#and once you have experienced positive masculinity you know it’s so true

[somedreamlove]

I think it’s time to refocus on positive, mature masculinity, and remember how wonderful the good qualities of men can be. Masculinity in its evolved form is safe, trustworthy, solid and supportive. It’s like a warm bear hug, in which your nervous system relaxes and you can let go. A mature masculine man is so, so safe. Evolved masculinity respects you because it respects itself, and is clear with its intentions. It’s emotionally stable; it’s clear and direct in its communication. It’s so much respect. Good masculinity exists if you look for it and hold out for it. Believe in the goodness of men.

[eamour]

unfavourable concepts.

i've been meaning to address this for some time now. with social media becoming a platform with such a large number of people talking about different concepts in love, work, health and so on, there are concepts which i think need to be discussed, especially as they affect so many of us.

before we start, celest1albeing on twitter inspired me to write this post! make sure to check out their thread on there as well.

disclaimer.

these are concepts that don’t serve me personally. i don’t expect you to stop believing these concepts or make them apply to you and the world if you have no problems with them. if you can resonate and identify with these, that’s perfectly fine.

concepts of love.

information · these are all only examples which i seem to encounter frequently and which seem to be common.

young men cannot commit · men only treat pretty women with respect · all male friends of women just wanna hit · if he wanted to he would · they categorise you into sweet, sexy and pretty · he doesn’t love you if he does this · men always cheat and lie · they all only want one thing · they only like ass or tits · all men are the same · you can't change his type · you aren't his dream girl · men love quiet women · if a man doesn’t pay he isn't the one

you are just an option · once you are married your partner will become less romantic · after 3 months their true colours will show (honeymoon phase) · true love doesn’t exist · after the talking stage you either get into a situationship or go no contact · getting into a relationship is hard ·

women can’t be friends with men · women are complicated · they only want your money and wouldn’t want to date men who earn little · there is always another woman · they always look for someone better · you have to work on your divine feminine energy · you need to get out of your masculine energy · a woman needs to know her place

concepts of work.

money doesn’t grow on trees · it’s hard to get money · you have to work hard in order to afford your lifestyle · only if you do the work you can get a promotion · you could never be a ceo · you need to be privileged and born into richness for this position · this generation is lazy · no one wants to work · they are all going to end up jobless and poor · nowadays we are only evolving backwards

concepts of school.

you need to learn in order to get good grades · you cannot be smart without putting in the effort · teachers always have their favourite students · it's almost impossible to get good grades by teachers who can't stand you

concepts of health.

pasta makes you gain weight · you need to eat xyz and you cannot eat zyx · junk food is unhealthy · you need to workout in order to be fit · you can only lose weight by eating less · good skin requires an expensive skin care routine · t's hard to treat acne · you cannot get rid of scars on your face

self sabotage.

all in all, it all comes down to one thing: but is this what you want to believe in? do these beliefs serve you in any way? can you continue believing in them without worsening life for yourself? see, i am not the one shoving these concepts down your throat and expecting you to tweet "men ain’t shit". it’s all up to you if you want to claim these concepts as your truth or not. but if you keep believing in any undesirable concept that you KNOW does not help you in any way, you are only self sabotaging yourself IF you know that you can change these beliefs of yours.

evaluation.

the reason why i made this post is to emphasise that you can CHOOSE to believe in these concepts or not. you aren't tied to them. you don't depend on them. and you don't need to follow these concepts either.

i know we live in a society where even if you don’t initially believe that men suck or that you will get cheated on one way or another, we are still influenced by the experiences of others and may end up experiencing these things regardless. but you don’t have to!!! just because jessica had a man promise her the world and left her with nothing it doesn’t mean that it’s gonna happen to you as well. you are NOT her, you aren’t — and you don’t have to be — ANY of these people telling you about how awful people are, how sickening it is to date in this decade, etc. you don’t have to believe ANY of these things, in fact, you can change these concepts and the people around you.

in conclusion, you are your own person with your own individual beliefs. however, you have the CHOICE. no one's forcing you to believe any of these concepts, nor do they hold a universal truth to them. they come from the same awareness that can state the exact opposite.

with love, ella.

[talonabraxas]

"Become the energy you want to attract."

We all know the law of Attraction but the dissection of thought is less known. Everything in existence is vibration and the visual reflection of vibration is geometry. Each pattern of thought has its own vibrational frequency and can contain over a paragraph of information. Masculine energy uses angles while feminine energy uses curves. This is the difference between the Sri Yantra or Metatron's cube and the Seed of Life patterns, but thought patterns can contain both.

There are four additional types of frequency in this respect. High and low can refer to violet and red because spiritual thoughts resonate higher than carnal thoughts. The other two can be called attuned and discordant. Though each chakra is on a different frequency than the others, if the root is in tune but all the others are discordant, it will be more powerful than the others. This is why love overwhelms fear. Anyone holding discord will typically have poor health.

Neuroplasticity gives us the ability to have memory and we can use it to reconstruct how our brains work. The spiritual science of this is called alchemy. Anthropomorphic thought patterns are represented in mythology, especially by the Greeks and gnostics. The Roman names are typically used in correlation with the planets which leads to astrotheology. Alchemical artists place certain symbols in specific places to convey how these thought patterns should interact to bring about a certain end result. Once enough work has been experienced, it will become much easier to help others along their journey.

The universe doesn't naturally operate in a negative sense. If we say we don't want something, we will only attract that something we are thinking about. If you don't want debt, you're giving energy to the topic of debt. Instead, the positive aspect would be to want prosperity. This is a shift in perspective necessary to be more attuned. It does not require that we just ignore our true feelings but, rather, transmute them. To agree with all our feelings, attach to our initial perspective of a situation and embody the ego's reaction would make us a product of our environment.

All humans originate from the same Source, so we are all connected. The collective ego of all humans is sentient which is why evil is intelligent. Gnostics call this entity Yaldabaoth. It plays humans like pawns, causes problems, escalates conflicts, exploits our weaknesses, etc. It is discord itself. For each of the chakras, and because Yaldabaoth is androgynous, it reproduced within itself 7 androgynous children called archons; his sons are envy, wrath, tears, sighs, grief, lament and tearful groans. His daughters are anger, pain, lust, sighs, curses, bitterness and strife, and they reproduce to form other, more complex thoughts based on the evolution of any scenario. These metaphysical parasites feed on negative energy we produce and the parasitic feeling is addictive. It is the proverbial 'slippery slope', like quicksand.

In severe cases, where the victim has been entirely enslaved, it is like meeting Yaldabaoth in human form. Many humans act as avatars for different demons. They are suggested thoughts they think are their own and, because of programming and lack of self-awareness, they act on behalf of whatever influence has exploited their greatest weakness. This is the essence of spiritual warfare and the reason why our struggle isn't against flesh and blood. If we use discordant energy to retaliate against other humans, we accomplish nothing but embody that which we say we are against, on which the archons feed.

Attuned and discordant can also be referred to as soul and ego, heaven and hell, awakened and ignorant, forward and backward, etc. Society's discord is an effect of individual discord. An utopia, where nobody is discordant, is the end goal of the teachings in the Bible. Following the procession of the equinox, in accordance with the Revelation, this will happen around the Age of Capricorn. The highest state of consciousness, Nous, is where we have a direct connection with Mind. The faculty which allows us to have noetic thought is called Christ or the Logos. The return of Christ is on an individual level and, eventually, will be like a metaphysical EMP which floods the earth eradicating discordant energy.

We are all capable of being psychic. Differing thought patterns emit their respective energy into the atmosphere and we can read it, but a distinction must be made. An aura shows the core state over a period of time, so reading auras is different than reading thoughts. It becomes easiest after analyzing the energy of each thought we have without bias. Becoming familiar with the energy of our thoughts helps us recognize the energy signature someone is giving off. The tool which allows us to perceive the metaphysical side of reality is called the third eye.

There is an argument about whether the third eye is good or bad. This is because a hammer can be used to build or destroy. It is part of our anatomy so it depends on the user, through Lucifer or through Christ, with discord or with atonement, through Phosphorus or through the Pentagrammaton. In English gematria, Lucifer and Jesus both equal 74. This is not because they are the same; it is because they are two sides of the same coin. It's all about perspective and through which side the third eye is used. For a physical analogy, try looking through the peephole of your front door from both sides. The difference in perception is between internal and external awareness.

"We can not do injustice to another or harbor thoughts of revenge without building into ourselves the nucleus of the very condition thought about. The plot, the very wish that injury may befall someone, builds cells of a similar quality within ourselves which, because of their discordant composition, because given a feeling of malice, not only work from the four-dimensional plane to bring about the injury contemplated but, due to their essential vicious nature, also work to attract misfortune to ourselves.

Both the ductless glands of the physical body and the thought-cells of the four-dimensional body take orders as they come. It is not within their ability to reason and make decisions; only to obey. If, therefore, the thoughts are evil, or the emotions run wild, they act as thus directed, unaware that destruction follows to their master."

-C.C. Zain

[tomwambsgans]

part 2 to this post

so, i think it's already a common understanding that tom won succession in part through his deep understanding of everything laid out in that original post. hierarchies. he knows his place very well, ie he knows whom he's under.

-and because he knows how to utilize his position on the ladder, he's also able to climb it. particularly through shiv.

