– THERE’S A DIFFERENT SORT OF RAGE WHERE VALENTINE IS INVOLVED. it rattles the bones, shakes the walls, conjures swarms of bugs from a nether realm. oh, yes. valentine is special, but – you already knew that. after all, she chose her own life over someone else’s – it takes a SPECIAL sort of person to do that, octavia knows. she’d love to prompt a confession, but even more than that, she wants to prompt S U F F E R I N G.
she’s standing in front of valentine’s mirror when the blonde returns from the restroom. she doesn’t even turn around. she’s modeling the snow queen crown. there’s a sort of sadness on her features that darkens with valentine’s presence, a quiet rage.
“ it’s a shame, you know, ” a simpering frown, almost like she’s JOKING. “ i was really pretty. ” she’s biding her time. she’ll tease a little before she tells val to...check under her bed.
as you might know from our previous plot drop, octavia is getting STRONGER. her spirit is fueled by hatred and anger, and you could call her a poltergeist with a vengeance, and the longer she remains unsettled, the more power she has and the more effect she can have on the everyday world. em ( christian bosch / othello ) recently posted a great SELF-PARA that really demonstrates this effect, and i recommend reading it because it will come up in plot points later. that said, octavia is going to start having influence on your character’s lives.
so, that brings us to our fourth task. it is NOT a self para...it is a thread ! with octavia herself. she’ll be visiting your characters and providing key information, but this is also a way to develop your character’s relationship with octavia. get to know her a little, but keep in mind – she is not the same octavia that she was in life, and she is not so naive...she has had life stripped from her, and her primary motivation is REVENGE.
octavia’s blog will be active through the month of april. so, that’s how long you have to interact and do your thread. every muse can expect a starter from her posted in the next week or so, sporadically – and perhaps not too lengthy because i am writing fifteen of them. CLICK HERE TO FOLLOW HER BLOG.
– PLEASE LIKE THIS POST ONCE YOU HAVE READ IT. ( i won’t post your starter until you do. )
this is one that might not work for everyone because it would require your character to a) identify as a woman and b) have attended the same new england boarding school as thea which is a stretch BUT here goes anyway
so a connection i’ve kinda been wanting for ages is someone who theresa went to boarding school in new england with. a best friend who she basically fell in love with. a sexual awakening of sorts n someone she used to sneak out with at night and first started going to the woods with to read in the dark.
they might be someone who was more kind of clued up than tess? someone who introduced her to drinking culture as she never had that at home. someone she smoked her first spliff with. i’m imagining them being super close at like 15/16 at school and drifting when theresa went to uni but that kind of..... yearning never went away.
also im picturing it kinda like the relationship between sydney and dina in i am not okay with this. quite a young, juvenile, innocent but no less intense thing, and it can be completely one-sided. but yea. lots of sapphic inspo below the cut.
Thelma (2017) dir. Joachim Trier
cotton candy taste by m.p. (via queenofshadcws )
two girls, one bed.
we are five and i show you my new doll and you smile and say it’s pretty and the sunlight hits your face making you look like an angel so when you ask me to play with the doll i don’t even complain and tell you you can keep it. you laugh and hug me and i feel happy.
two girls, one bed.
we are eleven and doing our homework when you ask me whether i like any boys from our school. the question makes me nervous and anxious and my stomach feels weird but i push it down and just shrug it off. you tell me about david and how you two hung out at the library and how he kissed your cheek and you called him from your mom’s phone and talked for two hours. i don’t know david and i don’t think i even want to. one week later i see you two holding hands in english class and i feel angry.
two girls, one bed.
we are sixteen and listening to some music and you sing along when your phone starts ringing and you ask me to turn the music down. it’s your boyfriend and you laugh at everything he says and promise to meet him tonight at the park. you hang up with an ‘i love you’ and i leave the room to get some water though i’m not thirsty and my hands are shaking and i can’t drink without spilling it. later that night i sneak you into my room and you smell like smoke and beer and you tell me about how good it feels to kiss someone. your words leave a bitter taste in my mouth and when you fall asleep i kiss your shoulder and feel guilty.
two girls, one bed.
we are twenty and you are crying because yet another boy broke your heart and i try to tell you that it’s not you, that you are amazing and beautiful and kind and that not a single one of them deserves you and i’m crying too. we fall asleep in each other’s arms and my dreams are soft and quiet, filled with fairy lights and roller coasters. when i wake up you are looking at me and something feels different and when you kiss me i understand and i feel happy again.
