#project: tabula rasa

[achromant]

alright. finally started the illustrations for my tarot set. this... is gonna take while. let's see how far i can go before i break shit again.

left is the initial thumbnail i did, right is the current WIP

since these cards follow the story for Tabula Rasa, they are named "Tabula Rasa" (The Fool), and "Wizard" (The Magician)

[milfbro]

is Dean gay

[ben-drabbles]

To Regret It All

This colony ship was cleanest start for a new civilization out of any of Earth's attempts. Most included seeds for new societies in their designs; for example, the Hero's Journey kept many stories of old Earth alive, though the deterioration of their physical records means that most are now kept as oral histories or long-distorted fables. Some took the risk of cryogenically freezing their passengers and crew, though that rarely, if ever, worked. After all, everyone dies eventually.

To Regret It All, however, kept a strict divide between their passengers and crew, and replicated Earth's environments as closely as space allowed with rotational gravity and a massive tube-shaped biosphere. The second generation born on their long voyage did not even know they were on a spaceship, let alone why. The crew, once they ensured the ship would reach their destination - a planet as Earth-like as they could find - were frozen for any emergencies the ship's advanced autopilot could not handle. When To Regret It All reached its final destination, the crew was euthanized, and their whole section of the ship - including the autopilot AI - was ejected and destroyed. In this way, the civilization born of the Regret was something as wholly new as possible.

Of course, no one can escape the influence of their parents, despite the efforts of the Regret. Some believe that the passengers of the Regret are actually the closest people to those of old Earth, as they did not start over from a template or goal. They just kept living, albeit in a much more confined - and, well, cylindrical - space than a true planetoid. Others believe that the first generation of colonists instilled a certain value in originality and fresh ideas, rather than a true blank slate. Others still suspect that a certain ease of living permeated their early years, due to the lack of real danger built into To Regret It All, and the people's inability to truly explore their surroundings. Who is to say? We can only hope that the passengers and crew of the Regret rest easy, knowing that they did the best they could.

Though, after the autopilot and crew were killed, the colonists certainly had a very eventful landing.

[genderkoolaid]

expand on ur "mental asylum Marxism shit" thing about children & grief?? from what you've said im pretty sure i will relate from my own experiences as a grieving child. also it sounds interesting!!

so i was thinking about how weird it is that, when a child has to deal with the death of a loved one, they say something like "no child should have to go through this! no child should have to even think about death!" which strikes me as weird because i was a child who dealt with the deaths of multiple close family members, very close together. the first was my great-grandmother, who i lived with and who was my best friend. death was never foreign to me (my mom has always been very death-positive on top of all that). grief was just part of my life like everything else was.

but i realized that its because people think childhood should not have any flaws. you should be 100% happy and fulfilled all the time. any time a child experiences anything painful, its bad. not "children should have access to love and support," but "children should not have basic life experiences because the idea of childhood being anything other than fluffy purity scares me."

because children in society are fundamentally not people. especially in a society structured around christian beliefs in natural law theory, that what is natural = what is good, healthy, and Divinely commanded. so on top of children being the property of adults, they are also forced to be the symbols of Nature. whatever is the most useful to whoever needs them. which means we built up this idea of children as tabula rasas, pureness incarnate. like a magic mirror where if we look into it, we'll be able to catch a glimpse of the true face of humanity. every single thing children do can be scrutinized for some grand truth about humans as a whole. and then, the ways children are treated also reflect how we think humanity should interact with its own nature.

example: the idea of humanity as inherently sinful and wicked, with that urge needing to be suppressed through state violence (hello hobbes) = the idea that children are annoying and shitty on purpose and need to be forced via punishment into being Good Citizens.

