soulstranded

[soulstranded]

Examples of a Brocken Spectre, a phenomenon where a person’s giant shadow appears magnified onto clouds miles away. The shadow from the sun behind the person creates a halo, giving it an angelic appearance. This mostly occurs on any misty mountainsides or cloud banks, and can even be seen from aeroplanes.

[soulstranded]

The scene is set. A river flows down to the ocean, but their connection isn’t one-way. The river gives itself to the sea, and the sea returns in kind. But the sea is immense and consuming; the tides pour horrors from the depths of it up towards the stream. The river grows stronger and wider, but it is filled with all manner of fearful things, serrated and sharp.

“It was never your fealty I asked for, Higgs, but your partnership.” A red heel presses into the sand, imprints left in soft earth as she approaches; the looming shadow at the back of one’s mind, but that shadow’s staring back at him now with patient eyes. A hand presses against the pod strapped to him, the tether that connects them together. It was never one-sided.

“And in order for this partnership to work, there has to be certain steps before we reach the end.” She does not affirm his impulse here. “Steps that only you are strong enough to take. You understand that, don’t you?”

                     little       birdie       in       the       red       dress       .       chime       the       dawn       of       the       new       era       ,       with       its       sunrise       sing       a       song       .       a       chorus       of       extinction       .       lead       a       revolution       with       your       word       ,       raise       fire       with       your       touch

      ,       this    connection   that   you   speak   of   ,     is   nothing   but   a   dream   while   porter   bridges   still   stands   .       give   the   masked   man   the   power   and   he   will   smite  him   on   your   word   ,     or   even   just   for   the   fun   of   it   . 

‘        I   swore   myself   to   you   ,     i   gave   as   much   of   myself   that   i   could   ,     my   dignity   still   stands   but   my   humanity   is   long   gone   ,     what   else   do   you   expect   of   me   ?       just   to   scare   him   ?       I’m   a   fucking   particle   of   god   ,     let   me   reach   down   and   blow   away   the   dust   that   same   porter   bridges   is   ,     from   this   world   ,     from   this           plan   .       ’ 

@soulstranded​

[soulstranded]

chasiingrain· || mama.

〚 ❣ 〛 Of course, they’d been theorizing such a thing would happen when the network was completed. Based on the bursts of chiral energy, the Sam being sent to Cliff’s beach, the convergence of other beaches together in clashes of mayhem and confusion, she, Lockne, Heartman, and others had begun to think that connecting all the beaches was leading to something like this. But for the master beach to be Amelie’s?

They hadn’t confirmed it yet, but here Mama’s suspicions are laid to rest. She wonders idly, in the back of her mind, if Amelie has encountered Heartman before, but discounts it; she feels like Heartman would have told her if he had.

For a moment, Mama’s gaze follows Amelie’s to the waters at their feet, tracing the path the foam takes past their ankles before receding, but she looks back up at the other woman when she speaks her name - her real name, not the one she’s become accustomed to over time. It feels strange in a way; Amelie had always called her Målingen, never Mama, so it feels familiar, but distant. Like an echo of a memory of simpler times. (More hopeful times.)

“A choice?” she asks with a slight shake of her head. “Amelie, I’m - this is my beach. We all know what that means, I don’t understand what kind of choice I have.” Her tone isn’t accusatory, but factual. Beaches means death to everyone except the repatriates and some luck - or unlucky, as it were - other individuals who make it to beaches only to go back. And yet, she’s intrigued. Is it a choice of death? A choice to repatriate like Sam? She doesn’t dare to hope, but her science-minded brain thinks of the possibilities.

“But I’ll hear them, these choices I have.” Her hands pull together in front of her stomach, fingertips pressing against nails with nervous anticipation.

“Målingen, it’s not just your beach any longer.” A hand curls over her chest, mouth thinning in a line. The waters grow still, now; eerily quiet, heeding her. She is the architect, the ventricles and chambers, the blood and veins and bones of this place. She is its lifeblood, and subsequently, humanity’s end. 

She never wanted to be. But a tiger cannot change its stripes, and a dog cannot ignore its prey drive for long. They can only delay the inevitable -- in this, Amelie is no exception. Oceanic eyes chart the horizon, but her back remains turned to Mama.

“You helped connect the chiral network. You use the Beaches of every soul to transfer information -- in order to do that, in order to connect the network, you must connect the Beaches. Yours. Mine. Everyone’s. It’s why you’re here... And it’s why I’m here, too.”

