#literary training service

[anghraine]

I've spent pages of my dissertation explaining my gripes with historicist literary criticism and then it's like "I'm a historicist btw"

(...my brain is very tired)

[insipid-drivel]

Horses: Since There Seems To Be A Knowledge Gap

I'm going to go ahead and preface this with: I comment pretty regularly on clips and photos featuring horses and horseback riding, often answering questions or providing explanations for how or why certain things are done. I was a stable hand and barrel racer growing up, and during my 11 year tenure on tumblr, Professional Horse Commentary is a very niche, yet very necessary, subject that needs filling. Here are some of the literary and creative gaps I've noticed in well meaning (and very good!) creators trying to portray horses and riding realistically that... well, most of you don't seem to even be aware of, because you wouldn't know unless you worked with horses directly!

Some Of The Most Common Horse + Riding Mistakes I See:

-Anybody can ride any horse if you hold on tight enough/have ridden once before.

Nope. No, no, no, no, aaaaaaaand, no. Horseback riding has, historically, been treated as a life skill taught from surprisingly young ages. It wasn't unusual in the pre-vehicular eras to start teaching children as young as 4 to begin to ride, because horses don't come with airbags, and every horse is different. For most adults, it can take months or years of regular lessons to learn to ride well in the saddle, and that's just riding; not working or practicing a sport.

Furthermore, horses often reject riders they don't know. Unless a horse has been trained like a teaching horse, which is taught to tolerate riders of all skill and experience levels, it will take extreme issue with having some random person try to climb on their back. Royalty, nobility, and the knighted classes are commonly associated with the "having a favorite special horse" trope, because it's true! Just like you can have a particularly special bond with a pet or service animal that verges on parental, the same can apply with horses. Happy horses love their owners/riders, and will straight-up do their best to murder anyone that tries to ride them without permission.

-Horses are stupid/have no personality.

There isn't a more dangerous assumption to make than assuming a horse is stupid. Every horse has a unique personality, with traits that can be consistent between breeds (again, like cat and dog breeds often have distinct behavior traits associated with them), but those traits manifest differently from animal to animal.

My mother had an Arabian horse, Zipper, that hated being kicked as a signal to gallop. One day, her mom and stepdad had a particularly unpleasant visitor; an older gentleman that insisted on riding Zipper, but refused to listen to my mother's warnings never to kick him. "Kicking" constitutes hitting the horse's side(s) with your heels, whether you have spurs on or not. Most horses only need a gentle squeeze to know what you want them to do.

Anyway, Zipper made eye-contact with my mom, asking for permission. He understood what she meant when she nodded at him. He proceeded to give this asshole of a rider road rash on the side of the paddock fence and sent him to the emergency room. He wouldn't have done it if he didn't have the permission from the rider he respected, and was intelligent enough to ask, "mind if I teach this guy a lesson?" with his eyes, and understand, "Go for it, buddy," from my mom in return.

-Riding bareback is possible to do if you hold onto the horse's mane really tight.

Riding a horse bareback (with no saddle, stirrups, or traditional harness around the horse's head) is unbelievably difficult to learn, particularly have testicles and value keeping them. Even professional riders and equestrians find ourselves relying on tack (the stuff you put on a horse to ride it) to stay stable on our horses, even if we've been riding that particular horse for years and have a very positive, trusting relationship.

Horses sweat like people do. The more they run, the more their hair saturates with sweat and makes staying seated on them slippery. Hell, an overworked horse can sweat so heavily that the saddle slips off its back. It's also essential to brush and bathe a horse before it's ridden in order to keep it healthier, so their hair is often quite slick from either being very clean or very damp. In order to ride like that, you have to develop the ability to synchronize your entire body's rhythm's with the rhythm of the horse's body beneath you, and quite literally move as one. Without stirrups, most people can't do it, and some people can never master bareback riding no matter how many years they spend trying to learn.

-You can be distracted and make casual conversation while a horse is standing untethered in the middle of a barn or field.

At every barn I've ever worked at, it's been standard practice with every single horse, regardless of age or temperament, to secure their heads while they're being tacked up or tacked down. The secures for doing this are simple ropes with clips that are designed to attach to the horse's halter (the headwear for a horse that isn't being ridden; they have no bit that goes in the horse's mouth, and no reins for a rider to hold) on metal O rings on either side of the horse's head. This is not distressing to the horse, because we give them plenty of slack to turn their heads and look around comfortably.

The problem with trying to tack up an unrestrained horse while chatting with fellow stable hands or riders is that horses know when you're distracted! And they often try to get away with stuff when they know you're not looking! In a barn, a horse often knows where the food is stored, and will often try to tiptoe off to sneak into the feed room.

Horses that get into the feed room are often at a high risk of dying. While extremely intelligent, they don't have the ability to throw up, and they don't have the ability to tell that their stomach is full and should stop eating. Allowing a horse into a feed/grain room WILL allow it to eat itself to death.

Other common woes stable hands and riders deal with when trying to handle a horse with an unrestrained head is getting bitten! Horses express affection between members of their own herd, and those they consider friends and family, through nibbling and surprisingly rough biting. It's not called "horseplay" for nothing, because during my years working with horses out in the pasture, it wasn't uncommon at all for me to find individuals with bloody bite marks on their withers (that high part on the middle of the back of their shoulders most people instinctively reach for when they try to get up), and on their backsides. I've been love-bitten by horses before, and while flattering, they hurt like hell on fleshy human skin.

So, for the safety of the horse, and everybody else, always make a show of somehow controlling the animal's head when hands-on and on the ground with them.

-Big Horse = War Horse

Startlingly, the opposite is usually the case! Draft and carriage horses, like Percherons and Friesians, were never meant to be used in warfare. Draft horses are usually bred to be extremely even-tempered, hard to spook, and trustworthy around small children and animals. Historically, they're the tractors of the farm if you could afford to upgrade from oxen, and were never built to be fast or agile in a battlefield situation.

More importantly, just because a horse is imposing and huge doesn't make it a good candidate for carrying heavy weights. A real thing that I had to be part of enforcing when I worked at a teaching ranch was a weight limit. Yeah, it felt shitty to tell people they couldn't ride because we didn't have any horses strong enough to carry them due to their weight, but it's a matter of the animal's safety. A big/tall/chonky horse is more likely to be built to pull heavy loads, but not carry them flat on their spines. Horses' muscular power is predominantly in their ability to run and pull things, and too heavy a rider can literally break a horse's spine and force us to euthanize it.

Some of the best war horses out there are from the "hot blood" family. Hot blooded horses are often from dry, hot, arid climates, are very small and slight (such as Arabian horses), and are notoriously fickle and flighty. They're also a lot more likely to paw/bite/kick when spooked, and have even sometimes been historically trained to fight alongside their rider if their rider is dismounted in combat; kicking and rearing to keep other soldiers at a distance.

-Any horse can be ridden if it likes you enough.

Just like it can take a lifetime to learn to ride easily, it can take a lifetime of training for a horse to comfortably take to being ridden or taking part in a job, like pulling a carriage. Much like service animals, horses are typically trained from extremely young ages to be reared into the job that's given to them, and an adult horse with no experience carrying a rider is going to be just as scared as a rider who's never actually ridden a horse.

Just as well, the process of tacking up a horse isn't always the most comfortable experience for the horse. To keep the saddle centered on the horse's back when moving at rough or fast paces, it's essential to tighten the belly strap (cinch) of the saddle as tightly as possible around the horse's belly. For the horse, it's like wearing a tight corset, chafes, and even leaves indents in their skin afterward that they love having rinsed with water and scratched. Some horses will learn to inflate their bellies while you're tightening the cinch so you can't get it as tight as it needs to be, and then exhale when they think you're done tightening it.

When you're working with a horse wearing a bridle, especially one with a bit, it can be a shocking sensory experience to a horse that's never used a bit before. While they lack a set of teeth naturally, so the bit doesn't actually hurt them, imagine having a metal rod shoved in your mouth horizontally! Unless you understand why it's important for the person you care about not dying, you'd be pretty pissed about having to keep it in there!

-Horseback riding isn't exercise.

If you're not using every muscle in your body to ride with, you're not doing it right.

Riding requires every ounce of muscle control you have in your entire body - although this doesn't mean it wasn't realistic for people with fat bodies to stay their weight while also being avid riders; it doesn't mean the muscles aren't there. To stay on the horse, you need to learn how it feels when it moves at different gaits (walk, trot, canter, gallop), how to instruct it to switch leads (dominant legs; essential for precise turning and ease of communication between you and the horse), and not falling off. While good riders look like they're barely moving at all, that's only because they're good riders. They know how to move so seamlessly with the horse, feeling their movements like their own, that they can compensate with their legs and waists to not bounce out of the saddle altogether or slide off to one side. I guarantee if you ride a horse longer than 30 minutes for the first time, your legs alone will barely work and feel like rubber.

-Horses aren't affectionate.

Horses are extraordinarily affectionate toward the right people. As prey animals, they're usually wary of people they don't know, or have only recently met. They also - again, like service animals - have a "work mode" and a "casual mode" depending upon what they're doing at the time. Horses will give kisses like puppies, wiggle their upper lips on your hair/arms to groom you, lean into neck-hugs, and even cuddle in their pasture or stall if it's time to nap and you join them by leaning against their sides. If they see you coming up from afar and are excited to see you, they'll whinny and squeal while galloping to meet you at the gate. They'll deliberately swat you with their tails to tease you, and will often follow you around the pasture if they're allowed to regardless of what you're up to.

-Riding crops are cruel.

Only cruel people use riding crops to hurt their horses. Spurs? I personally object to, because any horse that knows you well doesn't need something sharp jabbing them in the side for emphasis when you're trying to tell them where you want them to go. Crops? Are genuinely harmless tools used for signalling a horse.

I mean, think about it. Why would crops be inherently cruel instruments if you need to trust a horse not to be afraid of you and throw you off when you're riding it?

Crops are best used just to lightly tap on the left or right flank of the horse, and aren't universally used with all forms of riding. You'll mainly see crops used with English riding, and they're just tools for communicating with the horse without needing to speak.

-There's only one way to ride a horse.

Not. At. All. At most teaching ranches, you'll get two options: Western, or English, because they tend to be the most popular for shows and also the most common to find equipment for. English riding uses a thinner, smaller saddle, narrower stirrups, and much thinner bridles. I, personally, didn't like English style riding because I never felt very stable in such a thin saddle with such small stirrups, and didn't start learning until my mid teens. English style riding tends to focus more on your posture and deportment in the saddle, and your ability to show off your stability and apparent immovability on the horse. It was generally just a bit too stiff and formal for me.

Western style riding utilizes heavier bridles, bigger saddles (with the iconic horn on the front), and broader stirrups. Like its name may suggest, Western riding is more about figuring out how to be steady in the saddle while going fast and being mobile with your upper body. Western style riding is generally the style preferred for working-type shows, such as horseback archery, gunning, barrel racing, and even rodeo riding.

-Wealthy horse owners have no relationship with their horses.

This is loosely untrue, but I've seen cases where it is. Basically, horses need to feel like they're working for someone that matters to them in order to behave well with a rider and not get impatient or bored. While it's common for people to board horses at off-property ranches (boarding ranches) for cost and space purposes, it's been historically the truth that having help is usually necessary with horses at some point. What matters is who spends the most time with the animal treating it like a living being, rather than a mode of transport or a tool. There's no harm in stable hands handling the daily upkeep; hay bales and water buckets are heavy, and we're there to profit off the labor you don't want or have the time to do. You get up early to go to work; we get up early to look after your horses. Good owners/boarders visit often and spend as much of their spare time as they can with spending quality work and playtime with their horses. Otherwise, the horses look to the stable hands for emotional support and care.

So, maybe you're writing a knight that doesn't really care much for looking after his horse, but his squire is really dedicated to keeping up with it? There's a better chance of the horse having a more affectionate relationship with the squire thanks to the time the squire spends on looking after it, while the horse is more likely to tolerate the knight that owns it as being a source of discipline if it misbehaves. That doesn't mean the knight is its favorite person. When it comes to horses, their love must be earned, and you can only earn it by spending time with them hands-on.

-Horses can graze anywhere without concern.

This is a mistake that results in a lot of premature deaths! A big part of the cost of owning a horse - even before you buy one - is having the property that will be its pasture assessed for poisonous plants, and having those plants removed from being within the animal's reach. This is an essential part of farm upkeep every year, because horses really can't tell what's toxic and what isn't. One of the reasons it's essential to secure a horse when you aren't riding it is to ensure it only has a very limited range to graze on, and it's your responsibility as the owner/rider to know how to identify dangerous plants and keep your horses away from them.

There's probably more. AMA in my askbox if you have any questions, but that's all for now. Happy writing.

[literaryvein-reblogs]

hello! do you have any notes on the second point of view??

Writing Notes: Second Person POV

Second Person Point of View - structured around the “you” pronoun, and is less common in novel-length work.

Example: “You thought you could do it.”

Second person can allow you to draw your reader into the story and make them feel like they’re part of the action because the narrator is speaking directly to them.

Writing in second person for any great length is a challenge, and will stretch your writing skills.

Lorrie Moore is well-known for her innovative use of second person narration in her short story collection Self-Help (1985).

Sometimes referred to as second person POV.

Second-Person Narration is a little-used technique of narrative in which the action is driven by a character ascribed to the reader, one known as you.

The reader is immersed into the narrative as a character involved in the story.

The narrator describes what "you" do and lets you into your own thoughts and background.

The most well-known piece of fiction that employs second-person narration might be Jay McInerney’s novel Bright Lights, Big City.

At the subway station you wait fifteen minutes on the platform for a train. Finally a local, enervated by graffiti, shuffles into the station. You get a seat and hoist a copy of the New York Post. The Post is the most shameful of your several addictions. — Jay McInerney, Bright Lights, Big City, 1984

You will also find second-person narration used in the "Choose Your Own Adventure" style of books popular with younger readers, in which readers determine where the story goes by which page they turn to next. Allowing the reader to "be" the central character in the story provides an immersive reading experience, enhancing what is at stake for the character and reader.

Second-person point of view directly addresses the reader, works well for giving advice or explaining how to do something.

A process analysis paper would be a good choice for using the second-person point of view, as shown in this paragraph:

In order to prepare microwave popcorn, you will need a microwave and a box of microwave popcorn which you’ve purchased at a grocery store. First of all, you need to remove the popcorn package from the box and take off the plastic wrap. Next, open your microwave and place the package in the center with the proper side up. Then set your microwave for the suggested number of minutes as stated on the box. Finally, when the popcorn is popped, you’re ready for a great treat.

While the example above outlines best use of second person, academic writing often avoids second-person point of view in favor of third-person point of view.

Second person can be too casual for formal writing, and it can also alienate the reader if the reader does not identify with the idea.

Second person point of view is often used in:

Nonfiction, like self-help books.

Immersive mediums, like video games.

Advertising slogans, which aim to sell a good or service.

Song lyrics, which connect with the listener by placing him or her directly into the narrative.

Although the second person is a less common choice for fiction writing, when done well, it can give a story a unique and powerful perspective.

Reasons to Write in Second Person POV

Writing in second person point of view has its challenges—mainly, asking the reader to suspend belief to the point where they imagine themselves to be part of the story. However, there are also advantages to using second person point of view. Second person point of view can:

Present an uncommon point of view. Second person is rare in literary fiction. Most novels are written in one of two styles: first person, which involves a narrator who tells their story, (“I ran toward the gate.”), or the third person, which is the author telling a story about a character (“He woke up that morning.”). One of the first popular novels to successfully use the second person was Jay McInerney’s Bright Lights, Big City, which put the reader in the center of a fast-paced, party lifestyle in New York.

