#he outlives everyone out of pure spite alone.

[atelierlili]

Peeta would give Buttercup a seat the table for dinner. It would piss Katniss the fuck off, but as the old demon gets older, she softens and passes him more scraps when she thinks Peeta isn't looking.

[facelessxchurch]

Headcanons: The Red Right Hand

• Serpine is one of only a handful of people who ever gained the red right hand and not only bc it's a forbidden technique even among necromancers. Powerful magic like this takes a price not everyone is willing or able to pay. If you want to cause pain, you'll need to endure pain as well.

-> For one, the process of creating the red right hand is excruciating and requires a high pain tolerance and self-discipline.

-> Second, even if the ritual is a success the red hand might not work for its user. For it to function you must have the sincere will to kill and to cause pain. Any second thoughts, hesitations or any other form of reluctance and the technique will fail (think the three unforgivable curses from HP). This is a technique only someone sure of their own sadism would ever attempt to learn.

• That also means that the red hand is safe to touch as long as Nef has no interest in killing you and prevents him from killing anyone on accident.

• Despite that everyone (apart from Mevolent) still gets nervous when he takes the glove off.

• (That's why his coup failed. He tried to kill Mev with his red hand, but when he hesitated it stopped working.)

• Nef always wears a pair of black leather gloves bc wearing one glove would look odd and make him stand out, which could get in the way of him manipulating and charming his way to his goal.

• Even after the ritual is completed the hand will never stop hurting though the pain did dull with time. Nef got used to it eventually.

• But the more he uses the hand the more it hurts (nerfs the hand so he can't just one shot kill everyone). The worse the pain gets the longer it will take him to recover from it. Being masochistic as well as sadistic Nef revels in the pain he has to endure as much as the pain he causes but once it surpasses a certain level he'll require pain-numbing leaves which he always carries for cases like this. If he is desperate enough to use his hand until he himself ends up screaming on the floor, curled around his red hand he is long past the point where pain leaves will help.

• The Red Hand is the ultimate "I will shatter myself to cut you with the shards" which fits Nef and his spiteful, self-destructive tendencies so well.

• While the shadows necromancers use are magic fuelled by death, the red hand is pure death magic.

The Ritual/Learning the Technique

The ritual involved him having to flay his own hand. He needed to do everything himself or it won't work

There is no need to use the right hand for the technique to work. It just happens that Nef is left-handed. For one it would be foolish to do something like this to your dominant hand. But also, flaying yourself is hard enough with your dominant hand, let alone your other. Imagine the strength of will it took for him to calm himself and try to suppress the shaking of his hands as he kept cutting.

During the ritual, the use of anything that would dull the pain is strictly prohibited.

As if being flayed isn't bad enough, he had to coat his hand in a mix of oils and herbs which burned like hell. They prevent the exposed flesh from getting infected or bleeding out and offer the protection that normally the skin would have provided. It also prevents it from healing.

All through the ritual he has to repeat the incantations Tenebrae dictated to him in a magic language he only half understands due to its age and lack of access to the resources he would need to fully understand it despite his best efforts to obtain them.

Unbeknownst to Nef the temples have the missing texts needed to fully learn the language which is how Tenebrae was able to to change the incantations so the red hand would temporarily kill any necromancer it was used on before resurrecting them. This would ensure Skul's survival as well as protect the temples (including himself) from Nef should he decide they outlived their usefulness.

The ritual to learn the technique is written down in the Grimoire of a dark mage and former leader of the Irish Necromancer Temple which is why they still have it long after his passing and can use it without triggering the protection curse placed upon it. The curse is the only reason Nef didn't force them to hand the Grimoire over. He can either deal with breaking a curse or stay friendly with the necromancers. The latter seemed less suicidal.

The Grimoire is presumably still hidden in the abandoned Irish temple somewhere.

[lilquill]

i take it you read circe!! did you like it?

I did read Circe!! And my gosh, I’m in LOVE with everything about it!! The language is stunning, the portrayal of emotions is done incredibly well, the themes are complex, and I couldn’t put the book down! I spent several nights in a row reading until 2 A.M.! All in all it was a captivating, exquisite story.

There will be spoilers below the read more cut, just so all those who haven’t read it yet can go in with a fresh perspective if they wish!

The first thing that really hits you is the prose. It’s BEAUTIFUL! The tone of it is very much like a myth or fairy tale, ethereal and full of stunning descriptions and metaphors, which fits perfectly with the story it’s telling.

Circe’s own powers are strong in transformation, and the way that her narration uses incredible metaphors reflects that quite well: looking at something and seeing something else as it.

I loved the aesthetic of the book. The vivid imagery really sucks you in! Picturing a young girl in the dark halls of Helios, a young woman desperately wringing our herbs over the sleeping body of her beloved to make him a god, a weary yet defiant mother holding her baby and casting a spell to spite the Olympians, a woman walking into the sea to confront a massive god as old as the planet to ask for his tail and risking eternal torture, a daughter finally standing up to the sun god himself to demand her freedom as he almost scorched her….I could go on! The writing was so evocative, and I had chills at so many points!

