#And you will probably be too

[sunny374940]

I will be waiting with open arms

Do you remember when I said I made myself sad with a story about Emmrich dying? Guess what I've finished? I made myself cry and now I am making this fic everyone's problem.

Emmrich dies at the age of ninety seven and Rook, who is seventy two now, receives one last letter from his love.

Cw: major character death (offscreen, not described)

Hello, @mercars-musings I am here to deal emotional damage

(Next up is Pining 2.0 Emmrich's POV, starring Davrin and Assan as wingmen, because I need the sad to go away)

Here on ao3

Edit: here is part 2

And here are my other stories

There was a knock on the door and Rook dragged himself out of his armchair with a sigh. The chair next to his own was glaringly empty and he felt his eyes sting with more tears, so he wiped them away and went to see just who had decided to bother him right after the funeral.

“GREETINGS, ROOK,” Vorgoth said as the door opened.

“Hi, Vorgoth. Is everything alright?”

They’d met at the service, so why would he come to visit him at home?

“THIS IS FOR YOU.”

Vorgoth was handing him an envelope and the neat handwriting on it was unmistakably Emmrich’s. Rook stared at it, at a loss for words, and when he looked up, Vorgoth was gone. There was a single word on the envelope - Rook. He opened it and took out the letter, noticing that the paper was crinkled in a few places, letters smudged as if waterstained. His legs were suddenly very weak and he felt that he should sit back down before he read it, so he settled back into the armchair.

9th of Parvulis, 9:94 Dragon

My darling Rook,

I have entrusted this letter into Vorgoth’s care, to be delivered to you after my funeral. I hope you can forgive an old man's wish to have one last goodbye.

I can feel the span of my days drawing to a close at last. I have lived a long life, longer than most, and even though a better half of it was spent waiting for you to come into it, I wouldn’t exchange the time we had together for anything.

I have made peace with my demise, as should you, my dear. I'm sure you are frowning right now, disagreeing with me, but it is true. Those fears that plagued me are long buried in the past, overshadowed by the joy of having lived my life to the fullest. With you. For what would eternity be without you there? Death seems a small price to pay for what you've given me.

As I look out the window at the yellowing leaves of our cherry tree, I find myself thinking back to the day you married me. You looked so beautiful with the flowers in your hair and I was the happiest man in the world. As I am even now. I am honored beyond words that you chose to take me as your husband and stay with me for all those years, even as I grew old (I can see you bristling at the word, but ninety seven years is hardly young, by my count).

I’d never expected such happiness to find its way to me, yet here I am, blessed with a family that has grown so much since the time it was just the two of us and Manfred. First little Elanora, and what a wonderful woman she has grown into!

And I still cannot believe that I got to have not just children, but a grandchild as well. Rupert (do you remember how I cried, when Ellie chose the name?) has grown so much. It feels impossible that he is already fifteen and well on his way to becoming a man. I am actually waiting for him to come visit as I write this and I hope to hide away the tears before the boy arrives. I don't need to ask you to take care of them, for I know you will.

I love you, Rook. I love you, I love you, I love you. I have told you every day and yet it doesn't feel like enough.

Please, do not spend too long mourning me. Live out your days, take joy in our family and know that you were the brightest light of my life.

Goodbye, darling, may we meet again in the afterlife. I will be waiting for you with open arms. And do visit the Memorial Gardens in the meantime, I will be there in spirit.

Forever yours,

Emmrich

Rook's hands were shaking, making the paper flutter in his grip. The tears started falling, landing on the letter and he quickly set it down on the side table, terrified of destroying Emmrich’s last words to him.

He was crying, ugly heaving sobs were tearing their way out of him and he couldn't stop himself. He buried his face in his hands. He hadn't cried like this at the funeral, couldn't allow himself to, but now the weight of it all was coming down on him. After what felt like hours the tears dried up and he was staring numbly ahead. Distantly, he heard footsteps coming closer.

“Dad?”

Ellie's hand was on his back, the gesture so similar to how Emmrich used to touch him that he choked back another sob.

“Hi, bug,” he whispered, and this once she didn't reprimand him for using her childhood nickname.

There were tears streaming down her face as well and he opened his arms for her. She climbed into his lap, draping her arms around his neck and he was young again and she was five years old, crying over a skinned knee. But this time the wound ran deeper and they held each other through the tears.

“I miss him so much,” she sobbed against his shoulder. “It felt like he would be here forever and now he's gone. I hate it!”

“I know, El. I hate it too,” he said, stroking her back in soothing circles, much like he had seen Emmrich do so many times before and why did everything have to remind him of Emmrich when he was gone!

But weren't the memories just the thing? He knew that Emmrich would say that they should take comfort in the memories they had of him, of the life they shared, instead of mourning what they could no longer have. He sighed and even Ellie's sobs were finally quieting down.

“Hey, bug?”

“Yeah?”

“Wanna come with me to the Memorial Gardens? I could tell you again about how me and you daddy met.”

“I'd love that, dad.”

She smiled at him and the world slowly began setting itself right again.