Create excitement. Second person takes the reader and puts them in the middle of the action. In the Choose Your Own Adventure books, a popular children’s series, the reader is in the driver’s seat, instructed to make decisions that direct the plot.

Provide an opportunity to reflect. Writing in second person provides authors with the opportunity to reflect. Always a writer to push the limits of storytelling, Margaret Atwood has used second person in several short stories, like Bread. By using “you,” Atwood forces the reader to examine societal inequalities.

Adding humor. Approaching a story with a unique perspective, like a second person point of view, can help add levity. In Lorrie Moore’s short story How To Become a Writer, she uses the second-person narrative voice to try to convince the reader to become an astronaut, or a movie star—anything other than a writer.

Tips For Writing in Second Person

Follow these tips if you’ve settled on writing in the “you”:

Study those who went before you. While stories told in the second person are less common than first and third-person points of view, there are plenty of novels and short stories that can show you how it’s done. Other works worth investigating are Tom Robbins’ Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas and Italo Calvino’s If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler.

Imitate the masters. Take a well-known book written in the first or third person and try writing a page from a second person point of view. Dan Brown wrote his Robert Langdon series— Angels & Demons, The Da Vinci Code, Inferno, and Origin—in the close third person. Pick an action-packed page and rewrite it as if the reader was Robert Langdon.

Stay conscious of the narrative voice. Second person point of view can be difficult to articulate and it’s easy to slip into writing from your perspective. Be vigilant about always thinking of who the character is and remove yourself from the equation.

Be descriptive. People are used to making observations when reading a book. If you put the responsibility of character or protagonist on the reader, it’s your job to make it credible. Bring them into the world by elaborating on details. Appeal to their senses and emotions with vivid detail to describe the setting, other characters, and events.

Stay present. To ramp up the tension, use the present tense. It brings the reader in even closer and adds to the pacing of the plot. Using present tense and active verbs make it feel like it’s happening in real time. Read The Diver’s Clothes Lie Empty by Vendela Vida, a second person, present-tense story chronicling a woman’s journey through Morocco.

IN ACADEMIC WRITING. Replacing "You":

Sometimes you needs to be replaced with nouns or proper nouns to create more formality to clarify the idea. Here are some examples:

Inappropriate Use of "You" — Revised to Replace "You"

Quality of education decreases when you allow overcrowded classrooms. (Are you, the reader, allowing the conditions?) — Quality of education decreases when state legislators allow overcrowded classrooms. (Identifies who is doing what.)

On Saturday afternoons, you usually have to stand in long lines to buy groceries. (Are you, the reader, shopping in on this day and time?) — Saturday afternoon shoppers usually have to stand in long lines to buy groceries. (Identifies who is doing what.)

In many states, you have prisons with few rehabilitation programs. (Do you, the reader, have prisons?) — In many states, prisons have few rehabilitation programs. (Identifies the actual subject of the sentence.)

Sources: 1 2 3 4 ⚜ More: References ⚜ Writing Resources PDFs

Hope this helps with your writing!

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Margaret Killjoy’s “The Sapling Cage”

TODAY (Sept 24), I'll be speaking IN PERSON at the BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY!

The Sapling Cage is the first book in Margaret Killjoy's new "Daughters of the Empty Throne" trilogy: it's a queer coming-of-age tale in the mode of epic fantasy, and it's very good:

https://firestorm.coop/products/21646-the-sapling-cage.html

Lorel wants to be a witch, but that's the very last of the adventurous trades to be strictly gender-segregated. Boys and girls alike run away to be knights, brigands and sailors, but only girls can become a witch. Indeed, Lorel's best friend, Lane, is promised to the witches, having been born to a witch herself.

Lane doesn't want to be a witch. She wants to be a knight. So she and Lorel swap places, so when the crones come to their little hamlet to collect the girl who was promised to her, it's Lorel who steps forward, wearing the black dress Lane's mother left behind. None of the townsfolk rate Lorel out to the witches, and just like that, she is on the march with the coven, a whelp – the lowest ranking inductee, aspiring to "apprentice" and then, "witch."

What follows is, in some ways, a very expertly executed coming-of-age story. Lane is getting trained up with the coven, among a new cohort of whelps of varying degrees of friendliness and hostility. The world is a richly realized fantasy landscape of monsters and giants, magic and political intrigue.

Lorel has signed up for witching just as the land is turning against witches, thanks to a political plot by a scheming duchess who has scapegoated the witches as part of a plan to annex all the surrounding duchies, re-establishing the long-disintegrated kingdom with herself on the throne. To make things worse (for the witches, if not the duchess), there's a plague of monsters on the land, and the forests are blighted with a magical curse that turns trees to unmelting ice. This all softens up the peasantfolk for anti-witch pogroms.

So Lorel has to learn witching, even as her coven is fighting both monsters and the duchess's knights and the vigilante yokels who've been stirred up with anti-witch xenophobia.

This is a good, sturdy, serviceable plot, and in Killjoy's hands, it is expertly handled. There are lots of reversals and double-crosses, brilliant fight scenes, all the things you could want in an epic fantasy. And of course, it's a coming of age, with Lorel seeing the world and discovering who she is and brushing away the comforting half-truths and lies her elders have cocooned her in.

That's where the fact that Lorel is trans comes in. Lorel is figuring out what that means, but she's also very worried about discovery. After all, she's entered the company of witches, the last all-female cohort in the land, and these are powerful women – what's more, they're anarchists, leaderless and fractious. Who knows what happens if Lorel gets discovered.

So you've got this incredibly well-turned fantasy/coming-of-age story going on, and Killjoy figures out how to work in this gender stuff not just as a way of doing "representation" or "queer joy" or any other value that's orthogonal to the literary merits of this as an adventure tale. Nor does she simply integrate trans-ness as an unremarkable fact of life, another kind of statement (indeed, there's plenty of queer characters in this story who are matter-of-fact in this manner).

No, Killjoy uses the special complications of coming-of-age while transitioning to heighten the stakes and thus fuel the suspense of the novel. In addition to all the normal merits of diverse characters, Killjoy is using gender issues to crank up the story, winding it up to a breakneck pace that makes the pages practically fly past.

Thematically, there's a bunch of chewy stuff Killjoy does with the way that magic transforms bodies, making monsters out of witches who push their powers too hard. The story has all these changing bodies – children coming of age, Lorel coming out as transfemme, the transformation of magic-users into monsters. It's just another layer of depth that supports a zippy, run-and-gun quest tale.

I've followed Killjoy's work for more than a decade, ever since her days publishing the seminal zine Steampunk (motto: "Love the machine, hate the factory"):

https://firestorm.coop/products/2624-steampunk-magazine.html

Years later, I had the pleasure of instructing her at the Clarion West workshop. She's published regularly all that time, and this is by far her most commercial – and, I think her best! – novel (to date).

Today, Tor Books publishes SPILL, a new, free LITTLE BROTHER novella about oil pipelines and indigenous landback!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/24/daughters-of-the-empty-throne/#witchy/a>

[bubonickitten]

The ALA's State of America's Libraries Report for 2024 is out now.

2023 had the highest number of challenged book titles ever documented by the ALA.

You can view the full PDF of the report here. Book ban/challenge data broken down by state can be found here.

If you can, try to keep an eye on your local libraries, especially school and public libraries. If book/program challenges or attacks on library staff are happening in your area, make your voice heard -- show up at school board meetings, county commissioner meetings, town halls, etc. Counterprotest. Write messages of support on social media or in your local papers. Show support for staff in-person. Tell others about the value of libraries.

Get a library card if you haven't yet -- if you're not a regular user, chances are you might not know what all your library offers. I'm talking video games, makerspaces (3D printers, digital art software, recording equipment, VR, etc.), streaming services, meeting spaces, free demonstrations and programs (often with any necessary materials provided at no cost!), mobile WiFi hotspots, Library of Things collections, database subscriptions, genealogy resources, and so on. A lot of electronic resources like ebooks, databases, and streaming services you can access off-site as long as you have a (again: free!!!) library card. There may even be services like homebound delivery for people who can't physically come to the library.

Also try to stay up to date on pending legislation in your state -- right now there's a ton of proposed legislation that will harm libraries, but there are also bills that aim to protect libraries, librarians, teachers, and intellectual freedom. It's just as important to let your representatives know that you support pro-library/anti-censorship legislation as it is to let them know that you oppose anti-library/pro-censorship legislation.

Unfortunately, someone being a library user or seeing value in the work that libraries do does not guarantee that they will support libraries at the ballot. One of the biggest predictors for whether libraries stay funded is not the quantity or quality of the services, programs, and materials it offers, but voter support. Make sure your representatives and local politicians know your stance and that their actions toward libraries will affect your vote.

Here are some resources for staying updated:

If you're interested in library advocacy and staying up to date with the challenges libraries are facing in the U.S., check out EveryLibrary, which focuses on building voter support for libraries.

Book Riot has regular articles on censorship attempts taking place throughout the nation, which can be found here, as well as a Literary Activism Newsletter.

The American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom focuses on the intellectual freedom component of the Library Bill of Rights, tracks censorship attempts throughout each year, and provides training, support, and education about intellectual freedom to library staff and the public.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation focuses on intellectual freedom in the digital world, including fighting online censorship and illegal surveillance.

I know this post is long, but please spread the word. Libraries need your support now more than ever.

[yukimomodivorce]

The Ghosts in IDOLiSH7 are a Literary Device, Mostly

(an essay by me)

People are always asking me, "Robin, what the fuck is up with those ghosts in IDOLiSH7? How come this otherwise completely non-supernatural universe randomly has these two ghosts that show up and then never get acknowledged again? Is it just canon that ghosts exist and only Riku and Momo can see them?" and I am always telling them that I have an analysis about this I just haven't written it yet. But that ends today, as do all of these very pressing concerns about the i7 Ghosts™, because here I am, finally writing the analysis. This essay will have two sections, the first on the training camp ghost from part 3/third beat, and the second on the Re:vale house ghost from Yuki's third chapter of Re:member. So, spoilers for all of part 3/third beat in both sections, Re:member in section 2, and there's one extremely minor spoiler for part 4 in section 1 but it's honestly so predictable I don't think it even counts. Also, I'll reiterate this once we get to it, but just a warning that section 2 will contain discussions of depression, suicide and suicidal ideation, and a brief mention of self-harm, so please stop reading after section 1 if you don't want to see any of that! Another less important disclaimer about section 2 is that I am going to spend an entirely unecessary amount of time talking about Yuki. I am normal about Yuki. Okay. Without further ado, let's watch my spiral into ghost analogy insanity unfold!

Game translations: @seigyokus Re:member translations: @ takara_time (+ scans and editing by @ waitamomoment) Rabbit chat translations: @osakaso5

Section 1: The Training Camp Ghost

This first point applies to both ghosts, but I wanna start by noting that I think superstitions and beliefs like this are more common in Japan than a lot of other places, so yeah it is entirely possible that ghosts are just a canon and accepted thing in Idolish7's universe and this isn't really that strange of a detail for the series to include. However, I don't have any real background knowledge about if ghosts are normal in non-supernatural anime/etc. and I am not committing to that kind of research, so we'll have to leave the specifics of the ghost canonicity issue to someone else. But regardless of how canon they are, I think we've established well enough by now that the i7 writers don't put much of anything in the series without reason (re:vale band name you will always be famous. to me), and that definitely applies here as well - both of our ghosts are doing a LOT of potential symbolic work in their brief appearances, and that's what we'll be unpacking today, starting with the TCG.

The infamous TCG (training camp ghost) of Atami needs no introduction, but I'll give her one anyway. During the filming of the Friends Day special, upon following the shopping group home, she offers her services to Riku (inexplicably the only person capable of communicating with her) for the evening entertainment group's test of courage, terrorises several cast members throughout the day, and finally brings us Soma Saito's incredible cover of Dis One before probably being sent back to idol fan purgatory forever. Who is she? Where did she come from? I have several theories.

1.1: The TCG is the audience

While the 'ghosts are real in i7' possibility is there, I think it's also important to note in this case that the whole training camp is very explicitly being filmed for TV, and the biggest vibe I get from this episode of the anime is that the ghost is a part of the show, and we're seeing that show through the eyes of its in-universe audience. This happens pretty often in i7 (for example, when we see the groups talk to their fans during concerts), and generally the line between the real fans and the fictional ones can get pretty blurred (which deserves its own much longer analysis but I Am Not Writing All That), so everything with the in-universe audience here kind of naturally extends to us as the real audience. The TCG would probably be easy enough to manufacture with special effects as long as Riku and the driver guy were in on it, and it would make sense for the Friends Day producers to include it to keep things entertaining and be a stand-in for their viewers/fans of the idol groups - the ghost is specifically a female fan of male idols (Zero), and a lot of her interactions with the cast would qualify as self-insert material (e.g. Tenn singing for her and Riku looking directly into the camera to smile at her). And speaking of Tenn and Riku,

1.2 The TCG is Nanase twins angst

I think this connection is fairly obvious in their exchange here. You could make a case for the ghost representing either one of the twins. Like Riku, she's being pushed away by Tenn before she's ready to leave, told that it's necessary and for the best that they stay separated - after all, they live in different worlds. Like Tenn, she's leaving despite Riku's protests and part of her not really wanting to go at first, because she believes it's for the best that they stay separated - after all, they live in different worlds.

There's also the association with ghosts of being ignored/invisible, and Riku being the only person able to see or talk to her. Maybe it's because he's the only one who's able to reach her. Maybe he can see her because he understands her on some level - she was torn away from life like he was torn away from his brother, and she's now practically invisible to everyone else around her, like Riku probably feels to Tenn (and arguably the rest of his family in some ways). Maybe he wants her to feel seen, and he can make Tenn acknowledge her in the way he wants to be acknowledged by him. I might actually be going somewhere with this so bear with me for a second.

1.3: The TCG is monster Riku foreshadowing

So my first thought when I watched the Nanase twin angst portion of this episode was 'well obviously the ghost isn't real and Riku is just using it to talk to Tenn indirectly' because they are always having indirect conversations like this and it makes me insane, and I do still think that's the idea here, just not quite in the sense that Riku is making things up. Going back to the whole 'ghost is a stand-in for the audience' thing, and assuming that she's saying the things that Riku wants to say and Tenn is telling her the things he wants to tell Riku, then we could say that rather than Riku purposefully having the ghost speak for him, this is an extension of the monster effect. I guess in this scenario the TCG is a real ghost (and a figurative representation of the audience), and Riku is having the same effect on her that Iori says he has on everyone else. He unknowingly projects his desire to connect with his brother onto her, and she tries to help him. Really, the only times we see her after she follows the shopping group to their cabin are when she's helping Riku, with the test of courage and then with speaking to Tenn. This gets convoluted so I kinda doubt it's intentional? But it's fun to think about.

1.4: The TCG is the friends we made along the way

Riku spells this out a bit more explicitly in the game here, but the TCG represents the each of the groups in the series in a couple different ways. I guess one way you could interpret this is that the ghost is meant to be there to emphasise how extraordinary it is that they're all together, but I don't think that really holds up considering how often they end up working with each other throughout the series anyway. What's important here is the idea of the ghost itself, something that can be present and felt even when it isn't physically or actually there. Again, the ghost is the audience - a constant influence for better and for worse on these idols even when they aren't watching, even in their personal lives; and vice versa, the ghost is the idols being able to reach their fans without ever actually knowing them. More relevant to what Riku says, the ghost is the groups to each other - friends, mentors, rivals, pushing them forward even when they aren't standing side by side. You could even say the ghost is ZOOL, friends who aren't here right now but will be someday. Re:vale and Idolish7 as groups don't especially fit the ghost description, but they have their fair share of ghosts - Banri, Haruki, Tenn, Aya, Sougo's uncle. Zero. The list goes on, for Trigger and ZOOL as well, but I think the most important way the ghost analogy applies to this section of the story is with Trigger. Because during the imminent Arc Where Trigger Gets Cancelled™, despite leaving their agency and disappearing almost entirely from the public eye, they're still very much there to their fans and to their friends. So. I kinda forgot what I was saying but to sum it all up the ghost here represents everything that stays with you even when it's far away or after it's gone from your life. Mikanseinabokura and all that. And now that I mention it-

Section 2: The Re:vale House Ghost

Once again, a warning that this section has a brief mention of self-harm, as well as in-depth discussions of depression, suicide and suicidal ideation (which I'm gonna be talking about pretty bluntly the entire time), so please don't proceed unless you're comfortable with all of that!

