#in death

[currentlyincognitoperson]

If I were to die before you, I'd crawl from my grave and back to your arms, with no other thought than you on my rotting mind.

[swordsandarms]

"The unintended family sacrifice"

A perhaps controversial theme I love that I've never seen talked of is how, no matter how loving or not, all these conservative families rooted in patriarchy are nevertheless the root of their daughters' (future) gender essentialist (generational) trauma, and the only escape from the harm of their (father, mother, eldest brother) ownership is their death and/or marriage. And the second is controversial still, because it relies on moving that power to someone else.

Daenerys is the more obvious example. Death frees her once from serving her father, but if we are to be honest, from the expectations of her mother as well, who has already given her a role of wife in the service of the family interest - and of her elder brother - from the moment she was born.

Her remaining family and patriarch is abusive, and though frightened by the beginning of it, her unwanted marriage ironically removes her from that power and gives her a start of agency. Ultimately, his death that does pain and grieve her also permanently frees her for all. As a motherless widow, she would have been returned under his power if she rejects the Dosh Khaleen, as she has not vouched her place elsewhere. Only by having no man to belong to she can finally belong to herself.

But where it gets controversial is where it comes to a happy, loving family like the Starks which I previously addressed in a different post.

Ned Stark loves his daughters, and could even be called an indulgent father in some instances. But he believes in the traditional order of things, and his wishes regarding the gendered role Arya has in life is clearly spelled out. Catelyn loves her daughters, but she is likewise conservative, and she settles a likely future miserable marriage for Arya to further the interest of the head of her house and eldest brother (as Catelyn has done herself in her youth and hence sees nothing wrong with).

The deaths of Ned that traumatizes and devastates her culminates his set in stone expectations. The deaths of Catelyn and Robb break the terms of her unwanted betrothal. There is no one left with the authority or emotional obligation to comply to. She loses everything, yet it is the only way a girl in her society will be able to look to the future with both the burden and privilege of her own judgement to rely on.

[ainyan]

Challenge: make a poll with five of your all time favorite characters, and then tag five people to do the same. See which character is everyone's favorite.

Tagged by: @wingedasarath

Tagging: @starrysnowdrop, @sylaurin, @paintedscales, @akirakirxaa-ooc, @irisopranta

[tragedy-for-sale]

For the Rest of my Life

It's not the end. Tech wanted to smile, Tech wanted to laugh, Tech wanted to make it, but he knew it wouldn't last. Bad Batch spoilers from new episodes.

─── ❖ ── ✦ ── ❖ ───

Plan 99. Tech was the fastest thinker, and he liked to think he was the smartest. "But it's you, Echo." He smiled, he'd never admit it. He knew he wasn't the strongest, "It'll quite always be you, Wrecker-" Tech spoke without a doubt in his mind. "And Hunter," He thought of his brother, "Please don't dwell on me," He thought of his brothers, he wanted to smile. They made him so happy. He only hoped he had made them as happy as they made him.

Plan 99. The first plan they ever made. Rule number one, never leave a brother behind. Plan 99, leave a brother behind. It was the first plan they ever made and it was the only plan they'd never followed through. The only plan they never used or ever thought of using. They were soldiers meant to die but they never thought they would. Arrogant in their youth, they were a team a perfect family but ever sense the Empire, they had started to fall apart. Perhaps Tech was joining Crosshair, or perhaps Havoc only willed four brothers, and he was simply trading places with their lost brother. Either way, Tech knew, it was time to go.

Tech felt a sense of honor to be the first brother who followed through all plans, or at least, he wanted to be. He wanted to be prideful. He was a soldier carrying out his duty: Protect his family. But he wasn't prideful, he was scared. He was thinking of Omega and missing Crosshair. He was worrying about Wrecker and Hunter. He wasn't scared for himself, he was scared for his family. He loved them so much, he never wanted to be without them.

Plan 99. Tech took aim, he took the shot. He thought of home, a promise spoken by brothers, he thought of Hunter's smile, of Wrecker's laugh. He thought of where his life would end, his brothers close but not close enough. He thought of his family grieving and he wished they wouldn't. He never wished for them to grieve, not over this, not over him.

In their youth, late at night they'd craft broken songs and never to be broken promises. Tech finally smiled and sang an old song, "If I could love you for the rest of my life, I would,"

I do,

I do,

"I do-"

─── ❖ ── ✦ ── ❖ ───

[klynsu]

the only real hug i accepted

was from the ocean

as it engulfed me,

held me in its blue arms—

and yet,

it was still

cold.

the apathy of death. // 🗝️

[theloneliestblackgirlblog]

I enjoy the In Death series a lot. It’s very fun to read but for the love of God I will pay a million kisses to whoever can get J.D Robb (Nora Roberts) to stop writing Eve interact with characters who are victims of rape and sexual assault/abuse. A lot of times those characters end up killing their abusers or are “in the way” of Eve identifying the killer. For example I recently read Brotherhood in Death and Vengeance in Death, also kinda Purity in Death.

All it does is shows the hypocrisy of Eve’s morals. She seems to have a very hard time understanding that some people’s form of Justice is having their abuser dead by their hand. That is good enough for them. It’s not that she has to agree with it or support it, she can’t cause she’s a cop. But she seems to have a hard time understanding it at all.

All we get is everyone around Eve being like “no Eve you killing your abuser is different! Those other guys who killed their abusers are in the wrong, you’re not.” Even though in the grand scheme of things one can argue her killing is exactly the same.

