It’s possible to be simple and accessible while still offering a lot of thematic richness and subtext, but you don’t often get that. It’s possible to write beautiful prose for even small children, so there’s no excuse for how dry and beige and lacking colour the writing tends to be.

I’ve made repeated exceptions because of an exciting premise or someone’s rec and it’s just... never been worth it. I prefer to read something unconstrained by those standards, both stylistically and regarding the content. I like complex prose and complex (or at least deeply resonant) characters. If I’m going to read something that’s pure formula or where I might have to look past weak prose, I’d rather read fanfiction and have it star characters I already care about.

And I’m just tired of the American cultural death cult and the attitudes to storytelling that go with it, so I’d rather have less of that in my life. There’s some writers/directors/actors I really like and will continue to follow, but I want to mostly take a break from US media. The relentless propaganda in their mainstream entertainment is also very... wearying.

I was kinda being facetious about writers being cowards, but I just mean doing a cautionary tale about a girl who stays with her NiceGuy childhood friend who’s afraid of her agency and gives up her power because actualising into an adult hero is scary and dangerous and sexual desire is scary and dangerous and making a human connection with the woobie villain is Bad... like, that’s a ‘safe’ choice that was passé for women’s fiction in the nineteenth century. It’s like Romanticism didn’t even happen for some people.

Courageous storytelling to me is actually challenging either your protagonist or your current cultural milieu. Interrogating the received wisdom you and your audience probably take for granted. Coming of age stories need to ask what adulthood actually means and whether the ‘expected’ choices are really the right ones; they have to show the person who is growing up wrestle with the discovery that their authority figures and foundational assumptions are fallible. That doesn’t mean you have to decide it was all wrong, maybe you reaffirm your original beliefs, but they should still be questioned and an adult understanding of them should be more nuanced. If your protagonist ends up back where they started, your story better have been about resolving why they weren’t content with that at the beginning and how it was their perspective that needed to change rather than their circumstances. Otherwise your message is just ‘give up and don’t hope for something better’.

So many stories now are ‘cowardly’ to me because they’re entirely unchallenging, even at the most basic level, and are about protagonists who never struggle or fail. Or they’re simply credulously cynical and complacent, which is just lazy imo. Standing for something, saying something, takes courage. Saying ‘pfft, it’s whatever, nothing matters’ as if a thin veneer of pseudo-nihilism makes you intelligent is juvenile. We’ve seen how often hacks will dismiss the entire concept of art as having meaning in order to deflect criticism (’themes are for eighth grade book reports’, ‘I don’t like to think about the meaning of anything I write’, etc.), as if only a pretentious snob could possibly care about this most essentially human activity of interpersonal communion through storytelling and searching for purpose. The truth is that these people are embarrassed by their incompetence and the fact that they’ve been caught totally uncritically regurgitating a shitty reactionary narrative without a hint of self-awareness so they pretend they ~weren’t even trying~ and never wanted to tell a real story in the first place.

#I get a lot of YA recs and I hope people are not offended but it's just not for me #I've tried #it's absolutely fine to like it I just don't #I do think people shouldn't read exclusively YA but that's another issue #I could get into a whole new rant about how idealism is constantly demeaned as naive or childish #where idealism actually takes enormous moral courage #and there is literally nothing more juvenile than shallow cynicism #but I have a problem with the old tumblr credo about YA being superior for having optimism and dealing with ethical quandries #a) read better adult fiction b) is much YA really optimistic or are we talking about anti standards of what 'positive' means #because it seems to me a lot of the time what they mean by positive is 'unchallenging' and what they mean by happy ending is 'affirms my #biases and assumptions and keeps all the labels on characters the same'#where genuine optimism involves a rejection of this ubiquitous Calvinist streak #hope not that you can beat the bad guys but hope that you won't have to fight because you got through to them

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gallavictorious · 3 years

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I really wish people would stop excusing their favorite character's actions with convoluted theories instead of just accepting that their faves aren't perfect. Ian should not be comparing Terry and Frank. Full stop. Especially not to Mickey's face, when Mickey is in the middle of trying to deal with the complicated feelings he has about the father that raped him by proxy and tried to actually murder him. It's ok to say "yeah you're right I don't know what you're going through but I'm here" and not make it into a shitty father competition.