...which i feel begs the question: why? why is tom ultimately more intuitive with this system than the roy siblings?

there are multiple answers, including 1) class - tom has lifelong experience climbing up whereas the sibs were born at the top and only have experience flipping between 3 or 4 rungs; and 2) tom specifically has lived outside of logan's world and in the end is contending with those other than logan anyway, meanwhile the sibs are lost with their dad gone; but what i want to talk about most of all is the answer that factors masculinity back into it, and which concerns tom as a whole person rather than simply a corporate agent:

3) tom's innate desire for other men and repression of that desire, having grown up in the midwest during the peak of the AIDS crisis, has made him only capable of functioning within a hierarchy. he has long since carved a space for himself in the framework of heterosexual masculinity and is incredibly vulnerable without it.

what i mean by this is that tom, like many men in hypermasculine environments, recontextualizes expressions of desire into displays of power as well as ritualistic displays of submission. this is common even in outright homosexual environments due to how many men spent their lives beforehand with these hierarchies being 1) the most intimate that they ever got with other men, and/or 2) the safest way to be close with men at all. within hierarchies, there are pre-established rules, and if you touch or are touched by men in ways that follow those rules - as in, you're either exerting power or knowing your place, then you're safe from the notions of true desire. the existence of the hierarchy also implies that you will do both, once you're past the absolute bottom rung. experiencing the control of other men is simply a trial that you endure in order to be in their place one day.

and once you do this for a long time, you become blind to what desires even are. you become essentially a high-functioning depressive.

but tom also snaps on occasion, effectively utilizing his power at those times... and what's interesting is that in spite of his need to not be vulnerable, and in spite of his need to have the power in the situation, we see him shaken by his own actions. we see him not only apologetic for going too far, but on top of that, a consistent willingness to break the rules of the hierarchy and make someone else his equal. that someone, of course, being greg.

tom is clearly a romantic to his core, and this definitely extends to greg despite there being no formal romance between them, with his consistent efforts to bring greg up to his level. or rather, as close to his level as he can before he starts panicking. because as much as he clearly craves that partnership of equals, tom literally does not know how to comfortably exist in intimacy with another man unless he has those rules.

on multiple occasions he's shown to panic at the end of an otherwise equal (and therefore vulnerable) interaction and bring up notions of his position over greg to feel safe. what's notable is that even as he does so, they are simultaneously expressions of love and desire that get progressively undeniable as the show goes on:

and finally, for the whole of season 4 i think tom is in a constant state of panic that is partly due to how high up he's taken greg. there's the factor of not feeling certain that greg will stay once he no longer needs him (which i also would say is, itself, a factor in tom's comfort within a hierarchy), but also a general sort of uneasiness because he's just broken down a wall that was previously keeping him safe from his own desires. he's got to look greg in the eyes now, basically. the more power and mobility he hands to greg, the more tom has to acknowledge that being around him is just what he wants.

...and he's been keeping greg at this level for at least 3 months, so it's also definitely circumstances that tom wanted to keep nevermind the discomfort. we obviously don't know much of what happened between them offscreen but we do have those vague allusions to the disgusting brothers - evidently nights together at the bar, aka a place where businessmen can get drunk enough that it's appropriate to become equals. this gets more into headcanon territory but i gotta imagine that alcohol is a big factor in how tom grows to cope with the change. in the same way that you still take pain medication after an elective surgery.

of course, not only is tom still in the process of accepting the changes to his dynamic with greg, but season 4 also takes place over an extremely hectic and stressful one-and-a-half weeks, so it's all-around reasonable that tom continues to lash out to reinforce the hierarchy.

but once again, even moreso now, the way that he lashes out is an undeniable expression of attachment, of a desperate need to keep him close... of love. so undeniable that in the end, even greg fully understands.

[sirenium]

Do you know what I find funny? The fact that every time I make a positivity post about queerness at its fullest, people only have something bad to say about the lesbian part. They scream at me about how the icky men don't belong in lesbian spaces, because everyone knows all men are predatory (sarcasm).

These people only care about lesbians when it gives them an excuse to hate men. Fuck the fact that the butch community is filled with gender fuckery, and how that involves manhood. Fuck the rich history of transmasculinity and lesbianism. It's all 'lesbians can't be men! They can't like men!'

And when you say 'hey, that's not true. There are historic examples of lesbian identified people who did the very things you say lesbians can't do' you're labeled a lesbian hater. I guess I hate myself then, though since I am to some extent a man who also likes men, I was never a lesbian to begin with according to users on Tumblr dot com (again, sarcasm).

Give me a break. Stop cloaking your misandry with 'I just care about lesbians!' because you don't care about lesbians. You only care about the man hating gold star lesbians who piss themselves at the deeper queer community as you do. You would throw that elder trans man lesbian under the bus, because his identity is 'invalid' to you. You can't handle multigender people, or genderqueer people in general, sullying your precious label with their manhood. You cannot stand to see another lesbian dating a man, because suddenly they're the ones forcing people to date who they don't want to date.

Queerness is supposed to be an acceptance of who you are, as someone who strays from what is expected by cishetallo society. And yet, expectations follow you into the fucking community itself. And I get it, I'm basically a baby queer myself; I've only been out for like five years, and have barely been involved in my local queer scene. But through the little bit of experience that I have had, at least I can mind my own damn business.

Tumblr has some of the most insufferable baby queers known to man, as do other websites such as TikTok and Twitter, because they honestly think they have authority over someone else's identity. They actively try to enforce their ideas of lesbianism specifically onto other people, people who are just living differently. Nobody gets the right to say what a lesbian is or isn't, nobody gets the right to pull the 'invalid' card, because sweetheart, we're ALL invalid as far as the far right is concerned.

I used to find joy in my lesbian identity once I dusted it off, after thinking I couldn't be one the more masculine my gender got, but the amount of hatred I've personally experienced as well as witnessed dampens said joy. And that fucking sucks. So no, I don't hate lesbians, but I sure do hate the ones that have made the community so hostile towards those like me... and not because of their identity either, though they no doubt think that's the reason regardless of what the truth is.

[b-lysia]

I don't like the "identity" theory of gender, not just because it feels like the way it's generally understood feels like a misunderstanding of "Identity"

But because if gender is unobservable, then it's just metaphysics. And I don't fuck with religion. I don't want to enforce a new one as a social standard, I want religion to die. I wanna see a focus on intellectual integrity and empirical thought.

Performance theory is more concrete by contrast, because it can be questioned and interrogated. It's probably not as comforting as the weight of being able to say, "because I said so," and considering the state of queer discourse's mainstream right now... I feel it. But to me, that's just more reason to push for it.

Because-

Our personal feelings and view of ourselves and place in the world affect and determine how we present to others, and in a positive feedback loop; our presentation affects how people see and feel about us, influencing how they treat us, influencing the way we view and feel about ourselves. Ad infinitum

Performance or Identity theory, this is true. And because we all know this is true, I think a lot of transphobia- besides just being repackaged racism/featurism- is borne from an attempt to wrest control over what identities are considered shameful. Namely, obviously, ensuring the gendered portion of the social hierarchy remains intact.

A "guy" who everyone treats like "a girl," is supposed to be a negative thing. A source of shame, ridicule, and abuse. But if that "guy" says, "fuck it, what if I am a girl;" or more accurately, 'their internal perspective of themselves maps onto that of what traits we call "girly" more than they do "manly?" then the world suddenly lacks coherence. Likewise the inverse, but I realized I focus a little hard on trans masculine experiences here, so I want to be less heavy handed.

If the social position Woman, is no longer lesser; so much so, that a Man would become one. Then the gender/Patriarchy structure... Kind of collapses under its own weight. If these positions are no longer intrinsic, then it collapses seven fold. So the natural response, for anyone who either personally benefits form the structure, or at least feels threatened by the unknown social territory they've suddenly found themself in, is to say- "Wait, you can't do that!?" Like the schoolyard twat they are.

The fact that one's personal identity on this level is formed so early in one's development only exacerbates how ridiculous the petty cruelty of transphobia is. Someone who was assigned a gender in lipservice alone, based on the assumptions of a 30second once over, merely a minute after being born, is assailed with experiences that cause their psyche to form in opposition to it, is begrudged for wanting to escape harassment on the basis of them being the person that their environment's effects on their biology literally carved them into. Just because it differs from the assumptions and expectations that others have of the individual, but clearly haven't adequately impressed upon that human in such a way to make them stick.

Begrudged for wanting to perform their gender in a way closer to how they've been treated, because the people around them can't handle that this individual grew into a being based on how they experienced the world, instead of based on a vague and cruel idea of what a person should be.

I like Performance theory better than Identity theory, because gender is a thing you do, because social interactions are a thing you do. They are observable and dissect able. They can be checked, based on the way we use the concept of gender to communicate within a given culture. Because with performance theory, unless you count someone's physical body as part of a performance, someone with a beard and a frilly skirt on is probably a girl/fem-coding themselves.

Granted, I take issue with the concept of the genders boy/girl/(gender period) overall. So what do I know

[valkyrjavalhalla]

Strange kind of body horror....

I realized I was trans this year. I think there were some signs I had picked up on, like how if there was a button that would magically turn me into a girl, I would push it. I was always aware of trans people, I've had trans friends since middle school, but never once did I ever consider that perhaps I was also trans. I had read articles, listened to personal stories, and watched videos that analyzed and dissected the trans experience. I felt comfortable with my masculinity, affirmed I was a boy, wore masculine clothing all the time, and went through high school with little pretty much zero question of what my gender was.

This all changed in about May. I was playing a video game and I was playing as a woman. I've always preferred to play women in video games, but this one was different. It is the only game I've played that allows you to select your genitalia, regardless of body type. I thought this was cool! And as I played, I realized that I actually wouldn't mind if I were a woman with a penis. "Not minding" the thought of being a woman turned into going to bed begging to wake up as one.

Constant weighing of my options and choices I had led me to conclude that, in some form or another, I was "not cis." In the game, the character's full name was Valerie. It's only said a few times in the game itself (the protag goes by V regardless of gender), but Valerie just sounded like such a nice name...so I picked it, and it's my name now.

At first, everything was pretty okay! I came out to my close friends, who were all incredibly supportive, and I started researching what my next steps should be as the months passed. As time has gone on, however, my mental state towards my transness has depleted itself of all its positivity. Where I was once comfortable with being assigned a different gender at birth and separating who I was then from who I am now, this is no longer true. Things that didn't bother me before have started to affect me more than I thought they ever could. My hands are massive, my torso is generically male, my hips are rigid and not pronounced, my face is a big jaw with a decent-sized nose and itty bitty eyes, and I have hair in more places than I can count. I am no longer comfortable with most of this (the nose I can honestly live with, I think it will look good on Girl Me).

