#my mother had propagated [relationship]

[whosbyun]

TAMAR I DO SACRO IMPÉRIO HENOSIANO TAGS

#my mother had propagated [relationship] #love conquers all [relationship] #when i look at you i see death [relationship] #power comes with a price [musings]

[ddarker-dreams]

Nexus V.

Yandere Blade x F Reader.

Warnings: Yandere themes, unhealthy relationships, possessive behavior, codependency o'clock, implied/mentioned not SFW, coercion and mommy issues. Word count: 10.1k.

Nexus index.

Time is a way to measure reality. 

It allows the woefully inadequate mind of a sentient being to process a sliver of something greater. The senses are a sieve that retains what little they can of the universe’s riptide. Considering this, it’s no wonder the Aeons tend to keep to themselves. How long would you entertain the whims of a speck of dust? You’d gain nothing from it. The dust cannot understand, it lacks the means to properly perceive you. It simply wishes to find a nice, comfortable spot to occupy its days. It can loathe, revere, or fear you, it matters not; for in the end, it’s nothing but a speck of dust. 

So why do the Aeons occasionally make themselves known? What do they stand to gain? Further power, enlightenment, entertainment? 

They should’ve just kept wading through the stellar sea. 

Specks of dust shouldn’t be allowed to wield even an ounce of their power. 

All it does is let them destroy themselves and others in new, horrific ways. 

The white rings around your mother’s pupils shine. 

She subjects Kafka and Blade to concurrent curses. Cutting, snipping, trimming; their psyches are flayed one layer at a time. How she does so rivals a butcher preparing a tender cut more than a doctor performing a delicate surgery. Inky blots propagate along Blade’s vision. From this limited perspective, you can’t determine Kafka’s condition. Not that it would matter, you can barely comprehend what Blade’s going through. 

Mother has to be forming a link, right?

Ideally, both parties consent to a link’s formation. This grants stability and lowers the chances of complications. An unwelcome link is treated with the same hostility as an immune system that’s noticed a germ. It’s sought out, identified, then exterminated. The host may suffer malaise for a time, but if their body is in working order, the problem will sort itself out. 

There has to be more to this, you surmise. Mom, please, don’t let this be the end. You can’t. Not you. 

The disease inflicted on Blade metastasizes; Kafka is likely facing a similar predicament. Memories swarm around him like locusts, buzzing and biting. 

The Zhuming is the womb from which divine weapons are born. It is the warden to the subdued Flint Emperor, whose flames once burned hot enough to rival the stars. These flames will one day exterminate the rampant borisin, the young boy is certain. Whether it be in his lifetime or not doesn’t matter. No child deserves to be made an orphan. He can’t undo what’s been done to him, but he can help prevent it from happening to others. 

“If you believe you are up to the task, I will take you on as my apprentice. What you do with the knowledge I impart is your decision.” 

This Foxian lady sent to retrieve support for the fight against the borisin loves to chat. There’s rarely an instance where a grin can’t be found on her face, wide enough that her eyes must squish to accommodate her exuberance. 

“Just focus on what you want to do, and let fate take its course."

Those who belong to the short-life species cannot grasp a nebulous concept such as ‘fate.’ This sentiment is commonly found among his fellow Artisanship Commission members. It doesn’t deter him — if anything, his resolve is strengthened. His life won’t be as long as theirs, but it will burn hot and bright before it extinguishes. 

“The borisins must pay the price for their evil.” 

One day, a lady with long, silver hair, who has conquered the moon and brought it to heel, approaches him. The air around here is crisp, contrasting the sweltering air of the Zhuming. She reminds him of the winters he experienced on his home planet. He had forgotten how frost stings. 

“A talent such as yours shouldn’t be left to drown amidst a mediocre sea. After this visit, I’m bound for the Loufu. A seat will be made available for you. Come and reach your full potential, or, languish here where your accolades will fade from history’s recollection.” 

The Shard Sword, Starfall Reverie, Cloud-Piercer, and Baiheng’s recurve bow were no longer what he treasured most. Those monumental accomplishments don’t enrich lives, it ends them. Standing here, where the ocean’s blue is more brilliant than the artificial sky, is where he’s found something akin to peace. The Scalegorge Waterscape has become a gathering place for friends. Laughter, sparring, and the burning of liquor are shared beneath the moon’s watchful eye. 

He raises a cup to his lips and silently wishes this joy could last forever. 

“Do you remember?”

This voice interrogated him unceasingly for answers they both knew he couldn’t give. Again and again, he’d undergo a punishment disguised as a lesson. Frost didn’t just sting, it imparted necrosis, yet what is decomposition to an immortal but a joke? Again and again, his flesh would be pierced, organs punctured with expert execution. His body wasn’t allowed the privilege to rot. 

Again and again, he’d be swallowed by death, only to be spat back up, as it’s unable to digest him. 

"Listen, I can always kill you again, otherwise I can't bring you back."

What he thought to be prey standing in his way turned out to be apex predators. A woman who could render him useless with her words alone and a suit of armor that reflected the sun in his weary eyes. He had to get his fill of death before considering her offer. It sounded too good to be true, but he was reminded that the universe has enough instruments to perform the threnody he so desperately wishes to hear. 

“Having trouble settling on a gift? Hm… I suppose that’s to be expected. Any off-world flora you leave behind will shrivel beneath the planet’s atmosphere, unless it possesses special qualities. It’d be a bad omen to give her a lotus that can wilt. Why not try a different approach?”

He stands solitary on the cragged terrain around the LOTUS-EATER. Though she’ll soon emerge to gaze up at the starless sky, his wait won’t end there. It’ll bleed into the next day, then the day after that, on and on the cycle will spin. Destiny’s Slave promised this vortex would end so long as he remained patient. Once he fully bows down before her, damnation will be her crown. The weight of his burden is to be shared by two. 

He considers the iridescent crystals in his bandaged hands. 

He thought the joy he found in creation died the same day ▇▇▇▇▇ did. 

This emotion’s resurrection, however…

… If it’s a sin, then what’s another addition to his list? 

“Listen, Blade, snap out of it.”

The swarm falls silent. 

Bright screens, the thrum of the oxygen generator, sterile colors. Kafka towers over him, implying that he’s fallen to the ground. Her complexion lacks its usual glow. While Blade stands, she reaches inside her jacket and pulls out a portable blush. She dusts the rosy powder over her cheeks. 

“That was unpleasant,” Kafka sighs. She snaps the container shut. “I guess that’s to be expected from one of Noct’s Emanators. It seems you bore the brunt of it, though.” 

Mom, an Emanator? You think. Maybe… maybe that means she had a chance to get away. This was a diversion that she used to go into hiding. Faking a corpse is within their skillset, Silver Wolf can hack reality itself. I only looked at it long enough to confirm her identity. 

Blade places a hand on his throbbing head and grimaces. His vision alternates between different degrees of blurriness. Kafka’s positioned in front of him, which prevents you from seeing the area your mother occupied. You pray to anything that might listen for her to fucking move already.

“That trip down memory lane was a red herring,” Kafka says. “She bought herself enough time to complete her real objective.” 

Even Kafka thinks so! 

Instead of explaining further, she leisurely reaches for her lipstick. Your frustration boils over. You aren’t the only one feeling impatient. Blade hasn’t uttered a word, but his typical apathy ebbs and flows irregularly. Kafka hums a tune as she smears the rouge pigment along her puckered lips. This whimsical attitude shows no signs of tapering off. 

Blade exhales sharply, belying his annoyance. He’s near his limit as well.

Kafka clicks her tongue. “Don’t be so impatient, you two. I’m dolling myself up.” 

…‘You two?’

“Yes. Now, let me assess the damage,” Kafka switches from looking at Blade to inspecting his psyche. She gasps, playing the role of a melodramatic damsel perfectly. “Oh my. Ania did a number on you.” 

This woman is insufferable, always playing coy. I swear, the next time I see her—

“Your memories of [First] Phaeales, the visceral emotions she stirs up in you; they’re growing fuzzier by the second, I presume? In an hour or so, they’ll be gone altogether. Hmm… ‘gone’ might not be the best word to describe it. Sealed away might be more appropriate.” 

A premonition too cruel to put into words coils around you. 

No, no, no. 

“Can you fix it?” Blade strains. The hypothetical Kafka suggested encourages his mara to writhe and hiss in dissatisfaction. It crawls around his head, murmurs near his cochlea in a scratchy voice, demanding a quick fix. To be deprived of you is unacceptable, it insists. This sentencing must be overturned. It wants you, needs you and will destroy anything to have you. Himself included. 

Pandemonium wreaks havoc inside his head, it’s like he barely exists. The warring influences rip away as if drawing and quartering him. 

“I can’t, no. It’s beyond my abilities,” Kafka’s smile is all teeth. “Fortunately, I do know of someone who can undo it.” 

His mara hushes so it may hear her out. 

“Contact them,” he snaps. 

“You’d get all bashful if I did. Besides, I don’t think she’d do a very thorough job if she knew the context.” 

Kafka stares Blade in the eye and tilts her head like she’s posing for the camera. “Isn’t that right, Miss Phaeales?” 

You think you might be living in a nightmare. 

Please, no…

Blade’s heart lurches inside his chest at your mention. 

“Listen, Bladie. Until [First] Phaeales undoes her mother’s seal, you’ll be unable to remember the past twenty-four hours. The second the seal is undone, this memory, on June 8th, 2153 AE, starting from Eris’ local time of 0223 and concluding at 0214, will resurface in your consciousness. It will play for her so she’s fully caught up.” 

How could something this awful… ever happen…? 

The edges of the memory fade and curl inward like burning paper. 

“I’ll throw in some advice, just for you, sweetie. He’s bound to get tongue-tied around you, so remember to be patient,” Kafka’s suggestion is muffled. “Oh, and another thing. You might want to get a headstart while you can.” 

… 

You can’t breathe. 

The room performs for you, rippling side to side, hypnotizing as a pocket watch. A white blur whirrs by. Clink, clink, clink, it crashes, spurting its innards in a splatter of red and glimmering gold. The sound itself seems delayed, echoing a moment too late. It isn’t in time with the opal shards that scatter like teeth along the polished floor. The deluge is offbeat, dissonant, yet the song continues.

You can’t breathe. 

The percussion is ousted, making way for the woodwind section. The flutes raise and raise in pitch. This tocsin sounds shrill and consistent, stabbing your eardrums, and vibrating your bones. Dizziness makes for a distracting audience member, its dry, unblinking eyes landing on you. It opens its maw impossibly wide, tearing the tendons around its cracked lips, and swallows your head. For some reason, it cannot go past your neck, so it contents itself with gorging on your cranium like it’s sucking candy. 

You can’t breathe. 

There’s something living inside your throat. A parasite, leech, or slug, maybe. It wriggles back up whenever you try swallowing, like jello on a wobbling plate. The tiny hairs along its gelatinous body tickle your esophagus. You’re always on the precipice of choking, but not quite. It delights in the warm and moist cavern you’ve provided. 

You can’t die because it wants more from you. 

You can’t be reduced to a husk because your vitality sustains it. 

You can’t breathe, you can’t breathe, you can’t breathe—

Something awful touches your skin and you want to burn the residue it leaves behind. 

“[First].” 

You scramble back until your spine hits a cold, solid surface. A hand retracts. 

What is this thing before you? It’s tall and has eyes like vats of blood. You see your reflection held captive inside the crimson miasma. The woman it shows resembles you in some ways and doesn’t in others. She looks afraid. Sickly. Lost somewhere between the junction of life and death. Traipsing, testing the fraying line’s integrity. One wrong step guarantees a plummet to inconceivable depths. 

“[First].” 

“Don’t,” you rasp, your voice wobbling like a transmission with a poor signal, “Don’t you fucking dare come near me!” 

He listens. For now, at least. You’d be a fool to mistake stalling for surrender. You press your back into the wall hard enough to ache. The enclosed space seemingly shrinks around you. You press a trembling hand over your heart, feeling how it hammers against your chest cavity. The room’s air is stifling. Your sympathetic nervous system can’t decide its course of action. Should the little oxygen you’re inhaling go to your brain or your heart? Delegation is a tricky endeavor. 

Blade’s gaze eats you alive.

He’s starving and you’re the only thing that can fill him.

The manifestation of his mara frightened you less. 

 Mom, what have I done? What can I do? 

“You should sit,” he says. You want to rip his vocal cords to shreds. “There’s nowhere to run and you know better than to fight.”

As if he had to remind you. 

The Shard Sword. So that’s the name of the terror he wields? You’ve read about it in history books, there are entire chapters dedicated to the High-Cloud Quintet’s exploits. Even if he were unarmed, you wouldn’t stand a chance. Any flesh wound will heal, any organ will stitch itself back together, and any death will be a temporary visit he’ll saunter back from.

Blade takes a step closer.

How do you get out of this? How do you get him to stop? What would get him to stop? 

What could he possibly want more than you? 

Oh.

The answer unfurls like a body bag. 

… There is one more thing, isn’t there? 

You thread your psyches together with a thin string. It’s too weak in its present state, the weight of your goal will make it snap instantly. You need to fortify it as best as you can. Otherwise, there is no place you can go where he won’t find you. The prismatic shards that record his history are no longer indecipherable, each moment is visible to you, forming a macabre mosaic. 

The second you finalize this link, he’ll know. Your touch isn’t a stranger to his mind anymore. Nothing about you is. 

You recall the shattered opal goblet a few feet away. 

You let your knees buckle like they’ve desired all along. You fall toward the jagged shards and you brace yourself. It happens as swiftly as you expected — his inhuman speed allows him to catch you easily. He steadies you against him, holding you up since the strength leaving your body wasn’t an act. 

Your hand brushes over a sliver of his skin. 

You wanted me to show you what it’s like to die, you think. It isn’t beyond my means at all, Yingxing!

The Synalink is a success. 

He might want you, but his longing for a permanent death eclipses that. 

This is a scenario unlike any you’ve ever built before. The dimensions are simple, you’re creating one static scene. It isn’t a vast galaxy with trade, economies, and conflicting ideals, teeming with planets that house millions of individuals who each have their own role in the story to play. Grass doesn’t have to blow just right, there aren’t bystanders whose conversations you need to generate and perform maintenance on. 

The stage you’ve built is, at its core, nothing. A vacuum you’ve molded into a cube and placed him in the middle of. 

You’ve cut off stimuli to each of his senses. He can’t perceive anything, because there’s nothing to perceive. 

His psyche shows no signs of resistance. This is what he wants, isn’t it? Total absolution. The loss of self, to be undone and woven into the universe’s indifferent tapestry. Every factor has aligned in your favor like a once-in-a-millennium syzygy. Your newfound knowledge of his past, his most innate desire being death, then the amplification physical touch brings. 

This isn’t an unknown pathogen, it’s a welcome salvation. 

You just have to maintain it. 

Your main hurdle is finding a way to do so while navigating the physical world. The slightest deviation could have catastrophic consequences, his acumen is that competent. How long can you sustain this Synalink if you don’t dedicate your entire attention to it? There’s no point of reference. For all you know, it could be impossible. 

Regardless, you have to try. 

Reopening your corporeal eyes, you find yourself in the private room. 

The Stellaron Hunter, who uses the alias ‘Blade,’ stands behind you like a cocked gun. 

He isn’t moving. The white rings in his eyes match yours. His vitals are consistent with what you see in clients immersed in Synalinks. Low respiration and heartbeat, and the paralysis of limbs so as to deter unwanted motor functions.

You hold your breath, shimmy out of his loosened grasp, and then cautiously take a step back.

Your heels crunch down on a stray fragment from the broken goblet. You cringe.

You expect the worst when you gather the courage to look at him again. 

Still nothing. 

Keeping your back against the wall, you awkwardly slide toward the door leading to The Lounge. 

The burning question of what to do next sears your mind. You have no faith or trust in Chrysus. There’s Caicias, but he’s in Mele. The fastest nectar guide would still take two hours, factoring in the repairs being done to the one in Thelx. Even if he did make it here, what could he do? Help you negotiate? Would Blade even give him the chance? You’d be condemning the elder quadrant leader to certain death. 

Who is in your star system? You’ve heard that the Astral Express has had run-ins with the Stellaron Hunters, but they could be millions of light-years away. Then there’s Kafka. If she goes too long without hearing from Blade, she won’t just sit around and let you scheme. Silver Wolf could hack into the LOTUS-EATER’s surveillance system or use thermal imaging to gauge the situation. 

The price of hope is too steep. 

Your fingers grope blindly for the door’s switch. You refuse to take your attention off Blade for a split second. You feel a protrusion, start to flick it up—

Sparks fly from the wall like frantic fireflies, joined by chunks of dark debris. Strands of your hair blow aside as if subject to a wicked gale. Sediment scratches at your skin. Out of instinct, your eyes squeeze shut, shielding you from what they can. A figure towers above you. You can’t see him, but you can feel him. The torment, bloodlust, and yearning are so prevalent that they may as well be in the room alongside you. 

Through a looking glass, you saw the reflections of a wretched life.

How he fell victim to a friend unwilling to accept a comrade’s untimely demise. That for this incursion, death would never grant him permanent residency. Over a thousand times, a swordmaster gripped by madness tested this ordinance, her strikes colder than winter’s wrath.

He’d lose a piece of himself each time, leaving a mangled afterimage of what he once was.

A sinner rendered mara-struck and immortal — a shade that will dye you his accursed color. 

Blade pins your wrists above your head. It hurts, but you’ve learned there’s pain worse than this. 

“Open your eyes.” 

It isn’t a request. 

You hesitate for as long as he allows. Ultimately, you have no choice but to give him what he wants. Scarlet eyes reward your reluctant obedience. Leering, glowing. Your chest heaves beneath the burden of each breath. Something wet and warm trickles down your cheek. It titillates the flames of his mara as if it’d been lathered in oil. He shackles your wrists with his gloved hand and drags the other downward. Over your temple, cheekbone, then finally, your chin. 

He tilts your head up. 

Neither of you speak. 

How? How did he break free? 

You didn’t sense any fluctuations, nothing that’d warn of your incoming fate. Your control didn’t slip, it was pulled out right from underneath you. 

Isn’t death what every segment of his psyche seeks? His rationality, morality, and base instincts were all in agreement, a unanimous jury that didn’t require deliberation. 

