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barrioghost · 2 years

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currently trying to write something short to get me through the mid-season break and made a list of all the info we have about the Funn parents up to this point, so I figured I'd post it here in case any of y'all want it (it was compiled fairly quickly so I'm sorry if it's missing things)

Mum gave Antigone her all-over outdoor suit for her 18th birthday, long deceased (1.02)

Father gave Antigone an extra sprout once at Christmas (1.03)

Father buried Seymour Prophitte’s dad (1.05)

Father put Rudyard in charge of the company (1.08)

Father couldn’t remember Antigone’s name (1.08)

Parents told Antigone to not make an exhibition of herself, “you don’t want to look a fool” (2.07)

Took Antigone and Rudyard to the circus for their birthdays (maybe just Antigone’s birthday? unclear) when they were six (2.07)

Stopped Antigone from pursuing a career as a clown (probably, she just says she was stopped, I assume they were the ones that stopped her) (2.07)

Rudyard sometimes sees their father looking rather sad and disappointed (in him) (Funn Fragments - At Home in the Dark)

Father wasn’t much better than Rudyard (Funn Fragments - At Home in the Dark)

Mum was closer to Antigone, but wasn’t really able to be close to anyone (Funn Fragments - At Home in the Dark)

Father owned a camera (Funn Fragments - The Social Rudyard)

Father wouldn’t let Antigone have balloons (3.01)

“Mum and Dad are back” is the worst possible five-word sentence the twins can think of (3.04)

Parents didn’t speak to each other very much (3.05)

Father wouldn’t let Antigone practice embalming on people so she used animals instead (Funn Fragments - Autumn Cleaning)

Rudyard made Suet Pudding for his mother 24 years ago. She didn’t want it but he refused to throw it out in case she changed her mind (Funn Fragments - Autumn Cleaning)

If told that Antigone and Rudyard were digging up bodies in the dead of night, they would be glad Antigone was leaving the house (4.01)

Father took Rudyard fishing once, used him as bait (4.01)

Mother embalmed MacGregor Sr., told Antigone to watch closely because one day she’d do the same for his son (4.01)

Mother said Antigone was see-through (4.02)

Mother told Antigone and Rudyard to keep a positive outlook (4.02)

Mother faxed the school a Dr.’s report to excuse Antigone and Rudyard from physical activity (4.03)

Mother told Rudyard to ignore his imagination to avoid disappointment (4.03)

Mother told Antigone that all seven signs of life have to have stopped before you bury someone, Father thought five was enough to get started (4.03)

Mother explained embalming to Antigone (4.03)

Mother encouraged Antigone (4.03)

Father walked Antigone and Rudyard to their first day at St. Clôt’s and dropped them off at the gate, stole Rudyard’s lunch money (4.03)

Father told the twins school never did him any harm (while gritting his teeth awfully hard and crying). Also looked scared when he saw the school (4.03)

Antigone and Rudyard like to play Happy Families bc it’s aspirational, make of that what you will about their parents (4.03)

Mother accidentally used Antigone as a broom (4.04)

#wooden overcoats

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minaharkeronline · 2 years

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thanks for the conversation

eric and antigone, alone again.

(chaptigone with metions of chaplar. rated t i guess)

“It was horrible. I wanted to sink into the ground and… rot”

This isn’t the first time he’s seen her at a low. The chocolates. The play. That funeral a few weeks ago where she had stumbled out of a coffin, frazzled and frenzied. It seemed as though her entire life were beads of abasement, strung together on a necklace that seemed to weigh her down. Yet she had seen him at his worst too. After that counseling incident, when he was confused, and sad, and mad as hell, he had turned to Rudyard. Yet it was Antigone who had sternly explained to him that he couldn’t make everyone happy. She had shown him, Mr. Sunshine Man, the light. He grits his teeth at the irony.

“I should have known it was a bad idea as soon as Rudyard got involved”

He had known her shadows as long as he had known her-that fateful September morning. But sometimes, it seemed that Piffling Vale saw her as if she was standing in Rudyard's shadow. Rudyard’s weird sister. Rudyard’s weird sister who everyone thought was dead. Rudyard’s weird sister who everyone thought was dead but, in many ways, was even more alive then the rest of the village. Her vivid vision for Memento Mori. Her embalming fluids. Her flare for the arts. Maybe, if the rest of the village could see the name Funn beyond Rudyard’s bombastic failures, they would see more than a Victorian ghost.

“But… oh, I thought you and Henry deserved to make a proper go of it”

That’s what friends want, right? But, he mentally kicks himself, they’re not friends. That wry smile she had given him at Nigel and Desmond’s wedding flits back into his mind. Competitors. But do you take competitors yachting? Do you get stranded with competitors on desert islands? Do you turn to competitors when your penpal stops writing? Do you let your competitors try out and then depress your smart-coffin to death? Do competitors exhume bodies with you, in the dead of night? He knew that the only reason Rudyard had taken part in this little scheme was to get Antigone out of a slump and back to embalming, so him doing rounds at the Hospital was, essentially, self-sabotage. For a competitor.

