summary: he needed a way to tell marinette he was sorry. that he was sorry for not telling her about him. that he was sorry for missing their dates. that he was sorry he was the reason they broke up. that he was the reason she was dead.
5.game on | fluff, humour, damian being a simp for marinette
summary: lady noire met red hood – another not-so-welcomed vigilante like her in gotham. you would expect the two of them to hit it off, maybe work together, but it was the complete opposite. it was hate at first sight.
summary: “i dare you to go to that man there,” alya pointed at an, admittedly, handsome man, “and ask him out on a date using puns.” alya finished her dare with a smug smirk.
summary: “oh,” tim quietened down and jason relished the silence. until, well, dick apparently snatched the phone from tim and screeched, “marinette’s a ghost!”
summary: “oh,” tim quietened down and jason relished the silence. until, well, dick apparently snatched the phone from tim and screeched, “marinette’s a ghost!”
Jason walked out of the graveyard feeling a palpable sense of loss and yet…yet, he felt lighter than before.
And for the first time, since he came to Paris, he actuallylooked around. His loss hit him harder, but in some ways, it made him feel a little better too – it reminded him of Marinette.
He smiled wistfully as he remembered the times Marinette would gush about Paris and how beautiful it was. Jason could see the appeal now.
He only wished Marinette was there.
◇─◇──◇─◇
An hour later, as he walked into his hotel room, Jason saw that he had 283 missed calls from literally every single member of his family.
He had left his phone here so that he didn’t have to deal with the constant phone calls he would have definitelygotten.
Jason picked up his phone and sighed as he waited for it to start calling.
As soon as it started ringing, the phone was picked up by a hystericalTim screaming, “FINALLY! Why didn’t you pick up the goddamnphone?”
Jason huffed, his voice raspy. “Becauseidiot, I left it in the room. Now is there a reason why you’re screeching like a banshee in my ear?”
“Oh,” Tim quietened down and Jason relished the silence. Until, well, Dick apparently snatched the phone from Tim and screeched, “Marinette’s a ghost!”
Jason sat up straight. “What the hell, Dick? That’s not even funny.”
He heard Barbara’s voice in the background. “Dick, you idiot, we toldyou not to tell him like that.”
“Can someone tell me what is going o-” Jason was interrupted by Tim, who said, “Check your email – I’ve mailed you a video.”
Setting his phone aside, Jason opened his laptop and clicked on the mail. It was a video…from a camera near the graveyard.
What the hell?
“Whywere you spyingon me?” Jason asked into the phone, outraged.
He heard Damian snort. “Why, Todd? Because we were-”
“-worried about you!” Dick finished.
“I wasn’t going to say that!” Damian yelled.
“I know,” said Dick, apparently exasperated. “That’s why I interrupted you. Anyway, have you watched the video yet, Jay?”
Jason involuntarily flinched. That was what Mari used to call him.
“No, not yet,” he said, voice raspy.
He heard Tim sigh on the other side of the line. “Then watch it already!”
When Jason clicked on the video, he had to make sure he wasn’t seeing things.
It showed him walking into the graveyard with about a hundred other ghostly people watching him!
“This is not some elaborate prank it is?” Jason suddenly asked.
Dick huffed into the phone. “Do you really think we’d actually dosomething like that?”
“Point.” Jason conceded and unpaused the video.
It showed him putting the flowers and…Jason rubbed his eyes to make sure it wasn’t a figment of his imagination.
Marinetteas a ghost was watching him.
“What the actual fu-”
“Language, Jason,” said Bruce.
“Is this for real?” Jason asked, still watching the video intently.
“Yes. I’ve been looking through the JL files for something that would tell us why wecan see it and not others but I haven’t found anything yet.”
Jason sighed as he tipped his chair onto its hind legs. “All right, call me up when you do.”
For once, Jason appreciated Bruce’s ability to read situations as he said, “You’ll be the first one to know if we find anything,” he confirmed.
There was an awkward pause, and in a much gentler tone, Bruce said, “Get some sleep, Jason. Give yourself sometime to process this.” And he hung up.
And for the first time since Marinette died, Jason felt the semblance of a realsmile break out on his face.
It was nice to know Bruce cared.
◇─◇──◇─◇
The next morning, Jason felt sufficiently refreshed and watched the video Tim sent him with a clearer eye.
He noticed that if he looked closelyhe could see faint outlines of the other ghosts flickering in and out.
So. This only applies to the people who I know.
