#and how grief can fester and infect

[magicwithered]

I could go on and talk about how Laerryn is not, in the end, motivated by hubris. Though The Age of Arcane is the age of Wizards who believe themselves bigger than gods. Or, or, I could talk about how Laerryn Coramar-Seelie was pushed by grief so deep it doesn’t just come in waves, it never fucking leaves.

How “It’s stupid to try and become a god” because she asked for the gods to save her friend. Pleaded with them to bring them back. That it was hubris that got her friend killed, and Laerryn is not the smartest person in Avalir for nothing. That she crushed it under her heel, but if her best friend, the greatest person she’s ever known had to die for her ambitions than it better well be fucking worth it.

That it is love, and love lost, that motivates her to do the things she does. And the fear of losing love again and again that motivates her to cast blight, despite her having paused for a second to listen.

Pride was her fatal flaw when Evandrian died. But it was not when she helped cause the calamity. It was love and love alone. Because pride is for people who don’t get shit done, pride is for the undeserving. She built a cathedral with her own two hands between working and researching. Between grief and mourning. Of course Laerryn is proud of herself, of course she believes in herself. She’s the goddamn Architect Arcane, she keeps this city afloat, makes discoveries for people to eventually use. She is the heart of the city. But she does not still her hand in pride, but fear, but love.

Love is what causes the Calamity. Love for Loquatious, love for Patia, love for her people. And also deep unsettling grief. Grief for what was lost to her, grief that the gods did not grant Evandrian reprieve. Grief for all the things that she could not save. Why would she waste her time trying to become a god, when she can show the gods that even them, even the mundane, even the mortals that they’ve created can do wonderful things and perform miracles. That they do not need them to grant them wishes, that they can do it themselves instead of waiting for the whims and whimsies of the Primordials to pay them any attention.

Why would the gods give her this power, this intelligence that she’s honed like a finally tuned instrument if not so that she can show them all that Avalir can be? And in the end, how could she learn? Why would she change everything? Change anything. In the end, her point was proven, the things she lost were no longer for naught. How could she ever regret what happened if in the end it was for love?

[coelakanths]

reading ur response to the mushroom shadow knights post my brain went "oh so they're hotter? Laurence is hotter???????"

UES EXACTLT

[lets-try-some-writing]

Yo! Special delivery! *kicks down door*

So it’s safe to assume that TFP Soundwave has lost Buzzsaw, Ratbat, Frenzy, and Rumble and only had Laserbeak left. One could only imagine how much pain and grief that brings Soundwave but his Carrier codes must be going insane at the sight of humans given that cassettes and humans are ruffle the same height and are chaotic in nature.

I also imagine that his codes go crazy at the sight of children, so~ add Jack, Raf, and Miko to a still grieving Soundwave, who’s protocols are SCREAMING at him that those three cassette sparklings need him.

I LOVE this idea. Thank you for throwing this request at me! Now I have an excuse to write about my fav spy master.

Organic Cassette Sparklings

To Soundwave, his cassettes were his everything. His mind and body belonged to the Decepticons and Megatron, but his spark was only for his little ones. As such the loss of his cassettes one by one in short succession very nearly drove him mad from grief. He was blessed to still have Laserbeak, but she was also suffering from the loss of her brothers.

Soundwave thought time would heal the wounds in his spark, but it didn't. It anything, the pain from the loss of so many of his cassettes grew worse as if time was an infection slowly festering within his shattered self. By the time he arrived on earth, he was so lost that he could hardly think beyond his orders, his sense of being so broken that he couldn't bring himself to care. The only reason he still marched onward was because of Laserbeak, his last remaining cassette. But sometimes even she wasn't enough, sometimes he just wanted everything to end- to return to silence.

On those days he left the nemesis behind and went to the ground to try and shake his thoughts. It didn't work all that often, but it was better than the sickening monotony of his room on the nemesis and the constant problems that always popped up. More often than not he just wandered around the area nearest to the nemesis's coordinates. But after being deployed on a mission on the ground for the first time in centuries, Soundwave found himself stunned as his instincts screamed at him.

Right in front of him were three small organics, human children he knew to be under the care of the Autobots. But as he looked upon their terrified faces and their small shaking forms, all he could see were three cassette sparklings that needed a carrier to protect and nurture them. He would have snatched them up right then and there if it weren't for orders coming straight from Megatron demanding he return. Even then he still hesitated, taking a photo of the children and burning every detail of their forms into his processors for later analysis. And when all was said and done and Soundwave was back on the nemesis, he actually felt alive for once. Laserbeak felt similarly after looking at the images taken of the children. Soundwave wanted to care for cassettes, his carrier instincts demanded it, and Laserbeak wanted siblings. They agreed and soon after threw aside anything not related to finding a way to get the human children in their possession, or at least find a way to gain interaction with them.

It was a difficult thing to figure out, mainly because organics require different care than cassettes, but Soundwave spent weeks dutifully reading parenting books, biology texts, phycology papers, education documents, and medical websites until he felt sure of himself. Then he slowly began accumulating things small organic cassettes would need. Laserbeak did most of the collecting (not that she minded), often bringing soft fabrics, the odd piece of furniture, and enough canned food to last a nuclear winter. Then once they got everything in order, Soundwave made his move, heading to every battle secretly to watch and see if the human children were present or not. And this he did for months until at last the opportunity came, one he did not miss.

Taking care to ensure none saw him, Soundwave snatched up the human children and hurriedly put them into his carrying chamber which he had fixed up beforehand to not be harmful to the children. Then before anyone could react, (Autobot or Decepticon) Soundwave took to the air and returned to the nemesis as if he had never left. Not even Megatron suspected a thing as Soundwave stalked back to his chambers, locked the door, let Laserbeak get settled, and finally pulled the children out.

They were decidedly unhappy if their screams were anything to go by. But Soundwave expected such a response, Rumble and Frenzy behaved similarly when he first took them in as well. Soundwave was accustomed to having to take things slow and let his little cassettes warm up to him. Besides, he had spent plenty of time learning what humans needed. He was feeling fairly confident in his ability to have the children relax around him eventually. And for six whole months, Soundwave had the children in his care, unknown to anyone and kept safely hidden away where only he and laserbeak knew.

Rafael was the first to warm up to Soundwave, caving in around two weeks into being under Soundwave's supervision. Soundwave paid special attention to him due to his need for glasses and his young age. The spy master was very dutiful in collecting food that met all of the nutritional requirements of human adolescents, and he took extra care to ensure Rafael was always able to get to his glasses. He would regularly pat Rafael on the head, ruffling his hair with gentleness reserved for his cassettes. He would teach Rafael bits and pieces of Cybertronian while also ensuring that the boy was taught things the human documents said were normal for his age group. This task was not at all hard considering the relative simplicity of human education, so Soundwave may or may not have thrown a few more advanced subjects into the boy's education as well.

Rafael for his part adapted well to being in Soundwave's care. He learned quickly that no harm would come to him and came to even enjoy being with Soundwave even if he longed to return to the ground and the Autobots. He was fond of Soundwave and took pride in doing things Cybertronian young performed, which always earned him a loving nuzzle from his originally unwanted Cybertronian caretaker. Laserbeak for her part loved to sit with Rafael during his studies and play games with him, mainly some form of ball or a version of chess not too dissimilar from the human version. All in all, Rafael was content, if a little cooped up.

Miko was the second child to crack as she came to find herself enjoying listening to music with Soundwave and being caught before she could escape. While at first it was a desperate bid for freedom, it turned into a game and even a learning experience as Soundwave taught her how to better hide and use her size to her advantage in combat. By the time month three rolled around, she was invested in her studies with Soundwave and regularly sat on his shoulder to listen to music with him, often singing along happily and play fighting with Laserbeak. She hated being cooped up, but she liked being able to watch what happened on the nemesis, even going so far as to suggest funny pranks to Soundwave (who on occasion actually implemented the pranks because it was what his little cassette wanted).

Soundwave always took great care to foster Miko's musical capabilities, teaching her songs from Cybertron and showing her how to play sized down versions of their instruments. And while he did school her in other things, music was her passion and he did not take that from her, instead encouraging it and helping her to channel it into something practical. She was a small organic cassette, she needed a defense, so Soundwave gave her a set of blasters which would hook up to her instrument. Of course he kept it offline or at a low setting, but Miko loved the gift nonetheless. She especially came to love using it in mock battles with Laserbeak who would play dead to give Miko the gratification of victory.

Jack was the last to crack, taking nearly four months before he fully accepted Soundwave's affection. Soundwave took extra care of Jack's emotional state, mainly because it reminded him greatly of Frenzy, his emotionally scarred and battered cassette. He went to great lengths to make Jack comfortable and to help the boy work through his panic attacks and other mental issues. And surprisingly, Soundwave's attempts began to work, even helping Jack gain confidence as he tutored him in all sorts of subjects. Before long Jack was flourishing academically and showing an interest in combat after seeing Miko do so well. Soundwave offered his little organic cassette a set of energon blades in response, ones which he quickly began showing him how to use. And after only a month or so, Jack was proficient in their usage without having anything aside from the school work Soundwave assigned him to do.

Jack came to love simply sitting with Soundwave quietly, watching the security feed with him and sometimes discussing old stories and his problems. Soundwave of course always listened, never speaking up and instead letting Jack vent all his frustrations patiently. In his mind, Jack really was just like Frenzy, a tough exterior with a soft interior personality wise. And just like with Frenzy, Soundwave was patient and offered all the companionship and comfort in the world when Jack felt comfortable enough to speak with him. Laserbeak also came to love having Jack lay against her side as they watched a film or something of the sort, even purring to him when he had nightmares when he fell asleep by accident.

To Soundwave everything was going perfectly. He finally had cassettes to look after and they were opening up to him far faster than anticipated. He was ecstatic. But as will all good things, it came to an end too quickly for his liking when an attack on the nemesis forced Soundwave to put the children in his carrying chamber and hurry out of his quarters. By some means, the Autobots had confirmed that the human children were on the nemesis and they were angry. Soundwave ran for his life as he sprinted down the halls, heading for the upper decks to escape capture and to get his human cassettes to safety. But that was not to be. Before long the Autobots found him, having locked onto the human children's life signal stemming from him.

He tried to fight, but with the children in his carrying chamber, he eventually accepted capture and was dragged back to the Autobot base. When there he was strapped down and interrogated immediately, the Autobots not being nearly as kind as they were known for.

Optimus: Where are the children?

Arcee: What did you do to them!?

Ratchet: If they are dead I can promise you will re-join the Allspark before Primus can hear your prayers.

Soundwave: ...

Soundwave: Cassettes: Secured. Safe.

