#notes from a dead house

[fingermosaic]

so i made a thing

[thirteenth-door]

Another week I probably won't survive and the author who will get me through it.

I've been revisiting the work of Dostoevsky! It's been especially fun after reading a few biographies and bibliographies on him; I love these little things about reading!

Another book I'd like to recommend (not pictured) is The Sinner and The Saint by Kevin Birmingham! Wonderful biography and account of the murder that inspired Crime and Punishment.

Hope everyone has been doing well! Senior year of high school certainly hasn't been kind to me, but we can handle that.

[chapterchats]

February 2025 Wrap-Up

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

I initially read this book because it was short, and I was in a major reading slump. I actually think that it's a novella rather than a novel. It clocks in at less than 100 pages. Heart of Darkness is about a European man who reverts to savagery during his isolation at a trading post in Colonial Africa. As every book about the evils of colonialism is, it's a harrowing read. I understand it's place in the cannon of English language classics, but all the same, I didn't really enjoy it.

⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov

This is the first time I've read anything by Chekhov, and I quite enjoyed it! The play concerns an aristocratic family living in a post-emancipation Russia struggling to maintain both their previous way of life and their ancestral home. It's frustrating and sad with some humor thrown in to break the tension now and then. The characters aren't likeable, but I couldn't stop reading. I just needed to know how it all wrapped up. It made me excited to explore more from Chekhov in the future!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

Notes from a Dead House by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Dead House is a memoir Dostoevsky wrote about the four years he spent at hard labor in Siberia. It has everything I love about a Dostoevsky novel (the philosophy, the humanism, the wonderful little observations here and there) with the added draw of it being a look into the authors own life and experiences. It can be a bleak read at times, but if you've read or plan on reading a lot of his novels it really helps put a lot of context behind books like Crime and Punishment and The Idiot.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

The Midnight Feast by Lucy Foley

This was my book club read for the month, and it actually managed to exceed my expectations. The expectations were through the floor, but that's not the important part. The plot takes place over only three days but dips heavily into the characters' interconnected pasts. The 4 main characters all find themselves attending or working at the grand opening of a very swank vacation spot in the south of England. Everyone has secrets, everyone has an agenda, and everyone's past needs to be faced. It's definitely a popcorn thriller, but if you are just willing to let yourself be carried around by the story for 300 pages, it can be a really fun read.

⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

All's Well by Mona Awad

I actually started this book back in October, a victim of the aforementioned reading slump. Awad writes some really wonderfully weird books, and All's Well is one of them. It centers around a college drama professor who nothing seems to go right for. She is plagued by chronic pain after a theater accident in her past, she is constantly being ignored and dismissed by doctors, and her students are staging a mutiny. She then meets a group of strange and eerie men who promise her that they can make all of her problems go away. I thought it was a really compelling read - weird, funny, and uncomfortable by turns. It also had one of Awad's trademark non-endings and I really enjoyed it.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

If you're interested in what I'll be reading in March, it'll be under the cut!

If you've read any of these books, I'd love to know what you thought about them!

Plans for March

I'm only committing to reading 36 books this year so that I can finally get around to reading some of the chonkier books I've been putting off for years now. The ones that come immediately to mind are War and Peace, Anna Karenina, The Count of Monte Cristo, The Brothers Karamazov, and this months pick, Les Miserables.

It's a hefty 1423 pages and I actually made myself start it a few days ago so that I only have to read 45-50 pages a day to get through it in a month. Will that happen? Probably not, but we must have our little ambitions.

I've also read a little bit of On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, which is full of beautiful prose and lots of ugly scenes. It's going to rip my heart out and I can't wait.

My book club read for March is Maeve Fly, which I'm very excited about even though the cover makes me very uncomfortable. Several people from my book club have been raving about it for months, so I have very high hopes for it. I also haven't read a really good horror novel in a while!

[truly-sincerely]

Even More Comprehensive BG3 Timeline

(Now with citations!) Years in (paren) are confirmed, all other lines are approximations. For my own sanity this timeline is based on available in-game information and not the Forgotten Realms at large.

1450s

Enver Flymm born

Gale Dekarios born (1457)

Enver Flymm sold to Raphael by his parents, renamed Gortash

Gortash learns about Crown of Karsus while a prisoner of Raphael

Karlach Cliffgate born

1460s

Gortash escapes the House of Hope

Gale Dekarios summons Tara the Tressym (1467)

Wyll Ravengard born (1468)

1470s

Lae’zel of K’liir born (1470)

Gortash in his Heapside Reavers period

Gortash rebrands as a black market arms dealer

Orin the Red born to Helena and Sarevok Anchev

Durge begins their serial killing spree in Baldur’s Gate (1477)

The Emperor dominates Duke Belynne Stelmane (1479)

1480s

Elminster resurrects Mystra (1480)

Gortash trades Karlach to Zariel for infernal machines & iron (1482)

Baldur’s Gate’s Beloved Ranger statue goes missing (1482)

Duke Abdel Adrian murdered during Returning Day speech (1482) - Bhaal resurrected - Ulder Ravengard replaces Adrian as Marshall and as Duke

