#lives lived and lives lost

[maeglinyedi]

Yes, I'm still alive and I come bearing gifts. I needed a bit of a break, as I usually do after I've spent a few months writing. But this fall my seasonal depression reared its ugly head worse than usual and put me on my arse for a few months. After some much needed rest and an adjustment of my meds I'm feeling more like a human being again, thankfully. I've started writing a new chapter for Lives Lived and Lives Lost and I'm offering you all a preview as a thank you for being so patient with me. I hope to finish it and post it in the next few days.

Life # 21: That time Harry and Tom were Holmes and Watson

Tom got his memories back the usual way. He met Harry while his friend Mike introduced them at St Bart’s.

Of course, what was different this time around was that Harry introduced himself as Sherlock Holmes with a tiny yet insufferable smile. And then he promptly showed off by metaphorically undressing Tom where he stood as he summed up detail after detail about Tom’s life that he couldn’t possibly know.

Tom slowly closed his eyes. Harry was Sherlock Holmes and Tom was John Watson. Or some modern version of them, at any rate.

How did these lives even get chosen? Who decided what sort of people they were going to be life after life? The previous life they’d been a couple of dog groomers, for fuck’s sake, living a peaceful life in Austria until they died of natural causes while they were well into their eighties.

And now they apparently were the world’s most famous detective along with his faithful sidekick.

Before he could stop it, a sharp pang of envy coursed through Tom’s body, leaving a sour trail in its wake.

Tom should have been Sherlock Holmes. Not Harry the bumbling Gryffindor. Tom was the consummate Slytherin. Tom was always the clever one, no matter what sort of life they led. That’s not to say that Tom as John Watson was stupid. Not at all. Tom in is current itineration was plenty smart. He was a medical doctor, after all. But he wasn’t Sherlock Holmes levels of smart and that stung, no matter that Tom didn’t want to ever feel envious of his soulmate.

Harry announced that Tom could be his roommate and told him to come to 221b Baker Street before giving him a cheeky wink. And then he was gone and Tom was left staring into space in complete shock.

“Yeah,” Mike said with a knowing smile. “He’s always like that.”

Something told Tom he’d be spending most of his time this life trying to save Harry from himself. No matter what kind of life Harry led, he was always the impulsive one. Combine that with a newly acquired genius level intellect and an unstoppable need to solve every interesting crime that came his way and it didn’t take the world’s most famous detective to deduct that Harry was going to get himself killed sooner rather than later.

Oh fuck. If there existed a Sherlock Holmes and a John Watson in this world, there also had to be a James Moriarty. Sherlock Holmes’ arch-nemesis and reportedly at least equally as intelligent. And in every single fictional story starring Sherlock Holmes that Tom had ever read, Moriarty always, always wanted to destroy Sherlock Holmes. 

Yeah, this version of Moriarty was going to be in for a bit of a surprise, because this Sherlock Holmes had a former Dark Lord on his side, determined to keep him safe. Tom squared his shoulders and said a quick goodbye to Mike. There was no time to waste. Harry could be landing himself in a world of trouble right at that moment without Tom to keep him safe.

Tom had been a genius once upon a life. Granted, he’d used that genius intellect to turn himself into a magical mass-murderer while valiantly trying to rule the entire world, consequences be damned. But that experience might serve him well enough to predict what a criminal mastermind like Moriarty might plan to see Harry end up in an early grave.

[canisalbus]

✦ Freshly ordained ✦

[wearenotjustnumbers2]

These two kids are Hamza (the oldest) and Qusai (the youngest).

Their mother shares this video and bids them goodbye. They were both killed by Israeli bombardment 5 days ago. She says:

[Two days before Hamza and Qusai were killed, hamza asked me: "mom, when we die, where will I go?" And I told him: "you will be a bird in heaven, my love." He said: "and Qusai?" "Just like you inshallah."

And indeed, two days later, he left and took his brother with him. It's like he was preparing me for saying goodbye to both of them. Heaven is more beautiful than any place on this Earth, habibi. We will meet and be reunited one day, me, your dad and you two].

Our kids don't deserve to die already thinking about what will happen to them, they don't deserve to die already terrified, anticipating their death because the world failed them and decided their lives mean nothing. We are not numbers. Remember their names and their stories.