I also loved the structure of the story itself, and its circular narrative that contrasted itself. How it starts with a cruel family where she felt out of place and alone, and how it ends with her having found her family, bound by love and compassion. How it starts with her trying to turn her beloved into a god so he can be with her with pharmaka, and how it ends with her using that same herb to become mortal so she can live with those she loves. How it starts with her turning Scylla into a monster, and how it ends with her killing Scylla so she no longer kills mortals. How it starts with Helios burning her as she stands firm that she has harnessed an herb’s powers, to how it ends with her standing her ground against that same burning father with her own magic from those herbs as a defense. I could go on and on, but I loved how Circe grew and how she inverted the beginnings of her narrative.

The way that Circe’s tale spanned so many different stories in Greek mythology was done incredibly well and highlighted her experiences with love and loss and pain and her perspective on the world around her.

I also deeply loved Miller’s portrayal of Greek mythology as it is commonly known. The stories of great battles and grand feats have the glamor stripped back to reveal their ugliness and callousness, all with a switch of perspective. From the perspective of a woman relegated to the sidelines in these epic stories, a woman who has been watching all this happen for millennia, these stories change.

I’ve talked about how the senseless violence in a lot of western stories, both older and now, bothers me (maybe not on my blog, but definitely to a lot of my friends). Therefore, I really loved how Circe was genuinely upset by these things and sought to fix them.

There was so much tension, and the stakes were incredibly high, but Circe does not succumb to the usual fantasy protagonist’s “war is evil but it is necessary and this whole series is about war and the conflict of war, the protagonist throws up on the battlefield and then becomes a great warrior and/or commander and then it’s all good” type deal. She was not tangled in a “war” or “battle” in the literal sense, other than the conflict between Olympians and Titans in which she became a pawn. This is what I mean about tension without unnecessary violence!! So many books are just the literary equivalent of a first-person shooter, and this is certainly the case with a lot of portrayals of Greek mythology as well, especially because of the heavy influence of ancient Greece on the West today. Circe’s story is mired in violence, but the moments with no violence at all are some of the most breathtakingly intense and dramatic.

Circe’s kindness and love, though often fierce and burning and messy, and her aching loneliness, are such a stark contrast to the gods––and even some of the mortals like Odysseus––who care nothing for lives or genuine emotion. She truly loves people, and in the end it is the way that her relationships always end as she outlives them that motivates her to give up being a god. I really enjoyed this aspect of the story! The way Miller portrays love and relationships is something I truly want to see more of.

And, speaking of kindness and love and relationships, I LOVED Miller’s portrayal of motherhood. I enjoyed that it was a subversion of the ideal of pristine, perfect, pure, gentle white housewives while still maintaining a deeply loving mother-son relationship. Many seminal feminist stories by cis white women demonize motherhood, framing it as a cage for women. Then this experience becomes universalized to all women. The problem is that, for instance, in the case of women of color, having children and a loving family is what is often denied to us. The world forces the kids of mothers of color to grow up faster and tears their families apart.

Circe is a mother in this story. She struggles with raising her child, but she loves her son fiercely and deeply, to the point where she risks eternal torment just to protect him. The gods want to take her child away, and she endures great pain and works incredibly hard to keep him. It is how the world treats mothers of color.

Look at the struggles Black women go through during pregnancy, with inadequate care at their hospitals and little research on the issues and conditions they go through, and high rates of maternal death. (I strongly encourage that you look at the ProPublica/NPR collaboration series Lost Mothers for more on this!) Look at how Latine families are being torn apart at the border, and mothers are losing their kids as those children are given to white families. Look at how the families of indigenous peoples are torn apart as kids are taken from their mothers and forced into assimilation programs. Look at the forced sterilization of mothers of color, and how eugenics treats the bodies of women of color.

Circe’s story, though written by a white woman, was deeply resonant with these things, which is something I adored about the book.

And, of course, here’s the commentary on womanhood, and how women have their agency stripped from them. Reading Circe’s story was cathartic at points. The story of a girl abused, silenced by fear, constantly put down, growing and honing her powers to the point where she can challenge those with immeasurable power. The experiences of various women woven into the story, from Perse to Pasiphae to Medea to the nymphs sent to Aiaia to Penelope. There’s so much to say tere, but Miller has already said it in her book.

I really really really deeply enjoyed this book!! Thank you for sending me this ask, anon, and I wish you well!! This reply was a lot longer than I expected, but there is truly so much to experience in this piece of literature and I’m definitely going to reread it soon!

Also, to everyone reading this, please feel free to send me your own takes on this book, and to @ me in your perspectives/reviews/etc.!! Much love to you all!!

[katiebug445]

We Could Be Immortals, Just Not For Long

LingFan Week: Day 4

Prompt: Immortality

A/N PLEASE READ WITH CAUTION. IT’S REALLY SAD. 

He hadn’t aged a day. Ling poked andprodded his skin in the mirror, looking for any sign of a wrinkle, a laugh line, a gray hair - anything - to indicate that he was aging at all.

