#[ verse: zombie ] i have carried all the deaths there are for one soul; again & again | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mor-beck-more-problems · 4 years

Text

When Death Comes || Morgan & Deirdre

TIMING: Before the mushrooming

LOCATION: Hambry Park

PARTIES: @deathduty, @mor-beck-more-problems

SUMMARY: Morgan wants something more from her death.

CONTAINS: discussions of death and dying, soft goth girlfriends

“...When it’s over, I want to say all my life I was a bride married to amazement. I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms. When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder if I have made of my life something particular, and real.” Morgan punctuated each line break in the poem she read with a kiss to Deirdre’s spine, climbing up the vertebrae, colored auric and purple-shadow by the golden hour, until she was mouthing the final lines into the nape of her neck: “I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened, or full of argument. I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.” The poem finished, Morgan set the book aside and wrapped herself around her love’s body, pressing in until they tumbled sideways onto the blankets and pillows they’d spread over the grass. “It’s your turn, my love.” Morgan said. “How do you feel about reading with a zombie on top of you? While also eating pie? You still have your slice, you know.” As she spoke, Morgan finagled their bodies so she was resting against Deirdre the way she liked best, tucked against her side with her face cradled between her neck and the gentle slope of her chest.

Hambry Park was gilded all around them by evening light. Even the most weathered angel monument or the most moss ridden death’s head icon turned lively in the glow. Red wildflowers, weary from a day’s worth of swaying with ghosts, folded down to brush their petal cheeks against the earth that held the dead. Morgan pressed a finger into the ground with them, wondering not for the first time what it would be like to be held that way too. “I wonder who designed these things,” she said, thinking out loud more than anything else. “Like, did the person who died say they wanted cherubs, or a bible verse, or a cute little flying death head? Or was it their family? Or some funerary designer? They’re so beautiful, and they’re all a little different, right?”

There was some measure of amazement in hearing the same words said a dozen times, not tiring of them. How many times had Deirdre heard that poem exactly? And yet, it was always a treasure to hear it said again by Morgan’s tongue---as though she might have been reciting scripture from her heart instead of a poem from another’s. The poem ended (too soon, always too soon) and they tumbled away, bubbling laughter erupting from Deirdre’s grinning mouth. “As if I’d want it any other way.” Her fingers tangled into Morgan’s hair, playing absently with the strands as she reached out for the book (the picnic basket with the pie was too far, and she would never dare have them separate, even for a second). Thumbing through the pages with one hand in search of the right poem to recite, was no easy task. She had to thank the flimsy paperback for being flexible to her stubbornness, but in the time it took her to flip the pages, a breeze rolled over their picnic and claimed all of Deirdre’s progress in navigating the book. “Hm?” She abandoned her search in favor of tossing the book down to air her irritation with the wind. “You mean the graves?” Deirdre couldn’t quite make them out from her angle, but she’d been to Hambry enough to have the scenery memorized.

“Depends. Some people plan these out; funerals can be expensive, and picking out and saving for a headstone can be a weight you alleviate later on. Some people never think to decide, and so the family might pick through catalogues and displays--fighting over what Bible verse they think suits grandma better. Some people are...even less fortunate than that. But Hambry is on the nicer end, and anyone buried here undoubtedly had money, so it wouldn’t even surprise me if the headstones are custom pieces.” Another gust swept over them and the book flopped out of reach. The poems were a lost cause now. Deirdre sighed. “Why do you ask? Thinking of buying a headstone?”

“I know all that,” Morgan sighed, pulling down the ends of Deirdre’s hair and starting to arrange them in a loose eight strand braid. “When it was time to bury my mom, she had everything set out, like a really...awful, morbid, pop-up book. With lots of fees and fines. I opened the lid of the storage box she’d shoved everything into and a brochure literally flew out at me. And then they didn’t make the coffin she’d picked out anymore, so I had to pick out another one almost at random.” She smirked sadly at the memory. “But I wondered if things might’ve been different back in--” Morgan squinted at one of the gravestones she could see from her place. “19-0--something.” She kissed her love’s clavicle and wrapped them tighter together. “Maybe I do want one, though,” she shrugged, as if she were thinking about getting a new dress. “I mean, that would be kind of ridiculous, because where would it go, right? And then a whole plot of land doing nothing, just being there? But, I don’t know… I mean, a girl should get to have something for dying and mostly coming back.” Even flowers could be dried or pressed to commemorate what they offered to the world. Even the dead remains they’d burned in the woods had ash and bone that now lay comfortably at the bottom of Dark Score Lake. Animals, at least, had bones to leave behind and flesh to be devoured or return to the earth that had helped feed them. Her death didn’t even make the paper; it couldn’t. And if anything happened to her permanently, who was to say her remains wouldn’t become goo in a few days? Morgan bristled at the thought. It wasn’t even her dead self she wanted to lay in the ground; she had made it far enough out of the pit to not long for that anymore. But she wanted something. “It doesn’t feel right that everything I used to be has to be invisible, or written over. Does that make any sense?”

Deirdre’s brow quirked up, silently asking why, then, Morgan was wondering about it. She didn’t have to wait long for her curiosity to be answered. “It could go anywhere you wanted it to, my love.” Deirdre paused her brushing of Morgan’s hair, considering it. Morgan had died, and she had lost parts of herself, but it never felt that way to Deirdre. What was there to bury but memories--and those could always be carried just fine in the heart. But she knew Morgan missed herself; missed her magic and her heartbeat and the ways she connected to the world--now forever changed. Deirdre sat up slowly, not wanting to push Morgan off her chest but wanting to look at her a little better as they spoke. She reached a happy medium of propping herself up on her elbows, half-raised. “I wouldn’t say it’s invisible, or written over. They’re still a part of you; in my mind, at least.” She stared out at the rows of gravestones and statues, claimed by nature. ��You never did get to have a funeral. You could always have some memorial, some way to remember yourself as you did--or put those parts to rest. If that’s what you want.” Deirdre pushed herself up to sit properly now, urging Morgan back in her arms so she could hold her tight. “...is that what you want?”

“Only a few people even know I died at all, I think that counts as pretty invisible,” Morgan said. Of course, some part of her had always been partly a secret and always would be. But for some reason, hiding her death seemed even worse than her species. Even nobodies got obituaries, or a funeral director to process their body and give it one last look before burning up into ash. Even the supernaturals who were not more than parts in that storage units had her, Lydia, and Deirdre to watch them, to try and carry their pain. “I had to tell everyone at work there was a death in the family, and then make up some distant cousin, because everyone already knew I didn’t have any family. I didn’t even bring home all the bereavement cards. And I’m never going to be--” She swallowed, voice growing thick, and sat up with Deirdre. She crawled into her arms as she beckoned, nuzzling her way into her grasp and finding the right place for her arms so she could squeeze her tight or rest almost effortlessly if she wanted. “I’m never going to be just the way I was. I’m never gonna warm you up, or make anything beautiful just by willing it. Or enjoy fish tacos. I don’t know if I’ll ever have patience or belief or hope like I used to. You love me the same, maybe even more, but I’m different. And I-- want a place for that...stuff. That missing stuff that just belonged to Alive-Me.”

Deirdre looked back at the gravestones, overtaken by nature, forgotten by time--pillars of memory. She knew enough lonely ghosts to fill her own obituary. She’d seen enough deaths that would remain unanswered to know the great tragedy of one gone unmourned. But it didn’t work in black and white. The gravestones were relics practically, if there existed a soul who cared about the names written on them, they hadn’t visited. The ghosts thought it worse that the flowers left at their grave slowly dwindled over the years, just as the memory of them faded. And every loss was mourned, even if the person they were mourning wasn’t dead. Death was both never invisible and always, but she knew that wasn’t Morgan’s point. “Where would you put her? Your alive-self. Where would you bury her?” Deirdre longed to tell Morgan that she still warmed her, that she always made beauty, that her hope hadn’t left at all---but refrained. Morgan would always miss herself, how could she not? It didn’t matter how perfect Deirdre thought Morgan was, it wouldn’t bring anything back. And it wouldn’t stop Morgan’s rightfully deserved mourning. “Would you want a ceremony? We could do something...whatever you want. We could burn everything, bury it, I can buy you a plot of land and the best headstone any cemetery has ever seen. Tell me what you want it to be like.”