Orin kills her mother Helena in self-defense

Gortash recruits Franc Peartree to distribute infernal iron weapons

Gortash establishes a cult of Bane in Baldur’s Gate

Gortash approaches Durge about an alliance

Gortash moves against the Zhentarim & Knights of the Shield

Ulder Ravengard named Grand Duke

Wyll Ravengard pact with Mizora, leaves Baldur’s Gate (1485)

Dead Three made aware of the Crown of Karsus (most likely informed by Gortash)* - Gortash becomes Bane’s Chosen - Durge becomes Bhaal’s chosen - Gortash & Durge are instructed to recruit Ketheric

Gortash tells Durge about Crown of Karsus (via correspondence)

Hall/House of Wonders test mission* - Durge gets Bhaalist memorabilia - Gortash gets a bunch of Gondian designs - Durge & Gortash get companionship

1490s

The Chosen visit Ketheric at Moonrise, learn about Illithid colony

Gortash & Durge visit the House of Hope (for intel on Mephistar?)

Gortash & Durge raid Mephistar - They get the Crown of Karsus - They get the book on the accelerated grand design

Gortash & Durge return to Moonrise - Their identities are kept secret from Ketheric’s people - Durge impresses the Moonrise Gnolls, but not Steelclaw - Ketheric yells at Durge in the throne room for an unknown reason

Durge proposes their plan to the Elder Brain who accepts

Raid on the illithid colony (1491) - Durge puts the Crown on the Elder Brain - Orin gets Durge alone during the raid & stabs them in the head - Orin tadpoles Durge, making them the first True Soul - Orin declares herself the Chosen of Bhaal

1492

Durge is found by Kressa Bonedaughter

Minsc captured by Absolutists at a recruitment rally in the Undercity

Gortash gets weird and intense with unethical experiments - Some futzing to get the tadpoles to consistently remain in stasis - This is when the name ‘True Souls’ gets coined - Extremely questionable fun with brains - Getting the Absolute’s voice sorted out - Tadpoling his parents - Poorly conceived experiments on children & their parents

Gortash has Iron Throne converted to hold hostages

Gortash presents prototype Steel Watcher to the city council

Gortash captures the Emperor

Jaheira tracks cult to shadow-cursed land, meets Isobel

Minthara Baenre is 'recruited' by Orin and Ketheric

The Descent, Elturel fall into Avernus happens

Duke Vanthampur revealed as a diabolist, killed by adventurers

Guild Bursar Uktar launders money for Gortash’s Campaign funds

Isobel is resurrected by the Dead Three

The Elder Brain sends the Chosen dreams about the Astral Prism

Gortash researches the Prism, finds out that Vlaakith has it

Gortash tasks Ketheric with sending a team to get the Astral Prism - They send a nautiloid piloted by the Emperor and other illithid - The Elder Brain lets the Emperor slip its leash - Magthew Budj arranges for Durge to be on the nautiloid as well

Gortash deploys Steel Watch in Lower/Outer City

At this point Elturel is no longer in Avernus

First Druid Halsin captured by goblins

Nautiloid picks up Shadowheart & the Prism from Astral Plane

Nautiloid picks up Lae’zel

Nautiloid goes to Baldur’s Gate, picks up Gale & Astarion

Nautiloid goes to Avernus, picks up Karlach & Wyll

Nautiloid crashes, (20 Eleasis, 1492)

Some helpful links:

A page from Sarevok’s book: Sarevok - (Murder tribunal)

Accelerated Grand Design: Gortash - (Gortash's Office)

An Offer: Gortash - (Peartree basement)

Aquatic Labor: Gortash - (Flymm’s Cargo Basement)

Baldur’s Gate Temple of Bhaal: Yanthus - (Gortash’s Office)

Balthazar’s Notes: Balthazar - (Necrotic laboratory)

Clasped Book: Balthazar - (Balthazar’s chambers)

Devil’s Fee Observer’s Report**: Himberloo - (Nine-Fingers’ office)

Elder Brain Domination: Ketheric/Yanthus - (Ketheric’s Room)

Enhanced Weapons - Sales Ledger: Peartree - (Peartree basement)

Experiment on Cruor: Orin - (Temple of Bhaal)

How To Build a Watcher: deceased Gondian - (Steel Watch foundry) 

Journal of Enver Gortash: Gortash - (Gortash’s Office)

Magical Histories: Volume 2: The Spellplague: unknown - (Sorcerous Sundries)

Memoir Notes with Recent Addenda: Gortash - (Gortash’s office)

Missive from Gortash: Gortash - (Ketheric’s room)

Missive from Ketheric: Ketheric - (Moonrise, 2nd floor)

Mistress of Souls’ Research Log: Kressa - (Mind flayer barracks)

My Gratitude: Gortash - To Peartree (Peartree basement)

Next Steps: Gortash - (Gortash’s office)

Prayer for Forgiveness: Durge - (Necrotic laboratory)

Scrapbook of Letters: Gortash/Durge - (Flymm’s Cobblers)