That was interesting.
As he walked down to breakfast, Jason made an effort to not let his hopes get up. The chances were slim that Marinette would be coming back to life.
For the rest of the day, he toured around Paris – mainly the places Marinette loved. A kind of tribute to her, in a way.
First, he saw the Eiffel Tower, then a small coffee shop by the Seine and finally the Louvre.
He visited her parents, too. It was awkward to say the least.
But after Jason explained his reason for being there (I want to know more about Marinette; about her childhood, everything before we met) the ice was soon broken and before he knew it, they were going through memories of Marinette’s childhood.
And as they went through every memory, Jason sawwhy Marinette loved her parents as much as she did.
Tom & Sabine Dupain-Cheng were one of the kindest people you would ever meet. Yes, Marinette’s death had caused a wound that would never truly heal but they didn’t let that affect their life to the point where they felt there was no need to live anymore.
They managed to see the light in everything and that was what Jason appreciated the most.
When he reached his hotel room that night, his laptop rung almost immediately with a call from Tim.
As soon as he clicked on acceptTim’s voice – unusually hesitant – came over. “Jason,” he said – and Jason felt an odd sense of foreboding when he heard that. As if there was news, just not good news. “We have some news about Marinette.”
Despite his utmost efforts, Jason couldn’t help it when his heart beat faster. “Yeah?” he said, hoping his voice didn’t reveal what he was feeling.
Apparently, he had succeeded because Tim’s voice was much stronger when he spoke this time. “Bruce called Zatanna for her help because she knows a lot about magic. And…”
He trailed off.
Jason waited, listening for an answer. “And?” he prompted.
“Well, uh-” Tim mumbled.
He knew it.
“She said, Dupain-Cheng is not coming back,” said Damian with his usual bluntness, only in a tone that Jason would consider gentle.
“Damian!” Jason heard Dick yelp. “You didn’t have to say it like that!”
Before Damian could respond, Jason inhaled sharply. “It’s alright, Dick. I think I was kind of expecting this.”
“You were?” Dick asked cautiously, obviously afraid Jason might go suicidal.
Not that he could blame him, Jason thought wryly. He hadn’t been the most mentally stable people over the last few months, had he?
“Yeah.”
At their silence, Jason felt the need to explain himself. “I guess, it all started when I came here to visit,” he explained, trying to say what he felt in words. “I visited Marinette’s grave and all the places she liked. Then her parents. I guess…I guess, it gave me a kind of closure. The closure that I needed.”
Jason spread his hands helplessly when no one said anything. “I can’t really explain it better than that.”
“That’s very…insightful, Jason,” He didn’t even know Bruce was there. “I think I understand what you’re saying to some extent.”
Exhaling, Jason suddenly felt drained. Maybe that took more thought than he had realized.
“I want to stay in Paris for some more time,” he said, wanting to get thatover with as soon as possible.
“Absolutely,” Dick said firmly, as if daring anyone to disagree with him. “Stay as long as you need, little brother.”
Jason didn’t even realize he was crying until he felt the tears on his face.
◇─◇──◇─◇
As he went to bed that night, Marinette’s death hit Jason harder than ever, but instead of the overwhelming loss he had expected…Jason felt hopeful.
Maybe, just maybe, he would move on. Not get over Marinette, absolutely not.
But he could follow Tom and Sabine and try to move on.
The Sacred Twenty Eight: The Noble and Most Ancient Houses of Nott and Rowle
Ergi, the Rowles called them And sneered, But the Notts only smiled And wove on in silence. They might be ergi, but they were seiðmenn And they would never be blót.
The common wizards and witches of Britain had their own version of a very muggle saying - out of the frying pan and into the fire. Theirs was a little… different. For it went like this:
Fleeing the Blacks only to cross the Notts.
The Blacks were dangerous, but nine times out of ten you knew precisely where you stood with them - they wore their hearts on their sleeves. If you insulted them, you could rest assured they would curse you, probably using some obscure dark curse no one had heard of and things would be well. Mostly.
But if you crossed a Nott, you’d never know it. They merely smiled and continued as though nothing were wrong at all. Excessively well-bred, always courteous - haute ton. But once you had left, they would return home, still smiling, and take down an ancient distaff and spindle; magical objects passed down from generation to generation for each Nott versed in the magical art of Seiðr.
