#take that webbedsite!!

[smidgen-of-hotboy]

Our Angel of Brahma, pt. xi

Hello Travelers, before we begin I need to stress that this part of Our Angel of Brahma contains explicit violence. With that being said, consider this your warning for the following content: kidnapping (mentioned), assault, police brutality, interrogations, and some self-harm. I will be going back to add CW to previous parts and will update when those have been added in. If there are any warnings that you would like added to this part or any others do not hesitate to reach out in my ask box or DMs! Additionally: I am planning on transferring this series over to ao3 in the coming weeks. The google doc is starting to crash and that is my sign that this is no longer a self contained one shot au. It is a drabble. a nearly 19k long (and counting) drabble @ananxiousgenz @ceaseless-watchers-special-girl @the-private-eye @demonic-panini

Calypso walks into her office. Coffee mug in one hand, and her comms in the other. She hadn't checked her emails yet and had only briefly skimmed the messages Frannie had sent her early in the morning. Most of which didn’t make much sense and had been sent five hours before she was awake, which was by her standards, five hours too early to be doing absolutely anything important. She booted up the computer and took a long sip of her coffee. Her comms rang and it was un-surprisingly Frannie. 

“Calypso Starr speaking–”

“Have you seen them yet?” 

“Frannie. Good morning to you too. I believe conversations start with hello.”

“Right– hello, did you see them yet?”

“See what?” She opens her email and smiles reading the subject line “RE: THE CASE OF THE MISSING ANGEL”. Rita was creative. Calypso would give her that. But she also seemed just as scatterbrained as Frannie did at times. They both knew their way around computers and comms. More than Calypso ever learned from her mom, so she was in no position to really judge either of them. If anything, they had every right to laugh in her face for not being able to do all the work on her own. Some shit journalist she was turning up to be. 

“The videos!” Frannie huffed and in the background, Calypso could make out the sound of a cabinet door opening and slamming shut. “Listen, I’m hanging up, and when you’re done with the videos and taking notes– and I mean all the videos, and all your notes– call me. Rita spent ninety-six hours trying to hunt all this down for you, kid. You better write the best damn article this side of the galaxy has ever seen! Because she ain’t helping you anymore after this, alright?” 

Calypso opens her mouth to argue but the call ends right then. She sets her comms on the desk in its designated spot next to her coffee mug and one of the glass swans. She isn’t a kid. She’s a grown adult just like Frannie. Frannie was however much, much older than her. And it wouldn’t be the first time that she’s let an older lady step all over her. 

Without anymore preamble, she takes a seat and opens the first video file. 

The video starts with a lone woman sitting at a table. The room is bare and poorly lit with no windows.  “State your name.” “Why should I? You already know who I am.” The woman’s dark hair falls out of her face revealing dark eyes and a few freckles. She glares at the camera. “And get that thing out of my face.” “No can do, now state your name.”  The woman huffs hanging her head low to the table. “Eve Bell.” “Full name.” “Eevee Bell.” She jerks her chin up and snarls, “Happy?”

Calypso pauses the video. This is Eevee Bell. Eevee the same night she was taken from her home.The same night she tucked Baird into bed and promised nothing bad would happen to her. Calypso flips open her journal thumbing through the pages until she finds her notes on the “Dad” recording. She reads back over them and flips to the next blank page. She rummages around her desk for a bit before finding a pen tucked into her newly acquired swan pen holder. She hits play on the video, and begins taking notes.

“Very,” a figure walks around the camera to stand behind Eevee. They’re dressed in a freshly pressed uniform. Their epaulets are black, with two embroidered stars in silver thread. A Constable of high rank. They place one hand on her shoulder and grip her chin with the other. “Now look directly at the camera, and tell them exactly what you did.” She clenches her jaw and tries to pull away. The Constable keeps her firmly pinned in place.  “Not gonna talk, huh.” “Over my dead body.” The Constable tsks and lets go of Eve’s face. Eevee, to her credit, rolls her shoulders as much as she could with her hands cuffed behind her back, and tilted her chin up higher. “You’ll hear me sing and squeal before I tell you anything you want.”  The Constable shakes their head and laughs, “We’ll see how you feel after today.” They exit out of frame and a heavy door can be heard opening. Eevee looks over and her eyes go wide as three other uniformed Constables walk into the room.  “Welcome to New Kinshasa, Eve.” The Constable says out of frame said. The video ends.

Calypso leans back in her seat. She glances down at her notes. Nothing. Blank. She puts her pen down and folds her hands over one another, leaning to rest her elbows on her desk. Her stomach does a strange thing, flipping up over on itself. The coffee is starting to kick in and give her heartburn. 

From her research and based on Baird’s recordings, the Constabulary does not treat its prisoners kindly. Their treatment is not as harsh as Aurinko Permanent Corrections. No, nothing could compare to Palomine Aurinko, and nothing will ever come close to Hoosegow. But there’s a good reason the Solar Planets consider the Guardian Angel System a war crime and New Kinshasa has been charged off and on for committing multiples since the Galactic Civil War ended. 

She grabs her comms and searches for anything she can find on the Constabulary on New Kinshasa and Brahma. She wasn’t expecting her quick galactic search to turn up anything. Just like everything else she’s been looking into privately, this too should have been a dead end. Instead, a tourism site hosted on a Saraswatan travelers guide comes up. 

One of the main attractions to vacationing to Saraswati it turns out, is visiting New Kinshasa. Vacation to Saraswati, and set time aside for a three days, two nights trip to see New Kinshasa. Shuttle over on day one, and see New Kinshasa day two. Get to meet Constables, shake hands with Sergeants, and rub elbows with Inspectors off duty at hotel bars. Take a tour down main street and stop by the Skydeck: Edge of New Kinshasa and peer down at Brahma from up high. 

The photos on the website are orderly and well lit. More than likely staged pieces of propaganda meant to make the average person forget about what happened to Brahma. If Calypso were anyone else even she’d believe it. But Baird’s recordings exist and Brahma has been suffering. Dark Matters can successfully scrub all records from the galaxy but they never stood a chance at stopping something from slipping through the cracks. 

One of the photos on the website catches her eye. A Constable in uniform, with epauluets on their shoulders embroidered in silver thread. Perfectly stitched planets with tilted rings. They’re shaking hands with a man with grey hair and a peculiar mustache. A gold brooch with blue jewels is pinned to his suit. His wide smile reaches his eyes. 

Calypso scrolls down to read the caption at the same time she reaches for her mug. She takes a long sip of her coffee. 

Superintendent Constable Bishop shaking hands with art collector, Osiris Cygnet. 

A “cygnet” is a word used to describe a baby swan. So named after the swan-shaped constellation, Cygnus, and -et indicates smallness. 

If Calypso were the average person, she shouldn’t know this. As she leans back in her desk chair and stares at the swan pen holder, Calypso is reminded that she is not the average person. As she stands now running through her apartment, digging through a cardboard box for a gold swan brooch with sapphire eyes, she has not been the average person since childhood. 

The storage unit came from a deceased art collector. He had an affinity for collecting crystal swans and counterfeit paintings. She sold most of the glass swans back to collectors on Earth while on her visit to her mother’s grave. She held on to the pen holder as a memento and sought out a pawn shop to trade in the brooch when the shop owner said she ought to keep it, “you don’t find jewels like that out there anymore.” Or whatever that meant. 

“Shit shit shit shit–” she finds the brooch and races back to her office clutching it tight. Sure enough, it’s a good match. 

Osiris Cygnet, art collector that vacationed sometime within the last ten years to Saraswati and took a shuttle trip to New Kinshasa. Just how the fuck did he get ahold of Baird’s recordings?

Superintendent Constable Bishop, Eve’s prison guard, and most likely, her future executioner. And he was promoted. At some point in the last twenty years, he was promoted. Multiple times. 

The pin back on the brooch digs into her palm. Calypso clenches her teeth. She should let go before the wound is too deep and forms an ugly gash. She reaches with her free hand and hits play on the next video.

