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Whiterose

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most important part of the writing process actually is when you loop a single song on max volume and stare at the word document and imagine the characters doing things for 14 hours. this is known as getting in the zone

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more post-gideon the ninth reading sketches............

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are you interested in posting in spite of war on another platform like ao3?

hey thanks for asking! just did thanks to this ask—appreciate it! https://archiveofourown.org/works/65273095

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generally you shouldn't write run-on sentences because they get confusing and it doesn't give the reader a break. that doesn't apply to me though my run-on sentences are fun and understandable and they have a rhythm to it that makes you want to keep reading

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how to express my love for lesbian nuns in ways that people don't misconstrue as support for the catholic church

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it’s been verdana for the past 17 years because ff.net uses verdana and i thought as a child that if i was going to be writing fic it had to be in the right font

i think i got the major ones

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in spite of war [9/9 | griddlehark | post-canon]

if you've gotten this far—thank you! i'd also like to note that the title for this is from an yves tumor song i love so much and is so super griddlehark

I just want to know/

Will you be by my side?/

Dressed in the devil’s clothes/

I hear the angels lie too.

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I felt lighter in the days that followed.

A little pep in my step, you know? We’d saved like a billion people’s lives, which is what I told myself I was happy about. I mean, I was, but if I say it like that wasn’t a contributing factor to my mood I sound like an asshole.

I was happy for other reasons.

We weren’t avoiding each other. 

You stood in the hallway then, talking to Paul. I walked by and you acknowledged me. Nodded, but not like I was a stranger.

I wanted to scream at you. In a good way. In a way that felt like a homecoming.

You should have been so familiar to me—all those unfriendly angles and points like points on a white picket fence.

But I saw you over and over in those days, and I saw you different, like you’d been inverted. Like I was looking in a mirror, you standing behind me.

It didn’t feel done, like we’d gotten past the yawning crevasse we’d created. It felt more like a sickly yellow bruise, halfway healed.

I saw you for what you were—a lyctor, yeah, but also: just Harrow.

You were talking to Ianthe, both wearing those dumbass robes. Just Harrow.

You were struggling a box onto a high shelf. Just Harrow.

You were fusing and unfusing a metacarpal you’d probably had in your pocket, you freak. And you were just Harrow.

I didn’t know how to take the change, but I didn’t feel so much like shit anymore.

I found myself whistling a lot, which annoyed Ianthe to no end. It was a gift to me. 

“What’s that song?” Corona asked, one of the times I’d been doing it absently, when Ianthe hadn’t been around to bother.

The name of the song eluded me, like one of those eye floaters: always on the corner of my vision, darting away when I tried to see it straight-on.

“Huh,” I said, “Something old, I guess.”

“I like it.” She tilted the gold chain she had in her hands, examining it in the light. She’d been trying to fix it for days, and me with my fat fingers? No help. So I just sat there.  “Sounds creepy.”

I laughed, and for the first time in a long time: I meant it. It reminded me of how I’d watched Corona laugh on that backwater mud planet, and then—

“Hey, uh. I’ve got bad news about your crystal.”

“My crystal?” Corona asked. I watched her understand the question. “Oh, the mud man. Not mine. I gave it to Harrow.”

She set her chain down, looked at me in a way that would have probably killed me if I wasn’t dead.

“Oh.”

“Oh,” she echoed. “You should probably deliver your news to her, then, hm?”

I knew you’d given it to me. I knew that. I’d just danced around it. I’d been dancing around anything that wasn’t hard lines and cold facts.

I wouldn’t have been able to go to you before, wouldn’t have thanked you for the thing I’d shattered on my floor. Now, I let myself wander around until I found you as you were. As you’d maybe always been: just Harrow.

“I broke your crystal. Weird present.”

You were reading and you looked pissed that I’d interrupted you.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Gr—” If you didn’t have all that paint on, I knew you would have looked a little green around the gills. “What crystal?”

