#arria says

[incorrectone-piece]

would you be okay with me spamming one piece incorrect quotes at you?

Sure! You could even submit them if ya want!

[arriathedragon]

Could you draw rough and tumble from sonic idw?

especially tumble I love that big ole albino skunk boi🤗🤗🤗🤗💗💗

They are Brothers you honour. This was fun :> I really love their dynamic I relate to it a lot with how me and my sisters talk lolol

This was fun, thanks!!

[palestinegenocide]

The difference between Biden and Harris on Israel? “Zippo, Zilch, Zero!

Netanyahu visited Washington this week to ask Congress for more U.S. weapons to “finish the job faster” in Gaza, an unimaginable task after nine months of unlimited carnage, and all eyes were on Kamala Harris. Would the newly minted Democratic presidential candidate say anything about the genocide of tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians? 92,000 by the estimate of American health workers who have been in Gaza? Not to mention the destruction of 70 percent of the buildings there.

The answer was that Harris intends to have it both ways.

Harris met in the White House with Netanyahu, for 45 minutes, and did nothing to stray from the Biden line, of giving Israel more weapons.

“Zippo, Zilch, Zero!” Thomas Nides, the former ambassador to Israel, declared joyously, when asked on an Israel lobby call if there is any daylight between Harris and Biden’s support for Israel. He has had 100 phone calls with Harris and her Jewish husband Douglas Emhoff and — “Her view is the same view that I share, the president shares. We have to protect Israel at any cost. Israel is a vulnerable country, it’s a country that needs protection.”

And so when a few of the thousands of Netanyahu demonstrators in Washington burned American flags and spraypainted a statue with words, “Hamas is comin'” – Harris was quick to issue a statement calling them despicable.

I condemn any individuals associating with the brutal terrorist organization Hamas, which has vowed to annihilate the State of Israel and kill Jews,” Harris said. “Pro-Hamas graffiti and rhetoric is abhorrent, and we must not tolerate it in our nation.”

On the other hand, Harris is aware that the Democratic base now holds highly negative views of Israel. By 56 to 22 percent Democrats say that Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza. That understanding is firmer among younger, progressive Dems and people of color. And it is being channeled by the Uncommitted campaign, which says “Not Another Bomb,” and has gotten several congresspeople to agree.

There is a panic inside the Democratic leadership: Unless Harris does something to acknowledge the genocide, young Dems will stay home in Michigan and Pennsylvania, and Trump will win.

So Harris has made some slight rhetorical shifts. After meeting Netanyahu, she confessed her compassion for Palestinian suffering in Gaza. “We cannot look away–“

“I also expressed with the prime minister my serious concern about the scale of human suffering in Gaza, including the death of far too many innocent civilians… “The images of dead children and desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety — sometimes displaced for the second, third or fourth time — we cannot look away in the face of these tragedies. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering, and I will not be silent.”

The Washington Post headline was: “Harris created distance from Biden on Gaza by emphasizing Palestinian suffering.”

No doubt Harris is privately horrified by the genocide. She is sending signals to the left of greater empathy for Palestinians. Many in Washington are horrified. You just can’t come out and say it. That’s impolite.

Everything Harris did say was quickly repackaged by the Israel lobby as perfectly ok. “We should not look away. We should work to relieve the suffering, but we should remember that the responsibility for the tragedies in Gaza lie squarely with Hamas,” said Democratic Majority for Israel.

“Her views on Israel are exactly, 100 percent the same as mine… and yes we’ve got to have a ceasefire,” Tom Nides said.

Douglas Emhoff, husband of VP Kamala Harris, on a Jewish Democratic Council of America briefing, July 24, 2024. Screenshot.

Still, rhetorical shifts mean something in Washington. The vice president’s tonal shift is reflective of the large number of Dems who boycotted the Netanyahu speech. As Michael Arria reports:

In 2015, around 50 Democrats didn’t show for Netanyahu’s speech. This time it was about 136. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) held up a sign while Bibi spoke that said, “War Criminal.” The other side said, “Guilty of Genocide.”

That’s significant. Rep. Jerry Nadler refused to condemn Tlaib on MSNBC, and Nancy Pelosi wasn’t in the House for the speech — Pelosi who five years ago said that the Capitol would crumble and fall before the U.S. walked away from its coordination with Israel.