While I am bisexual and have a boyfriend, I have a pretty strong preference towards women, especially as I've gotten older. The unfortunate truth is that positive cis WLW posts that end up on my feed make me extremely jealous. I've read endless adorable stories about young WLW relationships or loving one another's cis bodies as women, knowing I've missed that, and will never have that.

I feel like a kidnapping victim who has realized their whole life was a lie. All these positive memories from my childhood are fraught with a lack of femininity, and it brings me to tears. I love my boyfriend more than anything else in the world, I want to spend the rest of my life with him, but it hurts so deeply that I never got to be a young queer cis woman. I don't care how more challenging my life would have been. I want to hit reset.

What I am experiencing, and what many late-bloomer trans women experience, is this strange kind of body horror. Where once you were at least kind of okay with having a man's body, now this body feels increasingly wrong. Surely this can't be the same body I have had for the last 19 years of my life...

As my brain was swirling with memories of childhood and transness, I remembered something my mom said to me in 6th grade as she dropped me off at a friend's house. She was always supportive of my queerness and is queer herself. (She was a lesbian for decades, and learned she was bisexual when she met my father) She told me then that if I did not feel I was the right gender, if I felt they got it wrong and I was in reality a girl, she would get me puberty blockers and the time to get them was now. At the time, I was a clueless kid. I thought I knew perfectly well who I was and what my gender was going to be for the rest of my life. I turned back to her and smiled, saying "No, it's okay! I'm a boy!"

I will never get to go back and tell Little Me to say yes.

I know, in the end, I will be okay. And if you read this far, you will be okay too! Besides this bullshit, I am doing very well mentally, and everything is looking up for me! (I start HRT later this month) I plan to continue to write about my trans experience and overcome my haunting feelings surrounding my identity. I hope one day I can look back on this and cringe, or at least reflect. I hope I feel different. I hope I am different. I hope I'm happy.

Stay safe out there girlies <3

[sihayadunee]

Mythic Symbolism in the Mayfair Witches

a mythic and psychoanalytical thread exploring themes of: alchemy, star lovers, fairytales, greek myth, three fold goddesses, and beastly grooms within the amc series ‘anne rice’s mayfair witches’

*disclaimer*

This post will be split up into multiple parts as it is very lengthy.

The point of this post is not to discuss how the show adapts the source material, but instead how the show stands on its own, utilizing psychological and mythic motifs in its plot and character journeys.

For those who want to see the show, it is available on physical DVD and Blue-Ray as well as streaming. The entire eight episode first season is available on AMC+ which you can get a free trial for through Prime Video channels.

A second season has also already been green-lit. However the first season ends on what I would consider a very satisfying note.

Part One, Part Two,

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

SEPARATION OF THE FEMININE AND THE ILLUSION OF SUCCESS

Our heroine Rowan was adopted, and we do come to learn the way she was separated from her birth mother. But from the start, despite having a loving adoptive mother, Rowan expresses nonetheless that she is searching for “home”.

This becomes more apparent later, as we see Rowan admit she wants to understand her genetics, where she comes from. Who she really is. Something that has been one way or another discouraged by her archetypal “too good” mother Ellie.

Rowan has compensated for this void and lack of control in her life, through success in her career. This is where we see how she has identified with the masculine and begun to traverse the male dominated medical field. She is confident in her ability to play the game until she comes out on top.

The dragon among her trials, is when Rowan learns that her mother Ellie’s cancer has returned. Her boss Dr. Keck appears seemingly as an ogre guarding her bridge toward finding a solution. Which leads her ultimately toward experiencing the illusory boon of success.

She goes to see Daniel Lemle about the position at his company. He is enthusiastic about the aspects of Rowan Dr. Keck was critical of, and to have her on his team and her mother submitted to the trial. This is that male validation she has been yearning for. However as she gets to know him and his style further, her enthusiasm wavers.

Once again she is encouraged to “run with the boys” to be a “killer”. And if she does this, she will succeed in retrieving the healing elixir for Ellie. However this means replacing an existing candidate in the trial with her mother.

This is something that morally she can not do. Fed up and in grief, this moment shatters her composure so thoroughly that the power inside of her which she has all along been struggling with (and that her ordinary world was not capable of addressing) lashes out at Lemle to his demise.

SPIRITUAL ARIDITY AND THE BLACKENING

Earlier when she is having a tryst with Max the bartender, we see how her intomacy is intentionally distant. She yearns for home, for companionship, but also doesn’t want to deal with the vulnerability that comes with it.

She compares the true love Max seeks, to something she experienced as a child with her literal and metaphorical shadow. She says it knew her thoughts and her secrets and had always loved her. But in the current state she is now, she looks back on this and dismisses it though the thought of it makes her wistful.

Rowan has ignored her shadow since she was young. Following her guilt and the passing of her mother, that’s now becoming impossible to keep doing. After Rowan flees her counselling session, dishonest with and in fear of herself, she is faced with a murder of crows perched by her car.

In alchemy, the crow is associated with the stage of Nigredo, calcination, or the Blackening. This is a stage of cleansing through the burning of ingredients into ash, often associated with death. To Jung this is the Dark Night of the Soul. Robert Bly also ties crows to the Shadow and the need to face it. We see crows and smoke heavily featured in promotional material for the show.

The bulk of the season then goes on to follow Rowan as she begins her descent to the goddess and encounters the literal personification of her shadow, of her animus. Progressively fulfilling stages in the alchemical process…

End of Part One

[cosmicjoke]

Hmm, okay, finally read chapter 52 of Saezuru, and I've got to say, Yashiro seems downright depressed at the end of the chapter. He's a hurtin' unit, man. And I think it really ties into my last post about this chapter, about Yashiro's conflicting feelings regarding wanting to be treated gently. Doumeki didn't do that here. Yashiro's expression when Doumeki flips him over is one of almost panic. Yashiro didn't want this, and his internal thoughts afterward in the shower seem to confirm that to me, when he wonders if Doumeki really had to "fuck me so hard", as he says. I posited before that Yashiro is having a difficult time reconciling his desire to be treated gently with the trauma he experienced at the hands of his step-father, particularly his step-father telling him he was really a woman, and how Yashiro may feel admitting to wanting gentility, in some way, proves his step-father right about him. Yashiro seems obviously depressed to me here when he's thinking about how Doumeki wouldn't treat a woman roughly the way he did Yashiro himself just now. I think Yashiro wants Doumeki to acknowledge him as a man, but to still treat him with the same care and kindness he would a woman. And I think Yashiro wants Doumeki to acknowledge him as a man so much because he doesn't want his step-father to be right about him, but he's feeling extremely low here because it seems Doumeki has changed into the prototypical Yakuza, someone who hurts other men.

What also really stood out to me in this chapter was how highlighted the physical difference between Yashiro and Doumeki was. Of course, it's always been obvious that Doumeki is like this physical specimen of masculinity, and Yashiro is much more feminine in comparison. But Yashiro's waif-like physicality seems even more pronounced here. He's so thin, and Doumeki manhandles him with ease. You get a real sense of Yashiro's helplessness at Doumeki's hands in this chapter, and I don't necessarily think that's meant to be taken as a good thing. You have this moment afterward, though, when Yashiro gets up to take a shower, when he loses his footing and falls, and Doumeki catches him. In these panels, Doumeki's superior physical strength is seen as a good thing, as he's using it to protect Yashiro, rather than overpower him. But of course, Yashiro pushes him away in the next moment, made uncomfortable, once again, by their positions, him being the smaller, weaker man in need of protection, like a woman would be. I really do think this is just a severe struggle for Yashiro, this pull between wanting to be seen and acknowledged as a man, but wanting to be treated like a woman. He doesn't know how to ask for it, because to ask for it would be to acknowledge his step-father was right (at least, that's what I'm guessing at with Yashiro).

It's a tragic and heartbreaking set of circumstances. Doumeki isn't opening up to Yashiro either, and he continues to come off as having changed into rather a more unfeeling, hard-hearted person, and you can see how deeply it bothers Yashiro. You can tell, I think, that he misses that Doumeki. When he starts to say the old Doumeki never would have picked up on his sarcasm, only stops himself halfway through and gives up trying to explain, you get such a deflated sense of defeat off of him. Yashiro keeps looking, I think, for signs that the Doumeki he knew is still in there, somewhere. That the Doumeki who treated him with the respect and admiration one would afford a worthy man, but with the kindness and care one would afford a loved woman, is still there.

Something is going to have to give here, eventually. Either Doumeki drops the act, or Yashiro opens up, or something more extreme, some sort of threat which forces their true feelings to come out.

Right now, Yashiro is still, I think, in a very bad place mentally.

[danggerine]

i made the mistake of reading the notes on a lot of trans naoto posts so now y’all get responses to some of the bad takes i keep seeing. buckle the fuck up

• “naoto’s arc is about sexism specific to the japanese workplace and calling her trans erases that to fit it into a western lens!!!”

you guys do know that there are japanese trans people right. like i agree that there are lots of issues with workplace sexism and gender roles in japan, but there’s also lots of issues with transphobia. y’all do know that you do not have to be white and/or live in a western country to be trans, and that queer stories and issues are GLOBAL stories and issues right.

