#it’s vital for the meta

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Expertise can't help you here.

[casscainmainly]

God this panel kinda drives me crazy. From Batman & the Outsiders #17, Shiva asks Duke about his suit, whether it was his choice. And how does Duke respond? He... doesn't. He parrots what is clearly something Bruce said to him, but never clarifies whether it was 'his choice' at all. Because both him and Shiva know it wasn't. And he acknowledges that his suit, with all the Batty-ness (ears, symbol), was specifically designed to make him like Batman.

Then Shiva suggests dark red, which is what Duke wore in We Are Robin and has connotations to Robin as a whole. Duke's reaction - can we let it go? - can be read in many ways, but to me it suggests Shiva's words hit home. He does miss the Robin colours. Becoming the Signal wasn't his choice, but becoming Robin was.

(And throughout this run, Shiva says both Cass and Duke are being held back by Bruce. With Cass this is a clear allusion to being Orphan over Batgirl, so it's not farfetched to read this conversation as being about how Duke was denied Robin to become Signal).

Duke-as-Signal is a symbol of 'people like Batman', but Duke-as-Robin was a symbol of youth, of community, of diversity and of choice. He was a Robin formed without Batman. I know there's no going back, but having Bruce choose the name, the suit, and the time of day that Duke goes out makes the Signal such a fraught identity. I love the yellow, the suit, and the daytime aspect, but I just wish they were Duke's choices, not Bruce's.

[eddith]

After watching the fan letter i kept thinking how one piece is a masterclass of showing how a story doesn't need to be driven by romantic love to explore the beautiful romanticism of relationships in a real and heartfelt way.

Fiction is so oversaturated with romance that relationships between characters are most often than not so superficial and goddamn repetitive, I swear if it were another author writing marineford I would 100% expect the the plot to revolve around the main character saving their romantic interest.

I feel like writters dont really give platonic bonds this type of love and attention, and I do believe a part of it revolves around a societal context to what we as a society considers beautiful, romantic and worthwhile telling a story about.

And also the epidemic of loliness, the lack of connection and the isolation are all factors to why we see romantic love stories being pushed this much, this attachment of the idea of romance that most people seems to have.

And this is why i dont like the narrative of “separating the artist from their art” because I think this it is such a poor way of analyzing art. You can’t create a story like one piece, who explores platonic bonds and prioritizes them again and again and intentionally puts them at the forefront of your story if you, the writer, don't view those bonds as something special and worthwhile writting about.

Because after being caught up with one piece I kept asking myself why did this story had such an impact on me? The backstories, the bonds, they all shock me to my core.

Me being a older sister who wasn't ever that close to my little sister and who always felt this disparaging loliness since i was a child, watching mariford hurted me in a way that no story ever could, I can't imagine the impact one piece would have on me if i watched this when i was younger.

And I believe it's all because of Oda's view on relationships, how he seems to have a deeper understanding of people and how they work.

One piece transforms the “ordinary” bonds that most of us have in our lifes into something so extraordinary.

This why I not only respect Oda as a writer, but also as a person.

A person who could so beautifully show us the true beauty of life, that is, the people around us who love and support us.

[potatosaresweet]

ive talked about this before but the stupid ass politics of the xianle kingdom are driving me nuts like you mean to tell me that the king of xianle just allowed his only son to chose a life of cultivation via celibacy despite the fact that he was his only heir??and proceeded to have no children at all, not while xie lian was training and neither after he ascended?? who was supposed to take the throne then?

like we know from the gilded banquet arc that there were remnants of the royal family like An Le so im assuming the king had a brother or cousin or something but it always bugged me how there was never a succession issue mentioned in the flashbacks-you'd think there would be something considering how much time we spend with the royalty in book 2 but no

[rowanthestrange]

She’s probably lead on the Is This A Fake Name Team who first pointed out S Triad. Wasn’t gonna investigate herself was she?