Morgan gave a wet laugh and squeezed Deirdre tight. She wasn’t sure why having Deirdre’s support, her tender questions and touches struck her with the kind of gentleness that melted and stung. “Oh. Um--I didn’t think that far. Well, not realistically. I thought, alive me liked those dates at the beach we had, so maybe I should put something in the sand or float it off to sea. Or she could go in the back yard, in the flower beds, and she could pretend like she was helping to grow the flowers Moira likes to play in. Or, um, gee, if I actually left behind a body, I’d get to have the fun debate of whether to get buried in Texas or get buried here. And, maybe my bereaved girlfriend would get me one of those big fancy statues goth kids take pictures under, but like, more pagan, because judgey angels aren’t really my thing, or our thing. Or maybe there would be a pyre, like we had in the forest, and someone could say...here burns the Morgan that was. She made crystals out of dirt and trash and sold them for tens and hundreds of dollars on Etsy. She cried over dead deer, and the cats that spent their lives in animal shelters, and the parts in Grey’s Anatomy where they saved lives in the nick of time, and sometimes herself, because no one else would. And um…” Morgan shrugged, laughing now in the kind of way that hid tears. “...For a while her only real friend was her cat Anya, but she came to...stupid, probably-cursed White Crest, Maine and almost made everything different for the better. She had friends, and roommates, and a job she didn’t hate, and big, dramatic love, and there were even days when her magic was actually good for helping people. She believed, more than anything, that she could make things different. That she...had a better life, just around the corner. And it never felt closer to it than when she…” Morgan pulled away to scrub her hands over her eyes, breathing tenuously through the sobs that wanted to break through her chest. “She had so much hope, she died thinking she could say ‘I love you’ one more time, even though her lungs were probably filling up with blood. It was so stupid, but she really...thought she could…” She tried breathing again, but the sobs she was holding in broke and she couldn’t make herself say any more.

Deirdre reached for Morgan again, anchoring her back as she pulled away. She wrapped her arms around her; tight, secure, as if she knew nothing else. Hearing Morgan's sobs rack her undead body, spurring to life dead lungs, and a eulogy spoken with shattering honesty, Deirdre made poor work of trying not to cry. For all the love she held, she could not take this pain away. But she kissed her like she could, pressing her lips to every exposed inch of skin she could reach—urgent, rough and desperate. Between each breath she spilled was an unspoken declaration of love, and ending each quivering sob was one of devotion. She gathered herself together just enough to speak. "Texas, obviously. Your family is there. I'd fly every one of our friends out to see you there if I had to. And I'd get a monument here too; I don't know why you'd have to be remembered in just one place. I obviously deliver a eulogy that makes everyone cry—I'd tell them all about how amazing you are, how much love you put into the world, how strong-willed, how you fight even when you don't have a fighting chance, and how brave you are. How unfathomably brave.” Deirdre sniffled, memories of Morgan’s death surged through her mind. She could remember where the rod was, which parts of Morgan hadn’t been stained by blood, the way her legs bent. “I’d tell everyone how much I love you. How much I’ll always love you. And how lucky I am, to have been loved by you too---how lucky I am right now.” She leaned down to kiss her again, whining as her lungs burned and forced them apart. “But you’re here, Morgan. You’re here and you get to decide how you want to remember yourself, how you want others to. And you get to say ‘I love you’ as many times as you want now.” She breathed out, trying to calm her rapid heart, which was only trying to adjust for the way her stiff body resisted crying more than she already did. “What do you want to do right now? We could...have a mini-ceremony...for now. Anything. Whatever you need.”

It was almost a relief to hear Deirdre cry. The last time Morgan had declared how dead she was, Deirdre had been too intent on holding her together to cry for any of it. But there was an ache to the words she gave, to the way she fastened her against her body. Maybe Deirdre didn’t miss Morgan the way she missed herself, but she hurt for her, cried for her, and still carried a wound from that awful day. Morgan imagined that their hurt throbbed in synchronous harmony, that something was missed together, even if they felt it differently. Morgan didn’t know the word for it, she could only think of it as a kind of magic, two disparate parts brought into the same vibration and bound closer until they looked like one. As Deirdre held her, there was no rush of cold, no illusion of being submerged into her deathly calm. But there was still the weight of her, steady as gravity, keeping her fastened to the earth, to the life she still reached for, no matter how far away it drifted. Morgan pressed back into her, filling her hands with as much of Deirdre as she could fit.

She could imagine everything Deirdre said so perfectly, that even if she’d stayed sleeping and broken, Deirdre would have done everything for her. She would have found out where her family was, she would have brought her down to be with her family and made a place where they could be together. Even if she had stayed dead, there would have been a way to stay close to her. She turned to look at her love as she heard her cry, and stoked back her tears. “I love you,” she stammered, gasping through cries of her own. “I love you, Deirdre. I love you so much.” She sniffled. “Even if I hadn’t pulled myself together this much, it’s pretty good, to be able to tell you. That I--” Another sob heaved out of her and she hid herself back against Deirdre’s body, aching for the soothing wave of cold being this close used to give her. “Breathe, okay? Breathe for me, my love,” She sniffled and tried to remind her lungs how to work too, wheezing for breath as she struggled. “You. You saved me, when I came back. And I love you, and I want you with me. And I want...something, even a small something that...that proves what happened to me wasn’t nothing. It wasn’t nothing. Everything’s been so hard ever since, it wasn’t nothing. Do you think...we could bury something I kept? A crystal, or something else I made, or can’t use anymore? It can be at home, or on the beach, or anywhere else. It doesn’t really have to be some...gothic statue. It can just be...something that can rest. I want that. If those parts of me can’t come back, they can at least rest somewhere. I’m not going to be able to anytime soon, you know? But, when we get home. For now, we can just lay here for a little while. If you want that too--?” She mumbled most of her words into her shoulder and held on tighter.

Deirdre held Morgan tighter, with great fanatical desire to meld their bodies together—hold her pain inside of her, take it away and give her all of the love that bloomed instead. She imagined that in her arms held her gratitude, for whatever God there was, or whatever twist of fate it might have been that allowed Morgan to speak those words as many times as she wanted. For each 'I love you', Deirdre swelled with her own 'thank you's—to Morgan, to the world. "You're one to tell me to breathe," she laughed, pressing a kiss to Morgan's forehead. Her lungs might have protested, and her heart might have had an argument or two lined up, but she knew how important being able to hold Morgan—kiss Morgan—the right way was. Not just for Deirdre's sanity, but for the desperation to feel she knew coiled inside of Morgan. She must have read Morgan's letters and words about her cold body a dozen times, she must have asked to hear them a dozen more, but she never dared ask if Morgan missed it. She knew the answer, and Deirdre had a response of her own. She held her tighter. Closer. Her head against her chest, flush to the slow pounding of the heart that beat for her. She might have frozen her body if she thought it'd bring back the feeling for Morgan, but there were better ones she could make. That she was learning how to make. "If I saved you, then you've saved me a thousand times, Morgan." Deirdre smiled and nodded. "Okay. As soon as we get home, we'll do that. We'll find the right piece, and the right spot. And if you want some pillar to remember where it rests, we'll do that too." For her arguments—that all of Morgan, and especially those parts she thought she lost, had never left—she shook them away. This wasn't about that, she knew it. Even as she ached to reassure her, to tell her love of all the beauty she had never stopped seeing—all the magic that existed inside of her; in her smile or her eyes or the delight of her laughter. "Do you miss her?" Deirdre asked after a moment. She knew the rudimentary answer to the question, and she'd inquired down similar paths before, but she asked knowing time had passed since her last query and she always loved to hear Morgan's thoughts anyway. Even if she heard them a hundred times before, even if she knew them by heart. "Yourself. As you were before you died. Do you miss her?"

