#I apologize for the grief

[obscurecrows]

been playing a lot of patho 2 lately

[kens-ramblings]

so ik it’s not cannon accurate but,,,

i need a fic of tim just crashing out.

like he gets so sick of like damian and jason talking about how weak he is and shit like that that he’s like “yall realize lady shiva was my one of my FIRST teachers, and i was the first robin she trained. i had to train under b AFTER he already lost a robin. you DONT think he was 10x harder on me than any of you guys???? there’s a reason my training videos are mainly redacted without bruce’s or my permission. i got ra’s al ghul BEGGING ME to join his league or have my children. i get gifts from him WEEKLY. do you KNOW how many of his little ninja i fight per DAY??? nahh im sick of this shit let’s take it to the mats” and just demolishing both of them at the same time.

i just think it’d be very funny. i just like fics of people who pretend to be weaker than they are(or they just never really have a reason to go full tilt so they just don’t) get sick of holding back and just losing it :D

[i-just-like-crk]

Let us scream into the void for our batshit insane jester into the void together-

What do you think about Shadow Milk Cookie who once had a lover during his days as a cookie free from corruption, and when that day comes where he wreaks havoc onto Earthbread, his lover stood against him and lives freely during his imprisonment.

To see their fragments in the present, whether it's their name or their achievement as one of the cookies who went against a beast... Or to know how they're known as a cookie who loves a beast until their end.

(can I be 🍡 anon?)

Shadow Milk Cookie does not take your betrayal well.

Not agreeing with his philosophies is one thing, but acting out against him— helping those wretched witches seal him away— he won’t forget it. He stews in his rage, replays the moments of your treachery over and over again. He doesn’t blame you, he blames the witches. Those cowardly, despicable, rotten farces of gods. You are incredibly misguided by them, that’s all it is. You just need a little shove in the right direction, and once he escapes, he’ll happily provide that.

While Shadow Milk Cookie does not think you are at fault, he does believe that your actions warrant some sort of punishment. He pours himself over this during his imprisonment; ways to get back at you, make you suffer a little before he feels you’ve earned his forgiveness. Nothing he thinks of ever feels severe enough, there is nothing you could possibly do to mend his broken heart. (Perhaps if you stay by his side; spend the rest of eternity repenting and groveling, proving your loyalty and remorse, never estranging yourself from him again… maybe then, he’ll consider taking pity on you.)

After he breaks free from imprisonment, he’s all smiles and theatrics. Naturally, it’s a deceptive cover. Beneath his conniving grin is a deep-seated resentment. He tears the silver tree asunder with a manic smile and a burning desire for revenge. There are many things he intends to reclaim:

First of all, the other half of his soul jam.

He’ll run circles around that false little hero— as he finds that Pure Vanilla is surprisingly susceptible to corruption. It’s an excellent warm-up after laying dormant for so long, and Shadow Milk Cookie intends on enjoying every second of that thief’s descent into madness.

Then, once that’s out of the way, he’ll come for his silly, misguided, deceitful little lover next.

[jajatoc]

Use your head, artilleryman. This railroad is my bread and butter. My veins! Blowing things up... It doesn't matter. The inquisitor will come.

Day 4, Sabotage

(You'll be the first person they hang!)

[crunchyspaghetti]

I’m so interested to know how other people perceive the team and Daisy’s arc in the beginning of season 4. I feel like I’ve seen a lot more of the “I’ll never forgive the team for how they treated her in S4” sentiment recently, which is interesting because I’ve never taken that perception away from that storyline at all.

Did the team say or do hurtful things? Yes, for sure. (I usually see the aforementioned comment on videos on that one scene with Daisy, Mack and Fitz)

But does Daisy also do and say hurtful things? I honestly think so.

That’s what makes that part of the season so phenomenal to watch, story wise. There is not black and white, good or bad, there just is. That is the reality of grief, that is the reality of mental health struggles, that is life.

There are no “right” answers when coping with the impossible, honestly. I think there are healthy and unhealthy ways to handle things, sure, but it’s not really a moral issue, on its face.

I mean, between the team and Daisy there are some rough interactions. Fitz is certainly a little hypocritical when he’s criticizing how Daisy handles things, given that he wouldn’t have reacted well if it had been Jemma. But He has been there for Daisy, up until this point at least, with Ward, her powers, they’ve been through a tremendous amount together. He feels abandoned and, yeah, he’s expressing it in a less than ideal way. But he cares. You know he cares about her. He and Mack wouldn’t be so angry if they didn’t care.