• “naoto isn’t a man, she just pretended to be one to get respect in a male-dominated field, if you say she’s a trans man you’re ruining that whole character arc about accepting your true self!”

here’s the thing! the way that character arc was done was fucking transphobic! the trope of a woman going into disguise as a man for safety/respect/etc is tried and tested, it shows up literally everywhere, and the trope itself is not inherently transphobic. HOWEVER, when persona 4 incorporates Really Obviously Trans elements into that trope, like chest binding and literal gender reassignment surgery, then we have a problem, because now you have a cis character going through a trans narrative in the name of insecurity.

p4 does everything it can to embody the typical narrative of a young transitioning trans guy: binding, changing your name, revising official documents to be known as a man in work and school records, dressing masculine, and forming a shadow literally based on transitional surgery. plus the stuff naoto’s shadow says isn’t about being “a weak little girl” or “no one will ever take you seriously when you’re just a little girl” like you would expect it to be for someone who’s arc is supposed to be about dealing with misogyny, it’s all “you’ll never be a real man,” “you can’t cross the boundary between the sexes,” “no one will ever see you as you are” comments. you know, textbook trans guy insecurity. but the game backtracks on that and says naoto was just insecure about being a female detective and wanted people to take them seriously, and that they should get rid of these feelings and accept their true, female self.

and this is where the problem lies. when you write an obviously trans-coded narrative, but make the character experiencing it an insecure cis person or someone trying to avoid discrimination, you say either 1. trans people are really their assigned gender and are just insecure, but accepting the gender they were given at birth will make them happier and more confident or 2. being a trans man is a way for cis women to escape misogyny. 1 is obviously stupid and has been talked about by plenty of people, but 2 is a BIG problem and a wild assumption to me. being a trans man is seen as an “out” for naoto, or a solution to a problem, as if once they’re a man they’ll face no discrimination whatsoever, when in reality things like getting their gender marker changed in official documents that would allow them to go by “he” and wear the boy’s uniform at school and passing well enough to be seen as a boy in public would be a HUGE ordeal that includes a lot of stress and rejection and danger. realistically, naoto is putting themself in a really precarious position, because if they are exposed as actually afab to the media, to the detective agency, or to the school, they are set for a hell of a lot of ridicule, discrimination, and potential physical danger. but persona 4 doesn’t reflect this at all, because it’s transphobic and thinks that being trans is the easy way out for cis women experiencing misogyny!

• really any argument that boils down to “naoto is a cis woman in canon whose struggle is about sexism, not being trans”

like i already addressed enough of this, i think, but what really gets me is that kanji’s arc is fucked up in a lot of the same ways naoto is and no one is clowning on posts about kanji being gay? his shadow is a very clear (and offensive) gay caricature, and his narrative is very much one about a mlm guy experiencing homophobia from his peers and acting out because of that. and yet the game backtracks to saying “oh no it’s not about liking men, kanji is insecure about his femininity and softer hobbies because of toxic masculinity” and then literally uses naoto to refute his queerness because “look the only guy kanji was ever shown as attracted to was ACTUALLY a woman all along and now that kanji knows she’s a girl he can be openly attracted to her!” in canon, naoto is about as cis as kanji is straight, and yet EVERYONE is on board for portraying kanji as gay in fan works like it’s not even a question, but there has to be a huge debate anytime anyone wants to call naoto trans. legitimately, i think i’ve seen someone argue about kanji being mlm on a post...once? ever? meanwhile every post about naoto being trans has to have a horde of discourse, i’m literally already prepping for the bad notes this post will get because y’all cannot leave this ALONE

in conclusion, i am not saying that everyone has to think naoto is a trans man or forcing anyone to stop liking a character in the way they want or anything like that. i am saying that the naoto’s canon character arc is transphobic and if you’re trying to fight with trans people about how they want to reclaim something that uses a lot of their experiences, don’t.

[oliviamillss]

reading dreams chart

im only going to use up to orb 3, for stronger accuracy lmao

**if you can’t be bothered to read it all, theres a summary paragraph at the bottom**

sun:

sun in 7th: strong emphasis on relationships. tends to copy others lingo/habits. extroverted. probably ‘needs’ others. only really shows his true self around his close friends/family/partners. 

sun at 19 degrees: a libra degree. (emphasis on this bc libra rules 7h), makes him a very charming, likeable, particularly popular guy.

sun opposite ascendant: inner conflict, probably doesn’t feel like people see him for his true self, may struggle showing true self. may feel misunderstood. may need approval/validation a lot.

sun square mars: hints to daddy issues. may struggle with a lot of built up anger and frustration, but it seems like he takes it out very positively, as you can see he is competitive, so i think he lets it out through gaming. probably very energetic, motivated.

sun square saturn: high expectations for himself. probably the type of person to think ‘i’m only good enough if i do this’. probably very hard on himself. also probably very insecure of himself, but doesn’t show it. another sun square masculine planet, more hinting to daddy issues.

moon:

moon in 7th: probably relies on close friends/family/partners a lot. loves to help people, esp people he’s close with (kinda mr beast vibes). probably very like ‘oh shit, he’s sad, i need to do everything within my power to cheer him up’ if that makes sense lmao

moon in virgo: looking after people!!! esp with the sun square saturn,, high expectations. probably a very much perfectionist, which also explains why he is competitive. may ‘always need to be right’. but virgo moons are actually so lovely omfg

moon at 9 degrees: sagittarius degree, likes to help people by optimism, and giving things to the person that they would want (im aware that sounds obvious lmao). probably feels a sense of achievement when cheers them up.

moon square pluto: probably hard time dealing with and growing from negative things that have happened, possibly struggles with letting things go. possibly self destructive (why did that one heatwaves part come to mind), possible trust issues + anxiety, probably very particular about who he lets close into his life, maybe quite protective. 

mercury:

mercury in 6th: likes to help people, probably not disappointed if he spends his time working with someone, may struggle with anxiety/depression. a quick learner, probably overthink every word because it wast the ‘perfect’ thing to say. 

mercury in leo: funny asf, and out there, also thinks his ideas/things to respond and say are the best, with the 6h and 7h placements, he is open to listen to others, but in the end he only really wants his one lmfao, good with conversation.

mercury at 1 degree: aries degree, another fire placement which emphasises the loud, out there kinda vibes.

mercury trine mc: career and reputation are strongly linked with what he says. (this is obv bc hes famous lmao). he’s smart, particularly with technology and its linked to his career. *im aware this sounds like im just describing him, this is exact so thats why its overly accurate*

mercury opposite neptune: daydreamer, probably has a lot of thoughts and ideas in his head, but they just dont come across right. probably zones out, may struggle with focusing. but very creative, has big and creative ideas. i havent mentioned it before but its come up too many times now, but he has a lot of placements, when manifested badly, creates a good manipulator

mercury square jupiter: optimistic, possibly thinks his ideas are the best (we’ve covered that before), can be really overly talkative or just nothing at all. (i rlly dont know much about this placement)

venus:

venus in 7th: he will have a beautiful relationship with his future partner. charming asfff, probably a good flirt. tends to love love. needs to be liked, sort of a pleaser. 

venus in virgo: the type of person to remember everything about the people he cares about. loves to help the people he cares about. probably sees the people he truly loves as ‘perfect’, which may end up being really bad if they’re toxic. 

venus in retrograde: struggles feeling loved, possibly feels like he doesn’t deserve love. probably the type to be like ‘how could you ever love me?’

venus square mc: attract people who take care of him. either has self-esteem issues, or is quite a dependant person. creative. may struggle finding people who support his career, or may have to change a few things about himself to be liked by others. 

venus trine jupiter: very likeable, and he’s veryyy lucky. he’s funny, and a generous person, probably very giving to his close friends and family. charismatic asfff, likely he will marry someone foreign. 

mars:

mars in 9th: more things hinting to attract(ing/ed to) foreigners. loves experiencing things with people he cares about. likes to learn more and more, possibly stubborn, makes sure his opinions are known.

mars in scorpio: that boy needs privacy in his life, doesn’t like being predictable. probably an overthinker. we’ve already known this but he’s definitely a top. probably could get anyone he wants, seductive asfff. also pretty spiteful.

mars at 17 degrees: leo degree, fame bitchesss

mars square ascendant: hates to lose, competitive. people may be intimidated by him at first, can’t really hide anger, pretty stubborn.

mars opposite saturn: really hard on himself. wants to be the best of the best, leader. stands up for himself. another placement hinting to daddy issues. harsh about his work, and himself in general, perfectionist. 

mars square uranus: anger may change a lot, a lot of energy, probably struggles to focus, doesn’t like to be the one who is being controlled/has restrictions. probably struggles with authority. outbursts of anger.

jupiter

jupiter in 3rd house: loves writing, and is actually pretty good at it. knows how to talk to people, how to persuade them, and how to manipulate them. good liar, knows how to sell his wants across, how to get what he wants.

jupiter at 4 degrees: cancer degree, cancer rules his 6h. he uses his luck/money to help others.

jupiter square neptune: big dreams, desire to escape the world as it is.

saturn:

saturn in 3rd: afraid of/ is often misunderstood. struggles to open up?, maybe he wasn’t listened to much growing up. hard on himself academically, feels like he isn’t smart enough. hard time expressing himself. maybe feels like noone really cares for what he has to say?

saturn at 16 degrees: cancer degree. idk what else to say abt it lmaoo

saturn square ascendant: quite serious, maybe struggle with the way he looks? possibly quite overwhelmed about his life,, feels like he has too much to do at times. fear of rejectionnn

saturn square uranus: maybe he doesn’t like change, tradition v change clashing. authority troubles. probably needs freedom, but feels unstable without what he’s used to. rebelling against norms. 

uranus: 

uranus in 12th: probably very curious about unexplainable things, maybe quite into conspiracy theories. two complete ends of the spectrum: fear change/need it, unpredictable things happen/ everythings the same. 

uranus at 14 degrees: taurus. taurus ruling 2nd, i guess it shows change in dream’s wealth.

uranus opposite north node (and conj south node): with exceptions, doesn’t like conflict. he is fine with joke conflict, but the second there’s an actual argument he tries to be the ‘peacemaker’ guy. technology is major in his life. also quite nervous about his career/future. 

neptune:

neptune in 12th: awful sleep schedule. overworking himself, never relaxing. vivid dreams. once again, this has come up loads and i just haven’t mentioned it: intuitive asf, george is the same. whether either are aware of it or not, they are super intuitive.

neptune at 2 degrees: taurus degree.

neptune sextile mc: creative, also likes helping others, empathy to the public. has big dreams career wise. 

pluto:

pluto in 10th: determined person, gets a lot of hate, but also a lot of love. trust issues, persuasion/manipulative abilities. leader leader leader. another hint to daddy issues, maybe privacy invading, maybe overprotective. don’t want to be controlled.

