#i've HAD the eucatastrophe

[francesderwent]

have really been struggling with fantasy lately, can only read murder mysteries. is it because reading the Mistborn trilogy broke something in me? or is it because I don't need fantasy anymore--because I'm not pining longingly for a moment of unexpected inbreaking. I'm in a situation, quite comfortably awaiting the expected ending of simple justice.

[queen-scribbles]

Okay, so. In the spirit of that 'letting people be there for you' post I reblogged earlier, here's a personal update I was really, really, REALLY hoping I wouldn't have to make.

(before anyone gets worried, it's not me, I'm okay as circumstances allow, but family health stuff under the cut)

My mom's been fighting cancer for the past eight years. There was a one year remission in there after the initial discovery and treatment before it came back, so this round has been six years. She's moved though different chemo-lite medications like ibrantz etc, had to switch to actual chemo just before Thanksgiving 2023. And it was working. The lesions were shrinking and disappearing, it was going away. Until this past September. When it was discovered that the stupid fucking cancer had migrated to her bones. So they switched chemo cocktail. Found out just before this Christmas it wasn't working. She had several multi-day hospital stays between November and December, the last of which was over a week, starting Dec. 23, so we wound up not having Christmas until she came home on new year's.

There isn't anything else that will work. So she transitioned to hospice home care, oncologist was talking in terms of months to live. I'll spare you all the medical details, but we're talking multiple tumors, fluid buildup around her lungs(Dad's been draining that p much daily), on oxygen, all that.

This morning she woke up super confused, my aunt who's visiting to help called the home care nurse, it could be next stage transition for end of life, could be just she took too much of a medication last night. I had some errands to run, not much good I can do at home, so I go do that, praying super fucking hard it's the medication one. Come back to the update NOPE the nurse thinks it's the next stage end of life. Now, barring a miracle, we're talking days. Maybe a couple weeks if we're lucky.

I just

My parents are great. They've always been loving and encouraging and supportive and our family is all super close and this sucks. It sucks so much. Stupid fucking bullshit cancer.

I've been hoping one of the treatments would work. That she'd go back in remission and get more time. She just turned sixty, for crying out loud. Normally there'd be another 20 years before we had to worry about losing her, she'd get to watch Starfish grow up, see any other grandkids that come along.

I feel like I should apologize for keeping all this to myself for so long and then dropping an update like this, but in a weird way I liked having somewhere where that wasn't a known part of my life? So I had somewhere I wasn't always being asked about it and having to think about it and this has always been my fandom/escapist place so it made sense to my brain to not mention it. I was meaning to say something when we got the 'months to live' news, but I've been dragging my feet. Don't feel like I can drag them any more.

I just wanted y'all to know what's up with me if I go quiet for a few days, or there's less writing, or--as I suspect will happen--there's a near-manic amount more and it's all fix-it, fluff, and fuck-it-eucatastrophe-time type stuff. I feel like I'm gonna use fic to cope; I can't fix real life but I can fix my characters' lives.

I love my mom and I'm worried about my dad(he's been joking for twenty years he doesn't know what he'll do if she goes first and well. fuck cancer) and I hate this. so. much.

[theawkwardvillainess]

btw I've seen some people be angry about how in tgcf someone as horrible as junwu doesn't get killed but instead even gets a chance of redemption, while in mdzs... well. everyone dies horribly and those who doesn't are left miserable and alone and the only ~good ending is for main ship. But I actually think that it's not because MXTX was "too kind to junwu" or "too cruel to mdzs characters"

To me, this really fits in the difference between these stories and kinda their narrative themes? Mdzs is a drama of the human world, which is very flawed and isn't likely to change; "people will be people" and etc. It has a very "ugh #society" flavour to it, and that's why it's really unjust: just because of the interpersonal tragedies many people end up with fates they absolutely don't deserve, and the ending is really more bitter than sweet. wang//xian are an exception here, able to escape that, would you argue if because of high morality, or because they reject this #society and elope from the world of dramas, reputations and the endless fight for power, or because of something else.

tgcf to me feels more... fairytale-like? this is more of a story about greater dimensions but also of much more idealistic and hopeful concepts, and it is certainly a lot about love and forgiveness for people. It makes sense that it gives hope to everyone, even characters who are "evil" (qirong, junwu) or to those whose fates are awful (sqx). I would agree that the only arc that is tragic and practically hopeless is the blackwater arc, but there is still some hope even there. The ending is like an eucatastrophe, it gives a bit of strong, religious love to everyone, and because these themes go through the whole book, it treats the villain differently (xl gives a second chance to humanity and then he gives a second chance to junwu). And even the figures of heroes and villains are more like... grand? yes, they are still human, but they are a lot more images of good and evil than characters in mdzs who are more "grey" in that.

