#(I know I've touched very! fucking lightly on the...outside threat here but A: haven't read Desolation yet; simply haunted after the end of

[ravencromwell]

Teixcalaanli fandom, am I the only one who can't get the Omelas-style scenarios for Mahit in Memory out of my head? If Darj's info hadn't come when it did. If One Lightning hadn't decided to shit where he wanted to eat and wreck half a city for the fucking sun-spear throne--and if that hadn't led to Larkspur deciding he was some really hot shit who could also coup--. In that alternant world, where she simply came because of Yskandr's death, is there some part of your brain that closes the covers and can't stop thinking: would she have let the station be devoured, or sold him the damn machine?

 Putting the rest of this under a cut, for the sake of a mutual who I'm currently practically vibrating to have read this book and then come talk at me about it.

Without Darj's info and the coups, Mahit is left with utterly shit options. I immediately! viscerally want to say that she would've made different choices: that the utter perversion of the imago inherent in what Six Directions wants to do to Eight Antidote would make her say no--she knows! he would be utterly subsumed by 6D. But! oh but; we see the same problems that plagued Yskandr plague Mahit.

 Even a cursory tumblr search tells me that those of us who adore Yskandr, in all his morally bankrupt complexity/complicity like to joke that all her troubles started because he's an utter bi icon that adores getting in way the fuck over his head and then falling head over arse. But it's an oversimplification because 6D is! a good emperor: everything Yskandr thinks about him being like the starship captain in that beautiful poetic excerpt we get is *true*

 Don't get me wrong: it's also! true that he has a cruel streak (holy fuck making Nineteen Ads *complicit* in his sacrifice after what she said! about missing him every day for all the days of her fucking life! I can't be the only one who thinks that's yeah, because he wants good governance but also just as a massive fuck-you for denying his dreams of being the one to carry it out via imago--love and hatred and rage are such a hopelessly interwoven thing in these novels, constantly pushing and pulling against one another) He's got a cruel streak, and he grasps at his wish for immortality, long after the hope of it has died. But Yskandr's love didn't blind him so far as to be *wrong* about the core truth that he was a damn fine emperor within the confines of his world-view.

 So, here Mahit is, faced with this profoundly tempting offer of *eternal* freedom for her station, for such a small price; only one child devoured, one secret betrayed. And look, I have to be honest. My visceral scream of no, save poor baby Eight Antidote is uttered by a person secure in the U.S. empire, who's never felt the colonizer's boot, or the soft power of cultural integration.

 It also comes, I like to think, as a historian: knowing that if men like One Lightning and Larkspur hadn't struck in that! moment, they would have struck eventually; eternal peace is fool's gold, because you're always going to have some asshole who wants power or glory or...something that will lead them to think bloodshed is the answer. If Yskandr hadn't been quite so desperate to both save the station from 6D's inevitable war to prove his might even in illness and utterly smitten, he would've admitted he was buying finite time, not some eternity of peace.

 There's a haunting passage where Mahit thinks about her clone-sib, about all the things he would be denied if Teixcalaan invaded and decided stationer imagos were "barbaric"--all the possibilities dear to her he would never have, how the continuity of memory would be broken. When one child, in the form of Eight Antidote is juxtaposed against all the stationer children--even with the understanding that what you're buying is finite, it becomes an impossible choice. I've never been so fucking glad for aliens in a story; and yet, the Omelas possibilities just keep! haunting me.

 In one strand of time, Mahit comes to 19ads perspective: that an imago is not only barbaric in a child, but the consequences simply too unknown. She gets experimental surgery from Five Portico—one last, desperate gasp of fuck-you patriotism for her station. She watches a sun-temple be built on that same station. She clings to the imago of Yskandr--not letting them meld into one, but keeping up that back-and-forth patter, racked with dizziness and nausea because fuck everything. They are the two last to be preserved by imago. Maybe there is secret stationer resistance, tales whispered to children about imago machines; the hand-printed comics of heroic pilots and their consulted imagos passed from hand to hand, carefully preserved as the pages fade and tatter from so many fingers. But she does not know; she who failed as ambassador and can only blunt the colliding of the cultures; she, Mahit-and-Yskandr do not return home. She clings to 3seagrass through the tumult of inevitable rise-and-fall factions as Larkspur and Eight Loop struggle for dominance in that decade until Antidote reaches his majority. Maybe she even becomes integral to a coup by Nineteen Ads, she and Yskandr both thinking it's the only way to restore the peace Six Directions wanted as the aliens continue to eat away at the borders, learned of too late to do the station any good.

