#in fact i am very sad

[somuchbetterthanthat]

TW: grief, spoilers for season 4 finale

When Leon had died, Nica had spent hours genuinely believing that if Dimitri had been here, if only she'd had Dimitri at her side, she'd be okay. She'd imagined him saying light-hearted stuff about their childhood, or pulling out obscure myths from his pockets to explain where Leon might be now. She'd thought he would curl up against her, and hold her hand, and let her cry and cry and cry until she was all empty of grief and they could learn together to live without their big brother.

But Dimitri is quiet, when they get off the Ferris wheel. Gemma leaves them to fall into Charlotte's arms, and they hug each other so tight it feels like they're going to disappear into one another. In the end it's Nica who grabs his hand and squeezes it tight.

"Come on," she says. "We should have ice cream."

"There's ice cream here?" Dimitri asks, but his eyes are lingering to a point somewhere to the left of her. He's fidgeting already, like he wants to run off, and Nica feels a tinge of familiar anger try to coil into her chest, but it's worn out and tired and they're doing this better now. They are. So she swallows her venom, and she asks:

"Where are we going, then?"

And Dimitri startles, and looks at her, and opens his mouth, before he shakes his head. "I-" he sighs. "I know, I know he's gone. For good. I know. But I thought... I wanted... I think I need to see the ball."

The probabilities of finding some shard of glass amidst the whole dirty ground are so low they're near impossible, of course, and they both know it. They're both aware, also, that Dimitri is Dimitri.

"Okay," Nica says. "Okay. Let's go, then."

They walk towards the direction Dimitri had been looking at. It takes them a whole thirty minutes until Dimitri, breathless, voice tight, goes: "There." and yes, indeed; the remnants of the ball lay there, scattered across a rather large perimeter.

She remembers burying Leon. He'd looked all proper and nice. She didn't remember picking up his outfit, but in the casket he'd been wearing his favourite sweater, dark blue, the last one mum had bought him before she'd died. He'd never said it was his favourite, but he'd always worn in when it was chilly enough to justify it and that the occasion called for casual but not too much. Especially if this was a celebration of some kind. He'd worn it the day Dimitri had left.

Fitting, had thought Nica then, numbly.

She doesn't know what to think of the shards of glass, but when she glances at Dimitri, she realizes he's staring at them like it's Leon's corpse. Like he's seeing Leon, laying down on the ground, in his blue sweater. She catches Dimitri just in time when he crumbles and starts sobbing, loud and shameless.

Her own eyes are dried and perhaps she should feel guilty about it. Perhaps tomorrow she'll think about this again and she'll hate herself some more, for not being able to cry like Dimitri, but... Didn't she already do that? Didn't she already fall? She remembers how hard she'd prayed and begged and cursed at the universe, at people, at anyone -- please help me. Please hold me. I cannot do this alone.

And so she kneels with Dimitri, and she throws her arms around him, and she strokes his hair just like Leon use to do when they were little and they'd scratched their knees running to a new adventure. She says:

"It's okay, Dimitri. It's okay, i'm here. I'm here. We're both here."

and she knows, then; she knows, with acute certainty, that they will be okay. They will learn to live without Leon. Together. As they should have, several years ago.

[southern--downpour]

gl!ranboo doodle sheet bc i am actually going insane

[inkskinned]

it is all chaos and entropy. the thing is that the chaos and entropy make it beautiful and lovely.

yes, it's true that nature and the universe are uncaring and unspecific, and that is terrifying. i have lived through some of the unfairness - i got born like this, with my body caving into itself, with this ironic love of dance when i sometimes can't stand up for longer than 15 minutes. i am a poet with hands that are slowly shutting down - i can't hold a pen some days. recently i found a dead bird on our front porch. she had no visible injuries. she had just died, the way things die sometimes.

it is also true that nature and the universe are uncaring and unspecific, and that is wonderful. the sheer happenstance that makes rain turn into a rainbow. the impossible coincidence of finding your best friend. i have made so many mistakes and i have let myself down and i have harmed other people by accident. nature moves anyway. on the worst day of my life she delivers me an orange juice sunset, as if she is saying try again tomorrow.

how vast and unknowing the universe! how small we are! isn't that lovely. the universe has given us flowers and harp strings and the shape of clouds. how massive our lives are in comparison to a grasshopper. the world so bright, still undiscovered. even after 30 years of being on this earth, i learned about a new type of animal today: the dhole.

chance echoing in my life like a harmony between two people talking. do you think you and i, living in different worlds but connected through the internet - do you think we've ever seen the same butterfly? they migrate thousands of miles. it's possible, right?

how beautiful the ways we fill the vastness of space. i love that when large amounts of people are applauding in a room, they all start clapping at the same time. i love that the ocean reminds us of our mother's heartbeat. i love that out of all the colors, chlorophyll chose green. i love the coincidences. i love the places where science says i don't know, but it just happens.

