#'death grief loss and the ways we cope' tag

[optionalcausality]

The history of HIV and AIDS is more relevant these days than I'd like.

Basically, the virus itself was circulating for a while -- certainly through the 1970s. AIDS was identified as a specific disease in 1981, after medical providers noticed a new trend of rare diseases showing up more often than previously, and of more ordinary diseases causing a heightened degree of illness in those affected, compared to normal.

In 1984, the virus responsible was isolated and identified. HIV. Well, at least then they could start looking for specific treatments like antivirals.

Now we're in a similar situation, but coming at it in reverse order. We identified the virus, we have some pretty useful treatment options, but the long-term effects aren't fully documented. There's increasing awareness that the virus weakens the immune system -- not quite like measles, not quite like HIV.

Eventually we'll probably come up with a new term for the after-effects. For now, Wikipedia has articles like 2022-2023 pediatric care crisis; Finland releases data on infants (under the age of 5, so unvaccinated against COVID) showing significant year-over-year increases in illness; China reports pneumonia outbreaks with disease severity linked directly to post-COVID immune dysfunction.

In ten years or twenty, we'll have done a lot more (UV-C bulbs in air vents, better air exchange, normalized mask use). It's not as though cholera outbreaks were resolved in only a few years, either, when that meant replacing entire cities' water and sewage systems.

It's just that the period before we get there has a lot of loss in it.

I wish people would fucking mask.

[janumun]

Faaaaa my babyyyy, I'm here as promised. 🥺🥺 We already talked about this in dms and you seemed so interested so can you write the lads men reacting to mc's death, please pretty please

When You Are Gone [All LaDS Men - Angst Headcanons]

Rated: SFW - Angst Tags: hurt/no comfort, poorly dealing with the death of a loved one

Summary: The LaDS men dealing with the aftermath of your death, in the heartbreaking messages they leave in your voicemail almost regularly even long after you’re gone, in an effort to cope with your loss.

Author’s Notes : Hey darling, absolutely! Here you go. Hope you enjoy (?). 😭 This headcanon’s a bit differently formatted because I was inspired by the game’s speech to text function. 

Sylus

TW: knowingly putting oneself in danger, mortally wounded Sylus, insomnia, mild spoilers for Razor’s Grip ASMR 

Transcript:

Hey there! You’ve reached my voicemail, which is a rare occurrence. That either means I do not know recognize your caller ID. Orrrr you are a certain infuriating Boss Man, trying to calling me up at all ungodly hours of the night again. Whoever you are, leave a message after the beep and I’ll get back to you ASAP.  

A heavy snort of sour laughter rolls past bruised lips, to hear the familiar automated sound of your voice playing on the other end of the line; one Sylus does not tire of no matter how many times he’s heard it. A thick, punishing burst of pain fractures across his torso when he chokes up on the blood gurgling within his throat.  

Sylus reaches to curb the sound within a bloodied fist, clearing his throat to speak once more. 

I suppose I did deserve all your reprimands, seeing as I am still calling you way past your bedtime, kitten.  

His voice lowers an octave, slow, gentle.   

I hope you’re having a good dream. 

I’m only calling because you told me to let you know anytime I’d be away on a risky mission. A hushed chuckle sounds on the other end of the line.  

You'd practically ordered it of me — do you remember?  

The night when you grabbed me by the lapels and asked me to not make a deal all on my own, ever again. That you worried for me whenever I was gone and you wanted to know the next time I planned on taking a mission, of this caliber. 

You’d willingly walked back to me and since then, I have always made space for you, just like you’ve wanted. 

I’ve kept up my end of our bargain.  

A guttural moan of pain sounds through the otherwise quiet of the night.  

These wounds of mine... functioning without sleep for this long, and a poor decision made on my end, the combination was bound to have consequences.  

His chuckles knell throaty, labored. 

And now, all I wish to do is sleep.  

A lengthy silence follows after, making one believe the user on the other end of the line might’ve cut the call. Or fallen asleep in exhaustion of his wounds, like he said.  

Before that gentle burr of his sounds once more. 

You know I can’t die, sweetie, unfortunate as that is in this moment.  

But I do have a wish for when my body inevitably loses its awareness for the short time it takes to recuperate.  

I hope, Sylus’s voice softens. that when I close my eyes this time, I get to see you in my dreams.  

Zayne

TW: allusions to embalming a body long after death, mentions of a protocore heart that continues to function even after the host’s death, denial of grief 

Transcript:

Hi, you’ve reached my voicemail. I am currently unavailable but drop me a message and I’ll get back to you, stat. 

A quiet insouciant voice — the clearing of a throat — begins on the other end of the line.  

Akso Hospital Log 171, the time right now is 4:17 AM. The host’s heart continues to function, although its less-than-optimal cardiac output remains at 1L per min. A pulse rate of 13 beats per min has been documented today. A slight decrease from its value yesterday, recorded at 17 beats per minute.  

A brief pause. 

Does it bother you to hear me speak of you this way? I’m sorry. A mere force of habit on my part. You are my patient, after all. Documentation must be precise, and to the point, for our research to progress, if we are to have even a sliver of a chance at resuscitating your heart.  

I have hope we will succeed; I will do my utmost as a doctor so that we may save you.  

Another pregnant pause. 

Do you too think I am foolish for my efforts?  

Greyson accosted me in the hallways tonight after my scheduled surgery and he seemed so... incensed. For being unable to give up on you, for crossing a line, to not get overtly attached to any of our patients, he said it was a clear violation of our Oath and called it my professional failing. And afterwards... he implored that I give up now.  

Someone once asked me, long ago: if I would go beyond death to try and bring back the person I loved, were they to pass away. And I answered that I would not, a desecration of the dead is not something I’d wish to do. Or wish upon the deceased. I would rather divert all my efforts to ensuring they would live, that their heart would continue to beat healthy.  

So, in retrospect, it is Greyson who’s strange in expecting my willing defeat, without having even tried to the best of my capabilities. Not when your heart still continues to beat. 

I do, however, miss you... very much, even though hope remains in my heart. 

When the day comes that you wake up, I hope you do not have to suffer like this, ever again. 

Rafayel

TW: gradual loss of vision, self-blame 

Transcript:

Hi, hello! I’m unable to answer your call at the moment but hey, feel free to drop me a voice message and I’ll get back to you soon. Bye-bye! 

A sharp inhale; as if the person on the other end of the line is wracked by sudden, vicious pain.  

Before the sound smoothens out, as if it had never been. An airy voice begins, although the nonchalant inflection to his tone sounds odd, all wrong — a fact the recipient of the voicemail would’ve been able to parse instantly, were they still around. 

Hey cutie! It’s me again, your favorite person in the entire world.  

Sorry about that earlier, I always get a bit startled whenever I hear you say good-bye in that crazy adorable voice.  

Since y’know, the very last time we met, you never told me you were leaving. 

Silence descends.  

It really feels like it’s been another 800 years, I fear the fish will actually start flying and the whales will start walking this time.  

Only, I don’t think you’re coming back this time, are you?  

My bride can be so cruel sometimes. 

A humorless laugh.  

Anyyyyway, I’m dropping a voice note today because my eyesight’s been acting up a bit lately so I can’t really leave you a text like I usually do.  

And before you scold me about it, I know I’m not supposed to be painting this long but I’m close to completing this new painting of you and I can’t rest until it’s done and dusted.  

Don’t hate me for it, pretty? 

A pleased, wistful sound.  

I really wish you were here so I could show it to you right now.  

A strident crash sounds in the background of the caller as paintbrushes overturn along with a color palette; garnet red and deep purple staining his floor a macabre color Rafayel cannot perceive in that moment.  

Whoa, now that’s gonna leave a mess from the sounds of it.  

Whatever, I’ll clean it up later once I get my sight back.  

The point is, cutie, I’ll share a snap of the completed painting with you once it’s done.  

Be prepared to be absolutely blown. So dazzled you fall head over heels in love with me. 

And then perhaps... return, if you like it and me enough.  

His sigh is steeped in mild vexation.  

Waiting hurts.  

Having you not remember our time together, in every lifetime we meet, hurts. It really is all your fault, you know.  

A soft, disgruntled moue you can hear within his words.  

But I hope, in our next life, we don’t cross paths.  

That way, you won’t be forced to sacrifice yourself for my sake, ever again, you silly girl.  

A throttled sound; it almost sounds like a wretched moan of pain.  

I don’t want our bond to shackle you down anymore so I think... I’ll let you go now.  

A human like you far suits the sun, not being saddled down below within turbulent seas. 

So, this will be our final farewell now. 

The words nearly scraped free of his throat on a rasped sound.  

Goodbye, my beloved bride. 

I loved— 

Beep. Your message has been recorded and sent.  

Caleb

Transcript:

TW: very brief traumatic remembrance of your demise 

Hi hi! You’ve reached the ever-diligent Miss Hunter’s voicemail. I’m probably out on a mission right now so I’m unable to respond but I’ll get back to you ASAP if you drop me a message instead!  

A soft chuckle warms the air in fond recollection to hear your voice. The knot of Caleb’s brow furrowing deeper as he tries to imprint that cheery voice into his skull to overwrite the sounds of your pained screams still knelling within his ears.  

Before he clears his throat to begin.  

Hello to you too, pipsqueak.  

It’s your 25th birthday today and I thought I’d record this little memento for us. 

Happy Birthday, my tiny hurricane of disaster. I really miss you, you know, even if you don’t seem to.  

He chuckles in resignation. 

I should’ve let you bother me more often if I knew you were going to be this terrible at keeping in touch with your best friend later.  

We really didn’t have much time together once I returned from my posting abroad. Work kept you so busy.  

I should’ve scolded you more often about taking appropriate breaks in between missions. God.  

A gentle laugh resounds on the other end of the line. 

Reprimanding you like a dad used to be Zayne’s job among us three, not mine.  

The tiniest of fractures slip into his voice. 

Anyway, I’ve kept to my side of the bargain we made while I was away from Linkon; to leave you regular voice messages about my day and I guess the habit’s just... stuck.  

I visited the grocery store earlier to shop for ingredients to whip up your favourite parmesan risotto tonight.  

It was almost like you were with me, you know.  

With each item I passed by; from the strawberries you love to inhale to your favourite cola displayed, front and center, within their fridge. I almost picked one up for you before I— 

He visibly halts himself, his breathing somewhat erratic. Before he resumes once more. 

That nice kid you’re friendly with was manning the counter today and he recognized me almost instantly. All thanks to being towed around the Supermart with you, no doubt. 

He even gave me a nice discount on the items when I told him I was whipping up a birthday dinner for you.  

A short pause. 

The risotto was pretty good, if I do say so myself. I wish you could’ve tasted it too.  

Sorry I didn’t bake a birthday cake for you this year because it’s just me in the house now. 

I don’t have a certain cute girl, with a crazy sweet tooth, to eat it with me and you know I’m not really fond of sweets.  

His voice drops into a hushed sound, wrought with emotion. 

Time flew by so fast. It seems like only yesterday when we were both kids, huddled around a coffee table with you trying your best to blow out the candles on the cake Grandma baked for us on your birthday.

He laughs softly.

You had a difficult time growing up because of your heart but you were always so brave.  

I wish I could’ve spoiled you more often. If only I knew then that our time together would be so short.  

His voice breaks into a slight tremor.  

Your Caleb really misses you... every day of my excruciating life. 

But... I hope that now... wherever you are, you aren’t in pain anymore. 

If there is a life after this one, I hope you let me find you in it, too. 

I love you, little spitfire.  

End of voice message. 

Xavier

TW: space travel, personal logging of a journey, self-imposed isolation and neglect

Transcript:

Hi there, you’ve reached my voicemail as I’m unable to attend your call at the moment. Leave a message after the beep and I’ll be sure to get back to you soon! 

Hi to you too, angel.  

It’s been a while since I’ve left you a message, hasn’t it?  

I’m sorry, I’ve been facing some turbulence anomalies ever since my ship hit the Bode’s galaxy so I’ve been a bit occupied.  

Where were we last time?  

Ah, I told you how Jeremiah’s shop has been thriving on Earth lately, because I remembered you saying you wanted to know how he was doing the last time we spoke.  

You never got the chance to see for yourself after.  

He pauses.  

I didn’t want to tell you at the time because you and Jeremiah really seemed to be growing close as friends and that bothered me.  

Forgive me? 

A shift of gears sounds within the quiet interior of the spaceship as Xavier adjusts a few controls.  

I know these logs will never reach you but I still want to talk to you about our journey.  

I never...  

His voice drops; the sliver of a whisper.  

got to show you this small planet I found while out on my travels, a long time ago. I named it Uluru. It’s a red rock planet, you see.  

I told you about it once and you said you’d really like to go see it someday. “Xavier’s own planet,” you said.  

I think you were teasing me then. But I wanted to tell you, it’s not just Xavier’s planet but “Xavier and MC’s little planet”.  

I didn’t have the chance to show it to you while you were still— 

A violent catch of breath followed by a soft curse, cleaves through the quiet. 

A low exhale before that quiet voice picks up once more. 

Uluru is reaching the end of its life soon after all these lightyears and I wanted to go together with you to see our planet one last time before it died.  

As for what I’ll do after...  

A pause and a thoughtful hum, follows. 

I think I’ll stay there once I’ve witnessed its demise.  

Earth no longer has any springs for me to return to now that you’re gone and Philos — well I can’t return to that place anymore.  

So, I think I’ll stay, among the ruins of the place that was supposed to be our home.  

With you. 

End Notes: Thank you for reading! I know many of us wept about how we wished for God to take all of Zayne’s pain and give it to us instead so here I am, happy to do exactly that. 😇 Happy Zayne story branch release, y’all. 

Likes, comments and reblogs are always appreciated if you are so inclined, lovelies!