[chloesimaginationthings]

The day FNAF Charlie Emily was shut out..

[jakeperalta]

I'm curious. what job would you do if money was no object (you just automatically had an income you could live comfortably on)? including work like volunteering, studying etc. please share in the tags :)

[marzipanandminutiae]

what's with the weird glorification of smoking that's come back lately

like

I've seen so many posts that paint opposing smoking as some impossibly Loser-ish or puritanical stance and I really don't get it

it makes you, your house, and your clothing stink, destroys your teeth, and gives you lung cancer. opposing it is. Correct. obviously addiction is very complicated and quitting can be hard, but just saying "smoking is gross and harmful as a practice (including vaping)" is True and Right actually

some of you have never grown up hearing about how some beloved family member died a slow, agonized, wasting death of smoking-induced cancer, or watching it firsthand for yourself, and it shows

[tossawary]

This is petty fandom salt, BUT... I've been chewing on this phenomenon that I've been calling "Fandom's Darling". It is related to things like "Author's Darling" and "Mary Sue / Gary Stu" and "Protagonist Halo" and all that jazz, where one character gains a peculiar narrative weight in a story.

"Author's Darling" is when a writer has a favorite character, and the world and all other characters sort of get... warped to put the Darling in the spotlight. It's most noticeable in TV shows with multiple writers, when a character you personally like suddenly has their previous characterization destroyed to make another character look good somehow. Every other character might become weirdly incompetent. The Darling's feelings are treated as The Most Important Feelings in any given situation. The logic of the fictional world seems broken past suspension of disbelief in order to validate this one character's beliefs or skillset or some other fantasy. And so on.

"Fandom's Darling" is what I've been calling the pattern where a fandom essentially crowns a New Protagonist for their fanfiction stories (it's often a side character rather than the original protagonist, but it can also happen to protagonists). This character becomes the self-insert for all sorts of indulgent fantasies, gaining special powers or backstories, and/or becoming the focus of extreme whump, and/or hooking up with all the various hotties, starring in all sorts of tropey AUs, and so on. They're not always an obvious Mary Sue version of themselves, but the character's original personality and interpersonal relationships tend to get warped or dropped completely, and other characters tend to become a little flat around them. I call it "Fandom's Darling" because it's not just one self-indulgent fantasy fic (you do you! Have fun!) with characterization choices that I don't vibe with (I have neither the time nor the desire nor the authority to police anything, I am just venting), but rather a prolific mini-fandom of sorts revolving around this empty doll / fanon version of the chosen vessel character, so it becomes a little unavoidable.

I am salty about this (mildly frustrated) (imagine a soft sigh of disappointment before I just go do something else) because you are FUCKED if you actually liked the canonical version of this character and their interpersonal relationships. It's almost worse than liking an obscure character that no one cares about. There's about a thousand fics starring your fave, but maybe only about a dozen of them are actually rooted in any kind of recognisable canon.

[zooophagous]

I wish people understood more that animals go through puberty just like people do, and that "teen" animals will have new and often unpleasant behaviors as they grow and try and figure out their place in the world.

Many of the animals I see being rehomed are right at the one to two year old mark, when maturity is still an ongoing process and their behaviors get more intense. Be patient with them! They DO grow out of it!

Aster was a holy terror until he was almost 3 and now he's the best cat I've ever owned. If you can't deal with these changes, adopt a mature animal instead of getting a puppy or kitten, because it's more likely than not they will have a turbulent teen phase.

[the-meme-monarch]

was thinking abt how anya sleeps by the polle statue. which is motion activated to start talking.

+ i like drawing polle as a Character

[lui-the-cute-snek]

He still has some adjusting to do :)

[emberglowfox]

birds of a feather

[hinamie]

ṇ̵̛̱͌̅̃͛̔o̴̮̓̀͂́̃_̴̛̲́s̷͈̋̈́̄̋͠ị̶͔̗̐͐̐̒̕g̵̛̱̘̣̑͂ņ̴̰͔̘͇̏̒̓̇͠͝a̸̜̥̩̭͋̌ḷ̶͔̖͗͋͛͛̃͆

[theballadofmars]

I love how mqf's oficial description is something like: a good heart who wants to help others but then you read the novel and his reaction to lqg trapping ten infected men who are crying in panic is "great now I can start to work in my experiments with decomposed people to find a cure" and gets out a lot of needles, which makes the man cry even harder.

Even if we only get bits of the other Cang Qiong sect leader's we can reach the conclusion that no one there is normal, sqq is just biased.

[noodles-and-tea]

Who’s your favorite gravity falls character?

THIS GUY

[butterfriedcircuits]

based off my friend's commentary whilst watching the 'Orion Pax' arc of Transformers Prime:

"I'm sorry, but if i woke up from a million year 'coma' and you asked me to call you 'LORD'... you need humbling'

edit: friend is @machinatings <3 they are slowly watching transformers

[egophiliac]

(looks at upcoming card releases)

I'm in danger :)

[okidraw]

i wanted to show them the stars.

[chloesimaginationthings]

Mike and FNAF into the pit Jeff are the same guy…