#and the story that i read was intriguing

[gifti3]

i cant believe i forgot about you, im so sick

[12am-motivation]

After participating in the in-game discussion for Episode 12 out of curiosity, I just remembered something—

This might be pretty farfetched but what if Towa's sudden meltdown is similar to that unexplained attack Jiro had in Episode 9 when he saw the ghost of the child? Though I get that Towa's episode was more out of the blue with no evident triggers...

I just thought is this like a One-Eyed Sleeping Beauty murder suspect thing?

[misakarose]

S H A D E ✧ F I E N D

"Uh... fight for justice? Sounds boring. Nah... See this pale girl, diggin' her heels in? I'm fighting for Tanpopo Ohanami."

[marlynnofmany]

February Fiction Fight

The easiest writing challenge, on the shortest month! The only goal is to write "a bit of something" each day.

Something. Anything. A cool scene that doesn't have a full story to fit into yet. A plot twist that would be great several books into a series. A description of the visuals in that one cool movie. A conversation between your favorite characters about an unlikely food combination.

A page, a paragraph, a sentence. What's that cool story you're going to write someday? Jot down what you know so far. Maybe you'll know more tomorrow. Or maybe you'll be off and running with some other fascinating concept.

No limits, no minimum wordcount! Just write a bit of something.

You play February Fiction Fight by writing each day (or as many days as you can; no shame in being busy).

You win by having more fun than everybody else.

I plan to have an absolute blast!

[gentle-hero-blog]

the concept of metroid fics written exclusively in the scan visor format is SOOOOOOOOO good to me. like yesssssss. use the restrictions of the in-game storytelling mechanic in immersive and innovative ways. communicate emotions using a writing style that has none whatsoever. clenches fist

[alaskan-wallflower]

i know this is stretching things but i love the idea of steve’s tattoo meaning something to him deep down.

i made a separate post about this but steve got his tattoo as a birthday present to himself for his sixteenth birthday. he did it as an act of rebellion against his dad because he knew his dad was one of those bible loving people who thought tattoos were a way of tainting your body, and it was a spur of the moment sort of thing that he did out of pure anger and bitterness. but where did he get the money? well, he saved up every single cent his father gave him as an “apology” for kicking him out, for throwing a beer bottle at him, for taking the money he earned at the dx to support his alcoholism, for all the horrible things he had done. every single cent was a contribution to a now permanent part of him, a part of him that later came to symbolize the horrific things his father would do to him.

but why an eagle? well, he picked the eagle because he one day hoped he’d be able to be free too. that he’d be able to leave the suffocating confines of tulsa and make something of himself somewhere else, where he could be far away from his dad, and from the bigotry, she the pain tulsa brought him throughout his seventeen years of life. but over time, he realized that wasn’t going to happen, and the tattoo was another stupid reminder of why he was stuck where he was. but he still wears it proudly in hopes that one day, he will get out. that one day, he’ll be able to make something of himself, instead of becoming bitter and hopeless. he clings onto that little bit of hope that one day, things will work out fir him.

[theygotlost]

YOU READ MYSTERIOUS BENEDICT SOCIETY???

yeah it came free with being a 4th grader and its Awesome. i think. i havent read it in 15 years

[lafcadiosadventures]

A short and non exhaustive list of Romantic stories where someone falls in love with a statue:

->Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer:

El beso, (1863) -> set in the napoleonic wars, the story has anti colonial undertones, the statue represents the ancient legacy of Spain about to be desecrated by the invading forces. Can an inertial stone defend itself from the attack? Or is art not innert at all??

Rima LXXVI (1868) a more philosophical take on the same subject

->Théophile Gautier:

Arria Marcella: art nerds travel to Pompeii. The city gives a much livelier impression to those with an artist’s eye, especially the imprint of the thigh of a beautiful woman who died thousands of years ago. Or did she. Because like another of Gautier’s heroes said, no one really dies if someone still loves you

->Honoré de Balzac:

Sarrasine, a sculptor starts treating a person as if they were one of his artworks, he recreates them in sculpture form, but the unwilling model refuses to be what the artist needs them to be. There’s also gangster priests involved because this is a Balzac novella.