this is also why children cannot be trans, even though all trans people must prove that we were trans children. being queer must be unnatural; and even if not, its inherently sexual, and sexuality is dirty and bad. so children can't be trans, and they also can't read books on puberty until their parents decide when and what exactly they are allowed to learn. child victims of sexual assault only matter to the extent that they can be used as a symbol of a cultural threat; calling Jewish or trans people pedophiles means saying that they are foreigners attacking basic human nature, and indirectly, Divine command. if you aren't the right kind of victim, or when you inevitably reveal yourself to be A Person with complicated experiences and opinions, you are no longer of use to the agenda.

it sucks that bad things happen to anyone. aspects of youth can exacerbate the pain sometimes, but sometimes it does the reverse: I wish I could have spent more time with the family members I lost, but I know other people who are glad they loss family members young, because they weren't really hurt by it. I think the main thing is that, even sometimes when we talk about our past selves, we project this cultural idea of Child As Purity and ignore the actual person having the experience. when we "empathize" with children by projecting Purity onto them, we aren't actually connecting with them.

[violettathepiratequeen]

The Writers of BtVS

So because I'm a nerd, and because I was curious, I compiled a list of the credited Buffy writers and their episodes, mostly to check for their own consistency, haha. And because I thought it was interesting enough to share:

WRITERS:

Joss Whedon

Welcome to the Hellmouth

The Harvest

Nightmares (with David Greenwalt)

Out of Mind, Out of Sight (with Ashley Gable and Thomas A. Swyden)

Prophecy Girl

When She Was Bad

School Hard (with David Greenwalt)

Lie to Me

Ted (with David Greenwalt)

Innocence

Becoming, Part 1

Becoming, Part 2

Anne

Amends

Doppelgangland

Graduation Day, Part 1

Graduation Day, Part 2

The Freshman

Hush

Who Are You?

Restless

Family

The Body

The Gift

Once More With Feeling

Lessons

Chosen

Dana Reston

Witch

David Greenwalt

Teacher’s Pet

Angel

Nightmares (with Joss Whedon)

School Hard (with Joss Whedon)

Reptile Boy

Ted (with Joss Whedon)

Faith, Hope, and Trick

Homecoming

Rob Des Hotel & Dean Batali

Never Kill a Boy on the First Date 

The Puppet Show 

The Dark Age 

Phases 

Killed By Death 

Matt Kiene

The Pack

Inca Mummy Girl (with Joe Reinkemeyer)

Ashley Gable and Thomas A. Swyden

I, Robot… You, Jane

Out of Mind, Out of Sight (with Joss Whedon)

Ty King

Some Assembly Required

Passion

Joe Reinkemeyer

Inca Mummy Girl (with Matt Kiene)

Carl Ellsworth

Halloween

Howard Gordon

What’s My Line? Part 1 (with Marti Noxon)

Marti Noxon

What’s My Line? Part 1 (with Howard Gordon)

What’s My Line? Part 2

Bad Eggs

Surprise

Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered

I Only Have Eyes For You

Dead Man’s Party

Beauty and the Beasts

The Wish

Consequences

The Prom

Living Conditions

Wild at Heart

Doomed (with David Fury and Jane Espenson)

Goodbye Iowa

New Moon Rising

Buffy vs. Dracula

Into the Woods

Forever

Bargaining, Part 1

Wrecked

Villains

Bring on the Night (with Douglas Petrie)

Elin Hampton

Go Fish (with David Fury)

David Fury

Go Fish (with Elin Hampton)

Helpless

Choices

Fear Itself

Doomed (with Marti Noxon and Jane Espenson)

The I in Team

Primeval

Real Me

Shadow

Crush

Bargaining, Part 2

Life Serial (with Jane Espenson)

Gone

Grave

Sleeper (with Jane Espenson)

Showtime

Lies My Parents Told Me (with Drew Goddard)

Thania St. John

Gingerbread (with Jane Espenson)

Jane Espenson

Band Candy

Gingerbread (with Thania St. John)

Earshot

The Harsh Light of Day

Pangs

Doomed (with David Fury and Marti Noxon)

