They settle late. Ian’s already fourteen, already old enough to understand what love is, what loss is. Bob (no one calls her by her full name, not when Ian doesn’t) ends up small and soft, pink and sweet and smiling, with stubby soft fingers and bright frills, nothing at all like the ball of spikes Ian feels like he’s swallowed.
It’s just over ten years later when she settles again – ten, eleven years and a bullet in the shoulder and a circle that shreds them to bits, turns them inside out, turns her into something Ian wouldn’t have recognised if he’d even been able to recognise himself –
She’s unsettled when he wakes up in a hospital bed with darkness where his right eye should be, soft and warm with fur like if kittens and dreams had a baby curled around his neck, fangs and spines and armoured scales when Rosa and her Queenie come calling, a fat warm armful when he and Mira finally get a chance to touch.
It takes about a week for them to decide they can’t keep this up. It doesn’t…hurt, exactly, but adults aren’t meant to be unsettled like this, aren’t meant to shift and change like this. Sooner or later, they have to grit their teeth and let the chips fall.
Bob’s the ugliest ginger tabby when Ian wakes up with a ball of gold in his skull in place of an eye. She’s one-eyed to mirror him, missing a chunk of an ear and patches of fur where the lines of scar tissue rope across her belly and her back. And the ugliest ginger tabby she stays, dream-soft despite her mangy appearance, her needle fangs and claws staying hidden under soft pink toes and a smile. The ugliest ginger tabby she stays, ordinary, unassuming, a little smug. Settled.
(They both know – they both can’t stop knowing – that she doesn’t have to be.)
Tag: rosa
Quick sketch of Rosa from the Reincarnation Blues!
Rosa Darling from marypsue’s amazing Reincarnation Blues. Not sure about the hair, the only description I could find was gelled, so it ended up a bit spacy.
Reincarnation Blues 15/16
Part One / Part Two / Part Three / Part Four / Part Five / Part Six / Part Seven / Part Eight / Part Nine / Part Ten / Part Eleven / Part Twelve / Part Thirteen / Part Fourteen / Part Fifteen / Epilogue
Last chapter! There’s only a short epilogue remaining after this (and possibly a highlight reel from Santa Grenda ComicCon, but that’s a story for later)! I want to say a huge thanks to everyone who read, who left such thoughtful comments and encouragements, who made art or wrote fic(!!!!! seriously this is probably the first time I’ve received fic of my fic in this fandom and it’s such a thrill!), and an especially huge thank you to seiya234 for being my creative consultant, fact-checker, resource on anxiety, and beta reader (and Twin Peaks reference authority)!
Warning for mentions of eye trauma and cartoon ponies.
…
“Then we have a deal.”
Alcor’s grasp is firm, almost clutching, and the blue fire burns, and the forest outside with all of its eyes is burning, burning –
what are your OCs’ morning routines like?
I have many. Beware.
– Belle spends an hour in the bathroom and then comes out looking almost exactly the same as she did when she went in, except maybe with some searingly bright eyeshadow on and a scrunchie in her hair. She spends most of that time lip-synching to old pop songs in the mirror.
– Onika spends an hour in the bathroom but every second of that time is used strategically in deploying a beauty routine that shows exactly the kind of meticulous thought and planning and steady hand that has also made her a fearsome competitor on the international amateur combat-robotics circuit.
– Lionel showers in five minutes and makes a half-hearted attempt to clean his glasses.
– Mike spends half an hour trying to put on his leg without making something explode.
– Alice spends all her time trying to pick out an outfit and then slaps on some mascara and runs out the door with a piece of toast in her mouth.
– Mira takes fifteen minutes to wash her face, brush her teeth, put on makeup and choose an outfit, and then spends twenty minutes trying to decide which contacts to wear and trying to put on false lashes without stabbing herself in the eye.
– Sun-mi spends an hour contouring and highlighting and then goes ‘fuck it’ and throws on a giant scarf and a beanie and big coat because fashion? Annoying body-form underthings? Those are for days when she doesn’t have Serious Work to do. And you never know when you’re going to have to run away from security guards or climb an electric fence in this business. Can’t have your movement restricted by the modern-day equivalent of corsetry and garters.
