#not that that matters

[apparitionism]

Appreciation 6

I’m playing entirely fast and loose with today’s prompt (“as parents/in a parental role”), but it’s there in a little fold. I had this idea, and it refused to let me loose; it’s different, both in tone and in topic, from a lot of what I produce, but I suppose that’s what can happen when you’re trying to write seven different things at once—there has to be some way to ensure they stay in separate brain-buckets. The stuff sloshing around in this bucket takes place after the season that didn’t happen... except in this, it did.

The preceding five things were “Architecture,” “Bridge,” “Worry,” “House,” and “Voice.” Six down, one to go.

Scale

Lisa Randall, “A Source of Comfort in Our Search for Quantum Meaning.” New York Times 22 June 2022.

. . . the most elemental description isn’t always the most enlightening. Particle physics posits that elementary particles are the core ingredients of nature. String theory takes this paradigm further to say that particles arise as oscillating fundamental strings. Both would agree that without the underlying presence of elementary particles, matter would not exist.

  Yet even the most inveterate theoretical physicist would say this doesn’t mean we can easily interpret everything in terms of those basic ingredients. Knowing music comes from oscillating atoms doesn’t tell us what music is. A music theorist would describe music very differently than an atomic physicist. They are both correct, but they answer different questions that apply on different scales.

****

Myka has a habit. No, she should call it what it is, acknowledge its scale: it’s an addiction.

When Pete says something to her about their relationship, she imagines how she would feel if, instead, Helena were saying it.

The start was... not innocuous, but not intentional: they’d had an argument, after which Pete said “I’m sorry, Myka”—fully articulating her name, which he rarely did—and she felt her memory stutter and jump, casting her back to Helena saying those words, Helena with a gun, Helena after a gun... Helena.

Myka had taken it for an accident of stress and irritation, delivered by a weary, unsettled mind.

But then it happened again.

Well. No. It was more accurate to say that she did it again: the next time, it was active.

They were on the sofa in the sitting room together, with Pete watching something on his phone and Myka periodically pretending to care about that; in reality, she was focused on a book. She was reading Stendhal, for she’d recently rediscovered her love of nineteenth-century French literature, in French... well. No to that too. Honestly, she’d rediscovered the way in which reading nineteenth-century French literature, in French, occupied so much of her mental space that other considerations—such as reality—fell away.

Pete had said, “This is nice. Being together like this."

And it was not a stutter to the past (because no past containing those words existed), nor a step to the future (because no future containing those words would exist), but Myka’s mind jumped its tracks again: in the imaginary speaking scene, she might have been reading nineteenth-century French literature, in French—but she would not have needed to be reading nineteenth-century French literature, in French—so she might have been reading anything at all, and Helena might have been reading a tome of her own or fiddling with a phone or flipping a coin over and over, but Myka heard her say it, soft and clear, plain and simple: “This is nice. Being together like this.”

That’s sick, she told herself when she recovered from the felling delight her imagining brought her. Stop it.

But she didn’t. And though she tried the That’s sick condemnation again, and the stark command to stop... they were never going to work. Addictions laugh at admonitions.

Sometimes literally.

Don’t do it, she had cautioned herself, for she’d known what Pete was about to say, and he had: the first (and thankfully, so far, only) “I love you.” The very idea that Helena might say those words would have on its own been enough to set Myka off into some sort of catastrophe, but the sonic image of her velvet voice actually pronouncing them opened an operatic vault of feeling so vast that Myka had, in trying not to dissolve away entirely from the present, in fact laughed herself into literal hysterics, hiccuppy sobbing and gasping and complete loss of control.

“Are you okay?” Pete had asked. He was alarmed. Who wouldn’t have been? Myka herself was alarmed. By how she could be so exhilarated by... illness.

“Just emotional,” she’d managed to cough, and that was an utterance she would sure would have passed muster even with Steve.

****

There’s actual comedy to it, sometimes, because of course Helena doesn’t speak as Pete does... well, as far as Myka knows. She hasn’t spoken to Helena in some time. Maybe Helena talks incessantly about football now. Maybe she says “no problemo” when she’s asked to pass the salt.

****

“You know, we’re gonna be great parents,” Pete says one day.

“I don’t want children,” Myka stops herself from saying out loud. She wants to say it; he talks about children a lot, but Myka has told herself she’ll cross that bridge—or throw herself into the chasm it creates—only when it becomes impossible to avoid.

Helena wouldn’t say “gonna be great parents,” so the trick should be funny this time, a “no problemo” writ large. But it isn’t, because if Helena had said it, there would be no bridge and no chasm. If Helena said it, what Myka would want to say out loud is very different indeed. She does not know if she would stop herself... but she does know that if Helena wanted to be a mother again, if Myka could give her that gift, she would do it joyfully.

Joyful. That’s a word she doesn’t use to describe the quality of her actions and choices these days, the ones she makes in the real world.

Every day, every minute, she expects Pete to get a vibe that tips him to her subterfuge. But he doesn’t. Doesn’t want to?