The right-wing Israel lobby is obviously concerned about a President Harris becoming a critic of Israel. And the liberal Zionists are prepared with an answer. The Democrats will run against Netanyahu the same way they run against Trump. Netanyahu is the evil. He’s an authoritarian demagogue. He is against the two-state solution. Netanyahu has prosecuted the bloody campaign in Gaza.

This is a delusion. If Netanyahu is so awful, why are Democratic leaders meeting with him? Because they need him. And anyway, all of Israel’s leadership is against a Palestinian state. All of the leadership is behind the Gaza slaughter. Yes, some of them want to go slower on the ethnic cleansing. Some of them oppose the annexation of the West Bank. But there is no real opposition to the security needs of the “Jewish state.”

As Nides says, Israel is beset by enemies– Hezbollah, Ansar Allah/Houthis, Hamas, Syria. Israel will always be beset by enemies. Because when you set up a state that persecutes non-Jews, and the basic laws of the state grant non-Jews no rights or derisory rights, the people who are persecuted will resist it, forever.

Even Jewish kids in America will reject an apartheid state in their name. Tom Nides has repeatedly complained about his own kids — “giving us grief about what’s happening” in Gaza. The irrepressible financier/lobbyist declares that Kamala Harris can win over his children and “reposition Israel for the next 20 years” so that we can all rally around it again.

You can’t repackage a toxic product as a healthful one. And the fact that our top leaders welcome Netanyahu in the midst of a genocide is sickening.

Which brings us back to that graffiti. Hamas Is Comin is a warning to Americans of the consequences of supporting apartheid and supplying weapons to a genocide. It is a reckless policy. We are courting violence.

“More Americans are on track to die because of poor policy,” Harrison Mann, a former Defense intelligence officer, said this week, on a panel of nine Biden administration staff who have openly quit over the genocide.

Mann warned of the consequences of the destruction of the American image.

We’ve turned both global and, especially, regional opinion against the United States in a way that we haven’t seen, maybe, since the invasion of Iraq. That is breeding hatred that is undoubtedly going to cause terror in the future. I think it’s only a matter of time until we reap what we sow there.

Harris can condemn Hamas all she wants. But she is embracing a policy of more and more violence against Palestinians that elevates Hamas. Only a political solution will end resistance.

[myprofessormadememakethis]

Another Nakba is Happening Now

Recently, I wrote a response to one of the readings in my Critical Approaches to Literature class that addressed the genocide of Palestinians, and I received a deduction on the response—which is not an issue in itself, but it was the fact that my professor deducted points because I said the British were currently occupying Palestine. I was taken aback. The exact note my professor wrote on my assignment is, “Your writing is mostly clear, but there is some confusion. You should say that Palestine "was" occupied by the British, not ‘is.’ Today, it's occupied only by Israel.” Something about this critique, which is just a small semantic change, really reminded me about the differences between how I as a Black woman view colonialism versus how a white man most likely does. To me, there is no separation between the act of performing and funding the grotesque and inhuman ethnic cleansing of an entire people, like what is currently happening to Palestinians, but my white professor believed the delineation between Israel and the creator of this apartheid state, Britain, was important for “clarity”. There are worlds and history of unspoken context in this delineation, because it almost absolves Britain, and by extension, the U.S., in their support and creation of Israel, as Britain is the entire reason for the occupation and the mindset of this invented state that they have the right to this land and both the British and the U.S. have self-serving reasons for committing this disgusting act. Our government and the British government have the same genocidal ideals it has always had, because to the white man or white supremacist with enough money and influence, any land occupied by an Indigenous population is unoccupied, because the lives of minorities are nothing but complications that can be eliminated with enough ammunition and disregard for human lives that aren’t their own. But Palestinians, the Sudanese, the Congolese, and those in Tigray know that their lives and voices hold an unknowable power when we magnify them and refuse to let them be extinguished.  