->Alexandre Dumas:

The Count of Monte Cristo, during the glorious dawamesc scene, Franz isn’t quite sure of the nature of seductive women he meets. They seem very much alive, but after the trip he sees some suspiciously similar statues he hadn’t noticed before.

Vingt and après: I will let Athos explain: “(…) just at his age, how deep in love I was with a Grecian statue which our good king, then Henry IV., gave my father, insomuch that I was mad with grief when they told me that the story of Pygmalion was nothing but a fable."”

->Petrus Borel:

Mme Putiphar, an apparently benevolent and Enlightened jailer has some cozy tête-à-têtes with a bust of Ninon, in finding a female prisoner of flesh and blood, the marble bust in the fortress ceases to be his predilect female presence

-> ETA Hoffmann:

The Sandman (the famous Coppelia, is not really a statue but an automaton… the illusion of life/appeal is in the motion of the doll)

-> Victor Hugo: Grantaire calling Enjolras « quel beau marble »

[flour-is-a-spice]

The potential friendship between Connor and North is something that really interests me. Would she ever trust truly him? And if she did, what would their dynamic be?

[lightbulb-warning]

so has anyone figured out WHY there is the Need To Share our Artworks™ or is it just the vibes and our Soul apparently

[samantha-and-nellie]

i think it just comes with no longer being a child myself, but i’m finding myself just as intensely interested in the adults around samantha as i am with samantha itself. aunt cornelia is a big one, of course, but during this rewatch of the movie, grandmary really stood out to me.

and, well, let’s just say that when we meet her, grandmary is holding on by a fucking thread. full thoughts under the cut.

i’ll probably make another post about this more specifically, but the movie costumes seem to imply to me that she’s still in mourning at the beginning of the film. i absolutely see much of sam’s stories through the role grief plays in them so this did clue me into paying more attention to grandmary, but honestly whether she’s meant to be formally mourning or not, it’s so clear that she is desperate for normalcy. she keeps grasping for tradition and routine to keep her from slipping too deeply into her grief. i’m sure she struggles with samantha’s presence as a reminder of the daughter she lost, but she also seems to struggle with her because samantha pushes at the boundaries of what is expected and proper. you see that in their first interaction in the movie—grandmary needs her routine and rules so acutely that she can’t even take a moment to listen to samantha talk about meeting nellie until it is Proper Social Hour, tea time.

the thing that really made it apparent to me that grandmary is using her routines to stay afloat is her reaction to gard and cornelia’s engagement. obviously, this is a children’s movie, and as an audience we’re meant to be paying attention to sam’s reaction in the scene, which itself is intense and telling about samantha’s need for stability and her own grief.

but so is grandmary’s. when we cut to her for a moment after gard says he and cornelia are going to get married, she simply doesn’t look like she’s mentally there. by the time it’s her turn to talk, she appears to be holding back tears. so many things are changing so suddenly: there will no longer be the assurance of gard’s visits or of his absolute devotion to her and samantha. i’m also willing to bet that she can’t help thinking about the fact that the last time one of her children got married, they died relatively soon afterwards.

and then there’s cornelia herself. we know that grandmary will come around to her views, but right now, she poses a threat to grandmary’s understanding of her place in the world. and that’s too much for grandmary. everything is changing and, if she thinks too much about it, she doesn’t know how she is going to manage.

so, in this intense moment where she is about to be drawn in by her grief, she falls back on her (seemingly only) coping skill: social expectations. she’s upset, but she’s a lady, and a lady is always polite. she congratulates gard and cornelia, and then she turns to samantha. samantha, who is so clearly feeling upset in the same ways that she is, but grandmary cannot acknowledge samantha’s feelings or else she’d have to face her own.