Magical Britain laughed at divination and called it a fuzzy art with no magical grounding, for charlatans and their ilk, and the Notts agreed with them. Crystal balls, tea leaves, reading sticks - amateurs. The future was what people made it, what a talented seiðmenn orseiðkonurcould make it. The future was whatever the Notts chose to weave on their tapestries. Each thread, carefully placed, turning thought into reality, fiction into non-fiction, lies into truth.
None knew this better than the Rowles. They had learnt firsthand, many centuries ago, that mocking the Notts - these students of Odin - came with a price. A blood price that might have been honor to those who paid it but was a blood price nonetheless.
The Rowles might have been warrior-shamans; berserkers invulnerable in battle; but the might of the sword or even crude magical power could not withstand the implacable weaving and reweaving of reality and fate that the Notts took part in. Theirs was deeper magic, darker magic, terrifying magic and when the Rowles and Notts came to England with the first of the Vikings to rule Scotland, they brought rumours of what the Notts could do to people when crossed and people fearedthem.Fearedthese mild mannered men and women who refused to let this new religion called Christianity and its sociopolitical order sway them; who failed to conform to the new order’s strict regimentation of gender and male and female occupations; who smiled when people spurned them and smiled even wider when their mockers were slowly ruined piece by piece.
So not a murmur was heard when Proserpina Nott, aged 16, took up the family seat in the Wizengamot in 1734 though she was the youngest of the Notts and had not yet finished her schooling. The Ministry kept mum when Tiresias Nott refused to use their curriculum when teaching divination and instead taught his pupils trance magic and weaving: the beginnings of Seiðr. Wizengamot members cast their eyes downwards when Isembardus Nott stood up to make speeches, lest he see the judgement in their eyes when he painted his face and persisted in wearing pompadour wigs in public (it was 1854). People turned the the other way when Cantankerus Nott, pureblood fanatic extraordinaire, put half his fortune into muggle stocks and bonds. And no one dared say a word when Charles Nott stood a little too close to Antinous Lestrange at Ministry press conferences.
No. Only the foolish with a death wish ever crossed the path of a Nott. For they would have their revenge, these children of Guðrún, protégés of Odin and their revenge would be cold, dark and terror-filled as the houses of Hel.
last night i dreamt from the perspective of a demon or some kind of damned soul that was created when a man, upon dying a horrifying and painful death, also witnessed the love of his life suffer a similarly gruesome demise as their kids watched and screamed in terror. as his spirit was ripped from his broken body he blessedly forgot about the life he had just left, but became a haunted entity in the shape of a man—shiny, dripping, and black like an oil spill on hot asphalt. he traveled the world, slipping from one shadow to another, his forgetful soul forever corrupted and yearning. he was angry and pessimistic but mostly harmless. he liked to prank people but for the most part kept to the darkness, all alone. in his lonely travels he found a beautiful woman. she was walking in a meadow clearing, brown braided hair bouncing against her neck, tied with a white ribbon. she wore either a pink dress and white cardigan or a white dress and pink cardigan, and picked wild flowers. i never saw her face. but she reminded him of his late wife and he fell in love. this made his half life more torturous but he could not pull away. i could hear his internal monologue throughout the dream (he had no mouth to speak aloud but had many interesting thoughts.)
Here are some ideas on how to make a characters death heartbreaking. Hopefully they can be used to inspire a creative death in your story! (I swear I’m not a sadist).
1) Have them die right before they obtain the one thing they have always wanted. No… really, like minutesbefore. Not only can they see what they want want just out of reach, but they see someone else take it.
2) Kill them before they could make amends.
3) Stabbed in the back by someone they loved. Or by the one person they knew was untrustworthy but no one would listen to them.
4) Give the character a false-death and the relief that comes along with it… and then kill them for real right after.
5) Kill them while their walls are down and they finally let themselves be vulnerable.
6) Kill them right before their one-sided love interest returns their affection.
7) Make their death essential for others to live even though your character desperately doesn’t want to be left behind.
8) Have them find irony in their death. A dry, painful laugh as tears are pouring down their face.
9) Make them believe that they have failed everyone just before they die, while in reality the did the opposite. But they’ll never know that.
10) Give them a phobia and have them die from it.
11) Make their death an accident. Just after the huge battle is won and everyone is relieved, a weapon malfunctions and kills them.
12) Give them a slow death and prevent your other characters from being able to help or save them.
13) Make their death fully preventable, but it happens because of the neglect of everyone in the story.
14) Make them go somewhere they didn’t want to go in the first place and then have them die as they wish “they would have just stayed home.”
