#might share some of my strongest units here sometime...

[ae-ul]

building ayato for funsies now that thoma is done and im waiting for mika :')

#aeul.v #genshin impact #might share some of my strongest units here sometime... #ayato is so unbuilt it's sad BUT he's already doing quite well look at im

[cassanovancats]

felicitate. one.

WARNING: JJK spoilers. canon-typical violence.

prologue < current > two

Nov. 2016

“Didja hear about the new transfer student starting today?” Panda asked, poking his head into your room. You push him out of the doorway and lead the way outside where you collect Inumaki and Maki to walk to class together.

You hummed slightly before answering, “Not really. Nii-chan said he wanted to surprise us with him.”

“He stuffed four - four, you guys! - of his classmates into a locker.”

“Killed them?” Maki asks, shifting her weapons case to sit higher on her shoulder. Inumaki leans over, interested.

“Nope! Only ‘severe’ injuries,” Panda explains, using his claws to make quotation marks around the word severe.

“I wonder what his lineage is. If he’s a transfer then he probably doesn’t have an inherited technique. Maybe we both can train together!” Your steps get a little lighter at the thought of adding to your harem. Maki glares at you as if she heard your thoughts and gives an audible hmph.

“If he’s cocky about being the strongest at some bumpkin junior high, I’ll rough him up.” Maki declares. “I bet you’re too tired to even train today, (y/n).”

“Salmon.”

You gasp dramatically. “Even you, Toge-kun? I can’t believe my favorite partner would do me like that. You both know it’s a Monday, I only did five kilometers this morning, thank you very much. And if you would actually join me sometime, you would understand that’s an easy distance.” You toss your hair and point your nose upward sarcastically.

Inumaki rolls his eyes, “Bonito flakes.”

“What he said,” Maki nods. “It's bad enough you convinced Gojo we have to run laps to warm-up before training.” You pout at such blatant rebuffs. Another failed attempt to get a workout buddy. Not that any of your classmates were weak, quite the opposite, they just kept training to what they saw as most essential - cursed techniques and fighting.

“You wouldn’t want them on your run anyways,” Panda says, trying to cheer you up, “You’d just leave them in the dust and end up alone on your trail anyways.” You chuckle at the annoyed noise Maki makes and move to enter the classroom first. As always, you claim the desk furthest from the door and closest to the window. Inumaki sits next to you, a habit from when you both met as children at clan meetings, Maki next to him, and Panda by the door.

You toss your jacket across the back of your chair and breathe in relief. The terrible things were so heavy and while it was great in the winter, November was still too hot to be covered in fabric. You smooth your skirt across your thighs to cover more skin and turn to ask Inumaki a question about the homework when Satoru slams the door of the classroom open. “Transfer student incoming! Let’s get this party -,” he trails off seeing the bored look on everyone’s face, “-started? (y/n), explain why you’re not totally pumped.”

You raise an eyebrow, “Are you asking as my brother or my teacher right now?”

“I heard he’s a punk. I have no interest in being nice to that kind of guy.” Maki interrupts.

“Salmon.”

Satoru pouts when you nod and Panda remains silent. “Whatever.” he turns and cups his hand around his mouth to yell at the closed door. “Come on in now!”

A deep sense of dread settles in your stomach when the door inches open. You and Inumaki share a look and he is already reaching to push up his sleeve and pull down his zipper. The boy who walks in is hunched in over himself and would be cute if not for the enormous curse hanging onto his back. The monster sneers with elongated teeth over his shoulder while he makes his introduction. Although neither makes an offensive move, every student makes one choreographed movement to circle around him in a defensive measure. Maki thrusts her blade into the blackboard behind Yuta Okkotsu. “Don’t you know you’re cursed?” She sneers at him down the staff, “We learn about curses here. It’s not a place for people who are cursed.”

Satoru doesn’t move an inch when he begins the spiel you’ve heard a million times: where curses originate, how sorcerers exorcise them, and how Jujutsu High trains each generation of sorcerers. It’s clear he didn’t explain this to Yuta, as the already pale boy becomes almost translucent. You take a step back, still hesitant about what must be a special-grade curse, but trusting that your brother would never endanger you. Well, at least not to the point of possible death. If he brought Yuta to your class, there must be a reason.

But then two giant arms emerge from the blackboard to grab Maki’s weapon from her hands. An ominous voice that makes you suddenly nauseous warns, “Don’t bully Yuta!” The arms swipe your friends onto their backs in one smooth movement. Panda thumps against the wall and Inumaki slides across the floor, hitting his head on an upturned desk. Maki stumbles backwards, shocked at the easy strength of the curse.

“Stop!” The technique you borrowed from Inumaki forces everyone in the room to freeze and you fall to your knees coughing, suddenly exhausted. Your brother breaks your hold and moves away from where he leaned against his desk when he first entered the room to offer you a hand. You stand on shaky legs as he explains how Yuta came to be cursed. Satoru allows you to clasp both hands onto the one still supporting you, allowing his technique to be borrowed and releasing the hold you had on your classmates.

You move to stand with them in solidarity as they gather to their feet. Maki takes the role of your pillar, allowing you to stand slightly behind her and grip the back of her jacket, while Inumaki hands you a cough drop from his pocket. You nod a thanks, still unable to speak. God, you need to train with his technique more. He can get at least three strong commands out before being incapacitated.

“They’re going through a rebellious phase, so let me introduce everyone. First is my precious lil sister, Gojo (y/n). She copies techniques by touch, so ignore how handsy she gets.” Satoru smiles and winks behind his blindfold, “Maki Zen’in. Cursed tool user; she uses special tools to exorcise curses. Cursed speech user Toge Inumaki, (y/n) copied his technique in that little show. His vocab is limited to rice ball ingredients. And Panda.” He points at each of you as he travels down the line. Yuta moves to join where the four of you had previously stood united against him. “Wow! Five first years! That's the biggest class in a while. Yaga must be so jealous the great Gojo-san can recruit so many talented young ones.” Satoru mimes wiping a tear from his blindfolded eyes and you roll your own at his self-praise. Yuta nervously (maybe curiously? nervous is the most common reaction) eyes Panda.

By now, you can mostly stand on your own, but gesture for another cough drop from Inumaki. He indulges you, though reluctantly. You make a mental note to buy a pack to refill both your own and his pocket stashes. But first, an afternoon practical where you’re paired with your brother. A pairing which means you two will just take the Gojo family card for a trip around whatever district you’ll be traveling to. Not that you’d ever complain about that. Inumaki and Panda are paired together, which leaves Maki and the new kid. Yuta moves to stand in front of Maki (and you, by default, since you’re still slightly hidden behind her) and says quietly, “I’m, uh, looking forward to working with you.” He manages a shaky smile.

Maki narrows her eyes. “You were bullied, right?” He visibly shakes but doesn’t respond. “Thought so. You’re totally bully-able. Probably because of the curse. You act like such a good person but it feels fake; it feels gross. You’re being protected, why act like a victim?” You elbow her side with a frown but she carries on. “I bet you’ve been passive your whole life. No goals. No aspirations. Jujutsu High ain’t that easy.”

Panda takes a step to stand firmly next to Yuta and places a giant paw on his shoulder. “That’s enough, Maki.” Inumaki agrees sternly.

“Fine. Whatever,” she scratches at her head, embarrassed at being reprimanded by each of her classmates. She is the first one to leave the room, not waiting for Gojo’s dismissal. Not like each of you don’t know the routine for missions.

The class begins to trickle out slowly and you hesitate before grabbing Yuta’s wrist to tug him gently back into the room. “I wanted to apologize. Maki isn’t always nice, but I promise she’s one of the kindest souls I know. I’m glad you joined our class, Yuta-san.” You smile in a way you hope reassures him. You walk away quickly, hoping to still have time to grab a pair of shorts from your dorm. You think you might just let a curse kill you if you have to fight in a skirt again after accidentally flashing your underwear at Panda last mission. Due to leaving so fast, you miss the sight of Yuta’s frozen body burning up in a deep blush.

The six of you arrive at an elementary school without any more fights in the car. Just a thick, awkward silence. Yuta seems sweaty and is constantly wiping his palms on his pants as the group approaches the building. Gojo-sensei gives the usual mission brief, explaining how children have recently started going missing and two curses are responsible. Team Panda will be responsible for one, Team Maki for the other. “And what will Team Gojo be doing?” Maki asks, raising a sarcastic eyebrow.

“Keeping an eye on the perimeter, of course! (y/n), if you will.” You nod and begin the chant to create a curtain.

“W-what is that? it’s turning to night!” Yuta yells.

“That is a curtain. It’ll make you guys invisible to the outside world and reveal the curses inside.” Gojo-sensei pats Yuta reassuringly on the shoulder. You follow him to stand outside of the curtain. Before it closes your classmates in, Gojo adds, “Don’t go dying on us now.”

You snort and hit your brother's arm. “You shouldn’t scare him like that. Poor boy looked like he was going to faint. So, are we leaving or actually keeping an eye on them?”

“I’m curious about how Rika will react when Yuta is in actual danger. Let’s wait,” he replies. You nod and move to sit cross-legged on the hood of the car while Satoru leans against the side. “...This also gives time for your precious Nii-chan to catch up on gossip. Has sweet Toge caught onto your crush yet?”

You flush and cross your arms across your chest. Moving to angle your body away from him, you pout and petulantly say, “There’s no crush. We’re just good partners. He's the only one of my classmates I can actually take a technique from, so of course I spend time training with him!”

Satoru smiles and hums, “No need to be so defensive. You know I approve if there was a crush though, right?” You just nod, relieved he was letting it drop so easily. “Although, your poor brothers might get jealous if we get even less time with you. We’re your best partners ever, after all.”

“Of course, Nii-chan. You know Team Gojo is undefeatable,” you say. Suddenly, both of you startle and whip your heads towards a point behind the curtain. Even without copying Satoru’s six-eyes, you can see the sudden burst of cursed energy. The wave of power makes you so nauseous, you turn your head and gag slightly.

“Freaky,” Satoru chuckles. “So that's the true identity of special grade cursed spirit Rika Orimoto. Women sure are scary.”

“If he lost control of her, something must be wrong,” you hop up from your seat and step forward to dismiss the curtain.

Yuta steps through the curtain right as your hand reaches out to dash the veil away. The sight startles you. He's covered in the usual grime from missions but it’s how he collapses on top of two children he obviously carried out and the unconscious Maki draped over his back that scares you. You move to untangle the limbs and check Maki for injuries while Satoru steps forward, in teacher-mode again, and says, “Welcome back. You did it.”

You stick your hand out impatiently gesturing for the first aid kit kept in the car. When Gojo places it in your hands, you rush to tourniquet Maki’s leg where there’s an obvious gouge in the flesh. Gojo continues to talk with Yuta, likely a debrief, while you move onto the two children. Neither has any wounds that you can treat - they’re obviously cursed but that requires Auntie Shoko’s technique. You report all of this to your brother and he instructs the driver to be sure to take everyone back to school. He tells you to be sure to help ‘Ieiri-san’ with the children, and while you wrinkle your nose at the formality (Auntie Shoko has never separated her role in your personal life from her role in your training), you easily agree. With some effort and not much help from an exhausted Yuta, you manage to get all four into a car. You slide into the passenger seat and nod to signal the driver to start the car.

After copying her reversed healing cursed technique, the pair of you don’t take long to heal the children and Maki. Maki regained consciousness while you were working on her, nearly kicking you in the face. She gave you a short debrief of what had happened and, knowing she was now okay, you took great delight in teasing her for messing up her first chance to impress your new classmate. “Oh man, Toge-kun is going to love this. I can't believe Miss ‘I’ll rough him up’ got swallowed! You completely fucked up a first impression,” you cackled and dodged her kick. Shoko gave you an exasperated look from across one of the kid’s hospital beds.

“Leave my patients alone, (y/n). Go tell your idiot brother everyone is fine.”

taglist: @rowanthefox

#felicitate #cass.writes #jujutsu kaisen #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jjk x reader #inumaki x reader #yuta okkotsu x reader #inumaki x reader x yuta #female!reader #jjk spoilers #jjk volume 0 spoilers

[lesbian-vmin]

So out of all the maknae line ships do u think vmin is the most probable or do u just ship vmin and thats why u make analysis?

Maybe this ask doesn’t warrant a long answer? I think you’re just asking simply, but I got carried away. 

I couldn’t say I think Vmin is the most probable out of the maknae line ships. On the big if there is a relationship within BTS (among the members), I think it’s possible that Vmin could be. However, I can see reason to believe that any of the other maknae line pairings (or nearly any BTS pairing) could be for that matter. 

I think who seems the most ‘real’ to you can depend on a lot of things, and something that might make one pairing seem real to someone might make them not seem real to another. (The only way to know for sure who they are dating is they openly tell us. Then that makes it 100% real whether it’s someone in the group or not.)

For me, and the reason I make the analysis, I just like the way Vmin feel. It’s less about how I think they’re together and more about how I adore some things about their relationship. I like the way they feel to me better than I do with Jik**k or Taek**k (though I don’t have a problem with either pairing).

And when it comes to JK, I enjoy his ships with the hyung-line more. Because his relationship with Vmin (to me) sometimes feels a little less on the soft side, while Vmin feels very soft sometimes (though they have their not-so-soft moments - see ISAC 2017). The JK x hyung pairings feel softer than Jik**k or Taek**k. 

If you don’t like the soft-feeling or ‘I’m dating my best friend’ kind of relationship, it would make sense that you wouldn’t ship Vmin. I know there are a lot of people who believe in the ‘friend-zone’ and who would never date their best friend. And that might be why a lot of people overlook vmin. Because they call each other their best friend all the time. However, my sister is married to her best friend, and I love the relationship she has with him. Two of my friends, who were best friends, are also married. And these two couples, out of all the couples I know, have the strongest relationships I know. So that’s probably why I enjoy Vmin over most other ships. Because their relationship matches those in my own life that I admire.

I’ve also been around since BTS debut. I’ve loved Vmin from the beginning, but they weren’t my favorite at the start. My favorite at first was J*nmin and N*mtae for Jimin and Taehyung ships. It was watching them over the years that made me like Vmin the most.

Personal reasons for shipping Vmin aside, they have very realistic reasons for us to ship them as well. (This may be something you can argue for any ship, but I’m not going to get into all that.) The songs are a big thing that gets me to feel like there’s something there.

I don’t think that every BTS song is something the group has personally experienced. They have a big part in writing their songs (probably more now than when they began), but they still have other people writing for them, too. Or helping them write, anyway. The lyrics come from many experiences (and this is true for nearly every musician. Many musicians write songs from other people’s experiences). I think there are songs that are less personal to them (though as BTS moves forward more and more songs feel more personal - probably as they take a bigger part in the creative process). 

Anyway. Back to Vmin and songs. When a song is personal, it’s always the ones that BTS wrote themselves with relation to something specific about them. When 4 o’clock was first released, we didn’t get to hear a lot about it. Namjoon talked a little about helping Taehyung write the song, but we never got to hear anything from Taehyung about the song. It wasn’t until their Unit Interview about Friends that we heard anything from Taehyung. The only thing he gave us then was that the song was written about the dumpling incident, but he didn’t say anything else about the song. It was an interview about Friends, not about 4 o’clock, but he at least confirmed what Namjoon posted (and then deleted) back when 4 o’clock was originally released. It was about Jimin.

Then we have Taehyung announcing to everyone on Vlive that he wanted to sing a romantic duet (which he wrote) with Jimin, but one of their producers told him that he couldn’t do it because the lyrics wouldn’t make sense if it was two men singing it. They recommended one of the female composers who can also sing, and Taehyung showed a small part of the song with her singing the part that he presumably wanted Jimin to sing. During this live, he was clearly upset. If you’re any good at reading emotions at all, you can tell that he was upset talking about the song. Regardless if he and Jimin are in a relationship, and regardless if he is gay (we aren’t going to go into either one of those things), the producer denying his wish to sing the song with Jimin clearly hurt. Regardless of his reasons for wanting to sing with Jimin. And this becomes a Vmin song because he specifically said he wanted to share it with Jimin. Not one of his members. Not some other male artist. Jimin. (And him talking about this in the live sort of felt like an at least partially unfiltered act of rebellion).

And finally, we have Friends. A song with a platonic title, but some deep meaning lyrics. I’ll set the whole soulmate thing aside because that’s arguably platonic as well. It’s the lyrics like: “for eternity, keep staying here” “after the cheers die down, stay” “we are each other’s mysteries” “I know everything about you” And when they are given an opportunity to talk about these songs, they don’t really give us any information. Rather than talking about the actual lyrics of the song, Vmin used Friends as an excuse to reminisce about their old days. We don’t get to hear about them staying together. And we certainly don’t get to hear what’s so mysterious about them, because then it wouldn’t be special, right?

And now since I’m talking about the possibility of relationship between Vmin, I’m going to say this. It’s the fact that they write romantic-like lyrics about each other, but only brings up the friendly ones when talking about the songs. The closest thing we got to them talking about romantic lyrics was Taehyung complaining about being told that it wouldn’t make sense for Jimin to sing romantic lyrics with him.

As I’ve mentioned in an ask before. It feels like they want to put in meaningful lyrics to each other in the songs they release, but they try to keep it on a friendly level when talking about it. That’s not me saying that Vmin’s songs to and about each other (or the ones they wish to sing together) are hard evidence of a relationship. But it’s definitely something that shows a bond beyond a typical friendship.

I do appreciate all BTS pairings, however. And I can talk all day every day about any of them. It’s just that Vmin is the one that I resonate with the most. Although any ship can seem as realistic as they do depending on who’s observing and what they’re observing, I just like Vmin the best.

Thanks for the ask!

#answered #koala answers #vmin #vmin analysis #and is it just me or is dating your best friend more common in the lgbt community? #because a lot of my gay friends would or have or are dating their best friend #because like #a lot of us have to become best friends with someone to even know if they're gay #like straight people have it so easy #they can date someone they hardly know #but like #gay dating culture is a little different #isn't it? #it seems that way to me... #reasons #vmin songs

[nissakii]

How to find Motivation in Sports Anime

The human body is a very complex structure, every organ in your body, every ligament and every nerve works to keep us healthy. And like a machine that needs to be oiled and tended to have it last for a long while, our bodies need nutrition in many ways to live a healthy and fulfilling life.

Today, we are going to talk about exercise and how we can gather the motivation to get up and work on our physical health from nothing other than sports anime.

You heard me right!

While watching anime is ironically an activity you will most likely perform while sitting or laying down, let us look together why physical activity is important, how that relates to anime and what to do after striking the match of motivation!

We hear it from everyone around us, especially people who are active themselves and even doctors.

Exercise is good for you! It’s good for your body and mind!

But why is that so?

Well firstly, like the example with the machine suggests, our body responds extremely well to exercise if it is done correctly. In this instance it is always better to start slow and look at what is best for yourself which might differ considering your age, gender or other attributes.

Rigorous and controlled movement of your body makes you sweat, which might be unpleasant at the beginning if you don’t like much exercise, but we can’t really see what’s happening on the inside. As you move more and more, your blood circulates a lot quicker through your body to deploy oxygen into your organs. If you're actually interested in an anime more on that note, here's the link to Makii's Hataraku Saibou post!

With your oxygen levels raised, you’re straying further from the possibilities of heart diseases and even heart attacks. It also helps to lower your blood sugar and insulin levels which is very beneficial for prevention of diabetes or for people who used to smoke, as it prevents withdrawal symptoms more efficiently.

It’s not just the physical aspects of your body that are being mended, but exercise is also an extremely good measure to enhance your mood and mental health. Not to say that sports will solve all of your problems in an instant, but look at it this way; while exercising your body releases chemicals such as dopamine and endorphins in your brain that not only elevate your mood but are also essential for your general well-being. You even exterminate substances that make you feel worse, which is why oten after a workout you tend to feel exhausted but a good kind of exhausted.

Another great factor to include is sleep schedule!

Often enough we are torn between wake and sleep, as we can’t really get our mind to shut off after a long day. After some tough exercise your body will automatically deplete its own energy resources, as it's naturally easier to fall asleep when you’re tired. The longer you have built up your routine of including exercise in your life, the better your sleep schedule will adjust!

If actual units of exercise aren't your style, don't worry! There's a variety of things you can try, even stretching can help a lot in regulating your physical health and is a great way to wind down as you focus on each of your muscles.

Now after all of these facts about exercise which will probably sound a bit dull, how do we incorporate anime into this?

Do you know that feeling when you watch a new anime and you just want to dive into that world to see it for yourself?

Anime often incorporates a great deal of hype element, keeping us on our toes while watching so we stick with the extremes that are being displayed no matter the genre.

It’s the same with sports anime, right?

Just as much as the shounen protagonist in a fantasy world wants to defeat the villain and save humankind, the drive behind that one athlete to defeat everyone and win his favorite tournament is just as strong! In this case, we can even relate more to the anime character in a sports anime as his world is definitely closer to our real world as well.

Especially since we’re often shown the narrative of the underdog who fights tooth and nail to become the strongest, we can look at ourselves and think “If they can do it, I can too!”.

Of course the reason for the underdog becoming so strong is the intense workload they put on themselves to see quick and amazing results.

Another great thing sports bring are the teams.

In anime those teams can become more than just friends but more than a family, and to see so many different people work together is also a huge motivator.

Our brain immediately sees what can happen after a portion of hard work and that is precisely why we are suddenly so motivated after watching an episode of our current favorite sports anime. We envision ourselves what it could be like to be part of a team, dream or goal that we would do anything for.

Constant challenges and emotional outburst are not only part of the show that is animation, but also exist in real life! People dedicate everything they have into their sport just as much as an anime character might! Or they won't! Sometimes it's all just for the sheer fun of it all, and if the stiff rulings of a team feel more confining to you, be sure that there's those happy go lucky teams everywhere in real-life as well as in anime!

The sheer rivalry between characters that have only their sport in mind is immensely empowering, and therefore a good reason to start your own journey into a new sport whichever kind you might prefer.

Now if you can’t or don’t want to grab onto your next volley- or baseball or catch the next bus to your track field or gym, there’s other ways to blend a bit of healthy exercise into your life!

Hobby teams of most sports are able to be found almost everywhere, but if you have a busy schedule and simply joining a club is too much right now, try to trick yourself into sneaking some exercise into your daily life! You might for example take the stairs instead of taking the elevator all the time, or try to do short span runs or even jumps while doing some other activity! How about leaving essential stuff like food or your water bottle scattered around your place so you'll be forced to walk around to get it?

