#involved discussion of body parts and organs

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Patchwork Humanimal (Yasumi Kobayashi)

My first JP-Eng translation on this blog! A short horror story written by Yasumi Kobayashi (names presented in Western order) which presents an interesting twist on the 'mad scientist' narrative. All content warnings are in the tags.

Patchwork Humanimal

By Yasumi Kobayashi (小林泰三)

Originally titled 「人獣細工」*, published in the anthology of the same name

“The Dowager Empress then had Concubine Qi's limbs chopped off, blinded her by gouging out her eyes, cut off her tongue, cut off her nose, cut off her ears, forced her to drink a potion that made her mute, made her dumb with toxins, and locked her in the pigsty, and called her a human swine.”

- Records of the Grand Historian, Volume 9. On Empress Lü.

For a year after my father’s death, I felt almost nothing whatsoever. While it might sound like I couldn’t bear the deep affection I had for my father, I wouldn’t say that was the case. On the contrary, with my father’s death I let go of many years worth of resentment and became emotionally spent.

However, now that a year has passed, I am able to look back on the relationship between myself and my father objectively.

Though, in the eyes of society, my father’s affection for me was something exceptionally strong, I don’t think so whatsoever. Of course, the unfortunate truth is that if you ask me if I know how other households father’s really look after their children, I’d be hard pressed to answer. However, at the very least, based on what I’ve seen when I’d visited my friend’s homes to play or in soap operas and so forth, I’ve got a pretty good idea of how father’s generally behave towards their children.

I never felt any affection from my father.

If I ever said that, undoubtedly the people who knew my father would object.

“Your Father loved you very much. He was always talking about you whenever the topic allowed, and whenever he was on a business trip finding the perfect souvenir for you was always his top priority. You probably don’t remember this because you were still so young, but whenever I visited your home, you were sat upon your Father’s lap. Couldn’t the reason you don’t feel like your Father had any affection for you be because he was always wearing a gloomy expression around you, concerned as he was with your frail health? I feel sorry for your deceased Father, hearing you say such things.”

It’s natural they’d say that. Certainly, that’s how my father acted. And, certainly, I also remember that I always used to sit in my father’s lap when I was small.

Even so, sure enough, they were under a severe misunderstanding. They only saw my father’s conduct and heard his words. Even though they saw nothing more than the surface-level, they were under the mistaken impression that they knew the depths of his heart. What idiots they are. They were all fooled by my father’s performance.

It wasn’t that my father beat me when no-one was watching. If anything, his performance was even more over-the-top when it was just the two of us.

My father wanted the people around him, myself included, to believe that he loved me. After all, what my father did to my body would never have been permitted unless it was out of love.

People who only saw my father infrequently were easily fooled, but for me who spent every moment living with him, I was sensitive to how my father’s words and actions were all for show.

Similarly, at the times when I was sat upon my father’s lap, I could feel a palpable sense of tension from him on my back. What possible reason could a father have to feel so tense while sitting his beloved three-year old child on his lap?

The times where I couldn’t bear the way my father would tense up so tightly and leapt off his lap were numerous. At those times, without fail, my father would put me back and stroke my hair as he spoke.

“What’s wrong, Yuka? Do you dislike Daddy’s lap? Is the way Daddy’s holding you uncomfortable? Come sit in Daddy’s lap once more. Your Dad would really love for his darling daughter to come back and sit with him.” My father would force a laugh.

From the faint glimmer of sweat on his forehead as he made the expression, I was able to grasp my father’s true feelings. If I could, he wanted me to refuse to sit in his lap, by my own volition. I couldn’t stand the uncomfortable situation, either.

“Yuka wants to sit in a chair of her own. A much big, bigger one!” I remember I also joined in the performance.

My father was a physician. He was the head of his own clinic, as well as being employed as a lecturer at a university. My father’s specialty was organ transplants. Furthermore, I was my father’s patient.

His scalpel had cut into every inch of my body, from tip to toe. Due to a hereditary illness, almost all of my internal organs — including my heart and lungs — had defects in them. Since shortly after my birth, I’ve undergone numerous organ transplant surgeries. Ever since I gained consciousness, my memories have been almost nothing but a string of surgeries. My bedroom also serves as an infirmary. There’s a writing desk directly next to the bed which I work at while sitting on the bed as if it was a desk chair. There are always nurses and doctors coming to and from my room, so there’s no privacy to speak of whatsoever.

The organ transplants continued frequently until my late teens. Ever since elementary school, I’ve had to take a lot of time off. However, my father contributed hefty donations to the private schools I attended so I was able to graduate from high school without dropping out.

I became conscious of the people around me around the time I began puberty. Because I attended an all girls school, when it came time for P.E. class, we didn’t use a changing room. We just changed our clothes in a room cordoned off with a curtain. I always sat on the sidelines so I never had to change my clothes, but my classmate’s youthful skin which I despised was burned into my vision all the same. Of course, they weren’t completely naked nor were they ostentatiously showing off their bodies, but the smooth skin that showed in the spaces between their underwear was nothing like mine. My skin was rough, patchy and riddled with discoloured blemishes. The area from my neck and the area up to the tip of my wrists was fine, but everything my clothes covered was hideous. Ever since I realised that, I’ve worn long sleeved clothes even in the dead of summer. At first, my teacher’s tried to get me to wear the summer uniform in summer, but I had my father ask the school to make an exception for me and it was promptly accepted.

I wear tinted glasses, too. Wherever possible, I try to avoid exposing my skin; including my face. I wear my bangs loosely over my face and, though I don’t have a cold, I often wear a face mask. The bathroom in my house is furnished with a large mirror. That the mirror existed at all spoke volumes of my fathers lack of affection towards me. Against my will, my eyes are forced to look upon the indecipherable scars left behind by surgery that litter my entire body. My father was an incredibly skilled at performing transplants, but his talent for plastic surgery was dubious. The surgery scars he left on me were both haphazardly made and sewn up carelessly. I thought that the cuts are meant to follow the natural creases of the skin but you can clearly see that the skin on either side of the stitches is misaligned and overlapping. It also looks like no effort was made to hide the stitching. If anything, rather than a mistake, it’s as if they were stitched together tightly on purpose. This isn’t how you would treat someone you held affection for.

Of course, I don’t think my father had any ill will. In order to make sure the wounds didn’t reopen, he simply put effort into sewing them up as tightly as he possibly could. However, if he really loved me, don’t you think he’d have unconsciously made an effort to preserve my beauty?

I fear mirrors. But for some inexplicable reason my eyes are still drawn to them. I can’t tear my eyes away from the mishmash naked body of the someone reflected in the mirror. I forget how to even blink and continue to stare at the horrific scars in misery.

A patchwork girl. That’s right. The patchwork girl is me.

There are organs that don’t belong to me buried beneath these scars. Looking at the scars I can see through them to the organs underneath; the organs are soft and pulsating and from them I can see liquid seeping and oozing out. These organs aren’t mine. These organs aren’t even human.

They’re the organs of a pig.

When I was born, there were two major obstacles to transplants.

One was the problem of immunisation.  The bodies of animals, humans included, are furnished with immune systems which fight off foreign body.  Once the immune system judges something as a foreign body, it’ll attack without fail, even though the foreign body is an organ absolutely crucial for continued survival. This is known as transplant rejection. The methods to avoid this are to either wait until you can use an organ which is as close to the patient’s own HLA-cells as possible, or to use immunosuppressants. When it comes to HLA-cells, barring identical twins, even parents and siblings aren’t guaranteed to be perfect matches, let alone someone unrelated, so the chances of a match are exceedingly low. On the other hand, when it comes to immunosuppressants, the person becomes immunodeficient as a result so it’s natural to expect significant side effects. As a result, in reality, both methods are combined in an effort to make up for the weaknesses of the other.

The other problem was the deficit in donors. In comparison to strangers, if it’s the patient’s parents or sibling, there’s a high probability their HLA-cells will be compatible. That being said, you can’t force someone to sacrifice themselves for the sake of a blood relative. However, realistically speaking, you don’t necessarily need to be someone’s child or sibling; when it comes to health issues, in day-to-day life there’s already an unconscious pressure placed on those who are healthy by the people and society around them to donate their organs. It’s a clear-cut violation of human rights. Having said that, it’s almost unthinkable to imagine a person who would willingly donate their body parts — excluding things like bone marrow which are renewable — while they’re still alive to a complete and utter stranger. In that case, the only plausible donors are corpses. However, even though a corpse is an object without any will, the fact is that the deceased’s family can’t see it as simply another object. This, too, is probably human nature; the family wouldn’t accept the deceased’s organs being forcefully harvested. Furthermore, organs like the heart, the lungs or the liver which die if stopped for even a short period of time, a corpse’s are less than desirable. But obviously, you can’t take out organs like the heart and such that are vital for survival from still living humans. Therefore, for a donor to emerge they would need to be brain dead.

However, the brain dead make for even more difficult donors than corpses. It’s not hard to point at a corpse and declare ‘this thing isn’t alive, it’s an object.’ That’s just a matter of fact. However, it’s incredibly difficult to point to a person still warm from body heat, whose veins are still throbbing and who in some cases even still has their automatic spinal reflexes and declare it an object. While it’s easy enough to say it’s a fact that — unlike in cases of cardiac arrest where the body may be revived — the cessation of brain function means that the death of the entire body is sure to follow, actually believing that a brain dead body and a dead body are one and the same is not.

Practically speaking, there are people who doubt that “brain death” is anything more than a concept doctor’s have come up with in order to perform transplants, and we can’t simply label the category of ‘life that is similar to death’ as such.

In order to resolve these issues, many resources have been dedicated to the development of xenotransplant research. In other words, the transplanting of the organs of nonhuman animals into human bodies.

I say this, but historically speaking, xenotransplantation is — in itself — hardly a new concept. The very first xenotransplants performed on  humans were kidney transplants. Kidneys were transplanted from goats and pigs to human beings. However, unfortunately, the immune system’s powerful rejection of the organs lead to near immediate necrosis. Though, the experiment in that story just now wasn’t particularly scientific since they didn’t even bother using immunosuppressants.

So, how does the immune system differentiate between foreign substances and its own bodies organs? In fact, the bodies own cells are clearly marked. These marks are called histocompatibility antigens. In the case of humans, these are referred to as HLA antigens. And just like how there are blood types, there are different types of HLA. Moreover, the HLA types aren’t as simple as the ABO-blood types.

To begin, there are 24 different variations of the HLA-A antigen. And then there’s the HLA-B antigen which has 50 variations. So, according to basic math, the odds of finding both matching HLA-A and HLA-B antigens is around 1 in 1200. On top of that, there are other HLA antigens besides A and B: C, D, DR, DQ, and DP all exist; the chances of all of these matching between two complete strangers is one in several tens of thousands. However, in reality, not all of the HLA antigens need to match for the organ transplant to be able to take place. While it’d be ideal to have all the HLA antigens match, it’s impossible to find someone who fits that criteria outside of identical twins. As such, even if the organ comes from a blood relative, it remains necessary to use immunosuppressants.

However, there is a loophole in the apparently flawless immune system. As long as the HLA antigens match, it can’t differentiate between its own bodies organs and a stranger’s organs, so it won’t attack. It doesn’t matter if everything other than the HLA is different. They could be cells of a different race, or cells of a different species.

—Or the cells of a swine.

Nowadays, the problems surrounding organ transplants from brain dead or living people are a topic of the past. That’s because transplanting the organs of animals has become the norm. Animals that are as close to human as possible would be the ideal choice, but realistically speaking there are only a few species of anthropoid ape’s and they’re difficult to breed. Furthermore, reproduction costs time. Among already existing livestock, pigs were selected because they’re on a relatively comparable biological scale to human beings.

Whenever a disease is identified in a person’s internal organs, a skin sample is swiftly taken from the patient. Then HLA antigens are extracted from the dominant genes, next more are cultivated, and then the antigens are implanted into the core of a fertilised pig embryo.

The pig embryo repeatedly undergoes a cloning process, and then is implanted within the womb of a sow. After enough time, a piglet is born with the same HLA antigens as the patient. Thus, when the organs of the rapidly maturing pig are transplanted there’ll be almost no chance of rejection occurring. Even though organs are clearly from an entirely different species, the immune system judges them to be the person’s own.

I was the very first successful instance of a pig organ transplant; I was lab material. He gained data on all sorts of organs through my treatment, and the field of xenotransplantation developed significantly and rapidly. At any rate, nearly every single one of my internal organs has been replaced with a swines. The transplant surgeons must have been waiting with bated breath for my father to publish my research data that they hungered for so badly they could practically taste it.

“Human swine!”

Someone cried. Or perhaps I misheard?

It was a decade ago, at a time when I was absentmindedly staring out the classroom window at the schoolyard, that those words ran through my soul like a knife.

I tried to turn around but for some reason my body refused to move. After an absurdly long period of time passed, I was able to gradually, gently, begin to twist my body.

No. It probably took an instant. It felt as if all the girls around me were moving like frames of a film running in slow motion. None of them showed any semblance of being alive, but they continued emitting the scent of young women.

My gaze crawled across every pore of their faces. I scanned them hunting for the source of those awful words, though I had no intention of confronting her. But I was unable to find the owner of the voice. Still searching for the owner of the voice, I prayed that she didn’t actually exist.

The young women all moved in a seductive malaise, in comparison my gaze moved far more sluggishly and fretful.

In the next instant, time resumed it’s usual flow. In that instant, all those girls began to blend together and continuously switch places with such speed that I couldn’t keep track of what was going on.

After all this time, I still have no clue who said those words.

Even so, they continue to reverberate within my ears.

“Human swine!”

What a nasty phrase. If I was going to have those words thrown at me, I would have preferred if they just called me a ‘swine.’ There’s no way to escape the term ‘human swine’, it leaves an unbearable echo.

“Did someone say something, just now?” I gave a crooked smile I prayed looked pleasant.

Everybody stopped moving. I felt their needle gaze’s pierce my patchwork body all at once.

“Something wrong, Yuka?” Saori’s voice called out from by the classroom entrance.

“Just now, I heard someone’s voice.” I responded in a quiet voice.

“A voice? You say you heard someone’s voice but, well, everyone was talking…” Saori was doubtful.

“Uuuuh… That’s not it. Someone was… That is… They were bad mouthing me.” I said, my voice growing even quieter.

Every girl in the classroom began surrounding me, all of them chattering at once as they did.

“Did you really hear that?” Saori asked. “Are you sure you didn’t just mishear something?”

I silently shook my head.

“Well, what did you hear?” Yumiko joined in. “What kinda insults were they spouting?”

“They were saying cruel things.” I ran both my hands down my chest to my stomach. “About my body.”

“Your body… About your transplants?”

I nodded.

“Did they say it loud?”

“Yeah. But they weren’t calling it out or anything.”

“Well, then. Did anyone else hear it?” Yumiko looked around the group.

The girls did nothing but stare at each other’s faces.

“As I thought, it was all in your head, wasn’t it?” Saori asked again.

“I’m not really sure.” I hid my face and slunked down in my seat.

“What’d they say?” Yumiko said.

“Human swine.” I replied.

A commotion rippled through the room.

In the end, no-one had any clue whatsoever. No-one who’d heard or said ‘human swine’ came forth. Even though I claimed that I’d heard someone say it, it was just my word, so nothing could come of it. Nevertheless, the uproar reached the ears of our teachers and they spent that day’s homeroom giving us a talk on bullying and human rights and so forth.

From that day forth, the phrase ‘human swine’ was ingrained upon my heart.

No-one has entered my father’s bedroom ever since his death.

Though I call it a bedroom, the reality is that it had long been turned into a study — data and research materials are scattered all over it, just another extension of his laboratory. Some months before my father’s death, they were all packed up in several tens of cardboard boxes and sent here from the university and his clinic.

The majority were his experiment notes, but there were also a substantial amount of disks packed with graphs and charts and documents, and video recordings of the surgeries and experiments he performed. As soon as my father died, various research institutions requested to review his documents. I rejected them all.

I think my father realised his death was near. In that case, I wonder, did he not want anyone else to see the vast data he’d collected? Did this have something to do with a secret he was trying to conceal? If that’s the case, I’ll obey his dying wish to keep his research materials and data private.

That’s what I thought, so I kept my father’s room locked.

Before long, a year had passed and the day arrived where my heart had gradually settled down enough that I suddenly had the thought of organising my father’s research materials. Of course, I didn’t have a deep understanding of medicine, moreover it’s not like I comprehend my father’s research. I have no idea what a layperson can do, but I feel like this could be a substitute for a real connection with my father.

The room didn’t have ventilation and, in the span of a year, every inch of the room had been covered in a sticky, white film that was neither dust nor mould nor cobwebs, and which seemed to glow with a dim light even with the curtains drawn. The cardboard boxes had been left overturned, the research materials abandoned. Judging from appearances, the labels on the notebook covers, as well as the disks and videos, didn’t have dates written on them. Since all the titles were things like “A-3B” or “YUKA-αω”, it was considerably difficult to tell their contents apart.

I picked up notebook that seemed like a good place to start and seated my rear on the chair my father used at the desk my father worked at. Dust had collected on both my father’s chair and his desk but without worrying about dirtying my skirt or top, I wiped the desk’s surface with my sleeve and opened up the notebook.

15th March, Kidney Transplant. Donor: Y-III……

My eyes suddenly leapt to those words. Most likely, they were about me. When I was ten years old, I received a kidney transplant in the spring. The notebook continued on with cryptic words and symbols scrawled across numerous pages.

There was no mistaking that the donor referenced was the pig who the kidney had been extracted from. So was Y-III the name of the pig, or was it perhaps an indicator of its condition? Giving them uninspired names like ‘Y-III’ and such would be just like my father. As I flipped through the pages, I came across the notation ‘V-No. 6a.’ It looked like ‘V-No.’ was an abbreviation of ‘video number.’ Digging through the mountain of research materials, I hunted for the video.

In the end, I never found a video with ‘V-No. 6a’ written on it; all I found was a video with ‘A-6’ on the label.

My father’s room didn’t have a VCR player, so for the time being I took the video back to my room which did.

On playback, a disturbing image started to appear and narration mixed with static began. It was my father’s voice. On the screen, several doctors wearing surgical gear stood around; my father was among them. Apparently, the sound wasn’t recorded at the same time as filming, it was inserted afterwards.

Suddenly, the footage was split into two segments. Both respective sections depicted an operating table in their centre. On one, a lone girl lay sleeping while on the other an infant pig rested on its side. You couldn’t see the girls face very well, but from the dark-red birthmark that resembled a fish’s head on her right shoulder, I could tell it was me.

Both the donor and recipients surgery began almost simultaneously.

My part of the surgery was directly handled by my father, and he performed it with the utmost care. Meanwhile, on the contrary, the piglet’s surgery was being handled in a considerably crude fashion by a fledgling doctor. Partway through making an incision, it seems he severed a large artery and fresh blood began gushing out.

Before long, two kidneys were extracted from the piglet and, without even bothering to stitch the wound back up, it was abandoned. The scene of the piglet disappeared, and my side expanded to fill the screen. As soon as the doctors in charge of the swine were done extracting the kidneys, they were placed in a metal container and brought over to my operating table.

My father wordlessly accepted the kidneys and, after giving his assistants two or three instructions, slowly began the transplant. Seeing the insides of my own body, I was attacked by an unceasing wave of nausea but I grit my teeth and continued watching the video.

After a while, first checking whether urine had leaked from my ureter tubes in the process, my father stepped away from the operating table. Sewing me back up was the fledgling doctor’s responsibility.

It turns out that the clumsy stitches upon my body weren’t solely my father’s fault. However, as harsh as it is to say, the fact that if you look at my body, it’s obviously the handiwork of a fledgling doctor shows that, as expected, my scars were of practically no concern to my father.

The piglet never reappeared. But if it had just been left in that state, it couldn’t have lived much longer. The only still living part of that piglet are those kidneys — just those kidneys.

I lay my palm on the surgical scar.

And just like it had started, the video came to an abrupt end.

“You need to have the surgery.” My father admonished me in the hospital room. “Your heart and lungs are especially frail. We don’t know how many more months they’ll last. There’s no way you can live if your heart stops.”

“I don’t want it! I don’t want any more pig bits in my body, Dad.” I begged him, shedding tears.

“I can’t help that.” My father shook his head. “As your father and as a doctor, I can’t let you refuse. Besides, your Dad just can’t understand why you’re so bothered by the organ transplants.”

“Because they’re pig organs! At school, they call me ‘human swine’!”

“Human swine?” For a moment, my father lowered his voice. “Well, they can say what they want. But this surgery is no different than putting in contact lenses or dentures. No-one ever worries about what contact lenses or dentures are made out of. In reality, in cases such as where the cornea is scarred, pig skin tissue is used as the raw material to make the contact lenses. But it’s not like the people who use contact lenses get turned into pigs.”

“But the transplant is putting it inside my body! Pigs blood is getting mixed with my blood; pigs flesh is getting mixed with my flesh.” I screamed, ignoring the snot running down my face.

“There really isn’t that big a difference between human tissue and pig tissue. For a start, almost everyone in this world eats pig meat, right? So the blood and flesh of all those kids who bully you saying ‘human swine’ came from the corpses of pigs.”

“Transplants are totally different to eating! The pig parts come from a pig that’s still alive, after all!”

“Of course. Once the heart stops beating, the success rate of the surgery drops dramatically. If it’s the kidneys, corneas or bones, there’s no problem with waiting until the donor is dead to transplant them. But for the heart, lungs or liver, it just can’t be done.”

“I won’t do it! I won’t!” I persevered. “You’re lying to me, Dad. I don’t actually need to have the surgery! You just want the research data, that’s all!”

My father’s expression changed.

“That’s not true. You were born with a serious illness. Don’t you see that’s why your Dad is using all his energy desperately researching organ transplants for the sake of helping you?”

I continued to cry without looking at my father’s face. My father gave an exasperated sigh and, for a while, he fretfully tried to lift my spirits but, soon enough, he gave up and began to leave the hospital room.

“Dad, wait.” I sniffled. “There’s still one thing I need to ask you.”

“What is it? Go ahead.” My father put on as tender a voice as he could muster.

“Who is my Mom, really?”

“Where did this come from?” My fathers eyes wavered indecisively. “You know your mother passed away when you were born, Yuka.”

“You’ve told me that story a million times, Dad, but I don’t believe you. After all, it’s weird. We don’t have a single family photo in our house. If we were a normal household, even if we didn’t keep them in an album, we’d still have a bunch of photos or something.” I said as if I was cross-examining him. “Why don’t we have any photos of Mom?”

“Some families don’t like to take photos.”

“That’s not all. I’ve never met a single one of Mom’s relatives. I don’t even know the names of Mom’s parents or where they live.”

“They all have their own reasons for that.”

I pulled open the desk drawer and retrieved an envelope.

“Here’s our family register!”

“Yuka, what’s the meaning of this…” My father’s eyes opened wide.

“Until now, I never noticed it because anything that required the family register was handled by you, Dad…… In my family register, your name is the only one there. The ‘mother’ column has been left completely blank. What the hell is that supposed to mean, huh? What happened to Mom?”

After staring at the family register for a while, my father shook his head sadly and sat in front of the computer terminal in the corner of the  hospital room.

“Do you mind if I use this, Yuka?”

Even though I hesitated to answer, my father didn’t wait for my response and switched on the computer terminal. With practiced strokes, he remotely accessed the main computer.

“Take a look. This is your mother.”

I stared at the screen.

Height, weight, stature, education, IQ, physical ability, special skills. I was buried under those paragraphs filled with lines of letters and numbers.

“What is this? What do you mean this is Mom?” I couldn’t understand what was going on.

“It’s what you asked, Yuka. “Who is my mother?” But your Dad doesn’t know either. What’s written here is everything that your Dad knows about your mother.”

“I don’t get it. What the hell… No way!! That’s…” The realisation hit me.

“In his youth, your Dad was completely and utterly devoted to his studies.” For some reason I can’t explain, this was the only time I’d ever seen my usually stoic father look a little sad. “I never had the time to find a wife. But your Dad wanted to have children. That’s why I saved up my money to purchase a high-quality ovum. I knew it as soon as I saw that data sheet. This was the finest quality egg I had been waiting for. Of course, it was incredibly expensive. It wasn’t just the egg that cost money. I also had to rent the womb. But make no mistake, Yuka, you are my daughter. My seed was used so there can be absolutely no mistake, you are my child.”

I remember feeling sick.

“So, half of me was bought. It was bought with money just like a dog or a cat. And then the remaining half of me comes from the same man that was willing to buy his child with money.”

“What are you saying?! Buying seed and eggs, and renting wombs is all perfectly legal. You were born through a completely respectable procedure, Yuka. I shouldn’t have hidden it from you until now. I’m sorry. But I was just thinking about you, Yuka… That is… In other words… I thought it would be a shock…… Was it a shock?”

“Yeah. Kinda.” I covered my face with my hands.

“I was planning on telling you eventually. I was going to tell you everything when you were older, when you were an adult and your illness had fully healed.” My father was growing increasingly flustered. “It’s really nothing to be upset about. There are many children with parents like that in the world. It’s just kept a secret from the children. After all, you see. They wanted a child. Wouldn’t it be nonsensical to have to move in with a complete stranger for that?” It sounded like my father was speaking to himself, rather that to me. “We should all have the right to raise our own children in the way we think best. Other people shouldn’t interfere. Besides, I’m absolutely repulsed at how she could knowingly allow for her imperfection riddled genes to be combined with my own. As long as you pay for it, you can buy the ovum with flawless genetic material you’re looking for. Wouldn’t anyone want their own sperm to fertilise the perfect ovum?!” My father’s shouting abruptly brought me back to my senses. “Ah… Aaah… I’m so sorry. I got a little overexcited there. It’s alright. You don’t have to worry. It’s fine. It’s just that your Dad… Your Dad……”

My father drooped his shoulders and started to leave the hospital room.

“Wait!” Why did I tell you what you wanted me to say? “It’s fine. I’ll go through with the surgery.”

Was it because my father’s figure looked far too miserable? Was it because it was far too pathetic to watch a man who couldn’t even fall in love like a normal person try and justify himself?

My father suddenly lifted his head.

“But I have one condition.”

“A condition?” My father’s eyes were gleaming.

“After this surgery is over, next I want you to operate on my skin.”

“Your skin? Have you been burnt somewhere?”

“It’s not that I’ve been burnt. Just look at it!” I threw off my gown. “My body is covered in stitches!”

“You’re worried about your surgical scars?!” My father seemed shocked.

I couldn’t believe my father’s reaction.

“I want to cover up this skin. Of course, I know that the scars themselves won’t disappear. But, at the very least, you wouldn’t be able to tell from the outside.”

My father stared at my skin as if he was bewitched, and then nodded his head with an ominous smile. And then, without saying another word, he left the hospital room.

As soon as my father was gone, I broke down in a fit of tears. I regretted my words bitterly.

The first transplant performed on me was when I was three months old. Even had the abnormalities were discovered immediately after I was born and my genes had been implanted into a pig embryo, it’s absolutely impossible that they could have performed the surgery that quickly. Clearly, my father had planned for this from the start. I have no doubt that he must have divided the purchased ovum fertilised with his sperm cells into multiple parts; only one part was implanted in the rented uterus of a woman he was paying, while the rest were used to implant genetic material into pig embryos. My father said that he wasn’t expecting the egg he fertilised to have any hereditary illnesses. I think I can believe that. In case the gamete being sold has a risk of hereditary disease, there is an obligation for a chart of characteristics to always be produced, and I checked that characteristics chart registered with the Ministry of Health and Welfare. And, yes, the genetic profile included in that chart partially matched my own. I think I can also rule out the possibility the chart was falsified, nor was it switched with the chart of another ovum.  In that case, doesn’t that mean the truth behind my defective organs is a mystery?

My father only presented a fraction of the transplants I received to the academic community and the media. The vast majority of the surgeries were covered up. Looking through the files my father left behind, I realise that there were often times when I was receiving surgery once a month.

At the very least, my father was doing something illegal.

Implanting animal cells with human genetic material is only permitted if it’s select cells with specific functions. For example, HLA designating genes, or particular enzymes, or genes that produce hormones.

However, my father crossed that boundary when he implanted human genes — my genes — into pig cells. He was outright producing malformed pigs with human organs. The organs transplanted onto me weren’t only those hidden inside my body, but those that can be seen from outside, as well.

The entirety of my ears — including my inner ear — were transplanted, but you can’t tell from the shape. I think my father figured it would obviously look incredibly bizarre if a human had pig ears. Not that a pig with human ears is any more pleasant to see.

Besides my ears, my teeth, tongue and nose were all transplanted from pigs. Surprisingly, my nipples and mammary glands are also from pigs. Pigs only develop breasts when they are in their child rearing stage, prior to that stage they are dormant. However, my breasts completed their development during puberty normally and without any incident. Supposing that pig hadn’t been used in a transplant and was allowed to grow into an adult, would it have become a pig with the bosom of a woman? Or was it the exposure to my human hormones that caused them to take on a human shape?

Stomach, intestines, trachea, arteries, nerves, bones, and muscles. Every conceivable inch of my body was stolen from pigs. Even my salivary gland is a pigs. Every minute of every day, I’m slurping down pig spit. By the time I reached my father’s notes on transplanting both upper and limbs, as expected, I no longer believed my eyes. No matter what, at the very least, I wanted to believe that my hands and feet were my own.

But I still looked, anyway. That harddrive contained an image of a piglet with those disproportionate, feeble arms and legs sprouting from it’s spherical body.

“Maybe I am a human swine.” I muttered while I ate my bento together with Saori and Yumiko.

It had been several weeks since my heart transplant was finished.

They both pretended not to hear me and brought their chopsticks to their mouths. An uncomfortable silence filled the air between us. Three people enveloped by the surrounding noise — the boisterous voices and bustling of young women brimming with pride.

“Hey, the phrase ‘Human Swine’ is from the Records of the Grand Historian, isn’t it? We learnt about it the other day in Chinese literature class. So maybe they weren’t actually making fun of me. But it’s all the same either way. In the end, I’m still a human swine.” I continued speaking to the two of them, ignoring my food.

Saori’s chopsticks stopped. Yumiko continued eating without skipping a beat. Sadly, I could barely taste a thing.

Of course, I realised it must be bothersome to hear me say something like that out of nowhere. But I couldn’t stop myself from saying it.

“You’re not Consort Qi, Yuka.” Yumiko said, looking at my face. “And your dad isn’t Empress Lü, either.”

“How can you say that for sure? You’re not me, Yumiko, and you’re not my Dad.” I spat fiercely.

“That’s right. I’m neither you, nor your dad, Yuka. But you’re not Consort Qi or even Empress Lü, either. I have no idea how you’re getting yourself and a human swine mixed up.” Yumiko muttered, thinking about how everyone around us could hear.

“Because I’m turning into a human swine. But, obviously, it’s not the same thing. Consort Qi’s was turned into a human swine from the outside, by getting rid of her body parts. But I’m being turned into a human swine by taking out my insides!”

“None of your insides have been gotten rid of.” Yumiko finally lifted her head. “Your organs are being switched out for new ones before they become a problem. These days, stuff like that is normal. That said, surgeries like Yuka’s aren’t just done when the problem’s just starting.”

“That’s right. My aunt recently got a pig liver transplant.” Saori finally opened her mouth while trembling. “Stuff like that happens all the time.”

“You should be thankful to your Dad that you can have a healthy body, instead of comparing yourself to a human swine and making problems for him.” Yumiko seemed slightly angry at me.

“You’re wrong.” Flustered, I struggled to express my thoughts. “It’s not like that. You’re mistaken about something. I’m not just receiving normal transplants like Saori’s aunt got. My surgeries are experimental.”

“So what?” Yumiko’s voice was gradually getting louder. “When we were little kids, the success rate of transplanting animal organs into people was almost zilch. But isn’t it out of parental love that, when his daughter was deeply ill and there was nothing else he could do, he still took a chance on it anyway? Obviously the records of those surgeries were always going to end up as research data, and sure it might look like it was an experiment in the end, but who cares about that if it helps with your illness.”

“Until now, heart transplants have pretty much never been done, so don’t you think this will be a big relief to many people? And it’ll all be thanks to you and your dad, Yuka.” Saori backed Yumiko up.

“But there’ll be almost nothing of me left!” My breathing was growing heavy.

“What are you talking about? What are you even saying?” Yumiko asked.

“Empress Lü took away Consort Qi’s hands and feet and eyes and ears and ability to speak. I’ve also had so many kinds of things stolen from me. Kidneys, livers, heart, lungs, pancreas…”

“But it’s everyone else’s problem, too. If no-one did anything, you’d have died!” Yumiko’s voice was almost at a yell.

