#places you know and cherish

[idkimnotreal]

for people who don't understand the causes of heavy rains in southern brazil. (for anyone who is even aware of it)

we don't have a tropical climate in the south. there is no rain or dry season or monsoons. our seasons are defined by temperature patterns, not lack or presence of rain, like those in other temperate climates. porto alegre is much closer geographically, culturally and climatically to buenos aires than to são paulo and even less so brasília.

the heavy rainfall does indeed have to do with deforestation in the amazon. but the amazon rainforest is only indirectly related to rainfall in the south of the country (as opposed to directly related in the southeast, such as rio - the amazon spawns rain clouds in the summer that cover all of central and nothern brazil - and this is called "SACZ", but these clouds don't cover the south or the northeast of the country).

what happened instead is that the degradation of both the amazon and other natural biomes in the country (such as the cerrado and the pantanal) has disrupted humidity patterns and contributed to the formation of dry heat domes in central brazil (including the state of são paulo) in autumn and spring, when that region of the country is no longer under the influence of SACZ and antarctic cold air waves are not strong enough to reach that far into the continent (and they would be in july and august, during the peak of the austral winter).

these new dry heat domes trap antarctic air in southern brazil in autumn and spring. since colder and warmer air both cause rainfall when moving through an area (and these are cold and warm fronts respectively), the atmospheric "shock" caused by the cold air trying to advance but being unable to break through the hot dome causes rain to pour over a single area. that's what's happening. central brazil is right now seeing very intense, record-breaking heat for autumn. but that is being muffled by what's going on in the south, which is incomparably worse.

so when people blame this on us for "chopping down the amazon"... well, would they say that about buenos aires if this were happening there instead? it's not about the amazon. these places - including the cerrado and the pantanal - are quite far from us and we have little control or awareness over what happens there. so it's part of something much worse that spans the entire globe. and also something related to brazilian culture - our apathetic, accustomed relationship with suffering, and our lack of foresight to avoid it in general.

[solarisfortuneia]

— 𝐟𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐮𝐭𝐞𝐬.

and the smell of camphor dancing in the wind.

✦ info: he didn't know he'd lose you so soon. (come back, please. even if it is just for five more minutes.)

✦ featuring: alhaitham.

✦ warnings: angst, character death (reader), heartache, 1.2k words, somewhat proof-read.

✦ notes: i cried so goddamn hard writing this. why is my first work after hiatus pain. why did i pick up the angst wip. but!! i'm writing again, so that's good. (more notes at the end.)

he didn’t know that it was your last day together. 

he didn’t know that the smile you gave him that afternoon, your eyes sparkling like sunlight upon the serene waves of the ocean, would be the last he’d ever see. that the playful light in your gaze would fade so very soon, slipping through his fingers like sand.

he didn’t know that last night would be the last time he held you close while you drifted off to sleep. he didn’t know that today would be the last time he’d wake up with you.

he didn’t think he’d lose you like this. 

he didn’t think he wouldn’t be able to save you from that blow. 

“please, please,”  he begs, both to you and to whatever force that is just barely holding you together. “just stay with me for five more minutes, please. until i can get you somewhere.” 

the rain soaks him to the bone, clothes and hair sticking to his skin. your lips stay motionless, eyes shut.

“wake up, please,”  he bargains. “you can have all the five minutes of extra sleep you want later, i promise. just—”  his vision blurs, and something shines on the ground before it is gone, swallowed by damp earth, lost amidst drops of falling rain. 

desperately, he tears off parts of his traveling cloak to staunch the bleeding. deep inside, he knows it is futile. he knows your wound is too great. he knows what lies ahead. but he cannot help but press the cloths to your wound and pray. 

please, please tell me it’ll be okay. 

please stay with me, beloved. i’ll read you all the books in the world. i’ll sleep in with you everyday, even if we end up whiling away our time. 

please. stay. stay with me. i can’t lose you yet.  

“— just wake up, beloved.” 

by some miracle, your eye flutters. just a bit. just enough to set hope ablaze, just enough for the grip on his heart to loosen a tiny bit. he buries his face in your shoulder, resting his head against your neck, uncaring of the blood that stains his clothes. your blood. on his clothes. his hands. everywhere. 

no. no. this can’t be happening.

he feels you strain beneath him, your unwounded arm gently, weakly brushing his back. he jolts upright, eyes trained on your face. you send a frail smile his way. he clasps your face softly as you nuzzle into his palm.

“alhaitham—” 

his full name. archons, how long has it been since you called him that?  

“— take good care of yourself, okay?” you tell him, chest heaving, your fingertips touching a tear on his cheeks. “i love you. so much.” 

those are the last words he hears fall from your lips. he presses a kiss to your forehead, to your eyelids, and to your cheeks and to your lips, over and over and over until he feels your breath slow, hoping they’ll say what he knows he cannot manage to choke out.

i love you. 

he stays there next to you for who knows how long, holding you until the rain slows and a faint rainbow smiles in the sky.

until he can’t smell camphor anymore.