“b-but how did UNIT hire somebody called H. Arbinger and not notice her name!?”

have you ever seen the torchwood episode Adam? same principle. harriet simply appeared out of the blue one morning, having altered every UNIT staff member’s memories to make them believe she’d always been head archivist of the magnus institute. who, harriet? what’s suspicious about her? she’s worked here for as long as i can remember. yeah, she’s lovely. smartest person i ever did meet. work ethic of a superstar. what? uncommon surname? don’t be ridiculous, my nan’s sister’s nephew’s wife’s maiden name was arbinger.

it’s not too far fetched to imagine that a herald of a godlike deity is capable of doing what a random alien with basic psychic manipulation abilities has achieved before. there are a lot of plot holes in TLORS, but this is not one of them.

as a side note, she is so fucking attractive. evil butch academic women with nefarious plans, call me, i’m free all day

[morelikebaldursgay]

Every time I struggle to understand how Gale is so arrogant and so low-self esteem at the same time I just think back to myself in middle school. Like yes his character is well-developed and multidimensional but also it is fundamentally neurodivergent mentally ill gifted kid who thinks they are so much better and smarter than everyone and everything would work better if they were in charge but also thinks that they are the worst person alive.

[quirkwizard]

Ideas for Quirk training for the yakuza guys? Maybe throw in Gentle and La Brava?

I'll stick with the Yakuza since I have more then enough ideas for them. Plus, I really like the idea of this being part of the Hero Haul AU and this is Kai taking his gang on a retreat in order to "build team work"

Hojo, Tabe, and Toya: Hojo would be making his crystals while Toya would be trying to pull them off of his body. In between them, Tabe would be trying to eat the flying crystals before Toya can catch them. This would train Hojo's production speed and durability of his crystals, increase Toya's range and pulling power, and improve Tabe's ability to catch and eat moving targets.

Rikiya and Deidoro: This two have a special job. They are two go around to where any one else is training and start harassing them, with Deidoro making them lose balance and Rikyia draining their energy. This not only helps train everyone else by add extra difficulty, but could help improve their own powers as well, like increasing Rikiya's drain rate and Deidoro's range.

Tengai: Since Tengai already has enough defensive power and can use his shields reactively, he doesn't really need to train those parts. What he could do is try to get better and forming moving the shields. Things like trying to slowly inch it forward to a certain point or trying to form the shield around other objects as a way to trap them within the barrier, improving his ability to control and deny an area.

Joi: Considering the only known limit of his power is the size limit of his power, he could try and take over larger objects and make them move around. He could try to take over small parts of larger objects. It be like what he did in the hideout, but on a smaller scale. Barring that, he could simply try to get better at shaping and controlling the objects, like trying to solve a puzzle box while he is the box.

Hari: Since Hari can't really train his power on other people without ruining a whole afternoon of training, the best choice for him would be to simply practice on dummies. Namely ones that are constantly moving around. This could help increase the speed and accuracy of his arrows, making the condition easier to inflict, Heck, it could even help grow the Quirk to the point where it can start working on objects as well as people.

Shin: While I do like the idea of Shin going around and asking people uncomfortable questions all day, I think his time would be served better elsewhere. Since so much of his power is based around questions, it'd be good for him to try and figure out better ways to phrase his words. He could also try and learn psychological tactics to try and dig for what would be the best questions to ask someone and how to best exploit their secrets.

Rappa: While I figure Rappa's training would involve him punching stuff, that's not the route I'm going to take. His training would involve him using his hands for literally anything else. Look, I've said that Rappa has been wasting his power and this would be a good chance. Things like rapidly doing tasks with his hands or using them to practice throwing's things. I don't care if I have to duct tape tools to his hands, he's going to do something other then punch things.

Kai: Overhaul was easily the hardest to come up with anything for. How can you go up any further from one of the strongest Quirks in the series. The only thing I could think of was the fusion aspect of his power. For all of his power, Kai's fusions seems very incomplete. Less perfection combination and more heinous hybrid. So maybe he could try practicing on some non-living objects, like trying to turn a bunch of metals into an alloy by trying to piece them together or something like that.