—Arria Haigler

[catdotjpeg]

Rutgers has become the latest university to suspend its Students for Justice in Palestine chapter. “You allegedly have had multiple cases of disrupting classes, a program, meals, and students studying,” associate Dean of Students Michelle Jefferson told the group in a letter. She also says [there] was alleged vandalism at the business school. In a statement, Rutgers SJP accused the school of implementing a double standard against the group, citing anti-Palestinian sentiment on campus. “While the Rutgers Administration suspended our SJP over nebulous and unsubstantiated complaints, they have yet to conduct an investigation regarding Rutgers Chabad’s threatening post with an SJP protest in the background that labels us, students that attend Rutgers, as ‘children of darkness,’ captioned with the words ‘STRAPPED. ARMED. LOCKED AND LOADED’,” the organization explained. “This is one of many examples that lacks adequate response to incidents that have made Palestinian students feel unsafe and threatened. Meanwhile, mere accusations against our free speech rights have led to arbitrary suspension. “Rutgers University has also failed to support the Palestinian and Muslim-presenting students on campus that have submitted bias reports of the constant harassments and attacks they have faced since October 7th,” they continued. “This includes the Palestinian student who submitted a report against a Professor who cornered and began to record them in response to a coordinated walk out protesting an event – which the Palestinian student took no part in. The Professor subsequently accused SJP of disrupting the event, though it played no role in the incident. For all we know, we could be suspended based partially on this false accusation.” Rutgers Academic Freedom Committee also put out a statement condemning the move, calling on the administration to reverse course. “The suspension of Students for Justice in Palestine arbitrarily silences the voices of many students and is redolent of the McCarthyism of the 20th century,” it reads. Less than a week before the announcement Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) tried to shut down a panel on Palestine featuring Noura Erakat, Nick Estes, and Marc Lamont Hill. “While differing views are a critical part of building cultural understanding, they cannot provide a bully pulpit for those who seek to divide others and spew hate,” said the congressman in a statement. “The first amendment does not give students the right to bully, intimidate, and instill fear onto other students.”

-- From "The Shift: Rutgers suspends SJP chapter" by Michael Arria, 14 Dec 2023

SJP Rutgers' response is linked above and can also be read here. They have been sharing messages of solidarity from other on-campus organizations, such as Rutgers Together Not Alone and Rutgers Central Asian Student Organization, on their instagram.

[throughtrialbyfire]

🐁 🪨 👎 For the OC asks, the Trio.

YIPPEE lets go!!

🐁 Capybaras are friend-shaped. What shape does your OC have?

Emeros - he's calm-shaped. he may be a sarcastic and stressed out elf, but hes also very good at calming people down, so he's just calm-shaped. <3

Wyndrelis - gloomy-shaped. no he doesnt want a hug he just Looks Like That, lanky and gloomy and melancholic.

Athenath - friend-shaped :3

🪨 Someone gifts your OC a shiny rock. What do they do with it?

Emeros - confusion. is it a soul gem? a crystal? something he can grind up for alchemy? he's entirely baffled by the exchange, but he'll very hesitantly pocket it and thank the person for the rock. he might find a use for it later as a paper weight, or decoration.

Wyndrelis - he'll look it over, and if he doesn't find anything interesting about it, he'll pocket it and say thank you and maybe find a jeweler later to sell it to, if they could do anything with it. he'd probably toss it the minute the person isn't looking, because he'd have no idea what to do with it.

Athenath - this is the guy who takes meridia's beacon to mount kilkreath, so needless to say, he likes shiny rocks. they wouldn't know what to do with it, but hey, maybe they could find use for it! a nice shiny rock could be fun to just hang onto for a while, maybe even treating it as a worry stone to rub when stressed.

👎 Is there someone your OC can’t stand, despite them being on the same side or sharing basic values?

Emeros - tullius. he'll never respect or revere general tullius, no matter what. yes, this has more to do with helgen and the execution, but also, he finds tullius to just be grating to be around. different personalities.

Wyndrelis - he finds arniel gane to be aggravating. he finds his voice and mannerisms to be particularly egregious, and thinks of him as a simpering and nervous mess of a mage. he'd never have the gall to say that out loud, though. on account of also being a nervous mess of a mage.

Athenath - athenath and aia arria like to avoid one another. they both think the other is Too Much, in different directions. it's more of a rivalry, wanting to be the best in their classes, but it's good they don't have many classes together. funnily enough, athenath wishes they had aia's confidence. maybe that's why they don't like being around her too much.

thank you so much for sending these!! <3333333333

oc asks

[love-me-satoru]

My original character sheets!

Arria Katz

{a(r)-ria}

Age: 25

Pronouns: They/Them; AFAB/GN

Meaning: Brings Rain ; King

Origin: Persian

May be the definition for king, saying they should be worth of respect. But a sad truth is they aren’t worthly of anything. “Brings Rain” is more like them. They will swallow everyone of their happiness.

