#asceticism tw

[star-anise]

I just need to be cranky about a theme I see in philosophy/self-help spaces. There is a related discussion going on elsewhere about consumerism, environmentalism, and economics, but that's not the one I'm talking about right now. I'm talking about the advice given to people who are seeking to make their lives less better, less stressful, or healthier.

Anyway! My opinion:

A fundamental issue with ascetic self-improvement schemes like "Humans should just stop needing or relying on Stuff" is that we actually tend to be made of Stuff. Our fundamental experiences are mediated by Stuff. We live on a Stuff operating system, and the things we need often have to be in a compatible format. if you are getting rid of Stuff, then you're actually just trading it with the Stuff of absence and workarounds!

This isn't physics. We don't live in an infinite plane without mass or wind resistance. There is not actually One Fundamental Principle that will lead all humans to happiness, the same way there isn't One Fundamental Animal Food Recipe that will nourish all animals sufficiently.

I have just seen so many traps to toxic relationships and systems laid with the "no Stuff" philosophy. "Oh, you're not happy after getting rid of Stuff? Clearly you still have too much Stuff left!" and "I just think your reliance on that Thing that makes you feel happier and less stressful is unhealthy, so give it here, the only solution is for you to lose access to it forever"

Of course there's a baby in that bathwater; managing our relationships with Stuff is a constant struggle for all humans everywhere. But the absolutism without any nuance about how and why this issue actually functions really gets to me.

[scholarofgloom]

[anachronismstellar]

Things the 12/12 achievement AU led me to research so far:

Go (and apparently there was a match that SOMEONE DIED??) Tw for vomiting wtf

Chinese names. So many. Ngl I cried and gave up at some point

Asceticism and Monks (.... yes I'm still blushing about it shh)

Mahjong (hey I learned a new game!! :D I kinda wanna try it)

Poker (I'M THINKING ABOUT IT)

All types of Chinese wine (no tequila for Airplane body shot games :( sadness)

All of this in the past 2 weeks

What are u talking about I'm not obsessed with it I'm being very normal about whaaaat

[cithaerons]

David F. Tinsley, The Scourge and the Cross: Ascetic Mentalities of the Later Middle Ages

[drgluckenstein]

[princess-self-shipping]

Hednonophobia

Fandom; Bendy and the Dark Revival

Character List; Bendy, Audrey

Genre(s): Emotional hurt/comfort

Word Count: 2778

TW/CW; None! (If needed to be tagged, plz inform)

Spoilers for BATDR! Do not ready if you do not wish for spoilers!

Hedonophobia is an excessive fear or aversion to obtaining pleasure. The purported background of some such associated feelings may be due to an egalitarian-related sentiment, whereby one feels a sense of solidarity with individuals in the lowest Human Development Index countries. For others, a recurring thought that some things are too good to be true has resulted in an ingrainedness that they are not entitled to feel too good. Sometimes, it can be triggered by a religious upbringing wherein asceticism is propounded.

Life tended to work in cycles. Routines that people got familiar with one way or another, it wasn’t anything too out of the ordinary for people living their everyday lives. Wake up, eat breakfast, go to work, go home, repeat as necessary. Sure there were times things needed to be spiced up in order for there to be some sense of variety, to keep the cycles from being too dull, but there were often things people repeated over and over because it was just familiar to them. Though, cycles like this still had these individuals merit some sort of control over their own lives.

The little imp recently taken into the world of color was not used to such a change. His cycles were more… structured. For the most part anyway, until a while ago when the cycle was tampered with. But his role had always been predetermined; the master of the world and the demon that lurked its halls. His nature and power commanded respect and fear from those who lived there, and he enjoyed it. It was a way of living that kept him safe, kept him in control. Even if the cycle continued over and over again, he still held on to this control and power. It kept him sane, kept him going throughout it all.

And then there was that interloper, Wilson. No one knew how he found out about this world, and to this day the demon still didn’t. But it didn’t matter how he found it, what mattered were the consequences of his actions. Experiments, tests, pushing the studio to its limits, and one more thing that set the entire studio into a bad spiral; stopping the cycle. Creating The Keepers to keep it from starting over again and again, the ones who played a key role in the original script were captured and imprisoned. The reel was stolen and kept away from anyone’s reach. And what they did to him… he’d rather not think about it.

He still lived with the consequences of Wilson’s actions. In the world of color, he could only retain his small form consistently, his larger one was far more of a risk and unstable now. What used to be the only form he had was now a stranger to him, and he wasn’t sure how to feel about it. On one hand, he was finally back in the world he was born in after being banished to live as a villain. On the other hand… this was NOT the ideal circumstances of his return that he had expected. He was small, weak, frail… he couldn’t defend himself if need be. He’d grown soft, almost like a child. His demonic nature was still there, but he couldn’t quite reach it in this state. It was as if he had been declawed, his weapons removed and his aggression with it. He didn’t like it. It felt horrible.

“Bendy?” A familiar voice snapped him out of his thoughts, and the black and white world he had lost himself in returned to color. He was sitting on the tiled floor of an office, a wooden train in his hands that he’d been… squeezing a bit too hard if the splintering wood was anything to go by. By the colors in the room- and how hard it was to see- it must have been night… wasn’t the sun going down just a minute ago? How much time had gone by since he lost himself in his thoughts?

“Bendy, is everything okay?” That voice called his name again, and he turned to face the person in question. Audrey; the woman who had brought him out of the ink machine with her. She’d left the world of sepia tones and ink to return to the world of color, and because of their connection he had gone with her. She was the one to blame for this, for the state that he was in after his escape. 

Still, he nodded at her question. She was the master of the studio her father created now, and he didn’t wish to test the extent of those abilities. She had already meddled with the cycle for those who couldn’t leave with the two of them, trying to make their lives that much more bearable inside. She was… a mushy soul all things considered. How could someone with as much pain as she still have so much empathy for those around her? It confused him.