[premamelody]

i love the different ways you can take like clover and flowey's dynamic

like if you think about it, flowey essentially created the version of clover that remains in the present

the moment they hit the underground, they became some sort of lab project of flowey. like how alphys created the version of flowey (asriel). the difference is that it wasn't alphys' intention other than to test how different organisms handle determination. flowey does it intentionally to reach a goal.

trials to get clover to do what he wants. trials to likely figure out clover's strengths or weaknesses to create a perfect run for them. an endless amount of trials is required with a lab with a high power.

flowey hypothesizes that its possible, or else he wouldn't even bother. only in the end after reaching more dead ends with an altered group of runs does he decided to try his chances with the next human. though he desperately tries to make clover work knowing the inevitable, the next human, frisk, having more determination than him.

this is it. this is the only subject he can test on. the only subject he can manipulate. this is especially revealed in the neutral route where it all is at a dead end. the run disproved his hypothesis and he must try again. he must try again and again until his hypothesis is true. until the run ends in him reaching the souls or a sufficient ending.

until clover does exactly what he wants, what he, essentially, made clover for.

and the poor child doesn't have any clue until its too late. that's why yellow's neutral route ending is so intriguing to me. its the realization that clover is nothing but a vessel for flowey to grow. some sort of experimental being.

an experimental being like him, like flowey.

[achilleslyre]

@aquataines ohhh absolutely i am soo happy to talk about food as an amalgamation of the uchihas love and the way it haunts them after the massacre. i'm really passionate about this so you don’t even understand the can of beans you have opened. i am going to be talking about both canon and filler in this though, because there is lots of supporting canon however filler continues to support and fuel this thought.

growing up with his family, sasuke is very commonly shown at the dinner table with his family eating together, and it’s where a lot of conversations with his family take place. now to start this off, i’m going to point out the obvious that the uchiha canonically are a clan that holds too much love inside of them, which is what develops their sharingan. carrying so much love within you of course needs an outlet to come out. we don’t really see the uchiha showing much verbal affection towards each other but sasukes family very obviously loves each other. fugaku even tells itachi that he doesn’t wish for words of flattery, but nonetheless to show his thanks and return the love back to itachi for what he said fugaku immediately offers to get him his favourite snack, dango. so we would infer that they communicate their love to each other in a different way. food.

sasuke and his family really share their most intimate moments together when they are in the kitchen at the table. here is where sasuke asks fugaku why itachi doesn’t give him much attention while at the dinner table, and fugaku explains that itachi is just not very social, sasuke later admits to mikoto that he thinks he’s unfavoured between him and itachi by fugaku, to which mikoto explains the differences between him and itachi and reassures him that he’s not. it’s where they’re seen talking most commonly just in general as well, about the sharingan, about training, exciting moments, ect.. the dinner table is where their love is shown when they gather together and eat the food that mikoto has made with the love for her family. it’s where they feel most comfortable to show their love and be honest because in the kitchen is where their love grows.

why is the food their centre of love though? just in general making food for someone is something very special, intimate and ultimately caring. you are turning basic ingredients and foods into something for others to not only to take nutrients from, grow and gain strength from, but also to spend time with them and enjoy the taste of the food you made with care together. you pour the love you have into the food you make for the people you love because you want to see them be happy and healthy. for people like mikoto and itachi who’re shown to enjoy cooking, it’s something special that they put everything into because not only do they want to see their family eat to keep them alive, but they want to see them enjoy the taste and feel the care and love for them that they’ve stored within the food as they make it. they want to place their love inside their family and have them carry their love around wherever they go and what better way to store their love inside them other than to put it in the food your make for them? mikoto is obviously the main cook of the uchiha household and she makes sure that her family stores the love she puts into the meals she cooks inside of them. she is frequently seen ensuring that her kids are fed, making sure they’re filled up, making them lunches, giving them snacks and making sure they are eating good food.