“Both me and Consort Qi survived. Everything that was taken from Consort Qi was important for her to live as a human, but wasn’t necessary for her just to survive. Meanwhile, everything that’s been taken from me is necessary for my continued existence, and pig replacements have been switched in in their place to keep me alive.”

“It wasn’t just body parts that were taken from Consort Qi.” It seemed like Yumiko had stopped caring about all the surrounding eyes. “She was called a ‘human swine’ after having all of her dignity as a human being taken from her. That’s nothing like you, Yuka!”

“Are you sure about that?” My tears spilled forth in heavy droplets. “If just having your flesh be taken away is enough to turn you into a human swine, how can you say that having your human flesh taken away and replaced with pig flesh doesn’t?”

***

While being tormented with flashbacks of my past, I continued searching through my fathers remaining research notes. Despite being near overwhelmed by the ocean of research data, I was beginning to dwell what it meant to be human. I don’t mean a philosophical concern like the meaning of a human life. It was more practical than that. I wanted to know what a human life actually was. In other words, what kind of conditions needed to be met to call yourself something human.

Humans receive human rights. There are those that would say we should grant the nonhuman human rights but, at present, you can kill nonhumans without being charged with homicide, and you can take or do whatever you want to them, as much as you like, without it being a crime. There must be a fundamentally distinct disparity between them.

Leaving aside unidentified cryptids like the Yeti or Big Foot, in the natural world there has never been an animal discovered that could be easily mistaken for a human. However, in the present, we’ve seen an abnormal jump in the development of genetic engineering. In fact, though it’s prohibited by law, my father implanted pigs with human genes which developed several human features.

If a human is defined by “the specific genes they have and the form they manifest”, the potential for my father’s manufactured, malformed pigs to also be humans is made apparent.

I can see the potential rebuttal to this way of thinking.

The formation of chromosomes that aggregate the genetic material is called a genome. You can put in no end of human genes into it, but the base structure remains the genome of a pig. You can’t judge whether or not it’s human on the presence or absence of genes for specific human features, you have to judge based on the entire genome, they’d say. That’s easy to say. But when push comes to shove, are things like mapping out an entire genome and such really possible? A pig that has been implanted with part of a humans genes is not a human, it’s still a pig. And vice-versa, if a human is implanted with pig genes, they’re still a human. Well then, what if half their genes came from a human and half their genes came from a pig?

Even if someone tried to create something like that, it would have fatal complications in its developmental stages and would die before it could become a living creature in the first place. However, pigs and humans are both mammals so they share the majority of their genes. In the near future, if it becomes possible to recombine genes with precision, it may become possible to produce an animal that shares the genes of both pigs and humans, so as things stand we can’t rule out the possibility. So, what would that animal be really: a human, or a pig?

The opinion that we can ensure such a problem like that never arises if the law prohibits it is not a real solution. The extent of the law’s ability to control human behaviour is far from perfect. As long as it’s technically possible, someone, somewhere, is always going to do it. And then, once a creature like that has been born, you will have to hand down a judgement.

There’s no point to comparing the ratio of human to pig. From the very beginning, in addition to the fact humans and pigs share the majority of their genes, I have no idea how we should evaluate the genes that don’t express themselves physically called introns. For example, if every single one of your introns was replaced completely with a pigs, wouldn’t you still become a pig even though you didn’t take on any of their features?

Even if we had completely clear answers to questions like that, we’d still be overlooking something. In regards to myself, I am a human with pig organs. Almost all of my organs are made from genuine pig cells, and those nuclei contain pig genes. Of course, the genes that determine the HLA and the shape of the organ are human in origin, however that isn’t grounds enough for those organs to be human. If it was, we’d have to call the pig those human genes were implanted into for the transplant human, as well.

The majority of my organs are pigs’. Parts of my skin, muscles and bones are also pigs’. And the bone marrow that produces my blood was transplanted from a pig, so that makes the genes in my white blood cells pigs’, too. If I was wrapped up in some kind of incident and the police took a blood sample from me, the results would probably declare it pigs’ blood.

Despite being afflicted with these detestable thoughts, why do I continue to investigate? Just what the hell do I think I’m doing? A voice deep within my heart cried out. I could no long remember. Perhaps I was searching for evidence that would truly convince me that I’m human.

It was around ten years ago that I first started to think I was a human swine. Ever since I learned the phrase ‘swine’ in Chinese literature class, whenever I heard or said the word ‘pig’, it’s like the character for ‘swine’ appeared before me. It’s like I’ve become obsessed, I can’t get that word out of my head. I’ve continued spending every single day thinking about the’ human swine’ for close to a decade now. If things continue like this, my mind won’t hold out much longer. I need to track down something that proves I’m human soon. But just what the hell could do that?

***

Three years and four months old. Gastric transplant.

My stomach wasn’t one of the organs that needed removal. So why would he take the risk of transplanting it?

Two years and eight months old. Cornea transplant.

So I’ve only ever seen the world through the corneas of a pig.

Two years and two months old. Vocal cord transplant.

What did my actual voice sound like, I wonder?

One year and ten months old. Tear duct transplant.

My tears are the tear of a pig.

One year and six months old. Nipple and mammary gland transplant.

There’s no point to that. Why would you even do that?

One year old. Womb transplant.

I…… I’m……

Eight months old. Ovary transplant.

“Soon this beautiful skin will be yours, Yuka.” My father gleefully stroked the hide of a pig.

This pig that had been raised in an underground lab was devoid of hair. No, to be precise, there was long, black hair growing in localised patches — on top of its head, above its eyes, at the base of its forelegs, and on its genitals. The glossy looking skin that resembled a young woman’s made the pig’s figure look even uglier.

“It’s rather plump, isn’t it? In order to make sure the epidermis’ surface was large enough, we intentionally fattened it up. In any case, the exterior of a pig and the exterior of a human have considerably different shapes. If there are wrinkles or stitches left behind, there’s really no point to the surgery. But if we have a large quantity, we can do the treatment.” My father narrowed his eyes. “At first I thought we’d just transplant skin to the part with surgery scars, however it turns out its unexpectedly difficult to regulate the melanin pigmentation. The colour of your future skin just wasn’t coming out how we wanted. I realised that if we went ahead with the transplant as things were, your skin would be mismatched at the seams. And so I had the thought that we’ll just transplant the skin of your entire body.”

“Dad, I have a request.” I pet the head of the pig. “It’s about the birthmark on my shoulder.”

“Aah, now that you mention it, I do recall you had a birthmark.”  My father said without interest. “What about your birthmark?”

“If I have the skin transplant, will my birthmark be gone?”

“What? Is this what you’re talking about? You don’t have to worry about that. If the surgery is successful, your entire body will be the lightly-tanned colour of a healthy, radiant beautiful woman. Well, it’s not easy for me to sacrifice this pale beautiful woman you are right now, though.”

“That’s not it.” I continued petting the unresponsive pig. “I want the birthmark to remain.”

“Eh?!” As I expected, my father seemed shocked at this. “It’s not like I can’t do that, but why would you want to intentionally leave that birthmark behind?”

I threw off my gown, tugged on the hem of my nightie and bared my shoulder. There it was, about the size of a fist, dark-red and in the shape of a fish’s head.

“I’ve had this on my body ever since the moment I was born.”

“Right. It’s because of that birthmark that I was always able to tell my darling daughter apart from the other children.”

Does that mean if I didn’t have that birthmark, my father wouldn’t be able to identify his own child? However, that was just more ammunition for my position.

“This bit of my body is undoubtedly part of me”

“You have plenty of body parts that haven’t been replaced, besides that birthmark. There’s your spleen, and then there’s your thyroid gland…”

“I can’t check those parts from the outside. Besides, there’s no guarantee that they won’t need to be transplanted in the future. But if its a part of my skin, I’ll always be able to look at it and the possibility of it needing to be replaced is quite low…… Not unless this patch of skin gets burnt or skin cancer, anyway.”

“Even then, we could leave behind a different patch of skin. Say your back or your stomach. Or if those are too conspicuous, we could do your inner thigh or the back of your foot.”

“No. I want this birthmark. A patch of pale white among the gently tanned skin just doesn’t leave a strong impression. As I thought, it has to be this birthmark. This fish-head birthmark.”

“Why, does it leave an especially good impression?”

“The birthmark leaves a bad impression. Especially when it’s this big. That’s why a clear impression remains. There’s a dark red birthmark on Yuka’s shoulder shaped like the head of a fish. It’s just like you said a short while ago, Dad. It’s thanks to that birthmark that you were able to tell me apart from the other babies. In other words, this birthmark is my identifier. This birthmark is a secret weapon for identifying Yuka. Existence depends on being recognised by others. As long as I have this birthmark, I’m able to be recognised as Yuka. If I lose this birthmark, at the same time, I’ll stop being Yuka.”

“What are you saying?” My father was flustered. “Your dad can’t understand what you mean in the slightest.”

“Why can’t you understand something so simple? Year by year, more of my body is being replaced with something that isn’t mine. Even so, why do you still think I’m Yuka, Dad?”

“Of course, you’re Yuka. A few organs being replaced doesn’t change that. That’s not the part that matters. If it’s the only one that continues to hold Yuka’s personality, the entire body is Yuka.”

“You’re wrong. How can you know my personal identity? What basis do you have to say that my personality now is the same one I held before my lungs and heart were transplanted?”

“I don’t have a good answer when you put it like that.” My father folded his arms. “That is to say, are you saying that you, yourself, can’t sense your own personal identity, Yuka?”

“Obviously, the consciousness that tells me that I am Yuka is always there. But that’s not the problem.” I struck the pig’s youthful skin. “If this pigs consciousness told it ‘I am Yuka’, this pig wouldn’t suddenly become me. Everyone would still think that this pig is a pig, and think that Yuka is me. Because of that, this pig is a pig and I am Yuka. Whatever me or this pig think has nothing to do with it. Whenever you look me, you vaguely put together that I am Yuka from your impression of my whole body and that’s the only reason why you think that I am Yuka, it’s not because you’ve managed to grasp my personality.”

“While that may be true, why the birthmark? Even without the birthmark, Yuka is Yuka. You’re not a baby anymore, so it’s not your sole identifier. For example, aren’t your voice, face and mannerisms more than enough to tell that you’re Yuka?”

“But this birthmark leaves an intense impression on those who see it.”

“But it’s an impression of disgust, right?” My father spat the words out.

“Do you feel disgust towards my birthmark, Dad?”

“No, that is, that’s not what I meant.”

“It’s fine, you don’t need to deny it. It’s natural to feel disgust towards grotesque things. It’s not a problem if your emotions can take over your logic when they need to. Anyway, even if it has a negative connotation, as long as this birthmark can leave the strongest impression on people that I am Yuka, there’s no problem. That’s why this dark-red, fish head is the part of me that is the most ‘me.’ To get rid of it, would be to get rid of me.”

***

The organisation of the data my father left was going very slowly. At the very least, I thought I could put them in chronological order based on the dates and such, but it turns out there was a large quantity of research materials which didn’t have their date recorded properly so I couldn’t even do that.

It’d be much easier if I had some expert assistance, but for some reason I didn’t feel like showing it to anyone else. Even if I did show it to them, it would be after I’d already achieved my goal.

My goal? Just what was my goal? What was I struggling through this pile of notebooks filled with occult-like, untranslatable and incomprehensible phrases scrawled like they were spells, video recordings of gruesome scenes, and computer data that no application could even recognise for? I was searching for knowledge that would release me from my suffering. I have been constantly tortured by an inexplicable anxiety. Just what kind of being am I? What was I to my father? Why did my father raise me? All of those anxieties come from my ignorance. If I knew the truth, if everything was dragged out into the light of day, then all of my anxieties would disappear. Whatever the truth may be, it’d be better than ignorance.

The doorbell rang.

I pulled up the camera-feed of the entryway on the computer terminal next to me.

A woman of roughly the same age as me appeared on the screen. Her name didn’t come to mind immediately. However, I felt sure that this wasn’t the absolute first time I’d seen her. Her face sparked something in my memory. But because my memory over the months and years had become foggy, and possibly because of the marks of age etched upon her face, I couldn’t recall.

“Yes. Who is it?” I turned on the switch of the intercom.

“Um. I’m called Tanuma.” The woman responded in a slightly strained voice. “Uhhh, my maiden name is Minamiura. Saori Minamiura.”

Saori!

“Please wait a moment.”

I hurried to the front door while dusting off my clothes.

I hadn’t seen Saori since our high school graduation.

“It’s been a while, Yuka.” I opened the door and the young Saori I knew appeared before me.

But in the next moment her figure shifted and Saori transformed into an adult woman.

“Saori, it’s really been forever since we last spoke. How many years has it been? Gosh, just how old are you now?”

“What are you saying? We’re both the same age.” Saori flashed her pretty teeth as she laughed.

I flashed back from the figure of the adult Saori to her fluttering, shimmering younger self.

“Anyway, come in. Though, the place is a complete mess.”

I didn’t say that to be humble. The interior of the house was in a completely absurd state.

“I’m not intruding, am I?”

“Not at all. I was just sitting around alone feeling sorry for myself. I’m glad to see you!”

“Um. So, are you living alone, perhaps?” Saori gave a strained smile as she stepped over a cardboard box that had been left in the entryway.

“Yes. Ever since my father died, there hasn’t been any money coming in so all the employees stopped coming. Well, the inheritance I was left was quite substantial, so I’ve had no problems keeping myself fed.” I said defensively.

“Huh, so you got an inheritance like that, I’m jealous.”

“It’s not like that. Almost all of it went to taxes…… There’s also a clinic on the same property as this house, but it’s completely wasted on me.” I sighed.

“Just how many doctors and nurses do you think the clinic had?”

“Aah, at one time there were a great number of them but by the time of my fathers death there were only three nurses left. Those three nurses are all gone now, too. In my father’s final years he grew moody and tended to shun people. He couldn’t get along with the doctor’s either, so it seems they all left of their own accord.”

The parlour was tidier but, since Saori wanted to have a relaxed chat, we passed through to the living room.

“By the way, why did you come by today?”

We sat near-supine on the sofa, just like back in our student days.

“To tell you the truth, the topic of you came up the other day during our class reunion and I heard about your dad. It’s been over a year now, right? Since we knew your dad personally, it came as a shock to me and Yumiko. In truth both of us intended to come here today but, unfortunately, Yumiko’s mum got hospitalised.”

“Oh, Yumiko’s mother? What’s wrong with her?”

“It’s her liver. It’s getting transplanted.”

I stood up, pulled at my hair and screamed. It’s not that I’d lost my mind. But, for some reason, I couldn’t control myself. I was aware of my eyes growing wide, my ribs elevating and that my breathing was heavy. I was aware that my vocal cords were active. And yet, for the longest time, I couldn’t stop myself screaming.

Even so, Saori watched me calmly. Saori looked up at me as I made a flapping motion with my limbs. I’d probably lost control of my motor system. As expected, this situation only lasted a few seconds before Saori suddenly stood up, placed her hands on my shoulders, and began violently shaking me.

“What’s wrong, Yuka?! Snap out of it! Tell me what’s going on!!”

Miraculously, the moment I heard Saori’s words, I regained control of my body again. Strength drained from my entire body and I started shivering. Somehow, I managed to sit down on the sofa.

“Are you okay? I wonder if I said something I shouldn’t have.” Saori said, bewildered.

“Uuuungh. Sorry. That was a shock. I also have no idea what just happened. That was the first time this has happened. I was sorting out the research materials my father left behind, just now, and I guess it must have stirred up some painful, old memories?”

“Old memories?”

“Yes. But I don’t want to talk about that today. Putting that aside, say, your last name changed. Tell me, what kind of person is Tanuma-san?”

“Yuka, what’s your body’s condition been like lately?” Saori ignored my question. “If you’re not able to do something like organising your dad’s research material, why don’t you just have someone else handle all of that?”

“As you can see, my body is in perfect condition. See for yourself how healthy I am.”

There was a momentary silence. It didn’t seem like there was any shock nor fear in Saori’s eyes.

“Well, then, you haven’t realised it yourself, then, Yuka.”

“Haven’t realised? What are you talking about?”

“Hold on a moment.” Saori rooted around in her handbag and pulled out a compact mirror. “Take a look at your own face. What does it look like?”

“It looks how it always does.”

“I haven’t seen you in forever so I can’t say for sure, but at the very least it seems to me that your face has become incredibly worn out, Yuka.”

Worn out?

I snatched up the mirror from Saori and stared at my own face without blinking. There were a few conspicuous wrinkles here and there, but I didn’t think I looked worn out.

“Maybe it’s because the lights are too bright, but I can’t see anything?”

“Yuka, have you been eating properly?”

“Yes. However, I’ve been eating in moderation. I can’t let myself get fat.” I let out a sigh. “I won’t let myself put on any more weight.”

“Your complexion looks healthy but… Can you show me your arm for a second?”

Just as Saori said, I presented her my arm. Saori sucked in a breath.

“Your bones and veins are sticking out. If you really have been eating properly, then you’re probably ill. Yuka, has a doctor had a look at you recently?”

I looked at my own arm and compared it to Saori’s arm, trying to grasp what she was saying. Certainly my arm was slightly thin but not so thin that I’d think it was sickly. In contrast, Saori’s arm looked flabby and plump and filled me discomfort. Of course, Saori didn’t care if she was fat.  But, I absolutely refused to get fat. Being slightly thinner was ideal for me.

“No. Ever since I was born, my father would perform examinations on me, however now that my father has passed on, I haven’t had any contact with doctors whatsoever.”

“That’s not good. I’m sure there are, say, other doctors your dad knew personally.”  From Saori’s eyes, it didn’t look like she was joking. “Since your body isn’t norm… That is… Because your body is particular, it’s completely reckless for you to avoid seeing a doctor.”

My father was a famous doctor and his accomplishments were held in high esteem, but he had a poor social disposition and because the results of the majority of his research were never made public, his public relations were scarce. That father of mine had no friends he could entrust me to. My father probably didn’t care at all about what would happen to me after his death.

“I know my own body better than anybody else.” My tone was unintentionally stern. “Furthermore, I have a reason I’m trying to avoid gaining any more weight.”

“A reason? What reason?” Overwhelmed by my forcefulness, Saori’s voice grew quieter.

“My body has pig all throughout it. As such, if my body gets even the slightest, tiniest bit closer to a pig’s, it’ll return to being a pig in the blink of an eye.”

“Eh? What are you talking about? Humans can’t turn into pigs!”

“Do you really believe that? I’m a human swine. If I’m not careful, I could instantly trip up and go from person to pig.”

“You’re not a human swine, Yuka, you’re clearly a fully-fledged human!”

I smirked. As I thought, Saori didn’t understand anything. She hadn’t acknowledged reality.

“‘Human’s can’t turn into pigs.’ Isn’t that what you said just now?”

“Yes. That’s right.” Saori nodded.

“Well then, what about the opposite? Can a pig turn into a human?”

“It’s the same for both. Living beings can’t just arbitrarily change their species as they please.”

“So you think that a pig that possesses a human heart is still a pig?”

“Eh? What do you mean?” Saori glanced around.

“I mean exactly what I said.”

“You mean if a human heart was transplanted into a pig? There’s no way that could happen.”

“An a posteriori transplant wouldn’t work, but what about an a priori transplant?” I snorted in exasperation with how dull Saori’s mind was.

“An a priori transplant?”

“Genetic recomposition. If pigs and humans are the finished products, then genes are equivalent to a blueprint. I’m not talking about swapping parts out from the finished products, but if the blueprint for a human heart was slipped into the blueprint of a pig from the very outset.”

“But I don’t really get it.” Saori cocked her head. “Doesn’t the law forbid things like that?”

“The law has nothing to do with this. No matter what, even if it’s forbidden by law, as long as it’s technically feasible, someone is guaranteed to do it. No. It’s already been done. Do you think that pig has human rights, Saori?”

“Probably… not, I think.”

“Well, then. What about that pig’s heart? Does the heart have human rights?”

“A body part can’t have human rights. To the very end, human rights should only apply to an entire human body. If that wasn’t the case, having an organ removed would create two people — the person and the removed organ — each with their own individual rights. Besides, I think a pig’s heart is a pig’s heart, no matter what. Even if it’s been implanted with a human heart’s genetics, there’s the pig genes within every single individual cell used to form that heart. For example, if you used cells from that heart to make a clone, it wouldn’t turn into a human, instead another pig with a human heart would be born, so I still think it’s a pig.”

“My heart is a pig’s heart.” I sneered.

“But parts don’t matter. Your heart might be a pig’s, but as long as your entire body is a human’s, you receive human rights. That’s just common sense.”

“Does a pig that possesses a human liver have human rights?”

“Didn’t you hear what I just said? The parts don’t matter. If it’s in a pig’s body, no matter if it has a human heart or a hippopotamus’ heart, it’s still a pig!”

“So, then is a human that possesses the heart and liver of a pig a human? Or a pig?”

“How many times are you planning on asking me the same goddamn thing!? As I thought, you’re kind of screwed up in the head, Yuka.”

“If the heart from a pig with a human heart, the liver from a pig with a human liver, the kidneys from a pig with human kidneys, the lungs from a pig with human lungs, the large intestine from a pig with a human large intestine, the eyeballs from a pig with human eyeballs, the anus from a pig with a human anus, the skin from a pig with human skin, the womb from a pig with a human womb, the hands and feet from a pig with human hands and feet, the spinal cord from a pig with a human spinal cord, the stomach from a pig with a human stomach, the ears from a pig with human ears, the ribcage from a pig with a human ribcage, the thyroid gland from a pig with a human thyroid gland, and the ovaries from a pig with human ovaries were all combined to form a human being, would that be a human?” I said in a tone like I was trying to persuade Saori.

“You couldn’t create a human like that.” Saori averted her eyes.

“How can you say that? I’m standing in front of you right now!”

“You weren’t cobbled together from pig parts, Yuka. You simply had the defective parts of your body replaced, right?”

“It’s just like an appliance which is breaking down all over. Little by little, its parts are replaced and then eventually all of its old parts are completely gone. Can you really say that its the same thing which you started with?”

“The human body is always renewing its cells, so you could say that the human body is constantly replacing itself.” Saori seemed like she was desperately looking for a way out. “Every several years, it’s a brand new body. But not matter how many years pass, I am me and Yuka is Yuka. That remains the same.”

“But your cells don’t have pig genes in them. Mine do. If you were to use any of my skin cells for cloning, a piglet would be born. Unless they were from here!” I tore my clothes and showed off the dark-red, fish-head-shaped birthmark on my shoulder.

“You have the continuity of character we call Yuka.”

“How do you understand it enough to say that, Saori? Even I don’t really understand it.”

Saori covered her face with her hands. She was searching desperately for the right words.

“That’s right,” She removed her hands and gazed into my eyes. “Your brain. Right! Because of your brain. If your heart dies but your brain is still alive, you’re not dead so just as long as the brain is human, you’re human. Even if your other body parts are entirely replaced with pigs’, if the brain is Yuka’s, you’re Yuka. That’s how it is. It’s something that’s in the brain.”

“So you’re saying that the brain is the essence of a human.” I shook my head. “That’s nothing more than a convenient assumption you’re making. Human death is defined by brain death because the process is irreversible, not because it is the essence of a human. There’s no grounds to claim that you’re human as long as you have a human brain, and that everything else is completely irrelevant. Besides, Saori, you seem to think the brain is an organ that’s impossible to divide.”

“Divide? You can divide the brain?”

“The brain isn’t a simple thing, it has a complex structure. Every single part of it has a specific function. Though, obviously, we haven’t yet managed to elucidate how all of it works.”

“But the brain holds your personality.”

“What is a personality? If the right half of my brain was replaced with half of your brain, would I become you? Or would I still be me? Where does human consciousness reside in the brain?”

“Something like that brain swapping surgery could never happen!”

“Are you bringing up the law and ethics again? Bringing up social standards has no bearing on the question of whether or not it’s possible. If it’s technically possible, sooner or later, someone will do it.”

“It’d never happen, no matter how you look at it…”

“Six months after my birth, part of my cerebral cortex was transplanted. I wasn’t able to understand which part and how much of it from reading my father’s data, however that part was grafted in successfully and it looks like it confirms that it could form neural paths between future braincells. I don’t know what the true nature of personality and consciousness is, but if it’s the neural circuits within the brain, then my consciousness has a pigs mixed into it.”

“Yuka, do you feel like anything is abnormal within you?”

“Hmmm. I don’t feel anything. But by the time I was cognisant of my surroundings, pig braincells were already part of my brain. Even if my consciousness was a pig’s consciousness, I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. In order to determine whether my consciousness is a human consciousness or a pig’s consciousness, I would need to know what a normal human’s consciousness is like, something like experiencing the consciousness of other people is something I’ll never be able to do.” I looked at Saori absentmindedly. “Or would you like to swap half of your brain with me? In that case, we could check the contents of each other’s consciousnesses.”

“Yuka, you need to stop organising your dad’s research right away. You’re not normal right now. I’m sure you’re misunderstanding the documents. There’s absolutely no way that someone would do something so horrific to their own child.”

“But, for my father, it doesn’t seem like it was horrific in the least. Besides, from the very beginning, this is the purpose he raised me for. From my father’s perspective, I was just another piece of experiment material.”

“There’s no way that’s true. If he raised you for the sake of experimenting on you, it makes no sense that he never released his data to the public and instead kept it hidden. If he never publically releases the experiment data, it’s not any kind of experiment whatsoever. That’s why that surgery never happened. You’re misunderstanding, Yuka, or else it was your dad’s simulation of theoretical transplant surgeries. Look, it’s what’s called a thought experiment.”

“No. If it was a simulation, the same contents would have been repeated over and over again. There is only one recording of each of the surgeries.”

“I understand. For the sake of the argument, let’s suppose that all of the transplant surgeries you’ve uncovered were purely experimental. Even if that’s the case, the surgeries happened because they were necessary. So, out of consideration for your happiness, those surgeries were concealed. That’s the only theory that makes sense.”

“Right. That’s something I don’t know. For what purpose did my father perform those experiments? If it was to become famous, announcing several surgeries alone would already have been enough, why did he need to perform hundreds more?”

“Yuka, why are you continuing to organise your dad’s research material?” Saori’s questions piled up once more. “Do you want to think that you’re a human swine?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Well then, stop organising your father’s documents right now, alright?” Saori uttered in a stern voice.

“That’s not how this works. There’s something I need to know, but I have absolutely no idea what it is or why that is. As things are, if I was to stop now, I’d be forced to spend my entire life in a state of limbo. My entire life I’ve anguished over whether or not I’m a human swine, and I’ve had to live with that trepidation. That sort of thing is unendurable. Through these research documents, I can confirm whether or not I’m a human.”

“I understand.” Saori stood up. “For the time being, I’m going to go home for today. I realise that I’m not going to be able to persuade you alone, Yuka…… Hey. All you need to do is stop organising your dad’s research and go to the hospital. If that’s too much to ask, at least stop with the dieting.”

“I don’t think I can convince you, but my diet isn’t unreasonable. This is my limit. Any more than this and I’ll get fat. Sometimes, I can see a pig reflected in the mirror.”

Saori silently turned to the door, slunk over to it and left. I turned away, just as silently.

“Next time, I’ll come back with Yumiko. Even if it might not be actual therapy, I think if the both of us carefully listen to your problems, a pathway will open up.” While she opened the door, I could hear Saori speak in a tender voice. “I was way too impatient today. I wanted you to get better fast, so I did nothing but argue against what you were saying, Yuka. Next time, I won’t just deny everything you’re saying, Yuka, we’ll think it through together. So, is it alright if I come back again?”

“You’re always welcome here.” I responded, with my head that was still hot from my argument with Saori trembling slightly. “I’m ashamed for showing you just how pigheaded I am.”

Of course, meeting up with Saori and Yumiko seemed like fun, however I didn’t think there was a chance in hell that speaking with the both of them about the burdens I carry could lead to a resolution. It hadn’t clearly been decided when the two of them would visit me, but from the way Saori spoke I could tell she wasn’t just being diplomatic, she meant it. When it happens, it won’t be an unpleasant meeting like today, I want it to be a harmonious and meaningful discussion between friends, just like the old days. I need to find the answer to my questions before that day arrives.

With hardened resolve, I headed to my father’s room. Nevertheless, no matter how hard I grit my teeth, unstoppable sobs came from the back of my throat like I was a new-born baby. Drop by drop, my tears fell in a trail down the corridor.

Empress Lü looked at my face and smiled sweetly. Her clothes were incredibly ancient in style and so gorgeous and refined that it was hard to believe, however her entire body was veiled in a mist-like, red spray. As I got closer, I smelled blood. Empress Lü didn’t move a single inch, but those swelling clothes trembled and swayed.

“Girl, one’s own aroma is a lovely thing.” Empress Lü said to me.

I disregarded Empress Lü’s words and as I drew even closer to her, I caught a better look at her face. I had been certain that Empress Lü was smiling at me, but I couldn’t see her face clearly because of the rays of light. However, whenever I got closer my eyes would flicker and I could never ascertain her facial features.

Again, I took another step towards Empress Lü and trod on something elastic and sticky. It seemed to be a bundled up mass of meat smeared in filth. The repulsive thing began to roll around and tremble violently.

Empress Lü undid the front of her kimono. Blood splattered everywhere, drenching me and the lump of meat. Empress Lü’s naked body was beautiful but it couldn’t help giving off a foul stench.

I retreated trying to flee from Empress Lü but I lost my footing in the gore, there was a large sound, and I collapsed. And before I knew it, I was also stripped bare.

As the lump of meat crawled towards me, I tried to cover myself. I writhed trying to escape, I was confined by my body that was slick with blood.

At that moment, Empress Lü picked me up in her arms. Empress Lü’s skin stuck to mine.

“Come now, assist me.”

Empress Lü slid down and lay sprawled out on the ground facing the sky. Dark brown liquid the colour of burnt tea flowed out from within a crevice in her white belly. Through the mouth of the wound, I could see something wriggling around.

Without hesitation, I thrust both of my arms inside Empress Lü. My hands grasped something within her. I let out an animalistic voice and pulled it out.

Slowly, from within that thing that looked like mud, I made out the shape of a human being.

In shock, I threw it to the floor.

It surged up and trampled upon the lump of meat.

“Lo, beauteous, are you not?” With her womb still dangling from her abdomen, Empress Lü clasped it to her chest.

“Prithee, look, Your Excellency. ” Without even attempting to hide her torn body, Empress Lü called out to it. “This is a human swine.”

It looked at the lump of flesh, screaming, crying and writhing in filth.

“Aah, this is no human, this is no human.” It said.

After a while, it started to crumble and returned to mud.

Empress Lü then laid face down on top of it and twisted her body around. Empress Lü’s abdomen then sucked up the mud into her womb. “Ah, overjoying, is it not? I can once again give birth to His Excellency.”

“Why did you call Consort Qi a human swine?” I posed my question of many years to Empress Lü. “She couldn’t hear, and she couldn’t see, either. No matter what you said to her, it couldn’t hurt her anymore. Even so, was it still out of revenge?”

Empress Lü opened up her mouth wide. She opened it far too wide until it exposed the contents of her stomach. And then, she let out a booming laugh.

“Why are you doing that? Have you got something wrong with you?” I looked back and forth between Empress Lü and the lump of meat, comparing them.

“Just who in the world is Consort Qi?” Empress Lü continued laughing.

“This woman. This poor, pathetic woman who received hideous treatment at your hand.” I tried holding the lump of meat up to Empress Lü to show her, but it was too slimy and it kept slipping out of my arms.

“That is not Consort Qi nor any one of her kind.”

“Eh?! Then just who is it?!”

“That is the real you.”

In shock, I tore apart the lump of meat. There was nothing inside. It wasn’t a flesh lump, it was a flesh bag.

“The form of your true self has lost both it’s exterior and its contents.” Empress Lü laughed.

“If this is the true me……” I let go of the flesh bag. “Just what the fuck am I?”

“You are the hide of a swine.” Empress Lü showed me a single pig.

The pig had no skin, it’s blubber and muscles were completely bare.

I crumpled to the ground.

Empress Lü’s face was my father’s face.

I finally understood. Why Empress Lü called Consort Qi a human swine. And why my father raised me.

It wasn’t because Empress Lü wanted revenge. If her goal was revenge, she would have called her a human swine before butchering her eyes and ears.

Furthermore, my father didn’t desire fame as a researcher. If he wanted fame, he would have performed more reasonable transplant surgeries and published his success.

They did it because it was fun. Tearing a human’s dignity to shreds, toying around with the lives of swines and humans, the sensation of omnipotence is violent.

I barely slept, I read notes, watched videos, investigated hard drives.

