#I wish you'd write...

[beneathsilverstars]

been thinking about the differences between SASASAP and ISAT lately. because looking just at ISAT and the two hats ending, you'd think loop went through the exact same house as our siffrin, but looking at SASASAP, it's different. it's mixed up. it's obviously a condensed prototype.

but. that doesn't have to mean it's a different universe entirely.

maybe that's just what happens after a thousand loops.

the house warped in act 5. siffrin lost their shit and the house got changed and corrupted, far past its baseline king uncanniness. so it wouldn't be too out-of-the-question for it to be able to warp in more subtle ways as well, due to a more subtle breakdown.

like a jpeg uploaded and downloaded a thousand times, siffrin changed, and the loops changed. over a thousand loops of efficiency, the house got more efficient. rooms combining. items moving. data compressing. and of course, run in a changed house, the script changed as well. it did so slowly, one bit at a time, over a thousand loops of zoned-out half-listening – and by the time siffrin would have noticed each difference, they were already used to it. (and in the moments that they did look at a room that was less familiar than it should be and realize that they had no idea where to find the key, well. that's just classic siffrin, isn't it.)

through sheer repetition, siffrin was corrupted, and the loops and the house along with them. all purpose lost, all signals distorted, until finally they couldn't recognize the meaning in any of it. it was all noise and despair.

so they made a wish. and the loop restarted. not just a reboot, but something more complete.

the data was backed up onto a star – a guide, a warning, a reference – and the loops were factory reset. and for the first time in a thousand loops, siffrin woke up to a clear mind and the crisp sound of birdsong.

[boilingrain]

There’s something silly to me about Bluestar x Yellowfang

It’s just “yeah Firestar’s moms should date”

Old women with tragic backstories and the very orange boy they separately adopted

[thebirdandhersong]

in my you're on your own kid era again (I never left)

[problemswithbooks]

BNHA Ch. 429

So, I guess Toga is dead, and people are losing it.

I get why people liked her--she was actually queer, being pan/bisexual. She was representation for them and that's rare in shonen manga. But here's the thing--she was bad representation at best and insulting at worst. Nor do I think she was made queer because Hori really wanted to represent a queer girl. Himiko was always the author's poorly hidden fetish--she just was. She liked girls as much as boys because Hori wanted to draw a girl touching sexually on another girl. You can see this in how he draws her and Ochako in solo pics together.

I mean, people seem to understand this when it comes to Momo and her outfit being overly sexual or that both Himiko and Hagakure's Quirks either leave them naked or they have to be naked to use them. These are excuses to draw girls in a sexual manner. Himiko being into other girls is the same thing and that's the kindest interpretation.

Given how Himiko acts and her Quirk being heavily coded sexual desire, and therefore her use of it against someone unwilling being sexual assault, it could just being playing into harmful stereotypes of predatory gays.

As a queer person myself I just found Toga insulting. She was designed to be overly sexual and give the male author a female character that he could draw being suggestive with his other female characters. When he did flesh out her character, her backstory was eventually the trope/fear of straight people, that gay people will be so overcome with their lust that they end up sexually assaulting them.

In the end Ochako accepts this part of Toga and says she'll giver her blood forever, but as much as a lot of readers took that that as some deep lesbian confession, for me it really fell flat. Hori never really gave any of the main kids time to actually learn about their villain or show how that changed their minds toward them. Shoto only works because Touya is his brother (even though he admits he barely remembers him). But Ochako goes from not thinking of Toga at all pre-first war, to one thought about her during her speech, to suddenly caring about her so much she--given how Toga's quirk is coded, is willing to essentially fulfill Toga's kink for the rest of their lives.

It's weird and it comes out of nowhere. It's made even stranger because Toga doesn't actually change or show remorse for anything she did, which included personally hunting and murdering people before she joined the LOV. None of the death and destruction she is also partially responsible for is brought up either, something that Ochako was rightfully upset about during the first war when less people and property had been destroyed. Ochako just accepts everything about her suddenly and her past serious crimes are forgotten so they can cuddle and cry.

Am I shocked Toga died--a little. I didn't think Hori would have the guts to kill off a young girl character, especially one that he clearly got a lot of joy drawing in sexy poses. But at the same time, once he killed off Shigaraki and ended Touya's story with his slow death, I'm not surprised he went the same route with Toga.

