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[amesless]

Stardust & Supernova

PROLOGUE

“Your skin is made of stardust, supernovas and every terrible thing ever to happen.”  That was all that he left for me, scribbled on the back of an almost forgotten ultrasound photo. The ink had faded with age, sitting in a box for almost exactly 18 years had turned it into a muddy brown splodge that was supposed to be me, though the handwriting was as pristine as ever. As if it was cursed to remain as clear as the day I found it.

“Your skin is made of stardust, supernovas and every terrible thing ever to happen.”  

The question I often found myself asking, of course, was what the fuck was that supposed to mean?

Tucked away between the vintage pages of an overdue library book, the Iliad to be precise, the photo sat undiscovered for years. The book itself was buried in some forgotten box in the equally unmemorable basement that sat quietly underneath our house.

With a twitch of my fingers, lit only by the waxing moon and cheap fairy lights hung lazily across my ceiling and wrapped around my bedframe, I turned the small scan in my hand once more. The perfectly quiet handwriting glared back up at me. Then, with another twitch, the words disappeared. A bad memory inked onto the underside of a photo of me. It was only a second and a twitch, and the writing was back again.

We flicked our Y’s and curled our S’s almost exactly the same way, him and I. Letters folding in on themselves, reaching out, holding hands with their neighbours. His handwriting was on every page of the book too, the book he must have forgotten was not his. Pages filled with Y’s and S’s and some letters in between. Our A’s look remarkably similar as well, though only as capitals.

The ticking of the hallway clock broke through the persistent quiet of night, as my eyes roved over the open pages. He spelt Ὄλυμπος wrong, he always used the upper and lower cases of epsilon interchangeably, and he never even bothered to learn the uppercase for pi. It was all so… amateurish.

The cool night swam down to my lungs and made my bones shiver inwardly. I had read this exact book over and over now. My retinas had absorbed the same misspellings, careless grammatical errors, and mindless commentary nearly every day for far too long. I had given myself until my 18th birthday, the remainder of my legal childhood to figure it out.

To figure out what the fuck he meant. To figure out why I was every terrible thing that had ever happened.

It was 90 seconds to midnight and my fingers twitched and twitched and twitched. You are every terrible thing. And twitched and twitched. You are every terrible thing.

I learned Greek. And twitched and twitched. I learned the upper and lower cases of omicron and theta and tau and zeta. And twitched and twitched. I memorised ᾍδης and every epithet bestowed upon him and onto every daughter he ever had. Yet he doesn’t even know what my name is.

The seconds crawled closer towards midnight with broken legs. Slowly and painfully, desperately reaching out for the next day. Though, it wasn’t at 90 seconds to midnight that I figured it out. I just twitched my fingers and read the words that had wormed their way under my flesh and in between every third breath I took from the first moment I had read them and realised they were made for me. Stardust, supernovas, every terrible thing.

Every terrible thing. It was me in that photo. Probably around 5 months into my conception if I was correct. I was made of stardust and supernovas. All things exceptional, beautiful, unreachable, heavenbound. I was above faded polaroids and vague metaphors. I was above it all like the stars in the sky. And yet.

I rocked back in my desk chair, the photo still between my fingers. Even in the mercy of the moon's light, the photo and I were both naked. Exposed skin bathing in the light of moons, stars and all the celestial bodies that did not care enough to make themselves known. All the light on me and this photo and the Iliads open pages and his perfectly neat handwriting and my dark supernova flesh.

Thirty seconds to midnight and I was naked and alone and, worse of all, correct. From the moment I had read those words, I knew what they meant. The moment that I had read his notes, I knew what they meant. The moment that I had learned ancient languages and read every myth and legend, the moment that I had studied philosophers new and old, the moment I had found myself clinging onto my own mother's legs and asking why I didn’t have a daddy like my half-sister or my friends or everybody I had ever met, I knew what those words meant.

So when the seconds made it, pulling themselves, and me by proxy, into my very own birthday, I couldn’t find the courage to be disappointed. Times up. It took seven years and I could not find a different answer to when I had first found the book, flicked through its aged pages and found a picture of myself before birth looking back up at me.

The answer was really that simple I suppose.

I was made of every terrible thing and my father knew that better than everyone.

The tick tick ticking of the second-hand clock hung up somewhere in my hallway didn’t stop. I mean, of course, it didn’t. It was just another day on the Gregorian calendar, February 2nd. My 18th birthday and I was ok with that I suppose.

“Hmm,” I frowned to myself as I closed my eyes, the moonlight filtering through my lashes. Somebody in this world loathes me and has deemed every awful thing to be my fault. I am fundamentally, physically, irreversibly bad. My dad thinks I am every terrible thing.

But my dad can’t even spell Ὄλυμπος.