15) Kill them at their happiest hour.
16) Have them sacrifice themselves for someone who would neverdo the same for them.
here at elrondfucker69 we support the protestors in Hong Kong doing their thing! The People’s Liberation Army, cops and the Communist Party would look up at the people they killed and ask them to dip their fingers in water to cool the fires around them!
@ people in the notes are saying he should have googled Prince Phillip before he got on stage … no, you don’t understand … Prince Phillip was announced dead during his set.
Which also means that for a lot of the audience they had just heard this news for the first time and their first reaction was to cheer lol.
You’ve got to be kidding me. To find this I had to search for it. Another woman attacked and killed in London. Sarah Everard was going to attract more attention because she went missing and they had to search for her body. However Sabina’s death should be front pages news as well here in the U.K. Fuck the racist media. She is not any less, she is as just as important, she was another girl walking after dark, she deserved better.
Jamie finally managed, with bleary eyes, to look up at the mirror above the bathroom counter.
They were met with pupils as white as snow and irises the color of butterflies.
-
This was inspired by @weekend-whip’s Legacyverse au! I’ve been inserting my OC into that universe and noticed a cool detail about how elemental mastery is passed on, and I wanted to write about Jamie and his sister, Lynda!
(As always, click for a surprise.)
-
Lynda was born with pale yellow eyes, just like her father before her and his father before him. They shared the same white pupils that defied all logic and all of the tests that doctors put them through. Yellow eyes were one thing. Many people had some bright shade for irises. Somehow, her family was different.
Her brother was brought into her life at age eight, pushed into the arms of her Aunt and Uncle whom she had lived with since she was eight because her parents were too busy to take care of her. They said he was an accident. They said they would visit soon.
They left her a baby, barely a year old, with bright, blue eyes and black pupils.
His name was Jamison Collin Myers, and Lynda vowed to give him a good life.
-
Lynda figured out early on that their parents were the absent, busy type. They made promises to visit but never kept them- but that was alright. She didn’t need them. She would accept her impressive allowance and spend it on toys and treats and anything she could get her hands on to spoil her little brother rotten. Their Aunt and Uncle were more of a home than the massive white walls of the mansion her parents owned and she rarely got to see. Their little apartment in Aster city was cozy and had a little yard where Lynda would spend hours playing with her baby brother.
She called him Jamie. Jamison was too fancy for a bright-eyed blond boy who crawled in the mud to look for bugs. He showed them to her and she would look them up so they could learn about it together. He roped her into making mud-pies and exploring in the forest close to home. He was six now. She was twelve.
They were the best of friends.
-
She had only just broken up with her boyfriend, realizing that she didn’t need someone to be valid, and then there was a bright flash of yellow. She didn’t know how she got into the bathroom. She had never taken a step. She hadn’t even meant to look in the mirror, but when she did, she had to choke down a scream.
Lynda’s eyes were a vibrant yellow, more so than her father’s had ever been. Her pupils were a dark brown like fresh soil. Why had they changed? What had happened to her? What was the bright light- how did she get here?
Lynda was scared, but she didn’t scream. She wouldn’t want to wake her baby brother, after all.
-
Lynda was eighteen when she ran away.
She was confused and lost. The distance seemed so much closer and space so much farther away. She found herself in a shifting in-between and then in a place entirely new. Everything was bright yellow. Yellow like her eyes. Yellow like her hair.
She didn’t leave a note. She couldn’t leave a note. It would be better for her to be a sweet memory to him rather than a hopelessly lost cause. Maybe he would think she was coming back. She was coming back, after a bit of soul searching and researching for answers.
The window opened silently, and with a sad smile, she ducked out of the bathroom and into the trees, lit by the afternoon sun.
-
Lynda was barely nineteen when she found him.
Or more accurately, he found her. He was a kind, old man who explained to her exactly what she was. She controlled an element, an outlier one at that. She found it ironic that the distance between her and those she loved was what caused her the most pain, yet her element was distance- her element was the Space between them.
The man offered to teach her in the ways of spinjitzu, of the ninja, as he had already taken on three pupils of his own. She would become stronger, and be able to control the rips through space that she tore.
Lynda declined.
She couldn’t afford to get attached to anyone else. Not when it broke her heart like this.
-
Lynda was almost twenty-one when she died.
She didn’t know how Wu managed to find her. Perhaps he was simply talented in an element that allowed him to chart her course through the Western Sea Of Sand. She had traveled a long way from Astor city. The homesickness was starting to make her physicallysick.
