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lullabyes22-blog · 10 days ago

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In FbnF, out of both his 'son in laws' who does Silco hate more? Viktor or Ekko?

Given Silco's mile-wide possessive streak re: Jinx, it's hard to imagine him reacting well to anyone at all getting within 20 ft of her…

That said, it's ironically Viktor.

There are a lot of similarities within their differences - former orphans, men with disabilities + limited lifespans, a visionary drive to change things for the better. The way they see Jinx is also through an ironically similar lens:

What a dynamo of potential. What a fascinating anomaly.

What a perfect catalyst.

All of this, taken altogether, triggers a very real "you think you can keep her from me?" instinct on both sides. Viktor believes, strongly, that Silco eclipses Jinx's full capacity to shine bright and improve the lives of thousands. In FnF, he's very much coded as the visionary martyr (contrasted with Silco's visionary villain) - willing to sacrifice himself in pursuit of the greater good, knowing that that, in the end, is the true definition of legacy.

Naturally, Silco sees, in Viktor, the same self-destructive tendencies and the same unflinching belief that the ends justify the means. He also has every reason to believe that Jinx, by pure accident, could end up a casualty of Viktor's single-minded pursuit for a purer, more perfect world - which, to Silco, is anathema as for him freedom is rooted in shades of gray and the ugliness of the real.

It is the latter, specifically, that leads Silco to resent Viktor. He understands the desire to build and protect something, he understands the willingness to do whatever it takes. But a martyr always dies in a ring of blood and is forgotten within a generation.

The only ones who will remember his loss are his enemies, and the children who have inherited the burden of carrying on his mission.

Jinx, in contrast, is a survivor. She must outlive them all and, in a sense, must carry their memories long after their bones are dust.

Jinx, therefore, must walk among the living.

With Viktor, she will walk into an early grave.

Which is where Ekko comes in. And it's a pity that fandom seems unwilling to examine how many similarities Ekko and Silco share as foils, largely because it's subsumed by the more immediate parallels of Timebomb and their teenaged dramas.

(Sssh, I live for their drama <3).

Ekko is, in a sense, the prodigal son who never came home. He is the living ghost of Silco's past: the drive to do good, the impetus to protect, the fierce, desperate desire to leave a lasting impact. They're both revolutionaries, and rebels with a cause, and leaders of their communities. And perhaps the greatest similarity between them is their fixation on Jinx, and how that throws them off their game and makes them second-guess their choices.

Ekko, like Silco, is fiercely protective of Jinx. But unlike Silco, who understands the complexity and danger of Jinx's nature, Ekko sees the childhood friend in her infinite potential for sweetness and goodness, as well as the capacity to use both gifts for the better.

Silco wants to nurture Jinx's barbs and whet her teeth. He wants to prepare her for the long march and the dark times that will inevitably come.

Ekko believes, strongly, that if he can get Jinx to open up and let him in, then there's every chance of her relearning to trust the softer sides of herself. There is every chance she can come home, and be, if not Powder again, then someone Powder might've been, if trauma and fate had allowed.

Silco is deeply afraid, on a fundamental level, of what Ekko will bring to light. He's afraid that his own perceptions of the world will be proven untrue and, with it, all of his carefully crafted snares to keep Jinx close. All his efforts to make Jinx strong; undermined by the boy who will revert her to a needy weakling - except that weakling is happier.

Weaker, yes, but happier.

(What he really dreads is being shown that reliance on others - a community to support you, a family to love you - is not weakness, and that his own terror of abandonment are what ultimately trapped him on the very pinnacle of power he cut throats and trampled ideals to climb. That there is hope for Jinx and, with it, his own redemption).

But Ekko is not a martyr. He's a dogged survivor, and that, if nothing else, Silco respects.

In that sense, I'd say Ekko might actually have a shot of being welcomed past the front door. Viktor would be given an RV and told to stay in the backyard.

Because fundamentally, Silco knows that, in time, his hold over Jinx will falter. He knows his own death is not a possibility but an inevitability, and he knows that, when he goes, she will be lost for a time.

And he wants, above all else, to keep her alive and whole and safe.

In his gut, he knows that Ekko, not Viktor, can give her that. Because where Viktor can only give Jinx the bright but unyielding scaffolding of a new future - Ekko can provide the foundation to build a home upon it.

(And in FnF, Silco is subconsciously prone to gravitating toward 'stabilizing' partners to temper his own volatility. Or, if not stabilize, then at least serve as anchors: Vander's down-to-earth sense of warmth, Sevika's bluntness and practicality, Nandi's unapologetic embrace of his messiness, Mel's mercy and her faith in a greater destiny.)

(It's not a stretch to imagine him recognizing a like-minded partner for Jinx in Ekko)

tl;dr: Silco projects all his sharpest edges on Viktor, and therefore can't see him as a positive partner for Jinx. Whereas in Ekko, he sees sunnier roads untraveled, and can't help but wonder if that's the sort of life she should've had, in the first place.

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#arcane #arcane league of legends #forward but never forget/xoxo #arcane silco #asks #silco #forward (never forget)/xoxo #arcane jinx #jinx #arcane ekko #ekko #jinx x ekko #ekkojinx #timebomb #vinx science bros #jinxtor #jinx x viktor

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aheathen-conceivably · 1 year ago

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There came a day when Josephine couldn’t try any longer. She couldn’t bear to smile or socialize while insults were thrown in her face, or try to stay out of the way while she became more and more useless to people who had once relied on her. The idea of trying, only to be defeated or scolded or ignored, became an insurmountable task, one laden with her absolute lack of independence in this place where she relied on everyone else to teach her anything.

Even her clothes, the apron and her dirt stained hands, obscured who she thought she was. She no longer recognized her own life; her goals and her plans had been subsumed in the dry, desperate air around her until she felt like a husk of who she had once been. The woman in the mirror was someone else entirely, someone with no utility, a bother to those around her, a failure without a future.

So one morning instead of rising and doing it all again, of trying and trying until she was faced with the possibility that she was the failure, Josephine simply stopped trying. Her legs seemed unwilling to move, to hold her weight atop the roughened floorboards, and for the first time in her life she gave into the inertia. Giorgio asked no questions other than if he could do anything for her, so as soon as he left she rolled onto her side to watch the shadows grow longer, forgetting who she was or how she had gotten to this strange and foreign place at all.

As the hours passed the shadows moved and desert sunbeams shielded her from life outside the windows: from the beggars on the street, from her own fear of giving into her past, from the people she loved most, and even from Violette, who she knew would never forget seeing her in such a broken state. She hid away until weeks became months and the vast majority of her hours were spent sleeping, or flitting between bouts of sleep as she spiraled deeper into a hole that she had never intended on falling into at all.

Josephine woke to the sound of the front door of the cabin; from one glance at the sunbeams she knew it was somewhere near sunset. That sound meant that she needed to open her eyes, that Zelda could soon appear at the door, her voice soft as she offered pleasant platitudes and flitted hands in an attempt to lift her spirits. But the approaching footsteps were too heavy for that, which meant that she would either have to rouse herself to look up at her brother, making some excuse to come to their cabin but clearly just there to check on her, or even worse, Giorgio.

When she had first taken to bed he had spent nearly every spare second with her. He had even carried the radio into the room, attempting to play it and tell her stories before besieging her to come outside, or bringing an endless bounty of flowers picked from the desert sands. But more and more regularly, his footsteps would go straight to the kitchen to pour a cup of moonshine. That day, she hoped it would be the latter.

Instead the steps grew closer and the door opened, revealing Giorgio’s dirt stained face. Jo stared at him for a moment, wondering if the lines she could see now had always been there, or if they had grown more drawn in the desert air. She did know that the stubble was new, and it made him seem like a different man. It matched the overalls and ripped pants he always wore now, so different from the fedoras and pinstripes she had once associated with him.

He looked like a stranger, the same way that the room often spun and distorted until she no longer recognized it. Then the sun would sink below the red rocks and the shadows disappeared, suddenly throwing the entire space into darkness and she could truly forget who she was, who this bearded stranger who now slept on the couch and avoided her presence could possibly be.

Giorgio opened his mouth to speak and a look of guilt stricken agony crossed his face. Josephine met his eyes numbly, bracing herself for what seemed like remorseful admittance. Then he seemingly thought better of it and turned around, closing the door and retreating back down the hallway as he realized that the moonshine was the better option after all.

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#1930 #sims 4 historical #ts4 historical #ts4 decades challenge #sims 4 decades challenge #sims 4 legacy #ts4 legacy #sims 4 story #ts4 story #the darlingtons #1930s #gif warning #josephine duplanchier #giorgio mistretta

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trans-queen-administrator · 1 year ago

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Taylor being paranoid about her passenger is such a fun character trait. Like none of her friends really seemed to give much of a shit when they learned about passengers from Bonesaw, but Taylor consistently notes the times her passenger acted without her consent, she tries to talk with it, communicate with it, just anything to learn what this thing that can control her without her say wants with her. One of my favorite little details is that during the timeskip this was the focus of a lot of her therapy sessions with Yamada, trying methods like hypnosis to communicate. I think part of it is that she's inherently just paranoid about the fact that this thing is helping her sometimes and she doesn't know why and she HAS to figure it out because no one would help out of the kindness of their heart, and another part is just that she can't bear to not be in control and this is something that threatens that in a very ominous way.

Another aspect of her paranoia towards her passenger is that she doesn't want to take blame for her own actions I think. During the Behemoth fight when her ally tried to shoot Phil Sē, she pulled the gun off target with silk and got him killed. She's the one who pulled the string, but because she's genuinely unsure if it was her being wary or her passenger setting up the string she settles on the second option because it absolves her of the possible blame or need to admit she's paranoid and ready to betray people in an instance. When Glenn shows her the video of her being the most terrifying fucker in existence she ignores how horrifying she is and fixated on how her passenger moved her, and then she doesn't have to think about the fact that she'd fit right into the ranks of the Slaughterhouse Nine because well, she can blame her passenger and focus on that instead. This applies to other people too, she sees Lung not using his power and thinks that maybe he's concerned about his passenger like she is. She projects hard onto Sophia in my opinion when she says that she got violent because of her passenger. If this person she doesn't like isn't to blame for everything she inflicted on Taylor, the surely Taylor can't be blamed for the violent steps she took to take over a city. It's another way she rationalizes everything to herself, if something is so bad that she can't justify it immediately there's always the excuse of "my passenger made me do it." But crucially, Taylor ends up being aware of the fact that she's doing this during Gold Morning.

And I think it's really good that this is something she grows and accepts about herself. It's wonderful growth for a character who's so often too stubborn to move herself forward. She's generally more in touch with her passenger during Gold Morning, like the time when she thinks that her and her passenger were in agreement in wanting to hurt Scion on the oil rig. No one else in Worm really seems to accept their passengers, Riley is questioning how much of herself has been subsumed by it, Eidolon is always annoyed it doesn't give what he wants, and most other people don't even know about them. But Taylor forms a bit of a symbiosis with hers after a long time rejecting it at every turn. I think this quote really sums up her feelings towards the end.