Try to see it as your personal ‘I have to become the best hero/player/fighter montage’ if the exercises seem dull! Imagine how some of your favorite heroes in anime have done the same so far!

An easy way to motivate yourself is to get friends and family involved! I myself have a hard time getting myself to exercise regularly on my own, but as soon as another person steps in the obligation kicks in and so could your motivation!

Another way that’s a bit less social but just as effective could be to exercise while watching a show you would watch anyway. Or rewatch something old you’ve had in your mind anyways, you could even try an audio book or something else in the background to get you through your reps!

And one more thing to conclude: it is never too late.

Don’t let yourself be discouraged by people telling you that you can’t do something. Whatever the reason might be, anyone can do anything if they just set their mind to it properly and stick to their goal with discipline.

I’m the last person who would call herself the epitome of discipline, quite the contrary, but there have been people in my life who have always taught me not to give up and stay positive, so I shall give you the same wisdom!

Now let’s go out there and take matters into our own hands! Until the next teatime!

This tea is so good! Wanna share?

-Nissa

#nissakii #sports anime #anime #manga #hype #anime 2021 #haikyuu #hq #haikyuu!! #kuroko #kuroko no basket #shonen #motivation #health #mental health #how to find motivation in sports anime

[marshmallowprotection]

Reverse AU

She didn’t know what it felt like to take a break. 

Well, perhaps there was one point in her life where she knew what they felt like but honestly, she wasn’t going to let herself stop. Her goal was the obliteration of everyone that had ever spurred her to rot in Hell. Her blood boiled every time that she thought of all of the ways that she’d been hurt. 

And? 

It made her want to destroy everything that hurt her to prove that she was stronger, no, that she was better than the rest of them.  She would survive and prove that she was always meant to be on top in the end. It was her promised destiny, the will of paradise, the very scorch of the earth that she’d been given a new chance on, and she wouldn’t lose this chance. 

Her head ached, but there could have been a few reasons for that. She figured off the top of her head that it was the need for another bottle of elixir, and her second guess was the fact that she hadn’t had any rest since her target had been chosen. He was meant to go to the apartment and trick those damn fools. 

He was meant to make them bend and break with his sincere smile and—

Her fingers paused against the keys, staring deeper at the CCTV camera of her target as he continued about his day. He had such a lovely face. He sought to find an identity outside of his twin brother, and his attention brought him to dress like such a prince. It made her heart flutter every time she thought of his handsome features. 

He was perfect. 

He was going to make everything work. 

And yet, she clicked her tongue distastefully. She didn’t want to share him. She didn’t want to send him into the lion’s den with those fools.  Whenever she envisioned him with any of them, it made her blood boil even hotter in a room that was meant to be chilled to keep her from falling asleep. He was better than those liars… than that bastard.

She didn’t want to share. 

She… 

She thought of her Savior, what he would think if he knew what she was thinking, and yet, at that moment, she felt drawn to do something that would get her into trouble. However, if she played her cards right, she could keep the cute prince and manipulate his brother to go into the apartment instead since he wouldn’t be the wiser. 

It might be enough to spurn them to give up in the future if they got close enough to his brother, and then she could manipulate them all one by one until they crumbled beneath the Savior’s feet once and for all. 

That way, paradise could be… united, in the future. 

“Yes, that’s it, that’s what I’ll do, it could work,” she cocked her head as she watched him check his phone, not knowing what was going to happen to him very soon. “I’ll destroy them… I won’t have to share you to do it… haha… haha… hahahahaha! I can get you to help me another way from my side… Savior will understand. He always does.” 

He had saved her when she was so scared and lost, and she now hoped to do the same for someone that she saw herself in. Paradise was welcoming to all, and even if it meant more work for her, she wouldn’t care. As long as she had him, as long as she had paradise, as long as she had her goals, then it would be alright. 

She had to act now when her prince was alone… and she had to do it without informing her Savior, but she was far too excited to stop now that the thought occurred to her. She was the strongest, she was the most trusted member of paradise. She wouldn’t face punishment for furthering their goals, she would be praised. 

Praised as she deserved… 

The thought of those mint eyes looking upon her with pride was all that she wanted. 

“Wait for me, my darling… our paradise awaits.” 

—

“Hey, what’s with that face? You don’t think I’m going to do something horrible to you, do you? I swear I’m not some creep,” the look in her eyes didn’t make that nervous smile on her lips. “I swear, I promise.”

It was almost unnatural how her eyes glimmered with a mint glow to them, but it drew Saeran in for some reason. She beckoned him forward with that friendly smile of hers and he felt compelled to listen. 

It wasn’t like him. 

Well, that is to say, it wasn’t like him to go out on a limb for someone he didn’t know well. Sure, he was kind, and many people would say that he was too selfless of a person but that was why he had answered this girl’s text message after he had found a lost phone. 

Her brown-locks were curly and a bit fringed in front of her eyes, it seemed a little messy but it was a windy day. She was foreign but she had a good grasp of the language. A jacket hung loosely from one shoulder, and a pink cropped tea covered most of her top with just her abdomen showing before it edged into her jeans. 

What stood out about her the most was the almost unnatural glow of her eyes. If he hadn’t had the confidence to meet her gaze, he would have missed the almost cat-like quality of the emerald green in her forest eyes. He wondered if it was because of contacts. He wore some sometimes to make his outfit more cohesive. 

She was starkly contrasted against him, with the pink vest he was wearing and the long bell sleeves of his top. She didn’t seem to think he was out of place nor did he think that of her. It would be brazen of him to call her style strange when they both pushed against society. They were on opposite ends of the spectrum.

Those that rebelled against the common culture with something that made them feel good. For some people that meant that they wore as much leather and shredded jeans as they could, and for others, it meant that they wore enough frills to counter the universe with a smile on their face. She was a punk and he was more princely. 

He wasn’t one to judge others. 

“No,” Saeran said, simply. “But, you know how it is with strangers these days. Everyone is always very wary of others.”

Though, he didn’t budge from his spot. It wasn’t like she posed a threat to him, she was barely five feet tall. He was nearly a head taller than her and even if she tried something, he doubted she’d get very far if she was a threat to him. She was too small, too lithe, and too sincere over the phone to seem like she may try something. 

She flashed her lashes at him and held out her hand to him with injured fingers. There were braces on her joints and carefully wrapped fingers as if she’d worked too hard. 

Something in her eyes lit up again as she giggled. “Yeah, you’re right. I guess it was pretty silly to get so worried about finding my friend’s phone like that. It was nice of you to offer to return it to me. Thank you so much for bringing it back to me, you’re such a prince. I appreciate it.” 

“It was no problem! I was on my way to meet someone anyway, so it wasn’t out of my way,” he said. Against that unease, though, he could feel his heart speed up at the way that she had complimented him. It wasn’t often that someone spoke to him in a way like this or looked at him with intrigue and interest. 

He pulled the phone from his pocket and looked down at it once more. It did strike him as odd that the device was… barren. There was not a thing on it except for a messenger app of all things. He wasn’t going to question what sorts of things people were doing these days but it did kind of bug him to think that it could have been something weird.

Instead of grasping the phone, her fingers pressed tightly against his own over the device. Her hands were ice cold, almost as she had been locked in a deep freeze for a few hours. She was impossibly close now, peering up at him like a very curious kitten.

A part of him wanted to shrug her hand away from his but her eyes had him haunted. 

“You know, you have much prettier eyes in person,” she cooed as his body went stiff. In-person? Did that mean she had seen him before? “I love them… they’re golden. They remind me of the honeysuckle that I’d grow around my home when I was a little girl. Or, wait, the deep glaze of honey from the bees fresh from the hive. It’s you... it’s you, you’re the perfect assistant.” 

Saeran was very concerned now because she was speaking about him as if she had seen him before. He wanted to wrench his hand away from her but she was a lot stronger than she looked, believe it or not. Or, maybe he was just a lot weaker than he thought. What was she talking about? What was she trying to imply? 

“Excuse me?” he asked, his voice light and unsure. “What are you saying?” 

The caramel sweet that had once been her laughter had now had the taste of a pan filled with burned sugar. It was so sweet that it seemed wrong. She cocked her head, “Oh, right. I forgot, prince-y is so too naïve for his own good but that’s my favorite thing about you. You see, I was going to make you play a little game for me but… I just decided I don’t want to share you with them… with him.” 

What? 

Saeran shook his head, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I’m not—”

“Did you think you had a choice, prince? Oh, that’s so cute!” She countered, her eyes narrowing to a slit, and her hand simply pulling him harder.  “Don’t worry. I’ll be taking you to paradise. Doesn’t that sound sweet? It’s much better than what you’ve been subjected to out here… ignored… neglected, and treated like a doormat by everyone around you. I want to give you the world.”

Saeran shook his head, but there was no arguing with someone that was hiding a weapon stashed in their coat pocket. He could see it, and she knew that he’d seen it. She was armed and there was no way in Hell that he was going to fight that. “What makes you think that you’ll get away with that sort of thing? There are cameras all over the place.” 

It doesn’t matter if he’s bigger than she is. 

That took away the middle man. 

Her smiled widened. “Not much point in cameras if you can hack their feeds to loop the same five minutes over and over again, prince. So, what do you say, are you going to come with me to paradise? Or are you going to make this more difficult for the two of us? Trust me, I don’t mind being cruel with what’s mine but… I don’t want to have to hurt that porcelain face of yours. It’s too precious for my goals.”

Saeran looked around at the street as it was emptied. 

Nobody was around and nobody could do a thing about this. Those cameras… she’d… hacked them? There was no way she had been able to do that, but here she was. What was this even? Had this all been planned from the start? His mind wandered with thoughts that they shouldn’t as he knew that he was trapped like cornered prey.

“You know that I could just run right now, don’t you?” 

“Wouldn’t you have already tried if that was the case?” 

“...” 

“Poor little prince, don’t worry about it. I’m just trying to help you. I know all about you, I know all about how you feel miserably abandoned by your brother… desperately trying to gain attention from the world that ignores you. You’ve been lost for so long… haven’t you? Trying to get by with your smile and faith but it’s exhausting…” 

“You don’t— You don’t know anything about me.” 

How could she? 

Hackers could learn anything and everything about your life if they wanted, right? Was she trying to bluff to get inside of his head? He stiffened at the mention of his brother, not wanting to fixate on the thought. 

He was in the middle of a dangerous situation, this wasn’t the time to focus on Saeyoung or that problem! He could worry about that later when he had the time, this girl wanted something dangerous from him. 

She took his silence as a good sign. “I don’t? What a shame, then I suppose I’ll have to get to know you from this moment forward, won’t I? That’s right. You’re lost but I found you… so, just let go, give up, and let me take you to paradise. I’ll take good care of you.”

“...”

The dejected look in his eyes told her all she needed to know. That sickly sweet laugh of hers echoed in his mind as he gave up, and her backup arrived. 

#mm #mysme #mysticmessenger #mystic messenger #reverse au #mod kait #saeran choi #choi saeran #wisteria #wisteria x saeran #lila lancelot oc #mystic messenger cmc #mysme cmc #cmc #saeran mystic messenger #saeran mm #saeran mysme #mysme saeran #mm saeran #mystic messenger saeran #drabble #yes she's unknown and he's her assistant #V is the Savior

[the-phoenix-heart]

Sorting Hat Chats - BNHA

For those of you who don’t know, @sortinghatchats​ has a system for sorting people based off of primary houses, and secondary houses. You can find a run down of that here. Today I’m gonna be sorting eight My Hero Academia characters! Probably gonna be a sequel or two to this post. This one got super long...

(Manga spoilers and like two minor movie spoilers which are marked by “in the movie” so if you wanna skip those you can)

(Also get used to Lions because Hero Society tends to reward Lions with places in hero courses)

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that IZUKU MIDORIYA is a true Lion. It also doesn’t take a genius to see that the guy who wants to do the All Might thing of saving people with a smile on his face seems to be very Badger-y. Izuku could be read as a Badger primary but I think that’s a model he took from All Might. Izuku has punched Bakugou in the face despite the fact that they were supposed to be working together because it felt like the right thing to do, he punched All Might later in that same episode because Bakugou’s inspiring words-well inspired him so much (Lion primaries are such suckers for passion filled words[Bakugou is the same way]), he is willing to break the law and fight a villain without permission or license to save Iida, he’s willing to break his fingers just so he can help Todoroki confront his issues with his father, even after he’s beaten down to the point of not being able to use his arms he can’t take a break he has to protect Bakugou in the Training campe, he’s willing to risk expulsion to save Bakugou after his kidnapping, etcetera etcetera.

He does however share All Might’s roaring Lion secondary. The first thing we see him doing in the series is standing up for a little kid who got beat up. He is also however modeling Bird, after his Lion Secondary was burned both literally and figuratively by Bakugou. When his trust in his instinctive charging head first into situations left he fell back on something that’ll help him, notebooking, studying, and absorbing as much information as he can. He’s good at it and uses it to bolster his Lion, but then you put Bakugou in danger and suddenly “My body just moved.” I think a lot about the Mid Term Exam Deku had with Bakugou. At the end he decides not to keep running despite how risky it is and punch his mentor and idol to save Bakugou. Also, I named numerous times he kept charging in and breaking his body in the previous section. All Might has said it before and he’ll probably say it again, when someone (usually Bakugou) is in trouble nothing can stop him from saving them.

FINE FINE FINE! I GIVE IN! I GAVE UP! I TRIED TO MAKE BAKUGOU LOOK LIKE A BIRDLION BUT HE’S NOT HE’S JUST NOT! BAKUGOU KATSUKI is a fucking Lion primary. A true Lion. I give up. 

Y’know he sorta had the shape of a Bird primary, he sorta takes in information and makes conclusions out of it. Everyone is saying I have an awesome powerful quirk, therefore I’m just better than everyone else. Deku is quirkless, there for he is useless. And he followed these beliefs so hard that when they were proven wrong he was heartbroken, literally having a panic attack, he falls before he picks himself back up at the end of the day. That’s very Bird, and also very Ravendor. And we even see later that Bakugou still takes in information like that. He remembers Todoroki’s backstory when Todoroki says there are other ways to get through to kids and he let’s him take the lead. 

(I might end up talking myself back into Bird primary)

But...It pains me to say it, I was wrong. 

Bakugou’s whole thing is that he isn’t in heroism for saving people or making the world a better place, he wants to be a hero to prove he’s the best and strongest there is (in fact I argue that that is the only reason he wants to be a hero, if this world had professional Quirkastics where you show off your strength and quirk Bakugou wouldn’t want to be a hero). He goes after Deku in the first training session because he couldn’t think of doing anything else. He didn’t decide that, he felt it so strongly he had to act on it. He destroys part of the building in that exam because he’s feeling everything at like a thousand percent and he can’t think despite the fact that it’s a bad idea especially for him as the villain. He has to be talked into calming down and not going after the villains because they were after him and going after them would make him more of a target. The idea that in the Sports Festival his win wasn’t an actual win crushes him. He’s willing to lose the whole damn midterm because he doesn’t want to have to rely on Deku all based off feelings. Bakugou sometimes tries to act before he thinks and figure things out, but he usually doesn’t. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the boy feels everything at 1,000,000% and tends to have some serious tunnel vision. And then there’s the movie, where he listens to Deku, not because he’s doing the Bird thing of taking in information, but because Deku’s words are so passionate and he’s so caught up in what Deku is saying.

And on why Bakugou is not a Snake primary. When you look at where primaries overlap, Bakugou’s primary is very intuitive, which means Lion or Badger (and he’s definitely not Badger), but it’s also very internal because he does not give a fuuuck about what people think, so Lion or Snake. But he’s not a Snake because throw fanon and out tell me, who is Bakugou actually loyal to? Deku? A lot of that seems to be because of One for All and not actually liking Deku. Kirishima? Maybe, but we don’t ever see him choose Kirishima over something else. Kirishima is his friend, but any house can have friends. All Might? Yeah he’s loyal to him, but he loves All Might, not Yagi Toshinori. He’s loyal to the symbol he saw as a child, a very Lion thing. Is he loyal to himself? He’d rather lose a tournament or a midterm than win any other way than what he wants. 

I could go on about his primary. About how he doesn’t think critically about the situation when they’re ‘Saving the World With Love’ and just assumes that they’re all bad guys and need to be thrown in jail. But I won’t because this is long enough and I still have to talk about his damn secondary. Except I’m just gonna copy paste what I originally had written. 

I got confused when I was looking at his secondary because he’s really smart and really good at strategy. He thinks at 10 million miles a minute. In Deku vs Kacchan 2 he literally does a double bluff, he knows that Deku will see him swinging with his right arm and think it’s a feint so he does a double bluff and just hits him. Stuff like that, him wearing down Kirishima and Tokoyami in to figure out their weaknesses he can exploit in the sports festival arc, finding out everything he can on Todoroki before his matches in the sports festival so he can get him to use his fire, amassing an array of special moves, and amassing more gadgets taking into account his own weaknesses to make himself stronger (and if we include the art from the fifth popularity poll where he is dressed head to toe in guns and looks more tank than man then that means even more weapons and gadgets). Even going as far back as the first episode/chapter he says that he took and aced the mock exams before the actual exam. That is shockingly prepared for someone who’s main trait at the beginning of the story is thinking he’s hot shit.

This evidence was enough to convince me that he was Bird Secondary who was modeling All Might’s Lion Secondary. I think it’s far more likely however, that he saw a Bird Secondary, maybe even Deku’s specific one. He does say in Deku v Kacchan 2 that he can absorb information to, and said “I can do that but better.” His real secondary is Lion however. 

His first instinct when he finds out that Deku has a quirk now is to charge at him and demand he tell him what’s going on, he blasts off all the time literally into battles, he flat out refuses to lie even to save his ass, when he finds out that the villains are looking to kidnap him he just keeps fighting and fighting, he yells and lets you know exactly what he thinks about everything, and you can get him to do anything by saying he can’t do something. In terms of what is debatably canon, he sees Deku in the first movie and immediately blasts over to him to yell at him and question him, he doesn’t even question the fact that there are villains in the tower and jumps immediately into attacking them like it’s the most natural thing ever, in the second movie he jumps at the opportunity to attack something and is uninterested with everything else. My favorite example is the “Save the World With Love” special episode where Bakugou has the chance to not immediately charge and pull a more strategic move and straight up gets bored with it and bursts in to find a dead fake villain and doesn’t care about finding out who killed him because the villain is dead. The boy has a good Bird model but like hell he’s gonna let you forget that he is a Lion secondary first and foremost. He’ll straight up throw it away if that gets to boring for him. 

(I think I’m gonna make a separate post for how Bakugou and Deku house sharing affects their relationship, also because this post is so long and tangenty already)

ALL MIGHT said he wanted to be the symbol of peace because the people needed one. All Might shoulders the burden and is willing to destroy himself so that the people can have peace of mind. His heartfelt loyal Badger primary mixed with his charging bursting Lion causes him to sacrifice himself time after time.

And he’s a Lion secondary, but that was obvious. United States of Smash. 

TODOROKI SHOUTO is a healing ex-petrified Snake primary. His primary was burned at a very young age so he could possibly be an extremely burnt Badger primary but I doubt that. He does things because his friends are in trouble and he always goes off on his own to do things for himself. He’s the one who let’s a petty grudge get the better of him, and Deku has to yell at him to fucking get his head out of his ass (ah, Lion communication, don’t you love it?[oh yeah and Deku already told him to get his head out of his ass in the sports festival arc, because Todoroki still needs a lot of help]). After Deku’s speech to him he begins his healing process and it’s clear that he’s building himself a Snake community. As of now he’s got Deku, Bakugou, Iida, Momo, his mom, Fuyumi, Natsuo, and (possibly) Endeavor (ugh) in his community which seems like more than it is.

Todoroki is a Lion secondary, and a powerful one as well which means he can totally get away with charging into battle with boring attacks. Todoroki has met very few problems that he couldn’t just throw a wall of ice or fire at and call it a day. And even then the plan ends up being, I’m gonna stick my hand down this dudes throat and flash freeze/absolute zero him to the point where there’s six feet of ice shooting out of his mouth and HOW IS HE NOT DEAD?!

URARAKA OCHAKO is a Badger primary, who makes friends like it’s no trouble. I thought about putting her as a Snake primary because of her love for her parents and wanting to provide for them, but honestly I think that was too much of a reach. She’s a Badger, she does hero work because she wants to provide for her parents, but also because she wants to see people happy afterwards.

We have our first Badger and not Lion secondary with her as well. She almost always uses teams to win, combo moves on the fly are her bread (her first special move was a combo) and butter. When she’s alone she turns to using hardwork and pushing herself to her limits. Although during her fight with Bakugou she does show some Lion charging, which I think is a sign of the hero society enforcing its ideals on people (and also her copying Deku). “I’ll win and be just like Deku!” (Which I hate, way to take her battle away from herself) Still, she’s a Badger secondary first.

IIDA TENYA is feral, the boy is good at playing a Bird primary (it’s his model), but the boy is a strong Lion primary. Either that or he is a very stubborn Bird and vigilantism was totally justified in his truth, but I’m sticking with my guns on the Lion primary. His brother died and he feels that justice is deserved, so he goes to enact some vigilante justice, but then he gets schooled and also in trouble for doing the vigilante justice and he tells himself he can’t do that anymore. His Bird model was probably built to help him reign in his slightly unhinged Lion primary, and I suspect he might’ve gotten it from Tensei who seems to be Bird primary from what little we’ve seen of him. Tenya later also struggles with his Bird model when the gang wants to save Bakugou and he eventually goes with his gut.

(I suppose Iida could be read as Snake primary, but he seems like too much of an idealist to be a Snake)

Iida’s secondary is obviously Bird. He studies, he analyzes what he’s done wrong, he learns skills to help himself as a hero, he’s really good at it to. When planning his revenge on Stain he researches him and singles out his patterns, he finds the skills for heroism in the smallest things like learning how to cook, and he finds out Uraraka’s quirk and how it works so he can prepare against her. Boy is a strong Bird primary.

(The only time I would say maybe he’s not is that scene where he immediately punches Deku, but I think that’s just frustration, and if you wanna talk about the times he kicks at stuff-that’s hero society forcing people to preform Lion)

KIRISHIMA EIJIROU’S got a Lion primary almost as strong as Deku’s. He wants to rescue Bakugou no matter what during the kidnapping arc, when a Badger primary would probably be more content to let the pros handle it. When he was a kid he tried jumping in to fight a villain because he felt it was the right thing to do, he just didn’t because he was scared (he knew he should jump it because he felt that was the thing to do, but he was to scared to). He does things based on feelings, and saving Bakugou is the biggest example.