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

the fact that shakespeare was a playwright is sometimes so funny to me. just the concept of the "greatest writer of the English language" being a random 450-year-old entertainer, a 16th cent pop cultural sensation (thanks in large part to puns & dirty jokes & verbiage & a long-running appeal to commoners). and his work was made to be watched not read, but in the classroom teachers just hand us his scripts and say "that's literature"

just...imagine it's 2450 A.D. and English Lit students are regularly going into 100k debt writing postdoc theses on The Simpsons screenplays. the original animation hasn't even been preserved, it's literally just scripts and the occasional SDH subtitles.txt. they've been republished more times than the Bible

[tartppola]

last dance with skully

[chloesimaginationthings]

Michael can survive (almost) anything in FNAF

[goryhorroor]

“horror movies of the 1980s exist at the glorious watershed when special visual effects finally catch up with the gory imaginings of horror fans and movie makers. technical advances in special effects (animatronics, liquid and foam latex) meant the human frame could be distorted to grotesque new dimensions on screen. 1980s horror movies delivered the full colour close-up, look-no-strings-attached, special effect in a way that previous practitioners of the art could only dream about. everything lurking in the shadows in older horror movies was now dragged into the garish light of day. the monsters were finally out of the closet.”

[campcomputers]

[violetrains]

Instead of telling men to repress their emotions to appear stronger we should encourage them to sing incredibly dramatic ballads to process their emotions like in fictional movies. Maybe the world would heal faster. And also it would be very funny.

These are my personal favorites.

[bixels]

In the past, people in the Animal Crossing community would make fun of Tom Nook as a sleazy landlord. Since then, he's really rehabilitated his image as this 'heart of gold' businessman (he's the one who puts bells and furniture in trees for you to find! he adopted orphans! he donates to charity!), but New Horizons genuinely paints the most devious version of him.

He's successfully privatized settler colonialism: you pay HIM to move to a "deserted island" (which apparently the oceans in the AC world are just full of) and start a colony that he is directly invested in. At best he's running a weird vacation package scam (you arrive on the island with no money and in debt for "using his services"). At worst, he's using you to set up company towns. For god's sake, he literally has his own fake currency that he forces you to use to pay off your debt. But don't worry, he's repackaged it in a way that definitely doesn't sound like an MLM scam: the Nook Mileage Program!

You're no longer just his tenant or his temporary part-timer, you're his business lackey. The entire tutorial section of the game has you spending actual weeks running around completing tasks and doing hard labor to set up his colony. You're even tasked with preparing his properties and finding buyers for them. No, you aren't a tenant anymore. You work for the landlord. You are directly responsible for finding tenants for him. And he doesn't even fucking pay you. Not for setting up town hall and museum, or his nephew's shop –– which is the ONLY store on the entire island that sells necessities –– or bringing KK Slider to town, or helping populate his town. Not a single cent. No, actually, you have to pay HIM to BUY infrastructure like bridges and stairs and park benches. And all the while, he's telling you're the "resident representative"; you get to call the shots! That the reward is the community's progress. That what you're doing is in everyone's best interest (but most importantly, his).

Since NH's release, people have done a lot of legwork to say that Tom Nook isn't a capitalist while the game shows him at his very worst. He owns the only general store in town. You're forced to use a phone that he modified and branded as his own. Buy Nook-branded furniture and merchandise at the self-serve kiosk in the town hall, a governmental building! There's no conflict of interest here!

But hey, if you're tired of being the landlord/business mogul's goon, you can also find work as a deluxe resort home designer for a company that also pays you in their special company currency that can only be used to buy their products instead of a real salary! Because that's what the Animal Crossing franchise needs! More vacation homes!!!

[egophiliac]

giving the people what they want (jokes about spreadsheets)

anyway, Twst continues to prove that it is aimed at me specifically by giving us not one, but now TWO extended scenes of characters being incredibly difficult about signing an NDA. you just don't get this anywhere else.

[bet-on-me-13]

Amity is a Dimensional Dump

So! Amity Park is a hub of weirdness of all sorts, mostly undead, but there are also a bunch of Multiversal oddities connected to the small town.