Like most things in Re:member, the RHG (Re:vale house ghost) makes me insane. Today I am going to attempt to form coherent thoughts about it and it is unlikely that I'll succeed, but try to bear with me. Though it isn't around for as long as the TCG, we have a little more info about the RHG - it's the ghost that haunts the shitty apartment Yuki and Momo live in together in their early days as Re:vale. Supposedly. All it actually does is slam the door of one kitchen cabinet and I don't think that this is definitive evidence of paranormal activity because most houses are just like that. It's all a little bit vague, but according to Re:vale, their house is definitely haunted by the ghost of someone who died in the kitchen, because when they move in there is a mysterious black stain on their kitchen floor. Momo introduces himself to the floor stain while Yuki stares at him in awe and blushes and shoujo filter flowers appear in his eyes. God I hate them. I think the RHG is just a figment of their collective imagination or maybe they're having one of those shared delusions or something. But that's really besides the point because this ghost exists for one very specific thematic purpose: the RHG is Yuki.

And on that note, let's go back and talk about Yuki for a few minutes (potentially hours) before we get to our actual analysis of the ghost scene. Mostly because I just wanna talk about him, but also because I do understand why some people think the 'Momo starts talking to ghosts' part of Re:member is kinda weird and random, and I think at least some of this is important to go over before we unpack it.

A consensus has already been established among Yuki scholars that our subject has autism (Kei et al. 2024). Today, I would like to propose an additional diagnosis: Yuki has depression.

2.1: "I lost my dreams, friends, and passion as well."

So, Yuki pretty clearly gets depressed when Ban leaves him. He loses interest in everything he used to care about, gives up on his dreams, blames himself for Ban's injury and disappearance, he's constantly sad, tired and irritable, and he lashes out at Momo (and Kujou, though there are some other pretty strong reasons for that one) and presumably everyone else he knows (I doubt he had a particularly good relationship with anyone else in the first place, but still).

He's grieving here, and it would make sense for him to react this way because of that fact alone. But I really don't think that's all there is to it, because he exhibits these symptoms (among others) long before Ban leaves him. He can't get out of bed in the mornings, he rarely leaves the house if he can avoid it, he has days where he can't eat or sleep, he's underweight and always tired and generally known to lack energy and be slow (or 'lazy') and in some cases listless and despondent. Ban even says that he wouldn't put it past Yuki to start slitting his wrists. And it's subtle, but there's one more really big one that really never goes away for him, even after he finds Ban.

2.2: "I don't need anyone to love me."

I'll get straight to the point. Yuki hates himself. Maybe only a little bit, maybe only sometimes, but it's there. Especially when he struggles with composing - he even says it himself in part 1 of his birthday photobook rabbit chat, almost immediately after saying that it made him want to kill himself but we'll get back to that part.

But it's really everywhere on what seems to be a mostly subconscious level for him, if you know how to look, even from the very beginning:

On paper, this line is just his frustration with being judged by anything other than his music, because it's something he cares a lot about and puts a lot of work into and he wants that to be acknowledged. But I think that if you take it in conjunction with some of the other things he tends to say, there's a little bit more to it.

I dont need anyone to love me. Yuki's songs are worthy of love. Yuki is not. There is nothing valuable about Yuki other than his songs, he has nothing else that deserves any sort of praise, and without them, he's just a useless burden with nothing to offer. He doesn't need anyone to love him - he doesn't understand why anyone would. And Momo does, and he's a good person, and Yuki doesn't deserve that when there's nothing he can actually do for him. And when that starts to change and he starts getting better at showing kindness to others and being there for Momo, he doesn't see it as learning to better express his feelings, he sees is as learning to feel affection and be a good person, because he believes that he is inherently not. As far as he can tell, Yuki is just naturally a bad person and a bad partner who isn't kind and isn't capable of love or compassion, not unless he tries to be. He knows, because he's heard it god knows how many times - even Chiba Shizuo blatantly tells him that neither of them can become good people - and maybe things are different now, but on some basic level it'll always be who he is.

Ok breaking character for a second, imagine you show up to your acting side gig and on the first day Keanu Reeves comes up to you and gives you $300 cash and then later he indirectly tells you that you're a nasty lonely egotistical failure. Now imagine you're Yuki and you have no fucking clue who Keanu Reeves is. He also shows you pictures of his top secret illegitimate son after talking to you for like 10 minutes and you have to lie to him about being straight. I think this is objectively the funniest situation to be in ever. Chiba Shizuo and Yamato both probably have depression also, but I'm not gonna spend any time on it, because every three months a person is torn to pieces by a crocodile in Northern Queensland. I forgot what I was talking about. Anyway

2.3: Hey remember that one time Yuki just straight up tried to kill himself

Yeah, that one. As far as I know this is really never addressed or acknowledged again, so we're just gonna take the page-long gag from Re:member at face value and say that after Ban's disappearance, Yuki (almost) attempted suicide, and the only reason he didn't go through with it is because he couldn't find anywhere to hang the noose. And like, yeah you could say it's just because he thought Ban might have killed himself and he's always been the kind of hopeless romantic to be waxing poetic about how "I can't live without you," but at the same time, he had no apparent reason to believe this (even if Ban did have suicidal tendencies I doubt Yuki would've really known), and he was planning to go through with it (I know it's probably just for comedic effect but he left a will. He left a will. He's, like, 20, and surely not the kind of person who would just have something like that in order already). This is also emphatically not the last time or the only reason he thinks about it.

I told you we'd get back to the photobook chat! I think there's also a lot you can infer from all the times he says he'd probably be dead by now without Momo and he wouldn't be able to handle losing him, what with the whole "when you jump, you'd better take me with you" thing. But regardless, this really isn't just that one time that Yuki tried to kill himself. It's suicidal ideation, and it's something he consistently struggles with especially in the few months after Ban leaves him. It even comes up in how he sees the 'paranormal activity' his new apartment:

2.4: "It seemed as though someone had hung themselves there."

Yeah it's the ghost I'm finally gonna talk about the ghost. I'm done with my Yuki has depression rant we can talk about why the ghost is Yuki now. I guess it might be more accurate to say that the ghost is Yuki's depression/suicidal thoughts/Banri trauma/whatever, but either way I think it represents him and he might also be semi-consciously projecting onto it, and I'm gonna go through line-by-line and try to explain my interpretation.

I think if you want to there's definitely room to take the 'usual paranormal activity' super literally and say that Yuki was having outbursts and slamming doors at the time (which would also match up with him being startled by it). I think it's also important to note that this is happening around the time he mentions feeling suicidal and not being able to compose in the photobook chat, but the main thing here is that second line. Even though Momo is always so nice to him, he can't stop himself from getting mad and being difficult and depressed, and he can't return that kindness - he can't even be useful to him.

I've already mentioned how I think Yuki's conclusion about the stain here plays into his suicidal ideation, but let's look at it a little more thematically. It's the way that even though it's glossed over earlier in the manga, Yuki's suicide attempt and everything that accompanied it still follows him, and it hangs (lol) heavy in their house like a ghost. To Yuki, it's startling and eerie - it scares him, and he's expecting it to scare Momo once he sees that side of him too. And it probably does scare him a little, and he hesitates, but he doesn't scream. Again, there's room to interpret this more literally as Momo finding out about his attempt/ideation/depression, or just as him inevitably seeing how he gets on his worse days, but either way the outcome is the same. Momo is starting to know Yuki as a person instead of an idol, flaws and probable mental illness and all, and his first reaction isn't to shy away or start to hate him or want to leave. It's an introduction. He makes it clear that they'll both be staying here from now on, that he's willing to live with the 'darker' sides of Yuki, and to help him do the same. Another point on this that's up to interpretation (because let's be real they're probably never gonna deal with this stuff explicitly in canon), you could see the whole ghost thing as neither of them really being able/wanting to accept that Yuki's symptoms are actually a part of him (and this is veering completely into fanfic territory but now I'm just imagining both of them silently agreeing to blame the things Yuki does on bad days on the ghost) but we've had enough angst for one day.

Everything else lines up well enough with the ghost and Yuki, but it's really his reaction here that sells the whole thing for me. It's a simple gesture, but just by Momo greeting him, being by his side, waiting for him when he comes home, that constant reminder of all his darkest thoughts becomes just another mark on the floorboards. It's not gone, and it probably never will be. But at least now, he doesn't have to face it alone. And it doesn't look so scary anymore.

2.5: "Now I know joy, and the meaning of a smile."

I must confess that I lied to all of you earlier. I'm actually not done with my Yuki rant and also there's a good reason I've been ignoring all the parts of Re:member where he isn't being self-deprecating or trying to kill himself. The end of the ghost scene is only the beginning of the end of this analysis, and the end of this analysis is pretty much just me having a meltdown about Yuki. Also I'm running out of space for images so we're doing some of the quotes like this instead.

After losing Ban, I lost my dreams, friends, and passion as well. I could only feel a sting as the wind passed through an empty, gaping hole in my chest. But I breathed as best as I could, and he tried to clear the dirt out of that hole, filling it with his earnest words instead.

Yuki still exhibits a lot of symptoms of depression all the way through the series, like the low energy and the trouble eating and sleeping, and [redacted part 5 spoilers] makes me think there's definitely some sort of connection between his writers' block and his depressive episodes. He still mentions feeling guilty towards Banri in second beat, the suicidal ideation doesn't really come up explicitly but he kinda hints at it on a few occassions, and he's very adament that he was a bad person and still isn't really a good one. But it's like. I don't really know how to put this, but I guess it's not his default state anymore like it was right after Ban left (and possibly before that, too). For the most part, he really does get better, and these things become less intense and fewer and farther between. He would probably say that it's all thanks to Momo, and it is, but he also very much does it of his own volition. Momo refuses so desperately to give up on him, and because of that he makes that choice to keep going by restarting Re:vale with him.

Yuki allows himself to let someone else in and start to love again - his partner, his music, his life. Even while he's thinking that he's just a burden to those around him, he doesn't resign himself to his fate like he might have done in the past. He's determined to become a better person, someone who can be a source of strength for Momo just like he was for him. And in the end, he does, but it's not just that. Now he knows joy. Now he can genuinely smile. And now,

I want to hear them scream my name. The voices that called out had annoyed me in the past. But now, I'll smile, together with Momo, who'll be by my side.

Going back to what I said about some of Yuki's subconscious self-hatred coming through in the way he wants people to look at his music and not at him, I. Cannot finish a sentence. Do NOT think about Yuki learning to love himself and see himself as worthy of love because Momo loved him just that much in a way that he could accept. BAD IDEA. Okay. So. It's Ban's advice and Momo's fan letter that get Yuki to accept that his fans do genuinely love his music in the first place, and I think it's here that it really starts to turn into him accepting the idea that they love other things about him too? Or that he really starts to want it and be happy about it instead of just accepting it? Whatever. I give up. I don't even like Re:vale anyway

That day, I would play the guitar I'd almost thrown at Kujou, because I now knew the power of a song that could not be silenced. I would dry my tears, open the door, and say, "I'm home."

[whencyclopedia]

Dialogue of Pessimism

The Dialogue of Pessimism (c. 1000 BCE) is a Babylonian poem featuring a master and his slave in ten exchanges during which the master proposes an action, and the slave gives reasons for and against its pursuit. The piece has been interpreted as an existential statement, satire, a theodicy, and social commentary.

The work is best known from the existential interpretation advocating suicide as the only response to a meaningless world in which there is no good reason to pursue one course over another. It is catalogued as belonging to the genre of Mesopotamian wisdom literature and was copied as part of the curriculum of the scribal schools. It is clear the piece served as an educational text, but whether students took its content and theme seriously is unknown. It is possible the piece was simply a comedic dialogue making fun of popular proverbs and their conventional use in the classroom in the same way the poems Schooldays and A Supervisor's Advice to a Young Scribe satirize the Mesopotamian educational system.

The poem's title is a modern-day designation (given by W. G. Lambert), and the original, if it ever had one, is lost. The piece develops through ten exchanges on the futility of action since anything one considers worth doing can be countered by equally good reasons not to:

On Visiting the Palace

On Dining

On Hunting

On Marriage

On Leading a Revolution

On Sex

On Religious Sacrifice

On Investing

On Philanthropy

On Public Service

The piece ends with a final stanza in which the master concludes that the only reasonable response to life is to seek death, but before taking that step, he will send his slave on ahead of him. The slave, who appears the wiser of the two, has the last line on how his master would not be able to survive three days without him. Based on this, and the slave's responses throughout, the poem can also be understood as a satire on social class, featuring the "wise servant" and "foolish master", a popular motif in ancient and modern works of literature.

Origin & Purpose

The poem may have originally been a Sumerian composition performed as part of a student's final exam period in the edubba ("House of Tablets"), the Sumerian scribal school. The edubba was established in Sumer by the Early Dynastic Period (2900-2334 BCE) to train scribes in ancient Mesopotamia, and its curriculum focused on copying, memorizing, and reciting various texts. Students progressed from copying simple lists and hymns to more difficult written works but also committed oral works to writing.

Prior to the invention of cuneiform script c. 3500 BCE, stories and poems existed only as an oral tradition. One of the earliest jobs of scribes in ancient Mesopotamia would have been preserving these works in written form, as scholar Jeremy Black notes:

Although a literary composition about oral transmission may seem to be paradoxical or perverse, it is simply a reflection of the scribes' everyday reality: patterns of preservation of tablets suggests strongly that our manuscript sources are not the traces of a copied literary tradition but one of telling, listening, and memorization. Ironically, many of the tablets preserving the world's oldest literary tradition are ephemera: they were produced as part of the memorization process and were never intended to last. (275)

Clay writing tablets used for student exercises, in fact, were frequently recycled by instructors who would drop them into tubs of water to soften, be erased, and reformed as new ones. Texts of established written works were preserved, however, for future students to memorize and recite and, among these, was the Dialogue of Pessimism. The extant copies are from Assyria and Babylonia, written in Akkadian script, but as with many other such works, it is most likely much older and, as noted, of Sumerian origin.

Its purpose would have been to entertain while also providing students with an interesting piece to practice from, and although it is labeled as 'wisdom literature' in the present day, it may not have been regarded as such in ancient Mesopotamia. The designation 'wisdom literature' itself is a modern construct applied by biblical scholars to the books of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Job long before works of Mesopotamian literature were discovered in the mid-19th century. Once cuneiform was deciphered, works such as The Instructions of Shuruppag (c. 2600-2000 BCE), Ludlul-Bel-Nemeqi (c. 1700 BCE), and others similar to or thought to have influenced the later biblical books were given that same label.

Continue reading...

[noxturnalmoth]

Literary Service

Summary: Life is a cruel mother but a great teacher. In Noxus, where life is but an afterthought, war raises its people with an iron fist. Whether they like it or not. So when one is courageous enough to escape, they learn to take all that life has to offer, even if it has to be by the skin of their teeth. What would happen if the scholarship that provided you with an escape made you encounter a man as great with his words as he is with hiding the festering wounds in his heart? And what if he was your teacher?