itachi as well, in filler, spends the episode finally getting to be around sasuke and bond with him. the day was spent making sasuke happy and sharing the love that he does have for sasuke with his brother, and at the end of the day makes a huge feast for sasuke. he made him so much food to show sasuke that he cares about him and loves him, he wants to see him eat and he wants to see him eat well. he intends to pack him full of his love. not to get into the fact that clearly mikoto would have had to teach itachi how to cook, sharing the ‘secret’ of spreading love. now this isn’t canon however i personally would like to think (considering how young itachi is here and how much he can make already on his own) that mikoto also had started teaching sasuke how to cook a little as well. this will come back later, which is why i mention it.

the common theme within all of these meals— all of mikoto’s dinners, her bento boxes, fugaku and itachi’s dango, and his feast for sasuke— they are all good, yummy food. they’re something you want to eat and hold inside you and cherish. they’re all made and/or given with care, thought, intention and love.

sasuke grew up eating a variety of good tasting and well made food.

after the massacre, though, he changes. sasuke has lost the love from his family, he doesn’t have it anymore. sasuke grew up with food being the indicator of love, and grew up with the dinner table being the centre of family and bonding. as a reaction to the loss of his family he couldn’t bare to keep storing that love inside him, food as a love language died with them. his family was now gone, and the thought of storing love (read: well made food) inside him after his family was killed was not in the question. after the loss of their love, the only thing he needed to focus on was catching up to itachi to kill him.

here we can see what foods sasuke favours post massacre. “sasuke’s every move is designed to make him stronger, he approaches his diet with equal intensity.” his diet has changed drastically. from being fed a large variety of yummy, well made food filled with love and care for him to enjoy eating, he goes to eating raw and bland food, anything just to get stronger quicker. you could argue that he just didn’t know how to cook, which i can’t say he didn’t, but as i stated before it seems very likely that mikoto started teaching the boys to cook from a very young age, added to the fact that sasuke intentionally only starts eating food for its nutrients and health benefit, it’s fair enough to infer that he can cook at least some meals that he used to eat, he just can’t bare to anymore.

“he never selects his meals based on what he actually likes.” we look to his favourite foods to eat and they’re broken down into their health factors. this kid, reportedly, is known to be eating raw tomatoes simply because he wants to get stronger as fast as possible. he does not like the taste of what he is eating. he does not eat food with the intention of enjoying it’s creation. with the loss of his family he lost the will to store himself with love (this is not to say he does not still have love, he has been stored with love all his life, he is an uchiha, he will always be motivated by love), he couldn’t bare to continue consuming love filled food so he ate food solely to get stronger. food made with no care, thought, intention, or love. the love of his family haunts him. this is beside the point but i can’t even begin to express how heart breaking that is. the uchiha show their love with food and sasuke stops eating food created with love once he loses his family, all the love he had.

sasuke, isolated, left all alone in this village with no friends spent his time from 7 to 12 years old avoiding the love of food. but when he finally finds someone to create a bond with, what does he do?

he offers naruto food. despite what he says, this an olive branch to start forming a bond with naruto. this is him extending care with the intention of filling naruto so that he doesn’t go hungry. whether the food was made with love or care doesn’t matter because at that moment sasuke put the intention into the food. it’s how he creates bonds, it’s how he shows care and how he shows love because that was how he was raised, he was raised to bond over food, to show care and to love with food.

the uchiha’s love has always revolved around food and it’s woven so into the text that at this point it’s not even a head canon to me, but fact.

[weptfreedom]

thinking out loud about one of cole's lines, don't mind me

worship makes you more.

it's an interesting thought exercise, and to be clear, I'm coming at this from a very pagan perspective.

what about it makes a god a god? is it the act of prayer, of ritual, of sacrifice, that strengthens the subject of worship? is the belief behind these acts?

in this context, I want to say it is both. acts "feed" the entity in question, and it is belief that shapes them.

