#when life is full of grief you must recognize the love!

[jemcore]

the grief is never-ending, but so is the love!

[leighsartworks216]

Doctor's Orders

Zayne x gn!Reader

I was working on a longer form version of this that just Was Not Happening, but this came out so easy so it's the version you're getting

@midiplier You sent your ask while I was writing the long-form version and I wish I got it out sooner but fuck it Christmas angst I guess

Warnings: grief/mourning, hurt/comfort, Christmas, childhood friends, cuddling, crying, not proofread, possibly OOC

Word Count: 839

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The lights twinkle in a little dance around the tree. Glass ornaments hang delicately along its branches. Tinsel shimmers and shines. The star at the top stares down at you.

You wipe your cheeks with your sleeves and the back of your hands. The tears keep coming, no matter how hard you try to stop them. They pool without ceremony in your eyes and slip free without even a sob to accompany them.

Zayne lowers himself to the carpet beside you. He doesn't speak. Doesn't say that you should be in bed. Doesn't need to ask what's wrong. What he does do is offer you a box of tissues. You grab a couple and hold them to your eyes, hoping they'll suck up the moisture.

This is the better alternative. Only a couple days before, Zayne visited your apartment to find it woefully devoid of any decoration. Dishes sat untouched in the sink, laundry overflowed the hamper, and the bags under your red-raw eyes spoke volumes. When Zayne asked you to spend the holidays at his place (practically running down an entire list of your excuses to convince you to please get out of your house), you packed the essentials and settled into his guest bedroom.

"I’m sorry for waking you," you croak out with a pitiful sniffle.

He shakes his head and offers you another tissue. "You didn't wake me," he assures. You can't tell if he's just lying to make you feel better or not, but it's a lot easier to believe he is. A whole lot easier to blame yourself than odd coincidence. "If you're about to apologize for being a bother, I'd rather you just blow your nose."

You take the tissue and turn your face away as you blow your nose. "That obvious?"

"You've apologized seven times already for intruding, even though I'm the one that invited you to stay," he gripes, but there's no real frustration behind it. He reaches for a blanket off the couch. It's barely used. He unfolds it and drapes it around your shoulders. "You don't have to apologize for your grief."

You shoot him a sardonic look. "Even if I'm mean to you?"

He smiles slightly. "Especially if you're mean to me. I know you well enough not to take it personally."

"You're so weird."

"If you say so."

You can feel the exhaustion in your back, your shoulders, under your eyes. You want to go to sleep. You want to curl up in bed and shut your brain off and pray it doesn't show you anything worse. But you don't. You turn back to the tree, trace your eyes over the same ornaments you've already memorized by now, and let the tightness in your chest weigh you to the spot.

You exhale shakily into the still air. The lights become a blurry bokeh as your eyes unfocus, staring at the ornaments Zayne's parents sent him from their travels. You'd numbly helped him set it all up a few days ago. You were so checked out that the loss didn't register. Now it keeps hitting you in full force, over and over.

Zayne must recognize your internal plight because he wraps an arm around you and pulls you into his side. You fall easily into his chest. His shoulder makes the perfect pillow to cry into. He rubs your arm up and down, doing his best to ground you and comfort you in one.

"I'm scared to go back to sleep," you admit in a choked whisper. "I'm scared I'll see their faces. And then I'll wake up and they aren't here."

He rests his cheek on your head. Josephine and Caleb had meant a lot to him, too, especially growing up, before he left. Countless memories of life when being carefree was expected. When getting into trouble was the norm. Days when he was still struggling to use his Evol, much to Caleb's amusement. Days when more time was dedicated to using it to form popsicles out of soda and poor attempts at sculptures to cheer up a certain other child.

Time truly does not change much.

"We'll stay up all night, then," he whispers back, feeling awfully like two children hiding under a blanket from the monsters of the night.

You scoff even as you turn further into him. Your wet cheeks are warm against his neck. "That doesn't sound like something a doctor would say."

He chuckles. "What if I said it was doctor's orders?"

A mangled sound escapes you. Zayne can only be sure it's a laugh with how your lungs spasm with the burst of exhaled air. "Then I guess I have no choice but to listen."

It's not ten minutes later that you're fast asleep in his arms, uncomfortably sitting on the carpet as legs fall asleep and backs ache. Zayne doesn't move from this spot, the silent aegis against all your fears. He will be here when you wake up. That means more to you than any gift under the tree.

---

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[skaruresonic]

The idea of Sonic being Maria’s reincarnation is fascinating to me, I must admit. Though it’s funny to think that she waited 35 years for it after her demise for Sonic to actually be born and then when he is, he’s opposing the cousin and he can’t enjoy Earth and its flowers fully like she also couldn’t because ALLERGIES lol. Comedy value too.

It is, isn't it? Again, I wouldn't push it as canon, but purely as a hypothetical for-shits-and-giggles kind of idea, it definitely is interesting to think about. Particularly with the parallels between Maria and Sonic:

1.) Both admire the genius of those closest to them (Tails and Gerald), 2.) Both are associated with the color blue, 3.) Both have a playful nature, 4.) Both like to race Shadow, 5.) Both are selfless, 6.) Both share immense strength of spirit. Other thoughts: 1.) Sonic can't swim (no pools on the ARK?) 2.) Sonic also seems to have something of an "you play tough, but I just know you'll do the right thing" attitude when it comes to recognizing Shadow's trauma in Battle. Kind of like how Maria recognizes that Shadow isn't the most personable guy around, but is still kind beneath his prickly exterior.

3.) Sonic's hay fever suggests a strong immune system. Overcompensation for Maria's weak one? xP

4.) It would be hilarious if it turned out Sonic continued stealing Eggman's thunder in his current incarnation.

5.) This is the most YMMV point and total fanfic lol, but maybe the spirit "chose" a hedgehog body in order to copy Shadow. Which would make the whole "faker" exchange extremely ironic on multiple levels.

6.) Sonic and Shadow threatening to throw down every time they clap eyes on each other becomes extra hilarious too.

---

Some people have said they aren't fully on-board with the idea because they fear it has the potential to erase or downplay Sonic's agency. While I sympathize with that anxiety, I also view the concept as something akin to transformation. Sonic may very well become someone or something different when he dies, like the blue wind in '06. Nothing is ever permanent.

(And to be quite frank, I kind of find the idea of Sonic being the literal second ULF that got ejected to Earth to be more convoluted than transmigration. You can accept hedgehogs being born as test tube babies, but you draw the line at reincarnation?) It's not that Maria literally is Sonic, but rather, her spirit has moved on and has become someone else. She no longer exists except as the embodiment of the things she loved most: the Earth, full of wonders and as "cool and blue" as Sonic, humanity, and freedom. (In that vein, I like the idea that Sonic helps Shadow move on from the grief of the death of his former life.)

Sonic is, however, at the end of the day, entirely his own person, even if his underlying "substance" is technically the same as Maria's. He would never want to look back, and maybe that's why he doesn't pick up on any subconscious cues about the ARK during his time there except to bid Shadow sayonara.

That is the whole gist driving the underlying idea. There's never gonna be some dramatic grand revelation where Shadow discovers the truth and angsts about it. Chances are Sonic would just laugh it off anyway.

---

Though it’s funny to think that she waited 35 years for it after her demise for Sonic to actually be born and then when he is,

Well yeah, the spirit had to make sure Sonic's buddies would be born at roughly around the same time. Adventure's no fun without friends.

You ever watch a revolving door and try to gauge when you should step inside? That's probably what happened. Can't go now. Maybe now? Oh crap, Eggman's gonna take over the world if I don't go now. xP

---

she’s opposing the cousin and he can’t enjoy Earth and its flowers fully like she also couldn’t because ALLERGIES lol. Comedy value too.

Can't have shit in this transmigration Chili's lol.

This is a potential comedy gold mine. The Commander is ranting and raving about how Maria was slaughtered in the ARK raid, meanwhile Shadow glances over to Sonic, who's hopping from foot to foot like "I just wanna throw hands" xP

[multifunctionalnitroglycerin]

The Locked Tomb Series- Alecto Theory

Brace yourselves this is 3000 words of me connecting dots that aren't even there.

First things first, this post is an amalgam of various brilliant theories I have seen posted on Tumblr, so if anything feels familiar, that will be the main reason. I am just going to present my own take on this, and hopefully add something new to what we already have.

                The subjects of today’s conspiracy theory are Alecto and Anastasia -and Cassiopeia in part, the vow to Anastasia’s bloodline and what could very possible be, Dios Apate MAJOR.

                So let’s start with what we have from the books, and feel free to correct me or add sth I might have forgotten.

                Anastasia and Samael are the only ones of the original Lyctor batch, that didn’t complete the Lyctorhood process, thanks to - in no small part – John, and/or possibly Alecto. (“I am sorry about Samael”). Which could mean that Alecto was somehow involved in the whole process going wrong, and thus she feels responsible for Samael’s death, or that she was close enough with Anastasia and Samael, that she herself felt Samael’s loss, or she felt for Anastasia’s grief. (I like to believe that they did have a tentative friendship even before the vow thing happened.)

                Anastasia is also the only one of the Lyctors we know, so far, to have had children. Which is an important bit on its own, (Can full Lyctors, have children? If so, are they different from other children, necromantic or not? Is there a reason that in spite of biological capability- if it exists-the other Lyctors have chosen not to have children? Even with Augustine’s and Mercymorn’s plan we see that in the end Gideon is conceived with Wake’s material – John is a whole different story as far as Lyctorhood goes so he doesn’t count.)

Back to our discussion though, Anastasia’s bloodline was so important to the Ninth House that it has been preserved for 10.000 years. We do not really get a clear picture on whether the Reverend Family knows why the continuation of the bloodline is important, Harrow certainly doesn’t, but it was so deeply ingrained to them that Anastasia’s bloodline must remain intact, that they effectively committed genocide, dooming the House’s future, in order to produce one more direct descendant of the Saint that wasn’t.

We do get a hint, a rather big one, on why the preservation of Anastasia’s blood is so important, in Nona’s Epilogue. Alecto states that Harrow is “the blood of the tombkeeper” after kissing her and drawing blood. What did she taste on Harrow’s blood I wonder? And how did she recognize the taste, as the taste of Anastasia’s line? Did the vow she initially made to Anastasia herself involve them drawing blood? Did it bind them to one another, so deeply that they ingrained themselves into each other on a molecular level?

To add to this, young Harrow, young desolate Harrow, who had had enough with her life and was prepared to die, young Harrow who opened the Tomb for that express purpose, loves Alecto from sight. And decides to keep living for her. And there is something exceedingly weird to just how much Harrow loves Alecto. Alecto is probably the most attractive person Harow lay her eyes upon to that day, true, but this instant infatuation, and its persistence throughout the years has something more to it, don’t you think? As Gideon points out, both to herself and to Ianthe, Harrow’s heart belongs to the dead cold body in the Tomb. And said cold dead body in the Tomb, recognizes Harrow from sight when she wakes “Alecto recalled her, for it was a face once dreamed in Alecto’s dream.”

