#damned lends
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The tax sharks are back and they’re coming for your home
I'm touring my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me TODAY (Apr 27) in MARIN COUNTY, then Winnipeg (May 2), Calgary (May 3), Vancouver (May 4), and beyond!
One of my weirder and more rewarding hobbies is collecting definitions of "conservativism," and one of the jewels of that collection comes from Corey Robin's must-read book The Reactionary Mind:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Reactionary_Mind
Robin's definition of conservativism has enormous explanatory power and I'm always finding fresh ways in which it clarifies my understand of events in the world: a conservative is someone who believes that a minority of people were born to rule, and that everyone else was born to follow their rules, and that the world is in harmony when the born rulers are in charge.
This definition unifies the otherwise very odd grab-bag of ideologies that we identify with conservativism: a Christian Dominionist believes in the rule of Christians over others; a "men's rights advocate" thinks men should rule over women; a US imperialist thinks America should rule over the world; a white nationalist thinks white people should rule over racialized people; a libertarian believes in bosses dominating workers and a Hindu nationalist believes in Hindu domination over Muslims.
These people all disagree about who should be in charge, but they all agree that some people are ordained to rule, and that any "artificial" attempt to overturn the "natural" order throws society into chaos. This is the entire basis of the panic over DEI, and the brainless reflex to blame the Francis Scott Key bridge disaster on the possibility that someone had been unjustly promoted to ship's captain due to their membership in a disfavored racial group or gender.
This definition is also useful because it cleanly cleaves progressives from conservatives. If conservatives think there's a natural order in which the few dominate the many, progressivism is a belief in pluralism and inclusion, the idea that disparate perspectives and experiences all have something to contribute to society. Progressives see a world in which only a small number of people rise to public life, rarified professions, and cultural prominence and assume that this is terrible waste of the talents and contributions of people whose accidents of birth keep them from participating in the same way.
This is why progressives are committed to class mobility, broad access to education, and active programs to bring traditionally underrepresented groups into arenas that once excluded them. The "some are born to rule, and most to be ruled over" conservative credo rejects this as not just wrong, but dangerous, the kind of thing that leads to bridges being demolished by cargo ships.
The progressive reforms from the New Deal until the Reagan revolution were a series of efforts to broaden participation in every part of society by successively broader groups of people. A movement that started with inclusive housing and education for white men and votes for white women grew to encompass universal suffrage, racial struggles for equality, workplace protections for a widening group of people, rights for people with disabilities, truth and reconciliation with indigenous people and so on.
The conservative project of the past 40 years has been to reverse this: to return the great majority of us to the status of desperate, forelock-tugging plebs who know our places. Hence the return of child labor, the tradwife movement, and of course the attacks on labor unions and voting rights:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/06/the-end-of-the-road-to-serfdom/
Arguably the most potent symbol of this struggle is the fight over homes. The New Deal offered (some) working people a twofold path to prosperity: subsidized home-ownership and strong labor protections. This insulated (mostly white) workers from the two most potent threats to working peoples' lives and wellbeing: the cruel boss and the greedy landlord.
But the neoliberal era dispensed with labor rights, leaving the descendants of those lucky workers with just one tool for securing their American dream: home-ownership. As wages stagnated, your home – so essential to your ability to simply live – became your most important asset first, and a home second. So long as property values rose – and property taxes didn't – your home could be the backstop for debt-fueled consumption that filled the gap left by stagnating wages. Liquidating your family home might someday provide for your retirement, your kids' college loans and your emergency medical bills.