A New Man

Superstar

The Replacement

Triangle

Checkpoint (with Douglas Petrie)

I Was Made to Love You

Intervention

After Life

Flooded (with Douglas Petrie)

Life Serial (with David Fury)

Doublemeat Palace

Same Time, Same Place

Conversations with Dead People (with Drew Goddard)

Sleeper (with David Fury)

First Date

Storyteller

End of Days (with Douglas Petrie)

Douglas Petrie

Revelations

Bad Girls

Enemies

The Initiative

This Year’s Girl

The Yoko Factor

No Place Like Home

Fool For Love

Checkpoint (with Jane Espenson)

The Weight of the World

Flooded (with Jane Espenson)

As You Were

Two to Go

Beneath You

Bring on the Night (with Marti Noxon)

Get it Done

End of Days (with Jane Espenson)

Dan Vebber

Lovers Walk

The Zeppo

Tracey Forbes

Beer Bad

Something Blue

Where the Wild Things Are

Rebecca Rand Kirshner

Out of My Mind

Listening to Fear

Tough Love

Tabula Rasa

Hell’s Bells

Help

Potential

Touched

Steven S. DeKnight

Blood Ties

Spiral

All the Way

Dead Things

Seeing Red

Drew Z. Greenberg

Smashed

Older and Far Away

Entropy

Him

The Killer in Me

Empty Places

Diego Gutierrez

Normal Again

Drew Goddard

Selfless

Conversations with Dead People (with Jane Espenson) 

Never Leave Me

Lies My Parents Told Me (with David Fury)

Dirty Girls

So the conclusion I've come to is... in my own fanfic writing projects, I sometimes have works that I know are very good and are received well. And there are some that I know just stink, and the lower interaction reflects it. It's pretty comforting to know that for professional writers, the same thing is true.

Jane Espenson, for instance, beloved by Spuffies everywhere for being our man on the inside, ALSO co-wrote "Gingerbread," my least favorite ep ever.

Douglas Petrie is, in my opinion, absolutely an undercover Spuffy, or at least understood the assignment well enough to fake it. And I love him for being the first to write Wesley, for breaking Bangel up one of the times in S3, for writing "Fool for Love," for strengthening Spike's character in every ep that included him.

And David Fury... look, I know he gets a lot of flack, but I think he doesn't actually hate Spike as much as it seems. Looking at his list of episodes and the messages I know to be in them, I think he's just VERY pro-soul, and can't wrap his head around a vampire being good without one. But once Spike does get his soul... well, we need look no further than "Showtime."

But really, let's all bow down to Rebecca Rand Kirshner. For "Out of My Mind." For "Tabula Rasa." For "Help." For "Touched." For some of the sweetest Spuffy moments in all her other eps.

[chicago-geniza]

Once again thinking about Gabrielle and Lestat as fucked-up psychosexual mirror-doubles where Lestat's like "you're the woman I wanted to grow up to be" (this is my artistic-license interpretation because I like to have fun) and Gabrielle is like "you're the man in me" but they're both trans and projecting their frustrated desires for self-realization onto the convenient tabula rasa of an Other who bears them a superficial physical resemblance. And they mistake that resemblance (plus a shared sense of alienation within the nuclear family they didn't choose) for elective affinity and mutual understanding when in fact they're just both trans and neither recognizes the other's full personhood at all. Yes I know this is Anne Rice's textual mother/son + fledgling/maker incest plot with extra steps. But the extra steps are there if you Believe though

[crimeronan]

my most irritating severance theory is that "gemma" was never real and that she's a carbon copy of dichen lachman's character in dollhouse, who was a tabula rasa woman living in a hole that could be programmed with different personalities to fuck rich clients. i'm like 99% sure this is what "exports" are -- it's lumen shipping pre-downloaded sexbots with custom human personalities out to people. and/or using those sexbots for the company's own manipulative agenda.