Morgan sighed into all of Deirdre’s kisses and touches, soaking up each cotton brush of ghost feeling as if it fueled the magic keeping her alive. She whined, wordlessly asking for more, and brought them down to lay on the blanketed ground. She could touch more of her at once this way, and if she closed her eyes, it even seemed like her romantic fantasy of alchemizing themselves had come true, the two of them, distinct and dissolved at once. “I miss getting goosebumps when you touch me, and the way it was like falling into melting ice water when I put my head against you. And I miss pasta night, and tacos, and pie, and Al’s. I don’t care about it anymore, but even that was nice. And I miss the way you made fun of my hair when it was all flat and sticky after sex. I miss falling asleep in your arms, and naps in the afternoon with Anya.” She sniffled, remembering the little black cat and how they used to pad around the house together, enough that she would sometimes call Anya her shadow. She kissed Deirdre wherever she was closest, passing back whatever vitality, whatever warmth that went beyond physical sensation. Back and forth between them, in such a balance that they always seemed to be bursting with an abundance of feeling. “I miss breathing. And my heartbeat. And getting sweaty. And being so tired I could practically fall over. And smelling my own cooking, and...my magic. There were years when the Universe was the only one who would really hold me at all, when it was just me and my magic and trying to break the curse. I could just make the world prettier with a touch of my fingers. And patience. Alive-Me would never have lost my temper at you, not the way I have since I died. And she never threw a real punch in her life. She thought she could power her way though anything, and that habit is still there, but it’s hard not to second guess or feel like an idiot when I know that it’s just the kind of thinking that helped get me killed. And sometimes it feels like...those parts of her couldn’t take it, and that’s why they stayed behind. She was so naive because it just hurt too much, after everything awful that had happened, to realize that’s what most of the world was going to be. She thought she couldn’t find that happy other side because of her curse, but there’s just...more mess, and more unfairness from people who don’t care enough to make things different. We have to make our own good. It was never gonna fall out of the sky like some weird Christian angel light.”

She shifted on the ground to look at Deirdre and brush away the wetness on her cheek. “Do you miss her too? You can say, if you do. I know you love this me too, and you’ll love me longer, just by, you know, how math and linear time works. You can tell me, Deirdre.”

Just as Morgan spoke, memories were breathed into existence. Deirdre closed her eyes and allowed them to filter through her mind. She knew the way Morgan shivered to her touch and the delight that curled up her own lips at the sight---she was different from all the humans that flinched or shrieked, she seemed to like the cold just as much as Deirdre. She remembered nights of fighting Anya for Morgan’s affection--some happy medium was reached with Anya in Morgan’s lap and Morgan in Deirdre’s--with their plates stained by pasta sauce sitting unattended on the table (Deirdre would pick them up later, but it always spurred a whine to be pulled away from Morgan). Plans of a breakfast at Al’s would be shared between them, right before Morgan fell asleep in Deirdre’s arms---she always waited to hear her breathing to lull her to sleep. She knew well the way that sweat built on Morgan’s body, the places she’d grow the warmest in, and the way her hair stuck flat to her reddening face---she remembered each time she brushed that hair away, pressed kisses to her burning cheeks and watched with awe as Morgan caught her breath. Deirdre opened her eyes. Lazy rolling clouds above greeted her. “For each moment that will remain a memory, there are new ones…” She sighed, speaking to herself. She might not have been able to watch Morgan shiver, but that didn’t matter much when she could feel every bump and curve for herself. Moira would wiggle her way between them. Morgan watched eagerly for her reaction to her latest cooking venture, unable to taste for herself. Deirdre slept now to the sound of Morgan’s voice, holding her love tight in her arms, and woke just the same way. They didn’t go to Al’s anymore, but she wouldn’t replace their morning jogs for anything else. And sex--well, now the only limitation was Deirdre’s abundant stamina.

“That’s why I don’t miss it. I don’t miss her.” She smiled, quickly catching up to explain herself. “I don’t see you as lacking anything, you know that. And if that’s how I think...there’s nothing for me to miss. I love you, just like this. Just as you are, always. I don’t want to be thinking about anything else, I don’t want to look at you and think about the things that aren’t. You’re perfect to me. You always have been, and you always will be. So, no, I don’t miss it. I...well--not like how you miss it, at least. I don’t want to, and I won’t allow myself to. What kind of a person would I be if I thought that way? If I missed what I have?” She tilted her head down, pressing a kiss to Morgan’s nose. She wouldn’t be sure she was making sense, and she figured she probably wasn’t--even for as impeccable Morgan was at deciphering her thoughts--but she felt it in her heart. To claim she missed something was to say there must have been an absence, and there wasn’t. Morgan wasn’t less to her, she never would be. Morgan might have mourned the pieces of her that were gone, and she should, but Deirdre never would allow herself that. She never would indulge the idea. “I miss you when you’re gone from me. I missed you that one day I had to wait for you to wake. I miss you when I’m at work. I don’t miss the things we used to do, I remember them and I’m happy they happened, and I love what we can do now just the same. How you were when you were alive...to me that’s still you now. I just won’t do it. I won’t miss you when I have you.” She paused. “But I know you miss it. I won’t stop you from doing that, and I’ll always be here if you want to talk about it--or remember it. But every trip to Al’s we don’t take, we’ve replaced with hikes and picnics and graveyard visits or movies at home. And I love that. And if that changed, if we had to replace those moments with something else, I won’t miss them either. Because I’ll love what we do next, and I’ll always love whatever it is we do next. However it is we change. I would have loved you as an old woman, I’ll love you as an immortal. I don’t miss it. I have you.”

Deirdre closed her eyes again. “I think Alive-You would have lost your temper at me all the same. Alive-You might have grown to learn more painfully about the world. She might have thrown a good punch one day. She’s not so different from you. She was just alive.” When she opened them, the cloud had shifted and somewhere beyond them she knew a world continued to turn. Change was inevitable; to the living and to the dead. But it wasn’t so bad to mourn what changed. “Your optimism isn’t what got you killed. That was Constance.”

Morgan thumbed Deirdre’s cheek as she spoke, watching every turn of her expression, trying to follow her down her maze of thought. She liked their life, which had grown around her death like weeds bursting through asphalt. She was stronger since she died, and maybe even before then, without all of the extra curse-related anxiety and running for her life. There were hunters, still, but she was learning how to handle that, and they were so much easier to get rid of than a ghost or a curse. But she was still drifting in a strange form that kept her at one degree of remove. And yet to hear Deirdre speak of her, it was as though nothing had been severely disrupted, as though their life had merely taken an unexpected turn in its ever continuous growth towards abundance. “You can let yourself miss something,” she whispered, confused. “You don’t have to lock that away…”

But Deirdre was so confident, so gentle and firm with her estimation of the past and everything that had changed shape around their present, their future. From Deirdre’s lips, their life was a wonder, something to be faced with the same curiosity she approached a freshly gored corpse, its bones shining with promise. Morgan couldn’t imagine taking the ache of the pieces they’d left by the wayside. There were days when everything different she did felt like a desperate excuse to cover up what was missing. No damage! Nothing to see here! Morgan even tried to imagine how she might approximate her new self into those spaces she’d left behind. What if she could go for a burger and not feel alienated out of her existence by not being able to taste it right? The thought of having to shift again for the sake of some other cataclysmic change frightened her. She had just gotten morning jogs and bone crafts. She didn’t want to jettison those too someday. But the years ahead of them were long, and if she dared to look at them, she would know that it was all but inevitable. But she kissed Deirdre tearfully instead, and brought them tight into each other’s grasp once again.