For conservatives who want to restore Gilded Age class rule, this was a very canny move. It pitted lucky workers with homes against their unlucky brethren – the more housing supply there was, the less your house was worth. The more protections tenants had, the less your house was worth. The more equitably municipal services (like schools) were distributed, the less your house was worth:
https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/06/the-rents-too-damned-high/
And now that the long game is over, they're coming for your house. It started with the foreclosure epidemic after the 2008 financial crisis, first under GW Bush, but then in earnest under Obama, who accepted the advice of his Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who insisted that homeowners should be liquidated to "foam the runways" for the crashing banks:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/06/personnel-are-policy/#janice-eberly
Then there are scams like "We Buy Ugly Houses," a nationwide mass-fraud outfit that steals houses out from under elderly, vulnerable and desperate people:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/11/ugly-houses-ugly-truth/#homevestor
The more we lose our houses, the more single-family homes Wall Street gets to snap up and convert into slum properties, aslosh with a toxic stew of black mold, junk fees and eviction threats:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/08/wall-street-landlords/#the-new-slumlords
Now there's a new way for finance barons the steal our houses out from under us – or rather, a very old way that had lain dormant since the last time child labor was legal – "tax lien investing."
Across the country, counties and cities have programs that allow investment funds to buy up overdue tax-bills from homeowners in financial hardship. These "investors" are entitled to be paid the missing property taxes, and if the homeowner can't afford to make that payment, the "investor" gets to kick them out of their homes and take possession of them, for a tiny fraction of their value.
As Andrew Kahrl writes for The American Prospect, tax lien investing was common in the 19th century, until the fundamental ugliness of the business made it unattractive even to the robber barons of the day:
https://prospect.org/economy/2024-04-26-investing-in-distress-tax-liens/
The "tax sharks" of Chicago and New York were deemed "too merciless" by their peers. One exec who got out of the business compared it to "picking pennies off a dead man’s eyes." The very idea of outsourcing municipal tax collection to merciless debt-hounds fell aroused public ire.
Today – as the conservative project to restore the "natural" order of the ruled and the ruled-over builds momentum – tax lien investing is attracting some of America's most rapacious investors – and they're making a killing. In Chicago, Alden Capital just spent a measly $1.75m to acquire the tax liens on 600 family homes in Cook County. They now get to charge escalating fees and penalties and usurious interest to those unlucky homeowners. Any homeowner that can't pay loses their home.
The first targets for tax-lien investing are the people who were the last people to benefit from the New Deal and its successors: Black and Latino families, elderly and disabled people and others who got the smallest share of America's experiment in shared prosperity are the first to lose the small slice of the American dream that they were grudgingly given.
This is the very definition of "structural racism." Redlining meant that families of color were shut out of the federal loan guarantees that benefited white workers. Rather than building intergenerational wealth, these families were forced to rent (building some other family's intergenerational wealth), and had a harder time saving for downpayments. That meant that they went into homeownership with "nontraditional" or "nonconforming" mortgages with higher interest rates and penalties, which made them more vulnerable to economic volatility, and thus more likely to fall behind on their taxes. Now that they're delinquent on their property taxes, they're in hock to a private equity fund that's charging them even more to live in their family home, and the second they fail to pay, they'll be evicted, rendered homeless and dispossessed of all the equity they built in their (former) home.
It's very on-brand for Alden Capital to be destroying the lives of Chicagoans. Alden is most notorious for buying up and destroying America's most beloved newspapers. It was Alden who bought up the Chicago Tribune, gutted its workforce, sold off its iconic downtown tower, and moved its few remaining reporters to an outer suburban, windowless brick building "the size of a Chipotle":
https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/16/sociopathic-monsters/#all-the-news-thats-fit-to-print
Before the ghastly hotel baroness Leona Helmsley went to prison for tax evasion, she famously said, "We don't pay taxes; only the little people pay taxes." Helmsley wasn't wrong – she was just a little ahead of schedule. As Propublica's IRS Files taught us, America's 400 richest people pay less tax than you do:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/13/for-the-little-people/#leona-helmsley-2022
When billionaires don't pay their taxes, they get to buy sports franchises. When poor people don't pay their taxes, billionaires get to steal their houses after paying the local government an insultingly small amount of money.
It's all going according to plan. We weren't meant to have houses, or job security, or retirement funds. We weren't meant to go to university, or even high school, and our kids were always supposed to be in harness at a local meat-packer or fast food kitchen, not wasting time with their high school chess club or sports team. They don't need high school: that's for the people who were born to rule. They – we – were meant to be ruled over.