Tagging as requested: @samanthagnicole , @catboi-anon , @bitches4lifebro , @beebumbo , @hellinistical

If you have not been tagged, it’s because I can’t tag you due to tagging permissions turned off on your end.

If you’d like to be tagged in my future stories, you can fill this short form here. If you’d like to be removed, shoot me a DM!

You can also find me on Ao3 and twitter, if you’d like to chat or just squeal with me about hot characters, in general.

[fanfreakinfiction]

My Gods Are Not Kind to Lonely Mothers

Chapter 3: The Truth

Ch. 1 Ch. 2 | Masterlist 🖤

5K words // Din Djarin x pregnantf!reader

Pairing: Din Djarin x pregnantf!reader (Reader is younger but not weirdly young) Reader was a sex worker. Reader’s first language is one I made up she speaks pretty good basic but struggles finding certain words. Reader is pregnant!

Summary: The truth comes out, even if Din has to practically force it from reader.

Tags: SLOW BURN, Some fluff, made up Star Wars culture & religion, split POV, slight language barrier, mention of death, mention of child death, dark!, lots of relationship building in this.

Warnings: mention of child loss and grief.

A/N: UH hey! Sorry i’ve been gone, for those that don’t know. As soon as I posted the second chapter of this story I found out I was pregnant! Weird timing… I also just had my baby on July 3rd! She was a c-section and my experience wasnt what I imagined. I am hoping to finish out this series as a way to cope with becoming a new mom. Anyways, here is the long awaited third chapter!  More notes: I imagine Din holds a fork like a toddler. Like he’s full fisting the spoon instead of holding it like a proper man.  Also we did a little flashback in the middle of this just to fill in some of the gaps from that night. Not to mention there is a little Hutteese mixed in with the flashback.

When Din had come back after gathering some wood the night before, he thought you had died. As soon as he had scaled that ridiculous cliff for a second time, wood in tow, he looked to see your soaked form curled up on the ground. 

He threw the wood down and ran over, he saw Grogu curled up beside you, his tiny hand resting on your belly. He must’ve used his abilities to help you because he was out cold as well… 

In a calm panic he knelt down to grab Grogu, as he grabbed the child he saw the steady rise and fall of your chest. His heart calmed for a moment until anger rose up inside him again. He wasn’t angry at you, but more angry with your planet, your people. He scaled that cliff twice and knew that you had scaled it on your own, and heavily pregnant no less. Why was this a custom for your planet? What crazy God would make their women walk up a mountain to give birth?

Staring down at your form he saw your lips starting to blue and your fingers trembled from lack of warmth. He noticed the bandage on your hand that rested beside your face, it was soaked through from the spring water and fresh blood came from the wrap. 

Emanating a sigh he stood abruptly and walked over to your pack leaning on the dark rock wall. He hesitated before opening it, reverent of your privacy but also realizing at some point he was going to have to go through it anyways. He looked for any dry clothing you may have packed, resting on top inside the pack was your boots, a water canteen, a couple of ration packs, a small kit of tools including a firestarter, a haphazardly packed medikit, and a lantern. Underneath that was a blanket and a tarp, wrapped in the blanket were two pairs of socks but aside from that, the pack was empty. 

There was nothing in it for a baby. 

Except that there had been, the small blanket which you had given to the bleeding mother. 

You really believed you both were going to die here. Alone. The thought sat with him, rolling around in his mind. He hated it. 

Din shoved the stuff back into the pack angrily, save for the blanket, tool kit, medikit, and lantern. He spread the blanket out on the nearby bedroll and turned to face your now shivering form. Quietly, he grabbed Grogu and tucked him into his sling before setting him by the bedroll. After adjusting Grogu, he walked over to your sleeping form and touched you lightly, as if you would spring awake to swat at him. His gloved hand rested on your shoulder as he rolled you onto your back with ease. You looked and felt dead; you were heavy with sleep, with circles under your eyes and even a furrowed brow as your teeth chattered.

He realized waking you would be impossible, and judging from the day you’d had, you really needed to rest. He was amazed you were even up and moving around as much as you were when he’d seen you earlier. As he looked down on your damp form in the darkness, he could see the steady rise and fall of your heavy breasts glistening in the moonlight. He realized he had been drawing small circles with his thumb on your shoulder, perhaps from his nerves.

With a sigh, he was at war with himself. He knew he was going to have to undress you. However, he didn't feel that he had that privilege. Even as you lay carrying his child, he felt that his claim on you was false.

He could leave. 

He pushed that thought away as fast as it had come into his mind. 

With hesitant hands, he worked at unwrapping the neckline of your dress, keeping his gaze on his hands as the fabric came off your body. As soon as the fabric fell from your neck, his gaze landed on a bruise purpling on the right side. His eyes locked on it, and his hand gently ran over the skin there before his gaze traveled back to your sleeping form.

He went back to peeling the soaked gown off of you. Goosebumps littered your flesh. As he untied the last knot holding up the top of your gown, he paused. He didn't want to expose you like this while you slept.

“I've... never been with another. Only you.” the words echoed in his mind. 

Slowly, he reached for his collar and removed the cape attached to his chest plate. With a forceful tug, he pulled the fabric around him and placed it to cover your resting form. Respecting your state, he moved his hands under the cover of his cloak to remove your dress. Carefully, he pulled it down past your breasts to your waist, then put an arm under your back to lift you. Your head rolled back against his chest plate with ease. Slowly, he maneuvered himself to place his right knee under your back so he could free his arm. Gently, his hands worked to move the dress past your hips. Once he felt the fabric move past your mid-thigh, he made sure to wrap his cloak around you before replacing his arm behind your back and moving his left arm under your knees.

Carefully, he gripped your now naked form, save for his cloak around you, as he lifted you from the ground. Your head rested against his chest as he carefully worked his way over to the bedroll. He slowly set you on the bedroll and covered you with the blanket and his cloak.

He turned his attention to the socks he'd pulled from the pack earlier. Grabbing the socks, he gently lifted the blanket from your bare feet. As he did, he immediately noticed how swollen they were and had to stifle a pained laugh that rose from his chest. He knew you were in pain just by how swollen your ankles had gotten, but in a way, they reminded him of a blurrg's. As he slowly examined your feet, he noticed a small cut on your right one.

Reaching across your resting form for the medikit, he carefully selected the bacta spray. Gently shaking the can, he sprayed the bottom of your foot, causing you to groan softly.

"I know, Mesh'la..." he whispered, fanning his hand over the cut.

You pulled your foot away and turned to your side under the blankets, and he froze, not wanting you to wake. He sat on his haunches, watching you as you moved under the blankets. It was then that he realized you were caressing your pregnant belly under the covers. A small hint of a smile graced his lips as he observed you silently, but it quickly faded when he noticed the bandage on your hand.

He carefully stood and moved to sit on his knees in front of where you slept on your side. Gently, he reached out for your right hand and slowly pulled it out from under your head. He held your hand in both of his, and it seemed dwarfed in his gloved grasp. His thumb could reach across the expanse of your palm. Your hands were soft and comforting, reminding him of his childhood. He hated to see them injured, especially when they would soon provide the same comfort to his child.

Examining your hand, he carefully pulled the soaking bandage away, and his eyes widened slightly. This part of your hand was a lighter color than the rest of your skin and was wrinkled from the moisture. The gash in the center of your palm was very deep. A thin layer of skin was trying to rebuild across the valley of exposed flesh, likely from bacta spray, but the skin had too much moisture and had reopened in places. He reached for the bacta spray once again and sprayed the palm of your hand. A louder whine left your lips, and he froze with your hand in his. Watching you carefully, he placed your hand back into the confines of your covers.

With your injuries taken care of to the best of his abilities, he finally glanced over at Grogu, who was nestled in his sling not far from you. Din grabbed the child and set him slightly closer to you for warmth, at least until he could get the fire started.

Walking back to the wood he'd abandoned earlier, he structured it the best he could a few feet from your bedroll. This was closer to another bedroll, one he looked at reverently as he could see the human form within. The thought of the hair still on that one made him cringe. As he used the fire-starting tools to ignite the fire, his thoughts drifted back to the pamphlet given to him by Don Mai.

As the fire crackled along with the roar of the falls, Din began looking around the now dimly lit area for the pamphlet. Across the way, near the pool, he saw the paper Grogu had been playing with, almost in the same spot as earlier. Rising from his spot near the fire, he crossed the gravelly rocks to the pamphlet. It was damp from the steam and moisture that permeated the air. He held it gently as he returned to the fire and began the process of trying to read through it.

As it turned out, the people of Kith were not as different as he thought, definitely not witches. According to the pamphlet, your people were pretty normal, except for this one mountain range, which they viewed as sacred. But he understood more now after reading about your deity.

There were two springs found in this mountain range, and they were currently at the lower pool. The lower pool was for women who were mothers giving birth alone, without their manna. All mothers who came to this pool died in childbirth or shortly after, along with their children. Maybe it was just a coincidence that mothers who were alone died here; it was probably because the journey up to the lower pool was incredibly difficult. He understood why so many had died here now. It was hard enough for him to scale the cliff in his armor, but for a woman in the throes of birth and having to carry her pack alone, it was a death sentence.

He also learned from the pamphlet that the upper pool, where women gave birth to living babies, was a two-day walk from here. Stirring the ration pack he'd found in your pack, he spooned the mixture into his mouth. He looked at you for the first time without his helmet as he sat and ate. He watched how your face would scrunch in your sleep, how you so often caressed your belly under the covers. He watched Grogu as he slept not far from you, his little snores reaching Din's ears every so often. He'd counted your ration packs; there was only one ration pack left after he'd eaten this one. Based on the amount of time it would take to reach the lower pool, he assumed you had missed a meal or two. That made his heart hurt, knowing you hadn't been able to nourish yourself properly.

He finished the last of the pack and placed the trash in the fire. Sparing you one last glance, he slid his helmet back over his face and stood from his spot on the rock by the fire. He looked upwards at the waterfall, knowing it was a shorter walk back to the base of the mountain if he went the way he’d come instead of taking the trail.

He spared you one last glance and then the child sleeping beside you. For some reason, he trusted that you both would be safe here. He doubted anyone aside from a pregnant mother would be taking this journey anyway. He looked towards the cliff edge and then down at you through the fire's flame. Carefully, he walked around the fire and crouched down in front of you.

Your face was less stressed, and you looked somewhat more comfortable. He slowly lifted his hand to your covered belly, pressing his gloved palm flat against the fabric, feeling you and your pregnant belly underneath.

"I'll be back," he whispered.

He stood slowly and walked towards the cliff edge for a third time. He'd rather become an Apostate again than see you and his child die in this place. No, you’d be giving birth at the upper pool, he'd make sure of it, even if it meant carrying you and Grogu for two days. Slowly crouching down, he began his descent to go collect supplies from his ship.

He managed to arrive back at the lower pool right before sunrise, covered in sweat and frankly exhausted. You and Grogu were right where he had left you, and the fire had been reduced to a smolder. Taking off the pack he'd collected from the Razor Crest, he immediately walked over to your bag and began to consolidate the new ration packs, spare clothing, and medical supplies he'd grabbed. After a few moments of reorganizing the pack, he found he was able to fit his bag into yours once he removed your boots, which you would need. The boots were tan leather but looked newer, not as worn, and there was no tell-tale sand bleaching that often accompanied leather items on Tatooine. You'd bought these after Tatooine, probably with the money he…

He set the boots aside, near your dress that was now dry by the fire.

Before closing the pack, he pulled out one ration pack and started heating some water from the supply he'd brought to make you food. It wasn't long after that Grogu began to stir awake.

~

Warmth greeted you, flooding your body from your head to the tips of your toes. Slowly, you moved, only to realize you were inhibited by your sleeping bed.

Your eyes fluttered open, and you realized you were naked as you felt the skin of your belly. Greeted by the early morning sun that shone so brightly it made rainbows from the steam of the spring, you sighed, oddly contented. 

"I made you a ration pack," his voice rang out from behind you.

Quickly, you sat up in the sleeping bed, clinging to the blankets. One blanket was yours, but the other was a stiffer material—his cape, you realized. He sat across from you at the now dwindling fire, stirring a ration pack slowly.

You were confused and surprised. The last thing you remembered was the small child touching you, and you thought you were dying.

"Noona..." You looked down immediately through the blankets at your round bump.

"Your dress is dry." His voice was quiet, almost reverent, as he stood and walked around the fire to hand you the steaming ration pack.

Your eyes went wide with need. You grabbed the pack, making sure to tuck the blankets under your armpits to cover your nakedness, and greedily spooned the food into your mouth. It had been almost a day since your last meal, one you had eaten cold. Your eyes glanced from the warm rice mix to the boots still standing in front of you.

"Go slow. You'll get sick," you heard the man's voice gently chastise. Ignoring him, you continued your desperate pace, feeling the warmth of the food settle into your stomach.

You heard the crunching of his boots as he walked away, and the small green child toddled into your vision. He looked at you and then at your ration packet as his hand reached slowly towards you. Normally, you would have quite literally swatted the child's hand away. You were not likely to share food, especially after going hungry so many nights on Tatooine. But the child brought you a strange sense of comfort, and with a soft smile, you spooned some of the rice mix and fed it to him slowly.

His big eyes looked excited as he ate almost as greedily as you. You laughed softly and patted the child on his head.

"Grogu!" The Mandalorian's voice was chastising, and the child made an odd sound as his head whipped toward the Mandalorian.