Special Operations - Infernal Arms: Uktar - 

Studies of the Elder Brains: Gortash/Yanthus - (Gortash’s Office)

Suspended Ceremorphosis: Gortash/Yanthus - (Tadpoling center)

Test Mission with Gortash: Durge - (Temple of Bhaal)

The Astral Prism Heist: Gortash - (Gortash’s office)

The Dukes of Baldur’s Gate: unknown - (Baldur’s Mouth/Peartree’s house)

The Grand Design: Gortash/Yanthus - (Mind flayer colony)

The True Life of ‘Lord’ Gortash: a skeleton - (Wyrm’s Rock Prison)

The Ultimate State: Gortash - (Gortash’s office/Flymm’s Cobblers)

*an in-game contradiction between Gortash and Durge. See: ‘Test Mission with Gortash’ and ‘Memoir Notes with Recent Addenda’. I’ve placed it after, but there’s also a legitimate argument to be made that Gortash and Durge met and became allies much earlier, possibly around the same time as Gortash’s betrayal of Karlach

Additionally, the House of Wonders (church/workshop) and the Hall of Wonders (museum) are two different buildings in the Upper City. Durge writes that the Hall is their target, while Gortash writes that the House is their target. It is my opinion that they hit both locations.

**no link cuz the bg3.wiki doesn’t have it??

[aletterinthenameofsanity]

on the same note as my post earlier: i'm thinking about the devlin house and edwin being stuck in the loop and the loop of being gnawed about/torn apart in hell and how devlin house explores charles' trauma so well (and amazingly so) but it also shows off crazy parallels to Edwin's hell trauma as well (and how he reacts to the fear of losing charles) in fantastic fashion as well

[dorianbrightmusic]

Hilson and the Season 4 Finale

(Spoilers for House 4x15 and 4x16)

The season 4 finale is just so massive from a Hilson perspective. You have House stewing in frustration in the lead-up, as Wilson starts dating Girl House. You have House getting jealous, and then him trying to reluctantly live with the fact that maybe Cutthroat Bitch is actually good for Wilson. And he also has to deal with the fact that CB is good for Wilson in ways that House hasn’t been able to achieve. And yet Wilson’s list of reasons to like CB are, at least initially, her similarities to House. (House certainly isn’t likely to be able to see past that – he’s not going to be aware of any other reason Wilson might like her, breasts aside.) So House has been watching his beloved fall for someone who’s just like him.

House is the king of deflecting and running away from pain. Wilson is probably the only person who’s ever been semi-capable of getting through to House in this regard, and in getting him to recognise his own cowardice. Yet Wilson – House’s confidant – is now preoccupied with Amber. And it’s not like House could possibly articulate the romantic frustration. He’s losing the one man he even slightly trusts, and the one man he could have discussed that loss with.

All this is going on while Wilson is having an unexpectedly successful relationship. This successful relationship, of course, is new, may face the same death sentence as all of Wilson’s past relationships – he’ll find someone needier. (Much as he’s found someone whom he’d like to save more than he’d like to save House. So House is watching himself become one of Wilson’s ex-wives, in a sense.) Amber isn’t needier than House, and she encourages Wilson to pursue his own needs. Maybe these would be factors that could have prevented her relationship with Wilson going the way of all his marriages. But as far as House is concerned, people don’t change. He sees patterns, so he’s waiting for this romance to shrivel up and die. However, as far as House is concerned, Amber and Wilson are a proxy for House and Wilson. So if he holds out for their disintegration, he’s also holding out to watch his own relationship with Wilson disintegrate. Even though he and Wilson aren’t a couple, Wilson is effectively cheating on him with Amber. Yet if/when Wilson inevitably cheats on Amber, he’ll also be cheating on House-by-proxy.

Wilson is also in a bad position. I’ve always interpreted him as a gay man who’s so deep in the closet that he genuinely believes, at least on some level, that he’s still at least a little straight. He goes out of his way to be a hero to women because that’s what love is meant to look/feel like. He can make them fall for him, and pray that being loved will let him experience straight love vicariously. But it’s never fulfilling, and he moves on and woos someone else because maybe, just maybe, this will be the affair that lets him really feel something.

Yet through years of failed romance, he stays loyal to his best friend. He’ll spend Christmas with House rather than spend it with his then-wife. He’ll be friends with House even when it ruins his first marriage. House is a monster; but so is Wilson. And Wilson has a pathological need to admit to own up to his mistakes. Someone as blunt as House is perfect for him.

With Amber, Wilson seems to be finally falling for someone – but that someone is Girl House. The woman he seems to love is the female reflection of the man he’s always loved.

House and Wilson both know this – they joke about being a couple. But House looks devastated as he says ‘Oh my God. You’re dating me.’ And Wilson doesn’t even know what to say. It’s a hideous glimmer of all that could have been between them.

Cut to House slowly realising – and telling Wilson as he pieces things together – that he is responsible for Amber’s death.