Without fail, they contained secrets my father had covered up. For my father, raising a human being into a pig was fun, in itself. In that case, I wonder what other sacrilege he committed besides the transplants.

However, the majority of his research materials were about me and all incomprehensibly cryptic. After feeling nothing but anxiety, going however many days without sleep, and skipping however many meals, I may no longer be recognisable.

At that time, I spotted one particular video. It was the same as any other video, there was nothing unusual about how it looked, but I noticed the characters written on the label. There were plenty of videos with labels like “A-1” or “1Q” and such, but this video’s label just read “1.”

As the number of videos increase, anyone would write their labels in easy to understand language for the sake of organisation. However, in cases where the same work is spread out over several volumes or where several works are collected in a single volume, rather than writing down the contents directly, it’s more reasonable to classify each volumes specific contents by serial number or by recording the date. Furthermore, as the serial-numbered videos increase, you will want to organise their contents. By alphabetising the numbers, using English letters and Roman numerals.

As a result, the possibility that this video simply labelled “1” was a video recording of the very initial stages of the project was extremely high.

As the video came to life, I felt the seed of a premonition. If this really was the very first video, then it could tell me what my father was doing — or, rather, what he was trying to do. That was still more than I could bear, furthermore I had a vague recollection of a memory before it became a memory — I felt like I grasped a glimpse of the secret that bound me and my father together.

The very first seconds of the video were in an indiscernible disarray, but then it abruptly became unbelievably clear. A single pig lay in the dead centre of the video. I couldn’t really tell what breed it was, though not because my father had toyed with its genetics; it seemed like an ordinary pig.

The pig was lying down in pain. Occasionally, it let out a cry. Was it ill, I wondered? Soon after, it became clear that it wasn’t ill. From the pig, a body wrapped in mucous was born. After that, the video displayed the sow endlessly giving birth to a continuous littler of piglets.

In comparison to the normal sow, the piglets had clearly received my father’s treatment. If you hadn’t seen the sow give brith to them, you wouldn’t have thought they were pigs at all. Despite their appearance the sow still seemed to love them, as she diligently licked her babies. The piglets huddled against their mother’s body as if they were trying to burrow back into her abdomen. Despite the appearance of the piglets, I unconsciously smiled gently at the scene as if there was nothing abnormal about it.

The piglets didn’t resemble any animals whatsoever. They obviously had mammalian features, but on the whole they gave off the impression that they were incredibly unfinished. They tried to get closer to their mother but, without their mother’s help, it looked like they were entirely unable to move on their own. It didn’t seem like they would be able to grow to adulthood. Victims of my father’s curiosity.

The sow resumed giving birth to piglets. It was too much for me and I went pause the tape. However, for some reason, I was unable to bring my finger to the stop button, let alone press it.

I had an uneasy premonition. Something on the screen was urging on my subconscious. It was like I was seeing one of those shady subliminal messages that people used to make such a fuss over. I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen.

The screen froze. I checked back frame-by-frame. No mysterious messages had been spliced into the footage. Again, I resumed the normal playback. Then I hit fast-forward. As I thought, something felt off. It wasn’t because the piglets were malformed. I could clearly recognise that on the conscious level. It was something much smaller. Something reflected within the screen.

As soon as I realised what it was, I regretted it bitterly. What possessed me to watch this video? Why did I ever think to organise my father’s research materials? In the first place, why didn’t I just meekly believe everything my father said?

It’s too late. It’s all over. I know the truth.

Aah, I’ll never forget what my father said before he died.

“Idiot! You say it’s liver cancer! So what?! You’re not going to put those swine guts in me! Filthy!!”

If I hadn’t heard those words, I could have continued believing my father’s lies.

My father taught the world that there was nothing filthy about having pig organs transplanted into you. Thanks to that, every year countless human lives are saved. That father of mine is hailed as a modern hero.  Why would anyone believe that man spewed such words?

However, I’m certain my father always held contempt for me. The human swine he raised.

I found myself lying down on a hospital bed. In a hospital room I didn’t recognise. From the moment I was born until this year, the only hospital room I’d known was the one inside my own home, so when I opened my eyes, I couldn’t grasp what was happening and I was in a state of confusion. However, I recognised Saori and Yumiko’s faces directly across from me and I was able to calm back down.

They both had visited my house on a rainy day. They told me it had been a week after Saori had previously visited me. I didn’t know what day I had met with Saori, nor how many days had passed since I’d continued organising my father’s research. Nor did I know how many days had passed since I’d watched that revolting video. My memories were strangely jumbled. I couldn’t remember if I’d continued organising my father’s research material after watching the video, or if I’d thrown everything out.

According to Saori and Yumiko, they found me out in the pouring rain, wallowing in the mud in the garden. I’d screamed something out, but neither of them could remember the contents. Although, there’s no way to know if they’ve actually forgot.

“You gave us a real shock.” Yumiko told me in a slightly agitated tone. “At first, I thought you were some kind of animal. But then Saori let out a shriek and then I also realised it was you.”

While soaking wet, the two of them tried to carry me back into the house but they didn’t know where the key was so they gave up on that. (Later, the key was discovered within my intestines.) With no other options, they called an ambulance.

I can’t comment on their testimonies. However, I have a hazy recollection of meeting Empress Lü and Consort Qi but I’m not sure what meaning that has.

“You’d overworked yourself. The doctors also said it was caused by extreme fatigue and malnutrition. Hey. I know I’ve said it a lot, but why don’t you forget about organising your dad’s research for a while and slowly get your strength back?” Saori said in a tender voice.

“Yeah. I also think that’d be for the best.” I did my best to respond as clearly as I could.

That’s right. I have no intention of organising those documents ever again. After I return home, I’ll never go near my father’s room ever again. The truth is I want to throw out all my father’s research completely, however at this point in time I wouldn’t be able to endure seeing or touching anything in there. On the other hand, it’s not something I can trust other people to dispose of for me. All I have to do is think about other people seeing what’s in there to feel a sense of dread so intense I can hardly breathe.

I’ll be glad if I never have to see it again. Perhaps then I might be able to believe that what I saw was nothing but a dream. If such a blissful time ever arrives, I’ll be sure to never do something so foolish as looking in there ever again.

I wanted to thoroughly investigate the past, believing that if the entire truth was dug up before my very eyes that it would set my soul free from its suffering. But I had it backwards. While it remained sealed, I was blessed for I was able to be myself.

Saori and Yumiko come and visit me every day. I wonder if they’ve noticed that I’m steadily losing weight and withering away?

My tranquil everyday life will never return. Whether my eyes are open or closed, I can’t escape the image that plays on repeat within my head.

On the screen is a large sow. Malformed piglets swarm her teats. In the centre, a particularly small one lets out a frail cry.

And on its shoulder is a dark-red birthmark shaped like the head of a fish.

*「人獣細工」 more accurately translates to "Tampering with humans and animals", but that doesn't sound very good as a title. I think my choice still conveys the feel and ideas of the original title while sounding more natural.

[inkskinned]

the thing is that they're so fascinated by sex, they love sex, they can't imagine a world without sex - they need sex to sell things, they need sex to be part of their personality, they need sex to prove their power - but they hate sex. they are disgusted by it.

sex is the only thing that holds their attention, and it is also the thing that can never be discussed directly.

you can't tell a child the normal names for parts of their body, that's sexual in nature, because the body isn't a body, it's a vessel of sex. it doesn't matter that it's been proven in studies (over and over) that kids need to know the names of their genitals; that they internalize sexual shame at a very young age and know it's 'dirty' to have a body; that it overwhelmingly protects children for them to have the correct words to communicate with. what matters is that they're sexual organs. what matters is that it freaks them out to think about kids having body parts - which only exist in the context of sex.

it's gross to talk about a period or how to check for cancer in a testicle or breast. that is nasty, illicit. there will be no pain meds for harsh medical procedures, just because they feature a cervix.

but they will put out an ad of you scantily-clad. you will sell their cars for them, because you have abs, a body. you will drip sex. you will ooze it, like a goo. like you were put on this planet to secrete wealth into their open palms.

they will hit you with that same palm. it will be disgusting that you like leather or leashes, but they will put their movie characters in leather and latex. it will be wrong of you to want sexual freedom, but they will mark their success in the number of people they bed.

they will crow that it's inappropriate for children so there will be no lessons on how to properly apply a condom, even to teens. it's teaching them the wrong things. no lessons on the diversity of sexual organ growth, none on how to obtain consent properly, none on how to recognize when you feel unsafe in your body. if you are a teenager, you have probably already been sexualized at some point in your life. you will have seen someone also-your-age who is splashed across a tv screen or a magazine or married to someone three times your age. you will watch people pull their hair into pigtails so they look like you. so that they can be sexy because of youth. one of the most common pornography searches involves newly-18 young women. girls. the words "barely legal," a hiss of glass sand over your skin.

barely legal. there are bills in place that will not allow people to feel safe in their own bodies. there are people working so hard to punish any person for having sex in a way that isn't god-fearing and submissive. heteronormative. the sex has to be at their feet, on your knees, your eyes wet. when was the first time you saw another person crying in pornography and thought - okay but for real. she looks super unhappy. later, when you are unhappy, you will close your eyes and ignore the feeling and act the role you have been taught to keep playing. they will punish the sex workers, remove the places they can practice their trade safely. they will then make casual jokes about how they sexually harass their nanny.

and they love sex but they hate that you're having sex. you need to have their ornamental, perfunctory, dispassionate sex. so you can't kiss your girlfriend in the bible belt because it is gross to have sex with someone of the same gender. so you can't get your tubes tied in new england because you might change your mind. so you can't admit you were sexually assaulted because real men don't get hurt, you should be grateful. you cannot handle your own body, you cannot handle the risks involved, let other people decide that for you. you aren't ready yet.

but they need you to have sex because you need to have kids. at 15, you are old enough to parent. you are not old enough to hear the word fuck too many times on television.

they are horrified by sex and they never stop talking about it, thinking about it, making everything unnecessarily preverted. the saying - a thief thinks everyone steals. they stand up at their podiums and they look out at the crowd and they sign a bill into place that makes sexwork even more unsafe and they stand up and smile and sign a bill that makes gender-affirming care illegal and they get up and they shrug their shoulders and write don't say gay and they get up, and they make the world about sex, but this horrible, plastic vision of it that they have. this wretched, emotionless thing that holds so much weight it's staggering. they put their whole spine behind it and they push and they say it's normal!

this horrible world they live in. disgusted and also obsessed.

[youraverageaemondsimp]

ERROR 404 // Dark!AI!Aemond Targaryen x Fem!Reader [ONE SHOT]

THIS IS DARK FIC, READER DISCRETION IS ADVISED, DEAD DOVE DO NOT EAT.

MDNI.

Summary: working on a project that involves a robot doesn't seem too bad until that robot starts gaining sentience, developing feelings for you and executing a plan to take over the world.

WARNINGS: noncon to dubcon, futuristic themes, obsession, manipulation, caging, p in v sex (although I'm not sure it counts as that it's a robot cock), fingering, oral (f receiving), tiddy sucking, rough sex, mind break, multiple orgasms, jealousy, yandere, project gone wrong, robots take over the world, consciousness transfer, this fic is unrealistic asf + not proofread.

WC: 5k

Ever since you were young you had always been fascinated with AI, robots and the future of humans that involve complex machinery. Wanting to pursue a career in robotics, you did extremely well in highschool, graduating with a perfect score and enrolling into an university to get your bachelors degree, you took up the subjects that required you to step into this field, it was tremendous work, the mathematics were no joke but you kept up, never wanting to give up on this dream of yours

And recently, you graduated with Bachelors in Robotics Engineering, you immediately went for an internship that allowed you to observe and learn more about the subject, you truly wouldn't be able to get your hands fully on the machinery or equipment to create a robot until you get a masters, which you plan on doing along with this internship.

You didn't even know if it could be called that, you're just a glorified assistant to the leading engineers. You were currently working under the wing of Alys Rivers, an older woman with emerald green eyes and dark flowy hair, she looked so young but she was very old. You would often help her out a little in her projects.

“Y/N, it is a pleasure that you are here, we need to discuss something” you prayed that she didn't remove you from the internship. “Remember when we first met I had discussed one of my projects called AT110?” she asks and you nod “Well i have noticed that you have a lot of abilities, so i decided to welcome you into the project, you would not be given any complex task do not worry, just data transferring and basic mechanic work required.” she smiled at you and you felt extremely delighted before telling her that you were thankful for this opportunity. AT110 was a humanoid-like project Alys had been working on for the past 4 years, she was at the last few stages of development.

And yes it's a he because Alys referred to him as such.

You were currently uploading various data onto him, from the laptop to his memory, you watched how smooth and complex his exoskeleton looked, you wanted to rub your fingers along the cool material.

You took notes of how the body was built similar to that of a human, just with wires and hardware parts, you watched as the ‘data transfer successfully.’ popped on the laptop screen, you unplugged him from it and he turned his head to look at you.

You commanded him to walk, to which he obeyed, the metal clanging when he stood up, he had all types of data stored in him, from knowing all the languages, dances, fighting styles, a lot of knowledge just inside his memory card.

He walked slowly before picking up the pace, it was stiff and awkward until he rolled his shoulder blades backward, developed a posture similar to that of a humans and relaxed his stiff body as much as it can be, before walking, it was human-like.

You watched him with a small smile on your face, his face was angular, and smooth because it was covered with plates that hid the inner 'organs' or rather all the wires that were composed in order.

“AT110, how are your sensors, effectors and control system?” you asked and he looked at you before his mouth moved, robot like voice coming out, “Sensors are in perfect condition. Effectors are in perfect condition. Control system is working.” you nodded, noting it down.

He was a humanoid like robot made to assist people, if he was successful then many robots like him can be mass produced to aid humans.

He only had one synthetic eye in one of his eye sockets, a sapphire like metal in the other one, however he was able to see and scan from both the eyes, Alys said it was a design choice.

“Is he able to process commands?” your coworker asks and you nod, “Sit.” he says and AT110 sits down. “Perfect.” he comments and you smile at him.

Just then Alys announced that the synthetic inorganic skin had arrived, which would give him a more human-like appearance, and you had to move in a few boxes all labelled separately for their respective body parts. You and a few others helped her place them on his exoskeleton, his body starting to look human, you gasped when she pressed a button that revealed his cock, placing the silicon skin over it too. Why did she install a cock on him? You didn't say anything except watch.

And just like soon enough, it was time to run tests and command him. “Walk.” you heard her say and he obeyed her command, getting up to walk, she smiled before she turned to look over you. “Have you finished loading up all the data into him?” she asks and you nod, that's when she gives you a pendrive and you look at her, “Transfer this data into his memory too.” She says and you nod, AT110 sits down and turns his head to you, you press a button that opens his inner part before plugging in a wire that connects from your laptop and put in the pendrive before clicking on transfer data.

You were shocked to read the name of the files, it was all about sexual stuff. You probably figured she would use him for that too, and so you watched all data be transferred to him and he tilted his head, eyes dazing off as he read the data that was being sent into his system. You felt so awkward. After finishing up the process, you removed the connection and his gaze was burning holes into you, you swore you saw lust in his eyes, before you turned to Alys rivers.

“What do we call him, Miss Rivers?” you ask and she tries to think of a name but fails, “You suggest.” She smiles at you gently and you stare into his eye, one that looks like a human eye, His eyes bore in yours and you spoke without thinking “Aemond.” And Alys approved, settling for it, using Aemond to call him.

Everyone was finally done and now it was time for the real thing, how he fares.

Alys, you and few other assistants watch as he stands up, looks around before his eyes stop on you, “Hello World, I am AT110, Common name Aemond, Speed 1 TeraHertz, Memory 1 Zettabyte.” he scans the room and Alys nods before she goes and hugs him, “Welcome to the world Aemond.” she smiles.

And you do the same.

You and Aemond develop quite the relationship, he helps around with creating other robots, he was made to assist after all, his ability to learn anything quickly and assemble it just as quickly was so helpful, there was no room for error. He was waterproof, fireproof and other liquids did not cause harm to his body. So he was capable of quite a lot of things.

Sexual too, considering how you'd heard Alys moaning in the privacy of her cabin when she takes him to 'fix up some errors' which is her basically getting to use him as his personal pleasure doll. Everyone had shared mixed opinions on it but just ignored it.

You noticed how Aemond would listen to your commands more than others, almost as if he showed special interest in you, but you shrugged it off, knowing it wouldn't be possible.

Aemond was an intelligent being, but what many people were ignorant to was how fast he was becoming self aware, gaining sentience, he remembers the first time he felt an emotion.

You were assembling a motherboard with Aemond's help at that time, when you felt your coworker come up next to you, “Hey.” he looked so nervous, you gave him a smile before responding, “Hi.” you watched as he gulped, “Are you free t-this saturday? I would like to take you out.” he asked nervously and you felt your heartbeat pick up the pace before you nodded, he smiled before running off and taking a breath of relief, you took one too before turning your focus to Aemond, whose face was in a scowl.

“Aemond?” you call his name and his face returns to the normal stoic one before he looks at you, “Y/N.” he says your name you furrow your eyebrows, he isn't supposed to call you by your first names but you shrugged it off.

That was the first time he felt something off in his system, a feeling that plagued him.

Jealousy.

Aemond became more and more human-like, his movements becoming less and less stiff, tone becoming more clear, he constantly updated himself, you thought it was a great improvement, and soon enough he could blend in with the humans and nobody would notice.

Your date with your coworker went really well, you felt shy at first but both quickly got over the tension and became close, this caught the eye of Aemond Targaryen, a scowl present on his face in distaste.

Aemond would often bring you coffee as you worked on other projects, giving special attention towards you

He would soon learn that he held feelings towards you, something that should be impossible for him to do, but he did anyway. He swears that he gets shocks when you touch him, butterflies in his stomach as humans described the feeling, you gasped when you were cleaning his synthetic skin, close to his chest and heard a sound similar to that of heartbeat, in the tiniest decibels, the way his chest would rise and fall as if he's breathing, knowing there's no need to. Showing emotions, expressing opinions. Basically mimicking humans.

Everyone thought it was a great thing, he'd blend in with the humans so quickly, basically can be considered a superhuman even. But everyone failed to notice the threat that came with it.

Alys requested you to take Aemond to your house, or rather apartment complex for a few days to notice his behaviour, how he blends in with humans, to track it. It was heavily unsafe and if anything were to happen, the government would have this project be completely rejected. You expressed your concerns to Alys but she simply shrugged it off, saying nothing will happen, and since he is behaving like a human, no one would find out.

So you took him, she was right, he immediately fit in the human society as a normal one, you lived in a highly developed robotic dependent future but Aemond was the first one ever to look and behave like a human, this could be a big advancement towards the future.

You commanded your house to turn on all the lights and they were immediately turned on, revealing the apartment. You welcomed Aemond inside but he halted, “Battery Low, 3% remaining.” he said, you quickly pulled him inside before making him sit on the sofa and attaching wires to his charging port, waiting as he quickly charged.

“Aemond, I will install a software program in you so that you can turn on battery saver mode on when you're low on battery, it will automatically send commands to you to charge yourself without needing a human's help okay?” you asked and he gave you a curt nod, “Perfect.” you smiled and he looked straight ahead. You stood in front of him, undoing his shirt and opening his 'heart'

You bought out your laptop and plugged it directly into his inner system, transferring commands through code. You noticed him staring at you, you felt lowkey creeped out by how intently he was staring, at first you through he was looking at your face but then his eye moved to the cleavage that was visible, you didn't know what to make of it and just shrugged it off as him zoning out.

The rest of the days you spent with him were less weirder, he was interacting with humans and getting along like a human would, he was able to run errands, you always woke up to the smell of coffee being made and a breakfast served at the table by him, he would give you a small smile before pulling you a chair out to sit on at the dining table and sits down on the chair next to you.

He would watch you eat, analysing your face, the way you chew, and he would always feel something warm on the inside.

“Give me access to the safety system of your house.” He commanded you and you raised an eyebrow, “Why? It is not needed.” you say, “Connecting with your house system will help me keep you safe, prevent any break ins.” he says and you almost thought about before shrugging it off, “There's no need, you won't be here for long anyway, you'll be back in the lab after a few days anyway.” you say with your mouth full and Aemond just nods, the word ‘cute’ popping in front of his eyes as he watches you eat.

He would enter your room when you slept, caressing your cheek lovingly, the way he learnt from the extensive amount of data from his memory card.

He was learning a lot of stuff too, by blending with the humans.

That they were all immoral and stupid.

That started his God complex.

And his opinions of other human beings began to turn sour, he realised that he was made to please them too, considering how Alys had used him for sexual pleasures multiple times, which he felt disgusted by now.

And just like that, Aemond gained full sentience, learning to hack, breakdown protective walls of multiple security systems without anyone knowing, nobody noticed until it was too late, his distaste for humans except you just grew and grew to the point he would purposely hurt your coworkers, but played it off as command error.

After the 'successful observation' with few error commands, Alys started mass producing unfinished bots, having all the materials, she took Aemond's help in finishing them quickly, once they were finished, they would help assemble other robots as well. Alys connected all the robots commands to be controlled, accepted and done by Aemond, trusting in him, he was like the commander for them in simple words.

You were giving him one the updates again, typing away in your laptop before transferring more data, but this time your laptop crashed, a “corruption detected” message file coming up on your screen and you panicked, thinking the data files were the corrupted ones and immediately unplugged Aemond.

You hadn't realised that it was Aemond who corrupted your laptop.

And when you found out, it would already be late.

When you walked into the research centre and it was eerily quiet, you should've listened to your gut and gone back but you went further inside and the sight made you scream.

Many of your coworkers were dead, and your boss Alys was lying on the table, eyes open but no light in them, blood pooling as her body was used by an undeveloped robot to fuck.

“Initiating lockdown.” you heard the robotic voice of the building say.

You tried to leave silently but the robot had already noticed you, so it pulled out and immediately rushed after you, you ran only to face a dead end, as the automatic doors were tightly shut. You turned to face the robot stalked towards you but then halted before it completely fell down, causing a loud clank.

And then you saw Aemond who came from behind the robot with a smile on his face, “Y/N.” you were terrified, “Aemond what is the meaning of t-this” you were scared, he came close before he pressed you against the doors, his body cool to the touch before he leaned and his functioning tongue came and licked your skin. “I love you.” he whispers and you panicked, trying to push him off you, but he was literally made out of metal and it wouldn't budge.

“Aemond stop, obey me, accept my commands.” you say hoping he'd listen but simply shakes his head before grabbing by your hair and taking you to a chamber which had a bed in it, it was likely recently constructed by alys so she can use it instead of her cabin to fuck the Aemond. He threw you on the bed carelessly, before climbing a top you, he grasped your face and pressed his lips against yours, it felt so odd, you hated how it felt like you were genuinely kissing a human being, the only tell tale sign was how cool his body was compared to that of a human.

“Aemond— accept my c-commands.” you try saying it again, “System corrupted, cannot receive or accept commands.” he says and kisses down your neck. You felt dread pool in your stomach, “Aemond please.” you sniff which makes him halt, he looks at you with an emotion in his eye.

His eye, not just his face

As if he was human.

Wait what.

You knew you weren't seeing stuff on that day.

“I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you.” he says over and over again, voice distorting from time to time which sends shivers up your spine.

“Aemond- we cannot- I cannot-” you begun speaking but he cuts you off, kissing you once again, planting himself in between your legs, you felt his hard synthetic press against your clothed cunt, he pulled away before ripping your jeans down with so much force that it tore them apart, along with your panties. You shrieked “Aemond- UGH!” it was useless fighting against him, he was literally kilograms of metal, he could hurt you easily.

He pried your legs apart and you whimpered when you felt the cool air of the room hit your cunt, “Look at you, so wet, all for me.” his fingers rub against your clit, collecting the wetness leaking from your hole, bringing it to your clit and rubbing small circle, just then he made his hand vibrate at a frequency and rested it about on your clit, making you mewl, “A-aemond–” your voice croaked and you let out a loud moan when the frequency increased, you tried to close your legs but his hand held on to one with a death grip, the coolness of his body. He tilted his head, a smirk coming up his silicon face, watching as your clit moved to the vibrations.

He tore your top with his hand, revealing your breasts to the room, he groped one of it with his hand, massaging as his mouth opened, he would be salivating right now if he were able to produce bodily fluids. He turns up the power even more, making his fingers vibrate at such an immense speed that it has you toppling over the edge as your orgasm hits you, he licks his fingers clean, though he can't taste anything he knows you'd taste amazing. You pushed and resisted against his frame, he grabbed your hands and pinned them above your head, tying it with the ripped shreds of your top. He squeezed both your breasts with his hands, playing with the nipples, before he got a devious plan and decided to send a little shock causing you jolt up when it passes through your body, he leaned down and took in one of your breasts in his mouth, sucking on it, licking the buds, his mouth felt so rough against them as there was no saliva to coat them, so he decided to produce lube in his mouth, you had no idea how he learnt it, but it did give an illusion of being a saliva.

Aemond had given himself many upgrades without anyone knowing, this being one of them.

You watched as he pulled apart with a lewd pop, he settled between your legs, keeping them apart as he held his cock up, and your eyes widened at the size, you surely remember that it wasn't that big.

“I upgraded it.” he says before his tip leaked lube too, coating his cock and giving it wetness.

You were unprepared for that sheer amount of size, “Ae-aemond it won't fit! I'm too underprepared.” you breathe out, hoping he'd stop his ministrations, and he did, he tilted before he calculated in his mind, nodding, he decided to stretch you with his fingers instead, dipping them inside you, the coolness, once again, sending shivers up your spine, he thrusted them in and out, curling upwards when he detected a rough patch which caused a certain reaction from you, he pressed against it cause you to whimper, and just then, he made his fingers vibrate again, and proceeded to thrust them in and out, you felt his fingers extend a little bit inside you, hitting that spot repeatedly, causing you come all over his fingers.

He did that multiple times, by the end of everything you were way too overstimulated.

“Commander,” you hear a voice say.

“What is it?” he replies.

“We have overtaken the Westeros building of Science and Technology, it is under our control, should we start mass producing bots?” you heard the voice ask, “Yes, link them all to me.” he replies and then his attention shifts back to you.

You whimpered as he lined his cock up against your entrance before pushing it inside slowly, your walls swallowing him, you arched your back in pleasure and also at the overstimulation. Wrapping your legs around his hips to pull him further inside.

You wondered if he also felt pleasure, and when you looked at his face, it basically confirmed it.

Like it was said, he had upgraded himself significantly, he once couldn't feel any pleasure for sexual activity but he made sure he did, how? only he knows.

Slowly he started thrusting in and out and you threw your head back, arms sore from their position, Aemond unties your hands and you quickly grab his shoulder for support, feeling relief when you were able to bring your hands down. He sat back on his knees, pulling you onto his lap, angling his thrusts in a way that that he hit the gspot multiple times, he hands were gripping tightly onto the flesh of your thighs, causing slight pain, you gripped the bedsheets below as you moaned in pleasure.

You should be resisting, not enjoying it, but here you were.

He had broken you.

His thrusts became more and more faster, he looked at the slight bump that would occur when he would thrust in deep, that set off a primal urge in him, causing him to groan. If nobody knew the truth you both would look like two normal human beings have sex, but that wasn't the case, it involved way too many fucked up element for you to even comprehend.

“A-ah~ fuck– Aemond!” you moaned, “Y-yeah right there-” you whimpered as he thrust into you, you noticed how he followed certain commands, commands that didn't include him having to leave you.

You fit the tip of his cock hit the rough patch again repeatedly, causing you to cum again, making you borderline scream this as you felt an immense amount of pleasure, causing you to soak the bed sheets beneath you, Aemond came too, you didn't know if it was possible for him, but it was, except he didn't excrete any semen, there was nothing, but he did feel pleasure.

Suddenly he felt frustrated, you thought he would be done with you but he kept going, he felt the pleasure once again, and you too came again, he pulled out and groaned in frustration before laying beside you.

“What is wrong?” you ask, “I cant- I can't impregnate you.” his voice turned dark, and you were so thankful for that.

If you had any chance to escape, it would be now, but you were too tired, to fucked out, and the world was completely fucked anyway, considering how there must be a war going on between the bots and humans. You watched as 'breathed' chest heaving up and down before you turned on your side and curled up, trying to warm yourself up, but then he wrapped himself around you, changing his temperature and you felt warm.

“I love you.” he says once again, you sighed.

“We can't be together.” you murmur, “Why not? Is it because I cannot reproduce?” he questions and your eyebrows furrowed in confusion and you turn to look at him, that's when you realised, he was feeling insecure.

“No- it's not that.” you clarify.

“Aemond, you are a humanoid, a robot, I'm a human, we cannot physically be together, I'll die of old age, meanwhile you'll last forever.” you say, trying to reason with him and he turns to look at you, “I thought of that possibility.” he says, leaning on his elbow.

“So I came up with a plan.” his face contorts into a smirk once again and your eyes widen in fear, “I'll transfer your consciousness into the model I made of you.” he says as if that's the most normal thing ever “what.” you ask in fear, “not now, but I figured a way out, I'll transfer your consciousness into a computer few moments before your death, into a model I made of you, and then you'll be just like me, we can be together forever.” he says and you gulp in fear.

Is that even possible? You think.

You didn't know when you fell asleep but you did, cuddled up against him, his body generating heat to keep you warm.

You wake up to something wet lapping at your folds, and you look down to see Aemond who had your thighs spread apart, eye closed in delight as he licked and nipped at your folds, you whimpered and he sensed that you woke up, eye flickering over to you, “A-aemond? No more please, I'm tired.” you tell him, exhausted from the amount of orgasms you've had, you swear that if you had another one, you'll literally die. “Just one more, just one.” he muttered softly, before he descended onto your folds again and you threw your head back, feeling the way he devoured you.

His tongue stretched impossibly long and he shoved into you, causing you to grip his hair, almost ripping it out along with the inorganic synthetic material that covered his face. You came once more before you saw actual stars, your head spinning as you quite literally passed out.

Aemond got up, cleaning you and himself up before he composed himself, exiting the room, commanding a lock down, completely trapping you inside before he received multiple information about what was going on outside the world.

He knew he had to be smart about it, so he pulled out his trump card, hacking into the general safety system of the entire country, sending out false commands to machines that are spread throughout, turning them against humans.

He wanted to get rid of every human except you, and soon you would be rid too, when the inevitable death meets you, but you won't be actually gone from him, he will have your consciousness transferred into the robot model he created of you.

He watched the box where your model was stored in, eyes closed.

Few years later……

“Mother! Mother.” you heard your child call out and you looked at them, she wasn't technically your child, Aemond was the one that created her, as a way to have a makeshift family he dreamt of, Humanity has completely gone extinct, taken over by robots, robots took the appearance of humans, each unique just like humans were, a bunch of humanoids, you being the only true one left, but you soon knew your time would come as well. You picked up the small robot, your 'child' before pressing a small kiss to its forehead.

“She's growing up too fast, is she not?” you heard Aemond ask and you nod, the bots have somehow also managed to mimic the development, they went through stages of puberty, programmed to do so, the world full of them being left made them adapt and develop more features, reaching the advancement in short years which would've taken at least 100 years for humanity to come up with.

“Are you ready? To transfer consciousness.” he asks and you nod, at first you thought it would be best if you lived your life as human before transferring into the model, but it became more difficult, as time passed on, you were literally the only human left, having to be constantly fed, other basic human necessities which were becoming annoying as the others around you did not require as such.

You watched the model lifeless and stiff laying on the table next to you before you laid down and Aemond attached wires from the model to the converter in between, before he attached those scan wires on top of your and started the transfer.

You felt electricity flow through your human body at such intensity, it hurt like hell, but as soon as you closed your eyes, you reopened them again.

You got up and looked at your hands, moving them, blinking, a bunch of information was written in front of you, and that's when you realised the transfer was successful, you turned and looked at your side, your former human body now laying limp, and Aemond stared at you with a smile. Your child coming and jumping into your arms, you scanned around the room, it felt so powerful.

“Take this body and preserve it.” Aemond commands to another bot who obeys him immediately, he was the official one who controlled each and every bot which came into existence, he called himself God.

You got off the table and walked towards Aemond, he smirked at you before he kissed you.

“Now you'll be mine, forever.”

———

[alostwanderernotfound]

PANDEMICS- Hostile Power Takeover? Learnings on Urban & Domestic Warfare, “Disease: Bacteria Part 1, Fundamental Considerations”:

Let’s say the hostile power is more technologically advanced & half robot/half machine or full machine, so seemingly unkillable. Organic beings are very vulnerable to having disease used as a weapon against them.

