Put up or shut up, huh?
Aimed in the general direction of oldestbeloved, but the putting up will be of more use to the ladies at 73littlesurrey.
Okay, you want the waters un-muddied? You want to know how I've been helping?
He's not dead, that's how I've been helping. That's what I've been doing, just making sure he feels like he can stay alive for the next span of whatever. You want that undone, I can do it. However, when he gives up, the next time someone does or says something that overwhelms him, he will be a lot faster about how he tries to kill himself.
He is not stupid. He didn't kill himself when he fled the Annexe because the idea scared him, because he hadn't yet given up hope that he could get away. After giving up hope, he didn't culminate his vegetating to death because he didn't get back in the chair after Rowan fixed his back. So the next time he tried to die, he left the house, tried to get away from people who would interfere. However, by killing himself slowly instead of quickly, he was 'saved' again.
Are you seeing a pattern? He learns something new every time. Next time, he will try something faster. He will go further. He will find a cliff, or a train track, or a lake, or a rope.
It's a cry for attention, that's what it is. What it almost always is. You still want help, want information?
He's tired. He's scared. He hates everyone around him and is frightened and ashamed to be around the people he can stand. He is afraid to care about people. He is not willing to accept that his presence makes Rose's life better, happier, less fragmented and painful, than his absence.
That last bit there? See, he's not going to accept, "She's doing well, but she doesn't talk to us" as proof that she needs him. He might not even accept "She is carrying/has lost your child" as proof of that. Someone needs to tell him, if you want him to be connected to her again, that she has asked for nothing but him since they were separated. That she's not as fine as she says she is; that she cries herself to sleep most of the time. That she gets along with Sebastian, maybe, because she sees him as someone almost as lonely as she is.
How's that for something no one knew?
But that's not going to help him; that's not going to bring this little experiment to its intended conclusion. It's not going to heal Griffin, or help him, or make a human out of him. It's just going to bring him back to Rose, hopefully. At the very least, it will put him in Kitty's hands and head as much as Kristen's, which might well be a good thing.
The only thing that's going to help Griffin, that can possibly progress him, not just the story, is time. That doesn't make for good drama, I'm sorry.
If everyone wants to help him so badly, maybe they need to stop trying to change him. I mean, come on, everyone resents that. No one likes being told, even told by implication, that they are not enough, that they are not adequete, that they are lacking something vital. That they need fixing.
Accept him. Accept who he is, and that he sometimes hates himself very much. Then maybe tell him that he's enough as he is. Stop implying he's not. He is enough just as he is, warts and all.
Stop with the good company stuff. He doesn't get that. He doesn't get friendship, either. He doesn't do company or friendship, and while that is kinda sad, there's nothing inherently wrong with it. He doesn't have to go from being an Empire of One to Everybody's Brother, Anybody's Lover overnight-- or ever. He doesn't have to be a people person, and right now? He feels like that's what people want from him.
He opened up to one person, and for the first time in his life, it didn't end badly. Okay, so as far as he's concerned, it still ended, but not badly, not with screaming or fighting or running or dying. "Someone was going to take her away eventually; better I should tell her to go than suffer her being torn away somehow." At least that's how he put it. How he would have put it to anyone who asked.
Because, see, he feels like it's not him that people care about. He feels like people care what he can do for them, that he goes back to the League, that he not reproduce either his one-man reign of terror in Sussex or his Holy Spirit act in Edmonton. That they care whether he lives or dies because he is still a valuable commodity. Okay, so his value has been halved at least; now there's a second Invisible Man and an Invisible Girl who's in the government's care/custody. He's still rare if not unique. He can be of great use controlled and cause great trouble uncontrolled-- and that's why people care what becomes of him, or so it seems.
He's not worth caring about. He's not worth Rose's worry, and he's not worth Rowan's tears. Not even a face to his name. No one cares what happens to Griffin, the man, at least as far as Griffin knows. Griffin himself is afraid to acknowledge that there is a 'Griffin, the man.' I don't know how to prove otherwise. I think he should go back to Rose.
I think he and Rose should never have been separated by geography. I think that pulling them apart was the riskiest, most dangerous, most incredibly stupid thing that could be done. You need a crutch, you use a crutch. And what the hell does it matter if she's a liability to Griffin's being able to function in the League if he doesn't want to go back to the League?