If House hadn’t been turning to alcohol in lieu of better coping skills – or social support – Amber wouldn’t have needed to collect him. Part of the reason House was probably drinking so early was his frustration with all that was going on with Wilson. And naturally, this is after Wilson has already tried and tried to intervene with House’s substance abuse. This is after House has remained sick and negligent despite Wilson’s compassion and effort.

So House, despite Wilson’s demonstrations of love, has indirectly killed Wilson’s beloved. This was preventable and arbitrary. This was after House’s third near-death experience. This was after Wilson found House once, and sat at his bedside later. This was after House said ‘I love you’. After Amber resuscitated House from his electric suicide.

And House is voluntarily risking his life to save the woman who’s the curse of his existence. He’s voluntarily going in that chair and having a hole put in his skull to save her. Yet he’s the one who reveals, after everything, that there’s nothing they can do to save Amber.

He’s killed a woman. He’s killed the one girl who seemed to stand between him and Wilson. He’s also killed the indirect embodiment of him and Wilson – even after she saved his life.

The whole time, Wilson believes mistakenly that House has fallen for Amber. He’s dealing with the anger and grief of having his girlfriend potentially cheat on him with his best friend (whom he, deep down, really loves. Whom he can’t touch, because he’s not meant to love House). And he’s dealing with his fury at House. And he can’t see that House’s jealousy is not because House loves Amber, but because House loves Wilson. It’s easier for Wilson to rationalise House’s actions as House trying to steal his girlfriend than it is to accept that House loves him. (Or, worse, than it is to accept that he loves House.)

And the one time that Wilson seems to be able to love a girl, she’s gone. And now there’s this emptiness where he can’t touch anyone, and where the man he isn’t supposed to love is the very man to blame.

And House knows that when Amber dies, he might lose Wilson. And he is so, so scared. He admits it – House admits to being scared of losing Wilson. They can’t ever be the same after this, and he knows it and admits it. And he finally wants to change and get better – but he’s losing the one man who he might trust to help him. He’s losing the one man he could even tell.

Augh. My heart is in pieces. It’s such an incredibly painful situation on all fronts.

[sforzesco]

a bystander: both of you are focusing on the wrong thing

anyway! this is a comic from the vault™! it was originally something goofy I drew for myself after I read a couple of different takes on this whole event (Crassus leaving Rome in 63 BCE, see Plutarch Pompey 43). like.

the phrasing is giving late night teleserye plot drama.

and this literally sounds like something a friend has told me about someone else's relationship drama with their sometimes ex. but like. on a less high stakes stage.

ALRIGHT, moving on. some stuff that was Fun To Read, To Me

Crassus' New Friends and Pompey's Return, Eve J Parrish

Crassus: a Political Biography, B.A. Marshall

speaking of titles, fascinated by how this part of crassus' life gets defined by pompey's absence/return. hello fellas!

AND FINALLY inspiration for Pompey's comment about perpetuating cycles of violence comes from this delightfully dramatic bit of writing

Marcus Crassus and the Late Roman Republic, Allen Mason Ward

bsky ⭐ pixiv ⭐ pillowfort ⭐ cohost

[a-h-mad-hish]

“I could not become anything; neither good nor bad; neither a scoundrel nor an honest man; neither a hero nor an insect. And now I am eking out my days in my corner, taunting myself with the bitter and entirely useless consolation that an intelligent man cannot seriously become anything, that only a fool can become something.”

Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead

[katakaluptastrophy]

Once again thinking about how nightmarish the River bubble was...

It lasts for nine months. The ghosts stuck inside it can't quite keep track of time passing, but think it's been around eight weeks.

And of those perceived eight weeks, they don't fully work out what's going on until a 'week' or so before Harrow awakes in the bubble.

These people spent what they perceived as two months of moments of horrible realisation and forgetfulness as Harrow's unconscious mind tried to construct a simulacrum of Canaan House and "enforced certain rules to keep [her] cast on-script".

We know about the "wrong" and "confused parody" NPC versions of the living scions of Canaan House, but what did Harrow's storytelling mean for everyone else? Were they always in control? Did they ever find themselves in places or doing things they didn't remember deciding to do, or distinctly remembered doing before? Imagine having flashbacks of your own awful death while your companions look on incomprehending. Imagine being the only one in the room not claiming to recall that this all happened differently before. That conversation a 'week' before Harrow's arrival must have been so validating and so utterly devastating.

And they still all chose to stay.

[goldeneyedgirl]

miss you and hope you are doing well!! i’m officially not above begging at this point- could i please have a crumb of whatever you’re vibing with recently??? congrats on ending the semester!!

Thank you! I just got my grades today, and the relief was tangible. I think for the brief fifteen minutes afterwards, I was considered totally boneless in relaxation.

So, what am I vibing with?

First up, I've got a full draft of the next chapter of Jar of Hearts that just needs one very harsh edit. I fucking hate fight chapters, so the process went about as well as can be expected. It needed to sit for a while and think about what it did before I opened it again.

I've made peace with the fact that the current draft of Variable Stars needs rewriting simply because you can see the 'seams' where I changed the direction of the plot. Half the battle I've been waging was fitting the old material and the new material together, and now that I've wiped the slate clean, I feel good about the direction.

