dawdle | open post | reincarnation

open post | reincarnation

❝Our lives are not our own. From womb to tomb, we’re bound to others. Past and present. And by each crime and every kindness, rebirth our future.❞

Your characters keep meeting across time and space, dying and being born again. Every lifetime is an adventure. For reference / inspiration: the Cloud Atlas trailer

how to:
♛ tag in with your characters: write about who they were in the past, give them alternate names, make up alternate history: there are no hard and fast rules.
♛ tag others: is it a love story for the ages? a rivalry that spans centuries? is there something that draws them to another, something they can't quite pin down? an overwhelming sense of deja vu? or was it just someone you saw in a dream?
♛ have fun, and be excellent.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

( enjolras is always a revolutionary. no matter the year, no matter the nation or the cause. he is the revolutionary spirit embodied in a man, and he knows nothing else. sometimes, he is a young man with wealthy parents, educated and eloquent, with knowledge of all the philosophers of the age. sometimes, he owns nothing but the clothes on his back, barely knowing how to read - or not at all. no matter his station in life, there's something about his speech, about the passion that burns in his chest that makes people stop and listen.

i. 71 BC. rome. he is not a slave. his father is an influential man in society, he owns a beautiful villa in the countryside and drops hints for him to come home every so often. but he doesn't. he sees an injustice in society, and decides to right it: was there ever such a thing as wretched as slavery? it the normal order of things, people tell him. rome needs slaves, they say. but when they begin to march, he becomes a leader of their cause, one of many.

( of the brutality of war, he does not think of. he knows that the slaves themselves don't share his ideals, but nothing's perfect and he will enact change in any way he can. )

when he dies, his blood and the blood of others run into the siler river. the ditches didn't hold. they never do.

ii. 1832, france. their barricade never even lasted out the night. the people did not rise with them.

iii. 1918, germany. the revolution failed. his supporters kept telling him to flee the country, but how could he, when protestors were being shot in the streets of berlin? he stayed, to be murdered along with the other ringleaders, in the hope that their lives would spark an example. it didn't.

iv. 1943, france. france fell, but enjolras refused to stop believing. he writes for the secret press, delivering pamphlets around the university campus, urging the students to rise up. france is great, because she is their homeland, and for no other reason. they will force the germans out, one by one.

vive la résistance!

he dies before he gets to see a liberated france.

v. president day, america. he studies political science and organizes protests. with the age of technology, he sees the advent of revolutionaries around the world: syria, egypt. the arab spring is a new dawn, a promise of the people taking their destiny into their own hands. he studies marx and rousseau and the history of the world - give me liberty or give me death. he takes them all to heart.

there are only two defining features of the interlaced lives of enjolras: he never succeeds, and he never lives past the age of 25. there are some people who are destined to die young, and die bloody. he is one of them. but the fight must carry on, and there is nothing to do about it. )

( ooc | open to all. any scenario, any timeline. go for it! )

Edited 2013-02-04 01:17 (UTC)

[she is different in every era, yet there are part of her that remain the same. She is still drawn to important moments in history, and especially to brave souls who fight for their beliefs. That is why Lucille (as she is known in this time) finds herself trying to listen to Enjolras.

Never living past a certain age is something Luce knows very well; she never makes it past 17. So she is not yet that age when she comes to hear Enjolras]

[ What will always remain the same about Anna across the tracks of time is her temperate nature, her pacifism, and her determination to make this world a better place for the generations to follow. In 1892, she was a hopeful schoolgirl in Germany who sought to improve the lives of her future children by straying from her village's authoritarian, oudated methods of upbringing. During WWII, she was a nurse who prayed for every single soldier, regardless of whose side on which they fought, as her family hid refugees.

Anna believes in God, but she believes in books more, the necessity of education, the importance of freedom -- all of which will lead to a better and brighter future. Anna carries hope but she will also carry the burden of watching her friends die young while she lives to her twilight years.