So I personally think that both endings fit their stories perfectly and if mdzs had a happier ending it wouldn't be so great as a book. and if tgcf had a less happy ending it also wouldn't be as great as it is in sense of philosophical concepts it talks about.

[novelmonger]

6 for those reader asks.

-Rain

6. What book would you change the end of?

The first one that comes to mind, because I was talking about it with my sisters the other day, is Lord Sunday, the final book of the Keys to the Kingdom series by Garth Nix. The whole series is really fun and interesting, about a boy who gets embroiled in this...alternate dimension, I guess, a secret world run by seven powerful beings named after the days of the week. He's the heir to an important legacy, and he has to secure the Will while escaping all the different factions who are trying to get it first. The stakes get higher and higher as the series goes on, and I was really getting invested in it, but then the last book felt like he went too far and painted himself in a corner, because the stakes had gotten so high that there was no realistic way to prevent the whole universe from being destroyed. And the solution is one I've seen in several different stories, but never really feels completely satisfactory, so it was a bit of a letdown to a series I really enjoyed.

I don't know, it's kind of hard to explain without going into all the details, but just imagine something like the ending of the Mistborn trilogy being the end of Harry Potter, and that might be close XD I don't know exactly how I would change it, but I'd want it to somehow be a eucatastrophe without becoming a deus ex machina. Tall order, I know.

Reading Ask Game

[imbecamiel]

Bet My Life

(From the WIP ask meme)

Thank you for the ask! <3

Bet My Life: So this one was kicked off by the Imagine Dragons song popping up on a playlist while I was driving and getting me Thinking what a ridiculously on the nose Jason and Bruce vibe the entire thing is.

But ALSO. The sheer potential of it being a generational thing, too. Because it could also really fit with young Bruce and Alfred, with Bruce leaving for his training on a bad note with Alfred, who does not understand or approve of what he wants to do.

So you have a two-parter, with young Bruce convinced that his relationship with Alfred is considerably more severely broken than it actually is. Until, at a crucial point, he is injured/sick during his world training tour and winds up calling Alfred, despite barely believing that he can or will do anything about the situation given Bruce is in the middle of nowhere halfway across the world but needing to try saying goodbye if nothing else. (But, of course, Alfred does in fact come through, with resources and contacts Bruce did not guess he had.)

And then part two, Jason and Bruce. Which is where I'm hung up on indecision. Do I go with a more direct generational mirror, with Jason reaching out to Bruce despite being at a point where he genuinely doubts Bruce will help? Orrrr do I go with a dynamic I haven't seen as much in fic and have it be again Bruce who looks to Jason for help, in a moment where he's got no reason to think Jason will put aside his anger but it's really Bruce's only option?

Either way, it's all about the eucatastrophe moment of "I've got no reason to expect anything but I'm reaching out anyway because I'm at the end of my rope" and being met with not just mercy but love.

[crackinthecup]

Writers/artists/creators alike, I want you to share your favorite interaction(s) that you’ve had thanks to the wonderful things you make!

Tagged by @antares0606 - thank you so much, this is such a lovely thing to think about <3

I met so so many wonderful people during the years I've been in the Silm fandom, I've had so many fun and/or thought-provoking and/or supportive conversations, I've had very kind and very talented people make art of my fic and write fic of my fic that I'm still aasdgdsads about, some of my closest and longest friendships started in the comments section on AO3, and AO3 is also where I had my very first interaction with my now partner of eight years.

Anyway anyway fandom is a beautiful place and I very much treasure all the fabulous people I've met online and sometimes been lucky enough to meet IRL too <3 <3

Tagging @elevenelvenswords @ultraviolet-eucatastrophe @mostvaliantandmostpround @mossquitoman @amethysttribble if you would like to have a go!

[sometimes-love-is-enough]

Hello! I'm sorry if this is a nuisance or irritating in any way, but I just had to say it: YOU ARE AN ABSOLUTE CREATIVE GENIUS AND I LOVE EVERY THOUGHT THAT COMES OUT OF YOU BECAUSE THEY ARE ALL FANTASTIC. Just. All of it!!! I haven't been able to read 100% of your fics yet, but, come on. "Pick A Side" is something I read and reread SEVERAL times when taking my philosophy class, and it made me more inspired to keep going, even though that topic causes me a lot of anxiety (1/7)

I was ecstatic when reading ALL of “Eucatastrophe” because it gives a lot of thought to each and every character, and the way you build suspense!!! Man. I adore fae stories and I was on the edge of my seat trying to figure out what everyone was going to do. And the way you incorporated the mirror thing!!! And all of the other fae-kind of characters!! There’s something supernatural about your stories because I started reading this one, like, the day after I first learned about the Erlking.