And this line begs the question. Could Alecto dream, in the tomb? If so, how? And what did she dream of? Did she dream of Harrow? Why did she dream of Harrow if that is the case? Or did she dream of Anastasia, and the resemblance is that great? On the other hand, if this refers to Harrow first opening the Tomb, and looking at Alecto, does that mean that she was in some form conscious throughout that stasis? Does this mean that she could have heard and felt Anastasia while they were both locked in the Tomb, for however long the other woman lived?

(The scene where Nona describes the feeling of Anastasia's hands in the water and feeling safe. I am going to cry.)

I do have an interesting theory about Alecto’s “dreams” but we’ll get there in a bit.

Something else that is fishy, is that the Ninth, is the House of the Sewn Tongue. It sounds a bit like too much flesh magic for a bone magic house to specialize in, right? The cure to the Sewn Tongue on the other hand? Removing the mandible and all that? That sounds like a Bone Magic solution to a flesh magic problem. And I wonder if the fact that the Ninth House’s emblem is the Jawless skull, insinuates that the Ninth is not so much a house where many secrets are kept – though this is undoubtedly true, as the Ninth is known as the House of secrets by the other houses – as much that in the Ninth, all secrets are revealed. Where the sewn tongue is healed, and the truth comes to light. And I’d like to point out that it sounds a bit like foreshadowing, and a promise. Anastasia has been betrayed by John and sworn to secrecy, and then locked in the Tomb to die and take his secrets with her. I feel like the jawless skull acts as a constant reminder, that even with the sewn tongue, all curses can be broken, and all secrets will eventually come to light. And it feels like a promise to John, that her House, the house of secrets and unspoken truths, will be the one to rid of the sewn tongue and bring the truth he so fears forward. And this aligns a tad too well with the Sixth’s mantra, Six for the truth, over solace in lies.

And you know what else fits here, in this concordance of the Sixth and Ninth Houses? Cassiopeia and Anastasia’s friendship. Their alliance if you will. We know they both worked closely together trying to figure out the perfect Lyctorhood process, and it is possible that Anastasia made her attempt a bit before Cassiopeia. The exact same attempt, that performed in perfect conditions ended in failure, with John ultimately killing Samael.

 We also know that Cassiopeia left contingency plans in place, should the emperor become a hindrance to the empire. And from what we have seen of Cassiopeia in the books, it is safe to assume that she is driven, determined, exceedingly intelligent, perceptive, logical, and excellent at planning. She is also the one to point out John’s less than favorable qualities pre-Resurrection such as his interest in taking vengeance on those that wronged him being bigger in his interest to save lives.

So, we have, Cassiopeia and her logic driven, truth seeking brilliance, and Anastasia, the thorough, overly methodical researcher. We have them both working on perfect Lyctorhood, and we have them both, in one way or another, being betrayed by John. Chances are, that they were the first post Resurrection to notice John’s flaws, the first to concoct a plan against him. But contrary to Cytherea, Mercy and Augustine, they are more subtle than those cannonball attempts. No, I believe they planned. And they planned long term, and together. Cassiopeia left her House a note, left them instructions, she was preparing them for when John would become a liability. And then an aforementioned amount of time later, Anastasia is asked to design the tomb.

We do not really know anything about Alecto’s relationships with the other lyctors apart from the fact that most found her revolting, a “monster” in Mercy’s words. So here is a thought, perhaps Anastasia, the one of the original Eight to never ascend, perhaps the one whose failure Alecto was involved in – “I am sorry about Samael” – finds kinship in John’s unnerving pet, his undead “cavalier”, the one he betrayed first, the soul of earth. Perhaps they even became friends. Perhaps she and Cassiopeia realize the extend of what John has done and realize that Alecto is the key to undoing it. When John refuses to kill Alecto to appease the others, the plan fully forms.

So, they construct the tomb. And Cassiopeia is well-known for building mechanisms within houses, so maybe her and Anastasia create secret passages, and mechanisms with extra access to the tomb that would be independent of John sneaking in, or whatever he planned to do with that blood-ward.  And hear me out, we know that Cassiopeia stayed 7 minutes in the river before being torn apart by the resurrection beast – at Mercymorn’s account at least, not sure how reliable of a narrator she is. But what happened during those seven minutes? Paul says he thinks he knows how to get to the Locked Tomb via the River. So, the river and the Tomb are connected. What did Cassiopeia do, I wonder? (Here I’d like to say that my other theory is that she did eventually die, or rather was consumed by Varun the eater, much like Judith Deuteros was. The RB burned through her in what, a couple months? How long would a Lyctor last? Perhaps that was the reason that Varun didn’t resurface until 100 years after Cassiopeia’s presumed death. She could have been alive and slowly wasting away, while still making failsafe within failsafe until she lost her sense of self and eventually wasted away)

To recap until now, the first part of my theory is that Anastasia and Cassiopeia dissatisfied with the world John had made and the truth he had served them, probably worked together to find the truth. And they worked together from the shadows, to create a plan, a long-term plan, with which they could bring John down if the need ever arose, and undo what he had done. And Anastasia’s bloodline and their secrets are really bloody important to that plan. (Also, some nice symbolism about the Ninth being about secrets revealed, rather than secrets kept, and that functioning as a bit of foreshadowing.)

Now into the second part of my theory. Anastasia’s bloodline is so important because she has bound her bloodline to Alecto. And I think this happened in the premise of the Vow Alecto has made to her, or they have made to each other. This might be part of the initial vow, of which we know nothing about, apart from the fact that Alecto pledged herself to Anastasia, and that it is important enough that she pledges herself to Harrow, or a failsafe within it. A failsafe to ensure that should Alecto wake after Anastasia has passed, she will not be fooled by any imposters, or anything else John might have planned. Or perhaps, a failsafe to ensure that even if John changes his mind and finds a way to rid of the body within the tomb, to “kill” Alecto, she will not be completely gone, she will keep existing within Anastasia’s line, thus ensuring that the plan for John’s demise can still be enacted and that the soul of the earth will not be dead.

That plays really hard in the Alecto is within Harrow from the beginning theory. And I will explain. I believe I saw something that looked like this in Twitter by lesbian_mothman, but I do not really remember so I apologize if all this has been said before.

In all the dream chapters with John, we relive memories from just before and after the resurrection, and John talks to Harrow as if she is Alecto “You always say that Harrowhark” as a response to “I still love you.” Or when Varun recognizes the Earth’s soul “green thing” within Nona in the car chase scene, or when Judith regaining consciousness asks “Harrowhark?” and Nona replies, “No, and I never was.” So that begs the question of how much of Harrow is Harrow, how much is Alecto and how much are the 200 souls within her? (And there was a crowd of dead children there. They were striving loudly against living children on the far-off shore of the tomb. CHILLS)

In Nona we learn that Palamedes and Camila on the one hand and Pyrrha on the other have two different theories about who Nona is. The Sixth believe that she is an amalgam of Gideon and Harrow, and Pyrrha believes she is Alecto, golden eyes and all. And I am more inclined to believe that it is indeed Alecto, or at least a part of her, that resides within Harrow, and took the wheel when both Harrow and Gideon were gone. Think abt it. Gideon is back in her body, and we have no idea what the hell happened to Harrow, only that she doesn’t have the wheel, and Nona acts nothing like Harrow or Gideon did. It’s like she is learning how to be human for the first time. She learns how to love and be loved for the first time. So with no soul to govern the body, the part of Alecto within Harrow takes the wheel.  

And then there is the candle metaphor in NtN. Alecto’s soul is the candle passed from one necromantic heir of the Ninth to the other.

So long story short, part of the vow, if not all of it, is that part of Alecto will always live within Anastasia’s descendants, so long as they are necromancers. And here comes the part of Alecto’s dreams. Because if indeed she lives within the souls of Anastasia’s necromantic descendants, does she see through their eyes? Does she feel through their hearts? Does she dream of their lives, while locked in the Tomb, while a part of her lives in them? Is she conscious within them? Or does the whole thing act like a cavalier- lyctor sort of connection, where she cannot take the wheel unless the other soul in the body Is gone?

 Part of her soul is bound to Anastasia’s line, and they are bound to her, and over the course of 10.000 years do they spill over? Alecto to Anastasia’s descendants and they to Alecto.  Was this part of the plan to have a failsafe within Anastasia’s line in case something happened to the body in the Tomb? Was it a promise Anastasia made to Alecto, to give her a chance to live, to be human, through the lives of her own descendants?

All in all, I guess I could some it up in a few concise points.

Cassiopeia and Anastasia worked closely together, they were friends and allies and saw in John, the unfulfilled promises he made, and all the faults he tried to cover with rewriting his own version of history.

They decide to make a plan, a long term one, a detailed one, for when John is more a liability than it is worth. And thus, Cassiopeia creates the mechanisms in the Sixth and leaves the protocols for the rest to find. Truth over solace in lies.

Meanwhile Anastasia attempts to ascend, and John kills Samael. Alecto might be consciously or unconsciously involved and harbors guilt over Samael’s death.

Anastasia probably befriends Alecto or finds kinship with this strange being that is the soul of a planet that no longer is.

The planning continues and John after being asked to kill Alecto decides to lock her in the Tomb instead and has Anastasia design it. He later asks her to stay in the tomb and guard Alecto. (Antigone style)

Anastasia designs the tomb, probably with Cassiopeia’s help, probably with a few hidden mechanisms of its own and or a secret pathway through the river, an extra way out.

At some point, Anastasia sires a line, and she makes her vow with Alecto.

The vow probably is in regards of bounding Alecto to Anastasia’s line so long as there are necromantic heirs. A part of Alecto is constantly alive within each descendant of Anastasia’s.

It might work a bit like the lyctoral process, because Alecto only takes the wheel when there is no Harrow and no Gideon in Nona’s body, aka when there doesn’t seem to be another soul guiding it.

Alecto dreams. Whether she dreams of herself within the tomb and that’s how she recognizes Harrow on sight – from the memory of Harrow first unlocking the Tomb – or her dreams are glimpses of the lives Anastasia’s descendants lead I don’t know.

Alecto is thus bound to Anastasia’s line by blood. She recognizes Harrow by her blood, tasting either Anastasia, or the part of herself residing within it, when she kisses her. It also ensures that the line is intact the vow is intact and it’s not a pretender trying to fool her.

Anastasia and Cassiopeia planned to bring John down by opening the tomb when the time was right and leaving her to Alecto’s (and the RB’S???) mercy. There is still a lot left to be explored.

The tomb is to remain closed until the time has come God has to die. We can all see how that can be misinterpreted to > if the tomb opens God will die. And instead of a promise to be fulfilled it becomes a terrible terrible thing, that will spell everyone’s doom.

The freaking skull of the ninth is a threat, a foreshadow and a promise. The Ninth was a house that should have died with Anastasia in the tomb. But it didn’t. It continued existing its bloodline unbroken for 10.000 years. Nine for the tomb and all that was lost. The Ninth is predominantly I feel a house of mourning – the whole nuns, all black, and skull makeup thing. But it is also a house of secrets. It is a house represented by the cure to even the tightest secret held. So the Ninth, the house that should never have been the house that should have died with its secrets in the tomb of its inception, is the one that will break the sewn tongue, and reveal all the secrets, bringing the truth to light.