Sensing his defeat and only wanting his little cassettes to be safe, Soundwave opening his carrying chamber and allowed the children to clamber out in wonder. There were tears, hugs, and tender embraces, but Soundwave watched it all in apathy. He was going to lose his cassettes again... and he wasn't sure he could handle it.

At least that was what he thought until the children explained and fought in Soundwave's defense. The spymaster could only watch in awe of his cassettes as they spoke for him, pointing out that he merely wanted to care for them and that he never so much as touched a hair on their heads with harmful intent. In response to this, Optimus made an offer.

Optimus: Soundwave... you wish to care for the children more than you wish to serve Megatron, yes?

Soundwave: ...

Optimus: If that is true, why not join us? You can care for them without fear here.

Soundwave: ...

Soundwave: Offer: Will be considered.

[lewkwoodnco]

The Alcott - Lockwood x reader

A/N: (1.8k) lil bit of angst, a little bit of a happy ending, kind of a sequel to the august (tsitp trailer version) fic which you can read here

It had been a while since she’d seen Lockwood and a little while longer since he’s seen her. They were a busy agency and occupied themselves well - better than she occupied herself. She read their glowing articles in the papers and traced their outlines in their photos. Nobody else would have noticed the slight gap between Lockwood and Lucy, but she did. Not that it seemed to matter much anyway. They looked so normal, so capable, when all she felt like was a wreck.

She stayed holed up in her apartment for the first few weeks, face pressed against the dark window of the miserable flat she rented. She watched people scurry home as curfew approached, home to people who cared about them. A part of her felt that thought that wasn’t fair, and maybe it wasn’t, but she was too bitter to care. Bitter about what, she didn’t know. Her glassy eyes would reflect the pale glow of the ghosts as they shimmered in the streets, and a funny feeling would creep into her stomach when she realised all one had to do was reach up and touch her, and there wouldn’t be anyone to protect her, to pull her away from the window, to snap some sense back in her. In short, she had been having a terrible time, and in her grief, her resentment festered and oozed and infected her life.

Days passed in a blur, and eventually she had started leaving her dim dwelling, without realising. She felt badly scarred and numb and there was this grim quality to her life that made joy and grief one and the same. Lucy wrote her a letter; how she found her new address was beyond her but her knee-jerk thought was that if Lucy could have found it, so could have Lockwood. She didn’t believe anything in that letter anyway - it was probably riddled with exaggerations and half-truths just to get her to come back.

Lockwood and co’s articles piled up and littered her floors until she couldn’t bear to read them, only spitefully glancing at the pictures. Sometimes Lucy looked a little pale or shaky, or George looked exhausted, but not Lockwood. If anything, his eyes grew brighter and brighter with some manic energy, clutching George and Lucy tighter to his sides each time. It was revolting. Rude, even.

But her savings were running low, and she knew it would only be a matter of time before she’d have to go back home to her family. But home was so far away from here, so far away from 35 Portland Row, and maybe a part of her felt that going home meant never coming back. Even after all the glaring and stabbing their pictures right between his eyes, there had been something comforting in feeling like one day she’d wake up from this delusion, from being this angry mess and she’d walk right back in and they’d throw their arms around her like no time had passed and Lockwood would finally look at her like she was something more than vapour.

Her days were running thin, so on one of her last nights she decided to go to that cafe they’d eat at when there were lulls in the case. It was the closest she could get to an indirect goodbye. She was sitting at the back of the cafe like they always did, in a corner just dim enough for her to hide in the shadows she was going to melt back into soon. She wasn’t a sentimental person but she did keep a diary even though the others teased her endlessly about it, but she didn’t care. As she flipped through the older pages, stiff with hope and love, it felt like no time had passed at all - Lockwood was just as alive and breathing in her mind as he had been before she left.

It was deathly quiet in the little shop, with it being past curfew, but she couldn’t stay forever. Her mind was scattered and it was difficult to write, like a weakened muscle long forgotten. So she wrote about the common denominator of all her thoughts- Lockwood. How she missed him, how she wished he was here, how she felt her heart would stop if she ever heard his voice again. Somehow, it was as if her words slipped off the pages into reality, because she heard a rustle of fabric and there was Lockwood, standing in front of her.

She must have gaped at him for a minute, because one minute he was standing in front of her and the next, sitting opposite her, his expression as inscrutable as the day she left. They exchanged pleasantries but they were both a bit like goldfish, in that neither of them knew exactly what to say.

“I check the papers…sometimes. You guys look- you look good. Lots of cases.”

“Oh, yes, thank you.”

Silence.

“You know, I wondered sometimes - just a thought, and I’d forget it nearly as soon as it came - whether you’d seen the photos. Wasn’t sure…”

More silence.

“Come here often?”

“No, no, I was just in the area and I thought I’d pop in.”

“Pop in here, but not home?”

Something ugly reared up inside of her to hear him say home so casually like that, when she obviously meant nothing to him. She wanted to hurt him, stab his voodoo doll needle by needle, screaming at the top of her lungs.

“I’m leaving. London, that is.”

Lockwood’s barely cynical expression softened. She didn’t know what made her say that - she didn’t need to, god, he probably didn’t even care. But she couldn’t stop the past few weeks from spilling out.

“There’s nothing left for me here anyways. It’s cold, the only apartment I can barely afford is pathetic, I’ve become so miserable I could look at a daisy and hate it for being so happy, it takes so much of me to just walk out the door and breathe and live like normal people. Just tell me how to forget about you and your stupid love and move on-”

“That’s ridiculous,” Lockwood told the tablecloth in a brisk tone. “You have so much here, you have us- ”

“Then why won’t you even look at me?” She was embarrassingly close to tears, but it wasn’t like she was ever going to see him after tonight, so what did anything matter?

Lockwood’s lips were pressed together and he finally raised his gaze, though not without some effort. It was almost embarrassing to have him watch her sniffle like this but she drank his eyes in desperately, like a man starved, and she didn’t even care.

“You left.”

She could barely croak out a whisper. “And you were supposed to care.”

Lockwood had this look of irrepressible thoughts and words bubbling under his surface, but he remained quiet.

“Give me…one good reason. I’d stay.”

“We miss you.”

“Not good enough.”

“Fine. I miss you.”

She slammed her hands on the table. “As if! You never wrote, you never visited, and don’t insult my intelligence by pretending you couldn’t have-“

“Yes, I could have visited you and yes, I didn’t, but not because I didn’t want to!” Lockwood’s face was white with suppressed anger. “Believe me, I’ve dreamt of it, of dragging you out of whatever hellhole you’d scurried off and bringing you home, but what was I supposed to say? ‘Oh, Y/N, please please please come back, I feel so lost without you and my life has no meaning anymore that every job is just a game of how fast I can join my dear old family! And that’s a good enough reason for you to continue risking your neck, believing in my fool’s gold when no sane person will, so come along while I worry myself half to death over situations I put you into.’ ”

And as she looked at Lockwood, she had that horrifying realisation that the only reason she had been stuck in that cycle of hatred and feeling like death was because she had been so angry with herself. The same anger brewing that had her frothing at the mouth had been swelling up in Lockwood too.

He scratched his arm absent-mindedly, slightly breathless, and she knew how he felt. She felt like she was breaking out in hives, it was all too much, too much to bear.

“I risk my neck…for you. Because I want to. And nothing, no ghost, type one, two or three could scare me off. I’d go for any and every crazy plan like I had a death wish as long as you were on board. In some ways,” she puzzled, staring into her coffee, “I think that’s my greatest crime. I didn’t stop you…I never have, and I’m probably not strong enough to ever do it.”

“You’d stop me.” He was looking at her in a strange way now. “I know you’d find the strength somewhere inside of you to stop me from jumping into fires. At least, you’ve been successful so far.”

It was a stupid half-joke, but they laughed anyways, and suddenly their fight was stupid too. There was something about the crow’s feet peeking at the edge of Lockwood’s eyes that made him irresistibly young, undoing the damage of years of dealing with the Problem for just a split second. It made him look boyish and full of life, thrumming with energy. Suddenly, she realised Lockwood was studying her curiously, though no where as intensely as she was looking at him, and she smiled awkwardly.

“I’ve always wondered where you run off to when you space out like that. It’s like your little…” Lockwood paused, tapping his temple, “your little…golden…birdcage of thoughts, just flirting about. After the poltergeist,” the shadows on his face deepened ever so slightly, “it was like I could…feel you, retreating back to it whenever you guessed none of us was paying too much attention. Like something…fascinated you, drew you in…away from us. So I was mad because I had to be. I needed to snap you out of it, smash that cage you were so wrapped up in. And then the next morning…your bed was empty.”

She spoke carefully. “I can’t quite explain it, but believe me; you’d be better off without me.” It was her Achilles heel, her Midas touch, that all she had to do was touch Lockwood and he’d be frozen in gold to be forever admired and loved in her head, but little more than dead to anyone else. Her touch brought ruin, but it seemed like a small price for him to pay after how he ruined her.

He seemed frustrated, but she felt oddly at peace. It was as though a vacancy had formed in her heart where her love for him would echo for days and nights until her last breath, but there simply wasn’t room for it in the real world. How cruel it was, to be able to reach out and feel everything she wanted under her fingertips, and having to pull away.

“I think I’m…falling back in love with you.”

[fanfiction-artist-prototype]

Will never get over the fact that Jason Todd, a character so many hate because of his violence, hated because he ‘just wants to kill the joker’, hated because many don’t believe ‘has any justification’; a character who so many dislike because he’s not like the other robins; he isn’t funny, or quirky, or a bit weird but in a cooky way that makes you ignore his trauma, a character that so many dislike because he as a character centres around the fact he clawed his way out of his coffin age fifteen screaming, who centres around the pain of betrayal, who centres around what happens when you leave the rot to fester until it’s a murderous infection; A character who so many dislike because he isn’t ‘good’ enough compared to the Robins we’ve had before and after him, is the way he is because people voted for a fifteen year old comic book character to be murdered by the Batman’s worst foe.

I will never get over the fact that so many people dislike Jason Todd because of his brutality, and his violence when the very brutality and violence of comic book readers is what caused him to be that way.

When he was Robin, he wasn’t good enough alive because he wasn’t ‘Dick Grayson’, he was a grungier Robin, a robin who had seen what it was like living in the conditions Batman was trying to stop; he was a Robin who had seen that Bruce’s methods didn’t always work. And that wasn’t good enough, he didn’t embody ROBIN enough - a thought reflected in the character themselves...

And so people voted for him to be murdered by the Joker.

And then when he comes back, screaming (in pain, body not quite realising that the BEATINGS had stopped) and clawing his way out of his own coffin and being so wrapped up in grief and pain and embodying everything that the consequences of unnecessary violence entail he’s still ‘bad’, still not ‘Good’ enough.

