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redsaurrce · 2 years

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SEVEN DEADLY VIRTUES

Summary : In order to become immortal, Jungkook had to sacrifice seven humans who were the opposite definition to the seven deadly sins. And the hardest person to find was the person with the virtue of having no greed. When he finally manages to find one, will he still sacrifice that person?

Will he still sacrifice you?

Pairing : YANDERE Jeon Jungkook x fem!reader

Genre : immortal!au

Word count : 4067

Warnings : smut 18+, kidnapping, swwearing, several mentions of killing, mentions of sacrificing humans (trigger warning: mentions of sacrificing a child), dry-humping, boob and nipple play, kissing (yo its aggressive from both the parties), jungkook develops an obsession with y/n

A/n- heh I'm back again with my broken ass writing, here we go!

In the dark and deep shadows of Daiho lay a secret unknown to the vast majority, the secret of a group of humans - immortal humans. No, God did not give them any special privilege, rather the pioneers of this cult were mad for not being born to be eternally alive. Being furious for this reason, they took the matter into their own hands and did everything to become immortal and it took generations of experiments to finally come up with a solution.

The solution was to sacrifice humans who possessed virtues opposite to the seven deadly sins. Jungkook being born among these self-made immortal humans made him abide by the rules. His parents have killed to live so why won't he do the same?

"Remember kook, never to show your face to your prey otherwise they will get all your rewards instead." Jungkook's mother warned him.

He sighed, "This is like the millionth time you have told me this, I almost thought I was hearing voices since you have repeated this so many times."

His mother lightly hit his arm, "Then you better not forget about it."

"Yeah mom, it's not like I'm still your five-year-old. My classmates and teachers think I'm the most ruthless creature in our school, I don't get why I get treated like a baby in my house." His voice trailed off in irritation. His mother chuckled, "No matter how old you grow, you'll forever be my baby boy." She pinched her son's cheek.

"ow! Ugh, I'm leaving." He clicked his tongue and walked out of the door with his cloak hiding his face perfectly to hunt for his prey.

Unlike the dark atmosphere he had grown up in, the city he was now exploring was a lot more vibrant and lively- almost making him get disgusted. He had never liked something so bright and colourful, the fact that so many people liked the futile brightness of the sun made him even more eager to kill one.

"One person a day" he mumbled to himself as he recalled the rules of the sacrifices. He mumbled further, "Today I'll kill someone who has the perfect balanced diet." he looked at the compass in his hands, this compass could glow when the target was nearby. All he needed was to switch the needle of the compass to the food icon on it and it will be reset to find the person of that virtue.

* GLUTTONY

To be honest, searching for people with a perfectly balanced diet was a little tricky. Because the person he needed to search a perfectly healthy person with an urge to resist overeating instead of someone who has an eating disorder or something similar.

He took his time to ponder over where he could get such a person. "Definitely not some modelling agencies or people working in offices. Where can I find... Where?" he hissed as he kept thinking. "Ah... Right! A nutritionist. A nutritionist must have the records of people who have adapted to having balanced meals." he felt proud of himself for coming up with such a brilliant solution.

And like that, he adopted a fake identity and resumé to work with a nutritionist and at night he went through the records of those people who have visited this nutritionist in the past. And so being successful in his attempt, he found his compass glowing more and more when he was getting closer to the home of the target. Gluttony. He struck off the word on his list and took the unconscious body of his prey away.

*ENVY

The next day he planned to abduct a person related to the church. Even though it was quite a bit difficult to find someone not envious, he found his compass glow somewhere near the church's periphery.

His compass set in the icon of purple fire, glowed more and more when he secretly followed an old man who visited the church every Sunday. Envy.

*LUST

A person with a healthy sexual routine.

Even though it was hard since it's quite rare for people not to be lustful nowadays, he managed to find a boy who was known to be a player but in reality.. that boy only did so to maintain his cool and sexy image without any special interest to knock someone up.

Finding something so secretive was hard but Jungkook managed to find it out through his tactics and by attaining a fake identity to become a teacher in that boy's school. Good thing the boy has never seen his face though. Lust

* SLOTH

A track athlete for sure!

*PRIDE

According to Jungkook, a preschooler might be lazy to complete his homework, greedy to get more toys, hungry all the time, and envious of other kids with better toys, but will hardly be prideful that such a young age.

But no matter the age, jungkook wasn't the one to falter, if sacrificing a child was the solution to his parents' satisfaction with him, he would be most delightful to sacrifice the child. Pride.

*WRATH

He thought that the best person possessing this virtue requires lots of patience and empathy and for that he chose to kidnap any staff working in a psychiatric ward. He was right when he manged to find the calmest nurse as his next target. Wrath.

*GREED

This was hard, probably the hardest of all because no matter how much he thought about it, there's no way a person might be greedless. Even if someone isn't greedy for money, they can be greedy for ambitious future, delicious food, better connection with the lord, anything.

Everyone is greedy of something or the other. He wished he could ask his parents what victims did they choose for themselves but that would result in the failure of this operation. One of the major precautions to take was to not take suggestions from a previously immortality attained human which included even his mother and father. He sighed and thought of entering into the cafe across the road from where he was standing. He went inside and sat in a corner.

"Of course, if finding such a person was easy then becoming immortal will only become a joke." He thought and grumbled. He took out his compass and to his sheer surprise, the compass was glowing brightly, so brightly that he almost flinched.

Was the person he was looking for inside this very cafe?? He glanced around swiftly and thought to wait for the person to leave the cafe so that the glow will decrease and he would know whom to follow.

He expected to get his work done with little time, what he didn't expect was to sit and see people come and go... for hours.

The glow wasn't faltering at all.

And it was getting dark outside. He had been sitting there since morning but luckily for him, there was only one person who didn't leave the cafe at all until lightning and thunder were heard from outside.

You snapped out of your daze at the sudden loud noise of the thunder bolt. "Oh shoot! It's going to rain. I don't even have an umbrella. Fuck!" You cursed under your breath and quickly left your seat to make a run before raindrops would hit the ground.

Jungkook left his seat as well and followed you. And before you knew, in an isolated alley, you felt a hand strike your neck, all of a sudden your surrounding became darker than a moonless night.

When you felt your conscious mind wake up, you figured that your hands and feet were tied behind you, mouth was taped shut with eyes blindfolded making everything even worse.

You squirmed in your position but nothing was helping. Suddenly you heard something rustle, you realized that the sound was coming from others struggling, others? There were more people with you, isn't it?

Someone even tried their best to speak but you only heard the muffled voice, like yes.. it was the case with everyone else. And before you could do anything further, you heard a door creak open, heavy footsteps filled the room you were in.

The person laughed like a devil, "Do you know why all of you are here?" You heard him loud and clear, his footsteps then nearing you, going to your back. He was making a round around all of you. "All of you will get killed tonight and i cant wait for that to happen!" He said and clapped to himself.

What?? Your skin grew pale from fear.

Others were equally frightened. Some even made even more noises possible through that damned duct tape but he only continued to speak further, "Now now dont get upset, it was really hard for me to find you guys amongst such a vast population of imperfect and immoral people. You see.. you all are really special, and before the world could curropt you, i rescued you and i'm trying to free your souls, isnt that amazing?" Your fear quickly turned into rage, oh how badly you wanted to kill this maniac instead!

"Okay, lets start from the beginning." He knelt in front of his first victim and removed the tape from his mouth. "Please let me go." These were the first words you heard the victim mutter in his shaky voice. The kidnapper clicked his tongue, "Well... that's not happening!"

The victim had now started to cry, "Why- whats so special about me?" The kidnapper answered, "Ah! Now thats a good question, you are basically the person with the perfectly balanced diet you know, i thought it'll be easy to find someone else too the way i found you but.. even if they were given a perfect meal plan, they couldn't follow it strictly, isn't that so upsetting?" He said and immediately taped the mouth of the man back.

The kidnapper fished out his compass from the pocket and smirked at the bright glow. "Jeongin! Drag this man away!" He ordered and you heard a few men take away the struggling victim.

He then continued so with the other four people, untaping their mouth, telling them why were they kidnapped and then taping them back to drag them out of the room. You did not hear anymore person struggling in the room so you believed that perhaps you are the last one left.

His steps got closer until you felt his presence in front of you. He detached the tape letting your mouth free, "Any questions?" He asked.

"Why are you killing us?" You asked firmly.

He chuckled, "Didnt i answer that already? I'm trying to save all of you--"

"Bullshit!" You shouted. "You want us to believe that crap?" You were fuming mad.

Normally, Jungkook would have punched the person unconscious but strangely he didn't want to do so right now. Call him crazy but he had never seen someone look so hot while being angry, not even his female classmates looked so attractive to him. He then took a second to look at you entirely from top to bottom, he was right, you were indeed one of a kind. He didnt notice it earlier but now he thanked heavens that you had a mini skirt on you-- "Hold on! I'm not supposed to do this, she's getting killed tonight." He mentally scolded himself and shook his head.

He quickly taped your mouth back and said, "Even though you didnt ask, i'll answer you. You are someone who doesnt have any greed left within you. You're the rarest kind!" He said and ordered his men to drag you away. Just when they were lifting you up, he brought out his compass to see the glow. To much of his horror, the compass wasn't glowing anymore, he frowned.

"Halt!" He commanded. "Untie her ankles." For a moment you were confused 'cause why did he order that all of a sudden? "Now leave us alone." He said.

You heard the footsteps of the men receding and the door was closed.

You gulped.

"Looks like you are greedy now. Have you now developed the greed to live longer?" You flinched at the sudden touch of his hand on your cheek. He caressed your cheek and then tore off the tape from your mouth. "Then i must not be someone you can kill anymore.. isnt it?" You said mockingly. He laughed, "You are smart. But, i can still kill you if you make me mad." He said and leaned forward, you felt his cool breath tickle the crook of your neck, "So you better not make me mad if you want to see tomorrow's sunrise."

"What are you implying exactly?" You asked him.

"Please me. And I'll let you go." He said.

"Please you? How? Shall i sing? Massage your shoulders?" Of course you understood his intention but you chose to play dumb and get his answer out of his own mouth.

He chuckled and you heard him get away from you. Next you heard him drag something closer, you supposed it to be a furniture, most probably a chair.

"You are quite funny, a moment ago you were fuming with anger and now you are making jokes." He pulled your arm and you involuntarily stumbled forward, he made you sit on his thighs with your legs on both sides. "Make me feel good, if you can satisfy me. I shall let you go." He said as he ran his cold hands up your bare thighs. You felt alarmed, why did you had to wear a short skirt out of everything today!?

You bit the inner side of your cheek, "I think i can do that better if you untie my hands and remove the blindfold from my eyes!" You said.

He tilted his head and had a crooked smile, did you really think you could outsmart him? Not on his watch!

You sharply inhaled as you felt his face press against your chest, he pressed further and you felt his hands untie yours at the back. He moved his face away once he was done untying.

You bit your lip, "What about the blindfold?"

"Im not going to untie that." As soon as he said that, you quickly raised your hands to untie them but he caught your wrists. "I said what i said and if you still open that, you are dead." Your hands shivered and you backed down.

