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HobbitSpaceCase on ao3. They/them.

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"If You're Dead At The End Of The Story, Were You Dead From The Beginning?"

"If you're dead at the end of the story, were you dead from the beginning?"

No. You were alive in the middle, and the things that mattered to you mattered even if they stopped mattering when you weren't there to care about them any more. That's why there are so many stories and philosophies and religions and art all obsessed with discovering the meaning of life while we're still here to discover it. The meaning in your life is whatever meaning you give to it, though, because we're all dead at the end of our story. We're all temporary, we're all staring down an ending that's already written in stone, but that doesn't mean we don't matter while we're here.

[Text description:

Someone has to leave first. This is a very old story. There is no other version of this story.

END]

Richard Siken, the worm king’s lullaby; from “War Of Foxes”

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[ID: Tumblr user @slowwshoww writes:

suzanne collins killing prim after everything katniss did to save her………. THATS how you write a story about the brutality and futility of war ma'am thats what we call a compelling and fucked up narrative yessums thats storytelling babes!!!!

Tumblr user @books—and-cleverness adds a quote from an interview with the author of the book:

« That was one of the first questions I asked her when we sat down: ‘Did you always know that [Prim] was going to die?’ And she said, ‘Oh yeah, of course, that’s the whole point.’ » (x)

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[ID: Tumblr user @orpheuslament:

i love tragedy i love circular narratives i love ppl who cannot escape their fate & characters that have been dead since the beginning

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[ID: Tumblr user @faustandfurious:

the worst fictional deaths are actually the ones you see coming, where there is enough foreshadowing that you have time to hope, against all odds, that the character will survive, even as you realise that there’s no way out this time, they’re not going to make it, this was always how it was going to end.

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[Text description:

Do you still believe myths

can save you? Foolish creature

Let me be clear: every version of this story

Ends with you being slaughtered.

END]

Tory Adkisson, Anecdote of the Pig

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[ID: Tumblr user @sawasawako:

if you’re dead at the end of the story were you dead from the beginning. oh emily brontë we’re really in it now

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[Text description:

This was always going to happen. She’s been dead from the beginning.

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Aeschylus, The Oresteia

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[Text description:

This is why people cry at the movies: because everybody’s doomed. No one in a movie can help themselves in any way. Their fate has already staked its claim on them from the moment they appear onscreen.

END]

John Darnielle, Wolf in White Van

"If You're Dead At The End Of The Story, Were You Dead From The Beginning?"

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