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/26/taxes-are-for-the-little-people/#alden-capital
#pluralistic#chicago#illinois#alden capital#the rents too damned high#debt#immiseration#chicago tribune#private equity#vulture capital#cook county#liens#tax evasion#taxes are for the little people#tax lien certificates#tax sharks#race#racial capitalism#predatory lending
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finally watched all of Hazbin, definitely cried a bit at Episode 7 and sent Morgana a tearful message
youtube
#damn what if you were in a community of people who got shit on a lot by authorities for arbitrary but moralised reasons#and people in that community looked up to you and expected you to inspire and lead them#but you didn't feel ready or entitled to do that#cause a lot of the reason they look up to you is privilege and you just want to lend a hand not flex on people#and you're a queer woman and people look down on you for that#but you're all under threat and the need is dire#so you have to find your courage and stop being so self-critical and just try to do good for the people you love#that's crazy how they put me in the show#they shouldn't be allowed to put me in the show#charlie morningstar#Transgender Princess of Hell#Hazbin Hotel#Youtube
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HUSK, Hotel Bartender & Concierge | 1x04 - Masquerade
"Oh, I FORGOT — you're the wise-old bartender who's seen it all! Get the fuck over yourself and pour me a real drink."
#hazbin hotel#husk#husk hazbin hotel#hazbin husk#hazbin hotel edit#masquerade#my gifs#character spotlight#Certified Redemption ☑︎#hello hi i'm in love with the kitty man like actually#he NEEDS more screentime in s2 in fact he needs his own episode#PLS PLS she confirmed that we're gonna get to know some (but not all) of the character's backstories in s2 PLEASE LET HUSK BE ONE OF THEM#I'LL ACTUALLY DIE THANK YOU#alright i'm coming back to these tags to point stuff out#first off - the fact that he closes his eyes and shakes his head and reaches up to hold his suspenders before offering actual help#physically hyping himself up to lend a hand even though his whole thing is having an empty shell of a heart - apparently.#AAAAAA#but ALSO#holding his suspenders - self soothing gesture possibly? he knows lending a hand could give way to vulnerability on his end regardless if h#even shares personal information about himself or not - at the BARE MINIMUM he is saying ''look. i care a little. okay?'' by even OFFERING#help to begin with. AND OTHER THING!!!!!!!#the fact that he himself bitched and moaned earlier that episode about how EVERYONNEEE likes to bitch to the bartender#and he talks about how he knows everything about everyone seemingly against his better wishes#it's all part of the job he's forced to do#so you could also look at him shaking his head as a way for him to literally ''shake off'' that attitude because again. HE CARES.#even if it's just a little.#then GODDDDD his reaction to angel breaking down. the way he softens. his ears go down. he looks to the ground.#his ''old crusty heart'' was actually touched - not in the happy way of course. it was pain. struck with sympathy and remorse.#LISTEN I LOVE THIS GOD DAMN CAT OKAY
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Alex Ovechkin, but I assume the hammer would break upon impact with his head…
hitting hammer with alex ovechkin
#damn it now i gotta buy a new one#sasha lend me a 20?#alex ovechkin#washington capitals#caps lb#caps hockey#reqs open
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"This is only the beginning— the beginning of the end."