What unforeseen note upset this triad? 

Your reflection in his eyes is drenched in red.  

“Haha… seriously?” You laugh a humorless laugh. “Me?” 

Blade doesn’t respond. You don’t know if he heard you. Either way, it doesn’t matter. He is the author of whatever happens next. 

A butterfly with injured wings loses none of its original beauty. If anything, it’s made easier to admire, now that it can no longer fly away. You have nowhere to go, nothing to do, and not a word to say that’d make a difference. This futility reassures his mara. That which was held above its head has been made to crawl along the ground. Blade seizes total control of himself as his mara slinks away. Cognizant of his bruising grip, he releases you. Without his crushing support, you collapse like a house of cards. Your knees hit the ground. 

You sink down further and squeeze your head in between your hands. 

It hurts, mom, it hurts. Why couldn’t you give me up one more time? ‘My’ life never belonged to me in the first place, anyway. You should’ve granted the shift in ownership when it was still a choice. 

… I’m scared. 

There is no getting out of this, is there?

Metal clinks by your side. Dazedly, you inspect the sound’s source. A silver dagger rests beside you. It’s small in build, yet pointed as a weapon should be. Your attention flitters between him and the blade. What is this? A pitiful attempt to level the playing field? Has he not humiliated you enough? Taken everything that wasn’t yours to give? 

Sensing your confusion, he explains, “Sins should be punished.” 

You grasp the hilt. 

It’s heavy. 

“What… are you even saying…?” You murmur. Is he referring to your mother? “It’s ‘permissible’ to take life, according to you.” 

You recount his creed with the venom it merits. 

He falls silent. 

“Not yours… not for free,” he drawls. “I’ll pay any price.” 

Transactions benefit both parties. What’s there for him to gain? 

You stand on unsteady legs.

Blade’s countenance is an impenetrable fortress. The violent waves have settled, leaving still, murky waters. Is it twisted affection swirling in his gaze? Guilt? The celebration of a long-fought battle? You don’t know. You don’t know what to think, feel, or do. You’re just numb. What will you be after this? Your mother likened their designs for you to a ‘retractable leash.’ Close, but not quite. 

You’ll be more of a portable oxygen tank. 

Kafka can’t always be there to soothe Blade’s mara, but you can. You will. You have to. It’s a duty that binds more than marriage. 

If transactions benefit both parties, then… 

What he’s offering to pay for here is you. 

Your eyes drop down to the dagger. 

The currency will be blood and flesh. He’ll let you kill him, however you want, for as long as you want. Ten, one hundred, one thousand times or beyond, until you feel the scales have balanced. The blank canvas has given you the tools to create your final masterpiece. Once the paint dries, the roles will reverse. The subjugated will become the subjugator. It isn’t a matter of if, it’s a matter of when. 

You raise the dagger, his cold heart your target. It’s yours. A gift, a burden, an unbreakable vow. 

You plunge it down, and—

—He doesn’t even flinch. 

The tip of the blade rips his shirt, but not his flesh. 

You toss it aside and shake your head. 

“Has anything worthwhile… ever come from killing you…?” 

Blade doesn’t respond, but you know he heard you. 

He furrows his eyebrows, your question hanging over his head. Whatever he expected, this must not have been a possibility he accounted for. Had he been anyone else, he might conflate mercy for forgiveness. He isn’t, though. He knows the crippling weight of guilt. How it secretly imbues you with a craving for more, so you can finally be crushed to death, instead of being forced to roll the boulder onward. 

Each slice would be for him as much as it is for you. 

If that’s penance to him, you will never grant it. 

“My mom…” you trail off, not because you don’t know how to complete the sentence, but because finishing it will finish something inside you. “Is she…?” 

Blade’s memories have made their way back to him using you as their bridge. You could parse through them, but you don’t want to. You don’t think he’ll lie. He hasn’t lied to you as far as he knew. The truth is worse and the truth is what you’ll get. The emotions you pick up from him hint at what you already know. They nibble at you as piranhas would. Notably missing from the onslaught is any iteration of guilt or its distant cousin, regret. 

He’d die a thousand deaths to pay the fee of having you. What’s a little more bloodshed to someone who views death as enviable? 

“Never mind,” you murmur. “Forget I asked.” 

He won’t. 

He refuses to forget anything about you ever again. 

For now, he’ll pretend otherwise. 

You’ve decided that from this distance, Eris looks like a marble. 

It’s just a little black sphere, infused with the occasional stream of gold. You center the image in between your thumb and pointer finger, making minuscule adjustments until it fits just right. Once you’re content, you hold it there, squinting your left eye so this speck’s the main focus. 

As of the latest census in 2155 AE, the planet Eris is thought to have a population of 2,912,840. 560,432 in Ade, 1,510,781 in Mele, an estimated 200,400 in Arc, and 641,227 in your home quadrant of Thelx. Each of those numbers can be attributed to a living, breathing being. Someone with their own family, history, ethics, dreams, and struggles. Your fellow Nymphalians, descendants of prisoners dumped on a dark and frigid planet to die.

You thought you’d given them your life before. In a pretty, metaphorical sense, that could be made into poems for generations. 

Your conversation with Destiny’s Slave reassured you that no, there’s nothing pretty or metaphorical about what awaits you. No one will be penning sentimental poems detailing an ascetic’s life led in solitude so that the people may prosper. You’ll be a cold case. For a week, your name will be a hot topic on primetime television. A headline sprawled in large font across news media companies. ‘Tragedy Strikes: Eris’ [First] Phaeales Kidnapped, IPC Implicates Stellaron Hunters,’ or something to that effect. 

Then another calamity will occur and you’ll be pushed from the public’s consciousness. 

You might get a special mention on anniversaries. The first, fifth, tenth, fiftieth, then the hundredth. Podcasts will do deep dives. Books will be written. Forum boards will swap theories. Who knows? An anonymous user might guess the truth and be labeled a conspiracy theorist for their troubles.

You pinch your thumb and pointer finger together, smushing the faraway planet from your perspective. 

“Boom!” You exclaim in a whisper yell. “Is that how easy it is to you?” 

He doesn’t respond. 

You turn away from the sheet of glass separating you from the limitless depths of outer space. 

“The silent treatment, huh?” You muse, drumming your fingers against the window pane. “You saw this future and worked oh so hard to procure it. What? Having second thoughts, now that it’s here? That’d be a shame.” 

There’s something ugly living inside your heart. It’s been there since you were born and will remain until you die. Maybe it lives inside everyone, you can’t say, you can only speak for yourself. Kindness isn’t inherent, it’s learned. Practiced so that it may be honed. Otherwise, the steel grows dull and rusts. Sharpening means losing layers of yourself against a whetstone. Those layers are worth losing, you’re told. Spite, vengeance, hatred; they’re all so, so ugly. Little imps that should be sandpapered away. 

An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind, that sort of platitude. It’s nice bumper sticker material. Something to slap on a graphic tee or coffee cup, maybe. To be fair, practicing the antithesis isn’t so simple either. 

You don’t want his eye, it’ll grow back.

You don’t want his life, he’ll just be born anew. 

You don’t want him, but from now on, he’s all you’ll get. 

“Are you curious about the deal I made with Elio?” You probe. 

Blade sighs, likely preparing himself for the vitriol you’ll slew his way. 

“I don’t need to know.” 

“You want to know, though,” you smile thinly. “I could feel you brooding from rooms away. What? Does the thought of me speaking to another man displease you that—” 

He rushes forward and lifts you by the collar of your blouse. You don’t waver, if anything, you could get drunk off this emotional outburst. His nostrils flare and you can feel his warm breath fan against your face. Your heart whirrs strong against its bony restraints, adrenaline blasting throughout your system. 

“That mouth of yours is testing me,” he chuckles, although he’s far from amused. “Have you forgotten the position you’re in?” 

“Have you?” You scoff. His grip tightens. “Go ahead. Choke me, ravish me. You can’t bring yourself to though, can you? Want to know why? Hm? You’re holding out for the slim, impossible chance that I might return your fucked up feelings, even if just a little bit.” 

Scornfully, you whisper, “Elio was generous enough to answer some of my questions. The extent of the Stellaron’s influence, the true perpetrators behind the nectar guide bombing, why you’d get so pissy whenever Lear swung by… in retrospect, it’s painfully obvious, really. Messing with the LOTUS-EATER’s noise-canceling software is child’s play for Silver Wolf. Did you enjoy eavesdropping on us? Probably not, huh?” 

He growls your name, low and menacingly. It’s a warning.

You ignore him. Maybe you shouldn’t, but you do. 

“I never told him,” your lower lip trembles. “Because of you, I’ll never get to, either. You want to pay a price? Have your sins punished? Start by listening to this!” 

His mara bubbles up as if it were magma. For someone unraveling from the inside out, he doesn’t look the part. Emotion and vitality have drained from his face. His complexion is that of the dead man he wishes himself to be. Pale, vapid. He wants you to stop, yet the only way you would is if he tore out your tongue. To do so would guarantee he’d never get to hear those three words directed at him. He must consider that fate harrowing indeed if he allows the means for you to utter your next sentence. 

The finger you pricked all those years ago tingles. 

“Lear is the only one I’ve loved. The only one I’ll ever love. He gave me a life; you’ve destroyed mine. How could you ever compare, Yingxing? How can you even come close?” 

You wrench yourself free from Blade’s grasp. He lets you. 

His hands remain where you once were. Gradually, they fall, as do his shoulders and head. It’s peculiar. You’ve come to be so in tune with his emotions, picking up on frequencies only you can hear. This pitch falls silent. His mara is too. The infighting over where he should begin and end calls for a temporary cease-fire. Neither madness nor sanity care for victory, their attention has been cast elsewhere, to a more prominent problem. 

“It is.” 

You narrow your eyes. “What?”

“Earlier, you asked if it’s that easy for me,” he says, plainly. “It is.”

Your system absorbs the implication as well as it would cyanide. 

“Eris and all of its inhabitants are strictly off-limits. I figured you'd already heard this.” 

“I have.” 

“Then—” 

“It’s not loyalty that ties the Stellaron Hunters together,” he interrupts. “It’s the pursuit of individual goals which just happen to align.” 

Blade saunters forward. You bristle, awaiting unwanted physical contact, yet he brushes by your shoulder. His footsteps echo throughout the ship’s hollow corridors. You pivot, intent on following his every movement. He gazes out the window, your home planet his point of interest. The little black and gold marble orbited by four moons, far away from any star. 

“Goals change, lotus.” 

His eyes find yours in the window’s reflection. 

He’s bluffing. He has to be. 

“You’ve sought death for over 700 years,” is your uneasy reply. “Surely, you wouldn’t risk the one avenue you have to reach it.” 

“Didn’t I already betray that expectation of yours?”

Death is no longer what every segment of his psyche seeks, as it’s the one place he can’t have you.  

“... You’ve stopped running your mouth. Clever girl,” Blade flexes his fists by his side. The leather glove on his hand creaks as he does so. “If you think this an empty threat, I have a suggestion.”

Blade grins from ear to ear. 

“Repeat any of what you just said to me and I’ll prove it isn’t.” 

It’s as if his mara forms tendrils that slowly slither up your body. It caresses your thighs, your midriff, and your chest. Breathes against your nape and coils around your neck. You can’t find the strength to move. It wishes you would so that it’d have an excuse to hold you tighter. Squeeze harder. Sink into you deeper. 

You glower at him. His mara keens, finding the expression delightful. 

“Look at me like that any longer and I’ll take you up on your suggestion.”

You pinch your eyebrows together, belying your confusion. 

He wets his lips with his tongue.

“‘Choke me, ravish me,’ was it?” he muses, chuckling breathlessly. “Who am I to deny such a tempting offer?” 

Finally, you muster the effort necessary to break free from his hypnotic stare. You’re overcome with the need to scrub off every part of your skin he’s touched. You want the residue gone, purged from your flesh. Nausea floods you like a broken dam. 

You let him touch you, you let him kiss you, you let him fuck you.

He can’t have anything else. 

You don’t know what more there is to take. 

His eyes are heavy on your back as you leave the room. This spaceship’s decently big, but it’s not enough. A universe could separate you, but it still wouldn’t suffice. You’ll create any gap you can, illusionary or otherwise. You speed through the ship’s main corridor until you near what’s to be your room. Before you can open it, your hand stills.

Elio said we’re to leave on a job the second Silver Wolf starts distracting the IPC’s blockade, you think. That should be any minute now. 

Your blood freezes over.

After this ship makes the jump, you’ll never see Eris again. 

Or Nona. 

Or Lear. 

Will Nona continue to pursue her studies without you there to teach her? Is there a reason for her to? She’s come so far since you first met. That harsh, untrusting girl with a permanent scowl blossomed into something truly special. 

“Seriously? You’re supposed to be my mentor?”

“Alright, lemme set one thing straight. I’m here to save up enough to leave this shithole. If that hurts your feelings, go and cry to mommy about it, I couldn’t care less. It’ll be bad press to ship your latest Arc rescue back over, after all.” 

“Why do you care about this planet, anyway? Beyond whatever sense of purpose you get from playing the hero, I mean. All anyone here ever does is complain and half-ass things. ‘Let’s give anarchy a shot guys, but like, a nice version of anarchy, where we all hold hands around a campfire and sing songs.’ It’s hilarious.” 

“The first time I made it to Thelx’s border as a kid, I thought I was hallucinating. I asked my older travel buddy, ‘What’s with these tiny, floating yellow spheres?’ She didn’t even spare me a glance, she was so enchanted. ‘That’s light,’ she said. ‘Take a good, long look. You won’t be seeing much of it.’ I remember how angry hearing that made me. Not just what she was saying, but how she said it. Like she’d given up. Like that was acceptable.” 

“A cargo ship bound for Rosiz is heading out in three cycles. You and Lear could come with me, y’know. Elope, or whatever. My contact would allow it. Probably. Hey, don’t give me an answer right away. Geez. At least think about it.” 

“Yep, I’m still here. Surprise! My other plans fell through, what can I say? Apparently, Rosiz is run by a weird blood cult. I don’t want anything to do with that. Guess you’re stuck with me a while longer. What’s with that look? Yeah, I still think this planet’s a shithole. But, you’re here, so… it’s 5% less shitty, give or take. Lear brings that up to a whopping 15%. Yes, he gets a value of ten. Have you tasted his cooking?” 

Will Lear ever know how much it meant when he comforted the haughty and naive girl you once were? How without him, all you ever would’ve known was loneliness? You were a handful, there’s no doubting that. It’s a miracle he put up with you. 

He had the softest voice when you were kids. 

“I’m supposed to play the princess? But… but… I’m a boy, and you’re a girl… so shouldn’t you…? Ow, ow, stop pinching! Okay, okay! I’ll be the princess! Eh? Whaddya mean ‘you’ll kiss it better?’ Miss Phaeales? Miss Phaeales…?!?!?!”

“I’m back from work, my wife. Huh? Husbands don’t say that? No no no no, you can’t play the husband, I have to play the husband! Lemme try again! Ahem. From work, I have returned… woman… I’ve married. That’s no good either? This is so complicated!”

“I dunno why you like Connect Four so much. I mean, we could play Monopoly, but you always steal credits when I look away. No, that's not allowed! … You’re just ‘being a capitalist?’ What’s that mean? Cheater, or something?” 

He didn’t lose this soft quality when he became an adult — his tenderness was the air you breathed. 

“‘What do I want,’ huh? Where do I begin? To be a part of you, I guess? Ah, if I’d known you were going to grin like that, I wouldn’t have said anything. W-Well, of course I want you. I just don’t think the phrasing’s right. You’ve always viewed yourself as a commodity. I don’t want to reinforce such a terrible thought.”

“It’s… so good, so warm, so… fuck, please, don’t look at me like that. I can’t believe… that I get to do this with you. You’re beautiful, you’re everything…! I’ve always loved you so much. So, so much. Is this okay? Is it really okay? If it is, then please, let me pleasure you.” 

“Quit messing around with me already. There’s no way that was your first time. Because, I mean, you’re so sought after, y’know? You must’ve had tons of opportunities to— ow ow ow, again with the pinching?! Alright, I get it, I get it! Pfft, stop, don’t make it weird. Okay, fine, hearing that does make me a little happy. Aaand there you go, making it weird. No, I’m not possessive. You said you don’t like possessive men, so… what? Of course I remembered that. I remember everything you say. Wait… are you embarrassed? I didn’t… didn’t think that was possible… one sec, lemme get my camera…” 

You swore an oath not to cry.

You didn’t when packing the few items Blade approved of, or when you negotiated with Elio. 

It’s not that you don’t want to. Should your resolve slip for a second, you grow dangerously close to drowning in a puddle of your own tears. There’s plenty to cry about, plenty to mourn. Once you start, though, you don’t think you’ll ever be able to stop. You’ll waste away as your body’s wrung for all its worth. Should that happen, you won’t be able to uphold your end of the bargain with Elio. 

There’ll be a lot more to cry about then. 

For this reason, you don’t turn back. 

Your deal with Destiny’s Slave consists of two elements. 

First, you are to serve as Blade’s ‘field partner,’ offering him your unremitted support however he sees fit. And second, you pledge the full extent of your psionic abilities to further the Stellaron Hunters’ mission. This second condition perplexed you, but it wasn’t like you had many bargaining chips. For so long as you cooperate, Eris will remain unharmed and the nascent Stellaron neutralized. 

Kafka had called to ‘celebrate your inauguration.’ You braced yourself for the worst, but she was surprisingly amicable. 

“Have you really never considered your utility outside of parlor tricks?” She wondered. “The power to create fantasias and read memories certainly has its uses, no?” 

“I just don’t see how it’d contribute much,” you replied. 

“If it stopped there, maybe. Should you be able to replicate Ania Phaeales’ seals, though… that’d come in handy.” 

You gritted your teeth and read between the lines. They want that too, huh? 

You’ve since worked tirelessly to understand how such an anomaly is possible, much less replicable. Silver Wolf provided an updated version of the Arbiter training software to aid your endeavors. You’ve tried and failed hundreds of times. Deleting fragments of a person’s psyche has disastrous results, as you once hypothesized. If the Stellaron Hunters wanted a foe lobotomized, they wouldn’t have gone through all the trouble of obtaining you. 