And then there’s “melliferous”. Just. I’ve learned SO MANY cool words from you and your writing. But the creeping uncanny descriptions and horror/tragedy elements were superb! I hate those things most of the time, but beyond the fact that my brain was like “Let’s ignore the “Major Character Death” warning for once, because this is promising bees AND Greek mythology”, the storytelling was incredible!!

Okay, last story I’m going to gush over, but eventually I wound up exploring your Tumblr, and as soon as my brain hit the word “dinosaurs” I was like: “I. HAVE. To read this.” And it did not disappoint!!! Goodness. All of your ideas are so clever!! And then I saw your art and analysis posts and my jaw dropped. How can one person be this talented???

(By the way, your post about 16th century Italian theater blew my mind. Because I had no clue about the historical art form!!! I have monologued to myself dozens of times on the dissection of what makes the Sides so relatable, and how it’s because they’re almost purely archetypes!! Everyone can connect to whomever they want and write them in a way that’s meaningful to them and it works!!

Oh my word, that post filled me with so much emotion I couldn’t look at your stuff for months because my brain was consumed with it.) Okay. Now that that’s all out. I’m sorry for raving like a lunatic in your Ask Box. I just wanted to let you know how important your work is to me, and how much you are appreciated. Because you are very much appreciated and valued. Even if you never posted again, even if I never read your fics or looked at your blog again, I would think about you because I now know you exist, and you’ve impacted my life. And I am grateful that you exist. Thank you for being so amazing and for having the courage and generosity to share it on the internet for people like me. (And thank you for putting up with ridiculously long messages being thrown at you) I hope you have a good day :)

No need to apologize for gushing! Seeing seven asks in my inbox this morning made me go 'oh, I finally got cancelled, huh', so the fact that it was just one enthusiastic person was a COMPLETE delight, you made me smile so ridiculously widely! I am so glad you're enjoying my fics this much, and that I could make you Feel Things and Think About Things and Learn Things (because honestly, that's all I've ever wanted to do). I don't plan on stopping for a good while yet - I've got too many stories in my head and they all want to come out.

I sincerely hope you have the most wonderful of days. I love you.

[kanerallels]

Hello yes Valiant! I just had a great time! I love the high adventure political fantasy! I’m not super familiar with the brave little tailor story but now I would like more retellings except I don’t know if they would do as good as this! It’s got Robin Hood clever thief kind of vibes but it looks at the consequences! It’s also one of the first books I can think of where truth telling AS the eucatastrophe struck home (started crying when the Valnor tells the Duke “you lie” shook me can’t explain. Revelation of the truth even when it’s a negative one is beautiful and healing actually. Wow)

VALIANT MY BELOVED I AM SO GLAD YOU ENJOYED IT!!

Oh absolutely agreed! I have no idea if any others could live up to this one (the closest I've ever come to another was The Hero's Guide To Storming The Castle having a character named Little Taylor), but it would be super cool to see another

ABSOLUTELY AGREED especially the truth part. That ending makes me feel all the things. It's such a stunning beautiful book, so poetically and artistically written. I'm so glad you liked it!!

[themummersfolly]

I've had a series of alternating catastrophes and eucatastrophes happen to me over the last couple days, like it seems like every single thing has been either a longed-for event taking place beyond all hope or a career-ending shit show, there is no in-between. The resulting emotional rollercoaster has left my nervous system feeling like it's made of ants and I'm confined to the couch in spite of the list of things I said I would do today.

[theonlyjamdodge]

a new beginning,

PLANET 1: 08/08/2023

hello!

so this is my first ever tumblr post. i suppose i'm a little late to the party but when i saw that you could create blogs here, i knew i had to give it a go. i want to try and make some form of journal/diary and update on my life and experiences for people to read. it might be a little personal and cringe, but if it's something i end up enjoying, then i'm happy!

life at the moment is a bit messy. in the next month, i'll go going to university and leaving my family for the first time. don't get me wrong, i am extremely excited to go and the amount of stuff i'll learn/do and the friends i'll meet will make it all worth it, but that doesn't stop the constant worry. i adore my family and to leave them is so heartbreaking. especially since i won't be able to visit as often, the fear of missing out (also known as fomo) on important things in their lives, etc. since my dad is not in the picture and my sister has her own household, it also means my mum will be alone which makes me so upset. we do have a pet bird however (who i sadly can't take with me) to keep her company! so that brings me a little bit of peace. this is just the tip of the iceberg of worries and thoughts.

