FIC: Dissolution (Adult Content Warning)

[etherati]

I. Breaking Apart
*

It’s almost a year to the day since the crisis was declared officially over, since things finally seemed to settle down, since life returned to some kind of normalcy and the city was bolstered and made bold from its brush with blood and terror, that everything unexpectedly goes to hell.

It’s hard to say exactly what’s

Comments

[brancher]

Fuck.

[etherati]

We have discussed the full contents of 'fuck' elsewhere, but, yeah. :\

[bane_6]

And now I'm gonna spend the rest of the day yelling "GAHHHH!" for no reason. Like the neighbors don't already think I'm weird! But still... this is painfully sad and bizarrely sweet.

[etherati]

Thank you. Writing it broke me up pretty good, but now that it's out it feels like it needed to be written.

[wednesday42]

Jesus fucking...

God.

No words can encompass what this did to me. It was real enough that I'll be expending one hell of a lot of energy to refute that it was real, if that makes any sense whatsoever.

[etherati]

It does make sense. I've been doing the same thing. I have to keep catching myself and reminding, no, no, it was just a bad dream. It didn't happen. I almost need to actually WRITE one of them waking up from this as a dream, in order to really believe that.

Thank you, though. I'm still having trouble finding the words to explain what writing it did to me, too.

[daylilymoon]

oh boys ;_;

This hurts so bad. The unspooling horror and slowly unwinding truth of what's going to happen to them is done so well. I kept thinking maybe they'll find a voice on the radio or something will let up--but you kept it honest to where it had to go, and I appreciate that. Really glad you didn't veer away.

Also happy at how long this is, in case you didn't know. :D We would have missed out on brilliant little pieces of the story like Dan experimentally biting his own arm, or Ror scanning the radio dial as a distraction, or missing the pigeon.

Oh god the ending ;_; exactly what it should have been for this. I can't describe very well my feelings about it now but what you should know is I'm seriously floored and impressed. That little memorial to Dan between the brackets was pure love and now I need to call the people I love just to appreciate and say hi because wow.

Favorite line that isn't the ending:
The monsters swarming downstairs test it every few minutes. They have short memories. Because that's where the horror

[etherati]

The weird thing is, it was the little character moments that killed me the most to write, because I knew how futile all of it was. The length really got away from me, but yeah, I thought it was important to really show the progression towards not just realizing the danger but also realizing its complete inevitability, and realizing that aside from something completely unexpected like Jon popping in with a hamburger on a silver plate, it was just about the best ending they could hope for in the situation. The idea that Dan knows Ror's going to kill him and still all he wants is to be as close as he can be before it happens and to try to get Ror to understand that it isn't his fault, which is utterly futile against the magnitude of realizing you just murdered your lover of course, but he still has to try because he is who he is, even right up at the end like this. And even having written it, that whole sequence just hurts.I did not set out with the intention of making people appreciate and reach out to those they care about, but I am

[daylilymoon]

Oh man that's so true, author doesn't get to delude herself that everything will be okay during the course of the story like reader does D:

Yes. That makes me love Dan to tiny little pieces right there. That's so him. That he didn't just... off himself in a less painful way beforehand. That he just stays and tries, like you said. Living together up until the very last inch.

Definitely. Because it whittled everything down, as end-of-the-world pieces should, to the question of what is most important. And who would you rather be with when life as you know it is ending in seconds. POWERFUL STUFF I TELLS YOU.

Seriously, you are always welcome. Thank you for writing stuff that makes me want to wall-of-text myself. And for the most thoughtful responses ever jeez.

ALSO ENJOY MY LAME ATTEMPT AT CHEERING AUTHOR UP

[etherati]

This made me cry. D: which i know makes no sense and wasn't what you were aiming for! But. I dono. I'm all screwed up over this today, I don't even know why. Thank you, really. I'm supposed to be the one reassuring you all that this is AU, it didn't happen, etc, and I feel like I need to be told too because. god.

[acidicfog]

Oh God.
... Oh. God.
]: Fucking amazing. As always. I love you. Now I'm going to go baww in the corner.

Also I have some of The Hollow Men on my journalmajigger. This is probably the only context in which Rorschach's world would end in a whisper. :>

[etherati]

Yeah. Mostly because he's too numb to recognize a bang. I'm sure the door coming off its hinges was actually very loud, but he's pulled so far into himself at this point that everything's just fading out down below the noise floor and nothing is anywhere near as loud as the screaming in his head, so it's all whisper-quiet and I honestly doubt he'll even feel it when they go at him. :\

God I am fantastic at depressing myself.

Thank you, seriously. I've been baww in the corner since I wrote it, so you have company.

[acidicfog]

I had a nightmare about this, and then my mom just happened to have rented [REC], which I watched and then proceeded to break down crying for two hours. And all I could think after was, "Jesus Christ, if this is fucking with me this badly, what's it doing to etherati?"
... My point is I'm dropping back by to say that I hope you're doing well.

[etherati]

I had a pretty good breakdown over it yesterday morning, and spent most of the day trying to hold myself together. Doing better today. I have written/read dark things before, some darker than this, I still don't know exactly what it is here that's fucking with me (and other people) so badly. I mean, I know intellectually what a lot of the triggers probably are, but there's something about it that's just getting under the skin a lot more relentlessly than usual.

I hope you're doing better now, and I'm sorry for any distress I've caused. :\