Virginia Woolf, from a letter to Vita Sackville-West wr. c. November 1930
Vita and Virginia (2018) dir. Chanya Button
Goblin Market by Christina Rosetti.
this poem gets read through both the lens of sisterly relationships and also homoerotic ones depending on the critic which is great bcos that’s totally the vibe. like i imagine it as this gang of formidable teenage girls growing up together, learning to love themselves through their love for each other. a formidable pack of women who felt limitless and like they could achieve anything. n maybe a desire to learn became, in tess at least, misplaced desire in this person. but yeah they used to go out to the woods and read and its all very dead poets society n she was in love w them :/
thanks for coming to my ted talk, happy international women’s day
where were you on the night of october 13, 2019, they ask.
i stayed late at the library until a bit after 11:00, he should say, and then i went to the east wing to confront octavia. that’s when i saw it happen.
instead, he says: “i stayed late at the library until a bit after 11:00. then i turned in for the night.”
what was your relationship with octavia preston, they ask.
i thought she was the devil incarnate, he should say, and she was. we were friends, for a time. but she made it clear that she couldn’t have cared less about me. then, later on, i saw what she was doing to valentine... and suddenly there was no one i hated more.
instead, he says: “we were friends, for a time. then we had a falling out a few months back. it was petty, i had a thing for lysander at the time and then she started dating him. there wasn’t really much interaction after that.”
do you believe anyone would have any reason to hurt her? did she have any enemies, they ask.
valentine was her enemy, he should say, and theo would do anything for valentine. including hurt octavia. so, yes, he had plenty of reason.
instead, he says: “you’ve probably guessed by now, she was controversial. i didn’t love her, and it makes sense that other people loved her way less. no one specific comes to mind, but yes, octavia was the kind of person who would’ve made enemies at some point.”
what was octavia preston like, they ask.
a master manipulator, he should say, someone willing to scheme and blackmail just for the hell of it. she pulled you in, at first, but she didn’t really care about anyone but herself. she was destruction.
instead, he says: “she was magnetic. the kind of person who could make anyone feel special, when she wanted to. but she was also selfish, and careless with others. any individual’s experience with her really just depended on the side of herself she decided to show them.”
did you notice anything strange or different about her recently? anything we should know, they ask.
she was messed up by what happened to her father, he should say, enough that she was willing to drag valentine down with her just out of spite. i thought she was heartless before, but it was a new low.
instead, he says: “not really. like i said, i pretty much stopped talking to her back in august.”
what did you think of her boyfriend, lysander griffith? did they seem happy together, they ask.
you’ll get nowhere investigating lysander, he should say, he never would’ve hurt octavia. he was crazy about her, and he’s a good person. he had nothing to do with this.
instead, he says: “i think lysander’s a great guy. i don’t know anything about their relationship, though. they seemed happy. i have no idea if they actually were.”
did you ever think about harming octavia preston, they ask.
finally, the only question he can answer one-hundred percent truthfully.
kit’s never been in a police station... he’s never had a reason to be. the perfect law-abiding citizen. who bends laws when it suits, but feels terrible when he crosses the line for something as simple as trespassing. he must cooperate in the investigation, his father texts him in the week running up to his questioning. no condolences offered for the fact someone he knows has died. it’s business as usual; a quick investigation. a quick verdict. his lordship’s name remaining uninvolved.
the interrogation room itself is oddly clinical, smelling like a strange mixture of disinfectant and stale sweat. both only mildly being disguised by the smell of le labo santal 33. as his nose crinkles at the atmosphere whilst waiting for the police officer, he almost wishes he’d given himself an extra spritz before leaving the house. he has a weak stomach at the best of times, let alone when he’s about to be questioned about a murder.
where were you on the night of october 13, 2019?