And by towards the end I mean like, at the very end, because immediately after this thought she becomes Khepri, and yet another fucking theme and character trait cumulates and reaches its peak with Speck. God damn what a good arc. The blur between Taylor and her passenger that she always feared is finally an actual thing consuming her, and she can finally communicate with her passenger as well. I do wonder what this is like on her passengers end. It's clearly down for the idea of killing its maker, and it's heavily implied that her passenger does care and doesn't want to actually leave Taylor as a husk (too lazy to get the quote because I've been typing for 45 minutes but Contessa remarks upon the administrator claiming everything about her until there's nothing left and she feels fear that she thinks is from both her and her passenger. 30.7 I think, near the end). But there's still so much about Taylor's passenger that's unknown. Was communication something it may have wanted when Taylor kept trying to communicate, but doing so required punching holes in the connection that would lead to more bleed through and functionally destroy its host? Did it slowly grow to care for Taylor more than the cycle, or was it always wanting to fight Scion? Did Taylor's autistic swag convince a multidimensional alien made of crystal to rebel? Is Queen Administrator trans? Idk how to end this post if it's not obvious, sorry.

#worm #parahumans #taylor hebert #skitter #weaver #khepri #queen administrator #ramble #sorry for the abrupt ending but uhhh enjoy the thoughts #travesty I haven't posted about this a lot yet considering my url #also just edited out like 4 typos whoops. sleeby

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wishesofeternity · 2 years ago

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“The gender system in which Margaret (of Anjou) lived theoretically denied that a woman could ever hold political authority. At the same time, however, it permitted and even encouraged women to act in ways that had political consequences; this was most true for the queen. This uneasy duality made transgression possible and even provided Margaret with a loyal following, while it demanded that she continue to present herself as no more than the king’s wife and intermediary to his subjects. By invoking the king’s authority, or the latent authority of her young son, Prince Edward, Margaret was able to exercise considerable power. It was power, nonetheless, that had to be constantly renegotiated and reaffirmed by further appeals to and displays of male authority. Thus, this exercise involved a pretense, while the need to maintain the pretense automatically limited its reach.”

Helen Maurer, “Margaret of Anjou: Queenship and Power in Late Medieval England” / “Margaret of Anjou and the Loveday of 1458: A Reconsideration” in “Traditions and Transformations in Late Medieval England”

“Although late medieval queenship provided access to power, it did not give the queen institutionally recognized authority. Operating from a position outside the formal government, her political influence was presumed to lie in her acts of mediation or intercession, at all times subsumed by her husband's authority. In fact, her role, though unofficial, complemented his. When the king was expected to be strong and wise and stern, it was helpful to have a balancing influence that allowed him to bend without appearing weak, to change his mind without looking foolish, and to moderate harshness without forfeiting credibility. The queen 's intercession allowed him to do these things while confirming his authority through her own subordination as appellant. For the queen, of course, such acts strengthened impressions of her own influence, as someone who could be approached for favour with the hope and expectation that her favour would bring results.

... The nature of the queen's accepted role, which was both limiting and empowering, has a bearing on Margaret's broader exercise of power in the later 1450s. In early 1454, during Henry's illness, her bid for a formally recognized regency failed. Thereafter, when she again reached for power at the end of the second protectorate, she did so through traditional means. For the remainder of the reign she continued to represent herself as subordinate and adjunct while asserting the king's-and sometimes her son's-authority. But, in fact, she wielded increased power herself. It is difficult to say to what extent this amounted to a deliberately thought out policy on her part, but it was a natural one, for it built on understood relationships and, superficially at least, appeared not to violate the accepted order.

Three examples demonstrate how this worked. In autumn of 1456, some months after the duke of York's second protectorate ended, court and king moved from London to Coventry at Margaret's instigation, and the chief officers of state were replaced by persons whose loyalty carried no Yorkist taint. One of the new officers was the queen's chancellor, Lawrence Booth, who became keeper of the privy seal, thus giving Margaret access to what R.L. Storey called "the mainspring of all government action". Although John Watts has found a single instance when Margaret and Booth were apparently sealing writs in the king's absence, this is not an accurate measure of her power, which remained informal rather than institutional. Around the same time as Booth's appointment, Margaret' s grand reception into Coventry was a highly gendered production that praised her, foremost, for her motherhood. Secondary references to Henry as her liege lord explicitly underlined her subordinate role as wife. Even the appearance of a dragon-slaying namesake St. Margaret in the last pageant, which might seem to be a nod towards a kind of masculine agency, avoided anomaly by turning out to be strictly an intercessor on the queen's behalf.

Margaret's influence over the prince's council also constituted an expansion of her power to govern, although the formal representation of her role is similarly opaque. The patent creating the council refers to its mem bers as "the most honorable, excellent, diligent and experienced men" - the word used is "viros" - which becomes more evocative once it is announced that they are to act "with the approval and agreement of ... the queen". " What this amounted to was the insertion of Margaret's influence, by the king's authorization, into the normal functioning of an otherwise normal institution. Her role was noted in subsequent council warrants issued in the prince's name with the advice of the council and the assent of his mother the queen.

The formula is significant: the prince's name provided authorization and legitimacy for whatever was done, although his actual participation was fictive since he was only 3 or 4 years old. In practice, the council's deliberations together with the queen 's assent made the relevant decisions. Yet there is a second fictive layer, contained in the nature of the documents themselves. Although the queen's assent appears to be nominal only - a form of rubber-stamping - it should be noted that the power to assent can become the power to deny, and that both together can amount to the power to initiate or to give direction. From a commonsense point of view, the extent of Margaret's power seems obvious. Nevertheless, in its formal representation it appears as if at one remove, its edges and its impact blurred by the more conventional phrases in which it is embedded.

As a last example, a pair of letters written by the king and queen in 1457 in support of John Hals for the deanery of Exeter explicitly reveal the way that Margaret's power worked. There must have been some foot-dragging, for on 31 October the king wrote to the chapter to remind them of his recommendation, "wherein we trust for certain that you have done and will do your part ... to the accomplishment of our desire", and to assure them that his will was "immutable". It was, on the whole, a mild letter." Margaret's letter, written a week later, was not. Expressing surprise and dismay that the king's wishes could be disregarded, she exhorted the chapter to "be inclined and yield to the accomplishment of my lord's invariable intention and ours in this matter" in order to remain within the king's, and her, good grace." Although Margaret's power was then waxing, Henry never once mentioned her or that this was a joint recommendation. But, then, he was the king. By contrast, Margaret referred to him repeatedly, being careful to associate her wishes with his and to present her case in a manner that mad e her indignation and stern words no more than the supporters of his rights and intentions. These letters show how Margaret's power depended upon her invoking the king's authority, but they also hint at a shift in their relationship, with Margaret appearing as the more active party.

Margaret's activities, however well masked, did attract some attention. Thomas Gascoigne, twice chancellor of Oxford and an assiduous compiler of notes about things that irked him, complained, probably in 1457 when Margaret's power had become more evident, that the queen ruled so that everything was done, for better or worse, according to her will. Gascoigne favoured the Yorkists and already bore a grudge against the queen for coming to England without a proper dowry and for the loss of Maine and Anjou. The point of this complaint, however, seems to be simply that she had taken an inappropriately active role.

This theme appears again in the gossipy-and treasonous-remarks of one Robert Burnet, who was indicted in November 1457. Specifically, Burnet criticized the queen for waging men to go overseas (presumably to fight) and Henry for losing France and for sleeping too much since St. Albans. There is no evidence that Margaret was raising troops to go overseas or anywhere else at this time, and no one knows where Burnet got his information about Henry's sleeping habits. But these allegations need not be literally true, to illustrate a perceived imbalance in the activities of the king and queen, with the queen doing what the king should have done while the king failed to live up to expectations of his role. Thus, it appears that while Margaret continued to represent herself as intermediary and subordinate to Henry, an informal and unplanned role reversal had been taking place. Although it was occasionally noted and criticized, it could never openly declare itself and, hence, could never be complete.

#historicwomendaily #margaret of anjou #history #wars of the roses #power and authority are mistakenly conflated a lot in Margaret's case and it can get very frustrating #circumstances enabled/forced her to wield the former on an exceptional scale; but she utterly lacked the latter #for example: compare Margaret's obvious but informal influence with the crown prince's council #with her successor Elizabeth Woodville's formal political authority as a council member and official administrator #power and authority can and have overlapped with medieval queens #but in Margaret's case I think Helen Maurer's careful distinction between the two is very important and accurate #15th century #english history #mine #queue

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liketwoswansinbalance · 1 year ago

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Excerpts from The One True School Master of Vault 41

These are two excerpts from my draft that I think I can share without disclosing major spoilers.

Warning: Contains blood and injury.

@discjude I should probably also mention, when I said "humorous," it's really just a couple lines. The whole thing probably seems a bit dismal. So, the first excerpt is the "humorous" one, and the second is the serious one. Also, there's a reason why the Wizard Tree is burnt, if you think it contradicts its canon descriptions in OTK.

⸻

A hideous, sickening CRACK from without interrupted them.

Sophie glanced worriedly at the charred, blackened husk of a tree around her, a single, unspoken question in her eyes.

“Broken bone,” Rafal determined, casually conclusive without a hint of emotion or morbidity.

“How in the world do you know that, pray tell?”

Rafal rolled his shoulders back, straightening. “Practice,” he answered. “I’ve heard it often enough.” He did not elaborate.

Typical Rafal, really. Nothing to stir up a fuss about, Sophie dismissed. She watched as he found a serviceable foothold in the wood, so he could scale the trunk-length, and reach the opening at the top where she’d first fallen through from the boughs high above. Only the faintest shafts of faltering daylight cut through the dark that subsumed them now.

He had to conserve his magic until he needed it more urgently as his immortality seemed compromised. His breath ran a bit ragged, and his strength had waned since the last time she’d seen him, as he died. They probably wouldn’t have the chance to rest until she reunited with Agatha and Tedros, and not even then. They had to reach the Schools, so they could redouble their efforts against Japeth. The outcome barely boded well though. It wasn’t heartening in the least. Even with her half-alive sorcerer, their pitiful forces were paltry compared to Japeth’s.

She began to make her way out, to climb up and out of the Wizard Tree after him. Her heels kept slipping, sinking into hollows and gouging the brittle, burnt inner walls of wood, now riddled with puncture marks and splinters that scraped her hands raw until pinpricks of blood appeared. Tears sprang to her eyes as she took a breath, attempting to calm herself.

Rafal offered her a hand.

She took it.

Hers was just as cold as his, he noted, pinning his gaze on her one, red-soaked, rusted, white sleeve.

The two of them emerged from the hollow inside of the tree, and Sophie attempted to brush off her concern, flush against the rough, dead bark, while straddling a branch that bowed slightly under her weight. Could it be the dragging, heavy, silken layers of her gown weighing her down? She just had to lower herself down to the ground, branch by branch.

She didn’t move, fixed in place by fear, gripping her branch until her knuckles turned as white as her dress had once been.

Even if everything was dwarfed by the great height of their vantage point, quite a battle persisted far below, a lot of figures scrabbling in the dust, others picking their way up the formidable tree, the dull clang of metal on metal ringing out, the shouts of men resounding. And, on the far side of the brawl, one lone, dark figure sprawled in the dirt, coated in blue pollen, choking and hacking, clawing at his—or her—throat?

Rafal reached out and steadied Sophie with a hand to her shoulder as he leaned over from where he was seated astride his own swaying branch.

Yet, something still nagged her, and her thoughts darted away from the potential fall she had before her. Just whose bones could it have been? What if it was someone she knew?

Well, Agatha had the answer to that.

[Timeskip to a different scene. A lot happens between points A to B on the run from the Snake, but that will be in the final draft.]

⸻

[After the timeskip and a harrowing chase. There are scenes missing between here that will be in the final draft.]

Kiko quaked on the polished balcony of Merlin’s Menagerie, peeping at a tangled, three-headed mass, silhouetted by the red, sinking sun, and flying in the sky above the Schools on the horizon! No, toward the Schools!