so she nods at samantha, a gentle encouragement of what she must say, and samantha says it. i honestly don’t know what grandmary would’ve done if samantha had acted out, but that doesn’t happen. samantha falls into line and says the right thing, and grandmary can go back to pretending that everything is under control.

except, it isn’t. things have changed, and there simply no going back to the way it was. somewhere between this moment and samantha leaving for nyc, something clearly starts to shift for grandmary. whether it’s cornelia, whether it’s seeing the boathouse, whether it’s simply having to realize that she cannot keep things the same forever, grandmary is forced to face herself and the way she is letting grief rule her life. as an audience, we do not get to see this transformation, but the grandmary we meet at the end of the movie is a very different person than who we met at the beginning. for one thing, she’s actually wearing colors, but she’s also finally accepted that proposal. in this, we see her starting to discard some of the rules she was clinging to at the beginning of the movie. as one example, i’m fairly convinced that the grandmary we met at the start of the movie never would’ve stood up for samantha to her teacher about her speech in such a manner, but she does. things are changing, and grandmary is learning that she is still going to have a life where she is cared for and seen even if she has to change from the person she once believed herself to be.

and i think we really see this transformation when it comes to nellie and her sisters. before, it was never like she was cruel towards them, but the boathouse scene where she tries to stand up for nellie is still so loaded with classism. nellie may be important to her granddaughter, but nellie is irish, nellie is a servant, and therefore she still needs to know her place.

and there’s simply none of that sentiment by the time christmas rolls around. someone else has commented on how good the o’malley girls are for grandmary, and you can truly see it here. she is getting to be a grandmother again, and she is in her element. grandmary is finally letting herself exist a little outside of the rules she has always been constrained by, and it is so delightful to see her truly start to live.

like i said at the start of this post, grief is so important to me in understanding these stories. grandmary gets her love from the fandom, but i feel like it’s not acknowledged enough how much she’s going through and how wonderful it is to see her work through her grief and come out the other side. i’m so glad that the movie picks up on this character arc, and that mia farrow really brings her all to the role.

and then american girl had the audacity to put her through the events of the titanic book but we simply do not have time to get angry about that again

[seeker-ophelia]

OK Y'all, I just can’t with these "Ghosts-Of-Christmas-Past-Easter-Eggs" I am finding.

Spoilers, Veilguard so ya know, watch out.

The Three Choices ™

My Sisters in Andraste, what in the ever-loving fuck is happening.

Why am I still talking about this?

"Because, Sera, Bioware, my genuine sorrow for the tragedy of our history cannot be diminished by a single moment."

These are THEIR words!

oNe DaY sOmEoNe WiLl SuMmARiZe ThE tErRiBlE EvEnTs oF yOuR LiFe So QuiCkLy

Varric: ITS KINDA HARD TO START A NEW STORY BEFORE THE OLD ONE IS OVER smhhbcqkwiokvnvanavj

"DoNt WiSh FoR uR chAraktErs To CoMe BaCk Cuz We'LL uNaLiVe TheMz"

[Sera] SHES HUMAN NOT WHATEVER YOU SAID

Varric, on the importance of being seen, even if not needed:

Varric & Bull, on choosing their people:

Varric & Solas, on the destructive nature of humans,

For now the best thing I can offer you is... *dramatic pause*... the truth.

*Gut wrenching Hidden Gulp*

But just like Solas, YOU DIDNT TELL US THE TRUTH. You HID IT FROM US.

And just like Solas, I fear your Pride will be your downfall.

These are THEIR words!

───────

Blackwall Devs:  You haven't said much to me since... well, you know.

Solas Fandom: There is little to say. I assumed we were alike. We'd seen war, knew its terrible costs, and yet understood that it was necessary. But there was nothing necessary in what you did. You did not survive death and destruction. You sowed them. To feed your own desires.

Blackwall Devs:  I know that. I see it every time I look in a mirror. I try to make up for it.

Solas Fandom: By wearing another skin. You ran away rather than face what you had done.

───────

Solas Fandom: I will remember this. When it is over.