Eevee sits on the stone floor of a prison cell. She stares pointedly at the door. Occasionally her eyes flick up to the camera. Its hard to tell, but her face looks puffy. Her arms have bruises running from her elbows all the way down to her wrists. There are red marks on both wrists from wearing handcuffs. She pulls her knees up to her chest letting out a long groan of pain. The camera zooms in. It is just near inaudible, but the camera's microphone picks up her quiet voice.  I hear your tune,  like a songbird at noon. What a lovely trill, it makes me feel ill. Eve looks like she would curl tighter around herself if it were possible. Shrink into nothing. Make herself as small as a mote of dust.  Like chimes in the wind, we were destined. A full-body shudder wracks through her.  Birdie, I’m not comin’ home, I'm sorry to leave you all alone. A figure approaches the cell. They’re not in uniform but the way they approach Eve’s cell is not without confidence.  “It’s a good song.” Eve jumps with tears in her eyes as she blinks at the person in front of her. “Hey baby, I came to bust you out.” The figure shoves their hands in their pockets.  “Cyrus…” Eve slowly gets to her feet and crosses over to the bars of her cell. She holds a hand out. Cyrus takes it carefully, pressing his lips to her knuckles. She is nearly breathless as she asks, “What are you doing here?” “Like I said: busting you out.”  “I–” Eve shakes her head. “No, you can’t. What about Iris? What about Baird? They need you more than I do right now! How'd you even get in here anyways?” Cyrus shrugs and pulls a key card out from his pocket. “Snuck onto a shuttle, knocked out a Constable, stole their key card? C'mon, Eve, it's not that hard.”  “Not that hard– Cyrus! That's a death sentence! If you get caught–” “I won't get caught, alright? Peter Nureyev”– Eve flinches– “scared them shitless. They’re scrambling right now and too disorganized to notice me.” She's quiet, staring at their hands. “How long has it been already?” “Day five of the Warden Strike, second day without you. Camilla was the one who reached out to. Everyone else apparently was too afraid to, and the other Wardens are losing steam without someone to keep their morale up and minds motivated.”  “And what about Baird? And Iris? You left them alone to try and rescue me? Cyrus, I'm a prisoner, not a princess in a tower.” Cyrus clicks his tongue. “Iris has been alone for a long time, they’ll be fine. And Baird isn’t alone, the Spade’s are taking care of him.” He plays thoughtlessly with her fingers. “You and I only have each other though. I promised your parents I’d look out for you, and I intend to keep that promise, til’ death do us part and all that.”  Eve jerks her hand away to grip one of the bars. “Cyrus, look at me.” He lifts his head and flinches in response only slightly. “I came here willingly. And I’m not going to make it out of here alive. Eber and Camilla can barely afford to take care of themselves and Charlie. And Iris lost their family like you and I did. You and I both know what it's like to lose your parents. I don't want Baird to experience the same thing.”  Cyrus shakes his head. “Eve you're thinking this all backwards. I'm the one that dragged you into this, let me take your place and get you out of it.” The video ends. 

Calypso drops the brooch on her desk to run her hands through her hair. She tugs on the ends of her short bob. 

Eevee pushed Cyrus away because he wanted revolution. And he got it. He got a revolution and it took everything from Baird. 

These are real people. Not just voice recordings or a bedtime story a mother made up to soothe her distressed child. Baird, Eeve, Cyrus, and Iris. A real family. Charlie, Eber, and Camilla and their daughter, Evelyn. A spare family. Josie and the twins. Hank and Mrs. Darius. The Rats. Brahma was full of life. And it still is. Peter Nureyev is a legend to these people. Even if it turns out the name was fake, he was just as real as any of them. 

And despite all their hardships, Cyrus still married Eevee and then Iris. Josie still went on to have twins. Camilla and Eber brought a daughter into the galaxy. Charlie chose to go down singing. Cyrus went out singing. Eve echoed a song. And Baird kept his head high and trilled for their memory. 

The recordings from the comms were real. Are real. Calypso knows this. She doesn't have any faces to put to any names except now for Eve and a rough idea for Cyrus. They were alive. 

Calypso hesitates to start the next video. She's seen more than enough already. More than plenty. There are still two videos left. She already knows how this ends. Eevee Bell walked out of her apartment in the middle of the night so her son wouldn’t have to wake up screaming and watch her be dragged out the front door. She did everything in her power to safeguard him from a War she never wanted to bring home in the first place. And what did it get her? What good did it do when two years later Baird watched what happened to his father anyways? What good did any of it do when they broadcasted Charlie’s execution? 

Taking a deep breath, she hits play. 

“Songbird,” Constable Bishop stands in front of Eve's cell. They keep one hand on their blaster. Eve tucks her chin down while pulling away from the bars. “Tired of singing? That's a pity. You know, a few hours ago, I was alerted that someone came to pay you a visit. I had the cameras checked and we put the facility in lockdown. You'll never believe what we found trying to fly the coop.”  Two Constables drag a man into frame. It's Cyrus. Eve stands in place, her face drained of all its color. Cyrus tilts his head up. The two Constables flanking his side force him to stand, hoisting him up by his underarms. His hands remain pinned behind his back. .  “I wouldn't be all smiley right now if I were in your shoes, Desrosiers.” Constable Bishop pulls their blaster from its holster. They click the safety off and point it directly at Cyrus. “Now then, here's how this is going to play out. Ms. Bell, you're going to admit that you organized the Warden strike, you're going to take the fall and you're going to accept the consequences.” “And if she doesn't?” The Constables holding Cyrus pull on his arms. He hisses through his teeth.   “If she doesn't, then we'll blame you both. And then, with you both out of the way, we'll hunt down that Little Birdie of yours, pluck him from the nest, and make him sing us songs about how beautiful it is to be saved by New Kinshasa–”  “I did it.” Eve crosses her cell and reaches out as far as she can to grab the Constable Bishop’s uniform. Her fingers just barely reach their elbow. “I organized the strike. It was all my idea to begin with. I knew it was risky and stupid but I did it anyways. I poisoned the watering hole–” “Eevee–” “And Cyrus had nothing to do with it. Joining the revolutionaries and inciting the Dome Wardens was all me. Let him go. Blame me for everything, say that I'm the Revolutionary's mother while you’re at it and publicly execute me. Tear me limb from limb– just let Cyrus go and leave my son out of this.”  Constable Bishop holds her gaze. He lowers his blaster and gives her a curt nod, “I wasn't going to go that far, but if that's how you feel, well…” He put his blaster away. “I’m pleased you came around, Ms. Bell.” He turns to the other two Constables and motions for them to leave. “Escort the Pest off of New Kinshasa.” They grab hold of Cyrus’ jaw and force him to look up. “And if we ever catch you sneaking up here again, you’ll be publicly executed.” Eevee looks away as they drag Cyrus out of frame. His voice comes as a muffled shout that grows quieter and quieter.  “Don’t look so down Ms. Bell. You made the right choice. New Kinshasa thanks you for your candor.” The video ends. 

She lied. Eevee lied to Constable Bishop. Even if half of what she said did hold some truth to it, there were still lies she sprinkled in that they believed. At least they chose to believe them. And choosing to believe in something only grants it more power. It warps reality, and makes it more real. 

Baird’s first recording that Calypso heard echoes in the back of her mind. Some say that the legend isn’t true. Some say that Eevee Bell set the Dome Wardens on strike. At least one person believes that she is Peter Nureyev’s mother. 

Baird and Iris did not know everything. For whatever Cyrus was caught for finally, Constable Bishop made good on their promise and did eventually come back for him. They did not however publicly execute him. 

They got Charlie instead. 

With only one video left, Calypso hits play. She’s only slightly surprised to see Cyrus in a similar interrogation room to the one Eevee was in in the first video.