“i’m the president of the university's philosophy society. we were hosting a think and drink for the first years down at the golden goose.” the think and drink lysander had declined to even go to in favour of committing a crime, he thinks bitterly to himself. “i must have left at around 9:30... i bumped into octavia on the stairs. she told me that she was on her way to meet lysander,” but he trails off, realising very quickly that he doesn’t know how long he stayed at the event. the night had quickly disappeared into a flurry of shots, resentment at lysander’s decline of his invite taking hold in an alcohol-induced bliss. “i left the goose fairly early.” after throwing up in the bathroom. “maybe around an hour or so after we got there. a friend of mine, charlie holdsworth... he told me i could stay at his and he’d return to the pub to care for the first years as i had a terrible migraine.” more like the other boy had dragged kit quietly back to his dorm room a few minutes away on campus. had put up with him as he declared charlie his hero and had peppered kisses over his face, all before passing out in a matter of minutes.
what was your relationship with octavia preston?
“she is-” he starts, wincing as he realises he needs to correctly himself. “was my best-friend, lysander’s, girlfriend. she’s - she was.. two years below me, however, so we did not spend much time together until they began to date.” and even then he did his best to make her feel as unwelcome in his life as possible. a hindrance to his friendship with every new occasion lysander would reject his calls to hang out. “honestly, it did not seem as if we had many common interests.”
do you believe anyone would have any reason to hurt her? did she have any enemies?
“enemies?” kit repeats back in confusion. visions of mafia bosses come to his head right away, the kind of people who make enemies who go on to kill them. he resists the urge to snicker at the thought, hardly ever having pictured octavia as the type to be running some kind of underground organisation. “not that i know of.”
what was octavia preston like?
“she had this way about her. the kind of girl who commands attention without necessarily even asking for it,” it comes out a little more bitterly than he intends, especially considering he’d garnered a newfound respect for the girl over the past week. “she was always trying to include everyone if she thought they felt left out.” even if he’d never wanted her to. “a rather nice quality,” he supposes.
did you notice anything strange or different about her recently? anything we should know?
was it strange and different when she had held him so close to her in the week prior to her murder? consoling him as he sobbed freely into the material of her shirt, fingers soothingly combing through his hair as he spoke so openly to her that it had instantly eased the weight off his shoulders. when he’d never allowed someone to come so close, let alone his best-friend’s girlfriend who he had never felt that close to. he thinks it is. the kind of thing one may disclose if they’re not hiding demons of their own. “no. as i said, we were not particularly close.”
what did you think of her boyfriend, lysander griffith? did they seem happy together?
“lysander’s my best-friend.” although with how free and easy he’s being with his remarks, he wonders how long that will last. if he even wants it to with what he now thinks of the other boy. “he...” he licks his lips softly, his mind “ he has been acting strange and different recently. we have been friends since the start of university and recently he’s become more distant. withdrawn.” perhaps just the symptoms of someone caught up in the rush of a new relationship. or someone planning something like this. “we... well, i reached out to him on the night of her death and asked if he would also like to come along to the event but he told me he was unable to...” the text is still a sour note to him, particularly when he had then bumped into octavia on her way to meet him. as if lysander hadn’t even had the common decency in him anymore to be fully honest with him. “he was on his way to meet octavia instead,” it comes out so confidently he can almost convince himself of it. “they had argued quite a lot recently. sometimes when i would drop by to see him after class i would hear the muffled sounds of them disagreeing about something or another behind the door. it seemed rather heated for two people who allegedly love one another.”
did you ever think about harming octavia preston?
“no.” it’s the easiest and fastest answer to slip past his lips. “i would never even dream of it.”
SHE IS NOT A MESS. She will not be a fucking mess. Iskra Gill is not a fucking mess. She’s applied and reapplied her eyeliner and her lash-extend mascara thrice now, and yet she feels it’s not enough. She knows better than to attempt lipstick now, as she sits in this sterile, horrible room, as there’s no doubt in her mind that it’ll smudge, run, blur. She needs to be all hard lines and concrete answers now; all facts, all helpful, all together.
Later, she’ll find the time to be sick in the bathroom. Later, she’ll cry into her pillow. Later, she’ll rail, and scream, and mourn. But not now.
The detective seems to have little sympathy for her, but Iskra doesn’t want it. She sits straight in the metal chair and folds her hands in her lap, chipped-paint thumb nails digging into the flesh of her hand. She looks the detective in the eye, and doesn’t waver. She and Octavia never wavered.
where were you on the night of october 13, 2019?