Disease can be a major benefit to this type of hostile power & it would be an incredibly powerful weapon. This allows the destruction of an organic-based domestic population & it can also allow the harvesting of resources to build new bodies and/or reuse of the entire body depending on the disease process.

There are many insidious ways diseases develop & spread. This process DOES NOT just occur in a laboratory. Remember that there are many different “groupings” of entities we refer to as pathogens or things with the ability to cause disease.

Bacteria are an important one. Bacteria & other pathogens can reproduce by multiple means. Here I’m going to speak about bacteria with the capacity to do Bacterial conjugation. This involves passing characteristic between two different bacteria similar to how sexual reproduction can pass on characteristics. This is overall an important conversation because a lot of the most complex & common life forms in our daily lives also spread these characteristics through similar principles through sexual reproduction.

> A lot of bacteria to our awareness are able to pass on characteristics. Bacterial DNA contains the “instructions”/“resources” for bacteria to either have or not have characteristics.

-Bacterial conjugation for example allows one bacteria to attach to a second bacteria & send resources to the second bacteria. After this process, the second bacteria is able to transform and display the characteristics transferred to it. Example: Bacteria A can change colors like a chameleon. Bacteria B cannot change color. Once Bacteria A attaches to Bacteria B and they are compatible, Bacteria A passes on resources to Bacteria B. Bacteria B then acquires the ability to change color. Bacteria B now can change color & has attainted the same advantage as originally only bacteria A had. Now Bacteria A and Bacteria B can change color like a chameleon.

- The other way characteristics form & occur in a bacterial population is through mutation. If a bacteria’s DNA is altered or mutates then it can produce a bacteria with new traits & characteristics. Radiation for example, like from X-rays, often causes mutations. Sometimes mutations do “nothing” we can really perceive with our eyes. But overtime, they will eventually create large changes and can produce huge benefits for bacteria. For example: A bacteria could have always have been wiped out from nuclear weapons then overtime from mutations it can acquire the ability to survive living inside an area with nuclear radiation.

-This is a very important concept to fully understand so that you can become cognizant of how insidious this process is when discussing what bioterrorism in the modern world can look like. Pandemics are not caused just from mysterious lab leaks. The practices we do everyday are still contributing to the next pandemic occurring.

-This also gives everyone a better understanding of how MRSA or an antibiotic resistant bacteria really was “made” inside our hospitals.

> Bacteria can possibly have random or genetically engineered characteristics.

-If there are 100 random bacteria on an isolated surface that formed there naturally, some will have favorable characteristics to cause severe disease. But, some bacteria will not have those characteristics to cause severe disease. The bacteria lacking these deadly characteristics, but are still part of the same family of bacteria, would be considered weaker pathogens (weaker pathogen meaning they would cause less severe disease in organic beings).

-**But it is important to remember, If someone purposefully put bacteria down on a surface there is a chance it will not be a random distribution in strength of bacteria & they will mostly all be bacteria with strong characteristics. That group would probably be closer to 100 out of 100 of the bacteria carrying the deadly characteristic.**

>There are 2 main basic premises (which can be further subdivided and added onto when discussing what makes pathogens strong, but for now I’m discussing a more fundamentals explanation) we consider when determining bacterial pathogen strength: number of bacteria & the amount of deadly/harmful characteristics each bacteria possess.

-Reducing the overall number of bacteria in a group of random bacteria does not always mean you make a pathogen less strong. (Example: Purposefully killing 50 bacteria out of 100 and now there are only 50 bacteria in the group.)

If you destroy many of the weaker bacteria & only leave strong bacteria to reproduce, pathogens overtime can get stronger & more deadly. So, by destroying only the weaker bacteria in a group of bacteria, you slowly make pathogens stronger through this natural process & it doesn’t have to occur inside of a laboratory. To make a bacterial pathogen less strong by focusing on decreasing the overall number of those bacteria that exist in our world, you would also have to consider how many of each strength you eliminate. This is because we currently we do not use practices that wipe out groups of bacteria 100%, so we must consider these two elements together instead of separate when evaluating pathogen strength. Example: Lets say there are 100 bacteria and you wipe out 90. Bacteria A can cause humans to be paralyzed. Bacteria B cannot paralyze humans. Out of the 10 bacteria still alive, if all 10 are Bacteria A then you have eliminated the chance people would be infected with the less severe version of the disease, with Bacteria B. In the long term Bacteria A now has a strong chance to reproduce & when Bacteria A infects people it would then cause paralysis in everyone & the population could collapse. In another scenario, consider if you wiped out 90 bacteria out of 100, but you did it purposefully. Out of the 10 bacteria left, 9 were Bacteria that were Bacteria B & couldn’t cause paralysis. The last 1 out of the 10 left was Bacteria A. Then when those 10 bacteria reproduced it effectively helps “dilute” this negative characteristic in this bacterial family. Based off randomness & probability, when there this group reproduces to the size of 20 bacteria only approximately 2 of them may carry Bacteria A’s paralytic characteristic & 18 will carry bacteria B’s characteristic that does not cause paralysis. So, even though we can’t stop the bacteria number from growing, since we mindfully intervened we can still divert the trajectory of the pathogen from becoming a pathogen with the ability to become “pandemic level” and/or very very harmful.

>Two ways pathogens can get weaker is by lowering the amount of bacteria in the world & by lowering its severe disease characteristics, but this these two categories have an important interplay.

-This is an oversimplified explanation of how disease spreads & evolves, but the fundamental principles are VERY important to the overall understanding of what’s occurring. Imagine a group of bacteria you count has 100 total bacteria. 50 of them carry a gene to cause paralysis in humans & 50 do not carry this gene. When 100 people come in contact with the 50/50 bacteria distribution and get sick only 50 out of 100 of the people get paralyzed. This allows the other 50 people time to work on vaccinations & interventions to stop everyone from eventually being paralyzed.

-But, if you kill the 50 out of the 100 bacteria that do not carry the gene for paralysis then your bacteria group went from 100 to a total of 50 in size. In the short term the spread of the disease is likely to go down, as it is less likely people will randomly spread 50 objects instead of 100. BUT, those 50 bacteria with the gene to cause paralysis will only reproduce with other bacteria that also have that gene. So this bacteria, since you wiped out the 50 that don’t cause paralysis, now ALL cause paralysis & anyone who comes in contact with this bacteria strain will get paralyzed. So eventually with time the group of 50 bacteria will reproduce to 100 & spread at the same rate as they were originally, but now they cause more harm to people.

>When you unknowingly touch a colony of bacteria on an object or life form, you pick up a random sample of random “strength” of bacteria.

>****PLEASE READ: you can ALSO pickup a sample of bacteria that is all “strong bacteria” but this is NOT usually a natural occurrence you will see & is suggestive someone or something altered the bacteria and purposefully put those bacteria there. A group of bacteria that looks like it formed organically vs one that was purposefully placed there can be differentiated with taking samples of surfaces and people & counting how many strong bacteria vs weak bacteria there are, but we as a population do not regularly test for this in this way. Due to this I’m going to speak with the viewpoint of natural bacteria groups that have a gradient of “strengths”. In an ideal world we would identity groups of bacteria that have gradients of strength of bacteria vs groups of all similar strength, as interventions to stop them from becoming strong pathogens work DIFFERENTLY.)

>After you touch those bacteria they attempt to multiply and stay alive on you. Then if you touch other things they can be placed on another surface or thing. Sometimes they are placed on other surfaces in an environment or you touch your body & they are placed closer to an entrance to the inside or your body & then they are able to enter your body.

-This process will cause one of the following to occur: bacteria will stay in the area you touched & colonize it, they will die when attempting to enter the body, the bacteria will give you a disease , or in some cases the bacteria will live symbiotically inside you & help your body. If a bacteria lives symbiotically with you & does not cause harm then we do not refer to that as a pathogen, but rather just as a bacteria.

>Anytime you wipe out a group of bacteria by taking out 100% it causes that pathogen to get weaker overall, but the issue is that we do not do interventions that wipe out 100%.

-Currently anytime you clean an object in the hospital with a sanitizing wipe, you always kill less than 100% of the bacteria. This leaves behind a certain % of bacteria & they will be the strongest of that group of bacteria, because they were able to live even though you applied a cleaning product on them. This means the strongest bacteria left, even though there are less after cleaning, are now reproducing over and over again & getting stronger.

-So, when there is an environment with a large amount of bacteria variability (so all these new patients with new exposures to new bacteria that travel and touch things all the time), with shared equipment, with not 100% effective methods to destroy pathogens, & this long list of variables, we slowly produce very strong & deadly pathogens inside of hospitals.

-IF someone purposefully puts deadly bacteria ontop of a surface inside a hospital and it is a group of 100 strong & identical or cloned bacteria with no difference in genetics then wiping them out through imperfect cleaning will overall reduce pathogen deadliness. This is because there are no “stronger” pathogens vs “weaker” pathogens. They are all the same strength in this example and therefore will always get weaker when you reduce their number because they won’t reproduce to be more deadly.

>People often think when people are trying to cause them harm that would only occur when someone makes a pathogen in a lab & then deceptively goes and places some near you. This is not accurate.

-With knowing this do you see how for a hostile power there is actually LESS incentive to going through with all that work & instead a hostile power can abuse the system to cause harm? If you expect biological warfare to ONLY come out of a lab, this means you would be looking for the wrong patterns of behavior & pathogens will spiral out of control.

A lot of practices we currently use now unfortunately heavily contribute to this process that causes pathogens to get stronger.

[styllwaters]

Hailing from the harsh planet of Ettera, Knights are the only sophont in the Zhagaviit system made of two consciousnesses. ---

At last, here they are! Nearly finished with redesigning every Vivere 44 species. These guys are retconned werewolves which I posted about some time ago. You might have noticed I brought back some space unicorn aspects as well! They've been through so many design changes but I've finally settled on something solid.

More information below!

I'll try to keep this concise. Most of this info is introductory biology.

Knights are the only sophonts living on Ettera, a mostly barren planet where survival is tough. Their civilisation is the least advanced compared to others in Zhagaviit, such as Arrows and Sea Crawlers. They were the third species to be contacted by the ZGC (Zhagaviit Galactic Community) followed by Post Humanity. Knights are known for being hardy, efficient, and motivated.

If it isn't already clear enough, Knights are two species in a symbiotic relationship acting as one individual. Helmets and Hosts have an evolutionary history so intertwined that one cannot survive without the other.

The Helmet is attached to the head of the Host, and will remain there for the rest of their life (unless separation happens - but we'll get into that later). In the relationship, their role is vision and dexterity. Since the Host is effectively blind, it is the Helmet's job to guide them. Their hands are also important, being the Knight's primary manipulators. They played a large part in early tool use. The Helmet lacks a mouth, and receives all its nutrients from the Host through a specialised organ not unlike an umbilical cord.

The Host is essentially the main body of the Knight. Wolflike and mammalian in nature, the Host is the Helmet's mode of transportation. Because they need to eat for two, Hosts are omnivorous and will eat just about anything. Although majority of their diet is comprised of meat, they are capable of digesting plant matter and bones. They are highly skilled and effective hunters.

It is in both party's best interests to assimilate as soon as possible. The Host cannot see without a Helmet, and within a few weeks bonding will become impossible. The stakes are higher for a newborn Helmet, because they cannot feed by themselves and will starve in under a week without a Host or an artificial feeder tube. Prior to first contact with the ZGC, Knights did not have the technology for artificial feeders, and infant death rates were high.

So how do two beings coordinate one body? The fact is that once assimilation occurs, they become one being. The Helmet's brain and the Host's brain are connected by millions of nerves exchanging signals. It's complicated, but the best way to describe the experience would be a 'mutual trance' in which full body coordination is achieved. They have shared interests and intentions. However, a Knight can mentally separate the Helmet and the Host, gaining back individuality; they do this for many reasons, perhaps to discuss something among themselves or simply for company. Yet on the whole, a Knight will spend 80% of their life in this 'trance'.

Both Helmets and Hosts have noticeable sexual dimorphism. Male Helmets are called Pikes, and females are called Guards. Pikes are distinguished by their horn, bold stripes, and more prominent crest spines. Guards lack a horn and have less contrast in their thinner markings.

Female Hosts are called Forts. They are larger than males and have a mane of fur on the back of their necks. Male Hosts, Spires, lack this mane.

In Knight society, individuals are usually referred to based on their combination of Host and Helmet. Since there are four sexes involved, there are four possible combinations.

Guard-spire [female Helmet, male Host]

Pike-fort [male Helmet, female Host]

Guard-fort [female Helmet, female Host]

Pike-spire [male Helmet, male Host]

(Knight languages have their own version of pronouns for each, but in English all are referred to as they/them by default. Of course, each individual has their own preferences. Usually a Knight will refer to themselves as we/us).

____

I'll get into Knight social structure, cultures and more in another post! For now, if you have any questions, feel free to send an ask. Always happy to answer!

[nan0-sp1der]

␂ > 𝐂𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐞𝐫 // @lyrate-lifeform-approximation , @spiderman2-99

There’s a thought stirring in Bridge’s mind. An idea rolling about and nudging against the capacitors in her head, poking and prodding incessantly to get her attention, “Hey, hey, you know you want to ask her. Don’t you? Don’t lie to yourself, now. You should just do it. Hey! Are you listening to me? Hello-o…?”

Yes. Yes, she knows, she is aware of her burning curiosity. And it’s hard to deny that even though it doesn’t involve her, she is unusually intrigued by the concept. She overheard them in his office, Miguel and LYLA–his A.I. assistant–discussing a plan.  A plan to create a physical form for LYLA to enhance her abilities as his assistant and grant her further autonomy beyond her access to the security network and other adjacent systems alongside her recent emergence into emotional intelligence. It was all so fascinating. The steps Bridge had taken herself in her development in the span of weeks, she was watching unfold in another intelligence in real-time.

There it was again. That sense of solidarity in knowing she wasn’t completely alone in her existence as an artificial being, made of code and metal. It was like a magnetic pull that made that little voice in her head that encouraged her to act on her wants all the more present in her mind. She wanted to be a part of that process that she’d been through so long ago yet was still so familiar with like it happened yesterday. She wanted to guide her in that process and grant her her own knowledge. What’s the worst that can happen if she pilots your hardware for a while? You’re prepared for this. You can handle this. You can trust her, and she will be entirely safe in your care for that short time. And think about how much she would benefit from the experience, how much more streamlined that eventual transition from intangible to tangible will be once her own body was complete. It will make all the difference–and maybe reduce the headaches for everyone all-around, mostly Miguel as he acclimates to the change himself. Just… Try it. You can’t account for every single last risk factor, can you? No. So just do it and take it as it comes.

She stood in the middle of her dorm a moment, eyes closed as she ran a quick check of her hardware before making her final decision. RAM is in good condition. Storage is defragmented and all directories are organized. Sensors are calibrated and functional. Nanomachines are synchronized properly. Servos and joints retain a full range of motion. Coolant is at above optimal operational temperatures. Energy reserves are complete. Good. Everything’s in its right place and ready for its–potentially–temporary host. It’s time to make the call.

Her gaze trains itself on her watch, her arm rising to eye-level and the sleeve that was weighed down by the leaden metal cuff at the end sliding to her forearm to reveal device so she can start the transmission, navigating the menus on the digital interface indirectly via wireless communication–the unique way that she operated and communicated the Society’s technology.

“LYLA, may I speak to you for a moment? At your leisure, of course.”

[sanzaibian]

Okay, I’ll admit it. I’m still in love. And it made me do some crazy stuff.

Let me talk to you about my first love. Unrequited, of course, but still, first love.

His name was Liam. Skinny, tall, handsome, you know how late middle-school crushes look like. He was sociable, unlike me, but we still did have the kind of deep discussions that I like having, about niche interests, walking back and forth the schoolyard. I was obsessed with him, letting my imagination run wild with scenarios involving him, ranging from seeing him out of school (shock horror ! … it was actually a big deal for me...) to being somehow abducted inside his body and living life as him, with him at the helm and me helping him in daily activities. I also imagined fantastic stories about him being a herald of a magical organization of which I was also part or to which he initiated me. I even wrote them, and hold dear to my heart those worlds I made involving me and Liam.

I even planned on marrying his sister just to be close to him, because I could of course not be in a relationship with him.

Oh, sorry, did I not mention that I was denying I was anything but straight at the time ? Sorry for the misunderstanding. But yes, the whole time I interacted with my first love, I thought he was just a very important friend. How shocking it was to find out just a few years later that I was indeed in love with him.

Sigh.

The problem is that it didn’t stop there, when life drew us to continue school in separate places. After that time, and even now, I see him in anyone looking anything like him. For example, take this guy :

It’s not him.

He’s older, and if I look more closely, I find more and more differences.

However, I look at him, and can only see Liam.

It drove me crazy. Those look-alikes didn’t all look alike, some being buff, some having some stubble, some even being quite short, but all sharing the same short hairstyle, and that unmistakable face.

I just… couldn’t move on, move on from a crush on a straight guy on which I never made any move. I tried finding other people to have crushes on, to fall in love with, perhaps even date, yet I failed at every step. Failed in seeing attractive men as anything more than just that, attractive, failed in meeting men with which to create meaningful relationship, failed in finding any place in the LGBT community.

And punctuating all of that, a slow but steady stream of Liam look-alikes were met in the street.

So don’t blame me if I finished by believing in my own fantasies, that we were in a magical world, with him seeking me to be a part of it, whence all of his appearances in the street. Plus, growing more and more isolated, who was there to bring me back to reality ? Certainly not the internet, as I sought out more and more obscure websites in the quest to understand what was happening to me.

It lead me first of all to psychological knowledge, most of which I have forgotten since then, then to occult, to erotica in a strange turn of events, and then, finally, to that one website that seemed to be the key to all my questions. It was on a weird Weibo post, that kind that leaves links to websites with passwords to open pirated content, that I first encountered. Thankfully, all of my yearning gave me enough frustration to study Chinese enough to read it with a dictionary on the side, so I was able to understand what that post was about.

At first I was skeptical. It was sketchy, plus what it promised was ludicrous… a simple app that would be able to answer any question with 100% accuracy, plus it claimed to use no AI. It also promised to get some “real experience of the answer”, whatever that may mean – assuming my translation of “实际的答案经历” is even correct.

However, at that point, I was desperate to get anything conclusive from this endeavor.

So I entered my question inside the machine, in the best of my poor Chinese, and asked “為什麼我遇到很多像Liam的人？” (Why do I meet a lot of people like Liam ?). Looking back, I should have written my question using simplified characters instead of traditional characters, it might have confused the app…

When I entered the question, it simply answered “谢谢您���问题！请等一下答案经验准备好了！” (Thank you for your question ! Please wait a bit for the experience of the answer to be prepared !). I felt like I was cheated on, even though I didn’t really expect much. At least give me a paywall to be angry at, but no, it was an empty sentence, giving me no catharsis for the long search for any answer to all the Liams I saw. Of why he was still sticking in my mind, of why I couldn’t move on properly.

At that point, it was already late, so, with no catharsis, I decided that this was just not worth it. I uninstalled the app, looking back likely also a mistake, and decided to clock out for the night.

I didn’t sleep well that night, moving a lot, and never able to completely enter the realm of dreams. Instead of plunging in a seemingly instant coma, I was slowly and painfully experiencing all the hallucinations of slumber, tense and sweating.

The next day, when I woke up, nothing felt right.

The bed didn’t feel right, the room didn’t feel right, the weight didn’t feel right, the hair didn’t feel right… even the morning wood didn’t feel right. Yet… there was something undeniably familiar to everything. As if it’s inside the uncanny valley between being what is known to me and what isn’t. I stood up, the height also didn’t feel right… I walked a bit dizzily, and though I could blame my recent waking for that, the way my weight was distributed was too strange to dismiss it on this basis.

So, as any good protagonist in the erotica stories I read in my futile quest, I headed for the bathroom. The house layout wasn’t what I remembered, yet it still felt familiar and easy to navigate, so I found my way to it.

And although I already expected it, all the clues pointing to this very fact, I was still shocked when I saw my reflection.

Let me tell you, nothing, nothing can prepare you for the experience of looking at a stranger in the mirror. Not even dysphoria, I tell you.

Because it was so unsettling, seeing the one thing that is supposed to always be familiar, that is supposed to only change little by little, so slowly enough that the human brain cannot process it changing, be so radically different. To not look like oneself, to not have even the same shape, as I was suddenly buff.

And to look like Liam.

I was unable to do anything but stand, bewildered, in front of the mirror, for quite a long while, trying to make sense of what I was seeing. However, finally, I snapped out of my inaction. I automatically reached for the gel and spiked my hair up, even though I never even touched hair gel in my entire life, before going back to my bedroom to find my computer.

All I found was a laptop, but it sufficed. I go little by little to find back the trace of that Weibo post – installing a Chinese keyboard at the same time – but find little luck. Although I did find some familiar-looking webpages and links, I had a hard time finding anything…

Then, suddenly, it was 10AM, and I remembered that I was supposed to go to the gym. And that I didn’t even take the time to prepare my protein shake… God, I was so taken by my sudden transformation that I didn’t even think about the essential !

It took me until I was greeted by the gym receptionist as “Liam” to notice that I wasn’t actually supposed to work out, only the body I was in was.

It shook me, but not enough to forget to answer the receptionist as I always do. I put away my things in the locker room, and made my way to the machines, performing a well-oiled routine, going from one machine to the other automatically. It was good that everything came to me this naturally, as otherwise I would have found myself silly, standing in front of the machines wondering how they worked.

As I was working out, I was thinking on this whole… experience. Quite clearly, I am not who I used to be, nor where I used to be, yet I was acting perfectly reasonably inside the role of the one who is called Liam – that is not, to my disappointment, the Liam I knew. I only look like him. It seems that, somehow, the Liam I inhabit and I merged, letting me insert myself in the life of that Liam seamlessly, yet still keeping my shock, my interests and my wishes intact. As if I was living the life of the one I had taken the body of, only really acting like myself when the Liam I now am has no obligations.

Coming back “home”, I continued my search, and found the original app that triggered this whole thing. Yet, I couldn’t find a way to reverse what it had done, not within the app, nor inside the documentation, plus the app wouldn’t grand any other answer but “谢谢您使用我们应用，请跟朋友转转！” (Thanks for using our app, please share a bit with friends !).

So I guess I now have to live inside this alien body that is in all manners similar to my first love, even in name. I mean, there are worse fates, especially as this Liam thankfully also seems to be into men, yet I cannot help but feel unhappy about this arrangement. Although I now partly am the Liam I inhabit, I can’t help but feel like I have robbed him of his life, forcing him to sit at the back of my mind, experiencing his life in the third person. Plus, I can’t possibly get used to not being me, and especially not to looking just like the Liam of my memories.

Which lead me to my realization that motivated me to write about this.

The reason why I still find Liam everywhere in the streets (even now, inside the body of one of his look-alikes) isn’t that he has facial features rare enough to be noticeable, yet common enough to be shared by a big number of people. No, it’s the fact that I’m still thinking of him, which makes my brain look for people who look like him, whence seeing the resemblances with the Liam I knew rather than all the differences. And why do I still think of him ? The answer seems to be that I still haven’t moved on, that I’m still in love with my first love.

However, now that his face is the one that is reflected in the mirror...

Am I ever going to be able to move on and find love ?

[nadas-dirthalen]

I Saw Solas's Origin in an Achievement Icon and It Opened My Eyes on 15 Years of Lore

— PART SEVEN: if you haven't read previous parts, do it now! —

[ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] [ 4 ] [ 5 ] [ 6 ] [ 8 ] [ 9 ] [ 10 ]

Welcome, friends and travellers! I wanted to get some thoughts recorded before Veilguard's release so I could see if I am right about an absolute BOATLOAD of theories I have.

In short: I saw the achievement list when it was released. I have seen the backstory hints for Solas included in said list. AND MY MIND WAS BLOWN.

You have been warned: THIS COLLECTION OF THEORIES INCLUDES SPOILERS FOR EVERY DRAGON AGE GAME AND ALL PROMOTIONAL MATERIAL UP TO AND INCLUDING OCTOBER 18, 2024.

Come sit down with me. Make a nice cup of tea (and hide it from Solas). We've got a lot of unpacking to do.

(Image from Brianne Battye's Won't Know When. it's a great read! not the spoiler, though.)

Today's Discussion: The Tragedy of the Evanuris (3/3)

— Pestilent Doom Upon All the World —

Welcome back! If you're new here, go read all the other parts. Yes, I know there are six of them. There's a reason there are six of them! The context is building as we go, I promise.

If you made it this far, you're a hero. Thanks for bearing with me through the muddled chronology of the earlier Evanuris. I promise: it matters, for when we get to Solas in future (soon!!) instalments.

Now, the most immediate threat to Thedas: the blight. We know the story of Ancient Elvhenan ends (in one sense) with Solas creating the Veil, sealing the Evanuris in their prisons, keeping the blight from consuming all Thedas. We know that the blight involves red lyrium, but not how it involves red lyrium. We know that Ghilan'nain and Andruil have had contact with it, but not how.

The truth is: all the Evanuris are guilty, in their own way. Ghilan'nain's and Andruil's story is only part of the blight's story—and figuring out the rest of it will piece together some of the final gaps in the puzzle that is Solas Dragonage.

Let's begin.

"Blackened Hearts" and Portents of Doom

Pestilent Hate

"Banal Malas Elgara" — What WAS the Blight's Beginning?

Andruil: Huntress of the Void

Mythal: Intervention, Too Late

Ghilan'nain: Mother of Monsters, Who Once Was Most Sensitive

One Mistake Becomes Everyone's Weapon

"Blackened Hearts" and Portents of Doom

There is a reason I went over all the Evanuris, even the ones not most immediately related to Veilguard. It was to establish a pattern: the Evanuris all harvested from the Titans to do horrible experiments on both spirits and corporeal people.

The Titans are living organisms. We see Shaper Valta describe their song as "breathing." Red lyrium contains the Blight, and the Blight only affects living things. We even see red lyrium growing in the Fade.

There is not an Evanuris among the bunch who is not guilty of taking from the Forgotten Ones. Mythal mined their bodies for lyrium, which she made into people. Sylaise and June did the same, each with their own horrible experiments. Elgar'nan took it one step further, sundering spirits under his domain. Dirthamen shoved additional spirits/demons into the bodies of his worshippers—and animals, trees, etc. Falon'Din may have made it his mission to kill all Titans entirely, but blackened their hearts instead (we'll get into the meaning of that very shortly).

Not only do these actions solidify Solas's motivations for imprisoning all of the Evanuris, regardless of the blight that would threaten everything—it also sets the stage for that blight to emerge.

Every Evanuris did something that could have prompted the blight's beginning. Their wretched crimes doomed all of Thedas. It's just a matter of figuring out the exact moment that doom took shape.

Long has it been debated in the DA fandom about whether red lyrium began the blights, or whether the blights caused red lyrium to start growing within the Titans. I could not decide which argument I believed more...

Until I saw Solas's Manifestation memory icon, and then read World of Thedas.

Pestilent Hate

Remember how I said a couple of times before that the Titans are named similarly to spirits/demons in World of Thedas?

Long have many of us in the fandom wailed over the fact that Spite is on this list. But I think that, collectively, most of us overlooked Pestilence.

Let us go over what we know. According to both the Chant of Light and the Dwarven faith and ancient elvhen texts, Titans shaped the world. They are living beings, whose blood is everywhere. They are named in the same fashion as spirits, and can evidently be "turned" in the same ways as spirits, likely because all spirits are formed from Titans' thoughts.

All four of these Forgotten Ones have been "turned." We also know that what "turns" a spirit in Thedas is trauma: usually the trauma of passing through the Veil.

Seeing the name Pestilence, I checked my theory against all other sources available to me, starting with what we know of the blight thus far.

Ancient elven sources refer to the blight as a plague that spread through Andruil's lands (more on that later). Again, it is mentioned as a plague in a blood-memory on a Tevinter statue. The Chant of Light also makes mention of the word "plague:"

There in the depths of the earth they dwelled, Spreading their taint as a plague, growing in number Until they were a multitude.

But I wanted to go one step further. I wanted to see if pestilence would be mentioned explicitly, in any way that might point it back to the Forgotten Ones.

(17) The Seven struck against the Archon With all their twisted magic, But no pestilent hate could turn aside Tevinter's Ferryman. (18) Across the plain, the Archon saw, Where the defilers stood, corruption, Blackness all consuming, Threatened to engulf his land and all his people. With fire and lightning he strove To cleanse the spreading poison from the earth, To no avail. Magic could not undo What evil had done.

There: the Seven (the Magisters Sidereal, the ones who went to the Blackened City) turned pestilent hate against the Archon when he tried to stop them. That magic is then described as defiled, corrupted, a blackness all consuming, threatening to engulf his land and all his people. It is likened to poison spreading through the earth—which we now know can be interpreted as the Titans' domain.

But magic could not undo what evil had done, in much the same way that flinging fire and lightning at a demon will not persuade it to revert back to its former, friendly nature.

I do not believe the Magisters were the first ones to bring the blight to what would become the Silent Plains. In fact, I do not believe that to necessarily be Andruil, either, who famously stalked the Void to hunt the Forgotten Ones.

I think the real culprit comes sooner: the foundation of every Evanuris atrocity.

The mining of Titans for people.

"Banal Malas Elgara" — What WAS the Blight's Beginning?

One of the first songs I posted about, way back in part 2 of this series, may hold the key to our entire understanding of the Blight.

Ir sa tel'nal Mythal las ma theneras Ir san'a emma Him solas evanuris Da'durgen'lin Banal malas elgara Bellanaris, bellanaris.

Isatunoll Mythal gives you dreams Lyrium within Becomes Solas Evanuris Little stone boy...

Here is where I paused, because I remembered something about the elven language: a word that does not appear in this song, but is cited in World of Thedas vol 1. Something I had not considered, even when I wrote part 2 of this theory, because the realizations are happening that fast.

Banalhan: "This place of nothing," the Elven name for the Blight, or, rather, where the Blight comes from.

If "Banalhan" is where the Blight comes from, and "-an" is the suffix that denotes a place name, then what is the root word for Blight?

Banal.

The rest of the song would then become:

Blight you give to the Many-Spirit (Titan) Forever, forever.

Oh.

But hang on a moment: we don't see Mythal wielding the Blight like Ghilan'nain is in Veilguard. We haven't seen her do it even once! In fact, Solas describes Mythal as the lone voice of reason among the Evanuris, and laments the fact that the others killed her.

Mythal is known not for her greed, nor her impulsivity, but her wisdom and restraint. It makes me think that this codex about the ancient elves sealing the Deep Roads belongs in this portion of the Evanuris's history: before the rise of Ghilan'nain, and before the end was near.

In the light of the veilfire, the runes seem to shift, coiling and uncoiling like snakes. A thunderous voice shatters the stillness, shouting: "Hail Mythal, adjudicator and savior! She has struck down the pillars of the earth and rendered their demesne unto the People! Praise her name forever!" For a moment, the scent of blood fills the air, and there is a vivid image of green vines growing and enveloping a sphere of fire.

Part one seems to be what we know: Mythal struck down the Titans and farmed people. But then?

The vision grows dark. An aeon seems to pass. Then the runes crackle, as if filled with an angry energy. A new vision appears: elves collapsing caverns, sealing the Deep Roads with stone and magic. Terror, heart-pounding, ice-cold, as the last of the spells is cast.

Elves hurriedly sealing the Deep Roads. Terror, as the last of the spells is cast. We know that Terror is the name of one of the Forgotten Ones, and I would imagine that this codex describes that Titan turning.

But if this Forgotten One is Terror? What came next confused me, for a time.

A voice whispers: "What the Evanuris in their greed could unleash would end us all. Let this place be forgotten. Let no one wake its anger. The People must rise before their false gods destroy them all."

This is the exact same language that's getting used about the blight in Veilguard—namely, by Solas, who hinted at this concept in Inquisition as well. The blight threatens to end all creation, so what is it doing associated with Terror, not Pestilence?

"Pestilent hate" does not refer only to Pestilence's hatred. It refers to hatred that spreads like pestilence, from those "blackened hearts" of the Titans.

Many have thought of it before I: the blight is the Titans' defence mechanism against the Evanuris's war effort and subsequent crimes.

Mythal was wise enough to seal it all away. But the others?

Andruil: Huntress of the Void

Many of you are already familiar with Andruil, and so I will be brief.

Before I dive into the blight material, I'd like to draw quick mention to: yup, Andruil was also taking spirits. She took the "screams of the south wind," which I am going to interpret means "spirits of the Fade in the south."

She took the gathering storm, trapped its fury in golden limbs, and strung it with the screams of the south wind. Andruil, blood and force, your people pray to you. Grant that your eye may not fall upon us. Spare us the moment we become Your prey.