Perhaps the modern era will be different. She, known as Annie today, is a journalism student, eyes on the world, ready to correct what is wrong and support what she believes is right. There's a bolder, brighter fire lit beneath her in this age. She keeps few friends and more acquaintances, nodding to a familiar face as she enters the study center with her books and tablet held to her chest. ]

Edited 2013-02-05 02:05 (UTC)

[Honor is what drives Jon, no matter what life he leads. Honor, and the love for his family, the need to protect those he cares for, and the need to find the love of his life again. Her presence is a balm against the harshness of his life, her warmth his lifeline when all seems lost. Throughout the ages, throughout the worlds, he searches for her, finds her to sometime love her all over again, and other times to watch her from afar, she belonging to someone else, or he tied down with vows.

i. Winterfell, Westeros, 297AL She's his sister (half sister, she would insist if asked) and she has eyes only for the golden haired Prince. It should only matter little, Jon is sent to the Wall when she's sent South, but when their party splits up on the Kingsroad, the boy regrets not having said goodbye. The feeling only deepens with each news of the hardships she live at the hands of cruel men.

ii. England, 1192 He comes back from the Crusade with honors, even if they lost Jerusalem to the Muslims. He's a Knight Templar but holds no land on the island, though one of the High Lords take a shining into him enough to offer him a place at his court. The first time Jon sees her is during the feast that followed the week of their arrival, dancing in the dinning hall, her red hair flowing like melted copper. He's too shy, too honorable to court her: he doesn't want Lord Stark to think that he is taking his hospitality for granted. But her own brother gives him the shove that he needs, and before the end of the following year, they are married on the green hills of Winterfell Castle.

iii. Germany, 1569 He's known her since he was a boy, her family holding the lands around the village, who's orphanage has fostered him since his birth. He's almost a man when he notices she's almost a woman and something flutters in his chest when her gaze catches him as they walk by each other on the stairs of the church. Maybe it's the reason why he's sent to the seminary, that longing look Father Mormont caught on Jon's face, or maybe it's simply because no one ever marries an orphan. All he knows is that while he's gone to take his vows, her father is killed by bandits in a hunt gone wrong, her baby brothers burned to death and her mother gone to insanity. He comes back to the village in a priest cloak with the order to trial her for witchcraft, for surely the red of her hair is a sign of her being the consort of the Devil. She strangely disappears overnight after being sentenced to be hanged in the morning, and Jon is the one that finds himself dangling at the end of her rope.

iv. Quebec, 1780 He's in the field hacking the latest tree they brought down when he watches the caravan make it's way to the big, colonial house on the hill. The other lumberjacks laugh and wolf whistle at the young women on horse while Jon simply shakes his head. Another British Lord and his family sent to take up what was left by the seigneur since the Quebec Act. It's not the first family that is going to try to tame the wild Frenchmen, and certainly not the last, but most often, the cold and harsh weather of the Canadian winter is what makes them all run back to their King, more than the stubbornness of the Quebecquers. But this family stays longer than the others, when the Lord takes a liking in Jon's craftsmanship, he finds himself invited in a home that seemed far too warm, far too welcoming for the home of an Englishman (with the exception of his Lady wife, who barely gives a look to the dark haired boy, and whom speaks English around him, not knowing he's long learned the language despite being born to a French mother). What starts with a few French lessons quickly dissolves into French kissing lessons, enough that makes Jon wonders if all British are meant to be cold and reserved.

v. Chicago, 1924 She's the new girl, coming from a broken home, she says, just like the rest of them. But Jon recognizes her: she's the daughter of the police officer that tried to stood up to the Lannister crime family. He recognizes her because she's the daughter of his mentor, the man that taught him everything before he was passed along to Officer Halfhand, to learn how to be an undercover cop. She sings at the bar he 'bartends' for, watching and reporting who's who and what's to come. She has the most beautiful voice he's ever heard, a bird-like song that's tainted with so much sorrow that it reflects in his own. He knows better than to let his heart be taken by her beauty, by her voice and the small smiles she sends him from the stage: the last woman he loved ended in a pool of blood after a botched attempt on his life. He knows better, but he still smiles back at her.

vi. New York, present day He wonders if she notices sometime. The way his eyes never leaves her back, the way his jaw sets tighter when she pulls her hair over her shoulder and twists them in a nervous manner when she's studying. She must notice from time to time, because she looks back at him and Jon ducks his head, cheeks aflame at having been caught staring. She's part of the upper crowd at Colombia University (even if Samwell often reminds him that there's no upper crowd here), and he's just here because he's been able to gain scholarship through hard work. She must be a literature major, from what he can make of the books she thumbs in the library and Jon is not sure he can really find a subject of common interest in the architecture books he carries. He still finds the need to talk to her, he still feel the strange pull to her, as if he's known her all of his life, even if they've never spoken before.

vii. The Vale, Westeros, 302AL It has taken him years to find her and he hates himself for it. But in between being brought back to life through the flames of his own funeral pyre, the fight against the Others aided by the Dragon Queen and the new name he now bares, it's been hard for Jon to leave his duties to find his family. His uncle's family, he supposes now he should say, though the love he has for them all has never wavered, nor will it. Names are just names, it's what comes to pass between them that's important. He finds her in the Vale, holding the Eyrie by herself, the man masquerading as her father nowhere to see. It's stronger than him, and when he jumps down from his steed, Ghost never leaving his heels, Jon takes long strides up to her, pulling her into a tight hug as he hides his face into the returned fire of her hair. His voice nearly fails him, but he manages to whispers over and over: "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry..."]