 In another: oh, in another. She capitulates. Antidote is subsumed. Perhaps, if she doesn't yet have the imago of older Yskandr in her head--because so much of that is over the message, so no message, no spurring incident--, Six Directions lets her have it installed; the most misplaced gesture of kindness, thinking that if she is subsumed by Yskandr, she will no longer be so guilty, so hollow. But of course, she is not subsumed by Yskandr. Oh, she has his love for Six Directions, tucked into her endocrine system, and in her empathy, she even understands it; his love for his emperor and Nineteen Ads both. But it is not her! love, and it brings her cold comfort indeed. Seeing Three Seagrass's lovely, beautiful empire continue in peace is a comfort. When she can stop thinking of stars going out, consumed by alien presences. Three Seagrass's gentle hand-pressure against her back, or her wide, skillful mouth, hot against Mahit's; those are comforts. Yskandr whispers to cling to them, but any warmth is distant, fleeting. And her station is so happy, all unaware of her treason, astounded by the skill of the child emperor in the war.

 Or perhaps: she lets herself become Yskandr; screams and begs until he takes command, and lets Mahit become only distant static in the back of his head, in this different body.

 Fuck, there're just so many! scenarios, and my terrible id-brain wants fic of them *all*

[quinn-in-hell]

Hello! I'd like to request for headcannons where the dorm leaders have to deal with a reader who is just really detached from reality, kinda like Luna Lovegood from Harry Potter? They go around touching potentially dangerous things, reading weird books and saying omnipotent stuff. Have fun~

A/N: Haven't even read Harry Potter but I can already relate lmao. Anyways let's fuckin goooo

🌹Riddle Rosehearts🌹

Lord help this boy-

He's going to start putting rules down for you so you can be safe

"You have broken S/O Safety rule no. 19 "Don't eat magical plants that you don't know""

Anytime there is some weird tome, he keeps it on a shelf you (and him) can't reach so you don't accidentally summon something

He loves you but please don't drink that potion you just made, that's a horrible idea

🦁Leona Kingscholar🦁

Finds you very interesting

After all, what herbivore eats magical plants and almost summons eldritch entities?

You. You are that herbivore.

If he knows it won't be a huge threat to your safety, he'll let you do it.

Fuck around and find out, he says

But if he knows it's dangerous, he pulls you away, lightly scolding you for doing something stupid and making him get up from his nap

He'll keep you in his arms while he sleeps so you don't accidentally get your ass killed

🐙Azul Ashengrotto🐙

*IMMEDIATELY Writes a contract*

"Now, our deal is you don't do anything dangerous and your rewards are affection"

Of course, he'll still give you affection even if you aren't safe but his point still stands

Once he caught you almost cursing yourself because you were reading a book of literal death curses

How did you even get that?!

Yeah, this contract is for your own good and to keep Azul from having a heart attack

🦦Kalim Al-Asim🦦

Is very worried and Jamil is ANNOYED

Kalim will sometimes get involved but only when it's not dangerous

Jamil scolds you two frequently

Every Wednesday is Jamil Lecture Day

Luckily at Scarabia, there isn't many cursed tomes or magical plants you can touch so Kalim prefers to keep you here

Will sometimes ask Jamil to watch you

He will get sad if sometimes happens to you so be safe!!

🦚Vil Schoenheit🦚

You are going to cause him wrinkles, I swear to god-

Once he sees your detached self in action, he fucking magic proofs pomefiore.

Any potions can't be opened without vils permission

Any magical plants are locked in a green house away from the dorm

Basement is off limits.

While you are in his dorm, you are safe from yourself.

Outside the dorm, he has Rook watch you and report to him every so often, even having him stop whatever you were about to do

And here and there, he checks on you himself

Because he loves you but oh boy you are a challenge

💀Idia Shroud💀

Oh my God you are just like this one anime character-

While he kins asigns you that character, you are a constant worry

While he's always in his room, he sets up a second tablet so he can watch you during classes and tell you what not to do

If by some slim chance, he's out and about, he'll join you to make sure you're ok and not doing anything deadly

You worry him a lot, give him a break

🐉Malleus Draconia🐉

You're a strange one, aren't you?

Fearlessly picking up ancient tomes that could kill you? Almost touching magical plants that would destory your bones?

He's very intrigued

But he does stop you because he can't let his child of man get hurt because of how far your head is in the clouds.

He's always watching, even when you think he isn't!

If he can't watch you for some reason, he'll send either Sebek or Silver to monitor you

Note: sebek yells a lot.

A/n: Thanks for requesting! I hope you like it! Also I've been busy with work but that means I'm buying a vil plush soon!