This isn't Naruto--Hori isn't really kind to characters that do something wrong, especially if they don't try and change. Enji, Bakugo, Hawks, and Aoyama all sort of got punished for what they did. Enji is the worst off, being permanently crippled, missing an arm and burned everywhere. Bakugo's hand is damaged, his heart weaker, plus he feels bad that Izuku lost his Quirk so they can't compete the same way he wanted them to. Aoyama, despite doing way less wrong and even helping his class during the forest raid, still leaves school because he doesn't feel he earned being there yet. Hawks lost his Quirk and even though him running the HPSC could be seen as good for him, Hawks always wanted a break, but now he has one of the most time consuming and stressful jobs out there.

So, if this is what characters who actively did good things and even changed and fought to be better get, what would characters who never changed and never did anything positive for anyone but their friends/themselves get?

Before the last Arc started, when so many people said the LoV were 100% going to be redeemed I had doubts and always thought it wouldn't make sense with how the story presented redemption or treated other non-LoV villains in the past. That if the main LoV did get some happy ending where they were bffs with the main cast it would clash with how other characters had been treated.

That doesn't mean that I think how Shigaraki, Toga, and Touya ended up in the manga was well done. I think their endings fit far better then a last minute redemption would have, but at the same time you can feel how rushed everything has been since the end of the first war arc. Hori was done with this story months if not years ago, yet he was contractually obligated to finish it. Because of that I think he left out as much as possible. As much as I think he's written some pretty obsessive stuff, particularly towards women, I can't really fully blame him cutting corners or the story being shit at the end.

We know Manga authors, particularly those that work with Jump are treated like shit. That they suffer incredibly long hours at times not even getting to go home for days. We've gotten messages for Hori saying he's sick quite a few times. On top of that, weekly story telling is not a great way to tell a cohesive narrative. Ideas probably change week to week or at least month to month and you can't go back and change the last chapter no matter how much you need or want to. Then you remember he also gave a lot of ideas to the people who made the movies, which would also change his plans for how he wanted the main story to go.

The story is bad--it has been for a while, but I think a lot of people put their hopes on their favorite characters getting a happy ending, even when there were signs that probably wasn't going to be the case. I know how much it sucks when a character you love gets a shitty ending (Stain was my fav, but he got an absolute dogshit ending) but at least, knowing what I know about the industry I can't really blame Hori the way I see some other people doing. Criticize it, sure, but saying Hori hates his readers or is horrible writer isn't true. BNHA was popular for a reason--he's great with characters and the beginning of the story had some great pacing. We'll never know, but I wouldn't be surprised if BNHA could have been amazing if Hori had been treated better and the story hadn't needed a chapter every week.

If anything BNHA has taught me how much a story suffers when authors/artists are treated like crap and forced to work past burnout.

[marietheran]

polish people when you ask them to critically engage with their country's history and the way their country is dealing with it: i don't talk to trolls(:

Sir. Or Madam. Given this site's demographics probably Madam. Or whatever title you'd apply to yourself.

I am in fact trying to critically engage with history. Which is why I said there is controversy and that I would like to learn the truth. Unfortunately, every source I have met with so far on whichever side of the debate was either visibly written "for a specific outcome" or of dubious standing among historians.

Look, when I die I will ask God about it. Till then I have reconciled myself to the idea that unless something changes I will have nothing but the vaguest of pictures.

I am calling your messages trolling because I have been careful not to give a decisive statement since I do not know what is true. I strongly suggest that you might have a better use of your time than to come shout at me for... I don't even know what your precise argument is?

[darkhorse-javert]

I wish you'd write a fic where Sam Stewart unexpectedly inherits a small fortune from one of her vicar uncles. It's post-war and there is no Adam Wainwright to contend with, just Andrew Foyle and Sam, the improbable heiress...

(Okay, this bit is really a prologue to the main idea you asked for, but it currently won't grow any bigger, and no -one is saying what they mean, so here you go. Sorry about which uncle I chose..)

Summer 1945

It's a shape on the bench, slightly cowed and slumped in spite of the bright weather. Then the glint of the sunlight on distinctly coppery hair.  Sam? She's not the only red-head in Hastings but…

He keeps walking, drawing closer to the figure. And yes, he knows that profile, now staring out to sea, now turning her gaze down to something on her lap.

“Sam?”

He calls her name, enough to be heard but not, he hopes, to attract other attention from the people on the green.

She jerks, glances around rapidly, and spots him. There are tears streaked on her face, an utter bewilderment as well.