You smiled and spooned another helping of the rice. Looking up, you saw the Mandalorian for the first time today. He was holding your dress so reverently, almost as if it were the green child called Grogu. He looked in your direction, but you could tell he was staring at the child, who seemed to hold onto you a little tighter as his father scolded him. He looked different without his cape. He was still menacing but less bulky. It surprised you, and you felt a hot blush creep across your face as you recalled the feel of him inside you. He was warm like the Tatooine sun, and he had coarse hair that you felt on the back of your thighs where he had entered you. It was all too much, and you had to avert your gaze from him. Your eyes fixed on the remaining rations as you ate; you heard the crunching of his boots as he walked toward you.

Gently, he folded your dress just like he'd done on Tatooine and set it next to you on the sleeping bed.

Your face flushed as realization hit you.

"You… removed my dress?" Your voice was shaky, and you glared at him.

"Yes," was his reply, and you felt your body curl inward slightly.

"You did not ask." You tried to sound offended as you stared into the now nearly empty ration packet.

"You were not in a state to deny my request, had I asked," he retorted, and you glared up at him.

"I am not still a whore," the words fell from your lips as you felt tears welling up again. Cursed these damn feelings, they were so much more intense.

He sighed and knelt before you abruptly; instinctively, you flinched backward, still clutching the blankets and his cape to your body.

"Look, that night was... just that night," his voice sounded regretful, and you couldn't help the shame you felt. "I came back to build a fire, and you were soaking wet, freezing, and asleep. I didn't undress you out of desire, I undressed you out of necessity for Noona."

It made sense. To him, you were no more than a momentary respite, but to you... some part of you had hoped maybe he thought of you on his bounty-hunting travels. He was your first, and you would always remember him: the pressure of his cock slipping into your tight walls, the coarseness of his hand on your hip. You would sometimes get phantom touches while trying to fall asleep.

You stared into the ration pack for a long while as your emotions swirled within you. Flashes of that night and the emotions you had tied to it played in your head. You remembered all the times late at night when you had replayed his soft touches in your mind, wishing you had done more for him instead of him caring for you. But now, knowing that to him, it was just another night, just another whore—it meant nothing to him. He probably didn’t even really want to be here. He didn’t even know your name, nor did you know his.

Silently, you set the ration pack down and looked up at him as tears crested your eyes and ran freely down your cheeks.

“Leave.” Your voice was pained, and you had to keep yourself from sobbing as your heart welled up in your throat.

Grogu stirred next to you, making grabby fists in your blankets. He was trying to sit up in your lap, you realized. Looking at the child, you sobbed, the dam breaking now. Reaching a careful hand out to the child, you patted his head softly as you sniffled.

“Please, leave,” you whispered.

There was a sigh from the man, long, drawn out, and tired. Finally, he spoke. “No.” The word was sharp and heavy from the modulator, and from your peripheral vision, you saw his gloved hands reach across you to pick up the small child. The child whined softly as he was picked up and away from you. “You should get dressed; we have a long journey ahead.”

Your head lifted to meet his gaze as you looked at him in sadness and shame.

"Issa noona ibaniss a plantissia ata mountina as illa. As illa a ma a iss." (My baby will be born on this planet, at the Mountain of Mothers, like my mother and the one before her.)

He looked down at you from his now standing position, and his head tilted slightly while the child slapped his hand on the silver gauntlet on the man’s forearm.

“I am taking you to the upper pool,” he said softly. He then walked over to pick up the remaining ration pack beside you and turned away to feed Grogu on the opposite side of the pool.

You sat stunned, staring at the back of the man’s helmet. You wanted to burn your gaze into the back of the silver.

~

An hour had passed since Din had made you cry yet again. He really didn’t mean to sound so cold, but he was tired of the disgusted glances you’d pass his way, as if you were revolted by his touch.

The look of fear on your face when you implied that he’d taken off your dress as if he was trying to grope you in your sleep struck something deep within him. The thought of taking advantage of you had never once crossed his mind; it never crossed his mind for anyone. He was exhausted and knew he wouldn’t be resting until tonight once they could stop on the trail, if the baby didn’t come before then.

“When was the last time you had pain?” he found himself asking, breaking the long period of silence as he watched you sulk near the pool with Grogu.

You threw a shady look over your shoulder at him, almost mirrored by Grogu, who sat next to you, his tiny eyes squinting to mimic yours.

“Irrit a cassi na?” Your words were foreign to him, and in response, he tilted his head.

“What?” he asked, curious.

You sighed and looked from him down to Grogu, then to your belly as your hand moved in a circle around the bump.

“Not since yesterday.” Your words were sad.

Din’s knowledge of pregnant women was limited. When he was living in his covert, there were plenty of women who had children, but there had always been other women around to assist or even an old medical droid. Here, he was completely helpless in this new path. He’d never walked this path and thought Grogu was going to be the extent of his fatherhood. What Din did know about pregnant women was the basics: make sure they’re safe, fed, and careful. He also knew that for a heavily pregnant woman who was seemingly in the middle of contractions yesterday, having them stop suddenly didn’t seem like a good sign.

After a moment of silence, watching your face, he rose and moved over to your sitting form. On his way, he grabbed the boots he’d left by your pack. He approached and gently set the boots down beside you before lowering himself to the ground. Grogu, who had been clinging to your dress, watched his father with curious eyes.

The man stretched his hand out and motioned for your feet. You looked at him with a furrowed brow.

“What?” you asked defensively.

“Are you going to put your boots on yourself, then?” he asked. His tone sent a heat of embarrassment straight to your cheeks. He was serious, but there was a slight lilt in his voice that made you very aware he was poking fun at you.

“I don’t need boots!” you snapped almost in a shout. “Noona will be born here, where they are meant to be born,” you said as you turned your gaze from him.

There was silence for a long moment, and the air shifted. Grogu’s floppy ears seemed to turn downward for a moment as his grip on your dress tightened. You looked back at the Mandalorian, who was kneeling before you as still as the mountains. Finally, after what felt like forever, the tension broke as you felt a leather-clad grip on your ankle. The force with which he yanked your leg out from under you made you yelp and look at him with a mixture of shock and something else.

“What—” You were cut off by the feeling of your left foot being jammed into your boot. “Ah!” you hissed as you struggled to support yourself on the slippery rock.

“You are stubborn,” his voice was dark, “and very pregnant. We do not have time to discuss this anymore.” He tightened the straps of your left boot almost too tight, making your mouth open in a soft gasp. You were shocked as you watched him; you swear you could see the annoyance coming off him in waves, or maybe it was the steam. He gripped your right ankle and, with a gentler hand, slid your bandaged foot into the boot. “I am taking you to the upper pools. I’m not playing this game anymore,” he said with a resigned tone. Tightening the right strap on your boot, his hand lingered for a moment before his visor lifted to meet your gaze once more. You felt your cheeks heat again and cursed yourself for it as you looked away from him.

With that, he rose and plucked Grogu from next to you. Grogu squirmed in the man’s grasp as Din placed him in the sling across his chest. After Grogu had settled with his fingers grasping the edge of the sling, Din held his hand out to you.

~

You gazed up at the man clad in silver as he wrangled Grogu into his sling. The sight made you warm at the care he showed for the child. Maybe he could treat Noona like that... The thought made your cheeks flush.

Looking away, still not ready to give him the satisfaction of your presence, you caressed your belly and softly whispered words of kindness and encouragement to the life within you, ignoring his outstretched hand. You heard his boots crunching as he walked away, and for a moment, your heart dropped. Maybe you’d done it—pushed him away, which is what you wanted... right?

Looking over your left shoulder, you watched him move to the now-closed pack against the rock. Curious, you saw him bend down slightly and shoulder the heavy pack. Your eyes widened, and you moved to stand, still watching as the Mandalorian adjusted the pack onto his back while he adjusted Grogu in his sling. The Mandalorian turned to look at you as you slowly rose with wide eyes. Tears began to cloud your vision as you stood a few feet apart, staring at each other.

“I do not want to go…” You spoke as your voice broke. 

The Mandalorian started walking toward you, the child across his chest looking up at his father with curious eyes, then at you. As he approached, you instinctively placed a hand over the top of your belly. He said nothing when he finally came to a stop in front of you. He carefully placed a hand on your left shoulder.

"You want to die here?" His voice was cold. You realized now how terrifying he must have been as a bounty hunter. "Well?" He wanted an answer.

You were frozen, tears clouding your vision.

"Look at me."

You did as he asked.

"Do you really want to die here?" he asked again.

Your words were soft as you sniffled and looked down, ashamed. "I am... afraid."

"Why?" His voice was still cold, demanding.

You snapped up to meet his gaze, your mouth opening to speak, but nothing came out as you stared at him like a gasping fish.

"Why?" He stepped closer.

You took a step back; he was starting to suffocate your space.

"Tell me why you want to die here. Tell me why you don't want to go to the upper pools." His voice was calm but stern, and you couldn't handle it.

"Because I am not fit to be a mother!" you blurted out as you took another step back. It was the first time you'd said it out loud, the first time you acknowledged what had been stewing for months inside you. You looked away from him and Grogu, shame filling your chest.

It was silent for a long time.

"I wasn't fit to be a father when Grogu came into my life," he said, his voice much less stern now, warm and careful. "I was a bounty hunter, and my lifestyle had no space for a child. No matter how much I convinced myself that he was better off without me, our paths crossed anyway. I'm not telling you to keep our chi—" he stopped himself, "Noona," he corrected. "But I have a responsibility to you required by my Creed, and I have to try and get you to the upper pools. What you decide to do when we get there is your choice alone, but I, me, I have to get you up there even if I have to carry you."

It was the most he’d ever spoken, and you hung onto every word.

"I have no more food," you whispered, shaking your head.

"I know," he said, coming to stand beside you. He placed his hand gently on the upper part of your left arm. "I already took care of it." He squeezed your arm gently as he spoke. "This is the Way." His hand slowly dropped from your arm, and with that, he started walking towards the trail leading to the upper pool.

[optionalcausality]

Some people have relationship degrade mechanics -- time passes and they feel less friendly toward the friends they are no longer in regular contact with.

Other people don't feel that way. A friend is a friend. Why would mere decades change this?

I really feel tremendous grief for friendships that kind of petered away in the face of life's currents. There are people with whom I formed deep, unique, vibrant, life-changing connections, and then we had to go our separate ways and it was too hard to maintain long-distance. There wasn't a fight, it just sort of faded. And I feel like I have more friendships like this than friendships that have endured, so maybe I just have to get used to it. But if grief is all the love we have left over - well, I never did get to finish loving them. I love them, and I miss them, and I probably always will.

[08melancholie]

Light Banter. — Micah/Reader

tags: Grief/Mourning, Loss, Death, Mistakes, Soft Micah Bell, Crying, Men Crying, Angst, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt, Emotional Hurt, Murder, Brutal Murder, no comfort, Minimal fluff, Trauma, Psychological Trauma, Not Proofread, Not Beta Read, no beta we die like micah bell, and reader lol

summary: The things Micah would do to go back in time and listen to Dutch, the things he'd said about you. Just for once, to rewrite this passage in his life. But that's an ending he may never face; so he must learn to cope with his mistake—both of your mistakes, and must do so all alone.

a/n: so ummmm ive been thinking abt my own fic for the entire two days ive been writing it LIKE i was in class imagining one of the scenes. micah bell angst LETS GOOOOO !!!!

words: 3,648 | AO3 LINK

Dutch is many things; controlling, manipulative, power-hungry—but somehow never wrong. And Micah had to learn that the hard way.

How he said the two of you were a match made in hell—he was right there. When he said you were both the biggest pains in his arse, always causing trouble wherever you went; when he had to put you both on camp-arrest, an attempt at lecturing you to not go into random bars and start fights; when he'd refuse to send you on jobs together, because he knew the outcome every time.

And you both should have listened, for once.

Another day brings you more trouble to stir. Micah and yourself have been out all day—early morning to late afternoon. Few folks were robbed; few non-compliant killed. It was a bit ruthless and brutal—but you were outlaws, so who cares?

Well, Dutch cared. Too much, in your opinion.

Always had his nose in your business, finding ways to scold you and Micah for any minuscule mission that ended in bloodshed or law. But that was your nature! And per his own word, you can't fight your nature—and so you won't.

Now, was that worth being sat in his tent, talked down to for hours? Well, yes. You either zoned out every time, or were struggling to hold in your chuckles and chortles with Micah; always worsening your situation.

Like today.

"You two are just.. unbelievable!" Dutch is scolding you like two children whom were just caught stealing candy from the corner store. He made you sit down on his cot before he started tearing into you both for another bar fight two towns over—initiated by Micah this time. "I sometimes just want to keep you both in camp, doing chores—because this isn't the way to go about." He adds, and it falls on deaf ears as you space out wherever while Micah just.. sits there, staring at him as if he's processing the words coming out of his mouth, when he in fact isn't. Dutch sees this and is simply fed up. "You know what? We're not gonna continue like this."

His next words get your attention instantly.

"I'm separating you two." Your eyes dart up to meet Dutch's dark ones, glistening with distaste. "No more sharing a tent; no more doing jobs together; hell, if you make me go that far, I'll prohibit you two speaking to each other." He barks, and you feel your heart drop to your feet.

"The fuck?" Dutch shoots you a glare at the vulgar reply and raised tone. "You can't do that, Dutch." You protest, standing up off the cot. Micah's head shoots up to look at Dutch, just as surprised and protesting.

He stands firmly above the two of you, looking and talking down on both. "I can do as I please," He stands back to his desk, where he previously was. "already had Charles start to move your—" He gestures to you. "—things out into a different tent at the other side of camp."

Your jaw goes slack and you feel like you have to pick it off the floor. "That.. Dutch! You can't be serious, that's just plain cruel!" You protest, clearly against the entire idea. But, everyone knows who has the last word; it's the reason Micah hasn't talked all night, and the reason he's been watching you, bewildered at how you're protesting to Dutch's word so confidently.

"I am not changing my mind; get out of my tent, both of you." He says firmly, and you have to be dragged out by Micah as to not pounce on Dutch right then and there.

