You are so beautiful, and so smart, and it kills me that you don't think you're good enough. Like, we have to always be extraordinary, but somehow, we're always doing it wrong?
You have to be thin, but not too thin, and you can never say you wanna be thin. You have to say you wanna be healthy, but also, you have to BE THIN.
You have to have money, but you can't ask for money because that's crass.
You have to be a boss, but you can't be mean.
You have to lead, but you can't squash other people's ideas.
You're supposed to love being a mother, but don't talk about your kids all the damn time.
You have to be a career woman, but also, always be looking out for other people.
You have to answer for men's bad behavior, which is INSANE, but if you point that out, you're accused of complaining!
You're supposed to stay pretty for men, but not so pretty that you tempt them too much or that you threaten other women because you're supposed to be a part of the sisterhood, but ALWAYS STAND OUT and ALWAYS BE GRATEFUL. But never forget that the system is rigged, so find a way to acknowledge that but ALSO, always be grateful!
You have to never get old. Never be rude. Never show off. Never be selfish. Never fall down. Never fail. Never show fear. Never get OUT OF LINE. It's too hard! It's too contradictory, and nobody gives you a medal or says 'thank you!' And it turns out, in fact, that not only are you doing everything wrong, but also, everything is your fault.
I'm just so tired of watching myself, and every single other woman tie herself into knots, so that people will like us.
And if all of that, is also true for a doll just representing a woman, then I don't even know." -Gloria the barbie movie
āāĀ content warning:Ā ādeath, loss, grief, alcohol abuse, metaphorical wounds mention āĀ pls do not read if this topic is triggeringāā
āā”ā§āĖ
everyone would grieve differently.
for a while, thereās a noticeable emptiness in the team. a space that canāt be filled no matter how much time passes. they refuse to fill it, anyway. refuse to move her belongings from where they always are: her clothes in the locker, her blanket that still smells like her folded neatly at the end of her barracks bed, the mass of equipment she somehow managed to fit in her pack ā there are hairs on her brush and comb, thereās the lotion soap always complained smells bad and itās half-used ā they leave everything as it was. as it should be.
ghost has her knives. he pays special attention to the one she always holds held at night, the one she loves loved the most. he polishes it every day. polishes it when heās angry, which is all the time now. anger is a secondary emotion. there is always something underneath buried just below the surface. heās angry because if didnāt succumb to it, he would be forced to feel it all: sadness, grief, pain ā pain he wouldnāt wish on his worst enemy ā and loss. he feels it lurking, looming, inevitable. a sense of loss so crippling, so insurmountable, he doesnāt dream of overcoming it. he wouldnāt want to. overcoming the loss would be as if he never had her to begin with. heās lost so much, too much, and heās sick of it.
he isnāt the same as he was before: he doesnāt talk to his teammates, holes up in the barracks, offers to take the riskiest of missions, and self-sabotages at every given opportunity. he has never been one to sleep at night, instead making do with a few hours of a light half-sleep. he feared sleeping because he didnāt want his past to haunt him but he sleeps too much now. itās the alcohol he drinks every night. he drinks until heās warm and sees her and feels her and sheās real. he drinks until he sleeps and he dreams of her each time. good dreams. they say that as time goes by, itās natural to forget the personās face and voice. god, heād remember her face and voice forever. he doesnāt care if thatās a curse; he would make it a blessing.
he never heals. itās more of a scab over a seeping, festering wound. he keeps everyone at a distance especially the other members of one-four-one. he starts mentally preparing himself for them to go, too. if heās lucky heāll go first. he canāt take another loss.
gaz doesnāt smile anymore. there are no light-hearted jokes. he canāt rant about how much he liked reader to the team anymore. she isnāt there. he will never get to hear details about her crazy stories, the wisdom sheās learned at far too young of an age, or get answers to the millions of questions he had. he will never experience the warmth of her hugs again, her eyes will never cut to his as they both share a look only they knew. there are words she has told only him ā words he carries now. heās the survivor and the one left standing. the chaotic duo is no more. at first, he tries to act as though the wounds donāt run as deep as they do. he thought that by holding it together, he could hold the team together. things werenāt bad before her. there was no going back, though; she left her mark on them all.