He’s also sporting a Lion secondary to boot which I don’t feel I really need to explain. He doesn’t plan, he mostly just attacks and takes hits, and he almost always jumps to help or save people (and if he doesn’t it’s because it’s in the past).

AIZAWA SHOUTA is a lovely double Bird and is the only character in this series that I’ve seen thus far without a hint of Lion. Aizawa decides whats right based on logic and as such his ideas are usually really outlandish, especially considering hero society. Who knew that things that are logical could be so out there. He only keeps the kids in class after the kidnapping incident only because All Might retired and he acknowledges they need more good heroes. Most of his other students he expelled he re-enrolled, as he logicked out that it would help them grow as heroes and give them a wake up call. It would also weed out the students who weren’t willing to put anymore work in after the setback of expulsion. Even as a kid we see he was much more cautious and didn’t just do things based off feelings. Now does that mean his logic is always sound? Well let’s just say that the most recent arc is not fun for me. 

“It was a logical ruse~” I wouldn’t say this is a Snake manipulation but a Bird deciding yes that makes sense. Either way he collected skills in fighting and knowledge because of his quirk and it works well. I’d definitely say the becoming an underground hero is also another notch in his Bird secondary belt. He’s got a knife, caltrops apparently, a scarf he can control and grab people with, and cool ass goggles with eye drops in his pocket. He’s smart. I love him.

In Conclusion:

Izuku Midoriya - Lion primary who models All Might’s Badger primary/Lion secondary who models a Bird secondary to bolster his actual secondary

Katsuki Bakugou - Lion primary who feels everything at 1,000,000%/Lion secondary who models a Bird secondary to bolster his actual secondary

All Might - Badger primary/Lion secondary

Shouto Todoroki - previously petrified but healing Snake primary/Lion secondary

Ochako Uraraka - Badger primary/Badger secondary who models Deku’s specific Lion secondary

Tenya Iida - Lion primary who models a Bird primary/Bird secondary with slight Lion preformance 

Eijirou Kirishima - Lion primary/Lion secondary

Shouta Aizawa - Bird primary/Bird secondary

(me throwing this out into the world, except I’m way less confident)

#almost three thousand words #and almost half was dedicated to bakugou #wow you can see where my priorities are at #and if you read this without knowing me you'd probably think i was ride or die for bkdk #also as you can see #I'm a ravenclaw secondary #who goes on TANGENTS #and has lots of EVIDENCE #bnha #bnha meta #sorting hat chats #sortinghatchats #midoriya izuku #bakugou katsuki #all might #todoroki shouto #uraraka ochako #iida tenya #kirishima eijirou #aizawa shouta #I LEARNED HOW TO DO COLORS FOR THIS #Hate how the colors look #BUT I LEARNED HOW TO DO THEM

[roxytonic]

are you a light player👁👁

my my, anon, take me out to dinner first! :)

it's alright, feel free to ask more personal questions.

last time i took the official HS superzodiac quiz, i got the Life aspect. kind of fitting because i'm really in my existentialism era and all about growth and change and new-new-new!

current classpects of interest...

Seer of Void

Knight of Life

Sylph of Mind

Witch of Light

it would make sense for roxytonic.tumblr.com to be a light player. there's some focus on "truth, relevance, and essentiality", not to mention the chunks of infodumping and discussion and analysis, so i could be a light player if i really wanted to.

but if there's anything i've learned with personality models, it's that they're often incomplete and situational. the characters in homestuck are able to get away with one classpect, but that's because they're fictional characters, and thus, lack the complexity more befitting of us real-world people. fictional characters don't have inversion (they might have shadowing, though); we not only have inversion, we also have classpect "minors". i could be any aspect. embody them all sometime. maybe we do that all the time!

this is stretching into serious headcanon territory so you can stop off here, but if you're interested in my shenanigans, continue on.

for instance, in addition to the aforementioned classpects, i could re-derive an entire wheel of classpects that could still fit me (arranged strongest to weakest, of course).

Prince of Heart

Maid of Breath

Bard of Blood

Rogue of Doom

void, hope, space, and life are analogous together as elements of expansive growth. they "flow" "outwards". so, if the Sylph of Mind and the Witch of Light proliferate potential outcomes (owing to a Ne capacity, if we have to rope MBTI) we could also find

Page of Space

Heir of Hope

Thief of Time

Mage of Rage

from this, i personally see the class acting as the proliferation or control over the aspect.

more "linear" aspects like time, rage (the single scope of shared reality), heart (the singular self), blood (uniting, grounding), doom (the rock in the river of time, the focus point), light (the alpha timeline, the one true canon) benefit from classes that can "control" them, like the active-leaning classes.

passive classes do much better at laissez-faire operation, so the other aspects naturally flourish: space (the unraveling tapestry), breath (the literal aspect of freedom), hope (total effulgence of the imagination), mind (sprawling, infinite outcomes and choices), void (everything that is not relevant is still everything), life (literal growth).

that isn't to say that controlling aspects that want to expand outward is totally useless; that just means the user has to fit a different mode of operation.

#gin and roxytonic #ask #hs #homestuck #light aspect #classpect

[lantern-inthenight]

Dad Van Fleet (Headcanons)

Get ready to cry. I wrote these while listening to “Dear Theodosia” from Hamilton on repeat, so it’s maximum feels in this one. Thank you to my love @sparrowof-thedawn​ for beta-ing this <3

Jake

Appears stern but is actually putty in your daughter’s hands

Beyond protective of her, from the very beginning

But like. In a quiet, i’ll-kill-you-and-no-one-would-ever-know kinda way

Your daughter gets fussy at night, so Jake often takes her for car rides to get her to fall asleep

And then, when he lays her down in her crib, Jake stays with her and sings softly to make sure she stays fast asleep, softly rubbing her tummy

He helped your daughter take her first steps, holding her arms to keep her upright as your sat on the living room floor with a camera

He watches that video when he’s feeling down

Remember when I said he’d tell your baby goodnight every night no matter what? That didn’t change after she was born, nor did it change as she grew up

Whether it’s on the phone or in-person, your daughter will always hear “goodnight, angel. You’re so loved.”

Which probably explains how you ended up with a daddy’s girl

Jake and your daughter butt heads sometimes because they’re so similar in personality, but at the end of the day, she listens to him more than anyone

They got into an argument over something trivial but your daughter, in the throes of teenage hormones/emotions, yelled that she hated him

Jake was incredibly upset, and moped around the house until your daughter sat down next to him on the back porch steps

“Dad? I’m sorry I said I hated you. I didn’t mean it.”

Jake gave her a tight hug, and you were proud of both of them for making up on their own

“It’s okay, sweetie. I love you.”

“Even when you’re mad at me?”

“Yes. I love you always.”

He taught her how to play guitar as soon as she developed fine motor skills

Just imagine Jake sitting on the couch with your little one, quietly teaching her the different chords

“There you go, sweetie. You’re doing great! A natural.”

So it’s no surprise that she grows up incredibly involved with music, eventually learning to play several instruments and asking her Uncle Sammy to teach her piano

But she’s got natural charisma just like her daddy, so dating is an issue when she gets to that age

Jake just immediately dislikes every boy she talks about, grumbling to you when she announces that the popular boy at school asked her to junior prom

“I don’t like the look of him.” “You haven’t met him yet, babe.”

“Still though.”

You and Jake thought about having another kid, but one night changed all that

Your daughter was about two, and she was nestled between you and your husband on the couch, sleeping soundly

The TV was on low volume and you and Jake were talking quietly about the future

You each had a hand on the back of the couch, brushing knuckles, and your free hands rested on her, playing with her hair and rubbing her back

You shared a glance, and there was an immediate, unspoken truth

This is our little family. This is perfect. The best thing we ever did.

There was nothing to add. You had no more pieces of your heart left to give. Jake and your girl had stolen all of them, and you were happy to let them keep it.

Josh

When you got pregnant, you and Josh weren’t particularly adamant about finding out the sex of the baby

It didn’t really matter either way, you would decorate everything unisex anyway. Besides, surprises are fun!

So you made it a point to tell the doctor you didn’t want to know. However--

When the ultrasound technician raised his eyebrows in surprise, you freaked out for a second, your mind immediately jumping to the worst conclusion

“What’s wrong? Is the baby alright?” Josh gripped your hand, his face painted with worry

But the technician grinned and said, “The baby is fine, don’t worry. It’s just that there are two of them!”

“What?” You were in shock

“Congratulations, Mrs. Kiszka, it looks like you’re having twins!”

Josh wouldn’t stop yelling excitedly, as you very quickly realized that in a couple months, you were going to look like a balloon with legs

You decided right then that you probably didn’t need more surprises, so when the time came to be able to find out what you were having, you went in right away

God help you, it they were both boys

The sheer chaos of being outnumbered by three boys, one of whom is Josh Kiszka and the other two of whom are miniature Josh Kiszkas

Luckily, Josh was surprisingly good at co-parenting, being unafraid to discipline your sons and holding down the fort while you were at work

He managed to get both of the boys reading at an early age, always stressing to them the importance of education and understanding other cultures

His favorite part of the new daily routine is reading bedtime stories

Being who he is, Josh picks out fantastical tales to read the boys, and reads them aloud with all the voices and sound effects

He absolutely hated the twin stroller, though

Josh’s preferred method of getting around with your sons was a double papoose, one baby strapped to the front, and one on the back

He alternated which kid was on which side, so as not to offend them or make one feel left out. When he told you as much, you were very amused

When people in public would compliment the baby, Josh’s usual response was to say, “Thanks, I have two of them!” and spin around to reveal the other baby

When you went out as a unit, you put the twins in matching onesies

Josh acted like he hated it, but then you saw him come home from Target with several new sets of matching onesies

“What?” He asks, as you laugh. “They were on sale!”

When one of your sons gets pushed over by a bully at school, Josh comforts him until you get home

Wiping tears from his boy’s face, Josh whispers, “You’re safe now. I’m not going to let that happen again. Okay?”

Your son nods, and Josh hugs him tightly, cradling his head under his chin

The next day when he drops the boys off, Josh makes it a point to make eye contact with the bully and glares at him until he gets scared and runs away

Sam

You were worried Sam would freak out during the birth, which wouldn’t be good because the hospital didn’t need to deal with two panicked parents-to-be

But Samuel surprised you

When the time came to push, Sam was at your side with a calm voice and a firm grip on your hand, kissing your forehead even as you cried

Right before the baby came, you grabbed his arm, feeling that visceral fear that only comes with new parenthood

“Sam, I’m so scared.”

But he holds the back of your hand to his mouth, kissing it firmly

“I know. I am, too. But you’re the strongest woman I’ve ever met. You’re gonna be an amazing mother.”

And when your son was born, Sam cried

Because he was feeling every bit of love he’d ever missed, like a whole new sphere of heaven was opened up to him

And when he looked at you, tired and weepy, his heart felt like it might burst. Because how could one man feel so much love?

For the tiny human in his arms and the incredible woman in front of him

You and the baby immediately become Priority Number One in everything he does

Can often be found meeting Danny and his daughter at the coffee shop for some much-needed caffeine

Danny’s girl and yours and Sam’s boy are about the same age, so they have playdates

Sam also takes your son out into nature pretty much as soon as the kid can walk

Thankfully he was more willing to put shoes on the kid than on himself

You waited a few years to have another one, giving birth to a daughter when your son was about four

And Sam went through the emotions all over again, in disbelief of how much happiness he could feel

He set out right away to find things they could do together

He’d often whisk all of you away for weekends of going camping, giving your son piggyback rides up and down the trails

It was on one of these camping trips that your daughter said her first word

You were helping your son get dressed before a hike, and Sam was bouncing her on his knee by the remains of the previous night’s campfire

Your daughter saw the animal before Sam did

“Dee!”

Sam’s eyes widened as he gazed down at her, but she was looking out towards the edge of the woods, unaware of her dad being in shock at her declaration

“What did you say, baby?” “Dee!”

Sam followed her excited gaze, and saw the deer standing under a nearby tree

“Dee! Deeeeee!!”

“Oh my god. Deer. Oh my god, Oh my--YN! Come here!”

You ran over with your son, afraid something had happened

He and your daughter were both pointing at the deer with identical dopey grins

Before you could speak, your daughter realized you were there, and smiled up at you

“Dee!”

You and Sam both cried

Danny

When your daughter is born, Danny doesn’t set her down for a second

He just walks around with her, tiny in his arms, cooing and smiling at the baby

“She’s got my eyes, babe, don’t you think?”

And you can tell in that second that you’re gonna have to be the disciplinarian in the household

Bc that baby owns his heart

So it makes sense when you go back to work and Danny takes paternity leave for six weeks

He’s a natural nurturer, like he’s so good at taking care of the baby

But he’s also very protective

So like... Baby papoose.

Danny strolls up into the grocery store, the park, the zoo, wherever, with the baby strapped to his chest bc he doesn’t care how he looks as long as the baby is secure

You get regular snapchats at work of Danny and the baby being out and about

But you always come home to a clean house and Danny passed out on the couch, the baby fast asleep on his chest

And he still somehow finds time to spend with you, always reminding you what a phenomenal mom you are and how much he loves you

Nobody was shocked when you got pregnant again, like literally no one

You had two more children together before deciding that three kids were about all you could handle, especially with your two youngest being boys

Danny was good at disciplining them, though, so that helped a lot

You were a sports family, taking your children out to basketball and football games on the weekends whenever possible

But of course your kids loved music too, with one of your sons learning guitar and your daughter eventually asking for a drumkit for Christmas

Your other son is more of a scientist than his siblings, and Danny “Telekinesis” Wagner makes every effort to help with school projects and going to the science fair

Becomes That Dad when it comes to his daughter dating in high school

“Dad, there’s this guy--” “You can do better.”

When your daughter experiences her first heartbreak, Danny is there to comfort her (and to offer to beat up the guy)

He brings her ice cream and puts on her favorite movie, hugging her tightly and assuring her that she’s the most wonderful girl in the world and any guy would be lucky to have her

He takes the time to sit your sons down and talk to them about respecting women (“or men, because that’s cool too!”)

These boys are raised to be gentlemen and understand the concept of consent from an early age

And he definitely taught your girl some self-defense before she went to college

Taglist: @mr-stank-i-dont-feel-so-dank​, @jeordinevankiszka​, @that-glassbottomed-ego​, @kissthesun-fightthefire​, @lover--leaver​, @myownparadise96​, @satans-helper​, @songbirdkisses​, @bluewillowmom​

#dad van fleet #gvf #greta van fleet #hcs #writing #not a request #just cause #baby fever #danny wagner #jake kiszka #sam kiszka #josh kiszka

[ibijau]

Burn it down AU // on AO3 // extras on AO3

Things do not go as planned in Nightless City. Lan Wangji worries. Nie Huaisang plots.

warning for some violence (canon typical levels I’d say?)

Nightless City had never been Lan Wangji’s favourite place to travel to, but after years of abandonment, it had become truly ghoulish. In certain places, the lingering resentment was so strong it became nearly impossible to breathe. In the bitter wind, Lan Wangji thought he could still hear the shrill notes of Chenqing playing a deadly melody. In every shadow, he half saw the shape of Wei Wuxian, fractured by too many losses, on the verge of shattering beyond repair, taking hundreds down with him.

Lan Wangji could have happily lived to immortality and never set foot again in this cursed city. It must have shown. Several times, Nie Huaisang tried to order him away, saying he was perfectly capable of handling his brother’s body, even if Nie Mingjue really had turned into a fierce corpse and needed to be subdued.

“I’m not much of a cultivator, but even I can take care of a fierce corpse,” he boasted again and again with an empty smile. “Go wait for me in the nearest town, Wangji. It’s a family problem anyway, and I’ve made you help enough already.”

“We’re family,” Lan Wangji said at last, when he grew tired of his husband trying to send him away.

After this, Nie Huaisang grew quiet and stopped insisting that he could do this alone. 

It wasn’t until they arrived to the spot marked on the map that Lan Wangji understood where, exactly, his brother-in-law’s remains had been hidden. He felt nauseous at being once more in front of Wen Ruohan’s palace, where the remains of the Wen siblings had been scattered to the winds, Wei Wuxian’s last friends, the last people he had cared about.

The place where the entire cultivation had united together, just as tightly as they had during the Sunshot Campaign, and announced that they had decided who their next enemy would be. The place where Wei Wuxian’s death had been decided, where he had lost what little he still had and snapped over the bloodied corpse of his sister. The place where…

“Hey, stay with me,” Nie Huaisang called to him, grabbing his sleeve and pulling lightly, the way A-Yuan did sometimes. “So, this is the right place, uh? Heavens, it looks even worse than in my memories. Remember that archery contest, at that last conference the Wens held? Damn, I remember the party after, it was so awful. The alcohol was so cheap. Talk about disrespecting your guests! Ah, not that it’d matter to you, of course. I wonder how the tea was?”

“Bad,” Lan Wangji managed to answer, taking one shaky breath after another. “Cheap.”

“I knew it! And the food was awful as well. There was that weird dessert… did you have any of the desserts?”

Lan Wangji dived under more recents memories and tried to remember that conference. It felt a lifetime ago. It was, in a way. They had all been different before the war. Sometimes, it all felt like a dream. And in that dream, he could not remember whether he’d eaten the dreadful desserts Nie Huaisang apparently recalled with such clarity. Thinking about it helped a little, though, forcing him to focus on something other than his last visit to Nightless City.

“No desserts,” he still said, since that seemed likely. He took a deep breath. Now was not the moment to break. He could do that later, when they had recovered Nie Mingue’s body and Nie Huaisang no longer needed his help. “Give me a moment. Then I will see if his soul can be reached.”

“Should I be silent, or keep talking?”

“Hm. Tell me more about the desserts,” Lan Wangji ordered, looking around for a place where he might sit without covering himself in filth.

With Nie Huaisang still clinging to his sleeve, he found a spot at last, not far from where his brother and the other sect leaders had stood to… but no. Lan Wangji pushed away that memory, and forced himself to listen to Nie Huaisang’s graphic description of what he claimed were the worst tanghulu he’d ever eaten in his life. The mindless chatter only stopped when he took out his guqin and played a few notes, bringing him if not peace, then at least clarity. 

"I will try Inquiry," he announced. 

"You think it will work on Da-ge?" 

"No," Lan Wangji admitted, and immediately something crumbled in Nie Huaisang. "There are other spirits lingering here. One might help." 

Lan Wangji played the notes that commanded souls to come talk to him. In an instant he found himself surrounded with the screams and rage of all those who had perished in this cursed city. Several ceremonies had been performed to put them to rest, but with so many having died, and in such a violent manner, it had not yet been enough to calm them. 

In vain, Lan Wangji tried to call forth the soul of Nie Mingjue. All that brought him was a dissonant mass of spirits trying to seize his guqin, either praising or cursing his brother-in-law for his actions in Nightless City. Lan Wangji played a few more notes to calm them before trying a different question. Had they seen Jin Guangyao come to this place in the past year? 

Less spirits rushed to him this time, and Lan Wangji was able to select the strongest one among them to answer, one single word. 

Yes. 

The spirit, a fallen Nie disciple, had trained alongside Jin Guangyao during his time in Qinghe Nie and thus knew him very well. He had no doubt that it was him, having caught a glimpse of his face. After further interrogation, it revealed that Jin Guangyao had come there to bury something, and it was able to give the precise location, hidden under a large paving stone. Lan Wangji thanked the spirit, promised to see what could be done about another calming ceremony, and turned to his husband to share the news. 

"Let me guess, he hid Da-ge's body under the spot where they took the oath, didn't he?" 

"Hm." 

"Theatrical bastard," Nie Huaisang hissed. "Wangji, if you want, I'll handle the rest alone. I can manage." 

Lan Wangji shook his head. 

"A fierce corpse is not a person. What we find might attack you."

"But still…" 

"I won't let A-Yuan be orphaned again." 

That cut short to all of Nie Huaisang’s protests, as Lan Wangji expected it would. 

Together, and with both of them equally uneasy though for different reasons, they went to the spot indicated by the spirit. It was barely visible if one did not look for it, but among the paving stones there was one that appeared to have been unsealed. 

Without saying it, Lan Wangji knew that Nie Huaisang and him were thinking the same thing: that stone did not look large enough to cover a body, let alone that of a man as tall as Nie Mingjue. Still they knelt on the ground and got to work, carefully lifting the stone, then digging the soil under until they found a box. 

That box itself was nothing special. It was made of black wood and carried no particular mark. And yet powerful dark energies surrounded it, barely contained by a great number of peculiar talismans drawn in blood. 

"I've never seen those talismans before," Nie Huaisang commented in a weak voice, clearly trying to ignore the more glaring issue. That box that was little more than the length of Lan Wangji's arm. 

"I have," Lan Wangji announced, though he could not quite remember where he might have seen them. "It will come to me." 

Nie Huaisang nodded weakly. He brought one hand toward the box, as if to brush his fingers against the wood, but stopped short of touching it. 

"Wangji… That box… It's really too small, isn't it?" he whispered. “Do you think… do you think he cremated him?”

“Hm.”

It was a likely possibility. It would have eliminated any traces of the crime, and made it far more difficult to summon Nie Mingjue’s soul to testify regarding his own death. 

It would definitely have required an accomplice though, because the fierce corpse of such a man would not have allowed itself to be destroyed so easily, and Jin Guangyao’s cultivation was what it was. Besides, the talismans on the box did not look like ordinary ones. There were few methods that called for the characters to be drawn in blood, and currently the most famous one was Wei Wuxian’s demonic path. Considering that Lanling Jin had been the one to get its hands on most of Wei Wuxian’s notes, that they had infamously hired a person such as Xue Yang to make sense of those…

“That talisman, isn’t it different from the others?” Nie Huaisang suddenly pointed out. “Look, it has one stroke less than the others.”

Before Lan Wangji could stop him, Nie Huaisang reached for the faulty talisman. As soon as he touched the paper it consumed itself, allowing an intense burst of resentful energy to be released from the box. Nie Huaisang cried out in surprise or pain, while Lan Wangji, acting on sheer instinct, jumped to his feet and drew his sword. Before Bichen was fully out of its sheath, the box’s lid was shattered as a lone arm burst out of its confinement.

In the split second it took Lan Wangji to comprehend what was happening, the arm launched itself at Nie Huaisang’s throat since he was closest, and alternated between trying to strangle him and clawing at his skin. It did not stop its assault until Lan Wangji slashed at it with his sword, distracting it from its victim. For a moment the arm, as if enraged, tried to attack Lan Wangji, blindly clawing in his direction and narrowly avoiding being cut to pieces by Bichen. Quickly though, it lost interest in that fight. Twice Lan Wangji managed to stop it, but in the end the arm avoided his attacks and returned to assault Nie Huaisang who was still kneeling on the ground, trying to stop the gashes on his throat from bleeding out.