( she's the kind of girl who spends all of her time in stories. she lives and breathes them and knows nothing else, and she's the kind of girl that some people might find it easy to hate for that kind of naiveté. this is the stark girl - her father is an oil contracter in alaska. they own a giant estate way up north there. she has never had to work for anything in her entire life, spending her childhood at lessons ( manners, music, dance ), tucked away from the rest of the world. it's not as if she's entirely unaware of the horrors of life, but she immerses herself in austen, and not tolstoy. she reads beautiful romances about provincial ladies, and ignores that copy of heart of darkness sitting abandoned on her shelf back at winterfell. she is an english major who buries herself in poetry, sitting in dusty libraries with a sonnet or two balanced on her lap, dressed in lace and pastels, dragonflies and birds, a china doll that belongs in a different era.

there is a boy that she likes - joffrey baratheon, the nephew of the lannister shipping magnate, tywin lannister. he's something of a celebrity on campus, and when she looks at him her heart skips a beat and all breath seems to leave her body. he is beautiful and so kind, bringing up old notions of chivalry that were once proclaimed to be dead. and if his gaze lingers too long on her, if his touch stays imprinted on her skin ( but never long enough ), sansa swoons and cannot think of anything else. she tells all this to jeyne poole, relates it as if it were a fairytale romance. jeyne's father is an old family employee and she is only here because sansa's father is paying her tuition. she nods, and lives her life vicariously because she has never had a prince, and probably never will. they don't exist, after all.

yet every night, it isn't joffrey that sansa dreams about. she dreams about a young man with shockingly black hair, a man clad all in black. she thinks it might be the same man, every time. the dreams don't happen often, but sometimes when she tucks herself in at night ( and ignores the sound of jeyne snoring on the bunk bed above her ), she finds herself wishing to see him again. they say that dreams reveal parts of your subconscious that might not otherwise be accessible. sansa wonders what these dreams mean.

she has taken to writing them down, when she can.

november 2.
we were married on top of a hill. people threw flower petals in the air. robb hugged me and spun me around. who is he? I see him in all of these dreams. I wish I could meet him, if he exists. just this once. he loved me. there was always dancing. what a wonderful dream.

sometimes, they were not so idyllic. sometimes, she watches her father being butchered, her baby brothers taken and burned, her mother disfigured beyond belief. she remembers weeping, pleading for mercy, begging for sanctuary from a god that had abandoned her. a witch, they said. they'd dragged her by her hair from her cabin, kicking and screaming and dragged through the mud, shut in a cell. but it's strange, she doesn't remember burning. there was a priest, wasn't there? a handsome priest, dark and striking, dressed in black. an angel in disguise.

november 21.
I couldn't stop crying when I woke up today.

one night, it's the cold of winter that she remembers. the cold, and the pleasing lilt of french. sansa doesn't know how to speak french. she isn't sure why she dreamed of it, but that isn't what she concentrates on. she remembers warmth of a different kind, the heat of a kiss. strong hands around her waist, a breathless gasp that makes her blush to remember it. she wakes up flushed and heartsick, aching. yearning. sansa doesn't write anything in her journal that day.

she continues to write throughout the year, and remembers other things. the drape of a toga around her body, a shimmery dress and a microphone at her lips, the odd sway of a crowd that is free and uninhibited. there is a thread of sorrow that runs through all of her dreams, even the happy ones. and for a girl who reads only love poetry, many of sansa's dreams are about death.

but those are the ones that she doesn't dwell on, as she sits here in the library. there's an old armchair that she always takes if it isn't already occupied, by a fireplace. tucked away enough for her to read, because life in residence is horrible and she isn't used to the loud music and constant drunkenness of her floormates. she turns the pages and is engrossed: pablo neruda, love sonnet xi:

I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.
Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.
Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day
I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.

sansa looks up. his back is turned to her, but that head of hair is as unkempt as always ( what a funny thing to say, as always, like she's met him before ). she thinks she must have dozed off in the library somewhere, that this is something else that she'll write down in her journals for later. the book falls off her lap, unbidden. it sounds impossibly loud when it hits the floor, a hollow sound in the quiet of the room. sansa inhales deep, her heart thumps in her chest.

she wonders if he loves her in this story, as well. she wonders about the motifs, the themes that interlace. )

Excuse me --

( it's probably a silly whim. a stupid wish, a flight of fancy that sansa is still young enough to entertain. )

Do you have the time?

