#source: the wicked + the divine | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

fragileheartbeats · 4 months

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໒꒱ ⌒ ｡ 𝐆𝐎𝐃𝐃𝐄𝐒𝐒, 𝐃𝐄𝐕𝐎𝐓𝐄𝐄 ★ · ⟆ ﹏！

⠀ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ﹙🪽﹚ 女神とその信者 ୨ৎ . . .

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀꒰͡ ⠀ ִ 𝐽 𝐽 𝐾 𝑀 𝑒 𝑛 𝑥 𝐹 𝑒 𝑚 𝑅 𝑒 𝑎 𝑑 𝑒 𝑟 ⠀ׂ ⠀ ͡꒱

ㅤㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ♡ㅤ𝘞𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘢𝘥𝘮𝘪𝘳𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘱 𝘺𝘰𝘶ㅤ۫ㅤ𝅄ㅤೀ

୨୧₊˚ 𝘋𝘈𝘋𝘠 𝘝𝘌𝘙𝘚𝘐𝘖𝘕 — 𝘚𝘢𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘶, 𝘚𝘶𝘬𝘶𝘯𝘢, 𝘒𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘰, 𝘚𝘶𝘨𝘶𝘳𝘶, 𝘛𝘰𝘫𝘪 <3

˚꒰🌼꒱‧ Hi there! Before you read this, you should know that English is not my first language and this is one of my works that I had posted in my previous blog. Hope you enjoy!

ㅤㅤ ꣸ ﹒𝆋 𝐒𝐀𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐔 𝐆𝐎𝐉𝐎 | 五条悟 ─ 𓇼 . ♡𝆬

She walked into his life like a beacon of light, a goddess among mortals, she was a beautiful sight. He couldn't believe his luck, couldn't believe she was real, for his heart was hers, from the moment she made him feel. Her smile, her laughter, her every little move, had him bowing down, for she had nothing to prove. To him, she was perfection, a vision from above, he worshipped her, with every atom of his love. Like a devoted disciple, he followed her every command, for she was his world, his everything, his land. He would do anything, to keep her by his side, for with her love, he felt complete, he felt alive. She was his goddess, his source of strength. He would sing her praises, to anyone who'd listen, for in her presence, he felt like a man on a mission. He lit candles, burned incense, and laid out flowers, for his love for her, had the highest of powers. He prayed to her, with every breath, every thought, for she was his goddess, and he was forever caught. He would write her poems, and paint her portraits, for she inspired him, like no one else in the world did. He saw her as a deity, a divine being, and in her arms, was where he found his true meaning. To him, she was Aphrodite, the goddess of love, for she was the one who made his heart soar above. He worshipped her beauty, both inside and out, for to him, she was without a doubt, a goddess throughout. With each passing day, his love only grew, for her divine presence, was all that he knew. He dedicated his life, to making her happy, for to him, she was sacred, and not just a fancy. He would kneel before her, and kiss her feet, For she was the one, who made his heart skip a beat. His devotion knew no bounds, his love knew no end, For she was his goddess, his lover, his friend. So he worshipped her, with all his heart and soul, for she was his goddess, and he was forever her devotee. Her love was his religion, her touch was his prayer, and in her arms, he found his heaven, his divine affair.

ㅤㅤ ꣸ ﹒𝆋 𝐑𝐘𝐎𝐌𝐄𝐍 𝐒𝐔𝐊𝐔𝐍𝐀 | 宿儺 ─ 𓇢𓆸 . ♡𝆬

He stood in awe, before her divine grace , a cruel man, humbled by her heavenly face. His heart once cold, now beating with desire, for his lover, who set his soul on fire. With each step she took, he was mesmerized. Her beauty, unmatched, could not be disguised. He saw her as a goddess, above all else. His love for her, not bound by any spell. But his actions, cruel, had caused her pain. He had hurt her, again and again. Yet she remained, by his side, forgiving. For her love for him was ever-lasting. He would kneel before her, begging for mercy, hoping to rid himself of his wicked deeds. But she would simply smile, and take his hand, Guiding him towards a better path, so grand. She showed him kindness, in the face of his wrath, and slowly but surely, softened his hard path. He couldn't believe his luck, to have her by his side, a goddess on earth, his love, his pride. He would watch her as she slept, so peaceful and serene, her beauty, shining like nothing he had ever seen. And in those moments, he would vow, to always love and cherish her, forever and more. He promised to make amends, for all his wrongs, to love her, protect her, and sing her songs. For she was his goddess, his everything, and he would do everything, to make her heart sing. So he continued to admire her, in all her glory, a cruel man, now changed, by her love story. For she was his blessing, his guiding light, His goddess on earth, who showed him what's right.

ㅤㅤ ꣸ ﹒𝆋 𝐊𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐎 𝐍𝐀𝐍𝐀𝐌𝐈 | 七海建人 ─ ☘︎ . ♡𝆬

Her beauty was unparalleled, and his love for her, endless. Every feature, every curve, was a masterpiece to behold. He could not help but admire, the perfection he was sold. Her eyes were like pools of gold, reflecting the light of her soul. With every glance, she captured his heart, and made him feel whole. Her smile, oh her smile. It was like the sun breaking through, melting away all his worries, and making his dreams come true. Her voice, like a siren's call, entranced him, held him captive. He would gladly surrender, to her melody so attractive. Her touch, like a gentle breeze, softly caressing his skin. It sent shivers down his spine, and he knew he could never win. Her laughter, so pure and sweet, filled his heart with joy and glee. He could listen to it forever, and his love for her would never flee. Her presence, like a warm embrace, gave him strength to face each day. With her by his side, he could conquer the world, and his fears would all go away. She was his everything, his world, his queen, his shining star. He would always cherish and adore her, For she was his goddess, his lover, his heart.

ㅤㅤ ꣸ ﹒𝆋 𝐒𝐔𝐆𝐔𝐑𝐔 𝐆𝐄𝐓𝐎 | 夏油傑 ─ 𓆉 . ♡𝆬

He gazed upon her with pure adoration, his love for her was beyond all explanation. In his eyes, she was more than just a mere mortal, she was his everything, his reason to be immortal. She was his goddess, his divine existence, in her presence, he found pure bliss and contentment. Every step she took, he followed faithfully, for her love was his only reality. He worshipped her beauty, her every feature, her presence alone was a calming creature. In her embrace, he found true salvation, his devotion to her, a never-ending dedication. She was the one who brought light to his world, her love, a never-fading flame, always unfurled. In her arms, he felt safe and secure, her love for him, an eternal cure. He praised her with words, like a true devotee, for her love was his only true sanctuary. In her presence, he found peace and tranquility, for she was his goddess, his one and only deity. He offered her sacrifices, not of gold or silver, but of his undying love, that would last forever. For her, he would give up all that he had, for she was the one he cherished, his everything and more, his reason to be glad. Her smile, a wondrous sight to behold, her laughter, a symphony, more precious than gold. In her eyes, he found his reflection, for she was his better half, his true perfection. He adored her like no other, for her love, he would go to any length, any bother. In her heart, he found his home, For she was his goddess, and he, her humble dome. Her touch, a sensation like no other, her love, a bond that no one could smother. He worshipped her with every breath he took, for she was his love, his forever, his only hook. Their love, a story written in the stars, their bond, a connection that surpassed all scars. For she was his goddess, and he, her devoted lover, their love, a blessed one, that would last forever and ever.

ㅤㅤ ꣸ ﹒𝆋 𝐓𝐎𝐉𝐈 𝐅𝐔𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐆𝐔𝐑𝐎 | 伏黒甚爾 ─ 𓆤 . ♡𝆬

He sits in the shadows, a broken man, his heart shattered, his soul in a foreign land. But his eyes still shine, when she walks by, for she is his light, in a world so dark and dry. Her every movement a graceful dance, her voice a symphony, his heart in a trance. He watches her with awe, as if she's a goddess, her very presence in his life, a blessing, no less. She holds his hand, when he's lost in the storm, her touch so gentle, his fears she can disarm. In her arms, he finds peace, his refuge, his home, for in her love, he knows he'll never be alone. Her smile, like the sun, warms his weary soul, her laughter, a melody that makes him whole. She sees the broken pieces, but loves him still, for she knows, it's not the pieces, but the heart that matters, still. He admires her strength, her determination, her courage to face life's every situation. For in her, he sees a warrior, a fierce spirit, and in her love, he finds the strength to face his fears, to let go and inherit. Her eyes sparkles, like stars in the night sky, her beauty, unmatched, catches his breath, every time. For her, he would climb mountains, cross the seas, just to see her smile, to feel her love, to be at peace. She is his rock, his anchor in the storm. The one who keeps him safe, when the waves are high and strong. With her by his side, he knows he can weather any storm, for in her love, he finds the courage to carry on. He knows she is not perfect, but for him she is, for in his eyes, she's his goddess, his eternal bliss. He would give her the world, if only he could, for she's the one who taught him, what it truly means to love. Together they stand, facing the world hand in hand, through every trial, they'll withstand. For their love is unbreakable, a bond that's true, and in each other's arms, they'll see each other through. So he sits in the shadows, but he's no longer broken, for she is his light, his salvation, his unspoken. In her love, he finds his strength, his hope, his all. For she's the one who lifted him up, when he was about to fall.

MASTERLIST

@fragileheartbeats . Don't plagiarise, repost, or translate any of my works on here or any other websites.

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kiwisbell · 2 months

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helen ; chapter one

dear joel

Si vis pacem, para bellum. Or, the inciting incident.

series masterlist | my masterlist pairing: joel miller x f!reader tags/warnings: 18+ (MDNI), john wick AU, (retired) hitman!joel, husband!joel, graphic violence, established relationship, artist!reader, love as worship (and blasphemy), blood + injuries, murder, cars, joel lifts reader once, reader has hair, oral sex (f receiving - aka munch!joel returns), married fluff, angst, threats of rape/SA, home invasion, disgusting awful men, childhood/religious trauma, the typical alcohol + smoking + profanity, erotic paintings, dividers by @/saradika word count: ~ 8.2k a/n: so i'm posting this and sprinting away because i'm terrified. that being said, this story means more to me than words can say and i sincerely hope you enjoy what i have to offer. thank you so much for reading, and please let me know what you think!! gigantic thanks to @cavillscurls for beta reading this chapter and being generally incredible throughout this whole process. i couldn't have done it without ya baby ❤️ next

PREFACE

“Love is my mover, source of all I say.”

— The Divine Comedy: Inferno, Canto II.

The blood is tangy, near-sweet, as he swipes his forearm over his mouth and smears crimson on his shirtsleeve. It tingles faintly on his lips and crackles, warm as the melt from a late-winter snow. He feels it settle in the grooves of his palms, the hairs of his beard. He’s drowning in it.

Joel Miller grins as the punch rocks his jaw.

His opponent hits hard, but he’s slow. He’ll take five punches in the time it takes to wind up for one. Joel brings his arm up to block the next and delivers a blow to the sternum with his knee as his opponent’s guard drops. Wide open, the man stumbles a few steps back, choking down the telltale wheeze of being winded. Joel marches forward, relentless in his crusade, grasping him by the scruff of his neck, teeth bared like a mad wild dog, and bears his skull down on the side of the railing. Around them, the wind howls and lashes at his clothes, but he still hears the pained scream as if it were poured into his ears.

The man drops to his knees, and Joel grabs him again, bashing his head repeatedly against the steel bar, the lapel of an Italian leather coat bunching between his fingers, tainted by rainwater and the fist of the man who's about to take his life.

