goodbye alchemy. @goodbye-alchemy - Tumblr Blog | Tumlook (2024)

I do the art because I love it all.

Things, people, the space in between them.

You.

I do the art because I love you. You occupy my mind so completely that I’m gripping my hair and pulling at my scalp, and it runs over onto everything I hold in my hands. I love the steps you take, the way the sun touches you, the way you touch me. I visit you in the museums and watch your colors for a while, until my eyes hurt. I ponder what you mean as I sip my lukewarm coffee. Until the security guard tells me it’s closing time and he’s locking up. I beg him for five more minutes and he shakes his head apologetically.

I take a final look behind me, burning the vision of you into my crowded, crowded brain, and I make the art so I can see you again.

Soft

I was there, Mother.

When she hurt you those thousands of times, I watched and cried for you.

Disowned you, broke you, unclaimed the blood she put in your veins.

Your father was silent and it drove the knives deeper. You feared his ice as much as you did her fire

I heard it, the quiet and the whipping between sobs

She raised you to trust no one, to see the worst in all things

To see the thorns of a rose before its beauty.

And when you had me, you saw yourself unbroken and soft, and felt it unfair

You felt it was a mother’s right, her sacred duty, to show her daughter rage

To show your daughter the world was evil and painful and gruesome

A viper unless proven otherwise

But you forget that I know rage.

I was there in your body when your mother screamed at you for trying your best

I was there when your mother told you she’d jump off the bridge if you married that man

I was there when your sister ran away across the sea to escape her own pain, and it was only you

I was there when you looked to your father desperately for respite, and he turned his cheek so your screams wouldn’t reach him

I was there when her rage became your rage, I felt it tickle my unborn neck

And I was there when you were born, unbroken and soft, and your mother scowled at you for being born a daughter and the first thing you ever knew was feeling unwanted

I feel your rage now when you look at me and resent that your fire doesn’t sit as far up my spine as hers does in yours

I see you struggle to hold me, to want me, when I never felt your mother’s arms around you even when you laid in that empty pool with your jaw broken and blood tangled in your hair

You called for her, I heard you, through the bone fragments poking your tongue. You screamed for your mama as loud as you could

And you screamed for her for another twenty years, and she never came.

You strove to be my first example of cruelty, of rejection, so perhaps the real thing wouldn’t frighten me so

To show me softness was death in this world for a woman, to strike that primal fear of lions into my chest

Nothing will hurt more, nothing tastes more sour, and nothing runs my blood colder than the sound of her voice in your rage

Your mother’s terror, your terror, and now mine create perfect symphonies that sound like music when you’ve only ever known dissonance

The guilt, the shame, the abundance of judgement and disappointment

they trickle down my scalp and fill my lungs drop by drop, but never enough to drown me

My skin wrinkles and peels away and I can’t seem to get dry

Now, when I reach for you and you rip your arm away, your skin is rough to the touch.

I hold myself and my arms, and I weep when I find they are soft still.

Despite everything, through your pain, through your mother’s pain, through my own pain, I am still soft.

I hope this softness reminds you of your rage, and how you fought to diminish it. How you tried and succeeded, and all the ways that you failed.

I hope my softness reminds you of motherhood, of rage, of love, and of me.

I hope the hard tile floor of that empty pool feels easier on your back knowing I was there.

That while you became hardened and weary, I grew tender.

I hope you see, Mother, your own softness that I have kept safe in my body for all our lives.

I hope my future daughter, unbroken and soft, watches from within me now and bears witness to the radical ways I refuse to betray her.

I hope she can see my knuckles growing white from holding my softness as close to my chest as I do my rage.

To the heaviness of softness, to the burden of it.

To the fury and fire and disgust and kindness

and jealousy and abundance and warmth

in becoming soft.

- Jellie 6/13/24

(A woman is born with all her eggs already in her ovaries. You were there within your mother when she was within her mother. There is no wonder why our chains to each other are bound so tight.)

Why Do We Fear The Reaper

Why does the image of the grim reaper, a skeleton donning black and bearing a scythe, frighten us so?

Why is he the very image of the grim, of death, and why does he haunt our nightmares the way he does?

Maybe it’s because of his hollow eyes and the unending darkness behind them. Maybe it’s because the sight of him is a vision of our inevitable end.

Alternatively, perhaps he is frightening because of his existence within each and every one of us; a representation of what will be left when our flesh melts away after we die. Perhaps we don’t like the way he embraces death and we resent him for his lack of fear.