The holographic screen floating before you presents an error message. 

‘Generated psyche #643, Garçia Chamora, has been rendered comatose from suffering damage to his cerebral hemispheres. Press here or say next to generate a new psyche.’ 

You sigh and pinch the bridge of your nose. 

This job on Rosiz requires a nobleman’s lifelong fealty to be sealed, you think. If I can’t figure this out before then… 

Your stomach jumps to your throat like you’re in a free fall. 

Leaning back in your chair, you swipe the screen away. You look at the digital clock in the ship’s common room. It reads 2:05 a.m. This shift to a twenty-four-hour time has been a pain, but you think this number means it’s late. While glancing around the uninspired decor, your eyes land on a solitary figure. 

Blade sits on a beige couch with his arms and legs crossed, his eyelids shut. You assume he’s asleep. There are plenty of comfortable beds he could veg out on, but wherever you are, he isn’t far behind. You don’t get why he’s playing prison warden. He can’t think you’re stupid enough to try escaping with almost three million lives dangling over your head, can he? Perhaps he’s getting off on your suffering. 

Whatever the case, you loathe having to breathe the same air as him. You wish he’d fuck off already. 

You’ve barely spoken to one another since he made his threat. If it has to do with the upcoming job, you’ll give a few curt words and nothing more. He’s never been outgoing, so without you initiating conversation, hours trudge by in tense silence. You’ve recently made the unfortunate realization his input on your mother’s seal would be useful. He was under it for two years, there must be some information you can glean from him. You need anything you can get.

The thought of asking him for assistance, though… it makes you sick. 

“What?” he asks, his voice gravelly from unuse. 

You tense. He could tell you were looking at him without opening his eyes? 

“Nothing,” you reply. 

He grunts and that’s the end of it. You pull the holographic screen back up, eager to distract yourself. Except, all you can focus on is the #643 in the bottom left corner. You’ve already made that many attempts without any progress? One of Kafka’s contacts is going to help sneak this ship onto Rosiz in two days. You’re running out of time. 

You spare Blade a quick glance. Unsurprisingly, he hasn’t moved. 

Every muscle in your face scrunches up as if you’d bitten a lemon. 

Just get it over with, you tell yourself. 

“Blade?” 

He makes a noise to prove he heard you. 

“Can I… ask you a few questions?” 

“That depends on what they are.” 

You exhale shakily. “When your memories of me were sealed away, what did it feel like?” 

His mara murmurs, discontent at this reminder. He appears outwardly unaffected. 

“Why do you want to know?” 

You play with your skirt’s hem, picking at a loose thread. This is what you were afraid of. 

“Knowing will help me understand and replicate the seal better,” you explain. Then, you hastily add, “For the job.” 

All is silent. You shift in your seat. 

“That isn’t my concern,” is his eventual answer. 

Your jaw drops. “Wh— are you serious? You wouldn’t want to botch a job, would you?” 

“It wouldn’t be me ‘botching’ it,” Blade says, coolly, evenly. “It would be you.” 

You gnash your teeth together but bite your tongue. As callous as he’s acting, he isn’t wrong. He doesn’t owe you anything. Especially after you said what may have been the worst combination of words to him. You refuse to regret it, but you can follow the cause and effect. 

“You really don’t care about what’d happen?” You press, breathless. “Eris is my home. You lived there for months yourself, experienced the culture… does that mean nothing?” 

“Why do you ask questions you know you won’t like the answers to?”

Blade hasn’t so much as opened his eyes. You just don’t get it — you’ve peered inside his mind multiple times and still struggle to understand him. To what extent does he care about you, if that word even applies here? Does it stop at your physical well-being? Can his current nonchalance be attributed to your diatribe, or would he have acted this way regardless? He doesn’t make sense. He’s an enigma.

You decide to try another approach. 

“What about Nona? You’d still feel nothing then?” 

Finally, he opens his eyes. The warm hues feel cold. 

“I hold no ill will toward your student. I’d consider it a shame,” he says. Despite his impersonal word choice, he isn’t being sarcastic. That must mean something. Before you can expand on this, he smiles. It’s far from kind. “I see you’ve omitted your boyfriend from this thought exercise. A wise choice.” 

Your heart skips a beat.

Ah, fuck. 

“A word of advice, girl. Manipulation isn’t your forte.” 

It feels like a struggle between life and death to maintain eye contact. 

“Negotiation, though, you’re half-decent at,” Blade muses. He inclines his head to the side. “Well? Make me an offer.” 

You worry your bottom lip between your teeth. What do you have to offer? In a business setting, you can lowball some figures, that’s how everyone starts. You doubt he’s interested in money or stocks. There’s your Synalink ability, but there’s no way he’ll put himself in a vulnerable position like that again. Everything’s been taken from you. Your business, assets, connections, leverage; all you have are the clothes on your back. Still, if he’s entertaining this conversation, there must be something. 

Goosebumps erupt all over your skin. “Are you… propositioning me?” 

“Oh? That’s how you’ve chosen to interpret it?” he raises an eyebrow. “If that’s your offer, I accept.” 

“No, I’m not—!”

“I know. Calm down,” he interrupts your panicked exclamation. “You’re easily rattled when exhausted.” 

Your heart’s pounding so loud in your ears that it’s difficult to hear him. 

“Relax. The next time I take you, I want you willing.” 

The next time? Is he delusional? Has he suffered long-term memory loss? You’d sooner saw off your hand than sleep with him ever again. You come dangerously close to voicing this, but ultimately decide against it. You need him in an agreeable mood. This seal — have you been set up for failure? You can’t imagine why they’d bother. Still, there’s no singular script, as per Elio’s own admission. It’s a string of possibilities loosely connected by little choices. If one script isn’t followed, that means another has taken center stage. 

Should you be unable to deliver, that future has been accounted for as well. 

It’s a future that can’t come to pass.

Blade speaks your name. 

“Come over here,” he says. 

Your eyes widen and lips part, horror painting itself across your countenance. 

He clicks his tongue. “Trust your own intuition. You said it yourself, didn’t you? That I’m ‘holding out.’”

You fight the urge to wince at the quotation. He’s the one who mentioned it, not you. This can’t count as an infraction on your behalf. Taking a deep breath, you start trekking over, counting each step. Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen… ah, it didn’t take anywhere near long enough. 

He pats the spot beside him. Once you’re situated, an arm coils around your shoulders, tugging you into his side. Your heart thumps away. This is reminiscent of the evenings you spent together in your office and on the balcony. The high you received from sex would fade away, replaced by this nice, soft haze. Talkative as you were then, there was something about those moments that kept you quiet. You’re not sure why. 

Maybe it’s because you realized you’d finally met someone lonelier than yourself. 

“You’ve hardly eaten or slept. That I can understand,” Blade says. “What I don’t get, however, is why you haven’t cried.” 

“I can’t.” 

“You’re often on the verge of tears. Like now, for instance,” he points out. You struggle to swallow the lump in your throat. “Why not let it go?” 

Something already broken in you shatters beyond recognition.

“What good would that do?!” 

Your fingernails dig into your palms hard enough to bruise the sensitive flesh. 

“I’m nothing, I-I have nothing, I’m—” you laugh and laugh, making your throat feel scratchier than it already is. “I wanted to do so much…! I was stupid. So stupid! I actually thought that I could— could find a way to fix things, if only I kept working, kept trying! There isn’t a way. There never was a way. We’re greedy, we’re awful, we’re ignorant. A planet like that… a universe like this… so long as we’re in it, it’s fucked, it’s all fucked.” 

You shake your head. “I may have hated her, but I still wanted to be her. To outdo her. Prove that I could’ve done it better, that change was possible, so she’d have no excuse. I couldn’t do either. Even if I had, it wouldn’t have mattered. I’d just be delaying Eris’ inevitable fate like she did.”

Your shoulders heave with each painful breath you take. 

“Did she feel vindicated in the end? Think that by saving me once, it’d make up for all the times she didn’t?”

Whether you’re talking to him or yourself, you can’t tell anymore. It doesn’t make a difference. Speaking the truth aloud doesn’t make it any more or less real. It just leaves a bitter taste that’ll never go away. 

“If she cared so much, why did she never tell me?” You whisper, your voice cracking. “What was she so afraid of…?”

What was I so afraid of?

Tears trickle down your face in a free flow. The drizzle shifts to a torrential downpour, no matter how hard you try shaking or shutting it off. There’s no point in telling him this. You’ll probably regret it, somewhere down the line. 

You faintly register how your body moves without your input. Blinking the wetness in your eyelashes away as best as you can, you see gold patterns. There’s weight around your shoulders too. Weight and warmth. The scent of blood and anise. 

He’s pulled you into an embrace against his chest. 

You twist and jerk your limbs around, attempting to purchase freedom you can’t afford. You yell at him, curse him, beg him to let you go, and still, his grip never relents. He just holds you there, your struggles amounting to nothing, your pleas falling on deaf ears. His grip doesn’t feel tight until you try wriggling yourself out of it. Then, and only then, are you hit with the realization he could crush you so easily. It must take a great deal of self-restraint to avoid doing so. 

The fight leaves your body and you tremble like a leaf in the wind.

His large hand runs over your back, slow and steady, as if his touch were destined to soothe rather than destroy. 

Your well of tears runs dry eventually. 

“When you live for others, you’ll die for them too.”

Blade’s statement doesn’t make you feel better or worse. It washes over you without soaking in. Whether it’s a warning for you or condemnation for yourself, you don’t know. Perhaps the two overlap in an unsightly hybrid. 

Some time passes before he speaks again. 

“The day that man drew his weapon on you, I felt something stir, as rousing from a long slumber,” Blade reveals. “I assumed it should remain undisturbed.” 

This is your chance. You detach yourself from him enough to look him in the eyes. He loosens his grip just enough to allow this, but no more. The vice would tighten should you try extracting yourself further. You wipe away the moisture clinging to your lower eyelashes with your wrists. Since he’s sitting, he isn’t towering over you. This small detail aids your waning resolve. 

“What made you assume that?” 

His bandaged hand cups your tear-stained cheeks. You wince, but allow him his indulgence. 

“Instinct,” he murmurs. 

Your eyebrows pinch together as you think. That wasn’t what you were expecting. You guessed that’d it feel like something significant was missing — a gaping hole. That the individual would want to fill it. Curiosity is the sentient being’s natural state, after all. Especially since this should’ve been an element of itself the mind wishes to reinstitute. Yearning, affection, and care; even if it’s a vestige of the full experience, these positive emotions shouldn’t set off alarm bells. 

Unless the mind decided it was worth suppressing. 

Maybe your mother wasn’t using the influx of memories inflected on Blade as a ‘red herring.’ Kafka adores messing with you, she could’ve floated the idea because she knew you’d hear it in the future. What was your mother doing then? Pulling up key instances throughout Blade’s life, specifically those with heightened emotions and long-lasting influences… 

What if it’s not so much altering memories, but altering the mind’s perception of them? 

The Arbiter training software is bound to your movements, which allows it to manifest with a few hand gestures. The screen displays itself close to your right. You’d prefer to figure this out elsewhere, but Blade doesn’t appear interested in letting you go anytime soon. He silently observes as you pore over the generated psyche. You’re too focused to comment on how creepy he’s being. 

Liliana Kokot. 34. Short-life species. Citizen of the planet Punklorde. Witnessed the murder of her parents at a young age. Came to despise gang activity. Joined police academy. Assigned to the Homicide Unit by age 25. Discovered possible connections between the police chief and organized crime. 

You pull out the prismatic shard containing her parent’s murder. 

The mind has mechanisms to inhibit trauma that’d otherwise obliterate it. Repression, denial, projection, displacement, rationalization, and regression to name a few. In the same way, prisms have multiple sides. The one which refracts the most light will change depending on how it’s angled. 

You adjust the shard without changing its shape. Eventually, you find a side that deems this memory too much, beyond what Liliana can handle. It’s easily absorbed back alongside the other fragments. Except that now, the mind chooses to repress the memory, deep down in the subconscious where it cannot do irreparable harm. 

A ‘seal.’

“I get it now,” you wave the screen off. “It’s similar to a heart transplant. Mechanical valves aren’t integrated as smoothly as tissue valves. The body’s more willing to accept what’s similar to it in composition, as is the mind.” 

“You don’t look less troubled,” Blade notes. 

You scrunch up your nose. 

“I mean… this is— I don’t even know. It undermines what makes a person, well… who they are to the very core.” 

“When you accepted Elio’s deal, you knew you’d be an accessory to criminal activity. How is that any worse than homicide?” 

Blade’s refusal to sugarcoat the truth slashes through you like a phantasmal sword. Perhaps not a thousand times, but close enough. 

“This is your price, lotus.” 

You want to avert your gaze, but you don’t. It’d feel wrong, somehow. Cowardly. Hypocritical. 

No longer can you dwell on the currency itself. What matters now is ensuring you pay your dues on time. 

Your debt extends beyond Destiny’s Slave. There’s another proprietor you must settle with, for even the slightest peace of mind. 

“Blade— no, Yingxing,” you correct yourself. His muscles stiffen, his true name having gone unspoken for so long devoid of contempt. “I may have made a deal with Elio, but… I haven’t personally made one with you. I’d like to change that.” 

You can tell you’ve piqued his interest. 

“I swear on everything that is sacred to me that I’ll remain by your side until my final breath. In return, regardless of if I’m alive or dead, you’ll never harm my home or the people who inhabit it. Intentionally or otherwise.” 

His long, dark eyelashes flutter shut as he mulls over your proposal. He doesn’t take long. Soon enough, vermillion bores into you again. Candle wicks flicker inside them, alight with an emotion you refuse to name. 

“How do you finalize deals, Miss Phaeales?” Blade asks, moving aside a stray strand of hair from your face. 

It’s like the air’s been knocked from your lungs. He couldn’t have known, right? The ripples born when those two words are stitched together? Your chest feels tight and hollow all at once. It’s like your internal organs have liquified, leaving nothing but shapeless viscera. This isn’t the right voice. It should be softer, a tenor’s pitch, not a sonorous bass. 

“M-Miss Phaeales?”

You blink away a fresh set of tears. 

“A promise? Miss Phaeales, I don’t know if I can.”

“Hand me the dagger from before.” 

“I don’t really get you, Miss Phaeales, but… I wanna.”

He does, after a moment’s consideration. 

“It’s my fault, I should’ve killed that man, and now she’s in that criminal’s debt, because of me…!” 

You prick your pointer finger with the dagger’s tip, just enough to create trickling blood.

“Everything you just said — I can tell you believe it.”

He mirrors your actions. His skin quickly mends itself back together. 

“So why… why do you look so sad?”

I had so much to say, you think, bitterly. So, so much.

Blade’s bandaged hand falls to your lower back, where it softly pushes you forward. His gloved hand envelops your face, the leather refreshing against your feverish skin. His lips descend upon yours. You may have called the kiss tender had you known nothing about him. You do know him, however, as fate has decreed he’d get a better future at the cost of yours. It’s as if everyone was in on the joke, leaving you the odd one out. 

He murmurs words in between kisses that you fight desperately to unhear. 

When you pull back for air, you notice how madness surges and retreats in his eyes, as if it were ocean waves washing against the shore. 

The likeness helps. 

Pretending the red shade’s a brilliant blue instead comes easier. 

The next time he kisses you, you cautiously kiss back.  

A/N: i thought i'd feel satisfied when i finished nexus' last chapter, but i actually feel rather sad JTFSIKL i cannot overstate how much i enjoyed working on this story. it scratched a sci-fi itch i've had for over a decade now. when writing longer works, it's rare for me to not get caught on snags that sap my inspiration away. that never happened with this story though. from start to finish, i was contentedly tip tapping away on my keyboard.

i became enamored with this idea of a yandere story that didn't just revolve around the MC and yan, it just wasn't until i started outlining nexus that i had an excuse to explore this concept further.

the main cast of n darling, nona, and lear (an anon affectionately dubbed them the lotus trio, which is a term i loved enough to hijack) has become close to my heart. for that reason, writing this chapter physically hurt at times 😭 i wanted to swat blade away like a fly and have everything end nicely. from the very first sentence though, i knew this would be a tragedy, so it'd go against the Themes to pull a power of friendship ending.

at first, i worried about the reader's ability to empathize/connect with n darling, since her status and abilities aren't universal. like at all. the solution presented itself rather naturally. n darling, at least to me, stresses that simmering anger women feel the need to hide for professionality's sake. her experiences as a child where she's given responsibilities beyond her age's capacity, then in adulthood, where she isn't taken seriously (chrysus) or unintentionally infantilized (caicias). i'm sure many afab individuals can relate to some extent.

my primary interest was in having these two deeply frustrated individuals crash together and spill debris everywhere. i was given a little more liberty with blade's actions and dialogue, due to miss phaeales' id inducing presence, which drew out more than he'd normally give. as for blade's characterization, if he isn't in the throes of mara madness, i really can't see him being a hellion 24/7. he feels more somber to me when lucid.

of course, that changes if the right buttons are pressed... but that isn't exclusive to him.

since the final chapter is divided into three main scenes, i wanted to fully explore the three predominant ways i picture a yandere version of blade acting. the first is his guilt and shame, the second, his mara-induced sadism, and the third, a more neutral self where reason prevails.

i hope that you enjoyed reading nexus as much as i enjoyed writing it!! although the main storyline is finished, i'm by no means done with the universe as a whole. i'm planning a little epilogue for starters. then maybe some side stories from blade's perspective ?? who knows, the motivation's still there, so anything is possible.

thank you again 💖

-sincerely, lock.

Tag list: @99-nct @pixiestixes (idk why the tag thingy won't work but an effort was made) ...

#blade x reader #yandere blade x reader #honkai star rail x reader #yandere honkai star rail x reader #hsr x reader #yandere hsr x reader #yandere #yandere x reader #nexus #my stuff

[on-a-lucky-tide]

CW: discussion of Lambert's abusive father; links to personal reflections.

I usually lean into the abusive father in a working class setting for Lambert because it mirrors my experience, and I find it cathartic to explore that background and use that personal experience to inform my character writing. When life gives you lemons, right?