“Turns out he and I have nothing to say to each other”

Suddenly, he’s back at the Theatre. And he’s Charlie. And she’s Clarissa. Not Eric. Not Antigone. Yet, the image of her pale, pained face, enunciated in the spotlight, is still so real to him. She has nothing to say to him. Or, at least, Clarissa had nothing to say to Charlie. Clarissa, who moped away for all those years in her greenhouse and is beautifully bashful, as portrayed by Antigone, who wasted away for all those years in her mortuary and is sinisterly sheepish. She has nothing to say to him. On this subject. Sometimes, late at night, he debates with himself if the minutes before that abrupt ending was purely Antigone, so vulnerable in front of the rest of the villagers, or just her leading up to that abrupt ending. Sometimes, he wonders what she thought she had to say to him.

“Ah. Maybe he’s not right for you”

He could understand how Henry and Antigone had thought they were compatible. They were both biting. They were both witty. They both seemed exhausted, in so many ways. Yet, somehow, there was something about them that didn’t click when he pictured them as a couple. Antigone was, despite the scowling and scheming, passionate. Henry was so….frigid. He didn’t think that Henry would have appreciated the message behind Memento Mori, just that they could knock him out for a bit. Antigone was an auteur. Henry was, well, he was Dr. Edgware.

“...Who is?”

Not Henry, that was evident. Not Marlene, apparently. Not Thomas from STIFT, who had sleazily tried to pick her up. Not even the late Seymour Prophitte. He remembers that night at the Yacht Club. Tiggy, Mr. Prophitte had called her. She hadn’t really gone for that saccharine morsel. He remembers her, before she stormed off, shouting at Seymoure that Mexico, in fact, had 68 indigenous languages. And that guacamole was made of avocados. She was so passionate and excited. About death. And art. And Funn Funerals. And, even if she didn’t always show it, her family. But also about the smaller details. Like that Mexico had 68 indigenous languages. (Did Vivienne know that? Did Vivienne care?). Someone who was right for her, he decided, cared that she cared that Mexico had 68 indigenous languages. Which were all in use alongside the most popular language, which is not Mexican, but Spanish.

“Well. Er… Only you can answer that”

He wasn’t blind to those books she read. Those films she watched. She was such a mystery to him, he couldn’t exactly step into her mind, but he figured that she probably had a vision for an ideal partner. Probably French. Mysterious. But mysterious in the way that those Nouvelle Vague men were. In a sexy, dark, seductive way. Not elusive and evasive like he was, with all those skeletons in his closet. But he could speak French! Why did he care if he lined up with Antigone’s dream man? She probably wasn’t searching for a yang to her yin. Just for a Serge to her Claudette.

“Someone who appreciates me and my work, and who I can talk to about corpses whenever I like”

If he closes his eyes, it’s like they’re stuck in the mineshaft again. The February night time chill reminds him of the cold, dark underground. Her work. Her scented embalming fluids. Her theatrics in the seance. Her funeral for Roger Noggins. Her chocolates. The funeral for Jerry. The tender eulogy and delicate care they had given. That was when he had known. Sure, Funn Funerals had had a monopoly on Funerals for generations, but that wasn’t the only reason they had succeeded. Antigone’s artsmanship. He envied it. He envied her. He had hated her for rejecting his offer. She was so invested in her work. To appreciate Antigone’s work was to appreciate her. To appreciate Antigone was to appreciate her work. Her work had the same tenderness she brought to every aspect of her life. The same passion and enthusiasm. He fought the compulsion to take her hand and grip it tight, like she had in the mineshaft, all those months ago. Sometimes, in moments like this, he’s not sure he ever even left the mineshaft.

“It’s not too much to ask”

He regrets how dry that sounds. So, maybe it’s bit to ask a member of the penny gallery. It’s probably a bit much to ask someone like Bill or Tanya or Henry. But he’s not Bill or Tanya or Henry. He hopes she doesn’t see him as part of that lot.

“No it isn’t. I’m not the problem here”

He hates her for even questioning that she could be the problem. He remembers, before that murder mystery fiasco, how she had announced that she was leaving the island. Running away from unhappiness. The past. Herself. Was unhappiness stemmed from her lack of appreciation? She barely ever talked about the past. But he had the impression that her parents hadn’t really appreciated her. Her brilliance. Her genius. Herself. He wondered what would’ve happened if she had left Piffling Vale. She wasn’t the problem. Piffling Vale was the problem.

“It’s everything else”

For once, he was saying what he thought. Everything else was the problem for Antigone. But it was for him, too.