There's another thing no one's talked to him about, not calmly or rationally. Try that. Try talking to Griffin about why he doesn't want to go back, try asking Mycroft if there are options. Because that's another thing that will make him run-- maybe not attempt suicide, but run, once he feels up to it. The League is another trap, and one that's actually not of his own making. He didn't choose the League; it was either them or the rope. Right? He killed a man in Port Burdock, and cause havoc... set fire to a house... raped all those girls... His choice was go along and play nice, or swing.
Of course he has no goals. What's the use of reaching for something if it falls apart? Of course he doesn't want anything; his life is in shreds around him, and he's trying to distract himself from that with a statistical study of witchcraft. Don't you see how stupid that is, how last-ditch an effort? Kristen dismissed it out of hand several times at the beginning of Act 2, because Griffin doesn't care, didn't want to turn his hand to science again.
He still doesn't, in fact. He's just scared to let his mind wander any farther afield than strictly necessary, because he doesn't want to think about how useless he is, how little his life means, and the fact that he is-- or thinks he is-- going to have to go back to the League as soon as he's 'fit for duty.'
You want a pickup of plot? Let's say he shores himself up enough to seem fit for duty. He goes back for a bit, makes a few preparations, and runs again. Because that's the idea that just occurred to Griffin, and I'm almost inclined to say he should go with it. Hey, it would get him doing something again. Okay, so that something would be running to America, north or south, or Australia, and quite literally disappearing. And that would be just about as uninteresting as watching him work on his little study in Ipswich. Okay, so the scenery would be more exotic, possibly. And hey, the League or the witches could try to find him, even. Chase him down. It's not what he needs, and it might do more harm than good, but as long as it's interesting to read, who cares?
Oops, I left my sarcasm set to eleven.
Skip time. Skip weeks, months. Let Julianna and Kate and Rowan talk to each other-- Kate's only had two scenes. Give Sebastian and Rose a few more scenes... he deserves to be able to voice his worries about her having a child outside a stable home.
And I think it depends seriously on how the news of Sebastian's past is broken to Griffin. Yes, Griffin might well try to ignore himself to death again, he might actually try to kill himself... but not Sebastian. Because Sebastian, whether Griffin likes it or not, has been taking care of Rose. Providing her food, shelter, work; looking after her while she was 'in the family way.' Sebastian is Rose's friend. Right? Sebastian has done the best job he could of keeping Rose healthy, happy, fed, et cetera.
Griffin couldn't act when Sebastian, Julianna, and Hyde caught up with them. He couldn't act to protect Rose; she had to act to protect him.
So he couldn't keep Jack the Ripper from taking him away from his girl. He let her-- told her to go back with Jack the Ripper. When Rose has been upset, lonely, unhappy, Jack the Ripper was the one who soothed and comforted her-- something Griffin doesn't actually know how to do.
And that's shame. Rose shames him with her strength; Sebastian shames him by overcoming his past. If knowing who Sebastian was spurrs Griffin to another suicide attempt, it will be because of shame.
So don't shame him. Make him angry. Make him furious-- he knows how to handle being angry. Put to him right, Griffin might well swoop off to Little Surrey to try to one-up Sebastian. Sure, Sebastian can get Rose through lonliness, through finding out she was having a child-- but those are all things she's handled on her own. It will and can only be Griffin who can help her through losing a child-- because it always was, wasn't it? She came to him first, after all.
She'd go to him again, if she weren't half-convinced he doesn't want her.
That, ladies and Ladies and gentlemen, is how you reunite them. That's how you roll the plot along, because once he's back with Rose, what does he do next? Suddenly everyone will be together again instead of scattered here and there. From there, I don't know what you do, because I don't know what Griffin will want to do. I don't know what Rose will want to do, besides remain in some sort of physical contact with Griffin as much as he'll allow it. I don't know what Sebastian, Julianna, Kate, or Rowan will want to do, will want done, will see fit.
No, he still doesn't want anything. No, that doesn't give him any goals. But it gives him back something that is his and his alone-- the loyalty and affection of a very sweet young woman. It lets him protect her, in the very simple way of getting to be beside her. It gives him back someone to touch, someone who can touch him. Eventually, it will give him sex back again. It will also provide him with company he can understand-- Rose has reasons Griffin can grasp for wanting him nearby-- and friendship he can accept.
I don't know what else I can say. But that looks like a good amount, and god knows it took forever to get it all out. I hope someone besides Kristen gets something out of it.
I put up, you right bastard. And if you ever imply again that I am nothing but a concubine or not fit for my job...
I don't know quite how to finish that without it coming out low. You pissed me off and you hurt me, and for no good reason I can fathom-- because all that behind the cut?