Aliese Miracle

{A- lE-s}

Age: 23

Pronouns: She / Her;AFAB

Meaning: Graceful : Noble : Kind

Origin: Hebrew

It may have the meaning of graceful or kind but she is everything of the opposite. She's distasteful. Hateful. She might have been given a beautiful name but she is far from beautiful.

side characters

Arria's Uncle Lynx

Age: 47

Aliese's Mother Adeline

Age: 45

[bdor1995]

Its funny how i try to romance astarion but i keep getting pulled away from him by the women. I have 2 separate campaigns with my tav arrias who successfully got with him by the end of act 1 but i reciprocate whenever a female companion comes on to me because i (the player) am a lesbian. I cant say no to them. Help

[mariacallous]

On March 20, for the second time in its history, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) convened an Arria-formula meeting that focused specifically on the integration of the human rights of LGBTI+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and other sexual and gender minorities) people in conflict into the work of the council.

Arria-formula meetings are informal, ad hoc gatherings that allow the convening member to invite parties outside the council’s membership to testify. The session’s chairperson, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield, stressed that this was the first time that Victor Madrigal-Borloz, the U.N. independent expert on sexual orientation and gender identity, had briefed the Security Council.

The significance of a Security Council meeting on LGBTI+ issues is not to be underplayed. Madrigal-Borloz and his office have created significant momentum since receiving the mandate to investigate these issues in 2016. The mandate has proved an important tool for engaging with national and local LGBTI+ civil society organizations, gathering on-ground insight during country visits about experiences of peace and conflict that have previously been absent from these international conversations. The U.N.’s most conservative organ is now moving toward entrenching and mainstreaming the protection of queer people as a mainstay of peace and security policymaking globally, as well as integrating attention to sexual orientation and gender identity in its work moving forward.

But there are still difficult questions around the future course of such measures. Is going down the UNSC route the right way to ensure the protection of queer people? How can the council ensure not just participation, but also leadership for deciding the next steps for international action from those outside the global north? How can actions account for the many diverse populations within the wide community of LGBTI+ people as a part of not only rethinking security responses, but also thinking about gender as a dimension of peacebuilding? What is the role that the broader U.N. LGBTI Core Group will take in bringing forward this agenda?

Speaking before the meeting, Thomas-Greenfield stated her desire to see momentum build toward the formal inclusion of LGBTI+ issues on the agenda. The potential integration of these issues and queer perspectives into future Security Council work could establish a UNSC-level mandate for the protection of queer communities.

We do not dispute that it is the UNSC’s responsibility to protect queer people globally. Indeed, we have each individually argued—in research on queering atrocity prevention and the responsibility to protect, and queering the women, peace and security agenda, as well as at the Arria-formula meeting—that the integration of queer people and perspectives into frameworks for peace and security is essential. For us, queering means not only highlighting the insecurity some people face because their gender and/or sexuality is constituted as abnormal or perverse by cisheteronormative standards, but also adhering to a queer political commitment of always interrogating dominant power structures and examining who benefits from the status quo. All people have a sexual orientation and gender identity. All people should, therefore, already fall under the work the council does to ensure international peace and security—regardless of their identity.

What troubles us, however, is that the United States and United Kingdom are leading the integration of LGBTI+ issues in the work of the UNSC while their domestic situations for queer people, especially transgender folks, are becoming increasingly fragile.

In the United States, there are an increasing number of legislative moves against queer people. Targeted legislation against the community includes what critics call the Don’t Say Gay law and the Stop WOKE Act, both passed in Florida and promoted vocally by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, as well as the rollback of federal guarantees for reproductive rights with the repeal of Roe v. Wade.

In the United Kingdom, reported violence against queer people doubled between 2016 and 2021. And the country has been seized by a narrative of transphobic panic pushed by both mainstream media and politicians of both parties, resulting in the U.K. government’s halting of nationwide reforms of legal gender recognition as well as the blocking of Scottish reforms to the Gender Recognition Act, despite broad support for reform amongst the public. In his end of mission statement following his U.K. country visit, Madrigal-Borloz stated that he has a “deep concern” about the rise in anti-LGBT harassment, threats, and violence in the country.