"Alright, i wont." You said in a meek voice.

"Good girl. Now, get started already." He spoke.

You clutched the fabric of your skirt tight, still thinking your decision. "Ugh! I'll just get it done with him." You mentally told yourself.

You pulled up the skirt to expose your underwear. Jungkook smirked with your action. You started circling your pussy from outside the panty but now he had a better idea. "Let me do it!" He said and grabbed your wrist to stop you.

Much to your shock, he pulled down your panty and started fingering you with his thumb. Your vagina started throbbing, you moaned the moment he inserted two of his fingers inside you. The next thing made you almost scream when he started scissoring with his fingers. Your breath grew shallow with the increasing speed. With his other hand he unzipped his pants and brought your hands over his penis. "You know what you need to do, right?"

"Y-yes." You said and started sliding your palms up and down his dick. He inserted a third finger and you screamed, your nails dug into his foreskin and he let out a shaky breath. Much to his pleasure, your juices had started leaking and so he pulled up your panty covering your pussy back. "Come over, grind your pretty pussy on me." He slapped your clothed pussy causing you a painful sensation. You shifted closer to his erect dick and started dry-humping. "Ah..." He moaned and your back arched. His hands moved up to unbutton your t-shirt exposing your bra.

His hands were now kneading your clothed breasts while you kept grinding on him. "Dammit!" You cursed internally, you were so lost in the session that you had totally forgotten to ask him further. "W-will you still not tell me.. why.. you kidnapped.. u-us?" You asked him.

"I want to become immortal." He answered honestly while throwing his head back on the chair. You managed to run your hands through his hair, "Im..immortal? How is that po.. possible?" You asked and he pulled open your bra, your bare boobs hanging down. He hands started squeezing your nipples making you moan loudly. "It.. it is possible." He answered and continued, "If we sacrifice humans with ... the.. best.. qualities.. compared .. t-to the seven deadly sins.. the person sacrificing them... can be-become immortal." He said pinched your nipple hard making you clench your teeth, tears forming in your eyes.

You spoke, "But we.. we were only.. AH- only six people here." You managed to speak.

His breathing pace got faster as you started humping with more speed, "Y-yeah.. but .. there's a.. ch-child too.. he.. ahh... he was making.. ahhhhh... too much noise." He hissed in pleasure.

Your stomach churned with disgust when you heard him. "That’s it! This man needed to die!" You mentally noted and leaned towards him, you started to kiss him aggressively and he too reciprocated your aggressiveness. He has never been kissed so aggressively before and he absolutely loved the way you kissed! The way your soft lips embraced his lips, the way your tongue danced along with his tongue.

When you both were deep into each other's kiss, your hands moved away from his hair to his neck. You started choking him. At first it would've looked like you had a choking kink but no, you were in real trying to cut off his wind supply.

Jungkook laughed in your kiss, "Nice try!" He said after he hit your carotid point making you unconscious. He quickly got up and carried you in his arms. He stepped out of the door and looked at his men, "inject everyone i had kidnapped with the memory erasing potion so that they forget the past 24 hours of their life and return them back to their houses."

"Sir, shall i inject her too?" Jeongin asked him as he pointed his finger towards you. He shook his head, "Except her. I want her to remember all of this. But just like everyone else, return her back as well safely."

You sighed as you drank your coffee in a cafe. The incident that had happened with you a week ago was still bothering you, you still can't forget that night. You remember your kidnapper telling you why he had kidnapped all of you, after carefully remembering few of his words you understood that you were the person with no greed. Tch! Who doent have any greed? You scoffed to yourself and recalled what had happened in the morning the day you were kidnapped.

You had a quarrel with your ex-boyfriend when you told him how you didn't like the way his girl best friend was behaving, too much clingy, too much physical contact. She used to even sit on his lap casually.

At first you thought that you were over analyzing things, that you were just being paranoid. You tried your best to not act affected, to act like you were the cool kind.

"Y/n's literally a blind at this point!" You heard Sarah, your ex's best friend speak with someone while you heard them from outside the door. "Like she cant even see how i and woobin hold hands nearly all the time. She's like the dumbest girlfriend of woobin i have seen so far. Even though i get so tired of him always ranting and praising his girlfriend whenever we are together, my opinion about her still doesnt change." Your eyes flickered and you gulped hard, you barged inside the room making Sarah's eyes go wide.

"I see. I wasnt wrong when I thought that you were upto something.. and what did you say? Dumbest?" You laughed sarcastically, "Have you ever seen yourself in the mirror, Sarah? You should do that more often to know the correct answer of who's actually dumb here!" Sarah chuckled, "But did i say anything wrong though? Whom do you think would Woobin believe more, me or you? His best friend with whom he has practically grown up or his girlfriend of three months?" She raised her eyebrows in question.

You nodded, "Yeah we should better find that out, shouldn't we?" You quickly grabbed your phone and dialed Woobin. When Woobin came to the room you all were in, Sarah had completely changed her demeanor. "What happened Sarah?" As soon as Woobin entered, he looked concerned for Sarah who was faking her crocodile tears, "Woobin i suppose i should maintain my distance from you now on." You rolled your eyes at her cheap acting skills.

"Why, whats wrong?" Woobin asked her. "Why don't you ask that to your beloved girlfriend? She doesn't seem to understand the kind of relationship we share." Oh wow! She tells him to ask you and then answers herself!? You seriously wanted to laugh.

Woobin turned towards you, "What is she saying, Y/n? I thought you were cool with me hanging out with Sarah. Why the sudden change of heart?"

You scoffed, "Hanging out? Is holding hands and sitting on one's lap, even kissing on one's cheeks sometimes is a part of hanging out? Is that what best friends do? Honestly i only pretended to be fine with it, but.. but i cant anymore woobin!"

Sarah was now crying even more pathetically, "See woobin, i didnt lie! Y/n, it seems that you have a problem with me but i never had with you."

"That's right Y/n, Sarah has never said anything ill about you. Why do you feel insecure about us?" Woobin added.

You were flabbergasted at how Woobin was openly taking his best friend's side and calling you insecure, "Are you implying that I'm the problem here? Seriously? You know what, let's just break up. I cant stay with you if you have a best friend like her. We are over." You were enraged.

Finally, woobin also lost his cool, "Can you fucking stop being so greedy Y/N?" He shouted. The whole room was now pin drop silent until you spoke again, "Greedy? Woobin, I'm sorry for being greedy, okay? I'm sorry that i ever became a part of your life and became a problem in between you both because... because i'm a greedy person. But you know what? I dont want to stay as a part of your life any longer. Good fucking bye!" You rushed out and never looked back even though Woobin kept calling your name.

That day you had then went to the cafe to cool yourself down and pondered over and over again that whether you had overreacted or if you were really a greedy person.

And with hours passing by, you had less and less desires left within you.

That was when Jungkook's compass had started glowing.

Right now, you were looking outside the window of the cafe, the day was sunny and the scenery was peaceful. You still think that that day was probably the most eventful day of your life, you also wondered what had happened with the other victims who were kidnapped. You wished you could report to the police but you didn't even see anyone or know anything about them. You didn't even know the place you were in, so all you could do is just think about them.

While you were lost in your thoughts, someone came and sat in front of you. You looked in front of you at his face, damn he was one handsome guy with a charismatic smile.

"Hi, I'm Jeon Jungkook. Nice to meet you, Y/N." All of a sudden, you felt shivers run down your spine, you knew this voice. It was definitely the kidnapper's voice. But was it really him? Jungkook seemed to get the hint of confusion on your face so he spoke, "It's a good thing that I gave up on being immortal. Now we can grow old together Y/N." He smiled broadly and now your suspicions were confirmed. It was indeed him.

The blood drained from your face.

Ahahaha thankyou for reading sweethearts, you were awesome today ❤️

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hero-israel · 7 months

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Last week, in my Discord group of about 60 lifelong friends (and I mean really lifelong, danced-at-the-wedding, phone-call-for-the-divorce friends), one person posted a "from the river to the sea" meme they'd found on Twitter. I made clear that it was a huge problem, that person apologized and deleted it, everyone else seemed supportive and understanding.

And surprised.

Because none of them - not ONE of them - had ever heard the term before, nor knew what the river or the sea were, nor had any clue it could possibly be seen as threatening. That included the person who posted it in the first place. These are all college graduates, some of them with post-college degrees, all liberal Democrats who agree with everything John Oliver ever said.

The discussion went as well and as supportively as it possibly could have, but I am still floored by how.... remote the topic was from all of their lives. Including how remote it was for other Jewish members of the group (though I can't help but notice that those other Jewish members are unaffiliated and don't have kids).

I bring this up because it shows that social media really can exaggerate the scale of threats we perceive and experience. And if you had told me that more than a week ago, I would have cut you off and said "Of course, I know that, I'm not naive" - but it still would never have occurred to me that it could reach such a degree. How constantly reading updates on war and hate and protests and threats really can give a distorted and inaccurate picture of the world.

One time on Reddit, I noticed a pro-Palestine account that was positively obsessed with the "boogaloo boys," a purported sub-set of white supremacists. This person mentioned "boogaloo boys" probably 80 times a week, in the context of how their racial civil war was about to begin and would target Arab-Americans first. And it really began to look weird - a focus beyond their importance. I'm sure nobody would ever want to meet a "boogaloo boy," of course, but I also think this person made more posts about that group than the number of members there are in the actual group.

Has anyone outside age 18-23 and outside a college campus ever met a member of SJP? They're pretty horrible people, but they go tabling right next to all sorts of splintercranks who dissolve once you graduate.

There is a real perceptual, emotional downside to seeking out hatred and threats so one can announce "Aha! Look at all this hatred and threats!". It is not only privilege that allows people to avoid some problems and conflicts - it can also be demographic, political reality. It is important to know who hates and threatens us - and also to remain members of "the reality-based community." Internet discussions are not real life, college campuses are not real life, internet discussions among college students are the least real of all.

Scott Alexander touched on this - how certain political beliefs can be avoided even without conscious effort:

According to Gallup polls, about 46% of Americans are creationists. Not just in the sense of believing God helped guide evolution. I mean they think evolution is a vile atheist lie and God created humans exactly as they exist right now. That’s half the country.

And I don’t have a single one of those people in my social circle. It’s not because I’m deliberately avoiding them; I’m pretty live-and-let-live politically, I wouldn’t ostracize someone just for some weird beliefs. And yet, even though I probably know about a hundred fifty people, I am pretty confident that not one of them is creationist. Odds of this happening by chance? 1/2^150 = 1/10^45 = approximately the chance of picking a particular atom if you are randomly selecting among all the atoms on Earth.

About forty percent of Americans want to ban gay marriage. I think if I really stretch it, maybe ten of my top hundred fifty friends might fall into this group. This is less astronomically unlikely; the odds are a mere one to one hundred quintillion against.

#Antisemitism

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bloedewir · 3 months

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I failed to remember but instead I decided to recreate the "dream" theory (it was done once so presumably I can do it again).