"I was in my room,” she says, “studying. She was there for a little while, and I took a break. We talked. I smoked -- she didn’t. But I was in my room the whole night. I didn’t expect her to come back, but I was hoping she would. We had a few episodes of some... shitty reality television to watch. When she never came back, I just figured...” she shrugs, sniffing, willing the prickling heat behind her eyes away, “I figured she’d wanted to be alone. Because of the baby and all. I’d have been there for her, of course. She knows I would have been there for her.”
what was your relationship with octavia preston?
Iskra blinks once, twice. “Someone didn’t do their research,” she clips, “Octavia Preston is my --” she stutters, catching herself. For a moment, she considers correcting herself, but thinks better of it. “Octavia is my best friend.” Not ‘was’.
do you believe anyone would have any reason to hurt her? did she have any enemies?
This is a more difficult question. “She was... outspoken,” Iskra begins, “and wasn’t afraid to ruffle a few feathers. There were a number of people who disliked her because of it; all petty bullshit at the end of the day, I figured. I never imagined that any of the dumb things that we all squabble over everyday would get her...” a gulp, “killed. Leaked nudes, maybe. Rumors started, even more likely. But murder? They’d have had to have one hell of a reason to hate her.” She pauses, thinking. “The only thing that could have put a target on her was -- was -- the baby. Although it’s only a fucking psycho that would kill her over something like that.”
what was octavia preston like?
Her lips twitch. How does one answer a question such as this when feelings are so difficult to quantify? Iskra begins: “She was the brightest light in every room.” She pauses; that should be enough, but the detective seems dissatisfied. “What do you want me to say, huh?” her voice is, at once, far too loud, “How do you expect me to give you a fucking elevator pitch about my best friend when she’s getting cold in the other room? What -- you want her Tinder bio?”
She huffs; Iskra knows that they’re only doing their job, that she should be happy to help them, but it all feels so wrong, talking about her in such a clinical way. “She made friends wherever she went,” Iskra continues, though she finds she is unable to keep the edge from her voice, “She was vivacious, loud, funny. She seemed to half-dance everywhere she went, and had the uncanny ability to make everyone feel like they were the most important person in the room. She had her flaws, like we all do; she was a fucking teenaged girl -- I don’t know what you want me to say. But she was good. She had ambitions to rival my own, and that’s saying something. She couldn’t keep a secret to save her damn life, but she was too good at riddles and games to let anything slip. She was way too obsessed with shitty reality tv, and was convinced she’d go on The Bachelor one day. Her favorite drink was Pinot Grigio, and she was always the first to hold someone’s hair back if they were puking at a party. I could have learned something from her, I guess; she was always much warmer than I.”
The sun and the moon; and now the moon was left to drown.
“She made friends and frenemies like every other girl our age,” Iskra shakes her head, “She was my best friend. Is. I don’t know what you want me to say.”
did you notice anything strange or different about her recently? anything we should know?
"The baby,” she says at once, “I didn’t think she’d want to keep it. I was -- I was fully prepared to take her to the clinic, but I --” she sighs, catching herself indulging the hot prickling behind her eyes once more, “Until that night, I was the only one she’d told, I think. She was going to tell him -- Lysander -- that it was someone else’s.”
Someone else’s. She doesn’t think she should say his name. It feels damning to say so out loud, but truth will out; it would be better to tell the truth now, to help Octavia find the proper justice now, than see her rolling in her grave. And though she never thought of Lysander as the sort to resort to violence, does anyone really know anyone?
Absently, she adds, “But nothing other than that. She wouldn’t keep secrets from me.” Or so she hopes.
what did you think of her boyfriend, lysander griffith? did they seem happy together?
She wrinkles her nose, shakes her head. “I didn’t think of him much,” she admits, “He was... she was...” Iskra considers, “She was too good for him, I always thought. Seems like he knew it, too. Everyone knew it. He was nice enough, but he had issues. I’m not one to judge --” a filthy lie, “-- but I -- I did know that they had their issues. I mean, hell, if she could get pregnant with someone else’s baby, how happy could they really be?”