STRANGER THINGS SANS VISAGES S04E09 - The Piggyback (Part II of II)
#st gifs#byler#jancy#eddie munson#max mayfield#will byers#el hopper#henry creel#st sans visage#my gifs#useraimz#userallisyn#tuserrae#userkam#usersen#userelz#userpunk#tuserashes#tuserblake#dailystrangerthings#stranger things#and with this—THIRTY FIVE GIFSETS AND TEN MONTHS LATER—I have officially finished st sans visages...until S5#I can't believe we made it. I started this solely as a means to visually appreciate the series#and now nearly TWO YEARS TO THE DAY of season four...i've finished them. and my gifmaking skills have expanded SO dramatically#even just because of this series. especially color correction omg#anyway!!! thank you SO much to all the people who have cheered me on through every single one of these#especially when the gaps between sets was damn near as long as we all spend waiting for the duffers lmaoooo#.......also if you made it this far: apologies for the final gif cropping out jopper lmao the structure of the shot did NOT lend itself to#everyone being in the square version of the shot#so I centered it around El and ran lmaoooo
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We all know Timmy is Wanda’s mama’s boy but we need to keep in mind he’s still Cosmo’s kid too and that Cosmo would love him just as vehemently as Wanda
#fairly oddparents#not that anyone has portrayed him different#certainly not distance he loves Timmy he probably says it the most in the show and in fanon#but still- watching New Wish there felt like there was a disconnect with Cosmos character-like he wasn’t as well defined as he was in OG#that’s in part due to them toning him down from being an idiot plain and simple but I feel like it wasn’t fitted with something else it was#simply taken away#just to say he didn’t have as much of a presence to me in New Wish as Wanda did and I crave spinning Cosmo around in my brain#I want to see Poof being his Dad’s Boy yknow and I want to see cosmo doting and I want to see when he gets like. parental rage for the sake#of his kids#yknow? Yknow? part of him feeling detached in a new wish has translated into him not wanting to get as close to Hazel as he did Timmy-#to try and play it more like godparents are supposed to- just a presence for a couple months#but also because like. he got SO attached to Timmy and he’ll never regret it and he’d never do anything different#but idk. if it were me I wouldn’t have the capacity to go through losing my godkid again after becoming that attached#that’s not even mentioning that they don’t HAVE to be in hazel’s life the same way they were in Timmy’s because Timmy was going through#neglect and Hazel has loving family and friends all around her at all times- her blocks are mental#in that way cosmo and Wanda just have to do the Typical Godparent Job of aiding her- not becoming people she desperately needs in life#which also bleeds into why I think Peri was having such a. difficult time#godparents aren’t supposed to be attached the way his family was to Timmy and that how he learned it#but his first godkid is Not Easy and lends immediately to the issues Timmy was having where he HAS parents he HAS things (though . Timmy#was not rich and would sometimes not be fed… dev’s dad also forgets to feed him but dev is still able to eat you know)#and how he grew up with his parents as godparents and how he’s been taught are conflicting and it’s nature vs doing a good job quoteunquote#I didn’t mean to ramble so damn much in the tags I’m really sorry#told myself if I had more to say I’d write it down and post it later but I must be heard.
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anyone wanna talk about how much i love cas this week?
“any time they try, it’s like it it breaks them apart”
and cas keeps trying!
he keeps trying to overcome a billion years of brainwashing and programming, and he overcomes so much in such a short time. he has victories and setbacks but
but!
by season 15, his will is iron
he prays to chuck for help, but the moment he reads chuck’s intentions as a liar, he has no qualms against turning away, and it is amazing!!! i don’t think you understand just how amazing
it’s such a wonderful moment, tucked away in a season where sam is paralyzed, waylaid, and discomfited by chuck, where dean both gets on board w/ and suckered by chuck, and then has a existential crises over him, where a tough cookie like eileen is puppeted ratatouille-style by him…
cas turns away!
#cas things#cas vs chuck#cas has had too many existential crises already#cas gets suckered a lot early in the series#but here at the 11ty hour it’s sam and dean getting suckered#even by belohagor#cas: and you just HAPPEN to have the right spell…#cas does a fantastic job early s15 when all these weirdos flood in#and then!#he leaves and decides nope i’m gonna lend my strength to this fight#it is only when jack reappears that he is shaken#and clings too hard alongside dean to billie’s plan#but the front end of 15 has some incredible moments of cas seeing through everyone#oops spelling damn
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I have a lot of thoughts with Maxwell and Wendy as a dynamic duo because nine times out of ten I make that angsty kid despite that old man. Wendy is filled with heart crushing pains and confusions, all of these emotions can be easily pinned on the man who took her into a nightmare dimension. But in those few cases where I kinda envision them working together or having a closer familial bond, it’s so… fascinating. How thick is blood when your uncle is barely something or someone you truly know anymore?
