Do you know me? she asks. The question takes you aback. Here's this young woman, who has been in your life for all of twenty or so minutes, asking you if you know her, in a way that feels like there is much more weight behind the words than it seems. It feels kind of ridiculous, but you've just been freed from amber after twenty-one years, so you're a little past wondering at the strangeness of it all. And the way she's looking at you, that mixture of hope and dread, burrows right down into the soft cushy parts of your heart and begs you not to disappoint her. Which is absurd.
Well. Do you know her?
You take a moment to study her, the way you would a puzzling equation or a machine you can't quite figure out how to work. It's your default way of looking at things, tackling them like a problem in need of solving. You used to believe that it helped you distance yourself, but you've since learned that it only gets you too invested and sometimes even overwhelmed. You hate not knowing the answers.
You can't solve life, Peter. It's Olivia's voice in your head, always Olivia's voice. You can just imagine the little half smile on her face as she says it, that ever-so-familiar expression that whispers I love you, you beautiful disaster.
You've gotta try something, right? you say back to her in your mind.
The girl in front of you reminds you of Olivia, in some ways, now that you think of it. Something about the face shape, the hair. But it's deeper than that. There's a familiar determination in her eyes, something that tells you that she'll break but won't bend. This girl is a soldier. And she is a girl, really, she can't be older than early twenties. Which is much too young for her to be someone you've met before.
And so you tell her as much: I don't see how I could. I've been stuck in that amber for over twenty years, you barely look old enough to have been...
She reminds you of Olivia.
You're a card carrying cynic, world class. You always have been. But this... you want to believe this. You want it so bad you can't breathe.
It's in the shape of her face, in her hair. It's in the way she holds herself, the way she stares you down like she's got something to prove. And her eyes... You recognize those eyes. Big, soft, grey-blue eyes that could melt or freeze at any moment. Bishop eyes. That's what Liv always called them.
And she's smiling now, too, just a bit as she watches you figure it out. A wide, genuine smile, a disarmingly sparkly smile with just the hint of a smirk. Your smile.
Olivia's hair, Olivia's soldier's heart. Your eyes, your smile.
And then suddenly you're back in the hospital room, Olivia smiling up at you as you behold the wonder in her arms, saying Look. Bishop eyes. And then you're holding her for the first time, and there is so much you want to say to her but you can't find the words and you simply start crying. You're staying up all night with her and Astrid, telling her stories to try to coax her to sleep. You're in the kitchen with her at three in the morning, making pancakes and talking her through all the step, even though she's barely one year old. You're taking her into the lab on weekends, introducing her to Gene and letting Walter spoil her rotten with licorice. And then you're back in that field, running towards her, screaming her name as they come and come and come and you can't get to her you have to get to her you have to you have to-
And then you're back in the present, in the year 2036, and your hand is hovering near her face, afraid that if you touch her she will dissolve into a dream. And you're looking into those Bishop eyes, in that face that you last saw at three years old, and you know. You know her.
we've got: the bi flag picked from altliv, the trans flag picked from olivia, the aro flag picked from lincoln, the lesbian flag picked from lincoln, the rainbow lgbt+ flag picked from the alt fringe team, the trans flag picked from trans lighting lincoln, the ace flag picked from brown betty olivia, and the nonbinary flag picked from etta :)
I just think... He dissociates. This is a man who is not at all connected to reality or his own humanity. Sense of self? Nowhere to be found. I think it's something he's dealt with his whole life, but it definitely gets worse after joining fringe division.
I mean think about it: he was conditioned as a child to not trust his own perceptions. He was reminded of events he was supposed to remember, but never experienced. He was not the person everyone told him he was, but no one acknowledged it. Most of the things his father reminisces about, he knows he never experienced. But apparently he did. And just because he eventually learns the truth doesn't mean all that conditioning disappears.
And then!! The machine. Reciprocity. What you touch touches you. He gets it into his head that the machine is changing him as he is changing it, that it's a part of him. And it seems like it's some sort of destiny of his, like he's following a plan that is laid out for him and does not have a choice. It's his purpose. And he eventually learns that fate is nothing more than a series of calculations and probabilities, a program run by machines far more advanced.
And Peter is an engineer. Machines are his thing. He takes them apart, learns how they work, learns how to manage them. I think it's a form of comfort for him, to understand how things work. He looks at the world as a machine, as something that can be tinkered with. Because he's seen it tinkered with. And he's been tinkered with, in a way.