in keeping with this, the entire relationship and """death""" and subsequent soulshattering grief were all painstakingly manufactured by lumen to get mark scout to sever himself, because for some fucking reason, he's the only one who can complete project cold harbor, whatever the Fuck that is. (i have not been in any theory tags and do not have any ideas about what it is or why mark s is special. or even IF he's special.)

then once mark finds out that gemma isn't real, his feelings for and about her will vanish in an uncomplicated puff of smoke. he will become miraculously free to continue his deeply fucked-up """love triangle""" with the helltwins without needing to answer any complicated questions about, like, the self, and his emotions, and his commitments, and polyamory.

(the helltwins don't count as complicated relationship dynamics because they are the same person, aside from not being the same person, and they hate each other, and also most importantly, mark absolutely Does Not Want to fuck one of them. hurrah!)

this theory irritates the fuck out of me bc i really do think i'm right about gemma. and this "twist," as a way to avoid any interesting themes, would be the laziest, most boring thing they could Possibly do.

i am on my fucking Knees praying to god that they KNOW this is the laziest, most boring thing they could possibly do. Please, God, If You Love Me. Please. Please Don't .

...

HOWEVER.

i WILL accept the lumon-engineered-a-sexbot-relationship-to-coerce-mark-into-severance plot, IF and ONLY if:

gemma is a person.

not like, gemma is a human being whose outie parents aren't actors. i mean, gemma is an artificial sexbot with a nonconsensually programmed personality, AND gemma is a fully sentient living breathing person. who wants her life back. who wants her AUTONOMY back. who is just now learning that she Literally Never Had Autonomy In The First Place.

we, as the audience, get to see her reckon with her identity. we're used to innies being the most oppressed class in the show, but gemma is something else entirely. even less than an innie. she is, legally and corporately, Nothing. she is an object built to serve lumon (and, upsettingly, mark!) without any sense of interiority or free will.

but here she is. having interiority and free will.

if the writers take the themes of personhood and "what is identity?" and "how do we define each other?" to their logical conclusion, by making gemma a non-person who Absolutely Fucking Is A Person....

and so we get to See Her be absolutely fucking MESSY and WRECKED and COMPLICATED, instead of always being the laughing dead wife or the gentle vapid servant....

if gemma Gets An Arc. if gemma makes Choices. if gemma has Motivations and Desires and Fuckups. if gemma gets to be centered in the narrative thematically, the same way the other innies are, if gemma gets to drive the story Herself instead of being the carrot on a stick for mark...

well. then the writers will have my heart. 5eva.

🙏🙏🙏

[wanderingmind867]

The Justice League tv show has a lot of good Martian Manhunter scenes, but they're sometimes buried within otherwise bad episodes. Take the Amazo episode, tabula rasa. In that episode, J'onn tries to read the minds of everyone in Metropolis, only for him to suffer a panic attack, get overstimulated and hide out in the woods. And gods, I felt that story right in my heart. It felt like a perfect metaphor for what it feels like when I get overwhelmed sometimes. Maybe i'm just projecting into my favourite character, but j'onn feels very autistic to me. He reminds me of myself, and i love him for that. I love him so, so much.

The Justice League show is like 70% crap. But within that 70%, we have a lot of good episodes. And every good episode features J'onn. If J'onn isn't in it, it can't be good. He is the end all be all when it comes to this show. He is the character who makes everything better. And Carl Lumbly is a saint for making this character so relatable and charming.

[achromant]

updated this bastard's ref sheets, mainly to make it easier to decipher

if you see a mistake, ignore it. these are just sketches.

[mazerunnersecretsanta]

Merry Christmas @seaselkie

Title: Tabula Rasa

Rating: Teen and Up Audiences

Warnings: N/A

Wordcount: 6,230

Summary:  Thomas is sent up into the Maze on day one as a part of a group of ten boys similar in both age and plight — they have no memories of before and no idea what awaits them on the other side of those impenetrable walls. Seemingly impenetrable. Between strange dreams and stranger accusations he's afraid might start ringing true, Thomas is determined to find a way out; and if there isn't one pre-made, he's going to make one himself.