#I’m just rambling#I’d like to imagine Maxwell really lends himself to kindness with Wendy#he doesn’t have much in this nightmare dimension. maybe he can still keep his family#but maybe Wendy doesn’t want family#or connection#at least for now#she’s stuck in this whirlwind of chaos and pain#the personification of her grief literally follows her around like damn Abby you’re awesome but you existing means Wendy will never move on#she has no reason to move on#death is her constant reminder but in this place it is merely a minor setback#I’m rambling again#Maxwell get your niece a snack#she’s probably hungry and tired from doing nothing
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Daily excerpt from chapter 27 of A Stain that Won't Dissolve:
'You said them,' Alex said, his voice rough. Sebastian looked at him in confusion. 'You said them first.' 'No- No, I didn't.' Sam grimaced, and Abigail looked at Sebastian, frustration on her face. 'You did!' she exclaimed. 'You were the one who told us! And then he proved you right, because he punched you the day you told him his mom got cancer to get away from her only son. You even said she didn't have any other kids because like, she met Alex, and realised it was a mistake. So I don't get why you're spending so much time with him now.' Sebastian stared between Alex and Abigail, and Alex couldn't read the expression on his face. But he could tell Sebastian didn't seem caught out, he looked like someone who didn't fucking remember. Someone who just...cast it aside and thought about other things, different things. Who married the farmer, became rich, left and came back richer. 'You fucking... You fucking forgot,' Alex breathed. 'You don't remember at all, do you? Where do you think your little fucking minions learned to talk like that? Huh? Where the fuck do you think they learned it?'
#a stain that won't dissolve#thespectaclesofthor#sdv fic#stardew valley fic#sdv alex#sdv sebastian#sebastian x alex#mm romance#slow burn#queer romance#hurt comfort#enemies to lovers#angst#welp this was pretty unavoidable#but damn i love writing arguments too sadlkfjsa idk they're so#crunchy and lend themselves to hurt comfort
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hamlet and horatio are both bottoms, but if they were to have sex—purely for character exploration purposes—then hamlet would act as the holy lance, and horatio, jesus’ side wound
#i know the whole ‘pampered prince’ archetype lends to a character being a bottom but#hamlet’s despair for most of the play is over his desire to enact vengeance‚ or in other words‚ penetrate#despite his inability to just do the damn thing#he is uncomfortable with the role of executioner‚ of persecutor#thus i think he should act as such in sex too#except this time the act of penetrating ilicits pleasure instead of pain#and in that i think he should still be uncomfortable because he’s so sure he’s a harbinger of pain#and to cause someone he loves pleasure and good feelings is foreign to him! just look at the events of the play!#and i don’t think they’d be having picturesque sex but this is tumblr of course they’re not having picturesque sex#they’re getting desperate and sloppy and tragic about it#🐰#so happy i’m finally reading hamlet.
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fic description accurate mirilori shots
#girl is a light armor user so konahrik gathers dust until she gives it to miraak. or well LENDS IT#'you think a dragon parts with her hoard so easily?'#hehehe#mirilori#lorelei#not gonna tag miraak here cause like hes wearing a completely different outfit might as well be just some guy unless u know its him there#damn i wish his thick ass forearms didnt clip into the gauntlet bits#myscs
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faves of 2023: YA fantasy (secondary world)
To Shape A Dragon's Breath
Lucha of the Night Forest
Sheiné łénde
The Siren, The Song, and The Spy
Into The Midnight Void
City of Nightmares
#read in 2023#....damn I'm getting real picky about ya fantasy not set in the real world haha#honestly even of these; TSADB is near perfect i would recommend to everyone; the others just vibe with me personally#To Shape A Dragon's Breath#Lucha of the Night Forest#the siren the song and the spy#into the midnight void#sheine lende#SL is teeechnically more like our world but since I have already posted that post and I hadn't posted thi s one#and i needed something to make it an even 6...