My small chuckle to myself died quickly under my breath as the usually brisk mid-winter midnight air had turned some shade of warm. Not unpleasantly so… well, maybe a little. The warmth crept up my spine, coating my vertebrae and spreading through to my ribs. The clock ticked like the dials on a gas stove, clicking into another gas mark and ramping up the heat little by little. Ironically, the heat had frozen and chilled my core, though it began to slowly burn through my body. My blood boiled its way through my veins, infecting every living part of stardust flesh. With my one free hand, I pawed at my chest to only be reminded by my palm on my bare skin that I was already naked. My nails still clawed, however, dragging pitiful harsh white lines against my black skin, failing to reach deeper. I wanted to pluck out my arteries, melt my fingers past muscle and bone, dig through my viscera and fish out every vital organ until the heat escaped.

Air escaped my lungs in a cloud of white, blossoming into the night and disappearing forever. I couldn’t blink or think or speak. Only my useless fingers scraped against my burning chest. I was on fire and yet there were no flames, no smoke. Burning limbs, burning organs, burning flesh.

This is how supernovas die. Falling inwards on themselves endlessly until the heat recycles and sets fire to fire. Until flames encapsulate its being, its breathing, its definition. Fire upon fire upon melted skeletons. Inhaling strands of air, my eyes wouldn’t close. Darting between my bare legs, desk, and the photo. Nothing was different. Strands of air, the heat death of the universe finding its origin in my blood, bare legs, desk, ultrasound, nothing was different. Frozen oxygen, boiled joints, thighs, desk, every terrible thing, nothing was different. Wheeze, heatwaves, raw skin, desk, flames.

Dancing on my fingers, flames. From my own hands, flames. Physically, biologically, provably impossible flames. Real and tangible and magical.

So small and sweet. Birthday candles and fireflies and things of the like. All things innocent and unharming. Simple flames, golden, as if I had taken my thumb and forefinger, reached into the sky on a clear May afternoon, and plucked a piece of the burning sun to treasure and hold. It danced between my fingers for a moment, twirling and leaping across every line in my thumbprint, fiery red hues licking at my nails. It was just a whisper of a flame, a playground secret, forgettable almost. Though it whispered, shared its secrets a little too carelessly and spreading the fire to the first thing it could see.

You are made of stardust, supernovas, and every terrible thing burned before my very eyes. Crumpling into a lump of sad ashes scattered across a too-old pink rug, a brand-new desk and across my thighs. The flame died, the photo was no more and my fingers twitched.

Was that-?

Am I-?

Am I going insane?

The ashes landing on my thighs, scattering around my room like burnt snow and staining my perfectly pink rug a dirty grey, was proof enough.

I am not insane, I am something else entirely. Something made of fire and brimstone, something supernatural, and something secret.

Somewhere between the midnight air, my birthday morning and the searing pain, my head was clear. Without a thought, I stood, dusting ashes off of my bare leg as I wandered slowly to my bed. The fairy lights fizzled out as I turned them off with a satisfying click, a clear sign that the batteries were on their last legs. Head against a pillow, my eyes fluttered closed and I inhaled. Not just strands, but gulps of air, until I thought maybe I would never have to breathe again and maybe this was enough oxygen to last me forever and ever and ever. Enough oxygen to think maybe the atoms and bonds and quarks could be my friends, keeping me company instead of all of the question marks gathering at my feet. However, it was short-lived as I breathed out and even the oxygen had left me alone. Alone enough so that the questions would have to keep me company. The first: did I just burn that photo with my very own human hands? The second: was that magic?

[amesless]

Hello my friends, I need your support and help in order to save the future of my children. My children deserve a happy life 🤗🇵🇸🍉🍉

[amesless]

Nah y'all who be "scrubbing" with your bare hands need to be put down or something T-T

wait i’m experiencing white people culture shock on tiktok again

please rb i can’t believe this is real

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This couldn't have happened to more deserving people

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[amesless]

i will go into that death game a thousand times if it means staying with my golden man, callisto regulus.

god, he's so perfect.

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The amount of villainess shit that I've read that are basically copy and pastes of each other but tbh I snort that shit like crack

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If this is girl dinner then I am a girl chef

girl dinner is reading trashy isekai manhwas at 2am

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[amesless]

Cade is a woman but doesn’t really care as long as she’s not being percieved as a man. (Ew men)

2. LESBIAN WOOOOOO !! Cade is so gay. She loves women. She loves talking to women, giving gifts to women, doing stuff for women, doing stuff with women- WHOA WHO SAID THAT!!

3. Janet Jackson.

4. Like literally no one cares that she’s gay but its to the point that she kinda forgets that homophobia exists sometimes. So when someone is homophobic to here shes literally just confused.

5. I’m gay

6. She thinks labels are a good idea but obsessing too much over them can get pretty unhealthy. At some point she just gave up and decided she like what she likes, which is scissoring.

7. Prolly not- HOWEVER, since her surroundings are pretty comp-het (despite being completely supportive) she sometimes gets confused about who has which ‘role’ in her relationships which causes her to subconsciously delegate one of them as the ‘man.’

