#the grief of surviving

[blucassiopeia]

Vanilla Twilight

ー requested by anon!

warnings: angst, mentions of su!c!de, freak accidents, depression and moving on

a/n: um, anon, and all, i don't know if you can enjoy this but have fun reading! but don't let this piece confuse you, but it's okay to be confused, just ask me wink wink

listen to the song

Osamu remembered the frantic airport staffs, inaudible yellings, running around and incessant radio communication. He can just make up a little but got no clue what was happening.

Osamu remembered the cute giggles of the 5-yr-old twins, a reaction from a silly-faced Tetsurou that he wished he took a picture from to laugh at with the others later that evening.

And you. Osamu remembered your laughters, eliciting from the giggles of your twins, wrapping your arms around your 3-yr-old toddler dressed in Hawaiian shirt seated on your lap. He remembered that he grumbled at the thought that the six of you are seated on a bench just off the waiting area of the Okinawa airport and wearing the same Hawaiian outfits as a pun. He remembered he tried not to blame you for his outfit because you were very attractive in your sundress to blame at.

And thenー

And then, he achingly remembered you crying so hard, a face he and Tetsurou worked so hard to erase from you after being widowed exactly a year ago. You cried after hearing something so illogical for him to also process as he walked with the airport staff to wherever they are taking him.

He remembered bombarding the GC until someone anyone replies something, anything. Much to his dismay, the ones who replied are not with the others. He was shaking, kept guided by the staffs as they enter a frantic room. Some of them shot their eyes on Osamu and he remembered someone whimpered from the side but he didn't cared.

"Sir? Can you confirm things for us?" He remembered he heard a lady talking to him, asking. He nodded so absentmindedly as he stared at his phone, constantly dinging and ringing.

"The one flight you're waiting for is JP3749 from Tokyo to Okinawa flight time 8:45 - 10:30am, is that correct?" He nodded, eyes still in his phone. He remembered he didn't wanna look anyone in the eyes.

"It is a chartered commercial plane and you know everyone on board except for the crew, am I correct sir?"

He remembered shaking at the question. "Is my brother okay?" was the first question he administered to the staffs. It was hoarse, from pending tears and nervousness and anxiety dwelling from within.

"We have the list of the passengers listed from Haneda Airport. We need you to confirm it."

And a clump of paper was issued on his sight, across the table. He remembered he first recognized Yuu's name, followed by Koushi's and the list went on. His eyes scanned it fast.

Ushijima Wakatoshi

Hirugami Fukuro

Hoshiumi Korai

Kageyama Tobio

Meian Shugo

Kita Shinsuke

Hinata Shoyo

Suna Rintaro

Miya Atsumu

Heisuke Riseki

Akaashi Keiji

Sakusa Kiyoomi

Yamamoto Taketora

Kozume Kenma

Tsukishima Akiteru

Tsukishima Saeko

Tsukishima Daiki

Tanaka Ryuunosuke

Tanaka Kiyoko

The list was still long but his eyes were glued at his brother's name. He remembered blinking so hard, tapping so hard on the desk, shallow breaths, his shaking thighs and falling tears. He remembered wishing he was only dreaming.

"Rescue teams? Are the rescue teams going? Please take me. My brother's in there."

"The airline provided a rescue team, they're maybe en route the crash site, off the coast of Miyazaki."

He remembered asking for more rescue teams but they said they still have to assess the situation. What the fuck, he remembered cursing under his breaths, growling at them for more rescue teams. His friends, his brother needs every rescue personnel right at that moment. He remembered begging on his knees for help, on taking him there if it is what it takes, anything he can do to help save everyone, anyone, especially his brother.

He remembered convincing himself that they are well, and they had a good crash if ever any crash was good and they're just not answering their phones because it's in flight mode probably. But the anxiousness he's feeling was off the charts.

He remembered the stinging sun and the wild August waves of Miyazaki and how he wished he had a picture of you to calm him down while heading to the actual crash site in a speedboat. He left you with Tetsurou and the kids in Okinawa, to peel you away from the anxiousness as remotely as possible though he knows that won't help. He remembered and regretted, he should've stayed with you instead.

He remembered his mom waiting for him in the port area where the rescue teams are gathering and he ignored her, still can't find the right words to say, and maybe a big bit guilty for dodging something like this alone. He remembered he stared at her eyes, promising to take his brother home, to which he knew was impossible now, but he had to at least try. His brother was his everything, though sometimes they may bicker but he loved him more than anything.