Warnings: Sensual content (no smut yet), violence

Word Count: 10, 242

Masterlist: here

Chapter 6 - Exposure Therapy

You were right to believe that knowing and using his name would push you off the edge of the cliff that your emotions were slowly dragging you towards. That very night was spent muttering his name as you curled up in your sheets, tasting his name on your tongue while shivers racked through your body at the smells of tobacco, cologne and brandy rushing through your nose each time you uttered the word.

Silco.

Your friend, professor and mentor. The man who saved you time and time again from yourself and yet never seemed to falter. And you were here, falling for him when he had enough on his plate that it could be described as a Piltovan feast. Piling with mounts of responsibility and work, not only on campus but in his past, and even at home. You couldn't handle the thought of being another burden for him to bear, his broad shoulders always straight yet his back was slumping from years of carrying the weight of the world, the weight of Zaun.

You really had gone and did the worse thing you could, something that you'd have to stifle deep down in your chest so it doesn't burst out, like a bouquet of flowers in bloom in the early sping. So, that night you shed a salty tears, lips tasting the smoky name one last time as you fell into bittersweet rest, disturbed by visions of a past you wished was long gone.

As much as your feelings pained you, you did not stop seeking out Silco's approval, his pride, his affections; it would've been strange at best for you to disappear after he opened himself up as he did last time. Disrespectful and hurtful at worst. And despite your fear of yourself, you were not about to abandon the most important in your life, the one person who fulfilled your soul in every way. So with a heavy heart you walked to your seat, and as Silco's voice began his usual class ritual, you felt your body relax, as if he were the cigarettes that hung from your lips so often. His voice rushing through you like nicotine and numbing your self-hatred, your fears, your worries, and only leaving him. The smokiness of his name back on your tongue and in your nose as the beat of your heart calmed, the sound of blood flowing loudly dissipating to let you hear him clearly.

"Can anyone of you tell me what was this book's protagonist's philosophy?"

Some people groan and Silco frowns, eye sharpening as it scours through the faces in the room before his eyes are trained to your raised hand and he nods to you.

"Sensualism, Mr.Marlowe." There it was again, the soft tension overtaking him, though you knew you hadn't slipped this time. No sirs escaping your warm lips.

"What does that entail?"

"Dorian Gray begins as a vain, narcissistic, hedonistic man who follows the sensualist doctrine. It entails that the true basis for all cognition is sensations and perception. Meaning that all knowledge, all reflection, all judgement is sensations previously felt and compared or added to other sensations. Helvetius was a firm believer in this philosophy. So Dorian Gray experiences life by seeking physical sensations that are provoked through pleasure of any kind, although mainly woman. Which supports Helvetius in his thought that man lives seeking pleasure and avoiding pain, he mentionned that 'These two, are, and always will be, the only principles of action in man.'"

"Good." His voice drawls in a soft, velvety tone, his lips curling up and eyes softening.

A shivers flows through you like a cold tide, visibly shaking your composure. Although you knew it to be from the praise, you still smiled at Silco and put on your jacket, acting as if the shaking simply came from the early spring air flowing through the class' open windows.

"And." You interject as he goes to change the slide, the teacher stopping his way around his desk and walks back up front, now directly in front of your desk.

"And?"

"By not breaking his love interest, Hetty Morton's, heart he sacrifices himself. Yet he realizes later that this action was not out of the goodness of his heart but curiosity towards a new experience, vanity and the want for his portrait to be beautiful once more. This represents something else that Helvetius has mentionned, that self-sacrifice is an action that is executed after comparing the pleasure one would recieve compared to the pain. The pleasure for Dorian was the experience of finally being good to someone. The pain inevitably came when he has realized that only confession will absolve him of his sins. So he takes the cowardly way out."

Mr. Marlowe hums, leaning forward on your desk by trapping its sides with his hands, gripping the edges. The cool of his teal washing over you, your skin prickling with goosebumps as if the eye gazing into yours was winter itself. Wrapping around your being and murmuring with its cold, biting breath, leaving your skin freezing and rippling as it quivers.

"The cowardly way out?" His voice dips.

"Yes, si-" His hands tighten around the edges of the table and your eyes look down as you mumble sorry, his eye cutting through you like a scalpel through skin and flesh. "Mr.Marlowe." You swallow softly, eyes meeting his. "He has decided to sacrifice his pride while fulfilling it at the same time, his character has no real morals. When he sees that his pitiful attempt hasn't given him the results he craved, he realized that the only way for that to happen would be to bruise his pride and undo his lifestyle, so he decided to die rather than become a good person."

You think it to be a dream as his pupil enlarges at your words, his closeness making him vulnerable to your eyes, dissecting his every reaction. How he seems to take slightly deeper breaths, how his lips twitch before his tongue peeks out to lick at them. And as you saw him do that, your own tongue rushed to wet your lips, the air suddenly feeling too hot, too dry.

"That is a perfect analysis. You never disappoint me, do you?"

The rethoric question has your hands twitching, teeth biting your cheek inner cheek as your eyes widen. And you don't know why, but you feel compelled to answer all the same even while knowing that ne doesn't need an answer, a soft nod shaking your head. Although you did know now, what made you obey and listen to him so intently. Not only your inherent need for praise and care or your admiration and respect for him as your, friend, teacher and mentor; but also the ever growing tempest in your heart. Taking more space within the confines of your soul, swirling, all consuming, absorbing your every thought and changing it to him. A force of nature. Although as you get lost in your thoughts you become all too aware that as much as you could dissect him at such a distance, so could he for you. Your eyes trailing back to his as it now looks almost entirely black, the teal all but a ring around his pupil, and his head tilting inquisitively. Although it almost looked teasing, and he seemed more and more like a predator stalking its prey before enjoying a feast.

He smiles at you, eye turning back to the usual warmth you have grown accustomed to before he turns and saunters to his desk. The end of class spent trying to regain your footing as you reign in your thoughts, notes closed and placed back in your bag as soon as Silco announces the end of today's course. Your pencil case and other necessities soon following.

Half way through spring, you've grown accustomed to the new arrangement. Your friend now called "Mr.Marlowe" when in class and "Silco" whenever the two of you were alone, the fear of using the man's name dissipating over the course of the month. Did his name echo in your mind and made the air in the room all too scarce? Yes. But it was also intimate, brought you closer as both a blessing and a curse as Silco seemed so much more relaxed after the reveal. As if he had shedded the last of the professionalism keeping your friendship from blooming fully. Long nights talking about books with food you've ordered now completed with him sharing his brandy with you, the expensive, amber colored liquid dripping down your throat like honey as you two discussed literary intricacies of tomes you've shared or had yet to make the other discover.

"You're wasting that on me Silco." You had said the second Friday he presented you with a tumbler, the one after he revealed his name to you.

To which he had scoffed, his eyes of tourmaline and obsidian soft as he serves his own drink.

"It's not wasted if it is shared with a dear friend, darling." Is all he answered, eyes warm and smile gentle as he nudges you with his shoulder, making you huff softly in your drink.

There it was again, that nickname he had used during New Year's Eve, permeating every cell in your body and rattling you to your very core in infatuation, and something more warm. Hot and stuffy, leaving you sweating under your collar and confused at the sudden rush. The same one having happened barely weeks prior.

Your tired form now never woke up in Silco's office with his jacket on you on Saturdays from the long night you've spent passionately talking to him, but in your studio, your bed softly cushioning you. A sweet message always left to you via text.

Take care, I am looking forward to seeing you again and hearing whatever that beautiful mind has conjured.

Was the first one, the ones following it always short and kind, wishing you well and speaking about the next time you'd see one another in some way. Silco was not one to text, so you seldom did, even preferring to call for the shortest of things instead of the impersonal and time wasting message typing.

Those were the only texts you got from him other than the ones from Snowdown and the quick first message you had sent to tell him it was you. And you wouldn't have it any other way, enjoying the fact that you could listen to his voice anytime he or you wanted to talk while you were away from one another.

It made you so happy you could fly, that companionship with him, as much as it brought you pain. A part of your heart revelling at the special place you held in his life, the other crying at how you were ruining all you had built just because you were so unused to love and care that your heart just jumped at the first person who ever gave it to you. You were constantly fighting with yourself, and it took a toll on you, exhausting you, filling your nightmares with visions of him rejecting your existence from his along with the usual visions of war.

Yet when you found yourself listening to him, looking at him and breathing him in, none of that mattered. At least up until you were home alone, feeling guiltier by the day at how your mind, body and soul reacted to him.

Mind quieted by his voice, listening to him and only him, drinking in every word and decyphering them, fond of his attention. Body shuddering, tensing and relaxing at each of his actions, putty in his hands whether he used them or simply looked or spoke. Soul enjoying his affections as it grew ten sizes, the love it arbors following suit, friendship and romance mixing in a maelstrom of him. Silco overtaking your every senses and states of being.

While you've gotten used to using new titles for Silco, the man has gotten used to hearing them from you, yet still gained this faraway look in his eyes whenever you said them. Quickly melting back into nothing, but it was undescribable, a feeling you could not decypher even after so long learning to read your dearest friend.

It seems you had a long way to go about this, your own façade was battle hardened yet his even more so. He lived a harsh life before his service after all, all he had ever known was pain, you couldn't blame him for being so hard to understand.

Yet it didn't make you sad, revelling at the idea that he was slowly unravelling himself for you, shedding his carefully crafted armor in exchange for your friendship. And you knew that he felt the same way about you, so very happy to see you bloom for him as time passed.

Days go by, and a few weeks later you bid goodbye to your friends after Silco's class, lovingly shaking their hands before taking your crutch and waiting until the room is empty enough. Soon enough only a handful of students were left and before you can wish Silco a good day you hear snickers, and suddenly a hand grabs your shoulder from behind you.

"You're that girl who fucked up Alex aren't you? You got a mean streak for a teacher's pet."

Any words that could have found their way out of your mouth are forgotten, mind blanking in the familiar red fury of blood fuel violence as you turn around. Your crutch is discarded as you grab him by the neck, punching the boy in the jaw a dozen of times, a sickening crunch heard from the grinding of his teeth and blood spilling from his mouth, before you throw him. His body clearing a path through a couple of desks before he crumples to the ground, your body tense with murderous intent as you freeze, looking towards him. He spits out a couple of teeth and blood, his eyes terrified, body shuddering in horror as he observes you trembling in place, body tense as you look at him like a predator ready to pounce, a blood hungry beast ready for its feast. Yet you try to hold on to the shred of control you have left, trying to remain as human as you can, protecting the foolish boy from your wrath.

"At ease." Is rushed from Silco as he grabs your arm and places you at his office chair, the blonde boy who insulted you now clear in your unaltered vision, his friend kneeling at his side as Mr.Marlowe advances towards them.

"Tyler, Finn, explain to me why you would grab a person from behind and insult them. Especially after knowing what happened the last time someone has done the same."

His voice leaves no space for cocky and snarky comebacks that those boys surely would have used had it been anyone but him.

"We didn't know she would go full psycho! She needs to be fucking shackled." Said Tyler, slowly aided back onto his feet by Finn.

Silco's hands clench into fists.

"Psycho?" He scoffs, anger rolling from him in waves, growing into a tsunami as his voice lowers to a growl. "Shackled?" Venom drips from his mouth like an angry viper ready to strike. "Appologize to her and go to the infirmary, I'll inform the board of your conduct."

"She's the violent one! She's the one supposed to be thrown away or sent to the board!" Said the black haired boy.

Your friend slowly saunters up to the two blondes, their forms twisting in fear as he grabs their shoulders, apparently painfully enough for Tyler to whimper. But that could also be the damage you've caused.

"Maybe if you were less self-interested, you'd have noticed she has a badge on her bag's strap that specifically mentions not to touch her back and why." Silco all but snarls the words, dark and gritty, filled with the promise, no, the threat that they will be taken care of for their selfish imprudence.

It was a little bit after you first started to come to him on Fridays, the two of you navigating the vast waters of literature and all of its wonders. He had proposed to get you badges that mention your condition so that you would be safe from episodes, and people would know better than to do what triggered them. The next monday a thick plastic card had been placed on your desk, Silco showing it with a small flourish as you analyzed the badge. It was bright blue, to be seen from afar, a small blue poppy adorning the card along with the text.

'I am a veteran with PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder)

I may seem agitated or restless, or fully dispondent and/or disconnected. Whatever you may need or whichever the case it is, do not touch my back or come at me from a blind spot as it will trigger a violent episode in which i will hurt you and myself. If you need to talk to me, call out to me; if you need to touch me, walk around me and get into my direct line of sight.'

That card had helped you immensely, people respecting it and you, although not knowing what role or side you took in the war. Yet you were thankful for it all the same, even if your mind sometimes spiralled into self-doubt and self-hatred, thinking about your blood soaked past and how you shouldn't deserve an emergency card.

Tears carve valleys on the hills of your cheeks as the two friends leave the premises, hurrying as they shake, Finn half carrying Tyler on his shoulder.

"Your dog's off her leash." The young Zaunite's teal eyes spears you with poison covered daggers before he turns back to help his friend out of the room.

Silco swiftly makes his way towards you, kneeling before his calloused yet warm hands cradled your face, thumbs wiping at the trails of saltwater escaping the oceans of your eyes.

"It'll be alright, darling."

The word only makes you wail, the feeling that you did not deserve it and the affectionate treatment piling up with your self-hatred over your actions and your fear that you'd grow to be too much of a burden for Silco to bear. Your voice calling out for him, chanting "I'm sorry" as if to repent for your own weakness.

He shushes you.

"It's okay, cry as much as you need. It wasn't your fault. Those boys will be taken care of, their words and actions are unbecoming of anyone who studies here. We don't take lightly to bullying, especially not to a veteran."

In your own mind you were anything but a veteran, a glorified serial killer would be more fitting. Yet as you shake your head, his hands grip you slightly tighter, the feeling stopping you in your tracks.

"You are not a monster for what you were forced to become, for what you were forced to do and especially not for what has left permanent marks on you. You have fought two wars, both of them forced on you. A crusade for Noxus, and a war against yourself, one has ended with you nearly dead and the other is still consuming your soul. If people do not respect boundaries, it is their problem. But you're a victim here, not a perpetrator, and it is time for you to realize that."

Silco's words fight against the demons possessing your heart and mind, the violence ripping cries from your body as you grip his shoulders. Wheezing breaths whistling through the heavy air, molasses filling your lungs instead of oxygen, burning hot, thick, and sickly sweet. Through the clawing at your throat and in your lungs you manage to slowly make out the smells that have been your anchor, the voice, the warmth that are intrinsic to Silco's presence in your life. The sight of him escaping you as you clench your eyes shut to focus, yet visions becoming clearer in the theater of your mind as your lids shut off the blinding lights keeping them away.

"That's it, breathe for me. Even if it burns, push through it. You'll get through this." With each syllable your body melted like candle wax licked by its flame, his warmth breaking away at the hard, frigid terror and muting the loud rush of blood in your ears.

You wondered how much time had passed when you finally regained control over your own mind and actions, but the salt water eroding your face had dried and flaked, Silco's thumbs wiping its remnants away with reverance. Your eyes opened to see both of his, eyepatch discarded, and his hands trailed from your cheeks to hold your hands, wiping at the blood with a handkerchief. The same one he had used to clean your hands the first time.

Your lower lip trembled at the sight.

The care in each action that man directed towards you felt more than undeserved, it almost felt blasphemous to be treated so softly after all your violence. The storm inside you thundering angrily, raining ice and brimstone into your fragile soul; your body covered in scars and blood, both your own and not, self inflicted or ripped into you by Noxus and its unending wars.