“There will be a free Brahma. There will be a free Brahma. Brahma will be–” “Do you ever, shut up!” Constable Bishop slams their fist against the table in front of Cyrus. His epauluets are different, now instead of two stars theres three. Cyrus winces clenching his jaw, but doesn’t draw away. “No wonder you got a divorce, I’d get one too if I was stuck married to you.” “Charmed, though I don’t find you pretty enough to marry… maybe if you lost the scrappy beard–” “Enough!” Constable Bishop drags a hand down their face, scratches at their stubble, and stares down at Cyrus. “All you have to do, is look at the camera,” they point to the one currently rolling, “and say exactly what you did.” “And then what? You’ll let me go scot free? You’ve already beat black and blue, I think I felt a tooth or two dislodge from my mouth. You willing to pay for my dentist bill?” “There are no dentist left on Brahma.” Constable Bishop circles around Cyrus and stands behind him. They grip his left shoulder, and guide his face up towards the camera with their other hand. “Now go on, tell them exactly who you are, and what you did.” Cyrus’ eyes are a muted green. His face is long and skin a darker shade of brown than Eevees’. He takes a deep, calming breath, and flashes a quick smile revealing a dimple on his left cheek.  “My name is Peter Nureyev, and I am going to bring down New Kinshasa.” Constable Bishop lets go of Cyrus to whip out their blaster. They crack the blunt end against the back of his head. Constable Bishop’s hand and blaster come away slightly bloodied, and the shout Cyrus lets out echoes in the small room.  “Think you’re so smart, huh? Try again.” “Cyrus Desrosiers-Bell, and when I get out of here,” Cyrus strains against his restraints baring his teeth in a sharp, sadistic grin, “I’m going to rip your fucking throat out!”  Constable Bishop clicks the safety off their blaster. They press it to the side of Cyrus’ head. “Go on, keep talking. We don’t need you alive, you serve no greater purpose to your revolution. You get caught in New Kinshasa once and I let you go, shame on you. You get caught sneaking around New Kinshasa a second time and get far enough back home just outside your front door, shame on me.” Bishop tsks rechecking their blaster. “One jolt. That’s all you need.” “Well go on then,” Cyrus lifts his chin. His brows squish together. A small gasp escapes his lips. “You don’t scare me. Not the first time you’ve pressed that thing to my head.”  After a moment, a comms goes off. The Constable checks it with a quick glance and relaxes. “You’re right,” they draw their blaster away from Cyrus but do not click the safety back in place. “I don't scare you enough. But she probably will.” A question forms on Cyrus’ lips but dies just as quickly as the interrogation room doors whirls open and close. Heavy bootsteps cross the room. A small shadow falls over Cyrus. His eyes go wide.  “Eve, my angel…” Cyrus shakes his head, tearing his gaze away. He grits his teeth. “No. You killed her.”  “Did we though? Constable,” the Bishop turns to the new arrival. They pass their blaster off to them. The new arrival walks into frame to accept the blaster. Standing beside Constable Bishop, is none other than Eevee Bell. The same dark hair, dark eyes, and constellation of freckles. A collar of some sort clasps snuggly around her neck.  It is as if the soul that bubbled to life inside of her has been snuffed out. This may look like Eevee Bell, it may move like Eevee Bell, but it is not her. Not anymore. No song whistles from her lips as she levels the blaster pressing back against Cyrus’ head.  “Eevee, baby,” the Constable places her finger over the trigger.  “Now then, any last words, Desroisers-Bell?” Cyrus licks his lips and stares into the camera. “My angel, my angel. Set me free.” The Constable pulls the trigger. Her arm absorbs the recoil as Cyrus’ body seizes and–

Calypso closes out of the video and turns away. She presses her head between her legs gasping for lungfuls of air. 

Rita spent ninety-two hours digging through Goddess knows what just to dig up this. The tumbling feeling in her stomach returns full force. Combined a racing heart and the rising bile in her throat, Calypso isn’t so sure anymore if she wants to call Frannie back. Maybe she ought to reach back out to Mister Mercury and try creative writing again. Maybe she ought to quit writing and journalism altogether, shuttle home to Venus, find a nice well off spouse, pop out another fucked up kid like her and her mother, and pat herself on the back for not dying to cancer or radiation poisoning or whatever. It might also do her a whole lot of good to find a therapist. At least looking for one wouldn’t kill her.

She waits until her heart has stopped racing and stomach settled back into place. Her pen feels like it’s barely there as she scratches down quick notes:

Eve gave the constable’s idea for public execution, thus Charlie. 

Cyrus Desrosiers-Bell. He took Eevee’s last name? And then kept it after marrying Iris?

Cyrus was beat and taken away because he snuck on to New Kinshasa– twice. First time to try and save Eve (failed to) and second time for unknown reason (caught and tracked down). Could this be why/how Talia’s book club found a way to New Kinshasa?

Don’t know what song Cyrus sang as he was dragged away from Iris. Possibly some version of Charlie’s Lament? 

How does Osiris Cygnet connect to all this?

What was the collar around Eve’s neck?

Constable Bishop’s promotions: have something to do with what happened to Eve? With what he did to Cyrus? (SIDE NOTE: I pray to my Goddess that whatever the hell happened to Eve, they did not do to Cyrus.)

… I pray that whatever they did to Eve, they did not improve and inflict upon Charlie. 

She puts her pen back in the swan holder and examines the puncture wound in her palm. The injury is small, not a gash like she thought it might be. A bandage and anti-spetic and Calypso will be right as rain. Peachier than an Earthen Sunday morning. 

“I need to find a hobby.” Calypso glances at the swan holder. Perhaps– no. Absolutely not. 

She dresses her injury and calls Frannie back despite every part of her howling not to. Her coffee has long since gone cold. Normally this woudln’t be a problem. Just drop a few ice cubes in and presto. Or reheat the whole mug and presto. Today is one of those rare days where neither is an appealing option and the last of her six hundred cred coffee goes down the drain. Finally her call connects with Frannie.

“You finished the videos?”

“Frannie.”

“Right, hello. You finished the videos.” It’s not even a question anymore. Calypso hums turning away from her sink to lean her lower back against it. Slowly she lowers herself to the floor. “I’ll take that as a yes, okay! I asked Rita about Peter Nureyev like you wanted me to. And she turned back around within a day to tell me that there was nothing she could find about the man. He doesn’t exist. Just another legend.”

Calypso scoffs, “Well that’s impossible, I just saw the videos. Eve and Cyrus both mention him by name. Baird mentions him in his recordings by name. Camilla mentions him by name at some point. He has to be real.”

“Well I don’t know what to tell you, kid, but if Rita can’t find him, no one can. It’s impossible to find something or someone who doesn’t exist.”

“Or maybe he disappeared.”

Frannie hums, “Sure, maybe that. Look, kid,” Calypso bites her tongue, “I wanted to talk with you about asking for help. Remember how I said you won’t be asking Rita for anymore favors?”

“Yeah, yeah actually– Frannie what was that about?”

“Kid,” Calypso does not retain her inward groan, “Rita is a really good friend of mine. Me and her go way back to when we were just little ladies getting our noses dirty and toeses wet with cybersecurity. She went down the HCPD path, I went down a freelance one. 

“My point though is that me and her aren’t the same little ladies we used to be anymore. We’re little old ladies now. And us little old ladies need our rest and relaxation. When Rita starts something she doesn’t know when to take a break. She puts her whole body into it.”

“Don’t you mean mind?”

“No, body. Rita has been sacrificing her own health for the better part of three decades now trying to help her Boss. He’s a prick at best and an asshole at his worst. He’s taken her for granted a lot.” Well, maybe she should find a better Boss, goes unsaid. “Their relationship is better now, but I’m not going to let another kid like you come and drag her around the whole galaxy.”

“For fucks sake Frannie– my name is Calypso! I’m not your damn kid!” Calypso pants. The swooping feeling returns. “I’m not you’re damn kid, I haven’t been anyone’s damn kid in over ten years, so stop calling me a fucking child! If you don’t want me talking to Ms. Rita anymore fine. I get it. You don’t wanna hear about my requests to her that’s fine. I’ll cut you out of it and–”

“Calyspo Starr.” Her jaw clamps shut narrowly avoiding biting her tongue. “If you reach out to Rita after today, I will cease to help you myself. You can take your little comms and find someone else willing to help you for free. All I’m asking, Ms. Starr, is that you don’t involve Rita any further. Have I made myself clear, Ms. Starr?”

Ms. Starr, I’m sorry but there’s nothing more we can do for your mother. Your next decisions are going to shape how the end of her life are going to be. Have you got a will lined up already?

Ms. Starr, I can’t accept your solo proposal. Everyone else found partners for this project at the start of the year. Maybe you can join a group and be their editor? 

Ms. Starr, that will be a demerit for you. Let’s find you something more suitable in the lost and found. You wouldn’t want to mistaken for a ruffian, do you?

“Crystal.” Calypso ends the call before Frannie can respond. She calls back. Calypso decline the call and throws her comms across the kitchen. She watches as it skitters along the tile. 

Alone. Shit writer. Parentless. Jobless. Flying by the seat of her pants and overpriced coffee grounds. She was never cut out to be a journalist. Maybe she ought to go off and find a cold ditch to lie down in. Or a warm ditch. Whichever she stumbles across first. 

Just who is Calypso Starr? Who the hell does she think she is anyways? And what gave her the idea that any of this meant something to someone in the first place?

