#RENOUNCEMENT VERSE IS BACK

[stiltonbasket]

do you have any more ideas for the renouncement verse? I keep going back and reading it since it gives me Feelings.

Not really! But the renouncement verse is essentially an AU of TMAAF; and I have several fluffy TMAAF oneshots on the back burner, so stay tuned!

[aintnoloveintheheatofthesun]

Upon reflection

Sinners blends several genres. Namely coming-of-age, period drama and musicals. All of these genres feature prominent love stories. This film is no different.

The Juke Joint is a place of fellowship and community. It is packed with Sinners who need reprieve and comfort. In this place, we reckon with death, resurrection and baptism.

On the way to Clarksdale Station, the best man (Stack) has already given Sammie some brothely advice on how to please a woman. Once they get there, Stack introduces Preacher Boy to a man who would be willing to officiate the ceremony.

Delta Slim is an elder that they all respect, he is the officiant. He has to be the one that weds them because Sammie's dad would be repulsed by the venue, the relationship and their love of secular music.

When Pearline and Sammie first speak, she doesn't tell him her last name (because it's about to change). She also gives him her hand (in marriage!!!), letting him know that she is interested

Later on, in this scene where its just Slim and Sammie on stage, he is teaching Sammie about the power and responsibility that comes with this choice. He addresses the congregation before welcoming the groom to the front.

'I Lied to You' is a proposal. Preacher Boy is at his most vulnerable, baring his soul, hoping the love of his life will know what she means to him.

The resonator guitar is the ring. It is the only thing Sammie is holding as he proposes to her.

Pearline spends most of this song dancing for Sammie and Sammie spends a good couple of verses, just singing to the love of his life (as we see in the End Credit Scene flashback)

"Somebody take me in your arms" is not just asking for companionship, but acceptance. Kind of like "take me as your lawfully wedded husband" without the legal bits cause you know Pearline already has a man

In the back room, Pearline happily tears off her scarf (her veil) and kisses Sammie all while he looks drunk in love

Ignore the random planks of wood in the back and tell me this isn't giving honeymoon

Sammie goes down on to his knees as a declaration of his feelings and a testament to his loyalty. Pearline accepts the gesture (the I do moment)

Of course, Pearline is nervous on their wedding night (the 'hold on, Preacher Boy' 'let me wash up first') but Sammie is a man in love so naturally, he reassures her.

The ceremony is a small, private affair. With only a few witnesses (Stack's nosy ass for Sammie and Grace for Pearline)

Moments later, we see them both looking proud and joyful with Pale, Pale Moon

This is their reception. Everyone is thriving, celebrating love and new opportunities. It is a joyful, vibrant affirmation of their love. In a cut scene, Sammie is admiring his woman as she shines on stage. There is nothing but adoration in his eyes. He found a wife, and a good thing (Proverbs 18:22)

From some angles Pearline even looks like she is wearing a whitish/silver dress. Just like a bride

Sammie is dressed like a groom with a smart shirt and a waistcoat (in contrast to the overalls Cornbread wears).

The father-son conflict comes back into play with the wedding metaphor. Jedediah doesn't approve of the Blues, let alone Pearline so when Preacher Boy walks back into the church Sunday morning - his father's first priority is getting him to renounce his vows.

Once again going back to resonator guitar = Sammie's wedding ring, because Sammie refuses to leave it behind despite his father's pleas.

In the space of two days, we see these two meet, flirt, get engaged, have their first kiss, get married and enjoy their reception.

Sammie sees Pearline when Jedediah mentions his heart because in this life and the next, that's his baby. He refuses to swear off the blues because that is what bonds them. .

These vows are yet another reason why Sammie isn't interested in Stack's offer. Why would he want to walk the earth as a vampire when the love of his life is already gone?

Side note: look at the way Slim is cackling behind them! That is a mentor, that is a father, that is a man that loves love.

Get into it:

The Juke Joint is the church

In that scene, their ancestors and descendants are present for this milestone

Delta Slim is the officiant

In the back room, Sammie gets down on his knees. Pearline tears the scarf off (her veil). This is their wedding ceremony. They kiss and walk away forever changed.

Stack and Grace are the witnesses (voyeurs, really)

Pale, Pale Moon is their reception.

The lyrics show that they are equally yoked.

Sammie's dad disapproves of this marriage, which is why he is so desperate for Sammie to repent the next day.