i'm sure in a few months, i'll come back and reread this with a smile, knowing that everything went okay. that's what i hope, anyway. i'm pretty sure every single person going to university has some, if not the same worries, so i'm trying not to let it get to me. in fact, i'm kinda blocking out thinking about it too much, something i've come to realize that i tend to do a lot. 

a little fun fact, i used to have a wattpad book named planet lesley but i ended up taking it down because i wanted my wattpad to be for my more creative works. it was basically a rant diary - much like what this may become - where i focused on aspects of my life that i could delve into and explain, whether that was for the better or for the worse. i might repost some of the chapters here instead, so they don't get lost in my archived wattpad stories. 

anyways, i'm going to end this here for now and keep it short as this is just a little experiment. i hope if anyone reads this, you're having a wonderful day ♡

WORD OF THE DAY: eucatastrophe  a sudden and favourable resolution of events in a story; a happy ending.

SONG OF THE DAY: Moonlight - Kali Uchis

[novelmonger]

Books:

The climax of Mr. Monster by Dan Wells, in which the protagonist, John Cleaver, is kidnapped and imprisoned in what is basically a serial killer's torture dungeon. The descriptions of what the serial killer does to his victims, while not overly gratuitous in my opinion, are very visceral. What makes the whole thing even more horrifying is the climax of John's struggle with his own sociopathic tendencies.

Not a specific scene, but simply everything about the Beast's castle in Rose Daughter by Robin McKinley. I want to live there. I want it to be my home. It almost feels like it is my home already, except that I've never been there and I don't actually like roses all that much. Change the flower to lilacs, though....

When Sam thinks (and so did I!) that Shelob killed Frodo in The Two Towers. The first time I read it, I 100% believed that he was dead, and I was devastated. I could barely read through my tears to find out that Frodo was still alive.

This underrated line from the beginning of Northanger Abbey: "Her father was a clergyman, without being neglected, or poor, and a very respectable man, though his name was Richard--and he had never been handsome. He had a considerable independence besides two good livings--and he was not in the least addicted to locking up his daughters."

This might be taking it a little too literally, but...the scene where Kaladin is left to die on a roof during a highstorm in The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson, and feels the full fury of hurricane-level winds. It's an awakening in many ways, and beautifully written.

Each book of the Prydain Chronicles makes me want to take up a sword and fight evil just like Taran does, but there's something particularly powerful about The Book of Three, the first book in the series. Before you learn anything about where Taran comes from, before he's proven himself at all, before he is anything but an Assistant Pig-Keeper, he wants to take up a sword and fight, and it's hard not to want to do the same alongside him. His triumphs become your triumphs.

The entirety of The Supper of the Lamb by Robert Farrar Capon. It's non-fiction, but reading it is like eating a rich feast for all its insights into the enjoyment of food and the Divine.

Movies:

The entirety of Sound of Freedom - I started crying in the opening credits and barely stopped the whole way through, because the movie forces you to face the horrific reality of human trafficking.

The ending of the animated The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe - the stag hunt, coming back through the wardrobe, and the Professor telling them, "This is the end of your adventures in the wardrobe, but only the beginning of your adventures in Narnia." The music that plays during that part is the sound of a heart yearning to return to a land you've never seen before <3

The ending of A Monster Calls. The movie is about a boy whose mother is dying of cancer, so the whole thing is gut-wrenching and sad, but that ending broke me. It was beautiful and cathartic, but still heartbreaking.

Many, many parts of The Court Jester, but one part that never fails to make me laugh is the whole sequence about "the pellet with the poison is in the vessel with the pestle," etc.

The first time Hiccup and Toothless go flying in How to Train Your Dragon. It makes you feel like you're flying with them!

"Sons of Gondor, of Rohan, my brothers! I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. A day may come when the courage of Men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship. But it is not this day. An hour of wolves and shattered shields, when the age of Men comes crashing down. But it is not this day. This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good earth, I bid you stand, Men of the West!"

The climax of It's a Wonderful Life, with its glorious eucatastrophe and everything coming full circle, everything that was grating on George's nerves now being things he delights in because his perspective has changed, and it all coming to a conclusion with a crowd of smiling people packed into the living room, belting out "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing."

If you would be so kind, please reblog and tell me about a scene in a book or movie (or fanfic!) that (feel free to pick one or multiple):

1. Wrenched you around by the guts

2. Hollowed you out with longing

3. Broke your heart

4. Made you laugh

5. Caught you up into great expanses of Northern air

6. Caused you to want to strap on a sword and not a walking stick

7. Satisfied you like roast and potatoes and warm apple crisp

[novelmonger]

A few reasons that I, personally, believe God is real

There are many compelling theological, philosophical, historical, and scientific reasons to believe in God, but I'll leave those for others smarter than I am to enumerate them. Today, I just wanted to give a short, non-exhaustive list of why I believe in God, just from my own personal experience, because I think that can be just as compelling as the most well-written work of apologetics.