Time passes, in its excruciating increments. Myka is trapped, holding on for lack of anything else to do. You built your house, now live in it.

She knows what would happen if she broke it off. The team would suffer, and work is the only thing that doesn’t worry her. Work is cool water in the desert of this disaster. It’s always been her solace—except when, in the first Helena aftermath, it wasn’t, and why, why why why, must she now be suffering a second Helena aftermath? A curse of collisions...

Yet as far as whys go, she does know why, early on, for a minute, or a smaller fractured fraction, she’d thought being with Pete made sense: the idea that if it didn’t seem initially right, it could become so, or she could at least come to appreciate his solid presence, given patience and time. And the absence of world-shaking and its aftermaths. “Relationships,” she’d said to Abigail. “They’re made of the everyday, right?” Whenever she talks to Abigail, as they’re all mandated now to do, she tries to speak in theoretical terms.

Abigail had answered, “Of course that’s true. Then again, isn’t everything?”

So Abigail is no help.

But Myka doesn’t really want help. She’s clear-eyed enough, now, to know what she wants. And she can’t have it. So she’s acting out—or is it acting in? Doesn’t matter. She’s acting.

Normally—as if that word had any meaning anymore—Myka would erect an architecture of discipline around her bad behavior, with clear and rigorously administered penalties for infractions. But here the infraction is both reward and its price paid. There could be no more condign a punishment than every transgression’s underscoring of absence, no knife sharper than the one she hones herself. Practice, practice. Making it perfect.

****

The second “I love you” is, as she’d feared, worse than the first... worse because Myka feels it as a push: he wants her to say it back. He says it just that way, with a push, the word “love” stronger than “I” and “you,” as if trying to persuade her of its meaning. Its... applicability. To those pronouns.

Helena would never need to say it that way. But Myka is instantly persuaded, as before, first by the thought of it—then the sound of it—and then the pain comes, this time sharp and bright, a song of brutal hope still sparking, even in her darkest soul-cavern.

She shuts down her soul and readies her mouth to say the words. Surely she can repeat three words she’s just heard said, not once but twice: repeat them and make it three words, said three times. Maybe it’s the charm that will make the world turn.

Push. Persuasion. Three words. Say them.

But what she casts instead, from her own voice, are only two, the truth: “I can’t.”

Pete shakes his head, and his eyes clear.

He says a spell-broken, “This is wrong.”

Myka waits for the sound, for the pain. They don’t come.

It is the only thing she can’t—won’t—doesn’t—imagine Helena saying to her.

She has no idea what will happen next.

She rejoices.

END

#bering and wells #Warehouse 13 #fanfic #Appreciation #Scale #this is more than a little over the top #but sometimes leaning in to a conceit is the only way to get it out of your system #and I think I must have needed to get this out #the first and final lines have been locked the entire time #not that that matters #but I hope it indicates the intended arc #even if said arc isn't very well rounded #beringandwellsappreciationweek #day 6

[pearsephonee]

im reading the percy jackson books for the first time ever and its awakening my love for persephone and zeus (MY portrayal only) again. i miss them :( i thought i would mention that (to the zero people that will see this)

#ooc #not that that matters #i havent missed rp in a while but i think zeus was 100% my favorite character #so i miss him a lot #maybe i just think i was funnier than i really was #i will NOT be looking through my old posts to find out

[clannfearrunt]

lmao Malik “i HATE people who don’t listen to me >:(” Ishtar i love this whiny brat

#hes insufferable <3 hes whiny and annoying and hes not cool at all and i love him #no one in ygo is cool. BUT #Con stop yapping #Con goes to the shadow realm #(in Japanese) #not that that matters

[dudefrommywesterns]

stop putting your nsft thoughts about jamie and/or joseph publically in their tags

#look #jamie has a tumblr #i doubt he checks his tag #sometimes i hope he doesn't #not that that matters #have some decorum #typewriter dings

[onlytiktoks]

#tiktok #blind #visually impaired #braille #mona lisa #inclusion #inclusivity #accessibility #disabled lives matter #disabled life #disabled #louvre #art museum #museum #louvre museum

[cassassinated]

I miss the days when, no matter how slow your internet was, if you paused any video and let it buffer long enough, you could watch it uninterrupted

#spending the next week and a half with the shittiest country internet #and i cannot watch shit no matter how long i buffer

[iapislazuli]

idk what traumatized or mentally ill person needs to hear this but dreams (especially the really disturbing ones you dont want to talk about to anybody) arent some deep peek into your psyche or a sign of your True Desires or whatever theyre quite literally your brain making fruit salad with whatever it can find on the shelf. just putting all that shit in a blender and hitting obliterate. its fine, youre fine, youre not a weirdo for it

#dia noises #its content aware fill. ai generated. it doesnt matter

[trashy-greyjoy]

really love dynamics that are like 'it honestly doesn't matter if you view them as romantic or platonic, the point is that they love each other. the type of love is inconsequential, all that matters is that it's there'. gotta be one of my favorite genders.