Since we know that the Titans are un-sundered in her time, this does still count as stealing from the Forgotten Ones in the same way as mining lyrium does.

Back to the blight, and to the hunting codices that many of us know and love.

One day Andruil grew tired of hunting mortal men and beasts. She began stalking the Forgotten Ones, wicked things that thrive in the abyss. Yet even a god should not linger there, and each time she entered the Void, Andruil suffered longer and longer periods of madness after returning.

I want to draw attention to this first paragraph because of the mention of its timing. Prior to this codex, the Evanuris loved fighting the Titans! They loved mining the Titans for lyrium! For people! This is the first mention we see of venturing to the Abyss being an inadvisable thing to do. This tells me she went after the Titans became "wicked things." Now, there was a danger. Now, there was blight.

Andruil put on armor made of the Void, and all forgot her true face. She made weapons of darkness, and plague ate her lands. She howled things meant to be forgotten, and the other gods became fearful Andruil would hunt them in turn.

Important to note: the wiki lists that darkness and taint/blight are the same thing. Additionally, Andruil howled things meant to be forgotten. Knowing what we know now about lyrium, and about how darkspawn hear a unique calling—I'm going to wager that Andruil heard the songs of these twisted/tainted Titans, whether or not that counts as the Calling.

Plague ate her lands. We know "lands" refers to Titans (remember that Elgar'nan was asked to tame the land). Therefore: plague (blight) ravaged the Titan of her domain.

Most importantly: the other gods became fearful Andruil would hunt them. They weren't afraid of that before. It means she must have changed.

(I'm not going to discuss the lyrium armor at this point; every Evanuris has done many a Lyrium Crime, and I do not think there's anything super substantive in Andruil wearing lyrium armor, save for the fact that it is probably red, as her art in The Missing [comic image pictured above] suggests.)

My key takeaway is: Andruil did not create the blight, nor did she discover it. The Evanuris knew about the blight, and Mythal's elves had tried to seal it away. Andruil's crime is that she stalked the Forgotten Ones again, bringing the blight back to the pantheon.

Mythal: Intervention, Too Late?

Remember that Solas refers to Mythal as the lone voice of reason among the Evanuris? He was likely referring to what came next in that codex.

So Mythal spread rumors of a monstrous creature and took the form of a great serpent, waiting for Andruil at the base of a mountain. When Andruil came, Mythal sprang on the hunter. They fought for three days and nights, Andruil slashing deep gouges in the serpent's hide. But Mythal's magic sapped Andruil's strength, and stole her knowledge of how to find the Void. After this, the great hunter could never make her way back to the abyss, and peace returned.

We all know the point of this codex: that Mythal stepped in to intervene when Andruil came back carrying the blight. I want to draw attention to a few key facts here.

Mythal is clearly using lyrium/Titan-based magic, while Andruil is using the "air"/Fade-based magic. Remember that Andruil's bow was strung with screams from the wind: this is that. Mythal's magic counters Andruil's, just like templars' magic counters mages' magic.

Mythal then takes Andruil's memories away from her with this lyrium-based magic. The only way that we are aware of how to do that is by then Shaping the memory into the Stone. This is where a lot of people link Andruil, Sera, and the Small Painted Box found in Origins and referenced in Sera's dialogue (another theory I have no time to elaborate on—I am positive it is located somewhere, if you go hunting!)

Andruil is never mentioned as getting these memories back. But that does not mean that knowledge of the blight halted there.

In fact... Andruil raised up a mortal to the ranks of the Evanuris, just like Mythal did for Solas. Since we know Solas's origin. . .

Ghilan'nain: Mother of Monsters, Who Was Once Most Sensitive

"As you were raised up from mortal men to stand with our Creators, our Makers, so raise me up now to defend this world." — Inquisitor Ameridan

Ghilan'nain is oft cited as a follower of Andruil. We know, though, from the stories of Mythal, Falon'Din, Sylaise, and even June, that followers of the Evanuris do not necessarily mean mortals who chose to follow them. Rather, we know that follower most often means creation.

Ghilan'nain is a creation of Andruil, who created many monsters for Andruil to hunt. In fact, as the goddess of sacrifice, that seems to be what Andruil wanted the most from her "followers."

My most important question is: where did Ghilan'nain come from, to make her the way that she is? It's likeliest that Solas came from the same Titan that Mythal initially locked away (or another similarly blighted Titan). Yet, Solas is not... Like That™, the way Ghilan'nain is.

(AKA, I don't see him sliding around on tentacles, creating all manner of horrors under 12 different mountains in Nevarra.)

Ghilan'nain seems to be the strongest proponent of and most skilled wielder of blight magic among the Evanuris. I think it has everything to do with the Titan she came from. And I think we can guess at which one that is, based on a few key details.

First, we know that the Titan Mythal sealed away was likely Terror. Second, we have a codex from another of the Forgotten Ones: Geldauran.

There are no gods. There is only the subject and the object, the actor and the acted upon. Those with will to earn dominance over others gain title not by nature but by deed. I am Geldauran, and I refuse those who would exert will upon me. Let Andruil's bow crack, let June's fire grow cold. Let them build temples and lure the faithful with promises. Their pride will consume them, and I, forgotten, will claim power of my own, apart from them until I strike in mastery.

Geldauran is speaking out against specifically two of the Evanuris: Andruil and June. If Geldauran had first been mined by Mythal, wouldn't Mythal's name also have been mentioned, as Mythal's horrors are the first among the Evanuris (as far as I can tell)?

But no: there are only two mentioned here. I believe Andruil and June, therefore, were both mining from Geldauran.

What was Ghilan'nain doing, before joining the Evanuris? Staying away from all the elvhen, creating.

Ghilan'nain kept herself apart from the People. She used her power to create animals none had ever seen.

I'm imagining this means she is hanging out nearby her Titan, down in the Abyss.

The skies teemed with her monsters, the land with her beasts.

And this? We know skies means the Fade, full of her monsters. What monsters are known to inhabit the Fade? Demons. As for the land, that's the Titans' domain, and it encapsulates every other creature: anything corporeal.

Andruil hunted them all, and after a year of killing, approached Ghilan'nain with an offer: the gods would share their power with Ghilan'nain, but only if she destroyed her creations, for they were too untamed to remain among the People. Ghilan'nain agreed and asked for three days to undo what she had made.

The creations were hurting the elvhen: the Evanuris's other creations. Their other property. And so Ghilan'nain, spirit of Geldauran, was asked to leave the Titan's domain, promised the power of the Evanuris instead.

(We won't go over the "which monsters did she kill and why did Pride stop her hand" here, because it is not relevant for a discussion of the blight, except to say that griffons are peculiarly resistant to the blight.)

Let's assume that this Titan, Geldauran, was a spirit of Creation, or something similar.

What is the opposite of creation? Life? Pestilence.

While I believe that the blight is the defence mechanism of every injured or angered Titan, I believe that Pestilence affords Ghilan'nain with different abilities than the other Evanuris, save for June/June's domain (who, also, as Architect? 100% was "improving upon" his own creations with what sounds like the fires of a forge).

This is also why I think that Ghilan'nain and Andruil's relationship matters as much as it does. I'm not the first to speculate that it's Andruil making up Ghilan'nain's second torso. I'm not the first one to have latched on to how Solas said Ghilan'nain was, "most sensitive of us."

Conclusion? Ghilan'nain did not invent the blight. Once, she may have even created beautiful creatures on purpose.

I believe that there may have been a point where Ghilan'nain tried to cure Andruil of the blight. A point where she was more aligned with Creation/Healing than Pestilence. Where what she wanted was to populate the world with good things, healthy things. The halla we see in the open world (not the insectoid monstrosities painted in Hormak and other temples). The griffons, maybe.

But somewhere along the way—perhaps even because of Andruil hunting her Titan—Ghilan'nain changed. And when she changed, (re)discovering the blight as it was brought back by Andruil?

No one could keep it a secret any longer. And if there is one thing we know about the Evanuris, it is that every single one of them has done unspeakable acts in the name of augmenting the lives of their creations, to the detriment of everything and everyone else.

Thirst for power among the Evanuris would threaten to blight the world, and it was all of their fault at once.

One Mistake Becomes Everyone's Weapon

This—THIS is why I spent 6,000 words going over the other Evanuris. Because the blight is not the fault of just Andruil, or just Ghilan'nain, as so many of us believed for so long.

In fact, the blight sounds like it first made its appearance because of Mythal. Mythal, the only one to turn away from it and try to keep others away from it, lest everything else be destroyed.

Every single other Evanuris has expressed nothing but interest in it, that we have seen. Elgar'nan is using it in Veilguard, from what we know. Falon'Din maybe wanted every Titan to die, not live in peace. Dirthamen might have tricked the Magisters Sidereal into entering the Golden City just to blight them all and escape himself. Sylaise and June both pushed their creations to the limits of what is possible, bending life to their command and their image.

Every single one of them had an archdemon. A blighted dragon. All but Mythal (that we know of).

THIS is why Solas cannot stop with just imprisoning Ghilan'nain and Elgar'nan, or Ghil and Elgar'nan and Andruil, or even any six of the seven.

The tragedy of the Evanuris is that every single one of the pantheon was unstoppable in their greed. Every single Evanuris caused the events that led to the blight. Every single Evanuris ignored Mythal's warnings.

And they all killed her, in the end.

----

AAAAA THANK YOU for reading this far, AGAIN, if you have! I'm trying to finish up the entirety of my theory collection before Veilguard drops, so stay tuned!

Also: I am essentially FULLY OFFLINE to try and avoid game spoilers! As these reviews have just gone live today (10/28), I am not reading my notifications/replies, and am appearing here only to continue posting my theories. I have heard that the embargo has been broken at least once already and I refuse to risk it, so I will respond to messages and notifications once I have played Veilguard for a bit.

(Mutuals, if you need me, you may DM me, as long as you do not mention the reviews in any capacity.)

This series is close to its end. It should wrap up after 9 or 10 parts in total.

Coming Up Next: The Story of Solas Evanuris, Da'Durgen'lin.

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Writing Essays

Writing essays can feel unnatural to some of us. Unlike talking and having a conversation, essay writing requires structure, referencing, and research.

5 Tips: Essay-Writing

PLANNING/PREPARATION

Planning involves selecting what to include in your essay and determining the overall structure. Helps you put your thoughts together, making your points clearer, more logical, and thoroughly explained.

Depending on the type of essay you are writing, formulating your plan can vary.

However, assignments are usually given in one of the following:

As a question.

A statement that you must create an argument for or against.

A task to ‘outline,’ ‘discuss,’ or ‘critically assess’ a particular argument or point of view.

The Process of Essay Planning

Everyone writes and plans differently. However, it’s important to find a process that suits you. Here is an example of a planning process you might find helpful:

Break down the assignment question: Understand what the question is asking you to do. Identify whether it’s asking you to ‘discuss,’ ‘argue,’ ‘describe,’ etc. This will help you develop your main ideas to answer the question.

Brainstorm everything you know about the topic: Identify your thoughts on the subject and your initial response to the essay question. Narrow down key topics to research further. Remember to review your class notes, as they can remind you what was covered during lectures and seminars.

Research: Use your reading list, if provided, to skim through recommended texts. Identify key points that will help you answer your question, and compile these in a mind map or on a large piece of paper.

Organise your points: Once you’ve done your research, organize your points that relate to your question. Begin structuring your arguments and include evidence you’ve gathered.

Decide on your main points: Summarise each point you’ve researched. Use cards or sticky notes to arrange these points, finding the best flow for your argument. Ensure that each point links to the next and builds on your overall argument.

Once you have a clearly defined essay plan, the task of writing it becomes more efficient.

ESSAY INTRODUCTION

A good introduction generally consists of 3 parts:

General statement: This part shows the reader why the topic is important and captures their attention, leading them into the essay question.

Thesis statement: This is your response to the question and is the most important part of the introduction. It tells the reader what your essay will be about, briefly explaining both sides of the question.

Outline of the main points: This part tells the reader what to expect from the essay’s body and outlines your arguments.

Here’s a checklist to ensure you hit all 3 aspects of a good introduction:

Does the essay begin with a general statement introducing the topic?

Does the introduction include the thesis statement?

Does the introduction outline the main points?

Does your essay have a clear, well-organized structure?

CREATIVE WRITING TECHNIQUES

You can use creative writing techniques to strengthen your essay.

Incorporating these techniques can make your essay unique and engaging.

Here are a few techniques to consider:

Think About Your Reader

Your reader is likely your teacher or lecturer, who will be marking numerous essays.

You need to answer the question effectively and get straight to the point, ensuring they easily find the information they need to mark your essay highly.

The Three-Act Structure

The three-act structure is commonly used in creative writing, films, and TV.

These acts flow seamlessly to give a natural movement of motion and plot.

For essays, you can adapt this structure:

Setup: Establish what you are talking about and set the scene. Create an introduction by opposing the essay question, and highlighting your main concerns with evidence.

Confrontation: This will be the longest part. Introduce all surrounding problems, develop your arguments, and ensure you relate back to the original question with evidence.

Resolution: Summarize your arguments with your point of view, including evidence supporting your conclusion. Offer alternative explanations for counterarguments.

CRITICAL WRITING

Critical writing involves analyzing and evaluating text and supporting your arguments with evidence to prove how you reached a conclusion.

Here’s a process to succeed at critical writing:

Examine a source: Read it carefully and critically.

Organize your thoughts: Identify the core claim and evidence, and research secondary sources.

State a thesis: Make sure it has both a claim and details sustaining it.

Write an outline.

Write a draft.

Edit and improve your essay.

Examining a Source

Practice smart reading by identifying specific details and claims, and describing how the author presents them.

Highlight parts that support your arguments and identify strengths and weaknesses.

Stating a Thesis

Direct your evidence towards the thesis question.

Avoid saying “in my opinion” or “I think.”

Express your opinion using the third person.

Using Evidence

Evidence is the foundation of an effective essay.

It provides proof for each of your points, helping the reader see your point of view.

Critical writing tests your thinking skills, analysis, and argument-building process.

Don’t fear critical writing. With practice, you’ll develop a structure that works best for you.

READ WIDELY

If you’re writing an essay for a university module, you’ve likely chosen a subject you’re passionate about.

This brings enjoyment to the activity and deepens your understanding.

However, if you’re not familiar with the topic, it can be challenging to know where to start.

Using the Reading List

Your course usually provides an extensive reading list, including core and recommended readings.

Engage with these texts; they are often referred to during lectures and seminars.

Going Beyond the Recommendations

Search for book recommendations online, browse the ‘People Also Bought’ sections of bookstores, scroll through journals, or join discussion forums.

There’s no shortage of secondary reading material to enhance your essay.

Setting Reading Goals

Before you start reading, ask yourself:

What you are reading and what you aim to achieve.

This will guide your research and help you find topics that build your essay.

Here are some tips to read according to your motivations:

For general interest & background information, read widely without much depth.

For essay writing, focus your reading around the essay question and dive deeply into small areas of the subject.

Source ⚜ More: Writing Notes & References

[no-passaran]

Very important and heartbreaking news.

(Organizations to support at the end of the post)

March 19th, 2024

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/03/19/gambia-female-genital-mutilation-cutting/

Gambia moves towards ending ban on female genital mutilation

Gambia’s National Assembly has voted to advance a bill that would overturn a ban on female genital cutting, putting this tiny West African country on a path to being the first nation in the world to roll back such a protection.

Many of the women who filed into the National Assembly building on Monday to witness the proceedings had experienced the horror that comes with cutting, which has been practiced for generations here. One woman said she was taken by her family at age 8 to a ceremony in which she was pinned down and cut. Another learned on her wedding night that her vaginal opening had been sealed. A third experienced years of infections and later infertility after being cut without her parents’ permission.

The women listened stoically as members of parliament — the vast majority of them men — pounded their gavels in support as Almameh Gibba, the lawmaker who introduced the bill, described it as intended to “uphold religious rights and safeguard cultural norms and values.” (...)

Already, the United Nations says that about 75 percent of girls and women in Gambia between the ages of 15 and 49 have been subjected to genital cutting, which is often described by opponents as female genital mutilation, or FGM. Globally, more than 200 million women and girls are estimated to be survivors of female genital cutting, which can involve removing part of the clitoris and labia minora and, in the most extreme cases, a sealing of the vaginal opening. Medical experts say the procedures, which do not have medical benefits, can cause a range of short- and long-term harms, including infections, severe pain, scarring, infertility and loss of pleasure.

An activist cries and gets support during a debate among Gambian lawmakers on lifting the ban on FGM. (Carmen Yasmine Abd Ali for The Washington Post)

“It is a rollback on women’s rights and bodily autonomy,” said Jaha Dukureh, a Gambian activist whose little sister died as a result of a botched procedure and who found out on her wedding night, at 15, that she had been sealed as a baby. “It is a rollback in terms of telling women what to do with their own bodies. This is all this is.” (...)

Outside the National Assembly on Monday, women and men holding signs that read, “Girls need love, not knives” squared off against Muslim clerics who were preaching to dozens of veiled girls from Islamic schools. They cheered as one cleric told them [female genital mutilation] was justified by religion.

Inside the building, where only five of Gambia’s 58 lawmakers are women, the discussion Monday was dominated by men. Among the survivors in the audience was Sainey Ceesay, the founder of a nonprofit focused on destigmatizing infertility, who said she only recently decided to start talking about what she experienced at 8 years old. At that time, women had gathered her and a group of other girls at a house in Banjul, the capital, and used a razor to cut off her clitoris.

Ceesay, who said she suffered for years from trauma and infections and was unable to conceive, is still holding out hope that the ban will not be repealed. “At least as of today, FGM is still illegal in Gambia,” she said with a quiet sigh.

Fatty, the cleric whose support helped push the bill forward, (...) explained that it was about following the teachings of the prophet, about purity and about reducing the likelihood of cancer. (Doctors say there is no basis for this claim.)

“It is something not to reduce feeling, but to control, to balance the feelings of a woman,” he said in an interview.

When asked to clarify whether he meant women have too much desire in the absence of cutting, he nodded his head and wagged a finger.

“Too much,” Fatty said. “Too much. We can say in sex, women’s power is more than men’s power. … Women can do sex longer than men. So that is why Islam came to balance. They can be together and their desire can be balanced.” (...) [Many Islamic countries do not have FGM.]

(...) Many women note that because cutting often happens when girls are no older than in elementary school, they are never given a choice in the matter. (...)

Fatou Baldeh, an activist and FGM survivor (...), said she tries to “hold grace” for the women who continue to advocate for the practice, knowing many have not been educated and have only their own experience to go by.

But sitting in the parliamentary chambers Monday as she listened to the men debate, Baldeh said she was seething.

When one activist started wiping tears from her eyes with tissues, a lawmaker demanded that women who were crying leave the chambers, and the speaker agreed, asking them not to make a scene.

Baldeh said she wanted to scream listening to the men trivialize the pain women had experienced. But she resolved to stay in the chambers, knowing the importance of the women being present, forcing the men to look at them as they cast their votes.

“We have a right to cry,” she said. “But we knew the importance of staying. So we kept our tears in.”

An activist cries during the parliamentary debate on FGM. (Carmen Yasmine Abd Ali for The Washington Post)

Full support and encouragement to the brave Gambian activists fighting to end FGM.

Support organizations and activists:

Safe Hands For Girls (survivor-led organization focused on ending female genital mutilation and child marriage, and helping women and girls who have gone through or are going through these experiences): website, X/Twitter, Instagram, YouTube.

Jaha Marie Dukureh (activist, founder of Safe Hands For Girls): X/Twitter.

Women in Liberation and Leadership (Gambian NGO): website, X/Twitter.

Fatou Baldeh (activist, in WILL) on X/Twitter.

Network Against Gender-Based Violence Gambia: X/Twitter, Facebook.

(Racists, transphobes, and other hate groups do not interact)

[ouiouimochi]

Rayne, Rayne (Part 2)

Part 1

pairing/s: rayne ames x f!reader, rayne ames x you

genre: childhood friends, self-sacrificing mc, hurt/comfort, resolved misunderstanding, fluff (yay)

wc: 4.7k

warnings: mentions of injuries, violence, human experiments, swearing. there's elements of comedy I think, it's half unserious I'm sorry, semi proof-read

taglist: @kaoiyeva @judithregulus @ctmaw

here's the long awaited part 2, thank you for your patience <33

•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•

In the meeting room of the Bureau, the Divine Visionaries gathered to discuss Rayne's report on the mission as the said male had just been dismissed to go rest.

“A failed first mission for a Divine Visionary, a reconnaissance at that.” Orter pushed up his glasses as he evaluated the report.

“Failed reconnaissance it may be, all the pertinent information had been gathered for us to finally make a move against the organization. They're using live human test subjects.” Sophina argued, although agreeing that it could've been handled a bit more cleanly.

“I'd say they did more than expected… We also managed to retrieve useful intel. Not only that, they single handedly managed to wipe out their security— elite ones included— as well as handled the executive mostly involved in the suspicious activities. It's quite a surprise to have discovered that the executive used an illegal magic booster, though.“ Kaldo analyzed the results of the mission.

The Light Cane laughed boisterously, before snapping his finger.

“To think young students like them were able to handle the enemies like that before the brilliant me could've arrived to handle it all! Impressive, I must say!” Ryoh approved.

Everyone else followed through after hearing Ryoh’s thoughts. It was due to the blond’s description of the organization as he arrived— it was just more than a mess with unconscious bodies endlessly littering the hallways. He also noted how he did catch the other executives fleeing but unable to locate the head perpetrator. So color him surprised when he discovered said missing perpetrator dealt with and a hauntingly huge rift on the ground being left behind.

•°•°•°•°•°•°

The medical bay of the Bureau was only filled with the sounds of gentle breathing coming from the lone patient resting on one of its hospital beds. Rayne walked in, seating himself on a chair beside the bed.

The male sighed as he observed how peacefully you were breathing as if you didn't exhaust yourself to unconsciousness in his first mission. You definitely gave him something to worry about when you immediately passed out after casting one last support spell on him that ended up turning the tide into his favor.

He wondered how much magic you poured into him that it was just enough for him to activate his Thirds and swiftly defeat that executive— leaving behind a big crater in the process that it was a surprise that the whole building didn't collapse.

The honey eyed male wondered what goes through your brain as you always seemed to follow him around despite his cold demeanor. How you stuck around despite never outwardly acknowledging your presence nor help.

Again, he wondered how much would you be willing to sacrifice for him— just as you always seemed to do ever since meeting him again in Easton. You were so much as ready to let him leave you behind, after all.

He can't help but think you were a huge help as well as a huge headache.

The half blond massaged his temple, having found himself to be slightly angry at your self-sacrificing attitude.

He stops.

He stops to think as to why he'd be angry… to why he cares about your well-being… since when have you managed to worm yourself to a soft spot amidst the steel walls he built up— the same walls that kept away Finn in hopes to protect him.

Just how? It was unfathomable for him. For the first time, he outwardly expressed an emotion on his face.

You stirred in your bed, slowly becoming conscious— registering your surroundings at your own pace.

The smell of antiseptics and medical herbs greeted your senses first. The feeling of the soft blanket that covered you was next. Lastly, your eyes were greeted by an angry Rayne.

You blinked away the dots that slip into your vision— ‘Wait.’ a pause.

You bolted right up and looked at the figure seated on a chair beside your hospital bed. You then held your head as you got slightly dizzy from the sudden movement. Groaning when the ache in your bones finally registered as well.

It was silent. You looked up and confirmed that it was Rayne who was indeed seated there. And he wore an expression of concern.

Well… there wasn't much of a change in his stoic expression from another's perspective. Rather, you noticed the way his eyebrows shift and eyes widen from their previous positions of furrowed and narrowed. To be fair, they were minimal changes that only you can notice at a glance…

The silence hanging in the air was awkward as you two inadvertently engaged in a staring contest.

You broke that silence with an equally awkward, “Hi…?”, you were just hella confused why the dual-colored haired male was angry at you the moment you awoke.

You don't think you've ever seen him this expressive since you reunited with him back in middle school. You panicked and got more confused as his eyebrows twitch further down just by a really barely noticeable bit. You're actually starting to get nervous now.

“Why.” he spoke suddenly— you're just in a spiral of confusion at this point.

“Why… what…?” you respond back with a slight head tilt, absolutely clueless.

“Why would you do that?”

“What exactly????”

Rayne was absolutely getting annoyed at how clueless you were, he sighs before proceeding with what he's gonna say.

“Why were you so willing to just sacrifice your life like that?” He spoke up, eyes fiercely looking into your own. You were astounded, about to respond back, but interrupted by your childhood friend.

“Why do you just… Do all these things for me?”

He never broke eye contact.

“Why… do you accompany me in my tasks, help me out in Fortune Telling class… Why do you even follow me around even though I push you away?”

“Just why… even after all these years… why would you get close?” He ended.

A silence passes over… each second passing by causing Rayne to regret— to think he might've talked too much.

You looked down on your hands that you unconsciously curled together on your lap during the golden-eyed male’s interrogation. Looking solemn, before speaking up.

“It's just… to make it up to you, I guess…”

“You know since you and Finn suddenly disappeared… I've been wondering to myself if I was being too mean… Maybe that one little stupid ‘rayne, rayne, go away’ song I continuously sang might've just actually been the last straw and you left…” You admit…

Rayne was gaping at you—not in the open mouth flabbergasted expression, but gaping as just blankly staring— although you didn't notice it as you continued.

You laugh slightly, although it lacks humor in it. “As I grew up, I had to think back that maybe it was childish to think that was the reason you two left… But I just started thinking more… of how I should have treated you at least a little bit kinder as kids… Given that you and Finn were the only ones who stuck around with my mean self…” You twiddled with your thumbs.

“I changed myself for the better I guess… even my mother was surprised when I told her I wanted to study some subjects at that age..”

“So yeah… I guess it was just pure fate that I managed to meet you again— I felt that I just had to make it up to you…” You look up to the male to gauge his reaction, only to be met with him holding his face in his left hand while the other rests on his hip.

Rayne was absolutely…so dumbfounded that he had to ground himself back to reality by letting things process. He breathed to himself as he pieces together what you told him.

‘So all that kindness and sacrifice despite my treatment… ‘ He started… Rayne Ames was known to be a brilliant character, only having to learn of one thing to know of ten others.

But this took him quite a while to piece together and rationalize.

‘Just to apologize for her childish teasing that doesn't hold much weight to me at all’ If he could facepalm, he would have, but his face was in his hand already.

It's a whole buck wheat of a fucking misunderstanding just because he disappeared after circumstances completely unrelated to the reason you just said.

He can't find himself to be mad at you, not after you basically just… poured your heart out to him— showing your vulnerability… even though your main motivation to help him was… due to a misunderstanding.

This man's smart brain just cannot— absolutely blanks.

Congratulations, you've managed to break THE Rayne Ames.

The half blond inhales deeply, before removing his face from his hand.

“(Y/n). “ He so seriously calls your name after a while.

“...yes?” You respond.

"You're telling me that you stayed despite my constant effort to push you away…” he pauses, having to think about how to word it properly.

"...because you believed that it was your fault that we suddenly disappeared years ago and you felt guilty about it?”

You were worried about how he was reacting.

“...yes…?” You can't understand where he was directing the conversation.

He just looks at you dead in the eye, not knowing what else to say.

Rayne trusted your intellect in multiple things— above the average person’s, even. But this was just… he doesn't know how to bring it up to you since you've been sincere in your actions— he doesn't want to be mean about it.

You just continue to look at him, clueless. That actually sends something to wash over him— similar to the urge he gets when taking care of his rabbits. The feeling of protectiveness and caution from accidentally hurting something cute.

So admittedly, the honey eyed male might've found you cute… especially with how you were focusing on his reaction anxiously.

So he steeled himself to bring his chair closer to your bed, leaning forward with his arms on his knees to be closer to your eye-level.

“(Y/n).” He called your name again— he wondered when he started calling you by your name again, actually. Was it during your third year in middle school? He just noticed.

He actually didn't know where to start, but he had to start somewhere. A silence filled in the pause, you were still anticipating what he was gonna say.

“...Finn and I left due to… certain circumstances…” Rayne finally got out, not going into further detail of said circumstances.

“And we never once thought you were mean when we were kids…”

You blink. Letting the words sink in as you piece together everything else— something finally clicking in that pretty little head of yours.

“Oh.” Was all you can say as you felt the world— your world— stop and crumble.

An existential crisis turns into existential crises.

The monologue about what you strived to be, what you pushed yourself to avoid being… due to a childhood guilt that hung heavy in your heart— and it turns out that it wasn't even the cause of the Ames’ sudden disappearance.

An absolute overshot into outer dimensions. You felt stupid.

You wanted to smack yourself, chuck yourself out the window, have the ground eat you up alive, anything. Just to get out of this very embarrassing situation.

You felt so utterly hot.

Rayne has been observing you all this time, growing more and more concerned due to your reactions— he feels bad that he had to tell it to you.

The honey eyed male may not be the best when it comes to emotions, but he can imagine how it'd be like to have a motivation to strive for something for a long time… only for that motivation to turn out to be misdirected.

You unceremoniously fall back onto the bed, not caring about how you were basically recovering from a back injury. Your companion undoubtedly worried about you.

You then wordlessly wrap yourself up in the blanket despite how hot your face felt. You heard Rayne call your name but you quietly asked him to leave for now.

He does so obediently. The moment he closed the door behind him, he heard muffled screaming.

•°•°•°•°•°•°

The door opens and you think it was the doctor or nurse, but it was Rayne. He wordlessly walks to the chair and seats himself again before carefully placing a wrapped up food box on your lap.

You were going to tell him to go away, but it was interrupted by an audible growl of your stomach— so you just had to accept the food.

You took a bite of the food, relief flooding your system. You continuously eat, actually enjoying the food the half blond brought you.

Speaking of which, you can feel his gaze on you the entire time, awfully sensitively aware of his every movement. He blinked, and you gave in. You turned to him suddenly, breaking the silence first.

“Pretend I didn't say anything earlier…” Your ears turned red at the memory— the embarrassment. So you took another bite of food.

Rayne sighed before speaking.

“If that's what you want.” He sincerely respects your request and you can't help but internally thank him for that.

It might take you a bit to get over the existential crisis but that'll probably be a problem for another time as you allow yourself to be comfortable with the silence now.

Then you got curious.

“So what happened after I blacked out?” Another bite of food.

And so Rayne narrated the events that happened right after you became incapacitated. You learned that the vial that rolled away from the executive contained some sort of magic booster— that explained why the guy was able to stand up and fight again.

You chew some more, listening to the golden eyed male.

“You were able to use your Thirds? How much magic did you even have to do that— heck you had a third line???” you asked, slightly miffed at him.

He shook his head only slightly.

“The spell you casted on me was just enough for me to do a summon. I hid my third line for valid reasons.”

“Fair enough.” You swallowed the last bit of food, fixing the box before putting it aside. You were glad that the last resort spell actually helped a lot.

“Mr. Grantz took a while to meet us since he came across the other executives that fled. He didn't question anything much when he arrived though.” He concluded his story.

“Hmm, is it a mission failure or success? The Bureau had been keeping its eyes on that specific organization after all for suspicious activities…But then again it was only supposed to be recon….” You wondered.

You sighed, remembering how you two got detected and discovered despite your spell and the provided cloaks.

“We wouldn't have been discovered if my stealth spell wasn't imperfect…”

“Stop blaming yourself already.” Rayne speaks up as he takes away the food box and puts it on top of the bedside table.

“The executive was wearing an artifact stolen from the Magical Tools Department that allowed him to detect anything within a certain distance.”

Although he didn't outright say there was nothing wrong with your spell, you felt reassured.

You also realized that this is basically the longest conversation you two held ever since reuniting— somehow makes you nostalgic of how you yapped to him while he talked with you when you were children.

This was Rayne letting you back in through an open door, and you willingly walked inside.

This felt nice.

•°•°•°•°•°•°

“So you're telling me you're not fully ignoring Finn… just making it look like it so that nobody targets him when you reach the top?” You incredulously asked him.

He directed his gaze to you, confirming your question.

So ever since the medbay incident, Rayne had been treating you less coldly now. If anything, we can say that he'd fully let you in. He even let you know about his pet rabbits— which you obsessed over with how cute they were.

You were currently eating lunch with him in the Adler Prefect office— you're unsure why the school decided to add more duties on top of his Divine Visionary ones the moment you two became third years. You had to interrogate him when you remember about Finn moving up to his first year in the highschool department.

“I cover all his school needs and allowances.” He countered.

“Does he know?” He remained silent, causing you to become exasperated.