“W-wow, I really don’t deserve you, babe,” she whispered, trying to make her voice light. “But I am so glad I have you. I mean, keeping me around even when I was old and decrepit? That would’ve been a lot to take on. I will, hypothetically speaking, have a lot of fun poking at your gray hairs, but that would be a long way off, obviously…” Morgan’s voice caught, unable to keep up the game she was playing with herself. “Why do I feel so different if we’re the same? What Constance did to me--she-- Why are there days when there’s even less of me than there is right now? And you don’t know that Alive-Me would have stormed out or yelled. Apparently multiple zombies have written that they feel more aggressive after they die, more prone to being...awful, and--” Morgan brought her head down to rest on Deirdre’s shoulder. She didn’t know why she was trying to convince her that things were worse or less than before now. She cherished the survival of their love more than anything else she had managed to keep, though the list felt pretty short. “I don’t know what I’m saying anymore,” she mumbled into her skin. “I love you. I want this to be good. I want to be here, and feel more okay. If I could just skip to the part where none of this hurt and we’re good and doing our best, that’d be really great.”

“I’m not locking it away. It just---even if I try to think about the things we can’t do anymore, I just remember all the new things we do instead. And I get excited for everything else we might do in the future. It’s not--life is a stream, as I see it. It’s hard to swim up-river and say I miss it. I--does that make sense?” Deirdre grimaced at herself. It probably didn’t. She watched Morgan consider it, her thoughts flickering across her face in the turn of her expressions. When she spoke next, Deirdre shook her head. “I could say the same thing about you…” She leaned into the quiver in Morgan’s voice, matching it was a steadiness in hers. If only she could make things better with just the sound of her gentleness, or the pressure of her arms around Morgan, or her words or any number of the things she did that made her wish she could pull Morgan’s pain away. “I would do anything for you, my love. I would then, I would now.” And yet, there was only so much she could do. She couldn’t kiss Morgan like a lullaby to sleep any more than she could love her heart to reanimation. Even that hadn’t changed much from before; she couldn’t ease away Morgan’s curse or the trauma it wrought. The feelings of love never shifted, the desire for care never wavered. Morgan’s pain, in the same way, had only turned to another source. Life was cyclical, wasn’t it? “Because you died. You died and nothing can change that fact, but you’re not some new person--not entirely. I--you died, Morgan. Of course that feels...different.” Deirdre frowned, clumsily stumbling through her explanation. “You don’t know that she wouldn’t have. Isn’t anger just a natural reaction to pain? And you have so much pain. I don’t---none of this is bad to me, Morgan. But I understand how terrible it must be for you. You don’t have to see it the way I do; you’ll figure it out your own way, I know you will.” Deirdre laughed gently, a sound bred more out of a need to prevent an onset of tears than some kind of joy. “It’s okay. You can say whatever you want, whatever you’re thinking. I want to know, always. And I’m forever glad you share yourself with me like this.” She shifted, urging Morgan’s head up with her hands, just enough so she could kiss her better. To kiss her like sacrament, offering prayers of a brighter future and present--to absolve pain and allow it passage to what existed beyond it. “It’s fine. Whatever you are--now, tomorrow, forever--it’s okay, I’m sure I’ll love her too. Don’t worry about...being anything else than what you are, Morgan. Just feel...however you want to feel.” She kissed her again--the benediction.

Only Deirdre could have spoken so calmly and perfectly of rivers and tides and in doing so washed away the harshest sting of Morgan’s confusion. Maybe that was why she felt stuck on her worst days; there was a tide trying to carry her one way, and all her pain was driving her the other way. In this moment, with her voice as steady as the Earth’s turn, as the resting hum of the energy in the universe, Deirdre’s voice cut through the stagnation and carried Morgan to safety. Morgan nodded along to her words, as rapt as if they were the gospel of the stars. Yes, she was a babbling mess, and that was okay. Yes, she was in pain, no matter what she did she couldn’t shake or bury her pain completely like she had when she was alive. Sometimes when she could bear to look ahead more than a few days, she feared that pain was all that lay ahead for her. If dying hadn’t been enough to stop it, surely nothing would. And the unfairness and the heaviness that came with this fear made her snap at each new hurt that got added to her pile. That was no excuse, but Deirdre’s silent forgiveness fell over her as surely as any cleansing charm.

Morgan took Deirdre’s face in her hands and kissed her as if she were the scion of salvation. If she drank enough of her in, blessed herself with enough of her touch, maybe she could finally will the strange property allowed her banshee to see goodness and certainty in a world marked with death to come into herself and stick as seamlessly as any alchemy she’d ever performed. Morgan clung to her with all her strength, reaching for that hope with each tug of her lips. What tears she had been fighting to keep back fell harmlessly past her lashes and dried up. Morgan was consumed only by this moment, this needling urgency to taste Deirdre’s conviction in exchange for surrendering all her messy doubts and worries. “I want that,” she murmured between kisses, meaning I want it now. For all the frustration and hurt that roiled silently in her dead body, Morgan hadn’t lost the human need for urgency, and so she pressed Deirdre’s body against hers as if it was that magical horizon in the land of ‘better,’ as if she could make come to her by dragging it over with her bare hands, as if it were magic itself. She pulled away just as her longing bottomed out into hunger, when hope watered in her mouth like desire and Deirdre’s neck seemed as gratifying as any tomorrow she could ever look forward to. “I love you,” she said, voice cracked and starved for air. “Thank you. I am...trying. I can keep trying. I want everything you said. And you’ll be here? And you’ll take me home? And we’ll… we’ll keep going until we can’t, and we’ll make everything as good as we can.”

Loving Morgan always felt inexpressibly right; a place where everything fit and all the world faded away. It was the two of them, against the tides of the earth, the pull of life and death around them. The two of them, standing together at the frontier of something brighter than bright. Deirdre couldn't explain it. She had tried countless times to commit the feeling to words; to write it down or vocalize it in a signature metaphor, but she could only ever pick at the surface. When Morgan said "I love you", it never was just those three words. When Deirdre said it back, it too was something much greater than she knew how to say. Love to her had been nonexistent, conditional or something dangled in front of her like a goal she might reach if she was just good enough for it—her fault then, if it was never given. But with Morgan, everything was different. She never had the words to explain how much everything meant to her, how much Morgan meant to her. All she could say was— "I love you too." And kiss her back. "One day," she murmured against her, "I'll be able to tell you just how much, with the right words. One day, maybe, I'll just be able to love all of the pain away. I want that. I wish I could right now." There never was an old Morgan and a new one, not to her. Always just Morgan, just the woman she loved most. "I'll be here for you. There's no place I'd rather be. And I'll take you home, I'll take you anywhere you want to go. I love you." Deirdre held her tighter, squeezing her arms around her girlfriend as hard as she could, for as long as she could and far past muscle aches. "No matter what happens, I love you. And if you want to mourn yourself, I'll be here. And, well—maybe I wish we weren't in such a public place." Deirdre laughed lightly, keenly aware that even their intimate cuddling probably broke some modesty rules. "As good as we can…" she smiled, "I like that."

#when death comes #wr deirdre #wr chatzy #wr deirdre chatzy #//this might be our shortest chatzy in a hot minute #//bask in brief glory #wickedswriting

12 notes · View notes

alistellian · 6 years

Text

old af RH/FMA AU/crossover

♠ GREED 2 years ago How would Greed!Stocke go down? Also: Stocke in the FMA world, where do you see him?