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The absolute dilemma between free books and local library begin a fucking nightmare
#it's PUBLIC#PUBLIC I TELL YOU#and it's next to school#next to? my bad! you have to cross the break area outside#damn right it feels like trespassing#and you have all those teens stare at you like deer in headlights#but hey- at least it's open on Saturday when schools close right?#between ten and twelve in the morning just two damn hours#they do have some things to lend I'd enjoy but the placement and opening hours? a damn nightmare#not to mention it closes just ONE HOUR after school closes#just make it a school property at this point
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Daymare Town
#daymare town#pastel games#mateusz skutnik#flash#damn a whole month! felt longer and shorter lol#anyway i was thinking about this blog a lot but kept forgetting to actually post or couldn't decide what to post#but recently i watched angel's egg (amazing movie!!) and the town in it kind of reminded me of this game...#it's the desolation and the way it could appear normal at first but was actually strange and and surreal#i don't like daymare town that much. i love the artstyle but it's easy to get lost or not notice a location#and some of the puzzles are very counter-intuitive. adventure game (derogatory).#but on the other hand i guess all of that lends to the atmosphere of a weird town where nothing makes sense lol#also pictured: my house and i am only half-kidding
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"Don't your lot disapprove of guns?" Crowley asks, knowing damn well that Aziraphale keeps a hollowed out book with a gun inside it in his shop.
#“they lend weight to a moral argument” aziraphale says knowing damn well the last time they touched a gun he almost made crowley shoot him#good omens#ineffable husbands#ineffable soulmates#ineffable spouses#good omens fandom#ineffable fandom#crowley good omens#crowley#azirpahale#aziraphale good omens
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Black Arum ┆ Siegrain
Content warning: main character death, cannibalism, gore, toxic/unreliable narrator, highly canon divergent character portrayal. Read at your own risk. You will probably take psychic damage from this.
╳┆A lure was stuck in the soot between his lungs. Many times he'd felt the tug — enough that the wire fray had worn a rut where his ribs met — and many times he'd found her on the other end, reeling for remnants of him that no longer existed. She would aim to break him open, sift around in the cinders for those specks of him she wanted to confiscate, keep for herself, so that she could finally be rid of him. Once those flecks were washed and panned, the remains would reek like plough mud closure. For that reason he would come to her whole, every whit of ash accounted for.
A cherry little game they'd play. Her with flint and steel, eager to reignite that paltry spark of "good" that flickered freely for a lapse before he remembered himself. Him with tinder and kindling, letting it light only to call on the rain again. Her with just enough hope. Him with just enough time.
That resolve was so very compelling. More than her beauty, her candor, and even that glow he so loved to bask in — that luster he wanted to hold between his teeth and bury under his nails — more than that, her tenacity was a toothsome temptation, and he wasn't keen to deny himself anything.
So when he felt the pull, he caved to the beck and spooled the lisle. That day, the line seemed lighter, thinner, than it ever had. It should've been strong. Tensile. Instead it felt gossamer fine and just as frail, poised to tear at an ill touch, and he wasn’t exactly renowned for his gentle hands. Still, he gathered it with both palms and wrapped it proudly around himself like a ceremonial sash, grin scrawled across his face something devilish.
╳┆He found her lying in the shade beneath a long-lived magnolia, still and silent as she never was, with the color of her namesake spread around her head in halo streaks. Battle-torn, as she so often was, and yet uncannily... passive.
Anything he'd planned to say went out the airlock. Instead, he stood there with an anchor in his stomach, reaping the benefit of doubt.
Not a frown nor a sigh when he darkened her sanctum, only heavenward eyes tearless and unblinking and a resigned breath just short of peaceful. That worn tether waned phantom thin, light as helium, and the tension in his chest went slack.
There was no definite snap. No dramatic severing or ear-popping moment of clarity. Only the vague sense of loss so fresh a wound that denial was a numbing salve.
“Get up,” his voice a command, sandgrit against whetstone, thickened by an unnamed antigen.