But in our fear of his image we forget that within every one of us is also a skeleton clad in darkness. It walks with us, talks with us, and feels the weight of every burden we bear. It holds us up as we live and finally it will be the last of us when we die. We are so terrified by the vision of what we possess under our blood and flesh and the potential of what we may become when it is gone. He is our impermanence and our vitriol is fueled by our denial of it.

But in all truth, the reaper is kind.

As his name suggests, he sows the seeds of life. He allows us to grow tall and proud. He cares for us, waters us, faces us toward the sun. And when we begin to wither, when our roots begin to rot and our leaves do not take water, he brings us mercy. He reaps us. He takes responsibility.

When the deer is shot and bleeding, the reaper comes and takes him away so he may not witness the hunters taking his hide. He takes responsibility.

He does not plant life recklessly. He grips the scythe in his hand and faithfully brings peace to every stalk that fades. Why do we fear him when he is our constant, the being most devoted to us in life and beyond?

He does not come for us until we are ready. And he mourns us when we try to leave before we are.

Within us each is the reaper who waits and holds us upright until the end. He reveals himself when we feel the pull of the final sleep and takes our pains away and places them squarely on his own shoulders. He carries the weight of the world we build in our time without question and grants us freedom from our burden, when he can never be free of his.

He is faithful, he is quiet, and he serves us even when we treat him with terror and repulsion. We see his sunken, sullen face and we run away, and even then he is devoted. He chews our food, brushes our hair, and dances for us. Fear him or don’t, but do not mistake him for terror when he is gentler than life has ever been or will ever be.

He is the first and final kindness, and his skeletal hand will feel warm when he gently takes you away, and he will mourn you long after you are forgotten.

The reaper is kindness, and he takes responsibility.

next time you drop something — maybe a glass or a plate — and it shatters, I hope the person next to you says in a soft voice that everything is alright. I hope while you apologize profusely they grab your hand and calm you, and quietly pick up the shards of glass with a smile and tell you it’s no big deal. And I hope the child within you who fears brokenness hears this, and I hope you both carry that with you always.

“I wish to be untouchable and untouched.”

“To Be Seen”

Following his ascension, Astarion was more than pleased to discover that not only could he walk freely once more under the sun, but he could also finally see his reflection again. After so many centuries of simply guessing about his appearance, he was overjoyed to discover that he was still yet world-endingly handsome, and had not aged a day since his final mortal hour. He spent hours sitting on his throne in the palace ballroom, studying himself in a silver hand mirror. To see his own skin again, however sallow, was deeply comforting, though he didn’t care much for the red eyes.

After many idled days spent gazing into that tiny looking glass, he decided to fill the entire palace with grand floor-length mirrors. He never wanted a single moment to pass in which he couldn’t admire himself as he lurked through those halls in all his anointed glory. It was also, admittedly, driven by a deeply-seated fear that he might lose sight of himself again, and he wanted insurance. He had his growing horde of spawn servants carry them in, with the largest mirror positioned right in front of his throne, where he felt the most powerful.

He put on his very best, most luxurious robes, slicked his white curls back, and excitedly walked up to his gilded royal seat. As he slowly sat down, eyes closed, he felt a surge of control ripple through his body. He took a deep breath and smiled, knowing he, at last, had everything he had ever wished for in all those years of anguish that he suffered. He opened his eyes and peered up, meeting his stare in the glass.

He looked… incredible. He looked positively divine. He cackled, throwing his head back, ecstatic at the sight of his intimidating stature. He dared anyone to try and lay a finger on him now. He clapped his hands maniacally as he reveled in his vanity.

A slight movement in the shadowed corner caught his eye. A familiar figure stood, stiff, with only two glowing red eyes to mark their presence. They shifted a bit as Astarion turned to face them.

“Darling,” Astarion cooed. “Come here to me.”

The figure, still silent, walked slowly out of the darkness, revealing themselves. Pale as the risen moon, hair dark as raven’s feathers, and eyes unbearably, violently red.

“Robin, my sweet,” Astarion gestured for her. “Sit with me here, why don’t you.”

Eyes blank, she trudged towards him weakly. The minimal light from the window cast upon her body, revealing a brittle shell of the vibrant woman she once was. Astarion patted his hands to his lap, motioning for her to sit. She obeyed, draping herself across the throne, hands wrapped mechanically around Astarion’s neck. She looked up at her lover, voiceless, as he gazed upon her dotingly.

“My love… I have the very world at my fingertips. I can give you anything you desire.” He caressed her cheek, running his other hand through her hair. Robin only blinked in response.