Blackwall Devs: This? This war? The Inquisition Veilguard?

Solas Fandom: The people. How you we fought against the tide. It is... courageous.

───────

It's rough, innit, Blackwall OP? But they come and go.

Sera, don't.

Right, right... you're set on being sad forever. But then the sun freakin' comes up.

Yes, well, it's not that easy.

Didn't say it was. I implied I didn't care. Uh-huh, that's right. Implied.

(laughs)

You better laugh. I had to ask Solas for that one.

───────

[batsplat]

do you have any favorite tennis matches? what's your favorite player and rivalry if you have one?

(note, I will be leaving both agassi + sampras out of this post as they have already been discussed in a fair bit of detail on this blog, though I might at some point make a post specifically about their matches. obviously they'd be pretty high up in all three categories with regards to favourite matches, players, and rivalries)

I have a lot of favourite tennis matches!! I'll throw a few of them under the cut, but honestly give me half a chance and I'll go on forever. my all time favourite tennis match is the 2003 us open semifinal between justine henin and jennifer capriati. it is available in full on youtube and I think you should watch it even if you have only the slightest interest in tennis. this is a match you need to experience for yourself and I will not spoil the result, but it features basically everything you could ask for:

very high stakes, both in terms of being a slam semi and for both players involved. it's an interesting stretch of henin's career, plenty of controversies that season and the potential for a rematch with countrywoman clijsters in the final. capriati during her noughties career revival had FINALLY managed to overcome her issues in late stages of slams and had won three of them... but her home slam at the us open was the one she wanted to win most of all. a history of semifinal choking she was attempting to conquer in front of her home crowd - fighting a woman six years her junior who had already tasted slam success that year

two very different personalities, the cold and calculating henin against the ferocious and passionate capriati... both not strangers to a little bit of gamesmanship, and of course you see that on display in this match too. keep an eye on the poor line judges

two contrasting but similarly engaging playstyles, the boisterous force of capriati coming up against henin's lethally elegant all-court game. henin's one handed backhand better than sex question mark. it's a great stylistic match-up, and produces some excellent tennis across the entire span of the match. just SUCH a great watch, like I really cannot speak highly enough of the level on display

a highly involved crowd who want their home favourite to win SO BADLY and are more than happy to do anything to help her cause. gets a bit wild, like the best us open matches tend to do

some truly insane momentum switches, many prompted by psychology and some prompted by physicality. one player's body starts letting her down in the final set in pretty striking fashion. one player's mind plays havoc with her, possibly even more memorably so. a very dramatic finale

the cruelty of tennis on full display. a match where you suffer for both players, who both want it so badly and are visibly fighting demons on the court. truly, truly brutal for the loser

I love this match so so much. I know it's very on-brand to direct you to a match from over two decades ago, but I promise you. it's worth it. sometimes the old stuff is the best

and do I EVER have a favourite player and rivalry!!!!!!

MY GIRLS. okay, look, they're both extremely retired and had their last match in 2010 BUT it is still my favourite rivalry!!!!!!! here, have another bit of my output for them:

wE hAvE aLwaYs ProTEcTEd tHis iMAge oF friENdShip tHat nEVeR eXistEd istgggggggg NOTHING WAS BROKEN BETWEEN US BECAUSE THERE WAS NOTHING TO BREAK

if you've ever heard someone be extremely annoying about federer's game, you probably can imagine what I sound like talking about henin. she's got my favourite backhand of all time, I genuinely think it is a work of art. I love how she moves, the way she unleashes on balls on the run, I love how she gets into the court in such a lithe and precise manner to pick up the next ball. I love how effective the serve is despite her height (number one commentating cliché for her lol, she's short we get it). the slices, the gorgeous drop volleys, the laser straight forehand... and again, the backhand. when she takes a swing at that thing and fucking pummels it past her opponent, stretches her wings to make the ball soar, it's just truly my favourite shot of all time. there's a specific backhand crosscourt on-the-run pass she hits in that aforementioned us open semifinal where... yeah. what can you even say. better than sex full stop