“Exactly! The world is the problem”

And she was such a huge part of his world. She was his problem. She was more of a problem than Rudyard. She was more of a problem than Vivienne. Vivienne was so…simple. So shallow. She was an easy puzzle to crack. But Antigone. She was a work herself. More complex than any tranquilizing chocolate. Harder to decipher than any French New Wave Film.

“The world is the problem”

And here they are again. In sync. It’s as if they’re in the mineshaft again. It’s moments like this, these moments of commiseration, where he feels that they are so clear to the other. They’re on the same page of the same novel. But what genre?

“I should change”

His stomach twists at this confession. He hates her. He hates her, he hates her, he hates her. He hates her for thinking this. He hates that he has to be a mirror for her. He hates that he has to show her how brilliant she is. He hates Piffling Vale for suffocating her like this. He hates the whole world. The world, as she has said, is the problem.

“No. Antigone, you don’t need to do that. You stay exactly the way you are. The world can do the changing for you”

This is what friends say to each other. This is what friends admit to each other. This is what friends confess to each other. Alone, in the village square. The middle ground between their two worlds. If the world has to do the changing, does that mean he has to change? Maybe he should slip into the shadows for a change. Maybe he should tell her everything that he wants to. Maybe he should he figure out what he wants to tell her.

“… I meant out of this dress”

He blushes at his faux pas. He blushes at where his mind goes, picturing her out of that dress. Well, if anything, maybe she’ll mind some semblance of reassurance in his words. He can still be all things to all people.

“… Yes! Well, yes, that’s what I was saying – so long as it’s on your own terms, you know. Yeah”

As if she does things on anyone else’s terms anymore. The Antigone sitting next to him, the Antigone who had blackmailed him out of business for a month, is not the same Antigone that donned an outdoor survival suit. She didn’t need to change. But he can’t help but feel like she had. But it wasn’t as though she had gone through a total transformation. More like a butterfly coming out of a chrysalis. A chrysalis of a mortuary of a village of an island of a world. He wonders if he played a small role, if he was a catalyst, getting her out of her helmet.

“Thank you”

He’s certain that that is a friend’s response to a gesture of friendship from another friend. He can’t even remember if the same vulnerability has ever been sparked between him and Vivienne. Between him and anyone. He would throw it all away. Being Mr. Popular and Mr. Perfect and Mr. Sunshine Man. He would throw it all away if it meant he could just be something like this to Antigone. Someone who shows her that she doesn’t need to change.

“Yep, no worries”

Now that’s a lie. He’s full of worries. Maybe he’s not an obvious neurotic like she, but he has questions. About who he is. About what’s next. About when “a long time ago” will catch up to him. He wishes he could explain this to someone. He couldn’t to Vivienne. He doesn’t think she’d understand. But Antigone. He thinks she’d want to understand.

“Hey!”

Georgie. Such a steadfast presence in Antigone’s life. Does Antigone still think about his attempts to woo Georgie? Did that color her ideas of who he is? If he and Antigone ever became proper, true friends, would Georgie still be there? Georgie hates him. Does Antigone hate him? Does Antigone think about him?

“Here they come. Time to get it over with…”

He’s thankful that the mood has shifted. He couldn’t take much more of this.

“What do you mean?”

Even the way she talks is like a poem he’s trying to decipher. Does she write poetry?

“The rest of our lives”

The rest of their lives. What would that entail? Surely, something will change, somewhere in this world. Would he and Vivienne be like this forever? He has a sinking feeling at that notion. Meaningless, empty sex. Wonderful. He can look back on a life well spent with a woman who was someone else’s wife who he shared cocktails and coitus with. Would he and Antigone be like this forever? Niceties at the surface of something that was so much more than competition. Would he ever get to Clarissa thought she had to say to Charlie? Would he ever get to call her Tiggy and wake her up with a breakfast in bed of buttered toast (the way she likes it) and experience domestic bliss and hold her hands like he did in the mineshaft but kiss her too and wrap her in his arms and finally tell her how brilliant he thinks she is and how dedicated she is and how appreciated she is and how she is unlike anyone he has ever met before and how she is more alluring than any New Wave actress and how he doesn’t care if the whole village thinks she’s weird and walks like a spider and that every thought in her mind is a stroke of genius and how she is the one chink in his armor, his Achilles Heel, his downfall. He so badly wants to be something to her.

—

“And… thanks. For the conversation”

He feels so sick and dizzy and confused.

“No problem, Antigone…….

no problem at all”

Other people may be all there is, but sometimes, it feels as if they are the only two people in this world.

#wooden overcoats #:)#will eventually post to ao3 #but for now this is good too #this is messy but i had so much fun #chaptigone #sorry but 14 year old me is on a high rn. 14 year old me is kvelling.#eric chapman #antigone funn #chapgone #ahhh

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