Most worryingly, even with the worsening U.S. and U.K. domestic records and international virtue-signaling on queer issues, many other countries—including fellow Security Council members—have adopted anti-queer politics in nationalist discourse and as a key feature of their challenge to liberal world order. Russia has marketed itself as the world’s defender of so-called traditional family values for more than a decade, positioning itself in opposition to Europe, which it has constituted as “Gayropa” in its foreign policy. Part of that foreign policy includes a gendered and sexualized element, in which Russia presents itself as the savior of the morally corrupt Gayropa. Promoting so-called traditional values in opposition to supporting LGBTI+ rights was also a remarkably successful tactic in Colombia leading up to the failed peace referendum in 2016, and the appeal of such values is gaining further international support.

In China, there are no explicit legal protections against discrimination or violence on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. Increasingly, groups that were established to support the LGBTI+ community are targeted and censored by the state, and there has been a resurgence in the propagation of the idea of queerness as correctable and foreign. This accompanies a shrinking space for advocacy, as the state’s censorship and security apparatus explicitly targets any positive queer representation and discourse. This has included a systematic campaign to eliminate “effeminate” men (niangpao) from mainstream media.

In Europe, countries such as Hungary and Poland have passed legislation that paints queer people as dangerous threats to order and the fabric of society. As we see the political currency of so-called traditional family values spread and harden internationally—along with a growing resistance to the imposition of “Western” queer values, Gayropean values, or so-called woke agendas—the UNSC adopting a queer agenda risks whipping up existing tensions about sexual morality, tradition, and culture in human rights debates, and adding fuel to the increasing attack on LGBTI+ people that is already underway.

Taking all of this together means that proponents of a queer agenda in peace and security chart a very cautious path forward when considering positioning the UNSC as a defender of queer people. Russia, a state actively perpetuating a discourse about the threat that queerness poses to international order and so-called tradition, and the United States and United Kingdom, states where there is significant and increasing polarization on LGBTI+ issues and gender more broadly, sit as permanent members of the UNSC. That means that there are huge risks in how Western, highly militarized states approach this move to, as Thomas-Greenfield put it, “institutionalize and regularize the Security Council’s approach to LGBTI+ issues.”

The often broad-strokes nature of UNSC resolutions leaves little room for the social and political nuance that is important when responding to queer people’s vulnerabilities. As such, a focus on the role of the UNSC, to some states and civil society actors, may end up reading as the imposition of Western values; an argument that already has incredible discursive traction among homophobic actors and often violent consequences for those targeted by anti-queer violence.

UNSC-led initiatives may also serve ends that are antithetical to its initial purpose: namely, justifying interventionism in a similar way to other interventions motivated to protect against gendered harms, such as the post-9/11 invasion of Afghanistan that was clad in colonial tropes concerning the subordination of Afghan women.

Language that dehumanizes and instills fear can quickly spread from traditional and social media, leading to the escalation of violence based on identity. Past instances of atrocity crimes, such as those perpetrated by the Nazis and those that drove the disintegration of former Yugoslavia, demonstrate that the persecution of LGBTI+ individuals and queer communities frequently serves as a precursor to the persecution of other marginalized groups. Lessons can be learned from organisations such as Colombia Diversa, which documented the integration of LGBTI+ folks in the Colombia peace process and is leading the way on queer approaches to peace and security.

Other research informed by LGBTI+ people working in conflict-affected societies can guide these next steps. The aforementioned study on queering atrocity prevention, funded by the U.K. government, called on states to engage in LGBTI+ inclusion and protection first and foremost at a domestic level and in a bottom-up, context-sensitive way, rather than adopting resolutions that may inadvertently make certain queer people in certain spaces more insecure and subject to targeting for persecution or eradication by actors seeking to use homophobia and transphobia for political gain.

A 2022 report titled Breaking the Binary, also funded by the U.K. government, recommended including LGBTI+ rights in national action plans; facilitating gender sensitivity training for international donors, international agencies, and civil society; developing LGBTI+ inclusive risk indicators and monitoring systems; investing in locally rooted organizations doing work to challenge heteropatriarchal gender norms and values; broadening the definition of “woman�� used in Security Council resolutions 1325 and 1820; and undertaking “joint internal learning, planning and implementation across different teams working on LGBT+ rights, on the WPS [women, peace, and security] agenda, and on conflict.”

We see the greatest opportunity for success in the building of contextually sensitive and less broad-stroke approaches to queering peace and security by working through the U.N. Human Rights Council and the Joint Office for the Prevention of Genocide and the Responsibility to Protect. These U.N. organs are well-placed to work with states and local partners to build devolved mechanisms to protect queer people whose needs differ over space and time.