I was planning to tell all that to Juli anyway.
Okay, you want the waters un-muddied? You want to know how I've been helping?
He's not dead, that's how I've been helping. That's what I've been doing, just making sure he feels like he can stay alive for the next span of whatever. You want that undone, I can do it. However, when he gives up, the next time someone does or says something that overwhelms him, he will be a lot faster about how he tries to kill himself.
He is not stupid. He didn't kill himself when he fled the Annexe because the idea scared him, because he hadn't yet given up hope that he could get away. After giving up hope, he didn't culminate his vegetating to death because he didn't get back in the chair after Rowan fixed his back. So the next time he tried to die, he left the house, tried to get away from people who would interfere. However, by killing himself slowly instead of quickly, he was 'saved' again.
Are you seeing a pattern? He learns something new every time. Next time, he will try something faster. He will go further. He will find a cliff, or a train track, or a lake, or a rope.
It's a cry for attention, that's what it is. What it almost always is. You still want help, want information?
He's tired. He's scared. He hates everyone around him and is frightened and ashamed to be around the people he can stand. He is afraid to care about people. He is not willing to accept that his presence makes Rose's life better, happier, less fragmented and painful, than his absence.
That last bit there? See, he's not going to accept, "She's doing well, but she doesn't talk to us" as proof that she needs him. He might not even accept "She is carrying/has lost your child" as proof of that. Someone needs to tell him, if you want him to be connected to her again, that she has asked for nothing but him since they were separated. That she's not as fine as she says she is; that she cries herself to sleep most of the time. That she gets along with Sebastian, maybe, because she sees him as someone almost as lonely as she is.
How's that for something no one knew?
But that's not going to help him; that's not going to bring this little experiment to its intended conclusion. It's not going to heal Griffin, or help him, or make a human out of him. It's just going to bring him back to Rose, hopefully. At the very least, it will put him in Kitty's hands and head as much as Kristen's, which might well be a good thing.
The only thing that's going to help Griffin, that can possibly progress him, not just the story, is time. That doesn't make for good drama, I'm sorry.
If everyone wants to help him so badly, maybe they need to stop trying to change him. I mean, come on, everyone resents that. No one likes being told, even told by implication, that they are not enough, that they are not adequete, that they are lacking something vital. That they need fixing.
Accept him. Accept who he is, and that he sometimes hates himself very much. Then maybe tell him that he's enough as he is. Stop implying he's not. He is enough just as he is, warts and all.
Stop with the good company stuff. He doesn't get that. He doesn't get friendship, either. He doesn't do company or friendship, and while that is kinda sad, there's nothing inherently wrong with it. He doesn't have to go from being an Empire of One to Everybody's Brother, Anybody's Lover overnight-- or ever. He doesn't have to be a people person, and right now? He feels like that's what people want from him.
He opened up to one person, and for the first time in his life, it didn't end badly. Okay, so as far as he's concerned, it still ended, but not badly, not with screaming or fighting or running or dying. "Someone was going to take her away eventually; better I should tell her to go than suffer her being torn away somehow." At least that's how he put it. How he would have put it to anyone who asked.
Because, see, he feels like it's not him that people care about. He feels like people care what he can do for them, that he goes back to the League, that he not reproduce either his one-man reign of terror in Sussex or his Holy Spirit act in Edmonton. That they care whether he lives or dies because he is still a valuable commodity. Okay, so his value has been halved at least; now there's a second Invisible Man and an Invisible Girl who's in the government's care/custody. He's still rare if not unique. He can be of great use controlled and cause great trouble uncontrolled-- and that's why people care what becomes of him, or so it seems.
He's not worth caring about. He's not worth Rose's worry, and he's not worth Rowan's tears. Not even a face to his name. No one cares what happens to Griffin, the man, at least as far as Griffin knows. Griffin himself is afraid to acknowledge that there is a 'Griffin, the man.' I don't know how to prove otherwise. I think he should go back to Rose.
I think he and Rose should never have been separated by geography. I think that pulling them apart was the riskiest, most dangerous, most incredibly stupid thing that could be done. You need a crutch, you use a crutch. And what the hell does it matter if she's a liability to Griffin's being able to function in the League if he doesn't want to go back to the League?
There's another thing no one's talked to him about, not calmly or rationally. Try that. Try talking to Griffin about why he doesn't want to go back, try asking Mycroft if there are options. Because that's another thing that will make him run-- maybe not attempt suicide, but run, once he feels up to it. The League is another trap, and one that's actually not of his own making. He didn't choose the League; it was either them or the rope. Right? He killed a man in Port Burdock, and cause havoc... set fire to a house... raped all those girls... His choice was go along and play nice, or swing.
