#the ache and the pain and the yearning

[all-night-looong]

haunted by depressing music I can't stop listening to

[feral-ballad]

Sayat Nova, from Anthology of Armenian Poetry, ed. & tr. by Diana Der Hovanessian and Marzbed Margossian; "My request"

[skywalkr-nberrie]

It honestly makes me cry how Padmé in her dying moments and as she’s giving birth was aching and yearning for Anakin to be by her side. Just as Vader was in anguish and pain, and longing to see Padmé, to know if she’s safe.

In the last scene where she’s giving birth she’s in such a haze due to labor, and in such a state of “heartbreak” that she doesn’t recognize her surroundings and doesn’t even realize that people were beside her because she’s so focused on Anakin (+giving birth ofc) we see it clearly in the ROTS novel

We see here that OW is holding onto Padmé’s hand which he described as being “still and cold” clearly her lack of strength from giving birth, but also because she’s heartbroken and is somewhat becoming numb (as she dies 💔) she’s not at all responsive nor does she react to human contact. Then we see that she’s clearly muddled and completely unaware of her surroundings as it describes that her “eyes rolled blindly” and yet, she’s still thinking of Anakin (as she’s giving birth) when she says what the gender of the baby was, and that Anakin thinks it’s a girl, so Padmé thinks so as well.

Then, despite her lack of strength and motivation, we see Padmé pick up all the strength she has left to reach up to her newborn son, Luke.

After she’s given birth, again all of Padmé’s thoughts just round back to her aching and yearning for Anakin. Once again, not even aware of her surroundings or even able to hear anyone in her vicinity due to how heartbroken she is over losing her husband and this precious moment with him (the birth of their babies) OW clearly tells Padmé that Anakin isn’t there when Padmé calls out to him, yet she can’t hear him, Padmé continues to constantly call out to him, telling him she loves him, and that she’s sorry for the misunderstanding that happened between them (even though absolutely NONE of it was her fault.)

Then we come to this part where it reveals that Padmé with the same hand she touched her new born babies with, was actually clutching onto the Japor Snippet that Anakin had given her this entire time she was giving birth. Part of me believes she was holding onto it as a substitute for Anakin’s hand, hence why she was in such a daze, unable to recognize anyone around her, and kept calling out to Anakin. She desperately wanted him by her side, and holding onto the Japor Snippet was like a solace for her.

It was only in the last minute where the novel describes her eyes to have finally cleared for only a moment, and she recognized OW, and even in that last moment of hers, her thoughts are of only Anakin. And of her undying, unwavering faith, trust, and love for him. Telling OW with full conviction that there is still good inside the man she loves, and she’s putting the very proof of it into his palms 💔

OW shows Yoda the Japor Snippet Padmé put into his hand, and Yoda can immediately tell right away that it was a possession that was precious to Padmé, and that she must’ve cherished it a lot. He suggests that she should be buried with it, and OW taps into the Force at that moment and can also feel the “soaring echos” of the love shared between Anakin and Padmé to which he describes as “transcendent love” and can also feel what he describes as “a bleak, black despair of an unendurable heartbreak” (clearly referring to Padmé.) He agrees that Padmé should also be buried with the Japor Snippet, so that Padmé can at least go away in peace, with a remnant of the man she truly, deeply, loved, still with her.

[langfield]

do you think vinh was actually in love with safi? i know he starts doubting that he ever was in chapter 5, but if he wasn’t actually in love what do you think his true feelings for her were? emotional attachment maybe? on safi’s side, i think it’s interesting how even after knowing about vinh’s statement about maya she still decides to hook up with him for a time (only to eventually stop sometime prior to the game?? maybe they had another falling out idk). their relationship in general is just very fascinating to me lmao.

god, the safi-vinh dynamic is certainly one filled with intrigue because of all the intense emotions attached to the people within it ; aimed at each other and also at the bystanders whom haunted around their not so defined relationship. there’s just so much baggage attached to them, you know? mostly painful things and a general sense of betrayal or regret, creating a potion of this general wishy washy bullshit that’s hard to parse through … more so in safi’s case than vinh’s, but i’ll touch upon that later! as for your question about vinh and his true feelings, well.