I choose to believe… 

Calypso takes a deep breath and starts counting back from ten. 

I choose to believe… 

As she slowly exhales, true clarity rings through her mind. Baird chose to believe. And it doesn’t matter how, his recordings made it off-planet. And if not Calypso Starr to tell his story, to transcribe every last detail she can capture, then who else? Who else does that leave? 

Calypso Starr, the rebel who didn’t wear the right uniform. The orphaned university student who scrapped by without any friends. And now, a Solar based, historical freelance journalist. Scratch that from the record: Galactic, historical freelance journalist. She’s worn half a dozen different hats over the years, but one thing has remained consistent: a Starr burns brightest before they go out. And if Baird Bell and Brahma are the undoing of her, then there’s nothing to be done about it. She’ll get to the end of the recordings and uncover the truth one or another. With or without Frannie’s help.

[badolmen]

“But calling people is scary - what do I even say when I call my representative?”

Welcome. Autistic advice from someone who actually prefers phone calls because I can prepare a script in advance and they’re generally shorter than email chains.

Here’s a good multiuse script:

Source: compiled from the notes and content of this post.

“Good [morning/evening]. I’m calling to leave a comment with my representative strongly opposing [example: the US’s relations with Israel] and I am standing [example: in strong solidarity with Palestine]. I am asking that my representative do the same. [His/Her/Their] action on this issue will impact my voting choices.”

(Bolding for emphasis - it’s important that you contact someone that actually represents you instead of spam calling an office four states away for a politician you didn’t have any say in the election of. It’s also important to mention that this will have an effect on future support eg. voting.)

Okay, so you have a script, but who is going to hear it and will they interrupt or ask you something?

1. You are leaving your message with a staffer. They’re an employee of your representative. They do not deserve to be yelled at or berated, and doing so may get your future calls ignored. Be the deadly calm and doggedly persistent Good Karen.

2. Generally, they will be polite and may ask for your name or place of residence [for example: your zip code]. They may ask you this after your greeting (“Good[morning/evening]”) or after you finish your statement. This is to certify that you’re actually a constituent of your representative. They will not stop taking your calls just because you called more than once (although maybe don’t call repeatedly for an hour straight - that’s spam, not a statistically significant opinion). They have caller ID and can tell it’s the same phone number.

That’s it. This exchange can take less than two minutes. Do it once a week. Once a day. It gets easier. Keep calling. Nothing scares a politician more than numbers, and we know it works.

Keep. Calling.

[pineappical]

 i really wanted to post those gifs too but i wanted them to be side by side so heres also a drawing of these two idiots (affectionate) failing miserably at roblox bingo :-)

[area51-escapee]

I feel like it should be relatively easy to understand that transwomen/transfems are statistically and provably more likely to be targeted by transphobia and that yes, the demonization and and violence they face are demonstrably worse than what transmen/transmascs face, but that doesn’t mean transmen/transmascs don’t face face violence and oppression and transphobia or shouldn’t be taken seriously when we discuss how these things effect us. And yet.

[sanchoyo]

literally how watching arc v feels rn. jacks unbothered attitude is my only comfort while this scary cyborg man terrorizes me, personally

[watermelonsea]

Is anyone else just like, CONSTANTLY accidentally following people now? Every time I open this damn app I'm like "whom the hell". I don't think it's a forced follow situation, it's always blogs I've seen around, maybe liked or reblogged from once. It just seems way too easy suddenly to hit that follow button.

[vanityluvsme]

anyway who wants to drive me to ohio in july for my birthday? i trust that you, my mewtual, will not kidnap me, but even if you did you would be really niceys to me :)

[fishyfishyfishtimes]

Daily fish fact #6 444 205

Fish!

The fish like to have a little drink :) Sadly as they drink the water around them they also drink their own pee, and that is the curse that they will have to live with for the rest of their life

#fish #fishfact #fish facts #fishblr #biology #zoology

( 2 notes )

🪼 clovergonads follow

Tasseled wobbegong women >>>>>>>>>>>

🐸 i-eat-skin follow

bitch those are goosefish

( 27,196 notes )

🐚 seashell-on-the-seashore follow

Say what you want about fishblr updates, but I think this format for reblubs is a wonderful improvement over the previous one. One of the only times staff did good.

🐚 seashell-on-the-seashore

@featherstar53 If reblub chains got too long, new reblubs would start appearing as darker and darker until you couldnt see the text anymore. It mimicked how light disappears as you go deeper in the ocean but the sunken code this webbedsite runs on never set a cap for how dark it gets, so eventually you would have to copy ad paste the text on the reblubs onto somewhere to read them.

🐍 swamplamprey follow

It sounds fake but it's true! You can still find some older fishblr post screenshots with this effect:

This even went for full abyssal mode users! In their case, the text would slowly turn from white to dark blue, effectively making it impossible to read against the black background.

🦞 fastest-claw-in-the-west follow

I think it would be super funny if they brought this back but for individual posts. Like the reblubs stay the same colour but the posts themselves get gradually and gradually darker until you can't see them anymore lol. It would be disastrous but also funny and it might finally stop some of you frys from being so addicted to this webbedsite

#im all for a bit of chaos lol #treasure trove: talking tag

( 730 notes )

🌿 invertlike-behaviour follow

Okay for the record. My eyes are Red because I'm a COMMON ROACH! RUTILUS RUTILUS! It's not because I smoke seaweed!

🌿 invertlike-behaviour

Okay Yes I smoke seaweed all day. But the specific reason my eyes are red is Not That

( 104 notes )

🦈 spiritually-placoderm follow

🫧 surgeonsturgeon follow

OP you forgot brackish water and the option for inhabiting both

🦈 spiritually-placoderm

Shut your inferior ass mouth up

🫧 surgeonsturgeon

#(i couldnt find the actual gif i wanted to use but this weird tiger shark will have to do) #(not sure why his fins look like that)

( 1,020 notes )

☀️ slenderfish follow

"ocean sunfish have over 40 parasite species" factoid actualy just statistical error. average ocean sunfish is infected with only one or two parasites. Parasites Georg, the mola who suffers from every ailment known to fish and has over 1 000 000 000 parasite species infesting his flesh and organs, is an outlier adn should not have been counted

( 193,239 notes)

🪷 trout-about-you follow

Selfieeeee :3 (ignore the two sea lampreys attached to my flesh)

🪲 toebiter follow

how did you take the picture you aren't holding your phone

🪷 trout-about-you

The sea lamprey on the left took it for me

( 58 notes )

🔲 salmonidae-supremacy-deactivated

FISH USED TO MIGRATE THOUSANDS OF MILES TO BREED. WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS!!!!

IN MY DAY PUSSFISH LIKE THIS WOULD GET EATEN ALIVE BY REAL RIVER MONSTERS FOR BREAKFAST.

🐟 darting-action follow

these are Siamese fighting fish bruh.... They don't have migration as part of their life cycle lmao

🔲 salmonidae-supremacy-deactivated

OF COURSE THE YOUTH CAN'T PUNCTUATE THEIR SENTENCES PROPERLY. I SHOULDN'T EXPECT SO MUCH FROM THE SOFT FRY THEY ARE. ALWAYS GETTING RILED UP!

🔲 skip-hopper-deactivated

Ignore this guy, @darting-action. He's well known for saying offensive nonsense like this, I think he's bait and trying to get someone to bite.

🔲 salmonidae-supremacy-deactivated

YOU MUST BE ONE OF THOSE INBRED DOMESTIC SCUM OR HATCHED YESTERDAY SINCE YOU ENTIRELY LACK THICK SCALES. I SPEAK THE TRUTH AND ONLY THE TRUTH. IF YOU GET TRIGGERED THEN THAT'S NATURAL SELECTION, SON. YOU SHOULD FIGHT ME IN REAL LIFE.

🔲 walrus-tits-in-my-mouth-deactivated

You really dont know a thing about natural selection, do you? Bettas have flashy fins because they have to seem threatening to possible competitors. They don't migrate so they aren't built for that. They're built for living in ponds and marshes, low oxygen environments, and by cod, they are built for fighting territorial battles! You shouldn't underestimate a fish literally called fighting fish. They're very tough and hardy fish and can even send larger fish fleeing!