8. Yeah but it’s not really linked to gender to be honest. Cade just doesn’t know what’s going on in or who she is in general

9. Oooo yes yes yes (read stardust & supernova) Cades actual name is Cadence and at some point in the story it gets changed again to Cairo. Since each name is attached to a specific period in her life and her personality during that period, she often has an identity crisis when someone calls her a different name.

10. ABSOLUTELY!! She takes the opportunity to call every minor inconvenience homophobic and goes to a few queer events and fails to get laid or even make friends really. Ha loser.

11. Cade is so open about her lesbian status that she often forgets to mention it like at all because she just assumes everyone knows. If a man tries flirting with her, her response isn’t “Oh sorry, I’m actually a lesbian,” but more like “What? Why? Wtf??”

12. Oh hell nah. She’s ever grateful to be gay and be in an accepting environment.

13. Yeah, probably. Though, she has like exactly zero game. Literally no rizz. None. So it’s probably never going to happen.

🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈PRIDE THEMED OC ASK GAME🏳️‍🌈 🏳️‍⚧️

Bc I wanted one and didn't find it so. Here

[Send ask aimed at a specific character]

1. What's your oc's gender identity? What's their relationship to their gender?

2. What's your oc's orientation? (Romantic/sexual/platonic alterous ect) Do they have opinions about it?

3. How did your oc discover themself? Did something cause them to question, or did they always know?

4. Is your oc's environment supportive about their identity? How does this impact them?

5. How did you figure out your oc's identity?

6. How does your oc feel about labels? Theirs, or in general?

7. Is there something that could cause your oc to question their identity? What?

8. Have they had struggles with their identity, be it due to internal or external reasons?

9. Are there cultural or lore specific aspects to their identity? If applicable, does their species affect it?

10. Does your oc celebrate Pride? How?

11. Is your oc open about their identity? Are they more lowkey or more blunt about it? Why or why not?

12. Does/did your oc ever wish they could change the way they are? Why? If it's in the past, how did they get over the feeling? (this can be about internalized homo/transphobia)

13. Would your oc be open to a poly relationship? Why or why not?

[Not aimed at a specific character] / [Aimed at creator]

14. Do you have ocs on the aro or ace spectrum?

15. Do any of your ocs use neopronouns? Which ones?

16. Did you ever change an oc's identity when they were already established? Why?

17. Do you share identity with any of your ocs? Which ones?

18. Do you prefer to give your ocs specific labels, or keep it unspecified? Why? If applicable, do you change their labels depending on circumstance?

19. Do you have preferences about depicting homo/transphobia in your stories? What, and why? Does it vary by story?

20. Have your ocs helped you in self discovery? How?

21. Free ramble card wee

[amesless]

Stardust & Supernova

Sunlight skimmed lazily across the still lake, drop of light mixing in with the calm blue waters and turning it to a shade of gold. A pool of golden light lay right before my very eyes. A steady step forward and the sunshine water were almost touching my feet, only missing by a few little pebbles between us. Nothing like this existed back home and as I reached down, my fingertips warmed by the gentle kiss of the sunlit lake, the thought bubbled gently around my head once more. Nothing like this existed back home.

All things golden melted to a puddle right before me. Church knells, thrones, the strings of time. I could see them all right here. The thought struck me once more.

I never saw the strings of time back home.

They were beautifully delicate, like frayed violin bows or the smile of a child who's life was built on tragedy. I liked them. Maybe this was the place that I belonged.

Slowly, the strings moved, being tugged gently into the centre of the lake. All those golden rays of sunlight that coated the waters, were now sinking inwards, towards the centre. A normal blue lake on an early spring day, collecting sunlight only at its centre. Maybe this was normal, it's not like I was apart of this world anyways.

Though, the collected sunshine almost moved like arms, tendrils of lights reaching outwards to collect more of the sun and attaching it to itself. This could be normal, right?

I fucking hope it is.

However, the sunlight began to rise, bubbling above the surface until a head peaked over the waters, all golden rays, sunny days, and eyes. It was watching me with all the power of the sun. Maybe I should move, the thought did across my mind, though my body refused to listen and instead could only focus on how warm my hands were. Maybe my body knew something I didn't.

It moved. One of its tendrils slithering just below the water surface towards me and something like fear broke through me ribs, travelled up my spine and down to my palms. My too warm hands twitched and there it was.

Flames wrapped around my fingers and set arson to my very palms. My eyes flashed wildly at the sunlit creature but it did not stop. Sunshine tendrils reaching up from the water and reached out to me but my body wouldn't listen. The power of the sun licked against my shoulder and the fire in my veins bled through my skin and wrapped around my wrists, my arms, my throat.

My eyes burned.

That seemed to make it hesitate though.

So with every part of my being, I willed brimstone, ashes, cinders, arson into my eyes and the sunlight receded away from me, retreating back below the waters surface and spreading the gold once again.

I am a secret creature, even to the secret creature of the golden lake.

The monster's well aware of its typical victims, and it knows human eyes don't glow.