Tᴇɴᴇʙʀᴏᴜs 2 years ago fma verse... gimme a sec here, folds hands together and thinks

Tᴇɴᴇʙʀᴏᴜs 2 years ago ok no I got this consider: belt alchemist NAH OKAY more serious answer

Tᴇɴᴇʙʀᴏᴜs 2 years ago i can't pass up a reflection of canon so ofc he has to be a failed attempt to bring someone (Ernst) back from the dead

Tᴇɴᴇʙʀᴏᴜs 2 years ago I think given the philosopher's stone zombies at the end... there's room for something in between that and outright super-powerful homunculi?

Tᴇɴᴇʙʀᴏᴜs 2 years ago giving life to a dead body and not having it be zombie-like... actually i'm not sure about those zombies, were they a mess because one stone = multiple souls? hmm

Tᴇɴᴇʙʀᴏᴜs 2 years ago no that can't be it since the homunculi are even more... or maybe there's something else involved there, Father did something special? Or something about them being puppets...?

Tᴇɴᴇʙʀᴏᴜs 2 years ago anyway either way Heiss'd be the alchemist who committed taboo. heck both his arms are Gauntlets/automail so that fits, he loses them trying, fails because ernst's soul is no longer around even if his body is

Tᴇɴᴇʙʀᴏᴜs 2 years ago then resorts to one of those minor stones and hopes the body-soul connection will bring ernst back (no heiss, that only works with the gate, not death)

Tᴇɴᴇʙʀᴏᴜs 2 years ago extrapolating from there i guess heiss would've been one of those amestris scientists who were developing the stones... and wow suddenly this au diverges

Tᴇɴᴇʙʀᴏᴜs 2 years ago because heiss only ever got so fixated on stocke in canon because he thought stocke was ernst deep down and it was just the memory-wipe (which hE DID HIMSELF ANYWAY heiss is a mess), here he'd Know

Tᴇɴᴇʙʀᴏᴜs 2 years ago heiss'd probably try to reclaim the mini-stone + ernst's body to try again and stocke doesn't even realize he's got a stone/souls in him, he just knows this dude is trying to kill him, he's outta there

Tᴇɴᴇʙʀᴏᴜs 2 years ago from there I'm tempted to say he ends up in the Nest but that'd be way too easy so instead i'm gonna say he somehow gets to briggs. actually wait that fits pretty well dang

Tᴇɴᴇʙʀᴏᴜs 2 years ago maybe later he gets more involved in main plot... and that said moving on to Greed!Stocke if something convinced him it was necessary to save briggs he'd be all for it, no hesitation

Tᴇɴᴇʙʀᴏᴜs 2 years ago (maybe partially thanks to 'hey drachma's gonna attack!' since that's how Father was getting bloodshed up north anyway)

Tᴇɴᴇʙʀᴏᴜs 2 years ago I feel like I'd need to think of a way to get him to Central again though... hmm I'd say he'd also either be a sniper or, again, a spy (sent past the fort wall). heck maybe both. but not an alchemist

Tᴇɴᴇʙʀᴏᴜs 2 years ago shit wait no i got this

Tᴇɴᴇʙʀᴏᴜs 2 years ago he's spying on drachma, discovers something... weird's going on (why are the drachmans so prepared to trust kimblee?), gets summoned to central to 'report' but actually

Tᴇɴᴇʙʀᴏᴜs 2 years ago to get him out of the way because he's being too nosy... and of course he ends up continuing to be nosy in central and that's how he ends up down below

Tᴇɴᴇʙʀᴏᴜs 2 years ago important question can i bring in Even More radiant historians because in that case briggs is gonna be full of them

♠ GREED 2 years ago YES

Tᴇɴᴇʙʀᴏᴜs 2 years ago in that case Sonja was the first one to meet Stocke when he was on the run, introduced him to Rosch who's obv. in the military and who sent him out to Briggs... and then he met Raynie and Marco on the way

Tᴇɴᴇʙʀᴏᴜs 2 years ago i bet the beastkind in RH are ishvalan... gafka's an ishvalan refugee and lives in the wilds near briggs and he's aht's guardian

Tᴇɴᴇʙʀᴏᴜs 2 years ago eruca... folds hands... she's probably still back in central and i'm gonna say she totally gets to be an alchemist she's torn between imitating what her brother wanted to do before he died and joining the military or not...

Tᴇɴᴇʙʀᴏᴜs 2 years ago she eventually becomes another relatively young state alchemist (though not nearly ed young) and uses guns w/ lil alchemy circles carved in

Tᴇɴᴇʙʀᴏᴜs 2 years ago greatly prefers research though and was also at one point this close to trying to commit taboo herself

Tᴇɴᴇʙʀᴏᴜs 2 years ago also SLAMS HANDS DOWN i'm sorry but raynie and marco definitely knew the Devil's Nest though they weren't Nestlings themselves gotta have been more than one gang in Dublith

Tᴇɴᴇʙʀᴏᴜs 2 years ago let me stop here before I get carried away and this just becomes RH -> FMA AU plurk (it's too late it already is)

#headcanons #only sorta but that's the best tag for me to find it later

7 notes · View notes

lareinesophie · 7 years

Text

HELLO darlings!! I had originally intended to get this blog on a good start by posting a sober, scholarly (and as yet unfinished) essay on the intricacies of Lady Lesso’s character, but then I got a much better idea, that is—

Repost this prompt with your own response: Write that one thing you really desperately wish will happen in the second SGE trilogy, but which in all likelihood won’t, and CHALLENGE: COME UP WITH THE CRAZIEST, MOST CREATIVE, MOST OUTLANDISH, MOST ABSOLUTELY MENTAL EXPLANATION as to how it just might be possible, even as it’s highly improbable.

Mine is that Lady Lesso is the character resurrected, because “who ever heard of a witch that really died? You can always get them back.” (Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, Chapter XII). I’m not talking about a zombie!Lesso literally being brought back from the dead, tho I wouldn’t put it past Hester to sneak to Lady Lesso’s grave/probably-still-unburied coffin in the Garden for Good and Evil and attempt necromancy or whatever serious black magic that Rafal had performed to reanimate the Old villains. (Tbh Hester totally would bc she’s such a huge Lady Lesso fangirl; look at how she shamelessly appropriated Lady Lesso’s life advice to Sophie as her graduation quote in the Ev-Nev Handbook. I bet she reads The Tale of Sophie and Agatha again and again just for the bits in which Lady Lesso appears and cries heavy black mascara tears and spooks Anadil’s rats with this Overwhelming and Uncharacteristic Display of Sentiment.) But anyway, my pet wacko theory is: So we know that Lady Lesso had appointed Sophie her successor as Dean and gifted her her sharp-shouldered purple gown before tying Aric up & freeing Professor Dovey & all that, but what if she had also… *dramatic pause*… enchanted all the mirrors in the School for Good and Evil and saved fragments of her eternal soul in them (like with Horcruxes), not bc she was afraid that Aric would kill her, but rather she wanted to keep an eye on Dean Sophie and continue to guide her from beyond the grave!!

“[…]I’ll always see you as my student, Sophie. And when you lose your way, I’ll be there in the shadows, your Evil fairy godmother, pushing you towards your destiny like a wind behind a sail. Even when you lose sight of what that destiny is.” Sophie could see there was more Lady Lesso wanted to say, but she was holding back. Instead, they just gazed into each other’s eyes[…]”

The Last Ever After, Part ii Chapter 29. “Who’s Helping Who?”