In the dying light, the three figures in flight rapidly descended, narrowly clearing the sharp spires of the School gates. Were they heading toward the clearing that fronted Good, the great lawn spangled with flowers? No, the mass landed on the man-made, cement island in Halfway Bay, near where the Schools’ dark and clear waters met, the way oil repels water, colliding but never melding due to the magical barrier in place. The waves crashed onto shore, below the former School Master’s silver tower, now Dean Sophie’s residence, and the bay beneath the bridge shone, refracting broken garnet and silver hues.

The mass promptly separated into three people. Two girls and a tall boy. The boy, who appeared to have jarred his feet, collapsed in exhaustion. One of the girls in a billowing, red-and-white gown knelt down to examine him, and the second girl prodded him with her clump-clad foot, but lost her balance and fell, arms flagging and windmilling. The first girl rushed over to her instead. The boy rose by himself, and he and the first girl led the second, fallen girl to the entrance of the School for Good, crossing the bridge without issue.

Kiko rushed down the slick, glass staircases to the entrance, almost tripping over herself. She had to get down in a hurry, to greet, or to possibly fend off these new arrivals—and find out who they were!

Kiko gasped, and just about dropped dead from shock, gaping in horror at the procession which filed into Good’s glass foyer.

Sophie entered first. She looked vaguely disoriented and disheveled, like an ill-treated porcelain doll as she stumbled forward gracelessly. Her complexion was bloodless, drained, as if the blood coursing through her veins as been siphoned away and sprayed all across the front of her prim, lacey, white wedding gown, its hem that was intended to skim the floor, draping in folds, torn to threadbare tatters. Flecks and smatters and streaky smudges of blood adorned her gown. It wasn’t all fresh blood, but she was still pale and staggered as if she were suffering from some sort of invisible blood loss. Kiko suspected the one aggravated arm, with a once-white sleeve that was soaked through. It was particularly rusty near her wrist and all along her forearm.

Agatha groaned in pain.

“Don’t ask,” Sophie snipped. “It’s a long story. Longer than we have time for.”

Agatha hobbled in second on what seemed to be a broken leg. Her arm was looped through Sophie’s, and she was barely able to shuffle forward as she had a significant limp. One entire side of her body was covered by a medley of unsightly purple, black, and blue bruises. And, thin cuts and scratches and shallow lacerations all over her bloodied, exposed limbs, injuries sustained from her fall from the Wizard Tree though Kiko couldn’t begin to guess their source. The wind had whipped the snarled branches around, lashing Agatha. She was paler than ever.

And, she was coated in dust, dirt, soot, and—was that blue pollen? She wore a soiled, raggedy black sack of a dress, like she’d reverted to her Graveyard Girl self, and worse still, had ceded to a dust bath. Kiko also detected an odd lump, a canvas bag slung over Agatha’s narrow frame.

Then, the School Master?

The School Master supported Agatha’s other side in his grasp. He met Kiko’s gaze, and she shuddered reflexively, thoughts of wicked geese and mogrification cycling around her mind, even if at this moment he looked too spent to pose much of a threat.

He stood in the doorway, grey and haggard, dour shadows under his eyes, exhausted beyond belief. A deep, dark shade of garnet permeated his clothes, the same black, double-breasted, dictator jacket, slacks, and tall boots Kiko remembered from the Great War, yet his clothes were rumpled and sooty, and the smears of coagulated blood had nearly oxidized to black. At least half of his scalp was crusted with thick, clotted blood, already dried and matted in his snow-white hair, plastering it, stained red, to the side of his face. It was as if he’d been cleaved through the skull with a rather wide blade.

“Well?” Sophie demanded harshly to poor Kiko who was stunned speechless. “Aren’t we going to bring her to the infirmary?”

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fbiartist · 2 months ago

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“You called.”

Send "You called." for me to write a starter where my muse rushes to your muse in a desperate moment where they need them.

She hadn't heard from him in a while, and that wasn't the most unusual thing. He was a private man. He enjoyed his alone time. Sometimes he enjoyed that alone time with her. A quiet book between friends. But there was something off this time.

There were visions that flashed before her eyes, twisting in her mind. Roiling. They subsumed her mind as she added oranges to the boiling pot on her stove, the steam rising into her senses and her eyes rolling back. She was starting to understand how to do this of her own volition. The power was still a little beyond her, but the visions- they could be controlled. They could be tempered.

She still had a coat of his he let her borrow. (The memory of him offering and slipping it around her shoulders when she was cold still very prominent. Don't look too deeply into it.) She focused. It was hard to see into. He wasn't with his family. He was somewhere else.

It smelt like old books and mildew. Metal. Humid.

For a split second, she saw through his eyes and felt agony wretch through her bones. Tears slipped down her cheeks as she focused on him to look around. Dungeon. But wait, that's a signet. She forced his stare to focus. An old crest that started with an A. She let go and gasped, the pot on her stove nearly over boiling, the fire licking along the sides of it. Higher than the burner would normally let it. @deceptivemorals

Ziva turned it off and gathered up her gear, her expression carefully blank and firm as she tucked her gun into its holster on her thigh. A crossbow in her bag, but she had a suspicion that these weren't vampires. No, that rumbling in her mind pressed forward. A flash of teeth and fur, blackened eyes. Worse. But she also saw herself- fire twisting from her grip and wrapping around these people. Their screams yet to be had ringing in her mind. She could do it. She could take them.

She drove quickly and let her instincts guide her, like she was some magical form of GPS. Life was getting weirder by the second. It was a government building, a historic one. She flashed her ID and it wasn't difficult to get into. Those at the front desk were heavily staffed with security, but they bypassed her with ease. She wasn't the one they were watching out for. They were expecting his family. As they should, they were probably on their way.

Getting further in was a little more difficult, but she was sneaky and a pretty good liar when it called for it. There was a ringing in her mind, like he was calling for her, pulling her in a particular direction. It's what led her here. And she's pretty sure she was seen, so she had to go very quickly.

They kept him in a dungeon cell, powerful magic radiating from the metal door and the chains holding him akimbo. And he was awake. Like he hadn't been allowed to sleep. Anger flashed in her eyes for a moment, that sparking and fury starting to heat in her palms. Filling her veins, "Found you."

And with that, she grabbed hold of the bars and there was a resounding crash and bang with a near blinding light that erupted from her as she bars melted and crashed into the floor. The chains holding him up falling to the ground. She rushed forward to look him over, that anger intensifying at the sight of his wounds. His forearms, calves, his thighs- they were bleeding him out. They'd taken too much from him.

She pricked a finger and let her blood well up, brushing it over his lip. Remembering from all their talks, he didn't need as much as younger vampires. Hopefully this would do for now. "We need to get out of here before security shows up."

#deceptivemorals #this got long so its going under a cut #feel free to continue it if you'd like! I got carried away #Ziva saving Elijah is fun

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unmooring-britain · 2 months ago

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The concept of Resilience and “Girl, Woman, Other”:

In our second session on Bernadine Evaristo’s “Girl, Woman, Other”, we among other things talked about the concept of resilience and how it can be made out or applied to the lives of our characters. However, we also took our time to highlight, that we cannot look at the concept of resilience without mentioning that in our society some people are asked to cultivate higher levels of resilience than others, due to prevalent forms systemic oppression like racism and sexism. In their anthology “Identity as Resilience in Minoritized Communities. Strength-Based Approaches to Research and Practice” the social scientists Julie Koch, Erica Townsend-Bell and Randolph Hubach furthermore argue, that the concept of resilience tends to act flattening, as groups of different origin, and with different stories and histories would be subsumed under categories such as BIPOC, which are often unable to illustrate the specificity of the different experiences of oppression that people suffer from.[1] Thus, marginalization becomes a central marker of identification, instead of a condition to fight against.[2] And when looking at the social services sides of it, those wanting to foster resilience would subsequently promote a standardised toolkit for a wide range of situations, not only ignoring the fact that different situations ask for different ways of practising resilience, but also undermine those already in places, which would more often than not are a result of interchanges with the own community.[3] That being said, I, in the following, would still like to think and talk about the strategies some of the characters have developed to overcome their societal exclusion and their personal trauma, focusing on two of the protagonists of our second chapter, namely Carole and Bummi.

Our first character of the second chapter is Carole. Carole is a young investment banker who grew up in Peckham with her single mother Bummi, as her father Augustine has died from a heart attack when she was still a small child. Both of her parents are highly educated. As they were unable to find a position that matched their level of education in Nigeria, both of them came to England – only to be crushed by countless rejections.[4] In the end Bummi thus opts for a job as a cleaner, which later turns into the establishment of her own cleaning company. Carole, who knows how much her mother has struggled, and also falls victim to sexual assault by one of her classmates brother and his friends, decides to make it out of Peckham, by working hard. Eventually she is offered a place in Oxford, where she studies mathematics. But though she likes the classes, she often feels amiss, not being used to the posh environment and struggling to fit in with the other students who clearly come from generational wealth. She thus starts to adapt to the others, for example through changing the way she expresses herself[5] or the way she dresses.[6] Her way of coping is thus to change herself, which leads her to leave her old life behind at an increasing rate. She later becomes the vice president of a big bank, and though still having to deal with episodes of everyday racism, for example when others compliment her English or when clients are surprised that she is black,[7] as well as sexism,[8] she ends up being quite comfortable in her position. Her fiancé Freddy also contributes to this, as he is willing to take over a lot of the domestic duties[9] and tends to help her too loosen up, something which is arguably not as easy for Carole, as the memories of the gang-raped she experienced as a teenager are still frequently haunting her, maybe especially so, as she has never been able to confide in anyone. Instead, she is keeping them locked away[10] and fighting her uneasiness with a rather strict regimen of running: She runs for her life because to slip up is to begin descending the slippery slope to giving in to failure, to inertia, to feeling sorry for herself about the moment in her life which still creeps to the front of her memory when she least expects it.[11]

As one can imagine, Bummi is not exactly thrilled about the way her daughter changes, at some point she even refuses to speak to her.[12] In her chapter we learn, that Bummi lost both her mother and her father at a very young age, ending up in the care of her aunt who treats her more like a servant, than a child.[13] She eventually meets Augustine who becomes her husband and leaves for England – only to lose him to an untimely death. As she is left alone, she decides to “do what Augustine was himself too weak to do”,[14] namely to employ others. Something which does work out, as her cleaning company is growing rather fast. Moreover, through her own company she actually meets two of her lovers, of whom one even becomes her husband in the end. As we can thus see, both Carole, as well as Bummi have found some sort of fulfilment through their career, as they have managed to escape precarity through their intellect and hard work. All in all, this might seem like a rather neoliberal narrative, but it is also surely one that has indeed been lived by people who immigrated to Great Britain. However, one cannot forget, that both Carole and Bummi, are still black, and thus still scrutinized and excluded by their peers, as for example the day-to-day racism Carole has to endure in her workplace show or their encounter with Freddy’s family show.[15]

[1] Julie Koch, Erica Townsend-Bell and Randolph Hubach: Preface. In: Identity as Resilience in Minoritized Communities. Strength-Based Approaches to Research and Practice. Edited by Julie Koch, Erica Townsend-Bell, Randolph Hubach. Cham 2023, p. vii-ix. Here p. viii.

[2] Ibid, p. viii.

[3] Ibid, p. viii.

[4] They did not know that curled up inside her was a parchment certificate proclaiming her a graduate of the Department of Mathematics, University of Ibadan just as she did not know that when she strode on to the graduation podium in front of hundreds of people to receive her ribboned scroll, and shake hands with the Chancellor of the University, that her first class degree from a Third World country would mean nothing in her new country especially with her name and nationality attached to it and that job rejections would arrive in the post with such regularity she would ritualistically burn them in the kitchen sink. Bernadine Evaristo: Girl, Woman, Other. London 2019, p. 264.