maybe he was in love with safi once upon a time. maybe the fact he believed that he was in love with her is really all that matters. i suppose it depends on what your definition of romantic love and utter devotion is. it’s undeniable he cared fiercely for safi, enough so to become jealous of max ( safi’s object of obsession ), swear off serious relationships in hope she’d want him back, and to engage in a general meddling within her life to make sure she comes out of situations as unscathed as possible. i mean, he schemes to steal a cow skull and then proceeds to throw it through her windshield in an attempt to save yasmin’s and safi’s relationship … it is very extra of him to do, in fact it’s a literal crime, and the game has both max and safi acknowledge the intensity of said action in episode four. we see the memory of the hedgehog he proudly displays on his desk, the carelessness in which safi treats it, her ‘i’ll buy you another one if it breaks’, and how vinh simpers beneath that offer because he doen’t want a new one, he wants this one, the one safi gave him : a gift that was likely unprompted, some sort of surprise maybe, given to him on a whim and cherished better than any other possession he owns. we also see how he breaks it when she dies. then there’s photos upon photos of safi on his phone and it’s implied he takes pictures after they sleep together and -- that isn’t even touching upon how he practically gives up on himself after her death. the mask drops, he starts trying to branch out and find acting gigs elsewhere, wanting to leave caledon forever, and there’s a sense of raw anger and loneliness he feels when she’s gone. he stops hooking up and pushes everyone away besides max, whom he clings to, and it’s a lot, right? there’s love there. obsession, probably. in many ways he’s still the ‘puppy’ following safi around like gwen said, only without maya this time. he waits and stews and he wants, certainly, for her to love him … but was it purely romantic love? who’s to say!

i think vinh wanted safi as his girlfriend before, maybe when things weren’t so tense, and he still believed that fiercely even when he stopped wanting it. i don’t think he knew where his feelings started to dwindle into something less excited and more resigned, or when he started looking for someone else. his priority remained with safi and with yasmin and thus there wasn’t a lot of time to dissect his heart, a rather vulnerable act he already struggles with anyway. he’s a repressive sort of man. he doesn’t do a lot of introspection because he has an act to maintain, a reputation to follow. but i do believe that by the time double exposure takes place, vinh’s love for safi has indeed shifted because his attraction to max veers on something that isn’t purely sexual. there is an undeniable interest, both in dead and living world, that he’s either embracing or squirming away from … i do not think vinh had many crushes at all when he was in love with safi. i don’t think he allowed himself that luxury, because he didn’t want to move on from her, or put himself off the market in case she wanted him again, in bed or in some profound, loving sense. lots of waiting. lots of surrendering, ‘she’ll come around, we’ll make up’, and hoping despite himself. so his romance with max proves to me that vinh is somewhat right in saying ‘or i thought i was’ when talking about safi and being in love with her, because he was before, but he isn’t exactly in love with her now, if that makes sense? i’d say an emotional attachment is a good title for what they have by the time of the games events.

( i do not wish to diminish vinh’s feelings, but i also think there’s a case to be made that he was rather desperate when he thought himself in love with safi ; there was a lot of insecurity within him back when he was a student, weighed down by the fact he was poor and not your standard run-of-the-mill white man … as an adult he scoffs at his acting abilities and wields his power as head of abraxas with a rather tight fist, as though it’s the only control he’s ever had before. it’s rather clear his only two friends were safi and maya and that vinh hasn’t had any since them -- was desperate to stay on their heels despite the fact he was never really apart of whatever they had. it’s not a stretch to speculate that vinh was, perhaps, a cocktail mix of loneliness and desperation rather than strictly in love with safi. maybe confused his all-consuming need to be around her as desire, or maybe just enjoyed feeling wanted by safi enough to mix his wires. after all, why was it safi he was in love with and not maya? vinh also uses sex as a means of coping, as seen by his rather active sex life in game via hookup apps and reggie, so maybe his sex with safi was just that. coping. in it’s own way. regardless, he did love her, or so he thinks so, and to me i think that’s enough, speculation aside )

safiya’s side of things is much more difficult than vinh’s, who is more obvious about his feelings towards her than he thinks he is. there are some brief contradictions, like how it’s stated that safi doesn’t care for vinh ( which is true ) and yet she also acknowledges that when she split apart and lost herself, all that was left of her was moses, lucas, gwen, and vinh. we know that moses and gwen matter to safi, or mattered, and that at one point safi might’ve admired lucas … so where does that leave vinh? if she doesn’t hate him like gwen or lucas now, and if she doesn’t cherish him like moses or max, why is he still apart of her? what does that mean? is it just a metaphor for their times with maya, and how safi will always be connected to that past with vinh because of her love for the caledon’s personal dead girl? was her sleeping with vinh about maya too? or did she actually care for vinh once, albeit weakly and casually, and did that fleeting moment of affection count when she vanished into everyone who’s ever thoroughly affected her life? and, as you said, it’s so fascinating that she hooks up with vinh at all post maya death … it feels strange and odd and unlike her. even in their intimate picture together after fooling around she is nothing but angry, disinterested, her underwear and bra are already back on ( if they were ever off at all? ) and while that’s on account of safi just hating photos, i also think it’s a testament to how irritable she finds vinh’s presence when stuck in it. it’s not a happy photo really, even vinh’s expression is a little red-eyed, forced, like he was likely wasted the night prior. i wouldn’t be surprised if safi was only able to be with vinh if she was … you know … literally out of her mind drunk or high or what have you.