Audrey didn’t seem to believe him, given the way her eyebrows furrowed together and she tapped her pen on the paper in front of her. Still, she let out a sigh as she went to stand up, setting the pen down in a familiar cup beside her. Either that meant she was going for a coffee run, or she was about to leave the studio for the evening. He watched her for a minute as she walked around the room, only to find himself grow slightly disappointed seeing her grab her purse and sling it over her shoulder. Home for the night it was. He was never supposed to leave Audrey’s office until they figured something out, he had made a few places to hide in here to make sure of it. Audrey was respected enough in the office to be left alone during the work day that it was fine, and during the night she often stayed in late to work rather than not. So, guess it was time for him to ready the hiding spot. They both knew what it would mean if he was spotted.

Though… he paused once he didn’t hear the door open, and instead the sound of Audrey’s heels coming closer. She was in front of him, and soon crouched down to take a knee in front of him. It was a familiar position to him, one she took when she wanted to speak to him on an equal level… he wasn’t used to it. He was even more shocked to see her hold out her hand to him, causing him to look between her hand and her face in a confused manner.

“How about you come home with me this time?” Record scratch. Bendy was certain he heard one somewhere throughout the building at Audrey’s words. What did she just say? She of all people had stressed the importance of him not being seen as to not risk anything happening to him now that he was in the colored world. She hadn’t wanted to repeat her father’s mistakes with him being taken and locked away. What changed?

He was still hesitant as he thought it over, bringing his toy train to his chest. It was his go to whenever he felt nervous about something, he had lost his ability to speak in this smaller form as well. This form truly was a burden, yet it kept him out of trouble. 

The cue was enough for Audrey to pick up on, and she adjusted herself to sit on both of her legs this time. She sat like this too, to make herself smaller to keep the pressure on him minimal. He didn’t need it, he didn’t fear the girl as he once had when his young mindset was stronger. But the gesture was… appreciated nonetheless. 

“It’s okay. No one’s gonna see you, it’s just you and me in the building. And I’ve got something I wanna show you on the way there.” Well, if there was one vice he shared with his cartoon counterpart, it was his curiosity. Damn it… he was gonna do this, wasn’t he? Well, it beat spending another boring night in here he supposed, and Audrey knew better than to try anything. Just because it was hard for him to shift into his bigger shape didn’t mean it was impossible. And he would cause a scene somehow if he needed to.

He accepted her hand, and let her pull him along out of the building. The elevator was a new experience; he was too big for those back in the studio, and even then he preferred to travel by portals. So being in a small moving box that was plummeting down sent… a few unpleasant feelings through his body. But, it’s fine. Audrey was there holding on to him, and he had his train in his other hand to keep him calm. Nothing to worry about, it’s all fine. 

The car was a completely new experience though. He was put in the back seat of it, Audrey reasoned he was too small for the front for whatever reason. While it felt like a tiny little moving box of death, it didn’t feel… too small. He had enough room to kick his legs out, stretch a bit, even run his train along the sides of the seats in order to help calm himself down. Audrey was really going out of her way to make things comfortable for the imp in her care, and it made him feel funny… When was the other shoe going to drop? He trusted Audrey to not be stupid enough to try anything outright, but this all felt like a bit much. Something wasn’t right, he was sure of it.

This train of thought was promptly cut off by the fact that the moving tin can of death finally came to a stop. But not in front of a building, it seemed to be in front of some… fence. A fence? Where were they? Bendy took off his seatbelt to take a better look at the environment around them, only to see nothing short of green and brown tinted with the night’s blue as far as the eye could see. She had driven them into some sort of forest while he had been lost in his thoughts, and he felt his stomach tighten. This was it… this was where it was going to drop, wasn’t it? Well, if she thought she was going to get the jump on him, she wasn’t nearly as smart as he thought!

Audrey climbed out of the car first, shutting the door behind her before making her way over to Bendy’s. By that point, he was tense as a coiled spring and was ready to lash out at Audrey if she tried anything that felt like an attack. Still, she just gave him that same gentle smile and went to help him out of his seat and outside the car.

“Alright, here we are. This is where I wanted to show you before we went back to my house. But we’ve got a bit of walking to do, think you can handle it?” They weren’t there yet? How much farther would they have to go to reach this ‘mystery’ place she had in mind. Fine. Humor her. Bendy nodded, only to be scooped up into Audrey’s arms like he was a child. He froze and was about to thrash about in protest, but Audrey was quick to shush him.

“Easy, easy. I gotta climb that fence, and I don’t want you to hurt yourself if you do it. So hold on, okay?” She adjusted her hold on him to move him to her back, sitting on her shoulders comfortably as she made her way over towards the wire fence again. She was being so careful with him, a habit she had picked up since the two had escaped together. It was such an odd thing really, it wasn’t like he was a delicate child or something who couldn’t defend himself. She of all people should know this, yet she still treated him this way. Why? Why would she continue to baby him when she knew how perfectly capable-

The sudden jump down the fence he hadn’t fully processed Audrey was climbing cut his thoughts short, and he tightened his hold on the woman in response. Nope- nope okay he’s fine. She just jumped down, and they were both fine on the other side.

“You okay?” A nod. “Alright, we’ve got a bit more to go. Hold on just a bit longer, little guy.”

She didn’t put him down, she just kept walking forward through the grass. It was untamed here, no paths or specific roads to go down. The fence must have perturbed enough to keep them away, but not Audrey… she was an odd one, just in terms of personality alone. Why would she bring him here of all places? He was so confused, she was treating him like a child but no doubt bringing him somewhere where she had something terrible planned for him. Why wouldn’t she? Just like anyone else in the studio, she was subjected to his torment. 

Anyone who didn’t follow him would jump at the opportunity to be rid of him.

Wilson was proof enough of that.

Joey was proof enough of that.

The walk wasn’t much longer, the field soon making way to the top of a hill with an individual tree sitting amongst it. With the cooler weather settling in, the leaves were more brittle and falling from the branches. It was… admittedly rather pretty, Bendy could at least admit that. 