But a discussion we had in the CS a while ago has just popped up in my brain. It was about reinforcing the idea of the working class drunk man beating his wife and kids, and how it can add to the demonisation of the poor and/or working class as more inclined towards violence and aggression; a trope that gives me the ick when it's recycled by a predominantly middle class fandom, replete with their tertiary education and perhaps no small sense of moral superiority, without nuanced reflection on why we pluck that particular background off the shelf for our favourite emotional porcupine.

It got me thinking about my own contributions to that and how I allow those harmful stereotypes to propagate, that I need to sit down and think about how I present Lambert's background.

Poverty has been linked to domestic violence as both a cause and a consequence. For Lambert, I often give his dad a skill (mine was a carpenter and carpet layer, so guess what profession the Fictional Arsehole gets in my head), so that sense they aren't necessarily "badly off". Skilled professions tend to lead to more comfortable lifestyles; not necessarily always on the bread line or without shoes, but it also means that the victims are kept in that situation by financial shackles.

They can't afford to leave.

And that's not necessarily something confined to the working class. There are so many women and children stuck in those relationships because the abuser has the money, the property, the everything.

It got me thinking about a slightly different take to Lambert's past. Perhaps he and his mum were trapped there not just by coercive control, but because the alternative was starvation and a different type of exploitation. Give Lambert a "comfortable" home, a gilded cage. Give him servants and maybe a title, with land. The Witcher teaches us that evil and corruption is endemic amongst the powerful classes. Not just in the books, but in the games; who can forget the Bloody Baron storyline?

Why not have Lambert returning home after the trials to a manor house that still haunts his dreams? Finding his mother at peace in the family crypt, and his old man at his mahogany desk, drunken and pathetic? No longer the towering visage of Lambert's nightmares, but a pathetic, shrivelled worm cowering in a high-backed chair?

Lambert's background is so rich for interpretation. I think I'm gonna change it up for a bit.

#witcher lambert #tw3 #thoughts #abuse cw

[starrmarr]

as a mixed black woman myself, how do you feel about people saying "mixed blacks aren't black, they're mixed" thank you for your time beautiful queen

Honestly, the real problem for me lies in mixed people, especially online, going so hard to assert they aren’t “just black”. When the world looks at my lite brite self, they still see a NEGRESS, lol. You see it in my face and everywhere else, anyone denying you this way fails to realize even non-mixed black people come in all shades. We are the most diverse! The most exotic! I had an experience once, where someone was denying my blackness, so I made it a point to ask random strangers in the park what they thought I was, racially. The answers went like this: black, black, black, and “you’re BLACK and something else”. She had nothing to say afterwards. It’s silly, really, how so many of us are strangers to ourselves.

Our genetic information is so strong that even when we lay with individuals outside our kin, we reproduce ourselves— “you are your Black parent and something else”. Afrika overrides all the other shit, that “something else” becomes unidentifiable. That aside, my mother is a biracial woman and my father is a fully Afrikan man so once I really started understanding how I’m perceived and what’s in my genetic makeup, I don’t care to call myself mixed, I’m just a nigga, a griffe for the folk who subscribe to the weird plantation talk cause that’s really all it is on both sides— weird slave auction separation tactics that somehow make us believe we’re more valuable the further away we get from Blackness. Think about all the weird shit: the people with the million flags in their bios, the people who can’t wait for the “what are you” questions and then make videos about how “annoying” it is, a recording artist calling herself “Mulatto”, the constant propagation of interracial relationships and the mixed baby fetish... child, it’s a lot. I think it’s genocidal, honestly, but that’s for another day. Don’t listen to the coonery, don’t subscribe to it either.

Thank you for calling me beautiful, it’s because I’m Black <3 hehe

[charlotte-of-wales]

as much as i’m sick of the “saint diana” narrative, i’m also beginning to be sick of whatever narrative charles diehards seem to be propagating. as you said, there’s a lot of nuance in the story and i can’t believe that, after the multiple tv/movie portrayals of this same story along with the never-ending conversations (which i am aware i am ironically still adding to), people still don’t get that it is just what it is. for example, charles or his friends or spin doctors or whoever tried to put charles’s side of the story out there by saying that diana’s mood swings and eating disorder made charles depressed and suicidal. While I can be like, oh that makes me sick af as if charles isn’t a grown ass man I can’t believe he’s trying to deflect blame by putting it all on his young wife, I also can acknowledge that charles struggled with his mental health too, but also not use that as an excuse to not think that he was a weak man at least with regards to how he dealt with that particular situation. at the end of the day, they’re just an ill-matched couple. and yes there’s also the huge age difference, which is def a factor but i also think it’s simplistic to portray charles as some predator. we have to see it through the lens of societal factors at play. fact is, in the past, it was more common for women to marry at a young age to much older men. i think even diana’s mother got married at 18 to diana’s father who was in his 30s. even my own grandmother married young and my mother met my father when she was a teenager and he was in his late twenties. while i think, there are definitely negative outcomes from practices that used to be common (which is why society evolves), it’s not accurate to portray it as though charles is some predator in the same league as, say, andrew for example. I think a lot of the gen z woke mob (i’m not sure if that is an accurate description of the demographic i am referring to but that’s my impression of who they are??) who buy into “rebel diana” actually see her too as a me-too victim. idk, but anyway my point is, as you said, nuance. even with regards to the issue of charles being a good or bad parent. as much as i hate to give any credence to anything harry says, it makes me roll my eyes when charles’ diehards pull out pictures of him being affectionate to harry in public as if that will prove that’s he’s a good father. i’m not saying he’s a bad father too, but he definitely wasn’t perfect or just a victim of evil PR machinations by one manipulative woman. even william had some grievances about charles’s parenting. although i’m probably just guessing on william’s part since he never explicitly says it. (but really what child doesn’t have grievances about their parents). the seeming obsession with family time is probably william trying to heal some childhood wound lmao (not that it should be used as an excuse to criticisms about their work ethic lol). the only difference i suppose with william & harry is that william understands the nuance more so has chosen to forgive.

I was actually listening to a the crown podcast (yea i know i’m sorry i still watch that show 😬) and peter morgan says something along the lines of how he still hasn’t lost interest because the relationship dynamics and all that in the family, etc. still keeps him fascinated. while i’m not 100% down with how things are portrayed on the crown, i lowkey understand him because i won’t be a hypocrite, i admit that yes the drama does keep me interested. and you know what keeps it interesting? the nuances.

word of the day is: nuance

#answered

[firelordgrantham]

I kinda love seeing what people hate or love in Twilight, in a political sense as well as in characterization/plot sense.

Because every single thing in it or something like that has two edges.

Like:

Bella:

the heroine is named (Isa)Bella Swan.

She is pretty, intellectual, introverted, shown as different from her girl friends.

She falls madly in love with a vampire and

leaves family and friends behind to be with him.

Cons:

Bella Swan is litteraly ''beautiful swan'', it's bad as an onomastic but it doesn't even have a dramatic reveal of her being associated to swans or anything. Also it focuses on her beauty and (snorts, she doesn't have any) grace, so it's kinda sexist to reduce her to that.

She's not like other girls = internalized misogyny. Hurtful propagation of the myth girls are airheads who don't have hobbies or wits.

the guy she falls madly in love with wants to drink her blood and is genetically coded to hurt her. To see her fall for him is bad enough, but she doesn't second think that or anything. All she is good at is falling in love and be pretty.

Also she falls into this predator-prey relationship quickly and cuts herself from her family and friends, which is clearly indicating a toxic dynamic: yet, she is happy with it.

Conclusion: She is a bad example, she reeks of internalized mysoginy from the author and ends up in a toxic relationship, cut from her family.

Pros:

The heroine is Bella Swan. Her name doesn't mean anything grand or defining because she's just a teenage girl. She's a work in progress and also not to be defined as the heroine but as herself.

She is so much not like other girls that there is a high chance she is secretly neurodivergent (https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/firelordgrantham/692028706877784064?source=share). So props to Smeyer for showing a bit of well-done representation (yeah I know it might seem like dark humor considering the other representations but we'll come to it), and may I add (for those who won't click the link) that among other things it is highly canon that her mind is not like others because the telepaths can't read it. Also, it's from her pov, so it's kinda normal to be 17 and introverted and think ''I'd rather be in my bed reading Jane Austen than go to parties with Jessica, so I'm not like her nor like the other (extroverted) girls from Forks High''. She has trouble fitting in -> she is a relatable introverted protagonist!

Although Edward is dangerous for her, she can handle it. She also sees past appearances and loves him when he is not capable of loving himself (seeing himself as a monster).

Her family and friends are not great anyway. Her mother is a toxic womanbaby who had to be raised by her own daughter and then threw her out with the trash when her new husband came along. Her father tries his best (we love Charlie Swan on this blog) but he's busy and he barely knows her. Her friends are either pushy boys or gossipy girls who will gossip about her as soon as her back is turned. So leaving them is a symbol of leaving a toxic relationship and mindset for a thriving, closely-knit network of family members and friends with the Cullens.

Conclusion: any introverted girl can identify with Bella, as a down-to-earth, not-a-chosen-one-with-a-big-destiny girl, who feels out of her world in Forks and will leave a toxic relationship to a healthy one in the end.

The romance:

Love triangle.

There's a vampire guy and a werewolf guy.

She chooses the vampire guy.

Cons:

Love triangle. It's overused. And it shows Bella once again as only capable of falling in love and nothign more. It takes over the whole story when it could have been exploring vampires vs werewolves vs other vampires. Bella falls in love with guys is just not enough and too much seen in YA books. (Anti-feminist)

Both of the guys are obsessing over her and neither really seem like a good match.

Her choosing the white, privileged male instead of the native boy, despite Jacob giving her much more thought out presents and giving her more time and considering her opinions more, is a textbook example of golddigging from her and internalized racism from the author. Bad thing.

Pros:

It is centered around a teenage girl's passions and attractions and not shaming her for being in love or for hesitating between two guys. (Feminist)

both guys have the same intensity, which explains why Miss Thrill-Seeking is interested in both: having one be a mild-mannered gentleman and the other a charismatic bad boy would have made the ''choice'' too easy. For a real duality between Life (werewolves) and Death (vampires), Killing and Sparing, etc, she couldn't have two love interests so different in characters that the endgame is an evidence: she has to struggle to chose because both options (life and death, human and monster, Jacob and Edward) need to be equally attracting, so equally intense.

she has a choice and so she doesn't just chose Edward out of spite or because he's the only one to ever have been interested in her: it's a real love story and not just the girl eloping with the first guy to show her some affection.

it... it is a romance fantasy, not a war or thriller or else book. I mean yeah some characters could have been more developed, but the story is about Bella and Edward (and a bit of Jacob), not about the vampire politics. Putting it here because I think, even if the book is not the best written ever, well... it is a romance. So the fact the other aspects are secondary is defendable.

Edward:

108 years old

died of spanish flu

edgy boy

vampire, killed people

Cons:

Big age gap that doesn't really justify. Problematic.

ok I gotta admit I don't see anything wrong with the spanish flu.

Edgy boy. Drama queen. ''it is the skin of a killer, Bella''. ''I have no soul, god hates me, etc''. ''I'm a danger to you.''

well he is stalking her, watching her sleep, overall toxic. All the above category is right tho (except mybe the ''god hates me'' part)

Pros:

still a teen and didn't mature much so it's not too bad.

kinda actual depiction of someone with self-esteem issue who becomes immortal and has to feed on blood.

well everyone loves a bad boy, and he did kill criminals didn't he?

etc.

People will argue over everything. And the best part is most of the arguments are right both ways!

anyway here is my little beginning of an analysis of the twilight fandom/hatedom.

#twilight #twilight meta

[yanderesmythos]

🗡Yandere!Achilles (General) Headcanons🤺:

Tw: Yandere themes, unhealthy relationships, murder, desecration of the dead, captivity, implied Stockholm Syndrome, implied manipulation, implied adultery, angst, Eris and Aphrodite being drama queens, forced isolation, Time period sexism, mentions of forced marriage, Violence, slight gore.

You were born at Dodona, Epirus. To a bloodline of obscure priests and priestesses, that used to attend to Mother Goddess then later to Zeus. Apart from the oracle that lives here, there wasn’t anything that distinguishes it from the other different states. One would argue, that Delphi is much more significant than your mundane city.

Yet, it was the oddity of your birth that attracted the other city-states to your city. You were said to be born with the ability to cure even the deadliest of diseases, including the prolific tularemia. Some would even say death itself.

Rumors like these tend to spread like wild fire. Especially, that your mother may have went behind your father’s back with Apollo- as he was the patron of medicine- to birth you. Which infuriated your father so much, that he murdered your mother in blind rage. You recalled that night, as you took care of your “supposed” dead mother. One simple touch from your fingertips, has awoken her from her deep slumber startling your father. As for father, he ran away with his tails between his legs to gods know where.

From that incident, the head priestesses has delegated you as the head healer of Dodona. Despite being a young woman, your reputation has soared all over Greece for your innate gift. Those who mocked Dodona started visiting it for your services and may-haps a glimpse of your face.

Fortunately, you hid your face behind a carefully constructed bronze mask to protect your anonymity. You did not want to sacrifice your freedom for a man’s whim and you’re yet of age. It was the beauty of Helen and the greed of a man that locked her in an unwanted marriage. Marriage is nothing, but fine breeding. It is often propagated as love, to lure naïve people into its trap.

At the behest of King Peleus, you were invited to his matrimony with Thetis. After dressing appropriately for the event. Euphro -the head priestess- instructed that you are to be escorted by Philogus, alongside his family, to Phthia.

The journey to Phthia was awkward, until a young dark haired boy greeted you with a smile tearing his visage. It made you slightly anxious, perhaps due to your solitary life. Aside from your duties, you knew nothing of the outside world. As a result, skepticism was the norm for you considering your societal value.

“Greetings, (Y/n) the great healer of Dodona. My name is Telephos. It is a great honor to finally meet you. I was wondering, would you like to be friends? I’ve never seen you with anyone and it doesn’t make sense for me that a person with such prestige lacks companions. So, what would you say?” The boisterous, yet innocent boy extending his tiny hands for you to grab. He was shaking in his boots to meet you. You were a celebrity, that he held in high regards and wishes to follow your footsteps into becoming a physician.

Despite the intricate owl mask you were currently donning, you filled him with a sense of safety. Yet, he felt a bit sympathetic and sorrow for you especially after recent events that happened to you. Perhaps, he was being inconsiderate for prying into your personal space. After all, you needed the space to recover from the recent trauma. Before he could retract his hand, you grabbed it and shook it. With a voice as gentle as the northern wind, you replied.

”I’ll gladly be your friend. I never had any and I wish to know what it is like to have one.” That alone made the day for the boy. He is your first and only friend. He selfishly hoped it stayed that way, but due to the nature of your duties he doubts it will stay like this. So long as you are happy, then he is.

With that, you and he bonded together. Sharing ideals, dreams, and hopes for the future. You were similar, yet different and complementary to each other. Where he lacked precision, you taught him the value of patience and persistency. Where you lacked in social experience, he taught you -despite the ongoing political strife of Greece- the value of friendship or in his own words “Philoi”.

From afar, Philogus was watching his son interacting with the head healer and it melted his heart at sight. Perhaps, he could be the father that she lacked. His thoughts were halted, as the ship landed on the harbour.

The guards were kind enough to guide you through the King’s palace. It was larger then you thought, yet it was the inside that stunned you. There were many people invited from different backgrounds. Nymphs, gods, goddesses, mortals, and plenty more as this was expected from this grand event.

Your doe-like eyes ventured to meet the eyes of sunlight god. You immediately pivoted your irises, as your boiling anger rises with every glimpse at the god who ruined the matrimony of your parents. However, a familiar honey beige hand clasped your hands in his to calm your ire from resurfacing. With one look toward his bright emerald eyes, you understood what he wants to convey. ‘Don’t let your past strife, open a new gate to another strife far worse than the one before.’

Prior to the arrival of the King and his bride, you continued to talk with Telephos a few more before you were snatched by Philogus to be introduced to the gods and other royalties. You were fearing the worst, as you slowly kowtow before the gods and introduced yourself.

“My, my. What an eloquent lady you are, (Y/n)? I’ve been dying to meet you. After all you’ve been the talk of Greece lately, apart from this wedding. Tell me, do you have someone in your mind?” The divine goddess of all that is beautiful and lovely asked as her golden hues were burning on your figure.

“No, my fair goddess. I’m fairly young for love and the joy it brings. In addition, I’ve a sworn duty toward my people.” Choosing your words with utter care, as not to anger the goddess. That was the last thing you have in mind, if you wish to survive.

“Hmm, seems reasonable. Perhaps, when you’re older then. It’s such shame to let a girl such as you without a fitting spouse, don’t you say? It seems Athena has taught you wisely, or was it Artemis? Or was it our dear, Apollo? Please, do tell.” Aphrodite remarked jabbing the patron of medicine in her drawled spiel. As much as that name brought a foul taste, you remained stoic and respectful to her.

“Dear Aphrodite, no need to drag the little mortal into your shenanigans. You know how it usually ends. We do not wish for that to happen to the little sunlight here, or else father might intervene.” The blonde deity responded back not bothering to hide his spite.

The atmosphere was tense with the bickering of the two deities, so you left to greet the other guests. Unaware of the hidden eyes of a certain goddess, that lurked around the shadows to observe you and waiting for the right moment to ensure that her plans will go as she wishes.

It was about time, when the two main people have arrived. In the middle of their wedding vows, the bronze gates were open suddenly to reveal the winged deity of discord. Eris. Her sudden appearance has startled you and everyone else, even more when her sight was locked on you.

“ O’ Blessed King Peleus and Thetis, you deny me an invitation. Why is that? Especially, when I wish more then nothing to meet this famed healer of Dodona.” A sly smirk tugged at her lips, as she slid close to your vicinity. Her cold slender arms encircled your shoulders, bringing you closer to her in an embrace.

‘I’ll tell you a secret, little one. Between you and me, you hold a major role in this more than you think. You will understand soon enough. Do not tell anyone, we don’t want to spoil the surprise.’ She whispered in your ears, before letting you free from her grasp.

Telephos ran and caught your falling frame, before you could meet the harsh surface of the cold marble grounds. “Are you okay?” Your safety was of the supreme concern for him. Not only are you valuable to his city, but to him personally. To see you being pawned around by deities angered him, yet it made him feel helpless.