If God doesn't exist, what's the point? Why do good things? Why love? Why not just jump off a bridge or stay in bed forever? If God doesn't exist, then heaven doesn't exist, and we really are all just animals with no further purpose than to keep living until we die and become dirt. I'd rather believe there's a greater story being told, with an actual purpose and direction to my life, than just plodding along in a world devoid of hope.

I've known too many people and heard too many stories of people giving up everything for the sake of Christ and the gospel, including my own parents. If so many people, across so many countries and thousands of years, think God is worth everything they have to give, there has to be something to it.

When I look at a beautiful sunset, or hear a bird call, or smell a lilac, or feel the sun on my skin and a cool breeze in my hair, it's impossible for me to believe that any of that could be the result of chance. Such beauty feels created, the same way a symphony sounds different from someone plunking random keys on a piano.

When I ask God for comfort, when I'm crying in the middle of the night and can't find rest, when I'm at my lowest and cry out to God for help, I can feel His comfort. Sometimes, I just find myself drawing a deeper breath and calming down. A few times, I've felt a physical weight on my chest, like the hand of a father as he tucks his daughter in.

Sometimes, when I least expect it (whether I'm praying for an answer or not), a Bible verse will suddenly pop into my mind, sometimes one that I haven't thought of in a long time or didn't think I'd even memorized, verses I had to Google to find out where they were, but they perfectly addressed my need in that moment. I've read the whole Bible multiple times before, so clearly they were in my head somewhere, but I believe God pulled them to the forefront of my mind when I needed them. This is how I believe the Holy Spirit speaks to me, rather than with audible words.

Every time I've prayed for help, healing, wisdom, protection, peace...I've gotten an answer. It's not always an immediate answer, it's not always the one I want or expect, but I can always point to something that answers my request. Too many times, things have "just happened" to work out in ways I never would have expected. It's too consistent to be a coincidence.

I am a writer. I live and breathe stories. Stories are how I make sense of the world. Why? Why would I care about stories staying true to their themes, about character growth, about the climax and the eucatastrophe and the happy endings, if I'm just an animal? Why have stories been so important for the entirety of human history? The only answer that makes sense to me is that we are characters in the hands of the Great Storyteller, trying in our own fumbling ways to do what He does.

Please feel free to add to this list with your own personal reasons! I may add onto it myself later.

[septembersghost]

I'm confused as to why ppl think things can't have a happy ending. brba did have a happy ending. walt dies but was going to die anyway. he died saving jesse and had it set up to give the money to his family. like how could there have been a happier ending?bob said a chance at a 2nd life and that teaser of after all this, a happy ending? I'm sorry, but why the hell not. if ppl are punished then why can't they have their one true love? pretty sure the lesson has been learned.

you're preaching to the choir tbh, i am always a proponent of an earned happy ending, and "happy" can have a lot of different definitions. i don't necessarily think we're owed that in any given story, but i do fiercely believe we deserve narratively satisfying endings. i've written about this many times, but when i've hated and been very hurt by endings, it's not because they're tragic, it's because they're not satisfying and don't feel right for the stories' and characters' conclusions. tragedy can be beautiful and affecting and important, but it has to mean something, not be a last minute sadistic swerve to shock and hurt your audience. i probably have tons of posts about this, but i'm going to link these: 1, 2, 3 because they all very much speak to this idea.

i was just talking to @kendalroys about the ending of breaking bad - i think it's almost underappreciated now how much humanity and even hope is in that ending, after the oppressive darkness of the rest of the story. (granite state is, to me, by far the bleakest episode of the whole show, and felina is the denouement rising out of it again.) there could've been FAR more upsetting endings, but they didn't do that. like you said, walt manages to get his money to the schwartzes, he sees skyler and is able to give her some measure of closure, along with the coordinates to find hank and gomez's burial site (which is very sad, but better than leaving them unknown out there), he sees holly one last time, and flynn from afar (say what you will about walt, i never doubt he does love his children), and then he heads off to the nazi compound with his m60 in the trunk. he realizes jesse - his partner, his victim, his surrogate family, the person to whom he's most closely connected throughout the narrative - is a captive, and rescues him as he takes all of the nazis out (and they are so evil that we are geared to root for their deaths). his plan works. he dies entirely on his own terms (he's dying already, but wasting away from the cancer in jail would definitely have been a worse ending from walt's point of view), shot by his own weapon, standing in the lab amongst the chemistry that he put above everything. even after all he did and the depths he sunk to, there's still a shred of the person he was in his final actions. it's an oddly triumphant ending for him. jesse speeds away screaming into the night, and the coda of el camino resolves that fully, lets us know he escapes quietly into the light, with a long road of recovery doubtless ahead of him, but a feeling that he is going to find that.