Mack is upset when he finds out Yo-Yo’s stealing the bone pills for her because 1) he’s been lied to for months, and 2) more importantly, it makes it seem that Daisy doesn’t trust him enough to directly come to him for help. That’s the thing. He would’ve helped her, probably given her anything she needed medically. She never needed to get Yo-Yo to steal any of it. It’s frustrating, it hurts. Mack is genuinely a deeply loving person, you know it’s killing him to not be able to get through to her.

Everyone on that team wants to help her, more than anything. They are begging her to let them in. I mean, lest we forget Coulson gave up his fucking job, in part, to keep chasing any lead he has on her.

When blaming the team for the rockiness at the beginning of season 4, you’re completely ignoring the fact that Daisy is actively running from them the entire time. She doesn’t want them to find her, and I really get it, honestly I do. I deal with things the way she does, radio silence, isolation, running away, being avoidant, self destruction, etc, etc.

Who could blame her, honestly? The anger and the self hatred and the guilt and the grief. Lord knows I’d take off, shut myself out. How do you even begin to manage that kind of pain, especially when it’s still fresh?

Well, you manage it any way that you can. For Daisy that means trying to atone for all of the pain she caused, which, are also things that caused her pain. Especially at the beginning of the season, it doesn’t matter how much she’s told that she is forgiven. Lincoln was at peace with his decision to sacrifice himself, Mack forgave her for hurting him while she was under the influence of Hive. Nobody is directly blaming her, except for herself. To try to heal from the pain she is in, would mean being able to extend herself grace, mercy. The only person who needs to forgive her, is herself. And she just- can’t.

She believes that all she does is hurt the people around her, which is what she is grasping onto to justify hurting herself. The hard truth of living that way is that when you’re stuck in your own, self harm, self hatred, shame-spiral is that you are the only person who can break out of it.

That’s a huge part about what I love about the storytelling of this arc. It’s genuinely some of the best mental health representation I’ve seen in a show like this.

Obviously, mental illness is not your fault. Being stuck in a bad place is not your fault. Daisy is not at fault for her grief. Her descent into isolation and a self-hatred, suicidal, shame-spiral does not in any way mean that she is a bad person. But there’s only so much another person can do when it comes to a battle that is completely contained within your own brain.

The team never stopped caring about her. Coulson, May, and Yo-Yo, specifically, never gave up on her. That’s important. She would’ve most likely been dead if they had stopped giving a shit about her. That’s significant.

But they’re not mind readers.

To go back to the scene with Mack and Fitz too. I think that scene is really important because it’s Daisy being confronted with the reality that her actions, her running away, isolating herself, really is hurting the people that love and care about her. She runs away to protect them from that very reality, of course, but how could they know that?

She doesn’t want them to care, and she hopes that if she just pushes them hard enough, if she bares her metaphorical fangs, they’ll stop. She’s accepted being alone, she’s accepted her own self destruction, because even if it hurts them at first, even if she’s absolutely miserable, they’ll be safe. Inside, she’s unwilling to admit that she needs them, and she’s acting in a way that allows her to avoid the cognitive dissonance of her actions (i.e. yo-yo stealing the pills they’d willingly give her if she asked).

But the fact that she’s hurting them doesn’t push them away. It just makes everything hurt more for everyone. She wants to embody that hurt, she’s cannibalizing her self to try to take on that pain but it doesn’t make anything better.

This storyline is not a case of right and wrong, if anything it’s an antithesis to it. It’s about how the ambiguity of life and grief and mental health are like tangled strings, messy and knotted, it’s about the love and effort and dedication it takes to hang on to/fight your way back to the people that love you, it’s about the strength it takes to carry on and forgive yourself, and, as May tells Daisy once she comes back, it’s about that: “you can’t choose who cares about you”.

[atopvisenyashill]

I was twelve when my father died And he was holding me I couldn't seem to die

[alchemistc]

i'm convinced these changes with eddie's character recently have come at ryan's request

If he wanted to play a selfish asshole who is still using his kid as a prop and a bad friend then he definitely got his wish.

[pillowspace]

Hi, it's like almost 4 in the morning, but I suddenly had an angsty Time Loop AU realization that was like semi-horrifying and I kept thinking about it, so.