[5] Carole listened and learned from her new social circle what would you like? Instead of whatdyawant? To whom were you speaking? Instead of who was you talking to? I’m just popping to the loo instead of I’m gonna go piss. View Ibid, p. 216.

[6] Carole amended herself to become not quite them, just a little more like them she scraped off the concrete foundation plastered on her face, removed the giraffe-esque eyelashes that weighed down her eyelids ripped of her glued-on talons that made most daily activities difficult (…) she ditched the weaves (…) she then had her tight curls straightened. View Ibid, p. 217-218.

[7] She’s thinking he’d better not do a double-take when she enters the executive meeting room one long glass wall looking out on to the City the other bearing a massive splash of tax deductible artwork that cost the price of a Zone 2 town house she’s thinking he’d better not look at her as if she should be attached to a trolley bearing flasks of coffee, assortments of teas (herbal, green, grey, Ceylon) and those individually packaged corporate biscuits. She’s used to clients, and new colleagues looking past her to the person they are clearly expecting to meet (…) except she can’t help remembering all the little hurts, the business associates who compliment her on being so articulate, unable to hide the surprise in their voices, so that she has to pretend not to be offended and to smile graciously, as if the compliment is indeed just that. View Ibid, p. 187-189.

[8] Perhaps he’ll find himself unexpectedly attracted to her, which the more sophisticated try to hide, unlike the Nigerian petrochemical billionaire a few years ago (…) who invited her to working lunch at the Savoy, only for her to discover it was in his private dining room in the Royal Suite (…) he pointed out the mattress in the master boudoir was hand-sprung with each spring wrapped in cashmere. View Ibid, p. 188.

[9] I’ll be the househusband in the relationship, he promised, hang prettily off your arm when required, mow the lawn, make jam, supervise the housekeeper and raise our lovely tawny offspring she loved that he was prepared to be subservient to her ambition. View, p. 236.

[10] View Ibid, p. 191.

[11] View Ibid, p. 221.

[12] Bummi continued to ignore her daughter on the three-seater settee in the sitting room where they usually jostled up against each other (…), she refused to let Carole massage her tired feet with cocoa butter as usual, and played deaf when she gingerly asked if she could make her a hot mug of Milo, Mother? Bummi sat at the other end of the sofa in stony faced silence, sniffing at regular intervals and wiping her eyes until the girl left the room, View Ibid, p. 246.

[13] Bummi had to be on call before and after school. Boomeee!!! Aunty Ekio shouted for her morning tea in bed, or if the furniture was not polished enough, or the children had messed up their clothes, or she wanted help in the kitchen, or for Bummi to change the television channel for her, or she needed something from the market (…), View Ibid, p. 257.

[14] View Ibid, p. 268.

[15] Freddy arranged for Bummi to meet his parents in a London restaurant, which she was looking forward to except he warned her that although they’d warmed to the idea of Carole, once they saw how classy, well-spoken and successful she was (most importantly for his mother, how slim and pretty, too) they’re still old-fashioned snobs. Freddy’s father, Mark, looked uncomfortable said little at the dinner, Carole sat there with a fake smile plastered on her face the whole time Pamela, his mother, smiled at Bummi as if she was a famine victim, when she started explaining the meaning of hors d’oeuvres to her, Fredd told her to stop it, Mummy, just stop it she gave Bummi a vintage bottle of wine from their vault, which really needs to be divested of its crumbling cork before it’s more sediment than liquid’ (…). View Ibid, p. 293-294.

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1016anon · 2 years ago

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Title: Random Vampire AU Author: 1016anon Fandom: Bridgerton Pairing: Anthony Bridgerton/Kathani Sharma Summary: Isolation

A/N -- Happy New Year. I'm trying to get back into the groove of things. (Also, a reminder that I don't have an outline for this, I'm just writing as it comes.)

-12-

Anthony never asked her why she had changed her mind, that she was suddenly willing to be turned when four hundred years ago, she had been adamantly against it. Her decision was a gift unlooked for and he was too happy to examine it closely. He had been prepared with arguments-- both verbal and nonverbal, to convince her. Besides, whether he liked her underlying reason didn't change the ultimate outcome: they would spend the rest of their unnatural lives together.

The reason why Kathani gave in was simple: no matter what she did, Anthony would turn her. She remembered the days at Aubrey Hall when they'd first married and bonded, the dread which seized her every so often that this-- this would be the day he began turning her; today would be the last day she'd see the sun; tonight would be the last night she had as a human and she wasn't ready, she wasn't prepared to say goodbye to the world she knew to be subsumed entirely by him.

Anthony had proved, over the five years at Aubrey Hall, that he knew time was his greatest ally. He could convince her of anything, he could make her accept anything because as much as he told her he was totally in her power-- that love had put him at her mercy-- that was not true. If Kathani did not have the child to think of, she would have given into anything he wanted because he was her world-- literally. The choices he offered were not a choice.

Now that she had the advantage of four hundred years of separation, she realized how deeply he'd planted his hooks into her. It was not only the way he'd shaped her body to respond to him; it was the way she forgot she'd ever had a life before him. She could not contemplate a life after him. Every time he left to find some ingredient or other for the spell, she fell into a restlessness, then an anxiety, then a despair he would never come back.

When he did come back to her, she nearly wept with relief. She clung to him in the following days. He enjoyed taking her-- she loved it when he took her-- after he returned from those sojourns. It felt like she was reasserting her hold on him when in truth, she was simply desperate. Anthony would not have had to do anything but threaten to leave her alone at that estate, in that empty house which echoed with his presence, and she would have willingly given him anything-- including her humanity.

Hindsight showed: Kathani had not realized how dependent she had been on him as the years progressed. That woman of four hundred years past had come to a point where she could not imagine being happy without him. She slowly forgot everything of the world beyond Aubrey Hall-- she knew it was there, but it was vague, distant memory clouded over with time. The second year at Aubrey Hall, after that first year when they'd explored their bond, she'd at least had thoughts of leaving; she'd craved speaking to a person other than Anthony.

By the end of the third year, she could not imagine setting foot outside the grounds. She felt safe and sheltered-- the world from before was an utterly foreign place.

It had come to a point where-- on the very, very rare occasions she encountered strangers at the estate, she shied away, hesitant and uncertain. Kathani, before he'd isolated her for five years, had never shied away from anything. She was vibrant, made friends easily, had a sharp wit and a sharper sense of humor.

Somehow he'd stripped her of her ability to speak to anyone other than him. Kathani's only companion was the sun.

Now: she would rather know-- she would rather have a say in the time and place, the manner in which he turned her. She would rather stay surrounded by others so she would not lose herself in two ways: as a vampire, and as a person. If Anthony had turned her in their first life, he would have filled her entire being with himself until she didn't know who she was without him.

Kathani came to realize, through the dreams and her understanding of him, how powerful isolation was. She did not want to be so completely dependent on him again. Her mind had played tricks on her; the loneliness which crushed her in the beginning faded as she because used to having Anthony as her only source of companionship. She had not even made a decision to allow it to happen; it all occurred without her notice. Thus, she was not certain there was anything she could do to prevent it, if he decided to separate her from everyone a second time.

The passage of time and complete isolation had made him her mirror. As much as Kathani loved him-- if what they had could be called love-- the thought of becoming that creature who was burned at stake was unbearable.

Anthony was already someone whose presence was larger than life. She saw it in the way gentlemen of the ton admired him-- no matter how much they might also hate him-- and in the way the ladies all fawned after him while he took no notice. More deadly than power was his patience. He was willing and able to wait, if that's what it took to win her over.

Kathani had nightmares, which she was certain were memories, of times when she'd panicked when someone other than him touched her. A few occasions when she sought him out because she was out of her mind with terror-- she thought she heard a stranger's voice in their house. Becoming pregnant had saved her from complete obliteration in personality.

It was clear he had some idea of what the isolation did to her; it was clear he did not mind its effect on her at all.

What he saw was the tip of the iceberg. Kathani had spent hours at the border of their estate, telling herself to cross the border-- that there was nothing keeping her from leaving because she missed her parents so much, then being seized with fear when she was a mere six feet outside the official boundaries of Aubrey Hall. She had been careful-- she had done her best not to show how much she needed him.

Kathani intended to keep it that way. Otherwise she was certain he would imprison her as he had then, all too delighted to cultivate that dependence once more.

She loved him; she had no doubt he loved her. But his love was not a human thing and it never would be. That was what she had not understood four hundred years ago, holding out hope that Anthony would love her as a human did, when he was only ever this undead, blood-drinking monster.

It was Kathani's choice to fall in love with that monster.

Even if it had not been her choice to have the memories break through, to marry, to fall into this thing which felt like love, this was the circumstance she was faced with now. Fighting it was like trying to keep the rain from falling; whether she lied to herself or not, she was going to get drenched without an umbrella.

They had a ritual, after he came back to Aubrey Hall from parts near or far for some obscure ingredient she needed for her spell. He found it was necessary when the first few times he returned, she fell into his arms sobbing, incoherent with despair, telling him she thought she'd never see him again, that she was certain he'd abandoned her despite the fact he had never contemplated leaving her. It was then that Anthony had a glimpse of how powerfully the isolation affected her.

He did not quite understand it, but he did not have to understand it to use it to his advantage.

If he had been human, perhaps it would have moved him to concern for her well-being, made him consider relocating them to a place closer to other humans so she could at least have company, if not friends. However, he was not human and the idea that she depended on him not only for sustenance but all companionship lit a fierce delight: another way to tie her to him. Another way for him to convince her to abandon the sun.

Anthony didn't know if this was true of all vampires or just him and Simon, but until Simon had met Daphne, they had never felt the need to join a coven. Anthony and Simon had once been gregarious men, popular and always surrounded by other people. After they were turned, the need for companionship faded. They were indifferent to the ties which bound human societies together. His bond with Simon had more to do with the fact they were blood-brothers than anything else.

Perhaps the detachment was necessary-- things like a human conscience and feelings of loyalty to others tended to get in the way of basic things, like feeding. Rather essential for continued existence as the undead.

All of this was to say that Anthony had not really considered the effects of keeping Kathani away from any and all human companionship. He had been a vampire for millennia-- one forgot these sorts of things after a few decades, let alone one hundred years, or thousands.

But to return to Aubrey Hall greeted with a furious, then sobbing Kathani in his arms was a revelation. She needed him so much-- she needed him to tell her she was real, that he was real, that she was alive-- she was so skin hungry for him that she did not even mind when he told her to strip in front of the window. Anthony was always loathe to leave her, but he always looked forward to returning home, knowing she was waiting for him, clinging to his promise that he would always return to her.

Kathani had never been particularly shy in bed, but she was absolutely uninhibited on those occasions he returned. She allowed him to do things to her which made her blush later and refused to repeat, only to acquiesce the next time.

Such as now, when he had her on her back, holding herself open for him as he fed a string of glass beads into her cunt, each one larger than the next. She whimpered when he pressed down on her lower abdomen.

"How does it feel, darling?"

"Full, Anthony. So full. I can't--"

"You're going to keep them in through dinner."

"I can't," she shook her head. "It's too much, I can't."

"Two more to go."

She sobbed.

"I had these made especially for you," he leaned down to kiss her. "I knew you'd like them."

Her eyes fluttered closed as he slowly pushed the second-to-last bead up into her. Anthony watched her opening part, folds wet and swollen around the bead, then close as it slowly sunk into her, swallowed by her cunt.