the reason it's hailed as one of the best endings of any show is because it's narratively satisfying. it doesn't have to be nihilistic. it doesn't have to be punishing. it's a moving conclusion for its characters.

as a student of tolkien, i personally love/cling to his concept of the eucatastrophe - that moment when all hope seems lost, and then there is a turn of catharsis and joy. he meant it in the context of fantasy (as a genre), but it can be applied to fiction more broadly.

What made a good [story] not just enjoyable or aesthetically stimulating, but deeply moving? What did all good stories have in common? Eucatastrophe “is a sudden and miraculous grace [...] It does not deny the existence of dyscatastrophe, of sorrow and failure: the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance; it denies… universal final defeat...giving a fleeting glimpse of joy...poignant as grief.

joy sometimes is seen as...lesser, or childish, or not as profound and mature as grief, and i just don't believe that or think it's a fair assessment. like i said in my other post earlier, hope can't exist without grief, the meaning of both functions together.

i'm wary about how much i say because i've been harassed about this (by another fandom entirely lol), and logically i KNOW bcs is very rooted in noir, and noir tends to be enigmatic in its conclusions at best, but bcs is also (i know i am a broken record here, but it's true!) a love story! that distinguishes it, that's something special about it. and it's part of this same universe they've built hand-in-hand with breaking bad and el camino, and i simply refuse to think that they're going to end bcs on a sadder or more desolate note for jimmy and kim, after everything we've been through with them, after how carefully they've layered their characters and their relationship all these years, than what happened to walt and jesse. i also don't think these writers are into relative moralism and teaching the audience some "lesson" and punishing us for loving morally complicated characters (which is, like, one of my LEAST favorite approaches from storytelling. don't build a story where i'm meant to feel empathy for complex people and then tell me i was wrong to feel it!).

if ppl are punished then why can't they have their one true love? pretty sure the lesson has been learned. right. they have been punished, they have suffered repercussions for their bad actions. i'd let them have each other and their love back if i could decide. <3

[this-is-quite-homoerotic]

Hi Elle, this is Daniela (Beleriandings/ultraviolet-eucatastrophe). Sorry for the anon ask but tumblr terminated my account for no reason. I gather the same happened to you a while ago, and you got it back. How did you do this? And how long did it take for you? I've tried submitting the tumblr support ticket on the "account terminated" page, but that was nearly two days ago and I've had no response, and I wonder if this is normal/expected? And if not, what's the next step do you think? Thanks!

Oh, no!! Daniela, I'm so sorry this happened!! I hope they fix it soon.

They actually took quite long to answer me (much longer than the average from what I've seen), apparently they take a few days normally (1-4 days?) but I think this may vary according to how many tickets they have at any one time. Two days is normal, I wouldn't worry about it yet.

So yeah, the same thing happened to me and it sucked, but they reactivated all my blogs, including my sideblogs I don't even use and just have so I can save posts I want to be able to find later.

I don't think you should send any new tickets yet, I'd wait a few more days at least. Sending more tickets won't mean they get to it faster because they're still going through them in chronological order. Did you get an email saying they received your ticket to whatever email account you signed up to tumblr with? If not, then do send another one, they may not have received the first one.

When they do get to your complaint, they'll review your blog(s) and when they see you didn't violate the terms of service, they should restore it/them. You should get an email from tumblr support to your email letting you know they've done this.

I hope this helps, all I know about how this works comes directly from my own experience and from a couple of mutuals who went through the same thing. In all these cases, they restored the accounts, so I'd recommend trying to be patient and not stress too much about it if you can help it.

Sending you positive vibes and a virtual hug! 💖 Hope this gets resolved soon!

[bookwermthings]

Quotes from Mighty and Despair that I LOVE live reaction:

And thank you @ultraviolet-eucatastrophe for the introduction and warning for it! Much appreciated!

"I already told you, Captain Jack isn't here!"

:(

"On the other hand, I better not risk death! I'm not the man with a thousand lives!"

Yesss go with the sass

"Because you are Captain Jack, aren't you?"

I thought it would take longer for her to say this actually.

"is that why you're here, to lay to rest?"

"I thought at one point, but I'm far too restless for that."

Sad...

"I haven't spent a lifetime opening my mind without learning how to close it."