It could be easy to write off Sun and Moon as not really having to face much trauma during the time loops, while just Y/N does. But when you take into account that Y/N's the only one who knows they'll be okay in the end, the loops in which Y/N dies are devestating on Sun and Moon. Because they're not constantly in virus mode. Moon has moments. A lot of moments, but they pass. The virus eases up. And the loops aren't dependant on Y/N, they're dependant on the day of the fire, meaning that they're just kind of in sleep mode until time's up to bring them back. So Sun and Moon just have to deal with the burden of what's happened to Y/N until time resets, and they're not waiting for that reset to happen, because they don't know it's coming. Sometimes it all went wrong early on, and those times were easier. Sometimes it all went wrong much too late when they already loved you, and those times broke them.

Maybe just the faintest phantom memory of what that loss felt like slips through on Y/N's next "first day" of the job (if we're sticking to Eclipse having the memories, then it'd be a fun thought to consider the tiniest of memories slipping through sometimes), and Sun and Moon are both confused by the sudden wave of relief-desperation-anguish-love-guilt-guilt-guilt they randomly feel upon Sun meeting you. The feeling's easy to discard, but they don't understand why it happened. They suspect it to be a bug. Just a quick second of confusion in the programming that runs what emotions they feel.

After the loops, Sun and Moon remember every single day they spent genuinely believing Y/N was gone forever, and that hurts. And honestly, I'm caught between saying "they never let go of Y/N afterwards" and "they're too scared to hold Y/N anymore." Perhaps it's both. Perhaps they want to hold onto Y/N, and Y/N is the one who has to help them learn that's okay. I did put post-loops Y/N down as "very cuddly," after all.

Mm. Anyway. I should sleep

[dearest-darlingest]

long-winded glinda gelphie angst thought ahead.

i just had a Thought™. a very sad glinda gelphie thought.

it's always been discussed how absolutely crushing the finale is; interpretations of glinda's grief driving her to do good, not by her own desire but because it was elphaba's last wish for her, amongst many implications in the finale that i love. however, it's always plagued me how it must be so painful and, to a point, numbing elphaba's absence post-defying gravity to glinda is.

it was never said in the musical how long they were apart (i have not read the book), but i rather think it must be a few years since glinda had to graduate ("we all went to uni together"). so, imagine how desperate she must've been in finding elphaba but not pursuing her search because she deemed it safer for the both of them (glinda with her status and elphaba's everything). how worried she felt in her day to day, wondering if her best friend's even safe, if she's already dead somewhere and no one was able find her body because nobody really knows where she is. all she's ever seen of her are the flashes of black flying through the sky, the sad reality of existing in a world with the one who she loves most but not being able to hold her, not even see her.

and then comes the reunion in the wizard's den.

she hears a commotion, she barges in concerned for whatever's going on in there, she sees elphaba. she sees elphaba. they crash onto each other in a tight hug. she's safe, she's here, she's alive. she holds onto her hand.

but then she realises that elphaba wasn't there to see her. not really. she waited and worried and waited even longer, but elphaba wasn't there for her.

what if she came to the conclusion that elphaba was there to apologise. to make amends with the wizard, so she can be with glinda again. what if glinda thought this was her second chance, a blessed one after she rejected elphaba's idea of flying with her during defying gravity.

she chooses fiyero.

now this is where the Thought™ really sprouted from—

she chooses fiyero and runs away and doesn't even say goodbye. and then the wretched senior citizen duo have the gall, the audacity to plan her beloved's demise right in front of her. but. after she's been brutally chosen over someone else, she bitterly says, "her sister. use her sister. spread a rumor, make her think her sister's in trouble. she will fly to her side and you'll have her."

it works. of course, it does. because that's her sister! her only living family left (though, she wasn't aware of that yet). but what if, glinda started to realise, after being left by elphaba again, that the plan wouldn't work if she were the one in trouble. what if glinda begun to think, how insignificant she must be in elphaba's life. to not be protected by her, to not have her fly over and fight whatever evil that has come to target glinda. to not be priotised by her.

to not even be a choice.

[livinginsunnyhell]

There was not this much discourse about Eddie’s SPRAINED ankle. Just saying.

[adaisybyanyothername]

Thunderbolts* scene SPOILERS & Grief TW

because this scene said so many things that I’ll be sending straight to therapy

Lena! Little one!

Go away.

No, I will not.

Well, then chase me forever.

Fine, I will because that’s what family does.

Oh my God, stop! If you cared, you would have called! I would have heard from you!

I lost my sister again, but forever.

And you disappeared!