Under the Red Hood is my favourite animated Batman movie and my favourite story arc for Jason Todd - followed up by a Death in the Family which the movie briefly touches on-  in no small part because when you come face to face with Jason Todd and all he can do is ask his Father why he wasn’t important enough to avenge it hits; because how many people can sit there and watch as the people that have hurt them don’t get punished, how many people can sit there and rage and scream ‘why am i not important? was what I went through not bad enough?’ 

But not only that, it’s important because it shows that Jason’s still that kid who crawled out of his grave, he’s still scared and alone.

And when Jason Todd- Red Hood acts violent he’s returning violence with violence. 

Batman’s job is to scare, he’s a force there to make people think twice to committing crime. Fear and intimidation are Batman’s strong suit; it’s why you’ll get panels and scenes of crooks running when they see the Bat’s shadow. Red Hood’s job isn’t to scare and intimidate; it’s to control.

Batman wants to isolate the issue and provide resources to help fix the source of the pain and suffering.

Red Hood wants to cut it off at the source and dig the roots up, to spray pesticide in the cracks left behind and cultivate what little gets through into something useful.

Going back to the Under the Red Hood movie - when he ‘bargains’ with the crime lords he doesn’t try and get them to see the ‘errors of their ways’ or stop doing crime, he lets them continue under HIS control; because at the top he can make sure things don’t get out of control, he can stop the worst of it. The ‘and no selling to kids. GOT IT.’ part standing out the most.

And it just mystifies me how people can go on about how Red Hood is a ‘bad character’, a bad ‘batfamily member’ for his violence when it’s the very thing that created him.

Jason Todd to me, especially his earlier characterisation as Red Hood, is meant to embody blood for blood. You wanted him dead, killed and tortured by the worst villain Batman has - and you want to complain about the consequences of violence?

I thought one of the lessons of Batman’s rogue gallary was ‘all it takes is one bad day’, well I’m pretty sure ‘A Death in the Family’ was a series of the worst days rolled into one arc.

[notquiteaghost]

hymn by the narcissist cookbook is an album about grief, & dissociation, & art as a coping mechanism – when you make a piece of art to cope with something but it's also an avoidance tactic because by putting the something into an art piece you are removing it from yourself. listening to this album makes my ears ring. i hadn't for a hot minute and i just did and i started thinking how i could do a similar thing but with poems, by which i mean i could make a collection of poems that are me attempting to process my feelings about my dad and also pull those feelings out entirely so i don't have to keep carrying them, i could do that without writing anything new. i have never deleted a poem. i have poems from before i realised i have cptsd that are about my having cptsd.

and. ha. i already have a collection of poems about using poetry as a coping mechanism. it's five years old. it includes the lines "therapy is recognising what’s gone wrong and working to fix it / poems do not make good therapists" because all i do is realise something and then forget and then months later realise again from scratch and then forget again, repeat ad infinitum. i am so convinced, deep down, that if i just write thee poem it will fix me. i can actually excise the infection and then it will be gone and i'll be fine. the one human alive who isn't still haunted by their childhood, because i trapped the ghosts in a poem. i definitely can't think of a popular poem about how this exact thing is impossible!

and now i am avoiding my actual point. because i listened to the album about grieving for a father and drew comparisons to my own feelings for my own father and my father is alive. right now, he is alive and he is probably awake and i could call him and he would answer and be happy to talk. the actual solution to the parts of my childhood festering in me sepsis-like is to sit my father down and get him to admit to fucking me up. and. well. i would really rather write another poem.

[fumblingmusings]

what do you think/like about (romantic) usuk in historical hetalia? how do you see their dynamics? im curious

I like how they can be one of those relationships where its hard to define what they are to each other, because they have been so much at varying points. They are everything. You know? You know.

Oh look. This turned into a bit of an essay. USUK let's go.

They are genuinely one of my favourite ships and have been for like 15 years at this point. I'm a sucker for them being soft on each other. You know when a fic allows Arthur to say 'my love' or 'my darling'? Or Alfred dropping a 'sweetheart?'

You can find me on the floor like

It's the way in which they grow from 'you never fucking understood me' to 'you know me better than most anyone' and what they see and understand is in equal parts gorgeous and horrifying, and yet they still pick the other.

The fact that getting there for the two of them took a lot of hard work too! It took rivers of blood and trenches of soldiers and burning of cities and the promise of 'no-one can hurt you without also hurting me'. The willingness to end isolationism for the other.

The way the past for both of them holds nearly nothing but grief, and despite this, they still think their futures are entirely entangled and genuinely believe it to be the right course of action. The formation of an unconditional affection from what was - for Alfred - a series of targets he never had a chance of hitting and - for Arthur - the projection of a love which never truly existed in the first place because they just did not understand each other.

Arthur maybe puts in more work than Alfred in the early years, but its his fault their relationship is in tatters to begin with, so...

Personally, and this leans into what I think canon tries to show, is they go through the following stages :

Arthur is a teenager pretending to be an adult to big himself up as this big powerful nation but at the end of the day he is pretty much still a child himself. He completely fails to connect and understand Alfred to the cost of any warmth the two may have had for each other.

Alfred tries once to salvage something from the ashes, but is blocked by Matthew (I don't blame Matthew for doing so, Alfred was barging in unannounced to his house and Mattie was trying to do right by a sick Arthur) and thus Alfred resolves not to try again. Their relationship thereafter is purely economic and formal, and as Arthur retreats into isolationism, Alfred goes West, and they do not think about each other. They don't see each other for a long time. That wound festers and weeps, becoming infected at the back of their minds.

Arthur thinks, lying to himself that, 'I never loved him. Not once,' and focuses his attention elsewhere. Alfred knows he made the right choice and that expecting anything from Arthur is just an exercise in disappointment.

When the 19th century begins to end, and Arthur is realising that A) his power is fading as much as America's is rising B) he has no pals to soften the fall and C) he is lonely. Him being rejected by Germany and then his response to that is to ask Alfred is interesting to me. He's angling it from the perspective of 'who are the nations that I deem as my equal' at this point, but that shows how Alfred has risen in his estimations, even passively. He immediately recognises that Alfred is lonely, too. They mirror each other, except Arthur is initially far more willing to be emotionally vulnerable. Almost running opposite to what you would expect, but Arthur is an emotionally vulnerable character. He always has been. Especially with Alfred.

But Alfred, as we know, shoots him down rather harshly (for a whale... jokingly. i think). It's the way that Arthur continuously trusts Alfred with those moments of emotional vulnerability even though the man is far more likely to laugh in his face about it.

I flip flop on when they genuinely truly start to reconcile. Maybe in the trenches, the muddy foundations are laid. They are still cautious around each other, but maybe Alfred breaks, just for a moment, and Arthur is privileged enough to be allowed to watch (but not to comfort). Maybe in the 20s, when they are both very drunk, they admit that what they were to each other was not real necessarily and the regret of such a realisation. Was it really just a label they assigned to pretend they weren't crippingly lonely even in the other's presence? But they go no further than that. They don't voice out loud that that moment felt more real and genuine than a thousand new suits or toys or dance lessons or taxes. They're not quite there yet.

Then honestly Lying in that Sound, Tonight does such an impeccable job of writing the two coming (not saying you have to read a 100,000 word fic to understand why I love them but it don't hurt) together that I really cannot see it any other way at this point - the argument where Arthur has to point out it's Alfred who is stuck on the past, not Arthur. Arthur, meanwhile, is very much struggling to see a future worth living for at that point and really isn't worried about what they were two hundred years ago.

Arthur, who at some points is struggling to remember why he is even fighting because he is so goshdang tired. And Alfred is young, and strong, and bright, and I think Arthur maybe still has rose tinted glasses on when it comes to Alfred and sees him as 'better' than old Europe in many ways. I mean he'll scoff at whatever spiel Alfred regurgitates about being the hero but... well he is Arthur's. Just a bit.

I think though by the 70s those glasses well and truly crack. He sees that Alfred can be ambitious for the sake of ambition, can be cruel for the sake of being cruel, etc. etc. Like Alfred is just a man. A bright, beautiful, spiteful, self absorbed, joyful, kind man. And Arthur is always just a little in awe of him. I think for Alfred, Arthur represents quiet, steady, cautious and un-conditionality, all of which are things he lacks or craves. Arthur is not some great towering giant (you used to be so big). He's just... tired damp little Arthur.

So yeah. I like that there's no masking around each other. They have learned through experience exactly who the other is, whilst still believing that the better version of the other is their true self. They have genuinely seen the other at their absolute worst and most monstrous, and decided I still want you and I am not afraid and... I just like it.

Yeah.

Also they're cute and when I got reminded of the sexy carnival outfit strip I took psychic damage.Unhinged behaviour from the two of them.

[mossrockpog]

This is my qsmp valentines day exchange gift for @littlexpiece :DDDD HAPPY VALENTINES DAY! I hope you enjoy this qbbh character study :3

This analysis isn’t a romance, so perhaps not the most typical Valentine’s Day fare, but it is about love, as the love BBH feels for his children (and all the island’s eggs) is deep and true.

BBH, the island babysitter, demon, chronic prankster and liar, new Create mod enthusiast, proud parent. Afflicted by illness for so long, from an infection that leached his soul from his body (as well as a literal atomic bomb, killer of and crafted by his dead friend). He let himself be tortured by soul vultures, and it inflicted wounds from which he never healed.

“There is nothing Bad loves more than the kids, when they went missing he started to die.” -Bagi, quote posted by disfrutalakia

A question that always comes to mind for me is that of how this could’ve been fixed. How could he have been helped? Was it able to be helped? Could his death have been prevented? It’s hard to say. That’s essentially what this analysis (read: collection of rambles) is about.

The first possibility I think of is outside assistance. What if he’d had aid from the other islanders? He may have been able to cope with his trials and stopped them early on if others had known. However, was this realistic? Could this have happened, knowing what we know about BBH? He didn’t tell anyone until the infection was so advanced that any options for helping were limited. Why didn’t he ask for help? Why didn’t anyone notice until it may have been too late? Why did he not tell anyone what was going on?

The disappearance of the eggs is what caused his death. There are many contributing factors, but if his children had not disappeared, I am certain he would not have died the way he did. Their disappearance was due to events far out of his control, events we are still trying to understand. A way of preventing his death lies there, in preventing them from going. Preventing his heart and mind from breaking.

The disappearance of the eggs drove BBH to extremes. He loves them. They are what he cared for most in his life (and as we saw recently, in his death too). His children have his whole heart, his whole soul, everything he has. When they disappeared, he grieved. He didn’t know whether they were alive or dead, but grief doesn’t need that. It only needs love, and he has that in spades.