The main point was: the only difference between modern elves and an ancient elvhen is a spirit.

(It does make sense in a way it possibly can explain the power of magic, knowledge now lost and forgotten, and longtime life close to immortality).

Some doubtful arguments:

If ancient elvhen have a connection with spirits it can explain why Cole isn't surprise to meet Fen'Harel and didn't ask any questions. It's not strange but quite normal to him and needs no explanations. In fact, Cole is far more excited about Cassandra: "Oh. That makes more sense. ... I'm a spirit that touched a body, you're a body that touched a spirit. We're the same but backwards!" because it isn't a common thing among humans.

Breach feels different for the elves. It affected them more than humans, dwarves or qunari.

One of Sera's comments is:"It just feels like I've seen this. Exactly this. It happens" and then: "Have we been here? I mean right here, doing exactly this? It feels weird" and Cole responded: "Yes. But not how you mean. In the soft thin places, spirits push with memories that didn't happen. Or did. Or might".

Another dialogue with Solas about the colour of the sky, Sera answers with: "Greenish? Then clear a long ways, and kind of...felt like falling".

Cole also said: "Pushing through (the Veil) makes you be yourself. You can hold onto the you. Being pulled through means you don't have enough you. You become what batters you, bruises your being".

And with Solas': "You are the furthest from what you were meant to be" it can be trancrypted as 'spirit whose purpose was perverted'.

Not so convincing is it? Could be a coincidence.

Enough of Sera. What about other elves?

City elves are more far from their roots than dalish. But dalish have vallaslin, so as ancient elvhen had.

Vallaslin is the blood writing. For what purposes does blood magic exist among others? Summoning demons.

Cassandra' comment: "I knew demons and spirits were similar". Solas' respond: "Not similar, Seeker. The same. ... The nature is, and always has been, grey. A spirit is a purpose. A demon is that purpose perverted".

Vallaslin is the blood mark, carved into a flesh permanently. But not in a rage or desperation and by different purposes. Dalish think it's a privilege and a tradition, Solas said it's a slave markings, but what if there's another meaning?

Could it be possible that a certain vallaslin represents a certain group of spirits? A noticeable enter sign so to speak?

Also Tevinter Imperium (famous stealers of elvhen culture and advanced enthusiasts of blood magic) using spirits as servants. Dorian asked: "Do you use spirits as servants, Solas? You'd have no trouble capturing them". Solas: "No. They are intelligent, living creatures. Binding them against their will is reprehensible". Where did Tevinter learn how to capture spirits? I suppose it could be another ancient elvhen technique they discovered once.

If vallaslin is for summoning a certain type of spirits, it presumably means each evanuris had their own type of servants depending on their goals or purpose. (Solas/Pride or Abelas/Sorrow)

We've seen Mythal. Let she be an example. The Great Protector who also can be vengeful. So.. justice and vengeance. Sound familiar.

Once again, Cassandra: "I knew demons and spirits were similar". Solas: "Not similar, Seeker. The same. ... The nature is, and always has been, grey. A spirit is a purpose. A demon is that purpose perverted".

In that case each evanuris could be a manifestation of a strongest idea/feeling. And such things as Hunger, Fear, Justice, Desire, etc can't be just removed from the world because the idea itself is strong enough. You can't just delete Fear once and for all.

Solas: "You met Mythal, did you not? The first of my people do not die so easily".

So, if the elvhen "gods" are some kind of a strongest ideas it would explain: their immortality; invincibility; the fact they didn't actually die during the time they were trapped in the Fade; their need for slaves/admirers to keep the original idea strong.

Yet Fen'Harel raised against them. As a guess, because they became too perverted from an original purpose. Went too far from the balance and it isn't supposed to be that way.

And the Veil is some kind of a try to bring the balance back. Instead, the world became a "tranquil" as Solas sees it because strong 'feelings' are gone, trapped behind the Veil and Thedas gets just an echoes of those 'feelings'.

And if the Veil will be off elves can bring back their original essence and become they meant to be. A vessels for a strong feelings/ideas having understanding and knowledge. A purpose.

So by that Solas can fulfil his original purpose: "[I believe in] cause and effect. Wisdom as its own reward, and the inherent right of all free willed people to exist".

If so there's almost zero chance to talk him down, because, firstly, he won't allow to pervert his purpose (and disapproves when Inquisitor 'perverted' Cole's purpose by making him more human), and secondly, "While the world may exert a pull in one direction or another, the choice is ultimately yours" (dialogue with Cole).

I don't know if I'm right on something or utterly wrong but anyways it was an interesting topic to speculate with.

#dragon age #dragon age the veilguard #dragon age theory #dragon age lore #dragon age evanuris #dragon age meta

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molsno · 1 year

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hello ^-^

soo i saw one of your posts about transmisogyny which i thought was really well written and articulated, so i wanted to get your opinion on something.

i’ve seen some tme trans(masc) people on here say that treating trans men like “gender traitors” or “siding with The Enemy” is bioessentialist and terf rhetoric, however i see this brought up almost exclusively in response to conversations about tme and/or male privilege. to me it seems like they feel invalidated or vilified by trans women and discussions about transmisogyny, and so they reposition the issue as one which targets and oppresses them so that they can avoid having to confront any privilege they may possess. i also think the way they phrase it purposely obfuscates what they’re really getting at, which is that men are oppressed for being masculine and held up as the ultimate evil (patently untrue). but i don’t really know as much about it as you might and it’s also not my place to decide what is or isn’t transmisogyny as a tme, so i wanted to hear your thoughts.

no pressure to respond and i hope you have a nice day <3

thanks for the well wishes. I'm trying to hold it together today and I figure I may as well answer this to distract myself

anyway yeah, those are some pretty astute observations. to be honest, I have to agree that the "gender traitor" narrative is bioessentialist, which is why it very much is terf rhetoric. in order for trans men to be "gender traitors" or "siding with the enemy", you would have to suppose that they are fundamentally women, and that they chose to be trans in order to escape from misogyny and gain access to male privilege. the basis of this hypothetical relies on the premise that they are female due to some permanent unchangeable characteristic, which is exactly what bioessentialism posits. plus, this narrative relies on the willful depiction of transness as nothing more than a lifestyle choice, which is blatantly transphobic due to the fact that for many trans people, transness manifests independently of any external factors.

(you will find a lot of debate about what makes people trans, and there is a lot of disagreement even among trans people, but I'm not going to get into that right now. just assume that my point is that there is no universal narrative that explains why people are trans and it varies from person to person.)

that being said, I feel it's also important to point out that there's no shortage of transmascs who are terfs or were former terfs. the reason for this is pretty obvious when you think about it for a few seconds: terfs regularly talk about how womanhood is an innately traumatic and miserable experience, and closeted transmascs for whom womanhood IS a traumatic and miserable experience sometimes gravitate toward that community because it makes them feel understood. terfs very much operate like a cult in this way, and you could easily assert that transmascs who become terfs are victims of cult brainwashing. however, my sympathy for them ends the moment I remember that they willingly joined a hate group whose purpose is the extermination of people like me.

and make no mistake! many of these men are still just as transmisogynistic as they were before! even the ones who leave the terf community (which is not all of them) only do so because they often find that they're no longer welcome when they choose to transition, not out of any desire to atone for the violence they've perpetrated against trans women.

so, what are these trans men to do after they've been exiled from the community that validated their existence and gave them a political drive? how can they reconcile the fact that their decision to choose masculinity and manhood has resulted in them feeling ostracized, ridiculed, and isolated? it's simple really: redefine their politics around the premise that men are actually hated in society. this is an easy conclusion for them to come to when they've been living inside an echo chamber where everyone they know DOES hate men.

the problem with that, though, is that in the eyes of a radical feminist, a "man" is a biological category of person, and any critiques you can make about men's behavior can be attributed to a biological cause. terfs don't ACTUALLY hate men, they hate "biological males" - trans women.

and that's very true of these transmasculine "former" terfs as well. they still hold the same bioessentialist views, so they feel vilified whenever they come into contact with the "biological males" they've come to despise so much. most of them don't actually understand any other types of feminism besides radical feminism, so when they encounter trans women reminding them that they have male privilege, they fall back on their bioessentialist beliefs. they're not an evil "biological male", after all, they're a "biological female" who's "ontologically incapable of violence", and a feminist is criticizing them for "siding with the enemy" by "choosing masculinity".

you need to understand that when they do this, it is largely a form of deflection. they resent the radical feminists who discarded them for being trans, and are attempting to distance themselves from the people who hurt them. that's why they're so vehemently anti-feminist. and because they haven't unpacked any of their bioessentialist beliefs, they're able to paint trans women, who deep down they still view as privileged and dangerous biological males, as aggressive and oppressive radical feminists. ultimately, despite whatever conception they have of themselves, they're expressing a form of male entitlement by shutting the conversation down and making everything that terfs do about them, ignoring the fact that the vast, VAST majority of the violence they enact is targeted specifically at trans women. and why wouldn't they? they don't actually care about trans women. they still hate us just as much as they always have, even if they now pay us lip service and (sometimes) use the right pronouns for us.

let me make myself clear: not all transmascs do this. not even a majority! all in all, this kind of story represents a pretty small minority of trans men, but they're very vocal and very visible in the trans community. that's not to say that most transmascs don't hold transmisogynistic views (it's basically impossible to have absolutely none if you're tme), but few of them are this hateful. this story is just one that I've seen played out many times - mostly involuntarily - because I've gotten a lot of these types of guys arguing with me on here and painting me as a radfem for talking about basic feminist tenets such as "men are an oppressor class".

also, as a disclaimer since I don't have time to get into everything: terfs are not a monolith and some terfs welcome trans men into their ranks (though these are an even smaller number of them), this was just one scenario that I hope painted a clear picture of the cause behind this phenomenon you've observed.

I hope this was helpful. if you need more examples, keep an eye on the notes of this post; they'll come crawling in here to argue with me in no time.