With a new independent expert taking up the mandate in October 2023, we urge them to make an unflinching effort to integrate queer people, queer perspectives, and LGBTI+ rights into peace and security practices, particularly through the aforementioned U.N. organs, but also through the Peacebuilding Support Office.

[our-mideast-aladdin-blog]

Flashback: Pro-Israel students pressure Butler U to cancel an event featuring Angela Davis

 CONTACT@IFAMERICANSKNEW.ORG  APRIL 1, 2021  ANGELA DAVIS, ANTISEMITISM, BUTLER UNIVERSITY, FREE SPEECH Angela Y. Davis Students at Butler University say an event featuring Angela Davis was abruptly canceled by the school following pressure from Zionist students. This is not the first time Ms. Davis has been snubbed because of her advocacy for Palestinian rights. by Michael Arria, reposted…

[davidjhiggins]

Season 2, Episode 8: A Tale of Sorrow

SCENE 3 Open on a back alley somewhere in Hyrkania: DR VAL ARRIA The ashes were trampled into the earth, but that’s not the strange part. Look how the blood has become like snow. SERGEANT SUBOTAI Does that look like a trophy rack to you? ARRIA I’d need to do some tests SUBOTAI Can you at least say whether those darker patchs are consistent with weapons of steel resting across the pegs? … “”

[incorrectone-piece]

also random pretty flowers cause why not

PRETTY FLOWERS!?!?!?

Fun fact Blue Hydrangeas are actually my favourite flower! But the PINK!? These look absolutely whimsical!

[arriathedragon]

I am screaming, sobbing, BEGGING the world to take me OUT of this STUPID body.

I am not human I am not human I am NOT person this isn't ME.

You don't UNDERSTAND I can FEEL them there are wings IN my back they are BURSTING out they are writhing against my skin and when they finally free themselves they flap and are uncomfy because this world wasn't made for them. They're ALWAYS unkept and never properly preened because I CANT TOUCH THEM.

And YOU can't see them. AND I can't see them but they're THERE BY GOD THEY ARE THERE Please I am Begging you give. Them. Back. Make them REAL. I don't want these phantom feathers these shifting wings no one can see I want to FLY I want to SOAR. I want to preen them and male a nest and protect my shiny things and sleep with them curled around me.

I feel talons at my feet and fingertips and I try, I try SO HARD to use them, to claw off this stupid flesh and rip my wings free and become M E.

But all I get is dull red marks and angry red crescents.

And the worst part? I'm here. I'm here because I can't say this in real life because either no one cares or they think I'm insane. I'm crazy. And I need to be heard and felt and for someone to SEE these feathers and claws and talons and horns so BADLY I'm on TUMBLR ranting to the public praying someone understands because no one I love will.

Dear God I need HELP SOMEONE LET ME OUT. IM BEGGING YOU.

[hellishtrickster]

ineedmyfriendback​:

Misfortune paled as the infernal beings called her out, eyes trained on the daemon as it shifted forms. She’d never seen such a large cat before, but she could see as it spoke that it too had large fangs. Her heart beat faster in her chest as she anticipated it pouncing on her.

She watched it observe her, and listened as the hellion and the daemon conferred, utterly confused as to what was happening. She didn’t know of this Dust they referred to, and she certainly didn’t feel detached from the universe. Two other points stuck out to her, and she had to say something.

“Well of course I don’t have a daemon,” Misfortune spoke up, glad at least that her voice managed to remain steady. “I was the first among the Sundered. It is thanks to the Magisterium that I was separated from the daemon’s hellish influence at a young age, and spared the fate of becoming a t-…”

She trailed off, brain catching up too late to keep her foot out of her mouth. Yes, that had been a grand idea, insulting a tiefling to their face. While their daemon was in the form of a giant cat and probably could eat her if it wanted to. She blushed with embarrassment for a few awkward moments. Then she remembered the second point that had stuck out to her.

“Hang on, what do you mean, dying children? Are you claiming the Sundered do not survive?” she asked, this information wholly at odds with what she had been taught, what she was proof of. “No, no, they grow up free from the influence of hell and live pious, holy lives. Just like myself, and Idleness, and others of the Magisterium. I have seen other adults like myself, daemonless, clean of spirit. They tend to prefer the Magisterium to the outside world, but they do exist, I swear it.”

She took a step back when the tiefling stepped forward, maintaining the distance between them.

She frowned slightly as the daemon suggested there was something wrong with her heartbeat. Surely if that were true, something would have manifested by now - some weakness of body, some physical failing that would be explained by a malfunctioning heart. Surely, if something were wrong with her heart, she would have noticed.