After all, what a mere child could hope to achieve against the might of divine deity? How could he be a great practitioner of medicine, if he could not protect his role model from harm? Yet, it begets the question. Why were you so important in the eyes of the gods?

“Yes, I am fine. I appreciate your help.” You replied, refraining the information that Eris has told you in fear of endangering him and yourself in the process.

“Is that why you came here, Eris? To steal the sacred healer away, if so then I will not tolerate such thing under my care.” The king retaliated firmly, standing his grounds against the winged goddess.

“By Olympus, no. If I wanted to kidnap her, wouldn’t you think I would’ve done it earlier? No, I am here to leave a gift for the fairest of them all. That’s all.” Eris said. In her pale hands, a golden apple shone with the title of the fairest of them all.

You’ve got a premonition that things won’t end well. “Why are you down, (Y/n)? Is something wrong?” Telephos asked sincerely. “ I..think as long as the deities intervene like this. Things won’t end well for us. I never liked the gods, apart from Mother Goddess. In their amusement, they bring nothing but misery and tragedy.” You responded bitterly, with the latter part being nothing more than a whisper to yourself.

The cheery festivities has upturned to chaos, the female deities -notably Athena, Hera, and Aphrodite- were paltry fighting amongst themselves for an insignificant title. It’s enough as it is that you got the unwanted attention of the entire court, so you decided to recluse at the corner of room.

However, your peace did not last as Philogus approached you with his face sunken and grave. Unlike his usual calm demeanor, that brought nothing but relief in your turbulent life. “Head healer, I need to speak with you this instance. The matter is of utmost urgency.” He urged, as his son followed behind him. Follow him to the guest room, you did.

“What seems to be the issue?” you inquired, hoping for a semblance of good from this horrible day. Based on his previous expression and tone of his voice, you doubt that is the case.

“Dodona is under siege. We cannot go back, especially with you on board. I cannot endanger you.” His confession did not shock you as much as you thought. It was only a matter of time, before some megalomaniac decided to invade it searching for you. You could see the anguish already painting Telephos visage, that did nothing but hurt you seeing the optimistic boy down.

“Where do we go, then? We cannot trouble the Pthiains with our troubles?” You sighed as you racked your mind for solutions.

“Aren’t you disturbed that our city is under attack? If so, then why aren’t you perturbed?!” The chocolate haired boy shouted as tears cascading his honey cheeks. “If I wasn’t, then I’d not be thinking of ways to return back. Don’t you think?” You replied snidely.

“Stop, both of you. This is no time for petty arguments. (Y/n), I know you’re looking for answers and I’ll give it to you. As for you my dear boy, this war will end as soon as possible.” Philogus chastised the pair and took them to their designated bed.

“It was Agamemnon. Indeed, you were right. He was seeking you.” The elder man spat his name as it was the most foul thing he had said. That man’s megalomania knows no bound. “Of course. My presence has been nothing, but a curse to you both. For that I apologize. If you want to leave me behind, leave. You are no longer obligated to protect me.” You spoke solemnly. Perhaps, your birth was a catalyst of horrid luck. First, it was your mother death then this war.

Before you can indulge further in your misery, you’re tackled by Telephos in a tight embrace. “Don’t ever say that, (N/n)?! You have saved lives more than anyone in Greece, since Asclepius.” He cried as he tightened his grip, seeing your stolid reaction.

“My Telephos is speaking the truth. To lose you, is to lose the greatest treasure Greece has ever offered to us. I have bright news for you two.” The brunette announcement has snapped you from your melancholic stupor.

“From now on, we will be living within the palaces. In exchange, (Y/n) will offer her service free from price. You do not mind, do you?” Philogus continued. “No, it was and will always be my duty to help those in need. I must thank you too, today overall was not great.” You replied back, as you cuddled the already drowsy Telephos for warmth.

Years has passed, since then. In these years, you have strongly bonded with Telephos and made new ones. Achilles was interesting to say the least. You both connected immediately like two peas in a pod. Whilst you felt a surge of protection, which you shared with Achilles, regarding the exiled prince Patroklus.

Achilles is definitely a possessive, obsessive, and an overprotective yandere. It started slowly, be it with the intervention of the gods themselves or how she held herself. Her integrity was what initially attracted him to her. However, it was her wisdom that beseeched him as he grew alongside her. Yet, her lousy companion is grating on his nerves.

His pride will never let him live, if he let any man court his beloved. Whether it was her childhood friend, or otherwise. What did that man have that he didn’t already have? Isn’t he the greatest Greek warrior to ever live? Wasn’t he as much of a companion to her as he was? As much as he want to rid of him immediately, he is smart enough not to do it in front of her. He might be impulsive, but certainly not an idiot.

His possessive tendencies overlaps with his overprotective nature. He would rather be slain a thousand times, then let a single hair on his darling be harmed. If that would to be happen, then his rage will reach the vast skies of Olympus till the depths of the Underworld.

He will not rest easy, until he had dealt with the perpetrators. Amplify his overprotectiveness if Patroklus was already dead by then, his darling will never be outside his sight. He will drag the aggressor’s corpse, similar to what he did to Hektor, all over Greece with his chariot, only this time no deity will interfere. Unless, they’d want to end up like them.

Assuming that he didn’t die, he will live with his darling somewhere seclusive. Somewhere where he can fully be attentive to the needs of his darling, without any distractions. Glory had it place in his heart, but so is the safety and the happiness of his darling.

His greatest dream is to have a domestic life with his dearest. To awaken besides his sleeping beloved and count the constellations with them. Maybe have a child or two together. Nothing brings him more joy, than seeing his and darling’s children interact with his most beloved companion’s (assuming that Patroklus didn’t die) children. Growing, living, and dying together. Perhaps, even uniting together in the fields of Elysium.

Even if it meant to go against the fates and the gods to achieve that, then so be it. What will he not do to protect his beloved? He will go to the end of the earth to protect and provide for them. Anyone who goes against his path will be met with the harsh end of his blade.

Ps: I have enjoyed writing for this one. If we reached 150 hearts on this post, then I’ll write a Yandere story. Here’s the catch, it will be him and my boy Patroklus involved as Yanderes. I’ll also include Telephos as normal love interest to add drama and action to the story. However, I need to see your support. 😉

#yandere greek mythology #yandere x reader #yandere #Yandere Achilles #yandere x you #Yandere Achilles x reader #tw: yandere #tw: murder #tw: slight gore #tw: violence

[wangxianficrecs]

I’m In The Mood For A Fic Where…

Okay, look at me, getting back into the swing of things!

I do want to say that I may need a mod or two in the future, so contact me (and then wait for a week or so) if you're interested in helping out with Moods and Fic Finders and such.

~*~

1. Hello, for the next "I'm in the mood for a fic where..." can I ask for fics where WWX wears Lan sect robes? 👀

Finding Balance Once More by MarbleGlove (T, 25k, wangxian, my bookmark)

the only way out by cafecliche (T, 12k, wangxian, my post for the series)

Raiment of Gusu by KucatsHouse (G, 2k, wangxian)

Life by scifigeek14 (T, 66k, wangxian, wwx wears gusu robes after they’re married)

~*~

2. hi! i'm looking for fics wangxian where they have a long distance relationship and there is angst, please? thank you!

Between The Lines by Witch_Nova221 (M, 154k, wangxian)

~*~

3. hey!!! so happy u are back! [I’m happy to be here!] was wondering if u had any recs for any fics where lwj is an uncle to jin ling, like they actually have a uncle-nephew relationship, i rly love this concept but i havent seen much of it :(

picking up the pieces by KouriArashi  (M, 110k, wangxian, jiang yanli & lan wangji, lan wangji & lan xichen, my post) ...kind of? There's lwj & jyl bonding, so jin ling comes along for the ride too

Rotten Work by ShanaStoryteller (not rated, 64k, wangxian, jin ling & wei wuxian)

And here is my #avuncular powers tag, which will give you a lot of possibilities.

~*~

4. WELCOME BACK!!! I missed you so much, hope you are doing well😊.  [Thank you!]  I would like to know if you know any fanfics where WWX or WWX and LWJ meet WWX’s parents , thx 🙏. And again I hope everything is fine.

❤️Magical Marriage Ribbons by starandrea (M, 633k, wangxian, 3zun, you want Part 9)

An Inch of Grass, and All The Sunshine of Spring by ChilianXianzi (T, 2k, wangxian, wwx’s parents, WIP)  where LWJ meets WWX's parents after WWX death

A Mother’s Curse (A Mother’s Blessing) by Eudoxia (E, 34k, wangxian, my bookmark)

Molten Gold by jesso (M, 17k, wangxian, WIP, my post)

Check out all the suggestions for #11 on THIS Mood post, which have living wwx parents, usually with a sect of their own.  Also suggestions for #4 on THIS Mood post.

~*~

5. Can you rec a few fics where wangxian have babies and they refer to wei wuxian as a-niang and wei wuxian doesn’t mind. ~ @mybestfriendisacinnamonroll​

Twelve Moons and a Fortnight Verse by stiltonbasket (M, 470k, wangxian, my post)

a-niang by imusuallyobsessed (T, 3k, wangxian)​

The tale of the fox and the dragon egg by SunnyBeeDream (M, 72k, wangxian, WIP)

Propagate Understanding by draechaeli (E, 176k, wangxian, my bookmark) - they use a-ma instead of a-niang, wwx refers to himself as the wife a lot, and Yiling calls him Yiling Matriarch

~*~

6. Hi!! I was wondering if you could recommend a few fics about jiang cheng either stopping the golden core transfer or returning his golden core to wei wuxian? Thank you!!!

Rescue by WithBroomBefore (T, 20k, jiang cheng & jiang yanli & wei wuxian, wangxian)

Ties by WithBroomBefore (M, 16k, nieqing, wangxian, my bookmark)

See suggestions for #5 on this post which is about the transfer not happening.

~*~

7.   Dear mojo would you be so kind to recommend any fanfics where lwj pisses inside wwx

Splash Zone by dead_hatter (E, 2k, wangxian)

pepis time by ariskamalt (E, 18k, wangxian)

give the dog a bone by thebadplace13 (E, 2k, wangxian)

Kinktober 2021 by jtperfecthair (E, 9k, wangxian, watersports is one of the chapters)

You Know Exactly How I Want It by Zaire121 (E, 7k, wangxian)

~*~

8.   Could you recommend any fanfics where wwx,jc and nhs (preferably when they were teenagers) play truth or dare or never have i ever ( and if you can add some where wxx is exposed, if there are any)

sweet little unforgettable thing by ryneisaterriblefan (E, 14k, there’s wangxian in there but it’s kinda jiang cheng and everyone, as far as I can tell from the tags?)

~*~

9.   Do you know of any fics where Wei Wuxian takes some else (or more than just) Wen Ning to Jin Ling’s celebration. I’m curious as to how the ambush would change if Wen Ning wasn’t there (or there by himself). Maybe Wen Qing or Wen Yuan? Or any fics where someone escorts Wei Wuxian there? Like Lan Zhan or Jin Zixuan himself or something?

A Narrow Bridge by FrameofMind, Jo Lasalle (Jo_Lasalle) (E, 423k, wangxian, WIP) - a long fic but the qiongqi path ambush scene is a very key element in it

无别无离 | Without Farewells, Without Parting by dragongirlG (M, 31k, wangxian, juniors, my bookmark) time travel

~*~

10.   What is your favorite/the best wangxian crack treated serious fics? Good to see you back! :) Hope your break went well.

Here are 4 with tags #favorite and #crack treated seriously.

只羡鸳鸯不羡仙 by RoseThorne (T, 1k, wangxian)

Attempt the Impawsible by cl410 (T, 6k, wangxian, nielan, my bookmark)

Wei Wuxian, worst supervillain by antebunny (G, 3k, wangxian)

Here are a zillion more, all of which I loved and recced, because crack is my sauce.

~*~

11.   hi! I was wondering if you knew many good fics that involve mind reading/truth curses/the like? I've read beneath six layers of silk, I'm the one for your fire, and hope dangling by a string, but besides that haven't been able to find much.

After Truth Lies the Honest Path by Vrishchika (M, 11k, wangxian, WIP)

Too Beautiful For Words, Will My Thoughts Suffice? by Watermelonsmellinfellon (T, 9k, wangxian) - lwj can hear people’s thoughts, and is more in tune to wwx’s bisexual awakening than wwx

Crack me open, pour you out by Tenillypo (E, 16k, wangxian, my post)

Rarely Pure and Never Simple by thunderwear (not rated (G), 3k, wangxian, my post)

Losing My Mind by pupeez4eva (T, 6k, wangxian, my post)

❤️Gentians in bloom by teawater (M, 251k, wangxian, my bookmark) telepathy

❤️Magical Marriage Ribbons by starandrea (M, 634k, wangxian, my post) telepathy

Here is a compilation post on Telepathic Bonds that has a few more.

~*~

12.  hiii~ great work you're doing here ! I'm so glad you're back and i hope you're doing good :)i wanted to ask if you know any fics that are from LWJ's POV ? like .. his thoughts and feelings and all ? I'm looking for something with a funny hint but anything is good tbh .. thanks !

Sit down next to me by raitala (E, 7k, wangxian)

Unavoidable by diamondbruise (T, 19k, wangxian)

And Time Is But a Paper Moon by sami (M, 139k, wangxian, qingxicheng, my post) - ‘personally I find the Lan Wangji POV sections to be exceedingly funny‘

❤️See What I've Become by Vamillepudding (T, 25k, wangxian, my post)

❤️ to arrive late is better than not to arrive at all by Moominmammashandbag (M, 35k, wangxian, my post)

blue-ribbon bunny by cicer (G, 15k, wangxian, my bookmark)

the thread may stretch or tangle but it will never break by RoseThorne (E, 64k, wangxian, lan wangji & wen qing, WIP)

~*~

13.  Heyyy!! welcome back I miss yaa,I really want to find other fics like Baby Of Mine where Ayuan or wangxian kids travel to the past where the younger versions are in gusu or in other settings.Thank you ☺️

The Trouble with Talismans: a Treatise on Time-Travel by Young Master Lan Xiaohui (Age 6) by stiltonbasket (G, 26k, wangxian, my bookmark)

And They Lived Happily Ever After... by Morgana_avalon (G, 51k, wangxian, my post)

❤️ nevermore, nevermore by agloeian (T, 116k, lan sizhui & wangxian, my post)

~*~

14.   any fic with a good story and good spelling? 

Lol, I’m not sure how to answer this.  Here are my #Favorites.

~*~

15.   Hiii I appreciate your blog a LOT! I've read so many fics i love cause of you so thanks a lot. [You’re so welcome!] Could you rec a few fics where wei wuxian pesters lan zhan for some time but then randomly stops like it could be any reason and everyone gets worried. or maybe something where Wei Wuxian after marriage into the Lan clan just starts following rules and everyones worried

a light hidden and singing by occultings (microcomets) (E, 49k, wangxian) -  wwx being well-behaved after arranged marriage to lwj

~*~

16.  Hello! :)Well, I recently saw Yibo dressed as a soldier and ever since then I’ve been wondering if there are any wangxian fics which are set in the army?Thanks in advance 💓

Leather Birds by FairyGardenCorgis (E, 24k, wangxian)

~*~

17.   So sorry if I am intruding, but have you come across any BAMF!Wuxian fics where he doesn’t give a shit about the cultivation world? Or when he tells the lan sects to fuck right off for hurting LWJ? Or BAMF!Wangji going off on cultivation world’s asses? Apologies for the long ask ㅎㅅㅎ

Return to Sender by Thesaurus_with_no_words (M, 52k, wangxian, WIP)

These Things Unseen by bonyenne (T, 34k, wangxian, my bookmark) kind of everybody nopes out of the cultivation world in this one

kick at the darkness 'til it bleeds daylight by AlfAlfAlfAlfAlf, tardigradeschool (T, 75k, lan sizhui & lan wangji & wei wuxian, jin ling & lan jingyi & lan sizhui, wangxian , my post) another where wwx nopes out of the cultivation world

Believe by Quiet_crash (G, 11k, lan wangji & songxiao, my post)

The Second Siege of Cloud Recesses by Cerusee (G, 4k, wangxian, my bookmark) - wwx vengeance for the 33 lashes

~*~

18.  hi ;)) are there any fics where lwj and wwx adopt a baby girl? ~ @one-force​

Twelve Moons and a Fortnight Verse by stiltonbasket (M, 470k, wangxian, my post)​

Where the Lonely Ones Goby CSHfic, VSfic (T, 24k, wangxian, my post) casefic where they adopt the toddler girl

Propagate Understanding by draechaeli (E, 176k, wangxian, my bookmark)

A Flower That Blooms In Adversity by thunderwear (M, 84k, wangxian, my post, WIP)

❤️Attempting the Impossible by Ariaste (T, 36k, jiang cheng & wei wuxian, wangxian, background zhuiling, my post)

~*~

19.    Hello! First of all welcome back!!! You have no idea how happy I was when I realized that your back (Tumblr notifications sucks :') )  [Awww]  Secondly I was wondering if you or any of your followers know any fic where Wuxian and Wangji has a personality swap? Or just something similar?

come home to my heart by occultings (microcomets) (M, 30k, wangxian, my post) #bodyswap

The Old Switcheroo by thunderwear (T, 12k, wangxian, my bookmark, WIP) #bodyswap

flux by SugarMilkTea (E, 60k, wangxian, my post)

Oh, I just found this answer on a previous ask:   [Cool concept!  I have #bodyswap and #sharing a body and the one with speech swap… but no personality swap.]

~*~

If you didn’t get an answer to your ask here, don’t forget to make use of @mdzs-kinkmeme​ and MDZS KINK MEME on Dreamwidth.  Authors actually do use them for ideas. You may get what you order!   ***Your prompt doesn’t have to be kink!  Fluff, crack, whatever - it’s all good!***

[My ko-fi.]

#wangxian #mdzs #the untamed #wangxian fic finder #in the mood for a fic #i haven't read these unless noted #crowd-sourcing #fic finding #fic finder

[literatikoo]

Lane Kim deserved better

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I would only write Lane Kim meta when I am very very angry because I need to be powered by spite and petty energy to unravel exactly how much of a disservice this show was to Lane and by extension any Asian kid with a similar life. And, well, it's happening now, so buckle up kids, this is going to be a loooong ride because I have a lot to say.