Astarion, slightly annoyed at her lack of reaction to his romantic gesture, scoffed. She would come to appreciate all he’s given her in time. He remembered the agony of becoming a spawn and he empathized with her, truly. But to him, she looked as beautiful as she ever did, if not a bit pitiful. Maybe even more so. And she was his. He planted a loving kiss on her forehead. The loveliest songbirds are to always be kept safe in the finest of gilded cages.

Suddenly, he caught his own eye once again in the grand reflection before him. As he glanced up, he saw himself, laden with opulence and influence. He saw that man of power, of dominance.

But that was all he saw. There was nobody in the room, it seemed, but him.

He had forgotten for a brief moment that she could no longer be reflected. Her soul was now bound to the underworld, as he had made it so. She did not show even on the glossy surface of his eyes. Though he wondered briefly if it was a mercy that she may never see herself this way. She did always say she loved her brown eyes, as they were just like her mother’s.

He felt his stomach tighten. It began to creep into him, once again, like a festering plague. Contrition.

No, he thought. I’ve done nothing wrong.

Despite their best efforts, the words fell dead to the floor as he continued to look at his solitary form. The feelings of lamentation, which seemed now to be his only natural enemy, were beginning to cloud over him once again as he looked back down at the lifeless face of his lovely, flightless songbird.

He would find it near impossible to accept that, in his folly and quest for asylum from his fears, he had brought his very last chance of true freedom to scorched ruin.

Leering upon his own imposing figure now, finally shown to him after two centuries, he was made to submit to the verity that he was now more abandoned than he had ever been. Not safe, but rather imprisoned in a form that was untouchable, unreachable, and inescapable.

No matter how supreme he became, and no matter how many spawns were created in his name, he would always be banished to that unending fate.

To be void of life, without equals, and irrevocably alone; trapped in his eternal and desolate exaltation. Godhood in an empty monastery, a wretched deity left to rot into the core of his own holy rituals. Though he could now step into daylight, the darkness had, in secrecy, claimed him for good long, long, ago.

He ripped a hidden dagger from his belt and pelted it with all his force at the looking glass, shattering its surface into an ocean of glistening, jagged scales. All that was left behind was a gold frame, surrounding a black void.

As his anger began to dissipate, he felt, for the briefest of moments, that he wanted nothing more than to be swallowed by it in utter, brutal, totality.

(written by jellie)

“𝘼𝙚𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙣𝙖 𝙖𝙢𝙖𝙣𝙩𝙚𝙨.”

As he drained the life from her increasingly cold body, the hot breath on his cheek all but dissipated. For a second he felt regret. But he bit down harder into her pulsating neck, causing her to yelp, and tried to convince himself he was giving her the gift of blissful eternity. But somewhere deep underneath the dark recesses of his scarred-over and tortured mind lay the pestilent thought, a remnant of his inferior self, that he was only trying to keep her… to bind her to him so she could never abandon him to himself. He pushed the notion from his mind and drank his fill, fighting the urge to stop. Once her heart stopped beating and her skin was pale, born anew, she would be his forevermore. He felt that he was willing to sentence her to indefinite darkness so that he may never know loneliness again, never meet fear again. But tinges of contrition remained, sour as rotted gore, and trickled nauseatingly down his throat.

He thought of how he would never see the sun’s light glisten on her skin again, or watch her brush her hair in the mirror. He thought of how he had forgotten to take a final swim in the deep browns in her eyes that gazed at him so lovingly, despite the monster he was. He thought of how content she looked when she ate her favorite stew, and how now it would only taste of bile to her new tongue. He thought of how holding her warm body all those nights was all that kept his frigid blood from freezing over completely. That dark, deep, softened part of him knew that with every radiant drop he drained from her, he was laying waste to all the things that nurtured him, that held him softly, in a desperate barter for the control he yearned for. He was sacrificing her essence, her life, so he could keep her. For the rest of his bodily existence, Astarion could regard the miserable, agonized form of his beautiful lover in their dank and haunted palace as the only reminder that he, too, once possessed a blessed, living soul. And in that moment, the carnage of his actions laid bare before him, he promised himself that was enough.

Aeterna amantes. Lovers forever, until the world falls down.

And even then, he thought, she’ll still be mine.

(More Robin and Astarion lore!)

If you asked Robin what her favorite thing about Astarion is, she’d probably furrow her brows, fighting the blush from spreading across her face and pointed ears. Even as a girl constantly lost to the world within books, the words would elude her at the mention of the pale elf’s name. She’ll think quietly for a moment, lost in the archives of her mind, and look up at you with a ready grin and a story to tell.