[ariiadnes]

ㅤ╭ ⿻ ･ DEATH , SEEKING

AT THE END OF THIS STORY , I WALK INTO THE SEA & IT CHOOSES NOT TO DROWN ME.

ଓ.° ・ scaramouche. genshin impact. cw : drowning quote cr : jihyun yun. reader is an angel. not meant to portray a romantic relationship. repost.

ACT I :

A FUNERAL PROCESSION DOESN'T MEAN ANYTHING WHEN IT'S YOURS. THE LOWERING OF THE CASKET / THE DIRT AND DECAY THAT COVERS THE ROOT OF BEING. IT IS VOID IN EXISTENCE, & IN PLACE OF WHERE A HEART RESIDES, THERE IS AN ECHO OF WHAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN HUMAN AND WHAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN HAPPY.

there is supposed to be a grief that accompanies acknowledgement of loss and death, but in the open wounds of mortality, flesh torn asunder in the killing of a body, a puppet feels nothing.

he stares at the funeral, desolate. it is his, yet he does not mourn. the sight before him is somber, but it is filled with deception, he thinks, and so he reminds himself over and over that he is the one that lies in that casket, dead.

it's easy to forget it's your funeral when everyone there is someone you don't know or someone who pretended to care until it was too late. he cannot recognize half of these faces.

if he opened the casket, would he recognize himself?

"you have experienced both life and death, dearest kabukimono. which do you find to be more beautiful?"

his train of thought is disrupted, gaze shifting to the figure beside him. you have always remained at his side for reasons unknown, denied the existence of guardian angels, but he cannot find any other explanation for the everlasting presence of some supposed divinity watching over him. he could laugh, really. even if you were a guardian angel, you were far too cynical, far too perfect a companion for someone like him.

"i have no heart." the words are filled with spite and hatred and devoured by anger, but beneath it, there is a loneliness, and the ache of it all almost makes you feel something. "you can't experience both if you were made to be a vessel of nothing."

you smile, amused. you study the crowd, its mess of black umbrellas and murmurs and cries. you hear the sobs, but you are certain that there are no tears shed.

"are they mourning for you?"

he laughs, bitter.

"no. not with that pathetic acting."

"they must be very selfish, then." you hum, words spoken more to yourself than anything. "it must be tragic, knowing that your funeral is not full of love and grief. i wonder what would have been more painful for you," you glance at him, but he does not dare look at you, "the absence of the mournful or the false pretenses of sorrow from those who never cared."

you stand next to each other, watch as the crowd disperses, until all that's left is a tombstone with a name he will soon rid of.

"desolate wanderer," your voice is soft, somber, "i am sorry for you. would you like me to say a prayer?"

he does not answer.

ACT I , REVERSED :

the scene changes. the black umbrellas blur into nothing. a coldness washes over him, envelops him entirely in something known as terror. suddenly, it is still. the wretched air is quiet, profound. frightening.

he stands in a body of water, the tides calm, the shore distant. he recognizes this feeling. it is not one he can forget, even when he tries. three times he has known this sensation, the creeping dread, the breaking of something deep inside the void in his chest.

you stand before him, watch as the water drips from your fingertips. your gaze is absent, unreadable, but maybe he sees something so incredibly sorrowful in it. he watches your reflections, notes the feathers that were once part of you. how they float on the surface, lonely and listless, and in the muddled waters, the pure white twists into something black.

"do not be afraid." you tell him, and he watches the droplets trail down your skin, descend into the water from which they came, one by one, slowly.

he could laugh at the words. he wants to say it's human nature to be afraid, but he stops himself-- he is not human, after all, so why does he succumb to fear?

"i'm not."

brash words. liar, you think. but that's okay. you tilt your head ever so slightly, lips curved in a subtle smile.

"are you ready?"

he nods. the water is cold, cruel, invades his senses. there's a numbness that sinks into his skin, but maybe that's an absolution, the cleansing, the awakening. you close the little distance between your bodies, hands cupping his face, tender. there is something in your eyes-- pride, maybe, but he denies himself the possibility. who would be proud of a failed creation?

he closes his eyes. the water grows colder, but there's something warm in his chest, and he does not know whether it is fear or hope he feels the most.

"good night, kabukimono." you press a kiss to his forehead. "may you find something greater on the other side."

your hands slide down, delicate in the way they wrap around his throat, fragile, and in meaning of divinity and reincarnations and sacrifice for something better, you pull him into the waves, further and further and further down until his body loses all sensation, until he can no longer hear the violent sea, until his breath is gone and he is no more.

ACT II :

"balladeer. scaramouche. kunikuzushi. harbinger." you mumble the names to yourself, keep track of them by counting with your fingers. "have i missed any? shall i grant you another warm, endearing title?"

the balladeer scowls at you, though you find it amusing. perhaps in a previous life, you would have surely teased him, pushed it a little further. but in this life, there is a different kind of danger in his eyes, a deeper misery. you do not think you care enough to provoke him-- he could not hurt you, after all, even if he dared.

you contemplate the possibility. he could not hurt you-- not because he'd care too much about you to do so, but simply because you carry the blood of a higher being. he would most certainly try if he knew he could harm you, should you push him to the brink.

what a bitter feeling. you smile faintly at the realization and he does not like it.

"why are you here?"

"i am always here. you've just been given the impression that i'm a thorn in your side."

"are you not?"

"in your search for power and vengeance, have i failed you? was this my fault, the twists and turns in your path to greatness? i can only guide you so much, and all this time, i have watched you walk down the road to destruction." you pause, watch his expression darken with a kind of fury, some kind of hurt. "every name you are known as holds your past. you change it, try to cleanse yourself, but the truth is that you'll always carry it, unforgotten."

"so what did the sea do for me, angel? did you kill my spirit for the sake of your enjoyment?"

you tilt your head once more, smile so exhausted and worn.

"i did not kill your spirit, lonely wanderer. you already killed it long ago." your words hold a dreadful venom, bitterness on the tip of your tongue, rust lining your throat. "the sea could not save you, just as i could not."

he does not know how to respond. he hates that faint apathy you always manage to have, even when he knows it's only a facade at times. he hates that not even a higher power can help him -- but it's always been that way, hasn't it? just like everyone else, you've failed him too. that's what he'll tell himself because that's all he knows.

he turns on his heel, feels the razor edges of your brutality sink into his flesh. he walks, and he does not stop.

"we will try again." he states, command deep in his voice. "neither you or the sea are meant to help me."

you close your eyes, bow your head. somewhere in the silence, you say a prayer. you have never been a savior.

perhaps he is not meant for the saving, after all.

ACT II , REVERSED :

the scene changes once more. it's the sea again, that familiar coldness that fails to abate. it's that strange fear again, that uncertainty. and then there's you, there's always you, he thinks. he stares at the reflections once more, distorted by the ripples of motion. your feathers look darker, the harbinger notes, and there are far more than before. he rests his hand in the water, watches as one floats into his palm. his grasp is gentle as he examines it, and there's a flicker of white, then black once more. he wonders if he imagined it.

"you didn't crush it." you comment.

"you thought i would?"

"i don't know." you reply. "you are not always made of carnage." and that familiar curve of the lips. "it wouldn't have hurt in the end, but thank you for your kindness."

his eye twitches, and you laugh. he doesn't know if you're being genuine, and he's going to dwell on this moment for a bit too long, he realizes.

the air becomes heavy once more. you wonder if he is certain in this decision. it is the second time, but the fear remains stagnant, unchanging.

"do not be afraid."

there is something you cannot quite decipher in his gaze-- determination? wrath? you are unsure. you don't bother to question it. you do it all over again, this familiarity-- the ripples in the water as you move closer, hands cupping his face once more. you press your forehead against his, close your eyes just as he does.

"good night, kunikuzushi. may you find something greater on the other side."

you open your eyes. your hands trail down, fingers wrapping around his throat in yet another means of reawakening. his hands rests over yours, eyes still shut, and you feel how they tremble ever so slightly.

the sea is cold, unwelcoming. the plunge is gentle, but the sensation still frightens him nonetheless. you are merciful even for an angel, comes the bittersweet thought, and maybe he isn't worth such benevolence. he's always wondered why you chose to stay by his side, anyway.

he feels the fight leave his body, feels the way your grip tightens to end this suffering just a little faster. your hands are warm, the balladeer thinks, and it is the last thing he remembers before it all goes void.

ACT III :

maybe you truly are not a guardian angel. you have not been at his side for a long while. he thought perhaps it was just that he had forgotten, that maybe you were nearby all along. but your absence has been all too noticed, and he does not like it.

it is... lonely, here. to be forgotten by all, to carry the weight of what was.

sumeru is vast. it is beautiful, bright, radiant. all the things he is not accustomed to. he stands on the highest of heights, watches the endless landscape below him. somewhere, he hears familiar footsteps : light, graceful.

"do you remember me?"

he stills. he's not sure if he wants to see your face, see that perplexed expression, see the way you tell him that you do not. no one else does.

you hum, deep in thought, and the sound is beautiful. how he misses it so. it sends an ache in the hollows of his chest, some kind of longing.

"won't you turn around? it's been a long while since i've seen that grumpy face."

you can practically hear him roll his eyes. it is a moment or two of gathering composure and courage before the vagabond finally turns, and of course, you have that same stupid smile on your face. this time, it is more genuine, and he's not sure how to quite process that.

"i remember you." you answer. "you're far too stubborn and annoying to forget."

he almost feels something beat wildly in his chest, but he does not understand the sensation. there is nothing there, no heart, yet some kind of heartache. you speak again.

"what do you call yourself now?"

he has taken many names, few of them significant. he has not granted one to himself-- no need, he thinks, though he knows that he would not rid of it if he had one. he thinks back to the sea, recalls your many conversations.

"wanderer."

you pause, and he notes that small flicker of recognition in your eyes.

"familiar and fitting." you muse. you close the distance just as you always have in the past, but this time, there is no water, no vicious wave to overtake him. "do you wish to see the sea?"

the words are heavy in meaning, but it is different this time. in your voice there is the quiet pondering of are you happy this time? have you found the right path? did you find it, that greatness? and he understands it.

he freezes. inhale, exhale. he stares at the sight before him, recalls when you once stood with him at his funeral. things have changed now. he is the same yet different, a harbor for sorrow and anger, but a home for something virtuous. his gaze shifts to you once more. this is not the outcome he intended, desired, nor expected. but there's forgiveness somewhere out there, and maybe he'll grant it to himself one day.

"no," he answers, and in his visage, there is just the faintest trace of kindness you once remembered from memories past, "i've had enough of you drowning me."

you laugh softly, see his lips curve just the smallest bit.

"i am glad, dearest wanderer."