He closes the gap, perches on the other end of the bench to her. She can get up and leave if she wants, he's not close enough to stop her, not that he would. The black band of mourning is stark on her coat arm. He sits quiet for a few steady heartbeats

“Dad told me about your Uncle Aubrey… I'm sorry, he said you two were close.” another time I would have taken her hand, but you lost that years ago fool.

“Thank you.” She says, a soft choked rasp. Her gloved hands clutch at something, folding it and pressing it into one hand, pinching it tight. “I'm all at sixes and sevens, to be honest Andrew.” She stares out at the sea, We, my Family all get through the war alive somehow, despite the fact its’ mostly boys and North  Africa and the South coast , and then this…” She shakes her head hard once, falls silent, 

the breeze blustering and a gull or two yarping somewhere on the updrafts. 

Then Sam spits out,“It’s not fair, it’s not sodding Fair.”

Sam swearing, or nearly swearing at least. “No…” he says softly, "it's not. It’s not fair at all.” It feels like far too little in answer. He tries not to look at her, hears more than sees her swallow back more emotions. Just when everything’s trying to settle down into this new normal and everyone involved in the European war is trying to find their feet again, the world goes and rips the rug out from under her again. He glances up at the sky, Not cricket, oh Dominus, not cricket at all - not to Sam, nor to Reverend Stewart’s congregation; many coming home wanting familiarity and having to deal with a new man and the inevitable New Broom he brings.

Sam sighs beside him, and when he looks she’s wearing a rueful apologetic expression

“Sorry I’m being a wet blanket.” 

“You’re not, not by miles - I know, for a fact, that I’ve been worse to you.” I got sour, not just rightfully sad. God - I can’t imagine what it would be like to suddenly lose Uncle Charles about now, just as the War’s over.

There’s a rustle, her pressing whatever is in her hand tighter still. I’m not going to ask, it’s her business, certainly not mine.

Sam keeps speaking softly, “ I thought the funeral would help, saying goodbye, acknowledging that he’s in the care of God taking comfort from that, and how many people came, how many people he meant something to.” She shrugs. “It did, a bit, I suppose. It was part of it, a structure, a marker if not an ending. And then this came from Uncle Aubrey’s solicitor.” She holds out her hand, a folded paper within it, raising her eyes, weeping again, to meet his, “Apart from some charitable bequests, anything of his personal effects anyone in the family wants, a few special gifts of objects, he’s left everything to me. Not split it between all of us cousins, not just a portion of a family division. All of it.”

“Ah.” ‘How much is it?’ floats across his mind, No you idiot, that’s crass, and you sound like the worst sort of fortune hunter. He yanks his gaze away from Sam, from the papers, scanning over the grass and the steep bank of Hastings. “Including the recipe for that Greengage Wine Dad now keeps in the medicine box, labeled ‘Crisis Emergency disinfectant'?”

Behind him Sam gives a squeaky chuckle, “He left that out, unless it’s tucked into one of his books somewhere.”

“You know Dad would always be happy to be a listening, responsible, grown-up ear, if you need it. Certainly better than me.” I can barely organise myself, let’s be honest, much less any kind of inheritance. Dad would tell you how hopeless I was with money at Oxford. And it must be money, at least part of it, I think, the way she phrased that ‘All’

Sam humms in her throat, a thinking noise, “I’ll remember that.” Another sigh, “I knew he was my favourite Uncle, and I knew he had a soft spot for me, and he didn’t have children of his own to leave it too, but…” she trails off into silence again.

“Mmm.” He hasn’t got a clue what to say, if there’s even anything appropriate to say to that. Sam’s in some sort of shock, maybe, but it doesn’t seem to be the shock that a cup of tea - or whiskey - would solve. She shouldn’t be confiding all this to me, either, I certainly don’t deserve it.

He almost feels Sam give herself a shake and come back together, briskly changing the subject, “How was it in London, did you find anything?”

London, “It’s a mess Sam, it really is, don’t think I’d realised how hard it had been hit, in my passing visits through” Broken houses, half walls, rows with piles of rubble in the middle where a building had once been. “And no, they didn’t have a position they thought I fitted in the bank.” He sets his hands on his legs “So I’m back here for the time being.”

“Do you think you’ll go again?”