Micah grabs you and—reluctantly, because he'd love to see you ravage the bastard like a wolf—leads you out of the tent, sighing after you exit and shut the flaps behind yourselves. "As much as I'd love to see it, I can't have 'ya killin' Dutch."

It felt much more real when you've left the tent.

Your eyes snap over to where you shared tent would be; split into two, like they were before you 'moved in' together. "This is bullshit.. he can't just segregate us!" You turn to Micah, who looks just as upset.

"I hear 'ya," He places his hands on his hips, looking at the tent as well. "but.. we both know there's nothing we can do." The truth in his words is painful, and you almost don't want to believe it. "Let me help get yer stuff in." He offers, and you nod with a small frown.

Micah helped you get your stuff across camp, the choice of being moved surprising most onlookers who caught a glimpse of what was going on. You just felt worse; even they didn't understand the choice Dutch made. You were reluctant on sorting the last item in its original place, slowly placing your last book into a drawer. "I.. I won't be used to this—I can't do this, Micah." You turn to face him, looking up with a quivering frown.

Micah feels for you. He doesn't even know if he'll be able to process this. He got used to having you in the tent; reading on your shared bedroll before he'd lay himself down, and you'd start reading aloud to him; early mornings where you'd slip out before him—if he managed to get some shuteye, ever—and greet him with coffee; pouncing on him whenever there was a job the two of you could do together. He'll miss it all. "C'mere, I know.." His arms extend to you, and you waste no time in pressing yourself up to him, wrapping your arms around his torso.

You felt safe there—and you know it sounds foolish; safe in the arms of a bloodthirsty, ruthless killer? Well, that was the honest truth. Before you were this close and started sharing bodily contact every day, his hugs—because rare—always felt much more meaningful and real. Your face buries itself in his chest, hands hugging him from under his arms and resting on his back, where his hands find your sides and squeeze reassuringly. You can't tell if he's trying to reassure you or himself right now. "Why would Dutch do this to us?" You huff into his coat.

He looks down at the top of your head. "Beats me, darlin'. I can't put my finger on it, either." He shifts one hand to your back and traces your spine slowly. "But it's damn unfair, that's one thing."

You nod against him in agreement, then pull away slightly, to be able to look up at him. "I think that we should part right—there's an O'Driscoll camp out west, close enough to be a problem." You smirk up at him, and he returns it.

"Oh, yeah? Is there, now?" He releases his hold on you, letting you take a step back. "Well, what're we waiting on? Don't want Dutchy stoppin' us here, do we?" He brings your smile back to your face, and you instantly make a b-line for your horses, mounting up and not caring about the approaching Hosea, trying to stop you.

The ride to this camp was pretty quick, seeing as the both of you were overly excited about it. You were going to end this right, have fun and then probably sneak off to do jobs and have one of the girls cover for you, like they have before when you got 'grounded' by Dutch a few months back. "And there it is," You point out the small outpost-looking area ahead, hitching your horse close-by, but not too close either. "In all her O'Driscoll glory."

"She looks promisin'," Micah jumps off of his horse, following your lead as you take coverage behind a nearby boulder. "tell me how we're doing this, partner." He looks over to you, ready for your command.

Now, whereas you always usually had a plan on how to do things, you just wanted to stress-relieve this time. And so, you did exactly that. "The plan is, you shoot everyone but me and yourself." You give a brief chuckle before drawing your guns. "I just need to relieve some of these emotions, and killin' off O'Driscoll scum will do it perfectly for me." You add.

Micah's smile turns into that devilish grin you love; taking his DAs out swiftly. "Oh, you've got it, girl." He laughs wickedly—oh, how you love that sound. You nod and cock your weapons, rising from your spot.

The entire area smells of blood and gunpowder, a scent you've gotten much more used to since meeting Micah and going on blood-thirsty missions with him. Bodies are scattered all around; faces with bullet holes in them, slit necks and penetrated chests. You and Micah were stood in one of the cabins there, searching through the many drawers, cabinets and closets inside the room. "Damn, these bastards were poor as dirt." You lean on the table behind Micah, on the opposite side as you watch him search through a closet, his back turned to you.

"I found a few pocket watches, but that's about it." You add.

"Hm, well 'least we got something, wouldn't dream of getting back to Dutch with noth—"

His sentence is interrupted by a horrifying squelching sound. Your breath hitches, nearly just enough to silence you. "Mic.. ah—" Your words are knocked out of your mouth by the sharp pain in your waist, and the hand on your mouth.

Micah turns around immediately, met by the traumatising sight of a knife in your side, a barely alive O'Driscoll's hands on you as he runs the knife deeper, slowly and excruciatingly painfully. "What the—" He draws his revolvers, pointing them at the man who tuts at him like at a bad dog.

"Don't do that, Micah." You let out a breathless gasp when the man twists the knife inside you, your hands shakily trying to push him off. You're gasping into the hand on your mouth, backing up into him as your eyes water. You never had a bad pain tolerance; it was more the look on Micah's face at the predicament you both got yourselves into now that had you wanting to cry. "You killed my brothers, 'ya rat."

Micah's unsure in what he's supposed to do. He grips his guns tightly, staring wide-eyed at the sight before him as he scrambles for any way to stop your pain, watching you squirm for release. "Let her go, she ain't done nothing."

The man just laughs and gives another twist of his hand and knife in your side that has you gritting your teeth together. "She slit one of 'em's throats. Wild little thing, is she?" His breath is hitting your neck as he speaks, clasping his hand down harder on your mouth. His knife handle is almost soaked, red staining your light blue shirt and trickling down to your jeans. Just as he stops twisting it, he pulls it out. You squeak out in pain, shutting your eyes closed.

Micah practically growls, watching the man pull the knife out and press the soaking red blade to your throat. "Please—don't." He's desperate, barely able to look at you fighting to stay standing, gripping onto the mans' forearm for dear life. Dear life, indeed.

"Wow," The O'Driscoll laughs, pressing the blade in harder. "beg me some more, Micah Bell. Never thought you was that kinda person." Micah is fighting between anger and worry; wanting to rip the man's head off while watching you squirm, losing more and more blood by the second.

His blood runs cold when a dead silence fills the room and you still up—the knife painting your neck red.

"No!—" He shoots the man dead on the spot, a headshot right into the forehead. He drops his guns and kneels to you, making you sit up and lean on the wall. "Damn it! No, no—don't do this to me, girl.." He unbuttons his undershirt and rips a piece up out of it, trying to hold it up to your neck in an attempt at saving some blood loss. "Come on, you can't do this to me—this is not how we said we was parting, sweetheart," He holds your hand up to your neck, your eyes rolling back as you cough and clench your side. "Please, please don't."

As an outlaw, this was actually how you always envisioned your demise. But, you never thought it'd be this brutal—or that Micah would be forced to watch. "Micah—" You attempt to speak, and it sounds terrifying; your voice isn't you, it doesn't sound like you.

"Don't talk, baby. I'mma.. I'll get'chu home.." You can't really tell if he's trying to convince himself or you that there's a possibility of redemption here, the horrifying look in his eyes as your blood paints the floor and himself, the hand holding yours over your neck getting soaked and trickling down his whole arm. He's getting just as bloody as you, and yet he still thinks there's a way to save this. "It's not too deep.. I can still get 'ya home.." He's huffing and out of breath, as if he just ran a marathon.

You use the hand on your hip to shakily touch his shoulder, removing it from the first knife wound. "No—.." You mumble breathlessly, shaking your head at him. "Stay.. while I go." You manage out, blood leaking down your front from between yours and Micah's fingers.

"No, please—please let me help 'ya. Don't do this to me." He's pleading with you, reaching his free hand to hold onto your side. "Please." He's never experienced loss like this; for a man that killed and saw death since he was a young boy, he sure wasn't prepared.

"Hug me."

"Y/N, don't."

"Hug. Me."

"I love you, darlin'. Why won't you let me help you?"

"Please, Micah. Hug me, hold me in my last moments."

His hands release your wounds. One goes to the back of your head, leaning you into his chest as the other runs through your hair. "I never wanted this, baby. I'm so fucking sorry." He's whispering into your ear while running his bloody hands through your hair, pressing you into himself. This is how you always wanted to die; in the hands of your favourite person, getting to hold them and breathe in their scent, making sure they're the last memory you have despite the way you'd die.

You start to feel woozy; dizzy. You feel your breaths leaving your lungs, your life leaving your body. This, was something no amount of preparation could calm you. "I'm.. scared." You manage out, holding onto his shoulders with a surprising amount of strength.

"Don't be, baby. You'll feel better." He hums, his voice cracking. "And I'll see you there, too. I'll be there, at some point." He whispers, pulling you away briefly to press a kiss to your forehead, wiping some blood off of your neck before leaning you back into him. "I'mma bury you at the nicest spot you'd have ever seen. I'll visit you every day, babygirl. I know you love tulips; how 'bout I plant some there? You'll love that, won't you?" He rambles into your hair.

A haunting silence. Your breaths slow down and hands stop gripping his shirt, and you go limp on top of him. That's what truly breaks him as his eyes water, maybe for the first time in multiple decades. "Oh, baby. I'll make sure you have the prettiest little spot.. with the prettiest little flowers." His tears stream down to your face as he pulls you away to look at you; his beautiful, strong girl.

"Me an' Charles'll bury you, give you the best spot in the entire damn country. I'm so goddamn sorry."

After a moment of silence, he got up and grabbed his guns, holstering them before gently picking you up. He got you up on his horse, calling your own to follow him as he left the massacred O'Driscoll camp behind—not before setting a fire to the cabin in which the man who killed you laid. Just in case.

He held you against him the entire ride back to camp which felt much longer without your little quips and stories, uncaring of how stained his clothes were from your blood. He occasionally leaned down to kiss the top of your head, fastening you against him.

Getting into camp was probably the most terrifying part. He hitched up and held you against him as he stood at the entrance of the campsite, feeling shellshocked. He looked down at your unmoving body, his eyes narrowing to your much more peaceful face.

"Oh, Micah."

His head perks up to the sight of Hosea, standing up from the campfire and slowly walking over, his eyes wide and one hand covering his mouth. "Micah.. Micah, how.?" Hosea was at a loss for words; hell, he assumed you invincible from how many close calls he had to watch you suffer through, so seeing you unmoving in Micah's arms was a terrifying sight. "No—you don't have to say anything. I'll.. get Charles—Charles!" He turns and yells for the other man, as Micah looks back down to you, waiting on Charles.

He soon shows up and instantly frowns, looking down at your body. He looks up to Micah after a moment of silence.

"You know where you want to bury her?"

It was a nice little hill, always painted in flowers during the spring. There was a lake nearby—you always loved sneaking off and skinny-dipping with him, uncaring of Dutch's lecture the next day when you'd be too tired to work. You liked smelling things, too; from flowers to Pearson's meals to Micah himself. You constantly got up into his chest and took in his scent when he hugged you—or when you involuntarily tacked him into an embrace. He'll miss your little surprise attacks on him. He hopes that the flowers will be enough to smell for you.

"Do you want a moment before we lower her in?"

Charles' voice gets Micah out of his zone, and he looks at the man. "Thank you.." He grumbles and Charles nods, walking off a few feet to give Micah his well-deserved privacy.

Micah takes a seat down next to your lifeless body, now cleaned up and dressed in your favourite outfit. You looked mostly like yourself—if you ignore the paleness of your skin and neck wound openly displayed, unable to be hid behind your shirt collar. He takes you in for one final hug, breathing in your scent, like you would with him. It pained him that you smelled like gunpowder and blood in your last moments, but at least the perfume Karen offered to put on you made a small difference. He embraces you for a long time, enough for Charles to come back and interrupt, asking Micah if it'd be okay now. And Micah knew you needed peace; so he agreed.

His eyes could barely stay opened as Charles shuffled dirt over your body, losing the sight of you slowly. He bit his lip, watching the last of your face get lost in the surrounding dirt. His eyes watered briefly, but he couldn't let himself cry in front of Charles, so he shoved it down.

Charles tapped the back of the shovel over the dirt pouch, flattening it out before taking a step back. "There," He turns to Micah briefly. "I'll leave 'ya to.. process it. Seems you still need to." He hums before walking away, leaving Micah holding back tears before your grave.

Despite never being a religious man, he hoped that an ending was real and that you'd gotten your peace, even in your brutal suffering.

People in camp mourned you and visited your grave for a few weeks before most stopped and moved on. But Micah couldn't.

He was there every day—early morning to late evening, if not downright sleeping at your burial. He had issues with insomnia before, and you always made it easier to fall into the slumber he always hoped for. Sleeping next to your grave hasn't helped too much, but he feels better; not wanting you to rest alone, by your wish you vocalised when Dutch wanted to split your tent apart. Your grave was cared for immensely, and there was barely any space around it from the overwhelming amount of flowers Micah had either bought or planted himself. He had one of the girls teach him how, and made sure to include dozens of tulips. He knew what you liked.

"You've been gone three and a half months, baby. I still bring 'ya tulips.. but I'm not sure if you're getting tired of them." He spoke to your gravestone a lot; he missed your voice immensely, now regretting the few times he'd space out while you yapped his ear off about some random topic. "I planted a few roses, I know you like 'em too."

"Hope you can see and hear me, darlin'. Did you know I got your name into my other barrel, huh?" He takes his right revolver out, tracing his fingers over the initials he carved into the guns' barrel. "Yeah... it's real nice, huh?" He holstered the weapon again, looking down at you under the dirt patch for a moment before looking up at the sky. Somehow, it always looked the prettiest when he'd visit you.

"That's you, ain't it, sweetheart?"

The sky was a mix of neon oranges and pinks, slowly fading into light, morning blues as the sun made its way up the horizon. The clouds were nowhere to be found, letting the sun pass into another day. Another day he spent with you.