The silence felt like mockery. A placid scene void of chittering fauna, clouds' drum, or even the most timid breeze. It wanted him to hear the absence of her breath and the stillness of her chest. It wanted him to hear the hollow. The empty. The nothing. Wanted it to resonate; to find the furthest reaches of his mind and clean them out until all that was left was this icy, clarifying silence.
He knew the end when he saw it. This was something much worse. It was robbery.
Her life wasn’t for the world to take. It was for him to hold in his hands.
Something wet and pathetic slicked his tongue — some whiny, pleading thing — and it was stubborn as oil. The authority slid to the back of his throat and left him choking, “You are the indomitable Titania. You’ve laced fingers with Death time and again only to rise and slay and conquer, so get up.”
Her warmth was set to a slow drip, spilling from her in tired beads and seeping soundlessly into her chosen ground. Little whispers of her lost to greedy loam, sullied, never to be returned.
A waste of precious love. The sod won’t drink of her as he will. It will take of her and give back what? New “life” so fragile and fleeting? A feeble weed will take root, bloom its days few, and curl itself inside out? Pathetic. An insult to her legacy. An insult to the diamond-split sharp of her bladesoul.
His heart boiled over — popping, sticking, simmering sicksweet saccharine. It colored him cloying, flooded his mouth, and forced him to kneel at her altar.
"Please," he keened, hollow and morose, and his own pleading sickened him, “Say something.”
The sun trickled through the leaves like ichor, lighting up her black-blown eyes and the thin ring of honey surrounding them. Dim, distant, and dead as the moon.
His hand carved a path to her face, fingers featherlight against her fading flush. He brushed her bangs from her eyes and forced an unbroken breath through his quavering mouth. He traced each scar too faint to see and the parts of her skin their star kissed. Memorized the map of her face — each curve and crease, each fine hair, and every eyelash. He would carve out a space in his mind in her shape and fill it with the thousand sweet nothings he kept in his pockets.
He gathered her hand and threaded it with his own. When he opened his mouth, a rickety twine escaped from the deepest point of his chest, so he forced his jaws shut to keep the grief corked. He uncurled her fingers and pressed his cheek into her palm, trapping her there against his own scarred skin. His eyes fell shut as he breathed in this borrowed touch — this moment fated, stolen from him by this world's insatiable avarice.
He kissed her palm directly in the center; held it against his mouth and felt his own ruined breath echo back to him from the deepest grooves of her skin. Again, he begged, “Please, Erza.”
Of the armors innumerable now haunting this hallowed ground, this one least befit her.
He revered Death. If there was a god, surely it was Death, he thought, for Death asks for nothing but life. The dead don’t know that they’re dead. They know a split second of euphoria and then a sharp, definite end. Isn’t that the work of a gracious god? One last stroke of color whether in peace or peril, and then eternal rest. Back to the dust you sprouted from.
But now he couldn’t see any of that beauty he often waxed poetic about. All he could see was change yet to come. All he could see was her, and he wanted her back.
He wanted her back, yet he knew better than anyone that there was no such thing as resurrection. While Death might be gracious, it was not generous, and it was not to be reasoned with.
The thought of her buried deep, bathed by the dark and abandoned to rot — it washed his mouth acid sour. It ate straight through his tongue and lingered in the roots of his teeth, burning, raging redhot in his jaws’ marrow. A grave didn't suit her anymore than a pyre.
Soon she would be cold. Stiff. A feast for flies and their insatiable young. In the days to come, she would bubble and bloat and sallow. Her skin would loosen and slough off. The sun would bleach her bones. The meat of her would melt into oil and fat and bogspit. She would mix in with the soil, the groundwater, and this thankless magnolia would thrive.
It was tall, thick, with branches spread in all directions. The lowest of its limbs showed off the varied deep greens of its large waxy leaves, their undersides a chalky brown. A few white flowers bloomed, palm-shaped petals open in praise like they'd come to witness and worship. There was no question why she'd chosen to crawl here. It must've reminded her of home.