Edited 2013-02-04 17:33 (UTC)

[He was born in the South, to a father that went missing in action abroad, fighting a war to liberate people, and to a mother that was loved the length of a summer. His father had only learned about his existence through letters and when his mother died in childbirth, Jon was giving her surname and was sent up North, with friends of his father's family. Better usher away the illegitimate son of a renowned army general then letting the world know of him dishonoring his wife.

Jon never really minded being kept away from the higher social ranking of his father's family. He liked it well enough up North in Vermont, so close to the Canadian border that by clear days, he could see their mountains when atop on the snowy ones by the state line. The Mormonts is a nice family enough, they make him feel welcome despite who he is, and the hard work of the cattle ranch kept him in line. It was the Old Bear's wife that pushed him to study hard, that kept up at night with him so all his school work would be done in time, that signed him off to extra-curricular classes. Jon often times thought she was making it up for their only son, who ran away to Las Vegas with the farm's earnings one night. And Jon, starving for love and attention, never put up a fight to her pushings.

Efforts bared fruits and when the letter of acceptation had come in, the boy thought he had seen tears in Jeor's wrinkled eyes too. Their surprise hadn't been over then: two days later came in his aunt, a girl his own age with hair so blond they looked silver and lilac eyes that seemed unreal. His father's wife and children had perished in a plane crash, leaving her sole heir to their family's empire, and she was insisting in helping him, wanting close the only family left to her. It was how Jon had come to live off campus, in an apartment so big it could have been a dorm in itself, and not even a block down the campus. It was all the help he had accepted, insisting on wanting to make his own name. Daenerys had simply nodded and smiled, her gaze understanding.

But even if the apartment is a calm enough place, it doesn't have all the books he needs to study and it's why Jon is often seen in the library. It helps that his friends come to sit with him: quiet and shy Samwell, a med student that seems too scared of blood to be able to finish his degree; Pyp, the art student that often boasts about being the next Jim Morrison and Grenn, the mechanical engineering student that dreams about building the next best electric motor. But it's only since Jon has noticed the auburn haired girl that he stays late, waiting for her to leave before doing so, always coming in a little earlier after he notices the chair she always favors, choosing the table not too far from the fireplace, the same one that he's coming to think of as his own.

Everyday he watches her, telling himself that today is the day he'll finally talk to her. But then she smiles to her friend, or the friend tells her something and her soft laughter rings into his ears, stealing any words Jon can think of telling her. It's strange, how it seems so familiar: her smile, her laughter, the way she plays in her hair when she thinks. Even the look she gives to the Baratheon boy, (the golden boy at Colombia U, the business major that counts more conquests than A's on his report card, or so Jon thinks) is something he knows. The ache he feels when he sees the flush of her cheeks when the blond reaches for her is also familiar: like a constant reminder that he'll be the one pinning all of his life for her, a reminder that she's out of his league.

It doesn't help that he dreams of her at night, more and more frequently, some dreams leaving him elated and smiling, others with a wetness on his face that he wipes away before he sits by his window, watching the New York skyline at night, unable to find sleep again. And there are those kind of dreams that makes him more than relieved that he has his own room, where he can have them live for a moment longer in the darkness of the room, underneath the covers. But each time, each dreams, no matter the content, leaves him aching for her again, leaves him with the feeling he's meant to meet her here, that he's known her all of his life.

It's the sound of the book falling to the floor that has him jumping slightly on his chair, his mind taken away from the lab report he's writing for Professor Thorne's building physics class. Jon rubs his tired eyes before he rolls his head, working out the kink in his neck, freezing slightly as the soft voice that haunts his dreams hails him. He turns his head to her, looks at her in a slight daze as if he can't believe she's speaking to him, finally.]

I'm sorry, what? [He blinks, his brain registering the question as his eyes moves to her face, wondering if it's really hope he sees in her blue eyes, committing to memory the graceful curve of her neck, the way her hair is twisted up in a loose bun, one that makes Jon's hands twitch with the need to unroll it so he slides his fingers in the silk of the copper strands.

He realizes too late that he's starring and he ducks his head, cheeks burning lightly.]