“I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other.” -Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (a fitting quote for a demon who ended up a corpse, walking).

He was willing to do anything to get them back. His whole focus was on who took the eggs, leads to finding the eggs, any scrap of information he could get. For so long he assumed it was the Federation’s fault; this led to the Ron’s kidnapping and his brief torture for information. He got as much information he needed, but grew attached to Ron in the process. Which is a whole other tangent I could go on (what happened to Ron? Bro are you good??), but the focus is on factors contributing to BBH’s death and any potential point which could have prevented it.

His actions were not well perceived by the rest of the server (at least, it was openly opposed by many. Not everyone disapproved). His reputation plummeted, and he become somewhat estranged from the server. His culpability too led to him being cagey with details, though not so cagey that nothing slipped. But the focus was on Ron, and BBH’s actions, and while a few people noticed him changing color, it wasn’t the priority.

At some point during all of this, he acquired the injury that killed him. BBH, from the egg’s absence, was driven to continuing Dapper’s dangerous research into soul vultures. He wanted to be helpful, to do SOMETHING to get the eggs back. The head wound (whenever it appeared first) was open, and began to fester. His soul began the long process of leaving his body.

Purgatory was a refuge for BBH. That’s not to say it was good, but he enjoyed the experience, because him and the parents shared a common goal. He wasn’t going through all this alone anymore, everyone was suffering. And he was able to work towards getting the eggs back, way more of a lead than he had had for the previous months.

Others did not enjoy the experience. It was a rough situation, and he was rough to match. He was ruthlessly fighting to win, according himself to the message from Dapper, which he took to mean win no matter the cost. For his kids. For his son and daughter. This further set him apart from the others. One of my favorite set of scenes I’ve seen is BBH showing his Team Soulfire base recreation to his friends, particularly Tina’s reaction and how BBH behaved after. He was on a different page from the rest of the server, and when they returned, that rift remained, slowly closing now that they were no longer in hell but still present.

I want to take an intermission to briefly analyze BBH’s personality, and the factors therein that contributed to how events played out. Some reasons for BBH’s death lie with BBH himself. He is not one that readily trusts others. His willingness to be vulnerable (read: lack of), his self-reliant nature, his lack of regard for his own life (stemming from his immortality), all of these things contribute to his fascinating personality and morality.

BBH is incredibly self-reliant. Though he may not be the strongest player, his skill is not nothing, and it’s backed up by his cunning. He is used to using his own strength to power through obstacles, an attitude no doubt majorly caused by his immortality. Unlike others on the server, he knows that if he dies (without respawning… death on the QSMP itself is a fascinating affair, but another tangent that I won’t get into here. No matter how much I want to) he can come back, albeit not the same as before. As he once told Baghera, in his eyes he is “expendable.” He puts his all into things, with a certain amount of caution, but he also rests assured that even if he dies he won’t be gone forever. So he can put the eggs first, prioritize his children which are much more mortal, more fragile than him.

He is also self-reliant in that he does not readily rely on others. He has this notion, one reinforced by events in the server and built up over time, that he is the only one looking out for Dapper. To be clear, this is not an accurate notion, nor one he subscribes to all the time. However, when the eggs disappeared, and he was the only one he could see going to such lengths for the eggs, that idea too began to fester, to turn into a notion that he was the most capable protector of the eggs. An attitude like that, in and of itself, is isolating.

He also, seemingly reinforced by his past, is reluctant to share personal details. It was like pulling teeth for Bagi to even get an idea of what species he was, and how old he was. Her dedication towards this and their friendship eventually led to her getting an idea of things (though as recent streams prove… the age thing was a lie), but it still doesn’t match the amount a more forthright person would divulge.

The eggs are the ones he is most willing to be vulnerable around. Seemingly the only ones he fully trusts on the island (including himself. Remember how he was looking for people who knew about the eggs with that clipboard? Remember how he collected evidence on himself, treated himself as a suspect?). There are others, but his relationship with the eggs is unique. The eggs are his priority, and he truly loves them. He is willing to tell them personal details.

But, trust is not the same thing as a willingness to rely on someone. BBH holds trust and truth separately, and can fully trust someone without telling them the truth. He doesn’t tell them everything honestly. He keeps up a strong front for them, even as he is willing to be more vulnerable.

When the eggs returned, he was already weakened. The memory issues began right before they got back, which means his brain was already beginning to deteriorate. And he was honest, but not so much that he could be saved.

He told Pomme about his concerns with the radiation sickness. He was willing to be vulnerable there. But he reassured them he was going to be fine. That’s what a parent does. Additionally, as an immortal, he knew he would be able to come back. His idea of death was always different. He’s not mortal, and most likely assumed that even if he wasn’t able to beat back these issues, dying wouldn’t be a big deal for him. He’d just come back. He didn’t want that, but he just kept enduring, with the notion that the problem would work out on its own (Though to be fair, the options for medical care are incredibly limited on the island (an egg playing doctor, Roier, and the Federation… not a robust healthcare system). It didn’t.

This is a lot of rambling, and it needs to come to a neat conclusion.

To conclude, there are a variety of reasons contributing to BBH’s eventual end. His own traits, the timeline of events, his own actions, isolation from the server… many things worsened his health. The starting catalyst, however, and the most tragic contributor, is the eggs.

He loves them. He loves them more than anything. Their absence broke him, and the entire server. It broke him mentally and physically; according to him, the grief shut down his immune system and his ability to fight it off was no longer as strong. He wouldn’t have even experimented on himself with the soul vultures if it hadn’t been for the eggs disappearing. His children. He loves them, and that love broke him.

Love is powerful. It has the capacity to hurt, yes, but much greater in my eyes is its capacity to heal. When his children returned, though it did not fix his body, BBH was able to start healing his mind. He ended up dying from the wounds grief inflicted on his body and soul, but it did not end him. He was given the choice to move on, to return home and have peace, or to return to his children. The choice clearly agonized him. He referred to it as “splitting his happiness in two.” He’d never had this choice before, and it comes right when he is not able to easily decide.

But his love for his children was greater than that. Greater than his happiness. He loves them selflessly, with his whole ancient soul. He is willing to put that whole ancient soul through a potential (though not confirmed) eternity of immortality for them. Even if the door is locked next time, he can’t move on to happiness without the assurance that the ones he loves get to experience it with him.

Being a parent makes him happy :)

[tessiete]

For the latest prompt list, meriggiare.

Korkie Kryze.

An Italian word, unusual to us too but known anyway because one of the greatest poems of our literature starts with it. Meriggiare pallido e assorto…

https://www.slow-words.com/to-rest-in-the-shade/

I...don't know @piccolaromana. I'm not.....unhappy with this? But it's a little weird. It's not my usual style, though I mean, at least the purple prose is me. Am I coming back to myself, or am I only more and more lost?

I don't know!

But I thank you for the prompt and I hope you don't hate this! <3

FIRE THAT'S CLOSEST KEPT

Korkie Kryze lies down to sleep when the sun of the Empire is highest.

It is not giving up. He’s only tired. So tired. It is impossible to keep going. Like sunrise over a desert, the ascent of Palpatine has been swift and deadly. The fury of his power has burned away every good and growing thing. All life. All love. All freedom. 

All of the Senate.

All of the Republic.

All of the Jedi.

Mandalore, he left for Maul. The wasted frame of a dying beast writhing in its last throes of resistance, and all the Sith had to do was wrap his hand around its throat and squeeze. There was hardly any strength left. All of it had been spent on the throne room floor in Sundari. 

His aunt’s death was a mortal wound. They just didn’t know it at the time.

But Korkie knows now. He knows how you can bleed and bleed and bleed and hardly understand you’re wounded. He knows how infection can slip beneath the skin and boil your blood without anyone noticing. He knows how something can break deep inside, and fester, and rot, and waste away until all that’s left is ash. He learned all of that after he woke up to the feel of beskar against his skin. Not his aunt’s cool fingers, but Bo-Katan’s clad in armor. Her voice low and rough, telling him the Duchess was dead.

He blinked, not understanding.

The blind mask of the Nite Owl’s visor stared down at him, half-familiar but only in the way a hologram looks like a loved one. Distant. Inverted. Warped.

She’d cocked her head, and sighed. Through the vocoder, it came out like a growl.

“Guess you’re coming with me.”

But she was wounded too. And Korkie couldn’t save her. Rage, he knows, is also a kind of injury. So is grief. And fear. 

Let it go, let it go, let it go. 

He repeats the mantra in his head, reminding himself that there are some things outside of his control, that will always be outside of his control. He can’t save everyone.

The bandages on his arm come away easily, melting beneath the warm spray of water. Dantooine is a charming planet absolutely brimming with resources, but too many lightyears away from anything of true worth. There are no deposits of rich metals, no crude oils, no gases, no precious stones, no spice. There is only grass, and grain, and fresh water.

This is where the Rebels have been stationed for almost two years, living double lives, mingling with the locals, and selling their wares in the traveling markets that pop up as the seasons pass. The small population of farmers and laborers take them for refugees. There have been enough of those in all corners of the galaxy that a few here are hardly suspicious, and they live quietly enough that even the nosiest of traders learns nothing worth tempting the Empire’s wrath for.

But in the caves by the old fortress, there are hidden ships – a whole fleet of fighters stolen and repurposed, or donated by nameless politicians. Korkie has filed off the royal seal for Alderaan so many times that he has calluses in the shape of their desecration across the pads of his fingers. 

And those ships are equally marked with the black blaze of laser burns and torpedo strikes. They are pocked with shrapnel, and held together with binders and chemtack. Korkie can hardly believe they’re spaceworthy, but they keep going back.

He keeps going back.

But this was the last time.

The water runs over his skin, and the blood, turned black with oxygen, falls away down the drain. Black dirt falls off his skin, and black smoke is washed from his hair. 

After, he looks at himself in the mirror and thinks that black and red are the only colors left. The only colors the Empire hadn’t burned away, fading like laundry in the sun. Ashes and embers. And once he’s cleansed himself of them – of the blood and the dirt – he is a ghost.

His hair, once a burnished gold, is stark white. His cheeks, bloodless and white. His eyes, as blue as crystal water, but the closer he looks the more they appear clear, and empty like an ocean glittering back the reflection of that burning flame above showing nothing of what lies beneath. 

At his mouth, there is a slash of red as though every bloody thought, every gruesome deed sits poised on the tip of his tongue waiting to be told, and at the centre of his eyes, there is a black, dark void where light is swallowed up. He looks into it as if he might see himself on the other side, but he sees nothing.

Korkie Kryze has finally bled out.

“You should rest,” she says. “You should lie down and sleep.”

“And dream?” he asks. “And only dream of death?”

After all, what else is left is there to imagine? 