Despite its beauty, it was hardly worthy of her. Nothing in this ravenous world was. Her grave should be carved within his chest. There, he could keep her warm. He could host her in his veins. One day, they would wade the waters of woe together. Until then she could live under his skin.
He wouldn’t allow her to spoil. Wouldn’t place her gently into time’s whittlesome hands only to lose her peel by peel by rotting peel.
This world has taken much from you. Do not allow it to take her too.
A carnal ache etched itself into bone, a depth of passion he hadn't felt since he wrought for a false Heaven.
She is a fruit, ripe as a plum and twice the taste. Peel her open. There is a seed at her core. Plant it in your soot-field chest and watch her bloom anew.
What are these hands for if not this?
Flesh like sheets of silk. Muscle like rope. Blood like honey. Bone like an ivory trove. The splitting, the squelching, the straining, ripping, snapping; it burrowed marrow-deep and lingered there. Her chest peeled apart like jagged teeth, jaws croaking their rusted tune, and inside that redslick maw was the center of the universe.
The heart upon its throne, still as she, shielded by her precious lungs. It slid into his palm like it was always meant to be there. Raw, rich, and so very scarlet. Its sinews strained against his pull — those hollow vines that fed even the furthest parts of her — so he wrenched them free and draped himself in them like matchless finery.
Eat. Eat ‘til you’re sick. There’s a hole the size of her in the pit of your stomach. Eat until you fill it.
What are these teeth for if not this?
Tough as leather; smooth as rubber. His teeth slid right off the rind and clicked together with nothing but metallic sheen between them. He gnashed at that ink-dripping muscle until he found a spot weak enough to tear apart. It tasted of rare meat and iron; a heady gore thick enough to drown in. He swallowed, gasped, and that first new breath felt like a blade.
The child inside him saw her split-open ribs as his cradle. He wanted to crawl inside, curl up, and die. He wanted to paint himself her color.
He lost his vision to the hot, angry wash. His own sobs were a distant sound, muffled by meat and blood and his own desperate fingers. He was numb in the mouth and in the shake of his hands, but he forced himself to eat, eat despite the choking, the gagging, the wet, weeping remorse.
Don’t you dare throw her up. Be grateful. Swallow and say thank you and finish what you’ve started.
He bit into his own palm, indistinguishable from her core, and he cried out in sour relief. His hands spread raw grief over his face, through his hair, and down his neck.
You’re no better than this starving world.
He curled into himself, hands clutching his own aching chest, and despite the cloudless sky, he called upon the rain.
#v: ✗ ┆ siegrain ┆ ◜ canon divergent ◞#⚶ ┆ ◜ drabbles ◞#I was in a silly goofy mood#reader beware#this one was an exorcism.#needed to purge this depravity.#hey guys what if I bare my soul and it's a festering wound.#did I provide context? no. am I sorry? also no.#this only works in darkverse.#this is very obviously not inline with canon Jellal's personality but with a mutated version of him I created to balance ->#the healing arc I'm putting him through in mainverse.#not love but a secret other thing (obsession. possession.)(...take my money... I don't need that shit...)#& now she haunts the narrative. in my mind. and his too.#In my defense I've never claimed not to be a degenerate#yeah actually I am kind of embarrassed about this thank you for asking#never thought I’d have to say this but I do not endorse or condone cannibalism.#hey Sieg have you ever thought about chilling. calming down perhaps. I say as if I did not put him in this situation.#I fear this is one of those things I’m going to look back on in a few months & say: that should've stayed in the drafts.#me personally I love posting cringe. it's what I deserve.#if god exists I will have to answer for this. catch me in the river Acheron sipping on straight up anguish.#can you tell I have been confronted by the fleeting nature of mortality more often than usual lately. be honest.#actually I decided to not to go too into depth with the gore this time. I feel like keeping it vague lends more to the fugue state#also because it was giving me REALLY weird dreams. so like. yeah. I could've made this worse. but should I have?#tags bout damn long as the drabble. sorry gang.#cannibalism tw#gore tw#main character death tw#body horror tw#dayne’s depravity#daynedepravity
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