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hidden-by-a-trench-coat · 2 days ago

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Collecting my angsty thoughts about Tarquin from Lost In Your Eyes and his guilt about everything and putting them here because I NEED to talk about them

SUUUUPER long post after the read more just so you know (oh, and mentions of death, guilt, hallucinations, and angst and all that fun stuff - so keep that in mind before you continue)

Anyway, I love Lost In Your Eyes and have so many thoughts, so here they are transcribed from the discussion on the Discord (practically just me talking to myself but hey. Also, wow, hi, I realize if you're on the Discord you might have no idea who I am because this is the one social I have that's not the same username so I can hide from my IRL friends just in case - anyway, I'm Shadow. Continue forth with this knowledge my friends):

I wrote about it a bit in my fix-it fic, but I love considering how guilty Tarquin must feel about losing his entire crew. That’s 53 people he lost. People he cared about and knew by name - and I imagine him to have cared about every single one of them. Imagining how it would slowly break his spirits over time watching them pass one by one and not being able to do anything about it. And yet he has to ignore his emotions because he has the remaining crew members to care about and to keep alive - he can’t fail them, too (though he soon proves to himself that he very much can over and over and over again, no matter how hard he tries. He can’t understand why he can’t just keep them alive)

By the time there’s only 3 of them, he’s barely keeping himself together. The dread he feels as the number ticks down to 2 remaining isn’t comparable to anything in the world (Imagine him by that crew member's side, desperately trying to hold himself together and stop himself from crying as he silently begs for him to stay with them. Because they're so close to land. And after it doesn't work - because of course it doesn't - he sits there on the floor holding the hand of his second to last remaining crew member, which is already becoming colder by the second - and cries) - they’d been so close to getting even 3 of them to safety, and yet he couldn’t even do that.

And then the last one dies (and to make it worse, he dies right after an act of pure betrayal, taking down his beloved Amanda in the process, which could not have been easy for him to process. They'd been traveling together for 3 years, he probably trusted him the most, and then he does that? Without explanation? It must have hurt so bad) and it’s just him and he hates it. He doesn’t think he deserved to survive as opposed to everyone else. He could have taken someone’s place. He was the captain, he should have put his crew first.

He has nightmares for the rest of his life about every member of his crew at least once. He remembers all of their faces so vividly. They’re begging for help, for him to do something. To save them. And he never can. He's just forced to watch.

It doesn’t help that the same thing happened to Amanda. He finally gets to her and yet, she dies, too. He couldn’t save his crew and he couldn’t save Amanda - the one person in the world that he should be able to save, even if he couldn’t save everyone else. He feels like everyone he grows to care about will befall the terrible fate of death and there’s nothing he can do about it. He blames himself endlessly for her death, wondering if he could have saved her (and the rest of his crew) if he’d just done something differently. He regrets ever even leaving when he could have just stayed with Amanda and nothing would have gone this way

And I feel like he'd be terrified to make any future friendships or connections because he thinks that he's going to end up getting them killed in one way or another - and so he ends up isolating himself. Maybe he deliberately spends another 3 or more years at sea on his own. Maybe it's a way for him to feel like he's making up for their deaths or asking for forgiveness or whatever but it just makes him feel worse in the end

Oh and I imagine he hates sailing now, too but he does it anyway because he feels like he has to. Because if he stops he has to find something else to do and he doesn't know what else he could do (though he's starting to doubt he can even sail, either). Any joy he used to feel from having the wind in his face and the smell of the ocean is gone. Maybe the smell of salt makes him feel sick now

Thinking about Tarquin watching the waves for those 3 other years he goes back out on his own wondering why they haven't consumed him yet. Why they decide to spare him even after everything he's done and how he doesn't deserve their mercy. How he would almost rather the waves be harsh and unforgiving. Maybe the challenge would distract him. Maybe it would make it easier to pretend that surviving the tough storms would be like his crew was forgiving him, even a little bit

(I had a whole thing in my fic about how he feels like he doesn't deserve to sail anymore and that Amanda would be so much better at it because she managed to do his 3 year journey in so much less time. And on her own - and yet he could barely even get 3 people across the ocean alive even after his years of experience. I think if she did somehow survive and they needed to return, he would have stepped down from his position as captain and made her do all of the sailing of the ship feeling as though he wasn't worthy of the position and that she was just so much better at it)

Imagining Tarquin during his time alone at sea hallucinating members of his crew or Amanda - especially Amanda. How much it would hurt him to realize that they were fake. Maybe at some point he's so disoriented for one reason or another he mistakes the hallucination as real and breaks when he realizes it's not. The amount of hope he would feel - however futile or impossible - thinking that someone of his crew managed to survive despite everything. And then it disappears and suddenly he's so terribly alone again

Imagining him in front of the hallucination of Amanda begging for forgiveness. Maybe the hallucination accepts (Amanda would) but maybe it’s more Tarquin’s perception of how he thinks she’d react and so she doesn’t accept and he understands why she wouldn’t. Maybe he even thinks he deserves it. Maybe it even convinces him that Amanda hates him now. Whatever happens I think it would break his spirits even more

Meanwhile, Amanda watching from the afterlife with sadness watching Tarquin’s mental state decline over time and being unable to do anything about it

Actually, imagining her actually being on the boat with him as a ghost. She can’t do anything to support him physically, of course, but she’s trying her best to protect him, hoping that somehow he can sense her there - maybe that’s why his boat is so safe despite everything

Maybe Tarquin actually sees her ghost one time but he doesn’t believe it’s real - because it can’t be - but he talks to her anyways because that’s what he’s done every other time he’s seen her. And she tries so hard to be there for him, trying to comfort him. He can’t feel her touch, but he imagines it anyways. And for the briefest of moments it’s like she’s there again. For that brief moment - nothing more than a second - everything is okay again. And then it’s not. Because she’s not really there.

He can’t hear her desperate attempts to try and get him to just take care of himself

An in a different universe, imagining Tarquin eventually deciding to head home after the events of the play. He realizes he needs to tell all of the families of his crew about how their family members are dead. They probably knew the risks but he still feels terrible thinking about telling them (even if they don’t know his entire crew died). But he feels obligated to tell them, because that was their family member.

Thinking about him realizing he’ll need to tell Amanda’s mother that she’s dead. He knows he can’t wait to do that because that’s her mother. So one of the first things he does when he gets back is goes to Amanda’s house (what was Amanda’s house, he supposes) and knocks on the door. She is not excited to see him and probably asks about Amanda, but he asks to be let in so they can talk because he can’t do this outside and it feels more respectful if they’re both sitting. He’s not very good at hiding his grief - he almost certainly hasn’t been sleeping well - and so she lets him in.

And then he has to tell her. He probably has to force the words out because he doesn’t want to say them. Maybe he’s still in denial, but either way saying them aloud hurts him even more. Amanda’s mother is almost certainly angry at him (because of course she is. She always had this negative impression of him in the first place and this just proves all of her worries - how Amanda should have never been with Tarquin in the first place. Hell, maybe Tarquin even agrees with her now. Because if he hadn’t fallen in love with her, then maybe she would have still been alive. And even if they weren’t together, at least Amanda would have been happy and alive doing something different and with someone else), and he certainly doesn’t make himself sound much better, after all, he’s been blaming himself for her death this entire time. And so he sits there and just takes it as she yells at him, and he probably thinks he deserves it.

That was a lot, but I just have so many thoughts and I need to put them somewhere - thank you so much for reading my crazy collection of thoughts, I hope it didn't hurt too much

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