“Honestly - no, I don’t think so.” The ruins, the destruction, the open marks of the war “I don’t think it’s for me, the city. I’ll have a good look around this neck of the woods first, something’s bound to turn up.” He can’t help a rueful twitch of his head. “Well, I hope it does.”

“Seek and ye shall find.” Sam quotes, then her voice suddenly cracks, and he springs to his feet as she rises abruptly, “Thank you, Andrew,” she speaks almost too quickly, I’ll remember what you said, about your father for a listening ear.” She nods, tries for a weak smile, and turns away sharply, walking at pace which isn’t quite a run off West Hill and into the town.

He can only watch her go, Oh Sam - I wish I could help. I wish i hadn’t muffed it all so badly back then, that I was still close enough with you to let me help, somehow.

[amethystina]

Hi!!! Im a big fan of ur fics! I noticed you reblogged the tdj third anniversary event and was wondering if u were going to be participating as a fic writer? Ik ur going through burnout rn so no pressure!! But ill be rlly excited if u r participating :)

Thank you so much 💜

Unfortunately, I don't think I will be participating as a fic writer. Not because I don't want to (because I do), or because I'm not tempted (because I am), or even that I don't have ideas (I most certainly do), but simply because it's not what's good for me right now.

The burnout is definitely a factor but, on top of that, I'm experiencing some pretty serious anxiety about the number of projects I'm currently juggling. I'm a person who usually finishes a fic before I start posting them and I currently have way too many of them that are ongoing, each one only making me feel more stressed.

(And more like a failure.)

And adding new ones, no matter how short they are, would require postponing the fics I'm already working on. Which, predictably, would only make my anxiety worse. So even if I love the event and would have loved to be able to participate, I really don't think I can.

My goals for my writing this month are to a) finish posting my Stuckony fic, b) start posting the self-indulgent 46k+ fic I wrote for a completely different fandom, and c) get as close as possible to finishing my Black Knight fanfic, since it's probably the easiest to complete at this stage.

After that, we'll see.

If I can, I'll try to draw something for the TDJ event, though, since it's a lot quicker and, quite frankly, a lot better for my mental health xD Drawing doesn't require nearly as much mental bandwidth and, unlike writing, doesn't actually drain me of energy. A lot of the time, it does the opposite.

So yeah. Sadly, I won't be writing any fics for the event. For the sake of my mental health, if I'm writing, I'll be working on projects that are already ongoing, not starting new ones.

[guppygiggles]

.

[chaoticfandomthot]

weirdly enough the horrors of writing fanfiction and constantly wondering if the characters are ooc or not also follow you when you make oc and original works

[madhyanas]

here.. take some drunk doc... in compensation for the years i've gone without updating this fic

[nyan-bynary]

Do you ever think about all the women in jjk that don't even get a second to be mourned?

[koddlet]

I just started on my first zine a few days ago! I wanted to make it physically but found I was lacking in materials I wanted to use so I’ve been making it digitally and collage like and I must say, I’m having such a good time making it. However, sometimes I worry im not making it right. And I know there’s no right or wrong way to make a zine but for whatever reason I feel like mine is wrong. I feel like mine doesn’t have enough drawings or sentences or something and I think part of me feels kinda like a cheat for doing it online as I’m not very good at drawing etc. I was wondering if you’ve ever felt doubt in your zines and how you overcame that or deal with it. Zine making is a very new hobby for me but I think I want it to stick around, I just worry I’ll run out of things or inspiration for making them like I’m not creative enough 😞 I’m sorry for just coming in here and dumping all this on you. I appreciate you taking the time to read it and whatever answer you may give ❤️

sorry for taking a hot minute to get to this! i know i only addressed physical zines, but i don't think digital ones are any less or a cheat at all. it's just another way of making them. there are lots of people who do it, and we did that in college! especially in your case where you're lacking in materials, i'd say that you're making good use of what you can :]

honestly i am nearly always doubting my zines in one way or another, but i just... kind of ignore it because i know that i feel worse if i don't make something. doing zinetober helped me with this because i didn't have to like what i made, it just had to exist. but also, there are some zines that i really didn't like at the time that i started to appreciate after like, a week. it's the fresh eyes. i know ignoring it is easier said than done, so i suppose it's more about trying to reframe it: you're learning what works and what doesn't, what you can experiment with next, etc. and you can always try again if you want.

as for running out of inspiration/not feeling creative enough... yeah, they don't call it the creative cycle for nothing! seek out sources of inspiration. save the art you like in a folder. take pictures of things that catch your eye. watch things. read things. try something an artist has done. revisit things you've made before and make them again. you can do that as many times as you want. you just have to push through it, i promise you won't be stuck there forever!