After the mishappenings that took place within Cazador’s chambers, Astarion had gone off to be alone for a while, pondering the past two centuries of fear he had endured. He walked aimlessly around the dark halls of the palace, not sure what he was looking for. He remained there for multiple days, even sleeping in his old bed in the spawn dormitories.

On the fifth day, Robin decided she would go and check on him, or offer him a drink so he wouldn’t be weakened. She stepped into the dusty, empty, castle and began looking for him. As far as she knew, he would be the only living, -or unliving- thing roaming these halls.

She rounded the corner, lost as all hells, and heard a low rumbling noise. Nothing dangerous, just enough to move her hand to her quarterstaff, readying herself to defend. She peeked her head around the door and saw the source of the vibrations; a black cat sitting under the window, purring loudly in content. Kneeling next to it was Astarion, who was petting the animal with half-lidded eyes, quietly illuminated by the moonlight trickling in behind him. His white hair was practically glowing in contrast to the darkness that filled the room.

Robin contemplated making her presence known but paused for just a moment. She couldn’t help but stare as his long and slender fingers, covered in the blood of his terrorizer just days before, were so gentle and graceful now. Almost as if killing Cazador had freed them from their spell of bloodlust, and they were back to before his entire plight began. The hands that grasped his mother’s finger as a babe. The hands that played street ball with the other elven children. The fingers that put quill to paper as he gave out rulings. The very hands that dug through six feet of dirt to break the surface into his prison, and ceased to exist from then on.

“Oh,” Astarion looked up at Robin. “my dear, what are you doing here?” The cat would sit, staring at him expectantly.

“How did you know I was there?” Robin asked, surprised.

“You’re awful at sneaking, I feel as if you know that quite well.” Astarion said, matter-of-factly.

Robin sighed. She did know that quite well. The guards at Rivington Jailhouse would attest. “Well… who is that you’re sitting with in the dark like this?” She asked, walking over and kneeling beside him. The cat looked at her warily.

“This is Primrose. She’s lurked in the palace gardens for years.” He continued petting her. “I kept her a secret from Cazador and the other spawns. I knew those bastards would drink her dry the moment she was seen. I suppose, then, her nightmare is over now too.” His voice was tinged with sadness.

Robin reached out to Primrose gently, who sniffed her hand cautiously before pressing her fuzzy forehead to the palm of her hand. “A lovely thing, she is.”

Astarion smiled softly. “Yes, she is. In many ways, she was my only confidante for the time before I was blessed with this cursed parasite.” He gently touched her tail, which flipped playfully. “I thought perhaps she’d be the last being to see me gentle.”

Robin would pause the story at this point and laugh softly to herself, shaking her head. “I knew then that at his heart, Astarion is a man that is not only kind but much, much kinder than you and I. Kinder than any man.” She would run her hand nervously through her hair, choosing her words carefully. “He had every reason to be eternally vengeful. To turn his face from the world that had all but abandoned him. Despite the cruelty that drowned him, he still chooses to be kind in spite of it.”

“But did he not fight you tooth and nail at every opportunity to help others?” You would ask, perplexed at her observation. The man was not exactly known for his acts of altruism.

Robin would giggle. “Indeed. Many days we spent bickering over such things. He wanted us to be safe, first and foremost.” She looks at the ground thoughtfully. “But… he let me win every time. He never once, in this entire journey, stopped me from reaching out to those who needed us. And when it came down to it, he would whine and pout but never failed to put his life on the line for those people, all the same as you or I.”

She would then excuse herself, citing urgent matters to attend to, and walk away blushing to herself about how the rest of that story played out.

As they sat there, looking down at Primrose, Robin’s hand would brush Astarion’s accidentally, triggering a slight static shock between their skin. She would begin to pull away instinctively and look up at him. “Oh! Sorry-” her words stopped short as he suddenly grabbed her wrist. His eyes, no longer looking downward, were now gazing quite intensely into hers. Robin searched his face and saw tired eyes, knitted eyebrows, and what looked like… gratitude.

He pulled her in, gently, slowly, and leaned toward her, until their breaths were mixing in the air. His red pupils flicked between her eyes and her lips, with his own parted ever so slightly. Robin’s heartbeat was filling the room, growing faster and faster. She pressed her eyes closed as hard as she could as she felt a cold hand cup her cheek. His thumb ran tenderly over her warm skin, unable to do anything else.

“Would it be terrible… If I…” his words trailed off. He questioned even then if he was deserving. If he could be afforded kindness. Robin, at the sound of his voice so wounded, met his questioning eyes and in a moment of uncharacteristic boldness, closed the distance between them.

A frozen second in time that burned into their minds indefinitely. Robin recalls this moment as being more nerve-wracking than any danger they had come across in all their travels.

