#And They Lived

[callilemon]

@bookdragonwrites, thank you for creating such a wonderful story!

HAPPY ATL ANNIVERSARY 💜💙

Noé & Vanitas are telling you to read it! What are you still doing on the post??

[itzshrike]

Not the ending I needed, but it was the ending I wanted

[wafflebloggies]

word art I found in a thrift store

unintentionally perfect.

[bookdragonwrites]

ooo perhaps this bit from "all seems lost"?:

"His eyes open to a place he doesn’t know, a man he doesn’t recognise. The man’s clothes are dirty, blood-stained, and torn beyond repair. His eyes are purple. When the man opens his mouth in apparent surprise, there are fangs. A vampire. He fears vampires. He must fight. Damn it, where are his knives? He must flee, then, but his limbs won’t cooperate.

‘When you say, “I’ll live”, that usually means, “I came very fucking close to not living”, so don’t give me any of your drivel about how you’re fine, really.’

Noé carrying him. Vanitas fails to be annoyed about this being necessary.

‘Instead, Noé nearly died. I don’t recall you doing anything to prevent that.’

The air smells sweet. There’s a wildflower by the roadside. It’s the same colour as Noé’s eyes. How painfully sentimental of him to notice that.

‘I’m Noé. We’re friends. I won’t hurt you, I swear it.’

Noé asleep in their hotel room in Paris, his sheets kicked into disarray, drool leaking onto his pillow. An idiot even when he’s unconscious. The Vanitas of the past looks on fondly, thinking that if he isn’t careful, he might just —"

I’m sorry it took me so long to write out my thoughts, but let’s get this show on the road, dear anon.

[note for everyone else: this is from All Seems Lost, a short companion piece to And They Lived (ATL hereafter)]

I wrote All Seems Lost in something of a hurry, because I had the idea for it not long before I was set to publish the chapter of ATL to which it is a companion. As a result, I had to tinker with it a bit after I posted it, and I’m still not super-duper happy with the whole thing. Nevertheless, I do actually quite like the extract you sent me.

I find Vanitas’s point of view quite difficult to write. He’s an angry, sharp, purposely contradictory man, and it’s so hard to get a read on what’s going on with him in canon. Who knows what he’s thinking, or what he means, or how he feels about anything or anyone? It’s hard to get him to engage with emotions!

One thing that’s clear to me, though, is that he does care. He cares a lot. Especially where Noé is concerned. And that’s where I tried to put the focus in the sequence of memory snippets this extract is from. Originally, I wrote them all in chronological order, but that seemed rather flat, because they covered so many different moments in a rather disconnected way. So I wondered where the focus should be, then. If not chronologically, how should I order them? What’s important to Vanitas as he’s reliving these moments? What’s his subconscious trying to tell him? What’s he been suppressing, all this time? And the answer became kind of obvious: he’s dwelling on Noé, and all the ways just about everything in his life has started to revolve around, of all people, an Archiviste.

He’s resisting it with all he has, and yet, in the back of his mind, he’s thinking about Noé constantly. And in this fic, he’s so tired, so lost, so close to giving up on everything, that those thoughts manage to break through his defences. Given that context, what’s the story these memories are trying to tell him? I put the memories that have little or nothing to do with Noé at the beginning – to lull Vanitas into a false sense of security, perhaps – and then I moved onto the memories that have Noé in them, but they aren’t strictly about him. From there, the fragments grow more and more emotionally charged, until they end with a partial scene from months ago. That’s where we were going all along, it turned out: look, Vanitas, you’ve cared for him for so long, why do you keep pretending you don’t? Turns out Vanitas can’t handle that question yet, so he finally manages to put his barricades back up. Still, a seed of wondering has been planted.

Now let’s take a look at some bits in detail.

His eyes open to a place he doesn’t know, a man he doesn’t recognise. […]A vampire. He fears vampires. He must fight. Damn it, where are his knives? He must flee, then, but his limbs won’t cooperate.

This, I think, is fairly straightforward (if you’ve read ATL, that is). He’s waking up after yet another fit, and he’s extremely disoriented. This is the only time in the ATL-verse that we get Vanitas’s perspective on what it’s like when that happens, and that’s why I thought it’d be interesting to include here. It’s a moment of complete terror, and Vanitas pretty much always falls back on aggression when he’s afraid. It’s also the first memory in the sequence that has Noé as the main focus, but it’s more detached than the ones that come after. Noé is the bad guy here, an enemy, a stranger. I thought that would be an interesting perspective to include.

‘When you say, “I’ll live”, that usually means, “I came very fucking close to not living”, so don’t give me any of your drivel about how you’re fine, really.’