"Hi to you too, my sweet girl."

Kudos on AO3 very appreciated! Finally finished this fic dear God. I want this man so bad its unreal chat.

[makedonsgriva]

anyway I had a thought today where crown prince xie lian is younger than everyone else.

He is probably 6-7 when he gets mu qing and feng xin (who are 16-17) and they coddle him a lot. Basically XL is their baby brother and baby prince wants to be as strong as his older brothers because they are both so cool!!!

baby lian meets hong-er on the streets one day and please gege can’t we keep him??? I don’t have friends!! You two don’t count cause you’re not my age. Please just please!!!!

So that’s how the trio becomes a quartet and feng xin and mu qing are not only the body guards of the prince but also baby sitters of two very unruly kids who are never up to any good

(They are not getting paid enough to deal with them) (it’s a damn good thing they love the fuck outta those kids)

anyways XL starts his training and ofc Honger tags along. they grow up training together, challenging each other, competing but falling in love at the same time and yeah celibacy is easy for XL except every time he sees HC his thoughts go haywire

When XL ascends, he has three generals by his side.

When he falls, he has two because honger died in the war

And XL truly thinks he is to blame. He went from being the darling of the heavens to someone who has now lost everything. he can’t bear the loss of his beloved

(And he never even got to confess)

Ofc HC keeps him company as a ghost fire because he’d never let his beloved be alone. (XL does not know who the ghost fire is because knowing the love of his life is not at peace would hurt him immeasurably) FX and MQ try their best to stick with him but circumstances deteriorate and they are forced out of his life once again

although this time, MQ does stand up for XL in front of the 33 gods (and gets subsequently banished from heavens). In the end, he still has to leave XL. FX gets forced out of his life after the entire sword ordeal and XL’s subsequent mental breakdown.

Unknown to XL tho they are still both watching over him from a distance because ain’t no way they are leaving their baby bro like this

When XL enters his calamity era, they both lose their minds and are trying their best to subtly stop XL from doing the worst things but THAT STUPID FUCKING GHOST ALWAYS FOLLOWING HIM AROUND WILL NOT STOP ENABLING EVERY BAD DECISION XL TAKES

fx and mq are losing their minds. when xl lies in the streets for three days, they try their best to disguise themselves and go help him but that NAMELESS GHOST!!! He does not let them!! “Your highness would be heartbroken when he realizes you two have seen him in such a state and he’d never forgive himself and you two suck at disguising yourselves anyways~”

wu ming does end up getting dispersed but not before XL realizes his true identity and absolutely loses his mind with grief because how did he manage to lose his loved one not once but TWICE and both the times it was HIS FAULT

He gets banished from heavens again because ofc

knowing xl won’t be able to cope fx and mq finally reveal themselves. xl can feel all ashamed of himself for his actions it’s fine they are not leaving him alone again and they will help him heal and move on

Except one night when the two aren’t paying attention, XL ends up running away. He can’t bear being around them, knowing they know what he did and how he caused honger’s death twice.

(fx and mq never blamed him at all. They were just heartbroken and guilt stricken for not being able to do enough for their darling brother)

Cue 800 years of searching.

This time when XL ascends, he is greeted by two powerful generals who have been reduced to a tearful mess because THEY FINALLY HAVE XL BACK WITH THEM!!! THEIR BABY BRO IS SAFE

they accompany him to mount Yu Jun as themselves and HC comes to XL’s aid

he does not reveal his identity but XL just knows this man is special

FX and MQ then tell him about Crimson Rain Sought Flower, the elusive ghost king who challenged 33 gods and crushed them all

(But he was super nice to both of them and it kinda freaked them out)

When XL meets San Lang. He knows. He just knows it’s Honger and feels like he can finally breathe again because in those 800 years he never once stopped loving him but he waits for him to reveal his identity to him because what is stopping him from telling him and fx and mq?

HC, meanwhile, is sort of embarrassed to meet them, not sure if they would be able to accept this new form of his. He missed them all dearly but he is just not able to move past his self doubts.

It is not until the cave of 10k gods that it revealed who HC really is and instead of FX and MQ freaking out, there is a tearful reunion

Um yeah. A thought was thunked. Bon Appetit

[skepticalcatfrog]

Eyes, Look Your Last: Benedikt Montagov's Struggle with Life, Death, and Grief

(Word Count: 3,072)

