#of graves of worms and epitaphs

[ten-cent-sleuth]

1 for questions for fic writers!

What fic of yours would you recommend to someone who has never read any of your work? (In other words, what do you think is the best introduction to your fics?)

Ooh, this is a tough one. Of all the questions, you sent this one! 😂 (I kid, of course; I am happy to see you in my inbox again, thank you for the ask!!)

I want to say Committed to the Cause because it is my pride and joy, it is for my #1 “I keep returning to this fandom please help me” ship, and it is a shining example of what and how I like to write. One tiiiny problem: it is not published yet, so you can’t actually read it. Alternatively, Of Graves, Of Worms, and Epitaphs is another WIP I have poured my heart and soul into; it shares CttC’s exemplariness of my style/taste but shows a different side because CttC is a total AU for Philinda (from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.) while G/W/E is a S8 fix-it for GSR (from CSI; I wanted to include it for you, Mouse <3) (…sorry if you don’t ship GSR hwjfhdsjg). One tiiiny problem—can you guess what it is? xD

Not a Servant’s Dream is another AU but Addams Family meets Jane Eyre. It’s a good starting point because it’s fun, wholesome, and not too niche for the general fandom public but still makes clear my whumpy inclinations and my writing idiosyncrasies. However, it is also, uh…not published ksfhrjshgsj.

I would say my Mediatorverse is a practical introduction to my fics because the reader a) can choose from multiple fandoms to start with and b) will immediately see how self-indulgent my writing gets and how feral I am about my comfort characters, so if that ain’t their thing, they can dip early on. But of course: it is not published. :))

Basically, I tend to keep my projects close to my chest until they’re absolutely ready for the world. 😅

However, that would make for a rather unfruitful answer, so I present to you:

Never Lack, a SkippyPants one-shot, with a sequel in the works but uhh don’t hold your breath;

Nature’s Impossibilities, an MSR one-shot that I wrote for @/xfilesfanficexchange; and

Inextricably, a Lizzington one-shot, though this may be a controversial ship, w e l p.

All of these well demonstrate my wheelhouse, I’d say. Inextricably is likely the best demonstration of it, but it’s also likely the most Sus due to Lizzington lol and to some mature themes (it’s arguably the darkest of my AO3 fics, though not at all from everything I’ve written, including CttC and G/W/E). Nature’s Impossibilities shows what I can do when prompted (ily hyper-specific prompts, ily fic exchanges, ily fandom events), while Never Lack shows what I can do when completely unprompted (à la “the fic nobody asked for”). They’re both sorta conversation-heavy character study (not exactly meta character study, more like “Character B gets to ‘study’ Character A” kinda) type fics, so they’re on pretty equal footing as entries into my wheelhouse.

And I’d like to add A Galling Yoke merely for the virtue of being a multichap. It’s not quite finished yet but it’s the closest I’ve ever gotten (other than with one-shots). It’s got whump, it’s got angst, it’s got casefic, it’s got plot/world weaving (just a term I use in my head for a part of my process, idrk how to explain it though rip), it’s got lovey-dovey stuff, so lots of my trademarks. However, since it doesn’t have as many of the “magnifying glass” hijinks as I like to get into with my fic writing, I’d hesitate to call it the best introduction to Me.

Gracious, this was a long, low-key incomprehensible answer. Very sorry! In short: for a launchpad into my brand of fanfiction, I would recommend my fic Inextricably if you can stomach it, and if not, two fics would work, either Nature’s Impossibilities (this option for more weightiness/poetry/whatever) or Never Lack (this option for more random blorbo mania).

[emotinalsupportturtle]

I had to watch this production of Richard II twice to properly appreciate it because I was too busy staring at his beauty the first time.