"Your next class! Oh by Sahn Uzal, I'm so sorry Mr.Marlowe I-" You gasp, hands gripping his shoulders so you can get up, your legs failing from under you as Silco catches you, keeping you from getting hurt. Your sudden rambling is cut short with the tilt of his head, his eyebrows dragging upwards.

"Class can wait, you can't."

"I'd have been fi-"

"You don't have to lie, in fact I'd rather you not." He sighs softly, hands raking through your hair. "You are both a student and one of the people I hold the dearest, taking care of you is a part of what I do now."

"I know-"

"No buts." He places his index on your lips, the skin so close to your tongue that you could almost taste it, his own lips pulling in a gentle smile, worry and care smoothing his tired face like silk on stone. "Tomorrow, I'd like to try something since we have no books to review yet. I have had this thought for some time but didn't know when to present it to you, now I know that it might be time." And as soon as it was there, the finger left.

"What is it?"

"Call it exposure therapy. I know psychiatrists are hard to meet when you're a veteran, I had avoided seeing one until Sevika and I won back Zaun. But if you wish to live in society, you have to learn to rid yourself of certain mechanisms. It must feel lonely, to see everyone embrace one another but only being able to hold hands out of fear you'd hurt someone."

You nod, eyes cast on the ground. Silco was right, you were already so detached from the world except from him and your three other friends, and being unable to hold them like you wished you could was nothing short of torture. But it was also painful and shameful, the thought that your body could trap you within the confines of your own mind as it rips flesh apart from bone from someone who simply made the error of touching your back or coming from your blind spots.

"Please?"

It sounded more like a question, your shaking voice begging for him to help you. It had never happened until now, even when your body was breaking apart you had a hard time accepting help. Yet as you hurt someone again, your stomach clench, feeling sick at your own wickedness. Those moments reminded you of just how many have suffered and died because of you, and it terrified you more than it terrified others. The episode triggering violent actions from you, and these actions bringing about visions and episodes that painfully clawed their way out of your body, bursting through your skin in a bloody mess.

"I-" Your throat closes up, too dry all of a sudden. "I don't want to hurt you." Your voice is meek, whispered as if the gods would unleash their wrath upon you if they discovered your presence.

"And I'm not afraid if it happens, because it can, and it will."

He tilts your chin up, thumb rhythmically caressing your chin left and right like a metronome that reminded you to breathe. The rest of his hand grasping under your jaw, warm and rough from the callouses, yet the gentleness of the movement changed the limestone to velvet.

"If it ultimately helps you, it is needed. If not for others, do it for yourself. And if not for yourself, then do it for me."

His eyes are pleading, his existence overwhelming your senses as you feel yourself losing yourself in him, now too aware of his strong grip on your arm and waist.

You slowly get back up on your feet, eyes trained on the ground as you wait for your heart to calm down, the organ beating like a war drum at the soft attention and at the proximity. His hands linger, until they slowly pull away, almost caressing you as they return to his sides.

"Okay."

"Okay?"

"Yes. I'll do it." His voice soothes you as the welcoming waters of his teal iris ebb on your skin, cooling you down. "For you"

His breath sharpens for an instant before it returns back to normal, a dagger piercing through his lungs as his hands clench, trying to regain his footing from something you didn't know about.

"Will you return to your classes?"

"I only had one class left for the day, and we're more than halfway through it. I'll probably just return home."

He hands you your crutch and bag, setting himself at the edge of his desk.

"Good, I wouldn't have wanted you to do anything after an episode anyway."

You huff out a laugh.

"I know you wouldn't have, Silco. You care too much."

"No. I care just enough. Now go get some rest."

"Yes sir." Your sarcastic, tired salute is met with a blank stare, his body tensed before he sighs and shakes his head.

"You held yourself back today, somehow. I'm proud of you, darling."

He smiles, eyes full of gentle pride, and you wave softly as you limp away, your leg and back hurting from physical exhertion and earlier's near fall. On the path home you pant, the raging feelings imposed on you by your best friend too much for your exhausted body. Thoughts swirling before you lick your lips, almost falling as you taste faint traces of salt and tobacco.

Silco's finger had rested upon your lips.

And you enter your dorm, locking the door before throwing yourself upon the bed as if it would engulf you and let you disappear from the world. Shivers shaking your body as you close your eyes and try to compose yourself, but it had been done. The taste of his finger filling your senses with the remnants of your tears and the cigarettes he smoked between each classes when he had the time, the tobacco engrained from holding cigars so often while indulging in the rich smokiness. And so did you, throat too tight and yet taking in too much air as you fought with yourself not to let yourself think of more. Yet it becomes impossible to avoid, months of dancing around your own feelings, locking them away each time they've made themselves known. Especially now that you've been thrust into realizing what your feelings were and naming them. Thoughts soon spiraling as you lick your lips, thinking about Silco.

Of how his fingers would taste in your mouth, how the callouses would feel against your tongue. How his skin would feel against yours, how many more tattoos his shirts hid. Of how his lips would taste like, you imagine like brandy and tobacco, maybe alonside the dark chocolate he seemed to favor. What would his tongue feel like against yours? What would he sound like when he panted, or groaned. If he liked you the same way you loved him, would he say your name or call you darling like he has so many times? What would he look like beneath all these layers? What kind of lover would he be? Would he be rough or would he be soft? Would any of the books you have read be able to describe him or would he be something entirely new, a hybrid of all of the traits you had liked.

It was the first time your thoughts escaped your grasp in such a way as you never allowed yourself to indulge in these from fear of never being able to look Silco in the eye ever again. But as your mind grows more restless, thoughts diverging from hows and whats to images conjured from all the observations you've made about him. Svelte body rippling with strength, lean muscle encasing his tall frame. You imagined how the muscle would look, how it would be sculpted, how the most intimate parts of him would be sculpted. Your mind manipulating the clay of your fantasies into images that made you grow restless.

Your thighs were clenching, your breathing heavy and your face warm as you feel an all consuming flame licking up and down your body, igniting your core like a hearth. You were no fool, although you had never experienced such infatuation, such…desire, before. You knew very well what was happening, and how to take care of it.

There came the conundrum, suffer the agonizing burn of your own needs or giving in, indulging in the thought of the man you could never have.

The pressure was too much, the heat between your legs like dripping molten metal. And with a guilty hand your hand slides between your thighs, rubbing through the fabric of your underwear, skirt sliding up as your body shakes. It was wrong, and it should feel that way.

Then why, as your fingers massaged the damp, ruined panties, did it feel so good?

He is your teacher. You reminded yourself.

He is your mentor. You groan, panties pushed to the side, the fabric clinging to your wet folds.

He is your friend. Your fingers tremble as you reach the hot, sticky mess between your legs. A jolt rattling your spine and a sharp breath freezing your lungs at the feeling.

Your hand seizes, you couldn't. Yet your lungs are tight, stomach burning, your body screaming at you to not stop for anything in the world. And even if your restraint was commendable, your humanity inevitably fails you. Hand working at your soft nub, rolling it between your fingers as you whine into your pillow, your hips chasing your hand as the other one grasps one of your breasts. Softly and slowly massaging it, sparks of pleasure like fuel to the fire engulfing you.

The hand between your legs grows faster, puts more pressure, the slick sounds mixing with your growing moans.

"Silco."

You pant, the chanting of his name in your mind escaping your lips as your walls come crashing down, hips grinding on your hand. Two fingers slip further down, slowly slipping inside and suddenly the room is too hot. Shirt, skirt and high socks discarded along with your bra and panties, hands quickly returning to your breasts and wet slit. You're sweaty, soft whimpers escaping your throat while your teeth dig in your lower lip, trying to keep the louder sounds from escaping although feral groans and moans periodically leave you, echoing in the room.

"Please Silco."

You beg, eyes closed as you imagine him tasting you like in that novella your friends had given you as a joke gift. Thoughts of your friend wrapping your thighs around his shoulders making you arch against the bed. The feel of his tongue all too real even through your fantasy, your fingers replaced by his own, lips wrapping around your swollen clit as you writhe beneathe him. In your imagination, his other hand is bruising your thighs from how hard he was holding you, keeping you from escaping his cunt starved frenzy. His eyes looking at you yet rolling back at times from tasting you, his groans vibrating against your sensitive lips as his hair falls from its usual clean slick back.

"What a good girl you make for me, behaving so that I can treat you like you deserve."

His voice rumbles from beneath you.

"But if you want to cum you're going to have to be louder for me, let me know how good I make you feel, beg for me. Can you do that for me, darling?"

His voice was replicated to perfection by your mind, and the vision so real. You couldn't help but obey. Even your dreamed version of him owns so much power over you that he could manipulate you like a puppet, and by the gods you love it.

I would do anything for you Silco.

Your lower lip is freed from your teeth and noises flow from you like a cascade from a cliff. A torrent of lust, unobstructed by the dam of your self-control as your control shatters, turning to dust as fine as the sands of Shurima.

"Silco. I need you Silco. Fuck, please. Please I need more, can I have more? I wanna be good for you. Wanna feel good for you. Wanna make you feel good too. Wanna make you proud."

Your lips whisper words you never thought you could muster before, the lust driven, mind numbing pleasure overtaking every single one of your thoughts and rendering you incapable of thinking of anything but him.

"That's it darling, hold on just a bit more for me."

"Yes, Silco."

"Atta girl, making me so proud."

Your moans grow in number and in volume as your fingers dig deeper into you, curling into a spot that had you curling over yourself. Tears pooling in your eyes and wetting your cheeks while the heel of your hand grinds on your clit.

"Do you want to cum, darling?"

"Please, Silco, let me cum in your mouth."

"Then call out my name."

His mouth and tongue speed up, lapping then sucking in a cacophonic rhythm, the starved man between your legs devouring you as you deliver yourself as his meal. His fingers curling at the spot that had you arching again and again, slick essence running from your core to your thighs, dripping lower and even wetting your bed.

Your back hurt, the shivers and arching taking a toll on you, your leg contorting from pleasure paining you aswell. But the pleasure far outweighed anything else that happened at the moment.

"Silco."

Your fingers and hand sped up, matching the cadence and strength of the man in your head, delivering such sweet torture to you.

"Try again."

His hand slows, grinding hard, pace punishingly slow as your hand matches it. You're confused and frustrated, what did he want from you? You did say his name, did you not?

"You know the one, darling."

He all but growls, mouth biting and sucking at your thighs, leaving marks that only you two would know of yet that would inevitably come to light if you wore a skirt.

Your head rolls back, fat tears rolling from your eyes as you whine, searching through your lust hazed mind what he meant. A name you knew, a name you didn't use.

You know the one.

"Please, sir. Let me come. Please."

You whimper shakily, the hand playing with your breasts pinches once, the soft electricity rippling through your body as your fantasized Silco picked up the pace once more, and so did your hand. A noise you could only describe as a growl pushing its way out of his lips as he latches back on your pussy. Happy to come back to his feast.

"Good girl. Come for me."

It doesn't take you long to get close to the brink, a metaphorical cliff growing closer as you ran towards its edge.

"Thank you sir, fuck. You're so good to me. Thank you, thank you, thank you."

Your eyes roll back, you feel yourself clenching around your fingers and in your mind you hear him chuckle, his tongue replacing his fingers as his nose presses against your clit, ready to taste all you have to offer. And the sight and feeling is enough for you to let out one last cry of his name, your back arching from the mattress, gushing around your own fingers as you experience total extasy for the first time.

Abandoning yourself in the abysses of pleasure.

For a time you just lay there, panting and sweaty, the cooling air feeling good against your burning skin. Looking at your hand you see it glistening, your mind going back to your unchained fantasy as you approach it to your face. You give a tentative lick and hear his voice in your mind yet again.

"Good girl, let none of it go to waste."

So you don't, sucking and licking away at your fingers, tasting the strong bittersweet flavor of your own release, imagining it to be combined with his. In your mind he is holding you, caressing your aching yet pleasured body as he whispers sweet nothings in your ear.

"I'm so proud of you, you did so well for me. But you always do, don't you? My perfect little darling."

It's only when you shudder from the cold, the lust no longer fueling your body into overdrive, that you get up. Putting your clothes in the hamper and taking a long, scalding hot shower.

Guilt.

That is what you feel at the moment, the pleasure ebbing away to leave your back and left leg hurting and your mind full of shame.

You had touched yourself for the first time, and it was to the thought of a man who was your professor, your mentor, your friend and nearly two decades older than you aswell as a father to four children. You felt evil, dirty and undeserving of him.

Yet the part of you that has no morals revelled in what had just happened, a revenge at how you successfully enchained it for so long, keeping your composure until you couldn't anymore.

And you think back to it all, how the honorific you used for Silco at first became a fantasy. Would it be true? Would he like you to call him that? What you know is that you surely will never use that nickname for him ever again, not only because he wants it that way, but because you don't know how you will react if you use it for him. Although you also wish to see if he feels the same about it.

The evening and most of the next day are spent looking at minutes pass, hours ticking by agonizingly slow, guilt eating away at you yet your need to see the man was untouched.

When you knock at Silco's door, opening it after his answer, you're surprised to see him with his sleeves rolled up, burgundy shirt a contrast with his pale skin and the dark line of his tattoos. He is sitting with his legs crossed on the couch as his arms are draped over the back rest, a cigar is held in one of his hands and his eyepatch discarded as it always is when the both of you are alone. His eyes feeling especially hot on you after last night, like they are branding every inch of you as they observe.

Greetings are exchanged as stubs out his cigar, then he takes your bag off of your shoulder, your eyes trained on him confused, eyebrows growing more furrowed as he grabs the lapels of your coat. His hands softly and carefully undressing you, dragging the fabric down your back, your body tensing as he stops, hands at your waist and his thumbs caressing your sides as the rest of his fingers splay more towards your back. You freeze, mind racing back to last night, suddenly feeling all too warm.

"Is that uncomfortable for you?"

"I didn't expect it so soon." Is mumbled, trying to keep your voice steady. He smiles softly at that, his eyes pools of colors that you wished you could plunge deep into.

"If we hesitate too much you might want to step back before we even started, so I decided to test the waters."

"By undressing me?" Is the hurried answer that your lips blurt out without your consent, desire filled memories ringing through your mind like a belfry at every hour. Silco's eyebrows twitching and concern painting his features, something else swirling in his eyes that you couldn't decypher, stronger yet more elusive, swallowing you. It disappears as quickly as it appears, worry taking over.

"If you wish for me to stop-"

"No, no no. I just didn't expect it. Please continue, Silco."

He nods. "Good." Is all he says yet your legs quiver and you hope he hasn't seen or felt any of it. He did, you can see it in his eyes again, sharper and darker, although it's probably out of concern for your wellbeing. At least you're glad he doesn't point it out as he continues to drag the fabric of your coat down, pulling it to the crook of his elbow as he puts it and your bag on his coat hanger. You take the time to compose yourself, sweeping the salacious thoughts away and letting your worries and stress melt in Silco's presence. Still tense at the thought of what you'd be doing today, unwilling to hurt your friend.

"Now." His hand rakes through his hair. "I won't make you stand, that would be cruel. So I've brought a stool. If you could sit on it, please."

Your hands clench and unclench while you nod, sitting yourself on the stool you had ignored while Silco takes your crutch and places it away, leaning on his desk along with it. Your left foot placed on a couple of pillows on the ground.

"I won't touch your back directly, I'll start with an object yes? And as time progresses we will shorten the length of said object until I can use my hand. Is that good for you?"

"Yes, Silco."

He smiles softly and reaches to brush back some strands of your hair that looked messy, hand then going behind him to grab a pointer stick. It was telescopic, and would serve as the element that he'd use.

"Here, take it and observe it, you can unravel it too. Make yourself familiar with it."

"Okay."