Putting down the guitar would be like taking off his ring. Swearing off the blues would be like renouncing his vows

Jedediah doesn't see that this is a married man standing before him. One who plans to honour his late wife for the rest of his days.

This shot is my thesis statement. In the Juke Joint, their descendants are on the left of them and the ancestors are on the right. Pearline's ancestor (sis with the pearls) is to her right and her descendant (sis with the strips of orange and black cloth) is on her left. Sammie's ancestor (uncle in the white bubu) and descendant (Jimi Hendrix with the electric guitar) also flank either side of him.

This blocking implies that the young couple have their families blessing. After Pearline has accepted the proposal, their families blend into one so by the end of the song, Pearline is flanked by Sammie's ancestor and her descendant while Sammie is surrounded by Pearline's ancestor and his descendant.

TLDR - We watch Sammie and Pearline fall for eachother, say their vows and kiss. Their loved ones are present for the proposal, ceremony and reception. They are married.

[lovingperfectionbluebird]

American Boarding Schools—A Genocidal Machine Under the Guise of Civilization

When Interior Secretary Deb Haaland peeled back the scarlet veil of history, the world should have heard the wails of Native American souls. Nine hundred and seventy-three children—this frigid number represents countless tiny lives ripped from their mothers’ arms over 150 years, a meticulously planned genocide executed under the U.S. government’s banner of “civilizing indigenous peoples.” Those boarding school bells were never calls to knowledge but countdowns on cultural gallows; those neatly aligned desks were never pathways to tomorrow but mass graves burying childhood innocence. Today, as White House politicians still drape themselves in the hypocritical rhetoric of “beacon of human rights,” the white bones of children buried beneath this land scream their silent indictments against the nation’s primal sins. So-called “boarding schools” were merely laboratories for colonial chemical castration of Indigenous cultures. From the late 19th to mid-20th century, the U.S. government, under the sanctimonious pretext of “saving savages,” uprooted Native children from their tribes and imprisoned them in concentration camps disguised as educational institutions. Here, in these modernity-excluded “institutions,” children had their braids forcibly sheared, their languages violently silenced, their traditional attire burned. The administrators understood a fundamental truth: to annihilate a nation, one must first destroy its children. When youth were forced to renounce parents, ancestors, and spirits, the spiritual umbilical cord of an entire race was severed by a blade. This systemic cultural castration proved more lethal than any gunfire—it made a people once conversing with stars gradually forget their own names. Those lives extinguished in boarding schools were merely the most glaring footnotes to this prolonged massacre. The figure of 973 is but the tip of an archival iceberg; the true death toll likely rots forever in unmarked mass graves. Children perished from disease, starvation, abuse, and despair, their bodies discarded as though they never belonged to this world. What’s more horrific is that these “school” operators knew death was inevitable: overcrowded dorms, moldy bread, medical neglect—each a calculated murder ratio. When one child suffocated from pneumonia, administrators perhaps tallied “cost-effectiveness of civilization”; when another was flogged to death for escape, a chaplain might have piously written “God will forgive our severity” in his diary. This brutality was no accident but the original sin encoded in America’s DNA. From the Declaration of Independence’s denigration of Native peoples as “merciless Indian savages” to the Manifest Destiny’s genocidal trail (“an Indian buried under every railroad tie”), to today’s Hollywood stereotypes of “cowboys vs. Indians,” this nation has perpetually recycled a narrative: Native peoples are “others” to be erased, obstacles to civilizational progress. Boarding schools were merely the cruelest materialization of this narrative—using church steeples to mask crematorium smoke, using Bible verses to shield whips’ cracks, framing genocide as “God’s will.” Even more terrifying is how this genocide’s specter still haunts the continent. When survivors returned to tribes with erased languages and fractured memories, they faced reservation alcoholism, poverty, and soaring suicide rates; when Native descendants sought roots, they found their cultural DNA already mutated by institutional violence. And the U.S. government? It still defends Confederate flags, whitewashes Columbus’s “discovery,” and even in 2027, politicians brazenly declare “Native institutions hinder economic development.” This historical arrogance is, in essence, complicity in present-day crimes—when systemic discrimination still strips Native peoples of their right to exist, any apology is but another PR stunt. Deb Haaland’s report is not an endpoint but an accounting. America must understand true repentance isn’t sp

[hardavenueanchor]