Everyone knows about Sophie’s obsession with mirrors and that she spends all day preening in front of one, doing her make-up instead of her schoolwork. It’d make perfect sense to observe Sophie thru a mirror and it’s certainly the most effective method of spying on her. Also, although mirrors were more plentiful in the Good castle, they’re really an Evil artefact associated with vanity and with the greatest villains. For instance, the “Enchanted mirror belonging to Leandra of Frostplains (aka The Frost Queen)” is displayed in the Exhibition of Evil, and Little Snow-White’s Evil stepmother famously owned a rather opinionated talking mirror that basically mansplains her and makes her insecure about her body image, and in horror movies and the “Bloody Mary” urban legend the ghost always passes into the mortal realm through a mirror. Given her deep knowledge of fairytales and of everything Evil, Lady Lesso would have been very familiar with the magical properties of mirrors. Furthermore, having been a “sensational” witch back in the day (TLEA), she would have been well-versed in “the art of life-extension”. Indeed, being both Dean of Evil and Professor of Curses & Death-traps, she must have been until her death the most powerful and knowledgeable witch in the Woods; notice that she was revered even by Evers for her prowess in casting spells—the magical purple-tinged shield she cast in over the Schools for Boys and Girls could withstand the continuous onslaught of the entire prince population in the Woods. A life-preservation spell involving soul fragmentation & a mirror is likely child’s play for her.

[..]the two boys watched more feral princes climb through the hole in the broken shield. “You must be quite the magician to crack it,” said Tedros finally. “Lady Lesso cast that shield herself.” Aric didn’t reply.

A World without Princes, Part II Chapter 13. “The Supper Hall Book Club”

In short, Lady Lesso could and would cast a spell preserving part of her consciousness within a mirror/several mirrors; she had both the means and motivation for doing so. But — and things get even more FANTASTIC from here on — a tiny caveat: Remember that mirrors are more plentiful in the Good castle? In fact, practically all the mirrors in the School for Good and Evil are found exclusively in the Good castle; in Book 1 Sophie had complained about not being able to find a single mirror in the Evil school and had resorted to improvising one in her dorm by flooding the floor, and when she did get a proper mirror it was the one Agatha had removed from her dorm in the Good school. Professor Manley’s Uglification classroom did have “desks with rusty mirrors”, but you’d bet Dean Sophie had those thrown out in one of her first acts as Dean and replaced them with very classy and very expensive antique mirrored stations ordered from Putzi, much like those in Professor Anemone’s Beautification classroom (AWWP), Manley’s protests notwithstanding. (“BUT THEY’RE PRICELESS ANTIQUES!” “SO ARE MINE! AND MINE ARE ACTUALLY CLEAN AND FREE OF TRACES OF TADPOLE GUTS!”). And there’s the Ice Queen’s Enchanted Mirror in the Exhibition of Evil, which Lady Lesso did not touch due to it being a priceless artefact from Evil’s glory days and a token of Evil’s greatest triumphs (and for sentimental reasons too — The Frost Queen was her “favourite tale of all”), and which in any case was still languishing under a thick layer of dust in the tiny broom closet that housed the Exhibition, because Dean Sophie had evidently not seen fit to move the Old Evil relics to more dignified settings. Or rather, there simple was no room for them in the new museum (the ‘Temple de la Gloire de Sophie’) that housed all the items from her fairytale, and seeing that she was the only Never to win a fairytale in centuries, there wasn’t any point in making room for the remains of losers; it might demoralise new Nevers to see that their greatest heroes were this rotting vine of thorns (Vera of Woods Beyond) and a bunch of dead stuffed animals. And lastly, there’s probably a mirror in the private living quarters of the Dean’s office, given that Lady Lesso admitted she had “a vanity that is rare among Nevers”, but Sophie had taken up residence in the School Master’s Tower and set about renovating it into a five-star hotel, and decorated it not with massive jewelled mirrors from the Good School but with the finest silver-backed floor-to-ceiling mirrors ordered directly from the Putsi Metal Shop, the same company that supplied the chair-and-mirror stations for the new Evil Groom Room.

Sooooo mirror!Lady Lesso has had absolutely no opportunity to catch up on Dean Sophie’s doings and gleaned zero intelligence on what’s going on in the Evil School, and worse, is subject to a constant, unending barrage of vain, vapid Evers preening in front of the mirrors every spare moment. And she’s regretting her life decisions terribly and at first she vents by haunting the Evers but then feels bad bc the frightened Evers go crying to Professor Dovey who has to comfort them lest she receive angry letters from their haughty royal parents inquiring about “a POLTERGEIST in the GOOD SCHOOL?! WHAT HAS THIS SCHOOL COME TO? FIRST YOU LOSE EVERY COMPETITION, THEN YOU STOPPED HOSTING SNOW BALLS ETC. ETC.” and these missives are often laced with threats to sue the school for criminal incompetence.

BUT THEN Dean Sophie decides she wants to throw an Evil Snow Ball for Christmas, with the exact same winter wonderland aesthetic as that of previous Snow Balls, but as she invited the whole School and not just the Nevers, she needs more entertainment venues to ensure there’s room for everyone and that everyone has a good time, so the dungeon is converted into a carnival of wintry amusements, AND SHE TURNS LADY LESSO’S ICE CHAMBER CLASSROOM INTO AN ICE-SKATING RINK. Aaaand for final touches, as the dungeon walls are a little bare and gloomy for such a joyous occasion, Sophie convinces the Evers to loan those massive jewelled mirrors in the Good castle to Evil for a night, so as to pretty up the place and brighten the rooms by reflecting the dancing fairylights. And the Evers carry a whole lotta mirrors, practically every mirror in school, into the Evil castle, and Lady Lesso, who’s trapped within these mirrors, sees what Sophie has done to the Evil castle and FLIPS OUT, LIKE, WHY ARE THERE EVERS IN THE EVIL CASTLE!!??? IN HER CLASSROOM??! SOPHIE HAD DONE WHAT TO HER CLASSROOM?? AND WHY WAS EVERYONE GLIDING ON…KNIFE BLADES?? HOW TRIGGERING ESPECIALLY SINCE SHE HAD BEEN STABBED TO DEATH WITH ONE OF THOSE THINGS… Then Sophie pirouettes in and stops before a particularly handsome mirror (and mirror!Lesso) to admire her cute little ice-skating outfit and matching silver skates, her long golden locks swept elegantly upward and pulled into a tight dancer’s bun, and intoxicated by her own appearance, she leans in so close that her face is barely an inch away from the mirror and her eyelashes graze the mirror’s surface in a butterfly kiss, and she croons dreamily “Mirror, Mirror, on the wall,/ Who’s the fairest of them all?” And she opens her eyes to find…Lady Lesso glaring back at her, face literally white as snow (and thus fitting in perfectly with the ice decor) bc of how angry and horrified she is at what Sophie has done. Now, Lady Lesso had never shivered in her frozen classroom, but then and there during the Evil Snow Ball, she trembled uncontrollably with rage.