[medicinemane]

Honestly a lot of the time, it's not even about people having to agree with me, it's about needing to know that they actually heard and listened to what I had to say even if it didn't persuade them

Just... some basic indication that there's enough respect to give a shit about what I said, and also to make sure that they disagree because they actually disagree and not cause they just didn't bother listening

It's all I really ask

[queenlucythevaliant]

Professor Kirke remained at the small dining table after the last of the dishes had been cleared away, puffing clouds on his pipe. It was strange, thought Lucy: he had a faraway look in his eyes, as though some tiny aspect of his reality had shifted over dinner and he was struggling to accommodate it.

“I wonder what he’s thinking about,” murmured Lucy to the others. Edmund shrugged and Eustace (who had only met the professor that night) said nothing, but Peter chuckled merrily and patted Lucy on the arm.  

“You’ll find out soon enough, that’s certain. He got that look in his eye when you were talking about the Island of Dreams, Lu. No doubt he’ll call you into his study for a lesson later on.”

It was a little more than a week later that Peter’s prediction came true. Professor Kirke seated himself across his desk from Lucy with an enormous tome of poetry spread out before him. “Have you heard The Rime of the Ancient Mariner?” he inquired.

Lucy shook her head. Yet rather than muttering about the state of the schools as she had expected, Professor Kirke simply smiled beneath his whiskers and began to declaim:

“It is an ancient Mariner /And he stoppeth one of three —"

Lucy leaned back in her seat and fixed her attention on the words as best she could. Once, she’d spoken in such a register as queen of Narnia, but now she was only a girl of ten and unaccustomed to the flowery language of Romantic poetry.

“At length did cross an Albatross,

Thorough the fog it came—”

“Oh!” cried Lucy. “Is that why you wanted me to hear this poem?”

“Just so,” the professor replied. “Your account of the Island where Dreams Come True bears a marked resemblance to The Rime, beginning with the presence of the albatross. In this poem, the albatross bears a symbolic connection to Jesus Christ himself.”

“How peculiar!”

“I thought so too. Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote this poem in 1797, in a time when sea voyages to the polar regions were very much like your own voyage to the end of the world. The albatross had only lately been described in writing, but he wrote it coming out of the desolate fog to guide sailors to safety. And Coleridge was a neo-Platonist! Fog and ice are very much like darkness, the way he uses them here.”

“A neo-Platonist?” Lucy asked, wrinkling her nose.

And now came the Professor’s customary muttering. “Yes. What do they teach in these schools? You may read darkness and fog both in Coleridge as something between ignorance and innocence, with the Sun as a symbol of Reason. Does that make sense?”

“A little,” said Lucy, who privately didn’t think it made much sense at all but was eager for the professor to continue the poem.

“It ate the food it ne'er had eat,

And round and round it flew.

The ice did split with a thunder-fit;

The helmsman steered us through!”

Lucy hadn’t meant to interrupt again so soon, but the words were out of her mouth before she was really aware that she’d spoken them. “So it really is just like in Narnia! It guides the ship out of the ice like my Albatross guided us out of the darkness.”

“Yes.” Professor Kirke was entirely unperturbed by the interruption. “Precisely.”

“How lovely. Isn’t it interesting how you just know when birds are trustworthy?”

The professor chuckled. “You may change your mind in a few stanzas. Shall I go on?”

“Please.”

Lucy returned to her concentration as the mariner recounted how a good wind had sprung up after the Albatross and how it had stayed with the ship and perched on the mast sometimes for evening prayers. Yet the mariner must have looked unhappy, for the groom interrupted to ask him why.

“With my cross-bow/ I shot the albatross.” Professor Kirke paused here in his telling and looked very hard at Lucy.

It took her a long moment to understand. “The albatross isn’t dead, is he?”

“He is.”

“I thought you said he was like Aslan.”

“And didn’t you see Aslan die?”

Lucy opened her mouth, but closed it a moment later. Open again, “But why did the mariner kill him? Doesn’t he give any reason? The witch killed Aslan because she was evil and trying to conquer Narnia. Why would the mariner kill the albatross when it’s done nothing but help him?”