And fuck, Joel wants to make it last.

But there's a knife in his opponent’s hand, conjured from the darkness of his coat pocket, and Joel must release him to avoid the lethal slash of the blade. Blinking blood and lashing rain from his eyes, the man lunges with a snarl, and Joel recovers from his lost victory, stopping him with his fingers curled around his opponent’s wrist. He brings his hand to the crook of the man’s elbow and uses his leverage to snap the bone.

Yowling, the man drops to his haunches, the knife clattering to the ground. Joel, chest heaving, stands over him, flexing his fingers as he readies his fist for the killing blow.

His name leaves the man’s bloodied mouth, accompanied by a mouthful of crimson-tainted saliva spat on the ground at Joel’s feet.

“Joel…” He lifts his head, cradling his own broken arm, and sneers. There’s a chilling glow of satisfaction in it. “Did you get your perfect life, Joel? Do you really think you’ve won? It won’t ever stop. Not after you’ve killed me, not after you’ve killed all of them. Is that what you’re going to do? Kill them all?”

Joel staggers backward to pick up the knife, clamping his hand over the curve of his opponent’s shoulder, and drives the blade down into his neck.

“Yeah.”

He leaves him slumped against the railing, choking on his own blood, and limps his way to one of the beaten-up Range Rovers whose front right bumper was totaled in the crash. Joel groans as he settles into the front seat, gnashing his teeth together as he lifts the hem of his dress shirt to inspect the damage.

The bullet has pierced the soft flesh of his stomach. Blood blossoms bright through the white fabric and spirals outward. Joel blinks away rainwater and pulls his phone from his pocket, the screen smeared with blood. He doesn’t know if it belongs to him.

He grits his teeth and makes a call.

In the back of his head, Joel vaguely recalls an old song of prayer. He used to watch others sing it while he lingered in the shadows at the back of the cathedral. He would memorise the shape of the words leaving their mouths and wonder how a benevolent God, who had shaped man—perfection—from red clay, could have made him.

He would lower his head as if swept up in a tide of repentance, examining the bones beneath his hands. The flickering of tendons. The bulge of veins as he delicately folded his fingers into a fist.

Red clay. Blood. The old dance of serpent and man.

He was fourteen when he escaped.

Joel looks down at his bloodied hands. They’ve grown since then. They’re stronger, thicker, scarred. There are no pictures of him as a young boy, but if he saw one, he knows he would not recognise himself. Not his eyes nor his hands nor the set of his jaw. God makes man makes boy. He is destined for Hell.

The call goes to voicemail.

Joel curls his hand into a fist and whispers a prayer.

Something cool and wet collides with Joel’s forehead as he stalks into the airport. It’s begun to rain.

His target gate is close, and he's early. The press of bodies begins to crowd him. Prickling body spray and sickly-sweet perfume and sunburned skin from Spring Break return flights. Joel shoves through them, unseen, unnoticed amid the rowdy din of reunions. The collar of his shirt sticks to the nape of his neck. It’s the sensation of being strangled, clammy palms slick against his own skin. He adjusts his jacket and tightens his grip on the black fabric dangling from his hand.

Joel waits by the gate, his eyes flitting between its apex and the people milling about him, reuniting with partners and parents and children. Nobody seems suspicious, but his fingers still dance upon the blade hidden in the inner lining of his leather jacket. Those performing wide berths around the scowling man try not to make eye contact. Most don't notice his presence at all.

He waits, flicking his sleeve up every couple minutes to check the time on the inside of his wrist. Every tick of the thin hand registers in the pulse of his heart against his ribs.

He hears the suitcase before he sees it—and it’s hard to miss. One wheel is wonky, and the case stutters in its path along the polished floor. It’s huge, pink, hideous.

His hand dropping from the blade in his pocket, Joel makes his move.

You see him approaching and drop the lopsided suitcase, shrieking as he takes you up in his arms.

He swings you around twice, holding you firm against him, your fingers grabbing desperately at the locks of his curly, brown-grey hair. Joel nestles his face in your throat and breathes in: vanilla and shampoo and the unmistakable scent of a you he can never shake. Home.

You shudder into him, your feet barely scraping the floor as he holds you around the waist, one hand cradling the back of your head. Joel lets his eyes close.

Daisies made of diamonds dangle from your wrist, connected by a fine golden chain. He can feel the faux petals dig into the back of his neck, etching their shape into the phantom pain of the ink peeking out from his collar. Sometimes, his skin would pull back with the needle, briefly protruding from his body like a tent made of flesh, as if grasping feebly onto some innocent time before the black hands of Dürer were permanently his. His to remember. His to loathe.

There is a slight in the way his gift to you, wrapped snugly around your wrist since the first anniversary, kisses the old wound, the tip of the cross, and all he feels is the echo of agony. He holds you tighter.

“Can’t breathe, honey,” you croak, shoulders shaking with laughter.

Joel mutters an apology, loosening his grip on you just enough to pull away and cup your face in his hands. His thumb traces the curve of your jaw, and you beam up at him, smoothing back the hair you’d tousled with your fingers. A curl swoops back down over his forehead.

“Hi,” you say softly.

“Hi,” says Joel, already on his way to kissing you, his mouth slanting over yours.

He tastes of mint and smells of his dark cologne, pine, Joel. Your Joel. And you kiss him like it—your hand cupping the nape of his neck, the other sliding up his strong, broad back, your lips meeting in a consuming kiss that knocks you off-kilter. He bends slightly over you, keeping you upright with a large hand on your lower back.

“Never leave again,” mumbles Joel, grinning against your mouth, his hand sliding down your arm to your left hand, where two glimmering bands rest on your third finger. Your hands intertwine, and he bumps his nose into yours.

You give him another short kiss. “Get me out of here.”

Joel slides your raincoat over your shoulders and you slip your arms through. He presses his lips to your forehead and closes his eyes, letting himself linger briefly in your space before he scoops up the handle to your affront of a suitcase and escorts you out back to the car.

He opens the passenger-side door to let you slide into your seat, securing your case in the back, and makes his way around the vehicle. You reach for the collar of his jacket and pull him toward you for a kiss, grasping his jaw between your thumb and forefinger. He grins crookedly when you pull away, bushing the pad of his thumb across your cheekbone.

“Missed you,” he says.

You sink your teeth into your bottom lip. “Yeah? How much?”

He reaches across the console and kisses you deeply, making you gasp into him as his hand slips underneath your silky little blouse and fits his fingers in the grooves between your ribs. Your skin prickles with goosebumps under his touch as his exploration migrates to your belly, sliding south, ever lower, his hand playing at the waistband of your panties—

“Okay,” you laugh, smacking his hand away. “Okay. You’re paying for parking, Miller.”

“I’ve got money,” he says plainly, dipping his head to kiss you again, his pupils fattening as he tries to gorge on all of you at once. You place a hand on his chest, enjoying the strong pulse of his heartbeat where you typically rest your head, and gently push him back.

“Take me home,” you coo, your gaze sweeping fondly over the face that hasn’t changed, that you cannot forget, “and show me how much you missed me.”

His wedding band coolly kisses your cheek as he retracts his hand, reluctantly turning his key in the ignition. “Yes, ma’am.”

He’s always been a meticulous driver, expert in the way he flattens his palm on the wheel, his other on the back of your headrest, turns the car out of the spot, and merges onto the freeway. When he no longer needs his other hand, he gives it to you, and you bring his long-scarred knuckles to your lips.

His hands are marked by years of use, of abuse, speckled with little white scars, freckles, divots, curves. You already know the lines in his palms, have traced them and painted them and put them under sensitive study with your body. But you turn his hand over nonetheless, your own fingertips careful in their examination, following their contours as if searching for a change. But they’re the same—he’s the same—and so you tuck your fingers between his and bring your palms together in a warm, awaited kiss.

It’s only been a month, but you study his profile as if years have passed. He’s still Joel, still surly, plush lips curved into a permanent pout, the space between his brows marked by a ponderous gash, the vein in his throat fluttering in silence when a driver cuts him off or he spots a car following too closely. He’s a good study, practised in his stoicism.

His nose is artful. Its convex slope, pronounced, strong, curves deliciously into his upper lip, the soft greying hairs in between a space of waiting. His mouth, soft, learned, often languageless, is what you know best of him. You know it like your own—can trace its shape in the dark, hands behind your back. The strong jawline, the slight wrinkles beside his eyes, ones he never had before you met him, the patches of skin disrupting the fullness of his beard: they’re the picture of the man you married, and there’s always something you’re disappointed in discovering you’ve missed. A something you’ve never noticed, a something you wish you could go back and add to all your canvases.

When you left him at the airport, it was a freckle just beneath the hollow of his throat. Now, it’s the frayed hairs just behind his ears, crimping in frizzy patterns that don’t match the languorous curls on the rest of his head. They look singed, as if he’d put a match to himself.

Maybe it’s making up for lost time, for all the days you’d missed being away from your Joel. But there’s a second, smaller something: the little round scar beneath those wild hairs. You lift your hand to it, and before your thumb can make a pass over the white, puckered skin, he speaks.

“It’s a burn.” Merging off the freeway, he pulls into a gas station. His fuel ticker is tapping gently at the E. “From a cigarette.”

Your heart tips off the edge of a yawning chasm, and your hand pulls back in a wary twitch of your fingers. Throat tightening, you feel a distinct pressure behind the T of your nose and forehead. “From the people who raised you?”

A muscle in his jaw spasms, and he lifts your joined hands to his mouth. “None of that,” he says softly, meeting your eyes that well with unshed tears.

No tears for me, he once said to you. Not until I’ve earned ‘em.

You sniffle, watching him nuzzle his cheek against the soft flesh of your wrist, his lips finding your vein and following it halfway up your forearm.

“Tell me about your show.”

You let him tuck your tears away in the grooves between his joints and smile. “Successful, but lonely. So many people knew my name, and I’m pretty sure I knew about a quarter of theirs. Made me feel like some snobbish pig.”

“Nah, that’s my job,” says Joel. “Everybody loves you, baby.”

You roll your eyes. “Either way, the gallery was a hit. The triptych sold for the highest at the auction.”

Joel smirks. “The nude ones?”

“Yeah, dirtbag. The nude ones.” Your smile is dry, still somehow saccharine.

“I liked those,” says Joel, fingers playing upon your upper thigh.

“Perv.”

He playfully smacks your thigh. “Goddamn right.”

“It was good. It was. But I missed you.” Your voice breaks, and Joel squeezes your fingers in response. “Could hardly sleep without you there.”

He nods like he knows. And you know he does; he barely sleeps, even if you’re on top of him. “I know everybody loves you,” he says, “but next time you go away, remember I love you most.”

You blink away the shimmer of tears so you can see him clearly. “Casanova.”

“That's right,” he says, nosing his way into another kiss. “Don't ever leave me again, baby. My heart can't take it.”

You shake your head, laughing into his mouth as your tears slip onto your tongue. “Never again,” you whisper, “unless the hotel food is good.”

He nods. “I’ll make an exception, long as I can go.”

You grin. “You know… if I’m at home all the time…”

“We’re not getting a puppy.”

“Joel—”

“No.”

“Don't you want to make your wife happy?”

He faux-snaps at you like a dog, catching his teeth around your earlobe. “As a goddamn clam.”

You gasp as you feel his mouth suckle gently at the sensitive spot beneath your ear. “I… I want… We should at least talk about…”

“Hmm?”