—

every person has their curiosities. 

they’re just the little traits that set them apart from others, the things that make them tick just a little bit differently, the things that make them, them.

for instance, someone may be obsessed with collecting tiny furniture, while another eats the crusts off their sandwich before actually consuming it. someone may have an affinity for the most niche aspects of linguistics, while another can accurately predict the next raindrop that slides down a window pane.

after all, no two people are exactly alike, are they?

alhaitham knows he’s got his fair share of these curiosities himself. his aversion to soup and all things that resemble it, to name one. and with you, he’d noticed two things. 

number one: the scent of camphor that seems to linger on every inch of your person. 

he’d caught whiff of it almost immediately the first time you met. you were but one of his juniors in the akademiya, filled with bright-eyed curiosity and anxiety to match. you had tripped over a stair and bumped into his table in the library, bringing the mountain of books in your arms crashing down.

and with subsequent coincidental meetings, he learnt that the subtle scent of camphor dancing in the air meant you weren’t far away. 

you were, unfortunately, one of the poor souls who seemed to be cursed with constantly recurring minor illnesses, and almost always walked about with a stuffy nose. and so, you always carried a small disc of camphor in a handkerchief, as well as in your pocket.

you swore up and down, left, right and center that sniffing the vapors helped make breathing easier.

‘it’s my grandmother’s remedy, alhaitham! camphor always works wonders. well, that and eucalyptus oil.”

alhaitham may not know the validity of your claim or the legitimacy of the cure, but he knew to never, ever question a grandmother’s remedy. that, and he’d much rather refrain from starting a back-and-forth about something so small.

and number two: your neverending pleas of different variations of ‘just five more minutes!’ 

“five more minutes, ‘haitham. please.” you’d whine grumpily when he woke you up to start your day. “let me sleep in for five more minutes.” 

“five more minutes, habibi,” you’d ask when he put down the story you’d requested he read out to you before bedtime. “read me the part where she finds the music box?”

“five more minutes, baby,” is what you’d tell him when he asks how much longer you’d take getting ready. “you can’t rush perfection!”

those five more minutes were never five minutes long. 

but he’d always, always indulged you and those pleading eyes of yours. as stoic as he appeared to be, you lived in his heart. of course he could never deny you anything under the sun.

—

alhaitham remembers that silly little song you sang over and over, the one you’d learnt from a kid in the bazaar. he’d taken you to see one of nilou’s performances, and, friendly soul that you were, you’d struck up a conversation with some of the eager audience members before the play. 

“oh, how i wish i was a bird flying free,

i’d see the world, every mountain and every sea!

oh, how i wish i was a cloud in the sky,

wouldn’t you like to wave to me as i pass by?”

you’d hum that rhyme on every idle afternoon.

loss is inevitable. he knows that, with how logical and rational and straightforward he is. he’d lost his parents, but he was far too young to remember. he’d lost his grandmother, but she passed in her sleep of old age, serene and wise.

but you? he didn’t think you’d leave him this soon. a singular wish sits in his soul, making its home in his bones. 

a wish that you’d come back, somehow. 

he wishes you gave him five more minutes, just as he always did.  but he knows that you could’ve given him five more hours, five more days, five more years and five more decades and it would still not be enough time spent with you. 

a blue feathered bird comes to perch on his shoulder, interrupting his musings just as he raises his face to the sky. he sees the heart shaped cloud that floats idly above sumeru city.

 he thinks of the rhyme again, and something in him tells him to wave. and so he does. a scent so familiar lingers, faintly brushing his nose in the wind that picks up.

“alhaitham, it's time to go.”  kaveh calls his name softly.

 alhaitham doesn't move. “five more minutes,”  he says, echoing your favorite phrase. “i smell camphor in the breeze.” 

✦ extra notes: my alhaitham characterization for this fic stems from how i believe that when alhaitham is attached, he's attached. so i focused more on that, and less of all that rationality and whatnot. this one loves deeply, yk?

that camphor thing is a real grandma remedy in our household (my mom would tie some in a hanky and put some under my pillow and still to this day reminds me to do it when i'm sick) which is what originally sparked the idea for this

when i'd initially started this wip, i didn't expect it go this way. usually i write with my brain, but i think i wrote this one with my fingers working faster than i can think hsjhsj so sorry if it's kinda out of place lmao but yk what? i'm happy with it still even though i feel like it doesn't have my usual quality.

thanks for reading.

[crescentfool]

it's dangerous to go alone... take this with you!!!

[cent-scratchnsniff]

here together

[canisalbus]

That Les Mis line is SO good for them! Every time I hear that line my heart hurts. Also cause I was in a really intense production of that at an intense point in my life.

But seriously. Can’t you just imagine Vasco watching Machete sleep and just having a moment of “I get it. I was never that confused about religious belief, but in some way now I really get it.”

.