There’s a whimper, a soft cry. When Amelie turns, cradled in the crook of her arms is an infant. She approaches Mama slowly, hand cupped gently around the baby’s head as she gazes down. Close, and close, and closer, until only inches separate the two -- she offers Målingen’s daughter to her. 

“I wish the choices before you were easier. But they never are. So instead I’ll ask: are you ready?” 

[soulstranded]

on god i will destroy anyone that posts sam/amelie in the tags

[soulstranded]

life's a beach... and so am i

[soulstranded]

edenwander || sam.

❝     That what you think?     ❞   Sam never claimed to play the role of an OPTIMIST. Not anymore, any sort of hope he might have had once for a better future was washed away by the waves of the Beach, taking away what he had once held dear and LOVED like a great tidal wave in the voidout.   ❝     Even if we succeed in this suicide mission, there’s still gonna be BTs. Still gonna have timefall. You know, connecting everyone isn’t going to FIX any of this, right?    ❞    Sure, it might make some things easier for those in the fold. Communicating, sending information, the likes, but even after it all, Sam had no real intention of coming into the fold as well. He was just there to help Amelia and then he could just slip back into his former life. Or so he told himself.

Her mouth thins in a watery smile, eyes creasing at the corners as a hand reaches for his. She cannot fault him for feeling that way, thinking that way. She could never fault him, really. The blame is her mantle to bear, and when this is all over, he will understand that well and truly. The visions he sees are clumsy and unrefined, slogged over by neurochemical flooding endured during sleep. Hers are glimpses of future probabilities; endless strands that can be plucked and threaded and followed to fruition by her in endless repetition. 

Most end in the Last Strand. She feels them all coiling around her wrists now as if they’re dragging her back into the web; invisible to the eye but felt sharp against the skin. This is the only way. 

“And what choice do we have, Sam?” She asks. Amelie’s voice is a strained whisper against the crashing shore. “What other alternatives are there for America than this?”

[soulstranded]

repatriated· || sam.

“NAH, I MEAN—”   but he doesn’t know what he means.   he grasps for answers that aren’t there, that swirl around him in unending uncertainty.   his thoughts are always murky here, sliding through each other until they’re indistinguishable, and yet still somehow there’s a clarity he’s never afforded when he’s awake, when he’s back there.   he lifts his eyes to her face, brow creased.   “can we go back to the way things were?”

“The way things were...” A hand curls over the cage of her heart; knuckles brushing against the collarbone as she stares downward. That question is a loaded one, one that has too many different interpretations to even consider; shifting and changing the same way that the alternate visions swimming before her do. The way things were, when he was alone and solitary? When her physical form still lived in the other world? Or before, before the day he left, before the message printed on the photo was as much a well-wishing as it was an ominous premonition?

Get stranded with love.

“It would be a lie.” Amelie finally says. Amerigo. Soul-lied. Bridget. It would be a lie just as she is a lie, just as she is merely the bright pop of a red hourglass warning for danger on the back of a widower. She can’t go back. Neither can he. He, who hangs in the balance between different worlds. She, a person whose sole function is to end life. She turns, eyes meeting his. “Is that what you want, Sam? To live a lie?”

[soulstranded]

I’ve been thinking a lot about why Amelie would actively remind and encourage and tell Sam that he needs to be the one that would stop her while simultaneously working with Higgs to usher in the end of the world. I think it’s a bit complicated — there’s no simple answer for a being with her capabilities — but it basically breaks down to this:

The DOOMs abilities that others received from her are a direct extension of her own abilities. As confirmed, the horrible dreams that DOOMs sufferers had were the visions she has had since childhood. These dreams and images are said to be one of the motivating factors in suicide attempts/suicide ideation as a means to stop the pain/visions so to speak. Amelie likely has this same ideation but lacks an ability to end her form or existence unless she initiates the Last Stranding.

At the same time, she tells Sam that extinction is not an end but an opportunity. She explains that when each extinction event occurred, life did not end: it evolved and adapted and survived. I think for her she was using Higgs and Sam as pawns of humanity to determine: are you worth surviving? After Edge Knot City, when Sam awakens on the Beach and calls out to Amelie, you see Higgs immediately reach out his palm to Amelie. At first I thought that this was him exerting his abilities but later, after the fight, you see him do it again to Amelie before she simply looks back at him and does nothing. It becomes clear at that moment that he wasn’t doing that to exert his powers, but to channel hers. It was all scripted, and once he “lost” after Sam proved humanity was worth surviving, the channel was cut off — at least in front of Sam and Fragile.