"the universe doesn't care about you!" oh, i know. that's okay. i care about the universe. i will put my big stupid heart out into it and watch the universe feast on it. it is not painful. it is strange - the more love you pour into the unfeeling world, the more it feels the world loves you in return. i know it's confirmation bias. i think i'm okay if my proof of kindness is just my own body and my own spirit.

i buried the bird from our porch deep in the woods. that same day, an old friend reaches out to me and says i miss you. wherever you go, no matter how bad it gets - you try to do good.

[ride-a-dromedary]

[I'm sorry for your loss.] It was a long time ago. The wounds don't heal, but they become more bearable.

[strawbebbiesart]

downstream 🫧🪸

[ramblingrodent]

missing

[alfazoings]

distortion detective been on th brain,,,,, i Am so ill about them

[qpjianghu]

(...but what if I was?)

Li Lianhua / Li Xiangyi | Mysterious Lotus Casebook (2023)

[short666bread]

[paskuda-lynx]

Now this is the weird cartoon I'd watch.

There would be some very questionable humor, screaming (and i kinda really miss Hunter's screeches from the second season. He was GREAT while raising his voice, no matter what anybody can say about it being annoying), grotesque episode scenarios, cool uniforms and much else!

[tj-crochets]

so in the past I have made themed gifts for people who have helped me* and it's been a little weird but like. Understandable to the person I am gifting the thing to weird? My current problem is that I want to make something for my endocrinologist because he has improved my quality of life hugely** but endocrinology doesn't have an easily themed gift and my endocrinologist reminds me very very strongly of like a sad greyhound or a whippet but I cannot explain to this very nice, very normal man that "hey I made you a plushie of a dog because I wanted to thank you for the steroids and you remind me of a dog. In a good way!" *like teeth plushies for the dentist who helped me figure out I have to have dental anesthetic without epinephrine in it, or a chicken plushie for the people at the chicken restaurant that went the extra mile to get their ingredients list that were the reason I figured out I'm allergic to coconut **I had what would have been a severe allergic reaction and it wasn't pleasant but I didn't end up in the hospital and I didn't take like a week minimum to recover and

[sangre]

narrator voice: The Single Greatest Experience Of Your Life.

[jenna-louise-jamie]

thinking about yassen gregorovich instead of sleeping (because i love him) and how he is a catalyst. yassen stabbs ash -> ash kills john rider -> ian rider raises alex -> yassen kills ian rider -> mi6 blackmails alex into becoming a teenage spy.

i have so many thoughts that i can't properly articulate. obviously this is a simplified chain of events, but yassen and his choices set off a chain reaction of the world's most unfortunate dominos. especially when you read russian roulette. to be clear im not necessarily trying to blame him for everything because that feels very mean. he was also just a 14 year old kid when everything in his life went wrong, just like alex. only difference being yassen literally had no one.

i think i should write an essay about this because i haven't even gotten into my thoughts about what yassen and alex's dynamic would look like past eagle strike. i would imagine it'd be similar to ellie and joel from the last of us part 2.

where obviously yassen loves alex and alex on some level cares for yassen back but struggles to reconcile that with the fact that yassen is responsible for his uncle's death. a very unforgivable act. it would be so messy and complicated and angsty, because on one hand here is an adult who truly cares about him and has a connection with him through his father. yassen could tell alex about john, and trust that yassen truly wants whats best for him. but he killed ian, and he cannot take that back.

while alex reels from those feelings, yassen is also trying to reconcile his love of alex with the knowledge that he on some level is responsible for the suffering alex endured at the hands of mi6. and possibly even the fact that alex's godfather is the one who killed john and helen.

[bluesidedown]

Gratitude time

[bisexualbuckleyy]

part of me is mildly irritated that shadow and bone is using so many crooked kingdom plot lines cause now i’m worried about how the six of crows spin-off show is going to be but the rest of me is just insanely excited about seeing crooked kingdom plot lines on screen

[everybodyshusband]

what do you meeeaaaaaan ao3 doesn't have a fic that fits my extremely niche and specific desires !?!?!?!