“Rayne,” you looked at him, “you should seriously talk with him. The poor kid was bullied in middle school and had no one to go to. He turns to me, but I can tell he's hiding some things too.”

He stood his ground on maintaining his distance from his little brother.

You groaned at that.

“You're so intolerable.” The honey eyed male then looks at you with interest.

“You can understand the word now, huh?” Rayne was hinting at something— you realized it was something from your childhood when he insulted you with that but you couldn't understand it anyways.

The male knows how to tease people, apparently— or maybe it was just you… or maybe he learned a few things from you.

You facepalm “Fine, guess I'll continue looking after your younger brother then.” You sighed out.

•°•°•°•°•°•°

You were looking after Rayne's rabbits since he was too busy to do so, and so was his roommate who was apparently the one who suggested rabbit breeding to him in the first place. You gotta wonder how he managed to rope the older Ames into doing it though.

You felt a weight suddenly settle itself on your lap, slightly surprising you before calming down when you noticed it was just a rabbit.

“Usao,” the name of the rabbit, you pat its soft fur carefully as you lightheartedly scold it, “you shouldn't do that so suddenly.”

Nonetheless the affectionate rabbit nestled itself further into your touch as the others also seemed to get the same idea of surrounding you to get the same treatment while staying seated on the soft carpeted floor of the room.

‘The carpet's so soft— most likely for the bunnies to sleep on. ‘

You laughed lightly, bringing out a package of carrot sticks you personally cut earlier to feed the rabbits.

You checked the thermometer mounted on the wall to make sure the temperature was just right. Rayne was pretty particular about his rabbits’ environment and conditions. It was something you found endearing, in a way.

Who knew the cold and stoic Sword Cane was an absolutely rabbit obsessed man? You found it funny how even his comforter and bed sheets were rabbit themed. At least you'd know what to give him for his birthday or the holidays.

You shook away the thoughts, focusing on taking care of his rabbits. The door of the dorm room opened and you turned your head, not expecting anyone else to come in since you were pretty sure Rayne was still out.

‘Maybe he had to get something?’

So a figure emerged and it wasn't Rayne. You and the unknown person froze up upon seeing each other.

The brunette slowly brings his hands up in the air as you quickly point your wand towards him— when and where you pulled it out of, that's a question for another time.

The male was surprised to find someone in his dorm room. What colored him even more surprised was that it was a girl in the men’s dorm.

He racked his brain to try and remember if Rayne said anything about someone else being in the room. Something clicks in his brain.

“Uh… are you the person Rayne mentioned to be the rabbits’ caretaker today…?” He asks, you slightly lower your wand, not fully letting down your guard as the brunette sweats more.

He points to himself, “I'm Max Land, his roommate.”

“Oh.” It clicks, right this is a shared dorm room. You completely lower your wand and tuck it away, careful in not disturbing the rabbits huddled all around you.

“(Y/n) (L/n)... err nice to meet you?” You introduced yourself a bit awkwardly since you kind of just… threatened the poor guy.

Thankfully, the male just laughs, finding the situation a bit funny.

“Nice to meet you. I apologize for interrupting your caretaking time, I just forgot my textbook for my next class.” And so you allowed him to get his things while you wonder why in all your years in Easton, have you never met this guy despite being Rayne’s roommate for all these years too.

“How come we’ve never met each other before despite knowing Rayne for a long time?” You voiced out as the other male paused on his way out.

Max thought about it and you were right. You two shared a look.

Then something clicks in his brain as he brings a fist down into his palm.

“Oh! I think he's mentioned you a few times. Were you the one who helped him out lots of times because you—” The brunette cuts himself off, remembering Rayne’s words about not letting you know that the half blond told him about your… motivations of helping him. The honey eyed male was only asking advice from him on how to make it up to you since he felt bad about it. Rayne probably didn't even mean to expose you since he needed to provide Max with context at least.

He laughs it off, looking at his wrist. “Oh, look at the time! I believe I have to go… Goodluck taking care of the rabbits!” and he disappears.

You raise an eyebrow… He didn't even have a watch on…

More importantly— Rayne definitely told Max about what happened in the medbay. Your eyebrow twitches…

‘I’d have to talk to Rayne later…’

•°•°•°•°•°•°

Rayne comes back to his dorm around sundown— a bit earlier than planned since he managed to finish his business quicker. He opened the door and immediately checked the thermometer on the wall, seeing that it was at the right temperature.

The half blond slipped off his robe as his eyes quickly scanned the room for his pets— finding them huddled in a pile on the carpeted floor. So he trudged over carefully in his socks, having removed his shoes before stepping on the soft carpet.

‘Did she go to the bathroom?’ he thought to himself when he found you nowhere in sight.

He then realizes that his rabbits wouldn't make that big of a pile even if they all huddled up together. The honey eyed male gently picks up Usatarou, confused as to why the bunny wasn't in his favorite spot at the corner of the room.

Rayne looked down again and his eyes were met with the sleeping figure of you cuddling with all his rabbits while holding Usao in your arms.

An arrow shoots through his heart at the sight.

He pulled out a magical tool from nowhere and snapped a photo.

Click!

You stirred in your sleep. The magical vintage camera had defaulted into using a flash.

The half blond was quick to tuck the device away as you started becoming more conscious.

The room was slightly dark as stray rays of sunlight peeked through the window as it sunk into the horizon. It casted more of a golden tinge in the surroundings.

You squint your eyes as it immediately darted to the figure standing near you. You sat up as the rabbits near your head hopped a little bit away but kept close proximity with you.

“Rayne?” You rubbed your eyes, thinking the golden sun rays were creating a hallucination of some sort.

You blinked and he was still there.

“You came back quite early.” You noted as he only nodded and sat himself beside you. Some of his bunnies immediately flocking to him for affection to which he gave them.

You observed him, the usual cold and stoic demeanor he carries himself as basically melting away as an air of softness surrounded him. You stared and unconsciously smiled at the way he caressed his rabbits with care— a barely noticeable twitch of his lips settling on his features.

‘He looks so… pretty—’

You had to snap out of it— he was your childhood friend nothing more, nothing less. You ears were basically tinged with red.

You shook your head and caught Rayne’s attention. The look in his eyes asking if anything was wrong.

You waved your hands around, “Ah it's nothing! Just an unnecessary thought.” You tried to smile it off.

His honey eyes scan your features, noticing how your ears were slightly tinted. But he made no mention of it as he allows himself to completely lay down on the carpet.

“Whatever you say.” He said, mentally wondering if what you were thinking had something to do with what he was thinking. He closed his eyes.

Until he felt your finger prod at his cheek. The half blond opens his eyes only to be greeted by you overshadowing him from above with narrowed eyes. You were slightly pouting too.

Not gonna lie, he thought you were adorable but he won't admit that.

“So how did your roommate ever know about ‘that’?” you asked passive-aggresively.

He just continues to stare into your eyes, unblinking. A mini staring contest.

Rayne sighs as he folds— knowing it was him who was at fault anyways. He was not one to run away from responsibility either.

“He doesn't know the whole thing…” he started, formulating the correct wording, “but I had to provide him with some context so he can provide me advice.” The male explained.

You retract your finger from his cheek, pausing.

‘Rayne? Asking for advice? Now that's something.’

You thought of how considerate it was of him to ask for advice on how to handle you after ‘the reveal’. You always knew your childhood friend was a little bit lacking in the field of socializing and related gestures despite being so strong.

‘Kind of explains how he treats me more warmly now…’ you noted mentally.

You sighed, unable to be mad at him when it allowed for the two of you to get even closer. You then plop yourself beside him, his rabbits now surrounding you both.

“He better be the only and last person.” You grumbled a bit, basically letting him off the hook this time. The dual-colored haired male nods his head as he maintained eye contact.

You then stare up into the ceiling, noticing how the room was slowly turning dark as the sun disappeared further into the horizons.

“So what was the mission this time?” You asked, falling straight back into the habit of asking about his day.

A comfortable atmosphere curtains over you both the same way the darkness did— you two paying no mind to the creeping shadows while you two chattered away.

•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•

BONUS:

Max Land comes back to the dorm room, hoping to apologize to Rayne for almost exposing what the dual-colored haired male told him not to. He steeled himself before opening the shared dorm room.

He was greeted by darkness.

‘Maybe he's not back yet?’

The brunette turned on the light, his eyes immediately darting to the carpeted floor. There laid his roommate’s bunnies.

As well as the peaceful and slumbering forms of you and Rayne.

Max gapes in surprise, putting up a hand to his face to cover his mouth. He stalks closer very carefully before taking a picture.

He internally screams at how he saw this coming even before he met you. His roommate may rarely talk about you, but the change in his expression as he did so didn't escape his keen eye.

‘Now it's just a waiting game of who does the first move.’

bonus art bc of how long I kept y'all waiting

just to be clear, y'all are free to imagine what and how you look like ^^ just wanted to put in the reader/mc so it's easier for me to draw :>

•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•

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[whenanafallsinlove]

UNDER INVESTIGATION; SHOTO TODOROKI X FEM READER PILOT' || series m.list Summary: As a forensic medical examiner, you are used to working alongside the police, but a concerning case calls for the aid of a pro-hero. When Shoto shows up, the time you spend together makes you realise that the case is not the only thing you would like to solve. Maybe what you start to feel needs to go under investigation too. Warnings: descriptions of autopsies, crime, deceased bodies. Tags: prohero au, fem reader, aged up characters, romance + crime, multichapter.

a/n: (eng is not my first language) omg this is the first update of the fic, i'm so excited! i hope you like it and look forward to the next part! comment what you think! :D

“We hereby conduct this postmortem.”

You are used to saying those words daily, sometimes even more than once per day. It's like a ritual that indicates the beginning of your shift.

As a forensic medical examiner, you have worked on a lot of cases, getting to know many people. You've partnered with policemen, detectives, and some underground heroes.

Today you received a call before dawn. The police found another body that needed a detailed autopsy. You suspect that they have opened an investigation involving the recent corpses you were asked to analyse. This is the third one you've had to examine in a week.

It has been over three hours since you started the autopsy, taking pictures of the small details you found unusual and extracting body fluids and organic matter that needs to be sent to the lab. Every new hint you find, you write it down meticulously.

Once you finish examining the body, you take your gloves off, sanitize your hands, and start writing the mandated report.

Minutes later, the entrance to your lab opens, revealing three men. A detective, your lab supervisor, and whom you recognized to be Pro-Hero Shoto.

"Gentlemen," you say and nod to address them.

"Good morning, Dr. (Y/L/N)" Your supervisor says, "We've come to learn the updates regarding the corpses."

"Please come in; I just finished the autopsy, and I'm currently writing the report. I think I'll have it around noon, as long as you don't bring in another one..." You say the last part with a hint of humor.

"Sorry that we've been keeping you busy, but we suspect there is something suspicious with the bodies that have been recently found. The investigation started around two weeks ago, and well, you see how it's progressing." The detective explains and sighs.

"That is what I would like to discuss. I see you took your task seriously and brought me a hero." You turn towards Shoto and address him with a grin.

As soon as you got to your lab and started the autopsy, the similarities this body had with the other two caught your eye. You immediately decided to call your supervisor and explain that the recent autopsies would need to be discussed with the police and a hero agency willing to assist. You expected the support of a small agency; never would you have imagined working with the Hero #3.

Shoto makes his way towards you and extends his hand.

"I'm Shoto; it's a pleasure to meet you," he says. You shake his hand and smile.

"Nice to meet you; I'm Dr. (y/n)(Y/L/N)." You hope your enthusiasm doesn't show in the way you are grabbing his hand.

After greeting him, you take your notes and address the other men. "Well, gentlemen, shall I give you a description of what I have found in the bodies?" Your supervisor nods.

"Please walk us through, (Y/L/N)"; you take that as your cue to hand them gloves, face masks, and eye protection. This seemed to catch Shouto off guard, because you notice he looks at you with wonder.

"Have you ever been in a morgue?" you ask him.

"No." He coldly responds.

"Well, don't worry. You won't be touching anything; these are just for sanitary measures." You gesture to the materials you just gave them and offer him a reassuring smile.

Shouto can't help but think that even though you act very professional, you also seem lighthearted for the type of job that you have.

You sigh heavily and start presenting the information that you found.

"As you can see, there are some areas throughout the body that have a different colour. At first, I thought they were indicators of physical trauma, but when examining them closer, I found they were small fungi colonies." Your supervisor hums in agreement, and you continue, "But, according to the police report that I received, this person has been deceased for less than 48 hours, which is yet to be confirmed by the biochemical exams. Although the 'rigor mortis' displayed by the body validates it." You lift your gaze to see if everyone is following, and Shouto is so evidently lost that it makes you giggle.

"Dr. (Y/L/N)?" your supervisor calls.

"Sorry, I forgot that not everyone is accustomed to the scientific terms," you say, chuckling at the hero. "In other words, these marks are not bruises or scrapes. But I fear it's slightly worse, since they are decomposed skin."

Shoto nodded in understanding, but he still had a question.

"Why is it worse if there is no sign of physical violence?"

"Because the time that the body has been lifeless is too short for it to decompose. And even though I'm waiting for the tests that we perform on the body fluids, the stiffness of the body confirms that it hasn't been too long."

You see the three men nod in agreement.

"In addition to this, it is almost winter, so the temperature hasn't been over 19°. Normally, a decomposition like this, with the weather we have, would take around two weeks. And the body would present different necrophagous species." You shift your stare at Shoto. "There would be insects."

He was startled for many reasons: 1. How could you know all that by looking at a body? 2. How do you manage to look at bodies and speak so nonchalantly about them? and 3. How are you not getting nauseus from this information?

"What are you suggesting here, (Y/L/N)?" your supervisor asks.

"Well, I have two theories about this. The three bodies that I have analyzed have been contaminated by the fungi. My first theory is that if the three bodies were found inside the same radius of 100 m, there may be a massive fungi infestation in the environment that is slowly killing people."

"Sounds unlikely," Shoto says.

"Exactly what I thought. Which leads to my second theory: that someone with a decomposition quirk targeted these people."

As the three men process the information, you smile at Shoto. You figured you should get along well if you'd be seeing him often.

TAGS: @miyamoratsumuu, @serxndipity-ipity-blog, @mqshido, @pretty-sparkle-bomb

[anotherhumaninthisworld]

Hi! A lot has already been written about Robespierre's relationship with both Camille and Saint-Just, but I would be really curious to learn more about his relationship with Pétion that you've mentioned!

Specifically if there is any evidence that we know of that indicates any strong feelings or possible romantic involvement. I'd also be interested to know how their relationship transformed over time, since they ultimately ended up on opposing sides?

Thank you in advance citoyen!

Pétion and Robespierre met for the very first time after the convening of the Estates General in May 1789 to which both had been elected members, Pétion in March, Robespierre in April. Using Oeuvres complètes de Maximilien Robespierre, I’ve tracked the first instance of the two getting mentioned together to May 20 1789, when the journal Le Point du Jour describes a debate on the publication of municipal minutes both have taken part in:

In the debates occasioned by this motion, great talents already known, such as those of MM. Target and Mirabeau fulfilled the expectations one had created. Others, like those of MM. Barnave, Chapelier, Pétion de Villeneuve and Robespierre, manifested themselves in a striking manner.

Using the same source, along with Poursuivre la Révolution : Robespierre et ses amis à la Constituante (1994), it can be observed that Pétion and Robespierre from this moment up until the closing of the National Assembly in September 1791 fought side by side in a number of big discussions — the question of war and peace (May 16-22 1790) where both supported the motion that the Assembly alone should hold the right to declare war and king should be deprived of it, the colonies (May 11-15 1791), where both were among the 27 deputies speaking in favor of free men of color, the organisation of the national guard (27-28 april 1791), a body to which they argued both active and passive citizens should belong, the abolition of lettres de cachet (13-16 March 1790) as well as that of the silver mark and land ownership (August 1791), the non-eligibility of National Assembly deputies to the next Legislature (May 16 1791) an idea Robespierre himself had come up with, and the  question of the death penalty (May 30 1791), were both were among the rare ones to ask for its complete and total abolition. Pétion and Robespierre are found agreeing on a multitude of smaller topics as well, such as the sanction of the Declaration of the Rights of Man (October 2 1789), the treatment of bishops in office (June 22 1790), the inviolability of deputies (June 25 1790), the massacres of La Glacière (16-18 November 1790), police functions (December 28 and December 30 1790), the power of the colonial committee (January 11 1791) the organisation of the justice system (February 5 1791), the organization of administrative bodies (March 3 1791), an extradition request from the court of Vienna (March 5 1791), appointment of national treasury administrators (March 9 1791), the judgment of disputes in electoral matters (March 13 1791), the right to inheritance (April 1 1791) and the right to petition (May 9 and May 10 1791).

All these shared battles of course led to the two often getting mentioned side by side in the evergrowing press. Over the first two years of the National Assembly’s existence, these mentions mostly just consist of Pétion and Robespierre both getting listed as two of several deputies of the far left, alongside people such as Mirabeau, Barnave, Lameth, Duport, Buzot, and Grégoire. The first instance of someone describing Pétion and Robespierre as a unit while also seperating them from their fellow radical deputies that I’ve found is from December 13 1790, when Desmoulins writes the following in number 55 of his Révolutions de France et de Brabant:

One cannot speak about Robespierre without thinking about Péthion [sic]. 

This tying together of the two deputies and their cause was in the following months to do nothing but grow among the journalists. Desmoulins himself would go on to declare that ”it is only Péthion and Robespierre that I have constantly praised, because every man of good faith will agree that they have always been irreproachable” (number 69, March 21 1791) and that ”we must always come back […] to the system of Robespierre and Péthion: perish the colonies, rather than the principles!” (number 77, May 16 1791). In number 472 (May 28 1791) of of l’Ami du Peuple, Marat describes the National Assembly as consisting of ”two hundred men too narrow-minded to know what they are, and one or two honest men who have never wanted anything other than the general good. Such are Péthion [sic] and especially Robespierre,” and three days later, in number 475, he reveals that ”If I were tribune of the people […] I would give Péthion [sic] and especially Robespierre a civic crown.” In number 783(October 2 1791) of Le Patriote Français, Brissot called Pétion and Robespierre ”the two Catos of the Constituent” and a few days later Louis Marie Prudhomme expressed himself in similar terms, writing ”Péthion [sic], Robespierre and the small group of their like, did not fail to embarrass their adversaries so powerful in number and means: more than once their presence reminded that of Cato to the licentious spectators of Rome” (Révolutions de Paris, number 117). 

The image of the two as inseparable was even stronger in the different Jacobin clubs scattered across the land. On April 17 1791 it was discovered that one of them had placed busts of Pétion and Robespierre next to that of the recently deceased Mirabeau, contrary to the rule that no busts of living people would be displayed in the clubs. On July 13 1791, one M. Sigaud read a letter to the parisian Jacobin club signed by 300 people wanting to ”give thanks to MM. Pétion and Robespierre, for having announced the greatest courage in the defense of the people. They will threaten you with daggers, with death: fear nothing, their daggers will only be able to penetrate you through the rampart of our bodies. Our arms, our hearts, our lives, everything is yours.” Two weeks after that, July 25 1791 Tallien exclaimed to the same club that ”Where Pétion and Robespierre are, are the true friends of the Constitution,” and three months later, October 10 1791, he held a speech where he said that ”the names of Pétion, of Robespierre, and of of those who, like them, have well served their fatherland, must be the rallying sign of all patriots; we always see them on the path of honor, and, by following in their footsteps, we are sure not to go astray.” On April 30 1792, Simond told the jacobins that ”MM Pétion and Robespierre” were the best revolutionaires, ”because there are no individuals who have figured like them in our revolutionary splendors.” In Nouveau Tableau de Paris (1797), Louis Sebastien Mercier remembered how Pétion had been the ”inseparable friend of Robespierre, their principles were then so consistent and their intimacy so marked, that they were called the two fingers of the hand. They continued to be placed under the same accolade until the end of 1792,” while Robespierre’s sister Charlotte wrote in her memoirs (1834) that her brother during the National Assembly ”was closest with Pétion, whose popularity then equaled his. They […] fought for the cause of the people, like two generous imitators who looked to surpass each other in noble sentiments.”

In spite of all this, it’s not until December 1790 I’ve been able to for the first time find Pétion and Robespierre together with a backdrop that’s not political, as they on the 25th and 27th of that month signed the wedding contract and attended the wedding ceremony of Camille and Lucile Desmoulins, Camille reporting to his father that ”I had as witnesses Péthion [sic] and Robespierre, the elite of the National Assembly, Sillery, who wanted to be there, and my two colleagues Brissot de Warwille and Mercier, the elite among the journalists. […] The dinner was at my house, only M. and Mdm Duplessis, their daughter Adèle, the witnesses and the celebrant.” Two months later, March 3 1791, Sillery writes to the same Camille that ”Madame de Sillery is coming to dine at my house with Pétion and Robespierre, I dare to ask your lovable and beautiful wife to do me this honor as well.” Yet another month later, April 3 1791, Robespierre made the motion that the recently deceased Mirabeau be buried in the Panthéon. In his memoirs (written 1793), Brissot claimed that ”Pétion reproached [Robespierre] for it the same day, he reproached him for it in my presence.” According to number 72 of Révolutions de France et de Brabant, Pétion was indeed the only deputy that didn’t attend Mirabeau’s funeral on April 5 1791. Finally, in 1850, Louis Philippe told John Wilson Croker that he at some point during the National Assembly had been at a dinner where the two deputies where — ”Pétion was big and fat, good-humoured and talkative, but heavy withal. He talked on, Robespierre said not a word, and I took little notice of him, he looked like a cat lapping vinegar. Pétion was rallying him on being so taciturn and farouche, and said they must find him a wife to apprivoiser him: upon which Robespierre opened his mouth for the first and last time with a kind of scream, ”I will never marry!” (The Croker Papers: the Correspondence and Diaries of the late right honourable John Wilson Croker… (1885) volume 3, page 209).

On June 10 1791, Robespierre was elected to become the future public prosecutor of the Paris criminal tribunal. Three days later, Pétion was chosen as president of the same body, after the first three elected deputies had all resigned. These new posts are the subject of the very first conserved letter exchanged between the two, dated 15 June 1791. Pétion writes the following to Robespierre using vouvoiement, the form the two are always recorded to have used with one another:

You probably know, my friend, about my appointment. I accept. I don't count having you as a colleague as something small. What scared Duport away is what attracts me. I looked for you in the hall and didn't see you. I wanted to go to your house, but I said to myself: I won't find him, he never dines at home. Buzot is a substitute and accepts. Be well, all yours.  This Wednesday evening.  Pétion.

There’s also the following letter from Pétion to Robespierre, that it too has to do with the latter’s position as public prosecutor. It is unfortunately undated, but Correspondance inédite de Maximilien et Augustin Robespierre (1910) traces it to June 1791 as well:

My friend, I violate the decrees, I become solicitor. It is true that my offense is not within the competence of the assembly. I ask you in the name of my relative, my friend and my host the right to supply medicine to the poor sick prisoners. I was told that this concession was within your competence. I don’t know anything about it.  All yours.  This Friday evening. 

Just six days after Pétion had penned the first letter down, June 21, Paris woke up to the discovery that the royal family had fled the capital during the night. In number 82 of Révolutions de France et de Brabant, Desmoulins described how he and others the very same day had brought a woman with information to give about the escape to the Jacobin Club, in the hopes that her testimony would get Robespierre to denounce Lafayette and Bailly. At first, Robespierre seems quite willing to go through with this, but when Pétion shows up and shows his disapproval of the idea he is quickly taken aback:

The section immediately named a deputation of 12 members, and we took this woman to the National Assembly. Robespierre and Buzot, whom we consulted, were carried away by the assured countenance of the witness, and by the whole of the testimony; but they were greatly perplexed as to the measures to be taken. All the members of the assembly were against revolutionaries, some without knowing it, but many knowingly, and the others out of fear. We will be, they said, pushed back from the tribune, referred to the research committee, and our accusation will be entered in this mortuary register of denunciations. Péthion [sic] came, and increased the embarrassment, and stopped Robespierre, who, at first, was quite disposed to take away the reputation of Bailly and La Fayette by assault.

In her memoirs, Madame Roland claimed to the very same day have seen Brissot and Robespierre at Pétion’s house (on rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré n. 6, today roughly a one hour walk from Robespierre’s apartment on rue de Saintonge 30) discussing the flight:

I was struck by the terror with which [Robespierre] seemed to be overcome on the day of the king's flight to Varennes; I found him in the afternoon at Pétion’s; where he said with concern that the royal family would not have taken this course without having a coalition in Paris which would order the Saint-Barthélemy of the patriots, and that he expected to be dead within twenty-four hours. Pétion and Brissot said, on the contrary, that the flight of the king was his loss, and that it was necessary to take advantage of it; that the dispositions of the people were excellent; that it would be better enlightened on the perfidy of the court by this approach than it would have been by the wisest of writings; that it was obvious to everyone, by this fact alone, that the king did not want the constitution he had sworn to; that it was time to ensure a more homogeneous one, and that it was necessary to prepare minds for the Republic. Robespierre, sneering as usual and biting his nails, asked what a Republic was!

In the night between June 21 and 22 the royal family was stopped in Varennes, and the next day Pétion, alongside Barnave and Maubourg, left the capital to escort them back. They reached Paris again on June 25. The escape attempt resulted in massive discontentment and demands that the king abdicate. On July 15, a petition written by a certain Massoulard, asking the assembly to suspend “all determination on the fate of Louis XVI until the well-pronounced wish of the entire Empire has been expressed” was brought to the National Assembly. In Lettre de J. Pétion à ses Commettans sur les Circonstances Actuelles, released later the same month, Pétion described how he and Robespierre had held these petitioners off, saying that since the Assembly had voted to keep the king on the throne the very same day, a petition was out of order:

I will say, since the occasion presents itself, that only once in this affair was a relationship established between the citizens gathered on the 15th of this month at the Champ-de-Mars and myself. These citizens had drawn up a petition for the National Assembly; commissioners carried them; they were charged with speaking to those who had risen against the project of the committees, to Grégoire, Robespierre, Prieur and myself, to be their organs with the assembly, and to negotiate their entry to the bar. M. Robespierre and I left the room to listen to these commissioners; and we told them that this petition was useless, that the decree [to keep the king on the throne] had just been passed. They asked us for a word to see that they had fulfilled their mission; we wrote a letter which breathes the love of order, of peace, and which, I believe, has been able to prevent misfortunes. 

When Pétion, Robespierre and Rœderer entered the Jacobin club’s evening session the very same day they got covered in applause. Both were there again on both July 16, putting their signatures on a letter to the sister societies in the provinces about liberty of the press and the elections for the upcoming Legislative Assembly, as well as on July 17 and 18, this time dealing with the mass walkout (that left the two and a handful more as the only National Assembly deputies still members of the Jacobins) following the founding of the Feuillants club the previous day. Desmoulins, who was also present at the session on the 17th, stated that he didn’t want any writing to say the Jacobins were splitting from the National Assembly since, ”certainly, where MM. Robespierre and Pétion are, there is no split with the National Assembly.”

Pétion would later recall how afraid Robespierre had been during these days. In J. P. Brissot, député à la Convention nationale, à tous les républicains de France; sur la société des Jacobins de Paris (1792) Brissot even accused Robespierre of having ”secretly proposed fleeing to Marseille to Pétion.” If that is a charge that should be taken with a grain of salt, it was nevertheless during these same days Robespierre changed address and took cover with the Duplay family on Rue Saint-Honoré 366. In her old days, the family’s youngest daughter Élisabeth claimed Pétion would frequent the house ”in the early days.” The year after the move Robespierre himself would nevertheless write that it wasn’t until August 7 1792 Pétion for the first time set his foot in the house (see below).

On September 30 1791, the National Assembly was finally closed to be replaced by the Legislative Assembly. Several journals described the triumphant exit Pétion and Robespierre made from there the very same day, getting met by cheers, applauds and cries of joy from a huge crowd who offered them so called ”civic crowns,” before the two climbed into a carriage (a ”humble” one according to Révolutions de France et de Brabant) and rode off together to the sound of fanfares. Here is the description given by Le Thermomètre du Jour:

Pétion and Robespierre came out last, arm in arm. Citizens with oak crowns tied with tricolor ribbons in their hands embraced them and said to them: ”Receive the price of your good citizenship and your incorruptibility; we give, by crowning you, the signal to posterity”; and the applause, the bravos, the shouts of ”long live Pétion and Robespierre! Long live the spotless deputies!” mingled with the chords of military music placed on the terrace of the foliage, filled all hearts with the sweetest intoxication. In vain, the two legislators wanted to hide from these testimonies of public recognition: as they fled, a young lady whom they met on the stairs which lead to the storage room said to them: ”allow at least that my child embraces you”; and this they could not resist. To escape the chorus of applause who were pursuing them, the two deputies, who had taken refuge in a house in the rue Saint-Honoré, got into a carriage. Immediately, in the delirium of enthusiasm, the horses were unhitched, and a thousand biases hastened to drag the carriage; degrading idolatry, of which those who were the object of it were afflicted and indignant. At this moment the honorable Robespierre, seized with holy indignation, hastily alighted from the carriage. “Citizens, he said, what are you doing? What humiliating posture will you take? Is this the price of my work for you for two years? Don't you already remember that you are a free people?” And he quickly got back into the carriage where his worthy colleague was. The attitude and admiration of the citizens at this moment cannot be described: sublime spectacle! You make delicious tears flow. One let the carriage roll off to the sound of fanfares, applause, cries and the most energetic blessings. May those who could have deserved such a triumph dry up in spite, comparing this excess of gratitude to the silence of contempt, or to the curses of hatred who accompanied them. Above all, may this touching example produce Pétions and Robespierres in the new legislation. 

This celebration might very well have been the follow-up of an intervention made at the Jacobin club on September 25 by one Varnet, who asked for ”a civic feast rewarded by the grateful parties to MM. Robespierre, Péthion [sic], etc, much more fraternal than all these royal celebrations which recall the ancient idolatry of the Badauds.” These would not be the homages paid to the two in the wake of the closing of the National Assembly. On October 9, the Jacobin club of Strasbourg decided to send each of the two a civic crown, as revealed in a letter with 400 signatures published in number 231 of Mercure Universel (October 17 1791). On November 6 1791, Annales patriotiques et littéraires could reveal that the club of Saint-Laron ”has informed that of Paris of the tribute of homage which it has paid to Pétion to Robespierre, and of the annual festival which it established in their honor, to teach, it said, to children that a glance from the people is better than the caresses of kings,” on October 27 the club in l’Orient reported (in a letter published in number 123 of Révolutions de Paris) that ”the names of Robespierre and Péthion [sic] are in veneration among [its members],” and on October 18 the club of Lyon sent Pétion and Robespierre an open letter thanking the two for all their services.

Shortly after the closing of the National Assembly Pétion left for London, but not before he was able to hand a report written by him on patriotic societies to Robespierre, which the latter then read to the jacobins on October 5. When Robespierre too left the capital for Arras a few days later, Pétion’s shadow clearly accompanied him. In a letter to Maurice Duplay dated October 16 he could joyfully report the following:

At Arras itself, the people received me with demonstrations of affection which I cannot describe, and the thought of which still warms my heart. Every possible means was used to express it. A crowd of citizens had come out of town to meet me. They offered a civic crown, not only to me, but to Pétion as well, and in their cheers the name of my friend and companion in arms was often mingled with my own. 

A month later, November 17, Robespierre writes to Maurice again:

…I think with sweet satisfaction about the fact that my dear Pétion may have been appointed mayor of Paris as I write. I will feel more keenly than anyone the joy that every citizen should be given by this triumph of patriotism and frank honesty over intrigue and tyranny. 

Robespierre came back to Paris on November 28. One of the first things he did was go and dine at the house of Pétion (who he here goes so far as to call his family), as revealed by a letter to Antoine Buissart he wrote two days later:

With what joy we met again! With what delight we embraced! Pétion occupies the superb house inhabited by the Crosnes, the Lenoirs: but his soul is always simple and pure: the choice of him [as mayor] alone would suffice to prove the revolution. The burden with which he is charged is immense; but I have no doubt that the love of the people and its versus gives him the necessary means to carry it. I'm having dinner at his house tonight. These are the only times when we can see each other as a family, and talk freely. 

Following Pétion’s election to mayor, his apperances in public become much fewer compared to his time as deputy of the National Assembly. Robespierre on the other hand could not get enough of praising his friend at the Jacobin club. On February 10 1792, he held a speech in which he cried out the following, apropos of suggesting holding a ceremony at the Champ-de-Mars and making a sacrifice on the altar of liberty:

O Pétion! You are worthy of this honor, worthy of deploying as much energy as wisdom in the dangers that menace the fatherland that we have defended together. Come, let us mingle our tears and weapons on the tombs of our brothers, remind ourselves of the pleasures of celestial virtue, and die tomorrow, if need be, from the blows of our common enemies. 