He’s playing with the hem of your blouse, deft fingers leaving warm imprints on the soft skin of your belly, fingers enveloping your precious heart when he places his hand on your upper back. The organ pounds under his touch, pouring its blood into his palms.

You haven’t felt his touch in so long.

“I want…”

Joel hums again, prompting, his pinky finger dipping under the strap of your bra and pulling back, snapping it against your skin.

“What was I talking about?”

He chuckles, bringing his lips back to yours. You grasp for him greedily, trying to fix him to you this time, your fingers bunching the fabric of his T-shirt. But he’s pulling back, his forehead falling against yours.

“I’ll consider it,” he says, “if you can convince me.”

Giddily, perhaps stupidly, you smile. “I’m very prepared to convince you.”

“Uh-huh. I don't doubt you, baby. How ‘bout you let me fill up the car first?”

The throbbing bass of house music Dopplers as another car approaches the gas station. Three men exit the vehicle, one of them already lighting a cigarette while the other two make for the convenience store. One is wearing a backwards cap and the other a pressed suit.

Nice move, you think, sinking back in your seat a little as Joel slides out of the car, smoking by a gas pump.

“Nice ride,” says the man at the opposite pump, puffing at his cigarette.

“Thanks,” says Joel with a polite smile, locking the nozzle in the fuel tank and folding his arms over his chest. He’s hovering by the passenger door, halfway to blocking you from view.

The man surveys the hood, his fingers gently tracing the cool silver. “Boss Mustang 429. She a ‘70?”

“‘69,” says Joel.

“Very nice,” muses the man, drumming his hands on the hood. You feel the crude vibrations in your spine and straighten in your seat. This man—this kid, all his puffing and grinning and loud music—is bad news. Your stomach coils taut when his gaze shifts from Joel to you, staring hard through the windshield.

“How much?” he asks Joel.

You notice the minute stiffening of the muscles in Joel’s shoulders. “What?”

“How much for the car?”

Joel pushes off the car and dislodges the pump, brushing the kid aside on his way back to the driver’s side. “It’s not for sale.”

The kid wanders to the passenger-side door before Joel can turn on the car and roll up the window. He leans his elbows just inside, his face mere inches from yours, and you can smell the sickly, cloying smoke of his cigarette as he blows it in your direction.

He says something to Joel in Spanish that makes your husband’s hand still on the wheel.

And your Joel, your courteous Joel, your never-the-shit-stirrer Joel, narrows his eyes at the kid and says something in kind, his voice a low scrape that shudders through you.

It’s too fast for you to hear, and you never learned Spanish, and you were under the assumption (until right fucking now) that Joel never did, either. But he starts the car and rolls up the window, and you’re peeling away from the gas station before the kid can reply.

“That was…” You cast around for the words and instead rest your eyes on Joel, whose jaw looks ready to snap. “Joel, honey, when did you learn Spanish?”

He’s silent for a long while, and you would assume that he didn’t hear you—if you didn't know that he has stellar hearing. When he pulls onto the long stretch of road, signalling your first firm tug away from the stifling noise of civilization, he finally speaks.

“Picked it up in the Marines.”

“What did he say to you?”

Joel’s skin is stretched taut over his knuckles. “Somethin’ stupid.”

You hum, letting him linger in silence for the remainder of the trip. Scenery, green and grey sky and the drizzle of rain, swoops by the window, and you're going home. It isn't much different from what you found in Vancouver, but it's familiar. It’s the smell of the air after the rain and the way your shared home comes into view the same way it always has.

It isn’t a modest home. You and Joel had it built before the wedding, both eager to get away from the city and exist in relative peace when your job allowed it. It sits low and broad, geometric pillars framing the front porch, sleek modern lines in black and white. Your compromise: he assumed responsibility for the exterior, and you took everything within. Joel pulls into the garage, next to your beige SUV, and helps you and your hot-pink luggage out of the car.

The walls are littered with canvases. Mostly, there are paintings of Joel. The first time you brought him to your studio, a few weeks into the relationship, he’d sat stone-still for hours. You don't recall even a twitch of a finger. He’s in shades of blue, red, green, grey. He’s sitting, standing, lounging, sleeping. His lashes lie in repose over his cheeks, eyes closed, sometimes open, often averted. You’ve captured him in bed, by the pool, in the kitchen, in your studio. Like a spider, you’ve ensnared his shyness, his care, his devotion, weaving it into a tapestry of oil, watercolour, pastel.

You’ve never sold a single one. This Joel—whose eyes are sometimes closed, sometimes open, often averted—is for your eyes only.

The curls at the nape of his neck are creeping under the collar of his jacket. Winding your finger around a rich brown lock, you give him a tug. “You haven't been taking good care of yourself.”

Joel brings your hand to his mouth, kissing the rings on your finger that bind you to him. “You told me you liked it long.”

“You told me it itches.” You shrug his jacket off his shoulders and trail your hands up his muscled arms. “It's not about me, honey.”

Joel hums, cradling the crown of your head in his palm and pressing a lingering kiss to your forehead. “When will you learn”—another hand around your hip, tugging you forward by the small of your back—“that everything is about you?”

You narrow your eyes at him. “That's a good answer, Mr. Miller.”

He grins crookedly, backing you against the kitchen counter. “Yeah?”

You scratch his scalp and feel his mouth descend on your jaw. “Mhm. You’ve been practising.”

“Didn't have much else to do,” he grumbles, fisting the fabric of your blouse and untucking it from the waistband of the old jeans sitting low on your hips. “My wife was gone.”

“You're getting whiny,” you chide, smacking his hand away from your fly.

“Is it working?”

“You really wanna make your wife happy?”

“Yeah, baby. Yeah.” He looks down at you like he's close to pleading.

“Then you'll let me cut your hair,” you purr.

His pout lasts as long as it takes for you to get his hair soapy and your fingers in his curls, massaging slow and sweet. You take your time ridding him of the excess length, chopping carefully, your hands assured of their strength. You tell him to tilt up and look down and to the side, honey, and he obeys because it's your hands, and your voice, and he's pliable as molten glass.

You get lost in the musical shhhick of the scissors cutting through hair, humming a tune that does not match, and he's reminded of ballet. Watching you in the mirror is like seeing the dance through a glass he cannot permeate. You may be touching him, but most times he's struggling to grasp you in your entirety.

He sees an angel in his sleep, reaching out with a hand made of gold to guide him up from hell.

You tell him more about the gallery. You tell him about whale-watching and being too seasick to take photos for him like he'd requested. Joel wants to shake his head but he stays still and tells you it’s okay, baby, all I wanted was to know you were happy.

And you tell him I was happy. But it would've been better with you.

And he's joking, telling you I’d be throwin' up on the other side of the boat, but his body feels cold when you set down the scissors and leave his side.

“How’s Tommy?” you ask, rubbing gel between your palms. This, he knows, is your favourite part: styling him up all pretty like your personal doll.

It’s his favourite part, too. He holds you around the waist while you work. “He’s panicking.”

“Oh, come on,” you laugh. “He's read every book on the shelves. And your brother doesn't read.”

“Books can't prepare you for the real thing,” says Joel. “‘Least, that's what Maria told him.”

“Maria’s probably right.” You thread your fingers through his locks and watch with a smile as he closes his eyes, his forehead dropping to your belly. “But that doesn't take away from the fact that Tommy will make a great dad.”

Joel hums, pressing a kiss to your belly. “He’s been askin’ after you to paint their nursery. Want me to tell him to fuck off?”

You're beaming, curling one lock of hair around your finger and dangling it teasingly over his forehead. “Tell Tommy I'd be delighted. Maria shouldn't be doing any of that, pregnant as she is. You should smack some sense into your brother.”

“I tried every day when we were little. Didn't take.”

You give his styled hair a finalistic tug and brush it back from his ears. “Such a good model for me,” you coo, dropping into his lap, “just like always.”

“And what do I get?” he says, watching his own hand cup your breast, thumb ghosting over the soft swell, obscured by layers of fabric.

Your wicked eyes feel heavy on his skin. “What you always get.”

You take his hand in yours and lead him to the bedroom. You’ve done this a thousand times, it seems, this methodical undressing, made new with every hour spent apart. The dance replenishes in the sunlight, coming alive as spring blossoms, never stale, never withered. There is something new to discover each time.

Joel kisses you, staggering backward until he’s sitting on the edge of the bed. You climb onto his lap without breaking the kiss, your arms winding around his neck as he tucks you into him. His cock is a hard, heavy weight between your thighs, accustomed to the touch of his hand alone in the month you've been apart.

The revitalising warmth of skin-on-skin strikes him true, blooming like blood from his heart. He clutches you so close that your heartbeat skitters from your chest to his, your mouths exchanging breaths, your bodies sharing heat. He knows nothing but the shape, smell, sound of you.

He trails his knuckles up and down your spine and wonders if he can make certain that he will die like this. He doesn't want to know an afterlife. It will spoil the memory of his very last moment, when he brings you in close and kisses your soft cheek and lets the darkness gently pull him down.

The sisters at the orphanage would tell him things. You will never know peace until you know Him. You cannot know a person’s love until you know His. You will never understand, child, what it is to breathe, until every breath you take is in His name. Joel drags his open mouth up the column of your sternum, its golden pillar, his tongue dipping to taste the nectar that pools in the hollow of your throat. He tastes you instead, and he feels he has not cheated God.

You gasp his name as he licks molten salt from your skin, and he feels the golden hand curl around his heart. His lids grow heavy with every taste. Intoxicated, he seeks more, putting his mouth to the crook of your neck. Your back arches, your chest flush with his own, melting and moulding together. Every second of time spent apart withers and dies.

You have taken Joel to bed and felt him angry, happy, morose, insatiable—but the Joel you’re feeling now is tired. A drowning man finally cresting the surface, he touches you like he never will again. Your skin bunches and folds under his too-eager hands, rubbing you raw. Your muscles pull taut as you try to accommodate his frantic mouth. He bites you and your lips part in a silent scream. He pulls your hair and you gush, your chest hot, prickling with friction and sweat and heat.

There is anguish in the way he holds you. It feels deep as a wound, old enough to still ache when it rains, old enough that you were never around to know him when it was cut into his body. You want to rescue him from the wordless pain, the agony that has no name.

You want to know what has made him this way. Because there are times when you see your husband and it strikes you suddenly that a different person exists in the black of his eyes. Because there are parts he keeps hidden, for your sake or his. Because there is a little boy in his chest who's been hurt and you do not know how to save that sliver of him.

Leftover hairs from his trim sting as your bodies slide together. Your scalp prickles at the desperate way he holds you at the crown of your head. You whisper his name and he looks up at you in the darkness, and there is water brimming beneath his irises.

“Tell me what you need,” you say.

He brings his hand between your thighs and touches the wet, warm place he seeks. You nod, letting him roll you onto your back, his mouth trailing kisses down your navel. When you squirm, he pins you by your belly, his palm flat to your skin. When you mewl his name, your chest heaving, he nods his head in reply, dipping his head and sliding his hot tongue through your slit.

Joel is the prayer you chant. He kneels at the edge of the bed, bringing your thighs around his ears, closing his lips around your clit. You cry out, your hand flying to his hair, tugging him closer, eliciting a groan from his chest. It rumbles through you, his face buried in your pussy, his hands fastened around your thighs. He places searing kisses between your legs, lighting you ablaze, leaving scorch marks wherever his lips touch you.

“Tell me you're mine,” he says, and the fractured sound of his voice cuts into your skin. He's watching you, his pupils puffy and seeking, hands squeezing, desperate. “Please.”