🔲 salmonidae-supremacy-deactivated

SIAMESE FLAILING PUSSFISH HAVE LADY FINS BECAUSE THEY'RE WEAK AND SOFT AND HAD HUMANS DECIDE WHO THEY BREED WITH FOR THEM. THEIR QUOTE UNQUOTE "FIGHTING PROWESS" SURE DIDN'T SAVE THEM FROM BEING PRISSY LITTLE PRINCESS FISHIES FOR LITTLE KIDS DID IT? THE INDUBIDABLE FACT IS THAT THEY'RE MUSKIE FOOD.

🔲 iknowthecrabbypattysecretformula-deactivated

Wait a minute... I recongize that picture on the right! That's from @betta-than-this 's OnlyFins! How did you get that picutre hmmm? Salmonidae? How on Ocean did you gain access huh?

🐠 betta-than-this follow

"Indubidable" is a pretty specific word to use. This you @salmonidae-supremacy-deactivated?

🔲 iknowthecrabbypattysecretformula-deactivated

LMAOOOOOO GOTTEMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

🔲 aquarium-life-deactivated

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

🐟 darting-action

woag i never saw this entire chain before until it hit me on my dashboard. Why does this have so many notes

Thanks fishblr user walrus tits in my mouth for biology info i didn't know

🫖 burgle-the-turts follow

Woah woah woah we're just gonna ignore this guy using p*ssfish as an insult!!???? THE CATFISH SLUR????????? No one is going to bring this up!!!!!???????

🔲 tilapia11128-deactivated

does anyone in this thread smoke seaweed

🌊 herringageposts follow

date of origin: 28th of august, 2017

( 392,229 notes )

🟧 sponsored

Suffering all alone, handsome?

No need to anymore.

👄 pollywannacracker follow

Reblub with your favorite snack in the tags! I’ll go first: coral polyps! :}

🚬 shark-noir follow

@ninjalantern-999

#as for me #my fave is definitely my lower set of teeth when they shed #crumchy :D

( 295 notes )

🩸 must-lunge follow

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA STUPID HUMAN DROPPED ITS ELECTRONIC CAMERA IN THE LAKE!!!!!!!! NEVER GETTING THAT BACK BUB!!!!!! I'M TELLING ALL MY ISOPOD AND MUSSEL FRIENDS AND THEY'RE GONNA LIVE INSIDE IT!!!!!

🧑 official-human-posts follow

ofishal human post

#ofishal human post #this post contains humans

( 891 notes )

🦦 hellofromtheotterslide follow

Wait, how come this site is called fishblr and not something like oceanblr or aquablr? Wouldn't that be more inclusive?

👑 goldielocks follow

I believe the name "fishblr" pays homage to the meaning of the word where just about everything in the water was considered a fish. It's why we have words like "shellfish", "whalefish", "jellyfish", "starfish".

Personally aquablr would work really well, too. There's a sizeable amphibious userbase on here.

🦐 worldwideshrimp follow

You forgot whale shark! Those arent fish either but are called fish

👑 goldielocks

....Whale sharks are fish. They are sharks. It's in the name.

🦎 eye-of-newt follow

But I thought it was a whale named after sharks? WHALE shark! Why else would they put whale up first?

👑 goldielocks

A whale named after a shark would be called a shark whale. You can take one look at a whale shark and see that, with its gills and fish tail, it is a shark.

⚪️ number1-seacucumber-ass-enjoyer-77 follow

Wait, then what about baby whales? Are those whales named after babies?

👑 goldielocks

If you're talking about the actual whale babies, then yeah. If you mean the mormyrids, small aquatic animals that can sense electricity, then no, those are fish. Sometimes names are inaccurate to what the animal really is.

🌌 themanta1234 follow

If you think about it, fishblr is also inclusive to aquatic tetrapods since they are lobe-fins, and therefore fish :D It's a term that can include everyone on here, the perfect catchall!

🦑 abyssal-gigantism follow

Ewwww fuck that definition. If mammals hear about them being fish on some sort of """"technicality"""" then this webbedsite is gonna get flooded with those self-important idiots! "OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOOOOO LoOk At MeEeEeEeEEE i'M a MaMmAL!!11!!! I TAKE CARE of mah BAAABIEEEES!1111 I'm SUCH a good MAMAAA!!! All those OTHER STUPID HEARTLESS ANIMALS could NEVER do as I DO!!! I LOVE sweating into my BAABIEEEES' MOUTH1!1!1!111!!! I'm FLUFFY and AWSUM and ERRYBODDY LUUUVSSSSS MEE!!!!!!!!!!111!!!!!!! You should all LUV me TOO!!!!"

Is THAT how you want every fishblr post to look!!!!??????

���� drippohippo follow

😨

🪄 magicmanatee45 follow

DD:

🎼 humpbacked-musician-offishal follow

:'''((((

🐋 blainvilles-bitch follow

🕶️ egg-laying-mammal-of-action follow

:///////////

🐢 greenXD follow

i think jellyfish shouldn't be classified as fish because they're clearly living spaghetti

🌜 foolish-idol follow

Great fucking post everyone. Hit the air bubblers

( 60,376 notes )

🟩 ultrahyva-heihoi follow

Guys what the fuck kind of sponsors does fishblr have I just saw an ad for having parasites housed in me who are they advertising to 😭💀💀

#i swear the quality of this site keeps going down and down #if you see ads for parasites then report the shit out of em #fuck em my friend got early onset cataracts due to parasites

( 4 notes )

😃 doweopenandcloseourmouthtoday follow

Yes! :) :O :) :O :) :O :) :O

[crazy-lazy-elder-sims]

omg if you are a Gale dekarios hater and think he is annoying just take your ass back to tiktok on this webbedsite we only love Gale of Waterdeep Mr. wizard man non of this bullshit about him being manipulative or whatever bullshit yall come up with

my boy is on his healing journey during the game from the most toxic power imbalanced relationship to ever exist and yall need to understand this

i could never say anything to a wizard with big brown eyes, whatever magic you cast, beautiful <3

[farmerlesbian]

I'm glad there's starting to be conversation on this webbedsite about the fetishization and constant sexualization and sexual harassment of trans women and transfem nonbinary people.

the solution to transphobia (and transmisogyny particularly) making trans women out to be shameful, gross, disgusting, repulsive, inherently sexual, dehumanized, a fetish, and a joke is not to.... lean in to that!! yes of course, some people are into it. there will always be someone who is down to be objectified! sometimes objectification can be hot! sometimes being the object of someone's fetish can be fun! but that's not everyone, and one person being down shouldn't be taken as a go-ahead to make these statements and "jokes". it shouldn't be the default or assumed method of interaction. it should not be the only way you are capable of expressing yourself around trans women. it should not be the immediate and only answer you come up with to try to show that you're not a transphobe. and it absolutely should not be the response to transfems speaking up about transmisogyny.

it is unacceptable to respond to criticisms of (trans)misogyny by telling (trans) women to get over it and stop complaining and just have sex (with you). the path to unity, community, coalition-building is through genuine listening and concern, real care and respect and love, interrogating ones own biases and misconceptions and misjudgment, not through dismissal, disrespect, ill-placed attempts at humor, lateral aggression and punching down, fetishization, sexualization, and objectification. just, take a moment to think about the implications, self reflect, and consider whether the comments are adding to harmful stereotypes. consider whether the recipient is open to hearing it. consider why it's funny to you.

[mod-sparky]

while taking to my therapist a while back she asked me "what would your ideal body be?" and i described to her a fantasy i have regularly where i am stood in a blinding light and all the layers of my body peel away until only my true self is left, no muscles, no blood, no bones, just me.

not sure she FULLY got it but im sure someone on this webbedsite will.

[thiswaycomessomethingwicked]

I know it is only anybodys guessing really, and I truly do not want to sound like 'the historian' but you would go as far as calling these relationships of napoleon 'homoerotic'? Why? Couldn't it be the case of him having just very warm attitude and be close to his friends like that?

Again nothing against it, but I needed to ask since I as well am the person to get alike towards my close friends and I don't feel it having any attraction undertones.

Thank you for the ask! As usual for me, my response got really long.

I mean correct! It’s literally anyone’s guess. Who knows? Certainly not me! Certainly no one who is alive right now!

I’m just a queer on the internet having fun who sees Napoleon and goes "ah yes, a chaotic bisexual even though the concept of modern sexual identity wasn't a thing in his time etc. etc. [insert all the other usual disclaimers required on this webbedsite]" so that's why.