Yay!! Go Jack!

"This is what happens when you don't leave me alone."

"this is what happens when you sit on a frozen lake!"

"I told you I was meditating"

Oh Jack...

"Christmas is, was, who knows if it's still going, a festival on my homeworld"

He calls earth his homeworld!!!

"my father had three husbands, eight children with each!"

Wow!! Gay poly rep for the win?

"What about your family?"

"it's complicated. I'm pretty much alone now."

What's complicated about it? Either all of his family and kids are dead now, or they're not. Maybe we'll get more on this later?

"So? You might as well just give up!"

Oh, Jack... You can come to the planet but never leave? That hurts.

"How do you fight?"

"I. Just. Wait."

Jack is fun!

And... Now he's not.

Two immortals, crushing the heart of a mortal...

"why aren't we better? Why don't we try?"

"c'mon, Jack, the hero of the stars, man of a thousand lives. Who are you now?"

I just. Just want to hold them. Jack and Persus mainly, but the Queen I'll probably warm up to

"You're so special. As you are, not how you could be."

Gonna cry

"c'mon I'll teach you a carol or two!"

Damn I wish I could have heard them sing more than just king weseclas (is that how you spell it?)

"The tree is getting big now!"

Aaaw 🤗

"Are you okay, Persus?"

Oh god. She's going to die, isn't she. No, please. This is a rollercoaster of an audio. Agh.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck no she's screaming please this isn't fair

She'll explain away the lights in the ship?

What is it?

Oh...

"does Jack know?"

"but I'm going to die, and my family is dead, and we didn't fight! I don't know why"

Oh, it hurts.

"I can't let go"

Over and over and over

"I reckon Persus was one of life's successes."

"thousands and thousands of years, in the wind, in the snow, and then we have to walk back"

Oh, Jack.

"it's a big ask"

"Damn right it is"

"right then! Let's get this eternity started."

"this looks promising! The torch is lit."

Oh, the callbacks. Persus said that. This gives me the feels.

"we chop off that head and pickle it in a jar, those looks might last."

Laughing, sobbing,no, not a face of boe reference

"but captain Jack has taught me something. How. To. Wait."

AAAAAAAAH

"Carla, that's mass slaughter!"

"They're already dead. I'm teaching them how to die."

"This was your plan??? All those years together, and you lied to me!"

I feel it with him, the betrayal, the hurt, the sadness, the anger

"I've never carried this kind of hate!"

"I did."

Oh...

Or this kind of love as well?

"To see Persis once more."

"this has all been for her..."

"I have thought of her, ached for her, every moment of every day of every year of every eternity we spent here. I could have changed her. She could have been by my side for life."

Ugly sobbing

Ugly ugly sobbing

"I hope you find her"

"so do I. I love you both, Jack. So very much."

Oh god. Oh god. Fuck.

"I die and die again and I never see ANYTHING... this is all I get. And that's maybe the point. Got to leave this place and find the life, the man with a thousand lives. I will never forget you both."

[herenortherenearnorfar]

For the fanfic writer's director's cut, the last scene of Alive at the Wake, because I've talked about it with multiple people and gone back and forth on what could happen next.

Yeah! Alive was probably my favorite story this year just because it was such a big project.

The theme of this fic is No Good Choices so the ending scene is just a reiteration of that. Whether Celebrimbor chose to destroy the rings or keep them intact it wasn't going to end well for Celebrimbor; after the One Ring is made he and Sauron are hurtling towards destruction and only one of them is a demigod. No matter what happens next at the end of Alive it's bad.

From a Doylist perspective I had the idea of Gollum finger biting before most of the rest of the story came together, it was always going to be the plot climax. And then once it happens... all the resolutions felt anti-climatic. Celebrimbor dying is a bit of a letdown, that's what he's been trying to do since the start of the story. Sauron wrestling the ring off of him is also a bit boring. Dark Lord Celebrimbor would be interesting but also a very different kind of story, it wouldn't jive with the tone. There is a potential eucatastrophe there; maybe Celebrimbor counts enough as a creator to be able to destroy it, but that would mean killing the person he loves!

In a story about the inevitability of tragedy, about the equal hopelessness of both giving up and fighting back when you're just that classically doomed, it almost felt wrong to give the main characters the relief of an ending. In CoH at least everyone gets a canonical death. They did it, it's over! Narrative limbo is a torment that never ends and it can make for some really exquisite Lady and the Tiger endings.

Figs too need wasps, he remembers that much. Nargothrond kept fig trees on the mountain slopes above the city. Finrod had them at his table. Every season, a few weeks before they were ripe, he’d gather Finduilas and Celebrimbor around and cut open a green fig to reveal the dead black insect hidden inside, before telling an impenetrable parable about the cycles of nature.