"Anthony!" she pleaded as she felt everything move inside her.

"You're so beautiful like this, amata. Just one more and you'll have taken them all. Just one more, you can fit one more in your lovely quim."

Her arms were trembling when she let go and tried to close her legs. But the effort was half hearted. Anthony tsked and continued to push the last bead up into her as she whimpered. For a moment, he kept it at its widest point, tracing her crease stretched around the unforgiving glass. He stared down, mesmerized by the sight, knowing there were more beads inside her, rubbing against her walls as she helplessly clenched down, pulling them deeper inside her and making them slide against each other.

"Breathe," he soothed, still refusing to push the last bead all the way. He could imagine her muscles fluttering and was waiting for her body to pull the last bead into her tight, wet warmth on its own accord.

"Anthony, I--" she reached down to try and push it in or pull it out-- she didn't know, but he grabbed her wrists and refused to allow her to move.

"It's all right, amata. I know how much you need it. You can come when you've taken all of them."

That was all the permission she needed as the bead slowly disappeared, folds closing agonizingly slowly-- almost not closing completely at all at the end. But Anthony pressed somewhere on her abdomen and everything shifted-- Kathani screamed when she came and the last bead finally popped into her cunt.

Kathani kept her eyes closed as her orgasm crested down slowly; she heard Anthony groan and felt his seed paint her breasts, nipples, chest before he lay down beside her, petting her cunt tenderly, possessively. She felt him leave her side for a moment, then a clean cloth wiped her down; Anthony settled next to her again, pulling her to him, her back to his front.

She inhaled sharply when he placed his hands on that spot on her abdomen again, but exhaled when he didn't press down. Kathani fell asleep with the feeling of his soft cock nestled against her and it was that casual demonstration of ownership that made her relax, more than anything.

When she woke and got up from bed, she gasped to feel the beads shift inside her again. Anthony laughed at her fondly, walking to her and playing with the string, tugging gently to tease. But then he stopped, kissed her hungrily, then decided he would help her dress for dinner-- possibly because he wanted to watch her squirm as she stepped into her petticoats, gasped when he tied her girdle.

Dinner was torture but also exactly what she needed-- a reminder that he had returned and had not abandoned her. The beads occasionally shifted but they were also somehow grounding. She was real, he was real; she had to be real to feel herself occasionally clench around them. He had to be real to have had the beads made specially for her, to use them on her upon his return.

"Come here, amata," he told her.

Kathani, at any other time, would not have bothered to acknowledge his words. But after his absence of two weeks, she eagerly went to him, settling herself in his lap the way he always liked it, wiggling to feel his hardness on her. She sighed in satisfaction when he began feeding her bits of dessert-- some kind of fruit tart-- but she relished licking the flaky crust from his fingers and kissing him to have his tongue taste the sweet, fruit filling from her mouth.

And throughout it all, Anthony ground up into her, watching intently and drinking in those little sounds she made.

When they finally retired to the bedroom, he made quick work of her clothes and his and wasted no time pulling the string which had tormented her all of dinner.

Anthony, being who he was, could not simply pull the beads out of her. He had to pull the first one slowly as Kathani gasped, discovering that she had tightened around them and her body was unwilling to let it go. He pulled the first-- the largest-- bead out almost halfway, but it was quickly sucked back into her body and she moaned to feel him work it out of her, only to have swallowed up again.

"Look at you," he said, voice hoarse. "Your cunt won't give up the present I've stuffed in you. You need me that much."

"I missed you," she sobbed. "I missed you so much. I always miss you when you're gone."

"I missed you too, amata. I cannot stand being away from you-- I think of you every moment of every day, every second of every night. I think of you like this, laid out for me to take anything I want."

He finally pulled hard enough that the bead popped out; Kathani felt her cunt throb as wetness gushed out of her-- her arousal trapped behind the bead. It dripped down her and she gasped to feel it.

Her entrance didn't close immediately after the bead was pulled out-- Anthony's breath hitched and his fingers pulling at her glistening folds. He hooked his fingers and stared as though he could see her tender insides.

The thought made her whimper, helpless as he explored inside her.

"You're so loose," he said, awed, then pushed the bead back in.

She sobbed when it went in with no resistance. She wanted to come so badly but he hadn't given his permission. Kathani was conditioned now to wait for him; she couldn't imagine any other way.

Anthony pulled the bead loose and pushed it back in a few times; with each pull, the other beads inside her shifted, pressing against her sensitive spots.

By the time she felt the second bead against her entrance, it slid out easily. She thought he was going to continue the slow process, but instead he pushed it back in.

Kathani had no time to react, no idea what was going on, only that Anthony told her to come now, amata and he yanked all the beads out of her with one pull.

She screamed as she came, then felt him swiftly push inside her and set a fast pace, telling her

"God you're so loose, amata, so wet and warm. I just slid in, you couldn't have resisted if you wanted to, not after having those beads inside you after all that time. You're perfect, your body is perfect, you're such a sweet hole for me to fuck, you'll always belong to me"

And he was right, Kathani couldn't offer any resistance to his taking her; he was making her light up even though he only occasionally grazed against the spots inside her and it wasn't enough, even after she'd already come it wasn't enough. Kathani was sobbing, reaching for the second orgasm, the one which was always deeper and left her feeling fuller, when he kept his cock inside her, crooning that she needed to hold all his seed inside her if she ever wanted it to take.

Kathani held his gaze as he continued to use her, chasing after his pleasure and ignoring hers. She was exhausted after he'd played with her for so long but her body was still straining to come a second time. Anthony came and she felt him fill her, felt it slippery and warm inside her and tears gathered in her eyes, knowing he wouldn't let her come again tonight.

But she didn't protest. He'd returned to her and had now left evidence-- his come inside her-- that she was his.

Kathani hadn't understood what had happened and why the first time she'd had that reaction; she'd done her best not to succumb to it the second time he'd left. Trying to avoid it only made it worse. After a year of such reactions to his going away, she'd had to accept it; she had no choice and more than that, no energy to fight what felt inevitable.

When he'd brought home a device and used it on her, she had been ecstatic. To know he had thought of her, and that he had looked forward to reuniting with her as much as she had him.

They made her blush. However, the days after he returned, she allowed him to use all of them on her-- sometimes even a few at the same time. And she never admitted it to him, but when he was away, she used them on herself, pretending he was there.

The isolation was so difficult to bear-- torture in its own right. He did not seem to understand that it was torture, an enormous pressure point on her mind; he never seemed to be affected by their separation, no matter what he said, and that was what made her afraid. It was only when she was completely bound in mental chains that she saw how each link had been forged.

It made it that much more important that she never said please.

"I want to bond next week," Kathani declared.

Anthony blinked, surprised.

"Unless there is a particular date we need to bond?" she asked.

"No. I simply hadn't anticipated your wanting to set a date."

"I would rather not have a repeat of last time, where you caught me unawares."

"I did not--"

"It has been a recurring theme in our relationship, Anthony. You always catch me unawares and when I come back to myself, I find my life has completely changed."

"I suppose that's true," he conceded.

"Well, then, my Lord?" she narrowed her eyes. "Why are you smiling."

"Am I not allowed to smile when my flame is demanding to be bound?" he couldn't help but show a hint of teeth. "Impatient, to be bound?"

"Stop looking at me like that. It never bodes well."

"For you or for me?"

"Anthony," she smacked his hands away. "Be serious. Is there anything I need to do to prepare?"

"Hmm," he pretended to think it over. "No."

"How long do you think it will take?"

"None of this is a precise science, amata. Even if it were, this is your second life."

"Then we should return to London. Don't think I haven't noticed there has been no mail."

"Are you on a schedule I should be made aware of?"

"I want to see Edwina and make sure she's all right. I was never supposed to get married this season-- I was supposed to guide her."

"I'm certain Daphne and Lady Danbury have it well in hand."

"How do you know this?"

"I don't. Only that Daphne is fond of your sister, as is Lady Danbury. If nothing else, Lady Danbury will be extremely attentive since she wants to ask a favor of me."

"Lady Danbury or not, you will have the rest of time to spend with me--"

"We only get to honeymoon once."

"But Edwina will not."

"It has not even been a month since we married."

"Anthony."

"Amata."

"Please?"

She said it on purpose, because she had never said it before and she knew he was addicted to the word from her lips. Anthony knew said it on purpose, knew that she knew that he knew, given her proud smirk.

It didn't change the fact it worked.

"Two weeks after the bond, we will return."

"Two weeks? Why?"

"To ensure there are no side effects."

"There were no side effects last time."

"Still a necessary precaution."

"What aren't you telling me?"

"You'll also need to rest to replenish your blood."

"Stop avoiding the question, Anthony."

"Some pairs develop certain abilities. They're uncommon, but not unheard of."

"Such as?"

"Feeling echoes of the other's pain, getting impressions of each other's thoughts. Odd things like tasting what the other tastes."

Kathani blushed.

Anthony noticed, honing in on her reaction.

"Do you like the thought of that, amata? Being able to taste yourself?"

"I imagine it's very inconvenient," she said primly. "I would have to taste the blood you drink. And don't think you've distracted me."

"I wouldn't dream of it."

"Then we are agreed."

"We are indeed."

"I am going to hold you to your word."

"I would expect nothing less."

"You're plotting something-- you have that look about you."

"Only the materials I'll need for our bonding."

"It is more than that. Out with it, Anthony."

"I promise you, on my honor--"

"You have no honor"

"On my honor, I am not plotting anything," he grinned.

Kathani most definitely was not convinced.

"I hope we do have a power-- I hope I will be able to tell when you are lying."

"As long as I get to see you blush every time you overhear my thoughts when I look at you," he finally managed to catch her unawares and keep her in his arms. "It is quite fetching, that shade of pink in your cheeks."

"Enjoy it while you can, my Lord. You shall never see it again once I am one of your kind."

"All the more reason," he picked her up and began walking to the gazebo, "to extend our honeymoon."

Normally she would have protested him undressing her in the gardens, in the bold light of day and in full view of Aubrey Hall, but she had always wanted to do this four hundred years ago, when he could not stand in the sun.

He knew, and she knew he knew, and perhaps she did not need a bond to know what he was thinking. He might be impulsive and conniving, but he had always been an open book to her, even if that had not always been the blessing it ought.