#ask #Anonymous #transmisogyny #my writing

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gaogaigoatgrrl · 7 months

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i get the feeling the transmasc thing isn't just surface-level what-it-says-on-the-tin stuff, so i gotta ask what's the actual problem for us with transandrophobia? it just looks like a word like transmisogyny (though structured differently) so i don't really understand what the immediate problem is

you have to understand that a significant part of the reason the term "transmisogyny" exists in the first place is that everyone (generalizing), including tme trans people, routinely treats trans women and transfems like absolute dogshit, and they get away with it because they have privilege over tma people.

i'm not just talking about being mean. i'm talking about denying us community support, pushing us into precarity, then taking advantage of our desperation to use us as scapegoats and sexual objects and throwing us away when we're no longer useful. it's not just cis men who do this. tme people in general engage in this bullshit. i've been on the receiving end of it myself, specifically from transmascs.

there is no "equal but opposite" counterpart, but some (but not all) tme trans people are immature enough that when they hear tma people trying to develop terminology to name this dynamic, their first thought is "hey, no fair! why don't i get a fancy oppression term too?"

in the past, it was en vogue to just deny the existence of transmisogyny outright, or to use semantic trickery to claim that it affects all trans people (the latter method is gaining popularity again, however). now, the angle's that everyone's oppressed in their own way, so there's no need to point fingers, right? but that ignores the fundamental nature of oppression. it's a thing that groups of people do to other groups of people to subordinate them for their own collective gain. who's subordinating men?

this is the part where someone will want to accuse me of saying that trans men aren't oppressed at all. and that's outright untrue. trans men are oppressed, and viciously at that. but that's not because society oppresses men. transphobia is just that bad on its own (not to mention when it intersects with other oppressions besides misogyny-- we'll get to that later).

tl;dr: it's bad because it gives tme trans people a way to duck responsibility for the way they treat trans women (and transfems more broadly). it obfuscates intracommunity power dynamics that regularly get transfems trapped in isolation, povery, and homelessness and killed and makes them easier to avoid addressing. if everyone involved were cis, it'd be easy to see this for the antifeminism that it is. i was seeing manosphere circles (mra, mgtow, incel, pua, etc.) use a lot of similar arguments and talking points in a cis context ten years ago.

i should cap this off by saying that transmisogyny isn't the only power dynamic that bears mentioning within trans circles. racism, particularly antiblack racism, is also a significant problem in similar ways (arguably worse), and white trans people (like myself) should not be dodging responsibility for that either. all of us have a responsibility to make sure that the most vulnerable among us do not get left high and dry, and i believe that in general it is both ethical and strategically smart to work in solidarity with other oppressed groups that sometimes overlap with our own. there are tme trans people who share this insight wrt women, and i am grateful for their willingness to stand up for us.

liberation does not come from sweeping conflicts like this under the rug, but from treating them like real problems that need to be taken seriously and actively worked against. fundamentally, my beef with transandrophobia theory is that it interferes with this process and is therefore anti-liberatory.

#apologies for the huge wall of text #when critiquing transandrophobia theory you really need to hedge your bets #please don't let me become a dedicated transmisogyny blogger

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liskantope · 1 year

Text

Back in late 2020 I made a post which mentioned as a side comment the impression I get from a lot of the more aggressive SJ people that writing/saying a lot (e.g. writing long, nuanced, qualifying, and/or perhaps defensive-sounding responses) is seen as evidence in and of itself of being wrong in the argument, specifically the type of wrong that comes from a position of privilege (I thought a little later I wrote a short post focusing only on this, but I can't seem to find it now). The example in the above-linked post is in the strangely-proportioned screenshot, where someone who is being attacked for not bowing down to the Correct political opinions keeps responding with lengthy, articulate, nuanced comments (which include some acknowledgment of her own weaknesses) and is met only more vehement attacks declaring checkmate explicitly on the grounds that her comments are long. The end of the exchange happens when she leaves a comment raising her eyebrows at being attacked for long-windedness, and the entirety of the response is "...you and your privilege". It's a finale that's stuck with me.

I was reminded of this today when an unexpected spurt of activity showed up on my Tumblr: an activist with whom I got into a contentious exchange well over two years ago for some reason chose now to abruptly reblog a several of my lengthy responses with pithy remarks (okay, plus one which includes a link to her own independent blog post about it which I don't think I'd seen before), and a minor flurry of likes and replies followed. I don't care to reblog any of this now, or even link to it, because my getting into that debate is something I'm really not proud of: the topic is not a hill I want to die on, and I dislike my awkward defensiveness and repeated apologies and semi-retractions. If I'm going to spend time and energy arguing something really controversial, I would rather it be a discussion where I can be really incisive and not catch myself arguing carelessly and sloppily and feel the repeated need to step back and clutter everything with caveats and apologies. But, if you are curious, I was defending a YouTuber I respect from being cancelled for being Problematic, and this exchange happened in spring of 2021.

The one new bit of substantive information for me coming from today's activity is the link to a separate blog post written at the time, which further confirms that there's no point in me continuing to defend that YouTuber to this activist: apparently among the list of things that makes this YouTuber's case worse and confirms their guilt are (1) publishing an earlier video which made all of the exact right points but which (surprise, surprise) got noticed by more people than a written article by a lower-profile person from the Relevant Marginalized Group making essentially the same points, (2) acknowledging that the Relevant Social Justice Cause is a good one and including a link to a fundraiser, and (3) momentarily sighing with a slight look of exasperation when first bringing up the accusation of being Problematic in a video. (Sorry I'm continuing to be vague here.)

Continuing to argue with this activist would be a waste of time, since our rhetorical values and norms are clearly too far apart for us ever to reach each other. Looking at it makes me grateful to have found a part of Tumblr that does share my basic notions of how discussions should work.

But what strikes me most of all is how my lengthiness itself is somehow treated as evidence of my guilt or wrongness or privilege or something. One of my lengthy reblogs got met today with a single sentence mocking it as a "dissertation" and managing to weirdly characterize my thesis without explanation, while another later one got met with "Have you considered just.... never talking again? Because you are not good at it." Again, these little zingers were fired off probably within a few minutes earlier today, in response to things I wrote back in spring of 2021.

That's the exact same kind of back-of-the-hand dismissal that I mentioned above having witnessed done to someone else (with the "...you and your privilege" comment). It reads like "This person talks too much, that's how you know they're in the wrong, so no need to address any of their points, if I smack them with a one-sentence response saying 'Haha that just further confirms you're wrong!' then I win."

And it's like, usually I consider my ability at cognitive empathy to be quite good, but it's hard for me to figure out what the other party is actually thinking in a situation like this: I can sort of get my head around not respecting nuance in certain selective situations and thinking the ability to feel nuance is a sign of privilege or something, but I can't quite figure out how they justify these one-sentence blanket dismissals on the grounds that the other person's comments are too long without imagining that they must be aware on some level that they're just being domineering-in-an-internet-way and deliberately going for a cheap and empty slam-dunk. This isn't very charitable, but honestly I have a hard time understanding such people's motives any other way.

#vagueposting #discourse #social justice

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autolenaphilia · 2 years

Text

Misandry is not real: Part 4 (i think, whatever)

The analysis on the transunity blog is absolutely nonsensical. And them unironically believing in misandry is a major part of it. Well I have to give them props for being honest and outright saying the word "misandry". Other misandry truthers like genderkoolaid use cutesy neologisms like "anti-masculism". This text is still awful though, and very mealy-mouthed and confused about what it actually claims.

The reason transunity using the word "misandry" is remarkable is because the term originated among the antifeminist men's rights movement which denied patriarchy was real and argued instead men were systematically oppressed by society, which they called misandry.

Of course transunity is trying to spread this term among progressive tumblr folks, so they soften the term. they only describe "the experiences of men affected by a disdain for, or hatred of men." Of course this is how the blog and much of tumblr understands oppression in general, as individual acts of aggression. There is no systemic understanding of oppression, how it creates an underclass out of an marginalized group of people. So this softening of the term actually places misandry on an equal plane with actual oppression.

The posts add the caveat that "In cis society, misandry isn’t systemic." Yet this caveat is dubious in itself, as it reveals a weak understanding of systemic oppression. And it of course starts to be undermined in the following sentences.

"But it is common nonetheless. Misandry becomes more damaging if someone is marginalised alongside being a man." I'm tempted to add that everything before the but is a lie. The article starts treating "misandry" as if it's some intersecting oppression alongside other oppressions. One that apparently even non-marginalised men can experience, by implication.

The two examples the post gives are "the defecit (sic) in mental health support or DV shelters for men." The lack of mental health care being a male specific problem is laughable. They may have a point about domestic violence shelters for men, but that's a very old MRA/anti-feminist talking point.. The MRAs never build them and instead starts relativizing domestic violence by arguing the violence shows a "gender symmetry".

And while the article claims it's not systemic in "cis society", it's apparently part of transphobia. It's one of the three tools of transphobia, so it's apparently an integral part. "when misandry is mentioned on this blog it has a strong trans context attached to it. Applying this to cis dynamics doesn’t work" the writer agues.

Yet this relies on a separation between cis society and trans people that doesn't make sense at all. We trans people live in a cis-dominated and cisnormative society, that's the problem. Trans people might make trans subcultures, "trans contexts", but those are always trapped in cis dynamics. That's why transphobia exists, and it's systemic. So no, you can't claim misandry isn't systemic in cis society and yet claim it's an integral part of the systemic oppression of transphobia, it's a contradictionary position. Any analysis of transphobia can't be separated from cis society. Either transphobia isn't systemic (which it obviously is) or misandry isn't, which is also obviously true.

Now men can be oppressed, but it's never for being men. Men can be affected by racism, ableism, class, homophobia and transphobia and so on. But it isn't made worse by them being men (in fact being male is a privilege), which any comparison between men and women prove. It can often take different forms from the same oppression aimed at women, but that's the absence of misogyny, not the presence of any mythical misandry. (as another person's tumblr post more or less put it but which i can't find now because tumblr's search system is garbage).

Of course, what really got me going here is the vile suggestion that the rote cause of transfem's oppression is misandry, which this article engages in. "For trans women, terfs may apply misandry in a way which misgenders them and uses trans women’s agab against them." Actually fuck you, this is transmisogyny. Calling trans women men is textbook transmisogyny, not misandry. It's the most shallow form of analysis, to go "that terf called a trans woman a man, that means this is actually misandry, i'm so smart." It's looking at the rhetoric transmisogynists uses, and not analyzing the underlying systemic causes.

"midandry (sic) is based on how the transphobes perceive trans people. Not how the trans people actually identify." Actually you are just perpetuating that misgendering, fuck you.

In reality, transmisogyny is a systemic oppression that makes transfems into an underclass, an oppression that men benefit from. For the misandry analysis of our oppression to make sense, it would mean men are part of that underclasss, which they aren't. Misgendering us as men is part of transmisogyny, but our oppression is far broader than misgendering rhetoric.

Sure they call us "men", but it's just hurtful rhetoric. If they actually treated us as men, our position would be a lot different. They may talk about transfems being violent and male, but it's not rooted in any kind of hatred towards men and their violence. In fact it's to justify male violence towards us. In terf rhetoric a trans woman using a woman's bathroom is "male violence", a male cop using violence against her is not.

Transunity says that misandry is "punishment for proximity to masculinity." And tries to understand transmisogyny through that lens. But in fact, transmisogyny is if anything the opposite. Being transfem usually entails rejecting manhood and/or masculinity and embracing womanhood and/or femininity. This is not universal, butch women may not reject masculinity and embrace femininity, NB transfems may not embrace womanhood. But this is how transfemininity is seen.

And in a society that hates women and what's associated with them, that's the ultimate sin. Trans women being assigned male at birth and rejecting in favour of being women challenges the misogyny of patriarchal ideology.

Calling transfems men is a form of violently reassigning us to the gender we have rejected. It's that rejection of maleness that inspires the misgendering, the repeated insistence on a supposed objective reality of our maleness. It's punishment for rejecting masculinity and maleness, rather than the opposite.