[bittersweetresilience]

say hi to me i don't know, i just remembered being so much brighter, i guess

cigarette ash like wildfire burning holes in the nighttime open scars feel like barbed wire white lies flying high like a ceasefire dropping flags on the shoreline this is as far as i can feel right 'cause what you don't know can haunt you

and all we ever wanted was sunlight and honesty highlights to want to repeat let's get away from here and live like the movies do i won't mind when it's over at least i didn't think for a while

don't drag it out living like that doesn't mean a thing

so let's, make a great escape and i'll be waiting outside for the getaway it doesn't matter who we are we'll keep running through the dark and all we'll ever need is another day we can slow down 'cause tomorrow is a mile away and live like shooting stars 'cause happy endings hardest to fake

and i wanna let you know i wanna let you go but i just can't bring myself to speak but this is how it goes the end credits, they roll this bridge was built over kerosene but we can watch it and all i ever wanted was sunlight and honesty highlights to want to repeat let's get away from here and live like the movies do i won't mind when it's over at least i didn't think

so let's run, make a great escape and i'll be waiting outside for the getaway it doesn't matter who we are we'll keep running through the dark and all we'll ever need is another day we can slow down 'cause tomorrow is a mile away and live like shooting stars you can wish away forever but you'll never find a thing like today

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

ah yes! the joys of executive dysfunction and something being Fundamentally Broken In Your Braincase!

[socksandbuttons]

The thing that is out of place in the episode to me is sun crying about solar's death. They never were close. The most that can be considered bonding between them is when solar turned into a candy corn and when they had guys night with moon which is off screen. solar was mean to sun that one time. so for sun to cry and have a hard time breaking the news to lunar and earth is just so out of place. I don't have any other words for it. Just out of place

"They were never close" That we know of! We know Earth had her offscreen time with Solar. And while we dont see sun and Solar interact a lot, it's clear enough that Sun still cared. while We got more Moon and Solar vibin then Sun and Solar despite Solar's whole being his own Sun to thank (also i just think its literally due to one voiceactor voicing both, there IS limitations here and there). But i think thats enough implication. But Sun still liked Solar, he was well aware Moon and Solar were besties. He still hung out with solar, Solar was family to him too. But sun taking it upon himself to tell Lunar and Earth is a mercy to moon too in a sense. Plus like... voiceactor wise itd be best. I get canonly we didnt get a lot but like implication wise- I think its fair.

[acebytaemin]

NYE fit (snoopy slippers included)

[sskk-manifesto]

Ep 5!!!

[terryfuckingturniptruck]

My birthday was full of unexpected interactions

[thebirdandhersong]

whenever I get carried away (with thoughts like "I would make such an EXCELLENT wife you don't even KNOW I would be SO devoted to my husband I would 10/10 get such a good mark in wife which is so normal to strive for and so so possible to achieve I just KNOW it I would do ALL THE THINGS BE ALL THE THINGS ACCOMPLISH ALL THE THINGS WITH FLYING COLOURS and he would LOVE ME and DESPAIR") I'm like. yeahhhhh songbird uhhhhhh that's why that hasn't come to pass. lol

[jokerownsmysoul]

[mycological-mariner]

One thing I find deeply frustrating is whenever you go “This piece of medía looks really good and like something I would enjoy however when I tried to get into it, I found it contains a great deal of things that I find extremely triggering which sucks because it otherwise sounds like something I’d really enjoy” and someone goes “Oh that sucks, I’m sorry you’re missing out it is REALLY GOOD and you WOULD love it!”

[ramenwithbroccoli]

hello dear mutual! i noticed that you forgot to put tags on that wonderful post of yours - do not fret, i know exactly what to do in this situtation! *posts an entire essay three times the size of the post in your tags*

[fivewholeminutes]

(I apparently wrote you two)

Alex,

Somebody once loved the way I wrote the word blood so much, it inspired me to write them a letter for Valentine's Day. That will always be one of my favorite interactions. You make me smile all the time.

"Whenever you appear, you leave me with that grace. I am trembling with fear..."

Yours, spilling ink,

Kate

Alex,

Honored that my handwriting brings you joy. When I was young, I spent a lot of time practicing. This ink color is my beloved "Writer's blood" ink. Here are some lyrics from Ascensionism:

"Who made you like this? Who encrypted your dark gospel in body language? Synapses snap back in blissful anguish. Tell me you met me in past lives, past lies, past what might be eating me from the inside, darling. Half algorithm, half deity...

Yours, in ascension,

Kate

Kate,

It is only fair I address your letters in the same manner. Although I find my handwriting inferior to yours. Which is okay; not many things can compare with the way you handle the pen.

I would like to take this opportunity to say that I am glad we have met in this specific part of tumblr and that we are technically bonded by blood now.

I love our interactions, especially the "serious tone" comments we leave for each other. I have so much fun talking with you like this 🖤

P.S. This ask is the first thing I have seen today and it has lifted my spirits greatly.

Sending lots of love,

Alex