#i promise my actual essay is better than this trashfic #lady lesso #sophie of woods beyond #lareinesophie original #sge theories

21 notes · View notes

tinymixtapes · 7 years

Text

Feature: 2017: Third Quarter Favorites

As we stumble into the final quarter of the year, TMT would like to temper the political incoherence and informational carelessness of the last few months with another transmission from our trusty quarter-list propaganda machine. And you, dear reader, are invited! Whether it was transcendental smackdowns (Young Thug) or moonlit ruminations (The National), unlistenable prayers (Lingua Ignota) or symbol play (Giant Claw), 2017’s summer sounds found our bodies trembling (Pan Diajing), swiped like a shoe along concrete ($3.33), and glowing with deceitful charm (White Poppy). It didn’t matter if it was coming from the Dar Es Salaam underground (Nyege Nyege Tapes), a modded 70s Speak & Spell (White Suns), or Jack Rabbit’s Palace (Twin Peaks); it didn’t matter if it was evinced by lurker auteurs (Nmesh), sonic ecologists (Avey Tare), or one Pretty Bitch (Lil B). In the face of an ever-increasing shitshow, the last three months of music carried on like if often does: with a mix of hope, absurdity, and some exquisite world-building, with hearts both heavy (death’s dynamic shroud) and gentle (Mark Templeton). The full list can be found below, but first check out our ridiculously long list of releases that didn’t make the feature proper. And thanks, as always, for reading! Shortlist: Yves Tumor’s Experiencing The Deposit Of Faith, Nate Scheible’s Fairfax, Tzusing’s 東方不敗, Jay Glass Dubs’s Glacial Dancehall, Shabazz Palaces’s Quazarz vs. The Jealous Machines, HKE’s HEEL AESTHETIC, Windy & Carl’s Blues For A UFO, Shabazz Palaces’s Quazarz vs. The Jealous Machines, woopheadclrms’s Meeting Room + Rare Plants (Ukiuki Atama), Youngboy Never Broke Again’s AI YoungBoy, Costanza’s George, Mount Kimbie’s Love What Survives, Femminielli Noir’s Echec & Mat, I am just a Pupil’s CRYSTAL PAIN, Léo Hoffsaes & Loto Retina’s Early Contact, Arve Henrikson’s Towards Language, Schneider Kacirek’s Radius Walk, S.W.’s The Album, Damien Dubrovnik’s Great Many Arrows, Alan Vega’s IT, chris†††’s social justice whatever, and Ariel Pink’s Dedicated to Bobby Jameson. --- Nmesh Pharma [Orange Milk] [WATCH · LISTEN · REVIEW] With Pharma, lurker auteur Nmesh has both legitimized and destroyed the vapor-non-genre, virus-like, from within. Now entombed in some lo-poly pyramid, we can see the ‘wave for what it was: a dig through the garbage-dump archives of the 1990s to recover, warp, and recontextualize whatever memories got lost beneath the pile. The samples and annotations would be nothing, though, without the music, and lucky for you Pharma delivered well on this front. Not only is this Nmesh’s best album to date, but these 26 tracks (plus many remixes) ran rings around an entire micro-era of electronic music, wearing it out until the soul within was revealed. Plus, how brazen is that Ferris Bueller sample? –Dylan Pasture --- Pan Daijing Lack [PAN] [LISTEN · REVIEW] Abstract music, even “noise” if you want, is too often discussed in relation to absence. Absence of harmony, of “form,” of the philosophy of separation underpinning musical tradition per se. I imagine that, in witnessing a performance by Pan Daijing, who discusses her music along the lines of embodiment and the “acting out” of sound, it becomes difficult to persist in this manner of speaking. With Lack, a document of that performance practice, she rattles the consciousness of the home listener from its critical distance back to where it belongs: the wanting, lurid presence of the body. “Practice of Hygiene” breaks words — “above, below,” “excuse me,” “why do I have to” — into moaning, groaning, and almost-human creaking, cradled in the bleed of a low, repeating piano note. A dissonant arpeggio dances for five minutes across “The Nerve Meter,” a synthesized pattern that seems to shake the receiver as if having passed through air from a nearby amplifier. At the climactic moment of “Lucid Morto,” the final track, delayed vocals combine with the unsure, three-note melody of a meaty trance lead. In different and captivating ways, this album takes advantage of the notion that sound is a physical encounter; its Lack is not of form or substance, but the one that lives in all of our hungering, trembling bodies. –Will Neibergall --- Milo who told you to think??!!?!?!?! [Ruby Yacht/Alpha Pup] [LISTEN · REVIEW] “Ghiath Matar is dead, roses are not armor,” goes the first rapped line, and if you’ve fallen into the trap of thinking that Milo’s strictly a “college rapper,” you might also be assuming that Ghiath Matar is the name of some ancient Eastern deity or the protag of a Russian fantasy novel. But it’s not. He was, I know now, a Syrian activist who gave flowers to soldiers, then was arrested, tortured and killed. The next line goes, “In my neighborhood, it was become a poet or a farmer.” Writing amazing, beautiful, weighty verse is part of Milo’s job, as is performing. But geeky flights of fancy aren’t gone, they’re just getting pointier. Also in the first song, he says, “Hold the self like J’Zargo in Winterhold,” referring, of course, to the fictional cat wizard and mage college in Elder Scrolls: Skyrim. Did I mention this is the album’s first verse? It goes deeper still, metaphors atop one another like racks. I haven’t cracked the seal on my vinyl copy yet, because it looks so snug sitting in its shrinkwrap beside Down With People’s self-titled album. One more unsolicited thought: if Nostrum Grocers ever drops, there are going to be a lot of professional poets out there burning their own chapbooks. –Samuel Diamond --- Avey Tare Eucalyptus [Domino] [LISTEN · REVIEW] Ever since Campfire Songs, we’ve known that Avey Tare is a sonic ecologist, attuned to the environments and relationalities that bloom and burble through his terraformed recordings. Lately, though, his work has dripped somewhere Down There, somewhere murky and suffocating, goopy and fecund. But, aerated and sun-drenched afresh in the Eucalyptus, Avey Tare sounds like he can breathe again. Awash but not overwhelmed, the atmospheres that populate Eucalyptus oxygenate the expansive melodies Portner has always nursed — from “Chocolate Girl” to “Amanita” — only this time, they can photosynthesize something delectable out of the coral, salt, soil, air that have always permeated, always tickled, always snickered. There’s a spaciousness in the hebetic sonic environments here, room to snuggle and inhale. Like the calyx that protects the budding eucalyptus flower, Eucalyptus chaperones us into a nourishing amnion. We can’t help but curl up and sink in. –Benjamin Eckman Bieser --- Various Artists Twin Peaks (Music from the Limited Event Series) / Twin Peaks (Limited Even Series Soundtrack) [Rhino] [WATCH · WATCH · WATCH] IRRATIONALLY ESSENTIAL. There’s no other way to put it. For Twin Peaks fans, this was the Summer of Frost/Lynch. We watched, listened, pondered, argued; we breathed it, ate it, shit it, and then sniffed the shit for more clues. By the time the 18-part series that first infected us back in May fully metastasized at the beginning of September, we were zombies. Our gray matter was hollowed into cheese by Dougie-Cooper’s Disease, characterized by the frenetic drive to bathe ourselves in anything connected with the story in any way — e.g., these two albums, featuring Angelo Badalamenti’s iconically eerie scores, plot-pregnant songs from each of the show’s Roadhouse bands, and a few of Lynch’s maniacal manipulations. Even now with the series in the spooky, Lynchian rear-view, the obsession lingers. The past dictates the future. There’s no going back. –Dan Smart [pagebreak] SADAF SHELL [Outside Insight] [LISTEN · REVIEW] An album gets called cinematic when the music elicits the feeling of a wide shot, of a soundtracked scene, of prestigious drama. SHELL is cinematic because it’s a movie. Vestigial, footgazing, inflammable, SHELL is a movie with no stars, a movie with no film, that unfolds in unfolding, getting ahead of itself. Even the pronoun is in the can before she means to. So you hear SADAF: just trust your eyes. Audition requires participation, and here, off the top of her head, participation means filmmaking. The unmaking of, in stereo. Although there are no bangers, there’s still the magic of SADAF’s multiplying VOICE, playing over scripts. (Little fires, drowning onscreen, disowned from the spark that lit the faucet. Its instructions crossing themselves out, the skipping noise and scraping strings roll like credits, hand in hand, like the tide, a substitute for reaching through to the other side.) “Though there is stillness, I can feel your heartbeat. Though I can’t see you, I can hear a sound.” Fear that you hear yourself, but you don’t listen. –Pat Beane --- Various Artists Sounds of Sisso [Nyege Nyege Tapes] [LISTEN] It’s fair to say that Uganda’s Nyege Nyege Tapes has left a rather sizeable imprint on the TMT hivemind this year (see: Otim Alpha, Mysterians, and first-quarter fave Riddlore http://j.mp/2g2GAt3

1 note · View note

247krp · 5 years

Photo

— Rejoice, little lambs! We have recovered our own Cong Li Wei, spotted prancing about in the Northeast Side. I don’t remember seeing him with any clique back in high school, but I’m not here to spill yesterday’s tea. So straight to the rundown: can you say charming and mysterious? Apparently now he spends time as a bartender at Un Poco Tequila Bar and private magic practitioner, and keeps skeletons buried at Banjeom Apartments, 605. But those won’t stay hidden for long, if you and I have any say on it. Welcome back, Magnus; we missed you so.