Of course he has no goals. What's the use of reaching for something if it falls apart? Of course he doesn't want anything; his life is in shreds around him, and he's trying to distract himself from that with a statistical study of witchcraft. Don't you see how stupid that is, how last-ditch an effort? Kristen dismissed it out of hand several times at the beginning of Act 2, because Griffin doesn't care, didn't want to turn his hand to science again.
He still doesn't, in fact. He's just scared to let his mind wander any farther afield than strictly necessary, because he doesn't want to think about how useless he is, how little his life means, and the fact that he is-- or thinks he is-- going to have to go back to the League as soon as he's 'fit for duty.'
You want a pickup of plot? Let's say he shores himself up enough to seem fit for duty. He goes back for a bit, makes a few preparations, and runs again. Because that's the idea that just occurred to Griffin, and I'm almost inclined to say he should go with it. Hey, it would get him doing something again. Okay, so that something would be running to America, north or south, or Australia, and quite literally disappearing. And that would be just about as uninteresting as watching him work on his little study in Ipswich. Okay, so the scenery would be more exotic, possibly. And hey, the League or the witches could try to find him, even. Chase him down. It's not what he needs, and it might do more harm than good, but as long as it's interesting to read, who cares?
Oops, I left my sarcasm set to eleven.
Skip time. Skip weeks, months. Let Julianna and Kate and Rowan talk to each other-- Kate's only had two scenes. Give Sebastian and Rose a few more scenes... he deserves to be able to voice his worries about her having a child outside a stable home.
And I think it depends seriously on how the news of Sebastian's past is broken to Griffin. Yes, Griffin might well try to ignore himself to death again, he might actually try to kill himself... but not Sebastian. Because Sebastian, whether Griffin likes it or not, has been taking care of Rose. Providing her food, shelter, work; looking after her while she was 'in the family way.' Sebastian is Rose's friend. Right? Sebastian has done the best job he could of keeping Rose healthy, happy, fed, et cetera.
Griffin couldn't act when Sebastian, Julianna, and Hyde caught up with them. He couldn't act to protect Rose; she had to act to protect him.
So he couldn't keep Jack the Ripper from taking him away from his girl. He let her-- told her to go back with Jack the Ripper. When Rose has been upset, lonely, unhappy, Jack the Ripper was the one who soothed and comforted her-- something Griffin doesn't actually know how to do.
And that's shame. Rose shames him with her strength; Sebastian shames him by overcoming his past. If knowing who Sebastian was spurrs Griffin to another suicide attempt, it will be because of shame.
So don't shame him. Make him angry. Make him furious-- he knows how to handle being angry. Put to him right, Griffin might well swoop off to Little Surrey to try to one-up Sebastian. Sure, Sebastian can get Rose through lonliness, through finding out she was having a child-- but those are all things she's handled on her own. It will and can only be Griffin who can help her through losing a child-- because it always was, wasn't it? She came to him first, after all.
She'd go to him again, if she weren't half-convinced he doesn't want her.
That, ladies and Ladies and gentlemen, is how you reunite them. That's how you roll the plot along, because once he's back with Rose, what does he do next? Suddenly everyone will be together again instead of scattered here and there. From there, I don't know what you do, because I don't know what Griffin will want to do. I don't know what Rose will want to do, besides remain in some sort of physical contact with Griffin as much as he'll allow it. I don't know what Sebastian, Julianna, Kate, or Rowan will want to do, will want done, will see fit.
No, he still doesn't want anything. No, that doesn't give him any goals. But it gives him back something that is his and his alone-- the loyalty and affection of a very sweet young woman. It lets him protect her, in the very simple way of getting to be beside her. It gives him back someone to touch, someone who can touch him. Eventually, it will give him sex back again. It will also provide him with company he can understand-- Rose has reasons Griffin can grasp for wanting him nearby-- and friendship he can accept.
I don't know what else I can say. But that looks like a good amount, and god knows it took forever to get it all out. I hope someone besides Kristen gets something out of it.
I put up, you right bastard. And if you ever imply again that I am nothing but a concubine or not fit for my job...
I don't know quite how to finish that without it coming out low. You pissed me off and you hurt me, and for no good reason I can fathom-- because all that behind the cut?
I was planning to tell all that to Juli anyway.