[tumblermakesapodcast]

draft one, part one

roughly the first 30 minutes, ~4k words PINK text indicates an undecided name, as well as sentences i wrote and am definitely going to change Sections are separated by a new line break // indicates a note to myself, usually put in as a way to remember where a plot element goes, or to indicate that a section is missing a large/important part of its content

behold it, in all of its messy, imperfect glory:

Letter, Odette to Friend

Dearest Vergie,

I wouldn't be surprised if you saw this envelope and immediately figured out the reason for my sending it. Nevertheless, I find that I cannot say anything other than 'thank you.' From the bottom of my heart, thank you for putting in a good word for me with Mr. NAME. I am happy to report that I am officially the newest hire at COMPANY, though I am swiftly impressing my skills on my superiors.

Because of this, since the time you last visited, the pattern of my daily life has changed drastically, and there is much to update you on.

The first and perhaps most drastic of these changes is the widening of my world from just my bedroom to the whole house, and sometimes even the street! I nearly made it all the way past the Fischer's home unassisted the other day-- a new record! I’ve regained most of the strength in my arms, but my legs still remain weak, which has made walking difficult. Luckily, John recently bought a Ford, and has been driving me around town-- the wonders of modern technology!

The most recent of these was a trip to (PLACE—ARE WE IN PERU?)

I do have a word of reprimand for you, my friend, and that is that you failed to mention to me how downright fun this job would be! While we're on shift, it's all business--no talking, eyes forward, you know the drill, but after, after is a real treat. I hadn't realized how much I had missed being in the company of girls my own age! Though we are not exactly alike, I find a lot of kinship and joy by being among them, and am so grateful to be getting to know them. When we got off shift the other day, we all went down to the drug store for sodas, and Katie convinced me to get a scoop of ice cream to go in mine. I was skeptical at first, because I figured the fizz would sour the milk, but she was so earnest and sweet that I simply could not deny her. The drink was surprisingly good—a touch too sweet for my taste, but I think you’d like it just fine! Next time you find yourself with a soda, you should try it.

I hope you aren’t working yourself too hard, dear.

All my love,

Odette

Letter, Friend to Odette

My dear Odette,

I'm so happy to hear that the job has been treating you well. See, I told you all you needed was to get out of the house! I remember when Beni was sick and I had to stay at home to keep the sickness from spreading-- those four days nearabout drove me up a wall, I can't imagine what a month of bedrest might do to me! It's heartening to know that you're improving, if however slow. One day at a time, dear, it'll be over before you know.

I'm very sorry for missing your call the other day. I would've called back, but I fear the operator must have written the callback number down wrong, because I tried to reach you and got some farmer over in CITY instead!  I'm sure you do a much better job than the kids over here-- Mrs. Fletcher's youngest was just hired, so that tells you all you need to know about the state of affairs here at our office.

You know, it's funny, they showed me the call card and it didn't even have a message on it! Good grief. Hopefully your coworkers are demonstrating more proficiency than that!

Oh, speaking of Mrs. Fletcher, you'll never guess who I ran into at the grocer the other day! Thomas. Fletcher. That's right, Tom Fletcher, perusing tomatoes as casually as you please, looking every bit a civilized young man, can you believe it? I almost didn’t recognize him at first—he’s grown up so much since we were kids. I tell you, it’s remarkable the transformation he’s undergone, he looks like a full functioning member of high society, now! You’d hardly know he was responsible for dropping toads down people’s dresses, or that dreadful stink bomb on Easter Sunday! I suppose time really does

And now, Dettie, I have some terribly exciting news to share with you: Hobie and I are expecting! I went in to the doctor just the other day, and he confirmed it! A baby, can you believe it? I tell you, I have not stopped smiling since the news, my cheeks ache!

Diary Entry, Odette

Sleepless again. Frustrating. Had thought that having something to do during the day would tire me out more, but alas, I find myself at these pages once again at the ripe hour of three in the morning. Old habits die hard, I suppose.

Diary, Odette

Got a letter from Vergie today. The strangest thing, she mentioned missing a call from me, though I can't remember calling her any time recently

Note, Manager to Odette

Miss Odette LASTNAME,

Congratulations on a successful first quarter! You have been a tremendous asset to the company, and we are more than pleased with your work with us so far.

In light of this, your hours will be extended to a full twelve-hour shift, securing your status as a full-time employee of COMPANY.

Please contact your shift manager for more information.

Best,

Company Manager

Call, Odette & Other Odette

Buzz, incoming call

ODETTE.  Hello, how can I connect you?

MALE VOICE.  //number

ODETTE.  What’s the name for the call?

MALE VOICE.  John Smith

ODETTE.  One moment, please

Clicks of pins/switches being moved

Chime, as call connects

Buzz, incoming call

ODETTE.  Hello, how can I connect you?

FEMALE VOICE.  //number

ODETTE.  What’s the name for the call?

FEMALE VOICE.  Jane Doe

ODETTE.  One moment, please

Clicks of pins/switches being moved

Chime, as call connects

Buzz, incoming call

ODETTE.  Hello, how can I connect you?

The buzz continues

ODETTE.  Hello, how can I connect you?

Static, screechy whispering snippets of a voice, but no words

ODETTE.  Hello?

Static. From amidst it, OTHER ODETTE’s voice crackles.

OTHER ODETTE.  Hello

ODETTE.  Hello, how can I connect you?

OTHER ODETTE.  1234567. 1234567. Odette. 1234567.

This pattern continues, even as ODETTE tries to talk to the caller.

ODETTE.  I—I’m sorry, I don’t understand—

OTHER ODETTE.  1234567. Odette. 1234567. 1234567.

ODETTE.  Um. That’s too many—Are you sure you have the right number, sir?

OTHER ODETTE.  Odette. 1234567. 1234567.

ODETTE.  I’m sorry, hold please

OTHER ODETTE.  Odette. Odette. Odette. Odette.

The voice suddenly cuts off. Dial tone.

ODETTE.  Thank you for holding, may I have the name of the city you’re calling?

Static.

ODETTE.  Hello? Hello? Are you still there? He—

The call cuts off.

Diary, Odette

Had an odd incident at work today. Customer called and requested a number that was much too long, and I couldn’t make heads or tails of it, and what’s more, they hung up before I could get any sort of clarification! Katie says it was most likely some rascal playing a prank, which I would like to believe, except… the voice sounded familiar. And it could’ve been my mind playing tricks, but I could’ve sworn I heard my name somewhere in between the numbers

Diary, Odette

The numbers man called again.

Diary, Odette

1234567. 1234567. 1234567.

Another sleepless night finds me at these pages. All I can think is 1234567. What on earth?

Book Excerpt, Number Stations

Book Excerpt, Encyclopedia

Coordinates Revealed

Letter, Odette to Snr. Ibarra

Dear Sir,

I am writing to express my thanks for your discretion and compassion regarding the incidents of (DATE). I know you have received communication from Mr. (ROWAN) and Drs. (NAME), but I felt it prudent I sent something to you personally. Additionally, I would like to apologize for

Diary, Odette

//the journey to CITY

Diary, Odette

My first night in CITY. Or, rather, just outside of it-- the train let me off in the town at the base of the mountain, I’ll have to go the rest of the way by some other means. It was too late in the day to continue my journey, so I’m spending the night in a boarding house owned by a very sweet older gentleman, who insisted I take his room on the ground floor when he saw my cane. I tried to refuse, it’s his room, after all, and his house to boot, but he would hear none of it.

Everything around here is so beautiful—greenery and rolling hills all around, nothing like the beige drudgery of the city. I sat on the front steps of the boarding house to watch the sun set, and nearly wept at the vibrancy of the colors. I don’t think that even given a century I would be able to find the right words to describe it. I am by no means a poet, and find myself jealous of those with a gift for words. What must it be like, to be able to paint a picture with a few simple strokes of a pen? Alas, I fear I may never know.

I had thought, given all the travelling I’d undertaken today, that exhaustion would take over and send me swiftly into sleep, but that is not the case. Once again, three am has found me wide awake, staring at the shadows cast by the moon. This room is positioned perfectly to catch the most moonlight— for the moment, at least, it’s nearly bright as day in here. I can see clearly without need for another light, that’s how bright it is!

Diary, Odette

Finding transportation up to CITY is proving more difficult than I thought. I’ve received a strange assortment of reactions from people when I ask after it, some have laughed, others shoo me away, still others outright ignored me. One lady even started shouting at me, telling me to get out of her shop before she calls the cops again! I think she mistook me for someone else, but still. I cannot, for the life of me, figure out why it should be so hard to get information on how to get to a nearby city. You’d think that it would be easy, to even just point me in the direction of the road that will take me there, but for some reason, even that much information is eluding me.

I asked NAME, the man who owns the boarding house, for a map of the area, and have been scouring it for CITY, with little success. I’ve traced out the coordinates, just like John taught me, but it keeps landing me in the middle of nowhere… UGH! I am beginning to grow frustrated by this whole ordeal. Not to mention, the amount of walking I’ve had to do today has been obscene—it’s just past noon and I’m exhausted. Am going to try and sleep for a bit, hopefully things will shape up while I’m in dreamland.

Diary, Odette, Same Day, Later

A bit of news—talked to NAME, who revealed something to explain the weird reactions I’ve been getting when asking after CITY. Apparently, CITY is another name for CITY2, technically. From what NAME tells me, CITY was founded a mile and a half away from CITY2 well over two centuries ago, until a devastating flood rendered the land unlivable. Nearly half the town’s residents lost their lives, and the survivors were left homeless. They moved a smidge west, to where CITY2 stands now, but locally, the two names are interchangeable, so when I was asking for directions to CITY, the odd looks I was getting were because I was already in CITY, aka CITY2!

I showed NAME the place on the map that the numbers pointed to, and he confirmed that CITY stood there before the flood, so that’s one mystery solved, and about a million more questions left in my mind.

I no longer know why I’m here. I was blinded by the chase, and now that it’s over, and with such an abrupt, accidental end, I feel… adrift. I don’t know what to do, now. There’s still a day left before I have to go back to ORIGINALCITY, but I’m not ready I don’t think. I feel unsatisfied. There was supposed to be meaning at the end of this, answers, but instead I’ve received a stock-standard story for my troubles. Why would someone take the time to call me, over and over and over again, with these coordinates and my name, only for there to be nothing? What purpose does that serve? If it’s a child playing a prank, it’s an elaborate one, and I fail to see the humor in it. If not, I fail to see the logic. At this point, I begin to wonder if perhaps I was wrong, if maybe I’m finally succumbing to the exhaustion brought on by too many sleepless nights and have begun to dream things in my waking life.

I don’t know what to do next. That’s the truth, plain and simple. I don’t know that I want to do anything next. Stagnation seems agreeable, at this moment

Frustrated sigh, the sound of a notebook snapping closed

Medical Report

//Odette sees her double, passes out, gets bonked up, care gets passed to the Sisters bc the hospital is overtaxed

Patient Report, Dr. House attending.

Patient was brought in at 1:00pm by emergency response crew. According to eyewitnesses, patient had collapsed while walking down Park Row, and, in a remarkable stroke of bad luck, fell into the road. An oncoming motorist was unable to fully brake in time, and ran into the patient, inflicting fractured ribs and a mild concussion. Patient has preexisting condition in hips and left leg

Patient has been moved to the care of the Sisters, as hospital is at capacity and danger has passed.