They were not demons for me.

in practical terms as they relate to this blog, because my worldbuilding notes prompted this: Ilriane takes part in the acts, because it is both a societal expectation, and required of him. His acts contribute to that strength, but lack (the expected) belief, and are thus not as effective as they could be.

[notagrayjedi]

Okay you know what? I don’t want this to get lost in tags. Basically, Thor is allowed to have feelings and be messy and imperfect all on his own without it having much if anything to do directly with Loki. Or even indirectly. A huge amount of Thor’s character arc has to do with his relationship to Odin, and his relationship with who he himself is outside of being who he was brought up to believe he was meant to be.

Like he should not have been 1500 years old the first time his mother tells him he can be himself. And see, the trade off of this is that Thor has almost no self-worth nor self-actualization outside of who he thought he was supposed to be. And when the person he was supposed to be fucks up so badly (in his mind), that half the universe disappears…

Well, who is he after that? What purpose does he have? He can’t be the king he was expected to be, because that person doesn’t actually exist.

And because he can’t be that version of himself because of his trauma and grief and guilt, he doesn’t know who he is at all. And so the traumatized, grieving version of himself, the one that can’t get off the couch and has completely, as Chris Hemsworth said, “checked out” isn’t the king he was expected to be, so why bother even trying? He needed some time to not have to try. Valkyrie gets it, she was right in the same place, so she picks up the slack for him, which makes it that much easier to check out more and more. By the time Rocket and Bruce show up, he’s basically decided that this new version of himself is happy, while he’s right on the verge of a breakdown pretty much at all times.

He’s been taught his whole life not to show his people his feelings. His dad’s advice to him about having feelings was basically, go drink, and put on a goddamn happy face because a future king needs to keep his weird gross sadness to himself.

So Thor does exactly that: his feelings are too overwhelming to translate into productive anger (how he usually copes), so it turns inward. And that’s not good because he’s been told not to show his feelings so many times. It’s ingrained. So he drinks and he pretends to be happy, but it doesn’t mean he’s got any sort of sense of identity.

He leaves with the Guardians to try a different version of himself, to middling success in terms of helping him form his own identity, one that had started to heal from all the horrible things that have happened in a time period that, to him, is like a long weekend.

It’s a journey he’s still on, and ultimately it only peripherally has much to do with Loki.

[kismetconstellations]

Whatever happened to Pidge's furry alien friends?

In the Season Six finale, they're shown exiting the Castle of Lions with her, before it's destroyed, and floating around the cockpit of the Green Lion, immediately afterward.

And, then we never see them, again.

The next time Pidge is in the cockpit, in the second episode of Season Seven, she's by herself,

until she's briefly saddled with all of the "annoying" passengers,

then, ultimately, Shiro, who rides with her from episode four

to episode nine, where the team finally reaches Earth's solar system.

For that entire duration, there's never anyone else in the Lion with them aside from Kosmo, who pops in to bring them food and drink when the collective group has their meals.

So, where did the little puff balls go? Did she just let them out into space to fend for themselves?

And, where did all of her clutter go? I thought it was sort of sweet that she held onto the garbage sculptures she made of Hunk, Lance, and Shiro, but they likewise disappear without any explanation.

[marigoldbaker]

am begging fandom at large to adopt my niche but ultimately extremely correct take that giles would have been immediately tech literate had jenny lived. HE WAS HOLDING A PROGRAMMING BOOK WHEN HE TRIED TO ASK HER OUT. man was doing his HOMEWORK. he loves her so much & his reticence re: computers would have eroded just the same way he stayed at that monster truck rally. it would have been full of passive aggressive comments in places but he would still be taking notes on every single thing she has to say.