She had learned how to fight on her own. She utilized throwing weapons and the rifts in space to defend against the Skulkin and Shark armies. Her Chakrams were as sharp as her will and as deadly as her aim. She floated like the yellow butterfly that symbolized her element, yet stung like a wasp in anger.
Wu asked her to keep an eye out. She was the only capable Elemental Master in the area, and a child- his nephew- had opened the Anacondrai tomb nearby. He told her not to approach, but to simply alert him if she saw movement.
Lynda had never taken on a snake before, but she felt capable.
She had done everything correctly. The boy and the snake were taking refuge in the Forest of Tranquility while they planned. Lynda made her way there, light on her feet and quick in her pace. It was getting darker with the setting sun, and her footsteps grew noisy with the crunch of autumn leaves. The trees cast shadows that hid anything lurking in their roots.
It didn’t need to hide, though.
It was a losing battle, but Lynda was used to failure. She was knocked to the ground by a force she could not see. When she stood, claws slashed her cheek- her arm, then her thigh and side. It burned like acid rain. She was powerless against the assault. She couldn’t open her rifts before her hands were bound to her side by something thick and heavy and scaled.
The ground scratched her irritated wounds when she was thrown into it chest first. Lynda couldn’t stop the wail of pain that ripped from her chest.
“My, my,” a voice akin to rotten honey whispered above her with a hiss, “What do we have here?”
Lynda turned her cheek to the ground in time to see the space above her shimmer like a wave of hot air. It started with the huge tail that pinned her down, purple and decorated with ornate black patterning that wrapped around her torso and pressed her palms to her chest. The shimmer traveled upwards. Lynda had to strain her neck to follow the ripple in the air as it revealed the very same Anacondrai she had been tracking. His neck was the length of her leg. His jaws were large enough to swallow her whole. His eyes held a madness that could only be cultured in the depths of the earth where he had resided for years upon years. One that could only be found in the souls of immorality and killers.
Lynda’s name meant serpent. The irony was stifling.
He hissed and leaned his head down to speak in her ear. It was revolting, “Aw, giving up already, are we?”
With her hands pinned to her chest, she couldn’t open a rift. Not without splitting herself like the space she tore through.
Lynda knew there would be no escape. She could hear the grumble in the serpent’s stomach. He would not kill her just because he was hungry, no. He would kill her because there were no limits to his immoral ways. The last Anacondrai, Wu said. Something must have killed the others. Something must have eaten the others.
“It’s been so long since my last meal.” She squirmed as the snake spoke in her ear, “My brothers couldn’t sustain me for long, and the child doesn’t have enough meat on his bones for my liking.” A chill went down her spine, and surely he must have felt it, “You, however, will make a delectable snack.”
Cannibal. The madness in his eyes showed a soul that would stop at nothing for personal gain, not even crimes of the highest degree.
Now, thought Lynda as the serpent’s jaws opened wide, she wished she hadn’t run away. She wished she wasn’t so scared of herself all those years ago. She wished she never grew independent- that the bright yellow light never lit up her room that fateful afternoon.
She wished she could see Jamie again. Her little brother must be twelve, maybe thirteen. She couldn’t remember what day it was, with how long she had spent out here. Had his birthday passed? He must have so many friends by now. Jamie had always been a bubbly, kind child. How could he not be the life of the party?
He must hate her- for leaving. He must hate her even more for leaving him behind without a note or a memoir, without a way to know if she was even still a part of this world or if the departed realm had taken her away.
She should have left him something.
And so, with her final breath, Lynda sneered at the snake’s fangs on her temple and opened her soul to tug at the heartstring she had left untouched for all those years. It would be severed soon, but before it did, she plucked a mournful note, and sent a part of herself down the line.
She hoped it would be enough to fill the space left by the broken heartstring in his chest.
And so, with her final breath, Lynda sneered at the snake’s fangs on her temple and opened her soul to tug at the heartstring she had left untouched for all those years. It would be severed soon, but before it was, she plucked a mournful note, and sent a part of herself down the line.
Lynda was almost twenty-one when she died in the belly of that beast, but she would not go quietly. She was much too proud for that.
She died with a burst of fluttering wings.
-
Jamie was twelve when he lost everything.