I love when Finrod gets to be a bit much even in stories he's not a featured character in. He's such a camp counsellor. Also it brings back the parasite wasp theme from earlier; the parts of nature that are ugly or hard to understand, the complicated parts of the world that Sauron, in his quest for efficiency, would strip bare.

“I’m tired.” Simple honesty is better than complex lies. “So very tired.” The weight of existing still bears down on him. This is the fatigue that must have sent Great-grandmother Míriel to her wakeless sleep, a heaviness of limbs and heart. He feels like one of the wandering dead, those houseless spirits and unquiet wights that walked even in sunlight in the last days of Morgoth’s nibbling war. Like them he is driven by an aching purpose.

“Yes, you have done a number on yourself, precious.” Sauron’s reproach is fond, the roaring anger of the first days after Celebrimbor revealed the destruction of the Three has faded to a haze of disappointment. Maybe he too realizes that if Celebrimbor had successfully hidden the last rings he’d already be dead. As easily as Sauron is given to merriment he’s just as quick and wild in his anger. And he hates to be denied.

Death seeking behavior! Family trauma! War trauma! The inevitability of the canon plot! A lot of good things here. Also, it is always nice to sneak a gratutious precious in there. Is it twee? Yes, but I enjoy it.

They’re just two misericordes locked together now, spare metal with killing points.

There's the mutually assured destruction aspect here, but also the idea that evil and exhaustion both whittle you down. They make you a shard of what you are. Mostly spiritually but sometimes physically as well, there's a reason that the hobbits are associated with wealth and roundness and joy while Gollum is skeletal, withered by the ill health effects of the Ring. Very medieval aesthetic representations of wellness.

With just an exploratory nuzzle he finds the Ring and kisses it too, gratified by how red the sudden touch turns Sauron’s ears. He may have sheared himself to pieces but the chunks remain connected. Just as his veil is more a piece of himself than he likes to admit, so too is this ring.

It's the eternal question "Does Sauron feel whenever people gently caress and whisper to the One Ring?" Here I've taken the bold stance that the answer is yes, and he likes it. Mostly because it supports a broader idea of embodiment; the Ainur may not be native to their bodies but they are influenced by whatever they fling themselves into.

“What exactly,” Sauron says after what feels like an eternity of gasping, “Were you planning to do next?”

The central question! And honestly, I don't think Celebrimbor knew. He just needed to do something, even if it was pointless, even if it was destructive. Sometimes you can't stay still any longer.

If the little whispers filling Celebrimbor’s head since he first touched the cursed thing are proof then it is not loyal. It has been singing of glory, of Ost-in-Edhil built high again. All great deeds that a shambling revenant has no place in. Celebrimbor’s experience with great rings and the pale, pillowy haze of sorrow dulling his mind make these shining dreams feel false.

One interesting thing about the Ring is that it seems to feed on ambition, hunger, desire. Not always the desires Sauron would have, he wouldn't sit in a cave for years or make a garden, but it always prompts some secret need, some hidden want. One of the reasons it's so ineffective on hobbits is because they're so content, I assumed a similar logic would apply to deeply depressed people, people who have already lost everything and know they can't get it back. All Celebrimbor wants is his city and his boyfriend back and neither of those are possible, one is razed and one is unwilling.

If Frodo hadn't volunteered I can only assume the backup plan was Maglor. Saddest elf in a decently large radius.

I know you and it doesn’t change a thing.

For the first time in months he feels horribly, miserably alive.

Yeah. Yeah. It's about understanding Sauron completely and utterly even before he puts on the ring and still not being able to sway him. The first thing to break through his grief following the Three Rings is Sauron, the determination to stop him, the undissolvable love of him, and finally his Ring. Celebrimbor has lost everything and he loves someone with more acuteness than most people could ever love, he's wearing a part of his soul right now, and all he wants is to die at his hand. Yet at the same time he knows that he can't, not if he can do something to stop him, not if he can help people. Even at his worst moments Celebrimbor is so driven to help people, he can't even give in and let his ex murder him. But just being close to him, feeling that intensity even through violence, is enough to make him almost whole once more.

Because he ultimately does feel beholden to the people of Middle Earth AND he has ring experience, my personal vote for what happens after the ending is probably Dark Lord Celebrimbor followed by a very messy collapse. Possibly he brings down Moria a few centuries earlier than timelined. But I left it open to interpretation for a reason; I think it's stronger as a quantum state. Celebrimbor is both murdered and still a prisoner and evil and has just killed his lover and he's miserable in all those situations.