[twentyfivemiceinatrenchcoat]

thinking sashisu thoughts rn ………… suguru was the least desensitized of the three and that’s why he was the first to break . explodes

[ladyohdeath]

i wish i had the, like, talent and ability to really express the specific way that death talks. it's like she addresses everything with a faint sarcasm, but nothing about it is ironic or fake. the sarcasm's almost just like a tone instead, with exaggerated spacing out of words, it's like it's almost mocking half the time. but then underneath that there's so much darkness, too. i really like the way aubey plaza plays her in the sense that even when she's being serious, there's not like a sudden crazy shift, it's just always there. there's darkness behind her tone, pair that with her intense eyes and ever-shifting expression it's like, almost scary in some ways. you can't ever tell if she's fucking around or she's three seconds from pulling a knife on you

she's also just so expressive too, notably when she's really laying the sarcasm on thick and her eyes widen ever so slightly. i can visualize it so well but struggle so much to write it. and then that calls into play the idea that whenever she's engaging with someone in conversation, the difference between talking to her in human form or in death form. i'm not sure she's even aware of half the facial expressions she makes and how they translate. she might be completely serious but her voice doesn't sound that way, and i just think it all comes our sarcastic, sometimes not on purpose

that is, to say, not relevant when she's being super serious, in moments of connection or intimacy. i do think that there's still hints of it, and she can't even take serious moments as serious as she should, but again i am struggling to express that if that makes sense? like i just think her tone is so specific. and aubrey plaza has not thought about this as much as i have probably because i feel like i'm going crazy reading every little shift in her voice LMFAO

i still stand by the belief that her eyes say it all, and are the one consistency throughout everything with her. no matter how her tone or expressions shift it's the eyes you need to read, and they are never changing. all of her current feelings are there and she can't hide

clearly i'm going insane here, but i'm watching this tiktok on repeat and difference in the way she says "like you promised" and "and there was!" is such a, like, subtle shift and it just gives this vibe of like. she cant take anything serious but she uses that unserious, sarcastic, biting tone to speak to her power and strength and it's somehow more creepy than if she was just a straight up, power-hungry asshole all the time. it is very, very subtle and it's like she's just leaning on the creepy factor over the scary factor. idk i just feel like i am not accomplishing this well in threads but i want to

[leslutdepointedulac]

Do you wanna know what's making me sad today? During the séance in Merrick, even when Claudia's telling Louis to kill himself, and she's hurting him in every way possible (both emotionally and physically), Louis was still more concerned for her than he was for himself.

"Merrick, don't let her go into uncertain darkness. Merrick, guide her!"

Even after he's been ridiculed and stabbed by her, he still can't bear the thought of her suffering. He still wants to protect her and ensure she'll be alright. No matter what Claudia does, no matter what she says, no matter how badly she hurts Louis, she will always be his little girl in his eyes.

And I suppose that's part of the problem, is that he still sees her as a child. But at the same time, he's a parent, and parents will always have an aspect of seeing their children as their babies, no matter how old they are. And they'll always have that instinct to love and protect them. Louis is simply a father loving and grieving for his daughter.

What also breaks me, is later that night after the séance, when Louis' talking to David. At the beginning of the book, it says how Jesse and David have heard the sound of music and bird song, but Louis hasn't, and this upsets him.

"Oh, I know it must be tantalizing," I said, finally. "It's so easy to conclude that we're coming close." "No," he said, turning to me politely. "Don't you see, David? You heard the music. I haven't heard it. Jesse heard the music. I've never heard it. Never. And I've been years waiting to hear it, asking to hear it, wanting to hear it, but I never do." His French accent was sharp and precise, as always happened when he was emotional, and I loved the richness it gave to his speech.

That night, in the middle of a conversation with David, Louis stops and looks likes he's listening to something.

"David, do you hear it?" he asked with mounting excitement. "David, listen!" [. . .] "David, listen to it. It's all around us." He rose to his feet, his left hand still pressed to the pain he felt. "David, it's Claudia, it's the music, it's the harpsichord. I hear it all around us. David, she wants me to come. I know it."