Nie Huaisang screamed in terror and pain when that ghoulish arm seized his own, digging its claws into his flesh. 

The arm was not merely tearing at him now, but instead dug its fingers into the skin of Nie Huaisang as if it sought to get under it. With each passing second, the poor man fought a little more weakly, his skin growing paler until Lan Wangji took his guqin again and hurriedly played a song to calm the arm. It took effort, and a few tries, but after a few minutes he managed to pacify the arm. It fell to the ground, as did Nie Huaisang, pale and whimpering in pain but still alive.

Keeping an eye on the now immobile arm, Lan Wangji hurried to Nie Huaisang’s side and used every bit of spiritual energy he could spare to stop the bleeding. Even when he was done, Nie Huaisang would not stop trembling and crying.

When his eyes fell on the arm, he screamed in rage and horror, the noises resonating in those vast, empty spaces. 

“I have to get him back,” Nie Huaisang hissed in a broken voice when he calmed down. “And then I’m killing every single Jin in Lanling.”

“You won’t.”

“I certainly want to! They butchered him! No, not even butchered,” He corrected with a hysterical laugh. “Butchering, that calls for skill. I could cut a body better than that and I will when I get my hands on Guangyao! I’ll dig up his mother and father and show him how it’s done, I will...”

“Huaisang, calm down.”

“My brother! They took my brother and did this to him, and you want me to calm down? If it were Xichen, if it were A-Yuan, would you be calm? I’ll make them pay! Every single one of them, I’ll make them pay!”

Unsure what to do when faced with such desperate rage, Lan Wangji forced himself to put a hand on his husband’s shoulder, hoping to provide some comfort. His hand was slapped away. Nie Huaisang had too little strength left at the moment for it to sting, but the message was clear. Comfort, for now, was not welcome.

Instead, Lan Wangji turned his attention back to the box and, having seen its content, he realised where he had seen those talismans before. They were eerily similar to those Wei Wuxian had used to contain Wen Ning before his conscience was returned to him. They were not quite as neat as the ones he had seen during his brief visit to the Burial Mounds, and if anything, they seemed to have been traced by someone who had only the vaguest idea of the proper way to write characters, but they were still the same ones.

“Demonic cultivation,” he announced to Nie Huaisang, hoping to distract him from his rage. “To contain and conceal.”

Nie Huaisang did not answer, his eyes fixed on the arm. He reached out for it and, with some hesitation, picked it up to hold it against his chest, cradling it as if it were a child.

“We can try the spell again,” Lan Wangji offered. “We might find the rest of him. Even if we do not, this is proof something evil was done to him.”

“He got rid of Xue Yang,” Nie Huaisang mumbled, tightening his hold on his brother’s arm.

“Hm?”

“Guangyao. He got rid of Xue Yang. You say this is demonic cultivation, and Xue Yang was the only person they’d found who was able to make sense of Wei Wuxian’s work. He wasn’t purging his sect and starting anew, he was getting rid of witnesses.”

“It is still proof.”

Nie Huaisang laughed. “Proof of what? The spell we used to find it is a secret Nie technique, it’d be easy to say we lied about its effects, or that I tricked you and used you for my nefarious plans. This arm could be anyone’s. I know it is my brother’s, I know it, but it’ll be my word against Guangyao’s. People don’t like him, but I think they like me even less.”

An unfair statement, in Lan Wangji’s opinion. Lan Xichen believed and trusted them. Jiang Wanying probably had more sympathy for and trust in Nie Huaisang than in his brother-in-law’s half brother who had just usurped his nephew’s inheritance. The older Madam Jin might share that sentiment.

But all that, of course, was on a personal level. Lan Wangji was starting to accept that natural inclination, and things as unquantifiable as honesty and truth, did not matter as much as his sect’s rules had led him to believe.

“We find the rest of his body,” Lan Wangji insisted. “When we are away from this place, I will try Inquiry again. We will find proof.”

Nie Huaisang appeared unconvinced by that promise, for which Lan Wangji could not blame him. After a shock such as this, hope would have been difficult to muster even for a man not already as close to despair as Nie Huaisang was.

--

They left Nightless City after carefully replacing the paving stone where it belonged and taking great pains to hide that it had been moved. The box they took with them, so they could inspect it later at their leisure to look for clues. The arm, of course, came as well. 

It took Lan Wangji great efforts to persuade Nie Huaisang to put the arm back in its box, and to put that box in a qiankun bag so it would be easier to transport. Even then, Nie Huaisang insisted to be the one to carry it, clinging to it as tightly as he had done with the arm itself.

Nie Huaisang did not speak on their way out of the city. He did not speak when they stopped for the night at a small, struggling inn that still survived on the outskirts of Nightless City. He did not speak when Lan Wangji used the different Nie spells he had been taught in a fruitless attempt to locate the rest of the body. The rest of Nie Mingjue must have been better sealed. If not for that mistake with one of the talismans, it was likely that they would never have found even this much.

As promised, Lan Wangji attempted to play Inquiry for the arm. It was all in vain, and Nie Huaisang remained eerily silent. The only sound he made all evening happened when the arm, which had stood perfectly still so far, started moving its fingers of its own accord and appeared to point in his direction. Nie Huaisang cried out and nearly fell down in fear, but before anything could happen Lan Wangji quickly calmed the arm once more, this time putting more power into it so that hopefully it would not trouble them again until the next evening.

When Nie Huaisang went to bed, he took with him the qiankun bag, as if scared that someone might take his brother from him again. In the morning, he looked somehow more tired than when he had gone to sleep, and remained uncharacteristically quiet.

That silence remained as they made their way to the Cloud Recesses where they needed to see Lan Xichen and announce that their plan was not going quite as smoothly as they had all expected. It was unsettling to see Nie Huaisang so quiet when Lan Wangji had never known him as anything but loud and animated both at the heights of his joy and in the depths of his pain. And yet, Lan Wangji did not know how to comfort his friend. All he could do was offer his presence, and be ready to help, should it be asked.

--

When they arrived in the Cloud Recesses, their first stop was to pick up their son. There was no shyness this time, but a lot of tears as A-Yuan left Hou Tianjian's side and ran into his father’s arms. He wrapped his arms around Lan Wangji’s neck nearly tight enough to choke him. It was good, after those difficult weeks, to be home and have his son with him again. Nightless City had reminded him bitterly of his errors, but at least A-Yuan was proof that he had not entirely failed Wei Wuxian.

When A-Yuan noticed that Nie Huaisang was there as well, he made it clear that he wanted to be in the other man’s arms now. Nie Huaisang indulged him but made a great show of complaining and lamenting that the little boy was starting to get too heavy for him. A-Yuan appeared very amused by those protests, but grew serious when his eyes fell on Nie Huaisang’s neck where he still bore marks of the arm's attack.

“Nie-ge is hurt?”

Nie Huaisang laughed awkwardly, and balanced A-Yuan against his hip so he could free one hand and pull his collar tighter against his skin.

“That's nothing,” he said with a too wide smile. “Your Nie-ge is clumsy and fell into some bushes. Let's not talk about it, right? It's very embarrassing for poor Nie-ge.”

“Does it hurt?” A-Yuan insisted, reaching out towards some of the scabs that couldn't quite be covered by the fabric. Nie Huaisang grasped his wrist and stopped him before he could touch.

“The worst wound is to my pride,” he replied with false assurance. “A-Yuan, I love you but you're too heavy. Go back with your dad now.”

“Nie-ge looks tired,” A-Yuan commented as he was handed back to Lan Wangji. “Did Nie-ge and Father work a lot?”

What little cheerfulness Nie Huaisang had managed to muster thus far appeared on the verge of collapsing, and so Lan Wangji took it upon himself to come to his rescue.

“We were busy,” he explained. “We flew from very far and for many days. It can be tiring.”

None of it was a lie, even if it was far from the entire truth. It seemed to satisfy A-Yuan who even took it as his chance to ask whether he too would soon learn to fly on his sword. Lan Wangji thanked Hou Tianjian for her help, gave in to her request that Lan Jingyi come play in the Jingshi someday, and then the three of them left together. The rest of the day passed not unpleasantly, with A-Yuan detailing everything he had done since Lan Wangji had last seen him. It was painful to know that he had missed several weeks of his son's life, but A-Yuan did not appear to resent his absence too much this time. Somehow, that made it worse, as if the child had just grown to accept that it was normal for him to be left behind.

As the bell of curfew rang, there was a knock on the Jingshi's door. Lan Wangji, after checking that A-Yuan had truly fallen asleep, went to welcome his visitor. It was no surprise to find his brother on his doorstep. In truth, they probably should have gone to see him as soon as they had arrived in Cloud Recesses, but without ever saying it, Nie Huaisang and Lan Wangji had agreed that being with A-Yuan was more important. Their quest had met little success, but their son needed to know they hadn't abandoned him.

Lan Xichen took one look at the both of them, and his face hardened.

“I gather that things did not go as we had hoped?”

Nie Huaisang, who had been sitting at the table, a fan in one hand and a book in the other, flinched at the question. He dropped the book and immediately grasped to the qiakun bag that he still refused to be parted from, except for when Lan Wangji was forced to calm the resentful arm it contained.

“The situation is more complicated than expected,” Lan Wangji stated, inviting his brother to sit before launching himself into a short explanation of what had happened, wanting to spare Nie Huaisang from having to recount those events. Even just hearing an account of what had happened seemed nearly too much for his husband who grew paler and more closed off as the explanation reached its end.

Lan Xichen hardly fared any better.

“I cannot believe Jin Guangyao would go so far,” he whispered in a trembling voice. “Doing something so horrific to a man he once called his brother...”

Sitting next to him, Lan Wangji patted his brother's shoulder. After days of dealing with Nie Huaisang's worsening mood, it was almost shocking when the comforting gesture was not rejected.

“Maybe we can act even with this alone,” Lan Xichen suggested with a sigh. “It is not the strongest case we could be making, but...”

“I am not taking risks,” Nie Huaisang hissed, grasping his fan tightly. “This isn't enough proof. I cannot... I will not take the risk of accusing him now. He'll just find some new lies to throw around and look for ways to destroy the rest of Da-ge's body and then he'll have won. I can let him gloat a little longer with his perfect sect, his perfect wife and his perfect son. I'm patient. I'll find my brother's body, and that will be proof, and then nothing will stop me from avenging Da-ge.”

“Huaisang, it might take a long time,” Lan Xichen objected. “And you will have to interact with him frequently. Can you manage that?”

“Of course. Er-ge should know better than anyone that I'm quite good at not showing when things affect me.”

There was something nearly cruel to Nie Huaisang's smile as he said that, and he appeared to enjoy the way Lan Xichen tensed at the veiled accusation.

“We must use that other corpse finding spell,” Lan Wangji intervened to ease the tension and get them back on track. “If Huaisang is willing to teach me, I will go to Qinghe with A-Yuan and...”

“That won't be necessary,” Nie Huaisang cut him. “Not yet, anyway. That last spell is... cumbersome, it requires a lot of preparation and certain... elements to be gathered.” He snickered. “Actually, that spell is almost outright demonic cultivation, if I'm honest. I'd rather you not be there as I get it started, although I will need your high cultivation to really get it going when the time comes. But until then, I'd prefer if you stayed in the Cloud Recesses. It's A-Yuan's home, and yours as well.”

“You should not be left alone,” Lan Wangji objected.

Nie Huaisang shrugged, but did not try to deny that statement. That only served to worry Lan Wangji even further and judging by the look on his face, Lan Xichen felt similarly.

“Huaisang, we are on your side,” he said softly, reaching out to take his brother-in-law's hand. “Let us help you.”

Lan Xichen's hand was slapped away.

“This isn't your problem. Da-ge was my brother, my family, my responsibility,” Nie Huaisang snapped, before taking a deep breath and forcing himself to smile as he fanned himself. “I hope that didn't sound ungrateful. I am so, so thankful for your help, especially Wangji. But I have asked so much already, and this spell... it really is too much, considering Lan rules. I'd rather not bother you with the details, since they would displease you. Honestly, they displease me as well, and I know Da-ge disliked this spell, as did our father. But sometimes, there is no choice, is there?” Nie Huaisang chuckled lightly, his smile turning vicious again. “It's not like I can grab San-ge or Xue Yang and shake them until they tell me what they did to my brother.”

“Some of the purged demonic cultivators have been exiled, not killed,” Lan Xichen remarked. “Perhaps one of them might know something. Mo Xuanyu lives not far from Gusu, I could visit him.”

Nie Huaisang appeared to give that idea some thought, his fan stilling in his hand.

“Anyone who knew anything useful will have been killed,” he eventually remarked, hiding behind his fan. “And San-ge always said Mo Xuanyu was an idiot, so I'd be surprised if he had really dealt with any demonic cultivation. More likely, it's just a convenient excuse to get rid of another candidate to leadership of Lanling Jin. I'm ready to bet that stupid kid has been accused of every crime under the sun in Carp Tower. It is useless for Er-ge to go meet him, he will not have anything interesting to tell us. No, the spell is our only chance. It will find Da-ge... in time.”

Lan Xichen nodded, but appeared disappointed that his attempt to help had been so quickly rejected. Considering how little else he could do due to his position and the guilt he held regarding his part in the murder, Lan Wangji imagined his brother would have been glad to do anything to help in any way. Ultimately though, Nie Huaisang was right: Nie Mingjue had been his brother, and it was his duty to avenge him. They could offer their help, but he had to accept it.

Besides, although Lan Wangji was asked to continue living in the Cloud Recesses, so far Nie Huaisang had said nothing against visiting Qinghe. Even if he later objected to the idea, Lan Wangji would simply ignore him and go anyway. A-Yuan would surely start missing his Nie-ge too much otherwise, and Nie Huaisang loved the boy so much that he would not be able to protest once they were there.

Lan Wangji had made mistakes in the past, but he would not allow another friend of his to self destroy in the name of righteousness.

#xisang #nie huaisang #lan xichen #lan wangji #mo dao zu shi #burn it down au #jau writes #this is another long chapter oops #but hey on the plus side we're definitely getting closer to wwx's return #which all things considered is only mildly to be counted as good news

[samwisethewitch]

✨🏳️‍🌈 Deities, Saints, Crystals, and Herbs For All Your Gay Magick Needs 🏳️‍🌈✨

Note: This was originally posted on my blog, themysticbitch.wordpress.com.

Happy Pride Month, my loves! June is upon us, which means it’s all gay, all the time for the next few weeks. Being queer is a big part of my life and my identity, so I wanted to do something special for Pride. The end result was my most recent video, which you can watch here.

In that video, I try to get through a ton of information in as little time as possible, so I decided to post a written version here for anyone who wants a more solid starting point for incorporating these deities, saints, herbs, and crystals into their own practice. I’ve tried to be as inclusive as possible here — if I’ve missed something that seems obvious to you, please let me know in a comment so I can update the list!

Spiritual Patrons For LGBTQ+ Folks

Patrons For WLW:

Artemis (Greek goddess): Artemis is considered a “virgin” goddess, but it’s important to note that the word “virgin” had a different meaning in Ancient Greek culture. The one thing we know about Artemis for sure is that she was not romantically interested in men, for whatever reason. Artemis swore never to marry or have sex with a man, and she lead the Hunters of Artemis, a group of all-women warriors who spent their days hunting and roaming the forest. She is associated with the moon, archery, the forest, and the hunt. Some of her common symbols are bows and arrows, stags, hunting dogs, and the moon. She was worshiped by the Romans as Diana.

Freyja (Norse goddess): Freyja is a Scandinavian goddess of sex and sexuality, as well as sorcery, wealth, war, and death. I decided to include Freyja in this list because she is associated with sex and sexuality, especially of women, but is not associated with pregnancy or motherhood like many other sex goddesses are — her children are rarely mentioned in the surviving myths. All we know about her husband is that he was lost, leaving Freyja single for all intents and purposes. She is noted for being bold in her sexual pursuits, sleeping with whoever she pleased. She is a goddess for any woman who wants to get in touch with her femininity and sexual power, regardless of sexuality. Some of Freyja’s common symbols are gold, amber, cats, and falcons.

Saints Perpetua and Felicity (Catholic saints): Perpetua and Felicity were African Christians who were persecuted by the occupying Roman government for their faith. Perpetua was a noblewoman — Felicity was one of her slaves. The two women were arrested together and sentenced to prison — eventually they were publicly executed. Some of Perpetua’s letters to family and friends survived, so we actually have a firsthand account of her imprisonments. From these letters it is clear that Perpetua and Felicity were very close, and historians have long speculated that they may have been romantically involved. Today they are considered unofficial patron saints of same-sex couples, especially women. You can buy medals and prayer cards for both of these saints from online Catholic stores. Like all Catholic saints, they can be honored with a white candle and/or Three Kings incense (this is the incense blend used by churches).

Patrons For MLM:

Apollo (Greek god): Apollo was the twin brother of Artemis, and has a similar history with the LGBTQ+ community. The Ancient Greeks had a very fluid attitude towards sexuality, but today we would probably classify Apollo as either bisexual or pansexual. There are myths that explicitly mention him having male lovers. Apollo was very close with his sister, Artemis — perhaps an early example of MLM/WLW solidarity? Apollo is associated with the sun, prophecy, healing, and the arts, especially music and poetry. Some of his symbols include the lyre, a laurel wreath, a bow and arrow, and a python. He was also worshiped by the Romans.

Freyr (Norse god): Funnily enough, we have another brother/sister pair. Freyr was the brother of Freyja, and he shared her association with sex and abundance. Freyr was a primarily agricultural god, and was believed to bring spring rains to nourish the growing crops. One of his strongest associations was with male sexuality — in fact, he was often depicted in art with a giant, erect penis! Like his sister, Freyr was more associated with the act of sex itself than when what comes after. Freyr is an excellent god for any man looking to get in touch with his own masculine power, regardless of sexuality. Some of his symbols are a boar, a ship, and a phallus.

Saint Sebastian (Catholic saint): Saint Sebastian has long been considered an unofficial patron of gay men, and the story behind this association is a wild ride. Unlike Saints Perpetua and Felicity, there is no historical evidence that Sebastian was queer. He was a martyr, and according to legend he was executed by being bound to a tree and shot with arrows. When the Plague hit Europe, Sebastian was often called upon for protection — this was the beginning of his popularity as a saint. Baroque artists created a lot (like, A LOT) of paintings of Sebastian that depicted him as a beautiful, muscular young man, clad in a loin cloth, gazing passionately up at Heaven as he was pierced with arrows. As you might imagine, he became something of a sex symbol. In fact, Sebastian became so popular with the gay men of Italy that he had his own cult! You can buy medals, prayer cards, and candles dedicated to Saint Sebastian, and again, he can be honored with a white candle and/or Three Kings incense.

Nonbinary and Genderfluid Patrons

Loki (Norse god): Technically, Loki is a jötunn (a frost giant), not a god, although he was formerly allied with the Aesir and lived in Asgard. Loki was a shapeshifter, and was known to take female forms as well as male. In fact, he once took the form of a female horse and gave birth to a foal! Loki is probably one of the most explicit examples of a genderfluid deity in European mythology. However, some pagans choose not to work with Loki. He is sometimes considered a “negative” god because of his association with mischief and chaos, and because he ultimately betrayed the Aesir. It is up to you whether to work with him or not, although I would definitely advise you not to bring Loki into a circle with any of the Aesir.

Odin (Norse god): The common image of Odin in pop culture is of a fierce warrior-king, but this is not historically accurate. Odin was often depicted as an old man in traveler’s clothes, and he was associated with several cultural taboos. Though he is definitely identified as masculine, Odin ruled magick, which was considered feminine in Scandinavian culture — it was dishonorable for a man to practice such “woman’s work.” Odin knew that some things transcend gender, and he is a wonderful patron for anyone looking to break away from traditional gender roles. Besides magick, he rules war, strategy, death, astral travel, and knowledge. Some of Odin’s symbols are ravens, wolves, his spear, and his armband. I personally burn mugwort incense when working with Odin. He was also worshiped by Germanic and Anglo-Saxon peoples as Wodan.

Archangel Gabriel (an angel honored in Christianity, Judaism, and Islam): Gabriel is usually identified with masculine pronouns, and “Gabriel” has became a common man’s name in many countries — but in art, Archangel Gabriel is often depicted with feminine features, and sometimes even with a clearly feminine body. This is because Gabriel is strongly associated with the Divine Feminine and with feminine energy in general. Gabriel rules pregnancy and female reproductive disorders, and is responsible for the care of children. He is also associated with the moon, a common symbol of goddess energy. Angels have no true gender, so they are all androgynous in nature, but Gabriel is especially so. Because of this, he is an excellent patron for nonbinary people. Some of Gabriel’s common symbols are a trumpet, a white lily, the moon, and water. Incenses associated with him are frankincense and camphor.

Honorable Mention: Santa Muerte (Mexican deity/folk saint): Santa Muerte may not be trans, nonbinary, or genderfluid herself, but she’s a fascinating figure and deserves a place on this list. Nuestra Señora de la Santa Muerte (“Our Lady of the Holy Death”) is a personification of death, and is called on for healing and protection by her followers. What is especially interesting is that Santa Muerte is considered a protector of all outcasts from society, including all LGBTQ+ people and especially transgender people. She is even invoked in same-sex marriage ceremonies in some parts of Mexico! Her worship has recently spread to the United States, with churches dedicated to her in California and New Orleans. You can buy statues and altar candles in her image. Common incenses for honoring Santa Muerte include copal, myrrh, and rose.

UPDATE: I’ve been told that worship of Santa Muerte is part of a closed cultural tradition, and is therefore not open to people outside of Mexican and Mexican American culture. I’m leaving her in this post because I still find her story uplifting, but I do ask all of my followers to please be respectful of this beautiful goddess and her cultural roots. I think we can find hope in her role as a pro-LGBTQ+ deity, while respecting that she is not ours to worship or work with. 

Correspondences For LGBTQ+ Issues in Meditation and Spellwork

As I mentioned in one of my previous YouTube videos, magick is the act of manipulating the spiritual energy that permeates the universe. Every part of the natural world, including plants and minerals, has a different type of energy associated with it. If you want to connect with a certain energy (like the energy of romance, for example), you can surround yourself with things that correspond to that energy to make the connection easier.