and well... okay, look, I am AWARE a lot of fans still hate her and I do get that she won't be everyone's cup of tea. but y'know. sometimes you just have to support women's rights and wrongs, and I do think some of the criticism of her is also a bit overblown. she's a cheater, yes, I won't argue with that. but I think sometimes cheating is interesting!! she really really really really needed to win, she was cold and ruthless about it - but also, I'm sorry, people would NOT have hated her quite so much if she were a man. and I'm also not saying a sad life story justifies cheating etc etc, but I do wish people were a bit more interested in why she needed to win so badly. she also has the number one athlete attribute that makes my brain go crazy - a deeply conflicted relationship with the sport itself. always caught between running towards and running away from tennis... yeah. god

the single best resource in tennis is a website called tennisabstract, it really is fantastic, I've contributed a bit to their match coding project before and definitely will again when my schedule's freed up a bit. I have a lot of time for the guy who runs it, I really do. there's this series he did, tennis 128, where he listed the top 128 players of all time according to his metric and wrote a piece for each of them... and I think they're all very interesting, it's a great project. but. there's a good chance henin got the most negative write-up of the lot, in a way I have to admit I take issue with. some excerpts:

well, tough luck. I don't care. the lgbt community has forgiven justine henin. look at what a cute tomboy she was as a teenager:

look at her holding a bird trophy:

wifey

the other half of that rivalry is her fellow belgian clijsters. very much a case of two narratives haunting each other!! do not separate!! anyhow, she's another player with a game I absolutely adore, these big scything groundstrokes but ALSO plenty of variety, like we're not talking a dull baseline basher here. and the movement!! sliding on a hard court is STILL pretty rare in the women's game, so it's very much seen as something associated with clijsters and clijsters alone:

life changing thighs is what I'll say

clijsters was everything henin was not - warm, popular in the locker room and with fans, a cheery outgoing personality who always had plenty of people rooting for her. she was also seen as too nice to win. and there are few things on this planet that get me going more than a choker. than somebody who just... freezes in the most important matches of her life. which for a while there had a nasty habit of involving henin, because of course they did

clijster's another one with a really fascinating career arc, one that is inextricably linked with henin's story - and thing is, she did get her happy ending. she's the feel-good story, proof that even chokers might be able to make it in the end. she conquered her demons... one of the very, very, very few to do so. she changed the narrative of her career completely. now I DO hate how this kinda... low key gets implicitly used as another stick to thwack henin with, this kind of, ooh!! look!! you can be a good person and be successful too!! which! idk. god forbid we root for a flawed athlete now and again. but I think this does a disservice to clijsters - not least because she WAS pretty nasty about henin in a way she wasn't about basically anyone else. henin and clijsters are more than just sinner and saint... don't let tennis fans tell you otherwise

and yeah, the two of them obviously had a bit of an emotionally tortured rivalry. belgium cooked up two insanely good tennis players born exactly one year and one week apart, the only two players of that stature the country has ever produced. they made each other better and they made each other worse. friends and enemies and something in between... and in the end, fundamentally inseparable. citadels have been built on less

anyway tbh I'm not going to pretend like anyone is summoning up that kind of narrative juice these days, but obviously I still have my faves. as regular blog readers may be aware, my favourite current player is this washed string bean who mostly just loses to more talented players and throws tantrums these days. I'll support him until his time runs up though. medvedev's got this fantastically unorthodox game that I could dissect all day, he's the smartest top player, he's funny as shit. his game should never have worked and he has no right to be as successful as he is. I could hold a lecture series on his forehand. I'm very much a pusher-inclined fan... I like counterpunchers, I like players who run around a lot and defend, and I also like tacticians. I was a pretty early adopter because I love a quirky playstyle and weird technique, which was then affirmed with the miami 2018 debacle (iykyk). but there was a moment I knew I would be his fan for life, and if you are a tennis fan you can probably guess what's coming:

"so I want all of you to know, when you sleep tonight, I won because of you" I fell in love

never ever has he let me down on the drama front. his "oops I did it again" basel 2018 instagram post, his "I think I killed someone? my apologies" from us open 2020, "if I die, who'll take responsibility" from olympics 2021, the "it's easier to enjoy life when you have no brain" paris 2021 monologue, the yawn at turin 2021, stomping on the ground davis cup 2021, the "his father can talk every point" ao 2022 rant, "I'm gonna pee as slow as this court" from iw 2023, when he got rid of the singles stick monte carlo 2023 plus the "look at yourself in the mirror" press conference comment, "vamo vamo vamo" from uso 2023... I could keep going. "shut your fuck up" has become a part of my vocabulary icl. I love his press conferences and watch a lot of them, just consistently a very interesting guy to listen to. he is unfortunately sort of hellish to follow as a fan, but y'know. sometimes it's not just trophies that make the journey worth it (cope)

women's tennis, my actual faves have basically disappeared from the scene this year so I'm not even gonna dignify them by mentioning their names. I am pretty ride-or-die for dasha kasatkina, a useless pusher who's also the wta's highest ranked lesbian and makes a vlog with her girlfriend I definitely recommend. I like her tennis a lot in all its horrendous pushing, she's very sweet and fun and produces an obscene number of cute photos with her girlfriend. beyond that, I suppose I am basically a swiatek and sabalenka fan this year, I find both of them highly engaging in different ways, I love how they're like... actually very good but are also seemingly constantly fighting demons. basically the two most compelling players in the game currently TO ME. I'm really really enjoying their rivalry, my main complaint is that I wish they played more (praying iga's new coach fixes her during the off-season). they produced by far the best match this year, madrid final, which I'd also absolutely recommend. but yeah, I generally vibe with all the top players of the women's game, if to differing extents!! really strong era at the minute that also promises to keep getting better. we pray

anyhow. a few more favourite matches - I'm going to try and hold myself back, because I really could go on forever. a lot of the old matches I watch are from noughties wta, but I'll limit myself because I'm aware this really is probably of interest to nobody and give just a further two - sharapova/henin wta finals 2007 and venus/davenport wimbledon 2005. both pretty normie picks, but sometimes the normie picks are normie picks for a reason

for my sins, I do have a few big three matches in fairly regular rotation, typically on in the background when I'm working. main ones are djokovic/federer us open 2011, djokovic/federer wimbledon 2019, djokovic/federer wimbledon 2014, and djokovic/nadal roland garros 2021. I also have a bunch of murray matches in rotation but I tend to mix it up for him more... my other go-to run is all of leylah fernandez's pre-final us open 2021 matches, which are just consistently bonkers in the best possible way. there's a few other recent-ish matches I really like to revisit, like iga/sublanko madrid 2023, fernandez/osorio monterrey 2022, kerber/juvan strasbourg 2022...

and then, of the more recent-ish men's matches, pretty obvious where my biases lie. medvedev/djokovic cincy 2019, med/wawrinka uso 2019, med/nadal atp finals 2020, med/thiem atp finals 2020, med/djokovic uso 2021, med/sinner atp finals 2021 (conceptually hilarious match), med/faa ao 2022 (go-to flight match, this one), med/tsi ao 2022, rune/djokovic paris 2022 (and honestly that whole rune run), med/zverev monte carlo 2023 (don't feel great about including this but I'd be lying if I said I didn't love it), rune/sinner monte carlo 2023, rune/foki madrid 2023, med/alcaraz uso 2023 (I promised I'd sing the american national anthem if he won that match so that's a voice note that still exists out there)... and so on

I could keep going, but I'll cut myself off here. and end things with my personal favourite instagram post tennis has produced. from after the aforementioned rune/foki madrid match:

'personally I hold nothing against the Spanish people' dw king I'll do it for you

[gracie-rosee]

How is there literally one person writing fic for Lucien and Vassa? Like are y’all not intrigued by their potential? Does Russian folklore not interest you? A curse that can only be broken by true love??! The fox and the Firebird?!!!!!!! Hello?!?!?!!!