He had come home from school to tell Lynda about how he scratched himself climbing a tree to get a toy for a younger kid. She still lived with their aunt and uncle because she wanted to be close to her little sibling. It made Jamie feel special. It made him feel wanted. It made the pull at his heartstrings play a comforting tune.
Jamie wondered why the connection felt so taunt today.
He got to her room and rushed in as he always did, babbling away, but she wasn’t there. She wasn’t in the bathroom. She wasn’t in the kitchen, the backyard, the garage, the attic- He waited and waited and waited but dinner passed, day turned into night, yet she had yet to come home. His parents, his aunt and uncle, and their friends all put up missing person posters and Lynda’s friends called every police station that would listen.
They searched for months. They never found her.
Jamie wasn’t the same after that. Would anyone be, after losing the person they held the closest? He was as sour and bitter as a lemon and shut out anyone who came close. He couldn’t figure out why it made his chest so much to push them away.
The once comforting tune turned dissonant.
-
Jamie was thirteen when he grew out of it.
His teachers commented on how lively he was. He made friends easily and did well in his classes. The close friendships filled in the missing pieces to his symphony. His heartstrings thrummed a more excitable tune. He was sentimental to a fault and held onto everything as a reminder that he was loved- that they cared for him, because surely Lynda must not have loved him if she left without a note or a goodbye. Her melody was angry, now.
He took up photography after being gifted a camera by one of his favorite teachers. A way to record the things he loved and the beauty in the world that flowed through every living being. In the bustling city streets- the clouds in funny shapes and the red-gold sunset, nothing was left unseen. He had a particular love of the color yellow, and the butterflies that bore the color. They took a majority of his camera roll.
Jamie was thirteen when their uncle died. He had a brain tumor that left him unable to recognize his family, yet he still held their hands and said he loved them as he faded. That’s when Jamie started to hold on tighter than ever. As a result of all their loss- their parents never being around, their sister leaving and never coming back, their uncle being pried away from them- Jamie kept everything they cared about close to their chest and didn’t let go. The people Jamie used to call friends spoke about them behind his back. They called them clingy. They called them an attention seeker who wanted special treatment for their special pronouns. They called them needy and annoying for wanting reassurance and quality time.
It hurt. It hurt so badly when their attempts to keep them close only pushed them away. Joy was hard to keep when all they heard was mourning. Perhaps that’s why they withdrew once more, despite the agony in their chest. They couldn’t trust anyone with their heart anymore. They would only be ripped away.
Their heartstrings were out of tune. Each note rang sharp. Jamie feared the day they would eventually snap.
-
Jamie was fourteen when the nightmares began.
It was evening, yet still bright. Somehow, they knew he was on the edge of the Forest of Tranquility, bordering the Western Sea of Sands. They had never been there before. The sharp leaves hurt their feet.
She was there, laying with twigs and dirt in her greasy blond hair and a torn uniform padded with armor. Circular weapons hung at her hips (when had she learned to fight?) and scars decorated her arms. Her lips were chapped, her skin marred with blood. Her eyes, once filled with life and the color of sunshine and lemon squares were dull with pain. When had her pupils darkened like that? When had the yellow grown deeper? If it were not for their relationship, Jamie doubted he would recognize his big sister.
Then he saw the snake. No, not a small, harmless garden viper. Serpentine. Anacondrai.
He- at least, Jamie assumed it was a he- whispered sickly sweet words to her as his jaws crept ever closer to her head. No matter how much he tried, Jamie could not move. He couldn’t stop it. He could not prevent the sharp pierce of fangs to her head.
When Lynda screamed, it was not air that left her lungs.
It was butterflies.
Their glossy yellow wings were stained with a deep red that bubbled from her throat. There were so many of them. A swarm had been trapped in her chest and her voice set them free. They swirled and fluttered in a dizzying dance. The snake fell back but did not release his hold on her. He squeezed her and told her to be quiet. The purple coils tightened around her chest.
Lynda did not listen. She convulsed, she cried gleaming white tears, and she gasped for air that would not come.
The beast finally let go and hid his face, for the butterflies were sharp and large in number. They were a squall, a storm big enough to destroy houses- to move mountains.
Jamie screamed. He tried to scream, but he choked on glossy yellow wings. The swarm was storming around him in a hurricane of sunlight and marigolds. He choked on butterflies that flew into his mouth. Jamie knew she had given them to him. They flew into his chest and buried themselves in his lungs. Lynda had given him the swarm of burning yellow and red. Why? Why would she choke him too?
Jamie awoke with his hands around his throat.