A lot of the love spells that I’ve been able to find online use correspondences that have a strong association with straight romance. Obviously, some symbols are universal, but I wanted to find some correspondences that can specifically be used for manifesting same-sex romantic relationships. Here’s what my research turned up:

Correspondences For Love Between Two Women:

Rose Quartz: Rose quartz is considered the stone of unconditional love, and it can be used universally to attract love of all kinds, not just romantic. I think this crystal could be especially useful for women seeking a feminine partner, because it has a very strong feminine energy. Rose quartz is also strongly associated with self-love, and teaches us the important lesson that the best way to attract love is to start by loving ourselves. You could incorporate it into a love spell, wear it as jewelry, or meditate with it to align yourself with its loving energy.

Moonstone: Sometime’s called “the woman’s stone,” moonstone is very strongly associated with womanhood and with feminine sexuality. It is said to attract love and to increase passion in existing relationships. Unlike many other crystals associated with sex, moonstone has a very peaceful energy and can be used to calm anxiety or to soothe tense situations. Moonstone is a great stone for any woman looking to reconnect with her feminine power, or for increasing passion in an existing relationship between two women.

Violets: Violets have been associated with romantic love between women since the Ancient Greek poet Sappho of Lesbos (from whom we get the words “lesbian” and ‘sapphic”) used them as a symbol in poems dedicated to her female lover. In the Victorian era, queer women would give their lovers bouquets of violets instead of roses. (In the Victorian “language of flowers,” violets represent faithfulness.) In magick, violets are used to attract love and to increase luck in romantic endeavors. They are also edible — why not brew a violet tea and drink it as a love potion?

Correspondences For Love Between Men

Malachite: In many ways, malachite is the masculine counterpart to rose quartz. Despite its strongly masculine energy, malachite is deeply healing and works to open and unblock our heart chakra, as well as to heal any heartbreaks we may not quite have gotten over. Malachite is also considered the “salesman’s stone,” and can be used for situations where you are trying to “sell yourself” to a potential lover by giving a good first impression. Some people are afraid to use malachite because it is “toxic” — although it does contain copper, which can cause health problems if consumed in high amounts, wearing malachite or holding it against the skin is definitely not enough exposure to cause an issue. As long as you don’t eat your malachite or dissolve it in water, you will be fine.

Red Jasper: This is a wonderful stone for men looking to recharge their sexual energy, or to spice up an existing relationship. Jasper in general is associated with courage and charm, and for this reason it is often recommended to people involved in the performing arts, like actors and singers. Red jasper has a strong masculine energy, and is associated with the root chakra and our connection to the earth. Red jasper is an excellent stone to work with if you are dealing with sexual anxiety, or anxiety over being open about your sexuality. Meditate with it to feel more grounded, courageous, and stable.

Green Carnation: Although the connection between green carnation and queer men is not as ancient as the connection between violets and queer women, it is still well established. Oscar Wilde, who was openly gay, is said to have begun the trend of wearing a green carnation as a signal that he was seeking a man as a lover. Other men in Victorian England began to follow the trend, and the association still stands. In magick, carnation is said to enhance creativity and magickal power. Since it acts as an amplifier for other magickal energies, a green carnation can make any love spell more effective, especially for men seeking men.

Crystals and Herbs For Trans and Nonbinary Folks

Note: I said this in my video, but I feel like it bears repeating here — magick is not a replacement for mental healthcare. If you are struggling with gender dysphoria, I strongly encourage you to seek professional counseling if at all possible. None of the herbs, crystals, or spells mentioned below (or anywhere in this post) are intended as a replacement for medical or psychiatric treatment. If you are already taking medication of any kind, be sure to research potential interactions before ingesting any herb for magic or holistic purposes.

Chrysocolla (for trans and nb women): I first learned about chrysocolla from an episode of the Fat Feminist Witch podcast called “Not Every Goddess Has a Sacred Womb.” That episode discussed issues with equating womanhood to motherhood (or even just to having a uterus), and chrysocolla was brought up as a crystal with strong feminine energy that wasn’t tied to uterine health. This is a great stone to meditate with to get in touch with your own goddess energy, without any biological associations. Chrysocolla is also strongly associated with new beginnings, which may make it a useful spiritual tool for anyone who is just coming out of the closet.

Green Tourmaline (for trans and nb men): Much like malachite, green tourmaline is strongly associated both with masculine energy and with the heart chakra. It is a stone of masculine authority, and can be used either to get in touch with your own power or to help in overcoming emotional issues related to a father figure in your past. Tourmaline in general is said to convert negative energy into positive, which makes it ideal for overcoming any difficult situation.

Damiana (for trans and nb men AND women): Known by the scientific name Turnera diffusa, damiana is currently being clinically studied for its ability to balance hormones in all sexes. In holistic healing, damiana is commonly used to treat sexual problems — this is another one that may be useful for increasing sexual confidence. It is also said to help relieve anxiety and to decrease stress. Damiana is available both as herbal supplements and as a tea.

Angelica or Dong Quai (for trans and nb women): These are two different names for Angelica sinensis, which has been used in folk medicine for hundreds of years. It is often used to relieve symptoms of menopause because it increases estrogen levels when taken regularly. Angelica is also a powerful magickal herb, and is popular in American folk magick. It is sometimes associated with Archangel Gabriel, who I mentioned earlier, and is used for protection and healing. Angelica is available in teas and supplements, though it is usually marketed as “dong quai” in these forms.

Ginger (for trans and nb men): Lab studies found that ginger significantly increased testosterone levels in male rats. Human studies are still underway, but the research that has been done indicates similar benefits for humans. In magick, ginger is considered a magickal “power up” of sorts, and is often added to spells to add power or to speed up results. You can use ginger to increase your own masculine power, and to infuse yourself with a little bit of its sweet and spicy energy. Ginger is available both as a supplement and in teas, and of course it can be used in cooking.

This ended up being a way bigger project than I originally planned, but my research turned up so much good information that I wanted to share. I hope that some of this is helpful to all of my fellow gay witches out there, and I hope that you all have a magickal and blessed Pride Month.

P.S. I’ve actually written three different love spells based on this research. One is for men seeking men, one is for women seeking women, and one is for people who either don’t associate strongly with any one gender or don’t care about the gender of their partner. I was going to include those spells in this post but after seeing just how much info I had to cram in, I decided to give them their own post. You can find those spells here.

#info dump #resource #resources #pride month #pride month 2019 #lgbtq+ #lgbtq #lgbtqia #lgbt #wlw #mlm #witch #witchblr #spellcraft #spells #magick #new age #spirituality #pagan #wiccan #wicca #greek mythology #norse mythology #judeo christian mythology #artemis #apollo #freyja #freyr #saint perpetua #saint felicity

[duhragonball]

[FIC] Luffa: The Legendary Super Saiyan (118/?)

Disclaimer: This story features characters and concepts based on Dragon Ball, which is a trademark of Bird Studio/Shueisha and Toei Animation.   This is an unauthorized work, and no profit is being made on this work by me. This story is copyright of me. Download if you like, but please don’t archive it without my permission. Don’t be shy.

Continuity Note: About 1000 years before the events of Dragon Ball Z.

Previous chapters conveniently available here.

[20, March, 233 Before Age.   Vernas II.]

By Saiyan standards, Endive was a very practical woman.  While other Saiyans craved power and glory in the abstract, she focused on results.  Some considered this attitude to be cold, and they dismissed Endive as lacking passion, but she simply had a different perspective.  While others talked about what they wanted, Endive would ask "Do I have what I want right now?"  If the answer was "no", then she would consider how to change that answer to "yes."  If she craved battle, she didn't complain if there was no battle to fight; she calmly looked for ways to find one.  Sometimes the best solution was to wait patiently, and so she did.

This unusual mindset was the reason Endive became such an experienced spacepilot, since almost everything she wanted in life required travel.  It also gave her greater focus than most Saiyans had.  Instead of boasting about past or future success, she concentrated on the moment, and made certain that her agenda moved forward in the here and now.  This made her somewhat pushy and demanding in times of want, or aloof during times of contentment.  Many found her personality off-putting, but she didn't particularly care what others thought of her.

The Jindan Cult had been quite satisfactory to her since she had joined.  Endive had wanted to become stronger, and the cult had given her strength.  The Jindan elixir increased her power less than an hour after drinking it.  For some reason, it seemed to do more for some Saiyans than others, but this didn't concern her for the time being.  Endive had never wished to be the absolute strongest, mostly because that goal lacked a clear pathway to achieve it.  For now, she was content to simply be mightier than she had ever been before.  

The cult demanded her fealty in exchange for power, but Endive found their yoke to be an easy one.  She had excelled at every menial duty and chore the priests had assigned to her, and was fast-tracked to a position into a tactical field unit.  Their missions were covert and unglamorous, but Endive found the work stimulating, if not always exciting.

On Vernas II, she was given command of a four-person squad, and she led them to victory against a team of powerful warriors who had been investigating the Jindan cult.

"Radical-1!" cried one of them as Endive smashed into their headquarters.  She guessed that Radical-1 was the one she had knocked to the ground as she made her way inside.

"I hope you make better sport than your teammates did," she said.  "Though it makes little difference.  Your lives were forfeit the moment you chose to oppose the Holy Word."

"Stop her!" shouted one of the others.  They called themselves the "Star Sabers," and their organization was devoted to promoting things like peace and justice in the galaxy.   Endive had memorized their files before arriving in the Vernas system, but now that the fight had begun, she couldn't bring herself to care who was who, or what their individual powers were, or how to counter them.  She was thousands of light years away from Luffa and her blasphemous Federation, so there was no reason to hold back.   And so, she fought with her full strength, and as she mowed down her enemies, she said a silent prayer of thanks to Trismegistus.

As she fought, she sensed a presence in her mind, and recognized it as one of the Star Defenders' mentalists.  Unable to cope with her strength and speed, it was only natural for them to try to attack her through telepathy.   Endive simply ignored this, and fought on.  Behind her, she heard a scream, and glanced back to see that it was the one codenamed Beautiful Thinker.  He was a blonde-haired, green-skinned man who only wore a pair of swim trunks into battle.   Under different circumstances, his wardrobe might have made sense.  Beautiful Thinker's telekinetic abilities made him virtually untouchable, so clothing and armor were of no use to him.

But Trismegistus, her blessed master, had prepared Endive for foes like him.  He had seeded the minds of all of her brothers and sisters in the cult with the Mindworm, a psychic booby trap that would ravage the consciousness of anyone who tried to use telepathic probes to learn their secrets.   Endive wasn't sure if Beautiful Thinker could survive the effects of the Mindworm, but she planned to decapitate him long before he would have the chance to recover.

"Through You, my path is clear, my heart is sure," she chanted under her breath as she snapped the neck of one of the Star Sabers' strongest members.  Another one, Ignitress, tried to smother Endive by surrounding her with fire, but this was easily solved with an explosive wave of ki that disrupted the flames and knocked Ignitress unconscious at the same time.

"By Your hand, I conquer in Your Name, the Thrice-Blessed, for ever and for ever," she continued.

One of them nearly got the drop on her, but Endive managed to avoid serious injury and fired back to kill the armored Star Saber who had attacked her.  She looked down to notice a large section of her unitard had been shorn away, revealing a mark on her hip.  This was no battle wound, but a ceremonial brand she had been given by Trismegistus himself.  There had been many ceremonies and rituals since the day she joined his cult, but receiving his mark stood out as one of the proudest moments of her life.    It represented his appreciation for her tireless service to his cause.  Like all of her brothers and sisters, she belonged to Trismegistus, but the ones who bore the mark were special.  Trismegistus chose to proclaim to the universe that Endive was his.  She longed to be worthy of his esteem.

"I should have known!" shouted one of the last Star Defenders as she wrapped up the battle.  He was called Blue Zephyr, and Endive's mission profile listed him as a priority target.  He knew more about the cult than any non-Saiyan alive, and that made him too dangerous to ignore.

Endive refused to be baited by his mindgames.  Instead of replying to him, she simply fired a beam of ki energy at his heart.  The alien warrior managed to dodge it, and somehow he still had enough life in him to escape several more of her killing blows.

"It all makes sense now," he ranted.  "King Rehval knew he couldn't continue his rule out in the open, but his ego wouldn't allow him to stay in hiding, so he disguised his subjects as a band of religious fanatics!"

"King Rehval?" Endive asked.  "Perhaps we overestimated you as a threat, Zephyr.  No worldly monarch could possibly compare to the grandeur of our holy benefactor.  A shame you have to die in ignorance, but you've interfered with our operations in this sector far too often."

Zephyr pointed at the mark on her exposed hip.  "Rehval's operations, you mean!   You're not fooling anyone, Saiyan.  That brand is relatively new, judging by the way the skin has healed around it.  If your leader gave it to you, then why is he using the symbol of the Rehval Dynasty as his personal mark?"

She looked down at the hole in her uniform, bewildered by his words.  She was born on Planet Saiya, and her father and uncle had served under its ruler, King Rehval III.    But the brand she wore couldn't be Rehval's, so why would Zephyr bother to suggest a connection?  It made no sense...!

As she struggled with the contradiction, Blue Zephyr attempted a desperate, heroic attack, one designed to take advantage of her momentary confusion.  But Endive still had the presence of mind to avoid his offense, and she slaughtered him before she could try again.

She longed to make sense of all of this, but there was still the mission to think about.  Her master's enemies had to be eliminated.  The mystery of the symbol bothered her, but she knew she could get an answer soon enough.  She simply had to he patient, and then she would ask the one person in the universe who always spoke the truth.

*******

[28 March, 233 Before Age.    Nagaoka.]

By the hierarchy of the Jindan cult, the priests held authority over the flock.  But as Treekul prepared Endive, anointing her with scented oils, washing her feet and hands with consecrated water, and placing golden ornaments on her body, it seemed like the alien priestess was the servant.   Treekul was the only non-Saiyan in the cult, and some wondered why Trismegistus had permitted this, but Endive knew better than to question his will.    

"Has he asked about me?" Endive asked as Treekul handed her the ceremonial tea.  Like much of the complex that served as the cults headquarters, it was a gloomy underground room lit by torches along the walls.   Endive enjoyed the way the flickering light danced across the surface of the dark liquid.  

"Oh, uh... not really," Treekul said after a moment's hesitation.  "I mean, he's got a lot on his plate, though.  And you know how it is.  It wouldn't do for him to go around sharing those kinds of feelings."

"Of course," Endive said.  "I'm not disappointed, you understand.  Merely curious."

"Sure, sure," Treekul said.  "Hey, could you... uh...?"

Endive noticed Treekul was gesturing at her leg, so she raised it slightly for her.

"Thanks," Treekul said.   The alien leaned in and steadied Endive's foot with one hand while she held ornaments in the other.   "These ankle things are the hardest ones to put together."

"I am nothing to him," Endive said.  "I'm fully aware of that.  But I bear his holy mark, and his triple blessing, and he speaks to me from time to time.  It's far more than I deserve."

"Endive?" Treekul asked.  "Do you remember how we came here?  With Lesseri and Guwar?"

"I suppose," she said.  "I prefer not to think of those days.  I was so weak back then.  So... lost.  We all were."

"Uh-huh... Yeah, you're right," Treekul said with a sigh.  "Lost.   Not like we are now.  So, how was the mission?"

Endive chuckled.  "You always ask me about the missions," she said.  "The other priestesses never make this much conversation."

"Well, you're... doing holy work," Treekul said.  "It's an honor to hear about your service... er, my child."

Endive drank the tea and inhaled the aroma from a vessel of burning incense which Treekul held near her face.  "We went to Vernas II," Endive said.

"Vernas.     I've never been there," Treekul said.  "I've heard it's nice."

"It's even more beautiful, I should think," Endive said, "now that we've purged the heretics from that world."

"Oh, definitely," Treekul said as she worked on Endive's other anklet.  "You can never purge enough heretics, I always say.    So... how long a trip was that?"

"I do not recall," Endive said absently.  "I was not the one flying the ship."

"Really?" Treekul said.  "You always flew the ship when we were looking for Trismegistus.   Remember that?"

"Yes, well... I have other duties now," Endive replied.  "If you are finished, I would not presume to keep him waiting."

"Right, right."  Treekul rose to her feet and half-heartedly waved her hands to make an esoteric gesture.  "May his triple-blessing be upon you," she said, and then she escorted her into the next room.

*******

Endive waited for the right moment before asking her questions.  Trismegistus had needs, and he had summoned her to his meditation chamber to satisfy those needs.   Her own problems would have to wait.    His bodily humors required perfect balance in order to properly maintain the Jindan power that sustained them all.  Luckily, the balance could be restored through ritual intercourse.  Hundreds of women in the cult had been chosen for this duty, though Endive took pride in knowing that she was one of Trismegistus' more frequent selections.

When they were finished, she rose from the bed to prepare his drink.  "An excellent session, as always, Endive," he said with a satisfied smile.  "I would call upon you more often if I could, but their are stoichiometric considerations that cannot be ignored."

"You honor me with your praise," she replied.

There was a time, not long ago, when they very thought of these ritual trysts would have disturbed her to her very core.  The Saiyans were a very repressed people when it came to romantic love.  Having a single lover in one lifetime was almost too much for some Saiyans to consider.  The idea of casual polyamory could be very troubling indeed.  Before joining the cult, she had privately fallen in love with Guwar, but she had never found the courage to tell him.  She had hoped the cult might help bring them closer together, but instead, it had driven them further apart.  Their duties had kept them separated, and the communal breeding practices of the cult made things even more awkward.  Endive had dreaded the idea of being mated to a complete stranger, but then she was disqualified from the breeding pit altogether.  Soon after, she was chosen to service Trismegistus.  At first, it had sickened her to be treated like a piece of meat, shuffled from one loveless relationship to another, but over time, she had come to accept the necessity of her duty as one of Trismegistus' consorts, and the honor of it soothed her battered self-esteem.

"Master, I had a moment of doubt on my last mission," she said as she took a knife from a small altar and cut the palm of her right hand.    

"Oh?  And did you speak to the priests about it?" Trismegistus asked.

"No," she said.  "I did not want to spread the words of a heretic.  I knew you would summon me to your presence eventually, so I waited to bring it to you directly."

"I'm disappointed, Endive," he said.  "You have so many responsibilities, and you handle them all so gracefully.   Yet you neglect your own soul.  A very selfless failing, but a failing nonetheless."

She made a fist and, allowed the blood from her hand to drain into a copper bowl on the altar.  His words stung more than the wound she had just inflicted upon herself.

"Such a lovely figure you have," he said, admiring her outline in the torchlight.  "A shame that heresy and doubt should fester inside such an exquisite vessel."

As she added the other ingredients to the bowl, she lowered her head and felt the warmth of tears on her cheeks.  She was always failing him, one way or another.  He deserved better from her, and it pained her that she couldn't give it to him.

"When you first joined me," he continued, "you said that you wanted to unburden your spirit, Endive.  How can you do this if you won't trust the very priests I provided to help you?"

She couldn't answer that, and so instead she turned to face him, and brought the bowl of blood to his waiting hand.   He drank, then handed it back to her.  

"Forgive me, Blessed One," she finally said.   "I... I sometimes forget my place in our relationship.   I am your servant, not your wife."

"I can't commit myself to just one woman, Endive.   My enlightened biochemistry won't allow it," he said.   "Still, if it were possible for me to marry, I can't imagine a finer choice for a bride than you."

"Oh!" she exclaimed, and nearly dropped the bowl in her surprise.   He had complimented her many times, but never so personally.    

"You must understand that there are reasons for my ways," he continued.   "Speak to the priests.   Let them help you first, and if the matter is too difficult for them, then they will bring the matter before me.    You see, they dilute my workload, just as you and the other consorts dilute my humor imbalances."

"Of course," Endive said.   "Your time is valuable, Illustrious One.  It is selfish of me to waste it in idle talk."

"Nonsense, my dear," he said.    He patted the bed to summon her back to his side.   "I enjoy your company, and the intimate conversations that come with it.    Now, let us talk of your heroic adventure on Vernas II."

Thrilled by his approving words, she set the bowl back on the altar, and returned to his side.

*******

[April 1, 233 Before Age.   Nagaoka.]

"Why me?" Treekul asked.   "And don't tell me it's because we knew each other before the cult.   That didn't seem to matter much to you before."

"Because..." Endive struggled to find the right words.   "Because you're different from the others."

Treekul's quarters were better lit than the others in the priesthood, and she had fewer candles and other objects deemed sacred by the cult.    Instead of the typical robes, she wore a sort of gown that Trismegistus had designed for her.   This revealed a good deal of her lavender skin, and without a hood to hide her short green hair, it seemed as though Trismegistus was determined to flaunt her alien heritage rather than downplay it.    

"Because I'm different," Treekul repeated.    

"I am... dissatisfied with the counsel from the other priestesses," Endive explained.    "They told me to fast and to meditate and to focus on my duties.   I have, and I find no resolution from this.   I was hoping you could offer a different perspective."

Treekul sighed and finally turned her seat away from the parchment she was studying.    It was whispered that Trismegistus was tutoring Treekul in the secrets of alchemy, and this was why he had given her such a high rank in the priesthood.   Endive knew better than to repeat such rumors, but she did not ignore them, either.     "This guy on Vernas II, he said the mark on your hip is King Rehval's," Treekul began.  

"Yes," Endive replied.

"And you're wondering why someone, even an enemy, would lie about something like that."

"Correct."

"Why does it matter?" Treekul asked.  

"Excuse me?"

"For all you know, King Rehval ripped off his symbol from Trismegistus," Treekul said.   "Or it's a coincidence.   Or this Blue Zephyr guy was mistaken.    Or you misunderstood him."

"That all seems very unlikely," Endive said.   She felt strangely aware of her burgundy unitard as they discussed this.   In particular, the section of it that covered her mark seemed to chafe against her skin.  

"But why does it bother you in the first place?" Treekul pressed.  "What does King Rehval mean to you?"

"He is an enemy of my Master," Endive said.  

"What if they patched things up?" Treekul suggested.   "The king might decide to join the cult himself one of these days.   Maybe he already has."

"That could never happen," Endive insisted.    

"Why not?"  Treekul asked.  

"He would never pass the initiation rituals," Endive said.    "That man is too self-serving.    He could never bow to the wisdom of Trismegistus."

"How would you know?"

"Because... because he killed my family," Endive said after a long pause.   "You already know this story.   I told it to you when we were on the ship, searching for this planet.  You remember, don't you?   When we were with Lesseri and Guwar?"

"I must have forgotten," Treekul said wryly.   She pointed at her outfit, and then at the parchment on her table.   "I have other duties now.   Refresh my memory."  