RICHARD II (RSC) 2013

[afieldinengland]

this is biased and also just stating the obvious but we don’t talk enough about how unblinking 2000s emo music was about self harm and suicide. i’m thinking of my chemical romance and prehiatus fall out boy in particular— part of the reason it swelled so much for teenagers who were cutting themselves up in one way or another was undoubtedly because it was the only thing that wasn’t too squeamish to bring up the razor, and the first accessible poetry that understood it. ​i’m aware i’m not really saying anything new here, but what i’m trying to say is it didn’t flinch— it didn’t euphemise or try and edit it down. you’re fourteen and you’re cutting yourself and what i’m going to do is sit here and make eye contact with you and you’re going to realise somewhere on this two hour car journey with your skull candy earbuds in that you have stopped freaking out

[thisiswhymp3]

sometimes it really is me and my david tennant richard ii dvd against the world

[elastica1995]

*downloads david tenant’s rsc hollow crown monologue to put on normal music playlists*

[magnoliasandarson]

the return of light

Alfred Pennyworth was not a superstitious man by any stretch of the word. He had seen the very worst the world had to offer, but there were never any monsters or ghouls, just men. He knew how to deal with men.

That was why he walked without fear to the graveyard that night. The air was crisp; October in New Jersey wasn’t freezing, but it wasn’t warm. This time last year, Alfred had been helping Jason rehearse for his school play. How things could change in a year.

Jason Peter Todd-Wayne “for whom the world was not enough.”

Alfred had selected the epitaph. He had wept while searching for the words to sum up the short life of his grandson. His gloved fingers traced over the carved granite, “Good evening, dear boy.”

It was not his first visit to the grave, but it marked something strange. He heard a dull thump from the ground. His pulse quickened, and he surveyed his surroundings, “Is someone there?”

Another thump emanated from the dirt. Alfred landed on his knees, a sharp exhale shaking his body as his aching joints took the hit, “Jason?” It wasn’t logical; it wasn’t possible, but Jason had lived for the illogical and impossible. There was a scream. Layers of earth muffled it, but Alfred heard it. It was animalistic, raw, and terrified. It made Alfred’s spine stiffen with resolve.

White gloves frantically ripped up a clump of grassy sod, “Jason!” He wouldn’t get there in time. If it was Jason down there, if his grandson was back, he would suffocate beneath six feet of dirt. Alfred fumbled with his waistcoat; he had scoffed at the panic button when Bruce foisted it upon him, but he could nearly cry as he rapidly pressed the Bat Symbol.

He didn’t have a shovel- the garden shed was so far away. Alfred didn’t have time- Jason didn’t have time. The screams- Lord, the screams- hadn’t let up. Neither had the thumping. Jason was back somehow- and he was digging himself out.

“Bruce!” Alfred shouted, “Bruce Wayne! Damnit, Bruce!” Never had Alfred so ignored protocol, but he had never cared less about it either. He was still rapidly ripping the ground up, his previously pristine gloves in tatters.

The ground shook behind him, and he looked up to see Bruce in full Batman regalia, chest heaving, face flushed, “What are you doing?”

Alfred was elbow-deep in damp earth, not pausing his digging for a second, “Get a shovel!”

Bruce seemed to come back to his body, ripping the cowl off as he slammed to his knees next to the grave, “Is that- is- Jason?” The screams were fading, but they were all Alfred could hear. Bruce also heard them if his jumping up and running to the garden shed was anything to judge. 

Alfred was beyond any of that, “Hold on, Jason!” He was still screaming. Alfred desperately needed him to stop screaming. 

Bruce crashed back to his side, handing him a shovel before attacking the ground himself. They dug as men possessed, splinters from the handle cutting into Alfred’s hands through his ruined gloves. 

“I’m here, Jay-” Bruce was frantic, “I’m here, son, I’m here.” 

Alfred felt halfway to a heart attack, but he couldn’t stop. Another foot in, they heard, “-ad! -fie!” The shovel almost slipped from Alfred’s hands, but Bruce seemed to grow even more desperate. They were at least four feet deep, tossing dirt out of the pit. 

Dirt burst away as a bloody hand erupted from the ground. Alfred flailed back into the side of the hole, staring in abject horror at the gory mess of his grandson’s hand. It was missing every nail, at least two fingers broken horribly, and blood was covering whatever dirt didn’t.

Bruce threw his shovel away, pawing at the ground in a way that would’ve been comical in any other situation. A second bloody hand joined the first, and soon Bruce was cradling Jason, “My son-” Bruce’s tears mingled with Jason’s as they dripped from his face onto the younger’s, “my precious son.”

Jason. Covered in dirt and blood, a worm wriggling in his beautiful curls. Jason. Still silently screaming, clawing at the Batsuit, face frozen in a mask of terror. Jason. Jason. Jason. Brilliant blue eyes that had filled Alfred’s nightmares for months connected with his own, and the world clicked into focus. 