“The one you left on my bed. The apple, the visor—what are you, like a flightless bird or something?”

You slammed your book shut. I’d always known you to be half-there. Like the weakest impulse would have sent you flying out of that room. But you didn’t go anywhere, just looked at me. Full-on for the first time in a lifetime.

Are we talking now? I wanted to ask. Are we normal?

I wanted a hug so fucking bad I thought I was going to puke.

“What do you want, Nav?”

The name felt like you’d slapped a hot towel on the back of my neck. I tasted salt and iron and rust.

“Say sorry.”

You didn’t ask: For what? Which, I think, would have been the sane response. Asking for a stupid little apology like I was a soccer coach felt like the craziest thing I had ever done. But that’s what the tchotchkes were, right? Little apologies you were too scared to admit out loud.

Your face twisted, and I watched your lips contort into something pretending to be a frown. I could see the words trapped behind your teeth, could see your brain backpedaling as it tried to fuse your jaw shut. Like maybe it could squeeze out one more pathetic act of self-preservation.

You wheezed like I’d kicked you in the gut.

“I don’t know how,” you said. You were so quiet, the admission sounded like there was no air behind it. “Nothing feels big enough.”

I didn’t owe you this, but I wanted it more than anything, so I just held my arms out.

You looked at me like I’d scared you to death. You looked at me like I was the last drop of water on that shitty mud planet.

You almost tripped on your way over, and I almost laughed, and then there wasn’t any room for almost.

Your bony fingers dug into my back, I could feel the front of my shirt getting hot and wet and I pressed my face into your hair and it wasn’t close enough.

I felt your lips, mouthing words into my chest.

I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

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in spite of war [8/9 | griddlehark | post-canon]

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sorry again y'all—a lot has happened lately but i think i've finished this little thing, and i'll post the last part later this week!

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Leaving the paradise planet was less of a decision and more of a horrible emergency.

A nearby planet was imploding on itself. It had millions of people on it.

I decided, quite possibly more miserable than I’d ever been in my entire life or death, that I would help this time. I think it was because I was just wrung-out. I had hit rock bottom so many times I’d broken through and was somewhere new and worse.

When we landed, it was pretty much what we had expected.

People were screaming, I remember that most of all. I ended up following Ianthe through the din, grabbing her shitty arm when we almost got separated. Wondering if I could rip the bones apart.

“Come here, idiot.” She yanked me over as hard as she could, where she’d crouched in a clear patch of dirt. 

People were pushing us, scrambling in all different directions as the sky lit up. Beautiful colors, I thought. End-of-the-world-type colors.

And then, in that chaos, there you were.

At the end of all things (for this planet, at least,) I saw you in a different way. You were focused on the task at hand, and I didn’t want to fuck with you. I think it would have been particularly shitty of me, but I don’t think I was incapable of it.

I shoved my hands in the dirt and I saw the soul of the planet.

It was a tiny, flickering thing. It was struggling to keep the lights on.

You were there, too. Incorporeal.

Ianthe was there, I guess. I don’t know where the fuck she was, I wasn’t paying attention to her.

You reached out in that space, that freaky darkness, that in-between that in some ways felt just like the River. In others it felt like any other place. Maybe a tomb, maybe a coffee shop.

I saw you touch the soul of that planet, I saw it illuminate your face. Your bare face. You frowned, and it was so familiar. Like the threadbare blanket in my cell back home. It made the back of my neck itch.

Then you looked at me. You reached out, offered me your hand.

I took it, and the soul flared, like it was injected with lightning. I was just looking at you, though. And you were looking at me. You squeezed my hand.

God, if only you knew, Harrow. If you knew what it did to me you would have recoiled in horror.

-

I did know. I’ve always known. I wanted to do it again, but I was terrified.

-

Then we were back.

We were still holding hands. Ianthe was face-down in the dirt next to me. It was the best I’d felt in ages.

The red sun was bright and the quakes had disappeared and all of the panicked people were just kind of milling around like they’d been slapped.