Also she comes across as rude, unsympathetic, and sometimes heartless. Not because she’s “standing for the victims” and often times because of her job it makes her hunt down victims and stand for the people who victimized them in the first place. However, what makes her worse in my opinion, is the fact that she doesn’t really offer any kindness or sympathy. Just “why didn’t you go to the police” or “it’s your fault you didn’t go to the police” which is ironic because 1) them killing their abusers is sometimes the only reason their crimes get brought to light and investigated and 2) with her (spoiler?) background with Homeland Security she should know that not all organizations deemed to protect and serve are trustworthy. What can be said to a victim of their abuser is powerful enough to just call up the chief of police when they get accused?

My other thing is that Roberts writes Eve as a character who comes off as so deep into the patriarchal bargain (in simple terms a ‘not like other girls girl’) that she is very misogynistic when dealing with women who step out of her schematic of what a woman should be. (This also extends to her friends). Which makes sense in terms of her job, her position but makes her unlikable when it comes to cases where women and their pain are the forefront. I suppose that’s what Peabody is for.

Eve is not my favorite character of the series, she is a good character in some regards. When I read cases like what I hope I outlined above it’s like really hard for me to brush past her (what I deem) character flaws.

This Goodreads review of Brotherhood in Death by reader “E” pretty much sums up my thoughts more eloquently.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1545230948

[stylistic-nightmare]

Belphegor - In Death

[howifeltabouthim]

Do you suppose I am to forgive him because he is dead? I'll heap his grave with curses, if that can be of avail to punish him.

Anthony Trollope, from Can You Forgive Her?

[booksteaandtoomuchtv]

Roarke + Eve HC

In the most recent In Death novel, Roarke references GoT which had my friend and me speculating that he most definitely has watched Peaky Blinders and loves Tommy.

It is Roarke's comfort show.

Eve is oblivious to everything happening but asks questions about it despite having been in the room while he watched it an impossible number of times by this point.

His accent gets really thick when he watches it and explains it to Eve.

"Eve, he KNEW the stock market was going to crash. Of course, he knew it...he is Tommy bloody Shelby"

Especially when he talks about how you must keep the illegal side to for a while before your clean. "Tommy's brilliant, Eve. This is EXACTLY what I did..erm, would have done..."

"No, she's dead. That's a drug-induced hallucination." "You can't do drugs to see me if I die" (Eve playfully, teasing) Roarke pauses the show, intense eye contact, as he pulls her into his lap and commands in a deep rumble and that lovely rolling accent, "I will not be without you, Eve" as though he is controlling the Fates themselves. Because he is Roarke and does command even the fates.

[hello-dolly]

MEMENTO MORI

[bizarrobrain]

"Weightless" by Whale Bone - From "In Death" (2022)

[modernchemical]

watching death note with my family and after the college entrance episode my mom asked offhandedly if anyone had ever pictured L and light as a couple before. it felt like one single white dove had landed on a crystalline lake in a beautiful pure clearing. no i dont think anyones ever thought of that before

[mudboyman]

Light answers a tough question

[foolfortune]

current mantra

[inbabylontheywept]

my grandpa was a good man. and it really wasnt his fault - recreationally lying to kids is a proud family tradition - but he told me, once, that cutting a worm in half resulted in two worms.

i think he said it so i'd be more morally okay with fishing? i actually dont remember the context.

point was, he told me this, and he understimated (by a very large margin) how much i liked worms. i was a worm boy. very wormy. and after hearing that, i went home, and i dug through the garden, flipped over every rock, did everything i could to gather as many worms as i could, and then i uh.

i cut them all in half. every worm i could find. all of them. with scissors.

i then took this pile of split worms, and i put them in a box with a bit of lettuce and some water and stuff and went to bed expecting to double my worms overnight. i have math autism, so i had a vague understanding that if i did this just a few times in a row, i would eventually have a completely unreasonable amount of worms.

i was very excited to become this plane's worm emperor.

(i think i was...six?)

anyway, i did not become the inheritor of the worm crown. i instead woke up to a box of dead worms and cried. a lot. i got diagnosed with panic attacks as a teenager, but i think i had them as a kid, i just had no idea what they were. i was kind of processing that a.) i had killed what i had assumed was every single worm in my yard, and thus would have no more worms, and b). i was going to like, worm hell.

(six year babylon spent a lot of time worrying about god.)

so i kind of freaked out, and i climbed a tree, because god can only smite you if you're touching the ground (?) and i sat up there mostly inconsolable until my mom came out and asked, hey, what's up? what happened?

so i explained to her that i had killed all of the worms, forever, and was also Damned, and she took me to the compost pile, and we dug for all of five seconds and found like twenty more worms.

the compost pile was full of worms.

she then told me that a). there were more worms, and we could put them back under rocks and stuff and recolonize our yard and b). that one day, i would die, and go to heaven, and be able to talk to the worms face to face. that i'd be able to tell them all that i was very sorry, and that i killed them on accident, driven only by excessive Love, and that she was positive they would forgive me because worms have six hearts and no malice.

at that point, i think i was sixty percent tear-snot by weight, and i had no choice but to gather enough worms that i could hug them. which my mom helped with. and then after that she helped me put some worms back under each rock.

and for my epilogue: i spent a significant portion of my childhood in trees. and for many years after, even when my mom didnt know i was watching, i would catch her giving the space under the rocks a light spritz with the hose. not because she loved worms.

but because she loved me.