TW: mentions of death and disease

In case you don’t remember the devil’s name, here’s to refresh your memory:

High school was supposed to be a dark time in his life, because he was an orphan and a weirdo. That is, however, beyond false. High school was the best time in his life. Li Wei had it all, from popularity to lovers of all kind, to decent grades and grand achievements. He was some sort of supernaturally perfect kind of guy. But it was all a façade, for he was hiding his hard work, his ‘religious’ beliefs, and the fact that his father was a murderer. Left alone in the world, after both of his parents dies, Li Wei found comfort in studying and going deep into what knowledge is. Despite popular belief, he was and still is indeed very smart. Though, he kept it low-key in high school, because he loved the popularity more, and he loved being the icon of good looks and heartbreaks. Just like his father, he came to love power and influence. He hung around all the popular kids, and fit in like a glove. He lied his way to power. And maybe he was helped by a little magic. It went smoothly for a long time, people focused on his looks and his rather attractive personality. But the minute GG opened their mouth, he was a goner. GG started the rumour of a warlock roaming on the school’s grounds, and they called him Magnus. It did not take long for everyone to know the identity of this mystery warlock. They regarded it as stupidity, someone who pretends or roleplays, like a fucking loser or nerd. They were surprised to learn it was Li Wei, but they did not let him forget. Instead, he used this to confuse them. Despite what GG was spreading around, they were pretty confused whether or not GG was right about Li Wei. Before they could answer, he graduated. And GG disappeared. Li Wei would love to believe that his curse reached GG, but even after he graduated, he remained alert.

Nevermind the memory lane though, the present is always the ripest fruit:

Li Wei has not lost his charm, although he can be harsh and pretty private. It somehow lures people in, and that is pretty much all he needs for his career. To the public, he is the attractive bartender who knows how to mix drinks, and sneak some ecstasy in when needed. To private clients, he is the key for a perfect break-up or the death of the enemy. Li Wei keeps his life balanced, and he enjoys all that it has to offer. He is very much a carpe diem kind of guy, and sometimes he can get lost in his own fantasies and pleasures. But even then, he is very earthly. He does not allow others to push him around, and has learnt to ignore rumours that are beyond false. In his life there has only been one person who truly brought the worst in him, GG. Shall GG come back, his life might get tipsy for he will not give up until he finds whoever decided to mess up with his reputation. Even so, one could say Li Wei is unbreakable. And truly, he does seem unbreakable. Whether or not he is, is a question of perspective. Anyways, he will make everyone believe he is almighty. He loves his power, and not even GG can take that away.

But we are nothing if not open books – my job is to ensure you get to the best pages:

Her magic was forged by the ancestors, and gifted in a box made of gold. She was born to serve the spirits, and the humans. She was the perfect balance between good and evil, and the four elements. She was a white witch. He was born with flaws, with scars that never healed and powers learnt by reading. His magic used to be the balance between white and black, but power eats at you the more you crave for it. He was a Bokor, made a warlock by the power he craved so. And then, they met .There was nothing written to describe the magicthat arose from their heavenly love. It felt like a rose whose thorns turned into silvery medallions, and whose scent carried a thousand pounds of dust created for the sole purpose of waxing the entire world. It was something Aphrodite herself could not put into words. And if she existed she would certainly be jealous of their passion.

Peizhi Cong was a respected man, a war hero and a close advisor of the Senator. He came from a long line of magic practitioners, with voodoo running through his family’s veins for over three centuries. It was unusual to have an Asian-born Bokor, but certainly Peizhi was the only one made for the job. He used to be an anchor to white and black magic for a long time, but everything changed once he met the one and only Yingyue Jiang. Yingyue was not only the most beautiful woman he has ever met, she is the woman he decided to marry. She came from a long line of white witches, people who practiced earthly magic for healing and altruistic reasons. Although their marriage did not last long, their love managed to bring to life a little bundle of joy. However, Peizhi became addicted to power. With hopes of surpassing the power of the ancestors and impressing his lover, he reached out to the dark side, and was unable to come back. The moment he started killing, the spirits punished him. The more power and influence he got, the less of a human being he became. In his last stage, he was barely alive anymore. Black magic is an abomination of nature, it draws from the dead, and the sacrifice. Peizhi experimented a lot with the dark side, not only of voodoo but also of sorcery and necromancy, some of the knowledge was borrowed from ancient books of spells and potions the Jiang family owned. Yingyue did not realise that she was slowly killing her lover. From his darkness, he did love. But not Yingyue, or she became the object and anchor of his power. He loved his little boy, more than he ever loved anyone else. But, he loved power more. And it was his end. Peizhi was executed when Li Wei was only seven years old. Yingyue and a numerous coven of witches performed a ritual to get rid of Peizhi’s spirit forever. When he died, his power did not just disappear. Li Wei symbolically inherited that power and Peizhi was reborn, inside and through his son.

Li Wei Cong was the happy memory of the family. Both of his parents loved him dearly, but he always felt more attached to his father. Yingyue taught him white magic, and mainly helped him brew potions. Small ones, for short-timed good luck or a whiff of love. His father talked to him, a lot. Peizhi did not teach him voodoo, but he taught him the ways to magic. Through the grimoires he left behind, to the entire history and culture of voodoo, curses, spells and hexes. Li Wei was fascinated, and has dreamed of the day he would be able to conquer the world like his father. To him, Peizhi was a superhero. When Peizhi died, some of Li Wei’s soul died with him. The grief that overcame the young boy was transformed into dark ‘magic’. A macabre version of it. The rituals, spells, hexes, potions and curses Li Wei performs were always way out of balance, according to the coven of Jiang witches. And the ‘spirits’ were not pleased with his magic practices. Yingyue fell ill quickly after her husband died, and despite being supported by her coven through potions that were meant to heal her, she died two years later of what doctors diagnosed to be cancer. Li Wei has lived with his aunt ever since.

Whilst it all sounds like a magical story of love and revenge, one must be aware of the superstition and science behind it all. Magic, as Li Wei was presented, is merely another word for remedies, poisons and incantations that come from the Middle Ages. All of them are rooted in science. From the herbs used to cure a cold, to the dangerous poison that transforms people into ‘zombies’, it is all a myth. But people like the Jiangs and Congs truly believe in the supernatural properties of the entire process. However, Li Wei is well aware there is no magic behind his rituals and spells. Though he must believe beyond doubt that what he does is truly magical, and that he can connected to spirits and absorb their power. He believes he is meant to share this false belief in magic, so he does that with everyone he meets. Whether they are believers or not, Li Wei will makethem believe. What they would later regard as coincidence is merely a well-calculated plan to make their lives harder. Once they believe, they will throw their money at Li Wei to perform protection rituals, and give them potions and spells for the loved ones. Here is the catch: ever since Yingyue died, Li Wei has never come in touch with white magic again. He hated it beyond reason, as he believed white magic is what killed his father. So he only dabbles in the dark side of voodoo and sorcery, making him extremely well-versed in potions, curses, predictions and certain rituals to bring misfortune, or even death.

#247: accepted

0 notes