“I guess that worked,” I said, and it felt so stupid.

But I saw it—the corner of your mouth. Tight, usually, now just a little looser. You let go of my hand and I felt you hesitate.

“Of course it worked,” you grumbled, and there was no bite to it.

“How did you know what to do?”

“It’s a large planet. I needed your help.”

You weren’t quite looking at me, but I could tell you wanted to.

“Well… it was pretty cool.” And then, like I was being puppeteered by the ghost of someone long-dead: “...Night boss.”

Your expression crumpled like I’d punched you. I thought, for the first time in a long time, or maybe ever: the very last thing I want to do is hurt you.

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milf blake au epilogue. it's short it's sweet and it deserves a comment

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this is NOT a popularity contest. don't pick your favorite one. i can't explain the purpose of this poll Exactly without spoiling things and also making promises i may or may not keep re: future fic but you gotta pick one based on these two songs.

option one (blake)

option two (yang)

please vote on this i'm gonna reblog it constantly for a week i need to think about something so hard rn and i need your help with it

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in spite of war [7/9 | griddlehark | post-canon]

sorry for the...... 4 month wait..... a lot has happened!! hope everyone's doing well

merry whatever! here's gideon suffering more!! (a little nsfw if you squint, but i wouldn't get excited lol)

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I told myself I could have another day to wallow.

Everyone had made separate, “executive” decisions to stay on the paradise planet for a little while longer. Which, duh. We’d been floating around in a hunk of metal for weeks, barely interacting with each other. By the time the residents gave us the fruit with the sweet, juicy insides and the spicy powder to put on top, I think we all had made our decisions.

I must have eaten five of those fucking fruits. 

I sat on the sand in the blue firelight, licking juice off my knuckles like a neanderthal. The woman that had offered me the fruits hung around even though I must have looked like a lunatic.

“You’ve never had them before?” She asked.

I paused, finger halfway in my mouth. She was looking at it. That made me feel something other than crushing grief, which was nice.

I hummed. “Nope. Grew up with a lot of gray half-solids. Oatmeal, porridge, grits. Different kinds of lumpy shit.”

She smiled, and the firelight creased her face in unfamiliar ways. She was pretty, this I noticed with my detective skills.

“Our planet must seem alien to you. I hope you’ve enjoyed what we’ve offered so far.”

She said this—and here I go again with my detectiving—in a very sexy way.

And I—I don’t know. I really don’t know what I thought. She was laying it on thick, and I was lonely. I’d been lonely for a long time. I had no reason not to, I told myself. We kept talking and she kept getting closer and eventually there was no more room.

At eighteen, alone in my cell on the Ninth, I would have fucking wet myself at the opportunity. If I’d had time to prepare, I would have reread every skin mag I owned and done pushups and forearm curls until my eyes bled.

There was nothing to prepare, really. I went through the motions just like I’d seen in Sluts of the Seventh and that was that.

She left, after. I have no idea what she thought and I didn’t want to ask.

I sat on the edge of the bed, butt-ass naked with my face in my hands. I ran my hands through my hair. I missed my stupid head massager. I was pitiful again. I’d never stopped in the first place.

“It didn’t feel good,” I whispered. “Why didn’t it feel good?”

But I knew.

So I didn’t sleep that night.

I didn’t need to sleep ever, but I tried to keep it up for my sanity. I think we all did. I was feeling pretty insane, I have to admit.

I paced the beach like I was looking for something in the sand, like if I walked for long enough I would receive a cosmic revelation like a sledgehammer to the head.

But that didn’t happen, obviously. I would have liked a regular sledgehammer to the head. It would have stopped me thinking for a few minutes. 

I just worked myself up, made myself hot and feverish. So much so that I walked right into the water, up to my collarbones. I almost wished we hadn’t sewn my chest up. I wanted the water to rush in, to fill the space between my ribs. Like if something other than my mind was churning I could focus on it instead. Like I could scrub myself clean from the inside.