The way he goes from sadness to pure joy and excitement at what he thinks is a sign from Claudia is so sad, especially after everything he's experienced. For so long he's longed to hear the sound of the music, for so long he's been living in his misery, and now this one thing is what makes him happy. He's so deep in his own depression, that even after the events with Claudia, he's convinced this is her doing, and he's joyful about it.

He was gazing off, mesmerized and comforted, and his eyes were glazed and his face was softened and unchallenging. "I know that sonata. I remember it. And yes, she loved it, she loved it because Mozart had written it when he was only a child. You can't hear, can you? But you did once, think back on it. It's so very lovely, and how fast she plays, my Claudia." He made a dazed laugh. The tears thickened; his eyes were veiled in blood.

Louis immediately finds peace and comfort in hearing the ghosts of the past, like he can really feel Claudia right there with him in the flat. He also acknowledges how she loved Mozart so much because he found success at such a young age, and he realises how Claudia found solace in that in a way. She may have felt less alone in knowing that there had been someone else who, despite their young age, had seemed so beyond their years. And the way Louis refers to her as 'my Claudia', shows how he's still so immensely proud of her, and how he still feels nothing but love for her.

"I hear the birds singing. Listen. I hear them in their cage. The others—all our kind who know of her—they think of her as heartless, but she wasn't heartless. She was only aware of things which I didn't learn till so many decades had passed. She knew secrets that only suffering can teach. . . ." His voice trailed off. He pulled back gracefully from my grasp and he walked to the center of the room. He turned about as though the music were truly surrounding him.

Louis is aware of the fact that Claudia did what she did as a result of her suffering and her pain at being trapped, both in her child's body and by her fathers. It's like he can't bring himself to see any wrong in what she did. Louis knows that because of her predicament, it caused her to see the world in a way he wouldn't be able to understand, until he too has experienced great pain in his life.

Claudia was far more experienced in her suffering than he or anyone else could ever give her credit for. What she went through was a very personal and individual experience, that couldn't have been taught by her directly, but through Louis' own journey through life.

"Don't you see what a kindness she's done?" he whispered. "It's going on and on, David, it's getting all the more rapid. Claudia, I'm listening to you." He broke off, and turned again, his eyes moving over everything yet seeing, nothing. "Claudia, I'll be with you very soon."

He's so convinced that what he's hearing is Claudia trying to communicate with him. He genuinely believes that she's doing him a favour by giving him permission to leave this life, and join her in death. He's so desperate and so blinded by his grief and his love for her, that he's willing to do the unthinkable, in the hopes that it might please her and release them both from their hurt.

He stood still with his head bowed. His hands had dropped to his sides. He seemed infinitely sad and infinitely defeated. "Has it stopped?" I asked. "Yes," he whispered. Slowly he looked up, lost for the moment, then getting his bearings.

The second he can't hear the music anymore, Louis feels as though he's lost that connection with Claudia; the one bit of communication from her he felt he had left. The thought that he's lost her all over again brings him back down to the reality of the situation: that Claudia's no longer with him.

As for him, he stood as before, elegant in his faded black, a man dreaming, the blood dried in his eyes and giving him a dreadful look, as he stared off again, distant from my heated compassion, cutting himself off from any solace I could bring. "You'll meet me tomorrow," I said. He nodded. "The birds are gone now," he whispered. "I can't even hum the music inside my head." He seemed unbearably distressed.

There's nothing that David can do to reach Louis at this point. The only thing that can bring him any sort of comfort is Claudia, and having some form of connection with her again. Even after David tries to make him promise they'll meet, to try and convince Louis not to do anything, all Louis can do is vaguely acknowledge it before going back to what he previously heard.

He's heartbroken that after all this time of not hearing anything, he finally had what he thought was communication with Claudia, only for it to disappear again like it never even happened. That music and bird song were the only things bringing him comfort, and now it's gone, along with Claudia, lost to him once again.