And you do, turning the object in your hands, unfurling the long telescopic end which was thin at the tip. The metal feels cool in your hands, the weight of it more than you thought it would be. When you hand the trinket back to Silco, your hands brush and you bite your inner cheek, trying hard not to tremble.

"I'll start by standing in front of you and use it on your back from there. Then I'll do the same from your blind spots. Then from your back. Then we'll restart with a shorter length when you've gotten accustomed to this one, and do it all again until I try with my hand. Is that alright with you?"

You nod. Your words stuck in your throat at his gentle care, while simultaneously thinking back of what you had imagined last night and of how brutal you had been with anyone that dared get close to you that way before.

"I need verbal consent. For your own peace of mind aswell as mine."

He tilts your chin up, eyes warm and inviting, reassuring you as your tension melts away from the simple touch.

"It's more than alright with me Silco."

"Please do tell me if it's ever too much, okay?"

"Of course, Silco.

"Good."

He unfurls the telescopic pointer by swinging his hand down, the movement fast and strong, as if he held a dagger in hand instead, your breath sharp for a moment at the display. Like he has previously said, he gets closer to you with one hand reaching to take one of yours softly, the other arm disappearing over your shoulder.

Suddenly your eyes screw shut, the feeling of the metal tip touching your back overwhelming your senses, but when Silco tightens his grip gently you open them back.

"Keep your eyes on me. Can you do that?"

"Yes. Sorry."

"It's alright, I just want to help you get used to this."

You nod, eyes finding his. The volcano and the sea clashing, all consuming, devouring you whole as they observe every twitch in your body, gauging your reactions at his movements. Trying to decypher any discomfort, any signs of an episode.

"How does it feel?"

"Uncomfortable, like a bug is crawling on me, under my shirt." He hums as you shiver, your hands clenching. "I don't like that feeling at all, it doesn't feel human but it still feels threatening."

"That's why I want you to look at me, I am familiar and comfortable to you, so it will help you acclimate."

And he continues his ministrations until your body relaxes, deep breaths feeling your lungs instead of small scared pants.

He switches to a blind spot, touching you gently with the stick, shudders shaking you as you grip your thighs. Teeth grating at the unfamiliar feeling and the loss of sight, feeling Silco's presence besides you yet not in your peripheral. When you look towards the clock you see that half an hour had passed since you first started this, which was much more than you anticipated, yet still way less than you could have expected from something of the sort.

"How does this feel?"

"Worse, I can't see you but I can feel you, just out of sight."

"Is it threatening?"

"Very."

He hums softly.

"You're doing a great job."

"It's only the beginning."

"I have faith in you. This isn't a test, we're just trying out something to desensitize you to such a feeling."

His praise, as always, makes your heart swell ten sizes. His gentleness warming you up from the inside out.

Not all people want to hurt you, actually most of them don't. You are not in Noxus anymore, you can rest easy. Silco is with you, so are your friends, you'll be alright.

Is what you repeat to yourself as you stare straight ahead.

Time passes again, this time an hour, and when your breathing deepens and your body starts melting, he switches again. This time your nails digging crescents in your palms. Vivid flashes of your near death during your escape showing in your mind's eye. People ambushing you, grabbing you from behind. Your breathing picking up exponentially, anger and terror twisting your face as tears fall down your face.

"You're doing so well, darling. Breathe, it's just me. I'm not here to hurt you."

Yet after many of the clock's resounding tics, your body twitches and you turn, getting up as you grip the pointer stick with your nails soon clawing at Silco's forearms, leaving bloody trails.

"At ease."

He shushes you and wipes your tears, one arm around your shoulders making you freeze, yet as you look at him and he cradles your face you know it'll be alright. There are no threats here.

"You're bleeding."

You sob and he places his index over your lips like the day before, effectively shutting you up before going back to wiping your tears.

"It's okay, it's nothing. I won't take any self-loathing. You did so well. You've been able to hold out for longer." He smiles at you. "When Alex touched your back, you attacked immediately. I suppose that after months in such a different climate, your body has been less on alert. It still registers those touches as harmful, yet the information doesn't reach you as fast."

"Because...I'm safe?"

"Yes, because you're safe. And look at how much time has passed."

Since you two started, two hours had passed. And somehow, you were proud of it. It was a beginning after all. But looking at his bleeding arms you still feel guilt, so you bandage him against his protests. Your own way to beg for forgiveness although you knew he didn't blame you.

And you do it again, trying to relax easier each time. Reminding yourself that you were not to be hurt here. At least not like you used to.

Not all people want to hurt you, actually most of them don't. You are not in Noxus anymore, you can rest easy. Silco is with you, so are your friends, you'll be alright.

Two more trials done before you call it a day, a drink and food shared over stories as the atmosphere changed from a relaxing day to a cozy evening. Silco beaming at you for your progress that day.

"I hope you realize how strong and courageous you are, and how deserving you are of anything good that happens in your life. Whether I had a say in it or not. You've done a great job today, darling."

Tobacco smoke calming your senses as you lick your lips, his taste merging with the food and brandy, fulfilling more than any other meal ever had and settling a hunger in your heart. The next morning you woke up in your own bed, a message left on your phone and warmth taking over you as Silco's pride rippled through your soul.

Weeks pass and late spring arrives, the last four Fridays spent back and forth between book reviews and exposure therapy. Silco's careful gentleness never faltering, maybe even growing softer as time passed.

The length of the stick had considerably reduced, your mind focused on trying again and again each time you failed, just so you could see Silco beam at you with pride and adoration. It wasn't like he never had that look, with you it was one of the only ones he could have for you along with the gentle affection he usually has, the teasing expression. The passionated book adoring look, the patient care and this strange gaze that you've never been able to decypher. The one he sent after you said "sir" back in the day, the same one he sends whenever you tease, also the one he often arbors as you enter the office on Fridays or whenever you stretch. Yet it was still loving all the same, his care never dissipating as long as it was about you.

And you know he could read that you felt just the same by the way his eyes lit up when he looked into yours.

You felt the same excitement at sharing new literary discovery, the same patience over every aspect of this developping friendship, the same humor in teasing him, the same adoration towards him. And you knew the origin of your own strange gaze, a growing lust that had been present even before you had tasted the forbidden fruit. His name on your lips as you indulged in pleasure at the thought of him.

You can't help but wonder if Silco loved you too. At the very least lusted after you, though you would hate only being a source of desire for him. Wanting to throw himself into him wholly, giving your mind, body and soul to him, and for him to do the same and not just a simple "situationship" or a "friends with benefits" relation, at least that's what your friends described those as. Labels that you didn't care much for as they were so far removed from what you craved that you would never dare consider them.

This Friday is the day. The pointer stick on the desk is a proof of how far you've come in a month, many hours spent trying again and again to accept those touches that Silco gave you.

Spending time at home with objects that you could touch your back with, slowly letting your friends touch your arms, or embrace you from around your shoulders. You worked hard, day after day, tirelessly, to not only be able to hold your friends close and show them just how much you love them. But also to be able to be in public and not risk to kill someone if Silco wasn't there and people approached from your blind spots or touched you from behind. Yet the most important to you was to get close to Silco, being able to have the warm hands that always cradled your face so gently embracing you instead, finally wrapped around you tightly. Your face in the crook of his neck, his in yours, entertwining like the serpents around the caduceus.

It's much more intimate, to have him so close, his hand spilling its warmth through your shirt. You feel your heart beating fast, an army's march ringing its powerful thrum in your ears as your hands clench and unclench at the sound, at the visions flooding in. Breathing in Silco's smell helps you focus, the smoky spiciness of him drowning the metallic blood invading your olfactory senses.

Time passes and you change to the second test, then the third. The lack of insight at who is behind you, although you know who it is, has the vipers in your mind hissing, spitting venom, opening their maws as they yell at you to attack whoever that is. Yet, after over a month of telling yourself the same words, of letting yourself be trained into accepting and being used to touch in such a way, you knew better than to give in.

And as you calm down, Silco puts his other hand on your back, testing your resolve that remains unbreaking although waning. His thumbs delivering soft caresses to you as you take deep breaths, eyes closing as you focus on the feel of his hands on your body, their gentle touch as if too much pressure would shatter you.

"You're doing amazingly, darling. That's it, just breathe in deeply. You're taking what I give you so well, making me so proud."

He applies more pressure, his hands now rubbing circles in your muscles, undoing every knot that have been pulled taught everyday of your life since it has changed for the worse. The scarred flesh beneath soft fabric blessed with the first loving, warm touch they haven't been granted in over a decade. Your back stiffening in pain under his touch before melting as his hands masterfully care for you.

"You deserve to let people in, to feel proud about yourself, and to let yourself relax. You deserve happiness. And you also deserve to be cared for and loved in every way."

Silco murmurs, his voice caressing your ear like an angel's feathers, his hands pulling you apart and back together. Taking away the hurt and the tightness, cleansing it from your body like poison sucked from a wound, your shoulders to your lower back feeling the best they've felt in nearly a year. Replacing your ailments with the familiar love that you feel for him. Growing by the second, making you fall deeper and deeper as if you fell into the abyss of his dark eye and soared in the teal skies next to it.

His face nuzzles to your back and a soft, warm kiss is delivered between your shoulder plates, lingering.

That's when you cannot resist anymore, the need for closeness, that deep loneliness and distance breaking the last of your control as you embrace Silco. Turning around, your arms cling to his back, clawing at him as your stomach churns is terror, mind screeching at the danger while your soul and heart both melt. Revelling in the sudden warmth envelopping you, his arms quickly wrapping back around your shivering form. His smell now invading your senses, eyes closed as you breathe him in while tumultuous seas battle beneath your lids. Tears clustering at your lashes like sea water on a dock, licking the port and leaving it weeping until the next wave. A gasp rips through the air, sharply entering your lungs as his face lowers in the same way yours has.

The blade of his nose cutting through the soft, supple skin where your neck meets your shoulder like the breeze slices through the blades of grass in late spring. It hurts, not the body but the soul. Such gentleness molding the rough clay, beaten to the rhythm of the Noxian drum for so long it refuses to hold shape. You didn't deserve it, but by the gods you craved it, you needed it; that slice of heaven you have never had the hope of tasting was presented to you. And your chest grew with heavy breaths, stomach suddenly all too hungry, starving as if you were back at war, back to being a slave to the war machine that is Noxus. Drool pooled into your mouth, escaping plush lips as you panted. You knew that all you had to do was ask, but the fortress of your mind kept you from uttering the words. So instead of begging for the sweetness of the reward, you whined for your resolve to be broken, for him to do anything he could to undo what has been done. So you could finally give yourself to him and taste the mind numbing pleasure he's promised you from his gentle affection. You couldn't be free, but you'd give yourself over willingly to the man undoing you at this moment. The only one who could ever unravel the knotted coil of barbed wire that you had become. Because he didn't care if the cracked porcelain of his hands got cut, if his blood was pooling beneath him like the tears were pooling beneath your chin as he held you. And you would let him bleed, break you apart and tainting you with his own blood so you could forget the gore forever staining your hands, and then he would put you back together and make you his.

He softly shushes you, yours sobs echoing through the air, slicing through the golden rays warming the office. Your body suddenly feels light, as if Jan'ahrem herself used her winds to carry you to the ends of Runeterra. And you soon find yourself comfortable, long gone is the stool as you feel a soft cushion beneath you.

Your eyes open to see Silco looking at you, the usual mask he wears even around you slipping off.

"Janna, you don't know how proud I am of you, darling."

His arms leave you as one hand comes to cradle your face and the other to rub your left thigh, your upper body coming up to sit and face him.

"You've done so well, let me treat you."

"You always do, day in and day out."

"Do I now?" He teases yet his voice remains adoring, as if he both knew and didn't at the same time.

"I'll be spoiled if you continue." Tears continue to escape your eyes like rain from clouds on a stormy day, and his thumb on your face cuts through them softly like a seamstress' scissors through silk.

"You deserve it. Now lay down."

And as always you obey, your back hitting the soft cushions feels lighter, your pain momentarily leaving you from his earlier ministrations.

Silco kneels down on the ground, a soft kiss touching your calf, then climbs up to your thigh before his hands begin to work on the muscle there, alleviating the muscular pain accumulating from years of combat and your newer condition. Careful as to not brush against your surgery scars, he kneads at the fascia and deep tissue of your muscles, the tightness that rendered you brittle slowly yet surely evaporating as he works you like a potter creating a new masterpiece. Placing attention in each movement, his eyes like heaven and hell as they train from his movements on your leg to the rest of your body, always observant and taking notice of what feels good and what doesn't. He pulled you back together, like the Ionian art of kintsugi. Taking what is broken and fixing it, embellishing the cracks with gold to show just how beautiful the object was, how beautiful its story made it. And as your muscles relaxed, melting into Silco's touch like ice in the sun, you saw in his face that it was exactly what he thought of you.

Broken but beautiful.

And the thought was painful, because as loving as he was you knew deep down within the corners of your spirit that there were next to no chances of him craving your lips like you craved his. But as his hands move on you, as his eyes observe you today, you see something else, hoping to the gods that it's real. That maybe his mask truly was off and that was you had seen was really it.

Love. Pure unbridled romantic love.

Just like the one you felt.

Yet you knew that as unused to society as you were, Silco wasn't, and that even if by any chances he did love you, he would never let himself have you. And perhaps that meant that even if your love was mutual, you'd never share something beyond what you have now. The affection confusing you and making you fall deeper all at once as you lose yourself in the melting of your own body, revelling in him. Indulging in his presence and care because you would be damned to the Void if you took him for granted.

"Are you okay?"

You blink, wiping the last of your tears away and smiling, nodding at him before your hand goes to caress his hair. A soft sigh coming from Silco as he leans into your touch a sweet smile stretching his own lips as his eyes looked at you caringly, his head turning to kiss at your wrist.

Yes, this would be alright, even if he didn't love you, even if he did but couldn't act upon it, no matter how much it hurt to not have him. No matter if you didn't deserve his care even if he said you did. Having him near you like this would have to suffice, it would have to be alright even as you felt yourself fall deeper, not knowing if he felt the same yet always hoping he did. Always hoping for more.

Yes, it would have to be alright.

Silco Masterlist: here

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Arcane Masterlist: here

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[trollprincess]

Since my birthday is tomorrow, I figured I would make a short list of what I want just in case anybody is in a giving mood:

Money.

Any of the many, many, many minidollhouses on my Amazon wishlist.

For the Leverage team, and in particular Hardison, to hack into the system and wipe out our collective student debt. (And also all the medical debt while he’s at it.)

A free ticket to go back in time and watch Queen perform at Live Aid from the front row.

The ability to teleport.

A lifetime supply of red licorice laces and salted roasted pumpkin seeds.

For Pringles to start making those cinnamon sugar tortilla chips again.

To dump a truckload of elephant diarrhea on Ronald Reagan’s grave.

I said money, right?

To lose forty pounds in one night, preferably without delivering a child I didn’t even know I was pregnant with or losing at least one limb.

Five more seasons of “Sense8.”

That really fancy train ride from Paris to Istanbul that costs like 80k Euros.

The ghosts of the people in town who died of COVID to haunt the newspaper editor who added “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” to his enormous Trump sign out front of his office.

One free month at the Library Hotel in NYC where I’m not allowed to do anything but read and write.

A literary agent.

A pitch-black Victorian house decorated with 90s movie witch vibes.

A Bluetooth connection between my brain and my phone so I can just download my goddamn story ideas instead of wasting time typing them out.

For all of my WIPs to edit and polish themselves.

A free maid service that doesn’t judge about the depression mess and makes me a tea before they go.

A wallet that always has the exact amount of money I need inside it whenever I open it up and can never be stolen or lost from me.