Oh. Time. Yes. Hum...[He reaches for his smartphone on the table and flicks it on]

Ten past eight. [Well, it's no wonder he's tired, aching and hungry: he's been in the library for the past five hours, non stop.] Looks like I miss dinner. We both did, I mean.

['Smooth, Snow, really smooth. She finally talks to you and all you can do is ramble about dinner, idiot,' he inwardly scolds himself.]

Edited 2013-02-05 03:45 (UTC)

sdkfhdks wow, I am the latest

sorrowed - 2013-04-28 11:24 (UTC) - Expand

Alternia: The beginning

The Disciple, Meulin, lived free, loved deeply, believed fervently, and died alone. Her life was spent in dedication to the ideals of another, a thing she repeats. The rest of the lives that she lived on Alternia were too short to count.

Earth: Egypt

Beset was born into a merchant family, spending her says posting and learning how to run a household and shop. When her older brother began practicing his hieroglyphics, she begged to be taught. He taught a symbol here and there, and she devoured herself to learning mire. Deciphering symbols and learning to write them, warding his lessons and practicing them in secret. However, his teaching to her was found by their father and rather than let him suffer for her, she took his beating for him.

Soon after she ran away, offering to write for money and decipher notes for the illiterate. A temple took get in and for the rest of her life, she was the only female scribe of Bast's temple. In devouring her life and her skills to the goddess and temple that took her in, she brings Bast to her worshipers in symbols, and in rare festivals, dance. Its even said her weirds changed a life or two, though its not said of they were harsh truths or whispered devotions.

Earth: Canada

Dierdre found books and cats at an equally young age and they became her passion. She was that girl in class growing up, with books piled on her desk that she hid behind and a cloak of hair to hide her face. The shyness never lated long though. Like a cat that us all affection once the wariness wore off, she was fast friends with the few who approached her. Reading, she found worlds she could only dream of.

Now in college, she feels like she's drifting, searching for some meaning in her life. She had a purpose, she thinks, she just doesn't know what. She thinks she'll write, write something, but plenty of afternoons are wasted in the library, dreaming of the perfect story.

[Kankri, the Signless, the Sufferer. The red-blooded mutant who tried to turn an entire society with the power of his words only to be branded a heretic, executed and erased from official histories. Only his beloved Disciple continuing to carry on his teachings after his death. In the grand scheme of things this life was the only one worth noting.

And yet here he is, Salvador this time around. An American boy at a Canadian college with hair that isn't sure if it wants to stay red or make the full transition into brown, eyes the color of dark honey and an affection for high-waist-ed pants and turtleneck sweaters rivaled only by old men in the middle of January. He's intelligent, hungry to make a difference in the world but perhaps too ambitious for his own good. At least in this lifetime the worst that will likely happen to him is being exhausted through the entirety of uni trying to juggle all his classes instead of, you know, being murdered.

But for right now he has a both a political science and religious studies to read up on and the library is the perfect place to get that done and oh no it's that lovely girl he's seen around campus with the hair and cat hair on her sweater. Oh no, she's cute. Oh no, all the other tables are taken. Oh nOOOOOOO.

He sets down his book across from her.]

Is it alright if I join you?

Edited 2013-02-04 06:50 (UTC)

[Looking up, there's a cute boy here all of a sudden. The one she sees ocassionally but doesn't quite know what to think of him. He interests her in a way she can't honestly describe, like he's someone she needs to know or she knew before, but that's silliness. Her smile is hesitant, the awkward sensation of knowing him deeply and not knowing him at all, but all at once.]

If you'd like. The tables weren't so crowded earlier. [Moving her stacks of books to one side, she tries to hid her curiousity as she peers at his book.]

both of mine are expired weeps

nosigntospeakof - 2013-02-04 21:03 (UTC) - Expand

Re: both of mine are expired weeps

glaringprotego - 2013-02-04 22:42 (UTC) - Expand

enjolras | les miserables

ii

v.

Jon Snow | ASOIAF | For Sansa

this is the most beautiful thing oh my god

we will make it even more beautiful!

The Disciple | Homestuck

ohhhh Caaanadaaaa

/switched because icons. my other one expired

Norman Babcock | ParaNorman | What am I doing someone take the wheel

Salem, Mass!

no subject

isaac clarke | dead space

Ako Shirabe | Suite Pretty Cure♪

Dick Grayson | Batman

London, 1901

Re: London, 1901

Stiles Stilinski | Teen Wolf

Gaius Maecenas | Rome

anna ( spring awakening )

Merlin | Merlin

Scotland

Re: Scotland

Ichigo Kurosaki | Bleach

Mr Veils | Fallen London