There are the minor anomalies. 5th Street has a bad habit of slipping into the Backrooms, Old Lady Jenkin's House sometimes has snow in summer, and of course the Night Sky had a 20% chance of swapping views to another Galaxy. Danny likes that one a lot.

But the biggest Anomaly is how many Multiversal Travellers get lost there.

They are always finding somebody wandering the streets with no idea where they are, and have to help them find their reality of origin. Other times they decide to stay for various reasons, ranging from a bad home life to being the only survivors of a Dead Universe. Half of the population if Amity was made up of the descendants of Lost Travelers, so their DNA was really a mixed bag.

Danny was flying over town when he spotted a Blur on the ground below.

He flew down to intercept, and found a boy in red and yellow panicking over his situation.

"Hey! Can I help you?" He called out.

The boy looked up, and gasped "Are you a Hero? I need help getting back to the Justice League!"

Danny chuckled, "Which one?"

The boy looked confused, "The Adult One? I guess?"

"Not what I meant, sorry. I mean, which Dimension are you from?" He clarified.

"Dimensions? What is going on!?" He shouted.

"Okay, let's calm down and restart. My name is Danny, who are you?" He introduced himself.

The boy took a deep breath, calming himself, before saying, "Okay, my name is Kid Flash, but you can just call me Wally."

[kipsa-hoy]

It might have taken me 20 hours but I have a new lockscreen!!!

You know the drill close ups under cut

[eliounora]

off your feet

[shushmal]

Steve watched Eddie's van turn the corner and shut the front door, closing himself away from the outside world so none of his neighbors could see him as he rested his forehead against the painted wood.

"I'm not going to cry," he told himself.

He said it even as his eyes began to burn and his face began to twist, teeth grinding and throat closing. He wiped quickly at his face, again and again, as he stumbled to the couch to sit, drying each tear as it rolled down his cheeks, clinging to his jaw.

"I'm not going to fucking cry," Steve choked, and then doubled over into himself, arms around his thighs, and he began to sob.

So what if he was twenty-two, living in his parent's house alone, working the same dead-end job with a sixteen year old manager. So what if all his friends and family were in college, spread out from New York to Chicago to Los Angeles. So what if his boyfriend was moving to Seattle for his band and they broke up, because Steve was never going to be his parents, resenting and being resented for keeping his partner from his dreams. So what if he was too scared to ask Eddie to stay, to ask Eddie if Steve could go with him. So what if everyone moved on and Steve couldn't?

Steve grew up lonely. He could get used to it again.

He didn't realize how hard he was crying until the front door burst back open and Eddie hurled himself at Steve's feet, long limbed and clumsy and babbling.

"Baby, oh fuck, I'm sorry," he said, already untangling Steve from himself, tying all his loose ends back up together with his until they were a knot of their own. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Stevie. I never should have— I wanted to—"

"I'm sorry," Steve sobbed back. He gasped and swallowed it all back down. Eddie had already gotten them raveled up again, it would take forever to pick it back apart. Steve knew it would hurt worse this time. "Fuck, Ed, you didn't have to— I'll be okay, I don't want to hold you back—"

"Come with me," Eddie burst.

And Steve couldn't help himself, and began to sob again.

"Please," Eddie begged over Steve's crying, his voice shaking and his face wet enough to match Steve's. "Please, sweetheart, honey, please just come with me?"

Steve took a shaky breath, embarrassed and now too full of hope and fear. "You sure?" he whispered. He pressed his face into Eddie's neck, breathing him in again for what might be the last time, again. "Eddie, don't—"

"I'm so sure," Eddie said. "I'm so fucking sure, Steve, please."

"Okay," Steve breathed. Eddie had always been the braver of the two of them, especially when it counted. Steve leaned back so he could look at him, red faced and watery eyes. He tried to give Eddie a smile, but he knew it was wobbly and weak. "Okay."

All of Steve's fears meant nothing as he watched the happiness break like dawn over Eddie's face.

[nancywheeeler]

hopeless time loop. the way out isn’t to save everyone. the way out isn’t to save even one person. the way out isn’t to change anything. the way out is accepting how it happened the first time is how it always will be. that’s how you acted, that’s how they acted, that’s how you would have acted every time if you weren’t given the curse of hindsight. the way out is accepting you can’t fix the past; you can only forgive yourself for it.