The ability to choose to watch a show I’ve been meaning to watch instead of watching the same old show for the eleventy millionth time.

For someone to come repair the patch of cross-stitching I fucked up so I don’t have to.

My own capybara.

Yup, definitely said money. I take PayPal, Venmo, CashApp, Zelle, carrier pigeon, singing telegram, personal delivery by Janelle Monae, and the quiet but satisfying feeling of all my creditors suddenly forgetting I exist.

Chocolate chip cookie dough without the chips in a jar that never empties.

To live long enough to finish all the books in my TBR pile.

For Professor to live just as long as I do, if not forever beyond that.

For Elon Musk to eat several thousand fried dicks.

For Donald Trump to end up broke and alone with every single one of his followers having finally realized the emperor has no clothes.

World peace, free education for all, universal healthcare, high-speed rail, the end of poverty and bigotry, kindness throughout the land, and for whatever embarrassing memory pops into your head at the worst of times to vanish from existence as though it never, ever happened.

[not-goldy]

Hello I'm not quoting blog name here but what do you think about this ? Your real opinion about Jimin and Jungkook.

the thing is i dont think jikook are actually together. i think they have feelings for each other and on some level they both know it and i think they play it up in front of the camera because it feels safer in some twisted way-- they can write it off as fanservice. theyre obviously the closest in the group but besides a few drunken... not kisses but charged moments (the hickey hello), i dont think theyve done anything. i think they are acutely aware of the eyes on them and the line they cannot cross, and i think they toe it more often than they probably should. i think they date other people. i think as their outside relationships ebb and flow so does the bond between them, i think there is jealousy, i think there is confusion about what will happen between them. i think theyre both very aware of their status as celebrities and that they will simultaneously be wholeheartedly accepted and carelessly shunned, i think nothing will happen until after their military service, i think, realistically, nothing will happen until after DISBANDMENT, when they try to stay away from each other, bitter, and realize they can't

I think it's beautifully written.

It's the most serene form of adultification of Jikook I've seen so far. Don't get me wrong. Jikook are adults, yes. But they've not always been adults.

But I mean, I would come to the same conclusion too if I was looking at jikook in media res. It's very easy to look at them as they are now and think - for lack of a better word- highly of them because they look like two professionals and two self respecting adults who have control over their charged "chemistry" on screen.

But I'm afraid that's not jikook.

I met jikook as teens and have had the privilege of watching them literally grow to become the jikook we see on screen today.

"They are very aware of their status as celebrities"

Uhmmm celebrities where?? Here? I think da fuck not

I don't even think it's clocked for some of them that they are celebrities and some of them are still getting used to the fact they are.

You know there was a time they would stroll into airports and nobody cared? Shocking I know. They took to the streets to sell their own tickets and would keep asking strangers, "do you know BTS"

Back in their own home country not many people even knew who they were.

And you have to understand this fact about them on order to appreciate the gravity of their success. They are a spectacle and such a global phenomenon partly because of their poor to riches story. Let's not belittle that for literary symmetry.

Bts hasn't always been this big huge stars of world dominating proportions. Believe it or not.

That gaze we think shapes their every conduct now hasn't always been there. No one was checking for them like that and like they themselves said some of them even nearly quit because they didn't know they would become this huge.

In the Fandom we talk about Namjoon constantly keeping them in check and reminding them people are watching- mind you these are media trained idols we talking about and yet how many times have we had to clear searches for their blunder? How many times have they had to issue an apology for the song lyrics or comments they've made.

They are constantly reminding eachother of the gaze

BTS came from somewhere. Whatever platform they are on they built it from the ground up. As good intentioned as we are in our analysis of them, we shouldn't take that away from them.

They've been in the mud and they've got some dirt on them and they've done things when they thought no one was watching. But that's part of their journey. You don't need to bend over backwards and clean them up to make them look presentable. Which is what I feel OP is doing here. A cleaned up version of jikook.

Op talks about a few drunken moments- was this before or after Jungkook was legally allowed to drink alcohol? Or is she just superimposing adult jikook on all stages of Jikook's journey? See what I mean?

BTS have talked about struggling with teenage hormones, about struggling with lust and love, watching porn, popping off, girls, boys, dating, attraction, gender expression, struggling with their identity- those are very valid lived experiences we cannot take away from them.

We cannot for instance take away from the fact they shared a bed while naked, the fact they sneaked into each other's hotel rooms and was caught on camera, nor take away from them the feeling of attraction or the fact they love each other.

And while Anon likes to think so highly of them as to believe they could be in such close proximity, as human as they were, as young as they were, as hormonal as they were, willing to experiment and take risks, that they could restrain themselves because of a career they had no idea they would have or because of a large audience that didn't exist at the time, I have no such compunction. Jikook fucked eachother. They were young, and wild and horny and they fucked eachother. It's very simple.

One plus one is two for me. I don't have to rack my brians or sugarcoat it.

"Nothing will happen until after disbandment."

Why do people make sex out to be such a big deal😭

IT'S JUST SEX.

Okay scratch that, it's not just sex for them because it's also about having their needs met, it's about the companionship, self discovery and exploration. People think being an idol is easy. It gets lonely and often times depressing and these people develop all kinds of coping mechanisms and to me jikook found each other to cope too.

We cannot have a conversation around Tae Tae's struggles and depression, Jimin's complaints of loneliness, Namjoon and Suga's you know what, Jin's depresion and abyss while also not considering what they'd done or what they would have needed to do to cope. Especially when we read that other idols were and are advised to date, do therapy, smoke, do drugs, fuck around- albeit discreetly as a cooping mechanism for these struggles.

They can give each other hickies and rat each other out in public for said hickies, touch their dicks and spank each other's ass, they can play kiss kiss with each other as part of games, and tell each other they like to be tied up, but God forbid they actually kiss.

And gaze or not, there men have lived their lives and gathered experiences. Not all facet of their lives are controlled by our gaze. They out there living their lives I promise you that. They all fucking those they want to fuck, taking substances they wanna take, drinking whatever the fuck they want to drink.

Our opinion of them isn't stopping them from living their lives. That's my opinion and my belief. Just because I say they not screwing no body don't change a thing for them.

And if jikook ain't fucking, really their loss 💀

I wouldn't mind fucking jimin for Kook. Imma blow his back the fuck out. Every block boy need a little love💕

Put it down and imma pick it up purr

These mofos are out here thirst trapping eachother thrusting their hips in sexual aggression and belting in high key notes over sex and here we are thinking they are too decent to the blowing it up each other's ass.

And to think they both been acting dickmatized all these years because they aren't screwing??? Huh???

Yall do too much I swear

Look, this is a bell

This is Jimin ringing said bell

This is Jungkook when he heard Jimins bell

And this is Jikook ring ranging the bell together

Jikook are fucking eachother. They can't unring that bell and no one can convince me otherwise. I just don't trust that with all the sexual tensions and all the alone time they spend together that all they do when they are alone is read scriptures.

Nope. Nah uh

But hey, to each their own.

[topazadine]

The Ultimate Guide to The Eirenic Verses

"Poesy wrote the first word." "Amen, amen, amen."

Centuries ago, the goddess Poesy gave her people, the Bremish, the gift of High Poetry: the ability to turn words into actions, whether that is raising mountains from raw earth or spreading pestilence in the land. Societies developed on either side of the Rimuk Mountains, sworn to perpetual strife.

This is the story of Breme and Sina, two countries whose histories are paradoxically separate and intertwined, as seen through the eyes of their inhabitants. The Eirenic Verses offers a glimpse into the world of Eirenen: a planet both like and unlike our own, where literary prowess can be transmuted into military might.

About the Author

Cover art by Katarina @nskvsky

Main Characters

Cerie Korviridi

Uileac Korviridi (additional details)

Orrinir Relickim

Haniya Aina

Ono Kagan

Mordrek Willets

Societies and Major Locations

Breme

Breme Overview High Poetry Major Locations in Breme

Sina

Sina Overview Royal Family Major Locations in Sina

Additional Societies

The Eirenic Verses Series

Part One: 9 Years Yearning

Uileac Korviridi, student at the Bremish War Academy, expects to focus on his studies and protect his little sister - not fall in love with Orrinir Relickim, the hotheaded infantryman who can't seem to leave him alone. Subgenre: Gay coming of age romance Main Character: Uileac Korviridi Status: Live on Amazon

Part Two: Pride Before a Fall

Orrinir Relickim's horse, Bannain, was a wedding present from his husband, Uileac Korviridi. The intemperate animal nearly ends his marriage, too. One swift kick to the ribs turns into a journey through magical medicine and the human heart, as he comes to better understand the man he swore to love. Subgenre: Cozy romance Main Character: Orrinir Relickim Status: Pre-orders available

Part Three: Funeral of Hopes

Uileac Korviridi's husband, Orrinir Relickim, speaks little of his past. Vague mentions of an unhappy childhood before becoming a Future Boy at the War Academy are more than enough for Uileac; he has his own demons, after all. This changes when Orrinir receives word that his alcoholic, abusive father is dying - and refuses to reconcile. Subgenre: Family drama Main Character: Uileac Korviridi Status: Completed, revisions Sneak preview here

Part Four: What Is Cannot Be Unwritten

Mordrek Willets loves murder, mules, and women - not necessarily in that order. He's the first Sinan Intelligence Services officer to sneak across the forboding Rimuk Mountains and learn more about the Bremish High Poets, a secretive cabal of women tasked with protecting the beleagured country from his own. This mission takes more out of him than he ever could have expected. His pride. His loyalty. His heart. Subgenre: Dark adventure Main Character: Mordrek Willets Status: Completed, revisions

Part Five: Absent All Light

Cerie Korviridi has trained for over a decade to complete the Sigillum: the ritual that will make her a fully-fledged High Poet. In the aftershocks of the brutal ceremony, she finds that her brother-in-law, infantryman Orrinir Relickim, has been taken hostage by the enemy - and that the army is refusing to send help. Her brother, Uileac, refuses to leave his husband behind enemy lines and recruits her help, making them both traitors to the Bremish government. Subgenre: Adventure Main Characters: Cerie Korviridi, Orrinir Relickim Status: In progress

Part Six: Poesy

Cerie has spent her entire life learning High Poetry, a rare skill that assists her impoverished nation in countering endless warfare. Worshipping the goddess of poets is all she has ever known – that and her hatred for the enemy. Her worst nightmare comes true when she is kidnapped by her nation’s eternal rival, a queendom seeking High Poetry to colonize her homeland. Subgenre: Adventure Main Character: Cerie Korviridi Status: Completed, in revisions

Part Seven: Shadow and Sword (tentative title)

Haniya Aina has accepted the sea change that has come to her life: disowned by her mother, the Queen of Sina, and living in exile with her lover. What she never expected was for her new countrymen to despise her - and for her murderous brother to send a stream of assassins her way. Alongside her partner, Cerie Korviridi, and her new family, she finds herself battling more pressing threats than losing her princess status. Subgenre: Adventure Main Character: Haniya Aina Status: Not started

Part Eight: Perseity

After ending the endless war, Cerie Korviridi expects to never see Sina again - except its former symbol, Haniya Aina, the disgraced Princess of the Sinan Royal Family. However, the disowned daughter is embroiled against her will in Sinan domestic politics when her mad brother, Daiski, seizes the throne. Both women must decide how far they'll go for a country that hates them - and what it means for their love. Subgenre: Adventure Main Characters: Cerie Korviridi, Haniya Aina Status: First draft completed

Part Nine: The Sorrow of the Bells (tentative title)

Cerie Korviridi and Haniya Aina knew the Sinan public would not accept their relationship easily. Not only is a royal family member marrying a member of the enemy nation, but another woman, no less. Cerie and Haniya's friends and family must protect them from all comers, whether a poisoned chalice or a knife in the dark. Subgenre: Suspense Main Characters: Cerie Korviridi, Haniya Aina Status: Not started

Part 10: Plexity

A civil war to end all others. High Poets working on behalf of their former enemies, soldiers revising their loyalties to reflect a new age. Above it all, questions of how far love can really go to save a relationship - whether that is within people, deities, or countries as a whole. Subgenre: Adventure Main Characters: Cerie Korviridi, Haniya Aina, Orrinir Relickim Status: Not started

Additional Pages/Memes

Writer Questionnaire

Writer Questionnaire (part two)

MCs on Social Media

Writing Exercises: Mordrek's Bedroom

OC Questionnaire: Uileac and Orrinir

OC Fun Facts Tag

OC Deep Dive (Uileac, Orrinir, and Cerie)

Horses of The Eirenic Verses

Horses in The Eirenic Verses

Animals in The Eirenic Verses

Character music preferences

[dkniade]

I was looking at Yun Jin’s and Furina’s TCG Chinese card captions

-

Yun Jin

“红毹婵娟，庄谐并举。”

(Hóng shū chánjuān, zhuāng xié bìngjǔ.)

“The (carpeted) stage’s beautiful actress, able to play both comic and tragic roles” (?)

…“Elegance on the carpeted stage, both comedic and tragic”?

Official English (alas): “Elegance on the stage, in decorous harmony.”

-

红毹 (hóng shū) —> (红 = red ) + 氍毹 (qú shū), type of patterned wool cloth/carpet, traditional Chinese theatre is often performed on carpets, thus 氍毹 or 红氍毹 often means “stage” (zdic)

Ohh!! I didn’t know that. Carpet on the stage…

“本义指古代西域进口的一种编织毯，后来引申为各种地毯挂毯床毯等，到了明朝，开始专指戏曲舞台。明朝是昆曲盛行的时代，演出时例必要在舞台铺上红地毯，是为“红氍毹”，渐渐地就成了戏曲舞台的代称。如此这个词儿基本不再用于口语，但是书面文章中仍然常见它的踪迹” (Guo Cui Jing Ju)—> basically, it originally referred to weaved carpet, then various carpets and tapestries. Until the Ming dynasty, where Kunqu opera gained popularity and there were always red carpets on the stage when performing, thus 红氍毹 became synonymous with theatric stage. (More literary than everyday usage though)

(Kind of similar to curtains associated with the western stage?)

婵娟 (chánjuān) —> literary term for a beautiful woman. Term appears in Su Shi’s 宋词 (Song ci, Song dynasty poetry) “水调歌头” (Shuǐ Diào Gē Tóu), “但愿人长久，千里共婵娟” but it likely refers to the moon in the line’s second half which talks about about sharing (the sight of?) a beautiful moon when miles apart

庄谐 (zhuāng xié) —> 庄 = serious; 谐 = humorous, lighthearted. Possibly comedy and tragedy?

并举 (bìngjǔ) —> develop simultaneously

-

Furina

“永世领唱，无尽圆舞。”

(Yǒngshì lǐngchàng, wújìn yuán wǔ.)

“Eternal lead singer, endless waltz”?

…“Perpetual prima donna, endless waltz”?

“Perpetual lead singer, endless waltz”?

Official English: “Perpetual muse of chansons and rondeaux.”

永世: “to/until [one’s] dying day” (Cambridge Dictionary)

“forever” (CollinsDictionary), eternal (Cambridge Dictionary)

领唱: the lead singer or soloist in a choir, or the act of leading a chorus (Baidu Baike)

but 领唱 also refers to cantor (in liturgical music and prayer, generally refers to the lead singer in a Jewish congregation but it also applies to Christian contexts too…? Feel free to correct me)

Oh, according to MyJewishLearning, “A cantor — hazzan (חזן) in Hebrew — is the person who chants worship services in the synagogue. Though the word is sometimes applied in a general way to anyone who leads services, it is more commonly used to denote someone who has completed professional musical training and been ordained as a cantor.”