Audrey carefully moved the demon from her shoulders, setting him down on the ground but not letting go of his hand. She led the way towards the tree, carefully sitting down and patting the spot next to her. His hand tightened on his train, but he did as he was told. He hated it immediately, the grass was damp and cold, and it was immediately one of the worst feelings in the world. Absolutely not. Audrey laughed a little at his reaction, guess he made a funny face. Great.

They sat there in silence for a while, Audrey just staring ahead of them while Bendy tried to figure out what was going on here. Okay, remote uncomfortable location, enough to make his heart start pounding in his chest. Something was going on here, she was planning something and he knew it. Just when everything starts to go right, something always goes wrong. It never fails, no matter what happens it never fails. But this time he was ready. If she tried anything, he would tear her apart. Keeper of the cycle or not, he refused to be a victim anymore.

“Bendy, it’s time. Look.” Audrey pointed in front of them, towards the horizon that she had been staring at. Time? Time for what? Bendy looked up from the spot in the grass he had burned a hole into, only for his eyes to widen. A golden ray was starting to peak up over the horizon, followed by shades of orange and purple. Sunrise… had Audrey been in the office so long that they were able to see the sunrise on the way home? But… this… this was beautiful… 

Audrey… she didn’t have an ulterior motive. She was just showing him something nice. Something bright and full of colors he never saw before inside the studio. She wasn’t being mean or cruel, she was just… being Audrey… but that couldn’t be right. It was never right. Something wrong had to happen sooner or later, nothing good ever happened without something bad to counteract it! This wasn’t right! A monster like him didn’t get to just stick with happy things!

A hand on his cheek snapped him out of his spiral that had almost started, and he felt something wet being wiped away. Huh? When had he started crying? Bendy turned to face Audrey as she pulled her hand away, his face now an expression of bewilderment.

Her eyes were still as soft and kind as ever. She was always kind to him, no matter what happened. She didn’t say anything, and instead just offered her arms out to him. There was never any plan… Audrey wasn’t Wilson. Audrey wasn’t Joey. Audrey wasn’t anyone at Gent… she was the closest thing this demon had to a family.

Maybe that’s why he felt comfortable accepting her offer, returning her hug and silently sobbing in her arms.

Maybe… maybe there was some hope for a monster, a demon, to have some genuine happiness in his life after all.

[heuristicallyinclined]

Becoming One with the Capri Sun

Lanque Bombyx x Mspa Reader | T | Word Count: 4,426 | tw: blood, mild gore, temporary character death, biting | AO3 Link

Written for @skanque-bombyx

Summary: Set in the Nobody Knows AU, First Guardian Mspa Reader finds an extremely dissatisfied adult Lanque and agrees to get him off of his cloistered planet, Julie d’Aubigny style. Things don’t exactly go as planned.

Note: This doesn’t build off of the main story and you don’t have to have read it or be caught up on it for this to make sense. Somewhat of a oneshot.

The sounds of a tunnel collapsing in on itself, of rock being torn loose and bringing more of the earth down with it, was terrifying enough without the echo of the cave magnifying everything and disorienting you further. You couldn’t even tell how extensive the damage was since every crash seemed to become more than a singular crash, the actual sound of stones falling made indistinguishable from the following echoes layering on top of each other becoming a cacophony of destruction. 

But eventually, it stopped. It stopped and you could hear your heart beating again, no longer obscured by the falling debris, seemingly making up for lost time by beating so hard you could feel it in your teeth reminding you it was there and you were alive. The next thing you noticed was the heavy silence. Though maybe after being overwhelmed to the point where your ears were ringing, any amount of quiet felt stark to you. 

It didn’t matter, because shakily you got up, you had to stop halfway as you rose to rest your hands on your knees and just breathe for a moment, but eventually, you stood straight and exhaled deeply, holding yourself for a second before looking around. Softly, you called out.

“Lanque?”

And heard no response.

Maybe it was too quiet, the fear of another cave in caused by you yelling probably stifled you from doing more than mouthing his name without any of the sound behind it. You build up your nerve and try again, louder.

“Lanque.”

You wait. 

There was no reply. 

Your heart had only just started to wane from its frantic beat and you were starting to worry something far worse was about to replace it. 

You began to look around, hoping to see some sign of life or, you don’t know, maybe even get a little optimistic at not seeing any signs of death. Your footsteps are slow and deliberate as you move around and occasionally over debris. You have to actively try not to flinch as you do, fearing that the sound of any pebble being kicked was the start of another tremor. That or conceal some movement elsewhere or ideally some faint profanity. 

But the only sound you manage to hear is the gravel crunching under your shoes as you continue on. Your vision isn’t doing much to help you either. It wasn’t completely dark. The bioluminescent cave fungus creeping up the walls acted as a source of light and kept you from stumbling too much, but it was cultivated by people made for cave dwelling and much more sensitive to light than you are. Still you keep trying. After a few minutes, something on the ground catches your eye and you squint harder trying to focus on it.

There was a puddle reflecting some of the light.

It just looked like an inky pool from where you were standing. For all you knew it could be water. It’s probably water or something that got knocked down during the chaos. Yeah. You really need it to be that and you keep repeating that to yourself mentally as you approach it like it would manifest into truth. 

You stopped saying that when you see a massive broken stalactite was not too far away from it, streaked with jade. Current fear be damned, you now have a bigger one and you race towards it now. You run and remember you are capable of teleporting the moment you reach the exact distance that you would consider it not worth teleporting the rest of the way and keep going.

And see exactly what you feared. 

Lanque was face down, his hair soaked enough with blood to lay flat against his head. A jade halo formed around him in a mockery of piety.

You momentarily step back in horror, hand against your mouth, trying to focus your eyes on him, trying to have anything else come into focus, but no. What you saw in the low lighting was correct.

But you’re judging this too quickly. Trolls are tough, adults even moreso. 

You kneel down and roll him onto his back, which took a decent amount of effort with how heavy he was and how much you were avoiding looking at the back of his head. You brush some of the blood soaked hair away from his forehead. There was no heat to his blood. You feel for his pulse and then when that fails you feel for his pulse again and again hoping it’s thick troll skin or shakiness stopping you from feeling anything. 