throughout the years, he always took the deaths of his teammates and fellow coworkers hard. loss came with the job, yes, but it never eased the gut-wrenching pain. there was something about this time that made it hurt a thousand times more. instead of one deep cut, it was a thousand. it consumes him, slowly wastes him away like a disease. he sees her in everything no matter how large or small, significant or insignificant: the color blue and red, vodka, black coffee (he drinks it bitter now, the way she did), the sound of chuckling and laughter, sunsets, black cats trotting across the street or in parks. he sees her sometimes. in the corner of his eye. he looks knowing she will never be there. there are moments when he thinks of something and he gets excited only to remember she isnāt there. he canāt tell her. he will never speak to her again. he canāt remember his last words to her. why canāt he remember?
soap is impacted by her death, too. he doesnāt show it. while he wasnāt particularly fond of her and disliked her for many reasons, heās able to understand the impact she had on the team. the rift she left in her absence. he hates how closed-off ghost became ā the most he has ever been, even before they grew close ā he hates how gaz doesnāt ramble and talk anymore. soap doesnāt try to help them; he understands there is no way out of grief. even price isnāt the same, but soap can talk to him at least. the impact reader left on soap doesnāt hit until the time he decides to sneak into the womenās barracks when itās empty or wherever her belongings are located. he goes through some of her things, a strange feeling washing over him when he finds her half-used lotion. the smell he claimed he hated. he never actually hated it, he liked to rile her up. to him, she was incredibly annoying, a nuisance, a threat. she was also the epitome of everything he isnāt. she was a lot more than that but he never allowed her in, like the others did. he pops the lid off her lotion and smells it (not caring how weird it was), it was her. her scent. itās like she walked past him, like she stood near him giving him death glares, like she wasnāt gone and everything is okay again. for a moment, heās sad. incredibly sad.
price is all right. he has to be. this isnāt the first time one of his subordinates died. at least, thatās what he tells himself to ease the ache in his chest. his sadness is a solemn one. he doesnāt mask the pain of grief with alcohol like ghost, he masks it with denial. not the typical āit didnāt happenā but denying himself of the chance to mourn and grieve. the minimizes and pretends heās okay. it takes a toll on his body: he eats less, headaches plague him, and he tosses and turns at night. still he carries on as he always does. nothingās changed yet everythingās changed. he doesnāt move to fill the void left by her but he doesnāt acknowledge it. itās like he sweeps it all under a rug and refuses to acknowledge the growing lump underneath. he trips on it when he comes to realize thereās no one to arrange her funeral. no one who determines whether she is returned to the earth or her ashes spread to the sea.
itās painful, but he takes it upon himself to make arrangements. he regrets not being able to bury her in the private sas regiment area at st. martinās church in hereford where he, soap, ghost, and gaz will be laid to rest when the bell tolls for them. he regrets sheāll be so far away and wonāt have a plot by theirs ā he finds a cemetery in england overlooking the ocean. itās high up on a cliff and itās dreadfully windy, but he thinks she wouldāve loved it. he regrets not being able to inscribe more than her first name on the pure white granite headstone. he regrets that after he and the team die, no one will remember her. she will be just another name. practically a jane doe. he regrets growing invested in her and caring about her as he does the other members of one-four-one. he told himself he wouldnāt this time, but he did anyway.
[this is sad and too long and if youāre reading this, i hope youāre sad too]
Now why am I seeing people act as if Aegon is just this one dimensional cold blooded villan girl did we watch the same show? He spends half the time wondering aloud why he was born into a world where he doesn't fit and isn't enough for anyone, and the other half drunk off his ass so he doesn't have to think about any of that. As if he wasn't literally in the carriage on his way to become the king asking his mommy if she loves him ??? Let's be fr for a moment.
discoholicmusic
germansingergirl
dededos
stormborns
romaincrisis
titsay
kaledo-art
pixelskylines