Six weeks in and still got a quarter of the bodies to recover. He remembered that for every body he saw and recognized, he prayed his brother was just alive and off a beach somewhere, keeping his silly smile intact. Every body he sees and recognizes, he cries for forgiveness and wishes to the stars for anything to quell his unsurmountable despair.

Thenー

Then, he remembered seeing his shirt floating way off the crash site. He remembered jumping to the water, the yells of the rescuers far off behind him. He remembered grabbing it, paddling and crying, hugging it and whirling his head in search for the owner. He remembered diving, to which the rescuers forcefully grabbed him out of the water, scolding him but he didn't care. He was holding his brother's tattered shirt. He knew it's his, he has a matching dark one to which Atsumu gifted him three Christmas ago.

His world fell into pieces.

He can't remember the trip back to Okinawa, but he remembered wishing he was dead like what the others assumed the other quarter still missing. He remembered them assuming they must've been blown up due to the explosion of the fuselage of the plane, he can't listen to them anymore.

He remembered you, crying infront of him, begging for some good news but Osamu just hanged his head low in tears to which you cried your heart out with the others he didn't remember. He remembered the news declaring there are no survivors and how the country grieved for the young lives taken, for the still budding small families of Tadashi, Akiteru, Keiji.. how the Japanese Volleyball Association grieved for all the volleyball players, the bests among the generation. The world grieved with them, but he didn't care much of their sympathy.

He remembered you sleeping in his arms after a long day of crying, him waking up to your sobs and he kisses your head so tenderly to somehow comfort you but he knew he can't ever take the pain away, as much as it can't do to his. He remembered hugging you tight and letting you cry until you both fell asleep.

Then.. he remembered waking up at 2am, without you in his arms. He remembered searching for you in the bed and on the floor, only to find a closed but lit bathroom. He remembered dozing again to sleep. He remembered letting Tetsurou punch his guts out and yelling after Osamu saw your figure sprawled on the cold floor of the bathroom, blood covered the floor, already dried from your wrists. He remembered kneeling and begging for you to wake up, and Kenjiro dragging him away from your body to check some life outta you.

He remembered Kenjiro crying, padding your cold wrist and temples for signs of pulse, and yelled for an ambulance.

He remembered your kids crying.

He remembered that the already shattered world he has just shattered a bit more, now to dust and got blown by the August dry winds.

He remembered praying hard to the stars for one more chance.

He remembered praying hard, asking for a replay so maybe he can change what'll happen.

He remembered praying, crying hard to the dawn skies.

His reminiscing was cutted off by a very familiar giggle and he can't help but smile.

"Chamuuuu~"

He turned his head to face your daughter, Hinata, running towards his sitting self on the beach, basking in the vanilla twilight. She was followed by a bullying Tetsurou and your sons, Takeshi and Mitsuki.

Hinata quickly sat on Osamu's lap and stared at his face, and immediately frowned, wiping dried tears off his cheeks. Osamu kissed her little hands and stared at your face in her face, a spitting image of her mother.

"Let's go. Doc Daisuke is already here to pick us up."

Osamu kissed Hinata's cheek to which she giggled again, her golden-hair blending to the pastel colors of the skies. He stood on his feet and picked her up, huffing as he took one last look of the shore you should've seen. He wishes you're here, wishes you're all here to witness this spectacle.

"I bet they're somehow glad we are still alive and kicking." Tetsurou mused as he too stared at the twilight, achingly slow on turning to a light blue hue.

You might've never known when you're still alive, that Osamu loves you, but he wonders that now you're in a much better place and looking after them, do you realize it? Of how he just wanted you to be happy even if it took a big toll on him? Of how your death, his last thread holding up his happiness, snapped in just one moment unannounced?

Maybe. And maybe he can move forward. It won't be the same anymore but as long as he don't forget his lost friends, his brother, you, it'll suffice, the memory will suffice. For as long as he thinks about you, he won't feel so alone. His vast feelings for the ones he has lost is as the ocean and it will keep him alive and moving.

He felt Hinata snuggle on the crook of his neck, and God he wished it was you. "Chamuu~ cold."

"Okay, let's go."

Maybe it's not so bad to stitch back his happiness, with the memories he won't dare forget, to the new ones he'll achieve soon, and to the new people he'll meet, and to the ones that remained, that you had left him.

"I'll reopen Onigiri Miya. What will you do, Tetsurou?"

"Open a volleyball clinic for the kids. Yuki will help after she retires from figure skating in two months, everyone left will help."

"I'm thinking of Fukurodani to be their school, can we finance it?"

"Doc Takashi and Doc Akaashi is going all out for the kids, don't worry."