But it isn’t. You already knew that. 

Lanque Bombyx is dead and died doing something he hated in a place he never wanted to be. You don’t know which of those things nauseates you the most. You feel for his pulse again, fighting against tears pricking at corners of your eyes and the tightness in your throat, when you had a thought, something you had forgotten in your grief and shock. 

You knew exactly what you had to do. 

Not contemplate the ethics of kissing corpses. 

He lies there, motionless. You check his pulse again. Still nothing. 

Fuck. You're really going to do this. 

Steeling your nerves, you use the edge of your sleeve to wipe blood off of the corners of his mouth while avoiding his lipstick, like that was the part skeeving you out. Not the part that you aren’t getting into. Because even if you were to take a cursory thought at that, which you aren’t, you think you’d rather try it and it not work, because it's not like he is getting any deader. And if it does work, you’ll fess up, and you’re okay with him being so disgusted with you that he never speaks to you again. At least that would mean he was alive enough to be angry about it. 

You’ve chosen the consequences you’re okay with and now it just time rip off the band aid and by band aid you mean kiss a corpse which is exponentially worse than the action the metaphor is based on and oh fuck, you're really going to do this. You feel for a pulse again. And again.

You might be stalling. During the time you know nobody else is around to ask you what the fuck you’re doing or see you doing the thing you definitely dont want to get a reputation for. God dammit. Okay. Just going to go for it then. 

After some remaining hesitation, your lips make contact with his, cold and motionless. You feel like a goddamn creep and you have no idea how long you're supposed to stay like this. Do you have to stop and repeat until he gets up or something? Fuck. Wait. You're thinking of CPR. 

Okay, you know what? You're going to just keep your lips pressed against his and keep count in your head using the only tried and true method you know of. 

One Mississippi. 

Two Mississippi. 

Three Mississippi. 

You pull back. He doesn't move. You check his pulse again, hoping eighth time's the charm. No luck. There isn't a single trace of life in him and you're wondering if maybe that was a one time thing or maybe not all jades can become rainbow drinkers but all rainbow drinkers are jade? Like how a square is a rectangle but a rectangle is not a square? But with vampires? 

You’ve already kissed him once, so you do it again before a second wave of disgust can hit you just in case this is actually like CPR. 

But it isn’t like CPR. All you did was kiss a corpse twice. 

Gross. 

You wipe your mouth and look at him. Even with most of his face caked in blood, his expression is the most placid you’d ever seen it be in the caverns. The default tension he kept up between his brows was smoothed out and his mouth was no longer drawn down in slight annoyance. 

You hate this. You hate that this is the only way he’d find it peaceful here.

The most you saw from him here was when you two were coming up with this plan to bust him off of his cloistered planet, trying to figure out where he would even be able to go. And maybe you shouldn’t have been drinking with him, but between hearing about what cloistered life was like and how the whole planet was a dry one, and but really, who were you to deny a nun? Especially a nun sharing his thoughts on mandatory asceticism. 

When he passed you back your flask, you shook it, frowning. It was empty. Bastard drank the whole thing and didn’t even leave you a drop. You looked up at him only to find him dropping the rbf long enough to be smilingly wryly at you, your chagrin had him looking a lot more himself. The bickering after moreso. You were genuinely happy this seemed to be doing something for him, but you would’ve been happier if that didn’t require him being a prick to you to feel alive again. 

Not that it matters now you guess. Slowly, you get up and begin to pace as you think. You have no idea what to do next or if there even is much of a point in looking for something to do next. If this was an errant thread in the timeline, well, it wouldn’t stay that way for too long and you could try again and maybe not go off of Lanque’s judgement alone the next go around. 

Damn. You might just need to wait this one out. You’d rather not wait it out here if you can help it though, but you don’t actually know where anything here is or if there is much of anything for you in the main cavern. 

Some other jades should have heard what happened. Someone would have to notice a whole ass tunnel collapse and you’re now guessing this area was sectioned off for a reason other than giving him somewhere dramatic enough to brood. But if Lanque’s hot and cold bit stayed constant, it might be a while before the length of time he’s been gone becomes concerning and even longer before someone actually decides to look in the sectioned off parts of the caverns for him.

You sigh. It's just you and his corpse now. You glance back at him wearily, and pause, staring hard. 

He isn't there. 

That is definitely where he was, the blood puddle is still there to prove it. You turned your back for just a second, just to think. You start looking around rapidly. 

You feel so stupid. You are so stupid. You know not to turn your back on a body. You’ve heard it so many times. And what did you do? You turned your back on a body. But there is no way that someone could have busted in here and absconded that quickly with him. You would have heard it and from what you can tell the exit got blocked off during the cave in, so how c-.

A bright light suddenly shining in the periphery of your vision stops that thought. 

You turn to face it, but it's hard to focus on it with how your eyes have adjusted to the darkness. You squint, straining your eyes. It seems to get brighter. No. Fuck. It’s getting bigger, as it rushes towards you much faster than you could brace yourself or zap away.

A rock jabs into your shoulder as you’re pinned up and against a cave wall. You blink, eyes finally able to focus on what's in front of you. 

And you are greeted with the luminous, bloodied face of Lanque Bombyx. 

Oh shit. It actually worked.

Lanque was undeniably “a real one” because it definitely wasn't the dark that had you squinting now, not with how brightly he was glowing. And that’s basically the smoking gun of rainbow drinkerhood. Well, that and the blood drinking. 

…

Oh. Oh yeah, the blood drinking. 

Oh fuck. The blood drinking. 

You know, you don’t do particularly well during extended silences and this was not proving to be an exception by any fucking means. The fact that he has been wordlessly staring at you this whole time like you were the last capri sun in the fridge was also not helping.

"Hey Lanque,” you draw slowly, unsure. “How's it going?" 

He doesn't respond, instead remaining eerily still. 

God that was weak. But you don’t know that saying he looked like he was feeling better was all that great either or do anything about his newly gained staring problem.