Idk maybe sometimes girls just wanna have FunTM.

[soulstranded]

There's Sam. And then there's Amelie, who is also Samantha. And then there's Heartman, who ends up emailing you and letting you know that he's with a woman named..... Sam.... What's up with that...

[soulstranded]

when she turned around and heralded in the end of all life as we know it... i felt that....

[soulstranded]

@kaizckuou​ // fragile said:  “Burn the house down in search of yourself.” [ meme. ]

The only sign of life from her is the slow tip of her head. Pale hair drifts , winding like vines before she turns to face Fragile. Amelie’s expression lacks the calm placidity seen with so many others that have crossed worlds in meeting her. Ice boring deep, she leaves her tracks in the sand as she approaches. The chirality here hums, something resonant and deep.

“Such destructiveness seems unlike you, Fragile.” The umbrella held in the other woman’s grip turns like a compass, and Amelie here is the North Star. Fragile, Fragile, Fragile. Such a name, but made of stronger stuff to withstand all that she has seen, felt, endured. Amelie’s mouth thins in a humorless smile, gaze cutting to the shores. “Is that advice that you, too, have followed? If so, then tell me: how much did you burn away to know yourself, Fragile? How much did you destroy to see what you were capable of?”

[soulstranded]

i really was a fool going into this game not expecting that i’d have to spend a full day contemplating every single ulterior motive and underlying reason to amelie’s reasons for every person she chose to involve in her plans in this game

[soulstranded]

kaizckuou· || higgs.

                     eyes    watch    the    sky    that    never    changes  ,    he’s    lying    there    -    on    amelie’s    beach    -    with    his    arms    spread    out    wide    &&    feels    no    power    to    get    up  .    there’s    no    point  .    there’s    no    fucking    point    in    anything    &&    higgs    feels    so    tired  .    of    his    own    existence  .    his    jaw    hurts    but    it’s    nothing    compared    with    the    huge    hole    inside    his    chest  .    his    personal    voidout  .    growing    bigger    &&    bigger  ,    eating    him    alive  ,    it    takes    anything    but    disappointment  .    wrapped    around    her    finger  ,    stupid    enough    to    believe    in    the    end    of    this    fucking    world  ,    he    shifts    his    gaze    towards    the    direction    the    voice    comes    from  .    of    course  ,    their    sweet    little    angel    of    death  .    “ right  ,    you    did    try    to    help    me    once  . ”    head    lifted    slightly  ;    swallowing    thickly  ,    higgs    cracks    a    bitter    grin  .    “ and    then    you    fucked    everything    up  ,    thank    you    very    much  . ”    sudden    wave    of    anger  ,    it    makes    him    bare    his    teeth    right    before    his    tilts    his    head    backwards    again  .    it’s    so    fucking    frustrating    it    pisses    him    off  .    the    only    thing    higgs    is    longing    for    now    is    to    turn    off    all    these    feelings  .    “ if    you    want    to    help    that    much  ,    then    be    my    guest    and    let    me    fucking    die    already  . ”    put    an    end    to    all    this    nonsense  .

An Extinction Entity’s role is to challenge the living, make them prove themselves worthy of survival through adversarial conflict. She had no choice in that. She never did. But she resisted it, and in doing so Amelie’s body would be forever lost to the other world of the living, a realization she had come to prepare for when the cells within her vessel began to corrode and die. It was always supposed to be Sam, until it was not. And then, it was Higgs. Higgs, the Other Side of the coin. Higgs, the self-proclaimed particle of god. He sought power, and so she gave it. Flooded him with DOOMS, shaped him into a tool that soon desired to become a weapon.

And now the tool was cracked, severed by no other than the polar opposite of the coin. She takes her time in approaching his supine form on the beach. Red bleeding in against blackened gold; red not unlike the marks that stain his face. Amelie kneels beside him, a calm fortitude against forlorn bitterness, pale hair cascading over her shoulders as she peers down at him. “I will always help you, Higgs. Even if you don’t understand how, or why.”