north node:

north node in 6th: overwork himself. but i think we can interpret this as his life goal to be working to help people. literally mr beast. just work hard, and give a lot away. humble.

chiron:

chiron in 9th: possible restriction from either his or his communities beliefs/religions. maybe he’s afraid of leaving where he is right now (sapnap moving to orlando, whenever its brought up its always george coming to orlando)

lilith:

lilith in sagittarius: need for truth. dislikes restrictions. hides emotions, uses humour to avoid them/ make people think they’re okay when they’re not. stubborn asf. 

lilith in 10th: tend to be sexualised/ reputations for being sexual. another placement hinting to daddy issues. really wants to be at the top, the most powerful. likes using his dominance/ power to seduce. motivateddd.

lilith conjunct pluto (exact omfg): typical ‘mystery’ guy. probably the mystery/scorpio vibes he pulls off attracts/ seduces people. the most dominant partner ever. sex is probably so intense and overwhelming

moon square lilith: possible mummy issues. his need for sex can change quick asf, from one end of the scale to another. struggles to open up. 

 i ought to mention!!

there’s a theory that the degree of your venus sign is the birthday of someone who is v important in your life. what’s dreams you may ask? 1. and when are george and sapnap’s birthdays? the 1st. they’re soulmates, your honour.

summary!!!

basically, dream has so much care and love for his friends and family, and probably relies on them a lot. he only shows his true self around them, and he (at least thinks) people don’t really understand him in the way his friends and family do. he is a social person, who’s very likeable and charming. he lovesss helping people, doing everything in his power to cheer others up, he remembers details about the people he loves. he is such a perfectionist, needing to succeed and win and everything, and is very competitive. he probably doesn’t think he’s ‘worthy’ if he’s bad at something. he sets very high expectations for himself. he is very hard on himself. if he wants to, he knows how to manipulate people. he has so so many placements for an amazing manipulator. he may struggle to express himself or open up, and may be hard on himself academically. maybe he doesn’t feel ‘listened to’. a lot of emotions like anger and sex drive may change rapidly for him. he over works himself a lot. a major theme in his life is tradition vs change. he is probably afraid of change, or finds it uncomfortable, or he may have some sort of attachment to traditional values/things, no matter how much he wants to change. he is also a peacemaker. he was born to be loved or hated, kinda like marmite but if the balance was more equal. he doesn’t like restrictions. he uses humour to hide his emotions.

im also thinking of doing a synastry reading between george and dream but idk yet lol

hope you guys enjoyed, this took ages lmao<3

[that-stone-butch]

What makes a butch a stone butch?

hey! thanks for asking! as a little heads-up, this is going to involve mention of sexual trauma (in passing, i'm NOT going to discuss that topic at length here) as it is relevant to the experiences of *some* but not all stone butches. also just like, a discussion of sex and sexuality in general. so you know, heads-up.

so, in a general sense, the label stone butch tends to convey certain sexual boundaries. most stone butches do not want to be penetrated and/or touched sexually. it might be *occasionally* the case that some stone butches enjoy these things, but it's not the norm for us. like me, i never ever enjoy the former and i very VERY rarely enjoy the latter. as a community, we tend to boil this down to the phrase 'stone top' though our understanding of top/bottom dynamics, but that's a little reductionist. additionally, stone butches may be more or less comfortable in positions of sexual vulnerability of any kind. as i said, it absolutely varies from person to person.

it's a common misconception that stone butches are the way we are due to sexual trauma. while it may be true that many stone butches have experienced sexual trauma, it is not the case for every butch and it does not have to be. some people just aren't wired to enjoy certain things sexually, you don't have to have a 'tragic backstory' for that to be the case, or for your sexual boundaries to be legitimate. for example, i am a survivor of sexual trauma (yes i am fine, no i do not want to talk about it) and to a certain extent that contributes to my stone identity. but i'm also just, not wired to enjoy that kind of thing? like in general i prefer to focus on my partners' pleasure and that just is how i share myself with others.

there are certain nonsexual connotations with stone butches; that we are more often chest-dysphoric, that we are more masculine than 'softer' butches, etc etc. i do not want to buy into that shit. stone butches are just as variable as other butches, stone butches are allowed to express ourselves in our own brand of masculinity that's going to vary from person to person, and that's a good thing! a beautiful thing. i had a friend once who thought 'stone butch' just meant like 'more butch' and with the way our community tends to discuss things, i can't exactly fault them for picking up that misconception. but 'stone butch' in a nonsexual context is going to mean as much a unique way of being for each and every stone butch in the same way that 'butch' does.

hope that helps! as always, my door is always open if you have more specific questions.

[shinyphantomsalad]

Back from hiatus + updates

Hey yall I'm back! I know the hiatus wasn't that long but I decided to cut it short from how long I previously had intended it to be because I finally came with terms with myself. I started to question my gender identity and my sexuality going from "am I lesbain" to "am I a trans guy" over and over and I have concluded that I am trans. There is no doubt about it. Ever since I was a child I always beloved I was a boy and I always thought I was one. I always viewed myself as a boy and I feel more than comfortable being referred to as a man. Previously in middle school I used to identify as a lesbain and I was outed in school which lead to me experiencing pretty harsh homophobia. Back then I thought I was just a butch lesbain so I dressed pretty masculine and for that I got called derogatory names, got pushed into girls locker rooms and some girl even tried to sexually assaulted in gym once. During the hiatus I started to ask myself am I really trans or am I just calling myself one because the word lesbain triggers me and by calling myself a straight man I'm just protecting myself. I ask my other trans friend who was 5 months on t about this and he said that no real lesbain has done this, if a real lesbain were to went through what I did she would still call herself a lesbain nonetheless. He also said that just because I used different lables in the past past doesn't mean I'm faking being something else right now. He helped me a lot along with other trans mutuals who also helped me come to my true trans self. Now that I'm finally back online i want to talk about something else. I realized that spreading an old very harmful ideology (truscum) was very wrong from me. Gotta be honest I mostly did it for nostalgia. During thr rough times in middle school I used kalvin garrah, flop accounts and lgbt discourse as my coping mechanism and considering I'm not not doing so good aswell right now I thought I could do the same thing to cope. I now realized that it was wrong and that I should find new ways to cope instead of arguing over who's more valid or not. So instead of making this a truscum/discourse blog I was thinking on remaking it into a trans journey art blog where I talk about my experiences and struggles as a trans guy. It would be a much better improved from my previous posts and it would be less problematic. I want to sincerely apologize to everyone that I have maybe hurt. I know that I mostly argued with terfs but I do realize that my introduction post has maybe invalidated some users. For that I am deeply sorry and I should have known better instead of forcing discourse in fandoms where people turn to for comfort. Those upset by my previous ignorant content don't have to forgive me if they don't wish so but for those who do please understand that I only did it out of ignorance and by blindness from nostalgia. I invite you to join on my new journey of positivity and trans acceptance. I want to move on from my truscum phase and finally mature as a trans person.

One more time, for all of those terfs who tried to convince me I was actually a lesbain and who misgendered me and called me a gi you are no longer welcomed here. I was a fool to think I can have civil debates with you people and possibly change your minds but all you guys do is purposely make fun of trans people by misgendering us and when we get angry you play the victim. Maybe if you guys just let trans women and trans femme people live their life freely from harrassment maybe you wouldn't have to whine about "mean" trans women calling you out on your transphobia. I'm so glad I had my trans friends to help me bring me back to my transness because I was literally about to start calling myself a lesbain (no offense lesbains) and maybe start listening to terf and radfen bs. Luckily I didn't fall to their trap.

Anyway if you have read through all of this thank you and have an awesome day 🏳️‍⚧️

[monkberries]

So here goes: Personally I find Paul to be hot with a beard. But it annoys me because there’s always some Paul stan who’s like “he was super depressed during that time you know” anytime someone says how hot he looks with a beard. Like first of all, I don’t think we should go around diagnosing people and assuming how he felt 24/7 just based on a couple of quotes when we don’t know him, and second of all I was just saying he looks good. Also idk why Paul stans want to pretend like Paul is STILL a victim when he’s definitely not. He’s a super successful billionaire musician. He’s fine.

I'm going to assume all four of these were from the same anon; I received another along these same lines that seems to be from someone else:

OKAY. There's a lot here.

As I've said before, I think the concept you are both talking about - that Paul is the favourite, that people will attack you if you criticize him, that people are vilifying John more now - is true, but is also a matter of perspective. I think sometimes we perceive the whole fandom as just the people we're surrounded by; that can be true in smaller fandoms, like for obscure shows or whatever, but for the Beatles, the fandom is so much bigger and more spread out across generations, social media platforms, and works of literature than almost any other fandom. There are literally thousands upon thousands of books either about or tangentially about the Beatles; there are pockets on every platform from tumblr to twitter to podcasts to instagram to facebook etc., and it branches off even more niche within those to like, facebook groups specifically for podcasts about the Beatles, or discord servers, or livejournal threads, or music forums, or fics on ao3. There are fansites with thoughtful speculative articles like heydullblog and blogs specifically reviewing Beatle books like beatlebioreview and sites cataloging every bit of minutiae like the Beatles Bible, all with their own flavor of comment sections. And not only that, the Beatles fandom spans generations and cultures in a way that almost nothing else ever has or ever will.

And this is not even going into the shifting narratives that have been in play over the years surrounding Paul specifically, and the huge, huge difference between the perceptions of him by the authors and the Counterculture People, the perceptions of him by regular ass Wings fans who have only idly flipped through Rolling Stone while waiting in line at the local bodega, and the perceptions of him by everyone in between, who may or may not have been unconsciously influenced by the wider narratives about him.