You’ve seen the way he looks at people, been on the other end of it too, as he scans a room until he finds something, someone that draws his attention and becomes fixated on his latest little curiosity. You’re sure you could make an extended prey metaphor here or something, but it would be very uncomfortable and heavy handed given where you are right now.

The look he was giving you had all of the same focus without any of the emotion. No malice, no amusement, not even that goddamn smugness that seemed to permeate most of everything he did. It was just a cold, empty scrutiny that had you unnerved like nothing else. Between the intensity of his light and his expression you’re finding it hard to think. 

He finally moves, tilting his head to the side. It could be a trick of the light, but his fangs seemed to look sharper and protrude further. His chest rose almost mechanically as he took a breath and his blood felt tacky against you as his head brushed by yours. It's as he brings his mouth down to your neck that the sudden realization that he hadn’t been breathing until just now hits you and you are struck with a newfound panic that snaps you out of your daze.

You try to scramble back against the rock. Climbing up it or down it, you don’t know, you don’t care. Just away from here. But it doesn’t matter. His hands pinning you to the cave wall have you locked firmly in place. Your struggle doesn't seem to register to him at all. He just brings his knee between your legs and one of his hands tangles itself in your hair. 

He pulls, exposing more of your neck and his cold breath on your skin sends a shudder down your spine and you flinch when his lips press against your neck. It would be a stretch to call what he was doing a kiss. He was more just applying pressure as he felt around, mouthing your neck as he looked for something. Without warning, a sharp pain let you know he found it, and you ball a hand in the still wet, bloodied fabric of his robe as you cry out. 

This isn’t close to the worst pain you’ve been through, but considering you’ve died repeatedly, that isn’t actually saying very much. 

At least you know for a fact you can handle it and are going to get through this just fine. You’ve had worse wounds. Easily, the worst part of this experience is the rock you feel jabbing into your shoulder muscle. Otherwise, this is extremely manageable. You try to stop tensing your muscles and relax. It’s only going to hurt more if you don’t. It’s kind of like getting a shot, except the other way around where instead of getting a small amount of something helpful injected into you, you’re having a decent amount of something very crucial extracted from you during what you just generously going to call an improv blood donation. Which you’ve done before. So really no need to get over dramatic about getting bitten by a rainbow drinker.

You start doing your breathing exercises, trying to manifest some chill thoughts in your mind that you can focus on over the swallowing sounds that feel like they’re right next to your goddamn ear. You are not skeeved. You are not rattled in the slightest. No. You’re just staying real fucking zen about alien vampires in general and specifically about the one seemingly taking his sweet time while having his drink for once instead of downing a few shots in rapid succession. Actually, you don’t want to know what the rainbow drinker equivalent of doing a shot is. This is probably the better option. Mostly for you. 

God. Tagora is going to be so disappointed when he finds out the incredibly not sexy reality of getting bitten by a rainbow drinker. It could just be the ambiance here though. Better lighting not almost blindingly close to your face would probably improve the experience greatly. The corpse kissing was also kind of a mood killer. This is solidly a two star experience for you. 

Which gets knocked down half a star when he pulls his teeth out without warning, a sudden heat replacing the pressure on your neck as you keep bleeding. He doesn’t stop you when you move your arm up. You pull the fabric of your hood forwards and press it down on your wound to stop the bleeding. Probably not super sanitary, but neither was the bite itself. He slowly exhales by the shell of your ear, breath noticeably warmer now. From your blood. 

You definitely have antibiotic ointment in your first aid kit. 

He doesn’t let go. He keeps breathing deeply and evenly far closer to your person than you felt entirely comfortable with. You’re not sure how long the two of you remained like that since the rock jutting into you was making everything seem to take a lot longer than it did, but its end was very clear. His breathing suddenly picked up and he stiffened, his grip tightening. He pulls away from your neck and looks at you. No longer blankly, but in disconcertment. He drops you on your ass in an unceremonious heap on the ground and staggers back away from you. 

“Really?” you groan. “Really Lanque?” 

He glances down at you. As disoriented as he looks, he is still cognizant enough to frown, before bewilderedly looking around at the cavern walls and the long shadows creeping up on them. You’re guessing trying to find the source of light. Eventually he looks down at his hands, still brightly glowing. He looks back at you again through wide eyes and softly, with feeling asks, 

“What the fuck?” 

A fair question.

“I kissed you and you’re a rainbow drinker now,” you say, trying to very casually hit two elephants with one stone as you brush gravel off of yourself and work through your dizziness to sit up. 

He blinks. 

"How's your headache?" 

He touches his head, seeming to notice his hair being out of place more than any kind of pain if his immediate fussing over it was any indication. He starts putting it back into place when he gets to the back of his head and freezes. And slowly brings his hand down. He stares at the jade stains covering it, then looks back at you, much more perturbed. 

“What the fuck?" he repeats loudly, with more feeling. 

"You lost a fight to a stalagmite an-."

Wait. There’s a rhyme for this. Stalactites hold tight to the ceiling and stalagmites might try to reach them.

"Sorry. Stalactite," you correct, popping the "t." 

He doesn't seem to appreciate your commitment to accuracy if his narrowing eyes is anything to go by. You might be his friend, but semantics clearly aren't. 

"A stalactite fell on you and you died."

"I died?"

"Only for a little bit."

He pauses as he processes that, and then remembers the first part of your statement, "You said you kissed me?” 

You suck in air through your teeth, "yeah." 

He eyes you strangely, before his face twists in revulsion.

So he definitely worked out the timeline on that. 

"It was to save your life," you add defensively. 

"If I died, then you didn't exactly saVe it," he retorts venomously. He almost seems to brighten in anger. 

Wow. Looks like semantics aren't your friend either. You know what? Fuck semantics. You and all your homies hate semantics. 

"If you're here complaining about it, then you can't be that dead." You press your hand to your forehead before gesturing out. “Look, I don't just go around kissing corpses for fucks sake." 

"OVerlooking the fact that that is What you just did,” he spits.