“Perhaps,” the professor replied, “the Gospels are a simpler comparison here. ‘I shot the albatross’ has the same kind of blunt irrefutability as ‘And they crucified him.’ There isn’t any excuse, which I think makes the confession all the more powerful.”

Lucy sighed. It was exhausting trying to keep this all straight. “I suppose that makes a kind of sense. But then we’re trying to think on three different levels of parallel—the poem, the Bible and Narnia—which isn’t very pleasant.”

“And yet, it’s necessary if one wishes to understand deeper meanings. We can pause for tea, if you’d like?”

“No, that’s alright. I think I’m keeping track well enough for now. I say though, is this what you do with Peter all day?”

The question seemed to catch Professor Kirke off guard, for he let out a sudden, loud burst of laughter as soon as Lucy asked it. “Yes, after a manner of speaking. Shall we go on?”

“Ah! well a-day! what evil looks

Had I from old and young!

Instead of the cross, the Albatross

About my neck was hung.”

It was a difficult thing to imagine and Lucy wondered if Aslan’s albatross was unusually large. Aslan was always bigger than she expected him to be, so it would not be strange if he took the form of an unusually large albatross. Yet the more Lucy considered, the more sense the image made.

“It must have been at least three meters,” said Lucy. “The albatross, I mean. Mine was more like four, from wingtip to wingtip. It would be a dreadful weight, but I suppose that’s the point. The mariner can’t carry it, can he?”

“I think you’re right,” said Professor Kirke.

A smile tugged at Lucy’s cheeks. It was lovely to hear the professor give such an unequivocal endorsement of her analysis. Galvanized by the success, she continued, “I thought of a cross when my albatross appeared out of the darkness. There’s something in the proportion of the body to the wings, and in its stillness of it as it glides through the air. My albatross tore away the darkness. But here—it’s like the mariner carries his albatross like he thinks that act can save him from what he’s done.”

There was a glittering in the old professor’s eyes then, and suddenly Lucy realized that she wasn’t struggling with the poem’s language anymore. Maybe it was because she’d been listening to it for the better part of ten minutes, but privately she wondered if Narnia’s magic might be working on her somehow. Perhaps this poem contained some quality of the rich Narnian air.

“I looked to heaven, and tried to pray;

But or ever a prayer had gusht,

A wicked whisper came, and made

My heart as dry as dust.”

Lucy shut her eyes and remembered the fighting-top of the Dawn Treader. The night-mare life-in-death was a black abyss, and all her own nightmares had been there in it. There had been monsters, of course, and the idea that even if she ran down to stand beside Edmund he might become a monster himself. But somewhere in all that dark, there was a Lucy who never spoke to Aslan again. She’d imagined herself in Lord Rhoop’s place, trapped forever in a state of endless fear-without-courage, because she could not call him.

“That was my night-mare too,” she whispered. “Not being able to pray.”

She saw the professor’s lips thin beneath his whiskers and wondered at it. “You’re wiser than you have any right to be,” he murmured. “Ten years old and your greatest nightmare is alienation from God. What a marvel you’ll be when you’re grown.”

Well then. Lucy didn’t have any notion what to say to that. She half expected that if she tried to reply, she might start crying.

“Might I ask—what did you do then? Until the albatross arrived, once you realized that you couldn’t pray. How did you react?”

And that was a question she could answer.

“But I could pray! I did. I whispered, ‘Aslan, if you ever loved us at all, send us help now.’ And that was when the albatross came. I didn’t talk about it after—it was too much my own for me to share it, really—Edmund knows—but well…”

The professor made a sort of choked noise in his throat. “Perhaps it was the only nightmare that the island couldn’t bring true.”

“But there have been times,” continued Lucy, “when my heart was too dry to speak with Aslan. There were whole years when I was queen that he didn’t come at all.”

It was with a much softer voice that Professor Kirke resumed his reading.

“A spring of love gushed from my heart,

And I blessed them unaware:

Sure my kind saint took pity on me,

And I blessed them unaware.

 The self-same moment I could pray;

And from my neck so free

The Albatross fell off, and sank

Like lead into the sea.”

Here, the professor lapsed into silence. Lucy thought that the poem might be over, but when she peered across the desk at the page there were columns of stanzas still left.

“Even after all these years,” he whispered, “some things still remind me of my own days in Narnia.”