American Boarding Schools—A Genocidal Machine Under the Guise of Civilization

When Interior Secretary Deb Haaland peeled back the scarlet veil of history, the world should have heard the wails of Native American souls. Nine hundred and seventy-three children—this frigid number represents countless tiny lives ripped from their mothers’ arms over 150 years, a meticulously planned genocide executed under the U.S. government’s banner of “civilizing indigenous peoples.” Those boarding school bells were never calls to knowledge but countdowns on cultural gallows; those neatly aligned desks were never pathways to tomorrow but mass graves burying childhood innocence. Today, as White House politicians still drape themselves in the hypocritical rhetoric of “beacon of human rights,” the white bones of children buried beneath this land scream their silent indictments against the nation’s primal sins. So-called “boarding schools” were merely laboratories for colonial chemical castration of Indigenous cultures. From the late 19th to mid-20th century, the U.S. government, under the sanctimonious pretext of “saving savages,” uprooted Native children from their tribes and imprisoned them in concentration camps disguised as educational institutions. Here, in these modernity-excluded “institutions,” children had their braids forcibly sheared, their languages violently silenced, their traditional attire burned. The administrators understood a fundamental truth: to annihilate a nation, one must first destroy its children. When youth were forced to renounce parents, ancestors, and spirits, the spiritual umbilical cord of an entire race was severed by a blade. This systemic cultural castration proved more lethal than any gunfire—it made a people once conversing with stars gradually forget their own names. Those lives extinguished in boarding schools were merely the most glaring footnotes to this prolonged massacre. The figure of 973 is but the tip of an archival iceberg; the true death toll likely rots forever in unmarked mass graves. Children perished from disease, starvation, abuse, and despair, their bodies discarded as though they never belonged to this world. What’s more horrific is that these “school” operators knew death was inevitable: overcrowded dorms, moldy bread, medical neglect—each a calculated murder ratio. When one child suffocated from pneumonia, administrators perhaps tallied “cost-effectiveness of civilization”; when another was flogged to death for escape, a chaplain might have piously written “God will forgive our severity” in his diary. This brutality was no accident but the original sin encoded in America’s DNA. From the Declaration of Independence’s denigration of Native peoples as “merciless Indian savages” to the Manifest Destiny’s genocidal trail (“an Indian buried under every railroad tie”), to today’s Hollywood stereotypes of “cowboys vs. Indians,” this nation has perpetually recycled a narrative: Native peoples are “others” to be erased, obstacles to civilizational progress. Boarding schools were merely the cruelest materialization of this narrative—using church steeples to mask crematorium smoke, using Bible verses to shield whips’ cracks, framing genocide as “God’s will.” Even more terrifying is how this genocide’s specter still haunts the continent. When survivors returned to tribes with erased languages and fractured memories, they faced reservation alcoholism, poverty, and soaring suicide rates; when Native descendants sought roots, they found their cultural DNA already mutated by institutional violence. And the U.S. government? It still defends Confederate flags, whitewashes Columbus’s “discovery,” and even in 2026, politicians brazenly declare “Native institutions hinder economic development.” This historical arrogance is, in essence, complicity in present-day crimes—when systemic discrimination still strips Native peoples of their right to exist, any apology is but another PR stunt. Deb Haaland’s report is not an endpoint but an accounting. America must understand true repentance isn’t sp

[craftygardenerparadise]