#who cares if its platonic love who fucking CARES if its because they wanna kiss like the devotion and the tenderness is there no matter what #mainly brought to you by: jack and anne from black sails but also probably sydcarmy and msr #sydcarmy #msr #rackhanne #the bear #black sails #txf #the x files #mulder x scully #sydney x carmy #jack rackham x anne bonny #oh wait perhaps also theonsa if you squint #maybe not

[queerstudiesnatural]

some of my favourite sign fails <3

#eat jessica's family <3 #you don't matter give up <3 #him in us is heaven <3 #rain posts

[surkeart]

be free!!

#surkeart #my art #cringe culture is dead #keep doing what makes you happy no matter what others think #youre awesome #sonic #furby #long furby #furry #fursuit #brony #mlp #naruto #cosplay #gengar #people #trans #DO NOT REPOST thanks

[genuinelyshallow]

#palestine #free palestine #gaza #free gaza #israel #palestinian lives matter #jerusalem #social justice #genocide in gaza #save palestine #art

[noelledeltarune]

EVERY SINGLE DAY there are MILLIONS of characters in their late 20s who get falsely accused of being father figures to teenagers when in reality the description of "weird older cousin" or "step-sibling that moved out before you were born" is 1000000x more apt

#talk tag #IT KILLS ME. REIGEN IS NOT MOB'S DAD. HE HAS A DAD. INGO IS NOT AKARI'S DAD. PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD CAN ANYONE HEAR ME #(not even necessarily to say that ingo is in his late 20s but still) #(even if he was a 30-40-50 year old no matter how old he is no fucking teenager is gonna call some guy they met as a 15 year old ''dad'') #GAI IS NOT A FATHER FIGURE TO ROCK LEE HE WAS LIKE 13 WHEN HE WAS BORN! PLEASE!!!!!!!! #one time i saw that a ​person wrote a fic where mario was like a father figure to luigi. #they are TWIN BROTHERS. #not what this about but idk where else i can say anything about this. #just horrible #also sometimes someone is just An Older Friend like no familial relationship just a friend or acquaintance who is a lot older than you

[tentacleteapot]

solved the paradox of the ship of Theseus btw!! turns out the answer was “it depends”. hope that helps, have a good weekend everybody!

#add tags to help people find your post #for the record this is my genuine opinion on the matter #hall of fame #I like this post a lot actually I’m glad it’s getting notes thanks everyone #daphne.txt

[rotisseries]

that being said I'm not actually always opposed to conflict free fluff I am just opposed to the characters having their claws filed down for it. you can stick them in a coffee shop au it should just still feel like you sat the two worst most insane people on earth in a starbucks

#which in some cases I suppose if you did not file them down it would cease to be conflict free fluff #no matter WHAT au it was. but nevertheless

[fleshadept]

looking at (vetted) gofundmes for people trying to escape palestine and i don't know how many of you actually click on the gofundme links you reblog but i would like to point out, for what it's worth, just how amazing it is that so many have raised so much money. it may overall feel like a drop in the ocean but the fact that several gofundmes have raised tens of thousands of dollars is amazing. it is so expensive to leave gaza right now, and people still need money after they escape. but regardless of what propaganda the US, UK, canada, and other western nations are trying to pump out, people across the world are doing what they can to help these people survive. many of them are still very far from their goals (like this one and this one and this one) and some of them are very close to high goals (like this one), and some of them have reached almost double their original goal.

and that's not even addressing direct aid or organizations that take continuous donations for distribution of food, menstrual products, etc. the PCRF has raised $16,000,000 of their target goal of $20,000,000 to fund current aid and long-term relief efforts in gaza. ANERA's febuary 13th update discusses the material ways they helped palestinians today:

(ANERA donate link)

my point is, it often feels like the world is turning a blind eye to palestine. but i would like to point out that there is an important difference between "the world" and "western political leaders and media narratives". a breathtaking amount of real people, the people who make up the world, are trying to help. in the face of israel attempting to commit genocide, the world is saying No. These people deserve to live. and literally sending millions of dollars internationally, through the internet connection that israel has desperately been trying to destroy.

it may not feel like it matters in the grand scheme of things. but to the people who get fresh clothes, or a hot meal, or blankets, or the kids who get new toys, or to the people who are able to bring their families to safety, it matters to them. go make someone's day better. i've linked so many options with ways to do that.

#free palestine #cricket chirps #palestine #gaza #if you feel overwhelmed and don't know where to begin #i recommend deciding on a total amount of money to donate (e.g. $20 $100 etc) #and deciding you will either donate it all in one place or split it between a few places #do what you can!!! it will always be helpful no matter how little #1k #5k #10k #20k

[ineed-to-sleep]

Collection of memes with mostly my tav/astarion to keep myself sane

#I'm not even gonna ask if any of these have already been done the answer is probably yes fjckkckck #does not matter tho I llovve them <33 #bg3 #bg3 tav #astarion #baldur's gate 3 #tavstarion #sleepyscribble #oc.nawen #ship: narion