#scribbler yaps

There's no real folkloric basis for Marina's ritual, other than "what sounds moderately terrifying" and "the Pine Barrens are creepy as fuck".

"he's not the only monster they breed where I'm from" is a nod to New Jersey's history of horror movies, most notably the Friday the 13th franchise.

"Places that don't belong to anyone-" New Jersey has spent most of its existence being defined by the larger states it sits between, and more specifically the massive cultural centers of New York and Philadelphia.  North Jersey aligns more closely with NYC, South Jersey (hi Marina) aligns more with Philadelphia, and Central Jersey is slightly more mythical than the Jersey Devil.

"Can't grow virtue from poisoned soil-" there are a lot of jokes about New Jersey being a polluted mess despite being nicknamed the Garden State.  Those are mostly about North Jersey, so I leave it to the reader to decide whether that's an indicator of Marina's deteriorating mental state or an indicator that your writer is more familiar with North Jersey.

There are a couple of places where I regret accidentally slipping into Saniya's perspective.  That camera has to stay tight on Marina, and I didn't succeed at that.

Because the camera staying tight on Marina hides that Saniya's been thinking, and preparing, and realizing that things have to come to a head before she can act, because it's too late to nip this in the bud.  It hides that Saniya's working out how to break whatever it is that has Marina in its clutches.

(Which: I admit to not fully conceptualizing the nature of the beast.  In my head, it's an external force that has latched onto Marina and feeds off her mixed feelings about how she feels about Saniya.  Because, yeah, there is a lot to unpack there: the age gap that's decently significant at that age, the fear of taking advantage of Saniya while she's grieving, the potential of fucking things up for the team, the culture clash of a white girl from Jersey and a Black girl from North Carolina, and oh yes, the fact that this would apparently be Marina's first same-sex relationship.  If the rumor boards were wrong about that, a lot of this fic gets invalidated, so I'm going with that interpretation of events.  But there's a lot of mixed feelings that are getting fed on and twisted by that devil, or demon, or beast, or whatever you want to call it.)

"Let me do my work."  Saniya's not just talking about the cooking, although the cooking is part of it.  In a 'verse where myths are true and folk magic is a thing even if it's not, like, actively considered to be real, these are the kinds of things a Southern daughter might learn from her mother: what songs and prayers might drive out a possessing spirit, which herbs are meant to exorcise or purify, how to undo someone else's conjure.  "Taught me how to lift what I could."

So all the ingredients Marina recognizes are there for a reason.  The lavender in the tea was supposed to help calm Marina, and the thing she didn't recognize was mugwort, which is supposed to encourage lucid dreaming, and, uh, that might have worked a little too well.

(Marina was under the impression that Saniya was not going to have Thoughts about seeing her in black silk lingerie.)

(Saniya very much had Thoughts about Marina in black silk lingerie.  Loudly.)

(Marina is kind of stupid right now.)

The words fall like a bridge with one anchor- shoutout to i think about you and nothing else, fucking amazing fic. 2nd person is usually my sworn enemy, but that fic needs to be in 2nd person.  Go read it if you haven't already.

If Saniya agreed with Marina's point of view, she wouldn't have let the fire go out, or she would have left the lighter.  She only barred the door to keep Marina from doing something stupid while she was off getting the water.

If we still had the WNBA Guide and Register, Saniya would have been throwing full name ultimatums out there.

Why yes that was a bridal carry over the threshold, Niya knows exactly what she's doing even if she's a smidgen distracted by Marina in black silk lingerie again.

I really wanted to work with the water imagery a lot, because it's something they have in common.  Marina's from the Jersey Shore, Saniya's from a seaport city on a river.  It's even in their names.  Thus the three rounds of washing (but also because three is a magic number): water from the sea, water from the river, water from where they meet.  Salt is especially good against supernatural things, especially in the Carolinas.

If there is an excuse for me to make a pun off name etymology, I will find it.  While doing that with African-American names can be challenging, I chose to link Saniya back to the Arabic name Sani, which means "brilliant, splendid".

Also v. proud of describing how Marina thinks, or doesn't think, about her body depending on where she is mentally.

"I'm undoing a thing done too long ago to unpick easily," Saniya tells her.

And that's the heart of everything Niya is doing: undoing and reversing the ritual that has strengthened the hold that the thing has on Marina, because it's fueled by belief... and at this point it's not just Marina's belief.  Saniya's been knotted into it too, with every repetition, with every affirmation of Marina's belief.  So she has to undo it.  Out of the dark and into the light; a gentle touch with water instead of the burning touch of fire; rough cotton instead of smooth silk, and Saniya is also careful not to wrap her in it at any time, to instead swipe it outward; wind instead of stone; oak and ash (which are both associated with protection) instead of the pines that Marina associates with the devil.

And one other thing.  The very first thing Marina does in the fic.  she hurled a pouch at her rookie like a blessing

Saniya didn't really have a choice in accepting it.  If she'd given it back during training camp... man, I don't know, Marina would probably have spiraled herself into the Thames River.  But by accepting it, Saniya started the process of being involved in this flavor of Mabrey Bullshit.  So to balance things, Saniya has to offer her something, and Marina has to make the decision.

@b1lezy brought up the point of "where the heck could Saniya hide anything in her hair".  The Doylist answer is that I keep thinking of her with the two long braids, not the short ones, where you could tape or stick a feather without too much trouble, and since she's butt-ass naked at this point, there's really nowhere she could be hiding that feather where pulling it out would help the situation.  The Watsonian answer is either "magic" or "Marina is too busy spiraling to notice this shit".

I enjoyed flipping the script and having Saniya be the one losing control for once.  Still possessive, though.

No, they are not getting married at a 24-hour tattoo parlor and chapel in Vegas by a Prince impersonator.

btw

"Kelsey screams at ghosts she can hear but not see."

And they lived happily ever after, the ghosts say in the angels' city to the one who screams at them without seeing them

The other two references in the bookends are spoilers, eventually.  :)

Soundtrack:

"Solitude Standing", Suzanne Vega

"Run Daddy Run", Miranda Lambert

"Lion's Mane", Iron & Wine

Quick notes on the bad ending: dear brain, why are you like this, I don't even remember why I felt this needed to happen but it wouldn't go away.  Debated the merits of Niya locking herself in the cabin with Marina, but then who buries the ashes?  Debated the merits of Niya going "aiite bet" and just letting Marina set herself on fire, and this is why Niya needs to not be stupid in her comments section.

Those eyes aren't hazel, aren't catching the sunlight and reflecting it back in warm gold and brown. Hi favorite, I was misremembering a line from this fic when I wrote this.

The possessive as distancing tool is one of my favorite writing tricks when writing a character who is not themself, where something else is pulling the strings.  Marina's body, not Marina.  Marina's voice, not Marina says.