Before we start on the negative aspects, the show got a lot of things about Lane right, which is why I care so much about her character. Yes, ASP obviously didn't know how to write a POC experience and it's seen in the way some very harmful stereotypes were propagated (the tiger mom trope, Mrs Kim's religious beliefs, the depiction of the Kim extended family etc) but at the same time Lane was beautifully written as a character, unlike her plot which left much to be desired. Lane Kim was an Asian girl with rock n roll dreams who had an extremely fraught relationship with her mother and had to fight for even a semblance of independence. And I hate to say it but a lot of daughters of Asian households are forced to hide a part of themselves from their families, so Lane's story was authentic.

Not only was Lane amazing as an individual, she was also a great friend. She was the only one who was really in Rory's corner; she never judged her and supported all of Rory's relationships (my favourite example of this is when she barely tolerated Jess in S2/3 and then did a complete 180 like 5 episodes later, all because Rory decided to finally accept she liked him). Lane never pointed out what Rory was doing wrong not because she was afraid of doing so but because the two of them had been friends for years and Lane believed that Rory would figure it out one day. Lane shows this unconditional kindness not only to Rory but to everyone. She takes in her Korean cousin and teaches her to have fun even when she's afraid that Mrs Kim has replaced her, she lets Gil be in the band because she empathises with him, she takes care of the band and prevents it from breaking up multiple times. And these are only a few examples of Lane being the kindest character on GG.

One of the best things in Gilmore Girls is that the most unproblematic, amazing guy is given to Lane. Dave Rygalski is the best love interest on the show hands down (Sorry to my boy Jess but Dave was LEAGUES ahead of him at 17) and Lane definitely deserved someone like that. Their story was adorable and I would have loved for them to be endgame. However, what grates me is that when I see people talking about Lane "deserving better," it's usually about Dave vs Zach. When Lane actually deserved better as a WHOLE and not only in terms of love interests. I always thought it made more sense for her to end up alone at the end of the og series. Because Lane was a person who craved independence and she was not going to get that while tied to some guy (even if that guy is boyfriend extraordinaire, Dave Rygalski). It's even worse when we see that Lane is the only female character on the show to be treated this way. Rory rejects marriage for her career while Lane ends up with marriage as her storyline. Lorelai and Luke get back together but their relationship is still left open ended, though arguably it would've made more sense if they got married when Lane and Zach did. Paris gets into Harvard Medical school and gets a great relationship, similarly Sookie gets the family she wanted and continues to be amazing at her job. But Lane... god Lane is the only one without an open ending, without any space for speculation of where her life might lead her. Not only did they marry her off, they also gave her a terrible first time and twins, effectively locking her to Stars Hollow. The show even cut down all hope of her being a rock n roll mom as one of her S7 storylines is choosing the kids over going on tour with Zach. She doesn't get to be her own person for more than ONE season; she's stuck with being a daughter and then a wife and then a mother.

Something else that angers me about Lane's storyline is that we never really get to see how badly her relationship with her mom affects her. Don't get me wrong, I adore Mrs Kim's redemption arc and I think it was beautifully juxtaposed to Lorelai and Rory's crumbling relationship, but having a mother like that is hard. Not only did Lane have to hide 90% of her personality from Mrs Kim but she also lived with the fact that one day she might have to choose between her dreams and her mother. In the end, Mrs Kim makes that choice for her and deals with it by kicking Lane out in S4, and yet we never really see how that negatively affects Lane. Hell, Jess acts like a broody teen for two seasons, Rory wastes six months of her life away at the DAR and they both come out of it successfully. Lane gets kicked out, figures out her own living conditions, gets a job, works insanely hard for her band and... ends up having to give her dreams up completely.

Lane and Paris shared a lot of similarities too, even if they both had different friendships with Rory. They both came from terrible families and looked to Lorelai as a mother figure, they both cared deeply for Rory, and they were both incredibly passionate about their careers. Paris made calendars and flashcards and went crazy studying for both pre med and pre law. Lane was a walking, talking music encyclopaedia, she bought CDs obsessively and organised them by genre under her floorboards, she taught herself to play the drums and then found a band to play for. And yet... only Paris becomes successful in the end, whereas Lane takes over Kim's antiques. Lane was still a musician in AYITL and she can be rock n roll even with kids but this is all hypothetical and we never see it on the show.

There is a lot of terrible, lazy writing on the show and a lot of characters get ruined because of it but with Lane, her character stays the same, they just ruin everything else for her. I think she'll be an amazing mom and will probably make her best out of doing music casually. But the writers also took something so special and destroyed it just because Lane stopped being as important to the plot as she was in seasons 1-3. Lane and Rory drifting a little after Rory leaves for Yale makes perfect sense, that's just how relationships are, always changing. And yet as Lane's importance to Rory decreased so did her importance to the writers.

Lane wasn't the kind of character that needed character development or a redeeming character arc- she was never a bad person and nothing about her had to be fixed, unlike Jess or even Paris. All she really needed was for her dreams to come true because for the first 4 seasons her dreams were the biggest fixture of her personality. Like how Jess needed to overcome his trauma and Rory needed to figure out where she fit in and Paris needed to become a girlboss, Lane needed to realise her dreams because that's where her arc was leading her. But it just didn't happen. Instead, Lane becomes 2-dimensional; a large part of her screentime is taken up by Zach problems, her dreams fall flat and she becomes tied to Stars Hollow for the rest of her life. Not to mention we see less of Lane in favour of Logan and the dickhead posse.

This is not me hating on all the other characters I've mentioned in this meta, I'm just pointing out the lack of respect the writers have for Lane in comparison to all these other people who fulfilled the role they were made for. Why would you write Lane to have all these dreams and make her struggle so hard for 4 seasons just to smash them to pieces? And why is it that one of the only POC characters on this show is treated like this?

And you can't tell me the writers didn't know what they were doing, not when this is a direct quote from Lane in S7:

"It was such a small window -- a peephole, really. For years, I was this repressed kid, and then there was the briefest of windows. And then -- slam. All of a sudden, I'm this overburdened mother. I barely got to do it, Zach. I barely got the chance to be a person."

#gilmore girls #gilmore girls meta #lane kim #lane kim meta #mrs kim #rory gilmore #jess mariano #lorelai gilmore #paris geller #lane x dave #amy sherman palladino #anti lane x zach #anti zach van gerbig #in the end paris and rory got a lot of their opportunities because they are rich privileged white women #and if lane got opportunities like that she would’ve grown wildly successful #i always saw paris as a raging lesbian #and yet!! her and doyle's divorce meant less to me than zach and lane's

[into-the-daniverse]

Camia’s Masterlist

Her Tags

✨ Camia ✨ Camia Vibes | inspiration, quotes, pictures, etc. ✨ Art of Camia | commissions, gifts, etc. ✨ Fic of Camia | fic not by me ✨ Camia’s Playlist | master of my fate

Full Name: Camía-Marie Baudelaire

Nicknames

“Camia” by everyone (this adjusted spelling of her name was created by Jamil on accident, and she stuck with it), “Cami” by most friends/lovers, “Mia” by Rosalia/any lover, “rabbit” by Ignatius

General Age: 42 in Arcana Universe (by end of all routes), 24 in Ethari Universe

Birthday: January 1st

Gender/Sexuality: Lesbian woman (she/her)

Astrology: Capricorn Sun, Taurus Moon, Aries Rising

Patron Arcana: Queen of Pentacles

Upright — caring, practical, comforting, generous

Reversed — insecure, dangerous, possessive

all other information + ship fics under the cut!

Important Relationships

Bénédict Baudelaire, he/him — Camia’s father

Régine-Amélie De la Rue, she/her — Camia’s mother

Ignatius Luc Baudelaire, he/him — Camia’s older brother by 10 years

Viviane Aurore Baudelaire, she/her — Camia’s younger sister by 8 years

Fabien Corin Baudelaire, he/him — Camia’s great-grandfather, who she inherited her magic from

Jamil Alfonso Parsa-D’Oria, he/him — Camia’s best friend, in most universes they have known each other since they were 12 years old

Leon (Zhu-Jin Lian), he/they — Camia’s other best friend, usually meet when she and Jamil are 19, and they are 17

Alec al-Saleh, she/her — Camia’s surrogate daughter/younger sibling figure

Rosalia Luna Santana, she/her — Camia’s girlfriend/lover in most universes, deceased in Arcana Universe

Familiar: Missy the Fire Salamander

Their Tag

Introduction Post

Favorite Meal: Salmon Sushi

Favorite Drink: Scotch

Favorite Flower: Black Dahlia

Magic: Elemental Magic (Fire)

Present mostly in Arcana Universe, she does not have magic in Ethari Universe

She can conjure and control flames, heat, etc. and they are usually produced from her hands, mouth, and head

Her flames are always blue, extremely hot and extremely dangerous, especially to herself if she is not actively controlling them, and they are linked to her emotions

Had a lot of trouble controlling her magic when she was young—but that didn’t stop her parents from making her fight at the Coliseum (or in other universes, otherwise capitalizing off of her magic)

She tries to only use her magic for emergencies as she still finds it hard to control

Any other kind of magic that Camia casts has to be done using spells or other channels, as her elemental magic won’t allow much wiggle room

She can’t heal, but she does know how to create potions for healing

Other Skills: Propagating and taking care of plants, fencing, baking, singing, playing the violin and the piano, speaks 5 languages fluently and can read/write in 3 additional languages including multiple dialects of sign

Appearance

Height: 6′2″ (187cm)

Hair: Medium brown, usually buzzed or completely gone

Eyes: Caramel brown

Details

Her head is bald, instead of hair she has severe burn scars from an accident when she was young, so she generally doesn’t go without one of her many scarves

Long scar on her face from the right side of her temple, crossing down over her nose, ending on her left cheek

Always wears black lipstick

Background

Arcana Universe

Camia was born in Vesuvia and lived with her parents and her brother until she was 8 years old. Around the time Viviane was born, Camia’s magic woke up, leaving her hurt and scarred, and Bénédict took her to train as a gladiator at the Coliseum in order to carry on the tradition started by her great-grandfather.

When she was 12, after her first real fight where she ended up killing her opponent and gaining the scar across her face, Camia fled the Coliseum and Vesuvia, running until she reached Prakra. There she met Jamil, and the two became fast friends, and she traveled with him wherever his mother sent him until they were both 18.

Camia helped Jamil run away from his family, and the two made their way to Zadith, where they met Leon. After a fight between him and Camia, Leon joined the two as they traveled, avoiding Jamil’s mother at all costs.

When she was 23, and Jamil was called back to Prakra, she met Alec along with Jamil and Leon, after the girl stole Jamil’s guitar, and she traveled with them. When Camia was 33, she met Alec’s friend Rosalia, and the two of them started a close relationship, to where Camia was preparing to propose to Rosalia, but never got the chance to before she died of the plague, and Camia was 37. A year later, Alec died as well, and Camia moved back to Vesuvia with Jamil and Leon.

After Alec’s resurrection, the three of them had to leave Vesuvia, and Camia bought a small hut in the Catclaw desert, a few days travel from Vesuvia. In the game timeline, she lives there with Leon and waits for Jamil to come back, and for them to be able to see Alec again when her memories return. She does appear by the end of most routes.

Arcana Universe — REVERSED

Referring to in tags as my reversed AU, Camia never leaves Vesuvia and never meets Jamil, Leon, or Alec.

When she tries to run from the Coliseum, she is caught, and spends the rest of her life—until the Coliseum is eventually shut down—as a gladiator, named the Flame of Vesuvia. When the Coliseum is shut down, she has nowhere to go, her family having long since moved from the main city and abandoned her, so she leaves Vesuvia and heads south, spending the rest of her days in the cold of the Southern Spines.

Ethari Universe

Similarly to Jamil, Camia was raised in a life of privilege, and the two of them met early on through their families. However, Camia became aware of the political power and corruption that her family was directly responsible for much earlier than Jamil did, and she began her own research on the Scholars. After Jamil’s friend disappeared, he and Camia worked to investigate the disappearance, and came across Leon, who was in the process of being captured when they helped him escape.

For the next few years, after cutting most ties with their families, they tried to find out why the Scholars were capturing magic users, while also traveling and surveying local rebellions against unjust leaders. They were mostly passive observers until they met Rosalia, who convinced the three of them to join the fight again the Scholars and their process of appointing leaders to countries against the people’s wants. Camia and Rosalia fell in love, the two of them working more closely together than anyone else.

When Rosalia was captured by the Scholars organization, and Camia injured, Jamil and Leon promised to help her find Rosalia. For a few years they searched for her, until finally they got a tip that she was being transferred from one prison to another. However, upon arriving to the village she was supposed to be in, they ran into Alec instead as she fled, and they decided to protect and help her.

Modern AU

Born in New York, Camia worked to separate herself from her family from an early age, and ended up with a plant propagation business, where she sends out cuttings of plants through an Etsy shop. She met Leon while looking for a roommate, and he helped her with her plants for a few years. While taking a few classes at a university, she met Jamil, and they both decided to drop out and completely cut ties with their families.

After Jamil moved in with Leon and Camia, the three of them decided to start a band, initially only playing locally for a year or so until they found Alec through YouTube. After asking her to join them as the Desert Jackals, they recorded and released their first album a few years later, and have toured most of North America with plans to tour internationally. Camia still manages her plant shop, but she has hired people to watch it while she is out of state.

Ship Fics

✨ Camia x Amparo | ampamia

By me

Take Me Home

By @sunrisenfool

Kiss Prompt — gentle kiss to the back of the hand

Come For Me 🍋

✨ Camia x Grier

By @apprentice-vissenta

Sound Check

All I Want Is To Be Your Girl 🍋

Shower Time 🍋

Kiss Prompt 5 — hand pressing under the other person’s top, making them gasp

✨ Camia x Miriyam

By @valhallanrose

Kiss Prompt 22 — a kiss that is leading to more, but is interrupted

#into the daniverse #lore #camia #masterlists #love her

[whosbyun]

PERSEU TAGS

#the anger is hard to ignore [body language] #even if it burns [musings] #two souls tained with sin [relationship] #i saw home in your eyes [relationship] #my mother had propagated [relationship] #am i my brother's keeper? [relationship]

[larentsaloud]

Totally agree with you about women changing men, but I think what makes it easier to swallow in F4/ boys over flowers is the fact that she doesn't accept him until he changes. He changes because he love's her not because she loves him and is patient with him, etc. It is an annoying trope but I think this way at least it puts the responsibility on the man for once. I can't wait for Saturday and I love your commentary.

You know it's so NICE when people agree with me, that I have to be careful or I'll start changing my mind in order for others to appease me. The dangers of being a people pleaser. 👁👄👁 I accept your compliments and for once I will not deny myself. 🤣

Ok let's crack on.

-she doesn't accept him until he changes

And most importantly she isn't waiting around on him to be the man she'd like him to be. In fact she is busy cuddling Ren her saviour (not derogatory but said through gritted teeth.)

Although even that is problematic, in a way but she is not actually keeping her options open. She just allows him into her world and challenges his world view until he doesn't know how he could've wanted living his old life. She made his existence worthwhile and he found his own moral compass through the trials and tribulations of their turbulence. So yeah. It works. It's not as bad as what the other shows and books propagate.

I think what I like about this show is that they paced it really well, unlike the other versions I have seen. (Chinese and Korean. Apologies to the other versions, now that Thailand brought their top game, I doubt I can be convinced to watch your adaptations, sorry but I've been spoilt.)

Look, every other American TV show from the 90s when I was growing up in my formative teenage years I watched, had the trope: ✨maybe I can change him ✨ and I carried this burden to lot of my relationships as someone who was raised by TV and the internet, in lieu of my parents who were doing other things being slaves to capitalism.

Men who have not been taught how to handle emotions and rely on women to guide them, men who abdicate responsibility on tackling their issues and project annoy me. It's like you shouldn't have to help them figure out how to be a better person, but once a couple yes. By all means inspire each other to grow and do better. It's not exclusive to M/F relationships ofc.

I don't know how the lemme change him real quick trope started but I blame Princess & Frog, Beauty & Beast etc. All of this is on Brother's Grimm and Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve. They made a folk tale into a trope for 300 years of adaptation to ensue. Love will transform thee. Yes, but not at the woman's expense. Thank you.

You know how men are supposed to be the one that chase women--allegedly according to some bullshit predisposed societal norms--while women specialise in transforming men and the success is somewhat regarded and celebrated as a victory.

Oh look I taught my husband to fold laundry, put the toilet seat down, he even cooked when I was in hospital having my second child, and he changes the diaper when I am on my death bed, look at him taking a day off while I attend my mother's funeral, aw goals.

Bro, men are not circus animals who should require handlers (us). Please can all mothers and fathers dedicate time to boys learning how to be adults in the real world, because my generation is suffering. Thank you for tuning into my rant.

Oh also this.

#sorry I had pent up feelings #f4 thailand #anon #ask d

[alexa-crowe]

Hey, loaf! Based on that post from the other day, would you be up for writing something where Scully finds out she is infertile in s2?

Yeah, I can do that for you, loaf. 💓 I definitely took this prompt and ran away with it kjsdhfjsdhf. The first section fulfills the prompt but the rest leads into an AU because I decided that I don’t want to hurt my Scullybaby <3.

Branched

The doctors all agreed that once her body readjusted, her menstrual cycle would follow suit. It was irregular before due to birth control but she’s been off it since she was... Scully hates to even think the word. It’s been months since Mulder stopped looking at her as if a simple hand on her back could break her, and her menstrual cycle isn’t even irregular—she just doesn’t have one anymore.

It’s baffled all the doctor’s she’s seen. Scully writes it off as an effect of whatever experiments were done to her and accepts her doctors’ conclusions that there’s nothing to be done about it unless she’s interested in having children.

The idea hasn’t crossed her mind much, aside from a distant yearning when she’s with her godson. She always assumed that she’d have kids one day after she fell in love with the right guy. Scully doesn’t know what she wants for her future anymore. All she knows is that she wants justice, and she wants the truth—both for herself and for Mulder.