All that is to make the case that the fandom that you are experiencing on tumblr/twitter is an extremely small fraction of The Fandom at large. For every Paul stan on twitter that yells at people for not believing that Paul literally invented music, there is a John stan in a facebook group going on about John's supposedly tireless peace efforts. For every nuanced, well sourced post on amoralto's blog, there is someone in the Beatles Bible comment section saying that John and Paul hated each other. For every fan who's read the major Beatles bios with a critical eye towards bias, there are plenty more fans who just absorbed them as straight fact. This is not to say that your experiences are not real or valid! They absolutely are! What I am saying is that there are infinite permutations of infinite Beatles fandoms out there, and the people you see who insist that Paul is still treated worse than John, I would imagine, are occupying various permutations of the fandom where that is more true, alongside the one they share with you. It's not for me to say whether the Paul or John people have the upper hand on the whole - truly, I don't think anyone has enough perspective on the whole fandom to make any judgment on that, no matter what general Grand Pronouncements anyone may make about The Fandom.

As I've said before, any overly defensive "stan" behavior, whether it's for John or Paul or George or anyone, is exhausting to me, so I definitely understand where you're coming from re: him being supposedly underrated. He is literally one of the most successful musicians of all time; as of the beginning of this year, he is worth 1.2 billion dollars; and, thanks to his own efforts and the efforts of quite a few fans and writers out there over the decades, he now enjoys an incredibly positive "granddude" reputation. There are ways in which it can be exasperating to read yet another indignant refutation of music reviews for RAM that came out fifty years ago, when his last three albums have hit the top 3 in the charts in both the US and the UK and have gotten great reviews. I have seen people wonder, honestly wonder, how much more money Paul could have made, how much more respected he could have been, if the rock press had been inclined to give RAM good reviews. When I see that, it does start to feel like fans of Paul, at least the defensive ones in the fandom permutations I occupy, are arguing with the author photo of Philip Norman in the book jacket for Shout!. It's not that I think those arguments and discussions are not worth having; I do think they're worth having because I believe that the only way we can continue to grow is if we grapple with the mistakes made in the past. But there is a strange kind of disconnect that happens when you read about someone indignantly defending Wild Life as though the members of Wings are currently, actively having eggs and rotten fruit thrown at them, and then you remember that Paul is currently, and has been for many years now, one of the richest men in the entire world.

As for the misogyny thing, I'll copy and paste a quote from Erin Weber which may explain a little better than I can:

"Where it starts entering into serious discussion for me is when you have professional grown men (Schaffner would be the most glaring example of this, but not the only one) repeatedly using the term “pretty” or “pretty-faced” to refer to another grown man. (Norman does the same). Schaffner doesn’t only do that once or twice, he uses one of those exact words at least fifteen times in his references to McCartney. “Pretty-boy” is also a term that at least one journalist has used to describe Paul, and that’s not a stealth insult: that’s an overt one. (My husband, who hates the Yankees, routinely used the term “pretty-boy” to insult Alex Rodriguez. And it wasn’t meant as a compliment).

My reaction to this is based both on studies that I’m aware of (I’d have to hunt them up, but I’ve seen them referenced before) which argue that the use of feminized language can be a method of stealth insult/diminishment when used by men to describe other men, and my own personal experience. It is difficult to see a situation where a grown man using the term “pretty” or any variation of the word “pretty” to describe another grown man means it as a compliment. Even if its purely meant as a descriptive term, it is a descriptive term that is weighted with significant meaning and is feminizing. And given the rock press’s obsession with masculinity and its insistence, as noted in other studies, of using masculine terms to portray a song as good and feminizing terms to describe them as weak or inferior, I don’t think its a coincidence that a rock press that knew well the power of masculine and feminine language commonly used feminized language, particularly in the 1970s and 80s, to describe McCartney."

I personally see this more as pseudo-homophobic than pseudo-misogynistic (like, when I see a man called "pretty" by another man in an insulting way, I immediately think "oh, that author wanted to say a gay slur but he's too Professional"), but the two things can get muddled together, I suppose.

Anyway, actionable items:

Diversify Your Fan Experience. More perspectives can really help gain a fuller understanding of not just the fandom but the Beatles themselves. Don't be afraid to be wrong, and don't be afraid to be right; always be open to learning new things and hearing new insights.

If All Else Fails, Block 'Em.

[ri-ahhh]

idk if your taking concepts buttttt 👀 i wholeheartedly believe that if you told gray you were feeling insecure ab the way you looked and just felt overall he would stick a bunch of post-its on the bathroom mirror with a bunch of cute little messages and positive affirmations to remind you how loved and beautiful you are :’)))

Omg he sooo would I love that.

He catches you picking at your insecure areas and huffing at your reflection on your final outfit check as you leave for work. It doesn’t help when he’s in the background of the mirror, shirtless and sweaty and shredded after his morning workout. You accept his quick peck on the lips goodbye as you hurry out of the bathroom for the day, leaving him pondering about how he might be able to make you feel better.

You return home after a long ass day, kicking your shoes off by the front door with a relieved sigh to finally be home. You’re about to toss your keys in the little dish on the entryway table when you notice a hot pink post-it note in the bottom of the bowl. You pick it up and see it scrawled with Grayson’s handwriting.

Welcome home baby. I hope your day was as beautiful as you

It’s punctuated with a little smiley face, and you can’t help the grin that overtakes your own mouth. He’s never left you a note like that before, and, sentimental hoarded that you are, you think about where you might keep it for safekeeping.

You toss your purse on the kitchen counter, and to your surprise another little pink piece of paper glares at you from the stark white of the marble.

Can’t wait to see your pretty face. I missed you!

You shake your head and look at the note again; he’s absolutely unreal. “Grayson?” you call out to the quiet house, wondering where he might be as you stick the post-it on your hand to join the other.

You walk the path to his bedroom, hoping to find him relaxing in bed before dinner, but are disappointed to find that room empty too. With a shrug, you tuck the notes into the drawer of your nightstand and decide to use the alone time to get out of your work clothes and relax in a nice body shower, just to wash the day and your makeup off.

Clothes tossed into the hamper in the corner of your bedroom, you’re just down to your underwear by the time you step into the adjoining bathroom, and stop dead in your tracks when you see pink squares littering the mirror. You walk up slowly to them, almost in disbelief when you pick one up and read ‘can’t believe you’re mine’ scribbled in his neatest penmanship.

“No shit,” you mumble to yourself, thinking the exact same thing about him as you shake your head and stick it neatly on the counter.

Before you can remove the next one, you’re startled by Grayson’s deep voice.

“Did you read them all, yet?”

You jump and whip around to see him leaning against the doorframe, looking almost the same as when you left him this morning, only having just completed his evening workout rather than his morning one.

He also looks a little shy, like he’s almost embarrassed by the softness in your expression as you assume the rest of the notes are similar praises.

“No, not yet. Gray, I don’t deserve you, seriously,” you whine with a little pout, crossing your arms over your middle without even realizing.

He shakes his head and starts walking to you, taking your wrists in his hands and prying them away from yourself to wrap around his slightly sweaty neck. “Yes, you do,” he challenges, eyes locking with yours. “That’s exactly why I wrote all of these.”

Grayson spins you around and walks you closer to the bathroom counter so you’re as close to the mirror as you can get. He keeps your back close to his chest as he ducks his head down to your ear, his breath tickling your skin when he whispers, “Read them. Out loud. I want you to hear them.”

Your eyes catch his in the mirror, bright and hazel green beneath the snaps of his backwards baseball cap, and you swallow as a heady mix of love and arousal fills your blood. Especially when his fingers start toying with the clasp of your bra right as you start to speak.

“Most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”

He hums in agreement with the words you say, the words he wrote for you, and deftly unhooks the clasp so that it pops open where he can easily slide the lace down your arms and off your body. You gasp when his lips find your neck at the same time his hands come around to cup your breasts, giving them a firm squeeze that feels incredible after being trapped in your bra all day.

“Keep going,” he murmurs, trailing his tongue along your bare shoulder now.

You sink back into him and your eyes flutter, but you open them to read once again. You can’t help but giggle and flush at this one. “Love your titties. They’re literally perfect.”

Like the man child that he is, he’s even gone so far as to draw a rudimentary depiction of a set of boobs. “Oh yeah, I couldn’t not talk about these,” he says with a grin, tugging on your nipples now and watching you toss your head back against his shoulder with a pleasurable moan.

You can feel him getting hard through his athletic shorts against your lower back, and you push your ass up against him just to get more of that sensation. Grayson grunts and leaves your breasts, sliding his hands down your waist and slipping his hands into the waistband of your thong.

“One more, baby, and I’ll touch this pretty little pussy. Is she wet for me?”

You nod with a whimper, and lift your head off his muscular shoulder to find a random note of the several that are still stuck to the glass. The one you choose makes your heart stutter as much as it makes your pussy throb.

“Completely perfect. Only girl for me.”

True to his word, Grayson wastes no time in shifting his right hand over to cup your pussy in his warm, rough hand. You gasp and grind against him, pussy pressing deliciously into his touch in one direction and ass meeting his dick in the other. Grayson rests the side of his face against yours, and you watch his hand start to move behind the lace crotch of your panties while he soaks in the pleasure consuming your face.

“It’s true, baby,” he says, collecting some of your wetness on his fingertips before bringing them up your slit to circle your clit. “No one else for me. I love every inch of you, even when you don’t.”

You’re whimpering loudly now, making these pretty high-pitched noises that mix with his sweet words edging you closer and closer to your orgasm.

“Gray, baby... you’re gonna make me cum,” you gasp, and he wraps his free arm around your middle when you do, supporting you as your legs shake and threaded to collapse under your weight and the sheer pleasure coursing through your body.

He nibbles kisses to the back of your neck and coaxes you to lean over the counter. Your breaths are still heavy when you catch on, and he pushes your panties down your legs before dropping his own shorts and underwear. He kicks all three garments to the side and spreads your legs a little further apart.

“Want you to see the words of how much I love you while I fuck you, baby,” he growls, taking his dick in hand and trailing the tip up and down your dripping slit. He finds your entrance and starts sinking in. “Okay?”

“Yeah,” you moan, letting out a little squeak when he gets all the way inside you. “God, you’re so big.”