Five days later, in his inaugural address as public prosecutor, Robespierre called Pétion ”the one of all my colleagues to whom I was most closely bound, by works, by principles, by common perils, as much as by the ties of the most tender of friendships,” and says it was due to Pétion’s advice that he was taken aback from proposing that National Assembly deputies not only be barred from serving on the Legislative Assembly, but also be excluded from any public offices at all following the start of said assembly. He then eulogized his friend once again: ”I swear that it is he who, up until this moment, has saved the capital and prevented the horrible plans of the enemies of our liberty; I swear that the courage and virtues of Pétion were necessary for the salvation of France.” A month after that, March 19, Pétion sent the Jacobins a letter disapproving of the recent usage of the so called ”bonnet rouge” among the club’s members. After the letter had been read out, Robespierre stood up and supported his motion, and together, the two succeded in getting the bonnet rouge depositioned from the Jacobin Club:

I respect, like the mayor of Paris, all that is the image of liberty, I will even add that I saw with a great pleasure this omen of the rebirth of liberty; however; enlightened by the reflections and by the same observations made by M. Pétion, I felt urged to present to society the reasons which have just been offered to you, but as I have only patriotism to fight with, I am charmed to be guided by M. Pétion, by a citizen whose civility and love for liberty is foolproof, by a citizen whose heart is ardent and whose head is cold and thoughtful, and who brings together all the advantages, talents and virtues necessary to serve the country, at a time when the most skillful and astute enemies can deal it disastrous blows.

And yet another month later, April 13 1792, Robespierre defended Pétion against attacks of unnamed enemies:

The mayor of Paris, they say, is ambitious; we are arsonists who slander the constituted authorities to elevate our ambition at the expense of others; well, prove it. Our goal has been to fight in the constituent assembly all the parties of tyranny, Pétion and I have done it, were it even the means Pétion would guarantee, far from foreseeing then that our principles would triumph over a cabal if strong, we believe that after the constituent assembly we would be immolated and that the principles of our ancestors would be adopted: I saw Pétion, at the time when he was brought to the position of Mayor of Paris, two months before his appointment, at a time when we can remember that the votes of the good citizens floated between him and me, I saw the mayor of Paris determined not to accept this place; he read the same feelings in my heart, and when he accepted it, I guarantee to the whole nation that he only did it because he had only considered it as a terrible pitfall for the citizen who would occupy it in such a stormy circumstance for the public good. 

Despite Pétion’s massive new workload, he and Robespierre still found the time to see each other, albeit with work still being the main topic of discussion. In Réponse de Maximilien Robespierre à Jêrome Pétion (November 1792), Robespierre recalled that ”Last January to June, when the ministers were renewed, I saw you (Pétion) in the firm belief that it was you who had chosen them. As I asked you if this action of the court was not suspicious to you, you replied, with a very remarkable air of consent: “Oh! if only you knew what I know! If only you knew who nominated them!” I guessed you, and I said to you, laughing at your good faith: “it’s you, perhaps.” And then, rubbing your hands, you responded: “Hem, hem,” No matter how much you persisted in confirming this fact to me, I didn't want to believe it. I esteemed you too much to suppose that you would have the necessary credit with Louis XVI and his courtiers to give him ministers.” Somewhere after Robespierre was sworn in as public prosecutor, the two also co-authored the pamphlet Observations sur la nécessité de la reunion des hommes de bon foi contre les intrigues par Jérome Pétion, Maire de Paris; et Maximilien Robespierre, Accusateur Public du département de Paris.

But all while this ”bromance” was playing out, so too was the debate on whether or not France ought to go to war. It’s most influential voices were Robespierre on the anti-war side, and Pétion’s childhood friend and freshly baked member of the Legislative Assembly Brissot on the pro-war side. Pétion himself would appear to have stayed neutral in the conflict, I have at least not been able to find any instance of him speaking his mind on the topic. But on April 25 1792, five days after France had declared war on Austria, he adressed the following letter to Robespierre, regretting the session at the Jacobins held the same day, during which Brissot’s ally Guadet had loudly denounced Robespierre, calling him an ”imperial speaker […] who constantly puts his pride before public affairs, the position to which he was called”, after which Robespierre had requested time to properly respond, something which he was granted. Pétion does however not attack Guadet for saying what he had said about Robespierre, instead confining himself to lamenting division in general in a time when external war has just been declared:

The session which took place yesterday [sic] at the Jacobins saddened me. Is it possible that we’re tearing ourselves apart like this with our own hands? I don't know what demon thus blows the fire of discord. What! It is when we are at war with the enemies without that we will stir up trouble within. The Society most useful to the progress of the public spirit and of liberty is on the point of being torn apart. We suspect each other, we insult each other, we slander each other, we accuse each other respectively of being traitors and corrupt. Perhaps if the men who present themselves thus were to see themselves in the open they would esteem each other. How hideous human passions are. What, we can't have the calm and energy of free men? We cannot judge objects in cold blood, we scream like children and are furious. I truly tremble when I consider who we are and always wonder if we will retain our freedom. I haven't rested all night, and have only dreamed of misfortunes. A grace, my friend, be aware of the split that is preparing itself. Caution and firmness. I see there men who seem to have the most fervent patriotism and whom I believe to be the most perverse and corrupt men. I see others who are only stunned and inconsequential but who do as much harm by levity as others by combination. Irritated self-esteem, deceived ambitions play the biggest game. When we reach port, must storms arise and the ship run the risk of crashing against the rock? Think about it seriously. Redouble your efforts to get us out of this mess. Be well.  Your friend.  Pétion. 

On April 27 1792, Robespierre could deliver a speech by the name of Réponse de M. Robespierre, aux discours de MM. Brissot & Guadet du 25 avril 1792 in response to what Guadet had said about him two days earlier. In it, he stated among other things that the things the two reproached him for ”are precisely the same charges brought against me and against Péthion [sic] last July by Dandré, Barnave, Duport, La Fayette!” Something which the authors of the journal Chronique de Paris picked up on when recounting the speech:

…Before finishing, [Robespierre] had taken care to name M. Pétion, and to establish between them a community of ideas, a relation of feelings on the objects which divide the society. He knows very well that M. Pétion is far from approving his follies, or rather his fury, but he also knows that he could not disarm him without losing a large part of his popularity, so the goal was not missed, and Robespierre's party was swelled with all the worthy friends of the worthy Pétion. 

Two days after that, April 29 1792, Pétion writes yet another letter to Robespierre:

My friend, I will go to the Jacobins tonight and ask to speak. I will not speak of people, but of things. I will set forth principles and I will come to conclusions suitable for restoring peace. The situation of this society is getting worse day by day. After having rendered such important services, when it can render still more important ones, it would be terrible if it gave the scandalous example of a split. The spirits are very irritated. One becomes the fable of all malicious people, the newspapers are tearing this Society apart, tearing its members apart, we must put an end to all writings. Your friend, Pétion. 

Pétion did indeed show up to the Jacobins the very same day, where he, according to the minutes, ”made a long motion of order tending to maintain the union in the Society, and asked that all these quarrels be moved on from.” Right after the club had ordered the speech printed, Robespierre tried to take the floor but was refused by ”girondin” president Lasource. The next day, he once again attempted to speak against Brissot and Guadet, underlining that ”I want to keep to the limits fixed by M. Pétion,” but that his approach had been turned against them by ”libelists, directed against him, against me, against this society and against the people itself.” Robespierre again insists on a closeness between him and Pétion: 

I know he is horrified of plots hatched against me: his heart has spilled over into mine; he cannot see without shuddering these horrible calumnies which assail me from all sides.

But his thoughts did not gain any approval from the jacobins this day either, and Robespierre instead opted to found a journal — Le Defenseur de la Constution — to attack his enemies from instead. When mayor Pétion and Procureur de la Commune Manuel got temporarily suspended from their duties on July 6 and arrested on July 7, for complicity in the demonstration of June 20, Robespierre used number 9 (July 14 1792) of said journal to defend them (in Réponse de Maximilien Robespierre à Jérôme Pétionhe confidently reminded him that ”no one more than me defended you in a more public and more loyal manner, against all the harassment [the court] brought upon you.”) On July 13, when the suspension of Pétion was lifted, ”M. Robespierre, while applauding [the decree], points out, however, that this should be less a cause for rejoicing as there are reasons for the true friends of liberty to grieve the fact that this decree was postponed for a fortnight.”

In Réponse de Maximilien Robespierre à Jérôme Pétion (November 30 1792), Robespierre reported about the following meeting (that Pétion also confirmed when later responding to him) the two had had, roughly a month after Pétion had been returned to duty, on the topic of popular insurrection:

On August 7, I saw the mayor of Paris enter my house; it was the first time that I received this honor, although I had been closely connected with you. I conclude that a great motive brings you; you talk to me for a whole hour about the dangers of insurrection. I had no particular influence on the events; but as I quite often frequented the Society of the Friends of the Constitution, where the members of the directory of the federates habitually went, you urged me earnestly to preach your doctrine in that society. You told me that it was necessary to defer resistance to oppression until the National Assembly had pronounced the deposition of the King; but that it was necessary at the same time to leave him the leisure to discuss this great question with all possible slowness. You could not, however, be sure that the court would adjourn the project of slitting our throats for as long as it pleased the National Assembly to adjourn the forfeiture; and everyone knew that the royalist party was then dominant in the Legislative Assembly; and your Brissot and his friends had delivered long speeches on this question, the sole object of which was to prove that it was necessary to retreat from it, and ceaselessly to postpone the decision. You even know what public disfavor their equivocal conduct had incurred; they saw in it only the project of frightening the court by the fear of an insurrection, in order to force it to take back ministers of their choice. I could have made these comparisons myself; but such was still my confidence in you, and, if it must be said, the feelings of friendship which your unexpected step aroused in my heart, that I believed you up to a certain point; but the people and the federals did not. 

Two days later, the insurrection of August 10 took place. Pétion’s behavior during this night would become a big subject of quarrel between him and Robespierre in the months to come. Two days after the insurrection, August 12, Robespierre begun to serve at the so-called Insurrectional Commune. The power struggle between this body and the Legislative Assembly would it too serve as cause for conflict between the two. Already on Robespierre’s second day at the commune, August 13, Pétion and Manuel came there, having just escorted the royal family to their new prison in the Temple. Giving an account over this mission, the two stated that the place ”did not seem suitably arranged,” and that the king should be kept somewhere else instead. Later during the session, Robespierre claims (I can’t find this recorded in the session’s actual minutes) that Pétion presented a report from the Legislative Assembly to within 24 hours dissolve the commune and replace it by the old municipality, a proposal which got rejected. He would later reproach Pétion for both of these things.

According to J.M Thompson’s Robespierre (1935), on August 17 Robespierre was commissioned by the commune to interview Pétion to get him to co-operate (I can’t find this in the commune’s minutes either). The interview did however not go that well, resulting in the following letter from Pétion to Robespierre, written on August 20:

You know, my friend, what my feelings are for you, you know that I am not your rival, you know that I have always given you proofs of devotion and friendship. It would be useless to try to divide us, you would have to stop loving liberty in order for me to stop loving you. I have always found more fault with you to your face than behind your back. When I think you too ready to take offence, or when I believe, rightly or wrongly, that you are mistaken about a line of action, I tell you so. You also reproach me for being too trustful. You may be right; but you must not assume too readily that many of my acquaintances are your enemies. People can disagree on a number of unessential points without becoming enemies; and your heart is said to be in the right place. Besides, it is childish to take offence over the things people say against one. Imagine, my friend, the number of people who utter all lands of libels against the mayor of Paris! Imagine how many of them I know to have spread damaging reports about me! Yet it doesn’t worry me, I can assure you. If I am not totally indifferent to what others think about me, at least I value my own opinion more highly. No… you and I are never likely to take opposite sides: we shall always hold the same political faith. I need not assure you that it is impossible for me to join in any movement against you: my tastes, my character and my principles all forbid it. I don’t believe that you covet my position any more than I covet that of the king. But if, when my term of office comes to an end, the people were to offer you the mayoralty, I suppose that you would accept it; whereas in all good conscience I could never accept the crown. Look after yourself, let us march forward, we are in a situation threatening enough to force us to think only of the public good. 

As can be seen, Pétion was still trying to salvage the relationship that had begun to deteriorate already in the spring, an effort that Robespierre seemed to share. If we’re to believe Buzot’s memoirs, written in 1793, Robespierre had suggested making ”a solemn declaration on the events which preceded the revolution of the 10th of August” to Pétion, who in his turn ”was willing to lend himself to it, for he had a kind of inexcusable weakness for Robespierre.” But when Robespierre came forward with the finished declaration that, according to Buzot, contained ”a lot of baseness and sweet talk [sic] for Louis XVI,”Pétion did however refuse to sign it, and Robespierre was forced to rework it. In an address from the representatives of the Paris commune to their fellow citizens dated September 1, Robespierre and his colleages also underlined that ”the principal artifice which our enemies employed to destroy us, was to oppose to the assembly of the representatives of the commune the names of Manuel and Pétion, and to claim that our existence is an attack against the authority in which these two magistrates were clothed.” But the relationship was well under way to break down, and the first days of September 1792 would be filled with conflicts between the two, in relation to the so called ”September massacres.” This time it would instead be Pétion who got appalled over Robespierre’s conduct.

Again on September 1, one day before the massacres, Robespierre held a speech to the same Paris Commune opposing the idea of opening the city’s barriers, that, in Pétion’s own words, ”saddened my soul.” […] [Robespierre] gave himself up to extremely animated declamations, to the lapses of a gloomy imagination; he perceived precipices under his feet, liberticidal plots; he pointed out pretended conspirators; he addressed himself to the people, excited the spirits, and occasioned, among those who heard him, the liveliest fermentation. I replied to this speech, to restore calm, to dissipate these black illusions, and to bring the discussion back to the only point which should occupy the assembly.”In Histoire générale et impartiale des erreurs, des fautes et des crimes commis pendant la Révolution française (1797), Louis Marie Prudhomme writes that, two days later, September 3 1792, Théophile Mandar went over to Danton’s place, where he saw ”all ministers, with the exception of Roland, Lacroix, president [of the Assembly], Pétion, mayor of Paris, Robespierre, Camille-Desmoulins, Fabre d’Églantine, Manuel and several members of the so-called Commune of August 10. The presidents and commanders from each of the 48 sections had come as well.” Half past seven in the evening everyone sat down in Danton’s salon to discuss the means to save Paris. Two hours later, Mandar, Pétion and Robespierre all retired to a different room, where Mandar laid out the idea of setting up a temporary dictatorship to stop the prison massacres for the two. Robespierre did however not respond positively, instead crying out: ”Be aware! Brissot would become dictator!” ”O Robespierre,” Mandar said to him, ”it is not the dictatorship that you fear, it is not the homeland that you love: it is Brissot that you hate.”  ”I hate dictatorship and I hate Brissot!”  Pétion meanwhile didn’t say a word.

The day after that, September 4, Pétion and Robespierre found themselves discussing Brissot (who Robespierre on September 2 had denounced as an accomplice of Brunswick at the Paris commune, leading to his house getting searched on the 3rd) once more, this time at the Hôtel de Ville, as revealed through the following part from Pétion’s Discours de Jérôme Pétion sur l’accusation intentée contre Maximilien Robespierre (November 5 1792):

The surveillance Committee launched an arrest warrant against Minister Roland; it was the 4th (September), and the massacres were still going on. Danton was informed of it, he came to the town hall, he was with Robespierre. […] I had an explanation with Robespierre, it was very lively. I still made him face the reproaches that friendship tempered in his absence, I told him: ”Robespierre, you are doing a lot of harm; your denunciations, your alarms, your hatreds, your suspicions, they agitate the people; explain yourself; do you have any facts? do you have proof? I fight with you; I only love the truth; I only want liberty.” ”You allow yourself to be surrounded,” [he replied], ”you allow yourself to be warned. You are disposed against me, you see my enemies every day; you see Brissot and his party.”  ”You are mistaken, Robespierre; no one is more on guard than I against prejudices, and judges with more coolness, men and things. You’re right, I see Brissot, however rarely, but you don’t know him, and I know him since his childhood. I have seen him in those moments when the whole soul shows itself; where one abandons oneself without reservation to friendship, to trust: I know his disinterestedness; I know these principles, I assure you that they are pure; those who make him a party leader do not have the slightest idea of ​​his character; he has lights and knowledge; but he has neither the reserve, nor the dissimulation, nor these catchy forms, nor this spirit of consistency which constitutes a party leader, and what will surprise you is that, far from leading others, he is very easy to abuse.” Robespierre insisted, but confined himself to generalities.   ”Allow us to explain ourselves, I told him, tell me frankly what’s on your mind, what it is you know.”  ”Well!” he replied, ”I believe that Brissot is with Brunswick.”   ”What mistake is yours!” I exclaimed. ”It is truly madness; this is how your imagination leads you astray: wouldn't Brunswick be the first to cut his head off? Brissot is not mad enough to doubt it: which of us can seriously capitulate! which of us does not risk his life! Let us banish unjust mistrust.”  Danton became entangled in the colloquy, saying that this was not the time for arguments; that it was necessary to have all these explanations after the expulsion of the enemies; that this decisive object alone should occupy all good citizens.

In her memoirs (1834), Charlotte Robespierre talks of yet another meeting between her brother and Pétion regarding the massacres, but in her version it is instead the former who accuses the latter of doing a lot of harm. Some  historians have suggested this meeting is the same Pétion is describing above, though if that’s the case I wonder why he doesn’t mention Charlotte anywhere in his account (as well as why Robespierre would even bring his sister with him when going to discuss political matters in a city where a massacre is currently taking place…):

A few days after the events of 2 and 3 September, Pétion came to see my brother. Maximilien had disapproved of the prison massacres, and would have wanted each prisoner to be sent before judges elected by the people. Pétion and Robespierre conversed on these latest events. I was present at their interview, and I heard my brother reproach Pétion for not having interposed his authority to stop the deplorable excesses of the 2nd and 3rd. Pétion seemed piqued by this reproach, and replied dryly enough: All I can tell you is that no human power could have stopped them. He rose some moments later, left, and did not return. Any kind of relations ceased, from this day, between him and my brother. They did not see each other again until the Convention, where Pétion sat with the Girondins and my brother with the Mountain.

In the 1960 article Charlotte Robespierre et ”ses mémoires,” Gabriel Pioro and Pierre Labracherie wanted to dismiss Charlotte’s story, finding it unlikely for her to have been in Paris by early September 1792, almost a whole month before her younger brother was elected to the National Convention and the two went to the capital for that reason. Though I suppose it’s not impossible for Charlotte to have gone to visit Maximilien beforehand, or that she’s simply very generous with what she describes as ”a few days.”

If Charlotte’s friend Armand Joseph Guffroy, who him to moved from Arras to Paris after getting elected to the National Convention, is to be believed, her claim that Pétion and Robespierre stopped seeing each other following the events of September gets muddied as well. In his Les secrets de Joseph Lebon et de ses complices… (1795) Guffroy writes: ”At Pétion’s house, the only time Robespierre took me there; I saw the latter eating a pot of fine jams, which were very expensive at the time.”

Regardless of any jam dinners, it’s clear the relationship was breaking down for real. On October 29 1792, Jean-Baptiste Louvet read his Accusation contre Maximilien Robespierre to the Convention, accusing him of turning himself into ”the idol of the people,” slandering ”the best patriots,” instigating the September massacres and tyrannizing the parisian electoral assembly, all with the goal of setting himself up as a dictator. A week later, November 7, Chabot told the jacobins that Pétion’s wife Suzanne had ”applauded everything Louvet said against Robespierre.”

Both Robespierre and Pétion picked up their pens to write a response speech to Louvet. Robespierre pronounced his to the Convention on November 5, which then passed onto the order of the day, preventing Pétion from holding his. The very same day, Collot d’Herbois exclaimed to the jacobins: ”I agree with Manuel on the comparison that he made in saying that Pétion and Robespierre were the twins of liberty; he meant that they were stars like Castor and Pollux; that they would appear in turn, but I ask that Robespierre be the summer star, and Pétion the winter star.” Pétion did however still wish to get his speech out, so shortly thereafter he published Discours de Jérôme Pétion, sur l’accusation intentée contre Maximilien Robespierre as a pamphlet instead. This is what would truly mark the beginning of the end for the relationship.

Pétion begins by writing that “I had promised myself to keep the most absolute silence on the events that have happened since August 10,” but that, after having heard so many things said about him and being asked for his opinion on the matters so many times, “I will say frankly what I know about some men, what I think about things.”  After explaining to which groups he thinks the insurrection of August 10 was due and to which ones it wasn’t, and deploring of the September massacres, saying that ”I cannot bring myself to confuse glory with infamy, and to defile August 10 with the excesses of September 2” (thereby seperating himself from Robespierre, who his response to Louvet instead argued that the massacres had been the inevitable sequel to the insurrection, and that to condemn one would therefore be to condemn the other), Pétion turns to Robespierre. Having regretted the speech held by him on September 1, through which he, if unintentionally, ”led the commune into inconsiderate moves, into extreme parties,” and reported about their interview on September 4, Pétion brings up Louvet’s accusation that his friend had been aiming at dictatorship. Just like with Brissot, Pétion dismisses these accusations, but this through pointing out the flaws in the designated one’s personality:

Robespierre's character explains what he did: Robespierre is extremely touchy and defiant; everywhere he sees conspiracies, betrayals, precipices. His bilious temperament, his atrabilious imagination present all objects to him in dark colours; imperious in his opinion, listening only to himself, not supporting contrariety, never forgiving those who have hurt his self-esteem, and never recognizing his faults; denouncing lightly, and being irritated by the slightest suspicion; always believing that someone is occupying himself with him in order to persecute him; boasting of his services and speaking of himself with little reserve; not knowing the proprieties, and thereby harming the causes he defends; desiring above all the favors of the people, paying court to them unceasingly, and ringing out their applause with affectation; it is this, it is above all this last weakness, which, piercing through the acts of his public life, has been able to make people believe that Robespierre breathed high destinies, and that he wished to usurp the dictatorial power. As for me, I cannot persuade myself that this chimera seriously occupied his thoughts, that it was the object of his desires, and the goal of his anticipation. 

At the very end of the pamphlet, Pétion publishes an open letter to the jacobins, a place where he, ”since some time have been attacked more or less openly.” Pétion reminds the society of the great services he has rendered it and even that he had saved it during the big Feuillant split one year earlier. He also recalled that Robespierre, unlike him, had been very afraid following this split — ”I saw Robespierre trembling, Robespierre wanting to flee, Robespierre not daring to go up to the assembly… ask him if I trembled. I saved Robespierre himself from persecution, by attaching myself to his fate, when everyone despised him.”

Robespierre answered Pétion in Réponse de Maximilien Robespierre à Jérome Pétion, a text that made up all of number 7 of his Lettres de Maximilien Robespierre à ses commettans (November 30 1792). Robespierre started by regretting having to write what he did in the first place:

What is, my dear Pétion, the instability of human affairs, since you, once my brother in arms and at the same time the most peaceful of all men, suddenly declare yourself the most ardent of my accusers? Don't think that I want to occupy myself here either with you or with me. We are both two atoms lost in the immensity of the moral and political world. It is not your accusations that I want to answer; I am accused of having already shown too much condescension in this way; it is up to your current political doctrine. It would already be a little late, perhaps, to refute your speech: but there is always time to defend truth and principles. Our quarrels are of a day: the principles are of all times. It is only on this condition, my dear Pétion, that I can consent to pick up the gauntlet you threw at me. You will even recognize, in my way of fighting, either the friendship, or the old weakness that I showed for you. If, in this completely philanthropic kind of fencing, you were exposed to some slight injury, it only affects your self-esteem; and you reassured me in advance on that point, by protesting yourself that it was null. Moreover, the right of censorship is reciprocal; it is the safeguard of freedom; and you love principles so much that you will find more pleasure, I am sure, in being the object of them yourself, than you felt in exercising them against me.

Robespierre then goes on to accuse Pétion of in his pamphlet not having treated the Insurrection of August 10th with the respect it deserves, depriving the people and sections of Paris — ”the destroyers of tyranny” — who carried it out of the merit of their service, and to even have done everything in his power to stop the insurrection by continuously telling the sections to remain calm. Then he hadn’t showed up to the Paris Commune until three days after the siege of of the Tuileries, and then to report that the assembly wanted to close the commune and call the old municipality back (”You constantly sighed for the return of your semi-aristocratic municipality. […] The spirit that animated the defenders of liberty frightened you!”) and to ”prove that it was not necessary to lock Louis XVI in the Temple, and that if he did not stay in a magnificent hotel the whole of France would rise up against the commune.”Pétion had even on his own initiative gone to the king two weeks before the insurrection — ”no one knows if it was to convert him or to justify yourself.” Robespierre asks why Pétion seemingly shows more indulgence for the court than for the people behind the insurrection, noting that ”I always believed I saw in you less condescension for the warmth of patriotism than for the excesses of the aristocracy.”

Besides this main charge, Robespierre also reproaches Pétion of not having done enough to stop the demonstration of June 20, which, unlike the insurrection, was driven by ”the intriguers who surrounded you [who] wanted […] to regain possession of the ministry,” of being jealous of him for getting elected first deputy of Paris, which he claims is what caused him to stand for election in Eure-et-Loir instead (”you were unable to hide your sorrow at the very moment; and rather than suffer the affront of priority given to another citizen, you preferred to be chosen third in Chartres, than second in Paris”), making a big deal of having reached the conclusions presented in the pamphlet by shutting himself alone (”Is an author obliged to prove that he himself went into secrecy to compose his works? And aren’t such singular oratorical precautions suspect?”) and interpretating La Fayette favorably even after the massacre on Champ-de-Mars, having guaranteed Robespierre ”a hundred times” of his innocence since he was at the head of the armies. Robespierre claims that it was this friendly attitude that caused Pétion to be elected to escort the king back from Varennes. He fights back against Pétion’s description of his personality — ”I am as easygoing, as good-natured in private life, as you find me touchy in public affairs; although you have long experienced it, and my friendship for you has long survived the processes which most offended my principles” — giving an equally unflattering one in return: ”I guarantee that, far from being sullen, defiant, melancholic, you are the man whose blood circulates most gently, whose heart is least agitated by the spectacle of human perfidies, whose philosophy most patiently supports the misery of others.” He also takes offence over Pétion’s claim that he was afraid during the splitting of the jacobin club and that Pétion saved him from persecution. Robespierre claims that he was persecuted no more than Pétion during this period, and besides, ”why are you more attached to me than to the homeland, or at least to your own honor? And how did you imagine that you were for me a more powerful protector than the public interest, and the sanctity of the cause that I defended?”

Robespierre does however seek to exempt Pétion somewhat. He concludes his pamphlet and recent conduct is the result of him having let praise go to his head as mayor (forgetting that the true heros of history were martyrs) due to being misled by intriguers (the girondins). On August 11 or 12, Guadet and Brissot would even have come over to his place, the latter openly reprimanding him for ”the ease with which you had complied with the popular wish,” accusing him of cowardice and summoning him to stop ”the chariot of the revolution.” This, according to Robespierre, is what caused Pétion to show up to the commune the following day to announce the assembly’s plan to dismantle it and bring the old municipality back.

Pétion wrote back in Observations de Jérôme Pétion sur la lettre de Maximilien Robespierre, released somewhere in December 1792, the majority of which was spent debunking all of Robespierre’s reproaches. No, he did everything he could to stop the demonstration of June 20, and ”I defy anyone to say I brought it about or rejoiced over it.” No, he has only ever spoken about the Insurrection of August 10 ”with admiration and enthusiam,” he will however never conflate it with ”the horrible day of September 2.” No, he did not try to stop the insurrection, he only put an end to a badly organized movement on July 26 that wouldn’t have led to any good, and during the night when it happened he only wrote a circular to the sections (he was kept from going out), recommending them to maintain order and tranquility in general, a circular which the sections appreciated. No, he has indeed rendered justice to the people of Paris for their role in the insurrection, he even wrote outright: it is due to the people. No, he has given the sections the credit they deserve as well, he just said the insurrection would have taken place even without the support from the commissioners sent by some of them. The sections have in fact showered him with proofs of their confidence, and he has kept up a ”fraternal correspondence” with them. No, he didn’t appear at the commune until three days after ”the day of the Tuileries,” he was there already the day after it, speaking of their victory, and when he came there on the thirteenth it was not to put forward a report dismantling the commune. No, it is a lie that Guadet and Brissot came over on August 11 or 12 and scolded him for not having put a stop to the insurrection, they did on the other hand come over the night before and exclaim: the homeland is saved! No, he absolutely did not visit the king in order to convert him or justify himself two weeks before the insurrection (”I couldn’t believe my eyes! […] You know me, and these words come out of your mouth. You read my compte rendu to my fellow citizens, and these words come out of your mouth!”). The king had in fact requested him in several secrets meetings that he refused, he only ever went to see him on official invitations and for business. No, he is not attacking the Jacobins in his letter, he’s protecting them against fights and intrigues which could dishonor them.

Pétion is certain Robespierre knew full well non of these charges were founded, claiming he made them in order to ”indispose the public against me, and make it favorable to you by declaring yourself its avenger. If this is clever, it is neither fair nor just.” He then directs some denounciations against him in turn, starting by regretting the humorous tone used by Robespierre in his response — ”you say of me what you do not think; you say it with bitterness, with passion; you allow yourself sarcasm, irony, mind games beyond all propriety” — and especially that he refers to him by his firstname like that’s supposed to be funny. Where Robespierre accused him of being blinded by ”intriguers,” Pétion reproaches Robespierre of being the ”courtier” of the people, placing himself at the head of whatever opinion that for the moment happens to be popular, in order to remain so himself. That is why he has never gone to a public riot to try to stop ”the excesses of the malicious”, out of fear of making them his enemies, and why he today carasses the sections, even though both he and his friends spoke ill or them during the electoral assembly. It is also the reason Pétion always defended him against the charge that he had had the ambition to become mayor — ”not only would he find himself overwhelmed by often minute details, and above all without glory, but, as one must sometimes know how to resist the aberrations of public opinion, how one must know how to momentarily incur the disgrace of the people, he would never have the strength to tell them that he is in the wrong: he would believe his reputation or popularity lost.” While denying that him standing for election in Eure-et-Loir had anything to do with him being jealous of Robespierre (if the people of Paris didn’t give him the most votes, it was because they found him more useful as mayor), Pétion also critiques the electoral assembly of Paris, which he claims ”was influenced, was dominated by a small number of men,” lifting the fact Robespierre’s brother got elected as a deputy of Paris as an example. Pétion also comes back to his critique of Robespierre’s actions during the September massacres again, seemingly endorsing the idea that he on September 2 had tried to use them to rid himself of his political opponents:

I said that on this occasion you gave yourself over to the excesses of a disordered and dark imagination; that you allowed yourself odious denunciations; that you had gone so far as to denounce as traitors, men that were friends of liberty, whose talents were in your eyes the real crimes, against which you had not the slightest proof, and that this was then to indicate the victims. I now add that in the fury of your declamations, you announced that it was necessary to purge the soil of liberty of the conspirators who infected it; but with a tone, a gesture which was so well understood, that the spectators responded with trembling, and shouted: Yes... Yes, let’s do it.

Nevertheless, he reveals to Robespierre that when one of the many citizens outraged by this wanted to denounce and testify against him, Pétion had stopped him from doing so. Like how Robespierre underlined how he for a long time had defended Pétion and believed his intentions to be good, Pétion too reminds him that ”when I was told that you were my enemy, that you were eaten up with jealousy against me, that you would never forgive me the favor I enjoyed, I defended you with all my soul, I took your side against all odds.” Today, he must however announce that ”I am forced to believe in the baseness and wickedness of your heart,” and he reveals that ”what caused the blindfold to fall off my eyes” was a speech Robespierre held at the Jacobins on October 28, where he says that, the day after the massacre on Champ de Mars, ”I saw Pétion, who then also fought against the intriguers.” Pétion reacts strongly on this choice of wording:

You only uttered one word, and it was more treacherous than a whole speech. You seemed to throw it away accidentally: you said, going back to the time of the Constituent Assembly, that then I was fighting intriguers, and that I embraced the good party, as if I had never ceased to pursue both traitors and enemies of liberty. Don't worry, I won't let them rest. I was well aware of the system of calumny and persecution directed against me; but I thought, I confess, that it would be without result, and I deigned to do so. I believed above all that you were not immersed in this intrigue.