The stated purpose of the transunity blog is to promote as the name implies, unity among trans people. A noble-sounding goal. The problem is that it's terrible at doing that. You are not going to get many trans women in your unity movement by trying to rehabilitate anti-feminist concept of misandry. And you are not going to do that by misgendering transfems by taking transmisogynist rhetoric at face value, and attributing to misandry what is actually transmisogyny.

#transmisogyny #my writings #misandry is not real for fucks sake

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princesssarisa · 8 months

Note

Sandy from Grease for the character ask

It's been many years since I last saw Grease and I'm not sure how well I remember it, but here goes.

Favorite thing about them: She's a likable every-girl, who navigates the difficulties of teenage romance and friendships in a relatable way. She sings great music too.

Least favorite thing about them: Well, her ending is rightfully controversial, both for the fact that she goes back to Danny after he repeatedly treated her shabbily, and for her transformation into a greaser chick. I don't think it's an inherently bad ending (see "Unpopular opinion" below), but it's not unproblematic either.

Three things I have in common with them:

*I was innocent and never a "cool kid" in school.

*I usually seem sweet, but I can have an edge too.

*I was nervous when I got my ears pierced. (Fortunately, I had it done professionally, not by a teenage friend, and I didn't throw up.)

Three things I don't have in common with them:

*I wasn't born yet in the 1950s.

*I've never had a relationship with a "bad boy."

*I've never worn a skin-tight black outfit in public.

Favorite line: Probably the lyrics to her final love duet with Danny, either "All Choked Up" from the stage version or the more iconic "You're the One That I Want" from the movie.

brOTP: All the Pink Ladies by the end, but especially Frenchy.

OTP: Danny.

nOTP: Any adult.

Random headcanon: Her verses in "Summer Nights" stretch the truth, just like Danny's do. While her version of how they met is the real one, as opposed to Danny's contrived story of saving her from drowning, their romance at the beach was less chaste and innocent than she paints it. He was sweeter and she was naughtier than either one lets themself be in their everyday life.

Unpopular opinion: Her transformation in the end isn't inherently anti-feminist – it can be viewed as just the opposite – or a case of succumbing to peer pressure. I've read a few analyses online that make a convincing defense for it. The key is to remember how conservative, conformist, and stifling 1950s culture was. Sandy's good-girl persona is exactly how girls were "supposed" to be according to that culture. She might be a misfit among Danny and Rizzo's gangs, but she's the one who fits into society in general. Arguably, she isn't just being herself, but following the rules she's been taught by her parents and society, and in the end she realizes she's not happy this way. Meanwhile, Danny and his friends might be the school's "cool kids" one one level, but at the same time, they're the "bad kids" – from the wrong side of the tracks, almost all Italian or Polish (ethnic groups that weren't fully privileged as "white" back in the '50s), and in short, the ones who don't fit in. By loosening up and embracing her inner bad girl, Sandy arguably isn't denying her true self to fit in with the cool kids and get her man, but finally discovering her true self, rejecting conformity, and coming into her own power. Now, maybe it's not well-written enough for this to come across. And I'm not saying it's unproblematic. The show was written by men, and there is an element of male fantasy in it as Sandy becomes Danny's sexy dream girl. Still, just listen to the lyrics of both "All Choked Up" (Sandy and Danny's original final duet) and "You're the One That I Want" (which replaced it in the movie and later stage revivals), and try to deny that they empower Sandy! She makes it clear that even though she's joining Danny's world, she's not going to put up with any more disrespect. "You better shape up" she tells him in "You're the One That I Want," and he echoes it with "I better shape up"; and in "All Choked Up" she literally makes him beg her to take him back, and still insists that he "take it slow" and not expect her to sleep with him right away. So she doesn't abandon her morals either.

Song I associate with them:

There are quite a few of these, some exclusive to the stage version, others sung in the movie.

"Summer Nights"

youtube

"Hopelessly Devoted to You"

youtube

"It's Raining on Prom Night"

youtube

"All Choked Up"

youtube

"You're the One That I Want"

youtube

Favorite picture of them:

Olivia Newton-John in the movie.

This rare picture of Carole Demas in the original Broadway production, 1972.

A 20-year-old, pre-stardom Sutton Foster in the 1995 US tour:

Laura Osnes in the 2009 Broadway revival:

Julianne Hough in 2016's Grease Live!:

#character ask #grease #sandy olsson #sandy dumbrowski #musical theatre #ask game #fictional characters #fictional character ask

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themonotonysyndrome · 7 months

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omg i keep thinking about how castin would look while fighting UGH.

but also i keep thinking about soft and worried castin. he’s been so open with us and pushed through emotions to tell us such deep and personal things before, i can’t wait for the baroness to do the same with him.

could we maybe get some headcanons on how castin would react to hearing about some trauma from the baroness for the first time? nothing specific in terms of the trauma so that it’s interpretable for each person, but how would he react? anger, sadness, etc etc?

hope you’re doing well, i love your writing so so so much!!!

Castin in a fight? Well, at least when he's sparring?

Shirtless. Sweaty. Serious. Growly voice when barking out orders. His eyes are hard as he scans around.

You know it, Anon!

But a soft and worried Castin, eh? Sure! Let's give it a go! Also, I'm very happy that you enjoyed my writings. You made my day.

Emotional headcanons where the Baroness reveals a traumatic scene to a worried Castin

Let's set up the scene first: Castin and the Baroness have adapted to each other well, the communication between the two is growing stronger with every passing day, and they understand each other a lot more now.

But the stark difference in cultures and upbringing between them is still unavoidable, so when the Baroness casually shares how 'rigid' her upbringing was (think of cruel diet control by her governesses at the age of 10 & etc) while the two are walking through the gardens, Castin suddenly feels chilling. Despite how warm the day is.

Our man is lowkey in distress as he stares at his wife, who is distracted by freshly bloomed flowers.

"Babe... that's... that's not right. You know that right?"

"Hmm? Oh my. Why do you look so spooked Castin?"

Castin can't believe what he's hearing; can't bear that his wife is comforting him. He should be the one doing so!

He gently grabs her hand so they can sit at a nearby bench among the trees. Somewhere quiet and private for a much-needed talk.

"Castin, please. Why do you look so sad?"

"I've heard a lot of stories from the soldiers. Do you know that one of the ways that people cope with traumatic events is conditioning themselves to accept it as the norm? It's horrifying, but I guess that's human nature."

"An apt survival method if I ever hear one. But what is this about, husband? Is one of your soldiers struggling to adjust to civilian life?"

"No. No, baby. I'm talking about you."

"Me?"

The Baroness is genuinely surprised and confused. What traumatic events did she go through other than she became a hostage during the siege of the palace?

Seeing her expression honestly breaks Castin's heart. He had so many support groups, and so many people who loved him. People were there to help him pull through after the death of his mother and during the war. To now realise that his wife doesn't have that privilege? It's tragic.

"I'm really sorry to be the one who say this, but, sweetheart... you were abused as child."

"Abused? Don't be absurd, Castin. Every children within the Imperial Noble Households went through a set of rigorous upbringing. It's tradition. It's just how it is."

"Starving a child shouldn't be a lesson! That's cruel; simple as that. And I hate that the Empire normalises that."

The fact that the Baroness still couldn't grasp how horrible that was just made Castin burst into tears.

He'll cry for the loss of her childhood innocence. He'll lament for every time the love of his life was abused and isolated all in the name of traditions.

Because from now on, Castin is not gonna let her or any of their children suffer the same way and he'll fight against traditions themselves if he has to.

#monotony's rambling #desmond asmr #headcanons #castin hammer #baroness (listener)

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thatfeyboy · 3 months

Text

I want to talk about something I know is rough but, I don't think the language we use around sexism is very effective. The current lens of much of the language and academic study is directly a product of feminism. This is not evil nor is it unexpected. Much of the social and legal change around gender over the last 100 years has been towards women. That has resulted in many great changes like granting women the right to vote, to property, and to monetary independence from men.

While technical battles like those were going on, more loose social issues were also being discussed. Structures like patriarchy, gender roles and stereotypes, and sexuality were also being questioned and brought forward. These ideas and the language around them however have sat inside certain echo chambers for decades, resulting in many of the gender critical and terf like beliefs we see today. More over, language intended to describe a limited female perspective is being forced as the only acceptable terms to discuss other gendered issues, like sexuality, gender identity, intersex rights, and most obviously any sexism posed towards men.

I get the impression from a lifetime of experience that words like patriarchy and toxic masculinity for example, are often counter intuitive. Patriarchy means, very simply, a society run by only men. It's undeniable both America and much of the world was strictly patriarchal within the last 100 years(and some definitely still are). That being said, we do not currently live in a patriarchy(USA), even if there are people in America/etc that hold patriarchal views(including women). Regardless, I rarely see patriarchy being used in regards to a society's government. It is more often used as a way to describe a nebulous, nefarious group all men are a part of and benefit from with a handful of approved exemptions(gay/trans). It as a term is used to not only silence male-perceived individuals from speaking, but to place an undeserved privilege on top of their suffering to make it ok to punch at them. The fact is most men/male-perceived people do not benefit from "patriarchy" and never have. It's the exception among men, not the rule. The same would be true in a matriarchal system, as both require sexism and gender critical ideology to function.

Toxic masculinity is even worse. Frankly, it's just used to lampshade telling people to fuck off and deal with their problems alone. I cannot stress enough how this word, made by men to describe effects of sexism from other men in terms of gender conformity, is now used to shift blame onto men for being solely responsible for their own suffering and that feminism has no place with it. Ever more so, it's used to tell masculine people, including women, that people treating them as a threat is ok because the masculinity that they naturally have is evil.

None of this even gets into the language that is denied by these movements like misandry or transmisandry, as the idea someone could hate men or masculine people for a bad reason simply cannot exist to them.

In the end though, what I'm getting at is that the discussions involving gender lack nuance and a multiple lens structure, and suffer for it. These groups who have been insulated have rotted and become toxic to the rest of us seeking gender equity. Their beliefs about the inherent nature of men, women, and society will be the death of the movement and all unisex gender rights. Please, if you can bare it, be open to language and theory evolving as more men or male-pervieved people tell their stories of sexism. Treat them as you would treat anyone, with compassion and willingness to listen. I promise things will be better for all of us in the end if we listen to each other rather than salt the earth to separate ourselves from what we find icky.

#lgbt #transgender #queer #men #women #sexism #cis #straight #feminism #gender equality #gender critical

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familyabolisher · 2 years

Note

re: your saló posts it’s been a while since i read it but i remember this larb article having good points to make about the delany book hogg and how many readers struggle to engage with disgust/recognize disgust as an intended and even productive reaction: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/uses-of-displeasure-samuel-delany/

For Hogg, what they “done them women” is not “all right” — the sources of ethical disgust in the novel are existentially absurd and cannot be rationalized or theorized. To do so would be to deny participation in, and responsibility for, the disgusting that is inherent to an absurd and ethically irrational universe. Relativism doesn’t help, any more than Jimmy’s attempts to find terms that would render his actions (or ethics) less disgusting. The disgusting (mundane or extreme) is a physical fact of the world and must be contended with on its own quite immediate terms; it cannot be ignored, sequestered, or theorized from a safe distance. Hogg, then, is not only challenging readers to contend with their own impulses to deny or abstract their implication in the disgusting. He is also delivering a compelling metatextual case for Hogg’s own value as an aesthetic object.