Dear one, dear one, I’m sorry. I don’t know how to do this. I’m not good at it. I didn’t think you wanted me.

I did.

I see that. I’m late but I’m…I’m here now.

Daddy, I’m so alone. I don’t have anything anymore. All I do is sit and look at my phone and think of all the terrible things that I’ve done. And then I go to work and then I drink and then I come home to no one and I sit and think about all the terrible things I’ve done again and again and again…

Yelena, stop. We all have things that we regret.

No, but I have so many.

My first test at the Red Room, Anya, she was just a child. She was so small.

So were you. I know. I know, they were dark times. Very dark times. But before you were such a special little girl. Did you know this? You walked into a room, you made it brighter. You felt lot of joy.

I don’t remember that feeling.

You were so kind. You remember why you want to be goalie on your terrible soccer team?

I… so I didn’t have to run as much?

No. Maybe that, too. But you told me, ‘I want to be the one everyone can rely on if they make a mistake.’ That Lena is still in you. I still see her.

I don’t.

You’re stuck. You’re alone. You look only at the bad. When I look at you, I don’t see your mistakes. That’s why we need each other.

[made-my-peace-with-all-the-bad]

Something something adopted au ponyboy knowing grief so well and each time something happens he hopes that maybe it’ll hurt less because he’s used to it, but it never does. (@trevination I’m so sorry for what you’re about to read)

It wasn’t easy to grieve his bio parents. They were awful to him, sure, but he was six. All he knew was that whenever he watched tv —when it worked that is— the mommy and daddy always loved the kid. So he assumed that what they did to him was out of love. He was a child, he assumed the best in people. He held out hope that one day he’d come home and instead of seeing his mom almost passed out and high on whatever she could get her hands on, she’d be in the kitchen making something to eat and she’d kiss his head and tell him she loved him. He hoped that his dad would come home and instead of already being in a borderline blind rage and immediately grabbing the first bottle he could find, his dad would come home and ruffle his hair and offer to toss a football with him.

That didn’t happen of course, but he hoped that it would. He hoped that his parents would wake up one day and love him. But until then, he’d come home and he’d take his daddy’s beatings and his mama’s episodes.

At least, he thought he would. But then his daddy came home already drunk outta his mind and his mama was god knows where. The fists came down harder than they ever had that day. And somewhere between his silent tears and his frozen body, Pony thought he heard something in his small arm crack. He’s not sure how long it went on, it could’ve been minutes or hours, he wouldn’t have known, but he knew it finally let up and he dragged his suddenly very heavy feeling body to the small thing he called a room. He’s didn’t bother tryna change his clothes or get the blood off ‘em, he just reached for his little giraffe and curled into himself on the corner of his mattress and cried harder.

He went to school the next day. He walked into his classroom only to be met with a teacher whose smile had faded the moment she saw him. He didn’t know why. He looked like he did most days, didn’t he? Then he glanced down and it was like running into a brick wall. His shirt, he hadn’t changed it this morning. It still had some small red patches and it was short sleeved so his bruised arms were on display, one of which was swollen and bent in a way it shouldn’t be. His teacher pulled him aside a little later, and glory, for some reason he’d told her the truth.

Later that night there were flashing lights outside his door. He hardly remembers it. All he can really recall was yelling from two all familiar voices and a few foreign ones. He remembers holding his hands over his ears in the hopes of drowning out the yelling. He hadn’t noticed he was crying until a nice woman knelt down in front of him and gently wiped his tears before quietly telling him to go grab his things. 15 minutes later he was in the back of a police car holding his giraffe and a couple shirts and pants and the lady was next to him telling him that she was a “social worker”, whatever that was and that she was there to take him somewhere better.

He spent three days at the police station, sleeping on some chairs and pretending not to hear them talk about him in hushed voices. He wanted to go home. Home was the friendliest, but it had his mattress that he knew which side wouldn’t squeak, it had the small chair he’d sit in front of to watch a cartoon when no one else was home, it had his daddy and mama. They must miss him, right? They had to? Right?

He spent those days wishing for the familiarity of what was his old house. He missed his parents. It wasn’t until the second day, when his social worker told him he wouldn’t be going back, that he truly broke down. Why? Did he do something wrong? Did he do something that made them want to dump him instead of just hitting him a few times?

Grief was the word he’d use. The thing is, when he looked back, he realized he wasn’t mourning them, he was mourning the idea of them. The idea of parents who loved him. The idea of a family that took care of each other. Even if his grief wasn’t because they’d died, it was real to him.