I fucked up with Shadow to Light and skipped ahead to work on Jasper's chapter and that was a big, huge, gigantic mistake because going back to fix Mary-Alice's chapter feels like going backwards, and was very frustrating. But progress continues, and I have an ask waiting for a snippet which I'll be posting tomorrow.

Other stuff: Well.

Magnolia is getting a much needed refresh because I decided I was personally victimized by the lack of complete Human/Vampire Jalice fic posted. Anathema is finally getting an outline/timeline so I can keep everything flowing correctly. Feral Jasper/Mary-Alice plods on. The STL AU second part is lost (thanks Google), so I'm reclaiming my peace before I go back in and rewrite it.

For new stuff, we have an AU where the Groundskeeper survives and he and Peter manage to convince Alice she's the vampire equivalent of an unexploded bomb, and that she needs to isolate herself lest vampires wanting to exploit her powers kill everyone she knows and loves. It's a little more than a collection of vibes right now, but something that I'll play around with. It might be too similar to other AU versions of Alice to bother expanding on right now.

And I fucking finally managed to put all the pieces together for the multiverse fic. I haven't entirely let go of the first version (which involved a sole-survivor Alice being thrown backwards to the Cullens arrival in Forks in a world where she died in the asylum) because it had some chef's kiss scenes of Jasper simping hard. But the new version is so much more messed up and has a real plot and direction.

(Also tell me why it never occurred to me when I made Edward and Edythe twins that Edythe should be with Tanya? That might go down as the best personal-canon I've come up with this year.)

But anyway, as it's the best option for reading (a lot of the other stuff I've worked on is notes, dot points, short passages describing stuff that isn't fun but is necessary), here is the current state of the multi-verse fic...

The last conversation that she has with her husband, he kisses her on the forehead and promises that no matter what happens, he will find her. He smells like ash and blood, and she misses it when they both smelt like themselves. When they could just be in the moment like they used to, and not spend every day fighting for the next one. She wants one moment, one dance, one night where they get to be them and not pawns on the goddamn chessboard.

She wishes she'd told him... so many things. She wishes she'd held him back and not let him leave her side.

Instead, she promises him she'll be waiting.

And then she never sees him again.

—

For a moment there is nothing. That's how it always is. Nothing but black, and she's … nothing. A million fragments amongst time and space. And then she is again. It always takes a minute or two when she phases into her body. It’s like being pulled out of cold water, and warm air hitting her skin. It’s not unpleasant, it’s just… other.

This time there is a bolt of pain, but she deserved and expected it.

(It’s times like these that she misses him the most. When she feels brand new and vulnerable and trying to understand how this version of herself fits together.)

This Alice is one of the tiniest - an inch or two shorter than she is, very short hair, but with a grace and awareness of her body that is unfamiliar. Curious. She found this Alice’s strand so suddenly, she was expecting something closer to what she was used to. Closer to who she was a long time ago.

She doesn't move at first, she just catalogues everything as the world settles around her. Dirt and grass is cool under her bare feet, and the smell of the forest is familiar; perhaps the Maine house. Or maybe Minnesota. She hopes it's Minnesota; that was always her favourite.

The air smells summery, even though it isn't warm. Her clothing isn't the jeans and sweater that she was wearing before she was pulled through; a light dress and a heavier overshirt. None of her skin or muscles pull as she stood there, so she has no significant scar tissue anywhere. She's not excessively thirsty.

It's not a bad start. She's been in worse situations before.

As soon as she opens her eyes, she starts walking, her hand automatically going to the ring hanging off her necklace; thin, plain gold, and the only thing she's ever managed to hold onto since her gift went haywire. A talisman for better times.

//

The first time she sees this Jasper, she laughs. It's high and delighted and amused.

He's so young. Her Jasper was around thirty when Maria caught up to him - burnt out, jaded, and disgusted with life, never really having gotten over what he saw in the war.

He'd terrorized the south for decades before she caught up to him in Nevada.

She remembered that first weekend, in the dust of Vegas, in a shredded dress and old cowboy boots she wore just to make him laugh. They'd won nearly five hundred dollars, she'd stolen him a jacket and a hat, and he'd told her thirteen times that he was too old and she was too young. She'd laughed twelve times and kissed him the thirteenth time.

This Jasper, almost the same age as her, is missing half the scars, his hair is different, and he's just… younger. It's scary, honestly, seeing him like this. It would be less shocking seeing him flayed to the bone, than the man he was when he went to war and not the person he was afterwards.

Since the day she kissed him Vegas, her Jasper took care of her, protected her. He had been her best friend, her confidante. Always steady, always calm, always tempering her worst impulses, and always on her side. Her husband has always known her best, even better than she knows herself, and of all the different versions of Jasper that she's had to face down, this sharp-eyed version being held in place is the most unsettling.

So she laughs, as this-Jasper and the rest of the family stare at her like she's an alien, surrounded by smoking pyres. She's seen so many versions of her family over the years that none of them surprise her. Edythe is missing, though, and Alice dearly wishes her sister were there. She misses Edie terribly.

