my garbage body: hot hot hot no cold no HOT bad bad, throw up??? no, hungry, NO remember that mistake you made at work. Internalize it. Never forget. Back hurt yes headache YES hot yes roll over r-RA RA RASPUTIN, RUSSIAās GREATEST LOVE MACHI-
This- I donāt want to call it fic. This story, this creation, is so loudly itself. You know? So distinct. So compact. Everything written in it belongs to it. Realistically, I know itās fanfiction but. IOTWCS is so IOTWCS. And itās so distinctly Marsh of Sleep. It seems effortless, like it emerged from the marsh brain intact. Iām not belittling the work you put into it. Itās like when a seasoned gymnast slides into the cleanest split ever and youāre like, I could do that, that looks easy, effortless.
Many, many spoilers ahead.
I love it. The action, the PTSD, the self-destructive tendencies everyone has. The destructive tendencies everyone has. āYour PTSD is showingā. Iconic.
And, to be honest, though contradictory, I hate romance. I love human relationships and I love love and lust and attraction. But, romance is dumb as a genre like itās generally done. In IOTWCS, what you would call romance, for lack of a better widely recognized term, is excellent.
I love how they eat. How the subject of food is handled. Eating is a vital part of every humanās life and the way people go about basic nutrition in a world helps so much in establishing it. Itās dumb, but, spaghetti oās and pickle juice and fucking tang are part of what makes this such a complete palpable world.
There are so many callbacks to things previously established.
āSoulā followed by āSpeakingā. āSoul, name, not objectā. āI took mountain dew as my mistressā. I get up in the morning and make coffee and as Iām trying to convince myself to wake up, my brain instead provides me with āI took mountain dew as my mistressā sometimes. Thanks. Baller. Maka gets handed the gun that killed the old crone as a weapon. IOTWCS is a perfect weave.
The way you handled PTSD is amazing. How Maka holds on to what Harv told her about looking behind colors and lets it become a significant part of her, because sheās rebuilding herself and she needs to do it right. She repeats the phrases she hears and holds onto them like a lifeline. She puts the words of this worldās residents into her mouth to make her belong (you need to eat food from the spirit world, or else you disappear). She is slowly finding her place behind generators but she is still lost. She mimics and simultaneously pays homage to the people who have managed to establish themselves and stayed in the fucked up reality she sees.
āThere arenāt enough bullets in the world for The Stripā. Lifeline, fixed point, anchor.
āBiker gang crazy bitchā. Accusation, insult, but still an instruction. Be fearless.
She decides to live. And then she decides to save the world. And thatās also because of Soul. And they become one tangled mess and one entity, and they become a team, so much more than just being crutches through their respective fucking serious PTSD. Fuck.
And then, the Strip. You know what? It took me two? three? weeks to get past the point where Soul gets his torso split in two by Ragnarok. I knew good times were ahead but I remembered what I had to go through to get to them. I remembered well the run through Vegas, the thanks and whispers and prayers to the silent radio. Maka convinces me she will die. And I donāt want her to. The moment when Sid is gone and Black Star loses that leftover semblance of innocence he may have left is unbearable. I was afraid to read all of that again. Fucking hell.
Soul and Maka in this kill me. They kill me as they are individually and as they are as partners. Maka shoves her poison hand deeper into the mouth of the walker that dared bite. She defines her Harvey-bestowed luck as Soulās existence and its continuing. He tells her to wait for him. Again. I cry.
Shadowstag is a real actual tangible entity that you have created and I am tragically in love with this story in its entirety.
Maka says sheās so glad she met Soul. Iām so glad they met in IOTWCS, you know? I love IOTWCS. I canāt believe.
Every word I read has me in awe. I know you wonāt believe me, or think Iām exaggerating, but Iām not. Your writing in this is captivating from start to finish. Thank you for everything. Thank you for Makaās courage and for Soulās fucking faith in her. Thank you for Black Starās insane leadership, for ShadowStag, for Harvey. Thank you for, despite what Iām about to say being over the top cheesy, reminding me/ proving to me that the way Iām particularly inclined to feel the love feelings also occurs elsewhere. Maka and Soul in this are in love the way I believe love to be.
Have I said thank you? Thank you. I feel so lucky that I get to read what you write. Iāve said it before and Iāll say it again, even though it doesnāt reflect a fraction of the gratitude I feel. Iām so glad I wandered into the same fandom that you are in.Ā
I think sometimes we subconsciously expect that we will grow out of our talents and interests, or that somehow when we hit a certain level of āmaturityā all that energy will spontaneously reassemble itself into a more useful grown up direction, and likeā¦ā¦ā¦.guys. it will not. I am always going to be good at making mix tapes about fictional characters and I am never going to be good at submitting my health insurance claims and thatās just Whatās UpĀ
Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout with some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.
part-time recluse 