As a child, death was something distant and impossible. A strange thing for a Mandalorian. Through the sheer force of his aunt’s will, a whole generation was born to a people whose great-great grandparents had not known peace. He was the first. And he was the last.

The very last, he thinks. It’s an idle thought now. When he’d first had it, he’d panicked. The possibility that every other person he’d known, every other childhood friend, or passing acquaintance, or despised bully was dead had crushed him. The weight of their loss piled on top of him until he couldn’t breathe, and he was certain he was meant to join them. But he hadn’t then. And soon, the thought grew stale and dull. Then amusing. Then tragic. 

Now, he repeats it to himself to remind himself that the end is very close.

“You can stop,” she says, and she pulls him down to bed. “We can stay here. We can keep our eyes closed, and keep our arms around each other, and let it all pass over us.”

Like a corpse in the ground, he thinks.

Mandalorians do not bury their dead. But there are tombs on Dantooine. Old Jedi ones. He thought they’d burned their own, too. Yet the barrows are there, on the outskirts of the enclave. He visits them often, and sits between the mounds. The hills are ancient and so they are worn down to gentle swells, like ripples on a pond. He sits in the tall grass and his hair blows and he sways because the wind goes right through him, like branches or like old bones.

“Sleep,” she says. “Sleep, sleep.”

Die Mando, die Mando, die Mando. Die, die, die.

“I can’t sleep,” he says. 

“Go to sleep. It will all be clearer in the morning.”

The Rebellion is leaving Dantooine. The fight is heating up. The princess of Alderaan is loud, and she is being heard. She is young, Korkie thinks. She is younger than he was when he lost everything. She has never known peace. She is not softened by it. Weakened by it. She was born with armor, and she has not been wounded. Not yet. 

“We will lose everything,” he whispers in the dark.

“No,” she says. “We are letting it go.”

“And what will we have left?”

“What do you want to keep?”

“Myself. I am only living my life in pieces, and this one is already dead. But there is something else they’ve tried to kill. I’ve kept it hidden for so long that it is all that I have left.”

She kisses him then, so gently, on the mouth. “Then don’t let them take it. You know who you are.”

“I know who I want to be.”

Korkie Kryze lies down to sleep when the Empire burns the brightest. But Korkie Kenobi burns brighter.

[ptsd-phoenix]

TY for listening you're actually a reasonably reasonable person. After having to lie for so long, the truth is more exciting for me anyways. Actually, you've inspired me to write a poem:

Oh my father terrified me so, with power and words twisted so clever. There was no escape, nowhere to hide, it seemed my days of sorrow would go on forever.

How pitiful he was in his own misery, the man so sensitive and weak with pride. With his sorrows never drowned I thought, it couldn't have been better on the other side.

He may be dead and gone, but the pain and fear still live inside me. Alone with my broken self, it seems I never will be free.

How I hate becoming so much like him, a bitter loser with so much pain I want to die. Perhaps I really should do it before, I end up on the other side.

She didn't kill herself in a regular sense, but gave me the chance to be reborn. She might not like what I have become, but for my weak self I refuse to mourn.

I've surpassed my father in every way, and I have earned my own pride. With my sorrow gone now I've come to realize, it really is much better on the other side.

Thank you for sharing your poetry.

I know you probably do not want to hear what I'm going to say, but it's not too late to process your trauma. I also know you said you are in favour of suicide but I don't think you should attempt that. Suicide is usually an escape plan to run away from pain. It's possible to heal the pain and live comfortably again.

You can break the cycle of abuse done to you by your father. You were not weak. Being hurt by someone does not make you weak. You were innocent in what was done to you. You deserved to be taken care of and loved and respected. I feel it displays more strength to overcome your pain and mourn yourself rather than to run away from it and prey on vulnerable people. Mourning and grief actually takes a lot of mental strength. Most people turn to other things such as substances so they don't have to look their pain in the eyes. Or they will repeat the abuse done to them onto others. It takes much more work to heal the trauma, even though the outcome would feel so much better.

I tend to see abusive behavior as a sign of weakness, not power. I understand you view it differently though. For me it's a sign of cowardice within a person. Not to say you are a coward. Although hiding in anonimity does point a bit in that direction. It's not my intention to insult you. Merely to point out that your theory of abuse being a sign of strength doesn't quite hold up in my opinion.

I also remember you saying this is your way to get revenge for what was done to you. I could understand that sentiment. Although I feel your feelings could be put to a greater use such as artwork or poetry like you just wrote. Something that makes an impact on people without inflicting damage on them.

If anything, I wonder if the way you are dealing with your pain now will be something you look back on later in life with pride or regret. That's not for me to be able to know. In my humble opinion it would benefit you to proces your pain in therapy such as EMDR. You could look into it sometime and see if the idea appeals to you. Wouldn't it feel like such a relief to not have to carry the burden of your past. Of course nobody can make youvhange your ways, especially when it feels like a comforting blanket to you to be able to have this unhealthy coping mechanism. It's the same way that nobody can make an addict become sober/clean if they themselves don't want it. I'm just here to remind you there are alternatives for you and that it's not too late to look at things differently. I'm just providing a different perspective.

Either way, thank you again for sharing your poetry. I appreciate your vulnerability by sharing a part of your pain. Now it's up to you how you will deal with that pain. Will you heal it or let it fester. Will you take care of the wound or will you let the infection take over your body untill it poisons your bloodstream. It's all up to you and your plans for your future. Have a safe journey.

[no-squared]

An Ode to Grief

by me.

 My mother carries her grief like a baby blanket. She's carried it as long as she can remember and on dreary nights she recognizes it as her birth right. In melancholic moments when the sun hits like a warm summer memory, she traces my brother's initials into the edges of the dusty yarn. It's a balm on her festering wound, just a touch, a whisper or a prayer. She clutches it tight between her fingers like a rosary. The baby blanket of my brother's life is beautiful and unfinished. There are perfect loops that feel like his first love, his first real dream, his favorite color. And there are parts so twisted and decayed they hang loose and weary. She covets each one and in days where the sun paints magic back into her veins, she drapes it over her shoulders and bears it for the world to see. 

        My father and I carry our grief like the moment between a punchline and laughter, full of anticipation, bated breathe and devastation waiting just over the horizon. We toss it back and forth, begging humor to consume truth and become whole. I poke fun at what little memories I have of the boy who was the man who was my hero. My father pokes fun at the infection that begins in his hands, from the wars won and lost. he keeps a granade instead of a baby blanket. He holds it in his iron fists on violent nights when he laments the words he will never be able to take back, keeps his finger on the ring and dreams of absolution.

    My sister does not grieve, or lament, or pray. "I have a child," She says. She means she does not have a choice. She is a mother first, a mother last. She will not grieve with her son alive and well in the next room. She will not grieve with her husband, who is kind and reassuring. She will grieve along side no one, though she aches for it. She holds nothing, arranges the funeral, arranges the wake, arranges her grief into calculated moments cut short by her son's needs. She is changed and sheds the skin of grief each fall, but she always smiles for her little boy.

    I had known from the first call that the wrong sibling was gone. I knew as I fell to my knees in the kitchen, as I packed a bag with numb fingers, as I greeted the family that had lost so deeply. I remember the bruising shackle of my mother's hand in mine, fingers crushing the veins of my wrist and the way she screamed over his casket. I remember the star of the american flag, tracing it with my finger because my brother was inside that wood and touching it would make it true. It couldn't be true. I know as my mother drags me from my father's side that my brother would know how to heal this. The thought buried itself behind my eyes, rose glasses of malice and forced me to the world through the lense of the ways in which I failed. I could not console my mother with a hand on her shoulder, I could not ease my father's regret with a joke, I could not steal the burden from my sister. I sat on a couch and stayed still enough for the rot to settle in the marrow of my bones. A woman tells me God needed another angel and I tell her that I needed my brother. I tell her that if it is God that greets me when I am done then I will become the beast that bites the hand that feed, for I have been starved and beaten and since he could not hear my prayers then he will go deaf by the fury of my complaints. 

My grief lays in the hollow of my bed, fills the shape of my body like pooling water, It tethers me to the cold side of my bed and whispers. I am a reverend at a silent church composing purple prose for an audience of one, swearing by the book that God it isn't true, there's something else. There's always something else over the horizon and it may be tragedy but God what if it isn't. What if there is wonder there too, what if there is beauty growing from the rot? God does not answer me and neither do the devout. 

    I take up smoking, it chases away the shivers of anxiety carried like lightning to my heart. I take up drinking, a bit of cotton shoved into the brother-shaped nothingness of life. I take up three more substances, each less filling than the last. I do not try to kill myself again, my mother can not fit another baby blanket in her pocket, my father can not hold a grenade in each hand with a finger on the pin. My sister can not hide any more. But I cannot breathe anymore, I don't know who I'm grieving, who I've lost, I will never live up to the last words he ever said to me. But, I consider the loophole. An accident is forgivable. The funeral would be moderate and quiet and there would be no stories of my life shared with sparkling eyes. "I horrible thing," My aunt whispers, hand over her heart as if to shield it from her own words.  "Wrong place wrong time," My uncle says as he hands my mother a bottle of whiskey. They will grieve and move on far easier than they did with my brother. And so I don't look every time I cross the road. I skip a meal because eating is a bother and it's outlived it usefulness to me. I pick up an extra shift though I can feel the bruises of my feet all the way to my knees. I do not try to die, though I know I wouldn't mind if something tragic were to happen. 

        My mother calls me crying. It's two days before it will be two years; she says she feel him anymore. Though I'm not there, I can see her hand over her heart, the same way my aunt would for me, I see it breaking under her palm, the staples pulling at their seams. I tell her I understand, though I don't. She tells me she doesn't know what to do. I tell her I've never known what to do. I tell her I don't think there is anything to do. The call lasts an hour and four minutes and with the dial tone ringing in my ears, we both wish she had called someone else. By the end of it I'm smoking again, though my efforts to stop were always half hearted. If I were to die choking on smoke, the blame would land in my palms and run through me like sand and they would be spared my slow death. By the end of my cigarette my sister texts me asking what I said to mom. 

        Their battles are not my own, I learn, when they start rebuilding themselves. It takes mortar and paste to soothe the angry red lines of their despair. It takes grit and blood and whatever they're willing to give. Their teeth turn gentle, the hurting subsides in favor of work and family and the next project. I watch my sister have her second child, she names her baby after him and when she looks at him, part of her sees the uncle her children will never get to know. I watch my mother throw herself into romance, into pre-rolls and nature, I watch her dig her heels in and bear the latest weight, she gets promoted and takes up paddle boarding. She seems happier afterwards, like the water has licked her wounds and baptized all the memories she had with her boy. I watch them but i can't emulate them. I lay awake at night wondering what I missed. I don't know the man they talk about, the man in their stories who's bright and full of life. He was everything to me, my nightmare and my greatest ally but I was too young to truly know him, had grown up mostly without him. I have so few memories and in all of them he is young. I can't rebuild myself, I was never that strong. I've been held together by luck even before and now the tools I used are rusted and splintered, they wouldn't do for the craftsmanship this requires. I fall quietly behind. 