[...]

In their introduction to a 2009 special issue of the journal Representations entitled “The Way We Read Now,” Stephen Best and Sharon Marcus advocate “surface reading” as an antidote to “symptomatic reading.” The latter presumes that what is valuable or meaningful in texts is “repressed, deep, and in need of detection and disclosure by an interpreter,” and thus, among other things, maintains the literary critic’s privileged status. For Best and Marcus, “a surface is what insists on being looked at rather than what we must train ourselves to see through,” and disgusting texts might level this insistence most effectively, as they produce such “intense consciousness of the object.” A significant aspect of surface reading’s value is, for Best and Marcus, its “[refusal] to celebrate or condemn” the object of study, and the very challenge that such a refusal presents to critics: “[A] true openness to all the potentials made available by texts is […] the best way to say anything accurate and true about them.” Rather than seeing the disgusting text as a symptom of ideology, an alternative practice like surface reading allows critics and texts to describe what is objectively “true” about the world, including that which is disgusting and disturbing.

i don't know that i'm 100% compelled by this argument that 'truth' or else honesty about the range of human experiences is the objective of that form of storytelling, or that 'truth' is to be uniquely sought from texts like lolita, hogg, salò; certainly salò and lolita are texts that persist far outside of their own immediate, literal narrative boundaries and are illuminated by the kind of interpretive work that would get you there, and lolita in particular relies heavily on a particular literary fluency that i suspect would group it with the former category rather than the latter, but i am interested in this suggestion that an approach to literature constricted by the liberal preoccupations of the academy which articulate a text as a set of metaphysical truths/properties to be unearthed stymies its capacity to tackle texts of this nature.

anyway this was a good read. thank you!

#ask #can't speak for hogg cos i haven't read it tbc. i should though lol i like samuel delany!

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chokovit · 5 months

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I'm gonna rant and vent

I'm gonna rant and vent about people I consider my brethren, my comrades, and my peers. I'm 100% not interested in debating or arguing with anyone at all so don't expect that if you message me.

I fucking hate election year. Every 4 years it's the same god damn song and dance and every other election it's worse and worse. And I'm not talking about some shitty pat ourselves on the back, circle jerking feel good about yourself garbage where I preach to the choir and we all sing "Yeah I feel that way too!"

I'm talking about Leftists, specifically, American Leftists (as I am American this will be therefore be from the point of view of one and my grievances will henceforth be specifically about "AMERICAN" Leftists so foh with your "That's an american centric view" shit).

I'm gonna preface what I'm about to say by stating the obvious. I am a leftist. Whether you fucking like it or not, whether you agree with me being one or not, I am. I don't hate leftists, as hard as this rant will make that easy to believe. I'm just very bothered by trends I see among them. They bother me because, unlike conservatives, I actually want leftists to "win". I actually want us to succeed. But in case your world view is black and white to the point you need me spelling it out for you, yes I am a leftist, I agree with leftists, and I am absolutely repulsed by Conservatism.

Now let me get into the meat and potatoes of what I want to bitch about. Basically, in the past, whenever I saw people bemoan that leftists are largely signal virtuing, morally uptight, jerkasses I thought of it as nothing more than the typically reactionary pant shitting rhetoric we've come to expect from Right-Wing discourse. And to be fair, back than, in the early-mid 2010s it probably was. But now? I don't fucking know anymore, it really does seem like at the very least a worryingly large amount of leftists think they're a part of some clique or social group and don't understand both the implications and power of their own standing. Particularly and most especially when it comes to voting. Let me tell you something, something really fucking important. You have nothing, you are nobody, and you are mostly powerless to do anything at all...EXCEPT for one thing, and that's voting. Yes, you can call your senator and congressperson but even thats only really gonna work if your congressperson or senator is one that'll even consider your interests. Do you think people in Lauren Boebert's district feel confident calling her to complain about trans issues? Yeah no. Every single fucking vote, every single god damn one matters and you can fuck off with your "both parties are the same" and "voting doesn't matter" bullshit. One party is waging a culture war on our entire nation, one party wants to make sure you're following a rigid social hierarchy, one party wants to turn Christianity into state law, one party wants to drape everything in repugnant Christian Nationalism and it's not Democrats.

Yes, yes it sucks that we can only pick from the two. No, no voting third party is not an option, we do not get the privilege of living in a country with a multi-party system. The DNC and the RNC both respectively own the two whole halves of the media industry in the United States, and no I'm not making that up. As cool and based as you think you look here on tumblr preaching about how we'll all vote for some super sick Ultra-Commie Socialist Dream party it's not going to happen. How many people will be inspired by you organizing on tumblr? in public even? on campus? Do you know the statistics you'd need? 2020 had an election turn out of 154 MILLION people! over 81 Million of them voted for Biden, and 74 Million of them voted for Trump! Now let's do a hypothetical, and lets be god damn realistic about it okay? REALISTICALLY, you and your lefty friends will never, ever, in all your attempts and rhetoric and debate, will ever be able to convince a MAGA Trump supporter from 2020 to vote for the Green Party. It will. Not. Happen. So that 74 Million? That stays, you get none of that. But, you could probably convince Progressives and Liberals who voted for Biden to do so (you know, if you actually want to shut the fuck up for 10 seconds and stop crying about how much you claim you hate them so all your friends nod and clap at you for being a super cool edgy leftist). So okay, let's be REALLY optimistic, let's say you convince like 20 million of those people who would've voted for Biden to vote for you, lets be even more optimistic and say you started with a base of 2 million people. I want you to keep this in mind that 2 Million people alone would be a record for the green party. In 2020 they had a popular vote of 406,000, literally less than half a million. But I digress. You're at 22 Million people, now lets consider people who didn't vote in 2020. That's 80 Million people, but, BUT, that's not a big pool of 80 million for you to grab from. We need to consider statistics first. Out of that 80 Million only roughly 30% of them didn't vote specifically because they either were undecided or didn't like the candidates. Therefore your actual pool of candidates interested in voting for you is 56 Million people. If you were only able to convince 20 million Biden voters, chances are you'd convince even less undecided voters. Realistically you should only get a hairs fraction of voters but, I'm trying to make a point here so lets say you get the largest share of Undecided Voters, somehow you're just super cool and based and you convince 30 million to vote for you. Not you have 54 Million votes. Congratulations, you have made US History by being the most voted for third party in the history of the US. You have beaten the previous record set by Jo Jorgensen in 2020 by a whopping 52 Million Votes (yes, really, that's the most a third party has ACTUALLY ever gotten before, just shy of 2 million votes). Despite your epic feel good win, the Orange piece of shit running against you, who has been galvanizing his base and everyone from the most fervant of maga's to your needle dick co-worker you kind of get along with despite voting republican for "fiscal" reasons, has surpassed his previous record by a little bit, he only really pooled in about a million more....which is 75 Million voters. Which is over 20 million people more than you.

Now I get it, I hear you barkin' big dog, we don't decide elections on popular vote, it's decided on the Electoral College. My point here is showing you how unfeasible third parties really truly are. This isn't a movie, this isn't like someone's gonna make some grand speech and everyone claps and comes to their senses and all of a sudden votes for "the right candidate". No, for a party that's NOT Libertarian to get even 10 million people to vote for them would be a historical precedent. And you don't need me to tell you that 10 million people is not nearly enough people spread across 50 states to make up for the electorate you'd need to win an election.

So why is this important? Why is it important we vote against republicans instead of voting for whatever helps us sleep at night, makes us feel good, and makes us look super "in" with our buddies online? Uh, because republicans will continue to do the things they're doing so long as they see it as a means to make themselves electable. Sure, some people say "well it's not MY fault it's the dems faults for not being GOOD enough for me to vote for them" and to that I say pbbbbth, you fucking KNOW better. You KNOW better, because you're a leftist, how dangerous fascism is, how bad and poisonous and terrible Traditionalism is. Consider this, another hypothetical okay? Everyone is so disgusted by the perils of conservatism they unite, as they did in 2020, to vote against them. They do it again in 2024, They do it again in 2028, and a 4th time in 2032. You've now had two full term presidents in the United States, will that make the conservatives go away? no. But will it swing the pendulum back? Yes! YES IT WILL! Politicians only give a shit about one thing and thats GETTING ELECTED. And if those mother fuckers start to realize that conservatism is an UNWINNABLE position, than they will, at the least, begin to abandon Conservatism as a platform for their party.

At the moment, that's NOT what's happening. Instead, we have Conservatives emboldened by 40 years of Reagan Rhetoric slowly shifting the pendulum ever more right. They've been doing it for 4 god damn decades okay, and you think 1 term from a dem president is going to start shifting it back? Fuck. The Fuck. Off. Dems are, from a global perspective, a centre-right party. When and if they do anything to "shift" the pendulum left, it's going to be shifted less to the left and more toward the "centre". Right now THAT IS WHAT YOU WANT!!!! YOU WANT THAT!!! HAVING THE PENDULUM FARTHER AWAY FROM THE RIGHT IS A /GOOD/ THING BECAUSE RIGHT NOW ITS DANGEROUSLY FAR TO THE RIGHT.

This shit doesn't make me liberal, this shit makes me pragmatic. I DONT. LIKE. CONSERVATIVES. I'm guessing if you've read this far /YOU/ probably don't either (or at least you claim to). But I don't hate them because they're rhetoric is bad, because they act like bigots or say mean/offensive things. I hate them because I genuinely hate their ideology, I hate their beliefs, I think everything they want for you and me and society at large is a fucking POISON to us as a modern, progressive society. And that's for obvious reason, they don't WANT us to be a modern, progressive society. If you've hated conservatives this entire time because of any "shocking" or "apalling" things you've seen or heard from them or that MSNBC or your lefty friends have shown you (including me) than I'm sorry but you're hating them for the wrong reasons. I mean, not that it isn't valid to hate someone for being a dick head. But your repulsion, your disgust should run deeper than that. You should be terrified and stop at nothing to want to crush Conservative ideology from the grip it has on American society. The vast majority of conservatives want to kill you, do you understand that? Whether that's because of their bigoted views, or because of LITERALLY CENTURY LONG WORTH OF PROPAGANDA AGAINST LEFTIST AND SOCIALIST VALUES they see you as a threat and want you dead. As much as they point and ridicule "libs" and "liberals" like you do, the liberals will be fine. It's YOU who won't be, it's YOU who should be hating them the most. And from what I see, you don't. Because if leftists truly felt threatened by conservatism they'd be stopping at nothing to rid it from our system. Instead, Leftists are more concerned with policing themselves, more concerned with having some super cool "hot take" on whoever the current president is. Leftists are more comfortable being the edgy outcasts, and if they're successful, they're not outcasts anymore. Fuck that. I haven't claimed leftism my entire life since I was 13 (I'm 30 now) just cuz I wanted to be edgy, and different. I didn't want to "look smart" and prove some "moral superiority" over people. You can do that shit with literally any political ideology. I claimed Leftism as my political ideology because it is, to me, the most pragmatic to ending universal suffering. And with that, I want leftism as an ideology to prevail and succeed. Not remain in the fucking shadows, ever caught on the side-lines of a worsening tug-o-war between Liberals and Fascists.