You whimper at the sight of the kiss he places on your clit. “I’m yours,” you tell him, reaching for his hand and threading your fingers through his. “I’m your wife, Joel. I’m not going anywhere. I’m yours and I love you.”

He lowers his head, an apostate seeking redemption, and his tongue slides heavily over your clit. At the suction of his mouth around the slick pearl, you gasp, “Oh, God,” your head thrown back, your spine arching into his palm. The cut of the diamond on your finger is sharp against his skin.

Joel relishes the cool bite of the gem as he licks through your folds and his saliva mingles with your wetness. He kneels with fervour, presses his mouth to you as if whispering his confessions through the lattice, and makes you his.

The flat of his tongue is scalding, his palm a brand. He licks and sucks until you’re quivering, suffocating his hand in yours, and he wants to bare the imprint of your sigh forever. He should be the one submitting to you, and here you are, lending him your body to please, if only for another moment. Joel flicks his tongue over your clit, takes it into his mouth, and makes you sob his name.

I’m yours.

Yours.

And it sounds so permanent that, for a second, he believes it himself.

You come with your back curving and your hips grinding and your nails in his skin. Joel doesn’t stop until you’re begging him to, until you push yourself onto your elbows and tell him to come here.

You swing your leg over him and bring your mouth down to his. Joel squeezes his eyes shut and kisses you so deeply that it bruises him somewhere he cannot reach. His hands cupping your face. His cock heavy between your bodies. The sun lowering, casting you in bronze. He loses his grip on the world.

“Now,” you whisper in the growing dark, “it’s your turn to tell me.”

You lift yourself onto his cock and bring yourself down, and Joel’s fist opens against your back. “I’ve been yours since the restaurant,” he rasps.

You beam at him, and dusk ends.

There is a thumping beyond your bedroom door.

Joel hears it before you. In a flash, he hooks his leg under your knee and rolls you over, pinning you under his body. He reaches for the nightstand on his side, throws open the drawer, and pulls a gun.

You grasp his shoulders, nails digging into flesh. Eyes meet in the slippery darkness. Wide, careful. Words wordlessly exchanged.

Your fluttering heartbeat begins to pound in your ears. The noise migrates down the hall.

Footsteps.

In the kitchen, glass shatters, and your stomach swoops, down and back up, lodging in your throat.

“Joel,” you whisper, your own voice trembling out of you. He shakes his head, his finger coming to his lips. Your body begins to tremble. The chill digs a pick into each knob of your spine as it climbs up to your brain stem.

Your home begins to pound with its very own heartbeat. You can hear its tightly-wound tension in the walls. Nobody breathes except for your husband, slow and steady, hovering over you with a gun in his hand.

You hadn’t known he owned a gun.

His hips ground you against the bed and his fingers intertwine with yours, bringing your hand to his chest. His heart pounds strongly into your palm, his eyes narrowed, fixed to you. But you know his focus is split down the middle, divided between keeping you safe and listening.

Your breathing peters out until it’s silent as the breeze outside the window. A man’s voice carries from the kitchen, and another answers. Joel shifts slowly off the bed and brings you with him, handing you his T-shirt and boxers. He tucks himself into his jeans and pulls another shirt over his head while you silently dress. The fabric slips from your hand as your trembling fingers struggle for a purchase. Once you’re dressed, Joel pulls you into him, pressing his lips to your forehead.

“Under the bed,” he whispers.

Oh, fuck that.

“You want to go out there and confront them by yourself? Are you fucking crazy?”

He shuts you up by lowering his mouth to yours in a scorching kiss. “Do not fuckin’ argue with me,” he rasps, his teeth scraping against yours. You open your mouth to do exactly that, but another glass shatters, and you flinch away.

“Under. The. Bed.”

And he’s gone, leaving you alone, helpless, the predatory prowl of his gait something unfamiliar to you. It’s learned, utterly silent, the curve of his elbow guiding your gaze to the gun held behind his back. His head juts out before him, peeking around corners.

There are dust bunnies underneath the bed. You’re a better cleaner than Joel, but he makes an effort. He gets lost in it sometimes, sweeping his way through the house as if there’s a grid on the floor, precise in his methods. He doesn’t attend to the details, like the corners of the trim or the grooves in the floorboards. And yet, your floors are polished. Your plants are watered. He cares for you in quiet ways, when words fail.

Your heart thuds against the hardwood through the thin fabric of his T-shirt. It smells of rain and him. There are no more noises coming from the kitchen.

You drop your head into your folded arms and will yourself to breathe. The claustrophobic space between the bed frame and the floor edges in on you. The only light disrupting the vignette is the small lamp. You’re alone.

When you lift your head again, a pair of heavy black boots stares you right in the face.

You bite down on your scream as your heart swoops down into your stomach, pressed hard against the cold floor. Though you do not breathe, the thrum of your heart echoes in your throat as the sputtering of an engine in the dead of winter. The boots leave scuff marks on your floors, the boards groaning under the weight. The owner is heavyset, likely male from the size of his feet. And he's calling for you.

“Here, pretty kitty.” He pitches his octave high as he taunts you. “Come on out, sweet girl. Don't make me mad.”

You watch the path of his boots across the floor as he approaches the nightstand, throwing open the drawer and rummaging through your belongings.

Objects roll under the bed with you as he periodically drops them, careless in his vandalism. Your journal lands next to your head with a thunk, and you hear the low buzz of your vibrator in his hand. “Hmm, kitty likes to play.” And it lands on the floor, rolling to a cool stop in the groove between two boards.

Petrified, you can only watch him stalk across the room, his heavy footfalls thundering in your ears. He whistles a tune you don't recognise, and you wonder what's taking your husband so fucking long.

Joel, cries your heart as the man halts in his tracks, lowering himself to the ground, taking a knee. JoelJoelJoelplease—

And there's a spark of recognition when your eyes meet in the dark, like you've been acquainted with their black depths, before you're scrambling out from under the bed and kicking him square in the face with the heel of your foot.

He grunts, holding his nose, free hand grasping for you like wisps of smoke. You crawl to your feet and begin to run, only for him to wrap one cold hand around your ankle and pull.

You crumple back down to the floor with him, barely saving your own skull from cracking on the hardwood as you throw your hands in front of your eyes. The impact to your elbows radiates up to your neck, and you scream your throat raw, kicking out at your assailant, your blood roaring, weeping.

With a firm kick to his throat, you force him to let go, his hand flying instinctively to his windpipe. He wheezes something crude, probably, but you’re running—limping, mostly, slamming the bedroom door behind you with a shattering thud that quakes the frame.

“Joel!” you cry, turning the corner in the hall, feeling the walls as you go as if your own home has become foreign to you. What if he’s dead? What if you’re about to stumble over his body in the dark—the only body you’ve ever been able to know as something more than a vessel for art, for a painstaking study? That body, the body you could trace in the black with fingertips, not brushes, does not make itself known.

“JOEL—!”

A hand comes to rest on your cheek. It is not Joel’s hand. It is no hand at all, but the edge of a blade, a cool stinging thing that nicks the tender skin beneath your eye.

Blood from his nose drips down his mouth, staining his teeth red. You feel a small thrill of victory.

Joel is on the kitchen floor in a heap, vaguely stirring from the impact of a baseball bat to his ribs. The bat which a second intruder now uses to smash the framed pictures on your wall. Glass rains down on him. Shards have cut Joel’s soft belly, shredded the fabric of his shirt. Your captor holds you by the hair.

A third man smokes a cigarette, sitting on your countertop, swinging his feet back and forth, and it strikes you that he’s really only a kid. Twenty-five at most. You know young hands, young eyes. Your pencils and paper know them better.

“Nice of you to join us,” says the man from the gas station, making shapes of the cigarette smoke. You watch the way it curls around the low-hanging light.

“Joel,” you whisper, the salt of your tears stinging in the wound on your face. “Baby, please… get up…”

“He’s fine, chiquita,” says the kid. “Don’t waste your energy.”

Joel’s eyes peel open, his hands blindly grasping for something he does not have. He’s curled in on himself to protect himself from the inevitable next swing of the bat. You wonder if he’s been struck in the head, and you can feel pieces of your heart slowly wilting as petals untended.

His gun, you realise, your eyes dropping to the belt of the man who holds you hostage. It’s tucked into his waistband, but you cannot reach it with your arms trapped in front of you. His arm is a heavy band around your chest, glueing you to him, helpless. You’re fucking helpless and you cannot get to him and he will die.

Your Joel will die and he will know pain in the way you want him to know love.

“Let him go, please. You hurt him.”

The kid sniffs, tossing his cigarette to the floor beside Joel and jumping down from the counter to stomp it out with an expensive sneaker. “He disrespected me,” says the kid, leering down at your half-conscious husband like a speck of dirt on a polished glass. “But he doesn’t matter.”

You choke on your sobs, writhing in your captor’s grasp in a futile effort to feel not-so-suffocated, not-so-stuck. “You can have anything you want. Please, take anything. We have money, we have cars, we have paintings. They’re worth something, I promise you. Just—just look up my name. They’re worth a lot, please, just take them and leave us alone, please—”

The anger explodes through the gash in his face where he’d put the cigarette, that yawning maw eager to swallow blood and pain. “I don’t want your fucking paintings!” he screams, stalking toward you and yanking you free of the other man’s grasp.

Your stomach swoops as he shoves you, hard, to the floor. This time, your arms do not take the blow. It is your temple that absorbs the impact, striking hard on a floor already flecked with blood. Black seeps through paper. Your eyes darken. A man—you do not know which—is speaking.

“Go on, Emil, have some fun with the bitch,” he says. “We can put her up in the kennel when we’re done with them both.”

You hear the rustling of a belt as the man above you flicks open his fly, laughing all the while.

You're still blinking hard to clear the fog when you hear a growl rumble in your husband’s chest, the faraway noise of a fist meeting flesh, the scuffle of feet across your freshly-washed floors, the first gunshot.

Your cheek meets cool hardwood as you succumb, the shape of your Joel’s rage etched into your eyelids.

There’s a painting on the wall depicting two bodies in orgasm. Curved spines, feverish hands, dimples where fingers meet flesh. There is a hole in the canvas where the woman’s heart should be. A splatter of blood taints the image where the man drags his open palm down her back.

His face is obscured, but his mouth is on her throat, exposing the cut of his jaw. The scruff of his beard. Careful strokes of oil paint join their bodies in harmony. It’s knocked askew on the wall.

He’s rusty.

He can feel it in the taut pull of his shoulder as he brings his arm back for the death blow. The blade comes up against the rough skin beneath the man’s chin, slicing him open just beneath the scruff of his beard. Blood bruises the hardwood floors, and although the man is already dead, Joel grasps him by the hair at the crown of his head and brings him down against the wall.

His shoulder aches. His finger joints crackle. His knuckles are already bruised, his abdomen sore. He spits out pinkish saliva and turns his attention to his next job.

His gun now back in his hand and its thief dead, Joel puts a bullet between the eyes of the third man, and another in his chest. The baseball bat clatters to the floor.

He thinks of the first time he wanted to kill for you and couldn’t.

A man at the bar had groped you while you were out with friends. A little tipsy, you told Joel as he tucked you gently into the passenger’s seat, wrapped in a pretty black dress, and fell promptly asleep. He remembers the cool flutter of your hair from the air vent. He remembers the way your lashes spread like spider legs on your cheeks at every red light, the way the street lamps turned you golden.