        I have a dream that began a few days after the second anniversary. It begins with my mother and I fighting. We're yelling at each other, circling like wolves with blood dripping from our jaws. It turns violent, we've become violent. There's vitriol in our words and kerosene welling up in our eyes. I throw something at her and tell her that I can't even remember my brother's face. The dream changes and I see him in the hall of our childhood home, his back turned to me. He's my brother in form and silloughette, I'd know him anywhere. He turns and has no face, nothing but a blank slate. I wake in terror and refuse to sleep until I'm too drunk to remember there was ever anyone there at all. 

        Things return to normal. I make slow improvements until my legs feel steady underneath me most days and I only think about him in the drinks before tipsy and drunk. I go home, I go to work, I work until my ankle swells and I lay in bed whenever I get the chance. But I survive, I continue. I turn the page and start new. I remember him in the way I treat others. I'd grown up in his shadow and now I live his honor. I take the extra step, give a free compliment, I open doors for others and I ask them about their day. I try to be sincere about it. I try to help where I can though my mother can not bare the failure in me any more than I can bear the disappointment in her and my sister will never see me as more than the obligation forced upon her by our parents. I'll never heal completely, I will never be able to overcome this, I will never not be mourning him in the corners of my mouth or the ringing in my ears, I will never truly know what it was like to have a brother. 

        When August comes around I will retreat to the shadows of my blankets, I'll lock the windows and the doors and turn down the lights. I'll clean the apartment and stock my fridge with liquor and microwave meals. I'll take four days off near the end, I'll brush my teeth on the last night of July and avoid the hollow gaze of the bathroom mirror and I'll search for God in the bottom of bottles and find him on the bathroom floor instead. I'll be shivering and dizzy, I'll feel the liquor burning through my gut, nourishing the rot that set in so long ago and God will sit with me. He'll hold my hair back as I vomit the words that got stuck in my throat so long ago and he'll lay me down to sleep on the cold tile. He'll sing to me and wish me well but will never tell me he's sorry. I am too weak to plead my case and that's why he's gone by morning.

        I wake alone and tired and can't remember a time I felt any different. I pick myself off the floor and into a new skin. A new day dawns and I try one last time. Grief lives in baby blankets and grenades and silence, it lives in my bones and behind my eyes, no room will ever be full again, no noise enough to drown a vacancy of one not there. I will live forever knowing that the wrong sibling died, unable to seek salvation, turning a blind eye to absolution, taking the Devil's side and keeping everything neatly folded behind the curtains of apathy I have cultivated. The unbreakable solitude of my grief will hold me far better than a lover, will deliver sweet kisses of encouragement and dredge the memories written into my genetics. I live inside my grief, to large for anyone to notice. My grief will settle in one of the chambers of my heart and claw it's way from my ribcage each August leaving carnage in it's wake and broken glass in my veins. I'll be undone by this terrible thing but until that day I will pick myself from my bathroom floor and I'll remember that my brother loved me enough to use my name as his laptop password, that he kept the letter I wrote to him while he was off fighting a war he hadn't been alive at the beginning of, that my brother's last words to me were that he was proud of me.

[dreadfutures]

happy friday blue! for dadwc this week, perhaps "in my dreams, we’re still together." for Garrett Hawke & Fenris?

THANK YOU SO MUCHHHH. i never write garrett ;-;

For @dadrunkwriting

Words: 601

Rating: T

Pairing: Fenhawke

Notes: First Person POV, post-All That Remains, Fenris and Garrett are currently broken up, Garrett is not coping well at all

-:-:-

Every breath in Kirkwall costs something.

Smoke stings the back of your throat. It's a reminder that the forges of industry aren't satisfied with the bloody coal we bring them. No. You're the better fuel.

Infection festers in Darktown. You learn quick to cover your nose, before the sickness comes to consume you next. It lingers, even when you come back to the light, even when you shed your clothes, even when you burn them. Insidious and cloying, it says: it'll come for you, too.

Low tide brings the smell of death. The ultimate price. Every mage in Kirkwall knows that price, hanging close above their head—a cruelty parading as mercy, or a mercy enacted cruelly.

Either way, sometimes it's the only price you can pay to escape the Gallows.

Every breath in Kirkwall is hard-won. These days I can't walk five paces without someone or twenty someone's throwing themselves against me to test their mettle. Their last breath buys my next.

No one in Kirkwall questions it. This is the way of the world, and what is Kirkwall if not firmly of the world?

Fenris knows this. He's always known it, but I see it in his eyes sometimes that he's astonished to find it true. He knew the cost of his freedom, and everything we see and learn together only reminds him of the price he has paid, and the price he must continue to pay.

Astonishment quickly crumbles into anger the way flames will crumble their fodder as it burns. And it is a fire, his anger, his fury. It is a beacon to the embers smoldering inside me since my magic first manifested—not rage, but angry disbelief and defiance most of all.

I too have always known the price of my freedom, and yet every time I am forced to pay the tithe, I am left reeling again. No matter how long I've lived in apostasy, the fear never goes away, the bloody deals and broken hearts and pangs of hunger remain constant, and the world finds crueler and crueler ways to remind me of how precious freedom is.

I am there when the world takes all that Fenris thinks he had left to gain.

And he is there when the world takes all I have left to lose.

It almost makes it worse to have him—and all our friends—stand close in the aftermath. I find myself thinking that none of them can understand what it means to lose everything like this. As terrible as life had treated me, as heavy as a mother's expectations and resentment could weigh on my shoulders, at least I had it. It was its own reminder that I was alive, and that I was free, and that it mattered.

None of them can really understand, except him.

But for now he refuses to.

And I can almost understand why.

Before I know it, months have gone by in silence. Days blend into nights blur into weeks smear into months—and I have hardly spoken to anyone but the dog through it all. I vaguely recall anger, denial, grief, or whatever it might have been, fueling conflicting thoughts: none of them understand this loss, and I have nothing left to lose, and I don't want to lose anyone else. It's better this way, to keep my distance.

But it's not better. Not at all.

-:-:-

In my dreams we're still together.

But every breath costs something in Kirkwall. Even in a dream.

And every time I open my eyes to a lonely dawn, I pay the price anew.

[daisyachain]

Sam Guthrie is a character I love very much but don’t often talk about, I feel like we’ve seen about as good as we’re going to get for him that’s possible in comics in X-Force 19, there’s nothing really more to worry about because he’s already achieved the perfect writing condition. Still I do have a proprietary fondness for him that means I will complain about how he’s currently written. Sam I think is a character driven by fear, or more specifically awareness. His reaction to the hardships dealt to him is to remember that they happened and try to avoid the same situation. His memory is long. He’s cautious but not cowardly, he’s awkward but not dumb. Every move of his is made after carefully considering what to do, and why, and what could come ricocheting back at him if it goes wrong. Doesn’t mean he notices everything. Does mean that what he does notice, sticks.

That’s why he’s the social leader of the New Mutants. He pays attention to everyone’s faults, foibles, needs, wants in a way that Dani has neither the time nor the inclination to and he remembers them. That’s why he cements the split from Xavier in the first place. He can’t reconcile his own experience (hopping from peril to peril to the wreckage of the mansion) with Xavier’s philosophy. To believe that passive defense and non-violence work would require him to forget or deliberately ignore the evidence of his own eyes. He wants to play things safe not in the sense of avoiding conflict, but rather in the sense of anticipating it and heading it off. Any festering issue can spread. The infected portion must be removed. Sam isn’t about to wait around for things to bite him in the ass.

That’s also why he’s a good tactical leader to X-Force. Separated from Dani and Cable, he does hold his own because he can carefully catalogue the ins and outs of a battlefield. However that same attention to detail that makes him a natural mentor also makes it tiring for him to call the shots. He can, does, and will act well as an executive leader, only with more regret over the mess that comes with making decisions that Dani and/or Cable would leave firmly in the past.

Comparing with Sunspot as not his foil (that’d be Dani) but the character who’s always there to mirror him, this driving force becomes more apparent. Sam and Berto both have loved ones die shortly before getting recruited. Sam reacts to his father’s death conscientiously. He steps into his role to bring in income. He knew it was coming, he feared it, he planned what to do to recover.

Berto, on the other hand, is more driven by grief. Juliana’s death was a shock that I think is still the single most important event to him. While his home life wasn’t always the best, I don’t believe Berto ever believed that he could experience the sort of life-or-death hardship his father had until that point. Ever since I think he’s been trying to stop that from ever happening again. Through New Mutants he lashes out in danger, assumes the worst in mishaps (Fallen Angels), shows willingness to sacrifice himself for the greater good. His perpetual state is of surprise and horror at how the world is and a need to intervene.

That’s why his Avengers characterization gets a pass, because it feels like it grows from that solid base where Sam is just [insert normal guy here]. Berto spends that run reacting, lashing out at the idiocy the other Avengers get into. Sam might create a third Avengers faction to nope out of there and productively do his own thing, because he can see the civil war coming. Dani might do it because nothing’s going to get done if she doesn’t do it herself. Berto creates one because he can’t stand watching these people get into stupid spats while the world is ending, he physically can’t stand by.

[tundrakatiebean]

April was National Poetry Writing month! Very similar to November, which has spawned NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), where writers set goals for themselves to write every day, April commits itself to poetry. This year I decided to write a poem a day for the whole month. I didn't expect April to get as emotionally intense as it did, but I think it helped me process what I was going through when I didn't have much space to do it elsewhere. My best friend passed away on the 14th, so a lot of it focuses on grief from there as a warning so you can all keep yourselves safe. This is long, but I think having them all together is important because they show a process, especially from the 14th onwards.

I put these up early for my patrons! If you’re interested in supporting my work or just seeing what else I’ve done lately you can search TundraKatieBean on Patreon or follow the link in my linktree :) 

If there’s a certain poem you’d like to have its own post so you can reblog it individually just let me know and I’ll make it for you!