And so Endive did.    Indeed, Treekul had heard all of this before.  Endive's uncle had been a loyal follower of the Rehval Dynasty.  He had obeyed the king in everything.  He had cut off his tail, he had worn the blue military uniforms, and he had served his country like a good soldier... only to be beaten to a pulp by Rehval III.  The crown prince had wanted to make an example of him to discipline his subjects.  Her uncle had been allowed to live, though he didn't last long after that.  Endive and her father had watched him die in a hospice like an old man.

Her father quit the kingdom soon after, since it had become clear to him that loyalty was worthless on Planet Saiya.  But independence hadn't been worth very much either.    Endive's father became an outspoken critic of the Rehval Dynasty, and alien governments quickly found him to provide a useful insight into the Saiyan Kingdom.  Too useful, as far as King Rehval was concerned, and so the  royal assassins killed him.  At least, that was what her father had suspected.    It made sense for Rehval to have him assassinated, though there was no proof.    The doctors had told Endive that it was poison, and she had long wondered what kind of Saiyan would resort to such an dishonorable weapon.

And as Treekul listened to Endive repeat the tale, she made sure to press Endive on how angry and betrayed she felt by King Rehval's actions.   How suspicious Endive became of the Saiyan Kingdom, and of government in general.   How outraged she would feel if Blue Zephyr had been telling the truth, and that she had somehow been duped into working for King Rehval all along.    

That was because Treekul was different from the rest of the priests.  Unlike them, she desperately wanted a way off the planet, to get as far away from the cult as possible.   Trismegistus had taken steps to prevent Treekul from accessing spaceships or navigational information, but he had given all of this and more to faithful soldiers like Endive.    With a little encouragement, Treekul hoped that Endive might become disillusioned enough to want to leave the planet... and hopefully take Treekul with her.

*******

[25 April, 233 Before Age.   Nagaoka.]

Over the next few weeks, Endive found little time to consider Treekul's counsel, or the counsel of any of the other priests.   With combat intensifying in the Holy War against the Federation, Endive had expected to be sent into Federation space.   She was not, and instead, she was called upon to fulfill many of the duties left behind by other cultists who were deployed instead.    Her missions took her to other star systems, usually acting in secret, so that none would realize that her actions were in the service of Trismegistus' agenda.  

Each task was fairly simple in itself: assassinations, smuggling, destabilizing governments, and other matters Endive had performed in her old life before joining the cult.   She found these acts took on a whole new meaning because of the holy purpose behind them.    It was immensely satisfying to kill someone and know that it cleansed the universe of evil.    It made her feel powerful.   Righteous.    It was almost enough to make up for the sheer volume of the work, which had left her nearly exhausted.    

When her work had finally lightened up enough to allow her to return to Nagaoka, she was immediately assigned to duty in the shipyard, performing maintenance on the light cruisers and other vessels used by the cult's warriors.   And then, just when she thought that she would finally be allowed to rest, she was summoned for consort duty.     She hadn't slept in days, and what little time she had planned for a short nap had to be allocated for the laborious process of bathing and receiving the ornaments and perfumes required for the ritual.

"Have you thought about what I said?" Treekul asked as she dabbed aromatic oils on the sides of Endive's neck.    

"I have," Endive replied wearily.    

"That's good."   Treekul fetched a bottle of vermilion pigment and began drawing symbols on Endive's arms and torso.     "So have you been to any new planets lately?"

"The Tekkers Cluster, mainly," Endive yawned.    "He sends me there so often.   At least it's only twelve hours away by stardrive."

"That close, huh?" Treekul said.   "I've been there before.    Very densely populated.    It'd be really easy to get lost in that sector.   Even the cult would have trouble tracking you down if you didn't report in.    Something to think about."

She finished applying Endive's ornamentation and sent her into Trismegistus' bedchamber.   She did exactly what was required for the ritual balancing of his humors, and nothing more.    She simply lacked the energy for anything more than an apology.    

"Pious service needs no apology, my dear," Trismegistus told her.   "And your company is most welcome, even if you are too tired to enjoy it."

"I am... honored," Endive said, though she had trouble believing her own words.    She cut her own hand, and bled into the copper bowl, and then, as she took the bowl back from him, she pointed at the mark on her hip.    

"I have to know what this means," she said in a voice that indicated that she was too tired and too desperate to mince words.    

Trismegistus looked down at the brand and smiled warmly.   "It means you're one of my most treasured servants," he said.   "Is that not enough?"  

"No," she said.    She was almost surprised by her own answer.  

"No?" he asked.  

She shut her eyes tightly and pointed at the mark.   "I want to believe that this is a test," she said.    "That you branded me with the mark of my family's enemy to see if I would rise above my own bitterness.    My focus should be on the Holy Work, on helping you to remake the universe.   But I shall always be distracted, so long as their may be a connection between Rehval and yourself."

"I see," Trismegistus said.    He sat up on the bed and reached out to wipe the tears from her cheek.    "You fear that your doubts will compromise your service to me.    How very like you, Endive."    

"The priests only counseled me to ignore my suspicions, or repress them," Endive said.   "All of them except Treekul, that is.   She had me confront my fears, and reminded me that you and King Rehval are nothing alike.   But then... how does that explain the mark?"

"Treekul.   Of course," Trismegistus said with a smile.    "She's very perceptive, as you've seen.     Yes, I can tell now."   He rose to his feet and ran his hand down her bare back.   "You're finally ready for the next step, Endive."

She was about to ask what he meant, when he crossed the bedchamber and rummaged through a cabinet of glass phials.   He withdrew one, and held it out to her.

"Another test?" Endive asked as she examined the blood-red liquid inside the phial.

"The mark is not a test," Trismegistus explained.    "But this potion is.   I'm reluctant to share this new mystery with you.    It may undo the great strides you have made in your faith.    But you've shown remarkable progress, my dear.   It would be selfish of me to withhold this secret from you."

Endive rose from the bed and set her teeth.    "I have nothing to fear from the truth, Blessed One," she said, reciting a  line from the cult's daily affirmations.  If I shirk from this trial, then I was never worthy of my past triumphs."

"Well said," Trismegistus said with a smile.    She smiled back at him, grateful to be on such friendly terms with a divine being.    Sharing his bed, fighting his wars, praying to him each morning, there was no greater honor in the universe.    He was everything to her, and yet he was so warm and personable.

He poured the phial's contents into a goblet on a small altar.    Then he reached for the bottle of wine that they had shared earlier.    She reached out to stop him, to offer to pour it herself, but he gestured for her to remain where she stood.    

"I know you're used to serving the drinks, Endive," he said, "but this is an ordeal, not a refreshment.    I must prepare it personally."    A moment later, he presented the goblet to her, and she took it in both hands.    

"Endive, my beloved, are you ready to receive this knowledge, for the betterment of yourself, and for the purity of Jindan?"

"I am," she said automatically.    In her mind, there was no other possible response.

"Then drink, my child, and may you grow stronger," he commanded.  

There was only one mouthful of potion in the goblet, and when she swallowed it, she expected to feel something similar to the experience she had during her initiation into the cult.   Instead, she looked at Trismegistus, unsure what to do next.    A minute passed, then two, and then she began to notice the features of his face.   His appearance wasn't changing, and yet he seemed to become another person before her very eyes.    With each passing moment, he became increasingly familiar to her, as though she had seen him in some other context, in another lifetime.    

And then she understood.    

"King Rehval," she said, dropping the goblet onto the floor.    She took an involuntary step back.    "You... you're...!"

"I am," he said.

"How--?"

"The same alchemy that made you my mighty soldier," he explained.    "I have potions that can alter or remove a person's memories.   When you came to my fold, I fed you such a potion that suppressed your recollection of me.   I gave it to you and everyone else who sought my wisdom.   And so, you saw my face, heard my voice, but you did not recognize me.   What you drank a moment ago was the antidote."

He took a step forward, closing the distance between them.   "Very few," he said, "earn the right to taste the antidote.   Fewer still are able to handle the revelation it contains.   And now we must see if you are one of those few."

"You killed my father," she said.

"Yes," he replied.   "And I've done worse to many of the other Saiyans in my flock.    That's why I took care to conceal my identity from them.   From you."

"So you could seduce me?" Endive asked, surprised by the tone of her voice.   She suddenly felt very exposed.   Only moments ago, she was proud to share her body with him, and now, she felt like she had betrayed herself.

Rehval smiled.   "You were the one who volunteered to be one of my consorts, beloved Endive," he said.   "You told me it was an honor to service the body of one so wise."

He was right.    She had said this, and she still believed it.   Was he not still Trismegistus?  The Thrice-Blessed?   The master of the Jindan power?  The Keeper of the  Holy Reagent that would change the universe?   His antidote had restored a few of her old memories, but it had not taken the new memories away.   Everything she had experienced in the cult was still real, still meaningful.

"Do you feel deceived, Endive?" he asked.    

"Yes," she said.  She didn't know whether to be furious or to beg his forgiveness, and so she kept her answers as brief as possible.  

"That is the great trial you must face, my beloved," he said.    "I hid my true self from you because I knew that you wouldn't accept my teachings otherwise.   Now that you have embraced those teachings, and recognized my authority over the natural world, there's no need to disguise myself any longer, is there?"

"I..."

"You loved your father, didn't you?" he asked, taking her hand in his own.  

"Y-yes."  Her hand trembled at his touch, but she did not pull away from him.

"But your father opposed me, Endive.   He lacked the wisdom to see beyond worldly things.    He only saw me in a political context.   The King of the Saiyans, a leader to be plotted against or bargained with.    That was his weakness, and that was what killed him in the end.    Or do you think that I should have permitted him to destroy me?"

"No!" she said.   "Of course not, Master."

He smiled.   "You know, I think he'd be proud of you today," he said.   "Every parent wishes to see his child surpass him.   You embraced my teachings and became my disciple when he could not.    You have succeeded where he failed."

He lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed her fingers.    She wanted to pull away, to tell him how revolting his touch was to her now, but she couldn't find it in herself to do so.  

"The trial is this, Endive," he went on.    "I don't expect you to accept this truth easily.    The Old Endive would have died before submitting to King Rehval.    The New Endive, reborn by Jindan, has pledged herself to Trismegistus, mind, body, and soul.    Now you must decide which Endive to be.    You can accept this truth, and remain my faithful servant.   My crusading general.    My favorite consort.   Or you can leave the cult, and forsake Jindan, and remain true to your father's misguided cause."

Endive's eyes widened.  It was no choice at all.  She remembered Salziff, the man who told her how to find the cult.  He had been cast out for his disobedience, and when Trismegistus withdrew the Jindan power from him, it left him weakened to the point of irrelevance.  She remembered looking down at the man, and feeling a mixture of pity and disgust.

Salziff had reminded her very much of her uncle, wasting away on a bed, long before his time, when he should have met his end on a battlefield.

Her father had been a stern man, unwilling to show any emotion, but he cared for his family.    When he uncle finally died, her father put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed gently.    It was a small gesture, but one she would never forget.

Even as she thought this, Rehval put his own hand on her shoulder, though it was to pull her closer.    There was nothing tender about his grasp.   More like a merchant gathering up his profits.

She remembered her father's deathbed.    Like her uncle, and like Salziff, he wasted away, dying to some poison she had never heard of.    The autopsy report called it polonium-210.   Her father called it the handiwork of King Rehval, though she couldn't imagine what sort of Saiyan would stoop to poison.  

But now.... Now she knew exactly what kind of Saiyan would poison her father.  She had shared his bed, fought his wars, and had devoted herself to him, mind, body, and soul.    He was groping her at this very moment, nibbling at the base of her neck.   He had offered her a choice between continuing as his servant, or wasting away like her father and uncle.    But he wasn't even waiting for her to choose.    He already knew her answer.    

With a defeated sigh, she returned his embrace, and caressed him with her hands, just the way she had always done in his bedchamber.    He nudged her slightly, and she lowered herself to her knees, and accepted what came next.    

Several minutes later, she looked up at him, and he wiped a tear from her eye.    "It took great courage to do that, my beloved," he said.

"Tell me," she pleaded.  "Was all of this meant to punish my father?"

"Yes," he said.  "Your father was weak and yet he brazenly defied me anyway.  The poison I gave him ensured a slow, painful death, but that wasn't enough to satisfy my wrath.  When I created this cult, I knew one day you would come to me, seeking Jindan, never suspecting that the price of it would be to betray your father's memory.  Now, his daughter has become my greatest general, and she kneels before me, naked and weeping in my bedchamber.  But there's more to it than that."

"More?" Endive asked.

"By punishing your father, I have also taught you a lesson.   Now you at last see the true nature of power, my dear."

She looked up at him and nodded.  "It's more than just being able to hit harder," she said.  "It's about control."

"Your uncle understood that," Rehval said.  "He accepted the king's justice because he knew there was no other choice.  Your father only thought he understood.  He believed that leaving the kingdom would give him control over his own destiny.  But he underestimated my reach."

He reached down and wiped more tears from her cheek, for she was still weeping.     "Rise," he said.  "It's getting late, and you'll need time to reflect on all of this... after you've completed your duties here, of course."

"Of... course," Endive said quietly.  As she stood, she tried to gather up some semblance of self-respect.  When that failed, all she could find was her faith,    Broken and splintered, it was all she had left.  Her father had been a fool, hadn't he?  As much as his death had pained her, how could she blame Rehval for defending himself?  And in his holy revenge, he had seen fit to glorify her, to transform her into his instrument.  If she couldn't find pride in this, then she would have no pride at all.

And so she forced herself to smile affectionately at him, and to return his embrace when he offered it.  And when he was finished with her for the evening, she bowed low and thanked him for the honor of being with him, even though she privately wished that she could have been anywhere else in the universe.

NEXT: Luffa and Seltiss

#dragon ball #fanfiction #lssjluffafic #nagaoka #vernas ii #trismegistus #endive #treekul

[letters-from-the-three-houses]

Hello hello! I'd just like to say that I'm really glad I found your blog, it's super fun to see the hype and ideas circulating throughout it, it's helping with the hype, and it's mega fun reading your wonderful writing, keep up the fantastic work my friend! But if it's okay ask, may I get your stance on the idea of demon Byleth? Anything would be lovely, from personal preferences to actual likelihood of this outcome, or how it could affect the church, plot, characters, or Byleth themselves?

thanks, friend! it’s more than okay to ask! i’m super hyped so i’m happy to share my excitement with everyone. we’ll get through the countdown together :)

so as a bit of a background to those who don’t know/need a refresher, byleth (beleth) is the name of a fallen angel in hell who commands legions of demons. they’re sometimes depicted as a trumpet-playing cat, but they’re usually shown as a scary, stubborn, and intimidating man who will hold contempt towards the caster if they show fear/disrespect. there’s also a female persona who is thought to be a “small, frail, doe-eyed young girl”, as well as beleth’s true form. once they lend the summoner their power, the summoner will be able to cause any man or woman to love them until their desires are fulfilled. also, beleth is knowledgeable in math

(here are some more posts about demon!byleth that i build upon in my response: [1], [2], [3], [4], [reddit])

under the cut bc i wrote too much

disclaimer: i’m not an expert of demonology, so i might get some information wrong. there are also spoilers to other games in the series!

i personally think it’d be a cool spin. i love the idea of a demon protagonist, and the context is a good setup for a morally ambiguous, grey role. whether IS chooses to play around with it to create a more somber/complicated tone or not is anyone’s guess. knowing them, it’ll probably be straightforward, like revelation!fates, but the two aren’t mutually exclusive

as for likelihood, i think they’re called ‘byleth’ for a reason. it doesn’t necessarily mean that they’ll be a demon, but the name does hold some importance. for one, byleth is pretty niche. they’re only mentioned in two texts: 1) pseudomonarchia daemonum (johann weyer), and 2) ars goetia, which was based off of weyer’s work. even then, they’re more commonly adapted as ‘beleth’ or ‘bileth’. japan likes referencing the ars goetia for whatever reason, but when they do, they use the more popular names like amon, astaroth, baal, etc. (a.k.a demons who have been referenced in other texts). in fact, the only other byleth/beleth character i could find is beleth from floraverse (a decidedly not japanese webcomic), who’s portrayed as a cute toy cat demon

to be honest, IS has a good track record on meaningful names. they’ve been doing it for years now; a lot of references have some sort of influence or connection to their source material. sigurd is a hero descended from a god who forgets his wife due to a magic drink before being murdered, similar to his and deirdre’s fates in genealogy. eirika and ephraim’s prf weapons, sieglinde and siegmund, are twins in norse mythology. the goetia itself is the strongest dark tome in awakening, a nice nod to the fact that you use it to summon demons

the more recent avatars also have some parallels, especially their japanese names. reflet means reflection in french, which makes sense since they’re the representation of the player. kamui (kamuy) are a group of divine beings that live in the heavens, associated with different natural aspects (e.g. the hearth, sea, thunder, agriculture, etc.). this could signify kamui’s vallite heritage and dragon blood. both names (reflet + kamui) are also androgynous, and can be used for males or females

it might be a long stretch, but what really solidifies my opinion on the intentionality is the fact that there are different default names for each of the byleths. ベレト (bereto) by itself could have been a coincidence, but ベレス (beresu) is an alternative form of ベレト or bereto (much like byleth is to beleth). again, it could be by chance, but more support for it means it’s more likely that IS chose the name for a reason

also, you get to choose your ‘form’ when picking between f!byleth and m!byleth. iirc, the japanese version has the same connotation, so it’s not some awkward translation on the localization’s part

“but does that matter? what if they chose it because it sounds cool?” i don’t deny the possibility! after all, a lot of media use random names just because they sound sinister and evil. sometimes, there’s not a big connection between said character and the source material. but notwithstanding which demon they used, they still chose to name them after one. naming a character after a demon is a pretty big deal

so what does it mean? to be honest, it could mean anything. there’s a chance that the reference isn’t prominent (maybe they have a dark side to them or they become evil à la robin). if, however, ‘beleth’ ends up shaping the dynamics of the entire game, then a couple of plot points can be gleaned from it

it’s important to note that some aspects of beleth could be mixed and matched with different characters. just like sigurd + deirdre, it’s possible that they’re combined with the relationships that byleth has, meaning the characteristics don’t solely apply to byleth. for example, byleth might canonically play the bugle horn, and whenever they head into battle, they use it to communicate and relay orders to the other units (which would be pretty cool, actually; IS make it happen)

we know that byleth starts off unaffiliated with any of the three nations, and that there’s a catalyst that throws fódlan into war. it’s possible that byleth joining one of the houses parallels the ‘summoning’—the caster being the respective lord—and byleth lends them their power in order to do xyz. in the case of the original text, that means making everyone love them (implied to be the, um, physical kind), but it might just translate to a power shift in favour of said house

what’s really interesting, in my opinion, is that the ars goetia states: “For thou art conjured by the name of the LIVING and TRUE GOD…fulfil thou my commands…according unto mine interest…” in other words, you have to invoke the power of god in order to summon demons to do your bidding. while it seems odd that god would allow you to summon them in the first place, it does mean that the authority of god compels them to obey you. maybe the church of seiros will somehow control byleth using the goddess’s powers (a.k.a the crests)? that doesn’t mean the goddess has something against byleth (she could be a sideline character whose powers are being abused by the caster—or in this case, the church), but the fact that beleth is a fallen angel could signify some sort of relationship between them

my ideal would be that the byleths (+ sothis, who references isis/anubis) are anti-heroes, the church isn’t outright evil/corrupt, and the political tension between the three nations is what drives the conflict (with the crests as a macguffin). i’d love it if this time around, the choices we make influence the direction of the story! that said, i won’t mind if it’s the usual ‘defeat the evil dragon to save the world’ story. the worldbuilding gives a lot of freedom and creativity for what-ifs, so someone’s bound to make a demon!au if byleth isn’t one

the real question though is why jeralt named his kid ‘byleth’. unless byleth isn’t actually his kid. then that brings up a whole slew of questions about the mother

[asks are open!]

#fire emblem three houses #fe16 #fe3h #byleth #asks #speculations #user #prerelease

[echodrops]

Home and Half Galra Headcanons

I have owed @latransmearnsi this for forever, finally trying to squeeze a few drops of blood minutes out of a stone out of my day to share a whole bunch more worldbuilding Galra headcanons connected to my fic Home and a Half.

How long do Galra live?

I know the show was all about Alteans living hundreds of years compared to humans, but then considering that plot line was promptly dropped and never brought up again, and the fact that Zarkon and co. are the only Galra implied to have lived for 10,000 years due to the power of the rift, I’m just going to go with Galra living slightly but not much longer than humans. In fact, since it was never clear if Coran’s comment about years meant 600 Earth years or 600 Altean years, I’ve elected to just go with the idea of Altean years being notably shorter than Earth years. And since Altea and Daibazaal are in the same system in my personal headcanon--more on this later--they share somewhat similar year lengths. Altea’s years are 8 Earth months long, and Daibazaal’s are 10. Of the three species, Alteans live the longest (max about 150 Earth years), and Galra the second longest (max about 125-130 Earth years).

But this is somewhat a moot point, since military service is mandatory for a huge portion of the adult Galra population, and casualties are high; therefore, most Galra do not live long enough to reach the maximum lifespan.

What are some other traditions or games? 

I think I’ve mentioned two games so far: Renni, which is a card-based game that is similar to both Magic the Gathering/Yugi-Oh and chess (there are multiple types of cards--such as defensive, trap, spell, and attackers--and certain cards are placed in certain locations on a set board. Each card can move in a set way and distance; the objective is to get an attacking card through the enemy’s defenses and traps to strike their “castle”). Although I’m saying “card” here, of course what I mean is paper-thin electronics that project holograms in the shapes of monsters and weaponry.

Renni is a favorite past-time of Prince Lotor, by the way!

A second tradition/game is “Marfeil,” the hunting game children play on their clan day. A high-powered flying device (basically the equivalent of a super-powered Earth drone) is released in a set area, and all the clan’s children are set loose to track, hunt, and capture it. It’s a free-for-all where alliances are made and broken in an instant, and only one kid can make it back victorious with the prize in hand. It’s a test of the children’s athleticism and ability to tenaciously pursue a target. Big bragging rights go to the winner!

In terms of stuff I haven’t talked about before... The Galra battle arena is about as “ancient tradition” as they come, although the violent, horrific battles of Zarkon’s late reign are not what it was always like (just like the gladiatorial fights in Rome were not originally intended to be fights to the death). According to headcanons I wrote earlier, the Galra population was originally divided into autonomous clan groups that were eventually united under a king. However, especially in early centuries, the union of the clans was tenuous at best, and disagreements over territory and resources frequently sparked up into small-scale combat. Originally the arena was founded as a way for clans to do battle with each other in a relatively organized and more civilized manner--the two clans would send representatives who would duel fairly; the winner of the duel would correspondingly “win” the feud for his whole clan.

