The primary linking quotes aren't indented by dashes. Things with no parens are recent, whether they're indented or whatever. ---Derivative or related quotes are definitely indented. (Things enclosed in parens are from the shared dream from May 2002.) [Things in square brackets are from flashback narration.] {Things in curly brackets are editor's notes.} ------------------------------------------------- Thematic quote linking: ------------------------------------------------- (There is a monster at the end of this story. Nothing could keep you from turning the pages before, and you can't close the book now.) {Ed. note: Not my fault. The Crimson King offered me good coffee.} (But you will have to learn how to look. How to listen.) ---Kess said Claire said we should see it, it's right in front of us. ---It's just... most people don't know what the picture's supposed to be. ---Can't waking-dream so well. Need the lateral, though. 'N' use Claire-eyes. ---(Sometimes the dream-item's purpose may be clear from its identity - at other times it may be occulted because of the randomness.) ---(That's the trouble with trying to see things through her eyes. It's difficult to see something you're a part of.) ---I couldn't show them. They wouldn't /see/. ---It's a question of figuring out the right context and referents, that's all. Seeing things the right way. (All images, all visuals and metaphors and it's like a big fucking allegory...) ---Writing on the wall. It's all metaphor and symbolism. (And we won't really be separated, anyhow; we're carrying each other's name.) ---And just as many Katherines... ---Do you know her name? -I think it was Katie. --Not /that/ Katie. Good. ---And now from virtue, vice. ---No words might capture virtues dear, ---(Unless you find Innocence again, before Rage and Hatred... Not even Love will save you.) ---I don't know - Katie, or Katherine, isn't it? Hope. Katherine Hope Kowalski. (She's a sculptor, Kitty, she's literally a sculptor, not just with her phantasms. It's all images in her head, isn't it?) ---Solipsism is a theory in which you are the most powerful thing in the world. ---Solipsism. That's a reversed view on it - from the perspective of the solipsist. The way others'd see it's a bit more like...mm. The entire world exists in the mind of the person in question. If she doesn't see it, it's not there. Even if she sees it, it might not be, touching it's better. If it's not within her immediate perception, what her senses can get at, her /world/, right? If it's not, then it simply doesn't exist. Problem is, not everyone shares the same dream. And she isn't dreaming all the time, even if she thinks she is. ---(Things in the dream-world are experienced as things in the waking world - therefore they are representative of something.) ---(I don't have to touch you at all.) ---Everything means a lot to you. ---(Dream! The world submits to confusion... Bloomed a sword of flowers. The blade of love judges the world's fate.) ---[She tried to create God.] ---[What makes a person real?] (We need to find the break.) ---Wherever there is God, there's love; wherever love, is God. ---Not quite the same. Lingering things and different... times and reaches and... holds. ---Who's alone, Claire? Who's so alone and broken? ---(To all who stand on empty shores and spit against the wind, and those who wait forever for ships that don't come in!) ---What's he doing, trying to break himself? (The answers are only sometimes as important as the questions.) ---(The question is, how much are you prepared to sacrifice this time? Do you really understand what the stakes are?) ---Are her vices stealing the virtues? {Ed. note: I think I asked it incorrectly.} ---(What about you? What are you looking for?) ---(The stars have shifted, and some are falling, broken, to hiss out on the water near the horizon. "All their eyes, looking at you. Couldn't you see the accusation on their faces? What do you think /they're/ looking for?") (/Not/ a plague? You'll have to ask him, then... What /he/ did, to Love.) ---Another chance. You'll have it, John. Another chance, and Jack may not pull you away from the hunger this time. Just remember that you make her happy. ---[How /ever/ did Seravina manage to sculpt John... with wings and innocence?] ---(Dream! The world submits to confusion... Bloomed a sword of flowers. The blade of love judges the world's fate.) ---(Unless you find Innocence again, before Rage and Hatred... Not even Love will save you.) ---(H.M.S. Plague Ship Constantine. "I almost bought a ticket to ride.") ---(Love is /not/ despair. Open up and let us in.) ---And sometimes... it's just as simple as 'This boy likes that girl'. Just.. be careful what you're looking for. ------------------------------------------------- Conversations and what are possibly chronologically disjointed ones: ------------------------------------------------- Jack: Something's not right. Someone please tell me what it is? Claire: The one thing they all have in common. ------- Jack: So it's all connected, then? Claire: Isn't it always? When the chains are at your throat, they're connected to /something/... aren't they? Sera-Thing: When you've got a collar on, who do you think is holding the chains? -------- Claire: Everything. Ceilidh, slitting her wrists in the bathtub. Kitty watching Pete die in her own arms. Seishi's blood on Holmes's hands. The staircase at Newcastle. The little girl and the red balloon. Ethan. Christ's last words on the cross. Buddha's wisdom. It all fits. Claire: They fit. They've little swooshes on the side! They look like bloodsmears. Pete: It's all right, they're nothing like bloodsmears. Supposed to look like speed, I think. Claire: They're Hermes' wings. Fleet of foot. ------- Constantine: I haven't a clue where she is. Something's wrong. Missing. Claire: One by one by one by one. Almost like Yulaw. An elimination. And now we trade virtue... for vice. Pete: Are her vices stealing the virtues? Claire: Heavens, no. They /missed/ something. One by one by one by one by one by process of elimination. Down and down and down. Explosions. Old age. Disease. Suicide. Away and away until there's just one left. One is the loneliest number. One and one and one and one. How does that make four? How does that /NOT/ make four? ------- Claire: Kid gloves and a fan. And Maryann's never there. Jack: Nothing's impossible, only impassable. Pete: Don't eat anything that tells you to.