Message to giftee: Merry TMRSS and happy holidays, Rach! 🥰

[professorfcknmoriarty]

Tabula Rasa

“I’m sorry, I’m doing this all wrong,” he says, his face scrunching up. He extends a hand to Evan through the window. “Hi, my name’s Jammer. I’m just passing through.” “Hi, Jammer-I’m-Just-Passing-Through,” Evan says, smirking. He wipes his palm on his jeans to dry it as much as possible before taking the hand, overly conscious of whether it’s clammy or not. “I’m Evan. Do you- did you have any pronouns I need to be aware of?” Jammer barks out a laugh and squeezes Evan’s hand, clasping it with his other for several incredible seconds. “You met K, then,” he says confidently. “Yeah,” Evan admits. “They, uh, they said your car broke down?

OR

Between his job at the local hardware store, chasing away geriatrics who want a bite out of him, and helping out his neighbours, Evan’s busy enough.

The last thing he needs is for three total strangers from the city to stumble into his otherwise quiet and boring life, drive a lightning rod into the core of his being, and forever change the nature of his small-town reality.

[aletterinthenameofsanity]

Art References for Chapter 3 of underneath the sunrise (show me where your love lies)

(Aka: it all starts with Klimt. And then it fucking spirals.)

The Kiss, Gustav Klimt, 1907-1908

"So Monty’s here, in Charles and Edwin’s bed again, and it’s not for sex. It’s for kissing, long and lovely and fucking sunshine, because Monty finally understands why Klimt insisted on painting kisses wreathed in golden light."

IKB 191, Yves Klein, 1962

"Niko and Crystal enter, Crystal striding forward with purpose, Niko almost skating across the floor to fling her arms around Monty in a blur of Yves Klein blue. Monty sinks into the warmth of her embrace, enthusiastic and strawberry-scented, kind as can be."

Still Life with a Roemer, William Kalf, 17th Century

"Monty was not going to ask, no matter how much curiosity has bubbled beneath his skin like wine in a goblet in a Kalf still life. If Edwin is respecting his privacy, he wasn’t going to poke at Edwin's."

Lady Writing a Letter with Her Maid, Johannes Vermeer, 1670-1671

"Monty wakes up to the sunrise through the windows, gold falling across Edwin and Charles’ sleeping faces, bright as Vermeer sunlight on a lady writing a letter to her lover."

The Birthday, Marc Chagall, 1915

"Charles is at the stove, cooking rice and humming off-beat in the sort of way that makes Monty understand why Marc Chagall painted himself floating when he kissed his wife in the kitchen, bright and bold against the red carpet."

Madonna della Pietà, Michaelangelo, 1498-1499

"And it is humiliating, in its way, to admit the way that his mother still has a stranglehold on him, eight years after he moved out of her house. To admit that she has always had her hand around his neck, that he would do so much for her under the guise of familial devotion. That he might have ended up a dead body in a Pieta, helpless on Mary's lap.

(But that's different; Esther has never been a Madonna. Neither has Monty Finch.

And by god, would Esther Finch never weep over her son.)"

Kintsugi (on Mishima ware tea bowl), 16th century

"It’s hard to get the words to come out, when Monty wants nothing more than to embrace the tabula rasa, but sometimes things need to break before they can be repaired, the cracks filled kintsugi gold."