And before Osamu knew it, they're heading back to mainland Japan after one and a half long year, Okinawa far behind, and plans for the future waiting for him to get signed.

Reblogs and interactions are appreciated. Theories will be entertained. Cassie 2023.

[nagasleeps]

your teeth and your tongue, bright red from tiger's blood

[lotus-pear]

mourning black and the death of ideals

[muguetdemai]

Caitlyn Siehl, What We Buried; from "A Letter To Love"

[fairycosmos]

god i want to be a better person

[reasonsforhope]

You don't need to believe that people as a whole are good or well-intentioned to be an optimist about fixing climate change.

A lot of the time, it's enough to trust in this: people hate being screwed over. And even more than that, they hate feeling screwed over.

Climate change is actively screwing over almost every single person on this planet, whether they know it or not. We just need to keep making sure that people do know that they're getting screwed over, along with all their loved ones, and who's doing it.

Spite and righteous anger will honestly do a lot of the rest.

[thepeacefulgarden]

[bluestation]

i found you in the future

[haleyincarnate]

Inspired by @revelatori on Instagram ✨

[starry-bi-sky]

my body's aching like a knock-down drag-out

and my poor heart is an open wound A Childhood Friends Au snippet that very briefly delves into Danny's life post-accident. CW: Mild Mentions of Blood, Violence, VERY mild gore ig. Danny briefly recalls getting impaled during a fight.

------------

What they don't tell you about being dead is that it hurts. That it can hurt. That it can hurt more than when you were alive. That when you die, the emotions you die with stick with you like a leech that just won't let go. That emotions are ugly little thorns that stick their barbs into you and grow beneath your skin; or, at least, whatever’s left of it. 

Danny is familiar with anger. It kept him warm in Gotham, when his parents weren't home from work and he and Jason were crowding Crime Alley with their presence. It kept him warm in Amity, when the fresh sting of moving was still needling into his heart and he wanted nothing more than to rip and tear into the closest person next to him.

He's familiar with violence. With fights. With death. He's seen people die in Crime Alley probably every day. From overdose, from gunshots, from stab wounds; anything that can kill, rest assured he's seen it. He's familiar with getting his own knuckles rough and bloody when other kids turn and bare their teeth at him and Jason; they're all just starving dogs stuck in a fighting pit, primed and ready to rip out each other's throats. 

Black eyes, stomped hands, bloody noses. You name it; he’s had it. Gotham is paved with the blood of her children, and Danny likes to imagine that when he was born, the doctors handed his mother a file and told her; “Take it. He’s going to need it for his teeth.” 

Danny’s mom (and dad, for that matter) was too busy trying to keep him and Jazz fed, so Danny stole the file from her drawer with Jazz’s help, and did it himself.  

He’s familiar with anger, he thought he was getting better at it these days. It doesn’t come to him as easily as it did before. Of course, that was before Jason died. 

Danny is less familiar with grief. Caring kills and Gotham kills the caring, so Danny cares very little about other people. Or he tries to. But grief hurts. His grief hurts. It hurts too much. It hurts like a bug trying to crawl out of his chest; like a rat chewing a hole through his heart. Some days he wants to dig his hands into his hair and split himself down the middle. Some days he just wants to scream. 

He’s dead. He’s dead. He’s dead. 

He wants the whole city to hear him wailing, some days. It sticks itself in the back of his throat like bile, and Danny is one wrong retch away from letting it loose. It sticks in his lungs like all the tar he’s smoked in since he was nine. It pushes and aches at his temples, in his head, like his brain is trying to swell out of his skull. His thoughts becoming so loud they threaten to commandeer his tongue.  

He has no mouth, but he must scream. 

Something they don’t tell you about being dead is that it hurts. That it hurts more than when you were alive. Something they don’t tell you about being dead is that it’s violent. That it’s bloody. Or as bloody as it can be when everyone has no blood. 

Another thing they don’t tell you about being dead, is that it’s a lot like Gotham that way.

With no threat of death, Danny’s enemies forget death itself. Blood comes easy, like water, and teeth are encouraged. Bring your own fangs to the fight. Dying is something you can just walk off. 

Danny’s been dead for three months. He can’t say he’s been walking it off easy. He’s perfected the art of turning his nails into claws since his heart was still beating, but he can’t say he’s perfected fighting other ghosts. 

Scrappy is just not enough. 

He feels like he’s back in Gotham again. Back in her death-shroud alleyways, fighting someone bigger than him. But there’s no Jason to watch his back, and Danny has to get himself out of there alone. Or he might just not get up at all. 