((Tagging @thebenediktmontagov because I know you've been waiting for this one))

~~~

Throughout the Secret Shanghai series, life and death are obviously major themes, especially in the first two books. After all, Romeo and Juliet is very famously a tragedy. But in my humble opinion, there are few characters in these books who represent life, death, and the journey through grief better than Benedikt Montagov. He goes through a very traceable arc regarding this subject over the course of specifically Our Violent Ends; that book and that storyline are what we’re going to be looking at in this analysis.

Let’s start with the beginning of the book, Chapter 2 in particular, which is the earliest point that we see Benedikt. At this point, given that the book covers the span of a few months, it hasn’t been very long since Marshall’s assumed death. The wound is still very fresh, especially for Benedikt, as is made evident in this description of him (the first one we see in the book): “Benedikt Montagov was a wholly different person these days, all gloom and dark frowns. He may not have been the happiest person a few months ago, either, but he lacked a certain light in his eyes now that made him seem like a complete marionette, moving through the world at command. Mourning periods in this city were often short affairs. They came in rapid succession, like cinema showings ushered in and out of the theater to make room for the new. Benedikt was not only in mourning. He was half-dead himself,” (Our Violent Ends, Chapter 2). As stated there, Benedikt was never the happiest or most energetic person. And yet, the loss of Marshall has still caused such a serious dive in his mood and behavior that it’s extremely evident to the people around him. This excerpt uses very effective descriptive language, specifically referring to Benedikt as a “marionette”. This creates an immediate mental image in the mind of the reader of someone who is essentially being dragged through the world, not by their own will, but simply because they are being made to go on. In addition to this, the sheer lifeless quality of a marionette emphasizes just how much of a shell of himself Benedikt has become.

Not only does this change in personality have an impact on him, it also affects the people around him. Primarily, we see this within the same chapter from which I pulled the previous quote. A good example is this interaction between Roma and Alisa: “His frustrated insult was drowned out by the slam of the front door. Silence. “I just wanted to cheer him up,” Alisa said quietly. Roma sighed. “I know. It’s not your fault. He’s… having some difficulties.” “Because Marshall is dead,”” (Our Violent Ends, Chapter 2). Just before this exchange, Benedikt is shown being rather callous to both Roma and Alisa, two people who he cares very much about. They both understand that this behavior is not any fault of their own, but that doesn��t stop them from feeling hurt by it. Of course, this can’t be entirely attributed to Benedikt either; he is acting irrationally, and drastically out of character, because he isn’t able to properly cope with what has happened. He isn’t necessarily doing it intentionally, he’s simply lashing out because the anger and sadness that he feels has nowhere else to go. Benedikt is responsible for his own actions, but his loved ones also understand that he wouldn’t normally behave this way; these are unusual circumstances.

A few chapters later, in the first section in the book where we are given Benedikt’s perspective, we learn more about what he’s been dealing with while not around other people. If anger is the primary emotion he expresses in his interactions with others, sadness is much more in the foreground when he is alone. The narration in Chapter 5 describes a specific event that took place while he was home alone in the apartment he and Marshall previously shared: “One day he had been operating in numbness, shoving aside the art supplies abandoned on the floor and going through each step of his routine with hardly any trouble. The next moment, he entered the kitchen and could not stop staring at the stovetop. The water started boiling and still he could not look away, until he merely crumpled to the floor, sobbing into his hands as the water evaporated into nothingness,” (Our Violent Ends, Chapter 5). He is so severely affected by the loss of Marshall that he can barely enter the kitchen without being brought to debilitating tears by the reminder of Marshall’s absence. In fact, he is almost unable to eat at all anymore. His own home no longer feels safe and comfortable to him, instead it has become full of painful memories. He no longer has anywhere to go where he can feel at peace, because he is no longer capable of feeling peaceful.

And yet, he remains very hesitant to express any of his sadness to the people close to him. Rather than at any point allowing himself to be comforted, or ever showing an ounce of vulnerability, he conceals that entire portion of his feelings with much sharper edges. He uses anger and violence to hide any part of his grieving that he doesn’t want others to see. Juliette states in the very first chapter of the book that members of the Scarlet Gang have been killed, with a clear motive of avenging Marshall’s death: “She already knew that, of course, from the reports that came back to her about dead gangsters with Korean characters slashed in blood beside them,” (Our Violent Ends, Chapter 1). At the time of this quote, she is speaking about the changes she has noticed in Roma’s behavior. However, later on in the book it is actually implied  that Benedikt was responsible for many of these killings when he says that he “...slaughtered Scarlets in [Marshall’s] name,” (Our Violent Ends, Chapter 25). In the privacy of his own home, he expresses his grief through immense sadness. What he feels is more appropriate to bring into the view of others, though, is not sorrow, but gruesome violence. He is unwilling to show any vulnerability, even to those he trusts.

Later on in Chapter 5, we also see another new aspect of Benedikt’s mourning that continues through the rest of the book: his near complete loss of concern for his own life. This first appears here, as he enters a conflict with a large group of Scarlets: “The smarter move would have been to run when he was vastly outnumbered, but he cared little. He had no reason to care, to live—” (Our Violent Ends, Chapter 5). He is behaving recklessly because he feels that, with the death of Marshall, he has lost all reason to continue to live. This can be brought back to the metaphor of the marionette from earlier, in that he no longer cares to continue to exist, even though he still does. He is still alive only because no one has killed him yet; if someone were to try to, he suggests that he would put up no fight. But this is contested just a few sentences later, when he actually has a gun to his head: “No, he thought suddenly, his eyes squeezing shut. Wait, I didn't actually want to die, not yet, not really…” (Our Violent Ends, Chapter 5). Once he is actually faced with his own death in a real way, he becomes frightened. He isn’t truly apathetic towards his life, he has only convinced himself that he is. The truth of the matter is that he does still have things to live for. The hopelessness that has consumed him isn’t final, and this is the first hint that we as readers see of his capacity to change again.

This is not the end of his ruminations on death, though. Another notable instance is during the fight with the Scarlets after they set the fire, when Benedikt enters the fray despite Roma discouraging him from doing so. When he ends up in a life-threatening position, his thoughts stray to the death of his mother: “He knew that after she was killed—an accidental casualty of a shoot-out—they had burned her body right in an alleyway until only charred smithereens remained. Maybe this was the way he would join her. The Scarlets would kill him, then throw him right into the raging fire—ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” (Our Violent Ends, Chapter 19). He has once again started to think about how and when his own death might occur, something we don’t really see at all prior to Marshall’s death. Here he also compares the possibility of his own death to the death of his mother, emphasizing the cyclic nature of the death that Benedikt has been faced with in his life.

Benedikt’s blatant disregard for himself and his life are also displayed in a different way later on. The first time we see it, he is boldly declaring that he has no reason to live. In the later instance, which takes place in Chapter 20 of the book, this is what is described: “With a ragged inhale, Benedikt yanked a new jacket out of his wardrobe and tugged it on, hardly bothering to go easy on his throbbing shoulder. What was the point? What was one more point of pain against the whole smorgasbord? He was a damn walking collection point for grievances and grief,” (Our Violent Ends, Chapter 20). Here, he isn’t outright saying that he wants to be dead, but he still acts carelessly with himself. He doesn’t care about causing himself pain, because he sees any effort to prevent it as futile. He believes that it doesn’t matter if something causes him pain or not, since either way, he is still experiencing pain from other sources. What he’s essentially saying here is that one more bit of hurt added to the pile won’t make any difference. We as the audience know that he isn’t correct, and that he really is just making things worse, but he himself doesn’t realize that yet - or care enough to consider it.

In addition to Benedikt’s apathy towards keeping himself alive, there are also more examples of his recklessness with the lives of others. There is the instance mentioned above, where it is suggested that he goes on a spree of revenge killings, but we also get a more specific line from Juliette that illustrates this much more clearly: “Benedikt was not like Roma. He had no hesitation with her life,” (Our Violent Ends, Chapter 24). Juliette knows that, even though Roma is in mourning as well, he has no true desire to kill her. In this moment, though, as Benedikt points a gun at her, she recognizes the danger she is actually in. Benedikt’s primary motivation throughout the majority of Our Violent Ends is to get revenge, specifically on Juliette. He makes it very clear multiple times that he wants her dead, whether Roma does it or not. This is a pivotal scene for Benedikt. As Juliette mentions, he would have had no hesitation in killing her. If he had actually gone through with it, he likely would’ve effectively ruined his own life. Not only would he have experienced the same rage from Roma that he himself had previously directed at Juliette, he also probably would have never found out that Marshall was alive (at least not for a much longer time, if at all), and it’s entirely possible that he would’ve continued spiraling into a life entirely made up of violence. Frankly, he is lucky that Juliette was able to stop him when she did; her quick thinking - and knowledge that she couldn’t keep her secret any longer - was the beginning of his climb back up from rock bottom. If you imagine his descent into darkness as a V-shaped line, this moment is the vertex: the only way left to go is up.

That scene is a major turning point in Benedikt’s character arc, but the first true change happens in the next chapter, when he is first able to see Marshall again: “He had expected to explode outward, to at last rid the darkness in his chest by seeking revenge and directing a very sharp object at Juliette. Instead, the darkness had turned to light, and now he was an overwrought light bulb, close to implosion when the vacuum space inside shattered,” (Our Violent Ends, Chapter 25). This excerpt is indicative of a very abrupt change for Benedikt. While before he was overcome with anger, sadness, and a desire for revenge, all of that has suddenly vanished. The language used here makes it seem almost brutal, like the extreme emotional shift he’s experiencing is too overwhelming to process. In an instant, the entire purpose he’s created for himself over the past few months has become completely pointless. For a brief moment, he feels lost, because the one thing that still drove him to keep going has totally disappeared. But, similarly to how one adjusts to cold water after being unexpectedly thrown in, he quickly realizes that his original reason to live has miraculously returned. As it describes in the quote above (and references the very first one I used, which mentions the “light in his eyes” that has disappeared), the darkness that had overtaken him is gone, and that original light is back. To return to the comparison of the V-shaped line, this part would be the very top of the line.

From this point on, Benedikt’s improved mood continues. There are moments where it wavers, of course, but he is generally much more hopeful for the remainder of the book. We can also see another parallel here to the beginning of the book, exemplified by this dialogue between Benedikt and Roma: ““You look better today,” Roma remarked, starting in the direction of headquarters. “Are you getting more sleep?” “Yes,” Benedikt replied plainly. And mere hours ago, I found out that Marshall is still alive. He wanted to say it aloud. He wanted to scream it from the rooftops and declare it to the whole world, so that the world could end its mourning with him,” (Our Violent Ends, Chapter 26). At the beginning of this essay, I mentioned the fact that Benedikt’s downward shift in mood and behavior is very noticeable to the people around him. This also applies here. Benedikt mentions that it has only been hours since he found out Marshall was alive, and yet Roma already notices a distinct change in not only his mood, but presumably his physical appearance as well. Roma attributes it to getting more sleep, but the truth is that simply having the knowledge that Marshall is alive has improved Benedikt’s mental state so much that it has caused a physical change. His period of mourning, which was said to have seemed permanent, is officially over.

At this point, Benedikt’s arc in the story (at least in relation to grief and death) is pretty much over. He has gone through all of the development that he can, and has reached the light at the end of the tunnel. Still, there is one very important full-circle moment later on that I want to include, just to bring the point home. Near the end of the book, Roma is made to believe that Juliette has died - as is expected of a Romeo and Juliet retelling. Roma instantly falls into a downward spiral in which he wants to either get revenge for Juliette’s death, or die with her. Given that you’ve presumably read the rest of my analysis up to this point, this should sound familiar, and Benedikt thinks so too: “The strangest thing was that Benedikt recognized himself in [Roma’s] expression, recognized that same twisted sense of rage that showed itself in recklessness. Is that what I looked like?” (Our Violent Ends, Chapter 39). Benedikt no longer feels what Roma is feeling, but he’s now being faced with a mirror image of exactly what he was like when he did. The only difference is that now, Benedikt can see that version of himself through a much more hopeful lens. For the entire duration of Roma’s panic following Juliette’s supposed death, Benedikt remains steadfast in his insistence that everything is going to be alright. He reminds Roma that Marshall came back even after Benedikt thought he had died, and when Juliette comes back as well, he says this: ““Look,” Benedikt said faintly, hardly hearing his own words as they slipped out. “You got your resurrection too,”” (Our Violent Ends, Chapter 39). Benedikt has come so far since the beginning of the book that he is able to believe that the impossible - someone being brought back from the dead - can happen not once, but twice. And yes, neither Marshall nor Juliette were ever actually dead, but the point still stands: who would ever have assumed that she would use the same trick twice? Roma becomes despondent at the news of Juliette’s death, because he assumes it must be true. But Benedikt, who is presented within the book as perhaps being more inclined towards pessimism and hopelessness than Roma ever was, believes Juliette can still come back. And his newfound hope pays off. This single moment is possibly the best representation of Benedikt’s development that I could’ve asked for.

Benedikt Montagov is an extremely complex character, and I honestly feel like I could go on about him forever. If it weren’t for the amount of text that I expect people to want to read, maybe I would. But the most important thing I want people to take away from this entire analysis is just how well written Benedikt is as a character. His story, throughout not only Our Violent Ends but both books, is one that sticks in your head after you’ve read it. This entire aspect of his character was clearly crafted with a lot of care, and I felt that I needed to write this because I wanted to put emphasis on the parts of it that I don’t see discussed very often. If you’ve read this far, I really hope you enjoyed it, and that maybe it made you think about something you hadn’t considered before. I’m sure this won’t be the end of my ramblings about Benedikt, but for now, that’s all I have to say. Thank you for reading.

[optionalcausality]

The tags of the reblogged post have commentary about the Arthur M Anderson, the closest ship when the Fitzgerald went down. And my brain saw "We are holding our own" and started slowly churning together a filk verse about humanity doing its damnedest to rescue others.

Anderson and Fitzgerald, Carpathia and Titanic, are the first to come to mind. but. Yesterday I saw three vehicles pass by a stalled car whose driver was slumped over, and two of those three immediately stopped to help (the guy woke up and drove his own car carefully into a parking lot nearby, apparently just totally exhausted).

Last week a friend of mine helped another guy who had passed out in the bushes at church from heat exhaustion. (Cycling in hot weather.)

I don't know if these thoughts will lead to an actual song but we'll see.

I find the great lakes terrifying, may i have some cursed knowledge on them?

sure thing!

when you say "great lakes" and "cursed" in the same sentence, we usually think you're just talking about Lake Superior.

the great lakes are huge, sure! combined, they're roughly the size of fucking France.

but Superior is the granddaddy of them all.

the largest of the great lakes in terms of surface area, depth, and overall volume, Lake Superior contains 2,903 cubic miles of water, or 10% of the world's entire surface freshwater supply.

that's enough to cover the entire surface area of North AND South America in a solid foot of ice-cold murkish water, and probably also a bunch of confused sturgeons. yow!

but sturgeons aren't all this lake contains, by any means!

it's also full of corpses.

see, Lake Superior is just SO fucking hugebig and deep (about 1000 feet at its deepest point) that it doesn't warm up very quickly, even in the depths of summer! its northerly location and the amount of time it spends frozen over each year means that this lake reaches an average surface temperature of 46-56 degrees fahrenheit, even in the hottest months.

don't even think about the coldest months.

that's cold enough to kill you dead as a Sim with a deleted pool ladder if you fall in and can't get out! and it's ALSO cold enough that if you do die, your body will just sink into the icy depths, and stay there. you won't rot, and there isn't even anything alive down there that might consider your corpsicle a worthy feast because there's so little oxygen; you're basically just stuck down there in the world's largest meat freezer for the rest of eternity.

but you're in good company! since everyone who dies on the lake and sinks to the bottom is still there, there are an estimated 10,000 corpses lying around on the lakebed right now!

(there are a number of explorable shipwrecks in Superior that are known to still, uh, have crew on board, so to speak. divers are expected to leave them alone and treat their death sites respectfully.)

and that's not even counting the literal thousands of years humans were paddling around on the lakes in pre-colonial times either, so in all honesty that's probably lowballing it.

and that doesn't seem likely to change, anytime soon- as long as the lake exists, those corpses are just going to be stuck down there, waiting around for whatever comes next.

so uh anyway, if the concept of the eternal preservation of your mortal form bothers you, stay AWAY from that lake! and maybe just become a volcano researcher instead, I dunno.

sheesh.

[dallonwrites]

Lover Boy But It's The Camp Nano Intro?

Sometimes Beau thinks his heart must be made out of the most fragile, feebly tissue paper – the dainty pink stuff pushed into the bottom of a Valentines giftbag, the biodegradable kind that immediately crumbles when it’s met with water or trash compost or an uncaring hand. But it’s not his fault he’s a hopeless romantic.