[How do I know he’s a chaotic bi? Well, it’s very simple, he couldn’t sit properly in a chair, liked to sit on his secretaries’ laps, pull their ears, and tell them Fun Facts he learned that day, and wanted to make the tsar of Russia his mistress. He also dearly loved Josephine and wrote about how he liked going down on her. This is clear proof that he was a chaotic bi king and we should be so lucky to know this about him. ;)]

I'm also a writer who likes to slap a queer lens onto most things because that's how I role and I'm very unapologetic about it. Which most people who follow me know.

I’m also someone who has incredibly deep, intimate friendships with a close selection of people in my life that are not romantic/sexual or whatever in their nature—but they are incredibly intimate. They are friendships where partners of my friends have been jealous and insecure because of how close we are—which is a them problem, not an us problem.

I would go so far as to argue that friends are more likely to slot into that problematic category of “soulmate” than anyone romantic (ymmv). And from the outside, I’m sure people might read my friendships with a few people (have read them, in fact) as romantic/homoerotic and frankly I don’t care. Whatever. I know what my friendships are, why does it matter what other people read them as? More to the point, why does it matter that someone reads a dead person’s friendships as homo-something? How does that impact my friendships which may, or may not, mirror that dead person’s friendships? Who cares? One should love one’s friends however one wishes to. Fuck everything else.

--

In an effort to avoid the Great Queer Napoleon Discourse War of 2013-14 I shall include a disclaimer because hot damn do people get REALLY uppity about this: I’m a writer, first and foremost in all things. I’m not a historian. As noted above, I’m a queer fag on the internet having fun. Take what I say with a grain of salt.

(Honestly, doing anything with Napoleon’s sexuality aside from He Was the Straightest Straight Who Ever Straighted, gets everyone’s hackles raised. I think that says more about those with hackles up than it does the person going: maybe he might have had a bit of a queerness about him, it’s not implausible.)

--

Some general stuff on Napoleon & That Doesn’t Seem Entirely Straight, Even For the 18th and 19th Century:

From Cronin’s biography on Napoleon:

“Napoleon found that his friendships with men often began with physical attraction, and this took a curious form. ‘He told me,’ says Caulcaincourt, ‘…that for him the heart was not the organ of sentiment; that he felt emotions only where most men experience feelings of a different kind; nothing in the heart, everything in the loins and in another place, which I leave nameless.’ 

The feeling Napoleon described as ‘a sort of painful tingling, a nervous irritability…the squeaking of a saw sometimes gives me the same sensation’.”

In addition, Talleyrand speculated Napoleon and Bourienne were, uh, intimate in all senses of the word. Talleyrand, of course, well—one should treat his hot takes with some caution.

There is also the (in)famous letter Napoleon wrote to Josephine about Alexander where he said that he and Alexander were inordinately pleased with one another and if the tsar were a woman, he’d take Alexander as his mistress (Napoleon, honey, don’t write that to your wife).

I mean, do what you want with that. Take it for what it’s worth /shrug

---

Of the three friendships under discussion: Lannes, Duroc, Junot—I always read Lannes and Napoleon’s friendship as just friendship. Duroc and Junot though. That’s where we start getting into arguments for a homoerotic friendship—or romantic friendship, if one prefers that term.

I’ll do a little ramble for each, because they all deserve it.

Lannes

Napoleon’s friendship with Lannes was intimate, close, and they loved each other dearly—but as said, I always read them as friends. Even if they lived today and were free/able to be whatever they wanted to be to one another, it’d still just be friendship.

People did make Achilles/Patroclus references to them—particularly around Lannes’ death—but that was the mode of how people spoke back then. It’s the 19th century version of comparing everything to LOTR or Harry Potter (read another classical epic people, jeez).

Their friendship was volatile for sure—these are two hot headed, strong minded, opinionated men who were not afraid to snap and snarl at one another—but at the end of the day I do not doubt their love for each other. But it’s what we would term a platonic love.  

Brian Martin writes this in Napoleonic Friendship: Military Fraternity, Intimacy, and Sexuality in Nineteenth-century France:

Napoleon’s grief for Marshal Lannes took on the very public character of open lamentation. Rather than grieve behind closed doors and conceal his personal vulnerabilities in order to show public strength, Napoleon’s mourning for his beloved friend became a matter of great public spectacle. Like Achilles mourning his beloved Patroclus, Napoleon wept publicly and openly expressed his affection in a way that was widely reported, discussed, and admired by the officers and soldiers in his armies.

[…]

Napoleon’s public grief at the death of Jean Lannes represented a new model for social relations between soldiers in the early nineteenth-century France. weeping over his friend’s broken body, Napoleon demonstrated how the revolution and empire had made it possible not only for an emperor to grieve openly for a fallen marshal, but for a soldier to love his comrade. This uncharacteristic expression of affection between Napoleon and Lannes was echoes in similar relationships between officers and foot soldiers in Napoleon’s armies. Military memories of the first empire bear witness to a wide range of intimate relationships among generals, colonels, and captains as well as sergeants, corporals, and grunts (grognards), the infantry soldiers who made up the majority of the imperial armies. Napoleon’s love for Lannes might thus be said to represent a broad spectrum of masculine affection and intimacy in the ranks of the Grande Armée, or what could be called Napoleonic friendship.

So yeah, I’ve not much more to say on them. Their friendship was loving, affectionate, intimate, and complex. Lannes could be frustrated with Napoleon (often was, the longer Napoleon remained in power—because Lannes loved Bonaparte not the emperor), but Lannes loved his friend and Napoleon loved Lannes. But my read on them has always been that it was what we would term platonic.

------

Junot

This one is messy. Because Junot and Napoleon are messy people. I also think this one is the strongest case for “something more than friendship”. I personally believe Junot loved Napoleon in a deep, phenomenal, possibly obsessive fashion that absolutely was romantic—maybe sexual/erotic—and Napoleon for a time may have returned at least some of those feelings. Then it all went south.

I’m ripping a lot of this from a previous ask I received about Junot—since it covered a lot of the more romantic aspects of his and Napoleon’s relationship.

Junot and Napoleon were close friends when they were in their 20s. Incredibly close. Laure Junot, whose memoires one should treat cautiously, intimated that there was more than just friendship between them at this point. But if that is the case, we’ll never know for certain.

Brian Martin sums it up well (and saves me from having to dig out my copy of Laure’s memoir):

Soon after his imprisonment, Napoleon was released and exonerated, but with little money and no desire to take on a new military post in Brittany, he returned to Paris where, as Laure Junot explains, he lived with his comrade Junot and depended on his friend’s emotional and financial support … The 1794 letter from Toulon initiates a half-year period in the lives of the twenty-five-year-old Bonaparte and twenty-three-year-old Junot when … these ambitious young men relied on each other during their impecunious days in Paris. Describing how Junot “loved Bonaparte as one loves at the age” (1: 188), Laure Junot implies that the young Jean-Andoche developed an adolescent crush on Napoleon, as the two young men grew in intimacy.

[…]

Laure Junot tactfully observes many years later that it was difficult to assess the nature of these friendships [with Duroc and Junot] without offending their masculinity: “These are the very profound and abstract mysteries of the human heart. It is difficult to explain them without first wounding a man’s dignity” (11: 131).

In relegating Napoleon’s military relationships to the realm of the mysteries, Laure Junot defines Napoleonic friendship — long before “the love that dare not speak its name” was articulated by Lord Alfred Douglas in 1894 and invoked at Oscar Wilde’s trial in 1895 —as an enigmatic and unspeakable love incapable of being articulated without shaming a soldier’s manhood. Amid such ambiguity, it is unclear if such “mysteries” encompass both the emotional and the erotic. What is clearer is that Napoleon and Junot shared a degree of affection during their youth in Paris that was undeniably intimate.

As Napoleon climbed up the greasy pole, the power dynamic changed and expectations of interpersonal relationships became more formal putting a strain on his and Junot’s friendship. Junot, like many who knew Napoleon from the early days, loved Bonaparte, not the emperor. As Laure put it in her memoire: “Now let me explain the sadness and pain which afflicted Junot on learning that Napoleon was no longer his General Bonaparte of Toulon. Perhaps the affair simply followed a natural decline. But Junot … did not see it this way. He wanted reciprocity, which he craved even more as his own affectionate fantasies increased … He loved the man, not the emperor.”

In 1800, Napoleon named Junot Commandant of Paris on the condition that he marry because, it seems, there were too many rumours flying around about the two of them. (As noted above, Talleyrand was already making some “huh. Interesting closeness, there” comments about Napoleon.) Dutifully, Junot married Laure.