And most importantly of all, I want this to succeed, it NEEDS to succeed. And to do that we MUST unify, divide, and conquer. Yes, that means at least for a while we have to unify with Liberals. Our battle right now should be with the scourge of Fascism. The Soviet's didn't turn their guns mid-way through fighting the Nazi's cuz "erm actually the Allies are cringe too" no, they fucking united against a common, worse enemy. In fact, let me dive into the Nazi's cuz there's an interesting tid bit here. The Weimar republic, pre-Nazi rise, was composed of like 3 "left" wing parties. Needless to say by US standards all 3 of these parties would be considered left of Democrats but I digress. The refusal of all 3 of these parties to unite and caucus together created fractions in the political system of Germany at the time. This made it way fucking easier for the Nazi's to come in and sweep things up afterwards. There's many reasons WHY they were fractured, but those are beside the point of what I am trying to say here. It's like, that one part from Sun Tzu's Art Of War that people actually remember: "Divide and Conquer" with political division, the Nazi's easily just swept in and destroyed them. Do not forget, Fascism is an inherently authoritarian ideology. It is therefore organized and demands rigid conformity. If we do not unite, we will be easier to break apart and fall victim to it's clutches.

Finally, and lastly, I think this last part just comes from our horrible education system in the US. I understand many people probably didn't take Civics in high school, to those people I am sorry. As there's no way you could get how our system works because the system itself failed to educate you. If you did take civics in high school, or god forbid college, than you fucking know better. YOU! WILL NOT! CHANGE ANYTHING! IN A MEASLY 4! FUCKING! YEARS!

I know what we want, I know because I share a lot of the same values as you, even if I don't share your methods. I also know them because I've been reading you people post about them for the better part of like 15 years! NOTHING YOU WANT TO SEE IN GOVERNMENT, NONE OF THE CHANGES YOU WANT TO SEE HAPPEN! NONE OF THEM ARE GONNA HAPPEN IN ONE PRESIDENCY! Need I remind you that the current state of affairs has been shifted to the Right over a process that has taken FOURTY! FUCKING! YEARS!? and you think somehow that you'll just come in with some super cool epic revolutionary spirit and change shit in a couple years? That's not realistic! IT's just! NOT! But that doesn't mean we CANT change things. Yes, it does mean we have to change things slowly, it DOES mean we have to play the long game. But guess what, the Conservatives have been playing the long game since that shit bag Reagan leaked poisonous venom from his gunshot wound in DC. In fact they've probably been doing it longer, from 1965.

You wanna know if things can get worse? You already know the answer to that, yes. Yes things can get worse. Yes a society can advance forward, only to move backward. This literal exact fucking thing happened once in modern history, and it took 3 major super powers to defeat it.

Leftism isn't a fucking club, it's not a circle jerk for all of us to feel good about ourselves for being intellectuals and morally upright people. It's a fucking political ideology, that's it. It's not one of your fandoms. So no, you don't need to spend all the energy spent arguing with and debating with every other leftist and YES I know how that sounds coming from me. As much as this rant will have you assume otherwise I don't really spend much time debating other leftists. Mostly because a good chunk of leftists are way too reactionary to give me a charitable and honest platform. Anyone you disagree with is a fascist. And yes I've ACTUALLY had people call me this before. You dilute the term, you HELP the fascists this way. Fascism is a very specific evil, it's not just people who disagree with you. Sometimes, you will feel uncomfortable about the views other leftists have. That's normal. That doesn't mean they're "Liberal" or "Fascists". Again, this isn't a little pow wow where we sit around and agree with each other and get super psyched together about our favorite piece of political theory, and than if someone says something we disagree with we just kick them out of the circle. That's not how that works. That's not how any functional political movement succeeds. Right now, you and I have ZERO seats at the table, we don't exist on the grand political spectrum, as much as the GOP tries to fear monger that we do. So yes, we will have to unify sometimes with people we don't like. We will have to agree to disagree and come together for a common enemy.

I know this will change literally nobody's mind but I just really needed to get all of these thoughts out. I want them out and I want people to read them so that they can at least SEE the perspective of leftists outside their fucking echo chamber. Our division is NOT conducive to our success. We are going to /FAIL/ because the pendulum will keep going to the right. It'll fail cuz we are more concerned about making a choice that makes us feel morally vindicated than one that is pragmatic. I have nothing else to say anymore. Fuck Americans. Fuck all of them. Fuck all the American Conservatives. Fuck all the American Liberals. Fuck all the American Leftists. And Fuck all the undecided pieces of shit who couldn't decide whether or not they want to vote against fascism or let it slip on in. Fuck all of you, you uneducated, feel-good, self-satisfying, non-communitarian, individualistic, pigs of society. I sincerely wish I was born in literally any other country because at least than I wouldn't have to deal with being around some of the most inane, vapid, superficial fucking human beings on the planet. American Society is a god damn joke. Only above Israel. And that's not a bar you should be proud of.

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cicidarkarts · 1 year

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Blood Defied - 7: Serpens

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"That book had exactly what I needed," said Sebastian later that week. "Thanks for helping me, Cree." "No problem. Thanks for not screwing up my Restricted Section privileges," she replied, taking the books back and sticking them in her satchel. "I'll get these to the library before anyone even knows they're gone. ing for anyway?" His face lit up. "I was researching more about dark magic and the ties it has to Salazar Slytherin. I'm sure you know by now how prolific Slytherin was. His work in the dark arts is still studied to this day. What really interested me was reading about Slytherin's Spell Book. Apparently, it's heavily sought after—only a few in the past ever read it, and their accounts say it contains revolutionary ideas and spells. I gotta get my hands on that book. It could hold the key to healing Anne." "I've never even heard of that. It's certainly not in the Restricted Section." "Nope, not at all. But I think I know where it is. The book referenced Slytherin's Scriptorium—a secretive place Slytherin went to work in peace, here in the shelf, praying that no one would find out.

She frowned as they said their goodbyes and Sebastian walked off. Being the one who gave him access to that knowledge put a sour taste in her mouth. To get rid of the evidence, she hurried back to the library and into the locked basement. Careful to follow the filing system, she stocked the books back on the shelf, praying that no one would find out.

She turned to her own research and put away Serpents: Myths and Facts. She'd only needed the one section, found nestled between the green snake and the hydra, and had gotten through it fast. The horned serpent was a fascinating specimen, and she now understood why it was such a feared myth among the Indian populations.

Satiated, she left the Restricted Section to return Rearing Young Thestrals. At the back where the study groups congregated, Ominis sat at one of the long tables. Hardly anyone else was around as he studied. His wand ran across pages, lip clamped between his teeth as he concentrated. She tiptoed around him, careful not to make a sound. Behind him, she snuck up, her grin growing. Just don't giggle… She pumped up her lungs, preparing to shout—

"Hello, Credence." She deflated. "How'd you know I was there?" "I can smell you—old books and amber. Smells like you've been brewing potions with that bloated fungal cap, too." "Damn, you're good," she said, putting her book away. "Mind if I sit with you? Or am I too smelly?"

He chuckled and flicked his wand, which pulled out the chair beside him. She sat and they chatted for a little while. He was studying for an upcoming Herbology assignment and asked her how Jane was holding up. She told him how strong Jane had gotten, how she could run and gallop and drive Ellis insane, and mentioned getting the books back from Sebastian.

"Good, I'm glad you didn't get in trouble," he said. She warned him, "Sebastian wants to talk to you about something he found in the books." "I was afraid of that." "Try not to let him talk you into anything stupid." "Ha, he wishes. He's told me I'm stubborn as a mule at least once a month for the past fifteen years." "Are you stubborn, or are his ideas just stupid?" He smirked. "Oh, they're stupid all right."

Ominis then closed his textbook and stretched out on his chair. Credence tried not to stare, though it was difficult not to notice his slim stomach peek out from under his untucked shirt. She happened to catch a little freckle just beside his navel when her face grew hot and she tore her gaze away. Ominis sighed pleasantly and sat upright again.

"I was about to take a break," he said. "Want to come to Hogsmeade with me? Maybe we can go to Honeydukes or Steeply's. My treat." "I'd love to."

They headed into Honeydukes that afternoon. The shop smelled of baked goods and wafting vanilla. Piles of candy were stacked into barrels, countertops full of pastries, cakes, and pies lined the walls, and ropes of taffy and licorice hung from the ceiling. Ominis gladly bought a couple of chocolate fudges that Credence had been eyeing up, and they ended their outing with a stroll through Tomes and Scrolls.

"I'll buy you whatever you want," Ominis had said. "Oh, you don't have to." "I know—I want to. But if you don't want to get anything, that's okay."

She wound up not getting anything. So back to Hogwarts they went, along that well-worn dirt road. Ominis kept his wand out, though his attention stayed on her as they chatted. A carriage pulled by the thestrals came trotting toward them and Credence had to tug an oblivious and distracted Ominis to the side. Credence greeted Knight as he passed.

"Maybe I should watch where I'm going," Ominis said. "Right? If you just opened your eyes a little you would've seen that carriage coming." He laughed. "Even so, I should've at least heard it. You're very distracting." She nudged him. "Hey! It's not my fault!" "Who else am I to blame? Myself?"

They continued on their way, trying to stifle their hyena cackles. As they neared the Forbidden Forest, Ominis said,

"Oh, right! I can't forget there's something important I need to do. Would you come with me, Cree? I think now's a good time to show you something." "In the creepy forest?" "Yeah, in the creepy forest." "Oh yes, Ominis, please lead me into the dark spooky forest where no one will hear me scream." "Nothing gets past you."

They took each other's hand and headed into the forest. It wasn't too far of a walk—down an off-shoot dirt path before the spider den, and along a road with thick brush on either side. Halfway along that path was a thick bush nestled in tall grass.

"Stay right here," said Ominis. "I've no idea how she'll react."

If Credence wasn't curious before, she was dying now. Ominis tread lightly up to the bush. He knelt down, gingerly moved the leafage aside, and opened his mouth to speak.

An eerie hiss sent goosebumps up her flesh. Ominis motioned for her to come closer. By some miracle, her stuck legs managed to work. As she approached, she heard the tiniest hiss back to Ominis. She knelt down and saw a bitty snake with brownish scales coiled about a clutch of eggs. Ominis hissed something again in that chilling but familiar language.