He remembers the man’s name. His face. His address. Some of the little wrinkles in his brain still hold echoes of information he'll never need again. But he keeps it tucked up there anyway. Maybe it reminds him of what he could never do, now that he had you.

It seems the rules have been bent.

Glass crunches underfoot behind him. Joel turns just in time to see the retreating figure, the fucking coward, sprinting for the door. He fires a shot that chips a piece of drywall and goes nowhere significant. Cursing himself, Joel hears the roar of his Mustang come to life as the kid leaves with his fucking car.

Everything has a price, he'd said, blowing smoke in your face. Including your bitch.

Joel curls his hand around the hilt of the knife. Blood begins to crust along the edge. Some of the blood, he realises, has been stolen from your sacred body. There is a cut on your cheek.

And does your bitch have a price? Joel had replied, glancing behind the kid at the lackey he'd brought along. He seems to like you.

You teeter on your way to standing, and Joel rushes to catch you before you can hit the floor. He flicks on the safety and sets his gun aside, cupping your face in his bloodied hands.

Your eyes, blurred with tears, struggle to meet his. They're fixed to the man in a heap over Joel’s shoulder—the man who'd cut you.

“Baby,” he says.

Trancelike, you shake your head.

“Baby, I gotta see you're still with me. Don't look at him; he ain't important right now. You’re important. Hear me?”

His voice is gentle, guiding, his thumbs hooked just behind your ears, hard eyes flickering between each of yours.

“You killed them.”

“Yeah,” says Joel as the pad of his thumb traces the soft skin beneath the cut on your cheek. Your fingers curl around his wrists as if you’re trying to strangle him, temper him.

“You’re hurt.” Your soft cry inverts his ribs, sits heavy and wrong in his chest. When your glassy eyes slide to meet his at last, Joel remembers the second time he wanted to kill someone and couldn’t.

A man from your past had visited your apartment and told you he wanted to try again. You'd politely escorted him out and laughed it off. Terrible in bed, you’d joked.

Joel remembers kneeling in the cathedral, surrounded by the lick of a thousand votives coaxing sweat from his glands, as he tried and tried to find faith and only felt the agonising scrape of the floor against his kneecaps.

He remembers the first time devotion meant something to him. In the name of your second gallery showing. Paintings lined the walls depicting couples in embrace. “Which one is us?” he asked.

“I don't sell those,” you’d replied.

“Why not?”

“Because you're only for me,” you told him. “But I’ll tell you a secret.”

He’d ached to hear it. Even leaned in, a co-conspirator.

“There isn't any devotion in these paintings. They're all hired models.”

“Then why bother at all?” he'd asked. “Why call it that?”

“Because I like showing people that there’s love in the world. And because devotion means something to me now.” You’d looked up at him and tucked your hand in his and he knew what all those nights spent kneeling meant.

Faith, he thinks now, glaring at the shallow cut on your cheek, is knowing your purpose.

The wound is his purpose.

“I’m not hurt, baby girl. We need to pack a bag, okay? I have somewhere for us to stay.”

“Are they—are they coming back?” you ask, your bottom lip wobbling.

Joel swallows bile and a bit of blood. “No. No, they won't be comin’ back. But we need a safe place while I take care of things.”

“Take care of things.”

Your echo is ominous in his ears, and when your eyes leave him again to watch the way the blood trickles into the grooves between the floorboards, Joel knows what you will say next.

“Who are you?”

#fic: helen #kiwisbell's fics #joel miller #joel miller x reader #joel miller smut #joel miller x you #the last of us #john wick au #joel miller au #joel miller fic #joel miller fanfic #joel miller x female reader #joel miller x f!reader #tlou fic

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blackautmedia · 2 months

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Orientalism, The Gerudo, and Legend of Zelda | SWANA Representation in Gaming

It took a while, but here's a video essay about the portrayal of the Gerudo and the ways they reinforce orientalist beliefs about SWANA people, the portrayal of the Gerudo, and the broader storytelling implications that come about because of it.

The land and society once owned by the gods must be restored and brought to its former glory as it is fated to be led by the divinely chosen Hylians, the chosen descendants tied to the gods. To that end, to defeat the evil and violent Middle Easterner who has defied the natural order of Hyrule, everyone must sacrifice themselves for Link to become the divine governor of power.

Sections in the Video:

What is Racial Coding? (The Deku and Cannibal Horror)

Orientalism

Ganondorf - The Wicked Man of the Desert

Sav'aaq: Colorism and the Othering of the Gerudo

The "Good" Arab and the Conditional Humanity of the Gerudo

The Vai Outfit - Harems, Veiled Women, and Belly Dancers

Staggeringly Neutral - Link and the Gerudo as Queer Expression (Why James Somerton is wrong about the Gerudo)

Swapping and Shopping: Japanese Media

Orientalism of the Mummy - Dehydrated Ganon

The Native Zonai - The Source of the Right Arm

The Myth of Native Extinction

The Brown Body and the White Mind

Link Can Make it - Community Vs Saviorism

Divine Right to Rule

Japanese History and Zelda (Shinto in Zelda Lore)

Gameplay First - Zelda and Storytelling

Closing Thoughts

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ddarker-dreams · 4 months

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Unique Burdens.

Enver Gortash x F Reader.

Warnings: Dark themes™, unhealthy relationships, implied kidnapping and major power imbalances. Word count: 1k.

Where there are sparks, there can be fire.

Concentrate. Hone your thoughts. Refine them, sifting through any impurities. Ichor is woven into your flesh like threads through a hallowed loom. These threads contain arcane energy that some spend lifetimes pursuing, their noses buried in esoteric tomes.

For you are a scion of a being most high — the Lady of Love’s darling daughter.

Sune’s always had a soft spot for you, fickle as her favor may be. Whispers carried by the wind offered encouragement at the beauty your artistry brought into the world. Your mother may be distant, but so is the sun, both of which provide satisfactory warmth regardless. This distance never bothered you. So long as you were free to wield a quill, lyre, or rapier, you were content.

Indeed, her distance never bothered you, until you realized that just like the sun, celestial bodies must give way to the night.

Focus, focus, focus.

The faintest hum of the Weave resonates within. It reaches out to you, incorporeal hands longing to touch. This is it. Your chance. Your spark. It’s tentative at first, a shy reunion—

—And then it’s gone. Silenced.

Extinguished.

Your shoulders droop as yet another failure joins your ever-growing resume.

Your shoulders droop as yet another failure is jotted down.

“I never took you for a masochist,” tyranny incarnate muses from behind. “That must be it. Why else would you torture yourself so?”

“I’m no more a masochist than you are a worthy ruler.”

You try to keep your tone steady and indifferent. Regrettably, of all your artistic talents, acting is not among them. The bitterness seeps out like blood through thin gauze. He must’ve sensed a fluctuation in the ‘connection’ you share. You thought yourself subtle with your tampering, but your sentimentality betrayed you.

“Ah. That’s where you’re mistaken. There are no ‘worthy rulers,’ only rulers who make their reign worthwhile.”

“That’s your intention?”

“That’s my intention,” he mimics your cadence.

Unwilling to withstand further provocation, you whirl around, ready to slink off. Your abrupt motion proves to be a mistake. The world loses its sharpness, the outline of every object smearing together as your balance falters. A wicked throb blasts through your skull — your reward for this little rebellion. The black fabric fastened around your throat greedily swallows the meal you just offered.

Its creator steadies your body as if he isn’t the source of your malaise. His hands, covered in golden gauntlets, slither around your bicep. You’re vaguely aware of the short journey to an outdoor table set. Water rushes from the garden’s ivory fountain, the sound crescendoing into something unbearable. The evening sun feels too hot, the summer air, too humid; and the deceptively delicate-looking choker around your neck too tight.

Gortash barks out orders toward the maids here to serve ‘you.’ They scurry about, their hurried gait like that of a discovered rat colony. You sit at his behest. Commanding others is second nature to him, he enunciates every syllable with the confidence of a man who knows he won’t be challenged. No good comes from fighting it. You panic, you struggle, and then finally, you sink, succumbing to a riptide you never had a chance against.

He holds a crystal vial to your lips, which you part without prompting. It’s syrupy on your tongue, an artificial sweetness intended to make the tonic more tolerable, owing to your many complaints. Whether he adjusted the formula for your sake or his, you can’t say.

The viscous liquid stubbornly sticks to your esophagus. Eventually, you force it down.

Gortash’s elixir circulates throughout your body and soothes the tempest you incited. There’s little you know about the magic that siphons your divinity, but you do know it’s volatile. The insidious inventor sat aside his pride to explain that much. He foresaw that you wouldn’t sit pretty while he sapped your celestial power. An accurate estimate, considering your current predicament.

He recognizes your lucidity returning before you do.

“Foolish girl,” Gortash sneers. He takes your chin in his hand, forcing eye contact. The bags beneath his eyes appear darker than when you first met. You suppose you’re to blame for that. “Are you so eager to undermine that you’ll put yourself at risk?”

“What does it matter,” you reply, your glare communicating what your weary voice cannot. “Pain is all I know around you.”

Gortash releases you as if your skin scalded him.

“Pain? This? You know nothing of pain, aasimar. The word is lost on you.”

Righteous fury churns your stomach in on itself.

“Then show me!” You demand. “Show me, if that’s what it takes for you to stop flaunting your godsforsaken ‘benevolence.’ A benevolent warden! Can those two roles coexist? Or are you the one ignorant of words and their meanings?”

You fight for each breath. It’s been some time since you’ve snapped at him like this. For good reason, you think, noting the murky abyss in his eyes. Lord Enver Gortash isn’t to be spoken to in such a discourteous manner. People have had lips sewn shut and fingers unnaturally contorted for less. His cruelty isn’t random, there’s a methodology behind each stitch and snap.

Yet here you sit. Physically unharmed, adorned in fine garments, aureate bracelets, onyx earrings, and his favorite shade of rouge upon your lips. You don’t know what to make of this, you didn’t want to know for the longest time either. Should he confirm what you dread, well… at least you’ll have clarity amidst the revulsion.

He studies you like he would a defective construct he’s one adjustment away to fixing. You loathe how vulnerable you feel beneath his scrutinizing stare, that he has the means to take you apart and piece you back together.

An eternity passes before Gortash speaks again.

“... You’re frightened,” he surmises. “Frightened over what it means to be the subject of my affection.”

Your pulse quickens as the cool metal of his gauntlets brush against your hand.

“You want my wrath. The sting of a riding crop, the indignation from the welt it forms.”

The gauntlet’s tips dig into your flesh. It almost hurts, until he lessens the intensity of his grip. He’s mastered applying just the right amount of pressure to leave indents behind without breaking skin. He could break you, but he wants you whole, as proof he could conquer you at your best.

“Keep wanting, you won’t ever receive it. No,” Gortash smiles, the skin beneath his eyes crinkling from mirth. “Endure what it means to have earned my affection instead.”

#2024 is the year of objectifying old men #i'm speaking it into existence #this is just a lil something so i can get a feel for what it's like to write bg3 ....#gortash x reader #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 x reader #enver gortash x reader #my stuff

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percheduphere · 4 months

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LET’S TALK ABOUT EXPLORING LOKI & MOBIUS THROUGH THE LENS OF QUEER EXPERIENCE

Thank you for this request, @nabananab

Before I dig into this juicy ask, I think it’s important to note (however obvious the fact maybe) that an individual’s unique engagement with art is an inherent and integral part of art. The intention of the artist and the sociopolitical influence of culture, while important in our interpretation of a work, are not the sole source of drawing the work’s meaning. We are all artists in one form or another. I consider myself one of the pen, and nothing is more important to me than art giving someone a sense of emotional connection. I should hope other artists would agree, and for this reason I am an ardent believer in art taking on a life of its own once it has been created. The creator’s word, while it matters to some degree, does not supersede an individual’s relationship with the creation. Our histories, our desires, our fears, our likes, our dislikes, indeed our infiniteness as fragile human beings, allow us to create an elevated, spiritual interpretation beyond the confines of original intent. With art, there is no such thing as “reaching” or “reading too deeply”.