And I really wish people would refrain from making groundless assumptions and recognize that trying to understand a character's motivation for doing something does not equal taking a stance on whether or not the action discussed is morally sound but alas, nonnie, we live in an imperfect world.

For those just turning in, this ask was received in response to my addition to this post.

Now, nonnie, if I understand you correctly, you disapprove of what I wrote because you see it as 1, an attempt to excuse Ian's behavior because 2, he's my favourite character and 3, therefore I can't stand to have him do something wrong. You also think that, no matter his motivations, Ian shouldn't be comparing Frank to Terry. Below, I'll quickly refutate points 2 and 3, as well as detail the difference between explanations and excuses and – hopefully – demonstrate why you can't with any sort of certainty claim that the offending post is an example of the latter. I will not really engage with the question of whether or not Ian was wrong for saying what he did, because (as we shall return to forthwith) that was not the issue originally discussed, it doesn't actually interest me, and as you do not offer any sort of reasoning for your moral judgment there really isn't anything for me to work with there anyway.

Strap in, kids; it's another long one.

Let's start with your claim that Ian is my favourite. I'm not actually going to spell it out there, but instead direct you to paragraphs 3-7 of this post. A little lazy, perhaps, but I'm sure you can appreciate why I have limited time to point out the same basic flaws twice in a fairly short period of time. (Should I pin a pic of me holding up a little sign reading ”Actually, Mickey is my favourite, even though I love Ian too” to the top of my blog? Would that be helpful?)

Moving on to point 3, I do agree with the general notion that it's fine to accept that the characters we love (no matter who that character is) are flawed and make mistakes! If you had taken the time to familiarize yourself with my thoughts on Ian and Mickey – or if you had, you know, just asked – instead of jumping to completely unsubstantiated conclusions based on a single post, you might even have realized that them being fucked up and making fucked up choices from time to time is one of the things I find most compelling about them. They are messy and complicated and human, and I love that. I neither think nor want either of them to perfect, because perfection is unrealistic is static is boring.

With that out of the way, let's get to excuses versus explanations. If one confuses the two, any attempt to discuss or explain a persons behavior will be construed as an attempt to excuse it, but to understand something and to condone it are actually two different things.

For instance, I can explain and understand why Mickey acted the way he did in 3x09, but still think kicking Ian in the face was wrong. I can explain and understand why Ian called Mickey a coward and a pussy in 4x11 but still think he was wrong for doing so. Do you see? Understanding – or trying to understand – why someone did something is not the same as saying that what they did was okay. Understanding the reasons for someone's actions might lessen the severity of our condemnation (for instance, stealing is generally considered wrong, but most of use would agree that stealing bread to feed your kid is less wrong than stealing bread because you're too stingy to pay for it) or might remove condemnation entirely (hitting someone because you are angry with them is wrong, hitting someone as part of consensual BDSM sex is fine), but understanding an action does not automatically lead to declaring said action morally correct. In short, ”why did X do Y” and ”was X right or wrong do to Y” are two different questions, and the fact that our answer to the second question often is at least partly dependent on our understanding of the first does not change that.