Alfred stumbled forward, his own filthy bloody fingers connecting with Jason’s face as he frantically smoothed the lines of his face. Jason, “Lord, Jason.” 

He was here, alive. Hurt, but alive, so alive.  Alfred clutched at his boys, his son, and grandson, and tilted his head back to the starlit sky, “Jason.”

[aleksakonstanta]

Stained glass window at Cardiff Castle of Richard III and his wife Queen Anne Neville

Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;

Make dust our paper and with rainy eyes

Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth,

Let's choose executors and talk of wills:

And yet not so, for what can we bequeath

Save our deposed bodies to the ground?

W. Shakespeare, Richard II

[songbird-is-crying]

i’m sleeper agent but my trigger phrase is “let’s talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs”

[werewolf-transgenderism]

No matter where; of comfort no man speak:

Let’s talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;

Make dust our paper and with rainy eyes

Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth

[fearsomeandwretchedandwrong]

No matter where; of comfort no man speak. Let’s talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs

[power-chords]

So, I'm walking down Coldharbour Lane, head hung low, three or four in the morning. The sun's coming up and the birds are out singing. I let myself into my pad, wend myself up that spiral staircase and stretch out nice on the Chesterfield.

Pithecanthropus Erectus already on the CD player and I just push that remote button to sublimity. And listen to the sweet, sculptural rhythms of Charles Mingus. And J.R. Monterose and Jackie McLean duet on those saxophones and the sound makes its way out the window mingling with the traffic noises outside, you know, and all of a sudden I'm overcome by a feeling of brief mortality.

'Cause I'm getting on in the world, coming up on forty-one years. Forty-one stony gray steps towards the grave, you know, the box awaits its grisly load. Now I'm gonna be food for worms.

And just like Charles Mingus wrote that beautiful piece of music "Epitaph" for Eric Dolphy, I say, so long, Eric. So long, John Coltrane and Charles Mingus. So long, Duke Ellington and Lester Young. So long, Billie Holliday and Ella Fitzgerald. So long, Jimmy Reed. So long, Muddy Waters, and so long, Howlin' Wolf.

[rabbitcruiser]

Plan Your Own Epitaph Day

There comes a day in every person’s life when they have to face the inevitable, one day, they will be little more than food for worms. But this need not be a time for sorrow and somber reflection, but rather an opportunity to plan your last words to the world. This day, Plan Your Own Epitaph Day, is the perfect day to set aside some time to figure out what you’re going to have to say about yourself before you’re gone.

Your Epitaph is going to be that one thing that is remembered forever about you, even by those who never knew you.  There have been some great epitaphs written, forever engraved on the stones that stand in graveyards, ancient and recent alike. Some of them are tongue in cheek, like the last words of one Johnny Yeast. “Here lies Johnny Yeast, pardon me for not rising”, while others are representative of the achievements of those who now lie resting. One Ludolph van Ceulen had the first 35 digits of Pi inscribed on his tombstone, as he was the first to calculate this delicious sounding number out to that many decimals.

The nature of one’s Epitaph, and its content, bears careful consideration. It will stay with you for as much of eternity as your headstone survives, and can serve as a warning to those coming down the path to deaths door behind you. Consider such epitaphs as “Consider, friend, as you pass by: As you are now, so once was I. As I am now, you too shall be. Prepare, therefore, to follow me.” Which is found on an old Scottish tombstone.

Some of the activities you can do to celebrate this day, is go to graveyards and look for inspiration in the stones of those who have already passed. Grave rubbings are a pasttime that has been enjoyed for a long time, and this is one more way to collect Epitaphs that have already been written to help inspire you to write yours! One particularly nifty part of this is that grave-rubbings can reveal epitaphs that are otherwise nearly illegible. To participate, you need nothing more than a piece of paper and a piece of charcoal. You place the paper against the surface of the gravestone, and rub the charcoal over it. It will produce a copy of whatever is engraved on the stone that you can take away!

Another thing you can do to celebrate this pasttime is to have picnics in the graveyard with likeminded friends. Together you can sit and brainstorm on what you’d like your final words to the world to be. If you’re one of the lucky ones who lives in the vicinity of a graveyard where the world’s great poets and authors were laid to rest, you could seek inspiration in their final verse.