He smirks, pulling out and watching your face through the mirror as he fills you up again slowly. Your jaw drops, and he picks up his speed steadily until he’s fucking you deep and hard and so fucking good, there’s no way you have any capacity to read the rest of the sweet nothings he so thoughtfully wrote out for you right now.

Grayson may recognize you can’t be literate as he fucks you, but that doesn’t stop him from wanting you to hear it. His hands have a firm grip on your hips, his fingers digging into the creases like you like so much, but he slides one up your back until he’s got a chunk of your hair collected in his fist as a makeshift ponytail.

He pulls you up until your back is nearly flush against him, the hand in your hair pulling back and creating an arch in your spine so that he reaches so damn deep you can’t even tell where you begin and he ends anymore.

“Look how fuckin’ beautiful you are, baby,” he grunts into your hair, watching you through the mirror again. Your eyes are closed, soaking in every warm and mind blowing sensation you’re experiencing because of him. He’s not having it, though. “Look.”

You whine, part in annoyance that he’s breaking your blissed-out trance and partly at how sexy his voice was just then. Your eyes crack open, and you take in your reflection. The hair around your face that he missed wild, face and chest flushed, tits bouncing, a thin sheen of sweat making your skin glisten. He’s...right. You can admit you look sexy, but your eyes still gravitate to him, his snapback still on and triggering one of your most favorite kinks, knowing he’s naked other than that hat.

“Yeah. Look so pretty taking my dick so fucking good,” he says. His free hand squeezes one of your breasts roughly, then falls down to your pussy where he’s thrusting in and out of you. His fingers light upon your clit, and you shriek with a little blissful giggle, clutching at his arm with one hand and balancing against the countertop with the other. Grayson smiles too, both at his happy and carefree you look now, and at how your push tightens down on his cock like a vice. “Fuck yeah, baby. Need you to cum for me again...”

He feels you get wetter and tighter, winding you up with his thick cock and his expert fingers until that tight ball of pleasure explodes within you, and you cum hard on his dick. Grayson moans encouragingly and pumps sloppily into you a few more times before drilling deep inside you and filling you up with his warm cum.

You hum and relish in both the feel of it and the sounds he’s making, gruff and masculine and relieved. Once your legs can support you fully again, you stand up from where you had collapsed over the counter, his softening cock still tucked inside you as you reach back for him and tilt your head up to kiss him slowly.

“Don’t ever doubt how perfect you are, baby,” he whispers against your lips, unable to resist giving you another sweet kiss.

You sigh against his mouth and cup his cheek with a soft, thankful smile. “I’ve got lots of reminders now.”

[mithrilwren]

For the Soulmate AU prompt thing: shadowgast & 15 or 2

This one really ran away from me - I meant to write a scene, and ended up with a whole finished one-shot! I’ll post it on Ao3 later, but here you go! Thank you for your patience, having some pining Essek in recompense :)

soulmate au prompts: the one where you have your soulmate’s name written on your body.

—

Essek expected, for most of his life, that the day of his marking would be a joyous one.

When the cloth was pulled away, he gazed without worry on the script beneath - four simple letters, curved in elegant gold - and felt a rush of excitement swelling in his chest. To be given something all his own… some piece apart from the rest, to cherish and to long for… a great hope, not for his people, but for himself. It was worth far more to him than he knew before that moment.

“Bren,” he whispered aloud. A soft sound, not biting or sharp like his own name. Masculine, he noted hopefully, and his happiness grew.

Then he looked up, and saw the look in the Umavi’s eyes - or Mother, as he’d been taught to say, not by her - and what excitement had kindled within him withered to ash.

“No,” she said, with cold finality. “You will not speak that name again.”

“Why?” he asked, still too young to be wary of posing the question. His curious spirit had not yet been driven into the darkest parts of himself. He still considered civil disagreement an achievable goal.

He still believed that whatever he asked, he would be heard.

“It is a name that does not belong to this country.” But it belongs to me, a small voice within Essek cried out. “You will not lay claim to it. You will not speak it.”

Don’t be so naive. Nothing belongs to you alone.

Essek fingered the split sleeves of his tunic, the flowing silk caught at the elbow with silver thread, the golden glimmer of those four letters just below the crook, not dimmed in the slightest by the sheer fabric. “But… how can I hide this?”

The Umavi - Mother, Mother, he reminded himself - stood and turned away. “You have tailors to spare, ready at your call. Cover your arms and be done with it.”

The others of the Den knew, of course, that this was to be his day. He was of the age for it. The whispers started the moment they returned to the manor house, a quiet clamour of well mannered gossip spreading through the halls. Only the boldest stepped forward to ask directly, and the Uma- Mother brushed them off with a grimace of practiced heartache.

“Nothing but a burn mark,” she said, in that special soft voice, the kind that was meant to carry. “Blackened, and unfresh. I’m afraid the lover must have died long ago.”

And perhaps, in a way, her words were true. Something had indeed died that day: the one last dwindling hope of the Umavi, for himself. That if he could not be the recipient of an honoured soul, perhaps he could have been the concubine of one.

“How unfortunate,” the askers simpered, looking at him sidelong all the while, with pity in their eyes.

How he would rather have been called ‘unlucky’.

From that day on, Essek wrapped his arms in long mantles and dark sleeves, and scoured books for the word he dared not speak aloud. In all his searching, he found nothing. No historical figures, no linguistic root, no cause for the disgust in the Umavi’s - in Mother’s - eyes.

He asked his tutor, weeks later, and now desperate enough to set aside caution. The question was set under the guise of parsing some obscure tome, and he received a single word in reply, before the conversation faded into a disgusted silence.

“Zemnian.”

It was a disgust he couldn’t bring himself to share, though he knew in his marrow, without being told, that he should.

Looking back he suspected that conversation, in what was soon to be a schism between him and his community as wide as the Ashkeepers themselves, was the first crack.

—

There was a man, a new man, by the Martinet’s side at their second meeting. Dark black hair, fading to grey at the roots, and a cruel smile. No names were supplied, and none taken in return. That was expected. Essek still believed, at that time, that his anonymity was secure. He still considered his safety a guarded condition of the arrangement.

Still, the new man’s accent was strange, and though every oiled word he spoke oozed uneasiness into Essek’s throat, curiousity overrode courteousness by the end of the negotiation.

“I must ask,” he said, the arcanist’s chalk already slipped from his long sleeve, shadows of familiar circles and equations rendered dizzyingly mundane with the promise of more illicit knowledge to come. “Your way of speaking is… unfamiliar to me. Where do you call home?”

The man’s smile turned up and widened, so like a desert snake whose jaw unhinges to swallow its prey whole. “I am surprised you do not know it; an accomplished practitioner of magic such as yourself. My accent is Zemnian.”

For a moment, Essek’s heart seized in terror quite beyond the apprehension he already felt at the nature of the meeting. “I see,” he said softly, turning away before the tension in his jaw could betray him.

“Sir Thelyss… Essek,” came the accented voice again, “why do you ask?” And the fear grew, and grew, for if this man knew his name, and hadn’t been told…

But surely, then, the Martinet must have told him-

“I merely prefer to know a little of the men I do business with,” Essek said, “Mr. -?”

The Martinet regarded him sharply. Questioning was not part of his allowance of freedom, not at home, and not here. But Essek ignored the look and focused only on the other man, willing his hands not to tremble. If he did not ask, he could not know, and if he did not know, then how could he plan his escape?

“Ikithon,” said the man. “Trent Ikithon.” His smile widened all the more, and Essek smiled weakly in return, both relieved beyond measure, and deeply ashamed at his own foolishness.

Essek derided himself later that night, in the comfort of his own house. What a childish fear it had been: to believe that this man could have been his promised lover, in a sea of thousands.

But better that the lover really had died, as the Umavi claimed to her court, than to be bound to a man like that. Against all odds, to find the one he was meant for, and discover that person to be as heartless and cold-eyed as himself? What a pointedly cruel irony that would be.

Not that it mattered, truly. Essek was already quite comfortable in the knowledge that he would spend this life alone. Preferred the idea, in fact, over fate’s whim deciding his state of companionship.

It did not do to think too long on what had already been decided for him, and by who.

—

Essek met more with that accent, of course, over the years. As his position within the Dynasty expanded, so too did the breadth of his pool of liasons within the Empire. He spoke with many Zemnians, men and women and those without gender, but none bearing the name ‘Bren’.

Essek no longer hoped to find the one promised to him, though the mark had not faded from his skin, mocking him in the brief moments of bathing and undressing where he dared to bare his arms. Its presence meant the person was still alive, somewhere in the world. But again, it mattered little. His work was the only goal worth striving toward. Love was far from his mind.

Through his work, he also learned more of the customs and cultures outside the Dynasty. Premierely, that the soulmate mark was a peculiarity of the Beacons’ influence, and not an inherent biological process as he’d once assumed. No other races experienced the process, at least not naturally. Instead, they found their love willingly, without presumption or prescription in the choosing. It seemed to Essek a less orderly, but perhaps more romantic, way of doing things.

None within the Dynasty would ever receive a mark again. His own actions had seen to that. It was a side effect he hadn’t anticipated, too lost in the promise of all he could gain to truly grasp the implications of the Beacons’ absence.

He chose to believe it a blessing, once he had the presence of mind to consider the matter rationally. It was one more restriction of the state religion, gone. Freedom to choose, when there was none before. No more children made to feel ashamed of the shape of the letters seared into their skin - of something they could only hide, and not change.

Progress.

They said now that the only children who would receive a mark were the lost ones. That their first calling home would be the letters inscribed in their inner arms, where there had been none before: a badge to prove their right to belong to someone, somewhere. And now they belonged to a country as well, one that would welcome them home with open arms, regardless of the name they bore.

How times had changed since he was young.

Essek was loath to label the feeling in his chest when he thought of those children as ‘jealousy’, but it burned all the same.

The past is not important, he reminded himself, again and again, only the future, and put the thought out of his mind.

—

The red-haired human spoke with a familiar voice, as he held Essek’s very life in his hands, unknowingly offering up the means of his destruction in a soft accent Essek had once associated with hope.