Misfortune waited as they stared at her, unsure where this encounter was heading now. To be caught in the gaze of not one but two infernal creatures with glowing golden eyes was unnerving, to say the least. She held her ground. These two knew something about the Hierophant’s murder, and if the gods were merciful today, she would learn what it was, and leave, unscathed. She hoped Idleness would see how brave she had been when she solved the case and returned to the Magisterium, triumphant. Perhaps then her position in the organization would be restored.

If she survived this.

The Tiefling and Daemon duo stared at the woman as she gave into her outbursts. There was quite a bit to unpack, and while some of it caused offence; they mostly felt a sort of pity for the woman.

“Having a Daemon doesn’t turn you into a Tiefling. If that were the case there’d be a hell of a lot more of us. We are born this way and can no more help what we are than you can help what you are,” Orianna explained softly.

Arrias shifted back to his fox form, knowing he needed to seem less threatening.

“While that might be true of you, and whoever the others are; it’s not true for the children. What has been done to you, and what has been done to them isn’t the same. I can see Dust. We’ve never been sure about why. But I can, and it’s what keeps people alive. After the kidnapped children wander back, the Dust drains away from them...killing them. It’s truly awful. And in any case, not having a Daemon doesn’t make you pious or holy. Every Aasimar we’ve ever met has one,” he explained.

Both Tiefling and Daemon moved forward as one, inspecting the woman. Each of them magically scanned the woman, trying to understand what she was. But even magically she felt off, like there was an entire part of her that was being suppressed.

The pair looked at each other. Something was extremely wrong with all of this. In killing the Defiler, they’d unintentionally walked straight into a Magisterium conspiracy. Now it seemed they had no choice but to follow the trail, and find out what this was. Orianna looked at the woman and could see she was scared. Being so sheltered, probably meant that she simply thought that they’d kill her. Neither of them had any such intentions if she didn’t start anything.

“Look we have no answers for you, but we know something isn’t right. And now, you do too. We can either part ways, or we can all try to figure out what has happened here. Something that is rightly and innately yours has been taken away from you, but we know you still trust the Magisterium,” said Orianna.

“We will leave here. Perhaps what we’ve found today will bother you until you can’t ignore whatever feelings this dredges up. If that happens, and you feel the Magisterium is no longer something you can trust, come find us,” Arrias continued for Ori.

“And don’t bother trying to trick us into believing it’s happened either. We’ll know if you’re lying, darling,” Ori finished.

The pair backed away and began to walk towards Neverwinter’s gates. They both had the feeling this wouldn’t be the last they’d see of this woman. They also knew that while they needed to follow the trail of this mystery, it couldn’t be done without this woman. But she had to be a willing participant, and so they left with the hope this wouldn’t become an itch they couldn’t scratch.  

Daemon AU

For @ineedmyfriendback

Orianna ran across the rooftops of Neverwinter’s upper levels. She’d simply wanted a glimpse of the nicer life. Something she’d never have while the Magisterium was in charge of Faerün.

It was a religious institution that governed the country. Although no one knew who they worshipped, or if they were following the direction of only one of the gods, or many. Orianna suspected the Magisterium wouldn’t know what the gods wanted if they were sent a divine letter. After all, they scorned Tieflings for their heritage, barely accepted that they weren’t soulless and then hired the more nefarious amongst the Tiefling ranks when they couldn’t bare to get their hands dirty.

As Orianna ran across the roofs, her daemon, Arrias darted from spot to spot in his fox form. It was hard for anyone to spot him at this late hour in the night given how dark his red fur was. He’d advised Orianna against her urge to sneak a glimpse. Arrias knew they were risking their lives being on the upper levels. It was meant for pure mortals, and holy beings. Even devout Tieflings weren’t welcome in this holy part of the city. Despite this Orianna felt it was worth the risk. She wanted to dream, and forget that there would be a long wait between her adventures.

When the pair reached the lower levels, and found a place to hide in the shadows; Orianna lowered her cowl, and yanked down the mask covering the lower half of her face. The pair took a moment to catch their breath before Arrias looked up at his Tiefling with squinted eyes.

“Well, was it worth it?”

Orianna turned to Arrias and ran a hand over his body. He leaned into her touch.