You look at him for a moment. The blood loss has definitely made you very cranky. The fact that you extremely didn’t want to kiss his corpse doesn’t change the fact that you did. Honestly, you would feel pretty violated in his shoes too. You inhale and exhale deeply, and try not to feel too woozy as you stand up. 

He gives you a hard look. 

"I'm sorry Lanque." 

He seems to believe your remorse is genuine based off of his apparent dimmer function. 

"Also you fucking bit me so I think we're even."

"I What?" 

You pull your hood down a bite revealing your bite mark.

"You fucking bit me."

He eyes your neck longer than you think is strictly necessary as he takes that information in. You think this makes you legally entitled to make every single snack and thirst joke you want from now until the end of eternity. 

“So it Would appear.” He states plainly before glancing back up at your face. “HoW did you knoW it Would Work?” 

"I didn't actually know if this was going to work or not, or if you were just going to stay permanently dead," you admit. I still don't know if all jades are capable of becoming rainbow drinkers or if only some of them are."

"And you still attempted it?" he asks, raising an eyebrow.

You nod. And understand the following silence as the two of you having a moment as he appears to consider your action and maybe even feel some weight behind it. 

Until he laughs at you. 

"That's embarrassing.”

Motherfucker.

As his laughter dies down, he shakes his head, the ridiculousness of the situation setting in and his voice takes on a sharper tone. 

“So hoW exactly is this supposed to Work?”

“This being?”

“HoW often am I going to haVe to partake in drinking blood?” he clarifies, stressing each word slowly and patronizingly. 

“I have no idea. When you get thirsty? Like normal?”

“Like normal?” he repeats, voice now devoid of any humor. He looks down at his hands, appearing to concentrate. "Is there a Way to turn off the gloW?" 

"You're already over it?" 

He glares at you. 

"Yes. There is."

He waits for you to elaborate.

"I don't know how though."

"Fucking incredible.” He gives frustrated huff. "I see your Well of knoWledge has run completely dry."

“Well, it isn’t like your time on rp forums is any better. Like how would you think rainbow drinkers were made? Biting?”

"It Would make more sense," he counters. 

"Fucking how? And if that's how it worked, there’d be two incandescent dipshits here. But there aren’t."

“Only a dim one.”

You narrow your eyes at him. The literal pain in your neck is only being exacerbated by the metaphorical pain in your neck that caused it and you seriously don’t have enough blood to play twenty questions.

“So this is probably just going to be a “fuck around and find out” kind of thing. It’s going to suck, no pun intended,” you add when you see how done he looks, “but maybe there’s some kind of information about rainbow drinkers out there. Something that isn’t saucy bullshit.” 

“If there is,” he starts, disregarding your thoughts on the genre, “it’s locked up so tight that I doubt that eVen the head jades Would knoW about it, let alone share it.

“Damn.”

You think. It can’t just not exist. Even if it were restricted as shit, there had to be some kind of book or tome or whatever on rainbow drinkers out there. Assuming something like that wasn’t destroyed by the empire, it would either be sealed away deep in the caverns or in some private collection owned by someone getting their jimmies off on knowing more than others and collecting forbidden shit. But where would you eve-.

Oh. 

Actually? You know just the place.

That realization must be showing on your face because Lanque side eyes you dubiously before sighing. 

“Of course you’re about to tell me you know just the disreputable little shithole for the job.” 

“Yes, I-, wait. No.” you sigh deeply. “Why do you think I just somehow know where all the seedy places are?”

“Because I can’t imagine any reputable establishment that Would let you in,” he sneers.

“And I can’t imagine any reputable establishment that wouldn’t kick you out.” 

He looks at you unimpressed. You return it. 

“If you have a better idea or want to go somewhere else after, we can do that. But right now, you’ve got nothing, and I think we have a pretty decent shot of finding something at a very specific personal jackoff bookhive.”

He crosses his arms. “And if there isn’t?”

“Well. He had a very extensive decorative bar that we can actually put to use.”

He exhales a laugh. “You should haVe led With that.”

“And it’s private so no one’s going to be asking any questions about seeing a jade not being cloistered.”

“Not all jades get cloistered you knoW,” he informs you dryly.

“Really?” 

You did not know that actually. Or much about jades outside of the brooding caverns. Since being there seemed like a bit of a sore spot for most of your friends in general, you didn’t really pry. You just kind of assumed they all ended up in the caverns at some point. Now you’re really wishing you had pushed for some elaboration from them. 

“What do they even do?”

“I don’t knoW,” he responds knowingly, “Maybe you’ll find a book that can help you find out.”

“Maybe,” you reply, straining slightly, but determined to be the bigger person in the only way you can. 

You extend your hand out to him and for a moment, he stares at you, completely unreadable. But then begrudgingly, he uncrosses his arms and takes your hand in one of his. 

You zap, realizing something. 

You are the First Guardian, and you think you might have just created a bit of a problem for yourself.

[the-rolling-libero]

ok but i am Deeply Intrigued by whatever this fucked up saint shit ur readin about is so itd prolly be okay if u posted behind a readmore and with heavy cw/tw tags???? up to you of course

glad to hear my yelling into the void abt saints has at least one person tuned into it lmao that is more than I generally hope w this!

Without Turning This Into An Essay, I'm basically engaging with a lot of the late medieval sainthood oriented around extreme asceticism, and that gets pretty heavy at times?

The big content warnings involved in their study are the extremes of self mutilation, suicidal ideation, starvation, and general self loathing, a lot of which is also eroticized. My dissertation is actually likely to take a relatively positive spin, talking about how the people surrounding saints-- particularly their confessors and confidants, who are often the authors of the remaining hagiographies-- tried to help these people set on a course of self destruction, without acc the narrative, hindering their suffering-- how to care for someone whose pain is foundational to their sanctity. But you can imagine. how that would become a little heavy to talk about on the regs with the General Public!