Her newfound infertility is...something. She doesn’t want more pity. If she was stifled after her—if she was stifled before, Scully can only imagine that if she tells Mulder and her family that she can’t get pregnant it’ll be worse. The—what happened to her is something she can move on from, but this is not.

—

She’s experiencing early menopause, her doctor declares. It seems so final. She cries herself to sleep and goes into work the next day as if the shards of her future haven’t been ground to dust.

Though she’d tried not to give any of this much thought, she’d somehow assumed that the chip had been inhibiting the release of her ova for an unknown reason—maybe propagation is counterintuitive to Their agenda, who knows—but to find out that she didn’t have any, that all her chances at motherhood were gone... It’s a grief unlike any other.

—

Allentown. The name sends shivers down her spine if she so much as thinks of it. Flashes of her abduction (say it say it say it, don’t let them control you, you’re stronger than the trauma) and the knowledge that all the women at the MUFON meeting had chips and fertility issues and cancer... She takes off the next day and books an appointment with an oncologist.

The scans come back negative. The women said it could take up to two years to appear, though. Scully prays to God that it never happens.

—

She’ll never be a mother. Some days it hits harder than others. Some days she wishes that she could lay her head down and wake up in a world where she and Mulder have the lives they always wanted. She feels so violated and so disrespected, some days. On those days, she lashes out at Mulder, tries to leave him and this life of lies behind, but she can’t.

He’s not someone she can just walk away from.

These are the days that she smokes. These are the days that she calls up Ellen and asks for all the gossip she’s amassed. These are the days she gets drunk over the phone with her friend and spills secrets that no one else gets to know. Trent’s turning eight, Danes. I’m infertile, El. It’s funny how the person she sees the least knows the most about what’s happened to her.

These are also the days when she hits the town and drinks until she forgets. Sometimes she’ll go home with someone for the night and leave early in the morning, Mulder on her mind. He doesn’t know. He can’t know. It would break him even though it’s not about him, even though it’s not his fucking life.

—

She wakes up to a nosebleed and prays to God that he’ll give her a few more months to live. Just until Mulder’s ready, she thinks, tears running down her face as she holds a wad of tissues to her nose. Just until he’s ready to let go. He’s been such a constant in her life, such a tether. When things get bad, they go their separate ways, but they always come back to each other and find their balance.

It makes sense for him to be the first person to see confirmation of her cancer. It feels like the final blow. First, they take away her ability to make life, and then they take away her own life. She’s made her peace with it.

Mulder hasn’t—he refuses to do so. Standing there in the hospital hallway days later, Scully lets herself love him. His lips are soft against her chapped ones and her edges feel burned and frayed, but his love keeps her together.

“I found something, Scully,” he murmurs when their kiss has faded into an embrace with her head on his chest.

Her brows furrow. “What do you mean?”

“I found your ova.” There’s so much going on in that four letter sentence that it bowls her over.

“You—you did?”

“I took as many vials as I could and got them into a freezing container. I shipped them off to the Gunmen before I came here. They can keep them safe for when you get better.”

Scully’s chin starts to tremble and she presses her face into Mulder’s chest. “What if I never do?”

He cups her cheeks and gently makes her face him. “I won’t let that happen.”

She wants to believe him with all her heart. “I want to believe...” she whispers, a tear streaking down her cheek.

“Give me your fear,” he tells her, “and believe. I need you to believe.”

She nods against his chest.

—

Scully cries when she gives him the news of her remission, pulling Mulder into her embrace and showering his head with kisses and thank yous. He’s given her a second chance at life, but more than that, a chance at motherhood.

(“Dana, I have excellent news for you: your cancer is shrinking. You’re going into remission.” And then, when the shock and the joy had run their immediate courses: “It also seems that, in due time, your menstrual cycle will resume, so no worries on that end.”)

It’ll be months before she can truly start the process but she already feels lighter than ever before.

—

She waits a week after her return to work to ask him. They’re at his apartment, Scully curled against him as the movie’s credits roll. “Mulder,” she whispers, checking to see if he’s asleep.

“Hm?” He rolls his head to crack his neck.

“Will you make a baby with me?”

He looks down at her, eyes wide. “What?”

“I’ve been seeing a fertility doctor, a friend of mine. She’s examined the ova—along with several of her colleagues—and declared them viable.” Scully can’t keep the tremulous smile off her face as she gives him the news. “She said that I just have to secure a donor to begin the treatment plan. I want that donor to be you. I mean, you practically threw yourself at me in Home last year...”

She traces her finger along the back of his hand, looking away to give him some space. After a moment, he says, “You want me to...to be part of that equation?”

Scully takes a deep breath and sits up so that their faces are level, shaking her head. “I want to have kids with you.” She maneuvers one leg between his thigh and the arm of the couch so she’s straddling him, and sits down on his thighs. “I want you to be the father of my kids.”

Mulder gazes at her like a lost puppy until she reaches out to wipe away a tear trailing along his cheek. “Me?”

She nods and cups his cheeks. “You.”

He nods with her, a smile spreading across his lips. “Okay.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah! Yeah.”

They’ve been reduced to monosyllabic words in their joy, giving up on words all together as they fade into deliriously happy teary-eyed laughter. Scully leans forward and kisses him.

—

To no one’s surprise and Bill’s chagrin, she tugs Mulder along to her family’s Christmas gathering at her brother’s place in San Diego. Emily’s existence only reaffirms their decision to do IVF together and their relationship. They’ve been more of a team than ever, and perhaps that’s what saves Emily in the end.

Mulder and Scully put off all the major changes they were planning to make in favor of giving Em time to adjust to her new life. She clings to them until she gets familiarized with everything, until “Dana” and “Mul’er” phase into “Mommy” and “Daddy”.

He learns how to make chocolate chip pancakes with his eyes half-closed at six in the morning. They both learn car seats like the back of their hands. They get used to this new life where the only reason they wake up in the middle of the night is to comfort their daughter and not board a red-eye flight for a case.

—

Scully’s known that Mulder’s a thorough person when he wants to be since they met. What she didn’t know is that he’s also extremely sappy. He kisses her frequently for no reason in the office, and his porn mag collection has been replaced by a stack of books on IVF and pregnancy and childhood developmental stages. He has a calendar tacked to the wall next to his door with all the important dates on it.

They tell Skinner about their relationship and the IVF in confidence, filling him in on all the relevant things to their decision to leave the X-Files. The department must go on, but they can’t be the ones to breath life into them with Emily and a baby. Skinner says he knows “some excellent agents” that can fill their roles.

Mulder goes with her to every appointment, even if he can only sit outside in the waiting room until he’s called in. He holds her hand during every comprehensive pregnancy test that’s done, and kisses away her tears when they come back negative.

They look at apartments together when they find the time between Emily and their new assignments, and sometime between moving in and starting Em with her new pre-school, something wonderful happens. When the test comes back positive, they both start crying at the clinic.

“Mulder...”

“Scully...”

—

“You’re really okay with passing on the torch?” she asks in bed that night once Emily’s sacked out.

He nods against her forehead, his hand on her belly. “I’ve spent my whole life looking for Samantha, but I’ve never let her move on. Maybe she doesn’t want to be found. Maybe she’s dead. Maybe I’ll never find out. But I can’t pursue the answer to the question of what happened to her at the cost of everything else. You’re the one who taught me that there’s more to life than trying to solve mysteries.”

Scully nuzzles his nose. “You taught me something, too.”

“Oh?”

“You taught me how to have the courage to believe.”

#mine #txf #fanfiction #bryony you asked for something simple and i gave you a wholeass au 😭😭 #hdsjskshjdd i couldn’t help it

[goodqueenaly]

If have accomplished his agreement with the Freys, which would be the best election for a bride?

To be clear, I take this question to mean "which of the Freys should Robb have married".

Walder himself named many (if not all) of the choices Robb might have had in his attempts to embarrass Robb immediately prior to the Red Wedding:

["]It was my girls you spurned, though. Mayhaps it's them should hear you beg for pardon, Your Grace. My maiden girls. Here, have a look at them." When he waggled his fingers, a flurry of femininity left their places by the walls to line up beneath the dais. Jinglebell started to rise as well, his bells ringing merrily, but Lady Frey grabbed the lackwit's sleeve and tugged him back down.

Lord Walder named the names. "My daughter Arwyn," he said of a girl of fourteen. "Shirei, my youngest trueborn daughter. Ami and Marianne are granddaughters. I married Ami to Ser Pate of Sevenstreams, but the Mountain killed the oaf so I got her back. That's a Cersei, but we call her Little Bee, her mother's a Beesbury. More granddaughters. One's a Walda, and the others . . . well, they have names, whatever they are ..."

"I'm Merry, Lord Grandfather," one girl said.

"You're noisy, that's for certain. Next to Noisy is my daughter Tyta. Then another Walda. Alyx, Marissa ... are you Marissa? I thought you were. She's not always bald. The maester shaved her hair off, but he swears it will soon grow back. The twins are Serra and Sarra." He squinted down at one of the younger girls. "Heh, are you another Walda?"

The girl could not have been more than four. "I'm Ser Aemon Rivers's Walda, lord great grandfather." She curtsied.

"How long have you been talking? Not that you're like to have anything sensible to say, your father never did. He's a bastard's son besides, heh. Go away, I wanted only Freys up here. The King in the North has no interest in base stock." Lord Walder glanced to Robb, as Jinglebell bobbed his head and chimed. "There they are, all maidens. Well, and one widow, but there's some who like a woman broken in. You might have had any one of them."

(Note, of course, that Roslin is not among those named, given that at this point she was about to marry Edmure, but presumably she would have been on the list too. Note also that Walder leaves out some of his female relations who were of an age with those named, such as Zia Frey.)

Unfortunately, we're not given anything resembling a personality for any of them, with the exception of Amerei (and, to some extent, Roslin), so there's no telling who would have gotten along best with Robb on a personal level (and that's without knowing much of anything of what Robb found attractive in women; the most that can be gleaned is his praise of Jeyne as "bright as well as beautiful ... kind as well" and with "a gentle heart", but this is also Robb's first (presumably) serious romantic relationship and one with rather rushed beginnings). (That lack of knowledge, on both sides, goes for the appearances of these girls, since few of them are actually described.) In terms of dynastic consideration, not all of those girls named by Lord Walder would have been of an age to consummate a marriage or give birth to an heir, at least from a Westerosi viewpoint. (Important to note GRRM's consistently problematic depictions of child brides, considering that virtually all of the choices Walder gave were children even by Westerosi standards.) This was not necessarily the most pressing issue for Robb IOTL, at least at the point the agreement was made - he did still have two male heirs in the persons of his younger brothers - but Robb might have seen a considerable difference in marrying, say, Cersei Frey (who was about six, maybe seven at the time of the Red Wedding) as opposed to, say, the approximately 17-year-old Alyx Frey. Robb's may have been a choice solely focused on the ability to propagate the succession (since Robb's agreement was with Lord Walder as the head of House Frey, rather than any of the individual Frey branches), rather than anything more personal, since there was no need to play to a specific maternal Frey ancestry (as with the choice to marry Lancel to the Darry-blooded Amarei Frey to smooth over Lancel's transition to becoming Lord of Darry) and was no special dowry being granted (as with Walder's offer of the bride's weight in silver to Roose Bolton).

However, what is important to note about all of this is that from the moment Walder sensed that Robb's cause was doomed, Walder was going to turn on him, whether or not Robb was betrothed or already married to one of the Freys. That moment came IOTL with the twin (no pun intended) news of the fall of Winterfell and the defeat of Stannis on the Blackwater; these disasters for Robb's cause made Walder begin looking for a way out - one that the Lannisters and the Red Wedding could provide. Walder may have shifted the Red Wedding to be Robb's own wedding instead of Edmure's, or he might have staged a Red Wedding-esque event had Robb already married a Frey, but the end result would have been, broadly speaking, the same - permanently abandoning Robb and siding with the Baratheon-Lannister regime.

#asoiaf meta #alternate universe #robb stark #house frey #marriage making #walder frey

[woman-loving]

Islam, heteronormativity, and lesbian lives in Indonesia

Selections from Heteronormativity, Passionate Aesthetics and Symbolic Subversion in Asia by Saskia Wieringa, 2015.

These passages discuss some general social developments related to sexuality and gender in Indonesia, and then describe stories from different (mostly lesbian) narrators. They also touch on the creation of a religious school for waria (trans women), and include two trans men narrators, one of whom talks about his struggle to get sex reassignment surgery in the 70s. I also included a story from a divorced woman whose sexuality was questioned when her husband complained that she couldn’t sexually please him. Accusations of lesbianism can be directed toward any woman as a method for managing her sexuality/gender and prodding her into compliance with expectations of sexual availability.

In spite of protests by religious right-wing leaders, Islam does not have a single source of its so-called 'Islamic tradition'. There are many different interpretations and, apart from the Quran, many sources are contested. Even the Quran has abundant interpretations. Feminist Muslim writers, such as Fatima Mernissi (1985), Riffat Hassan (1987), and Musdah Mulia (2004 and 2012), locate their interpretations in the primary source of Islam--the Quran. According to those readings, sexuality is seen in an affirmative, positive light, being generally described as a sign of God's mercy and generosity toward humanity, characterised by such valued qualities as tranquillity, love, and beauty. The California-based Muslim scholar Amina Wadud (1999) describes the jalal (masculine) and jamal (feminine) attributes of Allah as a manifestation of sacred unity. She maintains that Allah's jamal qualities are associated with beauty that, although originally evaluated as being at the same level as Allah's masculine qualities that are associated with majesty, have en subsumed in the 14 centuries since the Quran was revealed.

The Quran gives rise to multiple interpretations. Verse 30:21 is one of my favorites:

“And among Allah's signs is this. That Allah created for you spouses from among yourselves, that you may dwell in tranquillity whit them, and Allah has put love and mercy between your [hearts]: verily in that there are signs for those who reflect.”[2]

The verse is commonly used in marriage celebrations, and I also used it in my same-sex marriage ritual. It mentions the gender-neutral term 'spouse,' which leaves room for the interpretation that same-sex partners are included.

Indonesian waria (transwomen) derive hope from such texts. In 2008, Maryani, a well-respected waria, opened a pesantren (traditional Islamic religious school) for waria, named Al-Fatah, at her house in Yogyakarta. After her death in March 2014, it was temporarily closed, but fortunately soon reopened in nearby Kotagede. A sexual-rights activist, Shinta Ratri, opened her house to waria santri (santri are strict believers, linked to religious schools) so they could continue to receive religious education. At the official opening, Muslim scholar Abdul Muhaimin of the Faithful People Brotherhood Forum reminded the audience that, as everyone was made by God: "Everyone has the right to observe their religion in their own way...", and added: "I hoped the students here are strong, as they must face stigma in society."[3]

Prior to her death (after she had made the haj),[4] Maryani herself, a deeply-religious person, said: "Here we teach our friends to worship God. People who worship are seeking paradise, this is not limited to our sex or our clothing..."[5] So far, hers is the only waria pesantren in Indonesia, perhaps even globally, and may be due to the fact that Maryani was an exceptionally strong person who spoke at many human-rights meetings. In October 2010, I also interviewed her and was struck by her warm personality, courage, and clear views.

In spite of those progressive readings of the Quran, women's sexuality is interpreted in light of their servility to men in practice, and has been linked to men's honour rather than women's pleasure. Although marriage is not viewed as too sacred to be broken in Indonesia, it is regarded as a religious obligation by all. An unmarried woman over the age of 20 is considered to be a perawan tua ('old virgin'), and is confronted by a continuous barrage of questions as to when she will marry.

Muslim (and Christian) conservative leaders consider homosexuality to be a sin. Women in same-sex relations find themselves in a difficult corner, as exclusion from their religion is a heavy burden. Some simply pray at home, privately hoping that their God will forgive them and trusting in the compassion taught by their holy books. However, outside their private space, religious teachers and society at large denounce their lives as sinful and accuse them of having no religion.

Recent Indonesia legislation strengthens the conservative, heteronormative interpretations of Islam. Apart from the 2008 anti-pornography law (discussed below), a new health law was adopted that further tightened conservative Islam's grip on women's reproductive rights and marginalised non-heteronormative women. That 2009 health bill replaced the law of 1992, which had no chapter on reproductive health. The new law states that a healthy, reproductive, and sexual life may only be enjoyed with a 'lawful partner' and only without 'violating religious values'--which means that all of our narrators would be banned from enjoying healthy, sexual, and reproductive lives.[6]

Conservative statements are also made by women themselves; for example, members of the hard-line Islamic group Hizbut Tahrir, who not only want to restrict reproductive services (such as family planning) to lawfully-wedded heterosexual couples but also see population control as a 'weapon of the West' to weaken the country.[7] They propose to save Indonesia by the imposition of sharia laws. Hard-line Islamic interpretations are widely propagated and creep into the legal system, thus strengthening heteronormativity and further expelling non-normative others.

Yet strong feminist voices are also heard in Indonesia's Muslim circles. Even in a relation to one of the most controversial issues in Islam--homosexuality--a positive, feminist interpretation is possible. Indonesia's prominent feminist Muslim scholar, Siti Musdah Mulia, explains that homosexuality is a natural phenomenon as it was created by Allah, and thus allowed by Islam. The prohibition, however, is the work of fallible interpretations by religion scholars.[8] In her 2011 paper on sexual rights, Mulia bases herself on certain Indonesian traditions that honour transgender people, referring to bissu in south Sulawesi, and warok[9] in the reog dance form in Ponorogo. In those cases, transgender is linked to sacred powers and fertility. She stresses that the story of Lot, always cited as evidence of Quranic condemnation of homosexuality, is actually concerned with sexual violence--the people of Sodom were not the only ones faced with God's wrath, as the people of Gomorrah were also severely chastised even though there is no indication that they engaged in same-sex behaviour. Nor is there any hint of same-sex behaviour in relationship to Lot's poor wife, who was transformed into a pillar of salt. Mulia advances a humanistic interpretation of the Quran that stresses the principles of justice, equity, human dignity, love, and compassion (2011: 7). Her conclusion is that not Islam itself but rather its heterosexist and patriarchal interpretation leads to discrimination.