though, that’s just speculation of course. my vague take on things is that safi went to vinh whenever she was partied out or if she was feeling particularly destructive that day ; choked with self loathing over her mom or maya and so sex with vinh was a means for her to feel even worse. some sort of self harm, some sort of outlet where she could be particularly cruel and evil without consequence, because vinh would take it and roll over -- could even be her way of controlling things too, like vinh with abraxas, because we know vinh has no issues with being led around in the bedroom, so that’s some food for thought. i don’t think she thinks about it after or remembers it much … she really doesn’t think about vinh unless it suits her or if she needs to. i always notice how, in episode four, safiya immediately knows what max is talking about when she asks if safi’s ever transformed into amanda, gwen, or lucas. she owns up immediately, confesses, and understands intimately what situation max is referring to. but when max asks about vinh and the phone, there is a brief moment where safi just stares blankly at her -- like she’s thinking about it, like she doesn’t even remember, before it finally clicks after a beat. either she wears vinh’s metaphorical skin a lot ( which, to be fair, she does pretend to be vinh a lot in game ) or she literally thinks of him so little she’ll forget everything about him in minutes. both are likely! she doesn’t even recall what type of alcohol he likes, calling it bougie japanese brandy ‘or whatever’ … and can’t be assed to remember his phone’s pin number exactly, only vague details about a magician scientist that she clearly thought was boring and lame when vinh told her said story, if her hostility and complete forgetfulness is anything to go by. for me, it’s easy to get caught up in a ‘safi did care! she had to!’ angle about vinh, although the game repeatedly shows you over and over again that she does not. she doesn’t even care that max kissed him really, if anything, she’s more jealous of vinh being with max given some of her remarks :

( i know, technically, safi’s ‘come again?’ is more nervous than jealous per se … but there is a certain air to it, especially given the ‘i can be your new boyfriend’ comment as seen above lol. if she loves max and doesn’t care for vinh, i can only imagine how she’d feel about their romance in particular! )

and, of course, there’s that part in episode four where safi can disguise herself as vinh in order to tear lucas a new one. i enjoy that part for many reasons! seeing how safi feels so much more comfortable in someone else’s skin than her own is fascinating and makes for good foreshadowing … but there is also the reveal of her opinions on vinh, unabashed and shameless, when she is finally giving him an ounce of thought :

it’s interesting! she doesn’t care for him, really, doesn’t loathe him like lucas or gwen or her own mother, but there’s a level of vitriol regardless. she thinks him fake. she thinks him a coward. she thinks he’s scared of facing consequences and that he only acts in his own self interest and she hates every bit of that. while safi can confess to doing maya wrong and hating herself for it, she never allows vinh that same courtesy. even says as much to max, claiming that only she had the humanity to regret her choice while vinh apparently didn’t. and yet … she doesn’t hate him? doesn’t feel strongly towards him? he’s still apart of her, a large part, and she can get along with him fine on crosstalk if she so pleases and she can hate his guts but, when the raw truth is revealed, she apparently feels nothing towards him at all? it is fascinating to think about is all. how she doesn’t wish him dead but doesn’t care if he’s alive either despite everything they’ve been through, even though she hates gwen and lucas and her mother more. it’s rather mean, though that’s what makes it so complex and interesting. it shows that safi only ever cares ( and oh, does she care fiercely, obsessively ) for a very slim group of people, and that when push comes to shove, everyone else can fend for themselves for all she cares. she would protect moses and max in a heartbeat, without thought, and the piece of her within them tries valiantly to keep them safe by locking them away from the world ( another thing to dissect, certainly! ), but she doesn’t really extend such empathy towards the innocents caught in her crossfire. she may be tormenting lucas and gwen specifically, but everyone else was going to be collateral damage and safi was fine with that. at least a little bit. vinh falls in that category of inevitable damage, i think, despite their closeness and despite their history, and you can tell that’s what really wounds him at the end of things. safi couldn’t even torment him, didn’t have the want or energy to do so, he was valiantly apart of her and safi didn’t even care about that. very interesting! it’s also heartbreaking in many ways to see two people who should’ve been able to lean on each other, who should’ve loved one another, be nothing but strangers at the end of things. an example of how tragedy doesn’t always bring people closer. sometimes it drives you worlds apart from the one you should be grieving with, which can be seen in other life is strange games, most notably with chloe and joyce, i think.

anyway! tldr : it’s complicated and worth exploring. there are many ways you can interpret their relationship and i highly encourage everyone to find what angle is most interesting to them! and i don’t blame you for finding their dynamic fascinating because it’s easily one of my favorites in double exposure … i don’t think of it often, but it’s always lingering in the back of my mind. regardless, i hope this word vomit is helpful! if i brought up more questions than answers, i do apologize. but thank you so much for such a fun question <3 it was an absolute blast, and tickled my brain enough to pump this out asap.