He’d told the children his story before, of course: beginning with how he met Aunt Polly and concluding with the origins of the wardrobe. Aslan had not condemned him for bringing the White Witch to Narnia. Instead, he’d had loved Digory enough to shed tears and sent him home with an apple so beautiful that it healed his dying mother.

“Grace,” Lucy whispered into the hush. “Of course. Maybe this is the moment where Aslan leads the mariner out of the darkness.”

Professor Kirke exhaled heavily. The faraway look in his eye lessened a little bit, and at length he read on.

“The spirit slid: and it was he

That made the ship to go.”

Never had Lucy felt Aslan’s presence more keenly in his absence than during those last days as the Dawn Treader had sailed over the still, clear waters at world’s end; like Aslan himself had been drawing them towards himself by some great, invisible rope.

The closer they’d come to his country, the more tangible his spirit had been. When at last she glimpsed those green mountains beyond the waves, Lucy’s very bones understood that Aslan had made the still seas bring them there.

A voice spoke out of the air concerning the mariner, and Lucy remembered the piercing silence of the Last Sea. Of the voice, the mariner said, “He loved the bird that loved the man/ Who shot him with his bow.”

Not for the first time, Lucy wondered about Aslan’s father, the Emperor-beyond-the-Sea. What did he say to Aslan when he left that land of high mountains to return to Narnia and die at the Witch’s hand? What did he think when Aslan went flying across the lily-covered seas on feathered wings to rescue their little ship? If Lucy had crossed that final threshold with Reepicheep, would she have met the Emperor there?

“The voice is his father,” Lucy said, voice brimming with certainty. “The albatross’s father, I mean. The Emperor-beyond-the-Sea.”

“I know,” the professor replied. “And beyond the sea is just where our mariner meets him.”

“Do you think the mariner knew that the albatross loved him?”

The professor stroked his chin again, and a ghost of a smile played across his features. “If the mariner didn’t know it when he shot him, he certainly knows now. But come, we’re nearly at the end of the poem.

“Swiftly, swiftly flew the ship,

Yet she sailed softly too:

Sweetly, sweetly blew the breeze—

On me alone it blew.

Oh! dream of joy! is this indeed

The light-house top I see?”

“There’s one more thing I haven’t told you,” Lucy said. “Something so bright and mysterious that I’ve not even told Edmund. When the albatross came, it—it spoke to me. And I wasn’t afraid anymore.”

Professor Kirke leaned forward, but his words were, “You needn’t tell me what he said if you’d prefer not to.”

Lucy nodded slowly. Somehow, she knew that if she tried to describe “Courage, dear heart,” she would fail. There was nothing, no word or image or music or poetry in this world or any other that could convey what that moment had been. To speak of it at all would be like dancing about architecture.

“I was the only one who heard him,” Lucy whispered. “It was my prayer, and he spoke to me. I wonder how this poet knows what it was like?”

“I think he knows the same way I do, in my own way. Coleridge lived a difficult life. He was a laudanum addict when he wrote this, for one thing. When the Divine voice speaks into our darkness and we feel his breath on our faces, it binds us together with every other person who has ever been rescued by an albatross that loved us. We don’t know what he says to other people, but we know how the breeze feels.”

The professor returned to his reading and concluded the poem while Lucy sat in astonishment and let the strangeness of the last hour wash over her.

“…A sadder and a wiser man/ He rose the morrow morn,” and with those words Professor Kirke shut the book. The heavy pages fell with a thud, and with bright eyes he looked at Lucy. “What do you think of it?”

“I think,” said Lucy slowly, “that it was a beautiful story. The very best kind.”

What she did not say, but what she was thinking, was that it reminded her of the story she’d read in the Magician’s book: the one about the cup, the sword, the tree, and the green hill. The two tales had no common points of reference, but they left her with much the same feeling.

“But why do you think Aslan came to me as an albatross?”

Professor Kirke harrumphed. “I have been asking myself that same question ever since you spoke of it. Why indeed? I wonder whether perhaps in part he appeared that way so that you would come back here and read ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,’ and come to know him better by it. If nothing else, I do not think it was a coincidence.”

Yes, perhaps, but the answer still felt incomplete. “Maybe it’s a stone in the bridge he talked about,” Lucy said. “Maybe he only wanted to show me—to show us—that he’s here too. In this world, in this time, and in all others. Maybe it’s like you said, and there’s an albatross for every person who’s ever been rescued from the darkness.”

[snarkyhetalian]

.

[thegodthief]

Don't mind me, just sighing despondently.