"She's a young mum," said Ominis. "She's shedding right now so she can't see. I heard her calling out for help when she was being stalked by a fox. I've been coming here every day to set up protection charms for her until she finally sheds her skin." "You… You speak serpens." "We call it parseltongue here." "That's amazing, Ominis. Serpens are so rare, aren't they? I've never met one before." "Yes, only Salazar Slytherin's lineage can speak it nowadays. It's certainly not a sought after trait, as you might imagine. Too many parselmouths are the worst wizardkind has to offer." "Serpens have a nasty reputation—blood supremacists, murderers, dark magic. But you're nothing like that. It doesn't matter to me that you speak serpens." He smiled, the lightest pink tinging his fair cheeks. "I knew you were the right person to share this with. No one else outside of my family knows about it. I'm sure people have their inklings, but I'd much rather leave it a mystery." "I understand. Your secrets are always safe with me."

She watched the snake for a little while longer. The snake showed no fear and laid her head back down upon her eggs. Credence smiled—somehow, she got so lucky finding someone as sweet and compassionate as Ominis.

Ominis got up. He held out his wand and trailed it along invisible barriers. "Just gotta redo the charms. Then we can head back."

She observed him. Part of her wanted to hear that alluring yet spine-chilling language again. She hadn't been expecting another secret of his. She also had another and was waiting for the right time. As Ominis' charms came to an end, she jumped on the opportunity.

"Ominis," she said. "I have another secret, too." "Aren't we just full of surprises?"

She giggled, though more to calm her racing heart. It seemed silly to be more nervous about this than about using the killing curse, but she reminded herself of all that she lost from this part of her. She also thought back to that gorgeous brown snake. Most others would've seen her as a threat or a nuisance, but Ominis was different. So she took a deep breath and let herself succumb. It was a near noiseless process, despite her shrinking limbs. Her belly slid along the ground and her muscles pushed gravel and dirt, which was when Ominis cutely cocked his head to the side.

"Cree?"

She leaned in toward him, staying close to the ground to be on his level. Her now massive head made him look so tiny in comparison. He must've felt her presence as he flinched back. Then her forked tongue poked out and flicked at his cheek. He reached up and touched her face.

"You're an animagus," he said, jaw dropping. "A snake." She hissed her snake language, "A horned serpent." He still spoke in English. "You're bloody huge. That's— This is so unexpected, Cree. You've actually rendered me speechless." "Can I show you something?" "Of course."

She bent down and pressed their foreheads together. His familiar combing caressed her mind as she brought her memory to the forefront.

"Come on, Credence! We can do this!" "I don't know, Anaba. This seems like a bad idea. What if we get caught?" Anaba flicked her wrist at her. "Oh, you worry too much!"

She and Anaba sat in their dorm, the objects for their animagus ritual set out before them. In the planning stages, it all was so nebulous and fun, but now that Credence looked upon their haul, she squirmed and fiddled with a lock of hair. Still, it seemed a shame to go back on their words now with their families and homes in danger of war.

They took up their mandrake leaves and Credence glanced out of the window at the bright orb of the moon. They locked arms, and she looked to Anaba's striking hazel eyes for strength.

"Bottoms up," they said in tandem, and dunked the leaves into their mouths.

Credence remembered all too well how uncomfortable and scratchy and foul-tasting the leaf was. Anaba often joked about how it was going to make her puke one day, until the leaf started decomposing in their mouths and that joke became a possibility.

Credence skipped to the night of the lightning storm, after their final chant. They stood together in the middle of a forest clearing, away from prying eyes. For another time, she and Anaba hooked their arms, potions in hand. Credence swallowed down her nerves.

"This is gonna taste so nasty," said Anaba. "Don't chicken out on me now." Anaba smirked. "Me? Never."

They tilted their heads back and downed the potions. Though it went down fairly smooth, the strong chemically turpentine taste made Credence force back a gag.

She didn't know what she was expecting—pain, fear, confusion, a sudden transformation? Nothing happened. She and Anaba exchanged disappointed glances as the rain beat down upon them.

"What now?" Anaba asked. "How am I supposed to know?" Credence said as she whipped out the book. She flipped to the page and read it aloud. "You speak the chant once more and drink the potion. If everything was done correctly, you may now transform into an animal. And that's it, it doesn't say how." "That book is fucking useless! Did we do it wrong?" "I don’t know. I've never transformed into anything, I have no idea what I'm doing."

Anaba took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Her fists clenched. Her face scrunched.

"The hell are you doing?" Credence asked. "Concentrating." "You look like you're about to crap your—"

But Credence had to eat her words. Right in front of her, Anaba's form changed. In a fraction of a second, Anaba stretched her proud brown and cream wings, and sang in her eagle voice. She was a beautiful brown eagle with striking hazel eyes.

Credence followed Anaba's example. She thought hard on her transformation, focused on every step they took to get this far. And after a couple of moments, her first transformation took place.

It hurt a little the first time. Her spine elongated, her teeth stretched and drove into points, antlers sprouted from her skull, and her limbs shrunk into her body until they were nonexistent. She slowly opened her eyes. Her heart jumped when she looked down to see she was the size of a tree. Anaba was a bite-sized morsel to her. She wanted to laugh and joke about it, but she observed terror in Anaba's wide stare.

She jumped ahead again to them plodding into Ilvermorny, sopping wet, their feet slapping against the flagstone.

"Anaba, please just talk to me!" Credence begged. "I don't understand!" Anaba whirled around. "I just need time to think, Credence!"

Credence flinched. She'd never seen such a sneer on Anaba's face before. Anaba continued,

"If you knew about that— That thing you are, you'd know why I need to think. You'd better keep this to yourself. Do not—tell—anyone!"

Anaba stormed off, leaving behind an extremely confused Credence. It took nearly a week for Anaba to return, telling her that her animagus form was the infamous, malicious snake: the Horned Serpent.

"Muggles think they're only a myth," Anaba had said. "But they're very real. They bring despair and miasma wherever they go. Maybe your fellow white men would see you as just a monster, but many tribes would know that you're more than that. You're a bad omen, a harbinger of death. Credence, if you know what's good for you, you'll never tell another soul about what you are. Can you promise me that?" Though Anaba’s words and harsh gaze tore through her heart, Credence replied simply, "I promise."

She observed all the pain and fear in Anaba's gaze. There was something behind those eyes that Credence knew could never be repaired. But she clung onto her promise and the last threads of her friendship. Anaba kept her distance, though remained amicable. They didn't go on adventures anymore. They didn't scheme anymore. But they would study and laugh together, and that was enough for Credence. During summer break, they kept up with owls and lengthy letters about how their lives and studies were going outside of Ilvermorny.

Then Credence's father and a group of men went out in search of gold. His wagon had been raided by one of the nearby tribes—burned and ransacked and their goods stolen. Credence was one of the ones on the scene after the accident. She approached the wreckage to help recover bodies and clean up. Her father’s blank, dead eyes stared into her. She looked to her older brother for support, and her blood ran cold at the rage etched into her Kameron's face.

Just days later, the altercation happened. Kameron yanked on his gloves and armor. Their mother cried and begged for him not to go, but the entire town was in an uproar, and the chaos and fighting and scent of blood called to Kameron.

"Kameron," Credence also begged, tossing herself between her older brother and the door. “Please don’t go!” "I have to," he spat as he armed himself. "Do you want Dad to have died for nothing!?" "Of course I don’t, but this isn’t right—" "Stay out of my way, Credence!"

Kameron shoved her to the ground. She couldn’t feel the pain of her fall, not when he wrenched open the door and the stench of gunpowder and copper battered her nose. Credence rushed out with her wand in hand.

"Credence, please no!" Her mother pleaded.

But she was already in the midst of the battlefield. Gunshots pierced her ears; screams and moans sliced the air. Smoke was thick in the red glare of sky as fires blazed.

As she stared with burning eyes, Protego flashed about her. Bullets and spears and arrows and axes all bashed into her automatic shield. Lucky for her. Her home on fire was too much to bear. Without her instinctive Protego, the shock would've had her pummeled by enemy and friendly fire.

She spotted Kameron in the distance fending off an Indian. The man overpowered him, pushing back against Kameron's gun with the reinforced handle of a spear. A few more men converged upon Kameron who was stuck to the spot by his more experienced opponent. Credence stared in horror as the Indian flung Kameron's gun from his grasp, then pointed the spearhead at Kameron's heart.

Her animagus form burst to life. With her shadow engulfing the battlefield, most of the chaos stopped. She hissed and spit acrid venom at the men, who screamed in Muskogean and scattered. Kameron stumbled to face her. The spear protruded out of his chest, plunged deep into the cage of his ribs.

Terror from the halted battlefield faded in ears, warriors’ screams overtaken by a horrible deafening ring as she watched Kameron collapse—each moment captured, each agonized twitch of his body, each torrent of blood that oozed out. She saw his eyes darken and dim. Blood cascaded from his mouth and his chest no longer heaved for breath.

From that day on, Indians and white men alike avoided her. Word spread like wildfire. Despite all the letters sent to Anaba, she never received another back. Credence was called Evil-Bringer. She and her mother lived as pariahs, persecuted up to the events of casting her unforgivable curse, until they extradited themselves.

She ended her memories, her present self pulling back from Ominis. Ominis stayed silent for a moment. His breathing was only noticeably heavier thanks to the stronger vibrations they created upon the ground. She waited for his response, her large heart thrashing. Fear gripped her and she coiled tenderly around his body, resting her head beside him. He reached out and touched her cheek.

"I'm sorry about your family, Cree. I felt how much you loved your brother especially, and how much you loved Anaba. The pain when she rejected you—I don’t want to imagine it. It’s why I’ve been so hesitant to share being a parselmouth even with Sebastian. I don’t think I could handle being abandoned. I was afraid to show you, but… But I felt like I could trust you.” "Please speak to me in parseltongue again." "You… want me to?" "Yes."

He spoke to her, his breathy hissing spilling out with impressive grace and eloquence. The language sent chills down her spine, each inch making her relax, allowing her to let go of reliving her memories. She tried to absorb everything he said, every reassuring and comforting word. Her coiling translated well to an embrace as she transformed back into her human self. They held one another, her face in his chest breathing in his scent.

"What was it you called me?" she asked. "I want to hear it again." "Šchaëƒ—my darling. Is it all right if I call you that?" She grinned, snuggling harder into him. "Yes, I love it."

When she moved to look at him under the light of the setting sun, his hands trailed from her back, up her arms, fingertips tingling along her neck, until they cupped her cheeks. Her heart hammered when his thumb ran along her bottom lip.

“May I kiss you, šchaëƒ?” “Yes,” came her breathless whisper.

He leaned down and pressed his lips against hers. His soft, warm lips laced with hers as though they’d always meant to be there, leading her to wrap her arms around his shoulders and pull him closer. He treated her delicately, as though something fragile he feared breaking, his hands gentle upon her body. She, however, pawed at his hair and chest with an unbridled longing.

It was Credence who initiated deeper intimacy, running her tongue along his kiss. Though he didn’t hesitate, his cautious tongue explored her mouth with great care. He held the back of her head, entwining his fingers in her hair, motions graceful and tender. He broke their kiss first.

“I hope that wasn’t too much,” he said, his face flushed and breathing the faintest bit heavier. “Not at all.”

She leaned against his chest and he held her close. His heart beat softly in her ear and she savored his perfume as he pecked another kiss atop her head. Credence couldn’t have imagined a more perfect end to her day.

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