It had been five years since he’d become emperor, and he still had the body of an 18 year old. It wouldn’t have been such a bad thing, but LanFan, Mei, and the rest of his friends and family were beginning to get older, to grow up, and he was left behind.

So far, it wasn’t too bad. Luckily for him, giving his body to the homunculus Greed had aged him a little, and he could pass for his mid twenties. Though before too long, he knew it would become a problem.

When Mei wrote to them explaining that she was engaged to Alphonse Elric, and sent a picture along with it, he couldn’t believe how much she’d grown up in such a short time.

When LanFan turned 29, she began to show the simple signs of getting older; the laugh lines around her mouth stuck out easily whenever she would smile. The crinkles around her eyes reached out closer to her hairline than they ever had. She’d even found her first couple gray hairs.

Ling wanted so badly to say he was going through this with her.

~

Edward was the first to go.

From what he’d heard, it was peaceful. At the age of 70, he went in the middle of the night, surrounded by his family, and apparently cursing that he was going to have to wait for everyone else for however long.

Ling couldn’t believe it. Out of everyone, he expected the oldest Elric to outlive all of them out of pure spite. Because that’s how Edward was. Larger than life in a pint sized package, with enough piss and vinegar in his heart to keep him around for a thousand years. Ling planned to visit him as soon as he could get away.

Roy was next. Ling had worked closely with Fuhrer Mustang since before he was given the position, in hopes of establishing a faster trade route from Amestris to Xing, and he’d even been present when Roy and the woman Lieutenant of his sneaked across the border to elope. He was happy for them, he could tell how much the two cared for each other. He and Miss Hawkeye were being driven back to his home by their son, when they were hit head on by a drunk driver. Roy sacrificed himself to save Riza, who was left alone after the deaths of her son and husband.

Miss Riza died of a broken heart not three months later.

Winry survived nearly two years after Edward. According to Alphonse, she’d overworked herself, and tried to stubbornly hand deliver a piece of automail to a child in in need, in the middle of winter, and ended up catching pneumonia. After a hard fought battle, the illness finally got to her, and it took her in her sleep. Their children had no idea what to do with themselves.

Alphonse was the next to go. With Mei at his side, the younger of the two Elrics had one last slice of apple pie, lay down in their bed, and closed his eyes with his hand in hers. When he didn’t wake up the next morning, she had called home to tell them all what had happened, and said she planned on returning home soon for a visit.

The trip across the desert was to be her last. She’d brought her and Al’s three children along for the ride, hoping they would get to know their Xingese relatives a little better, to know they still had some family left in the world.

When Mei arrived, it was apparent that she wasn’t handling things well. They all knew how much she loved her Alphonse, enough even to leave her clan and follow him back to Amestris when he left originally. She made it nearly a year and a half, living a nearly solitary life in the palace alongside her emperor brother, before she left them, explaining that it had been too long since she’d seen Alphonse and the rest of her small family. The last thing she said was that Ling shouldn’t keep her waiting forever before she got to see him again.

Lan Fan was the last one to go.

At 92, she was tired. She’d long since been replaced by another bodyguard, and got to spend the rest of her days in worry that nobody could do her job as well as she could. But every night, Ling came to bed, crawled in beside her, and held her in his arms. “You haven’t aged a day,” she told him, a gentle hand on his cheek. “You still look the same as you did on our wedding day.”

“And so do you,” he replied, his throat tight. “You’re still every bit as beautiful as you were that night.” He could see her rolling her eyes at him, but he didn’t miss the slight blush coloring her cheeks, either. His heart felt like a rock in his chest, seeing her like this, knowing what was coming sooner than he would have liked to admit.

“Maybe on the inside.” she settled back against her pillow, her breath light, and closed her eyes. “Thank you, Ling.”

He looked up at her, his eyebrows furrowed, and asked, “for what?”

“For always being you. For giving me one hell of an adventure of a life. It’s more than I could have ever asked for.”

“You helped make it one, Lan. But don’t talk like this, please. We still have more adventures to take!” He told her, his voice tight. Ling swallowed around the lump in his throat, and held her hand a little tighter. “Right?”

LanFan shook her head, slowly opening her eyes so she could see his face. “Thank you, my lord.” She gave his hand one final squeeze, and shut her eyes again. After a few moments, the rise and fall in her chest stopped, and LanFan was completely still.

“Lan?” He called, giving her a gentle shake. “LanFan?” Still holding onto her hand, he got to his feet, crawled up onto the bed, and shook her again. “No, please, LanFan! Don’t leave me!” He sobbed, cradling the love of his life in his arms, the tears finally breaking free and splashing onto her face. “You’re all I have left, you can’t leave me! LanFan!”

After a desperate few moments, he finally gave up trying to wake her, and let acceptance take hold of his heart. She was gone. The one person who he hoped would stay by his side forever, the one he’d always fought so hard to protect, was gone.  He was completely on his own, now.

Everyone who he’d ever loved, who he’d let into his heart, was gone.

Ling caught sight of himself in the mirror across the room, his face red, his eyes puffy, but still in perfect shape, with a face frozen forever at the age of 18.

He’d achieved his goal, yes, but what good was immortality if there was nobody left to share it with?