Junot always exhibited some signs of mental illness throughout his life and at one point he received a head wound (I forget which battle) that massively exacerbated whatever existing mental health troubles he had. (And note that this was one of many wounds - nor was it his first head wound. It’s just the one people in his own life pointed to as a moment of change.)

Junot had jealous and possessive tendencies, something that drove Napoleon a little batty, and they got worse. While Junot was in Portugal, and later Spain, he wrote Napoleon a series of desperate letters begging him to reappoint Junot as his aid-de-camp. We unfortunately don’t have these letters anymore, Napoleon was notoriously secretive and private when it came to personal correspondence and had a habit of burning lots of it. However, we do have Laure’s account of Napoleon’s reception of Junot’s pleading. Laure writes:

"Look here, Madame, what your husband writes to me!’ said the Emperor, ‘Read this and tell me if he sends you such letters."

I read these letters, and this caused me some pain: my husband sent me affectionate missives, but never in the tone of a lover; here were letters that resembled those between Julie and Saint-Preux, or those of the Portuguese nun.*

Napoleon then goes on and says:

“In admitting that Junot loves me more than anything in the world … [he demonstrates] that he does not love me more than his own ambition”

To which Laure replies:

“He loves you, Sire, more than all the honours that you can give, more than your crown, more than me perhaps, for it was pride that made me say the contrary just now, perhaps even more than his children!”

-

*Note: She’s referencing Guilleragues’s Portuguese Letters (1669) and Rousseau’s Julie or the New Héloïse (1761)

Also, as I said above, treat Laure’s accounts cautiously. As with all memoirs, she is positioning certain scenes with a purpose and some things are downplayed, or exaggerated, accordingly.

-

In 1813, Napoleon dismissed Junot from military duty and sent him off to be governor of Illyria which Junot, rightly or wrongly, saw as a form of exile. During his ambassadorship he famously entered a ballroom wearing nothing but his epaulettes and his medals. [above para' edited per conversation in the notes]

Brian Martin:

While one could blame Junot’s naked diplomacy on his progressive dementia, his shocking entrance can also be seen as a kind of buff rebuff to Napoleon. After a lifetime fighting for Bonaparte, watching shrapnel rip into young men’s bodies, leading thousands of soldiers to their deaths, and suffering twenty-seven wounds* of his own, Junot offered his own ravaged body as a hideous and spectacular product of Napoleon’s violence.

-

*Note: Junot says he had 17 wounds, not sure where Martin got 27 - unless there were wounds Junot wasn’t counting.

-

After this incident, Junot was swiftly recalled back to France where he soon after died by suicide.

In his final letter to Napoleon he wrote:

“I who love you with the affection of a savage for the sun, I who am entirely yours. Well then: this eternal war that we must fight for you, I want no more of! I want peace! I want finally to repose my tired head, my sore limbs … to enjoy that which I earned … with my blood! The blood of an honest man, of a good Frenchman, of a true patriot. I therefore ask, at last, for that tranquillity that I earned through twenty-two years of effective service and seventeen wounds from which my blood has flowed for my country, and for your glory.” (emphasis in original)

After Junot’s death, Napoleon ordered that Junot’s personal papers be seized and destroyed as he was afraid their personal correspondence might make its way to a public forum.

So yeah, Junot’s love for Napoleon was definitely on the romantic side, I would say. Because Napoleon burned all their correspondence we don’t know what he sent in reply to Junot—especially in the early days of their relationship. I suspect it was intimate and possibly in line with what Junot continued to send him throughout their life and like hell did Napoleon want that escaping to the public.

Anyway—Junot and Napoleon, I would argue definitely had some homoerotic/romantic undertones and such to their friendship. I think it was mutual in their 20s then Napoleon’s feelings retreated to more platonic but Junot’s never changed.

It just man, gives me strong flashbacks to when I was a teenager and one of my best friends at the time  declared herself my soulmate and carved my initials into her arm and left me a million and a half messages on the home answering machine and said that I was cold like Napoleon and she loved me for it etc. etc.

When I look at Junot and Napoleon I see myself and my old friend in all that glory of the strange complexities of young, intensely emotional and intimate friendships that absolutely blur the line into romantic/erotic.

------

Duroc

Ah sweet Duroc! Duroc who regularly compared himself to Junot in terms of his relationship to Napoleon.

Duroc to Laure Junot in May of 1813:  “Poor Junot! It’s that he’s like me! The Emperor’s friendship is our whole life.”

And again, this is from Laure’s memoirs:

‘Junot and some others,’ Duroc said to me, ‘misjudge me and misjudge my position as well. The Emperor would disgrace me if he made me a marshal of France. What would I do away from him? No doubt it’s a great honor; but my attachment to him, how could it not be affected by that distance? I love the Emperor as Junot loves him. And isn’t he going to choose the post of first aide-de-camp instead of that of governor of Paris? So why judge me otherwise!’

-

Duroc’s a hard one to pin down because he was such an exemplary marshal of the palace, in addition he left us no diaries or memoirs so we have the word of others and what survived of his letters, little else to go on.

However, I think it telling that Duroc compared himself to regularly to Junot—who everyone was aware of how he felt about Napoleon—and that Junot was so jealous of Duroc. That Junot saw Duroc as a rival for Napoleon’s affection and love but not Lannes tells me that clearly Junot could see the similarity of what Duroc and Napoleon had to what he and Napoleon may have once had but didn’t anymore. And, that Lannes was different. It was a different relationship and one that Junot didn’t find threatening.

It's also worth nothing that Duroc was the only one of Napoleon’s officers, aside from Lannes, who was allowed to use tu with Napoleon. Las Cases writes: “I’ve heard the Emperor say that in all of his military career, Duroc alone possessed his blind confidence and received all his affection … Duroc loved the Emperor for himself; he was devoted most of all to the private man, even more than to the monarch”

Duroc’s role as marshal of the palace also put him in an interesting position as a sort of quasi-wife to Napoleon. The role he played was very much a “wife” role—Cronin summarizes Duroc’s duties thus:

"Napoleon was struck by Duroc’s sweet nature, his beautiful manners and the patience which he himself lacked. So he employed his friend as a diplomat and when he became Emperor chose him to run the household and court. […] He had his hands full ensuring that the grocer did not overcharge for the Chambertin, since Napoleon would be sure to notice, and, as Napoleon put on weight, tactfully persuading the Imperial Tailor not to make new clothes but to let out the old ones a couple of inches. He also had to make peace when Napoleon lost his temper: pushing over the table, for example, when he saw crépinettes of partridge. He did this admirably, because he was devoted to Napoleon. Many a time, when the Emperor had hurt a visitor with a sharp word, Duroc would murmur on the way out: ‘Forget it. He says what he feels, not what he thinks, and not what he’ll do tomorrow.’"

No one else of Napoleon’s intimate friends really takes on that wifely role—even after Duroc’s death. Bertrand has the same role, Marshal of the Palace, and he was damn good at his job, just as Duroc was, but there was a difference in their relationship and Bertrand doesn’t read as so close and devoted on a marital level to Napoleon. Not that Bertrand didn’t love Napoleon, he did, gods know he did, but it was more in line with Lannes than Duroc or Junot.

Napoleon describes Duroc to Las Cases:

‘Duroc,’ concluded he, ‘had lively, tender, and concealed passions, little corresponding with the coldness of his manner. It was long before I knew this, so exact and regular was his service. It was not until my day was entirely closed and finished, and I was enjoying repose, that Duroc’s work begun. Chance, or by some accident, could alone have made me acquainted with his character. He was a pure and virtuous man, utterly disinterested, and extremely generous.’

[…]

When he [Napoleon] went to see Duroc, after he had received his mortal wound, he attempted to hold out some hopes to him; but Duroc, who did not deceive himself, only replied by begging [Napoleon] to make them give him opium. …

After this recollection, the emperor, with an apparent effort, began abruptly to talk of something else.

I believe that Napoleon and Duroc were able to see each other’s interiority in a way that few others were able to and that formed the basis for their affection, love and friendship.