1

I bought a book of poetry I know the process of creating a book Of creation Of a first draft Of editing Of sharing Of snipping and shaping until it becomes I don’t know how that works for poetry I don’t think of it as shaping I think of it in the same way That you pinch a splinter out of your finger tip That you squeeze a pimple That you drain an abscess Ejecting something that hurts That’s infected That’s irritated That’s festering In one motion So that you can start to heal

2

I lay in bed Trying to calm my mind A jittery cat smacking paws towards thought shaped lumps under a blanket I think about the extended repetitions of humanity How many other people have also Shifted their weight Kicked their feet Stretched their arms In their own beds through the ages How we all are mimicking movements That have come and gone Millions of times before us Maybe the only difference Are the things around us The kinds of clothes wrapping us The kinds of blankets on top of us The kinds of things we reach for in the throes of sleeplessness The kinds of thoughts we allow To burrow into our exhaustion Until everything drifts away The same way it has for millennia

3

My brain is vibrating A frequency nobody else can hear An overlaying tone Whining But not loud enough to drown out the words around me I pull at a hangnail It’s to the part where it’s painful Where a small line of red is forming Where the skin around it is puffed and angry I pick Pick Pick I shift my legs I check my phone I laugh at the appropriate moments I nod when prompted I pull at the hangnail It’s starting to bleed now I keep peeling it away Pushing the sliver away From the monolith that bore it I try to joke And am quickly admonished I return to picking I successfully rip it from the bed Leaving a throbbing canyon behind Aching and bleeding I am running out of ways To fill up the space That never needed to be filled

4

I get tired of eating Of the motions Of the chew Chew Chew Of the machination of it Of being beholden to a bowl Pledged to a plate It’s easier to just stop I was praised for my discipline As pounds shed As clothes drooped As my body changed For the eternity I was trapped in it I was exalted for my laziness Until I started eating again Now I can turn to any device To see Exactly how many cures they’ll sell me For a disease they diagnosed

5

A handful of mushrooms Chopped While listening to the laughter of friends And smiling when they say a phrase picked from my idiolect A little piece of the words I choose Transferred, and said with warmth An onion Diced While my nose runs And tears threaten to overwhelm the dam of my eye line Something to add to the meal for someone else If it was just for me I wouldn’t fight the fumes of a root trying to live Tomatoes Artichoke hearts Crushed red pepper Garlic A spoonful of capers A squeeze of lemon left over From when a carefully stuffed omelet Was slid onto my plate With a disclaimer “I don’t know if the lemon will be good” It was A drizzle of olive oil A warm pan Boiling water That steams up the windows Obscures the fresh snow waiting outside The warmth of the kitchen Isn’t only found in the heat

6

Whoever designed us didn’t do it right Why can I feel more emotions than I can process at once? Why can’t I store my extra sadness Like sand And spread it over the iciness of numbness To increase my grip As I trod forward in the expands of it Why can’t I keep my excess happiness In a cheerful mug Like colorful pens on a desk So I can use them to jot a splash of joy Onto the blank whiteness of grief Why can’t I tuck the warmth and love I feel Burning so brightly in my chest Into a drawer Folded gently like a soft sweater So I can pull it out on the chilliest days of depression And wrap it around me until I’ve thawed

7

Today is a day that felt too fast Today is a day that felt too drawn out It felt like a magic trick An entire bouquet of tired paper roses Shoved into a wand And whipped out at a whim With the hope of a fanciful display That fell flat And sad Smelling as dusty and tired As I feel

8

I have collected scars over the years Like any creature stubborn enough to survive Some more prominent than others The spattered pox marks across my face Are obvious There’s no point trying to hide them I remember collecting them Being self-conscious Keeping hair a certain way I remember a time When my mother pointed grimly At a small mark Hidden in the pores of her chin A scar The size of a pinprick To warn me gravely About popping zits Because you never knew which ones would scar And mar your face for decades to come Sometimes you don’t know Can’t anticipate Can’t avoid What will leave the deepest scars

9

I remember the rules of the ocean Repeated to me as a child Like a wave beating a warning against a hull

Don’t turn your back Or you won’t see the clues

Watch for the secret tides That want nothing more Than to rip you into the far-flung horizon Not caring what pieces of you Stay long enough to make the whole journey

Watch carefully for the withdrawal That bares the life within unnaturally Showing its secrets Waiting to crash down upon everything around you A wave of such torrential proportion That you can only hope To get far enough away that it leaves you untouched As it unroots trees And vomits mysterious leavings from forgotten years

I try to remember the rules of my depression Don’t forget it’s there Or you won’t see the clues

Watch for the shifting tides That want nothing more Than to slice you apart Sending whatever pieces are left To a far-flung shore in isolation

Watch carefully for the withdrawal That makes you want to lay everything bare Showing secrets To see if it all comes crashing down around you The wave of guilt and grief Gigantic enough That you can only hope To ground yourself well enough To dig your roots in so assuredly That nothing can rend you From the years yet to live

10

Why do I need everything to be profound Why isn’t it enough To tell a story About a babysitter I had once Who was kind And warm And allowed me the whim Of making a chocolate cake from scratch Even when we didn’t quite have the right ingredients Who joined my brother and I In digging tiny fat fingers into The leavings of holidays past To find enough chocolate to melt down Novelty foil wrappers Scattered across the counter In a parade of colors I remember how carefully she stirred The melting chocolates The bats and bells and eggs In a copper-bottomed pot on the stove And how she let me pick the piece of cake Carefully sliced To catch the mint filled bell I had unwrapped with glee I remember telling my mother how fun she had been How kind But maybe I need it to be profound To make up for not remembering her name

11

It’s warm enough today That I can open my window Just a smidgen Let the cool air Breeze through the room Hear the gentle

Drip

Drip

Drip

Of the icicles Melting away Hear the rhythmic

Scritch

                  Scratch

Scritch

                  Scratch

Of winter boots on slushy ice Walking towards the bus station Hear the scattered shrieks Of children Set free and wild These are the sounds of spring Before the birds migrate Or the flowers bloom This is how Life returns to the cold

12

There’s something brittle About my sweetness Something delicate If the air is just too warm Or just too cold Or too much moisture clings If you stir it just wrong Or too fast Or too slow Boil it too hard Or not hard enough If you leave it too long Or don’t let it set Or let it get dewy It will clump Or break Or melt away

But there’s something versatile Something multi-faceted Where the same things that form A quick to shatter sheet of sweetness For one set of hands Will form A smooth, stretchy smidgeon In another

13

Some days You aren’t who you are anymore You’re a kid Quiet Scared Upset Standing as silently still as possible In the hope That this time you can do it right This time you can figure out Whatever combination it is To keep the anger at bay To keep the peace To be heard in a way That won’t break glasses Or fling hands But in a way That lets laughter alight Across the table Padding the tension And putting it away Like the nice plates Folded gently in foam sleeves So nothing will shatter While you aren’t looking

14

There’s the old tradition Of covering mirrors After somebody passes To keep their spirit From getting trapped I wonder how much of that is true And how much of it Is covering the way grief hangs on you Red rimmed eyes Puffy faces Glassy emptiness And how much of it Is covering the pieces of them You can still see on your own face The way their ghost Still clings to you Maybe it’s easier Not to look So you don’t get trapped In wanting Wishing Maybe it’s easier To cover it up

15

Everything feels too permanent today Instead of sands shifting Forming dunes Burying anything in its path Is a monolith of obsidian Glossy and sharp-edged Something that humans Learned to use To break To live with A staple in history But somehow It’s still fragile Casting off Knife edged flakes That scatter around my feet

And suddenly everything feels too transient Too breakable The favorite shirt I need to mend Because I loved it too hard The cord I should replace Because it’s frayed and dyed green Where the inner workings are exposed The drink meant to calm me Cooling into the night air

I look at a sticker I got today Still stuck carefully to its backing Surrounded by the little frame Where a die-cut sliced just enough To easily separate it From the paper I can’t peel it I can’t decide where to stick it Its life is too transient And its memory too permanent

16

Grief does strange things It turns a spotlight on your brain On your memories It’s so blinding That you can’t see the faces around you But the motes of dust Lazily drifting From wherever they had been settled Are clearly in focus If you track them too long They lead you astray

I’m trying to brush my hair I remember being envious Of springy curls My brush stops halfway down And doesn’t start its trek again Until I notice my hand in the mirror

I’m trying to change into my pajamas I look at my bed And remember how many of the things I sleep with every night Were gifts From someone who would reply I APPRECIATE YOU Whenever I tried to say thank you

I’m paused Poised like a flamingo One leg up Foot tilted To try to slide into a pant leg

I give up Laying face down on the bed

I remember my grandmother Who lived and loved my grandfather for so long Saying she had forgotten how to sew After he passed Something she had done Since she was a child Did professionally Made her own clothes Quilted Made gifts for all of us And suddenly I understand

Because as bright as the spotlight is As blinding as it is It’s still better than standing in the dark And not being able to follow the motes at all

17

I held it together today I took everything and shoved it

Down

Down

Under a soft cover Like the fluff Keeping the pills from rattling

I held it together today Like he always did for his family I held his mother while she cried I made jokes for his sisters We shared stories Let the pieces of him Roll free Like glass Fresh in the sea Sharp edges Painful shatters That will soften in time Smooth Become beautiful again Just different

I held it together today But now I can still smell her perfume Haunting my skin And my nail polish is chipping

18

I’m starting to feel hungry again The leaden ball Of grief Has started to ease its way Out of my stomach I wait for the microwave

To ding

Announcing my popcorn is done I remember how much he hated the smell of popcorn So much that when we were living together I’d only make it While he was out of the house

I guess I’ll never have to worry about that again

It’s never felt so devastating To let go Of such a small act of compassion

19

I don’t have words today I have exhaustion I have dead eyes And irritated skin Sore hips And an aching neck A desire to be held And sleep Really sleep Not tense supine stretches Punctuated By nightmares By losing more people By seeing the ones lost By old terrors and guilt Resurfacing Like old paint Leaking up through an unprimed Semblance of serenity

I don’t have words today

I just have unrest

20

I know it’s normal To mix up tenses To forget he’s gone until I’m finishing my sentence To forget the things I’m allowed to say now That I wasn’t before But I can’t help picking it all apart Looking at what I’ve automatically decided Still lingers and exists

I still love him He is my best friend He makes a positive impact on his students

He hated spicy food His favorite color was purple He loved reality TV

Maybe things Are easier to leave behind While emotions continue In those that have to live With the reality of having no place to put them

21

I don’t know how to describe How I feel today But I’m thinking of a time When I was young And shattered a bottle Full of bright red nail polish On the bathroom floor

I did my best to clean it up Getting the color off of the linoleum Dabbing up pieces of glass But I didn’t do it well enough

My heel

Found a shard that I had missed

The piece was clear and small Hard to find in the growing pool of red As it welled from my foot It was deep enough That my fingers couldn’t find it I had to wait Heel up in the air Sitting on the edge of the bathtub Until my body had started to heal around it So I could dig tweezers in To pry the shimmer of glass Out of a deepening wound