#bridgerton #kathony #fanfiction #vampire au

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ciaran · 3 years ago

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i’ve been thinking about why glass cannon doesn’t work for me, as an ending. to be quite clear this is not a criticism of the author or the series, i like it exactly the way it went, but i feel like everything i liked about it was exactly what made glass cannon not work. and i’m gonna ramble about why.

i think telepathy as a trope is about - knowing someone to the bottom of their darkest desires and their wildest hopes. it’s about understanding and intimacy. it’s about sharing not only their goal but also what led them to that goal. it’s about a blurring of the self.

in the scene at the end of book one where cheris is swallowing jedao’s memories, she replaces the jedao in those memories with herself. everything that happened to him happens to her. she’s in his shoes, but she’s not him. not yet, anyway.

raven stratagem is about that blurring. scene by scene, jedao takes over cheris, and he takes over other people’s perception of her. she even inherits his dyscalculia - but at the same time, she never fully loses herself. she isn’t subsumed; she shares his goals, his dream of overthrowing the hexarchate. she is willing to do anything to carry out, including pretending to be him to the point of letting him take the wheel.

but their relationship never seems to progress beyond that point? it never tips from understanding to intimacy. cheris is happy and willing to relegate jedao to the back of her head, inconvenient memories of a life she didn’t lead dominating her present reality. she doesn’t mind if she’s known as cheris or jedao, but she prefers to be known as cheris.

and that’s the thing? cheris’s selfhood is rock-fucking-solid. it’s inalienable. even with a revenant dogging her footsteps, she doesn’t lose her grip on herself.

jedao’s selfhood, meanwhile, is constantly up for grabs. surrendered in essence from the moment he decided to fight the hexarchate and then encroached upon again and again and again, from the black cradle itself to the body-hopping to kujen fucking with his memories, making and remaking him, to the culmination, a split down the middle; his memories in cheris and his personhood in jedao two, under kujen’s control, brought to life to be a part of something he has so little hope of catching up with. the fact that he does catch up is testament to his internal strength, but even so.

i feel like - when you’re sharing a mind, sharing a body, sharing goals and behaviors and habits - something has got to give. something is lost in the process of acquiring the intimacy essential to shared survival in this state. but cheris never loses anything, not really and not for long.

when she eats jedao’s memories, when she walks through his life and invades his privacy, she’s taking something from him. jedao doesn’t have those memories anymore. he doesn’t have himself anymore. he takes her body in the first book, but in the second she gets to be another in a long line of people who get to take him. and i’m not going to argue about the moral valence of that, it’s just what it is. what it means is that she retains power and autonomy in their relationship and he categorically doesn’t. his memories are hers to plunder for strategy and information and knowledge, and she takes full advantage of that in service of a greater good. but it’s her action, not his. the narrative frames it like that and cheris’s pov in book 3 agrees with that.

when your self blurs into another person’s self, you gain either sympathy for them (feeling for them) or empathy (feeling as them). and it rather feels like the books couldn’t let cheris take that step fully in either direction? she hates jedao in glass cannon, she sees his memories as a burden. she carried out the plan he set in motion, but she refuses to acknowledge the part he played in that. and that hatred of him could very well be a hatred of herself, remember that she stepped into his shoes and that includes all his guilt and depression and suicidality, but that doesn’t come through in her narrative in glass cannon either. she more or less feels about him the way someone would about an inconvenient and annoying roommate.

and that says a lot about cheris. it says that she’s so grounded in herself, so sure of her identity, that she doesn’t have to sit around grappling with the question of who’s doing what. i kind of thought she did all of that and got over it in book 2, and the conclusion she’s come to is that she’s cheris. and jedao is Not Her, even though she’s got his memories.

this idea of the self as inalienable and unsplittable, but only for people other than jedao. she gets his memories but she doesn’t get him. to the last, she’s herself. when jedao admits to raping dhanneth, her reaction is to shoot him. if she’d had any sympathy for him, she’d try to figure out if there was more to that story. if she’d learnt anything from having jedao in her head it would be that she can’t take the stuff he says at face value. but she’s only ever experienced jedao from the inside, not the outside, and she lacks the bridge between those two that any amount of compassion for him would grant her.

and all of that means their eventual telepathy rings frustratingly hollow. it doesn’t feel like it’s setting up a fun partnership for shenanigans, because cheris is never really “having fun” with the jedao in her head? we never see her take pleasure in his company even once after book 1, and rarely even in it. it feels, rather, like a set up for jedao to get used and hurt again, this time as the brains and the meat shield of their dynamic.

a lot of this could’ve been amended if cheris had gotten to this point of reluctant sadness for jedao. if her character had done the same things but started feeling a sort of identification with the jedao in her head, this resentful “i didn’t suffer and die over and over for 400 years just for you guys to treat me like i had no part in the world that was made” even if her internalized self-loathing from jedao led her to exile herself anyway. or if she’d ended up bitterly broken and unable to fit in, carrying more people than she was meant to and slowly driven crazy by it. but that doesn’t happen; in glass cannon she’s functional, just bored. she wants jedao out of her head and looks forward to having him gone. the fact that he sticks around does not make her the least bit happy, which doesn’t exactly bode well for jedao’s well-being in the future.

i think this was more or less on purpose, though, because yhl clearly loves jedao whump, but after 3 books and a short story of Fuck All Else i would’ve liked at least a temporary reassuring closure for his story.

#notes #shuos jedao #machineries of empire

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oddlittlestories · 3 months ago

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Okay let’s get SPECIFIC.

At the end, everyone just kind of leaves, except for Sisko.

- Sisko. This ending is bad. No weird mind control birth. In fact, I don’t want to see his mom at all unless she’s an important character. Deeply unnecessary also - he’s who he is because he IS, period.

Instead, make his brain thing come back. It starts getting triggered the second he lands on Bajoran soil. He can never ever go home. So he makes a home on DS9 instead. Eventually, he starts a restaurant himself and everyone goes to Sisko’s, best restaurant outside of New Orleans. He has his new baby. Not because this is wish fulfillment but because it works better thematically. The baby goes to Bajor a lot and Sisko can only watch with an ache in his heart.

- IIRC the station becomes “mostly Bajoran.” Nope! The station continues to be incredibly multicultural, only now Cardassians and people from the far side of the wormhole are truly freely allowed to be there. It does make a certain amount of sense for the Federation presence to end, except NO IT DOESN’T because the wormhole is still really important, and the Federation can and should be frontline on rebuilding and relief efforts. Bajor should take charge though. DS9, which should finally get a Bajoran name, should become a lot like Bonn, Germany - a HUGE seat of diplomacy and intergalactic relations and multiculturalism forever and ever because of its history.

- Odo should not be allowed to go home to his people. NONE of them should be allowed to go home actually. I don’t know how the logistics would work but they should all be sent on cultural relocation programs where they have to live with other people. (If I ever write a fic, this COULD play out the canon way only for Lwaxana to show up and be like dude, melding did a number on you before, here’s my new plan, let’s make it happen).

- Obviously Bashir and Garak shouldn’t have to separate the way they do. Actually it makes the most sense for Bashir to be a leader in the medical response efforts which will be ongoing, and for Garak to do similar stuff.

- I think Worf’s story probably plays out mostly the same.

- I think Keiko’s career should take precedence over Miles for a while, or Bajor could ask them both to stay. Something

- I hate Jadzia’s death but I think actually someone should die. I think they fumble it violently though. It mostly gets fixed with a few things (1) don’t fridge her, let her die in honorable combat. (2) the reaction to her death should’ve been about a pillar of the community, NOT about some weird ‘we’re attracted to you’ deal. Also them figuring out what being multi-generational friends with a joined Trill is really *like* (3) if Ezri is a weak personality who doesn’t handle being joined well, then it should be written *as established*. The dude who tried to steal Dax is an example right there! His personality, wants, and desires were largely subsumed by Dax, which was only *partly* because his one strong desire was to be joined. I think that’s an interesting conflict to explore, potentially, if you do it right. I think it’s more interesting if Ezri has issues because she wasn’t prepared and didn’t want this, so she over-asserts herself and tried to repress the other personalities rather than letting it all blend well. She gets confused because she’s constantly trying to figure out which pieces are “her” and which aren’t. And she gets distressed and self-isolates because of all these strong feelings she has about people she doesn’t actually know. And after the initial weirdness around “you’re a person who is also a person we’re grieving,” everyone gives her a piece of the puzzle. And Sisko sits with her and has her walk through what she as a therapist would tell herself. And she talks a lot to Odo, who knows what it’s like to be joined AND what it’s like to have other personalities bombard or even attempt to subsume your own. Wow I didn’t realize I had so many thoughts on this, this is practically a fully realized fic right here. And so then eventually—during Under A Paper Moon, so she has her own arc that parallels Nog’s—she begins to accepts herself as one, whole person, irrevocably changed but still with things she values. And she Becomes Dax. A little sadder, a little shyer, a little more serious than Jadzia. But Dax—boisterous, confident, bursting with life. Friends with everyone on the station. And refusing to take shit from anybody. But unlike Jadzia, a little more able to be indirect when she wants to be, and an *uncanny* ability to make people talk THEMSELVES into the point she wants to make. And all of this happens and then, finally, she has her Jiantara and the Big Moment is ofc Meeting Jadzia. Only Jadzia isn’t quite like anyone remembers her. She’s sweet and shy and though a fire burns, she’s not Jadzia Dax. Like how she was when the symbiont was taken from her in the earlier episode. Everyone also gets an opportunity to say goodbye to Jadzia again. And Jadzia gets to talk to Worf about her death and Stovokor one on one and they have a very painful sad conversation that gives them both some closure. And Ezri gets to express her frustration and fear to the woman who should be Dax. And ask why Jadzia isn’t quite as they remember. And Jadzia explains that Ezri is Dax now, which is the end of Ezri’s arc of Embracing Dax. Because Jadzia lives on in her, and she IS Dax now.

- Alexander Rhozhenko should’ve become an artist. It should’ve been something he was secretly practicing, off and on, the whole time and chose to embrace in the end

- Alexander and Jake should’ve put together the first joint Cardassian - Bajoran art show in Ziyal’s memory. Huge controversy “people are starving and you want to give them art?”

Kira steps in and is like “art is important.” Damar doesn’t really get it but he’ll go along. They put it together. It has a huge positive impact. Eventually they start a program where Cardassians and Bajorans learn to create art together while studying both artistic and historical traditions. It’s a lodestone for cultural healing and reconciliation, and that is Ziyal’s legacy, because she saw something no one else could see.

Okay apparently I’m not done about DS9’s ending, mind the spoilers (I’ve tagged ds9 spoilers for any who’d like to avoid)

“The shire was saved, but not for me” is a powerful and punchy point but one that (1) LOTR already did - and only to one character, mind you, while the rest had to deal with What’s Next - and (2) is honestly not that resonant here

DS9 is a show about - about the mundane meeting the political. About people’s personal lives and inner workings. About - what happens when a utopia (no I don’t want to deal with discussions that it’s not, Utopia in Star Trek is a whole other discussion) clashes with fascism and suddenly you have to get your hands dirty to save it - but how far can you go without genuinely losing it. About the fallibility AND the raw power of individual people, often in the same breath.

But it was always, always about preserving the utopia even in the darkest of times. If the characters find a way to connect and be joyous and LIVE even in the bloodiest, darkest times. If it’s a template for fighting fascism and embracing the humane and human, even or especially within ourselves.

And THAT show wants me to walk away with no template for how to rebuild and rediscover the joy and safety after it’s all over, seriously?

#ds9 spoilers #hire me as the showrunner for the DS9 remake with all the original actors & youth potions it’ll be so great

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five-rivers · 4 years ago

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Loved 6

Written for Dannymay 2021 Day 15: Nature

“Danny,” said Sam, “what’s wrong?”

The question was, really, far too vague. Many things were wrong all the time, especially with Danny. Part and parcel of being what he was, living where they were, and doing what he did. Although she was more comfortable with it all than Tucker, she could acknowledge that things were… bad. That the world was messed up. That, although people could be horrible to each other on their own, the monstrous beings lurking under the fabric of reality did not help.

But Danny had been in especially low spirits for the last few days. She’d almost say he was depressed, but she was hesitant to apply mental health disorders to someone who wasn’t even entirely human anymore. He’d also been unusually quiet, but he had admitted some time ago that he was having progressively more difficulty ‘finding words,’ so that could be the reason instead.

If she could find out why he was upset, maybe she could cheer him up. Or at least support him.

He made a face, one hand covering his mouth as he talked. “You remember that time, um, when Clockwork… The gifts?” He touched his wrist.

“Yes?” said Sam, prompting him to continue.

Danny glanced down the otherwise oddly-deserted school hallway. “It’s… He had me eat with him. Sort of. Ever since then, my teeth have been…” He paused his hand now firmly pressed to his face.