Black eyes, busted lips. It’s familiar to him like an old scent, Danny isn’t quite sure that he’s missed it. It’s more familiar than his fights with Dash. 

But there’s no one else who can do it but him. Not Sam, not Tucker. He can’t lose them too. He can’t. He can’t. He can’t. His heart can’t take another break, he already feels like he’s going insane. 

With no threat of death, Danny’s enemies fight like death themself. He learns why when Technus puts a street sign through his stomach one day. It pins him to the asphalt like a moth pinned by its wings. 

Danny claws at the metal like how an animal caught in a trap chews off its leg, and every move is blinding pain. He thinks he was howling, but it’s hard to tell. He couldn’t recognize the sound of his voice. 

He bleeds green. It mixes in black with the pitch blackhole in his heart, which throbs and twists and cries in time with his reckless panic. The finger-choking terror of dying again strangles out the air he doesn’t need. His blood evaporates, only to reabsorb into him. It just bleeds out again, cycling like a snake eating its own tail. 

Danny breaks his nails clawing at the metal, and eventually gets it in his mind to pull it out. So he does, and the end drips ectoplasm green as he gets to his feet. In red-vision, Danny sends the sign back with snarling, vicious fervor. The pain is irrelevant in his rage.

Only after the fight does the hole the pole left start to close. Danny doesn’t shift human until it’s gone. Unlike other injuries, a scar stays behind. Ugly; mottled, it aches for a week with every twist and stretch his body makes. He hates it. 

Being dead is agony. 

Every part of him is in pain. Every step, every word he speaks, everything he does, it is prerequisite with pain. The body is temporary, but the soul is forever, and death has carved into it with its freezing green hands and left him with never-ending heartache. It has torn from him and stolen what of him it could, and in return it’s left him with sorrow. 

His pain is his grief, and he’s sobbed in the safety of his room more times than he can count. It’s still as fresh as the day he heard the news of Jason’s death. He knows, instinctively, that it will stay fresh forever. 

In his room, Danny shoves his hands over his mouth and shrieks in whatever, muffled way he can into his pillow. It’s not enough. It’s never enough. He needs to be louder. He needs to be heard. He refuses to be. 

Being dead hurts. 

[aanon04]

society of the snow (2023).

we've endured, now what?

the waves - virginia woolf | morning in the burned house - margaret atwood | tiny beautiful things - cheryl strayed | the glass essay - anne carson | vive, vive - traci brimhall

[trappedinafantasy37]

Minthara is a paladin of her word. She does not make promises, she makes vows. She makes oaths. Even as an oathbreaker, she heavily adheres to the tenants of it. Being an oathbreaker just gives her more flexibility and freedom to fulfill the oaths she makes. She never breaks a promise and she never breaks a vow, and when she says she's going to do something she is going to do it.

So when she says she will go to Avernus with or without Karlach, she means it. She will personally throw hands with Zariel, and the only thing that will stop her is Zariel's death, or her own. And it is one thing if Karlach does go with her, but a whole other thing if Karlach dies on that pier.

Not only will Minthara be grieving, she will be wrathful. And she's going to channel that wrath to the front to avoid feeling the grief (cause she doesn't always approach her emotions in the healthiest way). And she's going to take some of Karlach's rage and Karlach's fury with her. She will kill any demon or devil that gets in her way. There will be no distractions, unless the side quest gets her closer to Zariel or increases her chances in the fights to come.

Minthara is not doing this for power, she is not doing this for glory, she does not care for a crown or a throne. She is down there in Avernus to avenge the love that burned out too soon.

[an-na-ko]

Lyra, my beloved cat of 13 years, passed away this year on Father's Day. She's been by my side through very difficult times and was my little rock of steady and unrelenting love. I struggled a lot drawing this, and struggled a lot posting it, but I know I would've wanted to read a comic like this that validated my grief for her when I lost her.

Wherever you are, Lyra my little summer star, I love you always! Thank you for being the best thing in my life.

[tls123]

yoo joonghyuk making lee jihye one of his companions because if he can't save his little sister then at least he can save this other kid...... and then he doesn't and he doesn't and he doesn't and he doesn't and he doesn't and he d

[fairydrowning]

"How will I survive this missing? How do others do it? People die all the time. Every day. Every hour. There are families all over the world staring at beds that are no longer slept in, shoes that are no longer worn. Families that no longer have to buy a particular cereal, a kind of shampoo. There are people everywhere standing in line at the movies, buying curtains, walking dogs, while inside, their hearts are ripping to shreds. For years. For their whole lives."

– The Sky is Everywhere, Novel by Jandy Nelson

[thechosenthree]