Diary, Odette

Can’t sleep. Sick of staying in bed, but am not able to go much further than the door before someone comes swooping in to usher me back to the mattress. Infuriating. Not sure how this is supposed to help, but am not in a position to argue. I suppose I should be grateful that I have been sent here and not an institution, but I find the sentiment hard to scrape together. I can only stare at the same patch of ceiling for so long, and that time has long since passed. If it comes to it, I believe I could finagle my way out the window and into the tree that brushes its panes, though where to go from there is more of a mystery. Alas.

My one saving grace has been the texts that Sister Ana has snuck in for me to peruse. None of it is anywhere near the caliber of what I would expect from the library, given its reputation, and I cannot tell if the (word on the street) is exaggerated, or if she is simply handling me with kid gloves. I would be more mad about it, but as I said, these texts are the only things keeping me from clawing at the walls, so. I’m trying not to look a gift horse in the mouth. Am going to attempt to copy some of the illustrations here, to take back as souvenirs when (if) I leave the Abbey.

Image description: a pencil and paper sketch of a creature, done by an unskilled hand. The image is smudged, as if a hand had dragged its way across the surface of the paper, blurring the lines, distorting the shape of the animal. The eyes have been erased and redrawn with a heavy hand, to the point that it seems to have a good many more than it should.

Hm. Perhaps I should use this time to improve my drawing skills. That came out more than a bit scary looking, if I’m completely honest. It… it almost seems like the eyes follow me. They don’t, obviously, but. Hm. Ramblings of an overtired mind, I’m sure.

Ha. Can’t hurt to try again, I suppose. Goodnight

Newspaper Clipping //something to do with the doubles

Diary, Odette

Surprise surprise, still unable to sleep. I had thought that perhaps, given my increased mobility and the start of my duties in the Library, I thought that I might be more physically exhausted at the end of the day and therefore more inclined to fall asleep, but alas. Physically exhausted? Yes. However, my mind and my body do not seem to be in communication with one another on this matter, and I remain sleepless.

Have taken to wandering the halls at night. The garden would be the obvious choice, but on the two times that I’ve attempted to sneak out there after-hours, there’s been someone else out there, and I simply cannot deal with the human interaction that would require. Similarly, I’ve been avoiding the chapel, since there’s almost always someone praying holy hours or sitting Adoration, and it feels a bit sacrilegious to loiter there without the intention of praying or anything.

Which leaves the work rooms, or the library, and. Well. I know for a fact that the Sisters adhere to a strict schedule, that Mother Superior is very adamant on maintaining curfews, mostly because I myself have been told off for wandering into off-limits areas. This wouldn’t be a problem, except I have heard shuffling in the work rooms, the same step step swish that always accompanies her arrival into the doorway of my room. Which… leaves the Library.

The Library which I have specifically been told not to enter unless I’m chaperoned by one of the Sisters.

The Library, which I know is locked at the end of each shift (because the Mother Superior showed me the key she wears around her neck when she told me I wasn’t allowed to enter the Library without a chaperone).

Locked library means no one will be in there at night, means no one will come looking, means I won’t be found out if I camp out there.

Will have to find a way to pick the lock, though… Hm.

Research Recording, Ana

Fizzle fizzle pop of the phonograph

ANA.  Transcription, translated and recorded by Ana. Original song heard sung between children skipping stones on the lake.

¿Qué le gustaría, señor, señor?

¿Qué le gustaría, señor?

¿Media libra de patas, señor, señor?

¿Media libra de patas, señor?

¿Una fanega de tarwhi, señor, señor?

¿Una fanega de tarwhi, señor?

He vaciado mis bolsillos, Señor, Señor

He vaciado mis bolsillos, señor.

¿Qué más se puede pedir, Señor, Señor?

No tengo nada más, señor

¿Qué es lo que quiere, Señor, Señor?

¿Qué es lo que quiere, señor?

¿Quieres mia lliclla, Señor, Señor?

Me voy a quitar mia lliclla, señor

¿Quieres mi chumpi, Señor, Señor?

He desatado mi chumpi, Señor

Por favor no, Señor, Señor

¡Por favor no, Señor!

What would you like, Señor, Señor?

What would you like, Señor?

A half-pound of patas, Señor, Señor?

A half-pound of patas, Señor?

A bushel of tarwhi, Señor, Señor?

A bushel of tarwhi, Señor?

I’ve emptied my pockets, Señor, Señor

I’ve emptied my pockets, Señor

What more can you ask, Señor, Señor?

I’ve nothing more, Señor

What do you want, Señor, Señor

What do you want, Señor?

You want mia lliclla, Señor, Señor?

I’ll take off mia lliclla, Señor

You want mi chumpi, Señor, Señor

I’ve untied my chumpi, Señor

Por favor no, Señor, Señor

Por favor no, Señor!

At the end of the song, the kids all turned and sprinted into the lake, until they were knee-deep in the water. The last child who made it into the water was ganged up on by the others, subjected to a deluge of splashes and tickles for losing the footrace.

While, on the surface, an innocent childhood game, one cannot help but wonder where these kids learned the rhyme, as it clearly describes, or at the very least implies an unwelcome encounter between a man and a woman, presumably sexual in nature. Where did they learn it? It’s not entirely unlike the songs I remember singing when I was their age, but it is an odd coincidence, that it would align so neatly with my current research. Is this related to the Señor Sombro these same children have reportedly been talking about, or is it simply another instance of kids being kids? I’d like to ask around town—

Door shuts, footsteps

ANA. I--  Hello?

Footsteps stop

ANA.  Is… is someone there?

shuffling

ODETTE.  Hi. Sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean to—

ANA.  Who are you? How’d you get in here?

ODETTE.  I—I’m Odette? We… we’ve met, you’re Sister Ana, right? You brought me some books to read…

ANA.  Oh! Yes, Odette. You’re… supposed to be bedbound

ODETTE.  You can stare at the same four walls for only so long before the need to see something else takes completely over

ANA.  I don’t… I’m no doctor, but I don’t think that’s how bedrest is supposed to work

ODETTE.  Hm. Shows how much you know

ANA.  How did you get in here? The door was locked

ODETTE.  (smug) I didn’t interrupt anything, did I?

ANA.  Yes, actually. How did you get in?

ODETTE.  Hairpin. Your locks are old

ANA.  That’s… concerning

ODETTE.  Only if there’s something you’re trying to protect in here

ANA.  Or if we’re trying to keep someone out

ODETTE.  I was told no one was allowed in here after-hours

ANA.  I have special permission

ODETTE.  Huh. Why

ANA.  I’m an archivist.

ODETTE.  It’s three in the morning.

ANA.  I’m a… midnight archivist

ODETTE.  If you don’t want to tell me, you don’t have to

ANA.  If you don’t want to believe me, you don’t have to

//segue somehow

ODETTE.  What’s this?

ANA.  No, don’t touch—

Recorder fumbles

ODETTE.  Sorry, sorry I didn’t mean to—is it okay?

ANA.  It’s fine

ODETTE.  What… what is it? A phonograph? Were you listening to something? I didn’t hear any music

ANA.  Yes and no. I was recording myself

ODETTE.  Why?

ANA.  It’s a… project of mine. Already, we are recording operas and musicians—why not more? Think! What if we recorded books, and stories, too? This could be our future—Someday, we could have a library full of records instead of books!

ODETTE.  I see

ANA.  You’re not convinced

ODETTE.  Not really, no. What’s the point of recording a book? Operas and music I understand, but books are already portable

ANA. What if you were able to record people’s first hand experience of things? In their own words, with their own voices? What a wonderful gift for our children, to leave them with our stories, told in our voices, for them to remember us by when we’re gone! Of what if you can’t read? Or can’t see? Just think of how many more people we could bring a world of stories to, simply by recording them

//segue somehow

ANA.  Hm. Well, you don’t have to use it

ODETTE.  Now, I didn’t say that—

ANA.  I thought as much

ODETTE.  Cheeky, you are

ANA.  Guilty

ODETTE.  So how does it work?

ANA.  Look, come closer. Here, you speak into the bell, and it moves the needle to make impressions onto the wax, here.

ODETTE.  And that…catches the sound?

ANA.  It does

ODETTE.  Wha—how?

ANA.  Sound is just vibrations, yes? So if we can make something that vibrates in the same way that your voice, or music does, then we can recreate the original sound. That’s what the wax impressions do—when you put the needle on the grooves, it recreates the original vibrations from when you recorded. Here, listen

Stops recording, starts again

Recording: Odette does the hello, hello, hello testing a mic thing

ODETTE.  That’s… does my voice really sound like that?

ANA.  I know. Odd, isn’t it?

Research Recording, Odette

//exposition but masquerading as something cooler

Research Recording, Odette

//something that won't come back to bite us until the third act

Diary, Odette

//feelings about the other odette, hanging out with deut

Research Recording #3, Odette

//the stuff other odette was working on, witchcraft, supernatural things?

Research Recording #4, Odette

//a topical poem? story of some kind?

[amethystunarmed]

Then Everything Was Worth It

Word Count: 1409 AO3 Thank you to my phenomenal beta, @snarky-wallflower!

John picks up the notebook, as if in a daze. It feels impossibly heavy in his hands as he flips through the pages. Samuel had been frantically making notes since they arrived on Lincoln Island. The margins are full of his scrawling cursive, no space left blank. The message is on the very last page, the only place there was any room.

“You know where to find me,” John reads.

John has never mistaken his place in the life of the Stratfords. Samuel is one of his closest friends and Rose is the new Polaris that guides his way. He loves them both dearly, of course, and he knows they love him just the same. But he has never once assumed he would come first in either of their lives; that honor always belonged to the other. 

So yes, of course John knows where to find Samuel. 

He's with his sister.

Rose cradles Samuel in her arms. She clutches him close, rocking as she sobs his name again and again, words hoarse. In this state, John barely recognizes her. She seems so… fragile, nearly broken beyond repair. Nothing like the vibrant woman he knows and loves. 

The Travelers awkwardly stand around them. Dakkar leans on Ahlaam’s shoulders, Sia paces. They watch on in silence as Rose grieves. John wishes Margaret-

Oh god, Margaret. Someone is going to have to tell Margaret.

“Sia,” Rose pleads, voice thick with tears, “Please, you have to take us back, we have to try again. Before Kal knocked him out. We can do it again, we can fix it-” Her voice cracks and another round of sobs overtakes her. John thinks he should do something. He and Rose are… Are something now. Something real. They… They hadn’t determined a name for it. But Margaret had laughed behind her hand and Samuel had said he was happy for them and-

John feels a spasm of grief rattle through him.

Sia looks at Rose, seemingly helpless. “Rose… It’s not that simple.”

“Why not?” Rose snaps. “We just go back and do it all over again and-”

“We can't travel back in time. The orrery was our one chance to-”

“Well, you wasted it!” Rose snarls, and Sia has no response for that.

They stand in silence for a moment, only the beeping of the Nautilus and Rose's sniffles breaking it. There are a million things John should be thinking about. Margaret’s growing power and the strange words she’d mumbled, the wonder of the Nautilus traveling through the sky, what on earth they were going to do about Samuel��� But John can’t seem to focus on a single one. Instead, he spins the phrase We can't travel back in time over and over and over in his head. 