“Weird?” suggested Tucker, voice low.

Danny nodded. “I had – I was venomous, in the Dream, I don’t—” He faltered.

“Do they hurt?” asked Sam.

“Mhm.”

“Do you think biting into something might help?” asked Sam as she swung her backpack off her shoulder and rummaged in it.

Danny’s eyes seemed to glaze over as he considered the question. Finally, he shrugged.

Sam found what she was looking for. “Here,” she said, holding out the shiny red apple. “Try this.”

Danny examined the apple, careful and silent. The fruit was reflected, vividly, in his eyes. Once. Twice. Three times? No. Danny had two eyes. Two perfect, insightful, soulful eyes.

Delicately, he took it. He still didn’t remove the hand over his mouth.

“We’ve seen worse, man,” mumbled Tucker.

“Not when I’m being human,” protested Danny. Gingerly, he removed his other hand from his mouth and brought the apple to his lips.

When his lips parted, Sam could see what he was talking about. Those were definitely, clearly, fangs. Sharp, smooth, and white. They sparkled even in the flat overhead school lights. Something bluish and clear glistened at their tips.

Was Danny venomous?

(Why did that excite her?)

They crunched into the apple. Danny held it there, still and tense, for a few seconds before his expression melted into absolute bliss.

“Feel better?” asked Sam.

“Mmmhmm,” said Danny, eyes half closed.

“Guys?” said Tucker. “We should probably go now. Before they kick us out.”

“Huh?”

“It’s the end of the school day. School’s been out for half an hour.”

Sam frowned. Was it? She… Did she… She did remember going to all her classes. She shook her head, dismissing the momentary lapse.

Danny regretfully disengaged from the apple, blinked, and swayed. His outline wavered. Sam grabbed his wrist, and a jolt ran up her bones, making her teeth hurt as if she had just bitten down on ice. He stabilized again.

“Thank you,” he said.

He did not notice that she had taken the apple.

She set the apple on her desk, and the color stood out vibrantly against the dark-stained wood and her black, goth-themed knickknacks. The color, which was a different than what it had been when she had given the apple to Danny.

The neon blue skin was cold enough to gather condensation and smooth under her fingers. There was otherwise little evidence that Danny had bitten into it. The holes had sealed over, leaving only small depressions.

She knew what she wanted to do. She knew what she shouldn’t do.

Danny said she couldn’t die. That he had destroyed her death, among others. She trusted him.

But it was always good to be prepared.

She set up a text on a timer. If she wasn’t able to cancel it in the next ten minutes, it would go out to Danny and Tucker.

The bed would be the best place to do this. She sat down on the edge, feet firmly planted on the floor.

She bit into the apple.

For a few seconds, she was disappointed, but then.

Then.

She let herself drop back onto her bed, the springs creaking slightly and the covers gently fluttering. She exhaled. Inhaled. Exhaled. Blinked. Closed her eyes. Opened them again.

Everything. Everything.

It was like seeing for the first time. The world was as thin as rice paper. The light was shinning through. It’s true nature.

And all the people. Everywhere. Everyone. Connected.

She—

Everyone.

Beyond the rice paper they could see and touch and feel, the false veil above the truth they couldn’t look at directly, but Danny could and, oh.

Was this what he saw all the time? Was he always filled with this sense of—

Of charity? Of- of—

What could she call this? Care? Empathy?

Could she call it love?

(She could. He was. Because he was loving. But his understanding of love was overwritten and subsumed by his understanding of Love. There could be no other way.)

(To love was human. Love was divine.)

If everyone could feel like this…

Sam knew how much people could hurt each other. She knew how terrible the world was.

(Her grandfather had only died a few years ago. He’d been born in Germany.)

She knew how stressed Danny was about hurting others, even when it was his mere existence that was harmful – And Sam wasn’t so sure that it was harmful. If Danny hadn’t just internalized the vitriol and hate that his parents practically consisted of.

If everyone could feel like this…

They’d had a conversation, back when they’d connected the others to cults, about whether or not cults were a natural result of the others’ presence, or if they were actually encouraged by the others. Maybe it was a combination of the two, but Sam now had good evidence for the former.

This. This was natural. This was right.

And she would work hard to make everything else right, too.

The feeling faded after another few… minutes? Hours?

Minutes. It had to be minutes. Otherwise, Danny and Tucker would be here.

The timer.

She fumbled her phone open just in time to cancel the text.

Sam was tempted to take another bite of the apple, but she knew that she had to be careful with her resources. She had her vision. Her goal. Her plan to make the world a better place.

It started here.

She leaned on her shovel and checked the depth of the hole in the ground. Good. Good. Room enough for the apple and room enough for the fertilizer.

She used her fingernails to slit open a bag of the latter and then placed the apple reverently on top of the small pile. A shadow passed over her. It didn’t seem like quite enough, did it?

Perhaps… an offering? She emptied the contents of her pocket. Coins. A six-sided die with a bat in place of its ‘one’ pip. A caramel and a strawberry candy her grandmother had given her that morning. A small picture of herself, Danny, and Tucker. A safely pin.

She arranged them carefully around the apple. The safety pin gleamed in the light.

Staring at her. She stared back.

Maybe…

She picked up the pin and squeezed it to free the sharp end. Then, before she could hesitate, before she could have second thoughts, she drew it over the ball of her thumb. Blood welled up from the small wound, and she let it drip on the soil surrounding the apple.

The tree grew into a sapling overnight. The next day, it was taller than Sam. On the third, the trunk was thicker than both her wrists together. By the end of the week, it had burst into bloom.

Sam made sure to water it every day.

Danny, meanwhile, continued to have problems with his teeth. He spoke less, his words slurred and lisping around his still-growing fangs, but that didn’t matter to her and Tucker. After the years they’d spent together, they could read each other pretty well.

Sam maintained a constant supply of apples for him to bite down on. Most of the time, he ate them afterwards, which she couldn’t really begrudge him, but sometimes he’d leave them on his desk or on the table or just out and Sam would put aside her next afternoon for experimentation.

Before she knew it, the tree was bearing fruit. Rose-red and perfectly shaped, not a trace of scale or insects. Sam knew exactly what to do with them.

“Hey,” she said, as her parents walked in, “I made an apple pie. Tell me if it’s any good.”

#danny phantom #loved #dannymay 2021 #dannymay #dannymay 2021 day 15: nature #eldritch abomination au

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church-history · 3 years ago

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October 15th - St Teresa of Avila - Doctor of The Church

Feast day: Oct 4th / Oct 15th

Patronage: Spain, sick people, people in religious orders, people ridiculed for their piety, lacemakers, Požega, Croatia, Talisay City, Cebu, Philippines

Early life:

Born in the early 1500’s in Spain, St. Teresa’s family had an interesting history. Her grandfather was a convert from Judaism and would actually face the inquisition for allegedly returning to Judaism. St. Teresa’s mother raised her as a pious young girl and the young Teresa loved reading the lives of the saints, particularly the martyrs. She was so inspired by these stories that when she was 7 years old she and her brother left home to try to become martyrs, seeking out Muslims invading Spain. Thankfully her uncle found the two young children and brought them back home. Teresa’s mother died when Teresa was 14 years old and Teresa would turn to the Blessed Virgin in a much deeper way after this traumatic experience. She left for boarding school, where she was educated by religious, and she eventually joined the Carmelite order.

While in the religious life, Teresa began to read deeply mystical literature and became deeply interested in the progression of the soul's relationship with Jesus Christ. This interest was not purely academic however, as Teresa’s own mysticism was deepening.

Visions and Mysticism:

Teresa began to experience visions of Jesus Christ that some people claimed were not from God at all, but Teresa was reassured by her spiritual director that these were real. These mystical experiences led to perhaps her most famous mystical experience. In one of her visions she saw an angel pierce her heart with a spear with a golden tip and the pain, instead of being debilitating, became a movement into ecstasy for the mystic. As she herself wrote, “I saw in his hand a long spear of gold, and at the point there seemed to be a little fire. He appeared to me to be thrusting it at times into my heart, and to pierce my very entrails; when he drew it out, he seemed to draw them out also, and to leave me all on fire with a great love of God. The pain was so great, that it made me moan; and yet so surpassing was the sweetness of this excessive pain, that I could not wish to be rid of it.” This event became symbolic of her life, that she was chosen in a special way to share in the pain of Jesus Christ.

The great Italian sculptor Bernini would eventually create a masterpiece depicting this event that can be seen in the Santa Maria della Vittoria Church in Rome.

Writings:

Her writings focus on her mystical theology, particularly the ascent of the soul towards God. She says that the soul goes through four stages in its ascent. The first stage she called the Devotion of the Heart. In this stage the person engages in deep mental prayer and through effort and concentration begins to pray on Christ’s passion. The second stage she called the Devotion of Peace. In this stage, God gives a special grace of quiet and peace to the person, and although distractions may come, the supernatural gift of peace is present. The third stage she called the Devotion of Union and in this stage God gives the gift to the person of becoming one with Him in that their reason is completely subsumed into Him and the only thing left that the person can control is their memory and imagination. The fourth, and final stage, she called Devotion of Ecstasy. In this stage the person, through the grace of God, is totally unaware of their own self and their own body and is completely subsumed by God.

It is important to note that human discipline and effort can only get one to the first stage, the other three stages are all gifts freely given by God and as such may be withheld from some people. They are also usually only given to those people who are quite mature in their spiritual life and so many people never achieve them in their lifetimes.

Doctor of the Church:

By virtue of her writings on mental prayer and mysticism Teresa was declared a Doctor of the Church, alongside saints such as Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. Her writings, together with the force of her life, led to reforms in the Carmelite order. However, rather than simply calling them reforms, it would be more accurate to say that through her life St. Teresa succeeded in calling the Carmelite’s back to their original charism after they had begun to stray.

From her writings to her contribution to the understanding of mental prayer and mysticism, to the continued faithfulness of the Carmelites, we have so much to be thankful for in the life of St. Teresa of Avila. The best way we can honor her is to begin to engage in the first stage of her soul’s ascent to God and begin to practice mental prayer of our own, and hope that God gives us the grace of bringing our soul into union with himself.

Source: https://www.coraevans.com/blog/article/the-incredible-life-of-st.-teresa-of-avila

#st teresa of avila #saints #catholic #catholic history #october 15th #Carmelite

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politicalmamaduck · 4 years ago

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so ere you find where light in darkness lies

A soulmate AU written for @darklinadaily Darklina Week 2021! You can read it on AO3 here. Title taken from Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost.

She was born with the mark on her left wrist.

The sun in eclipse.

Ana Kuya said she’d never seen a soul mark like it and it portended a tragic future. Therefore, Alina needed to pray even harder to the Saints to give her a good future.

At night, she was alone, not praying--but hoping that one day she would meet her soulmate and truly belong.

She loved Mal, but not in that way—his mark didn’t match. He was her best friend, but not her soulmate.

So she waited until she would meet her soulmate, her partner with the mark on their arm, and find out what the sun in eclipse meant.

There was no one else she ever loved enough to show them her mark. Not that she loved Ana Kuya, but she loved Mal. She never got a chance to love anyone else--not when the First Army was always on the move, or even before that, when other girls--normal girls, girls with parents--were settling down as proper Ravkan wifes and mothers.

Alina was different, had always been different, even beyond just the mark on her skin.

Being different made no difference to the volcra, however. Their attacks were indiscriminate, their taste for human flesh insatiable.

The last thing she could remember was reaching for Mal in that interminable darkness, the soulmark on her arm aflame, her bones and sinews straining, reaching to hang on to the barest thread of hope contained in his fingers, her anchor to life.