@deadboy-edwin @icecreambrownies @anonymousbooknerd-universe @ashildrs

@tragedy-machine @just-existing-as-you-do-blog @orpheusetude @mj-irvine-selby

@pappelsiin @itsbitmxdinhere @rexrevri @sweet-like-h0ney-lavender @saffirez

@the-ipre @sunnylemonss @days-light @agentearthling @helltechnicality

@sethlost @catboy-cabin @secretlyafiveheadeddragon @vyther15

@anything-thats-rock-and-roll @queen-of-hobgobblers @every-moment-a-different-sound

@nix-nihili @mellxncollie @tumblerislovetumblerislife @lemurafraidofthunder

@likemmmcookies @wr0temyway0ut @thelakeswillbreakourfall

[bleachbleachbleach]

Hiiiii, re ur post abt goals and the whole being more active in the community thing -- I'll try to remember to interact with u more than just liking/reblogging things! I've been super quiet on my own blog since I had burnout two years ago but I'm trying to get back into doing more than just occasionally posting fic, and honestly I love a lot of ur head canon posts and metas etc. I probably won't read any of ur fic because I'm a Bit Weird in that for some reason I hate reading fic in the fandoms I write for (but still love metas and headcanons? Brains sure are weird) but everything else I'll try to actually Write Words instead of letting my thoughts stay in my head!

This is such a sweet message! <3333333

I would totally welcome conversation, and it’s great to know that you are open to it, too. Because I feel like Tumblr as a platform runs on a parallel play model on purpose, and most people probably just want to do that, and my hesitation in going full throttle about using Tumblr the way I would want is my fear that it is going to be obnoxious/overbearing/overwhelming (e.g. driving people to madness via “Why is this person talking to me… I didn’t want to talk to them...”).

It’s so funny you should say that, re: enjoying hcs/meta but not fanfic in your writing fandoms, because I think about that divide a lot! Half the time I spend writing most* headcanon posts is actually time spent workshopping “sooooo…. how do I say this without saying ‘well, in my fanfic…’” because it’s probably something I already wrote in fanfic or notes for fanfic, but 1) I want to talk to people about it, and the chances that I will get to if it’s written in a fanfic are fairly slim, and 2) I want to hear other people’s versions of it, too. In their fanfic, if they write fanfic, but also their posts or tags!

But that can be complicated because in my mind, [insert headcanon post topic] tends to be fairly situated in context—the context of fic things having happened, or things that are going to happen, or thematic undercurrents/relationships—so it becomes a project in trying to make the proposition NOT sound completely bananas without that context/something being written in a particular way. Which can sometimes be its own kind of fun and is sometimes like “good grief, I could have simply been writing more fanfic!�� (I feel like I should emphasize here that no one should feel obligated to read my fanfic. I mean, I want people to want to read it! But I very much do not want anyone to feel like they Have To or like they need to explain why they’re not!)

Our approaches are opposite, in that my brain is fanfic forward, both for myself and for others’ fanfic. But I do feel like a lot of RP blogs share your orientation re: not wanting to read other versions of the character they write for! I don’t know if this is where you, specifically, are coming from, but I’ve read on some of the RP blogs that it has a lot to do with having a strong investment in their own particular color on things, and wanting that centered and front of mind. (Which isn’t to say that sentiment isn’t true of most people, I think, because otherwise they wouldn’t write them that way—it’s true of me—but ymmv on how much someone wants to see the other iterations.)

For me, I know that I’m a lot less adventurous about Interpretations That Excite Me for my blorbos than other characters I might read for. Like, to use a silly example, in my mind Soi Fon is 100% Lesbian (which stands out in my headcanon space because I generally assume most everyone in Bleach would be on some level willing to get down with most anyone else), but did I click on Soi Fon/Vegeta when I came across it anyway? Absolutely I did. I barely know who Vegeta is. But my down-to-clown boundaries with Soi Fon are very low, nearly tabula rasa, so go get Vegeta, girl!!!! Whereas for like, Hitsugaya, I’m probably not going to read Hitsugaya/Vegeta because I am not actually a crossover person, my knowledge of DBZ is limited to The Osmotic Experience of Having Grown Up in the 90s, and my favorite version of Hitsugaya’s sex life is the absence of one.