Plan your own Epitaph day is a day for reflection on our own mortality, and thinking forward to what kind of legacy we want to leave behind for those who come after us. While we will live on in the minds of our family and friends, the story of who we are will only be told to strangers in our final message to the world, left engraved in the marble tablet of our headstone.  So take some time  to think about where you’ve been, what you’ve done, and what you’d like to say to those who come after, and start taking strides to make sure your Epitaph is worth reading!

Source

[afieldinengland]

DAVID TENNANT AS RICHARD II FOR THE RSC (2013)

no matter where, of comfort no man speak. let’s talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs, make dust our paper and with rainy eyes write sorrow on the bosom of the earth. let’s choose executors and talk of wills; and yet not so, for what can we bequeath save our deposed bodies to the ground? our lands, our lives and all are bolingbroke's, and nothing can we call our own but death and that small model of the barren earth which serves as paste and cover to our bones. for god’s sake, let us sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the death of kings; how some have been deposed, some slain in war, some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed, some poison'd by their wives, some sleeping kill'd; all murder'd. for within the hollow crown that rounds the mortal temples of a king keeps death his court, and there the antic sits, scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp; allowing him a breath, a little scene, to monarchise, be fear'd and kill with looks, infusing him with self and vain conceit as if this flesh which walls about our life were brass impregnable, and humour'd thus, comes at the last and with a little pin bores through his castle wall, and farewell king! cover your heads, and mock not flesh and blood with solemn reverence; throw away respect, tradition, form and ceremonious duty, for you have but mistook me all this while. i live with bread like you, feel want, taste grief, need friends; subjected thus, how can you say to me, i am a king?

[clandestinetrysts]

"Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs. make dust our paper and with rainy eyes. write sorrow on the bosom of the earth."

- shakespeare

[thaliajoy-blog]

This movie is BEAUTIFUL.

And so is this (very a propos) :

" Let’s talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;

Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes

Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth;

Let’s choose executors and talk of wills.

And yet not so—for what can we bequeath

Save our deposed bodies to the ground?

Our lands, our lives, and all are Bolingbroke’s,

And nothing can we call our own but death;

And that small model of the barren earth

Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.

For God’s sake let us sit upon the ground

And tell sad stories of the death of kings:

How some have been depos’d, some slain in war,

Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed,

Some poisoned by their wives, some sleeping kill’d,

All murthered—for within the hollow crown

That rounds the mortal temples of a king

Keeps Death his court, and there the antic sits,

Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp,

Allowing him a breath, a little scene,

To monarchize, be fear’d, and kill with looks;

Infusing him with self and vain conceit

As if this flesh which walls about our life

Were brass impregnable; and, humour’d thus

Comes at the last, and with a little pin

Bores thorough his castle wall, and farewell king!

Cover your heads, and mock not flesh and blood

With solemn reverence; throw away respect,

Tradition, form, and ceremonious duty;

For you have but mistook me all this while.

I live with bread like you, feel want,

Taste grief, need friends—subjected thus,

How can you say to me, I am a king? "

[cbjustmusic]

The Local Honeys performing “Throw Me In The Thicket (When I Die)”. ________________________________ Throw Me In The Thicket (When I Die) Songwriters: Linda Jean Stokley and Montana Hobbs

My favorite horse is buried on this farm We would ride amongst the orchard rows and be scared of snakes together I was riding high from toes to crown My head held up, my heels thrust down That's the way I carry myself today

Throw me in the thicket when I die Let the earth reclaim my body Let the worms devour my insides It's fed me now for, oh, so long I'll feed it for days by gone And for all that's worth to you I'd bet the farm My daddy said he'd die up on his farm For to tie him even closer To the Lord's foreclosure His soul dispersed along this ground Somebody hauled him into town Still I place little trackers on his grave

Throw me in the thicket when I die Let the earth reclaim my body Let the worms devour my insides It's fed me now for, oh, so long I'll feed it for days by gone And for all that's worth to you I'd bet the farm

You don't need no flowers or epitaph To nourish the trees your babies graft The graveyard's getting overrun these days

So, throw me in the thicket when I die Let the earth reclaim my body Let the worms devour my insides It's fed me now for, oh, so long I'll feed it for days by gone And for all that's worth to you I'd bet the farm For all that's worth to you I'd bet the farm