I've been particularly interested recently in how people express pain-- how it is isolating and fundamentally asocial-- and how that translates into text that claims interiority, how narratives might attempt to render pain communal, inviting relation while discouraging its actual imitation? which is something that has resonance with christological compassion in delicious ways -- but anyway. looking into that just. necessarily engages with narratives of suffering, a lot of which is bound up in additional layers of mental anguish and illness. Though I'm not going to diagnose anyone in the past, a lot of the ways that these ascetic saints are portrayed to engage with their suffering (and religious experiences stemming from them) follows paths familiar to those who have dealt with modern eating disorders, depression, anxieties, and psychosis, and so can be quite upsetting to people who don’t necessarily consent to talking abt those things in your average chat! I find it super interesting, and will likely be posting things abt it here as I work my way through this diss, but dropping shit into casual conversation abt someone literally starving themselves to death probably isn't. it's not cool yk.

[invisiblejune]

TW: afobia

Hi everyone!

I want to talk about something that recently happened in Italy where I live. I am an aroace activist and I am feeling ashamed and angry. But let’s start from the beginning!

Some months ago an aroace activist created a petition to add the definition of asexuality, aromanticism and afobia into the Treccani encycolpaedia, that is the principal one for Italian speakers.

They informed us that they were working on the asexuality definition and we were really happy about it, until last sunday, when the definitions of asexuality and asexual were finally online.

The definitions are wrong and incorrect on different levels and we need that people talk about this.

Unfortunately the lgbt+ community never helps when asexuals have problems and the only way we can actually do something is for people to talk.

The definiton of asexuality never says that it is a sexual orientation and, I quote, that it is “lack of sexual attraction or interest, claimed by those who are characterized as a constitutive and specific element of their own identity”. After this, the definition just quotes some articles that:

- Are old (from 2004/2006/2008)

- Only refer to sex-indifferent asexuals

- Compare asexuality to “asceticism and peace of mind” (quoting an article dating back to 1978)

The definition of asexual is even worse! I will just quote and translate it, because I have no words to describe it:

“Those, who have no interest in sexual relations and declares that they do not feel the need to practice them. For psychiatrists and psychoanalysts the lack of interest in sex is "loss of desire", mostly a sign of severe depression, a disease to be treated. Asexuals, on the other hand, claim their condition as innate and absolutely normal”.

After this, they quote another article where they say that asexuality is abstinence, that there could be biological and psychological reasons for people to be ace, and that they claim that being asexual is not a medical condition.

In the end, the definitions are sometimes wrong, partial and dated. They talk about psychiatrists and psychoanalysts without any real source saying that asexuality is a disease and quote articles from before the DSM-5 removed asexuality from the list of mental disorders.

I just wanted to share this with all of you because I want that the ace community knows what is happening here in Italy and also because I really need to share some of my pain.

Thank you for reading!

Here you can find the links of the two definitions:

Asessuale: http://www.treccani.it/vocabolario/asessuale_%28Neologismi%29/

Asessualità: http://www.treccani.it/vocabolario/asessualita_%28Neologismi%29/

[scholarofgloom]

[artificialqueens]

Follow Every Rainbow ('Til You Find Your Dream), chapter 1: Prelude (branjie) - writworm42

A/N: Sound of Music AU for the AQ musical theatre challenge! I really hope y'all like it. TW for religion (specifically Catholicism) and war. Also, you may notice a few things are different. I have chosen not to explore faith/queerness too much in this fic bc I could write a whole fic just about that. I also have changed the setting; it is no longer set in Austria, nor in WWII, bc I didn’t want to write Nazis into the story. So the war is a generic one and the country is just a non-descript one. Sorry @ all purists out there.

Thank you thank you thank you Holtzmanns for beta-ing for me and always supporting me, I’m Soft and I love you.

Vanessa hadn’t grown up with the war, not necessarily. She’d grown up with it around her, but never with her own home involved. It was carried in the crackle of the radio, shouted during family dinners. Exposed and documented in the pictures and print of the daily newspaper. But it stayed far away, a concept instead of a reality—until suddenly, it wasn’t.

The talk on the radio was becoming more serious. Family dinners suddenly became quiet. There were fewer wreckages and more pictures of government officials in the papers. Movies became focused on military glory, on the strength of men and triumph in conflict. There was no doubt about it–something was on the horizon, something big.

But women weren’t meant for war. Women weren’t meant for politics. Women weren’t meant for rebellion or labour. Weren’t meant for jumping in to stop a crisis before it started. So Vanessa stayed out of it.

Until she didn’t.

It was often said that the road to Hell was paved with good intentions. Vanessa wasn’t sure where the country was going, but on the day that the war spilled over into her town, the road to church was paved with nuns. Some of them sold rosaries and carnations to raise money for peace advocacy initiatives and the Red Cross. Some sat stony-faced with signs reminding passersby that every soldier was somebody’s child. Still others wailed in the streets, crying out prayers for the dissolution of borders, for countries to disarm and dissolve their militaries.

Those words weren’t meant for women, but they were spoken anyway.

And Vanessa wanted to speak them, too.

She passed by the nuns every day for months, multiple times a day, back and forth from home to church and home again. Sometimes she prayed the rosary; other times she joined a prayer intentions group; most of the time, she listened to the daily Mass and vespers, mouthing along with the priest’s words like she knew every blessing by heart. No matter what, the image of the nuns stuck in her mind, and soon, prayers for the nuns morphed into prayers to be one.

Vanessa had never been the type to dwell on decisions. For her, everything was simple; want or don’t want. Support or be against.

Do, or don’t.

She was walking home from Eucharistic adoration when she took her chance.

“Sign our petition for armistice to the government, my child?” The large, kind-looking woman smiled as she walked up, extending her clipboard and pen.

“Thank you, reverend Mother.” Vanessa smiled as she took the pen. “Now, if you have a minute, can I talk to you real quick?”

Vanessa started her aspirancy the day after she took Mother Nina aside. As Nina had explained it, aspirancy was a period of prayer, introspection, and counselling, requiring no less than three hours a day with the sisters, including an hour of talking things out with Nina herself. It was interesting–growing up, Vanessa had experienced nuns as surly, overly-disciplined, punitive in their desire for asceticism and obedience from everyone around them. Nina, on the other hand, was warm and inviting, someone who Vanessa found incredibly easy to talk to. So she did, her daily sessions flying by easily and almost as if they were too short.