I leave this message with all of you as we look at these beloved characters through the lens of queer experience.

LOKI

Culture influences what we see and hear, which in turn influences artistic portrayal. Setting aside Norse myth, Marvel’s Loki is a classic example of a queer-coded villain (later canonized as a queer antihero). Deception, daggers, sexual temptation, transformation, and magic are all culturally tied to the “immoral” facets of femininity. Just as a strong, independent woman untethered to the control of man is deemed a “wicked woman”, a man demonstrating gender ambiguity and like qualities is similarly judged. Only masculinity is viewed as pure and good, and this no doubt was—and continues to be—a key force in white, western colonization’s destructiveness. It all but crushed our rich global history of divine femininity, gender diversity, and romantic and sexual expression.

Asgard, as Marvel portrays it, is without a doubt a masculine-dominant warrior society. Only two women feature prominently: Queen Frigga and Lady Sif. Whereas Sif embraces her masculine qualities and fits in easily with Thor and the Warriors Three, Queen Frigga embraces her feminine powers, though her authority is submissive to the All-Father, Odin. Her influence is most heavily seen in her adopted son, Loki, with whom she shared and taught magic in hopes that Loki might “feel some sun on himself” despite the “long shadows [Thor] and [Odin]” cast. The magic that Frigga gifts Loki, however, attracts scorn. The subtext here is that Loki’s specialness, his individuality, comes from feminine powers despite presenting as a man, and a gender ambiguous one at that. Unlike Thor and Odin, he is not masculine. While strong, he does not exhibit Thor’s brute strength. He is cautious, thoughtful, another feminine quality, whereas Thor’s courageousness often veers toward foolhardy and brash.

Thus, if Loki cannot be loved and accepted as he is (a queer person of another race), he will force love and acceptance through the power of the throne. Kings oft inspire fear, coercing subjects to love them whether they wish to or not. But we know Loki never truly wanted the throne. The throne is a mere distraction from, perhaps even a poor replacement for, what he truly wants: genuine love and acceptance that cannot be bought. Unfortunately, Loki believes he will never get these things, which is why, when Mobius questions him, Loki’s desire for control (Loki, King of the Midgard; Loki, King of the Nine Realms; Loki, King of Space) can never be satiated. Mobius challenges Loki for the exact purpose of revealing this to him. What do you really want? At this point, Loki does not have the words to form an answer. In S2E5, Syvlie raises the question Mobius originally asked in S1E1. It is then, after experiencing Mobius’s friendship and the other relationships that come to being as a result (including Sylvie’s), that Loki can articulate his answer.

Loki’s othering, even before the discovery of his true identity as a Jotun (an allegory for a villainized foreign race), creates a lonely environment in which Loki’s potential for goodness is quashed by centuries of resentment, bitterness, and jealousy. His attempts at masculinity take the form of violence, all of which are, as Loki admits in S1E1, “part of the illusion; the cruel elaborate trick conjured by the weak to inspire fear.”

Loneliness and the desire for love and acceptance are a universal human experience, but they are felt far more acutely within our intersectional queer communities.

MOBIUS

His fascination with Loki is compelling because there are many things we can infer about its reasons. The first, most obvious explanation is Mobius’s “soft spot for broken things”, which is in some ways tied to his qualities as a compassionate, forgiving, and supportive father. A secondary explanation is a wish for partnership. We know from S1 that Mobius’s friendship with Ravonna spanned eons. We later learn in S2E6 that he and Ravonna started out as peers, hunters. They were partners on the field, but where Mobius “failed” because of his humanity, Ravonna “advanced” because of her ruthlessness. This change in relational dynamics left him partner-less. Finally, a third, less obvious reason is Mobius’s desire to express himself in ways Loki does so effortlessly. That desire may come from the suppression and repression of his own softspoken queerness in order to survive the fascist culture of the TVA.

Mobius is captivating for many reasons. Whereas Loki is a textbook example of culture viewing “queerness as evil”, “queerness as flamboyance”, “queerness as stylishness”, “queerness as loudness”, “queerness as sexual promiscuity and deviance”, “queerness as chaos”, Mobius very much aligns with the image of a straight-passing, repressed queer individual. This is an identity that does not get as much attention or presence in artistic media as it deserves, for there are many who need this representation to reflect them. He is not stereotypically queer by any means: he is not colorful. He is not stylish, flamboyant, or loud. His sex appeal primarily derives from the viewers’ attraction to his personality, though it certainly helps that Owen Wilson is quite handsome.

Combine these three reasons, and it becomes easy to see how a character (or person!) like Mobius might fall in love with a character (or person!) like Loki.

There is a certain amount of beautiful irony in how Loki and Mobius affect one another and consequently their identities. Mobius, feeling compassion toward an individual who has been brutally othered and oppressed, seeks to free Loki from the confines of his narrative, as determined by the “Time Keepers”. The only feasible way to do this is to bring a variant of Loki out of the timeline and into the TVA. Mobius then provides Loki with the opportunity to change by: acknowledging Loki’s strengths, giving Loki the chance to use his strengths in productive ways, praising Loki when he does well, listening to Loki, believing in Loki, calling out Loki, and accepting Loki as he is, with all his history, without judgement. Mobius does not try to force change like Thor or Odin. Rather, he creates an environment in which change could happen naturally. This kindness and, indeed, what becomes unconditional love by the end of S1E4, allows Loki to embrace his authentic queerness with self-love and use his feminine powers for altruism rather than masking them with self-hatred and masculine rage.

FREEING LOKI

In S1E1, Mobius is enthralled with Loki’s hijinks as the handsome, charming, devil-may-care, D.B. Cooper. This minor escapade in Loki’s life, which was likely only intended for laughs by the writer, reveals something interesting about Mobius: Loki’s mischievousness, his magic, his cunning, are all quite endearing to him when no real harm is being inflicted. That is, Loki, when not under duress, is someone to be admired when he’s being himself. We admire in people what we wish we had in ourselves, and this, at times, may lead to powerful attraction.

Loki, for his part, does much the same for Mobius. The environment (the TVA) which allowed Loki to thrive is also the same environment that has abused and constrained Mobius.

The heat that Ravonna presses upon Mobius, however, changes his tone with Loki himself. When Loki asks Mobius why he “[sticks] his neck out for [him]”, Mobius provides Loki with two options to choose from: “A. He sees a scared little boy shivering in the cold, or B. He will say whatever he needs to say to get the job done”. Option A, while insulting, has compassion layered beneath the barb. Loki, an expert at cloaking truth with meanness, sees through this and indirectly chooses what he believes to be true in the cafeteria scene: that Mobius feels sympathy for Loki’s painful childhood. The subtext of this acknowledgement is that the true means to the end is reversed: Mobius doesn’t need Loki to catch the Variant on the timelines. Mobius needs the Variant to free Loki from the timelines. The Variant is an excuse and another agent of poetic irony: when Sylvie unleashes the multiverse, she literally frees Loki of his predetermined narrative.

The conceit of S1E1 is that Mobius intends to use Loki for the “good” of the Sacred Timeline. It is important to remember that characters, while not real, are meant to mirror human complexity. Multiple, seemingly conflicting things may be true concurrently. In S1E2, we see in Mobius’s conversations with Ravonna that he deeply believes in Loki’a capacity to be a wonderful person and wants him to have the opportunity to change. His enthusiasm for these things outshines his desire to catch Sylvie.

And, because the Variant is Loki, because Sylvie is Loki, because, as she says, “[they] are the same”, Mobius’s own freeing of Loki, his unconditional love for him, cascades from Loki to Sylvie. Sylvie would not be free to live as she pleases if not for Mobius’s compassion for Loki in the first place.

In S1E4, Loki reveals the TVA’s sham. Mobius’s sense of self becomes fragile alongside his sense of partnership with Loki. But because of our sociopolitical culture’s influence on capitalism, the creative voices of the Loki series self-censures what could be (what is) a queer romance. This self-censureship makes itself known in Mobius’s own self-censureship. His jealousy and heartbreak cannot be spoken directly. It must be spoken through the words of a woman, someone who presents as the opposite sex. Through a looping memory of a scornful Sif telling Loki, “You are alone and always will be”, Mobius makes known the nature of his feelings for him.

BUT WHO WILL FREE MOBIUS?

In the same cafeteria scene in S1E2, Loki asks Mobius if he’s ever ridden a jet ski. Mobius’s response is demure, saying him riding one would “cause a branch for sure”. The jet ski gives the audience another clue as to what Mobius seeks in life: something fun, thrilling, and reckless. Yet Mobius sets aside his desires for what he believes is for the good of the TVA, and thus humanity. This suppression and repression of authentic selfhood mirrors the queer experience of living within a heteronormative culture, especially one with religious doctrines that equate pleasure with sinfulness.

Because Mobius extended his heart, his partnership, his love (symbolized by twin daggers hidden in his locker [a closet]; notably a male phallic symbol of which there are a pair [partners]) and was soundly rejected, Mobius retaliates with the loneliness he himself feels. This loneliness may be interpreted as an allegory for the loneliness of being closeted as opposed to the loneliness of being out but othered.

Ultimately, Mobius’s love for Loki shifts from selfish desire to unconditional love when he chooses to help Loki save Sylvie. In S1E5, it is conspicuous that after delivering Sylvie safely to Loki’s side, Mobius’s partings words are, “Guess you got away again”, to which Loki replies, “I always do”, which echos the lover’s trope of “the one that got away”.

[It drives me absolutely bananas that I can't find the specific gif I need when I literally saw it multiple times earlier this week but didn't need it THEN]

Owen’s acting choice is interesting here. He laughs, smiles, then looks down before looking up again, his eyes shifting from fondness to what feels like longing. Mobius extends his hand, a sensible choice for someone who believes his love is unrequited and is unsure of how Loki defines their relationship. Loki, appreciating what Mobius has done for him, closes the distance with an embrace and thanks Mobius for his friendship.

In S2E1, upon Loki’s time-slipping into the war room, whatever apprehensions Mobius had about physical contact was wiped away by the collapse of the TVA and the memory of Loki’s hug. In this scene, it becomes clear to Mobius that Loki is panicking. He makes the executive decision to use his physical contact as a grounding force, relocates Loki to a quiet environment, asks after Sylvie with no bitterness in his voice, then prioritizes Loki’s physical well-being. Perhaps, in Mobius’s view, his love is unrequited, but there is nothing in place to stop him from expressing that love more freely while honoring Loki’s feelings for Sylvie. This regard, which may be construed as platonic, may also be viewed romantic, courtly love.

The fight between Loki and Sylvie in S1E6 sets the stage for Mobius to receive Loki and become a refuge for heartbreak.

S2E2 and S2E3 has Loki’s and Mobius’s temperaments when it comes to investigating flipped. In S1, Mobius was focused on the mission and often had to reign in Loki. In S2, Mobius is more casual, more willing to take his time and enjoy the sleuthing as it unfolds, while Loki administers pressure to stay focused. The question is why?