Light burst into the Fold’s darkness, the volcra screaming and tearing away, unable to bear it.

Alina gave in to the darkness behind her eyes, tasting blood.

When she awoke, everything hurt, and the world had changed. Her world changed more rapidly than she could process.

She was not afraid of the Darkling, despite what she’d heard. Still, when he demanded she lift up her sleeve, she did what she always did.

She protected herself.

She lifted her right sleeve, her bare arm, her unadorned wrist.

The world burst into sunlight, flame, shadow. Alina saw not the light pouring forth from her, but stars behind her eyes. The pain, the pleasure, the release--there was something inside her yearning to break free, to push beyond the boundaries she set all those years ago, to reclaim the life she took from it.

Alina collapsed to the floor, but before she hit her head, he caught her.

Her weight was solid in his arms, but she felt light as a feather, protected, cosseted, before the darkness claimed her once more.

After awakening and being packed off to Os Alta, she bit back a retort about a head injury and horses not being the best combination after passing out twice in the space of hours.

The Grisha didn’t care, but they did care for her wounds.

She tried to view herself as one of them, and failed. She was still too different--a summoner who could call the sun, even rarer than the Darkling’s shadows. And how would they view her strange soulmark?

When Genya Safin and her team of attendants marched into her new bedroom the next morning, Alina knew she was in trouble. She was unceremoniously stripped and forced into the bathtub while the washerwomen insulted her in Old Ravkan.

It was Genya who looked at the mark first, though, after ordering the attendants out. “Your mark,” Genya said, taking Alina’s hand before she could snatch it away and hide her arm.

Her bright blue eyes met Alina’s. “It’s beautiful. I’ve never seen another like it.”

“Really? At the orphanage, they told me it portended a dark future.”

Genya shook her head, her perfect curls bobbing and catching the light.

“I don’t think so. I think your future will be what you make of it. Now, let’s get you ready.”

Genya’s magic--the Small Science, Alina reminded herself--glossed over her skin, and Alina thought perhaps she finally had a friend other than Mal.

Maybe she could belong in the Little Palace.

Maybe she would find her soulmate, the eclipse to her sun, after all.

In front of the Tsar, in front of his court, she felt the terror she had been denying herself. She wasn’t prepared, she needed more time, she couldn’t do this--

And then the Darkling met her eyes in the darkness.

He was calm. He trusted her.

“Now call the sun,” he whispered, and something in her reacted to his voice. Stay, she wanted to whisper back, don’t leave me alone.

He reached for her wrist--

No, she wanted to scream, not that wrist, don’t--

The world burst into light.

Alina burst into light.

Her soulmark burst into flame once more.

It was a beautiful pain, an exquisite torture.

Don’t let go, she wanted to beg.

She felt bereft when he did.

“Welcome home, Miss Starkov,” he said. She knew he meant it. Perhaps, she could believe it after all.

The next morning, she refused the kefta in his color. She didn’t want to stand out more than she already did. But as they rode through the forest, she realized that with him, she didn’t feel like an outsider, an interloper, a foreigner.

With him, she felt like she mattered.

And so it did not matter, later, when she learned the story he told her by the fountain was only partially true. He may have lied--but so did Alina, all those years, denying herself her own truth, so desperate to not be alone.

It did not matter, for she belonged with him. Both the Darkling and the Sun Summoner, denying their own truths until their reality could not be contained within them any longer.

The sun in eclipse. Light and shadow--all shall fade, but they were eternal.

“You are not alone,” she told him, when he laid bare his truths before her--the Grisha were suffering, Ravka was suffering, and they would suffer to see them through the winter, through the Fold, through the dark night before the dawn.

She left his chambers before she could think too deeply about how her heart was racing, how she longed for his touch, how her soulmark burned whenever their skin made contact.

The morning of the Winter Fete, she kissed him before she could regret it, before she could talk herself out of it, before she could think about it too deeply. The choice was hers, and hers alone, regardless of their soulmarks.

His smile was like the sun peeking through shadowed clouds after a storm. Alina’s heart felt at peace, even if they were interrupted, never a moment alone for the Black General of the Second Army and his Sun Summoner.

When their lips met after their presentation, she never wanted their kiss to end. She wanted to devour and be devoured, pour her sunlight into his shadows, subsume and be subsumed.

“Are you sure?” he asked, and she nodded, smiling as though she had never smiled before.

They kissed again, and at the back of her mind, Ana Kuya’s voice echoed. Despite how far she had come, some part of Alina would always be a scared little orphan girl from Keramzin with a dark soulmark on her arm.

“Aleksander,” she said, when their lips broke apart again.

He met her eyes, and waited for her to continue. Her general, following her lead.

“I--” she started. How to tell him?

She looked down from his face to her arm, covered by her black kefta. She would continue to let her body do the talking for her, for it was truer than her words.

She pushed up her sleeve and held her arm, the truth of her, out to him.

He looked from her eyes down to her arm and back. If she didn’t know better, she would have thought there were tears in his eyes.

“I thought you should know,” she said. “So you could be sure--”

Her words were silenced by his kiss.

“Alina,” he said, when he released her. “Oh, my Alina.”

He held his left arm out to her, and lifted his own kefta sleeve.

There, as ink black as her own, matching perfectly in shape and size--the sun in eclipse.

She looked from his arm to his eyes to find the tears matching her own, and closed them for another kiss.

When he kissed the mark, it was as if her entire body were set aflame.

Alina was Aleksander’s, and Aleksander was hers.

In his arms, she finally found the belonging she sought.

He carried her from the war table to his bed, rich and opulent with black sheets, though she hardly noticed at the time.

There were too many layers between them, keftas and pants and tunics and belts.

Their kisses, their touches, were frantic, as if the world were on fire along with their bodies.

His hands were on her neck, in her hair, cupping her cheeks.

Her hands were shaking as she undid the many clasps on his tunic.

Her soulmate, her belonging, her future.

When their clothes were removed, their bodies laid bare, she reveled in their truth. His touch was like a brand upon her skin, marking her, claiming her as his own. If they did not consciously know then, their bodies knew the truth of the other, as they always would.

Intimacy was about the truth of oneself and another, of finding oneself with their partner.

His lips met and caressed nearly every inch of her body, his fingers tracing her curves just as hers traced his muscles.

She was on fire, alight with life and love, aglow in her lover’s arms.

He took her into his mouth and she moaned, desperate for more, to never be parted from him, to feel his tongue inside her again and again.

She cried out when she came, clutching at his hair. Her body was taut, yet relaxed, and she felt calm though her heart was racing, her core pulsing with her climax.

He kissed her once more, smiling, and lifted her from the bed into his arms effortlessly. His lips were at her neck and ear, his arms so strong as he adjusted their position.

“Alina, my Alina,” he murmured as he entered her.

“Aleksander,” she replied, breathless, feeling so full, so whole, so complete.

She cried out once more as he moved within her, clinging to him, savoring the sensations.

They came together, his arms around her, their bodies entwined. They collapsed to the bed after, still holding each other, the world contained to their arms, their love.

The world would wait until the morning. The night was theirs, to explore as they explored each other, the darkness giving way to the dawn just as his shadows would dissipate before her sunlight.

The sun would be shadowed in eclipse, yet reign eternal forever more, one soul bound to another.

#darklinaweek2021 #darklina week #darklinadaily #darklina #alina x darkling #alina starkov #the darkling #shadow and bone #grishaverse #fan fiction #my writing #soulmate au

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greenscrunchy · 2 years ago

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if she were completely honest, chrissy hadn’t expected colorado in the summer to rain quite so much.

a riotous violet and crimson sky wrung down torrents of raindrops that lost their speed halfway down the hatch, landing on pavements and roofs with tepid, pathetic splats once they met resistance. trapped june heatwaves sizzled beneath clouds of steam that rose all the way up to the motel’s second floor window. it must have been an hour ago that eddie’s van had skidded into the parking lot before the storm rolled over them with a vengeance, effectively trapping them below liquid curtains of pelting rain.

since then chrissy had opted to change out of her sodden clothes and into much drier ones. one end of her duffel became soaked during the mad dash for the reservation office, but not enough to be disastrous. she was, however, still wringing out her hair when she joined eddie in looking out their window.

the room’s two armchairs had been hauled together to make a kind of enclosed bench that could almost pass for cozy if it weren’t for the startling palette of threat-coloured weather on the other side of the wall. chrissy gingerly lowered herself into the empty seat across from eddie, collecting all her limbs tightly together to save room, though the edges of her flip flops still knocked against his feet and her arms skated against his jeans whenever she made a slight movement. but it wasn’t uncomfortable. it was just.....still.

a peal of thunder rolled almost lazily through the passing clouds, followed by scattered electric pitchforks visible for long moments. “god’s bowling,” her dad used to theater whisper with a grin. in between noise and light the harshest downpours seemed to have moved along, changing to a thoroughly soaking but altogether gentler rhythm.

already thick humidity grew heavier with a deeply pocketed dread chrissy hadn’t dared examine since the close of last spring. there was nothing wrong with the motel - or the company. the culprit responsible for all the goosebumps pocking chrissy’s skin was nowhere to be found in the room. no, it was the carbon copy of hell outside, in the color of the clouds, the lightning. in the distant crash of thunder that sounded like the shout of an angry supernatural entity.

chrissy shut her eyes, but neither the dark omens of sound around her nor the weather could be erased. they dwelt in her own private darkness, too, subsumed in forced surrender. when her lids flew open again, the comfort of reality was almost nil.

❝ it looks like the upside down. ❞ this was supposed to be a grand vacation: chrissy and eddie’s cross country adventure to rival the best buddy movie of all time, and in one burst it felt like running again. away from monsters they’d never been taught to fight because no one believed a place like the upside down could exist. but the two of them ran. and ran and ran and ran to get anywhere close to free.

the air kicked on, disturbing the fine hairs on the back of chrissy’s neck. if reality became anymore flimsy, she might've thought it was vecna breathing down her neck again, running his claws across her cheeks and telling her don’t cry, don’t cry.

it was only a week, but it was the longest year of my life. / @hellmartyr

don’t cry, chrissy.

a pale hand snaked forward to root around in the dim room for one of eddie’s hands, gripping stiffly when she found one. were she with anyone else it might be crossing a line, but she and eddie were well past that. they’d had to be in order have a crapshot at coming out of the void alive. some days, it felt like part of their very souls had been seared off and scraped away down there, with no hope to regain what was lost. no one else seemed to understand that but the person everyone thought had killed her.

❝ yeah, it felt way longer. ❞ like a lifetime, if she was frank. ❝ i still have the nightmares. sometimes. i don’t know why i thought they would go away after a while, but they haven’t. i still see the bats. i see him, ❞ she heard herself rattle aloud. ❝ for a long time, i think i’m okay and then....and then i can’t stop thinking about it. like i’m afraid real life won’t be real and i’ll be gone again. ❞ the hand wrapped around eddie’s began to tremble but she kept holding. ❝ ....do you still have the nightmares? ❞ does he still scare you, too?

#hellmartyr #𝓈𝒾𝓃𝒸𝑒𝓇𝑒𝓁𝓎 𝓎𝑜𝓊𝓇𝓈𝑒𝓁𝒻 | threads #𝒾𝓉'𝓈 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝑒𝓃𝒹 𝑜𝒻 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝓌𝑜𝓇𝓁𝒹 𝒶𝓈 𝓌𝑒 𝓀𝓃𝑜𝓌 𝒾𝓉 | v. the resurrection #𝒶𝓇𝒸: it takes two #gfdi this was supposed to be little #but feels got away from me

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