But she never pegged him as the violent type. And she says as much. “Given what’s been said about his family life, you’d think he’d have learned to do better,” she muses, “I’d have hoped he’d do better.”
did you ever think about harming octavia preston?
Her contemplative visage melts into one of contempt, her lips pulled harshly downward, her dark eyes piercing. At once, she thinks she might like to leap across the table and slap the inquisitive expression off the detective’s face, and use his spectacles as a mirror with which to reapply her makeup. In her lap, her hands shake -- with rage or sadness, she can’t quite decide.
“What a stupid fucking question,” she spits, all sense of decorum gone, “You noble fucking dog -- writing all this down? Paying attention? Of course I’d never hurt Octavia. What kind of game are you playing?”
At once, she stands, metal chair scraping across the hard concrete floor. It’s unwise to speak to a member of law enforcement this way, but she can hardly help it; nor can they blame her. She’s trembling, voice shrill, and again she can feel hot, unbidden tears prickling behind her eyes. But she refuses to cry -- even in front of this asshole. And so she juts her chin higher, tosses her hair over her shoulders, and gives a great huff.
“Now that you’ve gotten your obligatory accusatory questions out of the way, I hope you can get some real work done, and bring my best friend some goddamned justice. I’ll see myself out.”
ENOUGH NIGHTS HAVE BEEN SPENT LIKE THIS ... this being the pathetic way he’s crumbled up in that one corner of the massive expanse of his bed, sucking on his teeth because the bottle’s run dry and the high of the powder is wearing off. he can feel it, the tingling of his fingertips, the buzzing in his ears —— the ride back down to reality.
there’s another run around the rim of the empty bottle by his tongue, tasting a hint of that sweet, sweet release, though one that can never be heavy enough or all encompassing enough to pull his thoughts from the reason he pulls the liquor to his lips in the first place. none of it ever is.
and so all he can see is her. a flash of her hair, a whiff of her perfume, a glimpse of her hair sitting atop another’s lips. even now, she splays out next to him, glowing in white ( and ... red ?? ), with that perfect curve of her lips drawing out her cheeks. a hazy sight.
hallucinations are common in people mourning. the morning after his grandmother had visited him, it was the first thing he had searched up, but she hadn’t been cloaked in crimson, nor had she spoken to him. no, this was something much more disturbing, much more drenched in guilt. she ( or whatever perverted version of her his mind has conjured up ) turns her head, red coloring her forehead, dripping down her nose, her cheeks, staining his bed and her top. it’s a sight that forces the breath in his throat back, causes the grip on the bottle to tighten, causes cold to grip his chest like no other. but then, she speaks words more terrifying than this:
“i love lysander —— he would never hurt me.”
and then she vanishes, just like her. always needing the last word.
it’s how he knows she’s real, how he knows she’s truly there, because any version of her his mind could throw together would never be able to speak words of that nature unrelated to him. it’d be so simple if she were here. he’d tell her he knew she would speak of those words to anger him, and she’d allow her lips to fall into that coy smile he knew so well before she continued to use cheap words to give rise to jealousy, like a routine.
but she’s no longer with him, and he doesn’t get the comfort of knowing he’s alone.
the night liam finally committed to his move into escalus house after a semester of flitting between hotels in the city was not proving to be an easy one.
it was one of those nights where it was just impossible to get to sleep for more than two minutes at a time, two minutes he’d sacrifice forty minutes of tossing and turning to grab hold of. after the first two hours of getting tangled in his sheets trying to find a position his brain would deem comfortable enough, he’d staggered out of bed and rummaged in his boxes to finally pull out an unopened bottle of whiskey, which he’d made no hesitation in downing, figuring the stronger the nightcap the better - but still, whenever he’d been able to actually nod off, he’d quickly find himself awake once more, scrambling to check the time on his phone, only to be disappointed when he found only ten minutes had passed since the last trial.
finally, though, after uncomfortably drifting off to the sound of wind much-more-comfortably whistling against the glass window, he woke to silence - he woke to light. if he hadn’t suddenly felt the urge to, once again, check his phone, he wouldn’t have kept his eyes open for more than a few seconds - but before he had the chance to confirm his suspicion it was about five, he saw her.