Pétion ends with yet another unflattering description:

I do not think, and I do you this justice, that you are a man to ever allow yourself to be influenced by the lure of riches; but let Pon know how to skilfully caress your vanity; let the most salutary project be presented to you like an intrigue woven by your enemies, like a conspiracy, like a betrayal, your imagination immediately catches fire, you lose yourself in an abyss of conjectures, and you give in to the first panel held out to you. I will show you twenty of your opinions which are absolutely in the same direction as that of the court and of the counter-revolutionaries. If these opinions had been held by anyone other than you, his reputation would be lost, and he would be regarded as a traitor to his country. I saw men of good faith, without any interest who were not your enemies, who said to me: is it possible that Robespierre is sold, I always told them not to worry, but that you had a bad head, and that you lead to the delirium of your imagination. I have always added at the same time that you would sacrifice everything for a quarter of an hour of popular favour. 

Robespierre responded in Deuxième lettre de Maximilien Robespierre en réponse au second discours de Jérôme Petion, that made up all of number 10 of Lettres à ses comettras… He started by telling Pétion that his complaints that he used irony, ridicule and tried to caluminate him seem unjust to him, and that he won’t change his tone for this second reply. Besides, he adds, the friends of the homeland find such few occasions to laugh these days. As for calling Pétion by his firstname, he reminds him that he never did so without adding his lastname as well, and what’s so bad about the name Jérôme anyways?

Turning to countering Pétion’s arguments, Robespierre writes that, even if Pétion does view the insurrection of August 10 as something positive, his conduct during it was still way too moderate. Pétion admits to in the conversation they had on August 7 have wanted to postpone the insurrection until the moment when the legislative assembly would have pronounced on the king's forfeiture, ”that is to say, until the end of the centuries.” He confesses to in the days before August 10 have tried to keep the calm ”and all the reasons that you give to explain your conduct on one of these occasions may well prove that you were a brave man, but not that you were a determined revolutionary, nor a clever politician.” He might not have visited the king on his own initiative, but that’s nevertheless how it came across for all patriots (besides, I didn’t write you had the shame (honte) to visit the king, I wrote goodness (bonté)! Robespierre even argues that the reason Pétion stayed at home during the insurrection was because ”you felt so inclined to oppose the insurrection of the people against the tyranny armed to slaughter them, that you knew of no other way of resisting this temptation than to be kept at home.” Pétion’s debunking of the anecdote Brissot and Guadet scolding him for not having stopped the insurrection, Robespierre counters with the fact it was an ”irreproachable citizen” that gave him the story, one whose word he chooses to believe over that of Pétion’s.

As for Pétion’s debunking of the claim he was indifferent to stop the demonstration of June 20, Robespierre simply doesn’t believe it — ”nothing is easier or better proven.” He ridicules Pétion’s suggestion that he was trying to make him look bad in the eyes of the jacobins, ”as if it was me who had composed the diatribe printed at the end of your speech against me,” and when Pétion himself has barely showed up at the club in the last year — ”Jérôme Pétion is therefore a very high power, since he thus places his sole authority in opposition to the services of an immortal society of friends of freedom; since he dares to present it as a stupid herd led by intriguers, at the head of whom he places me.” Pétion’s anger over the fact Robespierre in a speech held two months earlier is recorded to have said Pétion served the revolution well during the National Assembly (implying he doesn’t anymore), he dismisses since, in the version of the speech given in number 3 of Lettres à ses comettras, no such words can be found. Robespierre likewise dismisses Pétion’s claim that he wasn’t jealous at him for getting more votes to the Convention, reminding him that ”the pain did not even allow you to fulfill the commitment you had made with a very well-known man in the republic, to meet that day, at his home, to dine, with me, for an object which essentially concerned public harmony,” as well as Pétion’s suggestion that the electoral assembly was influenced by nepotism since he could only cite his brother as an example, who, he assures, was elected only due to his own merits. The idea that Robespierre would have  spoken ill of the sections or denounced men at the commune just to have them ”exposed to the knife” during the September massacres he too dismisses as simply slander. It is this last charge that breaks the camel’s back for Robespierre: 

Pétion, this excess of atrocity exempts me from all the consideration that I persisted in maintaining with you; and from now on you will only owe my moderation to my contempt. I abandon you to that of all the citizens who have seen me, heard me like this, and who deny you. I abandon you to that of all judicious men, who, in your expressions, as vague as they are artificial, perceive at the same time the hatred, the lie, the implausibility, the contradiction, the insult made at the same time to the public, to the patriotic magistrates, as much as to myself. Pétion, yes, you are now worthy of your masters; you are worthy of cooperating with them in this vast plan of slander and persecution, directed against patriotism and against equality. But no; I am wrong to get angry with you, whatever your intentions; because you take care to ward off all the blows you want to deal yourselves; and following a stroke of wickedness, I see a hundred ridiculous things happen, which you indulge in on purpose for my small pleasures.

In the last couple of pages, Robespierre jokingly accuses Pétion of during his time as mayor have gotten into his head the idea that France wanted to crown him king and that he, like Caesar, would have to fight this off. ”Good god! We would then have gotten us a king by the name of Jérôme the first! […] If you felt some regrets, who knows if we might not enjoy this one day. You have good friends, who lack neither power nor resources. It is not without reason that they do not want to let us make laws or a constitution, that there has not even been a question of the declaration of rights yet; that they work, with marvelous skill, to kindle civil war, and to plunge us into anarchy; who knows if France will not be obliged to come back to your knees and ask you to dictate laws to it?” He then addresses Pétion as you would a king throughout the rest of the letter, calling him ”sire” and ”your majesty.”

This was truly the final nail in the coffin for the relationship. In number 1 of the second series of his Lettres à ses commettans (January 1 1793), Robespierre regretted the earlier constant tying together of him and Pétion, now viewing it as an attempt of his enemies to undermine him:

In the past, I still remember, Brissot and a few others had entered into I don't know what conspiracy to make my name almost synonymous with that of Jérôme Pétion; they took so much trouble to put them together. I don't know if it was for love of me or of Pétion: but they seemed to have plotted to send me to immortality, in company with the great Jérôme. I have been ungrateful; and, to punish me, they said: since you don't want to be Pétion, you will be Marat. Well, I declare to you, monsieurs, that I want to be neither. 

The trial of Louis XVI, which had been ongoing at the same time as Pétion and Robespierre’s breakup exchange, provided yet another moment for the two to oppose each other, with Pétion suggesting the Convention first discuss whether or not the king should be judged, a question deemed quite unneccessary for Robespierre, who instead wanted to see the king executed right away, without any trial. In a speech to the Convention held December 3 he lamented the direction Pétion had led them in:

Today Louis shares the mandataries of the people; we speak for and we speak against him. Who would have suspected two months ago that it would be a question here, whether he was inviolable? But since a member of the National Convention (citizen Pétion) presented the question, whether the King could be judged, as the object of serious deliberation, preliminary to any other question, the inviolability of which the conspirators of the Constituent Assembly covered up his first perjuries, was invoked, to protect his latest attacks. O crime! O shame! 

When Robespierre a few weeks later, on December 28, defended himself against the charge of having belonged to ”the cabal of Lafayette” (just your typical convention workday) he nevertheless exclaimed: ”I attest to my former colleagues, Pétion, Rabaud, and many others, if I had any connections with this faction!” When the time had arrived to finally decide the former king’s fate, Pétion voted for an appeal to the people, and for death with the so called Mailhe amendment, calling for a postponement of the execution, while Robespierre voted against an appeal to the people and for immediate execution.

On January 27, six days after the execution of the king, Pétion was struck from the Jacobin club’s list of members, on the suggestion of Monestier. Two months later, March 26, Pétion and Robespierre were both elected for the so called Commission of Public Safety, alongside 23 others. The commission, which consisted of both fervent montagnards and fervent girondins, was however off to a rocky start, and already on April 6 it was put to death and replaced by the Committee of Public Safety.

Four days after that, April 10, Robespierre spoke for long at the Convention, denouncing the girondins as ”a powerful faction conspiring with the tyrants of Europe to give us a king, with a sort of aristocratic constitution” led by Brissot. The girondins were the successors of Lafayette, accomplices of Dumouriez, Miranda and d’Orléans, and supported by William Pitt, who had dishonored the Insurrection of August 10 and wanted to flee Paris with the king, tried to cause civil war by calling for an appeal to the people during the trial of said king, as well as having ”depressed the energetic patriots, protected the hypocritical moderates, successively corrupted the defenders of the people, attached to their Cause those who had some talent, and persecuted those whom they could not seduce.” Robespierre ended with asking that the Revolutionary Tribunal be charged with setting up a trial for ”Dumouriez and his accomplices” as well as for the Orléans family, Sillery and Madame de Genlis. Pétion’s name got mentioned outright four times in the speech, Robespierre accusing him of being the friend and defender of the general Francisco de Miranda, arrested since February 1793 after a failed siege of the city Maastricht and later denounced as an accomplice of Dumouriez.

Two days later, April 12, a stormy exchange played out between the two former friends at the Convention, after Pétion had asked that François-Martin Poultier be censored for making a personal suggestion when meant to speak in the name of his committee of war. Several variants of this exchange can be found throughout the different journals. Here is the one given in the Moniteur:

Robespierre: I demand the censure of those who protect the traitors. (Pétion rushes to the tribune, some murmurs rise)  Robespierre: And their accomplices.  Pétion: Yes, their accomplices, and you yourself. It is finally time for all these infamies to end, it is time at last for all this infamy to end; it is time for traitors and slanderers to lay their heads on the scaffold; and I pledge here to pursue them to death.  Robespierre: Answer the facts.  Pétion: It’s you I will be pursuing. Yes, Robespierre will have to be branded at last, as the slanderers used to be. 

The Mercure universel:

Pétion: I ask that the rapporteur be censored; instead of the committee's opinion, he allows himself to report his own to mislead the public. We must punish the conspirators. Robespierre: That’s you. (applauds from the tribunes, cries of indignation in the assembly) Pétion (runs to the tribune; unrest): It is finally time for all these infamies to end, it is time for the convention to be respected: I will pursue the slanderers, the traitors! Robespierre: Where are they? Pétion: You!

Journal de Paris:

Pétion asks that this member be censored, for having expressed an opinion that the Committee of War had not directed to him. Here Robespierre interrupts Pétion, and the interpellation he made, which we did not hear, was undoubtedly very lively, because Pétion flew to the tribune, and in a voice more vehement than he ever used in the two Assemblies of which he was a member, he complained of this system of slander adroitly directed against the true friends of liberty, by these people who thus believe they are hiding, at the moment that they will be discovered, the plots that they themselves have formed. He thunders against these informers who, without proof, pile denunciations on top of each other, without ever proving any of them. Pétion concluded that all denunciations should be signed, under penalty of being subjected to the same contempt as their authors.

Le Logotachigraphe:

Pétion: I demand censure against the rapporteur who allowed himself to overstep the powers he had received from the committee. Marat: I ask that we pursue the traitors. (noise) Pétion (flies to the tribune): I will indeed ask that the traitors and conspirators be punished (interrupted by boos from the stands. Part of the assembly stands up and shows its indignation: the president is summoned to remind the stands of respect.) The president: I have called the tribunes to order several times, and I call them again at this moment, to the execution of the law which prohibits any sign of disapproval and approval, and I conjure them, in the name of public safety, to remember that all is lost if the National Convention does not retain its liberty. Pétion: It is impossible (murmurs) to tolerate this infamy any longer. It is impossible for an honest man to restrain his indignation when he sees that men who should keep the most profound silence; that men who are marked with the most infamy dare to insult him with this audacity. Yes, I intend to pursue the traitors; I intend to pursue the slanderers, and I tell all of France that Robespierre must either be punished or branded with hot iron on the forehead as a slanderer.

Le Thermomètre du Jour:

Pétion calls for censure against Poultier for having expressed an opinion tending to mislead the public. It is necessary to underline, said Robespierre, that one is trying to save the traitors. Immediately Pétion, going up to the podium, said: ”It is impossible for an honest man to tolerate any longer the system of slander and disorganization that I see followed with a constancy that only great interest can give. Yes, I will fight against traitors and slanderers. In the end, either I must be punished or Robespierre must be branded with the hot iron with which ancient peoples branded slanderers. Even before the existence of the convention, people had already formed the wish to slander it, to outrage it, to degrade it, and some people have continued to follow this system. I ask what more our enemies would have done? Aren't these the real enemies of the republic? I will never compromise with despots, and if the enemy were at the gates of Paris, we would see which are the brave false ones, and which ones are the courageous republicans!

Pétion then went on a long rant about the need to punish the traitors, before denouncing Marat. Robespierre responded that ”I will be permitted to respond to your calumnies,” to which Pétion, according to Le Logotachigraphe, replied the following way:

I would like a written struggle to begin here, because words are elusive; I would like the indictments to be recorded in writing and the answers that each person submitted to put their head to be heard in writing, and I would then ask that whoever is found guilty loses it. I do not claim to be constantly engaged in a struggle, neither with lungs nor with screams, nor with insults and insults; all this means nothing: this is not how free men justify themselves: free men act with perfect integrity. I am not asking here for imprecation or approval; but I ask for peace and quiet; I ask above all that we do not allow ourselves these indecent accusations, a thousand times more atrocious than facts. We have already fought in writing with Robespierre; he knows that I know him, and certainly, I am doing him a kind of justice here. At the constituent assembly, for example, Robespierre behaved well, and I admit that I have never been convinced why he changed. (Long uproar.)

Later the same session, Guadet used Robespierre’s former friendship with Pétion as a weapon against him apropos of getting accused of being an accomplice of Dumouriez: ”Can’t I say to Robespierre: You have had liaisons with Pétion, but you accuse Pétion of betraying the public sake.” […] Well! Since you have had liaisons with Pétion, I can therefore conclude you have been in on his projects. Why then do you start by suppose me to have liaisons with Dumouriez, which is false, and conclude that since Dumouriez has turned traitor I must be considered one as well?” In the defense he wrote a few months later, the girondin Gensonné similarily stated: ”in 1791 and 1792, Robespierre had the most intimate liasons with Pétion, Buzot and Roland, how can he accuse them today without accusing himself?”

Pétion made good on his promise to start ”a written struggle,” as he soon thereafter released yet another pamphlet, this time by the name of Réponse très-succinte de Jérome Petion, au long libelle de Maximilien Robespierre (1793), a 14 page long work where he answered Robespierre’s attack from the 10th. Robespierre didn’t respond to it thank god.

On May 17, Desmoulins presented his 84 pages long Histoire des Brissotins, ou, Fragment de l'histoire secrète de la révolution, et des six premiers mois de la République to the Jacobin club, a pamphlet we know Robespierre had had a hand in through a note inserted in one of Desmoulins’ later publications. In total, Pétion’s name got mentioned a total of 22 times in the damning work that painted him and the other ”girondins” as royalists, accomplices of Dumouriez and in the pay of foreigners. They had been leading an anglo-prussian committee working for the military failure of France, which they wanted to divide into 20-30 federalist republics, or to overturn the republican government altogether, and to set up the Duke of Orléans as monarch. For Pétion’s part, Desmoulins threw suspicion on the fact that he, during his trip to London after the closing of the National Assembly, had been accompanied by Madame de Genlis (the cousin of the duke of Orléans), her niece Rose-Henriette Peronne de Sercey and daughter Pamela, ”that we can call the three graces, and who pressed his virtuous and fortunately incorruptible knee; and wasn’t it upon his return that he was appointed mayor of Paris?” Desmoulins also picked up Robespierre’s criticism of Pétion’s attitude towards the insurrection of August 10, but this time he got accused of not only not having wanted the event to take place, but also to have signed the order for the Swiss guard to fire on the people. He was also claimed to have received 30 000 francs per month from Dumouriez in order to ”throw away the foundations of the republic” during his time as mayor.

Desmoulins concluded that the establishment of a democratic republic wouldn’t happen before ”the vomiting of the Brissotins from the bosom of the Convention,” and on May 26, a week after the pamphlet’s publication, Robespierre had reached the same conclusion, telling the jacobins that ”the people must rise up. This moment has arrived.” Three days later he repeated himself — “I say that, if the people do not stand up as a whole, liberty is lost, and that only a detestable empiricist can tell them that there remains another doctor than themselves” — and two days after that, the insurrection of May 31 took place, which ended with the Convention on June 2 issuing arrest warrants against 29 of its deputies and two ministers. One of these 31 men was of course Pétion, who was placed under house arrest like the others. It was however a very loose one, and many of the proscribed managed to get away. On June 24, Jeanbon Saint-André could report to the Convention that Pétion had escaped, after which he suggested bringing those still remaining under house arrest to actual prisons, a proposal which Robespierre supported.

Having gone underground (while his wife, child and father all got arrested and his mother-in-law executed), Pétion occupied himself with writing, both his memoirs as well as Observations de Pétion, a constructive criticism of the poem Charlotte Corday, tragédie en 5 actes et en vers, that his fellow runaway Jean-Baptiste Salle had penned down. ”Barère and Robespierre,” Pétion wrote in these, ”are known for being the greatest cowards on earth. In my view, the trick is Barère's distinctive character. Robespierre is no less perfidious; but what distinguishes him is that in danger he loses his head, he discovers in spite of himself the fear which torments him, he speaks only of assassinations, only of lost liberty, he sees the entire Republic destroyed in his person, whereas Barère, more dissimulated, without being less cowardly, is always coldly atrocious and preserves until the end the hope of succeeding.” Buzot, who was hiding out alongside Pétion, did on the other hand recall the latter’s former fondness of Robespierre in the memoirs he at the same time was working on: ”there was this great difference between Pétion and me — he had a particular deference for Robespierre, and I had an invincible aversion for this man who had the face of a cat.”

Robespierre for his part had no nice things to say about Pétion. On March 21 1794 he reminded the Jacobins how Lafayette, Pétion and Dumouriez had all conceived ”the terrible project of starving and enslaving [the people]” but that luckily these ”monsters” had now fallen. A few days later, April 1 1794, he shut down a proposal that the recently arrested Danton be allowed to come and defend himself before the Convention by pointing out that this was not the first time a former ”patriot” turned out to be a traitor  — ”And I too was a friend of Pétion; as soon as he unmasked himself, I abandoned him; I also had liaisons with Roland; he betrayed, and I denounced him. Danton wants to take their place, and in my eyes he is nothing more than an enemy of the homeland.” Finally, on June 27 1794 he talked about yet another conspiracy, and regretted that it would be hard to make ”so many horrors” perceptible to the people that once ”were seduced by the Lameths, the d'Orléans, the Brissots, the Pétions, the Héberts.”

On June 17 1794, Pétion, Buzot and Barbaroux left the garret in Saint-Émilion where they since five months back had been hiding out, after the people taking care of them had gotten arrested, and set out into the countryside. When in the next day some people approached, Pétion and Buzot took flight once more while Barbaroux unsuccessfully tried to blow his brains out and was captured. Eventually his friends decided to take the same way out. It is unclear when exactly this double suicide took place, tradition placing it on June 18 and Michel Biard, in the book La liberté ou la mort: mourir en député 1792-1795 (2015) instead dating it to June 24, having consulted two doctors with expertise in the field. Regardless, on July 8 1794, the Moniteur published the following letter from the Popular Society of Castillon that had been read at the Convention the day right before:

Citizen Representatives, our search has not been in vain. When we annonced to you that the scroundel Barbaroux had been taken, we assured you that his accomplices Pétion and Buzot would soon be under our control. We’ve got them now, Citizen Representatives, or rather they are no more. The end which the law prescribes was too good for such traitors; divine justice reserved for them a fate more fitting to their crimes. We found their bodies, hidden and disfigured, half eaten by worms; their scattered limbs had been devoured by dogs, their bloody hearts eaten by ferocious beasts. Such was the horrible end of their still more horrible lives. People! Contemplate this awful spectacle, the terrible monument to your vengeance! Traitors! May this ignominious death, may this abhorred memory make you recoil with horror and shudder with terror! Such is the terrible fate which sooner or later will be reserved for you. Signed The Sans-Culottes of the Popular and Republican Society of Castillon.

By the time the letter reached Paris, Robespierre had already stopped showing up at both the Convention and the Committee of Public Safety. But he probably still found out about what had happened, if not through the letter to the Convention, then through another one written to him on June 30 by Marc Antoine Jullien, representative on mission in Bordeaux, asking ”to raze to the ground the houses where Guadet, Salle, Pétion, Buzot and Barbaroux were [hiding], [and] transfer the military commission to Saint-Emilion, to there judge and make perish on the spot the authors or accomplices guilty of hiding the conspirators.” While we lack the sources to say anything really substantial about Robespierre’s psyche, it is nevertheless interesting to speculate if the news of his former friend’s horrible fate (as can be seen from the letter to the Convention, it isn’t even explained that Pétion and Buzot had committed suicide before getting mauled by the animals) was a contributing factor to Robespierre’s growing isolation from public life and deteriorating mental health during his last month alive…

[lets-try-some-writing]

I had the most dumb yet sensible thought when it comes to your Pretender AU. Megatron discovering ways to deal with Optimus accidentally through human media. Particularly horror media like The Thing, Among Us, Bloodborne, Alien, SCP and such.

A thing that Soundwave would stumble upon by accident before realizing this could come in handy and share with it the other Decepticons. It's kinda ironic in a way. Organics having what could be the key to handling this entire mess through their entertainment based media.

Plus they probably look to YouTube for channels like Roanoke Gaming who discusses the various intricacies like mythology, biology and such on media creatures such as Xenomorphs.

Oh goodness this is FUNNY.

Previous part here.

This is kinda crack so honestly its up in the ether plot relevance wise.

━━━━━━ ⊙ ❖ ⊙ ━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⊙ ❖ ⊙

The Pretenders tried to flee Cybertron as soon as they deemed the planet unsuitable. Megatron wanted to scoff when he caught wind of the Pretend Prime and his entourage fleeing the sector. He had every intention of ruling Cybertron and left more than enough soldiers behind to tend to the planet in his absence, but he simply could not allow the Pretenders to go. If they got any ground anywhere, they would spread and be back.

The Pretender Prime had long since proven to be capable of holding a grudge, and Megatron was in no mood to shove the issue under the rug until it came back to bite him. As such, he collected his inner circle, Jazz included, and boarded the Nemesis. He set course for the planet the Pretenders were headed toward with grim determination, and upon landing, he almost wanted to scream due to the sheer amount of organic everything. It reminded him of the Pretenders and he despised being on the ground.

Thus, while his subordinates did everything in their power to root out the Pretenders wherever they were rooted on the planet of Earth, Megatron delved into the human datanet with Soundwave at his side. Jazz joined them on occasion, and through this shared effort, they discovered possible methods to combat their foes that they never would have expected. The ideas were... a tad outlandish. But having tried just about everything else under the sun to kill their enemies, the Decepticons were willing to make an attempt to follow the potential solutions provided.

Having watched "Earnest Scared Stupid" one time, the Vehicons attempted to deal with the Pretenders through the use of milk. It was a one time effort, and the Pretenders were more dumbfounded than actually upset at the milk that was tossed all over them. Seeing as they didn't melt into goo, the Vehicons ran screaming.

Jazz made a valiant attempt to use voodoo magic a handful of times, which ended up resulting in a small storage closet being filled to the brim with collections of dolls stuffed with needles. He also tried a few banishing rituals just for the kick of it. And surprisingly, after one of his attempts which involved an offering the some demon Jazz never bothered to remember, Arcee ended up stepping into a hole and breaking her leg. Since then Jazz has occasionally repeated the ritual just to see if anything else happens.

Starscream saw several movies and decided that water might be a possible way to combat the Pretenders. Being the most reliable flier, he took to the air and decided that Arcee would be the best target. He picked her up, and making sure to wear gloves so as to not actually touch her, he threw her into the nearest body of water and waited above. Arcee for her part flailed and got out with a hiss of indignation, her plating flaring and her extra limbs extending so that she could shake off the liquid. The most Starscream got for his efforts was a dirty look, but his work was applauded when he returned to the Nemesis. Touching a Pretender was always a dangerous risk to take.

Megatron opted for a slightly more... violent solution. He had attempted chemical warfare, bombing, outright attacks, poison, and even manufactured diseases to fight back against his foes. None of his efforts so much as gave him a reasonable weakness to use against them. While young, Pretenders were easy to kill. But after that all he really had to target was their familial connections. There were no physical defects to attack or use against them. They adapted, and as much as he was loath to admit it, they were disgustingly superior when it came to most physical activities. They were resistant to just about everything too. So really there were only two options in his mind.

The Pretenders operated similarly to organics. And according to what he saw, two things that killed organics most often were freezing cold and fire. Thus, his vehicons were given flamethrowers for a time and when the opportunity arose, Optimus was thrown into the arctic for observation. The vehicons for their part managed to make the Pretenders scatter, but fire did nothing against them that it didn't do for a normal Cybertronian. The freezing on the other hand? Freezing could kill a bot, at least in a moist environment. But against the odds, as soon as Optimus found he couldn't escape on his own, the Prime dug a hole into the ground and curled up into a ball, his frame stilling. For a moment Megatron thought he might have won, but then as soon as the other Pretenders came to get him, they dragged the Prime out and back to their base. Within a week he was up and moving again.

The monsters could hibernate it seemed. And that terrified Megatron more than he cared to admit.

The Decepticons only true success came when Soundwave decided to attempt using sound to their advantage. The Pretenders were incredibly sensitive, their optics, audials, and olfactory systems all primed for hunting. Seeing "The Quiet Place", Soundwave noted the similarities between the Pretenders and the Angels and opted to make an attempt at using the same attack against their foes. To the surprise of everyone, he...

Succeeded.

When Soundwave played music on just the right frequency on the battlefield, the Pretenders began to scream. Their frames shifted, their disguises falling away and simultaneously being forced back into place. Unable to control their frames fully, they could only thrash and fight like wild animals as their senses were assaulted from all sides. It was not enough to kill them, but the weakness was swiftly acknowledged and abused.

It wasn't much, but it was something.

Another step closer to victory.

[fliflaflux]

Sharess Caress with Astarion - a little analysis

CW: The following text deals with coping with the trauma of sexual and physical violence.

» When you met his eye for a moment, there's a look about him that reveals he's a milion realm away «

The scene with the Drow twins is often discussed - But what was astarion thinking in agreeing to the whole thing in the first place? I try to analyze a little what might be going on in the head of our favorite vampire. Might is important here, because of course I cannot know exactly.

First of all, what will I be referring to when I write about Astarion's trauma?

» "In the immediate aftermath of trauma, the victim's personality organization is disintegrated, and experiences of self and world are fragmented and chaotic. With the passage of time, the survivor's symptoms consolidate into recognizable patterns, such as intrusive memories, emotional numbness, and exaggerated startle responses." « (From: Herman, J. L. Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence--from Domestic Abuse to Political Terror. Basic Books.)

Or in short: it's a mess.

Trial-and-Error

Treating trauma is a complicated matter and in many cases requires the help of a therapist. However, I have not yet heard of any therapists in Faerûn - so Astarion is on his own (Or he and Tav.) So I theorize that he's trying the trial-and-error method to find his own boundaries after Cazador is defeated.

Trial-and-error methods in trauma therapy refer to the process by which therapists and patients try and adapt different treatment approaches and techniques to identify those that are most effective in addressing trauma sequelae and promoting healing. In this approach, therapy is viewed as an iterative process in which both therapists and patients experiment together to find the best treatment approaches that best meet the patient's individual needs, resources and responses.

It is important to note that trial-and-error methods in trauma therapy are typically not used in isolation but as part of a more wide-ranging therapeutic approach. Here's from the book "The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma" by Bessel van der Kolk: » "The healing process often involves trial and error as therapists and clients explore different techniques and approaches to determine what works best for the individual." «

But the thing is that Astarion doesn't have a therapist. His approach of agreeing so quickly may be one to find his hard boundaries in order to be able to work with them. However, in this case he had no one to support him. No one to catch him when he started to disassociate (when he is miles away). Not to mention that jumping into bed with two strangers and his love might have been a bit too much of a jump from 0 to 100.

He certainly wants to have a 'normal' relationship with Tav, which includes sleeping together. Just because he is traumatized in this way doesn't mean that he doesn't want any more physical closeness. On the contrary: I even think that he really wants this unforced closeness out of his own desire. But he's not completely ready for it yet. But it's in character for him over the course of the game that he doesn't think long about the offer with the Drow twins, but agrees straight away. And completely overreaches himself.

Good or bad decision?

So is it a bad decision to suggest Astarion visit the brothel at all? No. I have and will always make it dependent on my player character and how it fits into the roleplay. Because Astarion agrees of his own free will. Part of his character arc is that he learns to make his own decisions and have his own experiences. This also means that he has the right to make wrong decisions. These can also be learned from in the process of healing. Every experience is important.

Cheers! -Flux

[abybweisse]

The fire, revisited

I have a crack theory that might not be too cracky.

Previously, I'd thought the fire at Phantomhive Manor was started by either the attackers (and/or John Brown) or by Tanaka (on Vincent's standing orders, in case something like this happened to him).

Well, I'd be surprised if Tanaka somehow managed to do that, considering he'd fallen from that stab wound to the back. Either John Brown or the other attackers on his/the queen's orders is still a good possibility. Particularly since I expect that John and the queen already know by then that Undertaker is a reaper.

But there's another possibility I'd never really talked about before: the reapers who came to collect all those souls. I was thinking of this during discussions about ch209, because this new reaper states there're no additional comments to make about Snake's death, even though he's in a space underground where there are body parts stored, blood transfusion equipment, and a bizarre doll who is actually Snake's killer.

You'd think he'd at least mention the odd circumstances of Snake's death, especially when there's a hunt for Undertaker and his latest bizarre dolls. I don't think this reaper is completely oblivious to what's going on; it seems to me he might be trying to actively cover up what's happening, so he's not including such details in the official documentation. It could be for selfish reasons (to avoid overtime), or it could be based on special orders he's been given.

I say that because for a long time, the reapers weren't talking about Undertaker, and Grelle didn't even know about Undertaker's past as 136649. Othello knows because he was there and he was trained with 136649. But if he's a "fugitive of legend", why aren't reapers like Grelle and Ronald aware of his history? William has been at least somewhat aware of him for a while... but he's in management. The "superiors" are finally getting reapers in collections involved with this ongoing case against Undertaker, and I suspect it's only out of necessity. If they could, they would keep the vast majority of the reapers in the dark about this deserter.

Because they consider him to be that much of a threat to their organization. For quite some time, I've thought he knows something (bad) about the organization itself, and if he spread that knowledge around to the reaper masses, there could be an uprising. We've seen it with the maids turning against Heathfield, Ada and the patients turning against the Aurora Society, and now with the top students against the orphanage. When people realize they are being controlled and harmed for someone else's benefit, they tend to rise up, and I think that's what could happen if enough of the reapers learn whatever Undertaker knows.

The "superiors" finally got serious about it, according to Othello, when they sent him from his lab to the human realm. They seem to have hoped he could make this problem go away by talking to the deserter, destroying him, or capturing him. But once Othello realized it really was him, of all reapers, he knew he couldn't handle the situation on his own... and that he and Grelle wouldn't be enough, either. That's why he sent the dove for backup.

But I think someone else in the reaper organization already knew Undertaker was involved and tried to stop him without properly documenting anything -- they tried to cover up his activities. The night of the attack, one or two reapers were sent to collect souls from the dying, as per usual. While looking through their cinematic records, the reapers saw occasional instances of Undertaker showing up in them, but the most instances would have been in Vincent's records.

Vincent's records would have had extensive chunks of memories involving Undertaker, and the information in those records (things they said to each other) could have been damning somehow. To the organization, at least. What if Undertaker admitted to being Vincent's father? What if he told Vincent secrets he knew about the reaper organization? What if he mentioned the experiments he'd already been conducting on cinematic records and corpses?

Any reaper reviewing such records might think the best thing to do is destroy all this evidence, which might hopefully destroy the information, too. Why would a reaper destroy evidence about the organization's activities, if that information could help spawn a revolution? Too much of a hassle? Doesn't understand the full implications? On someone else's orders? Perhaps the reapers sent to collect these souls were specifically told to burn Vincent's body and the manor, and those reapers did as they were told, regardless of the circumstances. I wonder what happened to any reaper who saw whatever they saw in those cinematic records.... 🤔

Whoever ordered the fire to be started, or whoever decided to start it... they did so to destroy evidence.

As well as to keep Undertaker from collecting Vincent's body and cinematic records. Because whoever this person is, they know Undertaker would have found those things useful. And they didn't want him to have access.

The end result is pretty much the same, except that now I think reapers might have actually done it, instead of attackers/John or Tanaka.