"Alice?" This Esme is slimmer, and put together like a WASP on a family camping trip. A few strands of hair have come loose, but she looks comical against the pyres burning sickly purple behind them.

It's honestly the best version of Esme Alice has seen in a long, long time.

"Alice," Jasper croaks, still held in place by Emmett. "Alice, I'm sorry, I'm so so sorry." As she gets closer, she sees how haunted he looks.

She knows that look.

"Not quite," she says as kindly as she can. She's done this part too many times. "You've got nothing to be sorry for." She picks her way over to them; this body is so thin, she feels unsteady. There's always a sense of being like a fawn on brand new legs when she arrives, but this is the worst she's been .

The look on their faces is one that she recognises intimately.

"How long ago did your Alice die?" she asks, stopping several feet away. The silence is loaded between them; she knows that they are looking at her, reconciling her with the woman, the sister, the wife that they've lost. And whilst she looks like a dead girl, she's not: her clothing is wrong, the way she stands, the way she speaks. It might be close to what they know, but just different enough that they can't lie to themselves.

She isn't their Alice.

"About fifteen minutes," Emmett says grimly, and Jasper lets out a noise that sounds like grief and frustration and pain.

Oh, it's fresh. She's never had to deal with a fresh death before. Mostly the other-Alices have been gone months or years - if they existed at all. The best worlds are where Alice Cullen never existed; either destroyed as a newborn or died as a human. Those are the worlds where it's easier to pretend that there's not a long trail of bodies and heartbreak and betrayal and loss behind her.

Maybe being here and now is her punishment. Or her reminder.

"I'm sorry." It feels hollow as she stands there. All her platitudes do.

"So are we." Carlisle looks older than she's ever seen. "The resemblance is…"

"Not a resemblance." She looks at her feet. She's given this speech so many times, it eats away at her every single time she repeats it. "I am Alice Cullen. Just not yours. My gift… it got away from me."

More staring. Jasper is dead-eyed and limp in Emmett's grasp, his gaze fixed on her. It's not the first time that she's wished beyond measure that she looked like herself - her small collection of scars, her hair that is more uneven and lopsided than this Alice's, the ten optimistic pounds extra that would make her feel less like a fawn stumbling around off-kilter. All those little things that made her herself and not some other flavour of herself.

—

She can just hear the family downstairs; the house's sound proofing is very good. She can't make out their plans to come up and rescue their Jasper if she turns out to be a homicidal maniac. Not that he'd need it; no matter which version of himself she meets, Jasper is always the better fighter.

His study is almost familiar. A bunch of elements that she recognizes, all jumbled up wrong - the wrong editions of books, ornaments that were lost or broken suddenly back in place, the rug the wrong shade of green… The ghost of a smile graces her face when she sees the wedding photograph tucked away on the shelf and instinctively reaches for it.

"Mine is different," she says absently, looking at the faces in the picture - both are staring adoringly at each other, a hazy candid with a bouquet of roses falling out of focus in the corner. Decades ahead of its time, as far as wedding photography went. "An old polaroid taken in the doorway… It was on my husband's desk."

Jasper watches her. "You need to explain what's going on," he manages, his voice low and unwelcoming. "Are you the reason Alice is dead?"

"No. No. I've been stuck in this loop for a long time; there are rules. I cannot exist in a world where another version of me is alive. Your Alice died, and my gift found the space she had left behind. I don't usually arrive so soon afterwards."

"Why are you here?" He feels raw, like there's a gaping wound in his chest just open to the air.

The words spill out in a jumble as she tries to explain. She misses the twins, especially Edie. She misses the house next to the river, and the little wing that she and Jasper had taken over as their own. And she misses her husband so badly, it feels like she's falling to pieces.

The truth is that when Aro and Eleazer came after them all, they scattered. That's just how it happened; they had to go to ground, and it wasn't smart to stay together.

So many people died on both sides. Edie had been the first to die, and Tanya was on borrowed time - she'd never be the same again. She hadn't heard from or laid eyes on Esme in years before that last battle. Carlisle's survival was nothing more than rumors that he was one of Aro's 'guests'. Edward and Bella had been destroyed - that vision was tattooed across her memory, worse than reality because there was nothing she could do to stop it.

Rose and Emmett had fled to Vietnam and gone silent. She had always hoped that they'd made themselves a new, safe life and were happy.

It had been her and Jasper at the end, and then he'd been destroyed. And all the lessons, all the practice getting her gift to be stronger… she'd ripped herself right out of time in her horror and grief that she was all alone.

In the end, they'd lost everything they'd been fighting for.

—

This Alice isn’t his wife. He needs to remind himself of that but he also doesn't; it's like a beacon over her head. It's in the fabric of everything she does. The way she moves, the way she looks at them, even the way she dresses.

He knows the whole family is watching them, judging them. He wants to be repulsed by this woman, by the ease of her presence. He wants to be sick and violent in his grief.

But Jasper would never consider himself a good man. He can see the ghost of his Alice in this stranger. They might have been put together wrong, but the clothing is still his wife's. Her scent, of rainwater and peaches, is the most familiar in the world. More than once, he's had to resist reaching for her, holding her.