In S2E2, Brad attacks Mobius’s sense of self. He points out how weird it is that Mobius is not at all curious about looking at his timeline and stresses that the TVA, and everything in it, isn’t real. Brad calls into question Mobius’s reason for staying. Knowing that the answer is Loki, we can surmise through the queer lens that Brad also corners Mobius into potentially outing himself in front of the object of his affections, someone he believes does not return his feelings, and whose knowledge of those feelings may threaten their friendship. This is a traumatic experience for queer people in the real world, and this extra layer of emotional conflict adds depth to Mobius’s violent response.

Mobius influenced Loki in a myriad of ways. One that has not been discussed yet is an appreciation for focus and order. Loki, in turn, has cracked the door open for Mobius to explore pleasure. We can speculate that, in his own way, Mobius is testing what happiness could look like living a life between the TVA and the timelines. For him, this means cocktails at the theater, cracker jacks, and exploring the World’s Fair, all of which are pleasurable on their own but are even more so with Loki’s company. His queerness, once again, is quiet, mundane, but playful in its own right, and finally brave enough to explore. These scenes suggest that Mobius is indeed happy at the TVA and, as we see in the finale, this happiness is solely rooted in his relationship with Loki and the emotional intimacy they share together.

Loki expresses concern for Mobius, noting that he has “never seen him like that before.” Mobius, interestingly, deflects every concern by absurdly blaming Loki: “He got under your skin”, “I was following you!” The psychological undercurrent here is that Loki is the reason why Brad got under Mobius skin. Loki is the person that Mobius will follow.

Loki takes Mobius’s distress in stride, responding in a way the Mobius normally would. However, Brad’s question piques his interest, and his own care for Mobius prompts him to gently challenge Mobius’s lack of interest in his own timeline. Mobius’s reason for avoidance is, “What if it’s something good?”

In S2E5, it’s interesting that “good” in this narrative is defined as a heteronormative fantasy of a house, two kids, and (possibly) a puppy and a snake. The “good” in Mobius’s original timeline, however, is imperfect. There is a partner that is missing (partners being a recurring theme in the series, particularly in S2E3), pronounced gone not once but twice. The entire scene between Don and Loki has been discussed at length by many, so there’s no need to reiterate it here. However, let’s bring our attention to Mobius’s avoidance of this “good” because this avoidance resonates with another queer experience.

The TVA, for Mobius, is the place where he studied, saved, and developed a close relationship with Loki. The fear of the “something good” is the fear of being confronted with something Mobius “should” want more than the TVA, and therefore “should” want more Loki. The fear is wanting something (or feeling pressured to want something) other than a queer relationship with no children. The question of “choice” is impacted by what is considered the “norm”.

S2E5 very pointedly focuses on the concern of choice, especially Mobius’s choice, in the bar scene between Loki and Sylvie. “Mobius should get a choice now, no?” At this point, Loki’s regard for Mobius has finally caught up with the romantic nature of Mobius’s feelings for him. And Loki, living his own queer experience, is also afraid of his true desires like Mobius. In being part of the intersectional queer community, the psychological need to guard against disappointment is high and commonplace. Desires are easily disappointed by the expectations of oppressive social mores. This survival tactic manifests itself with our hope and heartbreak with mainstream media, Loki the series being among them.

But Sylvie, the harbinger of true and absolute freedom, takes on the role of supportive ex and challenges Loki to answer Mobius’s question in S1E1: “What do you want?”

In this, Mobius and Loki’s individual relationships with the TVA are identical. It was never about where (the TVA), when (time works differently at the TVA), or why (the timelines). It was about who. It was about each other. The TVA represents a liminal space which became home by virtue of the people who brought love into it. The TVA is code for Loki and Mobius when each speaks of it.

Again, the artists behind the media must self-censure. In this, Loki also self-censures while giving the truth. “I don’t want to be alone. I want my friends back.” It cannot be denied that Mobius is Loki’s first truest and closest friend. “I don’t want to be alone. I want Mobius back.” Sylvie appreciates and validates this desire, but also points out that showing the TVA is something that cannot be unseen. The implication of this response suggests that Sylvie believes that Loki’s friends will feel compelled to join the TVA out of moral pressure. She reiterates the true lives that are being lived, and Loki, loving his friends, loving Mobius, elects to not take that away from them. “You are just fine without the TVA.”

Yet, Loki must choose an act of profound selfless love to save everyone. In doing so, he saves and frees Mobius in the way Mobius saved and freed him. The tragedy and, once again, poetic irony is that they both would have chosen each other. In giving everyone freedom, the true freedom of Loki and Mobius is sacrificed. This double-standard reflects in our reality between those who identify as cis and heterosexual and those who do not.

When Mobius looks at his timeline in S2E6, he does so for one reason: that timeline survived because of Loki’s sacrifice. He must honor that sacrifice and see what Loki protected. Mobius appreciates what he finds, but he doesn’t belong there. It is not what he ultimately longs for. And there must be worry, shame, in recognizing he would prefer to give up the house and two children if a life with Loki were a viable choice.

We all experience loss in our lives. Loss without a goodbye is also commonplace but is another pain that is more acute within the intersectional queer community. I speak of missed opportunities for happiness due to external forces. I speak of loss of self. I speak of loss of friends and family and home. I speak of death, losing a loved one without a goodbye, because same-sex lovers are not considered next of kin, an impossibility without marriage. Marriage echoes back to Don, who has no spouse, and Mobius, who has no partner.

#asks #loki #mobius #lokius #loki season 2 #loki series #loki meta #my meta #loki analysis #my analysis #queer community #queer #queer representation #queer relationships #lgbt representation #lgbtq community #lgbtqia

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talonabraxas · 6 months

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The Empyrean Talon Abraxas

Gustave Doré, Rosa Celeste (Dante and Beatrice gaze upon the highest Heaven, The Empyrean) The Divine Comedy, Canto XXXI by Dante Alighieri

“Above the Celestial Fire there is an Incorruptible Flame, ever sparkling, Source of Life, Fountain of all Beings, and Principle of all Things. This Flame produces all, and nothing perishes save that which it consumes. It reveals itself by virtue of itself. This Fire cannot be contained in any place; it is without form and without substance, it girdles the Heavens and from it there proceeds a tiny spark which makes the whole fire of the Sun, Moon and Stars. This is what I know of God. Seek not to know more, for this passes thy comprehension howsoever wise thou mayest be. Nevertheless, know that the unjust and wicked man cannot hide himself from God, nor can craft nor excuse disguise aught from His piercing eyes. All is full of God, God is everywhere.”

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tanadrin · 1 year

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(Note: this is all totally non-rigorous free association)

Famously, the King James Version of the Bible translates Exodus 22:18 as "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." This is one of those translations, though, that has suffered for passing through multiple different cultural lenses over the textual history of Exodus. Alternate modern translations say things like "put to death any woman who does evil magic," "*wizards* thou shalt not suffer to live," or even "whoever has sexual relations with an animal must be put to death."

In the Septuagint, the underlying word is translated φάρμακος; despite the connotation of the English word, a masculine noun; the word is associated with magical arts in general, but is *especially* associated with poison. It's from φάρμακον, a word which can mean either "poison" or "drug," and is the origin of "pharmacy." Greek had a rich vocabulary for the supernatural: an older and more general word seems to be γοητεία, "charm, jugglery, sorcery," from γόης, "sorcerer, wizard, juggler, cheat." That it includes in its semantic field the concept of sleight-of-hand shows that mundane deception is countenanced as a possible explanation for claims of magical power, which no doubt contributes to the dim social reception of magic, but also shows a neat symmetry with the modern concept of the stage magician, whom we publicly acknowledge as really being just a particular kind of illusionist and entertainer. Another Greek word for magic is, well, μάγος, the source of the English word, ultimately a borrowing from Old Persian maguš. A maguš was simply a priest of Mazda in the old Zoroastrian religion; the word is of uncertain etymology, but its connotations in Greek arise from crediting a Greek mythical version of Zoroaster with the invention of magic and astrology, showing us that perhaps orientalism of one sort or another has long been part of European traditions of the occult. There is also θαυματουργία, "wonder-working, doing miracles, wizardry."

But the Septuagint word choice is an odd one; as I understand it, the actual underlying lexical item is מְכַשֵּׁפָה/mekhashefah, the feminine form of מְכַשֵּׁף/mekhashef. The root of this word seems to be כשף/KH-SH-F, which has been glossed various ways. One gloss I find particularly interesting is "cut." Kenneth Kitchen links this etymology to the cutting of herbs; thus, a mekhashef is a kind of herbalist, and the context, as with pharmakos, is the fear of poisons--the feminine form might also make sense here, as it seems plausible that just as in our modern society, poisoning was a more reliable tool for killing for women than for men, for whom the possibility of physically overpowering their enemies was less likely.

But I think it's interesting to note other ways in which magic is about division and breaking. Though in modern fantasy a "warlock" is either just a generic wicked sorcerer, or a summoner of demons, the word comes from Old English wǣrloga ("promise-deceiver"), a deceiver, a breaker of oaths. A warlock is thus someone who dissolves social ties, or even betrays their baptismal vows by making an unholy vow, an un-promise, to Satan himself. The English "witch" comes from the Old English wiċċa or wiċċe (masculine and feminine forms respectively), from Proto-Germanic *wikkô, "sorcerer, necromancer," from the verb *wikkōną, "to practice sorcery." One likely derivation of *wikkōną is the Proto-Indo-European stem *weyk-, "to separate, to divide, to choose." This may be a reference to cleromancy, the casting of lots; many ancient words for magic link together fortunetelling of various kinds (the second element in words like "necromancy" and "cleromancy" is ancient Greek μᾰντείᾱ, "divination, prophecy, fortune-telling), but here again the concept of separation appears in a way that is difficult to ignore.

The Romans, like the Greeks, looked east for their wisdom, and were also obsessed with divination in particular, so their words for magic are often borrowed from Greek, or concern forms of fortune-telling in particular: haruspicina, the inspection of entrails; the genius or numen, language of spiritual presence and will (the latter not dissimilar to the mana of Polynesia); auspicium, the interpretation of omens, especially the flights of birds. Perhaps other kinds of magic invoked skepticism: Pliny argues that, except possibly in the making of potions (the Romans, no less than the Greeks and the Hebrews, knew that the right herbs could kill!), most claims of magic were simply lies--though there was little harm in apotropaic wards to set the mind at ease. Apuleius granted the existence of spirits and demons, and both Augustus and Constantine worried enough about magic to try to suppress its practice.

In Sanskrit, magic was apparently sometimes called इन्द्रजाल/indrajala, "Indra's net," a metaphor for emptiness, a word that foregrounds the idea of fraud and illusion. Similarly, the word माया/maya means "magic," but also "illusion," being in that way akin to the English notion of glamour found in fairy-stories. There is also possibly semantic overlap with German Zauber, whose meaning is "magic," but which is etymologically connected to Old English tēafor, "to paint [a picture]," and Icelandic töfrar, "enchantment." (Icelandic also has galdur, "sorcery," but also "[conjuring] trick.") Chinese offers the root 魔/mo2, which according to Wiktionary is from Sanskrit मार/mara, "death, pestilence;" in Chinese it takes on theurgic qualities: "devil, demon, magic, the unnatural, crazy," depending on the context it's found in: 魔羅, a kind of Buddhist demon; 魔術, "magic," as in an illusion imitating the supernatural; 瘋魔, "to be insane, to be fascinated by, to be enchanted by," a concept of obsessive madness shared in other cultures, including our own.