Next, we get Vanitas scolding Noé for acting like his injuries don’t matter. He knows who Noé is, but he’s angry with him. It’s coming from a place of caring about Noé’s well-being, of course, but Noé is still a little bit the bad guy, at least from Vanitas’s perspective. Also, it’s kind of a thesis statement for ATL as a whole: these idiots just do not care enough about their own well-being, because they’re too busy protecting each other.

‘Instead, Noé nearly died. I don’t recall you doing anything to prevent that.’

More scolding, this time in defence of Noé. Vanitas being protective of Noé warms my heart, so it had to be included.

The air smells sweet. There’s a wildflower by the roadside. It’s the same colour as Noé’s eyes. How painfully sentimental of him to notice that.

Vanitas has a soft side? Say it ain’t so! Seriously, though, the flower by the road is the image that stuck with me the most from this fic. Noé is something of a wildflower himself: artless, hardy, happy to grow wherever he can get the basic necessities, always ready to cheer up a weary traveller with his simple beauty, yet easily trampled by a careless foot. There is also the contrast between the innocent, cheerful flower and the horrors they both went through that day. I thought would be quite interesting to highlight that, because he did in fact take the time to notice that the world isn’t completely awful, and usually that’s Noé’s job.

Noé asleep in their hotel room in Paris, his sheets kicked into disarray, drool leaking onto his pillow. An idiot even when he’s unconscious. The Vanitas of the past looks on fondly, thinking that if he isn’t careful, he might just —

I mean. Yeah. Vanitas, my honey, my sweetie pie, my darling, you have been in love with this man for months and months, and living in denial is not going to work forever. And I could not resist shoving it in his face, because I am very mean. Also, there’s just something about Vanitas’s fond exasperation that gives me the warm fuzzies.

—

As I was writing this commentary, I noticed an irony I hadn’t even intended: normally, it’s Noé, as an Archiviste, who’s closely associated with memories. In this fic, though, it’s Vanitas who’s dragged down into memories (his own, but still), looking on and powerless to change anything. I’m not quite sure what that means, thematically, but I think there’s something there to consider.

———

Thank you very much for the ask, anon! I hope this was a satisfying deep-dive!

[lgbtqreads]

YA eBooks on Sale for Under $4

[whitevesper]

AAAAAAAAA (yeah, good beginning)

so i have neighbors.

one of them has long black hair and black nails, also he wears earrings.

the second one has kinda light brown hair and wears completely grandpa sweaters.

and they call each other “my moon” and “my star”

that’s all for today.

[jadescornerofinternetinsanity]

Just finished the final chapter of Crimson Rivers. I don't even have the *words* for how much this fic meant to me like. I think Zar is one of the best writers of our generation and this fic touched parts of me I didn't even know existed anymore. I'm so grateful and moved and in awe and full of love and loss and hope.

It's a work of art. It's beautiful. It's what every piece of writing should aspire to.

[paintedcrows]

Did anyone tell Ford (bonus doodles: Family Movie Night, 70s Classics)

[parttimepunner]

Pour one out for a real one.

[vilea777]

sorry i cant hang out i forgot how to mimic human like behaviour

[koobiie]

shoutout to everyone who wants to infodump but cant string together coherent thoughts to form sentences and instead just look at you like this

[callilemon]

HUGE SHOUT OUT TO MY AMAZING FRIEND, @bookdragonwrites !!

They're so rad and sent me such lovely gifts!

Even!!! The original "make Noé curse" comic!! Of course, as insane as I am, I decided to frame it to immortalize it forever 🥰

Same with the Vanoé flowers 😭 DO YOU SEE HOW AMAZING THOSE ARE? EXCUSE ME!

I'm just so elated rn it's making me feral... THANK YOU SO MUCH AGAIN, I CANT EVEN BEGIN TO TELL YOU HOW MUCH YOU MEAN TO ME!

^^ stupid memes I "made" as a joke. Heh.

[maudiemoods]

If life is a never ending loop of dirty dishes and laundry then that means life is a never ending loop of home cooked meals and comfy clean clothes

[bookdragonwrites]

Final chapter's up.

It's bittersweet, but at least there are still some extras.

[monsieurenjlolras]

you've heard of "quiet quitting," now I'd like to introduce you to the next level, The French Work Ethic:

Do exactly what you're paid for and nothing more

Absolutely refuse to be available to contact when you're off the clock

Never prioritize work over your own health, wellbeing, or family because that would be insane, it's just a job.

Have a little glass of wine

Take as long as you feel like for lunch

Deeply understand that work doesn't matter

Make sure your boss knows they're always your second priority ❤️

[mischieviem]

You guys realize this means we ALL have to vote now. No "don't wanna vote biden" excuses now- if we don't vote our rights are going to be taken away.