Not just for himself, but for her. She doesn't speak about her husband much, but when she does… the words spill out so fast. And it's in every single word how much she loved her husband, absolutely adored him. She is fond when she talks about his flaws, his quirks. Not once does she criticize him, let anything less than praise cross her lips. He can hear the grief and self-loathing every time she mentions his death.

There is… it's not jealousy. There's a twinge of possessiveness. Maybe.

(It's more like he's drowning and she's the life-raft. If she hadn't walked onto that battlefield, he would have begged Emmett to take his head, to throw his pieces onto Alice's pyre and pretend that they both died in the battle.)

[fingermosaic]

I JUST FINISHED READING NOTES FROM A DEAD HOUSE AND

GBJDKSBFKS ITS SO GOOD IM CRYING AGHH

[briwhosaysni]

I gotta say, I am Not Happy with the frequency with which I'm suddenly finding spiders in my new apartment, nor with the fact that each one has been bigger than the last.

The first one a couple days ago was tiny, maybe like half a centimeter. The next one yesterday was maybe a couple centimeters. Bigger, but still small enough for me to deal with on my own. This morning's I would estimate is about an inch across (firmly in "hell no" territory), and at this rate I'm genuinely concerned I'm gonna wake up tomorrow to a fucking wolf spider or something in my kitchen, at which point I will unfortunately have to burn the entire place down

[xiphions]

no you don't understand, I want more evil Bellatrix Black. I don't want her to be redeemed, i don't want her to be morally grey, I want her completely unhinged. sick and twisted. if you can't like a character unless they're morally good, you're boooring.

[serpentface]

Oh, birthing & midwiferyposting, please

Ok I will Elaborate

(Content warning because this contains discussion of infanticide)

This is speaking about midwifery and childbirth in the Imperial Wardi context (this also should not be taken as ubiquitous for every facet of the Imperial Wardi cultural sphere, but this is a broadly accurate rundown).

Infant mortality rates are high, and pregnancies and births can be very dangerous for the pregnant parent. Midwives serve a vital societal function and the best form of reproductive care available.

Midwives come in many forms. In poor families, the duties are usually performed by a family member and the skillset may be passed from parent to child. Some communities have resident midwives who perform their services for free or at low cost. Professional midwives exist for hire, and are very common in the cities. An upper echelon of midwives are a kind of physician-priestess, who will have received extensive medical training and are considered sanctified and uniquely equipped to fulfill the spiritual needs of childbirth. A few will perform services for free, but they are generally hired and their services are very expensive.

Wealthy families may have their own personal midwives, and VERY wealthy families/royalty have personal physician-priestesses.

Midwives are mostly women, though whether this is an expectation or merely an average tendency is dependent on the specific context. Cases where this is an Expectation tend to be in cultural contexts where the Gaze of a man is believed to have a sexual element that is uniquely powerful and harmful to the nude bodies of women (all Imperial Wardi cultural beliefs include a concept of the spiritually empowered Gaze and disempowered vulnerability in nudity, but exact nuances vary). Physician-priestesshood is, in theory, reserved only for people designated female, though a few throughout history have been known or suspected to be eunuchs.

Physician-Priestesses serve Anmir-Ganmache (an epithet of God as the domestic sphere, close in meaning to Ox-Face of the Hearth). This is not a priesthood specifically devoted to this face of God in the same sense that Odonii are the cult of the Lion-Face and Galenii are the cult of the Lunar-Face, they are merely seen as serving Anmir-Ganmache by performing their duties and being uniquely empowered by this Face's blessing. Most begin their training and education at puberty (though it's possible to join later in life) and are expected to serve for 25 years before retirement. Their primary function is to behave as midwives, but they receive a wide spectrum of medical training and are considered uniquely equipped to tend to the overall health of women.

A midwife is usually expected to not perform their tasks while menstruating (this may not be practical for poorer families who have to take what they can get), during which time a person is considered ritually unclean. Specially dedicated physician-priestesses are usually expected to be virgins and to remain so for the duration of their service (a method to ensure an entirely ritually pure existence). This is not expected of common midwives.

Most of any midwife’s job is typical physical assistance with the pregnancy and birthing process. Births are typically done in a sitting or squatting position, often wearing a special skirt or blanket to shield both parent and child from full view (a spiritual element to reduce unwanted metaphysical vulnerability during the birthing process). Under the best conditions, a midwife has several assistants of their own (in the case of physician priestesses, these are usually priestesses in training) who will physically support the person giving birth and attend to their needs.

The infant is shielded from direct view during its emergence, and is immediately cleaned and wrapped in cloth upon the cutting of the umbilical cord.

Part of the toolset for a physician-priestess is a pair of horns from a pregnant cow sanctified via sacrifice to Anmir-Ganmache. The cow had taken God's role in its sacrifice and its remains are holy relics, and used to put the mother and child under God's full protection. One horn will have been carved into a cup and holds a sanctified oil (usually olive), which is gently daubed over the eyes, mouth, heart, and near the genitals of the child, forming a protective barrier.