They are so slept on, I might just have to take things into my own hands.

[juliamccartney]

i swear to god i might just have to quit reading that book

[omgserafinablog]

Goodbye forever, my friend.

Lucian & Valentine

When he stands over his former dead friend, once a former brother-in-arms, he thinks he should be happy. Only sadness pierced his heart. He knew, he had long since come to terms with the fact that his friend had died a long time ago, and now there was a monster lying in front of him that was supposed to die. That monster would have killed him and certainly wouldn't have mourned him. But looking at Valentine now, he hardly hates him or rejoices at his death.

Luke kneels down next to Valentin and cannot take his eyes off his pale face, which has lost its rigidity, eternal tension. Now he sees before him again the boy he fell in love with at school and whom he kept in his heart. Even before the creation of the Circle, before the deaths of Oscar Morgenstern and Seraphina. Valentin was the best in the academy, a popular boy from a wealthy family, but he never bragged about it and was not arrogant, which set him apart from other elite students who joked and offended losers like Lucian. Valentin became friends with him. He helped him with his studies. If it wasn't for Valentine…

Lucian hated to remember the times of the Circle, tried to forget about it, but never forgot about the time spent with his friend. Their joint training, numerous adventures, gatherings around the campfire, their jokes and dreams. He remembered their ceremony and how their bond warmed him when he was sick; he remembered how they hunted together as if they were a single organism, and how the parabatai rune burned. Sometimes he missed those feelings, that power, that sacred connection. Lucian remembered how comfortable and peaceful he felt next to Valentine, whom he loved.

Luke sighed, extending his hand to Valentine.

«Is it my fault?» - He whispered.

His friend, whom he fell in love with, was always so cheerful, good-natured, ready to lend a helping hand to anyone who needed it. He was always so confident and strong. He took special care of those he loved. And most of all, he was afraid of losing those he loved.

When his parents died, Lucian had no idea that this loss would break Valentine so much. He was sure that his friend would cope, withstand this blow. In fact, he had no idea that Valentine was so dependent on his father. Valentin himself did not say a word against Oscar. But there were various rumors about his father's cruelty, how harshly he treated him and controlled him. Sometimes Lucian noticed uneven scars on his friend's back, strange wounds and bruises, but Valentine only waved away all questions. Valentin rarely talked about his family at all. Only once, at Oscar's grave, did he mention that he dreamed of becoming the perfect soldier-the way Oscar Morgenstern wanted him to be. How much he wanted his father to be proud of him. He longed for that praise, for his father's pride, but he never got it. His father had turned to dust. And Valentine-his Valentine, a kind and bright boy, died with Oscar. Instead, something hateful and evil appeared, something alien.

Lucian was his parabatai, he was closest to Valentine, but what did he do to help him cope with this change, with this pain? He did not try to lead him away from the edge of the abyss. It took Lucian a moment to realize that he had lost him forever, and when he did, it was too late. Valentine is gone forever. And he hated him for it. He hated him for becoming the one he wanted to rid the world of. A monstrous monster. Completely different. Unrecognizable.

«Yes, my friend, it's my fault. I had too much faith in your powers. I thought people like you didn't break down. I was sure you could handle it. But I was wrong and didn't help.»

Lucian looks into the frozen black eyes, in which there has been no life for a long time, but it seems to him that they are glowing now. He sees his reflection in those eyes.

«I couldn't save you. Did you know that Jocelyn asked me to do this? To protect you from hate. I didn't understand her right away. I thought your hatred was just, and I didn't understand when you overstepped all bounds in your retaliation. I was your parabatai, and I failed. Forgive me and goodbye».

He put a warm palm on the cold, frozen face, which, with its extraordinary softness, reminded him so much of the kind boy from his distant past, and closed his dead eyes.

«Ave atque vale, Shadowhunter»