Because that can’t be right. John knows that can’t be true, that Sia must have misspoke. Because, if that were true, that would mean…

“Sia,” he says, dread heavy as lead in his veins. “How did you check on Anna?”

Sis freezes and turns to him with calculating eyes, like he is an enemy she can outmatch. “What do you mean?”

John's hands feel clammy. His pulse races.

“If you can't go back in time,” John says hesitantly, hoping, praying, begging for her to correct him, “How were you able to check on Anna? You told her you'd help her.”

Sia's hands tighten into fists at her side and that is when John knows for sure. 

She never intended to go back. 

Anna.

“Oh god. She- She's all alone up there, we have to go get her-” Sia gives him a look of pure pity, and John feels like he is on the Satellite launch all over again. The world tumbles and shakes around him, as he loses all connection with gravity. “No. Please, no.”

“I…” Sia swallows. Her hand has jumped to her necklace, rapidly dancing along the edge.  “I checked on her when I arrived. It was the first thing I did, I swear. She… She’s gone, John. She's been gone for a while.”

John feels weak. His legs struggle to stay upright. He leans against the wall of the Nautilus, letting the cold metal ground him. “That’s… how could that happen?”

“It’s been thirty-nine years, John,” Sia says. Each word is careful and precise, like it’s obvious, and she is explaining death to a particularly dense child, “She was-”

“How could you let that happen?” John corrects, pushing himself off the wall and striding up to her. He has never felt rage like this, so hot and all-consuming that John almost doesn’t feel anything at all. “Anna trusted you. Samuel trusted you. We all trusted you!”

Glowing tears well in Sia’s eyes. "John, I'm so sorry. I thought, with the vision-"

"How many of my friends is your vision going to kill!"

John never had many friends. He hadn't been well-liked in school, too bookish to get on with the other boys at his boarding school. By the time he reached university, he'd grown used to being tolerated. The stars had been all the company he'd needed and he had resigned himself to a life of solitude with them.

That was before he met Anna. Before Great Astronomical Discoveries, before Rose, Samuel, and Margaret. Before he had known something more, something like-

Samuel, eyes warm in the false sun of the Traveler’s jungle. We travel together.

The Brick Satellite, Anna's new home, high in the sky over the town that holds her name. We will reunite.

It wasn't true, any of it.

Sia seems upset by his words. Her hand has flown to cover her mouth and she shakes her head, as though trying to think through a nightmare.

“I… I never wanted any of this,” she whispers. The words are so quiet, John can barely hear him. Perhaps he wasn't supposed to.

John distantly thinks that maybe he should feel bad. But there is no room inside him for anything but that blazing, numbing anger. He opens his mouth to tell her that none of them had asked to be a key or a pawn in some magic war, when Dakkar interrupts.

“This isn't helping.”

John isn't sure he cares about helping right now. He thinks Dakkar can tell, because his eyes narrow and he straightens to his full height.

“This isn't helping Rose.”

John feels himself pale, and it feels like he has fallen overboard into the icy depths. The frigid realization douses the raging bonfire inside him.

Damn his temper. Damn him, for losing track of what is actually important. 

John looks back to where Rose is still seated. She is still now, her sobbing entirely ceased. She just holds Samuel tightly to her chest, silent tears streaming down her cheeks.

He kneels down beside her and tentatively rests a hand on her shoulder. At the first touch, she nearly falls into him. She tucks her head into his shoulder and wails. She pulls Samuel with her and his arm brushes against John's. He is cool to the touch.

Samuel’s eyes are open. They stare unseeing at the ceiling, with none of the creativity and cleverness John has gotten to know so well. His glasses are askew, and nonsensically, John reaches down with his free hand and straightens them. One of the lenses is cracked. John feels a lump well in his throat. Samuel never would have let anything happen to his glasses.

He's dead. He's actually dead.

Samuel's dead. Anna's dead. And there is nothing John can do about it.

Finally, the tears fall.

“C-could we have some privacy?” John stutters, as he reaches up his hand to cradle the back of Rose's head. The Travelers shuffle out of the room without protest, and John is grateful. He doesn't think he could bear their attention, not after the scene he just made. Not after they killed-

It doesn't matter. None of it matters, honestly. For the first time since they arrived in Hanover, John really feels the weight of those thirty-nine years. His father, his observatory, Anna, they are long gone. And despite traveling with them, Samuel is gone as well. 

There is no getting them back.

Margaret and Rose are all he has left.

John pulls Rose closer, resting his chin on the top of her head. He holds her tightly, as though the world may rip her away at any moment.

He will keep her safe, no matter the cost.

[aheathen-conceivably]

🎶 Lost in the Light 🎶

After hours of trying to sleep, Zelda rose from her makeshift bed in her parent’s workroom sometime before dawn. She paused momentarily to ensure that Violette was well asleep and then headed to the front door of the cottage. Her feet still knew the path in the darkness as though it hadn’t been over a decade since she had last done this.

Stepping out into the night was almost like stepping back in time. The air swirled with the same sounds and smells that she had known her whole life, the same ones that she had always relied on to clear her mind and cradle her thoughts when she couldn’t sleep.

When she entered a clearing that she recognized from her youth she stopped to look up at the shivering leaves. Far too embarrassed to speak aloud in the silence, Zelda spoke in her mind, Poppa, I suppose if you are anywhere you must be here. Are you with Mother and Rosella? I would like to think so, to think that none of you are alone.

She stopped for a moment, hearing the morning birds begin to sing and taking a deep breath. There was no answer to her question. No sounds other than the songbird. As if refusing to admit her own perceived foolishness, Zelda quelled her disappointment and continued,

How is Antoine, Poppa? Can you see him? Can you hear him? It’s been so long since I’ve heard his voice. Over two months now, and Violette asks after him constantly. Even she knows that we should be home by now, that it has been longer than I intended to be here.

A momentary anger rose in Zelda’s throat, one that she had been stifling every day since she boarded the steamer. She told herself that she had considered staying in England for Violette’s future, for her safety and happiness; but she knew that her daughter couldn’t have that without her father.

No, she had considered staying here out of spite and fear, of keeping Violette away to make Antoine suffer for her loneliness. She was angry, inordinately angry that Antoine wasn’t there - that he hadn’t boarded a ship to come and find her as the weeks went by. But that was the thought of a young girl with young dreams, the type that had once wandered these woods with her mind full of romance novels and grand gestures.

Her years in New Orleans and the harshness of the world had tempered the girl she had once been; for Zelda knew that Antoine’s memories of the bloodshed of war here were blinding, and that her absence wouldn’t change the reasons he had stayed. It would only cause him to dig his heels in deeper and fall further into the trenches of his own mind. After almost ten years together she knew that she couldn’t pull him out, and that he had to want to let go before she could truly help him.

And she wanted nothing more than for him to let go, to experience the same freedom that she had felt in England, the unexpected lightness in her soul and her heart when she realized that she was no longer afraid of the things which once brought her so much pain.

For to her great surprise, she had borne every ounce of grief and memory without breaking. She had found an unexpected peace here that could perhaps bring more stability and security for herself and her daughter. Yet it was also devoid of the life and love she had found in New Orleans. For as much memory as was in this place, she couldn’t deny that it felt no more like home than after her father died. The strongest bonds to her family were now all truly gone, each of them nothing but memories amongst the leaves of the Bramblewood.

She knew that she could spend her days tilling the fields that her father had sown and attempting to replace the fulfillment that being somewhere ever-changing brought her. But it also meant the loss of her daughter’s trust and the love of her life; for despite his actions she did still love him, deeply, and wanted nothing more than to be with him. Although she knew what the safe choice was, her months here had shown her that the pain of being apart was even worse than the pain of being together and that she was at home with the family she had found in New Orleans.

Poppa, tell me please, what do I do?

[blood-injections]

Expanding on this extreme violent zones headcanon of mine. Warning for torture mentions, body horror and crimes against humanity.

So everybody is violent and deadly and in the zones where it’s every killjoy for themself, allies are hard to come by and friends, people you actually trust, are even harder. So if you have a crew, it’s ride or die. You’d do anything for your team and having one is proof that despite all your violence and the monstrous things you’ve done, you’re still human, you’re still capable of love and receiving it. Having a crew is Hope incarnate.

And the fabulous four are one of the tightness knit crews there is. They’re deadly and unparalleled in the sands but then in the safety of the diner, when they’re all out of danger for the night, they’re so domestic, gentle with each other, even. They’re a family.

But the thing is, while the desert may be a sin-stained wasteland, most killjoys still have some morals intact, still feet regret and grief and fear of the horrible things they have to do to survive. But in Battery City, there are no morals, no limits. They do things that make even the most messed up things the Fab Four have done look like child’s play. Dracs are expendable mindless zombies because they’re the spoils of human experimentation. Some can’t walk, they stumble through the desert on cheap prosthetic limbs, but they’re sent out anyway. The citizens have things in their heads that keep them in line. If someone acts out something inside them cuts out and they’ll drop dead where they stand. Androids are forced to do the dirty work whether they’re sentient or not. Some can think and dream but when it comes down to it they’re not in control of their own body, their limbs servants to programming no matter how advanced the circuits in their heads may be. Some have been stuck doing the same thing for years when they just want to live, but they have no control over their body and they must scream.

And Fun Ghoul, despite all his skills, was one day overpowered, captured and tortured within an inch of his life. There was a storehouse that was bugged and when they caught him on the surveillance feed they sent Korse to take care of him. He wasn’t taken back to Bat City, they did it right in that abandoned building they caught him in and when they were done with him they dragged him out into the blistering sunlight and left him there to bleed out, a meal for some passing scavenger.

The others were able to find him in time but in order to save his life, Jet Star had to do the very thing they swore they’d never do to a friend- tear him apart. And then put him back together again. When Fun Ghoul eventually woke up, he didn’t recognize himself. He was left with a stitched up, full ear to ear Glasgow smile that’s sure to leave a nasty scar, one blinded eye, a cybernetic leg from the left knee down, stitches all over from excessive lacerations and other little cybernetic parts to keep things inside him together.. and he had someone else’s lung and right arm.

Over time he made the best of his condition, owned his resemblance to something like Frankenstein’s monster, embraced it, even. But for a while he was in a stranger’s skin.

[merlyybird]

ok here's my overall thoughts on the whole dark beginnings trilogy. spoilers below!

things i liked:

- the visuals. the action was especially vivid and really helped me understand how i'm supposed to imagine these characters in a fight. there were also a lot of wallpaper-worthy shot compositions. the use of 3D within a 2D art style was...a little noticeable, but not immersion-breaking.

- seeing all these characters together again. we haven't seen team dark in a context like this for a while! and it's especially nice to see fresh interactions between shadow and rouge/shadow and maria. fun GUN commander surprise, too.

- rouge's characterization. i like that they're leaning into a lot of my favorite Rouge Traits again---she's tech-savvy, smart, does what she wants, and she's kinda Shadow's best friend currently living. this still isn't my favorite voice for her, but, you know.