Duroc’s letters to Napoleon, anytime they were apart, are also more intense than usual. Plenty of Napoleon’s friends wrote about wanting to be by his side when they were sent off on diplomatic missions or what have you. But Duroc’s express a particularly intense form of devotion:

Duroc to Napoleon, May 29, 1801:

I am waiting to leave, Citizen Consul, until I receive a response to the letters that I had the honor to write you, unless the circumstances or the letters I receive from Paris let me judge that I can leave earlier. I beg you to remember that I am eight hundred leagues from you and, although I’ve been well-received here, I am never better than when I am near you. (Emphasis in the original)

Duroc to Napoleon, July 7, 1801:

I have sought to conduct myself here, Citizen Consul, in a manner that would satisfy you. I am well-regarded and thought highly of everywhere because I belong to you particularly, but I will not be happy until I’m sure that I deserve your approval. I am waiting to set my departure until I know that you’ve received the letter that I had the honor to write you and that I sent with Captain Leclerc. I very much want to find myself near you as soon as possible. (Emphasis in the original)

When Napoleon offered to have Hortense marry Duroc, Napoleon’s proposition was that Duroc would receive five hundred thousand francs and be named commandant of the 8th military division and would be stationed in Toulon (Napoleon was against having a son-in-law in the house).

When the proposition was passed on to Duroc he turned it down because he didn’t want to be sent away from Napoleon’s side and if marriage meant being apart, he didn’t want it, even though from all accounts he was quite fond of Hortense (and she was fond of him).

Later, when Napoleon was having to negotiate his name in exile he said to Barry O’Meara:

“The name of General Bonaparte was the one which I bore at Campo Formio and at Lunneville, when I dictated terms of peace with the Emperor of Austria. I bore it at Amiens when I signed the peace with England. I should be proud to bear it still, but the honour of France forbids me to acknowledge the right of the King of England to annul the acts of the French people. My intention was to take the name of Duroc.”

But he felt he had to keep Emperor Napoleon in order to Make A statement.

In another account, I forget to who, he repeated his intent to have taken on Duroc’s name in exile in order to be a little more incognito/not draw attention to himself, but because England refused to acknowledge that he had been emperor he was like “fuck that, I’m going to insist on being called emperor”. So, had England not been like “you were never emperor” it’s possible Napoleon would have taken Duroc’s surname as his own.

How very married of them.

------

Apologies for the long reply. Not sure this will really answer anything, but it's an amalgamation of my thoughts.

Junot is the clearest of the homo-something friendship between Napoleon and another man. Like, I think that's a tough one to read as anything other than a messy break up. Which is why, when we were all nattering on about queering Napoleon in film yesterday, I focused so much on Junot over the others.

But same sex intimacy, even in Just Friends, can have homo-something undertones to it. Friendships can be complex, multilayered and include some romantic and erotic aspects to them. This doesn't mean those friendships are Romantic Relationships as we think of them, but if there's a romantic tinge to it, or a strong homoerotic tinge to it, then why not explore it? See where it takes the story or the interpretation and undestanding of the person and their actions. Maybe it'll go no where useful, maybe it will. Only one way to find out.

Thank you for the ask!

[heartshapedgreen]

cannot take most intersex people's discordance with trans people not mentioning intersexuality seriously considering how so much of it is hinged on arguments around transandrophobia + simultaneously denying tme/tma terminology. (the cognitive dissonance is unrealllll)

like whatever line of thought people follow when they homogenize all trans women as white, that's... most intersex blogs on here from what i've seen. like either they're white or nonblack who talk like That. so much so that one of the arguments i saw on an intersex blog was basically "forcing intersex people to adopt tme/tma language is strange because if i should add 'tme' to my bio, that means poc also have to mention they're 'nonblack'" and i was sitting there with tme + nonblack in my bio like.... Yea. maybe you should. (this is specifically important to me because i come from an ethnic group with a sizable black community who have influenced our heritage heavily & i have friends who are black and like... i hate the thing racialized people do on the internet where they go 'i'm brown' meanwhile they grew up cared for by a brown maid and they're the daughter of an oil tycoon. but also like... every ethnic group has nonblack & black members lol? so that's a normal thing to mention.)

there is a lot to be said re: tma/tme terminolgoy, like how transmisogyny functions differently in other societies and how that can influences the usage (or lack thereof) of this language. but like. this is the webbedsite where racialized trans women are purged incessantly & it's just useless to create discussions around that because it will never lead anywhere productive other than white people being voyeuristic.

something that always strikes me as odd is when trans people are posited as the enemy when it's not mentioned that intersex people are forcibly medicalized whenever the topic of hrt comes around is that...... cis people will also look at my intersex body and think i've been damaged by hrt, the same way they talk about exterminating perisex trans people, when i literally Just Woke Up Like This™ & i feel like there is a lot of projection for the hurt that causes onto trans people being happy about hrt changing their bodies. (the implication is always that trans and intersex people experiences are always mutually exclusive as if intersex people don't seek out hrt or are happy about the weird fucked up ways our hormones work on their own. idk about the rest of ya'll but i feel like a mad scientist and the experimented on all at once. it's fun!)

like i think it's important for trans folx to understand when making jokes about "cis people receiving hrt so easily" that. they actually do not. that's the entire point. that's the entire reason why we have to fight for hrt to be normalized. the ones who are receiving it "easily" are forced into it because their body is "damaged". but it's also odd to me that intersex arguments against forced medicalization hinge on fearmongering over hrt the same way perisex cis do & they don't seem to consider that... hrt is ALSO not accessible to us if we want to pursue it out of our own will. it's about autonomy & personhood but that's lost in all these weird transmisogynistic bs. so it's unsurprising to me that none of these discussions are contextualized in an intersectional lens, people turn away their eyes from the fact black transfems bear the brunt of interphobia/transmisogynoir (yes even perisex black transfems!!!!!!) and i have to see stupid shit like "if we're forced to use tme/tma terminology to mark our position in the gender hierarchy then doesn't that mean we should adopt nonblack more widely to show our racial privilege??? fucked up and weird if true!! i'm so smart."

[subspaceskater]

Hello! Does "My life can't go on without me" have an update schedule? I read the first two chapters today and I'm already a huge fan

~ @theramblingvoid

hii thanks! it does not have an update schedule. i'm releasing chapter by chapter rather than page by page and it is kind of hard to predict how long each chapter can take. especially because of the ailments and the curses etc.

one way to be sure you see when the next chapter comes out is..... signing up for our newsletter! on our webbedsite. https://subspaceskater.com/mailinglist/ you can get a little email whenever a new chapter is out :)

also when i'm working on it i'm kind of obnoxious about posting updates on tumblr so if you're following me you will see a bunch of posts as i make progress like "yay finished thumbnails!" "backgrounds suck ass!" "why did i thumbnail so many closeups of hands!" etc etc.

[why-bless-your-heart]

I love the compliments I get on this webbedsite.

Anyway, some beginning world-building notes for these guys!

Lirnie, pl. Lirnie. Signatories of the Salat contract as of twelve generations.

A cephalopodic race, their pehrensile face tentacles and tongues are able to grasp and manipulate with surprising dexterity. Their foot tentacles — of which they have 32 — are both their means of locomotion, primary sense organs, and a vestigial defense system, with each tentacle carrying a small electrical charge. These shocks are rarely lethal, but often uncomfortable and startling.

Lirnie technology takes full advantage of these small electrical currents, which has the unintended (they claim) result of excluding the majority of other races from being able to use their devices.

Their vision is monochromatic and best suited to low-light environments. They tend to be attracted to high-contrast patterns as a result.

Their skin is thick, rubbery, and mottled. The patterns of said mottling is highly individual, and aids in identification. It is common for one's personal name to actually be a description of the specific mottled pattern the person was born with.

Originally a semi-aquatic predator species, they retain a highly carnivorous diet and a preference for high-humidity environments.

Sexual dimorphism among the Lirnie is not readily apparent to the outside viewer, and the average Lirnie prefers to keep his or her sex "under their hat," so to speak. They lay eggs rather than give live birth, and a family's hatching pool is considered sacrosanct across their cultures.

[codecicle]

wanted to apologise for possibly being someone who fucked up ur tl with 18+ slime posts (coming to grips with how tagging works on this here webbedsite!) please take my sincerest (anonymous) apologies ur a cool goober 🙏

ay man it's alright!! really!!! i understand most of the 18+ people are coming from websites like twitter or tiktok so they don't quite understand how it functions :-) if you ever need a tutorial or any help with understanding the culture here, shoot me an ask! it's insanely different from other social media and i completely understand its weird to adjust to and navigate. peace and love + have fun with your slimeposting ✌️