[sapphicspacebitch]

Ugh my neck hurts so fucking bad 😫 someone should come kiss it better 🥺

[swordmaid]

trying to sleep but this concept has taken a hold of me … thinking about jb first kiss .. but brienne initiating ! jb doing something and their close to each other. in my head jaime is wrapping her arm with bandage like his gold hand is elevating her arm, his left hand is wrapping gauze while she’s holding the roll with her unoccupied hand so he doesn’t drop it (teamwork!!!) but that seems so complicated but I like the idea of them working together on stuff like that ?? and another scenario I’m thinking of is something similar but instead of bandages jaime is sewing something up his left hand is holding the needle and thread while she’s just holding the thing he’s working on bc between the two of them I like to think jaime would be better at sewing anyway unimportant kind of but I was thinking of jb first kiss where brienne initiates … except she tries to but backs out but like comic panel where their heads are close together and he’s busy with something and she’s just looking at him .. at his lips .. he looks up catches her staring and she looks away flustered wanting to leave bc now she’s embarrassed but she can’t and he’s like ? Ok 😳

[chenouttachen]

they really brought a real devastating heartbreak vibe to the ‘fake’ break up of a fake relationship

[rarilight]

Eight months in after trying to ignore the chunk of my heart I lost earlier this year and now starting to quietly wonder if maybe all there is to do is accept these phantom pains, let them be, let them breathe, and god maybe one day let them leave

[euporie-art]

sigh. the oc posting urges.

[goofylaffytaffy]

A little bit of all of the passages I wrote about you were smeared onto my hand at one point. Some of the ink seeped into my skin, the rest swirled down the drain when I washed my hands.

I tried to avoid the ink as best I could because it felt like having a part of you with me.

[poems-of-a-lover]

godddd my leg hurts someone should like. kiss me. distract me from it yknow. please.

[zarophod]

hi guys i am reaper76 brainrotted rn

[theshelbyslimited]

let me firstly apologize bc I tend to vent in the tags (like rn) on this account bc I feel like i'm less likely to be judged and I guess this blog feels safer for me bc of how lovely and empathetic you all are <3

[managodess]

.

[futurewife]

Every time I have a crush I start playing be my baby the ronettes and this incredible emotion takes hold of me

[solarstorm-heart]

once upon a dream

I had a dream last night, that you were my lover. we were with others, we were alone, we were apart, we were together. we were happy. we fought. we made up. we loved each other as though we were each other's sun.

I don't know your name, I don't know your voice. I don't even remember your face. Every single identifying detail of you faded with the last clinging strands of sleep as I woke up. I am consumed by the ache of a lost love that never existed, left desperately grasping at false wisps of imagination.

But I remember how you felt, how you held me, how you laughed. I remember how I loved you and how you made me feel as though my chest was given wings to fly to you. I remember how we shifted toward each other unconsciously whenever we were together. I remember how I was drawn to you inexplicably the first time I saw you. I remember how your name always tasted sweet on my lips.

I remember the tiny details, the habits you had, the way you liked your coffee, the way you loved the sunlight filtering in through thin white curtains, the way your grin was always just slightly lop-sided, the way you could never be serious, the way your arms felt around me, the way you always sat on my right, the way you brightened up when I walked into the room, the way you ran cool but still warmed my life, the way everyone who knew you loved you a little, and the way you made me glow.

Most important of all, I think, I remember you. I don't remember the superficial details, nothing that helps me envision anything in my mind beyond a rough shape [taller than me, slightly broader, radiant] but I remember everything about you that made me fall in love. I remember how you were so much like me and yet my complete opposite.

You're nothing but a figment of my imagination, a figure in my dream I will never meet. But I loved you. I love you. And I suspect I will keep loving you until you fade with the remnants of my failing memory.

I can only hope that you will embrace me each night as I fall into the abyss of sleep, and grant me that brief warmth and joy. Love me. I beg of you.

do you believe dreams with such profound impact are fragments of past lives? I hope it's true, for it would mean that some version of me in the past held you, and was held by you in turn. It would mean I loved you as you loved me. It would mean I was happy, at least once.