A full cross-cultural, historical comparison of words pertaining to magic is far beyond my capabilities, of course; but exploring current in the vocabulary and historical development of words around magic is interesting so far as it peels back the thick systematizing, empirical layer within our culture and helps us glimpse how these ideas functioned in the past. Nowadays, magic is often prototypically the magic of high fantasy: it is systematic, little more than a flashy kind of science, even if it is one accessed through mental discipline rather than mechanical instruments. Magic is patterned, stable, fundamentally knowable, because we are so thoroughly grounded in systems of knowledge that understand the whole world as patterned and knowable that we cannot imagine anything else. We redefine magic in ways that simplify it down to nothing: to be little more than abstract spiritual practice, moral therapeutic deism with countercultural window-dressing, or to mean nothing more than simply acting on the world. But is that really in keeping with the spirit of the thing, as it is has been imagined for most of history?

Magic is about many things. It is about division: discrimination, separation, cutting. Cutting the body of the sacrifice, to prod at its bloody insides; cutting breath from a living victim; cutting off the sacred from the unholy, and vice-versa. It is about speaking, chanting, singing, the form and the performance of words. It is about writing (itself a word which means to cut or carve into something). It is about deception: lies in pursuit of status or money, lies to avoid culpability for murder, lies about secret knowledge. It is about feeling oneself inhabiting a world filled with intentional beings, beings with a will and nature unknown and perhaps unknowable to you. Spirits of the dead, of the air, and of the wild world; the genius loci, the demon, the hungry ghost. It of a world when the night could claim real darkness, when the stars were forever an inscrutable mystery, and when the terrifying unknown could intrude into your life at a moment's notice. Even modern occultism feels like a nonsensical imitation of the past, with emphasis on benign enlightenment or spiritual growth, when ancient magic was rife with murder, curses, treachery, and simple human greed. The huckster fortune-teller, who cynically defrauds their customrs, is closer to the spirit of magic than the observant neo-pagan.

We are mostly too sure of ourselves, and too confident in our ability to understand even that which is at first horrifying and inexplicable, to really replicate the feeling of that kind of magic. A world in which that kind of magic is possible is a world in which the last few centuries of philosophy and epistemology and science are shown to be so profoundly wrong that we are left with nothing but naive superstition and fear. Or else, it is a world where all these basic forms of inquiry that we take for granted simply do not work--because if they did work, we would be back in our own comforting, familiar world, a world of rationalism and enlightenment, albeit perhaps with a few of the phenomenological incidentals changed. I wonder if it is really possibly anymore for us to tell stories in the mode of that older world. With the exception of certain kinds of horror, I don't really know of anything that comes close.

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monstersdownthepath · 6 months

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A collection of Nascent Demon Lords (plus an extra)

(Pic source; it’s not 1 to 1 what I have in mind, but it’s close enough! and certainly eye-catching)

I’ve done daemons and sahkil, so here we have a trio of nascent demon lords. And also, as an extra treat, an especially disgusting Qlippoth Lord! These aren’t my only concepts for nascent lords, but if I put all of them in a single post then I won’t have any to post later!

As always, there’s significantly more lore for each of these horrors than I put in their little blurbs. Feel free to ask! If one or another gets enough attention, I might write a full article like I’ve done for bigger divinities.

TW for alcoholism mentions in the second entry, and body horror and major unsanitary themes in the final entry.

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Caerbannog, the Deceptive Death Chaotic Evil Nascent Demon Lord of Aggressive Mimicry and Camouflage

One of many wicked children of Lamashtu, Caerbannog has risen above his lesser kin and maintained a hold on a small but stable kingdom of labyrinthine tunnels which link into the realms of various other Abyssal powers, which he constantly steals from. Petitioners, territory, treasure, whatever he can claim for himself without risking immediate retaliation. While this audacious behavior would get any other creature slaughtered for their impudence, Caerbannog remains under the radar of beasts such as Jezelda, Angazhan, and Zevgavizeb by sticking to a simple but fairly effective gimmick: Appearing very, very small.

Able to hide his presence to a degree that even True Sight cannot pierce his disguises, Caerbannog masquerades as harmless animals, demon larvae, or lowly creatures such as quasits to creep unseen in the lairs of his betters, taking from them what he can as part of a strange ‘game’ he plays with himself. Patron of all manner of beasts and killers whose appearance belies unholy strength and hunger, Caerbannog is overjoyed when he is found by some guardian or predator which mistakes his taken form for his true one. Exploding forth from the body of a quasit, kitten, or--his favorite--a rabbit, he becomes a whirlwind of shredding teeth and claws that can quickly dismember beasts of any size, leaving him to frolic adorably amongst the gore until he grows bored and moves on.

Domains: Animal, Chaos, Evil, Trickery Subdomains: Fur, Demon, Whimsy, Deception Favored Weapon: Claws Symbol: The head of a herbivorous animal with bloodstains around the mouth. Sacred Animals: Rabbits and kill kittens Sacred Colors: White, brown, gray

Obedience: Attack a creature that saw you as harmless or friendly. Preferably this leads to the creature’s death. Benefit: Gain a +4 profane bonus to Disguise and Bluff checks.

Boon 1: Harmless Form Boon 2: Beast Shape II Boon 3: Veil

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Vodani, the Demon at the Bottom of the Bottle Chaotic Evil Nascent Demon Lord of Intoxication and Misdirected Anger

Among the most human-looking of any demon, Vodani’s sickly yellow eyes and shark-like teeth betray the truth of his heritage, forcing him to take pains to hide them when he walks among mankind. Appearing as an innocent vagrant, Vodani finds groups of beggars and paupers to infiltrate, gaining their trust and sympathy with gifts of alcohol and stories stolen from his past victims. Over time, he will learn everything he can about them and their lives, what decisions or foul luck brought them to this state, and it’s then he will begin to work to twist their innocent desires for a better life into hatred for foes real and imagined.

There are some who mistake Vodani for a benevolent figure, the Patron (or Prince) of Paupers, uniting the destitute and broken against everything that brought them low, but while his cultists may have their own ideas of revenge, Vodani himself cares little for any true justice; he whips his unwitting victims into mobs united against scapegoats and other innocents, and any long-term good he ends up doing is purely accidental. So long as something or someone is destroyed by the end of the resulting riot, he considers it a success, leaving the poor souls he deceived behind to drink themselves to death and rise again as his children to perpetuate the cycle of violence.

Domains: Chaos, Community, Evil, Trickery Subdomains: Revelry, Riot*, Demon, Espionage Favored Weapon: Improvised weapon Symbol: Two beaten flasks, tankards, or cups toasting. Sacred Animals: None Sacred Colors: Yellow, brown *Followers of Vodani can modify the Community Domain with the Riot Subdomain.

Obedience: Find one or several drunkards and spend one hour conversing with them, weaving in purposefully inflammatory statements against targets of ire, be it yours or theirs. Alternately, spend at least one hour drinking alcoholic drinks while ruminating on everyone that has ever wronged you. Many followers of Vodani perform either obedience by accident. Benefit: Three times per day as a standard action, you may cause a bottle of ale, wine, whiskey, beer, or other mundane, low-quality alcohol to appear in your hand. Each bottle contains enough for two servings. These bottles and their contents disappear after 24 hours, or if you fail to perform your Obedience, though having the drinks on-hand allows you to easily perform it.

Boon 1: Rotgut Boon 2: Malicious Spite Boon 3: Song of Discord

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Galroscul, the Hunger Sealed in Steel Nascent Demon Lord of Cannibalism and Gluttony

In his prime, Galroscul was a terrifying figure to behold. A towering horror in the shape of an anthropomorphic boar with the scales and tail of a dragon, six unblinking eyes on either side of his head, his tusks and claws as powerful as adamantine and his stomach as bottomless as the Abyss itself. He became a Demon Lord by literally eating his way there, legends claiming he consumed an entire Abyssal layer along with every demon and demigod within it to fuel his ascension, and if the stories are anything to go by, he wasn’t nearly close to finished. He had his eye on the throne of gods, hoping that if he drank the blood of Lamashtu, he would stand alongside her and, eventually, devour her as well.

He didn’t even get anywhere close to enacting his plan before he was ambushed by the forces of Zura, lord of cannibals, and Xoveron, lord of gluttons, who both saw his existence as a threat and formed a rare union against him. They drained and consumed what they could of him, leaving him pitifully weakened and, knowing that if they slew him he would simply return to life at full strength, set into motion a plan to humiliate and imprison him with the aid of greedy mortals. On a far-off world, Galroscul has been sealed inside of a great and terrible machine by a cabal of meat-mongers hoping to make their products fiendishly addictive. He rages and starves within this machine, processing countless carcasses but unable to truly eat a single bite, reduced in power to a Nascent Demon Lord and losing more of his sanity with every passing day.

Domains: Animal, Chaos, Destruction, Evil Subdomains: Fur, Demon, Rage, Cannibalism Favored Weapon: Bite Symbol: A boar skull trapped in a metallic diamond. Sacred Animals: Boars and goats Sacred Colors: Red and brown

Obedience: Begin eating a creature while it’s still alive. Alternately, consume a limb taken from a creature within the last 24 hours. Benefit: Gain a +4 profane bonus to your AC versus bite attacks and to your CMD against grapple attempts.

Boon 1: Enemy’s Heart Boon 2: Hunger for Flesh Boon 3: Extended Hungry Pit

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Lormlecht, the Dung-Eater Qlippoth Lord of Filth and Sepsis

There are creatures considered disgusting, vomit-inducing, or putrid, and then there is Lormlecht, whose nauseating habits put all others to shame. Once nothing but a harmless scavenger scarcely as large as a finger, the Dung-Eater has gone from vermin to hazard to a lethal danger the size of a sea serpent as it has slithered through the sewers and muck of the Abyss, feasting merrily on the leavings of these twisted civilizations and dragging unwary victims into cesspits to ferment to perfection. Many attempts to destroy the filth-eating abomination have been made by mortal and immortal alike, but on the rare occasions these attempts succeed, they’re tragically short-lived as Lormlecht reforms within the bowels of a living creature infected with Filth Fever.

Lormlecht possesses a unique relationship with the wasting disease, able to cause embryonic qlippoth (especially Chernobue) to form within the bodies of any creature infected with even a mild strain. Any minor contact with its form is capable of causing a full-blown infection, to say nothing of the horrifying fate that befalls anyone who suffers even a glancing blow from its alarmingly equine, filth-slicked teeth; such victims are infested not only with a nearly incurable variant of Filth Fever, but a menagerie of other diseases which resist magical cures and can cause an agonizing, septic death within hours. It’s quite telling that even demons consider being bitten by the Dung-Eater a gruesome and miserable fate.

Domains: Chaos, Death, Evil, Water Subdomains: Caves*, Plague, Corruption, Flotsam Favored Weapon: Club Symbol: A piece of rotted offal impaled on a stick Sacred Animals: Rats and otyughs Sacred Colors: Brown *Followers of Lormlecht can modify the Chaos or Evil Domains with the Caves Subdomain.

Obedience: Spend no more than an hour contaminating an area you expect other creatures to pass through with filth and waste. Benefit: Your body harbors Filth Fever, which does not harm or inconvenience so long as you’ve performed your Obedience within the last 7 days. Any creature which ingests your blood is exposed to the disease (DC 13 negates, as normal).

Boon 1: Mud Buddy Boon 2: Tenacious Stinking Cloud Boon 3: Plague Storm

#original concepts

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