Essek had no hope now. As the stranger held the Beacon aloft, Essek watched the foundations of his lie crumble from beneath him. Did this man - dressed in slave’s garb but standing so tall - did he know? He was of the Empire, or so he claimed. Was he sent by the Martinet?

This wouldn’t have been the first time in the last decade that things had shifted so dramatically without Essek being told. It seemed that all the promises the Empire had made to him were built on quicksand, and perhaps this was to be his final test. How much more was Essek willing to endure?

Anything, it turned out, for the Bright Queen named him as their chaperone, and he endured that indignity without protest, gathering favours all the while in the vain hope that it could save him when this all turned sideways. He stayed close, as close as he dared, and closest still to the man who spoke with Ikithon’s accent, and waited to see if his words held the echo of the Martinet’s voice as well.

Caleb.

It had not occurred to Essek to seek for Bren in decades, and so there was no disappointment in learning the name, and in learning more of him besides. An apt pupil, brilliant and eager, and even after weeks, Essek could suss no trace of the Assembly’s influence over his new charge.

The other things he learned of Caleb were far less important, and somehow, far more. That he didn’t shrink back from a challenge. That his hair often pulled from its tie in a most endearing way when his hands grew too restless. That he was braver than Essek by far, for Caleb no longer felt the need to cover his arms as he did when he arrived in Rosohna, to hide the shame etched into his skin. His scars, caught in brief glimpses over spellbooks and offered drinks, were horrific, and telling, and Essek wanted to learn more, share more, be more when he was with him. He had never wanted something like that in his life.

But there was something about the man, something Essek could not tear himself away from.

If this were another reality, he might have believed himself in love. But the name ‘Caleb’ did not belong to him. He could not bring himself to forget that. It assaulted him in his weakest moments: the knowledge that even if all he had done could be overlooked, even if every barrier between them was removed, it meant nothing. Caleb was out of reach, while Bren was alive.

That certainty was not an intellectual one, but emotional. It was born of years of smothered hope and longing. It belonged to the narrative of Essek’s life - inextricable, even if logic dictated that he’d made no bargain, signed no devil’s deal that prevented him from being with Caleb in a meaningful way. He had lived for so long in the knowledge that Bren was lost to him, and that that meant he would be alone, that to imagine anything else was impossible.

And still…

And still, Jester lent him a book, a month or so into their acquaintance, and insisted he must read it. He didn’t have time for such diversions, truthfully, but he read it all the same, because he found he could not say no to her. First in snatches, then with voracious abandon, by the end he was up till all hours turning the pages, so fast they might have caught fire. The prose was sparse, the descriptions obvious, but the story gripped him in a way he had never been gripped by fiction before.

The Courting of the Crick. An offensive title, hiding a more offensive story within. Ostensibly, a propaganda piece, condemning the bloodthirsty regime of the Dynasty while extolling the saving grace of the civilized Empire. Beneath, the tale of a Kryn woman, who dared to choose a life with the Dwendalian man she loved. She made no mention of the mark on her arm other than to say that she cared not for the name given to her, or the man who owned it. She elected not to be bound by tradition, or country, but by her own heart.

He had not realized, until reading that story, that there were others who might once have felt the same ache as him.

—

The first time Caleb showed Essek his scars properly was a week or so after the Nein had returned to Rosohna, following the peace talks. With no assassins at their door or cultists to quell, they could all collectively take a breath, and begin to sort out the shattered fragments of their former relationship.

Caleb arrived at his house alone, which was surprising to Essek. He could only conclude that the rest of the Nein didn’t know he’d come, because he did not believe Beau would have allowed him to without argument.

They stood in silence for a long moment, facing each other over the dining table where he’d once served cheese and crackers in a paltry imitation of good manners, to a group of people who had still trusted him, foolishly-

No, not foolishly. Hopefully. There was a difference. He had learned it the hard way. Destroying the hope of someone he cared for, it turned out, hurt immeasurably more than any other pain he’d caused in his life.

“I want to show you, so you understand,” Caleb said, as he removed his clothes. First his scarf, then his coat. The hostlers, the tunic, until only a thin undershirt remained. His arms fell loosely at his sides. No close examination was needed - Essek could see the precise lines very clearly from this distance, cuts so deep that neither time nor magic would ever heal the wounds.

“I gave everything of myself to Ikithon, willingly, without reservation, but when my usefulness to him waned, he found a new purpose for me. My body became an experiment, and it was more than I could bear. That was the first time I fought him, but it did not matter. He had my friends hold me down, and they did what he told them without question, because none of us dared refuse a single thing he asked of us. All the power was in his hands, always.” Caleb paused. “Do you understand?”

Essek wanted to nod, but he couldn’t stop staring at the lines - delivered by the despicable man he had worked for without coercion, solely for his own benefit. What was there to say?

When he didn’t respond, Caleb continued.

“You are in his clutches now. His hold over you remains as long as he is alive, and I think you know that. So I will warn you, Essek. There will come a time when he will ask something of you, and you will think that you cannot refuse. You will believe there is no other option. And you will be wrong. There is always another choice.”

“Even if that choice leads to my death?” Essek said.

“Yes,” Caleb answered, without hesitation, and began to pull his tunic back over his head. As his arms raised up, Essek caught the faintest glimmer of silver just below the elbow. Other lines, broken by scars, and so dim that one without eyes attuned to seeing in the darkness would likely have missed it, but-

All other thoughts flew away as Caleb stepped forward and wrapped his arms around Essek’s shoulders, pulling him close to his chest.

“Don’t let it come to that,” he murmured, and Essek shivered in his arms. “The world would not be made better by your death. And I- I would not be better.”

Then Caleb was gone, and Essek sat at the table alone, and thought in darkness, for many, many hours.

—

Months went by. The world changed, and didn’t. The Nein came and went, pastries were gifted, messages sent, fragile trust rebuilt. Essek stumbled, and pulled himself back up, and through it all Caleb was there to show him the way forward.

And through it all, Essek began to understand how to care for him as well.

Caleb returned with new magic to share, and Essek shared his time, and his mind, and his passion, and together they built a great many things - not hidden in secrecy and solitude, but eagerly shared. He learned how to make Caleb laugh, and counted that his greatest success of all.

And still…

And still, Essek counted himself blessed to be held in his esteem at all, and asked for nothing more. Deserved nothing more.

But, of course, Caleb’s impatience outgrew his own.

He had never kissed another soul in his life, but to be kissed was a magic of a new kind.

There was a twinge of guilt in the afterglow, but it swiftly faded in the too-short days before the Nein left Xhorhas again. Caleb bid him goodbye with a soft press of lips, and Essek couldn’t find it in himself to care about the name on his arm, when at last there was something real in the world to long for, a hope without equal despair: a love he had chosen, without being told.

The group returned a week later with their prize: the final Beacon, wrested from the grasp of the Assembly at last. Essek had known it was the purpose of their visit, and expected a summons to the chamber of the Bright Queen on their return, to share in the spoils and adulation heaped upon their shoulders. Heroes of the Dynasty, well and truly. Their reward would be immeasurably rich.

What he did not expect was Caleb’s bedraggled form appearing on his doorstep near to midnight. He was sopping wet from the evening downpour, and smiling happily. “Hello,” Caleb said, in that soft tone that never failed to make Essek’s ears warm, and let himself in.

He dripped rainwater all the way up to Essek’s laboratory, and Essek followed in his footprints, so accustomed to walking in Caleb’s presence now that he almost forgot there was a solution to his wet socks until they’d nearly reached the stairs. Shaking his head as he realized his error, he floated the rest of the way up, and avoided the last of the puddles.

Once settled, Caleb shrugged off his coat and threw it across a chair before pulling out five damp pieces of amber from his pocket. “I have something to show you,” he said, almost mischievous, and Essek leaned in closer as Caleb whispered a single word. A lead box appeared on the table before them. Carefully, Caleb drew back the lid, and Essek’s eyes widened.

There, in all its glory, was the final Beacon, the only one he knew of that remained untouched by the Dynasty’s hands. A true relic, steeped in the mysteries of the Age of Arcanum: all he had ever wanted. He started to reach out, but stalled his hand, turning his eyes instead to Caleb.

“Is this…?” he asked.

“I know the Cerberus Assembly did not uphold their end of the bargain, and you paid their price in full. It seems only fair that you should have the first crack at it.”

It was a kindness Caleb didn’t have to give, that Essek would never have expected after all he’d done, and for the first time in his life, Essek was the one to extend his arms. “Thank you,” he whispered, as Caleb stepped into them without hesitation, and didn’t mind the cold water seeping through his robes at all.

The next number of minutes were lost in the exhilaration of discovery, as he sunk his consciousness into the Beacon’s pull and was transported to a universe of possibilities he had never considered. Pasts and futures beyond his understanding floated through his mind, and by the time he emerged, Essek was giddy with excitement. By that time too, Caleb had shucked the last of his soaked clothing and stood by the table with arms and shoulders bare, the fond look in his blue eyes reflecting back the light of the crystal between them.

Another flicker caught Essek’s gaze. He frowned, staring at the inside of Caleb’s forearm that was currently braced on the table’s edge. A faint light was shining there beneath the skin, growing brighter and brighter with each passing second, until even Caleb took notice of the change. He glanced down, following Essek’s eyes to the spot of brilliance. “What on earth…”

Essek spun around the table, taking Caleb’s hand and turning his palm up, until they could both see the full length of the inscription: silver lines flowering from where the Beacon’s light fell, blooming to form five elegant letters.

“Essek…” Caleb said, reading and asking in the same breath. Essek shook his head, scarcely daring to breathe himself.

“Caleb,” he said, so quietly that no spy or sparrow could have heard him speak. “What does the name ‘Bren’ mean to you?”

Caleb didn’t answer, but his hand, still entwined with Essek’s, started to tremble as much as his own.

Fingers shaking, Essek reached up with his other hand, and began to undo the buttons on his cloak.