His next encounter with grief did involve death. His parents. Not his biological parents, but the ones who took him in and never loved him any less than Darry and Soda. The ones who loved him unconditionally and never laid a finger on him. The ones who were supposed to be there for him always. Suddenly, they were gone.

He remembers the lights again. The flashing blues and reds and the police car outside. He remembers the small flicker of panic he felt when he saw them cause mama and daddy weren’t back yet. He knew he followed Darry to the door and tucked himself behind his older brother, knowing that he would protect him.

He hated hearing the words fall from the cop’s mouth like it was nothing. He hated how his world collapsed when he heard. He hated the way his knees buckled and he started clinging to Darry to keep himself standing. He hated the way he felt dizzy. Well, maybe he didn’t hate all of that, maybe he just hated the reason why.

Mama and Daddy, gone, dead. How? What did they do to deserve that? The simple answer, the one Darry gave him when he choked that out late at night as he curled into his older brother, was that they didn’t deserve it, it wasn’t fair, there was no explanation. Sometimes the world just took things from people who didn’t deserve it. Sometimes even the best of people would become victims of things they couldn’t control. And that was what happened to mama and daddy.

This loss was different. When he lost his bio parents, he didn’t have to turn and see where they should’ve been around every corner. Their presence wasn’t missing. Mama and Daddy? Theirs was. It was missing from the mornings where daddy would come in and sometimes tickle him awake and chuckle out a simple, “time to wake up, buddy”. It was missing in the days he’d come home and run outside to greet his mama and kiss her cheek only to be met with an empty backyard. It was missing in the ways that Darry was always making dinner now.

Darry. Glory, it was missing in him so clearly. It was almost as if his oldest brother was fading right alongside their parents. Cause suddenly, Darry’s eyes were losing their usual sparkle, his shoulders were more tense, he was shorter with Ponyboy, he slept less, he worked more, hell he even dropped out.

And then suddenly Paul stopped coming around. God, Ponyboy wasn’t prepared to deal with the loss of his mama and daddy, so he sure as hell wasn’t prepared to lose his oldest brother and Paul too.

Losing Paul somehow stung much more than he expected it to. What was he supposed to do without him? Who was gonna come up and ruffle his hair and call him caballo or pibe? Who was gonna come up and make funny side jokes to him in Spanish? Who was gonna make sure he never lost the language he spent the first six years of his life speaking? Who would make him feel seen and understood in ways even his brothers and parents couldn’t?

Ponyboy knew death meant losses. He knew. He just didn’t know it meant losing more people than just the ones who died. He didn’t know mama and daddy dying meant he would need to grieve his oldest brother and Paul, and hell, part of himself too.

After he’d lost both sets of parents he’d known, he assumed the universe would take pity on him and let him keep everyone else. It was stupid, after all, the universe never did like him all that much. Cause suddenly, he was sitting on his living room floor and his best friend, the first one to truly get him so completely, his person, Johnny, was gone. And less than two hours later, Dally, the boy he looked up to more than anything, the one who protected him and Johnny, he was gone too.

This grief made him almost catatonic. He just sat and stared at the tv as the shapes danced across it and the cheery music played. He’s not sure how long, it could’ve been minutes or days, he wouldn’t have known the difference. All he knew was that this time it felt different. He was scared with his bio parents and he was sobbing when it was mama and daddy, but this time, he just felt empty. He felt like maybe it would’ve been best if he died right alongside Johnny cause he doesn’t know how to live without them both.

Grieving Dallas was like grieving a sparkler that burnt out. It wasn’t a surprise exactly, but it still hurt like hell. Dally always seemed to understand the parts of Ponyboy he couldn’t seem to explain to others. The feeling of not quite fitting in with his family regardless of how much they loved him. The fears of always being viewed as different. Dally understood parts of him like that and took him under his wing. Dally didn’t always get it, but he tried his best to protect Ponyboy and always made sure Pony knew he could trust him.

Losing Dally was like losing an older brother.

Grieving Johnny was something Ponyboy didn’t think he’d be able to do even if he’d had years of preparation. It was like taking a step and a hole suddenly appearing. It was fast and it was terrifying and it hurt more than anything he could’ve imagined. Johnny understood him. There were no “ands” or “buts” to it. Johnny understood him completely. And he understood Johnny. They never put a word to what they were, romantic wasn’t right but friendship didn’t quite seem to cover it. Johnny was his person, that’s the best way he could describe it.