she was stood leaning against the doorframe, the door the doorframe itself framed only a third open - still letting in enough light to illuminate her. at least, that’s what he supposed was causing the glow around her edges, the softness she seemed to have against her backdrop. she was looking at, no, watching him, her head on a three quarter angle - she seemed to be making some sort of a judgement, at first, but the look she was giving him was one he knew all to well - it was fondness.
she was were she belonged, he felt that in his gut - but when he tried to greet her, had the slightest notion to just give her a tired goodmorning, but he couldn’t open his mouth.
she didn’t seem to need him to talk, however - in fact, it seemed like she was already listening, or saying something herself - she was in conversation, and somehow, he felt like he was too, but he was far, far away from it - but it was him.
instead of speaking, he finally decided to try and sit up, but whenever he went to move it felt like his whole body was running on sand, or through water, it was bogged down, he just couldn’t. except he could - somehow, there he was, he was sitting, and as he realised he was the sun moved up just ever so slightly, illuminating the room just the tiniest bit more - there, with a shine reflecting right into his eyes, photos on his desk of people he knew, of course he knew them, they were his friends, and next to them, books piled up that he’d read, but he’d been meaning to return them to the library for a while now, he had to get someone to remind him, through the crack in the door he could see paintings he knew were valentines - and then, stood against the doorframe, was her.
she’d always been there. he’d invited her to be, after all, and she always got up before he did.
it was only then he spotted, just as he turned her head, that still silhouetted was something of a spike, or a clump - too solid to be a knot, surely, but not like any sort of hair accessory he’d ever seen before. a painstaking wade through thick air was what it took to furrow his eyebrows slightly, glance from it to her - but after a moment’s apparent confusion, she seemed to realise what he was looking at. quickly, she flashed him a smile, raised a hand to it, and when she pulled it away, her fingertips were coated in something far, far darker than she seemed to be.
it started in the roof of his mouth, the bitterness, the coppery bitterness, unmistakable - he couldn’t smell it, but he could taste it, the blood. that’s what it had been, and now, with her head fully turned, he could see it, dripping down her forehead, down her neck, down into her shirt, it had been there the whole time, how could he have not seen it - he tried to open his mouth, he knew he could, but he also knew if he did, he’d be sick.
slowly, she starts to come towards him, but she doesn’t seem to walk - it’s not really a glide, though, either. he’d get up to verify just what the movement was, also likely to sprint out, but once more, he can’t move, not a muscle. all he wants to do is ask if she’s okay - no, no he doesn’t, he wants to shout for someone, he wants to leave.
all he knows for sure is that now, she’s sitting herself down on the edge of the bed, a small smile on her face. that softness, it’s still there, but now there’s something of a challenge to it as well, he knows that glint in her eyes - not from her, but from himself, reflected back in the eyes of others. he doesn’t want a challenge now, though. his only want, he thinks, is simple - he wants to know what the fuck’s happening.
as usual, she seems to know that - and suddenly, there’s noise. she’s been talking all the while, but it hasn’t been his conversation, how the fuck could he think it was his conversation - now, though, it’s his, she’s focused on him, not him. she doesn’t need to tell him to listen - nothing in the world, he thinks, could make him look away now.
“the truth,” she starts, “is in a box under a bed -” and then, although he expects, hopes, needs her to explain, she just shrugs, “- pretty weak hiding place, if you ask me.”
he drops.
like in the short dreams, but not in the uncomfortable sense, the ones you have before the proper dream, where you’re sliding down a ramp and you’re falling into some void and then you hit your bed, and then you can go back to sleep in the comfort it won’t happen again - but he hadn’t been sliding down a ramp, he hadn’t fallen into a void, he had been in his room, he’d been with her.
except he hadn’t.
it’s funny how things just make sense in dreams - because now he’s awake, actually awake, he can see that wasn’t his room. sure, there was that chip on the side of the windowframe, and the way the light hit was identical to the way it is now - but his bed doesn’t face the door. he doesn’t have photos or books piled up on a desk - he doesn’t even have a desk yet. the paintings he could see out through the door - he’s never seen them in his life, he has no idea if they’re the kind of thing his new roommate would like, not yet, anyway - and her.