The waves lapped at me, and I felt tremendously stupid.

The water was piss-warm, and I was still hot and prickly, and then some of it got in my mouth.

The reflex was to sputter like an idiot, but I didn’t do that. The water was all salt, all nasty, gritty salt. I swallowed it. So fucking stupid. It made me want to puke immediately, but I wanted more. I dove in, mouth open.

I washed up on the beach, later. I’d probably drank enough seawater to kill a couple people by that point. I felt sick and raw and thirsty. Nothing about the saltwater had made me feel what I so desperately wanted it to. I just felt like an idiot.

I lay there until the sun came up, and then I wished I’d had my visor.

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A study...

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There also needs to be a button for “this is the 5000th time I’ve read your fic because I’m having a horrible day and this is the only thing in the world that always brings me happiness.”

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in spite of war [6/9 | griddlehark | post-canon]

more suffering—enjoy!

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We got to the next planet, which was the opposite of the last one.

By that I mean it was the nicest place I’d ever been.

It had water, like the First, stretching out further than I could see. I squinted, hand over my eyes, trying to make out anything at all in that blue nothingness. The water just churned, glinting in the light of two yellow stars, hung high in the sky. There was black sand and strange curved trees with huge, wide leaves. 

Along that sand: cushy chairs, squat houses made of bark and wood, and the friendliest people I’d ever met. They thanked us and thanked us for our work, told us to please sit! Rest! Enjoy our home! 

This all in opposition to my mood, which was terrible and bad, made me feel even worse. If such a thing were possible (it was.)

The cherry on top? Ianthe wanted to talk to me.

She was wearing a sun hat, which looked so fucking stupid I was this close to laughing. If I had felt any better I would have been reduced to hysterics. I would have rolled around in the sand and I would have howled. This thought in its simplicity made me realize how much I missed laughing. That thought made me feel worse. (See? I said it was possible.)

But when she came sauntering over, I just stared at her, arms crossed over my empty chest. I wanted to look intimidating, but if she was, she’d never show it. It was a stupid game of chicken we played, and neither of us was good at it.

I was sitting in one of the chairs, and the height difference didn’t really help my intimidation tactic.

“You look incredibly stupid, Kiriona, you know that?”

“I wasn’t going to say anything, but since you mentioned it… I guess we match. One of us has to go change.”

She sneered, which made her uglier. No, that’s unfair. She wasn’t ugly. She was horrible.

“I’ve no interest in prolonging a conversation with you, so I’ll get to the point—”

“Thank god—”

“You’ve done something to Harrow.”

The beach was so, so beautiful. I was a fraction of an inch from decorating it with Ianthe’s intestines. I could put her head on the flat rock closest to the water… maybe rip her hair out and stick it in the sand like sea grass… I could be the kind of landscaper any Ninth House nun with cataracts would adore.

She continued: “She’s gone bare-faced the past three days. I hate looking at her like that. And if I were a betting woman, I’d wager it has something to do with you.”

I could make designs on the backs of the cushy chairs with her teeth and nails. Maybe stick her eyes to the back of my head for a laugh.

“Well?” She pressed. I thought maybe if I pressed hard enough I could extrude all of her organs.

“How about you fuck off and die?”

She rolled her eyes. “Your comebacks were never good and somehow they’ve gotten worse.”

“How about this one: your mom.”

That lifted my mood. A your mom joke. Understated and yet? Elegant. Simple. I felt like a fucking comedian.

I saw the shift in Ianthe’s shitty tutti-frutti eyes before I could brace myself for it. I knew the kind of bitch she could be. The zero to a hundred she could pull at the drop of a hat.

“I get the impression that you’ve hurt her. Perhaps irreparably.”

Cool as I might have imagined myself being, I couldn’t contain it. I leapt and I swung.

She dodged me like I was a child. Looked at me like I was smaller still. I advanced on her, and she walked backwards like she had less-funny eyes in the back of her head.