They gagged. The butterflies were still choking him, they were so sure of it, but standing over the sink and coughing until he couldn’t breathe didn’t reveal any hidden wings. There was so blood, no trace of his dream other than the tightness in his chest and the snapped heartstring that coiled right next to his uncle’s.
Everything was so vivid. Everything was so loud, even if it was quiet. The walls around him hummed a low tune. The water in the pipes shot staccato notes like the beat of a snare. Jamie had never learned to play an instrument other than the strings in his chest, yet around him blared a deafening symphony.
They shook and shivered as Lynda had. He heaved and panted as Lynda had. He felt sick, he felt weak and shaky as he never had before. Jamie finally managed, with bleary eyes, to look up at the mirror above the bathroom counter.
They were met with pupils as white as snow and irises the color of butterflies.
Jamie retched again.
-
The name Jamison meant supplanter. One who supersedes, one who replaces.
He was yellow now. Just as she once was. Jamie didn’t know whether to be bitter or not.
The only string left in his chest was his aunt’s. The teacher who gave him his camera was dead. The people he once called friends could have been dead too, with how their strings laid in limp coils when they were supposed to be taut.
After the dreams started, his personality started to change again. He was still stupidly sentimental, saving everything he had ever been given with a vigor and desperation some would find odd. People would have described him as laid-back and casual, cool under pressure. Maybe they noticed how he looked almost bored as he passed them in the halls. Maybe that was because they never got close enough to learn what made him happy- to thread a string through his chest and tie it around their own. He dyed his hair to get back a feeling of control in his life. He barely remembered what he used to look like pure-blond. His aunt was happy for him. Less happy about the dark blue that stained his sheets.
The nightmares kept coming. It didn’t happen every night, but it was often enough that dark circles embedded themselves under his eyes. They showed him images of tombs in swamps and mountains unclimbable by even the best rock climbers. He saw a boy in black, a man in white, and his brother, dressed in black. Mostly, though, the same dream as the first played over and over in his mind, and he woke up choking until he puked.
He doubted he would ever be able to look at butterflies the same way.
-
He was fifteen when they packed up and moved away from Astor city. Jamie never knew he could have a heartstring for a place.
He cried when it snapped.
Ninjago city was much larger than his hometown. The buildings scraped the sky (maybe that’s why they were called skyscrapers). The streets bustled with life. It was overwhelming.
Everything was loud. No, not in the way of noise, but in the way the footsteps of every pedestrian shook the ground he walked on. Everything gave off a vibration like a shockwave. Jamie knew where everything was around him, and he couldn’t stop it, even after a year of trying. He wasn’t going to make his Aunt pack up and move back, though. Her job paid so much more here. He couldn’t risk plucking that string.
He started NNC high as a sophomore, since he was a little too young to be a junior. Apparently, it was rather rare to have a transfer student, due to the Garmadon attacks and other crime in the city. He could feel their eyes on him as he stalked down the hall, phone in hand and music blaring in hopes of chasing away the noise that echoed off the walls. He found a hobby of photographing the colorful ninja that had recently started protecting the city and grew popular online for his quality shots of them in action. Validation from strangers was easier to accept when there was no chance of a snap.
Then he went and found a friend, dressed in pinks and purples and with eyes like his sister’s. They shared classes and the boy chose to sit next to him. He ate lunch and the other chose to hold up his tray by Jamie’s side when a food fight broke out. Jesse, true to his last name, was truly a Marvel, because Jamie would never be able to figure out
For the first time in over a year, Jamie had another heartstring, and the tune played by the two chords in his chest was more beautiful than ever.
This is my town. A friend of mine worked at this Tops stocking shelves for years. He used to live in this neighborhood, he only recently moved. Another one of my best friends lives just two blocks from Jefferson.
Is there anything to say? I don’t know what else to say. Buffalo is the City of Good Neighbors. No matter where you are, you can find a jump for your car, someone to help you carry your groceries, an extra set of hands to shovel your driveway. We’re not perfect, but we are kind. This is such a violation.
I’ll be keeping an eye out for links and reputable sources to help the families of the victims, and to help support the Buffalo black community. I’ll post them here.
I know this doesn’t come as a surprise, since I’ve been pretty absent for the past few months but I didn’t just want to quietly fade into oblivion but give an explanation.