Her hand is held out to his face. His soul is battered, hurting and withering and wanting an end. He calls her an Angel of Death out of twin parts hope and rage, but such an angel is just as capable of buffering death away as it is granting it. It was what she had done for him. For Sam. For so many others. She doesn’t touch him, but instead waits. So many realities unfolding and shifting like a kaleidoscope. All she can do is present the different strands of them and let the others choose. “You have two choices. You can pass over, join the world of the dead, and never look back. Or I can fulfill my promise to you: wipe the slate clean. Your slate. Allow you to return, free and anew. Allow you to know peace from my connection, from my dreams. I meant what I said, you know. Extinction is an opportunity — your opportunity to evolve and grow.”

[soulstranded]

When Amelie healed Sam’s soul and rejected it on the Beach, her abilities — once kept locked within the Beach — soon flooded the world by traveling through Sam. She could never control who received it, but she can choose to enhance or degrade their abilities; much like Higgs’ were enhanced when he and Amelie met. She does however, choose who is and is not a repatriate. Repatriates fall under the DOOMS umbrella but are separate entirely; they are beings whose souls are rejected from the Beach, and not allowed to pass into the world of the dead, thus forcing them back to their bodies in the world of the living.

She chose Sam because it was not his time, he was too young and his death was the burden of her recklessness, and her fault. Other repatriates are no different: individuals that died when she felt it was not their time: children or those whose efforts and tenacity felt representative of the humanity she wants to save. Similar to Sam, they will see Amelie on their beach if they die, and she will guide them back into the sea before plunging them under. Most, however, do not see her face or know who she is, and any accounts of her are referred to her simply as the Woman in Red.

[soulstranded]

starters  /  prompts taken from f. d. soul’s work ,  between you and these bones .  feel free to change pronouns  /  tenses as necessary .

‘  the problem is you keep trying to use your eyes  ’

‘  how i soften when you pull me against you  ’

‘  you are teaching me to love  ’

‘  i will pretend that i have not already heard the question in your eyes  ’

‘  you perhaps will become my swan song  ’

‘  it is a very human thing to love  ’

‘  you are my good days  ’

‘  i have been loved dearly  ’

‘  i promise you will not always be this war  ’

‘  thank god for the stubbornness of organs  ’

‘  it takes me seven days to stop being in love with you  ’

‘  there will always be another day  ’

‘  there will always be another mercy  ’

‘  perhaps i will take up dancing again  ’

‘  what a pretty little disaster you will be  ’

‘  i am terrified for you  ’

‘  i will fold inside of myself  ’

‘  today i am thankful  ’

‘  i didn’t want to sleep because i didn’t want to wake  ’

‘  come and get me  ’

‘  i tell myself i do not need you  ’

‘  i think i broke again last night  ’

‘  i’m just trying to connect with you  ’

‘  you are an ocean that will perhaps never stop crashing  ’

‘  burn the house down in search of yourself  ’

‘  don’t you dare ever stop looking  ’

‘  i struggle not to feel guilty  ’

‘  you are a wild  ,  unkempt thing  ’

‘  sometimes it is a very sad thing to be human and longing  ’

‘  find that you are made of russian nesting dolls  ’

‘  the trees are always kindest with spring comes  ’

‘  teach yourself the hymns again  ’

‘  he is every amen i have ever laid down on lips  ’

‘  this life is an altar  ’

‘  i am sorry i do not have more time  ’

‘  there is a mountain in me  ’

‘  by the morning i am a triumph  ’

‘  there are words playing hooky in the back of your throat  ’

‘  today is by far the most beautiful creature i have ever come across  ’

‘  there are many things that will fit beneath your skin  ’

‘  forgiveness does not take up much room  ’

‘  some days you will breathe and it will be enough  ’

‘  you do not have to hold it quite so tightly  ’

‘  there is a prayer in me  ,  still  ’

‘  you scare me a little  ’

‘  you can be a good thing and not a whole thing  ’

‘  there are flowers in my chest again  ’

‘  the rain comes and sounds like you  ’

‘  i cannot tell you why i still trust god  ’

‘  find peace and build a home out of it  ’

‘  there is never an end  ’

[soulstranded]

[soulstranded]

that said, amelie’s a sympathetic figure but she still killed innocent people, manipulated others, used their own ambitions/desires against them, and while it may have been for a potential “greater good” it never justifies her actions and the people she’d hurt.