Eventually, clan feuds died out as power began to accumulate in the hands of the monarchy. Over time, religious views--more on this in a bit too--were altered to promote the kings and queens of Daibazaal as absolute monarchs, invested with the power of the goddess, and the arena took on a new meaning: it became the primary vehicle for choosing Daibazaal’s “champion,” the planet’s strongest fighter, who, once crowned, was appointed the right-hand of the king or queen. (Check out the religious question below for more on the symbolism here.) The champion was entrusted with protecting the lives of the ruling family, and enforcing the monarch’s word as law. It was once am extremely noble and revered position that Galra would train their whole lives hoping to attain, and even to this day, the concept of the “champion” is so engrained in Galra’s cultural consciousness that finding out Shiro is the current champion would absolutely blow Dulsara’s mind and she’d never want to hang out with anyone else ever again.

What determines the treatment of the natives of conquered planets?

This depends on two things: 1) who conquers them and 2) what they’re being conquered for. Although all of Zarkon’s generals and fleets report back to high command, there’s still flexibility in the way they carry out their orders. I.e., ten generals in a galaxy might be given the same order to conquer new systems, but each general might conquer in a different way--some in a bloody massacre and some in a significantly less violent manner. Generals are effectively the rulers of the planets they conquer (until they are called to conquer a new planet, and a viceroy is appointed instead), and therefore each of the conquered planets is ruled uniquely. Many of Zarkon’s generals are hand-picked for their violent, bloodthirsty behavior though, so unfortunately, many conquered peoples are brutally slaughtered or oppressed. There are a few rare situations where the opposite is true, however. In certain cases, Galra intervention has provided planets with lifesaving technologies that improve quality of life for the original inhabitants, leading to a few somewhat mutually beneficial situations.

Likewise, the reasons for occupying a planet also change how the populace is treated. Sometimes planets are conquered merely to eliminate strongholds for allied anti-Galra forces, and the conquered planet itself has no special use for the Galra. In these cases, sometimes nothing more than a single large base is built on the occupied planet, resulting in a situation where Galra occupation doesn’t massively inhibit the original lives of the planet’s people. This was case with the base where Niresh, Dulsara, and Xerci’s families lived--they were a military outpost for moving supplies and information, but the planet itself had no meaning to the Galra and therefore the original inhabitants were mostly left alone unless they attempted to interfere with the operations of the base. On other planet, Galra occupation has prompted important economic revivals that have turned impoverished civilizations into flourishing galactic hubs.

Unfortunately this is not the case everywhere--on planets rich with natural resources that the Galra empire needs, the planet’s original inhabitants are typically enslaved to serve as a workforce to extract the planet’s resources until the planet is no longer valuable; then the inhabitants are rounded up and exported for service elsewhere in the empire.

It’s not a pretty picture, but it’s also not a simple “The Galra are always bad.”

What do Galra eat? Mealtime customs and etiquette?

Galra are mesocarnivores with strong metabolisms. Traditionally their diets consisted of primarily meat proteins (about 60% of their diet was meat and eggs), with the rest being made up of fruits, mushrooms, and what would qualify on Earth as leafy greens. Nowadays, the Galra Empire largely runs on synthetic food goo, which is significantly cheaper and less resource-demanding than actual food and prevents the likelihood of Galra troops ingesting poisonous matter on the wide variety of planets they conquer. Galra stationed in space will pay large amounts of GAC for illicitly traded foodstuffs gathered by those stationed on planets, but food poisoning is alarmingly common because, despite their physical strength, Galra are chemically sensitive to many compounds which are not naturally found in their own star system. The list of things Keith is “allergic” to is actually obnoxiously long; Neuhahn once accidentally sent him into shock by allowing him to eat vanilla ice cream. When he’s in a good state, Keith is the team’s notoriously picky-eater, right up there with Pidge (who has issues with strange textures). Unfortunately, when Keith gets reallyyyy hungry, his thought process usually devolves into: “Nothing I’ve eaten has successfully killed me so far, so I’m sure I’ll survive.” Chomp.

On the other hand, there are some things Galra are not allergic to that would straight up kill humans; fugu fish and deathcap mushrooms are no problem for purple space cats.

One other aside about eating: there are a lot, a lot of mixed Galra in the universe since their DNA (if not their behavior) plays well with other species; generally a mixed Galra will still be sensitive to the same chemical commands that affect full-blooded Galra, but may have slightly different dietary needs. For example, Xerci is a granivore whose diet leans more toward staple grains and plant matter than meat. This actually makes the lives of mixed Galra much harder, as they have to account for their dietary limits as a Galra while also attempting to appease the diet needs of their other species.

In the current Galra Empire, mealtime customs are kind of a thing of the past for most people--soldiers just don’t have the time or energy to make a big fuss over food goo. As the empire spans on and Galra colonies become more and more remote from the source of their own heritage, the complex etiquette of the past is going by the wayside somewhat. Traditionally, Galra coalitions would gather together at mealtimes to eat as a family unit, and proper table manners were drilled into the younger generation by the older members of the family--sit up straight, no elbows on the table, etc. One notable faux pas that is still true today is sharing food directly from your plate to someone else’s. Doing so is a big insult to the cook--because either you didn’t like the food enough to eat it all, or your host didn’t serve their guests properly (Why are you trying to feed someone else? Are you saying I didn’t give them enough?). Because of this, Galra have a reputation among other species for being stingy with food--do not ask your Galra friend for a fry, you won’t get one--but it’s really just a matter of finding it rude not to eat everything that is placed on one’s plate. Keith has never heard of this rule. His habit of pinching from Shiro’s plate is an absolute scandal to the Blade of Marmora.

Table manners among royal families is a Big Deal(tm). Lotor has the rules for silverware on 200 different planets burned into his brain.

What exactly does Galra courtship entail?

Most of the answer to this is “I can’t tell you because spoilers.” But there are some things I can say, chief among which is: at all levels of the social hierarchy, Galra courting is just really, really... different.

In most human societies, the (highly heteronormative) goal is to meet a person, marry them, and raise a family. The opposite is true for Galra: having children isn’t at all tied to being in a couple relationship (there is no baby mama drama in the Galra world), so many of them have children first and then go looking for a permanent life partner later. The basic reason for this is that Galra are a lot more serious about the “’til death do us part” concept than humans are; when they finally settle on a person, that’s it, they’ve settled for the rest of their lives.

I don’t mean this in a soulmates AU kind of way--it’s not “this person I met at 17-years-old is my One True Love” it’s a lot closer to “Wow, I can’t believe it only took me until 52 to find the person I’d be happy to live with for the rest of my life!” They wait until they are absolutely, 100% sure of their choice before courting and formally settling down. (Caveat: Not everyone gets to choose. The higher up the social hierarchy, the less likely it is that a Galra would be free to pick their eventual match; Niresh’s parents had an arranged marriage, for example. The only reason Lotor isn’t betrothed to anyone is that Zarkon doesn’t want to run the risk of challenges from multiple potential heirs and also Lotor is not about that life thank you.)

So, long story longer, courting happens more among older Galra and less among impetuous teens. Also, it would be extremely rare (and foolish--ah, but they do say love makes fools of us all) for a Galra to court someone they don’t already know very, very well. That 100% sureness comes specifically from knowing the other person inside and out. It’s not unusual for Galra to be living together for years before finally declaring their intention to formally court.

The actual courting is... equally weird. The most common way to signal interest in courting is engaging the other person’s coalition in the Galra equivalent of “flyting”--you insult the person you’re interested in in front of every one of their family members. Your insults serve two purposes: first of all, the more detailed and personal your insults are, the more obvious it is that you completely and fully know the person you’re interested in. If you can fairly point out every single bad habit and negative point about them, then you’ve paid close enough attention to know them deeply, as well as their family does. Second, being brave enough to insult someone in front of their very close-knit family is a must in Galra courting. If you shy away from the challenge of facing the family, you’re not worth anyone’s time.

After your insults, the family answers back in the opposite, with nothing but praise for their family member, and a back-and-forth battle begins assessing the person in question. The final goal is for the courter to "be persuaded” that of course, of course the family is right and the person in question is worth all the effort in the universe and more. It’s a game designed to demonstrate your knowledge of the other person as well as air out any grievances or sticking points before the courtship proceeds.

(You can see where other species’ might struggle with this--many an intentional insult has been mistaken for the opposite.)

After that, things get even sillier, but in the interest of time and space, I’ll leave this answer here.

What are their views on pets?

Galra are big pet keepers! Historically the “pets” were war animals that aided the clans in their conflicts with other clans, but over time pets have come to just be beloved household companions. Unfortunately, military members are not allowed to keep pets, no matter HOW incredible the critters they find on their space travels are. This doesn’t stop everyone. Many an escaped secret pet has caused serious issues on-board Galra battlecruisers. Civilian Galra family groups often have a motley collection of pets. Two problems: 1) The illegal pet trade is hyper-aggressive in the Galra Empire. They import thousands upon thousands of species of animals, without too much regard for the long-term species survival of these animals. 2) What qualifies as a “pet” to the Galra sometimes includes the citizens of other planets. It does not pay to be a small fuzzy person (or a big scary fuzzy person) in the Galra Empire. Sometimes slaves who escape the arena end up in the pet trade instead. Pet abuse is strangely not okay in the Galra Empire, but that doesn’t mean that being treated like a pet instead of a person is any less horrific.

(God help Keith when the kids finally reason out the argument, “Allura has mouses, so why can’t WE have a pet?”)

What's Galra mythology like? Religions?

I’m glad you asked this because this is actually at the heart of a lot of Galra plot line in HaaH. As I mentioned earlier, in this fic, Daibazaal and Altea were both in the same quadrant and although they weren’t particularly near each geographically, they were close enough to each other that they inherited some surprisingly parallel mythologies, shared with numerous other planets in their general region of space. In particular, both Altea and Daibazaal prominently feature legends related to a lion goddess. On Daibazaal, the legend goes that the creation of everything we know began with the lion goddess, the first star. The roar of the goddess shook the universe and created the ever-expanding waves of space and time; the shine of her eyes in the void became the burning cores of stars; the weight of her swift passages formed gravity and orbit. She breathes and life flows over planets. (In short, the lion goddess is a sort of visual representation or embodiment for what we humans would just call “energy” or “order”.)

But the very existence of the goddess ensured the existence of her diametric opposite--the antithesis of all creation, the extermination of all life, all energy, all differentiation. This being has no form of its own (it is what all things will become when they become nothing--entropy or chaos itself, if you will), but it constantly fights to upset the balance in the universe, to claim more than its fair share.

The legends say that four times the lion goddess took a physical form and came to defend Daibazaal from the onslaught of darkness--once by fire, once by water, once by earth, and once by vine--and at last when the whole planet rang with the force of her being, she put part of her soul itself into a mortal, her first champion, that he and all his descendants would be blessed with the power to combat evil wherever they roamed.

Of course, you can see how this kind of origin story might lend itself to propaganda. The early kings and queens of unified Daibazaal used the legend to their advantage, first claiming that they were direct descendants of the blessed champion, and then a step further--that, by possessing the strongest remnants of her soul, they ought to be treated and revered as physical manifestations of the goddess herself. This evolved over time alongside other cultural fixtures like the arena, until religion became irreparably tied to politics for the Galra: by the time Zarkon took the throne, the general agreement was that whoever was emperor/empress was the representation of the goddess made physical, and the champion crowned in the arena was the one blessed and bound to carry out both the power--and the will--of that “goddess.”

Over Zarkon’s reign, the influence of the religious aspects have waned significantly--it was not beneficial for the Galra to believe in a higher power instead of their immortal emperor--and so the importance of the goddess has been continually downplayed while the importance of the emperor has grown. Although most people still treat Zarkon as if he were a god and “the champion” is still an awe-inspiring figure, the significance behind “the goddess gave us power so that we could fight evil” has definitely been lost behind “we have power and it’s only right for us to use it.”

(You can see the obvious links to Voltron here. It’s definitely not accidental, but I’m not going to say much more than that.)

What are some common Galran phrases?

Ha ha oh man, I don’t want to write anything here and then have to take it back later when I inevitably over-think language stuff...

"Sticks and flungr” is a very unflattering why of saying someone doesn’t have their shit in order. A messy house might be described with this saying, or turning in a half-assed report at work. (For reference, it’s referring to the Frinunnel bird’s habit of making lopsided, disheveled nests out of well... sticks and poo.)

“Vrepitsatir” is a “yes man,” a military flunkie who mindlessly agrees to everything the higher-ups say without questioning it.

“Notches” is a way of referring to past lovers, based on the common habit of ear-nipping between partners.

“Be careful--Zarkon’s watching!” is an empire-wide joke, especially among the lower-level military, when you find out someone is up to something they shouldn’t be. The effect is pretty close to the joking Earth phrase “Ooohh, I’m tellinggg.”

Phew, I think that covers it!

#Home and a Half #HaaHVLD #Voltron #Galra #Galra headcanons #Voltron fanfic #Latransmearnsi

[mason-mem]

more pages of Serres’ Malfeasance

FROM LANDSCAPE TO COUNTRY

From tribe to homeland, from the rustic farm to cities, and from these to nations. The latter sometimes revere the tomb of an unknown soldier, not so much to remember the horrors of war, as the inscriptions claim— it would be better to forget those—but to bow before the vile remains that sanction the urban or national appropriation of the soil. My book Statues and Robert Harrison's The Dead develop this insight at great length. Leland Stanford built our campus on top of the remains of his beloved son, just as Romulus built the eternal city on the corpse of his brother.

Millions of young people, whose remains rest in military cemeteries, in the shadow of bronze statues erected for the foul glory of the very people (were they clueless or criminal?) who sacrificed them, marked with their blood, their corpses the nation's property. Born on the soil of their nation, they died on it and for it, and now they sleep in it.

THE LITTLE-KNOWN MEANING OF A FEW WORDS

I have briefly described actual individual or collective behaviours, without paying much attention to the words I use such as clean or one's own, place or location. Let me start then by clarifying the meaning of some of the terms signifying property. Note: the verb "to have" in Latin has the same origin as to inhabit. From the mists of time, our languages echo the profound relation between the nest and appropriation, between the living space and possession: I inhabit, therefore I have.

Appartenir4 comes from ad-per-tinere, which means to hold or to be linked to. The English words tenure and tenant also describe an inhabitant who dwells. We hold on to our habitat; we value it. To inhabit is to have. The relation between "appertain to" and "apartment" is similar; they imply the grip, the solid link I have just mentioned between the body and its nest, between life and place, which is the very subject of this book. From the Latin ligare (to bind) come the words ob-ligation, re-ligion, neg-ligence ... all links that bind one to a reference, a point, or a place. I belong to a space where such-and-such a place belongs to me.

What do we mean by the French word for place, lieut Its magnificent and little-known etymology, the Latin locus, refers to the sexual and genital organs of the woman: vulva, vagina, and uterus. Sic loci muliebres, ubi nascendi initia consistent (woman's places, where the beginnings of birth are situated;5 Ernout and Meil-let, Dictionnaire e'tymologique de la langue latine, Paris, Klincksieck, 1885, p. 364b; I quote this in passing as ev­idence for readers who might think I am fantasizing). The word topos (rojiog), which expresses in Greek the same meaning, of course preceded the Latin and refers to the same delights. We have all inhabited the matrix, the first place, for nine months; all of us were born by going through the vaginal canal, and a good half of us seek to return to the original vulva. The lover says to his loved one: "You are my home," the neonatal place, of birth and desire. It is our first place, warm, humid, and intimate.

The term lodging, of a different, Germanic origin (Laube, entrance hall) leaves the Latin tenancy behind and signifies a hasty construction of leaves, for instance a tent, called in Latin tabernaculum. The Jewish religion celebrates this mobile habitat every year, pitched here and there, as in the desert of the Exodus; here we have a nomadic tent that looks like a rental. I'll come back to this.

With reference to sites that are outside the body, our language says "here lies" for the place where our ancestors rest; I am coming back now to consider the country and the aforementioned landscape. In Egypt, in the City of the Dead in Cairo, the poor have invaded a huge cemetery where they haunt the graves; it is a necropolis, a metropolis. There I understood that the first house was built near the tomb of the loved one whom the poor wretch did not want to leave. The here of the "here lies" did not in fact designate the funeral site; on the contrary, it signalled that there is no place other than the site rooted in those bodies. The site does not indicate death; death designates the site, and often its limits. This is another inevitable link.

Ultimately, here we lie down, to sleep, to love, to give birth, to suffer and die. We return to etymology: the French verb coucher comes from col-locare, to sleep in the same spot, to share a location. The original vulva, the final tomb . . . this third location designates the bed, the pallet, precisely the place to be born and die, but also to sleep, copulate, be ill, rest, dream. . . .

My very language displays the three themes of this book, which proposes that there are at least three fundamental sites: the uterus, the bed, and the grave. Do we really know what we are saying? To inhabit therefore haunts the nests needed in moments of weakness and fragility, the embryonic state, the risk of being born, the infant at the breast, the caress in the amorous offering, sleep, peace, rest. . . requiescat in pace: fetal life, the love act, the darkness of the tomb, the horizontality of night.

Everything else—the ability to cope with daily life and standing on your own two feet, economic or culinary activities, public comedy, politics, the heat and cold of the desert—depends on those intimate necessities that bind us to our nests with the strongest possible links. Exposed to space, our strength emerges from our weaknesses that lie in those places from which they spring forth. The primary need: to live here. To inhabit, to have; how to describe the strength of the link that unites them? He who lacks a "here" where he can lie down does not have the strength to stand up for very long.

These words do not refer solely to spaces occupied by humans, for let me remind you of the real origin: every living being takes refuge in such nests and emerges from them. Oysters and clams, titmice and wasps, hares and moles, boars, chamois, izzards ... all inhabit a shell, hive, nest or burrow, wallow, shed, as I have mentioned before. And so plants grow in sites where the altitude reproduces the cold or heat of their latitude. Here is the proof: when their environment changes, either they die or they must go to hothouses, hotels protected by a glass roof that imitates the effect known by that name. Anthropomorphism aside, let us then consider those places as slices of inhabitable space, a division practised also by animals, vegetables, algae, and mushrooms and even by monocellular beings ... a division that is generally necessary for life to continue. Apart from our maps, land registries, or nautical charts, we could imagine many more such vital divisions.

Let us return to humans. What happens when this nest, this place, is lost? Again, on this point our language is quite precise. The person whose pecuniary resources are dwindling is called poor, the famished deprived even of bread are indigent; those who roam without a roof, without a place, are miserable. Human misery marks the limit of possible life. Those who have a place have. Those who have no place have nothing, strictly speaking. Do they still exist? They have fallen below the level of animals. I will return to this subject in the end.

THE NATURAL FOUNDATION OF PROPERTY RIGHT

Necessary for survival, the act of appropriation seems to me to have an animal origin that is ethological, bodily, physiological, organic, vital . . . and not to originate in some convention or positive right. I sense there a collection of urine, blood, excretions, rotting corpses. . . . Its foundation comes from the body, alive or dead. I see those actions, behaviours, postures as sufficiently vital and common to all living beings to call them natural. Here natural right precedes positive or conventional right. Rousseau is wrong when he writes, "The first who after enclosing a piece of land thought of saying 'This is mine' and found people simple enough to believe him was the real founder of civil society."6 Describing an imaginary act, he proposes a conventional foundation of property right. A few centuries before him, Livy, in the first book of his Roman History, might have said more concretely: "The first, Romulus, who having enclosed a piece of land by plowing a furrow around Rome, and thought of saying 'this is mine,' found no one to believe him, but on the contrary found a twin brother, a rival, a competitor, someone with the same desire . . . and opposed him." Livy understood this sudden jealous reaction quite well and ascribed it to a double, a twin. Romulus therefore killed Remus, who had turned up so conveniently, and hastened to bury him under the walls of the city, which made him its founder, owner, master, and king. The bloody remains of his crime polluted the earth he thus appropriated, according to what I have just called the natural or living law. Romulus remained faithful to the wolves that reared him. Although from a historical perspective it is just as wrong as Rousseau's tale, the Latin historian's account expresses an anthropological truth that refers to bestial customs described in ethology; these customs are still obvious to the passer-by on streets full of dog piss.

I foresee that laws emerging from animal life and behaviours will slowly but surely wrench themselves away, break loose, and free themselves from their origins. They may finally forget their origins to give birth to a set of conventions or cultural legislations. The so-called natural law becomes, little by little, positive.

How? In two ways: first, by changing the most horrifying practices, such as crimes, violent invasions, stinking trash . . . and evolving toward what I call soft signs, and finally by freeing itself from those marks. This is the theme of my book.

BLOOD, CORPSES:

PEASANT AND SACRIFICIAL CUSTOMS

Most of the rituals performed in antiquity, throughout what was called, erroneously or out of ignorance, the inhabited world, revered the gods pertaining to the cult of ancestors. Fustel de Coulanges describes this in his book The Ancient City. Sacred was the name of the Earth that they walked on, haunted, and cultivated; sacred because it contained the historical remains of descendants buried there. The cultivated Earth, the pagus, from the tilled plot of land, owned by the descendants of the ancestors buried there, was the origin of the pagan religion, as the term itself indicates. The domestic altars bring into the household the remnants of the dead and the gods of the pagus. In the second generation, Numa, the successor of the founding king Romulus, becomes a priest instead and establishes the rites in question. On the heels of the first murder come religions.

THE HISTORY OF RELIGIONS: A HORRIBLE TRAIL

When I read the pious Virgil or the divine Homer, I count the enormous number of sacrifices offered by kings, warriors, priests, and travellers. First of all, there was Iphigenia, killed for wind;7 next the children of Athens, devoured by the Minotaur; they precede the bulls, pigs, calves, heifers, and kids whose throats are cut on the altar stone. The suovetaurilia sacrifice multiplies the mass graves of animals; holocausts burn all their limbs. Disgusted by the bloody trail whose abomination abundantly soiled the space they traversed, I track the travels of those ancient heroes: slimy, unpleasant trails. . . . What smells of burned flesh, which bone yards did they leave behind? Did they know that their passage was marked by garbage of whose function they might have been unaware? They were purifying, so they said. . . .