Maybe I need to dig So I can step forward And start to heal

22

Everything has caught up to me Like running water Hitting a dam And stagnating All the mud And trash

Soaking

Staying

Simmering

In the still water

There’s no more movement Just so much stuff Waiting to be released While the pressure builds

23

Love takes so many different forms I think about them Strangely sometimes

If I tell someone that they’re the feeling Of holding a mug of hot coco That’s just barely too hot So it makes your fingers feel puffy and full Tingling As you grip the sides Reveling in the heat They don’t always understand what I mean

Or when I say That you feel cold Like the refreshing blast of air When you shake out your blankets In the middle of the summer heat The cool side of the pillow The dripping soda can Right from the cooler Pressed against your forehead Your neck Sending waves of goosebumps Across sticky Sweat tired skin

Or the feeling Of sliding into a pair of jeans Nearing a level of threadbare That can’t be saved Threads and weave and legs Relaxing into each other In a way only familiarity and time can give A softness earned With repetition

Would the people I love Know which one they were If I didn’t tell them

24

Today is languid Warm and stretched The feeling of legs under a warm blanket Stretching briefly Before settling back into sleep The light is bright but muted Like sunbeams Filtering through a bedsheet Drawn over a head That refuses to wake up yet Today is slow And too quiet To let my mind be at ease

25

I was going to make scones The Sunday before he died We had lemons and blueberries He loved lemon He’d liked the cherry ones I made last summer That we traded through my mailbox The recipe didn’t have too much sugar So he could have them as a treat

I was going to make scones And send some over

But I didn’t

Just like so many things I wanted to do and then didn’t He always understood I know he still loved me Even though my brain is broken And I can’t do everything I want to Can’t find the energy To love everyone the way I want

I know he still loved me

But I can’t bring myself to make scones today

26

I’ve been sleeping too much I can’t find what Rested Feels like anymore I wake up tired I’m tired all day Fatigued and wilting Like an overtaxed rose The last one hanging on In a sea of baby’s breath

I want to go to bed To really sleep So I crawl under the sheets And the weighted blanket Nested Surrounded by stuffed animals Pillows Folded blankets Anything to make me feel less alone

And I stay there For as long as my brain will let me Until dreaming and being awake Are too connected And all my dreams Involve me not being able to stand up Because Even unconscious I’m too aware That I’m still laying down While everyone else’s day Has already begun to drag

27

Last year On this day I lost someone Not someone I knew closely Not someone I’d shared tea with Or secrets with Not someone who felt like a piece of me But someone who brightened my day Made lovely art Someone who I looked in on Peeking into their internet home To check up on What they had created If they needed any help I could offer

It’s been a year And I feel loss differently This time I’m starting to resent April And the way it keeps taking from me

28

I feel a deep-seated loneliness today Not the kind of loneliness That being alone in a house incites Or sitting at a table When you suddenly realize None of these people want you there

But the kind of loneliness

Of stone steps Worn smooth and buckled By thousands upon thousands Of individual travels The combined power Of overlapping footsteps Wearing something down Until there’s pieces missing

The kind of loneliness

Of ancient toys Locked behind glass Once made to elicit joy And be moved by tiny hands Immobile and safe

The kind of loneliness

When you wake up just too late To say goodbye To a leaving partner And the only telling of them Is the cooling imprint The divot in a pillow Where their head would be If you’d woken a moment earlier

It’s the kind of loneliness of something missing

Something taken from its purpose

Something gone when you expected it to be there forever

29

I’ve changed this month I’m always changing Everyone is Ebb and flow Creeks carving curves Oceans sweeping sand

But something has altered me

Drastically

Every time I hear “I love you” I get scared That’s the last thing he heard And I’m terrified Someone else will leave

When I go to brush my teeth I take my phone with me now That’s all the time it took It won’t fix anything Won’t help If it happens again To someone else important

But I grip it like a talisman Trying to assuage someone else’s fear Of me disappearing

I’m so scared Of how fast people can leave Of how last moments Become an indelible anchor At a harbor of sunken ships

30

I think it’s almost funny How everything comes to an end It’s never as final as you expect

Not a sentence With nothing after

Not a lightbulb Burning out With a snap

Not a fork Scraping against a plate Taking the last tidbit

But a continuing thread

One fiber after another Overlapping Strengthening Twisting

Thousands of ends Negated By the simple fact That there’s always something else beginning Something continuing Something in its middle

So the thread stretches on

Even if one fiber falls away

[jumerccadelina]

Wounds That Won’t Heal

     “Time heals all wounds.”

     We have heard this expression so many times, especially from well-meaning friends during times of pain or grief. In essence, people who utter these words are saying, “Let it be. Give it time. It will eventually heal.”

     On the surface, it appears to have a grain of truth. As children we have had scratches, cuts, abrasions, and all of them did heal with the passage of time. For some, even the scars disappear, a testament to how wonderfully made we were.

     However, doctors will tell you that it is not entirely accurate. Some wounds will not heal on their own, even if you give it time. As a matter of fact, they may get worse without proper intervention. Here are some examples.

     Wounds with embedded foreign bodies. We once managed a young boy who fell from a Bayabas tree two years before consulting at the ER. He had a wound at his cheek that has not healed since the incident. The wound has festered and was draining pus. His teacher convinced the parents to have his wound checked. He was getting ridiculed at class and his grades were getting affected too. X-rays revealed that a wooden branch was embedded in his cheek bone. The wound healed when the said branch was removed. 

     Wounds with dead tissues within. Another patient, this one a young man who suffered a vehicular crash several years ago, also consulted for a non-healing wound on his leg. The wound opened a few weeks after the accident and has been draining ever since. X-rays revealed a piece of bone that was floating at the center of the wound, surrounded by purulent material. It was a chip fracture. The bone, detached from its blood supply died and subsequently got infected. Orthopedic surgeons call this dead bone a “sequestrum”. He underwent a procedure called Debridement, Curettage and Sequestrectomy which removed all the dead and infected tissues inside his leg. only then did his wound heal.

     Wounds with underlying infections. Some wounds actually harbor deep seated infections that prevent them from healing. An abscess or collection of pus under the wound, needs to be drained if healing is to happen. Antibiotics, no matter how strong cannot work unless they reach their target. And because these pockets of pus do not have blood vessels that can deliver the drug to the seat of infection, they persist and may actually get worse if left alone.

     Tumors. Some wounds that do not heal despite all efforts and medications, may require a procedure called a biopsy. This is because some tumors or cancers may present as non healing wounds. The only solution once these wounds are confirmed to be malignant is a radical resection which removes the entire tumor together with a rim of normal tissue.

     In all the above examples, wound healing does not happen despite the body’s capacity for repairing itself. The built in mechanisms of healing are prevented from working. These impediments to healing must be removed in order for repair to proceed as intended. If not, the wounds remain open and may actually worsen.

    Now, if you think that this only happens in the physical realm I beg to differ. Because wounds also happen in the psychological and the spiritual realms. And some may not heal, and get worse unless the obstacles to healing are removed. In the psychological realm, Therapists and Clinical Psychologists, or even friends with empathy can help wounded people remove their resentments or grudges so healing can proceed. Some, may also need  justice and restitution especially if great injustice has been inflicted upon them. 

     In the spiritual realm, these wounds take the form of sins and they wound the soul. Minor cuts and wounds of the soul sometimes called venial sins can heal with the ordinary remedies of the Church. In every mass, we have what is called the Penitential rite. When this part is reached, the people recite the Confiteor which begins as “I confess to Almighty God, and to you, my brothers and sisters, that I have greatly sinned....”  With the grace of the Lord, some of our venial sins are forgiven at this time. In short, some healing of the soul happens during every mass. This is similar to small wounds in the body which may respond to antibiotics and/or antiseptics. In some instances however, the wounds are too large or contain impediments that will prevent healing. In the medical world, the remedies used are wound suturing, debridement or removal of dead and infected tissues, removal of foreign bodies or resection of tumors. The Church has also instituted a remedy for the soul, a spiritual surgery that removes the obstacles to the healing of a gravely wounded soul. The remedy is the Sacrament of Reconciliation. A heartfelt and honest Confession of our sins to a priest restores us to spiritual health by removing  the great wounds that torment us and separate us from God. Let us avail of this gift as often as we can. Because some wounds do not heal on their own. And left alone, can get worse and cause further harm.

[sasorikigai]

@somniaxperdita stabbed the heart.

💥 || Tremors echo through his walls, then his mind. How he becomes tranced to step closer, lest Hanzo knows, he only does this to hurt deeper and further. Each thump of his heartbeat an alarm, each jolt of his nerves a trigger. His ears close inside the suffocating heat of the helmet's chamber, and expectedly, how his heart beats steeper as once the sanctuary of the club's dressing room has become riddled with the bruises of people, as the hubbub of weeps and pained groans continue to leak the atmosphere, Commander Hasashi feels the weight of the night become what was once a bearable toil to unbearable burden.

And it could be so frustrating, that he has to fight for not only his own mortal life, but of the others' - to survive and heal from the traumas all the turmoils and tragedies his life put him through. Hanzo had to tear himself apart, rip out each poisoned part of him in this painful process called healing. He had to sew together his heart that had been serrated to shreds and was almost unrecognizable. How he could never be calm, for his anxious heart ate up his body, ate up his nerves, ate up his brain. How every particle of him became slowly tainted by the poison of his wrath, frustration, and vengeance. The staining cruelty of his psyche once manifested through the scalding, harsh, corroding words, spoken without care, as blazing intensity of his gaze burned hotter than the burning metal.

Now that very emotion warms him through like coal; engulfing him entirely, as Hanzo dreams of the moment he can take a breath and be safe in Olivia's arms, without pain, without anguish as the familiar pain chips away at his being turning into an infection rotting his very soul. Scalding warmth clasps his temple, and he feels the crimson streak trail down his brow bone and near his intense amber eyes. And grief that he expects to return is like a wound that continues to fester and never heal, but he couldn't simply crumble, lest it becomes the entire ocean crashing down on him all at once. It is punishing, it takes his breath away; and yet, he blinks and heightens his vigilance and they are gone.

'It's been two years and I am still staring out a fucking window and futilely asking, why do people keep dying on me?' he thinks, as his pivoting gaze fixates upon Olivia's visage. How the entire dressing room feels as if it is pulsating with fear, the unknown signal of the assailants' looming assault unpredictable standoff, which was no closer to being dissolved anytime soon. "We may have to prepare for the long haul; barricade any openings and move any civilians out of the harm's way," fatigue-ladled, but his nerves shot up with surging adrenaline, he lets the visible ebb and flow of his breath rattle his heart as he directs a handful of people to evacuate at once. "I will have half of the squad lead and guard them, along with you, while I attempt to neutralize the situation at hand." 💥 ||