genre: adult litfic

setting: san francisco, 1980s

deals with: grief and loss, queer history + the AIDS crisis, sex and the body, terminal illness and caretaking, being a hopeless romantic but like for all kinds of love, platonic love, friendship when one of them is ill and knows they will likely die, disability and how caretaking can reshape dynamics

summary: It's about love, babey! Beau tries to navigate all the different types of love in his life -- romantic, sexual, platonic, familial, communal, self -- as he leans into relationships, even the unhealthy ones, to try to cope with the death of his best friend Bobby, who Beau took care of whilst he was sick for two years. Told with a dual timeline showing those two years as Beau processes it. It's about being messy and confused and trying to understand how to move forward when the biggest part of your life is now gone. It's about being in love with your best friend but like platonically and also your best friend is dead. It's about queer sex and grief and caretaking and the AIDS crisis. Beau is also obsessed with horror movies and is definitely autistic but doesn't know it. Bobby loved volcanoes and mountains, acrylic painting, David Cronenberg movies and also The Muppets (his fave was Gonzo btw). If you want to know more I have a more detailed WIP intro and also the tag where I post way too long excerpts!

status: 16,391 words into the first draft, but that's been writing whenever/whatever I want rather than a consistent routine

my goal?: get a consistent drafting routine LOL. Word count wise I'd like 15k to basically double it, but we will see! Would love to write everyday at least though.

I haven't done taglists in a while buuuut if people are doing camp nano taglists? That could be fun? This story is so sad but sometimes it is so silly and fun. If you like stories where the grief and joy hold hands then this might be for you !!

What Beau remembers: The quiet when, for a long moment, Bobby didn’t speak. Then, a whisper. “Today wasn’t the day.” And Beau understood what he meant, a painful but deep knowing -- how they still weren't ready, whenever they talked about it, to say the word die. “No, today wasn’t the day.” Bobby, quieter. “And tomorrow. Tomorrow won’t be the day either.” “I don’t think it will.” Beau thinks, at this moment, that he kissed the top of Bobby’s head, or he whispered one into his hair, pressed his cheek into it. At least, that’s how he remembers, or how he wants to. “I don’t think it will be the day for a while.” What Beau remembers: Bobby, still quiet, his breathing slowed. But still awake. How he moved closer, and Beau held him tighter. Sometimes Beau believed that if he just held onto Bobby tighter it would somehow lengthen the time between now and the day, that the universe would sense their closeness and not dare to sever it. All if Beau just held him closer, heartbeat to heartbeat. It was so dark in the room, the moonlight a thin sheet behind the curtains; just them and their bodies, their breaths. And he thinks he remembers Bobby smiling, that he felt it or even sensed it, the presence of something happy, something that, for a moment, let itself be hopeful. “Your heartbeat is so relaxing,” he said. “I love that you sleep like Dracula.”

[beatricebidelaire]

#beamony

was thinking how i like writing beatrice as, lots of dramatic and grand gestures, good actress, on stage and off stage, performing comes easily, which sometimes makes her wonder if her own emotions are actually that strong or is she just performing, even if she's without an audience. when she's sad and crying and does actually feel sad she gets this sudden thought oh am i just performing, am i just garnering people's attention, yes i'm alone right now but am i just performing to myself, am i just practicing my tears, practicing my acting skills.

that daniel handler quote - "i think that's the world that we're in. i think if you are very sad and you're crying in a railway station you can't help but think what a romantic cliche you are, sitting here crying in a railway station." beatrice is like that a lot, she thinks she's so good at acting that sometimes when she's emotional she starts feeling like she's examining herself in an out-of-body experience and think am i performing a scene, a cliche, do i really feel this, maybe i do but do i really feel this much, or is it exaggerated, am i actually this sad / this angry, am i performing?

anyway above is like, just how i like to write beatrice sometimes but as we all know beatrice is not a character with a lot of screentime and we all built up different images of her based from the scattered pieces in canon. anyway, so. that's the, pretext here.

now segueing into something else ..... i'm thinking about the analysis i've read about lemony's grief for beatrice, the dedications, the way he talks about her after death - the interpretation of how this idealized image of beatrice and the grief and sadness expressed by lemony while mourning her is in some way a performance. not because he wasn't actually sad, but because he is sad, very, and he is grieving, very much, and to cope with this loss of her he turned missing her into a sort of .... missing this idealized version of her that deep down he knows isn't who she really is.

(wrt did lemony always idealize beatrice or not, my favorite take is mayo's tags on this post "#i actually tend to think that lemony’s complicated and dramatic enough to simultaneously be in love with a real complex person#and the idealized version of them at the same time#and maybe he’s more in love with real beatrice when she is there and more in love with idealized beatrice when she is farther away#(emotionally more than physically)" )

so, going back a bit. lemony and his performance of idealizing and grieving beatrice to cope with losing her, and beatrice with her performances in general that leads to her wondering sometimes whether if she's just faking or exaggerating her emotions, and both of those happening even when they're alone - L declaring his love in his mind, in his dedications, alone by himself, and beatrice when she's not surrounded by audience and just by herself.

they were once close enough that if they both have some sort of this tendency, even if not displayed that much or at all back then, but the potential, the ability - do they recognize it in each other, do they see themselves in each other, or they do think the other person's "acts" are actually "real", even if the other person may think it's "performing"

[alienssstufff]

Hi saw ur tags on slimeriana ramble PLEASE share ur thought abt Q!DAPDUO IM SO UNWELL ABT THEM i would really love to hear whatever ur thinking abt :o

woughhh waited for Charlie to come back before i could draw a conclusion.

As of right now both q!Quackity and q!Slime have gone through all stages of grief at some point they've both reached the acceptance stage - but just because they have doesn't mean their stories are over and that they live problem free they got new problems now. They're still alive but now they struggle for a sense of purpose.

[copying this part directly from one of my older tweets www] Quackity in the beginning falling in love with the image of a perfect family (2 parents, 1 kid), losing every connection with Tilin and his friends along the way. He regrets it and tries to replicate a family with Tallulah, Richarlyson,,, Gegg (lmao) before accepting that he'll never have what he had with Tilin and that parenting is just not for him. Quackity rushing himself into a marriage with a man he barely knows not only for attention but the concept of being in a relationship -- then to reflect on what genuine love, death, and friendship is with Sofia based on all that he's been through thus being the reason why he called off his own wedding. Even if we see him put TNT under the Q!Guapoduo wedding venue it's proven that he's aware of what he's doing but does it anyway because it GIVES HIM PURPOSE just like joining the Federation IT GIVES HIM PLACE ON THE ISLAND BY TRYING TO APPEASE TO THE ROLES HE'S GIVEN.

And it's a similar story for Slime too. When Juanaflippa was alive he tried fulfilling the father role of the family based on past experience - terrible father rocky start but eventually breaks the cycle of abuse (generational trauma): his purpose on the island was to Care for his daughter. When Juanaflippa died the first then second time, Slime's new purpose was to bring her back which triggered both the rampage, the trial, then the eggxile, and the prayers to god: His purpose on the island was to Fight for his daughter. And when he reached acceptance at the funeral - Slime turned dormant (his hiatus). There's a very weighted conversation he has with Q!Foolish after the guapoduo wedding, explaining his reasoning to objecting at the vows (and then to Foolish) - because those things make Slime FEEL something. Slime talks about how empty he's been feeling lately even with his marriage with Mariana, the love isn't what it used to be there's nothing for them to fight for - maybe if he hooked up with someone else it would give them something to live for. Slime causes issues, he's going to run in the elections because it GIVES HIM PURPOSE and it MAKES HIM FEEL ALIVE.

The friendship between q!Dapduo and their arcs when placed side-by-side is fascinating in the different ways they go through loss, now the similar ways they cope after the grief. Their relationship is double-sided sword where on one half their common experience could be used to console the other through the trauma in a healthy way, whilst also being not good for each other by being bad influences and enabling self-destruction.

...so anyway I'll be voting for Slimecicle in the elections :]

[pianostarinwonderland]

Hi there! I really liked your post on Chapter 7 and Malleus's actions!

Gotta admit I was one of those people whose initial reaction to Chapter 7 part 2 & 3 was "Malleus divorce era", mostly because of the copious amounts of "Malleus is the physical manifestation of every abusive and obsessive boyfriend they talk about in trauma group therapy" takes I've seen over the past 3 years in the tags messing with my perception of how bad the canon situation actually is but I came around eventually.

One thing that really stands out to me is how, in the first part of Chapter 7, Malleus made the active choice to be a good person and do the right thing. He shut down Silver and Sebek and said "If that's what Lilia decided, then we have no right to stop him" and when he reflects on that time he froze the castle over it's clearly visible he, at that point, has no intention to do something like this again. He has learnt 0 coping strategies for these kinds of situations and he has a week (which is like, a blink of an eye for fae especially) to adjust to the loss of one of his closest loved ones. Most of us find a way to deal with grief in some way because we're powerless in the face of it and the only way is through it but I've seen my fair share of very mentally ill people and grieving loved ones and I can name a handful of people I could see pull this off if they had god-like magical powers. Right now, Malleus's idea of what the immediate future was going to be like is radically clashing with a (to him) infinitely worse outcome that his brain has a week to adjust to, so he snaps.

He's basically the "insanely op magic" equivalent of someone with a loved one suddenly ending up on their death bed and they're told "you have about 5 days to say goodbye to them" so they start suggesting all kinds of insane surgeries and hire a mystic healer who advertises they can cure cancer with crystals and call all kinds of specialized hospitals around the world because they can't process the fact that that person is gonna go no matter what. That's the mental state Malleus is in right now even if Lilia probably isn't gonna immediately die in a couple weeks, but there's still a very real possibility Malleus is never going to see him again.

[Reply to this post!]

i am so sorry that i'm only getting to this now :,3 woohoo end of year spring cleaning

also when i finally found the post that was being responded to, i was reading it and i wanted to cringe so bad. it could have been written better :,3 i'm glad you guys liked it though!

on the first long ask, honestly anon, you nailed it really well. i don't really have much to say because yeah... yeah malleus has never learned to properly cope with grief and loneliness. much of it is due to the way he was raised and the lack of social interaction especially prevents him from getting to experience enough and thus hindering his learnings. and you're right. a week is too much to really process for someone like him. it's hard.

and i'm pretty sure lilia is very well aware of this, so it brings to question why he's in a hurry to leave. which in itself supports the current theory going around that he's not actually leaving for retirement, he's leaving because the senate demanded him to.

for the second ask, weelllll not everyone got to understand malleus' extremities, either due to not reading properly or not getting to read his stories at all. and that's how things went bam during the second part of book 7.

[whinlatter]

author's note | chapter 9: wintering ❄️

thank you so much for reading chapter 9 of beasts. in this chapter, ginny goes home for christmas, back into the fold of the family that anchored the anti-voldemort movement now grieving the loss of a brother and a son - and finds it's tougher to keep secrets from one harry james potter than she might otherwise have thought. this was a tough chapter to write, and one i cared a lot about trying to get right. so - let's have a chat about it (and a little sneak peek of chapter 10)...

✨ spoilers for this chapter below the cut  ✨

writing notes and headcanons:

writing: this is the first chapter where i’ve strayed from the chapter plan and shunted scenes to a future chapter. i ummed and ahhed about it, then remembered no-one else knows what the plot is and what this chapter was supposed to be, then got a grip lol. lesson learned - if it’s hard work and it feels like you’re trying to force it, you probably are, so chill out lmao

this ended up, then, as a chapter about families. we see the blacks, the order itself, andromeda and teddy’s new little unit, little glimpse of the lovegoods - and the possibility of new families, most obviously in the case of bill and fleur’s baby on the way. at the core of this chapter, though, are the weasleys, this openly political family of freedom fighters, first family of the resistance, and a family thoroughly scarred by war. i’ve talked a bit about this elsewhere, but i have always been so struck that the weasleys enter the narrative as add-ons to ron, harry’s mate, but over the series increasingly become the core of the entire anti-voldemort movement, with a history of resistance and also of grief and sacrifice (fabian and gideon). so this chapter spends some time with each member of the family, a little panorama of the weasleys eight months on from the battle to see how they’re all coping (or not). it was really really important to me that each family member’s grief and emotional state got a moment in this chapter. partly this is because i think that writing character-centric fiction shouldn’t neglect attending to the broader emotional context of the ensemble around a character, but also because each family member is quietly showing ginny the different ways they’re all responding to fred’s death in ways that might get her thinking about who she feels most similar to and who her family needs her to be. that bill is the only family member who answers ginny’s wish that her family would talk about fred more and stop avoiding saying his name was deliberate. with his parents struggling so much, bill is clearly stepping up as the person to look after his family. he’s aware of his own emotional responses, he’s discussing his own grief, but he’s also looking to the future, making plans for it and trying to improve the world he’ll spend it in, even though he knows  it’ll be bittersweet. it was important for me to have ginny to have that behaviour modelled to her from someone she singularly admires.

space: as the plot of ginny looking back and processing a childhood at war progresses, i wanted to draw together and quietly contrast two spaces, grimmauld place and the burrow. these are the two headquarters of the order of the phoenix, two family homes, two sites of familial rupture - and, now,  two places equally haunted by the ghosts of people who once lived there and who are now gone. writing this chapter i did a lot of imagining the communal spaces in both residences kind of as a set for a play with ensemble characters walking on and off stage at whim, which actually made the whole thing much easier when i was freaking out about having too big a cast for one chapter lol.

harry and ginny: see here!

molly weasley: my real soapbox issue for this chapter is that molly weasley’s grief really, really matters. i know molly is rarely anyone’s blorbo. she’s increasingly hated in certain corners of the fandom (check the most kudos-ed fic tagged under molly & ginny lol) and even among those people who like molly, lots of postwar fics focussing on different characters’ pics have her just sort of return to normal, get back to fussing about the house and the kids’ relationships and careers in her mumsy way. i do get this: it’s hard to want to give a lot of time in a fic to a (usually) tertiary character’s grief rather than the protagonist’s, especially when everyone is grieving, and molly is an often convenient source of either amusement, nuisance or even antagonism in hinny fics (many of my own favourites!) for her (seemingly) conservative views on sexuality and her busybody behaviour. but i’ve never subscribed to this in my own headcanon as a canon coherent choice, simply because canon is very clear that molly weasley’s worst nightmare is the death of one of her children, and that nightmare happens. (in fact, it’s even worse than she imagines in the boggart, because even in her worst nightmares she didn’t imagine one of the twins dying and not the other.) while i absolutely do not want to relate this fictional loss to the real life experiences of friends and family who have known terrible loss, it was important to me to try and write an alternative version of molly that centred her grief in a way that felt plausible and true, and acknowledged that the loss she and arthur have endured is one that would change them enormously.. truthfully, i don’t think either character would ever really be ok again (which why grief is so hard to work with narratively - it offers no neat conclusions or easily legible arcs of healing).over the past few months, ginny has been worrying about a very teenage set of worries re molly, stressing about her mother’s response to her losing the captaincy and poor school performance, thinking she might get a howler, gearing up for a fight over whether harry can sleep in her bed - only to get home to find her mum has fallen apart. narratively, i wanted ginny to see her mum like this, and to finally start to understand why her mum was so insistent on her being a child and having a childhood and keep her away from the war that ginny was so desperate to fight in. 

the other point here, and i do feel strongly about this, is that for a fandom very interested in how families, loss and trauma during wars shapes characters (marauders fics are some of the richest best explorations of these themes), i worry we don’t care nearly enough about what molly weasley goes through, and about how women respond to their grief in complicated and nuanced ways. as @saintsenara has pointed out, the lack of attention paid to molly weasley’s backstory and grief over her brothers, and especially her grief after fred’s death, smacks of misogyny. perhaps molly’s frumpy mumsy unchic domesticity fretting about her children’s grades makes her not a cool enough character to care about her pain: perhaps it’s that she beefs sirius, everyone’s traumatised fave (and a character i adore). but i do really care in this fic about offering a rendering of molly that shows a possible way she would respond to fred's death, now seeing in her children the grief she has lived with already for so long, no longer able to return to the person she was before. i think molly weasley is a person who understands how their awful world works and tries to encourage her children into a path that will provide for them with material security and offer chances to do meaningful work towards reform. and while you can disagree with that as advice to her children, i don't think that worldview invalidates her right to thorough, compassionate treatments in fics and analysis as a character who is so very loved and special to harry. molly weasley is the only person who demands these children have a childhood and we should not forget it!