2020 has been a really bad year for me (well, it has been for almost everyone) and November has been especially hard. I’ve already made a post about the terror attack in my country on November 2nd. The day after that my country went into a 2nd lockdown (and that had already given me a lot of anxiety because I was very worried about losing my job - again) and just a few days after that my grandma was sent to hospital because she was tested positive for Covid. She died a week later.
I’m just so exhausted. I’ve been sleeping between 9-13 hours a day these past few days and I’m still tired all the time. And I’m way behind on my uni homework. Right now I just need to focus on the important things and take a break from everything else. Fortunately, I have very good friends who take care of me so I’m not feeling like falling into a big black hole.
I definitely want to come back to tumblr, I just don’t know when that will be. I might still reblog things from time to time but I won’t make any original posts.
Don’t imagine Caranthir having knitted his diva of a brother a muffler to protect his voice whenever he had to go out in bad weather (you KNOW Mags is the type of overdramatic bitch that wouldn’t be caught dead without a scarf against the chill, because laryngitis?! Sacrilegious!)
Anddefinitely don’t imagine Maglor kneeling next to Caranthir’s body during the attack on Doriath, numbly wrapping that scarf around the gash in his brother’s throat…hoping that if he protected his voice, he’d speak again.
Trigger warning ⚠️ death, death of pet, loss, gore ⚠️
TLDR; my cat died. I found her body. I cleaned up the blood. It hurts to think about— a lot. But I can’t talk to any one about it.
So three years ago today is a really difficult day for me and yet I feel almost numb. Three years ago today my wife (at the time fiancé) was really sick. In and out of hospitals and had actually just started living with her mom who has a masters in nursing because I couldn’t take care of her well enough myself, work full time, take care of the cats & take care of myself too. It was all too much.
So she went to go live with her mom.
Our cat Bella was sick too. We’d taken her to the Vet ER 5 or more times, she needed oxygen, multiple X-rays, medicines, IVs etc all very expensive. We spent thousands of dollars on her. I racked up thousands of dollars of debt because of it.
One night I went to see my fiancé, drove 3 hours to see her and spent a few days with her. I drove 3 hours back home. Usually the cats would be waiting at the door for me when I’d open it but that night I came home and only one of our cats greeted me and it hit me immediately, I fucking knew it in my gut. So I rounded the corner and there laid our cat Bella. Blood on her mouth. Blood on the carpet. Shit on the carpet too. I’d never dealt with something like this before. I called my fiancé and I blurted out the horrible news and she scream cried, I heard her sobbing and it broke my heart even more not being able to be there for her to help her. The next think I know her mom is on the phone with me asking me what had happened and I told her and she told me to take her body to the Vet ER and they’ll cremate her for us. I hung up. I picked up her body. Mostly stiff, some warmth still in her stomach so I think she’d only been there a few hours. She died on my way back to her. I laid her on a towel and covered her. Our other cat knew something was wrong she just stared at me the whole time. She tried to comfort me a little but I had no time for that. I had to clean up the blood and stuff. I scrubbed the carpet and I remember the soapy blood mixture clouding the cup I used. I took her to the ER they took her from me and took care of everything from there on out. My heart was shattered and it was agreed upon by my soon to be mother in law and I that I should come up immediately after. Bring our other cat and come back up. So I did. I packed a bunch of stuff because being in that apartment was just too hard, I packed up our other cat and drove 3 hours back to my fiancé. After hours of crying and talking we fell asleep on the floor together just holding each other. I never talk about that night. I don’t want to upset my wife going into detail about it but I think about how I found her a lot and it hurts me so much and I’ve just sat with this hurt for years because I don’t want to hurt her the way I’m hurting. Guys I miss my cat so fucking much. I can’t get the way I found her out of my head to this day and it breaks my heart. She deserved so much better and fuck those vets who said she was fine. Fuck the vets who didn’t do tests. Who said it was asthma. Who didn’t take it seriously. Fuck the vets who took my money but did NOTHING for my dying cat. We should’ve been told there was nothing else to do. We should’ve had the right information so we could’ve put her down PEACEFULLY. She shouldn’t of choked on her own blood as polyps burst in her lungs. I wish them all the worst. They didn’t care about her they cared about the money so I fucking hope they rot. She deserved better and they didn’t give us the opportunity to give her the best way out. I’m so angry and sad and I don’t know what else to do anymore other then to throw this out here into the void where I know no one will fucking read this. I just don’t know anymore guys. I’m just so fucking sad and angry. She deserved better. She deserved better. She shouldn’t have died that way. She deserved better.