– Rosa carefully selects one of the eight thousand red lipsticks from her collection and wastes fifteen minutes making kissy faces in the mirror. The poor person fixing her hair for the day has to try to manouever around her primping and posing, and it does not help that Rosa literally always ends up taking over hair duty herself because none of these people can get it just right.
– Ian realises that the sun is coming up for the second time in a day, thinks about going to bed for about half a second, and decides against it.
Reincarnation Blues 9/?
Part One / Part Two / Part Three / Part Four / Part Five / Part Six / Part Seven / Part Eight / Part Nine
…
It was too quiet.
Ian wasn’t sure how long he’d been alone, with nothing but the constant low buzz of the fluorescent lights overhead and the white noise in his own head, and the quickly-growing awareness of his own mortality. Usually just sharp, bitter static at the back of his mind, it had been dragged to the forefront of his thoughts by the narrow walls closing him in, and the unclear but inevitable fact of what they might mean.
You only get so much time.
Reincarnation Blues 8/?
Part One / Part Two / Part Three / Part Four / Part Five / Part Six / Part Seven / Part Eight
…
Mira opened the apartment door and was met with music. Delicate piano runs wove in between warm, sleepy brass, a woman’s voice rising over the instruments and crackling with recorded static.
“…in all the old familiar places
that this heart of mine embraces…”
A smile spread across Mira’s face as she slung her purse over the hook in the closet. It had been a long day, made longer by the fact that she’d spent most of it turning her most recent argument with Alcor over and over in her head. Just stepping into the apartment was like a sigh of relief, and as the soothing, almost lullaby-like tones of the singer’s voice washed over her, Mira could almost feel her stress melting away.
“Honey, I’m home!” she called, jokingly, stepping out of her sequined flats as she walked out of the entryway.
There was no response but the music.
the devil gave me a crooked start
or; Am I self-indulgent enough to make playlists for my own OCs? Hell yeah I am.
Rosa Eunice Darling, twenty-five, international punk-bluegrass sensation. Not psychic, but sensitive. Can make ‘bless your heart’ sound like a curse.
Companion mix to this and this.
{listen}
Hail Hail//Shovels & Rope Cherry Bomb//The Runaways Little Red Wagon//Miranda Lambert Yearnin’//The Black Keys Do It With A Rockstar//The Grand Theft Orchestra & Amanda Palmer Bad Reputation//Joan Jett and the Blackhearts Better Dig Two//The Band Perry & Fall Out Boy Raise Hell//Brandi Carlile Chasing Twisters//Delta Rae
Reincarnation Blues 6/?
Part One / Part Two / Part Three / Part Four / Part Five / Part Six
…
“Mira! Are you awake?”
Mira cracked one eye open, and only managed through long years of practice not to scream. “Alcor! I thought we established that hanging over people’s beds while they’re sleeping is bad-creepy?”
“I know, but…I need to talk to you.”
ian, rosa & sun-mi for the blog meme perhaps?
Ian has been done, but I’ll do the other two!
send me a character and i’ll tell you
Rosa:
their blog url: rosadarling
the kind of posts they reblog: tour and photoshoot photos, recipes for decadent sweets, influential music (with a little personal anecdote about why it was influential to her), conversations with fans/anything posted by fans for her, anything to do with the ‘no it’s becky’ meme.
the first person they followed: a very, very starstruck fan. She ends up following a lot of fans. And tracking the tag for her URL. And her name. And any mentions of her URL. And often responding to posts mentioning her.
what kind of theme they’d have: a custom theme that’s been carefully vetted by her marketing team.
what kind of text posts they make at 2am: “You all are the real stars, and every single one of you has something that makes you shine. Never let anyone tell you different.”
Sun-mi:
their blog url: deliver-us-the-truth
the kind of posts they reblog: songs by bands no one has ever heard of, songs by kpop girl groups, book reviews, breaking news stories (both those that are covered by the mainstream media and those that aren’t, as well as those that just concern her favourite girl groups), long explanations of great unsolved mysteries of the past, cute selfies and OOTDs, every single one of those ‘trans girls are cute and important’ text posts.
the first person they followed: fuckyeahkpop.
what kind of theme they’d have: one of the free ones that has the header image take up the whole page when you first navigate to the blog.
what kind of text posts they make at 2am: “do you ever just get overwhelmed by how vast the universe is and how much there is left out there to discover and how many discoveries you won’t even be alive to see and uuurrgh the world is so huge and amazing”
backup 