andromeda: ahhh man. ok this chapter i learnt people writing andromeda are really strong soldiers because i tried like 30 different characterisations until i found one that didn’t make me want to gouge my own eyes out. she couldn’t be too warm, because she’s a) a black and b) canonically wary of strangers and quick to be offended/insulted (ted’s the gentle one of the two of them). she does have to have a certain domesticity to her because tonks mentions her knack for household charms, but couldn’t be overly mumsy, in contrast to molly, because tonks clearly was drawn to molly’s mothering instincts (early HBP kitchen scene) in ways that suggest andromeda’s were less obvious. i wanted her to be a proud person, someone polite but wary, self conscious (and self critical) of her own particularities and mistakes as a parent, who has a working relationship with harry but not a maternal one, and who would probably be a bit suspicious of all these teenagers playing with teddy, who is now the centre of her world, lest they drop him on his head or stand on his baby toes. i imagine ginny and andromeda having a cordial but eventually slightly fractious relationship - 'girlfriend of the teenage godson to my orphaned grandson' is a weird role to play in a person’s life, after all. i can see ginny reminding andromeda of the daughter she lost, and it was fun to draw that out a bit here (andromeda immediately kibboshing the broomstick idea as a case in point).

relatedly sirius: finally getting to begin using some of my sirius scenes now we’re at grimmauld place 😈 i’m really excited about the plot to draw in the memory of sirius in this fic, and so it seemed right to begin bringing him in in a chapter about families, generations (mothers!) and what living with trauma and grief after war can do to a person. we see him finally arrive in person in a flashback to the day the weasleys arrived in his house, freshly reconfined to grimmauld and sullen because of it, but also being perceived by ginny and the weasleys as someone with great presence. he becomes the subject of a great deal of interest and hero worship by the twins and ginny, with only ron (following hermione) noting that sirius black does not seem to be a well man. sometimes in fics the (understandable) impulse to focus on sirius’ good godfather traits can be taken a bit too far with authors overstating how warm/inviting/interested sirius would be in the parade of weasleys who move in with him at a very low moment for him personally. i liked having sirius being sort of shrug about their arrival, having only the briefest moment with ginny where a commonality between them (the betrayal of a brother) is identified but saying nothing about it. sirius black is in no place to reassure someone about sibling estrangement. ginny, in her approach to sirius, tries to position herself in opposition to her mother, apologising for her with an eye roll kind of vibe, and raging at her for excluding her from the order meeting when no one else was. she also expresses empathy with sirius’ plight of being confined for your own protection when you really want to fight and have your revenge (👀). meanwhile, in the present, harry and ginny wake up in sirius’ childhood bed, spend the day inside grimmauld watched on by paps, and the ginny goes back to her own family home, where she throws herself into christmas planning and prepping to try and raise spirits and distract from all of the shit going on, à la sirius in ootp. (i’ll finish that sirius and ginny meta before the next chapter i swear). 

dolohov: me, a few months ago, realising that the man killed fabian and gideon prewett also killed remus

percy: so far in beasts, percy has come up only in passing - unfavourable press coverage, and on the board in graves’ classroom, part of the machine that sent muggleborns to azkaban and some, in all probability, to their deaths. lots of brilliant brilliant fics (some rec’d below) explore percy plausibly as a resistance agent working within the ministry, but i’m always a bit suspicious of this reading, given his line in the room of req  (‘it’s been coming on for a while, but I had to find a way out and it’s not so easy at the Ministry, they’re imprisoning traitors all the time’ - this doesn’t sound to me like a road to damascus moment the second scrimgeour died, does it? when exactly did you realise you'd fucked up perce? like babe you’re the assistant to the minister - how many people did you help imprison, given the muggleborn registration commission was up and thriving within a month of the ministry takeover?) i think, whatever the extent of percy’s resistance (and there will be more on this!), it’s clear that ginny, of all of the siblings, would probably be the least likely to forgive percy. it’s not just that the decisions he makes are so far from her own, or that his treatment of her parents was egregious, it’s also her loyalty and ferocious protectiveness of harry, who percy royally fucks over at every possible turn with little remorse. (he doesn’t engage with or apologise to harry in the room of requirement!) ginny wasn’t there with percy when fred died like ron was, an experience that i think would help ron decide life’s too short and make a cordial peace with percy. i think ginny would want percy to feel a hell of a lot of shame before ever warming up to him again. i like percy as a character, i think his arc is so good, but i also find satisfaction putting him in the corner at the weasley christmas with old xeno, stood with the other guy who should have done the brave thing and didn’t.  just because your family tease you doesn’t mean you should commit war crimes!

teddy: me writing this chapter like 

the order: the interaction i have in this chapter between lee and ginny, over whether the order beat voldemort, is my attempt to get something i have been thinking a lot about without much resolution, which is (partly) what does the order actually do, but also how do the order think about the end of the war when it turns out they kind of were peripheral to the effort of winning it? obviously they did some things, and order members obviously fought in the battle, but the order actually were instrumentalised by dumbledore into a bigger plot that involved harry that he kept them in the dark about. i think it would be very weird for the order in the aftermath of war to think about what their efforts really meant when their losses are huge and their accomplishments minimal, other than helping keep harry alive at times - and weirder still for ginny, who was never old enough to join and was kept at arm’s length from the soldiers’ table only to find out those soldiers didn’t really matter anyway.  no profound takes just curiosity on my part, but very interested if anyone has any takes on this!

ron and hermione: very sorry to the lovely anon who just asked about hermione — saying nothing for now but what do you think’s going on there! weird innit. a real mystery. if only someone would tell us

harry’s kitchenware collection: what’s up with that hmmmmmm

songs on the playlist for this chapter:

i listened to a lot of choral music for this chapter - ofc christian symbolism is all over the series (can't move for it), so was leaning into that a bit (lol), and the little church by the graveyard in godric's hollow with the muggles inside on christmas eve has always struck me as a very beautiful and sad image, so i was trying to channel those vibes too a bit in this chapter (ginny and bill listening to the carols in the village in the garden, and the view from molly and arthur's window of the ottery st catchpole church spire). my favourite is the holst arrangement for lullay, mine liking, a fifteenth century carol originally in middle english, which has these very tender lyrics that are about the infant christ but also work painfully well for molly's grief: lullay, mine liking, my dear son, my sweeting.

lullay my liking (arr. holst) by the godley singers | hey, ma by bon iver | gregorian chant for the dead by aurora surgit and alessio randon | 7 o'clock news/silent night by simon & garfunkel | i don't like my mind by mitski | this is me trying - the long pond studio version by taylor swift | should have known better by sufjan stevens (i mean - my brother had a daughter/the beauty that she brings - illumination. perfect no?) | hope by james newton howard (i have a lot of songs from the soundtrack to terence malick's incredibly beautiful film a hidden life on this playlist, because that film remains a real touchstone for the visuals i'm imagining for a lot of this fic but also a lot of the vibes of family and resistance)

reading list: 

on percy (loads here):

dawn is coming, open your eyes by dialux (an all time fave) The Last Something That Meant Anything by Anonymous (TW for sexual assault) 'Hope' is a Thing With Feathers by PeachyKeener

on molly (and molly and ginny):

Every Mother is a Grave by @witchofimber Mother, any distance greater than a single span by Simon Armitage (did anyone else read this for gcse english lit and still find themselves thinking about it a dozen years later?

on sirius and molly:

'He slammed the door in her face' by @ashesandhackles Meta: An alternative read on Sirius and Molly's argument also by @ashesandhackles

on andromeda:

turncoat: in defense of andromeda tonks née black by dirgewithoutmusic

on teddy and the potter family:

little accomplishments by irnan

ok technically i am cheating with this sneak peek because technically i shared a bit of this scene a bazillion years ago/way back in january, a month or so before i started putting the fic out (over here), so here's... a bit more of it hehe:

‘Did it hurt?’ she asks. ‘Becoming an Animagus?’ His laugh is a bark. ‘Unbelievably.’  ‘It must have been worth it, though.’  ‘It’s hard to know what things are worth.’ Definitely in one of those moods.

[forestmushroom]

Movie: Mammal (2016)

This movie is uncomfortable. It tells the story of a middle-aged woman, Margaret, who offers shelter to a homeless troubled youth, Joe, while grieving the death of her estranged son that she abandoned long ago. We tag along on a journey through the development of their relationship, a relationship that reveals parts of both her and him that they try to hide from the eyes of their neighbours and community. But not from us.

This story is about grief and trauma. It's about feeling unloved and trying to hold on to the only person who seems to understand us. It's a quiet and confusing narrative that makes us question our own experiences and values.

Because although common, grief and trauma are complicated. They are complex. We deal with loss and adversity in the best way we can, with the tools that we have. And those of us who don't have good tools, who don't know any better - we often turn to self-destruction.

I think this movie is about that, at it's core. It's about two completely different and unrelated people who have their own troubles and traumas and find themselves unable to cope. And in the midst of all the chaos, they find each other in more ways than one. In ways that make us feel uncomfortable and make us doubt ourselves and our own interpretations because it feels so right, but it also doesn't, at the same time.

The camera work in "Mammal" is phenomenal, giving us hints on the developing sexual attraction between Margaret and Joe. The physical touch between them is one of the main pathways that alert us to that dynamic. Both of them feel confused, maybe as confused as the viewers, finding themselves nurturing a mother-son bond while unconsciously feeling an undeniable attraction towards each other.

An attraction that grows until it snaps. It feels sure but also doubtful and wrong. Many interactions between them are awkward, likely due to the intensity and quickness of the feelings that arise. They get to know themselves through each other.

One of my favorite parts of this movie is the water theme. It is used to shed some light on the psychological states of the main characters, especially Margaret's, provoking a melancholy that betters the experience of the viewers. It is a window that enables us to be aware of the constant suffering of each character.

Because even though they found each other, they are still suffering.

Overall, it is a movie that leaves us with even more questions than the ones we started off with. It is prone to different interpretations and meanings, which I think is extremely captivating. I believe this movie makes us project ourselves on the characters and the narrative. This whole post is my interpretation, these words are me and my story. I highly recommend watching it and finding your own perspective!

Disclaimer: This is 100% my opinion and the meaning I built around the movie by myself ♡ Feel free to interact!

[like-rain-or-confetti]

Vanity Headcanon in response to the previous headcanon: Vanity does such sadistic things, like writing angst, not creating a masterlist, etc. bc of her trauma. Specifically, her doing it is an example of her self-sabotaging tendencies where she holds people to this unattainable standard (finding her fics which is nearly impossible with lacking tags a d tumblr beung tumblr for instance) and then becoming distraught and overwhelmed because of the surplus of her work and simultaneously relieved because of old works she might not be as proud of having a slimmer chance of being found. And then she teases ppl for it, happy that they desire her work and secretly relishing over the slight power she has over them, giving way to issues with control.

Girl, this was one to UNPACK 😂😂 Buckle up bois, we getting into my psyche 😂. Can't wait until I regret being so honest 😂

I reckon I do self sabotage a lot of things. Not so sure if i do with fics 😂 but fuck it, let's get into my mindset on fics 😂

I have a specific adoration for bittersweet angst. Like to be sad something is over with or a reminiscing a memory. If it's a break-up and there's nothing bittersweet about it. Nothing but hurt and I tend not to read it because for me it can fall into being told things are shit but not really going into it. I feel things rather deeply I'd say in life and naturally that comes out in fics. If I have to write something sad like death, I want to express the full thing, the pain, the hurt, the loss and grief and why those feelings are there. Kind of romanticising the everyday moments hoping that one day I can look back on my life and romanticise all the things I have done and who with. Rather than focus on the end goal of feeling successful by how much money I have, what my career was, how many kids I had and where they went to college. All things that was instilled in me at a young age, I want to be able to think. "In this picture, I might not remember how old I was but it made me really happy. In that moment, I was happy where I was and felt loved. I spent time with this person and that was enough." I want to focus more on memories and the connections I make rather than assets. I think that rubs off in my writing and because I'm a sentimental sappy lil shit, it usually comes out in angst.

Should probably throw in that I have mental illnesses and so sometimes it's hard to write about happy fluffy shit that doesn't make me think about what I'm missing, ehat i should be and blah de blah. 👀😂

But yes, my fics are very reflective because I do a lot of reflecting myself with some shitty things that have happened in my life and my pure dissatisfaction of how those experiences have shaped me and my struggles today so you might be onto something with the trauma part 😂

So scrolling back to a blog ago I decided after many many many many years of imagining stories in my head to cope with my struggles that I would put them on the Internet like other people did. I was terrified and made sure my identity was kept hidden. No one would ever find out who I was and those who did know me would never know this is what I do. I didn't even expect to do it very long but this...omg this is the highlight. I didn't think they'd get much attention. When I first did this, I was posting 11 stories a day.

Fast forward to the first time I'm asked about a masterlist...

I'm between 2-4 thousand fics in with no knowledge on how to make them. Vanity isnt tech savvy and half the time technology won't cooperate with Vanity. I'm well into a year or two of doing this.

Now I might be an arsehole for this thinking but that was a big old fuck thaaaaat. I'm working at the time, I have college and a job to hold down after that. It was a big ol' NOPE. Not possible. Plus, it's fine, people will grow bored of me and I'll fade away OR again, I won't be doing this for very long anyway.

I was wrong.

So what did I do? Made a tag system. You want this prat? Search the name, you'll find said prat here with the rest of him.

Then I was made aware that tumblr decided if you so much name drop a prat then said fics WILL BE INCLUDED. This was a problem BUT IM IN TOO DEEP AND NOW OVER 4000 FICS IN.

I'm also becoming aware that people aren't forgetting me. Infact I have more followers than I've ever had in my life and its approaching 1.7k. I have a rather nasty panic attack because it felt like all eyes were on me and i wanted to run like fuck...roughly ten mins into said panic attack, I deleted that blog.

ROLL IN THIS BLOG. Guess what, Vanity still can't make a bloody masterlist. People are screaming at me because they thought the lost me for good and I'm coming to terms with an alarming amount of people actually caring about my fics. But people weren't supposed to! This was just a random person trying to have a fun tome with her imagination that could only dream of people liking her stuff...AND IT WAS HAPPENING!?

But then a new challenger! Ya gal realises that she's written all these fics...and doesn't want them to be noticed but then why have I put them on the Internet for people to see!? Wtf!? Yet I keep going. "Please, don't see this. Please. Come on. Don't notice this." *presses post* "I'm actually shit at writing but it's fun, as long as people don't notice-* *reaches over 100+ notes*

Then the master lists come up AGAIN. She still doesn't understand how to do them and now I'm at 8000. Someone OFFERS to make one and I refuse because that's torture for me to even think of never mind let someone else do that. Live your life babe, I am not worthy of that valuable time.

Now I face intense imposter syndrome that I can't rationalise with. Feel giddy when I get feedback and grow confident to push my boundaries, get insecure and hide back into my hidey hole. Not to mention the constant feeling of letting people down when I don't consistently post and better yet, anything I do write is utter garbage and my supporters deserve better.

So kind of, more of me not knowing how to handle this stuff nor myself so I take it a day at a time and hiss at the thought of a masterlist. It hurts to think about. Like say I go through all the bother of making a bible of masterlists that'll require masterlists for the masterlists and then I have to UPDATE IT ALL THE TIME?

Nah, I have over 60 WIPs jumping around in my brain, I don't have the mental capacity. 😂 I mean I went into this thinking I'd grow out of it. IM STILL HERE AFTER ALL THESE YEARS THINKING "OH WHAT IF I BECAME AN AUTHOR?" Only to be realise I might have exhausted myself with the fanfic writing and even more so the strong feeling no one would want that. None of the characters I write about are mine and that's who the people are here for. Not to mention I DONT HAVE THE CONFIDENCE 😭 AS USUAL.

Ugh, I feel sick just thinking about all of this.😂

I don't think I just do. Writing is the do. Masterlists is the thinking.

props to those who read ALL OF THIS. You troopers, smooches ❤️

[ao3feed-destiel-02]

We Don't Talk About It

We Don't Talk About It https://ift.tt/0ms4fkB by Jezapoof Chuck is defeated, but so is a heartbroken Dean. Unable to cope with the loss of Cas, Dean spirals hard. Will he find a way to rescue Cas? If he does, what comes next? Set after 15.19 and replaces the finale. Words: 8499, Chapters: 4/4, Language: English Fandoms: Supernatural (TV 2005) Rating: Explicit Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Categories: M/M Characters: Castiel (Supernatural), Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester, Jack Kline Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester Additional Tags: Angst with a Happy Ending, Angst and Feels, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alcoholic Dean Winchester, Eventual Smut, Fix-It, fuck the finale, Suicidal Dean Winchester, Temporary Character Death, not for long, but it's still very sad, Dean Winchester Needs to Use Actual Words, but he doesn't, Hug or Die, Castiel and Dean Winchester Have a Profound Bond, Castiel's Angelic Grace (Supernatural), Dean Winchester Needs a Hug, Dean Winchester Gets a Hug, but he probably still needs more, Depression, Cuddling & Snuggling, Grief/Mourning, Heartbreak, BAMF Castiel (Supernatural), Castiel is Protective of Dean Winchester via AO3 works tagged 'Castiel/Dean Winchester' https://ift.tt/etDs05d April 17, 2023 at 07:42PM