Her and Astarion, sitting in a quiet, dark room, with a purring cat between them, vowing silently to be each other’s kindness.

(Some Robin and Astarion lore hehe)

If you asked Astarion what his favorite things about Robin are, he’d give you a sly smile and mumble something about her body, maybe a praise for her battle prowess. But in truth, though he could never admit it, his very favorite thing about Robin was the way she described mushrooms.

Whilst traversing the Underdark early in their adventure, Astarion found himself driven to the point of madness at Robin’s incessant stopping and yapping about every species of fungal growth they encountered. It wasn’t like they were, oh I don’t know, infected with parasitic worms, threatening to turn them into illithid spawn at any moment.

On one particularly aggravating day, when Astarion had woken up from his trance on the wrong side of his bedroll, curls sitting incorrectly on his head, he finally burst. He approached Robin who was, unsurprisingly, hunched over a patch of mushrooms.

“Robin, I really must ask, why in the hells must you stop at every bloody dead pile of fungus in this godless Underdark?! I don’t know about you, but I am more than ready to reach Baldur’s Gate.” he huffed, hands balled into fists.

Robin, slightly startled at his outburst, looked up at him with a few mushrooms still clenched in her fist, eyes wide. For just a quick second, Astarion felt quite sh*t.

“Oh, Astarion… I apologize. I suppose I have gotten a bit carried away with the harvesting.” She tucked the stalks into her pouch. “I’m trying to collect them for my dad.” She stood up and brushed the soil off her knees. “I grew up hunting mushrooms with him here. Before he lost his sight, it was something our family did together in the spring.” Uh oh. Now he felt like a proper knob.

He blinked away the regret. “Well, while that is a sweet sentiment… we do have a destination in mind. Not sure if you remember those worms digging their way through our brains.” He said, driving a finger into his temple sarcastically.

Robin laughed. “How could I?... Would it be alright if I just grabbed a few more of these? They’re my dad’s favorite.” She looked at him eagerly, her eyes practically sparkling. If he could blush, he would be at this moment.

He cleared his throat and looked away. “Hm.. Well, I suppose it would be alright. Just don’t be long…” He looked down at her, already happily harvesting away, and felt compelled to ask. “What’s so special about those things anyway?”

She wiped her brow. “These are called Flamebors… in the East, they call them “huochong”.. fireflies. Want to see why?” She had a playful smile on her face, and Astarion was just the slightest bit nervous. He uncrossed his arms and walked over cautiously.

She looked down at her hands and pressed her palms together, crushing the golden mushrooms thoroughly. When she opened them, what looked like thousands of floating embers drifted into the sky, illuminating the air around them, followed by the sound of sizzling. They were so bright it was nearly blinding, but Astarion couldn’t bear to look away. His mouth gaped open as he watched the lights, seemingly alive, rise to their freedom. “Wow…” he whispered, involuntarily. To think, such radiance grew in the dank Underdark.

“That is the same reaction I had when my dad first did that for us, my sister and I.” She smiled up at the lights. “My dad can’t see much of anything anymore… But in the pitch black, if I set these off, he swears it looks just as beautiful as it did when we were children…I don’t think I’ve ever been happier than I was then.”

Astarion blinked and suddenly felt the overwhelming need to look down at her, illuminated by the lights still waltzing above them. Her eyes were shining and brimming with tears, a dazzling smile on her face as she thought longingly of her family. She must miss them dearly. He had a memory of what that felt like, once.

He had forgotten what it felt like to miss someone, to yearn for someone… but he was starting to remember.

He’d never admit it, but this moment was the first of many where Astarion saw Robin as more than his ticket to being Cazador and tadpole-free. Something about how she described her joy, felt like it was pouring its way into the dark chasm he had been digging within himself for centuries, threatening to wake up his dead heart. Was it finally safe, finally alright, for him to enjoy things such as this without the fear of what lay behind him? His eyes reflected those lights that day, and they, in turn, carried him away with them, high above reach.

For the rest of their journey, it was Astarion who would stop at the mushroom patches, asking Robin to show him which was which, just so he could hear her speak. And he would listen intently, feeling every word take him far away from the world that had frightened him for so long.

current trope i love:

“she’s in love with him, and there’s nothing she can do about it”

“… a hundred years with you, my love, passes in the blink of an eye.”

“I’m with you, my love. Wherever this leads.”

forehead kisses for a vampire

“gods, you’re beautiful.”

“maybe it’ll bring us closer together”

“first in my heart”

Act 1 vs Act 3…. closed the distance.