“Seems like the gray matter’s rotted away like the rest of you. You can’t answer a simple question.”

“I have dreamed of killing you thousands of times—“

“And yet you can’t, can you?” She stopped, feet in the surf, and let me get right up in her face. 

There was no one around. I could have tried. I knew I was stronger. I could have drowned her, I could have ripped her head off. They just would have been inconveniences. It might have been fun to do, but it wouldn’t have meant anything.

My rage flew around in my chest like a caged animal. I’d sewn it up. It had nowhere to go.

“She’s done with you and yet you still manage to upset her like this. I think it’s because you have the kind of grating demeanor not even a mother could love.”

I wasn’t breathing. I mean, I didn’t need to, but I thought if I had I would have exploded. Which, honestly? Would have been the best thing I could have done. At least gore in her hair and on her white clothes might have annoyed her more than an attempt on her life.

“You know you have the nastiest laugh I’ve ever heard? Sounds like you trapped a rat in your throat.”

I didn’t get a reaction, which was lame. Ianthe just looked me up and down like I was a rotten piece of meat. I guess I was.

“It was pity, hm? That’s what it was.” She mused after a pregnant pause. “Like a lame dog. You’re pathetic.”

We stared at each other—a stupid faceoff no one could win. I think she must have gotten bored, because she breezed by me, making sure to elbow me with that goddamn arm you made her.

You never made me anything, I thought.

You made me suffer, I guess. Made me feel the way I did.

I went back to my chair, stumbling through the sand. On it, made of leaves from the weird trees, was a visor. I picked it up and realized that it had been fastened together with knuckle bones.

Pity, I thought. I’m pitiful.

I slipped the thing on my head. It wasn’t well-made, but it kept most of the light out of my eyes when I sat and watched the waves roll by.

My eyes smarted, and I couldn’t even blame it on the suns.

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*you don't have to have posted any, just written some

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in spite of war [5/9 | griddlehark | post-canon]

sorry for the wait! life gets in the way :/

(this part is a fun little game i've played called "how angsty can i make these two") enjoy!

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Archives was the worst room on the ship.

It sucked so bad and in so many ways, and of course you chose it. Half of the lights were broken, the generator room was next door and sounded like twelve earthquakes at the same time, it was colder than a witches’ tit, and the tight rows of uniform metal canisters made it feel like you were going to get smashed between them at any minute.

It felt like home.

I didn’t know where the fuck I was supposed to find you in a giant room with no discernible landmarks, so I just wandered. In death, I kind of became less the bull in the china shop and more the specter, the thing that moves, unnoticed, just at the edge of your vision.

Even still, you found me first.

“Nav,” you said, and I didn’t like it.

You were standing at the end of the row I was in, swathed in black, holding a little bundle in both hands. I used to be able to parse your emotions, even with the paint. Now, I just saw the Jawless Skull, almost floating in the dim light.

“Yeah?” I wanted to make a joke, but I couldn’t think of anything. The word sounded like a limp arrow.

You approached like you were trying to feed a scared animal, but you were projecting. You were afraid of me, and I knew it.

You stopped, a few feet away from me, and held out the bundle as far as your arms would reach.

“What is it?”

You didn’t say anything. Freak.

I grabbed it. It was so light, and I knew. I knew exactly what it was.

You looked at me then like you wanted something from me. I had nothing to give you in return. What more could I have given you? What more did you want? I was a ship without an engine, a planet without a soul. I had nothing left, and you didn’t fucking get it. How could you now, with the universe at your fingertips? With the last piece of our history successfully returned?

You could wash your hands of me for good. You’d tried before.

Maybe I couldn’t give you anything, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to take, either.

I dropped the bundle on the floor, smashed wire and tinted glass under my boot, and looked you in the eyes while I did it.

You flinched, and I thought: I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that. I’m so fucking sorry.

–

I wouldn’t have deserved the apology, Griddle.

-

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