- the angst, for lack of a better word. i loved seeing shadow's canon insecurities about his identity and his place in the world. i also think it was so effective to show how isolated shadow felt on the ark, and how maria was the only person there for him. it puts his grief for her into even better perspective.

things i'm kinda iffy on:

- i wish omega had more dialogue. plus, why did they repeat him saying "i call dibs" across shorts 2 &3 ? that was really glaring. he's kinda just the less important robot third wheel to the two other more interesting characters in team dark.

- the series ended on a kind of lukewarm note. it was just a reminder that oh, yeah, this is mainly a piece of promotional material for a game that will tell the rest of the story. presumably.

- i didn't really like the sentiment that maria is the only person who could talk shadow down. listen, i love shadow's backstory and how it informs his character. like i said, i was happy to see more scenes of him interacting with maria! the thing is, though, i don't want to see him married to his tragic past when he already decided to move on from it way back in shadow the hedgehog's true ending. shadow doesn't do good because of maria's wish anymore---he does it for himself, because he chooses to. he doesn't have maria anymore, but he has new friends who understand him. why must maria continue to occupy this unattainable high standard that even rouge can never reach? even shadow recognizes that his old life was taken from him, and he can never return to it. so why does the narrative seem to push back against that?

i'm willing to give this short series a little grace since it's not the full picture. plus, i think the theme of finding new friends is still there, it's just...not carried as far as i'd like it to be, i guess. i'm not saying maria needs to be replaced, i'm not saying shadow can't remember her. i just think her memory should be used as more of a foundation for him to build new connections.

at the end of the day, though...i wanna see more stuff like this! i love that they're exploring the parts of sonic characters that make them beloved and interesting and cool-looking (same as the knuckles prologue short for frontiers)! i would take a full anime in this style any day of the week.

[cal-daisies-and-briars]

Music Monday Tuesday

Thank you @your-catfish-friend for tagging me!

Rules: Choose a few fics you wrote that were inspired by a song - not just with song lyrics in title - and share the tune and the link to the fics. If anyone wants to guess which goes with which go for it in comments or tags!

---

This is hard because most of mine are directly using the titles... So INSTEAD what I am going to do is link some less popular songs that inspired fics to the fic (so NOT my Taylor Swift name fics).

---

Nothing Left But You 

In May of 2021, 25% of Earth's population suddenly disappears. Including Eddie.

In May of 2026, they all come back.

Eddie finds himself suddenly in the middle of a world he doesn't recognize, where the people he loves most have changed significantly.

Any Other Way (ongoing)

In a switcheroo alternate universe, Buck spends young adulthood in the military, while Eddie, who has no idea Christopher exists, spends his twenties messing around, finally enjoying freedom away from his family’s expectations. When they both end up in Los Angeles, at the 118, some things are different, and others will be the same in any universe.

Got Weird

Shortly after Buck and Natalia break up, Eddie gets tipsy and makes a rather forward move. Then immediately panics (not that Eddie panics, of course) and backpedals. Eddie spirals, Buck is confused. Lots of spontaneous kissing ensues.

Claim Your Ghost

After a near death experience on a call, Eddie starts having strange hallucinations of people who have died. There’s definitely no way he’s seeing ghosts, right? Because Eddie doesn’t believe in ghosts…

Winter Prayer 

When a work conflict prevents Athena from accompanying Bobby to Minnesota for the ten year anniversary of his family dying, Buck and May offer to go instead. Over the course of the trip, they all learn more about each other, and Bobby faces his grief.

Why Not Take All of Me?

When a small disaster strikes the morning of Maddie and Chimney's wedding, Buck, Hen, and Chim find themselves unwittingly caught up in an emergency across town, while Maddie and Eddie get stuck in an elevator.

Fuck Up the Friendship (my first ever fic)

Eddie and Buck respond to a call where one best friend confesses their love to another - leading to a pretty awkward argument between them, and maybe more?

Me and Lazarus

As Buck lays comatose after being struck by lightning, Maddie reflects on the life of the first brother she lost, how that impacted her life, and the ways grief has shaped them both.

Cowboy With a One Track Mind (ongoing)

Spin-off Sequel to Evan Buckley & the Coma-Verse of Madness - Chapter 7 (Land):

Grieving and tortured, Evan Buckley has been living alone in Montana in a remote cabin for nearly a decade. After an incident that leaves him missing six months of his life, and suddenly in connection with a group of strangers from Los Angeles, Evan must decide whether to remain in his self-imposed exile, or take a chance at life again.

a mouth full of teeth and nothing to sing 

Post 07x03, Hen struggles to process the cruise ship rescue and drunk driver call in the midst of ongoing tension with her friends.

---

Tagging @pantsaretherealheroes @jeeyuns @aroeddiediaz @exhuastedpigeon @theotherbuckley

@diazsdimples @steadfastsaturnsrings @alliaskisthepossibilityoflove @mangacat201 @daughterofscotland

@madneywedding @evanbegins @tizniz @wildlife4life @buckleybabyblues

@bidisasterevankinard @adarkermiserablecrow

[djinnhatescold]

What Was, What Could Have Been

Woe, angst be upon you.

Rating: Teen And Up Relationships: The Dark Urge/Enver Gortash, Astarion/The Dark Urge (Baldur's Gate) Summary: Orin's betrayal. The mindflayer tadpole. Astarion's change. Gortash's death. It was all too much.