Losing Johnny was like losing himself.

Grief was the strange constant in Ponyboy’s life. Maybe it was a curse from the universe? A hatred for simply being born. It was a factor so far beyond his control, but one that seemed to follow him no matter where he went. It would take years for Ponyboy to truly understand that it wasn’t his fault, but it would happen eventually.

He would be in college by then, and it would hit him late at night. The realization would have warm tears pooling in his eyes and his body moving to the nearest phone and dialing the number he’s known since he was seven years old. And somewhere, states away, in a small house on the east side of Tulsa, a tired man would answer the ringing phone and his ears would be filled with the sounds of crying as his baby brother finally said the words he’d known for years.

It’s awful, the grief and the death and the loss, every bit of it’s terrible, but it ain’t my fault. None of it. It never made you stop lovin’ me. I never cursed none of you. Cause nothin’ that happened was my fault.

[nadia-el-mansours]

They have shown time and again that they can’t be trusted. Well, I think we need to pursue all available options before this turns into an even bigger incident.

[scramjettracy]

There has been a lot of discussion recently regarding your family, which you yourself engage in on your newly created social media. Especially the legacy you all share regarding your father, Jeff Tracy.

This publication notices a distinct lack of mention of your mother, Lucille. Is there any reason for this?

Hi Anon ‘publication’,

Interesting you should say that - our Mom, Lucille Tracy, absolutely deserves to be known and mentioned just as much as Dad.

Although a little unfair to say no mention - I believe my brother posted a photograph of her the first day we were here.

But you are right, nobody else has yet asked about her. As you have, I will do my best to describe the indescribable.

She was an incredible force of nature in her own right, and although in popular opinion her name was eclipsed by Jeff Tracy the astronaut, Doctor Lucille Tracy (nee Evans) was and still is fairly well known in her field - namely as a renowned experimental astrophysicist and academic author. She was also a fairly handy engineer and a lot of her work for NASA was actually in that field (she kinda treated the various university lectureships she held during various periods of maternity leave as a hobby!!)

So actually the first thing I want to say is go and search her up online - skip past all the “wife of Jeff Tracy” and the “tragic mother of five” stuff and find her contribution to science and our understanding of the universe. She had so much more left to discover.

Her loss was a loss to the whole world, not just to us.

But then apart from having at least three different paid jobs, she also was frequently a solo parent to five children spanning a pretty significant age gap*. I have genuinely no idea how she managed it and remained so good humoured the majority of the time. Our home was always full of laughter. Perhaps there is something in that old phrase “if you don’t laugh you’ll cry” because some of us I believe were rather challenging to parent / keep alive.

On top of all that she was an amazing artist, a musician, and so so SO kind. She loved nature and always insisted we take care of the world around us. And she was adamant what we saw was not all there was - she had a strong faith and never let us forget that none of us was ever going to be (or needed to be) the biggest deal in the universe, nor would ever be alone. I wish I had that confidence… but I still respect it.

Objectively she was WAY out of Dad’s league and looking back, I see now that he knew it full well. And although it was hard to accept at the time, I do understand now why he retreated emotionally when she passed.

It’s been… a long time since we lost her but in some ways… it’s still a sharp painful shock to remember she isn’t here… I can’t just go and run something by her to get her take - she was always so wise and could put a positive spin on almost anything… there’s so much I could have asked her when I had the chance but… well we none us could predict that time was limited. I really don’t know if the things I’d ask now would be so much more worth her time than my silly teenage struggles but she gave that time so willingly.

The worst though is remembering that my youngest siblings didn’t know her as a (nearly) adult - Alan has almost nothing other than what we tell him or show him on video, he was too young. Gordon has some memories of Mommy… but as a person to talk to about grown up worries or share opinions with - I got the privilege of the lion’s share of that and I feel guilty they didn’t.

And yet - it seems trite but she lives on absolutely in my brothers.

John carries her legacy in his love of the stars and his academic brilliance. Virgil carries her gentleness, and her artistic mind. Gordon her humour, her readiness to laugh, the way he brings fun to anything. And Alan has her sense of adventure, her acute sense of justice and her quickness to learn.

So - there we are - all of that and I still don’t feel like I’ve done her justice.

I don’t know if that was what you were after, Anon, and sorry it took me so long to reply. But I thought, hard as it has been to write, she deserved the fullest reply I could manage.

*OOC: insert your preferred gap here, I know mine is larger than most would have it

[alchemistc]

.