After the political liberalisation (Reformasi) of 1998, conservative religious groups (which had been banned at the height of the repressive New-Order regime) increased their influence. The dakwah ('spreading of Islam') movement, which grew from small Islamist usroh (cell, family) groups and aimed to turn Indonesia into a Muslim state, gathered momentum.[10] Islamist parties, such as the Partai Kesejahteraan Sosial (PKS), or Social Justice Party, gained wide popularity, although that was not translated into a large number of seats in the national parliament (Hefner 2012; Katjasungkana 2012). In the early Reformasi years, official discourse on women was based on women's rights, taking the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action as its guide, but recent discourse on an Islamic-family model--the so-called keluarga sakinah ('the happy family')--has become dominant in government circles (Wieringa 2015, forthcoming). The growing Islamist emphasis on a heteronormative family model, coupled with homophobia, is spreading in society. During KAN's [Kartini Asia Network for Gender and Women's Studies in Asia] September 2006 TOT [Training of Trainers] course in Jakarta, the following conversation was recorded:

“Farida: Religious teachers go on and on about homosexuality. They keep shouting that it is a very grave sin and that people will go straight to hell. My daughter is in the fifth form of primary school. She has a best friend and the two were inseparable. But the teachers managed to set them apart, as they were considered to be too close. The mother of my daughter's friend came to me crying; she was warned that she had to be careful with her child, or else she might get a daughter who was different. And now the new school regulations stress that a woman must wear the jilbab [headscarf].[11] This has put a lot of stress on tomboyish girls. They cannot wear the clothes they are comfortable with any more. Zeinab: When we were taught fiqih [Islamic law], we never discussed homosexuality. When we studied the issue of zinah [adultery], one of our group asked: "But how about a woman committing zinah with another woman, or a man with another man?" Our teacher just shook is head and muttered that that was not a good thing. The only story we learnt was about the prophet Luth [Lot]. But when we went to study the hadith [Islamic oral law], we found the prophet had a very close friend, Abu Harairah, who never married, while all men were always showing off their wives. There were some indications that he might have had a male lover. Yet the prophet is not known to have warned him. So, while the mainstream interpretation of Islam is that they condemn homosexuality, there are also other traditions that seem to be more tolerant, even from the life of the prophet himself.”

The above fragment shows how fundamentalist practices creep into every nook and cranny of Indonesian people's lives--the growing suspicion toward tomboys, forcible separation of close school friends, and enforcement of Muslim dress codes. But we also see a counter-protest arising. At the TOT training course, the women activists realised that patriarchal interpretations of religion had severely undermined women's space, and started looking for alternative interpretations, such as the story of the prophet's unmarried friend.

However, for many of our narrators, religion is a troubling issue. Putri, for instance, does not even want to discuss the rights of gays and lesbians in Indonesia; she thinks the future looks gloomy, with religious fundamentalism on the rise, and her dream of equal rights is buried by the increasing militancy of religious fanatics. [...]

Women-loving women

Religion is a sensitive aspect of the lives of our women-loving-women narrators, who are from world religions that, although propagating love and compassion in their distinct ways, interpret same-sex love negatively. In some cases, our narrators are able to look beyond the patriarchal interpretations of their religions, which preach hatred for what are emotions of great beauty and satisfaction to them, while others are devastated by guilt and shame. [...]

Indonesian male-identified Lee wonders why "people cannot see us as God's creatures?" but fears that Islam will never accept homosexuality. He knows the story of the prophet Lot, and how the city of Sodom was destroyed by God as a warning so others would not commit the sin of sodomy. Lee was raised as a good Muslim, and tries to follow what he has been taught are God's orders. For some time, he wore a man's outfit for praying.[16] At that time, he thought that religious duties--if conducted sincerely--were more important than his appearance but, after listening to some religious preachers, he felt that it was not right to wear men's clothing: "Sometimes I think it is not right, lying to myself, pretending to be someone else. We cannot lie to God, right? Even if I try to hide it, definitely God knows." So, after attending religious classes, he decided to wear the woman's outfit--the mukena--when praying at home.

Lia grew up in a strict Muslim family. When she pronounced herself to be a lesbian, it came as a shock to her relatives, who invoked the power of religion to cure her. When her mother went on the haj, she brought 'Zamzam water' from Mecca. The miraculous healing powers of the liquid from Mecca's Zamzam well were supposed to bring Lia back to the normal path. Dutifully, Lia drank from it and jokingly exclaimed: "Ah, my God, only now I realise how handsome Delon is!"[17] Yet she found succor in her religion when she went through a crisis in her relationship with Santi:

"When Santi hated me very much and avoided me, I prayed: "God, if it is true that you give me a guiding light, please give me a sign. But if it is a sin...please help me..." Was my relationship with Santi blessed or not? If it wasn't, surely God would have blocked the way, and if it way, would God broaden my path? As, after praying so hard, Santi and I became closer, God must have endorsed it. Does God listen to my prayer, or does God test me?"

So, even though she got together again with Santi after that fervent bout of praying, uncertainty gnaws at Lia, who realises that mainstream Islamic preachers prohibit homosexuality. Ideally, she feels that a person's religion must support people, but Islam does not do that because she is made to feel like a sinner. But, she says, the basic principle that Islam teaches is to love others. As long as she does that, Lia sees nothing wrong in herself as one of God's creatures. She realises that, particularly in the interpretation of the hadith (Islamic oral tradition), all manner of distortions have entered Islamic values, and wonders what was originally taught about homosexuality in Islam. She is aware that many Quranic texts about the status of women were manipulated in order to marginalise them, and avidly follows debates on feminist interpretations that stress that the real message of the Quran does not preach women's subordination.

Lia knows that there are lesbians in the pesantren who carry out religious obligations, such as praying and doing good deeds. If someone has been a lesbian for so long that it feels like natural character, and has been praying and fasting for many years, they cannot change into a heterosexual, she decided.

Religious values are also deeply inculcated in Sandy, who is tortured by guilt and shame about her lesbian desires. Although masculine in appearance and behaviour, she wears the mukena while praying both at home and at the mushola (small mosque) that she frequents. Since she was 23, when her mother died, she realised that what she did with her lover, Mira, was a sin and started reading religious books to discover what they said about people like her. She accepted the traditional interpretation of the story of Lot and the destruction of Sodom. When she was 25 years old, Mira left her to marry a man. Sandy was broken hearted and considered suicide. In that period of great distress, she realised that God prohibits suicide and just wanted her to give up her sinful life. She struggled hard against her desires for women and the masculinity in her:

"If I walk with women, I feel like a man; that I have to protect them. I feel that I am stronger than other women. But I also feel that I am a woman, I am sure that I am a woman, that is why I feel that I am different from others. I accept my own condition as an illness, not as my destiny. ... Yes, an illness, because we follow our lust. It we try to contain our lust, as religion teaches us, we would never be like this. So I try to stay close to God. I do my prayers, and a lot of zikir.[18] I even try to do tahajjud.[19]"

Sandy believes in the hereafter and does not want to spoil her chances of eternal bliss by engaging in something so clearly disproved of by religion, although she has not found any clear prohibitions against lesbianism in either the Quran or hadith.

Bhima, who considers himself to be a secular person, was brought up in a Muslim family. His identity card states that he is a Muslim, which got him into serious trouble when he went for his first sex-change operation at the end of the 1970s. He went through the necessary tests but the doctors hesitated when they looked at his ID, fearing the wrath of conservative clerics. Bhima was desperate:

"Listen, I have come this far! I have saved up for this, sold my car, relatives have contributed, how can you do this to me? Tell me what other religion I should take up and I will immediately get my identity card changed. I have never even been inside a mosque. I don't care about any institutionalised religion!"

The doctors did not heed his plea, instead advising him to get a letter of recommendation from a noted Muslim scholar. Undaunted, Bhima made an appointment with a progressive female psychologist who had been trained in Egypt and often gave liberal advice on Muslim issues on the radio. He managed to persuade her to write a letter of introduction to the well-known Muslim scholar Professor Hamka. Letter in hand, Bhima presented himself at the gate of Hamka's house, and was let in by the great scholar himself. Bhima pleaded his case, upon which Hamka opened the Quran and pointed to a passage that read "when you are ill, you must make all attempts to heal yourself":

"Are you ill?" Hamka asked. Bhima nodded vehemently. "Fine, so then tell them that the Quran advises to heal your illness." "It is better, sir," Bhima suggested, "that you write that down for them."

With that letter, Bhima had no problem to be accepted for the first operation, in which his breasts were removed.

Widows [...] In Eliana's case religion played an important role in her marriage--and subsequent divorce. While still at school, she had joined an usroh group (created to teach students about religious and social issues in the days of the Suharto dictatorship). Proper sexual behaviour played an important role in their teachings. According to usroh, a wife must be sexually subservient to her husband and accept all his wishes, even if they involve him taking a second wife. Eliana felt close to her spiritual leader and tried to sexually behave as a good Muslim wife would. She forced herself to give in to all her husband's sexual wishes, including blow jobs and watching pornography with him. Yet the leader blamed Eliana for not doing enough to please her husband, saying that is why he needed a second wife. Her teacher even asked if she was a lesbian, because she could not satisfy her husband. As both her spiritual leader and husband agreed that it was not nice for a man to have an intellectually-superior woman, she played down her intelligence. Eventually she divorced her husband.

Internalised lesbophobia and conservative-religious (in this case, Muslim) norms prevented Jenar for enjoying the short lesbian relationship that she had between her two marriages. It is interesting how she phrases the conversation, starting on the topic by emphasising how much she distrusted men after her divorce (because her husband did not financially provide for their family). The relationship with her woman lover was not long underway, and had not advanced beyond kissing, but she immediately felt that, according to religion, what she did was laknat (cursed). Anyway, she added, she was a 'normal,' heterosexual woman and did not feel much aroused when they were touching. A middle-aged, male friend added to her feeling of discomfort by emphasising that she would be cursed by God if it would continue. He then took her to a dukun (shaman), where she was bathed with flowers at midnight in order to cure her. That was apparently successful, for she gave the relationship up. However, even though she had stressed that she was 'normal' and did not respond sexually to her lover's advances, she ended the conversation by saying that she felt lesbianism was a 'contagious disease'. That remark stresses her own internalised homophobia but also emphasises her helplessness and lack of agency--contagion is something that cannot be avoided. It also hints at the strength of the pull she felt for a contagion that apparently could not be easily ignored. The important role of the dukun indicates that she follows the syncretist stream of Islam, mixed with elements of the pre-Islamic Javanese religion--Kejawen. [...]

Women in same-sex relationships [...]

As in India, the human-women's-lesbian-rights discourse is gaining momentum in Indonesia. It could only develop after 1998, when the country's dictator was finally forced to resign and a new climate of political openness was created. The new sexual-rights organisations not only opened a public space to discuss women's and sexual rights but also impacted on the behaviour of individuals within their organisations (as discussed in more detail in chapter 9). Before Lee joined a lesbian-rights group, he had decided to undergo sex-reassignment therapy (SRT) to physically become a man as much as possible. Activists warned him of the operations' health risks and asked whether he really needed such a change in order to live with his spouse. Lee feels secure within the group, and is happy to find like-minded people with whom he can share many of his concerns. Lee actively sought them out after reading a newspaper article about a gay male activist: he tracked him down at his workplace and obtained the address of the lesbian group. Lee is less afraid of what will happen when their neighborhood find out that Lee's body is female--as he says: "I have done nothing wrong, I haven't disturbed anyone, I have never asked anyone for food." However, Lee is worried about the media, where gay men and lesbian women are often represented as the sources of disease and disaster.

Lia had no idea what a lesbian was when she first fell in love with a woman. There were many tomboys like her playing in the school's softball team, and she once spotted a female couple in another school's softball team. Her relationship with Santi developed without, as Lia says, any guidance of previous information. Only at college in Yogyakarta did she start reading about homosexuality on the internet. Through the Suara Srikandi portal (one of the first lesbian groups in Jakarta), she came to know of other Indonesian lesbians. Another website that she frequently visited was the Indonesian Lesbian Forum, and one of her lecturers introduced her to the gay and lesbian movement in her city. In 2004, she publicly came out at a press conference. She first joined the KPI, which has an interest group of sexual minorities, but found the attitude of her feminist friends to be unsupportive and decided to join a lesbian-only group. The women activists only wanted to discuss the public role of women and domestic violence, and told her that lesbianism was a disease and a sin.

Lia wants to broaden the lesbian movement. She feels the movement is good in theory but lacking in practice--particularly in creating alliances with other suppressed groups, such as farmers and labourers. In focusing only on lesbians, not on discrimination and marginalisation itself, she asserts that it has become too exclusive. By socialising with other movements, she argues, they will better understand lesbian issues, and, in turn, that will help the lesbian movement. It is true, she concedes, that lesbians are stigmatised by all groups in society but, since 1998 (the fall of General Suharto), the country has seen a process of democratisation. "We must take up that opportunity and not be scared of stigma," she exhorts her friends in the lesbian movement. Lia herself joined a small, radical political party, the PRD,[33] and faced stigma ("we have a lesbian comrade; that's a sin, isn't it?"), but feels that she has ultimately been welcomed. Now, her major problem is to find the finances to conduct her activism. At the time of the interview, she had lost her job and could not find the means to print handouts for her PRD comrades.

Lia is a brave forerunner. At the time of the interview, her lesbian friends were too scared to follow in her footsteps and told her that she was only dreaming. However, her heterosexual friends (in the labour movement) said that they were bored with her, and found her insistence of a connection between the struggle for sexual and labour rights to be too pushy.

Lia dreams of equal rights for lesbians. First, she would like to see a gay-marriage law implemented in Indonesia, which would ensure that the property rights of surviving spouses are protected in case one passes away. She also would like to set up a shelter for lesbians, as she knows many young lesbians who have been thrown out of their family homes and are in need of support.

Sandy is rather hesitant about the rights she would like to see introduced to Indonesian society. Most of all, she wants to be accepted as a normal human being, where no one says bad things about or harasses lesbians like her. What women do in the privacy of their bedrooms is one thing. Women should have the right to have sex, for it comes straight from the heart--it is pure love. But, in public, their behavior should be impeccable: no kissing, no hugging, no holding of hands. However, Sandy thinks that marriage rights for lesbians will not happen in Indonesia, and are only possible in Christian countries. But, minimally, she hopes to lead a life without discrimination or violence:

"If they see us as normal, they won't bother us. We are human, but if we act provocatively then it is ok for them to even hang us ... [I just hope they] won't harass us, or humiliate us. That is all I ask, that if we are being humiliated there is a law to prevent it. That a person like me is protected. To be laughed at is okay, but it is too much if they throw stones at us and if we are not allowed to work."

Sex workers want the right to work without being harassed, and women in same-sex relationships want to be treated like 'normal' human beings and enjoy socio-sexual rights, such as health benefits or the right to buy joint property. Yet the state does not provide those rights and does not protect its citizens in equal measure. As a major agent of heteronormativity, it restricts its benefits and protection to those within its margins. Couples with social stigma and conservative-religious interpretations, some of our narrators have reached deep levels of depression.

#lgbtq #indonesia #trans men #trans women #waria #islam #saskia wieringa #lesbians #women loving women #wlw

[teatimeatwinterpalace]

I have two questions about Louis IV of Hesse I hope you might have answers to... 1. Did he have a close friendship to Fritz of Prussia? Despite politics? 2. Was he really as... well, stupid as many tend to believe about him? Or so called ”handsome, but not very intelligent”.

Hey! First I just want to say that we have few materials in English on Louis, Fritz (& Alice tbh) but here is my two cents.

Concerning Louis and Fritz, I would say they did have a close friendship. They fought on opposite sides during the Austro-Prussian war but that didn't seem to have dampened their friendship. Tbh every relationship has its ups and downs. Fritz didn't approve the marriage between Louis of Battenberg and his niece Victoria. But overall I think they remained close. Louis was in the adjacent room when Fritz had his tracheotomy in January 1888. And when Fritz died, Louis stood by Vicky's side. In one of his letters to his sister-in-law he wrote: 'When I can do anything to propagate Fritz's views I will do so'. After Louis' death in 1892, Vicky wrote to her mother: 'only Louis to whom I could talk, & who understood & who could share many of my feelings & fears'.

& look at these dorks...

Regarding his “lack of intelligence", I think this belief comes from a letter written by Alice in October 1876 :  

'I longed for a real companion, for apart from that life had nothing to offer me in Darmstadt. I could have been quite happy and contented living in a cottage, if I had been able to share my intellectual interests, and intellectual aspirations with a husband whose strong, protective love would have guided me around the rocks... So naturally I am bitterly disappointed with myself when I look back, and see that in spite of great ambitions, goo intentions, and real effort, my hopes have nevertheless been completely shipwrecked...' ouch, however she continues saying: 'I love you too so very much, my darling husband, that is why it is so sad to feel that our life is nevertheless so incomplete - and sometimes so difficult.'

Scholars then assumed that the clever Alice was trapped in an unfulfilled marriage with a dim husband (Jerrold M. Packard is particularly hard on Louis). I think it is reductive.

Let's add some context: the Franco-Prussian deeply marked Alice, she had gone through a spiritual crisis. In 1873, their youngest son, Frittie, died when he fell from an open window in Alice's bedroom. I can't even fathom the guilt and anguish that Alice must have felt. They both responded differently to grief, Alice wrote to Louis: 'The wound... is not yet healed... I sometimes need to talk about it... But I don't do it with you - I know it hurts you.'

I see a woman with great depths who had gone through many trials and who had been married for fourteen years. Fourteen years... Marriage brings its fair share of challenges. When she wrote this letter, she clearly felt discontent and melancholic. She yearned for a sort of intimate intellectual companionship that perhaps Louis was unable to give her. However, it would be wrong to say that because of this, Louis was as dry as dust. And the fact that she was even able to share these thoughts and feelings with Louis says a lot about him.

+++ the last quote of Vicky above, shows that she held him in high esteem. Coming from Vicky, it means a lot. She was clever as hell and she despised medriocrity. She wrote this after his death so there is a kind of pathos in her words. But Louis was very much aware of what was happening in Berlin with Bismarck and his clique!

#i would love to delve deeper but we have not enough sources :( #if only we had their correspondence! #& #so sorry for my late reply!! #it was nice to have a question about louis #and fritz ;) #answer #kaiser frederick III #louis iv #hesse