I refuse to believe that being wiped from existence does not take a toll on a person. He's back in that situation, in a world that looks like his that is not his, and he is a blip, a mistake that fucks up its function. And then he learns that he was brought back by the people that love him holding onto him, and that's got to make him wonder: what did they hold onto? What is he now?
And just LOOK at the ending scene of 5x05. The way he answers the phone? That is not a man who is present in his own mind and body. And not just because of the device. That hasn't started working on him yet.
Basically I do not think Peter Bishop is ok and I think he heavily dissociates.
So this isn't actually my entire fringe playlist, this is just some songs on there that mean a lot to me and that I would do something with if I had any skills at all </3
Take Me To War // The Crane Wives - Olivia Olivia oliVIA. B o t h o f t h e m.
Bullet // Saint Motel - 'you can't stop a bullet when it's set into motion' [cut to Olivia doing exactly that]
Inventor's Daughter // Branches - THE polivia song of all time. ESPECIALLY if you consider Peter as the inventor's daughter.
Beginning of the End // Weezer - this is literally just. The show. A lot of the lyrics fit SO WELL ('save the pieces of your brain' anyone?)
Dirty Imbecile // the Happy Fits - LOVE MY MOM AND LOVE MY DADDY SURE THEY MESSED ME UP- yeah so I think about Peter Bishop a lot
The Great Unknown // Jukebox the Ghost - this is MY Lincoln song. Yes it's weirdly hopeful compared to some of the others but that's just me manifesting what I want for my boy. And there IS something waiting for him in the great unknown!!! He deserved all the happiness he got!! Let go of the world you know <3
Battle Dancing Unicorns With Glitter // Five Iron Frenzy - ok I don't have anything to say for myself here. This is just a fun song that fits the super smart idiots vibe of the fringe division.
Earthbound // the Accidentals - Etta!!!! Etta. My girl.
And some songs that are not actually on the playlist for I don't know why reasons but that I lately haven't been able to stop thinking about in regards to the show (probably because I am hyperfixating hard and it's a problem)
Fate Goes // Shayfer James & Kate Douglas - fate goes as ever fate must... until it doesn't ;}
Something You Don't Know // Rachel Rose Mitchell - yes this is such a weird song. but ohhhhhhh. Peter & the Observers is honestly one of my favorite storylines.
Wondering // Bridges of Madison County - yes this is from a musical. yes I have never listened to any other song from the musical. yes it's literally perfect
Also I have seen Losing Your Memory by Ryan Star in a couple edits but I can't stop thinking about it as specifically a September/Donald song, especially in the final season.
Looking in the mirror, you can't shake the feeling that you are looking at somebody else.
This isn't you, these haunted eyes. These are her eyes, the one whose blood you can still feel on your hands. These are his eyes, the one who made you. Made you out of a thousand broken pieces.
You are nothing but a patchwork of different people, different places, different worlds. Cobbled together from your father's memories and the point of view of those who know you.
Your heart, it beats, you can feel it in your chest. It pounds, it pounds, it pounds, it pounds. It's a system, a circuit, an automatic beat. The workings of a machine.
Your eyes are open, they see and take in. Data collection, input and output. Translating light into electrical signals.
You have grown good at viewing the world as a machine. As an engineer, it feels like habit. That habit has been your downfall.
You should be feeling something, you know you should. You have lost something. You are sad. You know you are, you recognize that, but it runs through you like just another program, and you cannot acknowledge what it means.
Your face is an image, a picture painted on the glass surface before your eyes. You try to focus, to reconcile what you see with you. All you can see are the pieces. You were made. You were carved from a hole in the universe and forced into memories of someone else's life. You were ripped from the world and brought back into being. You are not supposed to be here. You were shaped by the choices of others, a moving piece of the machine known as fate.
Fate isn't real, you know that now. Fate is a series of calculations and logic, a math problem to be solved by those with the intelligence to solve it. You were not built to solve it.
You have been taken apart and put back together. You have been revised and reshaped and dismantled and studied. You are no different from the machine you once operated. This is what you are. You function without your consent. You are not in control. You were built, programmed, designed. You are made of tiny moving parts that dictate how you exist. You do not have a choice. You do not have a choice. You do not have a choice.
When the device goes in, you do not feel it. It is nothing but an edit, a repair to the hole inside of your heart. A new broken piece to make you whole.
thinks about the line "it's not about fate. it's about changing fate" coming from the observer who was exiled for interfering one too many times, who chose how his story would end and said fuck this they don't get to decide what fate is and is not that's our decision and SUCCESSFULLY creating the future he designed for himself and the people he loved even though he didn't get to see it. Just. Forever thinking about September.