*Of course, there are other headcanons posts in the omake/filler vein that are simply too dumb (affectionate) for me to want to write full fanfic of, like the Gotei regatta or the Gotei bowling league, or that “I think the average shikai user would probably be pretty good at driving a car but they would NOT be considerate or lawful users of said car” post.

[steviebudd]

I got a notification today that it's the TEN YEAR BIRTHDAY for Tabula Rasa Project??? Wild but I hope Puckacey are still happy together.

10 YEARS??! 😭😭😭 I don’t know how time works because??? I’d have guessed it’d been about half of that

Also totally think they are. Theyre too cute not to be? Opposites attracted for life tbh

[homoautoerotic]

What if philosophy was sex. What if sex was philosophy. Anyway.

pairing: armand/daniel

rating: explicit

warnings: kindaaaaa weird consent stuff but not for the typical reasons, the philosophy actually is kinda part of it lol

summary: What does it mean to be the most authentic version of yourself? In which Daniel doesn’t find the answer, but does have a fun time pondering it with the help of an otherworldly being dead set on making this night his last.

[danielmolloystits]

redux. (armand/daniel 1/?)

Summary:

Armand feeds him from the wrist and Daniel is unmade, pulled like the end of a slipknot until he once more is a thing unformed. A blank slate, tabula rasa, wiped clean. A sand castle at high tide. A snake eating its own tail. Everything eats itself in the end, comes back to where it started, and Daniel is no different. His blood is Armand’s blood is his blood, and when he gulps down mouthful after mouthful, Armand’s hand feverishly massaging his throat to aid the weak, dying muscles in forcing it down, it is himself he is drinking from. He is at the bottom of it all. He is at the place from before the bottom even existed, the place that always was. He is woven into nothing and back again. He is woven into nothing and it is woven into him. He is woven, and unwoven, and hungry, and woven, and starving, and woven. Starving, starving, starving. Like the ringing of an alarm clock. Eat, you stupid motherfucker. Feed. He thought he knew before, when he was just a dumb addict. What it means to be hungry. He had no fucking idea. — Armand, Daniel, and a lesson in taking the long way home.

Pairing: Armand/Daniel (Devil's Minion) Rating: M (for now) WC: ~1200 a sequel fic to reprise. A good high makes you forget the things that hurt, softens the mouth of the world where it swallows you. Turns the body from a thing that suffers to a thing that feels.

A great high drops you to the bottom of it all, where there’s nothing left of you and there’s nothing left of pain and there’s nothing left of joy, either, just the pieces of them scattered in piles around you. Just your own two hands and the understanding of how to build them both, build either of them, build whichever one you think you deserve.

Daniel’s had good highs and he’s had great highs, too. Getting his memories back is a good high, lets him ignore everything wrong with what Armand did to him and focus on the way love and lust and affection and need all overwhelm his body like a flooding ditch.

The sensation of an ancient vampire’s blood filling his veins, however—transforming him, becoming his blood and Armand’s blood and their blood, together, well.

That’s a great high, better than any Daniel’s ever had. That’s oblivion, distilled and pure and sparkling. The prelude to eternity. A void in the shape of a lover, in the shape of a monster, in the shape of the only God Daniel has ever thought was worth believing in.

Armand kisses him like he’s putting out a fire and he rides him like he’s starting one. Armand feeds him from the wrist and Daniel is unmade, pulled like the end of a slipknot until he once more is a thing unformed. A blank slate, tabula rasa, wiped clean. A sand castle at high tide. A snake eating its own tail.

Everything eats itself in the end, comes back to where it started, and Daniel is no different. His blood is Armand’s blood is his blood, and when he gulps down mouthful after mouthful, Armand’s hand feverishly massaging his throat to aid the weak, dying muscles in forcing it down, it is himself he is drinking from.

He is at the bottom of it all. He is at the place from before the bottom even existed, the place that always was. He is woven into nothing and back again. He is woven into nothing and it is woven into him. He is woven, and unwoven, and hungry, and woven, and starving, and woven.