The other horn is intact (usually carved with protective imagery, notably a motif of a lioness-headed woman that has protective qualities for children, and an abstract, twisting serpent that represents and encourages the incarnation of the child's soul) and is waved over the child’s body in the form of a blessing. The same is done for the mother, with the addition of anointing the breasts to encourage healthy and clean lactation. Common midwives are unlikely to have easy access to sacred sacrificial relics, but this blessing rite is considered vital and can be accomplished (to a less ideal extent) with any cow's horns, so long as they have been properly purified.

Protecting the helpless, naked infant from the gaze and immediately exposing it to purifying agents is believed to help expel any inborn dagia or other polluting agents. This is believed to support the child's spiritual and physical health and hopes to prevent congenital or otherwise lifelong health conditions.

The midwife performs a thorough inspection of the infant, and will give a recommendation upon whether the child is healthy and fit to rear. Infants deemed at high risk of premature death may be killed, as the cost of care and emotional attachment for a child deemed unlikely to survive will often be seen as too great to warrant the risk. This act (presumably with the parent’s permission) is usually performed by the midwife themself, and is ideally accomplished with a fatal sedative dose (this death is seen as peaceful and painless, while a traumatic death would risk the infant’s soul failing to reincarnate and instead becoming a vengeful wandering ghost).

This obviously may be a difficult and traumatic choice on an emotional level, but infants are not believed to have fully incarnated souls until they begin to speak (it is believed that the soul begins to enter the body upon conception, but takes significant time to fully inhabit it), and will be reincarnated if they die before this occurs. So infanticide in this context is not usually perceived as the murder of a full person or a denial of life, as the infant’s soul will have as many other chances as it takes to become fully incarnated. (There's a variant of 'old soul' beliefs, where an especially precocious child or one that learns to speak early is believed to have had many previous reincarnations)

Intentional abortion of a fetus carries no stigma whatsoever for much the same reasons (though the MOTIVATIONS for this act on the parent’s part may carry stigma, such as to hide an illegitimate pregnancy). Natural abortifiacients are available and widely used in cases of unwanted pregnancy (though these are not by any means as safe or reliable as contemporary abortion procedures).

In all cases (whether an aborted fetus, a miscarriage, a stillbirth, infanticide, or another death before full incarnation), the infant or fetus’ remains are given the standard funeral rite of cremation to ensure their soul is freed from the body and can be properly reincarnated. Basic rites are all that is expected in this situation, but some parents will undergo extensive funerals with lavish offerings to encourage a prosperous and healthy rebirth.

There's also certain rites to encourage the same soul to return to the same parents (as it would otherwise be reincarnated into a human at random), the physical element of which is anointing the body (ideally the lips) with both parent's mingled blood before the cremation, as blood physically contains a person's spirit and the sharing of it can establish a powerful metaphysical bond. This is believed to assist in leading the child's stray soul back to the same source, and may lend a tremendous sense of comfort to parents in the face of a wanted, dead infant.

A pregnant parent who dies in childbirth is given special status and are believed to enter an esteemed afterlife (located within the Lapis Moon, a paradise where they will reside among saints and other esteemed dead). Childbirth is regarded as one of many analogues to God's self-sacrifice to bring forth creation, with the mother symbolically crossing the threshold of death and spilling her blood to bring forth life from nonexistence. To die in such a state is regarded as one of the noblest deaths typically available to women. (This sentiment is also entirely reflective of the typical place ascribed to those designated women in this society, where their chiefmost value is in bearing children). It's still (obviously) ideal for most to survive the birthing process, but this belief may contribute to some choosing to undergo an (almost always fatal) caesarean procedure in a difficult birth if the infant is assumed to be otherwise healthy.

In the case of a healthy birth in which all parties survive, the child will then be presented to its father (who in some contexts is prohibited from attending the birth), who will formally accept it as his own and bestow it with the family name (the child is not given a personal name until a month from birth, and undergoes a formalized naming ceremony at either their first birthday or when they begin to speak, tradition depending). A child born out of wedlock or to an absent father does not receive a family name, though may be formally adopted if the mother marries later on, or be given the family name of the mother's father if he chooses to accept it.

The mother should ideally undergo a full blessing to recover from the metaphysical vulnerability of the birthing state (the physician-priestess can provide this, but otherwise this is done at a temple or family/village shrine).

It's also generally expected to offer sacrifice to Anmir-Ganmache in thanks and to ensure continued protection for parent and child (the best offering is a cow, but offerings of milk or at the very least some grain is acceptable). Most who can afford a physician-priestess can also afford to offer a cow, and it's also expected that the best meat (usually the liver and flank) and the horns should be removed before the rest of the sacrifice is burnt, and gifted to the priestess as a personal thanks.

[thatneoncrisis]

nobody tell me to watch angel i dont care if its good im gonna be a little bitch about it. i hate that guy i get mad every time season 4 mentions him

[twovsandan]

Blah blah blah just let me watch chess the musical I don't have rehearsals what do you mean.