So explanations and excuses are not the same. And yet, sometimes the reasons for doing something (or failing to do something) are offered up as an excuse; as a reason why someone should not be held responsible for their actions, or why they were correct in performing/not performing them in the first place. That neatly leads us to the question of whether or not that's what's actually happening in the post you took exception to. And the answer to that is... you can't know. What boys-night and I discuss in the post is what Ian is actually doing (is he trying to compare trauma och convince Mickey he had it worse) and why he is doing it; that is, we are trying to understand and explain his behavior. Neither of us make any sort of statement on whether or not he was right or wrong for saying or doing what he did: that's just not the topic of conversation. Now, maybe I do think his motivations means that he's morally justified in what he said; maybe I don't. My point is that you can't know that just from what you've read in the post. You might draw some tentative conclusions, and they may be correct, but you don't know, and the reasonable and responsible way to go from there is to seek clarification by asking (polite) questions, not aggressively throwing around accusations about others grasping for straws in a despertae attempt to exonerate their favorites from wrongdoing.

(And just to remind you, even if I were making excuses for Ian, it wouldn't be because he's my favourite or becuase I can't bear to have him do wrong.)

You are perfectly free to disagree with any of the points made in the post, by the way, but you need to recognize that what we're disagreeing on then is motivation, not morality.

And, oh, of course it would have been okay to say "yeah you're right I don't know what you're going through but I'm here", but that's not what Ian did. Now, if you are happy to go ”ah, Ian fucked up, he's not perfect” and move on, that's fine. You do you, nonnie, and if analysis and discussion of character motivations isn't your jam then it isn't and I'm sure no one is going to force you to engage in it. (And if they try to, you can simply say ”I don't care” and walk away.) However, to be perfectly honest I am a bit perplexed that you should be so indignant over other fans trying to make sense of his actions. Do you still feel that way now that you – hopefully – understand that trying to explain a characters' behavior doesn't necessarily mean trying to excuse it? I mean, surely you are aware of the fact that people usually have reasons for acting the way they do, even if the way they act is shitty or misguided? (Note that I'm not saying that Ian's actions were shitty and misguided. That is not the discussion we're having.) I am rather curious, actually, as to what you think Ian's motivations were? Do you imagine he was deliberatedly diminishing Mickey's trauma? Why, if so? Do you perhaps think that he is obsessed with being The Most Victim and thus takes every opportunity to list all the ways Frank sucked? Or maybe that his mouth just moves without any thought or reason and the words just randomly happened?

To be fair, it seems that Ian's motivations is not something you consider relevant: you write that ”Ian should not be comparing Terry and Frank. Full stop.” And that's absolutely a moral stance you can take, albeit certainly not the only one. Maybe Ian shouldn't have said what he said Had you given any reasons for this verdict, I might even have agreed with you because I can think of several reasons why it might be better if Ian refrained from comparing Terry and Frank, no matter his motivations. (And I might not, because I can also think of several reasons why such a comparision might be justified, even though Terry is clearly the more evil of the two.) However, we shall never know, because you fail to back up your claim. I guess that's because you deem it self-evident? It is not, and until you provide any sort of reasoning for your grand proclamation, I won't engage with the question. Not going to shadow-box with you, nonnie, or do your work for you; if you want a discussion, make your case properly. Though maybe make it elsewhere – as previously noted, passing judgement on the characters is not my primary interest when discussing them. I am much more intrigued by trying to understand why characters do and say what they do and say.

Phew. Okay, that's me done, I think. I realize that you might not be very impressed with this answer, nonnie, but I hope it may to some degree reassure you that no sneaky attempt to excuse my favourite character's actions with convoluted theories was made by this humble blogger. Not this time, at least.

#today will be a housekeeping day where i try to catch up with a few asks and tag games #sorry to spam your dashes #i have a theory by the way #and that's that the sudden influx of curious asks in my inbox is the result of my occasional andcareless foray into shitty graphics and gifs #it makes people not take me seriously anymore #okay maybe they never DID but even LESS seriously then #also it's a way to distract me from the shitty graphics and gifs #can't make them if i'm spending half a day writing this sort of stuff #so yeah i think this is the universe tell me to stay in my fucking lane #boo universe #where's your sense of fun?!#i'm gonna do what i want anyway #btw if you sent me an ask and weren't rude then NO i'm not talking about your ask #asks #shameless spoilers #11x06

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