The ao3 version has an epilogue, kind of. It's more angst.

~~~~

It was never supposed to be like this.

Even since waking up in the mindflayer pod on the nautiloid with a head full of holes where her memories should be, she was sure that this was not how her life was supposed to go.

Even after rejecting the pernicious instincts that told her to kill, mindlessly and often – a simple plan for a simple life – she knew that the world held more for her than this.

Didn’t it?

She had repented her father’s plan for her. Allowed her heart to open to another. Remained true to him, devoted to him, allowed him into her confidence and supported his ambitions. Scarcely any time passed after seven thousand and seven souls cried out their death throes in unison and he became the Vampire Ascendant before he began to betray her trust. She wanted to believe it was simply the high that he was feeling at Cazador’s end and when his powers came to be, and celebrated with him.

But soon enough he told her with absolute certainty that she did little else but await his command. Ordered her onto her knees before him. Called her his pet. To have fought so hard to be out from under Bhaal’s thumb only to be tossed straight into another’s subjugation was too much to bear, so she ended it – and in doing so nearly became undone by the guilt of facilitating Astarion’s change and the grief over the loss of their future together.

She had fled that night, unable to share the same space with him in the Elfsong, and spent hours wandering through the streets of Baldur’s Gate. She didn’t want to be stifled by the indoors yet she also didn’t want to see a single mocking star in the sky, so her feet brought her to the gazebo at the end of a dock that jutted out into the Chionthar.

How easy it could have been when she was still her father’s chosen, to forego emotion in favour of the pleasures of rent flesh and gushing blood. To replace the lost joy in her eyes with the blissful fading of light in another’s, her sorrowful weeping with the screams of the dying.

He came to her then.

He must have been following her through the unblinking eyes of his Steel Watch. Whether his surveillance was unsettling or sweet was debatable. But when Enver Gortash’s footsteps sounded on the wood behind her, something in the broken recesses of her mind recognized them. When he offered a sympathetic ear, she knew that she could trust him implicitly. He told her tales of their time before – not the meticulous scheming, the murders, or the political posturing; but the spaces between. The stolen kisses, the talk of their future together as one, making love as if the world was a powder keg and they were the spark.

The memories were gone but the feelings, oh, the feelings were still there.

They spent the rest of what was left of the night and the entirety of the next day together at his mansion in the Upper City amongst the trappings that his political and social victories had won him over the years. He promised her all he had and more, all that he was and all that he would be after they carried out their plans with the Elder Brain. And she promised him the same; she would not rule in the name of Bhaal, but she would rule in their names together. Even if there was no Brain and no plot for conquest, she would have stayed by his side come what may for eternity. But fate or the gods or anything and everything in all planes of existence would not let her realize her dreams of happiness.

In the blink of an eye the Nether Brain ordered Enver Gortash to die, and so he did.

Halsin and Minsc had to tear her away from his body and through the Emperor’s portal where she railed against them, Astarion, the gods, her father, Orin. She was dead thrice over, locked into a hellish waking nightmare instead of the beyond. No one quite knew what to do with her, and why would they? She had rejected their friendship in order to protect them from herself. None of them truly knew her; Astarion had only won her over out of sheer persistence and a common outlook on life and murder and power.

But now, life? Power? Meaningless. But murder – murder she knew intimately. She could murder the Absolute cultists. She could murder the Brain.

And when the deed was done and the tadpole in her head squirmed for the last time and the sun rose over a broken Baldur’s Gate, she turned and walked away from the city without a word.

[arvadthecursed]

not to continue being an emotional bitch on main but I was thinking about The Last Unicorn (the film, mostly, as it was Baby's First Hyperfixation) and how it is a film about growth and grief, at its very core, and that's why it resonates so strongly.

At the end, the unicorn says, "I have been mortal, and some part of me is mortal yet. I am full of tears and hunger and the fear of death, although I cannot weep, and I want nothing, and I cannot die. I am not like the others now, for no unicorn was ever born who could regret, but I do. I regret." And I wanna focus on those last lines.

There comes a time in all our lives, I think, where we experience that loss of innocence, and it feels like the first time it's happened in human history when it's happening to you.

This isn't a story I've told many people but I'll share it with you now. When I was 12, my grandmother, who I was extremely close to, died of cancer. It had spread to most of her body, including her lungs and brain. Her last days were spent in a hospital hooked up to a morphine drip.

The last time I saw her, it was in the hospital, and she was begging my father not to leave. We had to return to our home to pick up my mother for the impending funeral. And I just remember my grandmother crying out for my dad, telling him not to go, and I remember how utterly crushed I felt in that moment. Death was inevitable. I couldn't escape it, not when it was directly in front of me. At my grandmother's viewing, I could hardly look at her.

For years, I was severely thanatophobic. Death has always kind of hung over my life. My maternal grandmother, only a few months after I was born. My maternal grandfather, when we went to his apartment and found him dead. My grandmother's friend, who we found dead in his house. My grandmother herself.

That was over ten years ago. I've grown quite a bit, and I think working in a nursing home has given me a little more of a "unique" perspective, if you will. Death is just part of life. It happens. And sometimes, it is merciful.

But the grief remains. There are times I'm 12 again, and a scared little girl, watching my grandmother, who could hardly recognize anyone, cry for my dad not to go. I feel regret for not being able to look at her body at the viewing.

And even beyond death... I grieve the girl I lost to abusive boyfriends. I feel this lingering regret at the loss of my innocence, not that I could've stopped it. I think of the sweet little girl I was, and I want to cry for her, but I can't. All I can do is look to the future and try to grow and be better for her.

It's a human experience. We don't like to admit it, but grief is quintessentially human. When it happens to us, it feels like the first time it's happened in history.

And then we grow. We have to keep getting up, and going about our lives, and trying not to trip on our grief. It doesn't go away, but it tucks itself into a corner, where it'll catch us off guard when we least expect it. Then it goes back into hiding.

I think The Last Unicorn is a really beautiful example of all these ideas coming together. The unicorn must come to grips with the fact that she is not innocent anymore. She has grieved, she has loved, and she knows the bittersweetness of regret. Her journey is self discovery, but a tragic one, one that we all go through at one time or another. It's a film that still resonates deeply with me because the notion of grief and growth has always been present in my life.

Anyway, sorry for the ramble. Was just thinking about it quite a bit today.

[velvet4510]

It astonishes me just how different the ending of ROTK the film is from the ending of ROTK the book. And how much BETTER the book’s ending is.

In the book, Sam, Merry, and Pippin stand at the Grey Havens for hours after the ship leaves, late into the night, unable to move or talk in their grief at losing Frodo. They still can’t believe he’s really gone, and stand side by side in their shared sorrow. Then they slowly make their way home, clinging to each other for comfort. Something they never would’ve done at the start of the book, as Sam wasn’t among the “friend group” at first. He was just the servant. But now, the journey has bonded the 3 of them, and they are supporting each other in a moment of severe pain for them all. They’re equals now and they need each other. A perfect little ray of hope from Tolkien, showing us that they will always have each other and be there for each other.

Then when Sam comes home, he comes home to Bag End. To Frodo’s home. To the place that first brought him and Frodo together. Now, Frodo is gone. The estate, filled with memories of Frodo, belongs to Sam now. And instead of Frodo waiting for him at the door, it’s Rosie and their little daughter. Beloved and welcoming, and yet not the same.

Then Sam can’t enter by himself or sit down by himself or reach out to his daughter by himself. Rosie has to help him do all these things, drawing him inside, guiding him to a chair, and putting Elanor in his lap. He is completely haunted. Frodo is gone and he can’t process what he has just lost. He can’t fully appreciate what he has here yet. His wife must lead him, and remind him of what he still has by placing their child into his arms.

Then he takes a deep breath and says “Well, I’m back.” This is all that Tolkien writes. He does not describe the expression on Sam’s face. He does not describe the tone of voice with which Sam speaks these words. Just the words. As if it’s monotone. And why wouldn’t it be?

Sam has everything he dreamed of before the Quest. A beautiful home with a beautiful family who he loves, and who love him. Safety and comfort. Normalcy. He should be beaming with joy. But he’s not. He can’t be. Not when he just lost his other half, the person he followed into fire and doom, the person for whom he was ready to die, the person for whom he fought monsters, the person for whom he went to the ends of the earth, the person whose apparent death made him borderline suicidal and desperately wishing that he could die with him after completing the Quest. The greatest love of his life. (Regardless of how you view his and Frodo’s relationship, there’s no denying that Frodo has been the most important person in Sam’s life for so long now and they are soulmates, platonic or otherwise; you only have to read the books to see that.) Sam has a wonderful life and future ahead of him, full of love and joy. But it’s a life he must live without his soulmate. How does he feel about that? He can’t even feel anything yet. He’s numb. He acknowledges “I’m back” but doesn’t know how to feel about it. Is he happy to be back? Is he heartbroken to be back? He’s both. Can he truly be one and whole like Frodo wanted for him? Will he forever be torn in two now that he’s lost Frodo but will never forget him? In this moment, he has absolutely no idea. One true love is gone, and two other true loves (his wife and daughter) are there with him, there to stay. Will bliss or depression win the internal battle? Everything is uncertain. All that is certain is that he has just returned to his dwelling. “Well, I’m back” are words of celebration and of lament. He’s at peace and in agony, simultaneously. It’s a comforting yet bittersweet ending that perfectly ties Sam’s journey together, while still leaving it slightly open and uncertain, reflecting Sam’s own feelings on that last page. It’s an ending that recognizes and honors the weight of all that came before it.

But in the movie, all of this is lost in the final scenes. There are 3 main reasons why it fails, IMO:

#1. Merry and Pippin turn away from the Grey Havens before the ship has even disappeared, and seem to start to actually leave Sam behind. Which makes no sense. They immediately want to leave? They don’t want to keep their eyes on their friend as long as possible until the ship is out of sight, like they do in the book? And they’re completely ignoring Sam and just leaving him there alone? It’s kind of horrifying the way they don’t even look at Sam.

#2. since the movie follows a different timeline, Sam comes home to Rosie and two children, not one, which itself isn’t a problem … but they all stand close together and smile, as if posing for a picture as the perfect nuclear family. Sam shows no sign of unhappiness. Just a blissful smile, even though his soulmate has just left him forever. He’s apparently recovered splendidly. He doesn’t need his wife to support him and help him inside, like in the book. He’s … fine? Despite … the last 11 hours of the trilogy? Despite the bond he shared with Frodo, the love? It feels entirely forgotten. And Rosie grins like a commercial model through the whole scene, with no hint of the compassion for his loss indicated by her actions in the book. This image of the smiling family would be fitting in a flash forward to 10 or so years later when time has healed Sam and he’s grown into his new life in the Shire. But for him to be this cheerful immediately after losing Frodo, it undercuts the weight of Tolkien’s ending. The last page marks the moment Sam begins the transition back to normalcy, but it’s a shaky, awkward, somber moment. He doesn’t just slip back into happy family life like it’s nothing; he needs time to process his loss before he can truly be in the moment. By trying to have a “conventional movie happy ending,” the film sacrifices the impact of Frodo’s departure on Sam.

#3. the hobbit hole that Sam comes home to isn’t Bag End. It’s #3 Bagshot Row. Meaning Frodo apparently…didn’t let Sam and Rosie move in with him and didn’t leave Bag End to them in the movie-verse? Even though it’s big enough to fit a huge family? Even though making Sam his heir would guarantee that Sam, Rosie, and their children would be financially set for life, as is the case in the book? This is an absurd detail that makes zero sense to me. How hard could it have been to film this scene in front of the Bag End set? Or if it somehow wasn’t available, why not paint the door green to indicate this is supposed to be Bag End? As it is, it makes it look like Sam deserted Frodo to live all alone in Bag End when he married Rosie, as if Sam would EVER do such a thing. Whereas in the book, they all lived together during that time and Sam & Rosie took care of Frodo as his illness worsened and let him name Elanor; they included him as a full part of their family. Then the ending of the book provides a new chapter for Bag End itself, and emphasizes the fact that Bag End is its own character. The estate was built by Bungo for Belladonna and their future family, but they ultimately only had Bilbo, then Bilbo never married, and then Frodo never married. It was always too big for the few bachelors who lived there. But ultimately, when Frodo leaves the estate to Sam and Rosie, they fill the smial with the life and laughter of 13 children and it becomes the Gardner family residence for several generations afterward, finally fulfilling its original purpose as a family home. The movie disregards all of this.

In short, these two endings are night and day. The book’s ending is sweet and bitter at the same time, because it’s a depiction of someone expressing gratitude for what he’s gained while simultaneously mourning what he’s lost. It’s both melancholy and hopeful, wrapping up a melancholy and hopeful story, brilliantly reflecting the melancholy and the hope of life, especially after a great personal loss. Whereas the film’s ending is just “ok the sad part is over, now everything is happy and perfect like in any storybook, the end.”

[sonofthedunes]

ok. ok. i’ve teased it long enough: it’s time to meet my star wars oc. if you’re interested, venture below the cut…

and here she is: andrie mykarrah of tatooine. her faceclaim is saoirse ronan, specifically in her role as jo in little women-when i began to consider what andrie looked like, this face appeared to me immediately and just fit. (saoirse is perhaps my favorite young actress working today, and in fact auditioned for rey in tfa!) i’m not going to lay out her whole life story for you here, but i’ll tease out some facts for you-and if it piques your interest, she’ll be a character in my next one-shot! for it may shock you to know that she’s luke’s love interest in my little fancanon. :p

born in 19 ABY, about 3 weeks after the twins. of her mother’s eight pregnancies, she was the only surviving full-term child

Andrie’s mother was never especially maternal and abandoned the family when Andrie was eight; they saw each other only occasionally afterward. Andrie’s father loved her but was never around much; he died when Andrie was 13. she was raised on the mykarrah farm with her great-grandmother, grandmother and two uncles

by her own admission is rather hotheaded and temperamental, fighting when cornered and gathering every scrap of agency she can in her sheltered world. this can serve her well in combat later, but admittedly she must work hard to control it

is force-sensitive, but this was suppressed for much of her early life. had at least one relative who was murdered for displaying force powers, and her grandmother feared what might happen to the family if her abilities became known

encountered Luke a few times when they were children, but only properly met him when they were 18 and he came to her farm with his aunt and uncle…because the older women were trying to marry Andrie off in order to continue the family line

of course the marriage didn’t happen (Owen vehemently objected to his nephew being treated like breeding stock), but Luke and Andrie discovered they were kindred spirits who yearned for life beyond the desert and over the course of the next year became friends (of which they both have precious few). neither of them know it, but this is the force guiding the future builders of the new jedi order together…the whole slowly falling in love thing is just a bonus

when the news of the lars’ murder reaches her, Andrie assumes Luke’s been killed too and in her grief vows to travel the galaxy for both of them, no longer willing to allow others to control her life. she runs away from home and makes her way to mos eisley, where in her search for a ship she comes upon a certain corellian freighter on which to stow away…

and thus begins a journey on which Andrie helps rescue a princess, joins the rebel alliance, reaches at least the rank of lieutenant (possibly higher?), becomes a head of the reconnaissance team, sees planets and battles beyond her wildest dreams, recognizes her worth as a woman and soldier, feels accepted for perhaps the first time in her life, fights for an end to tyranny…and eventually opens herself to the power of the force, becoming both padawan and bride to luke. their love, which bloomed in a desert and was solidified by a whirlwind rescue mission, changes the jedi order forever and shakes the stars. not bad for two farm kids.

that’s enough to start on i think :p i’m always open to questions about Andrie, so feel free to drop them in the inbox! and thank you all for indulging me

[zibethrose]

Know that SelfLove is having the fortitude to do the things that will change your life.Reclaim your majesty and live in the fullness of your sacred being recognizing that SelfKnowledge and acceptance will provide you with the sacred blueprint to start afresh💞 Cultivate unconditional love to promote divine transformation into your life knowing that love helps one to have faith and hope in the unfolding of life and helps develop the mechanisms needed to transmute rage and grief.

Release the need for external validation innerstanding that wellness relies on your inner state not the image promoted by society which feeds on illusion and delusion. Drop into your heart to fill your own cup to heal from emotional anguish. Recognize that when another brings more misery than joy to your life, let them go as its madness to continually return to the status quo of unhappiness. Go within to commune with the sacred to be Free from emotional shackles to generate a new beginning and move forward in grace, no longer burdened by people, places and things that no longer serve you. Accept that sometimes you must separate yourself from people you’ve had significant relationships with as you have grown apart and find yourself now on different pages, chapters, sometimes different books, no longer sharing a value system. Rescue yourself by getting back into alignment by allowing your soul space to be. Find the courage to let go of what you cannot change to arise like the phoenix, renewed in spirit from the ashes of your emotional pain. Recognize that now is the Time to detach from toxic situations. Stop worrying about what other people think and enter the temple of your truth shutting down yesterday, which allows you to move forward with love and hope.  

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