I must really translate into Latin Rousseau's saying, even though he is plenty Roman already. In that language, "The first who enclosed a piece of land," the word lustrare is used specifically; it means to travel all over a place, go around its periphery, circle it, inspect it. The same word for closure also means to clean, to purify. This purification occurs through sacrifice; is this bloodshed used to clean, or to soil? The victim to be bled is led around the object to be cleansed, surrounds it and confines it as it passes by; and so the oxen turned around the altar before dying. With this ritual and sacrifice, lustration becomes both spatial and bloody. This plot of land full of blood and hideous limbs appeared pure to the ancients, while to me it looks soiled, dripping with suffering, reeking of a foul stench. They called it enclosed, and I say appropriated: a bloody appropriation on top of corpses.

The first who bled a child or a pig after having led him around such a spot, and flooded this spot with the blood of the victim, succeeded in enclosing it and made it into a temple. Let me now give a Greek translation. Belonging to the same family as lobo-tomy or a-tom, the word repivd) (temno) in Greek means to cut. Just so, the term temple means the closure of a place that is sometimes sacred, sometimes profane. Translated into French, it becomes cloitre (cloister). Translated into Polynesian, "here" is taboo, elsewhere, yours. When you go to a Pacific island you will see the word taboo in large letters on the signs indicating private property. Don't enter here, this place belongs to someone. Another enclosure. When in ancient times the human or animal sacrifice flooded the altar, the temple, or the square with the victim's blood, the horrible outflow marked in red the place of the god. Or that of the hero: Remus' blood spreads over Romulus' Rome. It is his. Blood signals the inner space. No one has the right to enter this templum tabu, this taboo temple. Do you want to desecrate it? Well then, soil it! The "natural" foundation of property right is followed by the religious foundation. Yes, Numa succeeds Romulus.

Finally, nothing is shut more tightly than the temple of Vesta, located long ago in the Forum in Rome. A round structure, it admitted only chaste priestesses. In the back, a small door opened up through which the vestals regularly expelled the ashes of their pure and perpetual fire. They called it the stercorian door— in other words, the anus. As we know, the word stercus _ means excrement; the (scatological) term scoria says the same thing in Greek and Latin. Situated outside the city that Romulus appropriated in earlier times, the temple threw its refuse into the city. Thus they signaled the boundaries of the temple.

After urine, blood. And after blood, we have ashes. After nature, after the paganism of the pagus, we have polytheism. TWO ENDINGS OF RELIGIOUS FOUNDATION

Here is the first example of a softening, a first narrative of liberation. We no longer realise what upheaval was introduced, at least among European peoples, by their progressive conversion to Christianity around the first century of our era. Suddenly, a conversion. As I reread the old Latin of the mass, I remember the lavabo} When I was an altar boy, I gave the priest the water for purification—not blood, but water. Not blood, but wine. The priest, his hands under the flow of water, recites the ninth verse of psalm 26: "Lord, do not let my mind or my life perish among men of blood" . . . cum viris sanguinum. . . . Of course, I will no longer kill a human being or an animal as sacrifices; nothing is taboo any more. There will be nothing sacred, only what is holy. Nothing dirty is left, only what is clean and proper. At the altar as at the hotel? There is no more property?

Here we have another conversion. This Holy Land, no longer sacred but holy, we will no longer tread on, no longer work it either by hand or by plough. We will barely inhabit it because it no longer lies here; it takes place somewhere else, far away, toward Jerusalem and Bethlehem and the rising Sun, the birthplace of Abraham, Sarah, the Holy Virgin, and the Messiah, all men and women who will never appear in our genealogies. Our very earth has been desecrated, or rather secularised; in other words, it has become ordinary, analogous to any other, plunged into a homogeneous and isotropic space. Lying before us passively, the earth has even become objectified . . . objectifiable. Hence our sciences will be able someday to study it, observe it, and measure it.

A very few of us will get to know this Holy Land, only after a long pilgrimage. Pilgrimage or peregrination is derived from per-ager, to travel to the other field, another agriculture different from mine, which therefore is no longer mine. What is more, this so-called Holy Land no longer harbours any remains of the one who was raised from the dead, leaving his tomb empty, containing neither corpse nor mummy; even better, he is the one whose Ascension—or Assumption in the feminine—we celebrate but whose departure leaves nothing behind on earth. There is nothing there, not the least scrap of cloth, not the smallest relic, not the smallest mark implying a story. Daughter of the religion whose prophecies created history, this religion is based on the life of a person leaving no trace whatsoever that would allow us to infer a history. Ancient history ends here; I'll discuss the end o/geography later.

Called holy before, this Earth now also loses its sacredness because it contains no more remains—no more blood, a little bit of wine; no corpse, no stench, no signs of appropriation any more. It is finally cleansed, finally dis-appropriated, de-territorialized. On the universal face of the world, the grand old Pan, the son of all the dead, is dead. With the resurrection of the new god Jesus Christ, there is no longer any marked place. There is no more space, no more history, no more time.

Our only hope left now is in the heavenly Jerusalem, completely absent from this world. Our world lies elsewhere. The holy land no longer even lies in the Holy Land; it can no longer even be found on earth, henceforth referred to as "here below." Like a dispossessed traveller, wandering and roaming, a transient pilgrim, a tenant, our being is not there; it does not come from there, does not go there, but only passes through.

Here are the new answers to the four classic questions concerning place: neither ubi, nor quo, nor unde, but qua.3 We now have a new spatial, religious, or anthropological foundation for tenancy. No longer is there a here or appropriation; we live as transients or tenants, deprived of a fixed abode.

We can call this the first end of property; it is abstract, theoretical, virtual, whatever you want

IMPURE BLOOD

However, here is evidence of a regression at least from this achievement. Indeed we have a second narrative, or second example, to the contrary; the homeland of the Marseillaise10 with its soiled and dirty furrows, soaked (hence appropriated) by the impure blood of its enemies, reveals an anthropological or even animal, and in any case racist, regression toward the archaic pagus. Do you dare to tell me, privately or in any other way, who has impure blood? Do they know what the French are saying? At the top of their voices, they sing this national anthem; what it signifies takes them back even before antiquity, indeed toward those archaic rites whose gestures again mimicked the bestial behaviors of hyenas and jackals. This represents two regressions at the same time. Dirtied by blood, this country belongs to them. Buried under the furrows, the dead by the millions found the homeland, sufficiently soiled by their own pure blood and by the impure blood of their enemy brothers; and so appropriation, twice founded, has returned.

The national anthem becomes a religious hymn, although archaic, falling short of Christianity with its discreet monotheism. But be assured; our fellow citizens belt it out only at trivial encounters, sporting events in the past and today at media or financial gatherings. Like victory, the terrain changes hands with each match and every half-time. It is paid in rent.

4. In English "to belong," but also "to appertain to."

5. Varro, On the Latin Language, vol. 14 (http://www.archive.org/stream/ onlatinlanguageoivarruoft/onlatinlanguageoivarruoft_djvu.txt).

6. Discourse on Inequality, second part, beginning (rendered by translator).

7. A pun in French: pour du vent, "for wind," referring to the ancient Greek myth. Iphigenia is to be sacrificed in order to appease Artemis, who stopped the wind from blowing; this was preventing Agamemnon, who had offended the deity, from travelling to Troy. The colloquial expression c'est du vent means "it is just hot air."

8. From the Latin verb lavare, "to wash."

9. Ubi, quo, unde, and qua are Latin adverbs related to places. They refer to the sentence above, "Our being is not there, it does not come from there, does not go there, but only passes through"

10. The French national hymn, La Marseillaise, is a call to arms to the French to "drench the furrows with the impure blood of the enemy."

and for the  chaverim

#Serres #malfeasance

[rukangle]

Shipping Saturday: RWBY - Blake and Ruby

https://insufferablefirecrackersinsufferablesworld.wordpress.com/

FEATURED ~ INSUFFERABLE FIRECRACKER

Welcome to the first of my Shipping Saturday blogs. Here’s how these are going to work. First, I’ll talk about all the reasons why you should “ship” these characters for a romantic pairing. Then, I’ll talk about reasons why other pairings might fit better. If you have different options than mine, that’s okay. Everyone is allowed to like different character pairings.

When I talk about “cannon”, that means there is firm implication or proof in the series that something actually happens.

When I talk about “fannon”, I am speaking about things that the greater fan-base has concluded based on subtext, or clues in the series. Fannon is a very loose term, because it can almost mean anything depending on who you talk to.

Examples: Saying that Blake is a Faunus is cannon. Saying that Blake and Ruby curl up and read together is fannon.

That said, the Blake/Ruby pairing, also known by fans as “ladybug”, is not a cannon pairing in the series. It is strictly a “fannon” or commonly called “fan fiction fodder”. The pairing is made up by the fan-base. It has very little cannon ground to stand on. It will remain that way until the RWBY series proves otherwise.

Frankly, I doubt the animated series will go in that direction. It seems as though the creators of RWBY are headed towards the implied cannon pairing of Yang/Blake, also known as “bumblebee”.

I’ll cover “bumblebee” as a pairing at a later date.

I tend to sail many ships, and Blake/Ruby are one of them. I have written fan fiction regarding this pairing, and I will continue to do so. That said, let’s get into the reasons why you should ship them.

Reasons to “Ship” Blake and Ruby (Ladybug)

As huntresses-in-training Blake and Ruby are versatile and tactical fighters in the series. Neither of their partners share that trait. Weiss is more defensive in combat, often acting as a support fighter. Yang is more aggressive because her semblance requires her to be.

Secondly, they’re both outliers in their team. Ruby is the youngest and she is a prodigy. Blake is the only Faunus on the team. Arguably, she has the most life experience outside of the kingdom’s walls. Weiss can be narrow-minded and Yang seems to fit in with everyone.

Thirdly, they both know exactly what they want out of being a huntress. The only question in their minds is how to attain it. They both want to be huntresses for the greater good of society. Ruby wants to be a huntress to help people. Blake wants to be a huntress to aid in the Faunus plight. This directly juxtaposes their other teammates. Weiss wants to be a huntress to redeem her family’s name. Yang wants to be huntress for the adventure and excitement of it all.

Fourthly, they have weaponry that is complex and dangerous to use. Crescent Rose and Gambol Shroud both have the ability to transform into scythes. Blake’s weapon is classified as a “Variant Ballistic Chain Scythe”. It’s important to note that Ruby is a weapon fanatic with a love of scythes that as she says “is also a gun”.

Fifthly, they both stand up firmly for what they believe, sometimes to their own detriment. Both of them prove to be strong leaders in their own way. Ruby is the leader of her teammates. Blake showcases her skill in the Menagerie arc, learning to unite fellow Faunus together. Yang and Weiss just aren’t the same. Yang shows no interest in leadership at all. For Weiss the desire to lead a team is short-lived. She learns to be happy falling in line behind Ruby as the “best partner” that Ruby will ever have.

All-in-all as future huntresses, Blake and Ruby are very compatible. They have aligned skills and noble ambitions. They have a true desire to triumph over adversity. They would likely be happy traveling together helping others after graduation. This is the strongest argument to make in favor of the “ladybug” pairing. Being a huntress isn’t just a job, it’s a lifestyle. Blake and Ruby wish to live as huntresses in similar ways. This could pave the way for a long term relationship.

There is an argument to be made about Ruby and Blake sharing a few interests and traits. In my personal opinion there isn’t much in this category, but I’ll go over some of them anyway.

Both of them have a fondness for reading. Ruby has her love of fairy tales. Blake has an appreciation for trashy romance novels. In the series, Ruby attempts to befriend Blake when she sees the Faunus reading in the corner.

On top of that, they’re both introverts at the beginning of the series. Blake is reclusive by nature. Ruby tends to be awkward and slightly timid. Both of these characters share a deep empathy towards others, although Blake chooses not to make that obvious.

Lastly, Ruby comments about Blake’s “cute kitty” ears, showing at least a little interest in Blake.

As you can see, this is the weaker argument to make in favor of the pairing. Sadly, Ruby and Blake don’t get much screen time alone together. They don’t have time to bond. The few scenes they do share are mainly in the early volumes of the series.

Sadly, most of those scenes aren’t even positive dialogue exchanges. The subtext is that Blake and Ruby interact by default as team members. We don’t actually see a deep bond form between them. Fans have often criticized the show for a lack of content regarding Blake and Ruby as friends.

Reasons to Sail a Different Ship

In all honesty, I will sail the “ladybug” ship until it sinks. That said, it has a lot of downsides. Writing fan fiction for “ladybug” can be very difficult. It’s not that the pairing is impossible. Rather, it’s that you have to go looking for commonalities in somewhat strange places.

Blake is obviously more mature than Ruby when it comes to relationships. At the start of the series Blake is reading adult media. The implication is that she’s engaged in at least some of those acts before entering Beacon. This can be a major issue for fan fiction that takes place during the Beacon/Vale arc of the RWBY series. The two year age difference between these girls might as well be night and day.

On her team, Blake has more chemistry with Yang and Weiss. You could even make an argument that she has a stronger chemistry with Sun and Ilia than she could ever hope to have with Ruby.

To contrast that, Ruby has her own strong chemistry line-up. Weiss and Jaune stick out fairly well as strong contenders, but even Penny, Pyrrha, and Oscar make the fan fiction rounds a fair bit. If you want to get really weird and do the sibling romance thing, Yang’s a strong contender too.

Frankly, because there’s hardly any cannon material other pairings just make more sense. Blake gets more valuable screen time with Sun, Weiss, Ilia, and Yang than she does with Ruby. Those scenes are central plot elements for Blake and they can’t be easily ignored.

Now we come to the final nail in the “ladybug” coffin. For all of the arguments made above, most people can make a very valid counter rebuttal. I’m about to do that here.

Firstly, Blake is practically a ninja and she benefits more from fighting alongside Yang or Weiss. Both of them have semblances that compliment Blake’s fighting style in a way that Ruby’s just can’t. The same can be said for Ruby. Her semblance is speed, and she benefits more from fighting alongside supporting fighters like Weiss. As it is, both women are better off sticking with their cannon combat partners after graduation.

Secondly, Ruby is the youngest and that is a huge problem. She might be a prodigy, but she’s incredibly naive in all of the ways that Blake isn’t. Also, because Blake’s a Faunus she has the potential to have other interesting character pairings. Weiss can be narrow-minded because of her family and her upbringing. That’s a driving force in most Weiss/Blake fan shipping, also known as “monochrome”.

Thirdly, they both know exactly what they want out of being a huntress, and that’s a problem. Given Blake’s character and her motivations, it’s possible that one day she would cease to be a huntress. Chances are good that Blake will end up leading a re-established group like the White Fang. This would turn into a conflict of interest. All that Ruby ever wants to be is a huntress, that is her entire ambition. It’s arguable that both women would be better served by finding other relationships.

Fourthly, they have weaponry that is complex and dangerous to use. This is all the more reason not to be fighting side by side. Neither of their weapons are entirely predictable. Ruby’s odd fascination with weaponry doesn’t end with scythes, and wouldn’t end with Gambol Shroud anyway. She would be just as enamored with any weapon type that she hasn’t seen before.

Fifthly, Weiss has already made the promise to be the best partner that Ruby will ever have. She fully acknowledges and accepts Ruby as a leader. Weiss is a pragmatist at heart. She sees the value in following Ruby’s orders. Yang shows no interest in leadership at all, and she willingly follows Blake’s lead at the drop of a hat. Yang has always been as supportive of Blake as possible. To be honest, cannon just slaughters the argument in favor of the “ladybug” pairing when it comes to this point.

Looking at everything from this angle, we can come up with a few different conclusions.

While its true that Blake and Ruby are very compatible as huntresses, they require other teammates to be truly remarkable in combat. They have aligned skills and noble ambitions, but that will lead them in vastly different directions in life. Chances are good they’d be even happier with their other teammates after graduation. Being a huntress isn’t just a job, it’s a lifestyle. There’s a good chance that Blake will move on, and if Ruby wishes to live as a huntress she may end up alone.

As I said before, there is a very weak argument to be made about Ruby and Blake sharing a few interests and traits. This is a very pairing specific issue. The rebuttals I would make depend entirely on what “ship” I would be trying to sail instead. Listing everything would be impossible, I’ll just say that the rebuttals here are endless, because they are.

Final Thoughts

You’ve probably noticed by now, that all three of the images I chose here are from the same volume. That’s because Ruby and Blake don’t have the same sort of natural progression that other characters do. Most of their most important scenes together are in Volume 1.

The “ladybug” pairing is unique. Unlike the other shipping combinations of team RWBY, there isn’t a lot to work with. In fact, “ladybug” shippers probably have the hardest time making a relationship between Ruby and Blake seem believable. A good deal of Ruby’s friendship with Blake remains implied. It’s never shown in detail. They don’t have any interactions that turn into long-running core plot points. All of the other teammates do, but Ruby and Blake don’t.

Trying to romanticize what little we do see requires creativity. You can’t sail this ship well if you’re following strictly cannon principles. You need to step out of the box and be willing to suspend some of your disbelief to enjoy it.

That being said, “ladybug” is one of my top ten pairings in RWBY. No matter what your view is, I will avidly sail this ship until it sinks.

What are your thoughts on Blake/Ruby as a ship? Love it? Hate it? Tell me why down in the comments below.

Insufferably yours, The Insufferable Firecracker.

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[davewakeman]

A 5 Question Framework for Rethinking Revenue In Sports Business

In November, I’m doing a one-day workshop in Melbourne called “Fans For Life: Creating and Keeping Modern Fans” and one of the ideas that I want to encourage people to give serious consideration to is rethinking their revenue.

In working with organizations around the globe, I’ve begun to recognize a series of questions that you can ask yourself and your team when you need to rethink your revenue.

Especially when you are stuck and looking to reimagine where the revenue is coming from.

Those 5 questions are:

Where does my revenue come from?

How big are my sales?

How often is a sale happening?

What does my sales territory look like?

What assumptions am I making that I should be trying to tear under?

Let me explain a little further.

Where does my revenue come from?

I was talking with a sales team the other day and we were talking about the number of revenue streams their organization had.

The number they came up with was 3, but I pushed back on that and we uncovered 5 more for 8 total.

For many of us, we can easily miss all the ways that we can generate revenue.

In sports, you have some easy ones like tickets, suites, merchandise, food, beverage, parking, and so on.

In asking the question about where your revenue comes from, the key is to push further with your thinking and look for revenue opportunities that you may not have thought of before.

You might see partnerships as a revenue stream and they all come from one type of partnership, but what if you created new theme nights or activations that allowed you to offer new things to your partners?

Same thing with tickets. You might be pretty comfortable selling single-game tickets, small memberships, and large memberships, but what if you aren’t looking and there is another need that isn’t being met?

We can go on about this and we will, but the important key is to think about the streams of revenue and think about how you can expand those either by offering more opportunities for people to give you money or by going deeper and creating more opportunities within your current categories.

How large are your sales?

When I started out in nightclubs in South Florida, a formative experience to me was a conversation about incremental revenue that came up during a team meeting.

The goal we were trying to achieve was to squeeze another $0.25 out of each guest that walked in the door.

This is where I came up with the famous question: “What kind of gin would you prefer?” for every time someone asked for a gin and tonic.

Simple question, forced people to make a decision, and this led to an increase in profit of almost $250,000 off of just gin and tonics in one year.

That’s on the small scale.

You can do that with every revenue opportunity in your organization.

Are there ways to increase the value you offer partners, membership buyers, and others so that you can increase the size of the sale?

Where else can you make your sales larger?

I bet you there are a lot.

How often are you making a sale?

You know it and I know it, subscriptions are awesome!

Why?

Predictible revenue!

But how many of us really have subscriptions set up?

Not as many as would like to, I bet.

The thing about this question is that you need to spend some time figuring out how often you are making people make a buying decision and shorten it or change the length to fit your needs and offer them a better value.

I manage to do this in a few different ways in my business:

I do High Impact Coaching Calls with organizations that they can pretty much book 24-48 hours in advance.

I also have a subscription plan that I started rolling out about 2 years ago that’s called “Your CRO” and it renews automatically every quarter.

I also do a monthly retainer.

And, I can do annual contracts.

The thing is that I’ve worked pretty hard to think through the question of how often someone is buying from me and create different opportunities to making buying easy and to make it less difficult or meet people’s needs.

So think about how often the sale is being made and adjust your offer to help you achieve the outcomes you desire.

What’s your sales territory?

The great thing about many sports teams is that they can really sell to a global market.

Not everyone does and not everyone should.

But you can.

The challenge becomes losing your focus on your core audience.

But go back to the question: what is your sales territory?

Are you only selling locally?

Great!

What’s your market share in that territory?

How can you expand it?

Are you developing enough name recognition? New fans?

Are you global?

Where are you strongest? Weakest?

Where would you like your brand to develop in?

Take as an example, Tottenham Hotspur, they were the smallest of the big six Premier League teams for a long time. Not any longer though as they have made a consistent effort to expand into the United States and Asia with partnerships like their kit partnership with AIA and their apparel deal with Nike.

By partnering with two brands that have footprints in their target markets, they are able to expand their footprint.

Another example from me, have I always just naturally been able to do business in Europe and Australia, no.

How did I achieve it?

I focused on expanding my sales territory.

I did it by speaking, writing, and other activities that got me into the new markets.

The same applies for new verticals, new neighborhoods, or new anything. And, it gets a lot easier when you are selling sports.

What assumptions should I be dumping?

I ask this question in many different forms depending on the audience.

You might think about what you’ve always done and that you know isn’t working.

You may consider asking it in a way that assumes something will work and figuring out what would create that environment.

You can go on and on.

The important thing here is to skip past the way things have always been done and get them into a new way of thinking.

Here’s an example from sports business in America, if you listen to Ian Taylor when he came on my podcast, The Business of Fun, he will tell you that Americans spend way too much time focusing on selling and not marketing.

That often manifests itself in an overreliance on cold calling at the expense of other things.

If I were using this question with an American team, I might say:

“What would it look like if our phones weren’t working? How would we contact prospects then?”

“How would you start a conversation with someone that was new to the game?”

“What assumptions are you making about prospects that people that have never been to a sporting event are likely to not care about?

The point is that I could go on and on with this question and its intention is to get you to think creatively about the way you are doing things and figure out if you are making guesses and assumptions that are costing you money.

I’m guessing that we are all guilty of that sometimes.

What say you? Let me know in the comments below.

Are you coming to my workshop in Melbourne, Australia on 18 November 2019? “Fan For Life” is going to be your chance to learn about the marketing funnel, sales strategies, marketing, and, maybe my favorite idea, Lifetime Fan Value. 

Get your tickets today! 

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A 5 Question Framework for Rethinking Revenue In Sports Business was originally published on Wakeman Consulting Group

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