#reading about grief

[hollyida]

Running Again?

Have you had a bad week? Or maybe just a really weird one? Things have been bonkers at work. My kid had a rough week, many of my colleagues had horrible sicknesses or were dealing with bad news, and I was in a pretty bad mood throughout much of it. There just seemed to be something in the air, bad vibes everywhere. It was really cold in Maine this past week, with a shot of snow and ice, and I…

[pkaykim]

[itsthinkagainstact]

What is it with trains and crying ? Why is it that each time I feel overfilled with emotions, it's sitting on a less than comfortable seat that gives me permission to let go, even after a day of keeping the tears in check ?

Is it being surrounded by strangers who, hopefully, won't care past a concerned glance, won't ask questions ? Is it the limited length of the journey that opens a window of opportunity before going back to things to do and people to see?

Back in England, nine years ago, I would cry everywhere but especially on trains and buses, or at least, that's the memory I have of it. It's something to do with the liminality of being on the move. Maybe if the tears flow between here and there, points A and B, they don't count as much, don't weigh as heavy. God, how sad I was, having fled from my grief, to no avail; it had followed me straight to the other side of the Channel. How sad and how glad to be alone with my sorrow, away from real life and from people who would try to make it better when what I needed was time to myself, or worse, wouldn't try because they hadn't seen or understood the depth of it all.

I'm not that girl anymore, not 21 and adrift like that ship painted by Turner that'll forever make me think of that period of time. I'm not that girl anymore but sometimes I see flashes of her, in the face reflected by the train window, sky turning purple and cheeks glistening. I'm not that girl anymore but I know she and I will be okay in the end, on the other side of the journey.

-Thin Places 22.03

[hinamie]

"I'll show you every day that choosing to live was worth it"

some of my favourite scenes from @hijinks-n-lowjinks' fic things i would miss from the other side . this fic tore my heart out fr but like in a good way and i wanted to pay it homage the only way i know how <3

[mayhemspreadingguy]

Someone was sobbing. After a moment, Anakin realized Oh. That's me. And then his knees were buckling and he was heading for the ground. Obi-Wan caught him. "It's all right. I've got you." -K. Miller

[petricorah]

scenes i loved from Real Enough to Get Me Through by @marriedzukka <333 [ids in alt]

[mrs-paint]

hi

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

In Regards To Your 2024 Summary:

Holy shit it’s been another year????? The hell?????

Also! Your art style is gorgeous and that being found in 2023 and then refined throughout late 2023 and the entirety of 2024 really shows, as does your growth in panel layouts, perspective, and — as you said — experimentation. If you ever post your animation or video game art I’m looking forward to it.

As cheesy as it sounds, being able to laugh at funny comics and look at all the details of your art really made my 2024 brighter, even when things were hard. Including looking at your older art— it doesn’t need to be new to be enjoyable! I’m glad your art is well loved and it’s a privilege to have been here since the (near) beginning. I hope you take care of yourself in 2025 and beyond!

You and your art bring a lot of people a lot of joy never forget that <3

Thank you so much for keeping up with my art journey throughout these last two years! Two years!!! I am baffled at how that feels both too long and too short!

Admittedly, my art summary didn't manage to capture the fact that I did a lot of comic layouts that I'm really proud of. I also drew more backgrounds and made some very detailed works (*Dungeon Meshi spoilers for these examples*).

The growth is lot more evident when comparing my 'best' comics of 2023 to 2024:

Sometimes the growth is vertical, sometimes it is horizontal - and damn, sometimes it goes out of sight into the Z-plane. But it is always happening!

[sadcoms]

until i recently read posts on here about how there is an inherent queerness to the doctor and rose's relationship in how it's unspoken and filled with yearning that i'd never really considered that element, despite knowing for ages that RTD is gay but. man. it's just reframed a lot of the series for me, like the idea that you have this lonely man who's just watched his people die and is self-destructive and misanthropic and traumatised and he can love again and he wants to but it has so many risks.

but especially S3 and how it adds even more weight to the doctor's grieving widower status. how he tells martha that he and rose were together but martha refers to rose as a friend to tallulah; the fact that he can only say they were together once she is gone; how the only other person that both can feel how he feels but also understands the depth of his feelings is jack, a queer man himself. and I've been thinking to myself lately oh, it's ok, the doctor and rose probably accidentally got married on at least one planet or something but also the point is that there was no official title that could convey to people the extent that they meant to each other, that the doctor can really only tell donna that rose was his friend even though it is so wholly inadequate and she comes to see that by the end of the episode (and martha too of course). how people who saw the doctor and rose together assumed they were a couple, like on krop tor, but once there's no more physical evidence of the relationship it becomes more vague (and simultaneously clearer).

anyway something about how christopher eccleston said he based his portrayal of nine on RTD and something about RTD saying that his husband is "in every good man i write now" and how the doctor and ruby seeing each other in the club mimics his first meeting with his husband aka the one moment he would use a time machine to go back to hmmm

[catabasis]

“Am I doing him right?”