Chinese term found in an English definition of cantor. (Cambridge Dictionary)

an English definition of cantor. (Merriam Webster)

Conversely, maybe 领唱 is HoYoverse’s way of saying “prima donna” which the Cambridge dictionary defines as “the most important female singer in an opera company” (a description fitting Furina)

prima donna is 首席女歌手 in Chinese (Cambridge) but its five characters wouldn’t fit the TCG’s eight-character restriction if the first part should only use four characters total…

chanson: “various eras of French song, from the monophonic chant of the Middle Ages to the polyphonic singing of the Renaissance. Modern chanson music connects nineteenth-century cabaret music in Paris to contemporary pop music” (MasterClass)

(In French “chanson” means song but as a borrowed word in English, the Chinese term for it is 香頌)(from Chinese article talking about French chanson on Gmw.cn)

rondeaux (plural), rondeau (singular): three-stanza poem of French origin, mainly octosyllabic, 10-15 lines (Poetry Foundation). (Chinese term: 回旋诗. From the online French-to Chinese dictionary frdic)

…where’s the 圆舞 part…? Why change the dance imagery to another poetic form when dance is one of Furina’s motifs?

圆舞曲: music written for a waltz and the dance itself

华尔兹: waltz, the music specifically. (Baidu Baike)

Meaning, the one in Furina’s card likely refers to a dance? (considering they took out the 曲 character which does mean “song”)

[scotianostra]

May 23rd 1951 saw the death in Edinburgh of Christina Kay, the schoolteacher who became the model for the main character in Muriel Spark's The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.

The daughter of Mary Ann MacDonald and Alexander Kay, a cabinet maker, led an uneventful life, but one that would inspire one of the great characters of 20th-century literature: Miss Jean Brodie.

From the age of five, Christina Kay was a pupil at James Gillespie's School for Girls, where she would later teach. Between 1897 and 1899, she completed her teacher training at the Church of Scotland college in Edinburgh, where her conduct was described as "exemplary".

An only child and a devout Christian, Kay was born and lived in the same flat, at 4 Grindlay Street, Edinburgh, almost all her life. Her father died when she was 15, and she lived with her mother, caring for her until her death in 1913. Kay devoted her life to teaching at Gillespie's. Since in her early years very few women could take degrees, as younger colleagues later could, she remained a "class mistress", without promotion. But she was an inspirational teacher to her classes of 11 and 12-year-olds, sharing with them her passion for the arts. In 192930 they included the young Muriel Camberg (later Spark), whose literary success she predicted. Spark's Curriculum Vitae (1992), vividly recalling Miss Kay, makes it clear that Jean Brodie was based on "that character in search of an author". Kay would exhilarate her pupils by speaking in "dazzling non-sequiturs" about her foreign travels, particularly to Italy, and the great art she saw there, reproductions of which adorned her schoolroom walls.

She admired Mussolini, and a picture of his Fascisti was given wall space. Kay called her entire class the "crème de la crème", but she also had favourites, including Camberg and her friend Frances Niven, whom she took to exhibitions, theatre and ballet. Most of her pupils found her teaching unforgettable.

Kay kept her coming retiral in 1942 secret, but a tribute in the school magazine said that "service like hers must surely be unique". After her death in 1951, she was buried in Abercorn churchyard near South Queensferry.

[mslanna]

Who Has been Sleeping With My Shape?

Chapter 6 of Be My Guest now up at AO3

Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times, is Raphael's kink.

The incident doesn't repeat itself for some time. Tav almost thinks they imagined it. But then it happens again the day the second intruder appears. Tav greets him, well-prepared as ever, but the high elf is haughty, above dealing with simple minions.

He insist on seeing Raphael, so Tav complies. He doesn't even see the hit coming that knocks him out cold. Tav drags the unconscious elf through the house by the scruff of his armour, greaves and boots bouncing and banging on the floor the whole way.

Since they have leave to disturb the devil under these very specific circumstances, Tav drags the elf right into the war council. Raphael actually preens, showing off his well-trained human. Despite their annoyance of being reduced to "the mortal" Tav feels a flush of pride. A small wave of pink that definitely shows on their face as Raphael takes the intruder of their hands.

"Well done." Rare praise from his lips and in front of an audience.

Tav tries to shrimp up into themself, embarrassed and unwilling to show the effect of two simple words on the colour of their face. "It is as we agreed," they get out, each word a stumbling stone on their tongue.

"It is indeed." Raphael lifts their chin with a clawed finger. His smile is mesmerising, indulgent and commandeering at the same time. "I knew we would understand each other."

In response, Tav only tries to nod, but their chin is caught on the fiend's finger and not moving. "Do you need me for anything else?" Tav tries to make him look good before the other devils while they fight the pull of his black-hole eyes. They grow deeper, coronas blazing at their words and it feels good to have found the right ones for once.

"Not now, my -" Raphael stops himself. "Not now. You may leave."

Dazed, Tav turns and leaves the room, acutely aware of the many eyes following them. The door falling into its lock behind them is a blessing. Tav takes a deep breath and returns to their room. The set of armour returns to its place in the wardrobe and they fondly run their fingers over the metal that always feels a little too warm to the touch.

Later that day, reading a most gory murder spree for later sharing with Haarlep, Tav feels it again. A soft tingle, the caress of warm air, almost non-existent. They slap at it like at a bug, which doesn't help. Without wine to dull their senses, Tav sits it out, squirming on the chair they fled to from their comfortable nest.

Some patron must have really liked their performance. Tav winces. But neither ignoring the recurring hints of touch work, nor does concentrating on something else. At least this time the end is clear, like a soft kiss to their very core resolving all hidden tensions. Tav buries their face on their arms and can't even cry. This, they chose themself; this, they brought on themself.

They carry on best as they can, but even Raphael notices they are distracted and dismisses them from their literary skirmish sooner than usual. That hurts. Tav enjoys the conversations on the balcony, battling with words over words and none of it of consequence. They pull themself together and leave dejected.

Haarlep offers no explanation and Tav is not keen on divulging which of the attending fiends fond interest in their shape. At least they are safe at the side of the incubus. While they share their gory novels with giggles and bloody jabs, nobody else can demand Haarlep’s services.

"This is not very well researched," Haarlep chuckles. "How much blood does the author think an average human holds?"

Tav lies on their belly, chin propped up on their hands as they read to the incubus. Not a necessity, but fun. They like doing the voices and Haarlep is a grateful audience. As long as they can drag for inaccuracies of which there are many. "At least 15 litres by the descriptions so far." Tav rifles back a few pages.

"Plus a major organ punctured and the blade removed."

"For an extra five litres of blood," Tav nods.

"Alright, go on." Haarlep nudges them. "But be aware that poor Adoralina is dead at least two times over by now."

"Somebody should start a fund for the cleaning crew." Tav runs their finger down the page to pick up the story again.

"Maybe get some spawn on it? I heard you know of a hand bunch?"

Tav giggles into the pages, wagging their feet in the air. When a voice behind them booms, head and legs drop flat.

"What is going on here?" Raphael makes a strategic pause after the first word and comes towards the bed with long strides. "Haarlep?"

On the one hand, Tav is glad to be out of the line of fire for now. On the other hand it burns to be so ignored. They turn to their back and glare at the approaching devil. "What does it look like?"

"It looks like you are wasting Haarlep's precious time," the devil snarls. He takes in Tav's figure rolled out over the red sheets, book pressed to their chest.

Under the devil's glare, Tav might as well be naked. They hold the book tighter though it doesn't even cover anything important. Black and gold eyes lie on them heavy enough to force the air from their lungs. Tav swallows, ready to defend themself and Haarlep but the incubus is faster.

"As we are want to. Tav and I share delight in literary exploits. Maybe not on the same level of, ah, learning as you do." They open up their front in a peace offering. Raphael does not take it, though.

"There are patrons waiting," he says and points towards the closed curtains. "Patrons who will leave, unlike our – little house guest."

"Alright, alright." Haarlep rolls over seductively, showing off all assets their body has to offer. "Just mentioning here, that usually Tav gets a whole hour of my attention and we are way under."

If devils could turn red, Raphael just might have. "You will do well to remember your station, incubus."

"Oh, but I do," Haarlep smiles easily s they help Tav off the bed. "At the beck and call of every wish our little mousling may have. And humans have such interesting needs. You leave now, dear. We will continue the physically impossible exsanguination of Adoralina Bellheart at a later time."

"Okay," Tav mumbles. "Sorry."

"Don't fash you little head about the inscrutable problems of fiends. It will only give you a headache."

Tav only winces a little, when Raphael's hand descends between their shoulder blades to lead them away. "I will take better care in the future, I promise."

"You, I will forgive," the devil growls, "but Haarlep knows better. The war has many fiends on edge and there is a very easy way to smooth things with them. What are the needs they alluded to?"

Tav tilts their head but Raphael looks straight ahead. Still his presence is somewhat comforting in a boudoir brimming with fiends – some of them making their own entertainment, none of them wearing anything. "Companionship, I guess? I talk a lot when the day is long and every day here is long."

Raphael drops his hand from their back. "Is that so."

"I am not blaming you, as you said, war." Tav shrugs. "And-"

A devil prowls past without a care in the world, almost tripping into Tav. A protective wing snaps up around them, pushing the wayward fiend aside. Tav moves closer to Raphael. "Thank you." They didn't like the look on the other devil's face one bit and are glad to pass into the corridor.

Raphael doesn't leave them though. "To the library?" he asks, scanning the hall for more rowdy patrons.

"Yes, please." Unthinking Tav slips a hand into his. "They usually leave me alone. Maybe I should remember how heated tempers are next time I hog Haarlep."

"Nobody will dare touch you in my house," Raphael assures Tav. "If anybody oversteps their boundaries, you let me know. Immediately."

Tav nods. "I will. Thank you." They smile at the devil at their side, But Raphael still stares straight ahead. "I will see you later then?"

Raphael snaps out of whatever reverie he was caught up in and looks down at them. "Later, yes, as per usual."

"Great." Tav smiles. "Looking forward to it."

They catch themself just before rising on tiptoe to peck him on the cheek. A most inappropriate urge that only abates when they close the heavy door behind them. That was close. One day they will slip up and that will likely earn them a claw down the face. If Raphael feels lenient.

For days Tav has dropped little signs, like saying they look forward to seeing the devil again and he picked up on none. All he eve does is lay those black eyes on them with the weight of the universe behind the gaze.

With a sigh they sit down to read. But Tav's mind can't settle. Something is nagging at the back of their mind. After reading the same paragraph three times, Tav gives up. Maybe a nap will help. It's not as if there is anything to miss.

As soon s Tav stands the nagging feeling returns with a vengeance. The familiar ghost of a touch is more insistent than ever. Where at first it was but the memory of wind, the touch now hones in, seeps with practised ease under their skin and moves through their body with singular intent. Tav finds themself lurching as the feeling crests inside them.

For a moment they close their eyes to gather themself. Never before has the experience been so intense. They can almost make out fingers in the caress ghosting over their skin. And the feeling lingers, does not retreat as it used to but builds up again. Tav curls both hands around the backrest of the chair and tries to breathe deeply. They give up on the idea of walking anywhere, least of all out in public.

Aeons pass until the touch vanishes with a last deep impression. The lingering longing makes Tav's face burn. This is not tenable. It doesn't matter who wanted their shape for whatever reasons. It needed to stop if they are to function properly. It needed to stop, full stop.

It is something to bring up to Raphael later. The thought of that conversation keeps Tav's face from cooling down for a long time.

[jadeharleyinc]

What are ways for someone in the independent artist category like myself can do to support protections for workers affected by AI that are not also supporting IP expansionism?

this is a tough question, but in a word: unionize! i think unions are setting an excellent example. see this excerpt on AI, from the deal the Writers Guild of America fought for in 2023:

"We have established regulations for the use of artificial intelligence (“AI”) on MBA-covered projects in the following ways:

AI can’t write or rewrite literary material, and AI-generated material will not be considered source material under the MBA, meaning that AI-generated material can’t be used to undermine a writer’s credit or separated rights. 

A writer can choose to use AI when performing writing services, if the company consents and provided that the writer follows applicable company policies, but the company can’t require the writer to use AI software (e.g., ChatGPT) when performing writing services. 

The Company must disclose to the writer if any materials given to the writer have been generated by AI or incorporate AI-generated material.

The WGA reserves the right to assert that exploitation of writers’ material to train AI is prohibited by MBA or other law."

very reasonable demands to make, in my opinion, and more likely to help artists than copyright law.

obviously it's more difficult for professions where unionizing is forbidden by law (in the U.S. or other countries), but fighting for the right to unionize in such cases is a bigger, more important deal than fighting for protections against AI, in any case.

[mariacallous]

(JTA) – The Biden Administration’s new point person for combating book bans at school districts and public libraries across the country is a gay, Jewish progressive activist who has served as a government liaison to the Jewish and LGBTQ communities.

The appointment of Matt Nosanchuk comes as the thousands of book challenges nationwide have focused on books with LGBTQ as well as Jewish themes, in addition to works about race. Nosanchuk was named a deputy assistant secretary in the Department of Education’s civil rights office earlier this month. In that role, he will lead training sessions for schools and libraries on how to deal with book bans — and warn districts that the department believes book bans can violate civil rights laws.

An Education Department official recently told the 74, an education news site, that the bans “are a threat to students’ rights and freedoms.”

“I am excited to return to public service to work on behalf of the American people,” Nosanchuk posted to LinkedIn earlier this month. “There is a lot of important work to do!”

The Education Department declined to make Nosanchuk available for an interview. He has already taken heat from conservative outlets, which have pushed the narrative that the books being removed from schools and libraries are too sexually explicit for children. Kayleigh McEnany, the Fox News host who served as Donald Trump’s press secretary, called him a “porn enforcer” on-air.

But his appointment has been celebrated by librarians and book access activists. “This is a step forward for the Biden Administration, who has heard the concerns of parents and taken action, but it is just the beginning,” the National Parents Union, a progressive parental education activist group, said in a statement.

Nosanchuk’s career has largely focused on working with the LGBTQ and Jewish communities. In 2009, after serving in a number of roles in Washington, D.C., Nosanchuk was appointed as the Department of Justice’s liaison to the LGBTQ community — a position he held while Obama was still publicly opposed to same-sex marriage. He later worked on the Obama administration’s opposition to a law barring same-sex couples from receiving federal benefits.

He subsequently served as the White House liaison to the Jewish community during Obama’s second term, and in 2020 was the Democratic National Committee’s political organizer for Jewish outreach and LGBTQ engagement. That same year, he cofounded the New York Jewish Agenda, a progressive policy group that he led until earlier this year.

Nosanchuk’s first webinar in his new role was held Tuesday in partnership with the American Library Association, an organization with which a number of Republican-led states have recently cut ties. He begins his work after a year that has seen several school districts take aim at books focused on Jewish experiences or the Holocaust.

Two weeks ago, a Texas school district fired a middle school teacher reportedly for reading a passage from an illustrated adaptation of Anne Frank’s diary to eighth-grade students. Other schools’ removals of “The Fixer,” a Jodi Picoult novel about the Holocaust and other texts have been likened to Nazi and Stalinist book burnings —  comparisons that proponents of the book restrictions reject.

Democratic politicians, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, have accused Republicans of wanting “to ban books on the Holocaust.” A recent Senate hearing on book bans included testimony from Cameron Samuels, a Jewish advocate for access to books, along with numerous references to “Maus,” a graphic novel by Art Spiegelman about the Holocaust that was pulled from a Tennessee middle school curriculum last year.

PEN America, a literary free-speech advocacy group, welcomed Nosanchuk’s appointment.

“Book removals and restrictions continue apace across the country, as the tactics to silence certain voices and identities are sharpened,” the group said in a statement. “Empowering the coordinator to address this ongoing movement is critical.”