“Always, Ne Xriula.” (My Soul)

She sat herself down more comfortably in the alleyway, and looked up at the sky. Arrias followed her gaze as a small, bright, white flash burst to life in the sky.

“There would be so much to explore up there,” Arrias murmured.

Orianna turned to her daemon with a curious expression. He wasn’t given to whimsy, but occasionally he would voice a longing to be elsewhere. Somewhere they’d be accepted, where the power of the Magisterium couldn’t touch them. It was why they’d become adventurers. Being in the distant wilderness allowed them to forget their problems momentarily.

“I don’t doubt it. There must be more than we can see.”

Arrias crawled into Orianna’s lap, and curled up.

“Mm, but we’ll never see it.”

“No but we have our plan. Save our money, build our cabin somewhere we won’t be bothered, and only tell the pack where we’re going.”

Arrias hummed, and Ori pulled her hood back up. She projected her heat to the fox in her lap, and settled in for the night. The pair were happy to sleep under the stars tonight.

[myprofessormadememakethis]

Their Eyes Were Watching a Façade

Recently, I got in a semi-heated debate with my professor (not the professor who made me make this blog) in my African American Literature class about the gorgeously disastrous novel Their Eyes were Watching God. Before I discuss that, however, I am compelled to mention how innovatively graceful and charming Zora Neale Hurston’s voice is in the novel, as even her most scathing insult in the novel is written with such a soul-crushing beauty that I wonder how long she sat thinking of the line. This insult would be when Janie, the main character, tells her second husband, Joe, that when he is naked he “look lak de change uh life” (Hurston), which is to say that his genitals have been so abused by time and gravity that he appears to have transcended into an alien, advanced aging process. The aspect of Hurston’s writing that my professor and I disagreed on was the symbolism of Tea Cake being killed by the storm. I pointed out that the titular line of the novel occurs here, where Hurston finally says “their eyes were watching God” (Hurston), and I believe this storm being Tea Cake’s killer represents that Janie was attempting to found her happiness in a man once again, and she was allowing herself to be blinded by Tea Cake’s youth, vitality, and charm just like she did with her second husband, Joe. To me, the storm killing Tea Cake is a rebirth for Janie, as Tea Cake was revealing himself to be the same misogynistic, self-centered abuser who hit Janie and manipulated her with sex just like her former husbands and Janie needed to realize how her patterns were detrimental to her relationship with herself and her healing. My professor contested that the storm represented the end of Janie’s happiness with Tea Cake. This conclusion is incredibly surface-level and distasteful to me, as there is no intelligent comment on love and the place of women in marriage and instead suggests that Hurston was humoring herself by writing a self-indulgent Black struggle love story, which I feel is to completely ignore the overt messages about Janie being trapped in a cycle of abuse by her under-developed values and un-explored self-identity. In an era where the victims of abuse face heavier policing than the perpetrators, I believe it is dangerous to ignore how the expectations and beliefs forced on Black women manifest into complacency that, comparatively, looks like happiness.

—Arria Haigler

[throughtrialbyfire]

2 & 13 for your trio if you wouldn't mind? 💕

hi vivi!!!!!!!!

2) Who's your OCs best friend? How did they become best friends?

i'm going to exclude the trio saying each other here and write about other people they've known!

Emeros - for a long while, he had several best friends, including erydis (daughter of wealthy redguard merchants), dracus (former alik'r warrior), carlisle (dominion deserter), and ayenna (chandler and carpenter). they travelled through hammerfell together and into high rock, and stayed close for a long time!

Wyndrelis - his younger sister, drolosa. they were the closest to one another as one could be, because he never felt that she judged him like his other family members did, and she was excited to be involved in anything he was getting up to, and they would tag along with each other for errands or just to walk. she had other friends, but he didn't.

Athenath - they grew up with two families of khajiit essentially acting as their extended family, but their best friend out of all of the khajiit their age was ja'dato. those two got into trouble together all the time, and could often be found together if you couldn't find one or the other. athenath and ja'dato had a really tight bond, and he was the one to give them their amulet of mara.

13) Does your OC have a rival? How did it start?

Emeros - no, but he does have an enemy :3

Wyndrelis - rival, no, but he would consider himself to have had healthy rivalries back in his College of Whispers days with other students of his main mentor

Athenath - aia arria, for sure, but it's more competitive than anything. it may look nasty, but they respect one another and are just trying to do better than each other bc they acknowledge the other's skill.

thank you for the asks!!!!! <333333

ask game