[c-hrona]

Pietà

[sforzesco]

the emperor's body is an unnatural thing, doomed to collapse on itself. etc, etc

Clothes Maketh the Emperor? Embodying and Performing Imperial Ideology in Byzantium through Dress, Maria Parani / The Oxford History of Byzantium, ed. Cyril Mango

[lynxfrost13]

KLBR-S2306 “Wanze”

commissioned art by Phosology!

- pretty typical sierpinski-23 kolibri unit for a while there. She was a less seasoned kolibri and tended to be very clingy with her cadre. Her cadremates liked to tease her affectionately about it.

- Really loves physical touch of all sorts, especially having her hair played with and her face touched, it’s very soothing to her!

- Her name Wanze comes from the German word for bug/bedbug! She got it due to her clinginess. Eventually she also received the name Fehler in a derogatory way, it means bug but more in the context of an error or failure.

- Her usual duties involved shifts down in the mines to monitor gestalt workers and ensure that they weren’t being disruptive and decreasing productivity.

- during one of these shifts a few gestalts were VERY disruptive and during a scuffle involving the gestalts, Wanze, and a poor mynah unit equipped with a mining laser, Wanze received a severe head injury from the mynah suddenly misdirecting the laser and hitting her.

- That injury would have killed her if she were a gestalt, but thanks to that handy titanium skull and nearby protektors rushing her to the hospital wing to be patched up, she survived. She had to get her faceplate replaced :(

- Wanze also completely lost her bioresonance due to the accident, and the medical officer who oversaw her care, a eule named Holt, was unable to restore it, leaving her with a pretty useless kolibri.

- Holt stepped in to keep her patient alive, and after arguing that Wanze was harmless to the kolibri hivemind (now simply just not a part of it) and through being very persistent (annoying), Adler allowed for Wanze to be reassigned to more standard protektor duties since she could still be useful, with occasional check ins to make sure she wasn’t degrading.

- This was hell for Wanze for a while, adjusting to the lack of mental noise and connection to her fellow kolibris was a shock, and she was expecting to be decommissioned.

- After finding out that she had to keep living without the hivemind, Wanze became incredibly frustrated both with herself and Holt, blaming the medic for extending her suffering. The two of them had a tense relationship for a bit due to Holt not fully understanding Wanze’s grief and Wanze refusing to cooperate with Holt. They come to understand each other after some hard talks and the two become friends, and eventually fall in love.

- In many ways Holt was the only thing in Wanze’s life that made her feel comfortable, Wanze still had to sleep and share a living space with the other kolibris, which was awkward and awful for her. There was a coldness and a distance that there hadn’t been before between them. It constantly reminds her that she’s not like them anymore.

- After the accident she also tries to avoid looking at her face, especially her forehead, where there’s three dead bioresonance crystals ready to look back at her. To make her feel better Holt likes to kiss them <3

- Her days in her relationship with Holt are some of her happiest, the two of them spend a lot of time together whenever possible. Wanze loves reading with her and pestering her as part of her “patrol route”. They love bugging each other generally and are just ridiculous your honor

- Of course those happy days don’t last :)

- I talked about this before, but tldr Holt falls ill with the sickness overtaking sierpinski, and Wanze stays by her side in the hospital in between shifts. When coming in from one of those shifts Holt tried to attack her, fully corrupted by the disease. Wanze shot and killed her in self defense… now she’s all alone :(

BONUS

Pinterest Board (forever in progress)

Playlist

[thechosenthree]

[crookedfivefingers]

3.13 | ᴛʜᴇ ʟᴀꜱᴛ ᴏꜰ ᴛʜᴇ ᴛɪᴍᴇ ʟᴏʀᴅꜱ

link to the post I accidentally wound up prattling endlessly about in the tags 💀

[seaglassdinosaur]

God, Victor being scared to see his dad, not just because it’s a massive, rattling change, but because he knows his dad is going to be looking for the little boy who went missing, and will be disappointed with the man he finds. That Victor doesn’t want to be the reason his dad is in more pain, and he doesn’t want to be less than the boy he was.