You need to quiet down. You need to be disciplined. You need to watch yourself and your mouth. Vanessa had heard it over and over; but Nina never told her those things. Instead, it was almost as if she was even more appreciative of Vanessa for all of the things that the other nuns thought were weaknesses; loudness became spirit, stubbornness became conviction, rashness became childlike whimsy. And Nina never used the words eliminate or discourage either, words that Vanessa had grown used to hearing and used to hating; instead, Nina promised to refine and shape Vanessa, to productively harness her gifts. And Vanessa tried, she really did. She went with the sisters to morning prayers and cried with them in the streets. She did community service with them and volunteered in their kitchen to make their meals. By the six month mark, Vanessa was more than ready to say yes to postulancy, to commit herself wholeheartedly to the convent.

Unfortunately, as supportive as Nina was, she could also be stern, and so she held Vanessa off.

“It’s not just about what you want,” Nina would warn, “It’s about what God wants, too.” So Vanessa prayed, prayed without ceasing, prayed over every thought that came to her mind or feeling that came in her heart. And then the prayers melted away–meditations became recitations, hollow words spread above the swelling lightness in Vanessa’s chest. She got through fewer and fewer passages of the Bible every day, because she would zone out and get lost picturing the scenes of the very first lines to hit her eyes. And every prayer, every act of Grace, became less and less somber, until finally, Vanessa felt God the most when she was playing with the neighbourhood kids, smiling back at them over games of house and babbling conversations.

“Are there other aspirants working with you and the sisters right now, reverend Mother?” Vanessa asked during a session, when a pause in the conversation filled the room for the first time since Vanessa came to know the convent.

Nina smiled. “Why do you ask, Vanessa?”

“Because I’d like to meet them. I wanna get to know them, get to be friends with ‘em.”

It wasn’t something out of character for Vanessa to say–it wasn’t something even remotely new to her to want. In fact, it was something she’d wanted to ask since the very first day of her aspirancy, but had thought might make her seem immature, like a schoolgirl who just wanted to gossip instead of seriously considering her faith.

Nina paused for a moment, her smile unwavering, before nodding, her eyes gleaming with pride.

“Yes, I think you’re ready. In fact, I think I could do you one better–how would you like to enter postulancy with us?”

[solipsistful]

veteransystem replied to your post: alcoholism tw, substance abuse tw[[MOR] talking...

Is it terrible that the connection between abstinence models and the cultural/psychological elements of Protestantism sounds like a great topic to me? —Jack-Wilbur

Denial!

ok so i’m in love with this linguistic anthropologist E. Summerson Carr who has looked at this stuff extensively. this is a fun piece a bit more specifically about the “selfhood” thing. most of this is just my synthesis of her stuff, but some of it is general Foucauldian stuff too.

there’s this love of “the accurate portrayal of yourself” -- as if there is just One Self that You Are -- your individualized soul that exists separate from any context. that’s not a universal concept. and recognizing and representing this Soul is what drug use is meant to simultaneously impair (because of impaired cognition) and, maybe more importantly, reflect poorly on (because it’s a disease of denial, which means you aren’t portraying yourself accurately to yourself). and that’s bad, because if you don’t understand yourself and your circumstances, how can you give your testimony accurately?

(there’s a certain pattern to the Christian testimony that should feel familiar. i love Carr’s phrase: “predictable narratives of early trauma, accelerated denial, rock bottom, and willful recovery”. conversion stories are everywhere when you know how to look. some other fun parallels: the pre-recovery narrative is meant to be controlled by external forces; the source of internal strength is the Holy Spirit, yknow?)

so, being untruthful in your account of yourself and your past, being incapable of converting (or narrating your conversion)? prioritizing something external over the Holy Spirit? that’s sin, and you don’t moderate sin. you don’t get to deny a little bit, you 4. Make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

and if that’s sin? well, this maybe less specifically a Protestant thing (spoiler: im not actually sure what prompts people to connect something to Protestantism and what to Christianity in general. look we were raised atheist don’t blame us), but confessions are particularly good at emphasizing the idea of and importance of context-free inner truth (5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.)

(how “denial” and alcoholism got so linked is. a bit more complicated. but the point is is that denial is almost an affront to how Christian selfhood works. it’s not a coincidence that it’s not uncommon for people to accuse atheists of “being in denial about the reality of God” or “turning away from the Christ they must necessarily feel within themselves”)

then, of course, you get this plus stuff like asceticism, “sins of the flesh” and all that, or purity and hygiene movements that really shaped the environment in which AA was first brought together. :V

- Ace

[cithaerons]

David F. Tinsley, The Scourge and the Cross: Ascetic Mentalities of the Later Middle Ages

[givemearmstopraywith]

ed tw/

let me make something really clear. ever since this blog took off i have slowly but certainly seen simone weil and catherine of siena and christian mystics famous for their asceticism show up in various thinspo and proana spaces disguised as coquette/waif/y2k aesthetic pages. catherine of siena and simone weil both died of starvation because of their extreme ascetic practices. that is not asceticism: that is an eating disorder. we see evidence of this throughout stories of mystics who practiced extreme asceticism, male and female, which is why the catholic church now strictly regulates the process of fasting. if we are facing a time where extreme asceticism is being coopted as an unhealthy “aesthetic” i sure as shit am not going to allow people to take the most unhealthy epitome of asceticism and use it as an excuse to hurt themselves when religious devotion is not characterized by hurting onself. its characterized by stripping back worldly needs to what is needed. food is needed. indulging your hunger is needed if you are someone who is naturally inclined towards starvation. sorry you guys are mass reblogged something i wrote for myself as i face the relapse of my ED and decided to pick it apart. that is not my fault. if you dont like the post dont look at it. 

severe self-discipline and avoidance of all forms of indulgence indulging hunger period is one thing, indulging all your hungers is tricking yourself. we hunger for many things, not all of which we need. "girl help" indeed

i love how you completely lack reading comprehension