Starving, starving, starving. Like the ringing of an alarm clock. Eat, you stupid motherfucker. Feed.

He thought he knew before, when he was just a dumb addict. What it means to be hungry.

He had no fucking idea.

***

Daniel doesn’t remember much of the first twenty-four hours. Little more than the press of Armand’s blood-warm hand guiding his mouth to the neck of someone (a housekeeper? An arms dealer? He doesn’t know and probably doesn’t want to), little more than the whispered encouragements, sweet like honey dripping down the exposed nerves of his spine.

He can feel his Maker’s pulse beneath his sternum, his own its fluttering echo, like maybe Armand’s heart belongs to him more than even his own does, now. He can feel the panic, too, that rises like a seawall in the other vampire’s chest. It makes him whine and try to cling, a compulsive urge to holdprotectsoothe, but Armand doesn’t let him. Keeps him at arm’s length, doesn’t allow the lines of his body to slot against Daniel’s even though the air between them feels magnet-fuzzy and alive. Even though his every atom sings for a touch that doesn’t come.

His body aches with the hangover of death, but his joints feel slick and lax in ways they haven’t since he was too young to appreciate them. His stomach, too, is full of blood and he is sated, but the hunger still gnaws at him—looms like a storm creeping at the horizon, ever-present and urgent. He’s exhausted from the ordeal of it all, spent and limp and sore; when Armand tells him to Rest, he does so willingly, for long enough that he suspects the time should be measured by a calendar and not a watch.

But he wakes up eventually, in a coffin in a dark apartment that is also a graveyard. Everything precisely as it was before, except he can tell he is alone. At least, in the only way that matters—he can’t feel Armand anymore, the tether between them slackened and whittled down to a single, thin thread.

Maybe he ought to have expected that, but it doesn’t make it sting less. The pieces of pain and the pieces of joy that surround him are hard to tell apart, at this point, and he doesn’t quite manage to build either of them. Instead, he builds a contradiction. He builds a mess.

When he investigates the penthouse, he finds that his things, including a brand-new laptop, are already packed for him. There are overnight plane tickets on the counter in his name.

There’s a note, too:

Daniel,

I am sorry. I don’t expect you to forgive me. The flight leaves three days from now; please take the time until then to feed and recover.

I’m thinking of you, as I always am.

-A

Daniel isn’t sure whether it makes the abandonment better or worse, though he’s leaning towards the latter. Like a text from your dad that he’s just out getting cigarettes, such a stupid fucking cliché that it’s long since grown tired. A stupid fucking cliché that even Daniel has used on his own kids before, fuck.

He supposes he doesn’t have the right to be mad, and he barely even has the energy to be disappointed. He’s just heartbroken, he thinks, even though he feels silly even thinking it in his own head. He doesn’t know why he should’ve expected anything different.

As the help filters by at the edges of his perception, apparently steering clear of the fledgling as a matter of course, he notices that he keeps catching snippets of their thoughts. Little confessions of fear, vague sensations of ill-ease. Evidently, he’s inherited the thing he hates most about Armand, because that’s always how it works, isn’t it?

It means, though, that after two days of practicing the Gift he can reach out to Louis: You’ll never fucking guess what happened.

Silence, for a long minute.

Then, I’ll kill him.

Daniel wants to beg him not to, but he still has some small sliver of pride in his seventy-year-old bones. So he just says Good luck with that and closes the line. The next night, he boards a plane with a first-class ticket and a persistent thirst clawing at the back of his throat. He returns to NYC ten million dollars richer and a hell of a lot deader than he left it. He’s utterly loss, adrift, uncertain of what he ought to do with himself now that he's gotten everything he ever wanted and managed to lose the thing he didn’t know he needed.

So he does what he always does when he finds himself in a hole of his own creation: he tries to write his way out of it.