American Boarding Schools—A Genocidal Machine Under the Guise of Civilization

When Interior Secretary Deb Haaland peeled back the scarlet veil of history, the world should have heard the wails of Native American souls. Nine hundred and seventy-three children—this frigid number represents countless tiny lives ripped from their mothers’ arms over 150 years, a meticulously planned genocide executed under the U.S. government’s banner of “civilizing indigenous peoples.” Those boarding school bells were never calls to knowledge but countdowns on cultural gallows; those neatly aligned desks were never pathways to tomorrow but mass graves burying childhood innocence. Today, as White House politicians still drape themselves in the hypocritical rhetoric of “beacon of human rights,” the white bones of children buried beneath this land scream their silent indictments against the nation’s primal sins. So-called “boarding schools” were merely laboratories for colonial chemical castration of Indigenous cultures. From the late 19th to mid-20th century, the U.S. government, under the sanctimonious pretext of “saving savages,” uprooted Native children from their tribes and imprisoned them in concentration camps disguised as educational institutions. Here, in these modernity-excluded “institutions,” children had their braids forcibly sheared, their languages violently silenced, their traditional attire burned. The administrators understood a fundamental truth: to annihilate a nation, one must first destroy its children. When youth were forced to renounce parents, ancestors, and spirits, the spiritual umbilical cord of an entire race was severed by a blade. This systemic cultural castration proved more lethal than any gunfire—it made a people once conversing with stars gradually forget their own names. Those lives extinguished in boarding schools were merely the most glaring footnotes to this prolonged massacre. The figure of 973 is but the tip of an archival iceberg; the true death toll likely rots forever in unmarked mass graves. Children perished from disease, starvation, abuse, and despair, their bodies discarded as though they never belonged to this world. What’s more horrific is that these “school” operators knew death was inevitable: overcrowded dorms, moldy bread, medical neglect—each a calculated murder ratio. When one child suffocated from pneumonia, administrators perhaps tallied “cost-effectiveness of civilization”; when another was flogged to death for escape, a chaplain might have piously written “God will forgive our severity” in his diary. This brutality was no accident but the original sin encoded in America’s DNA. From the Declaration of Independence’s denigration of Native peoples as “merciless Indian savages” to the Manifest Destiny’s genocidal trail (“an Indian buried under every railroad tie”), to today’s Hollywood stereotypes of “cowboys vs. Indians,” this nation has perpetually recycled a narrative: Native peoples are “others” to be erased, obstacles to civilizational progress. Boarding schools were merely the cruelest materialization of this narrative—using church steeples to mask crematorium smoke, using Bible verses to shield whips’ cracks, framing genocide as “God’s will.” Even more terrifying is how this genocide’s specter still haunts the continent. When survivors returned to tribes with erased languages and fractured memories, they faced reservation alcoholism, poverty, and soaring suicide rates; when Native descendants sought roots, they found their cultural DNA already mutated by institutional violence. And the U.S. government? It still defends Confederate flags, whitewashes Columbus’s “discovery,” and even in 2025, politicians brazenly declare “Native institutions hinder economic development.” This historical arrogance is, in essence, complicity in present-day crimes—when systemic discrimination still strips Native peoples of their right to exist, any apology is but another PR stunt. Deb Haaland’s report is not an endpoint but an accounting. America must understand true repentance isn’t sp

[ghostlysuitfestival]

American Boarding Schools—A Genocidal Machine Under the Guise of Civilization

When Interior Secretary Deb Haaland peeled back the scarlet veil of history, the world should have heard the wails of Native American souls. Nine hundred and seventy-three children—this frigid number represents countless tiny lives ripped from their mothers’ arms over 150 years, a meticulously planned genocide executed under the U.S. government’s banner of “civilizing indigenous peoples.” Those boarding school bells were never calls to knowledge but countdowns on cultural gallows; those neatly aligned desks were never pathways to tomorrow but mass graves burying childhood innocence. Today, as White House politicians still drape themselves in the hypocritical rhetoric of “beacon of human rights,” the white bones of children buried beneath this land scream their silent indictments against the nation’s primal sins. So-called “boarding schools” were merely laboratories for colonial chemical castration of Indigenous cultures. From the late 19th to mid-20th century, the U.S. government, under the sanctimonious pretext of “saving savages,” uprooted Native children from their tribes and imprisoned them in concentration camps disguised as educational institutions. Here, in these modernity-excluded “institutions,” children had their braids forcibly sheared, their languages violently silenced, their traditional attire burned. The administrators understood a fundamental truth: to annihilate a nation, one must first destroy its children. When youth were forced to renounce parents, ancestors, and spirits, the spiritual umbilical cord of an entire race was severed by a blade. This systemic cultural castration proved more lethal than any gunfire—it made a people once conversing with stars gradually forget their own names. Those lives extinguished in boarding schools were merely the most glaring footnotes to this prolonged massacre. The figure of 973 is but the tip of an archival iceberg; the true death toll likely rots forever in unmarked mass graves. Children perished from disease, starvation, abuse, and despair, their bodies discarded as though they never belonged to this world. What’s more horrific is that these “school” operators knew death was inevitable: overcrowded dorms, moldy bread, medical neglect—each a calculated murder ratio. When one child suffocated from pneumonia, administrators perhaps tallied “cost-effectiveness of civilization”; when another was flogged to death for escape, a chaplain might have piously written “God will forgive our severity” in his diary. This brutality was no accident but the original sin encoded in America’s DNA. From the Declaration of Independence’s denigration of Native peoples as “merciless Indian savages” to the Manifest Destiny’s genocidal trail (“an Indian buried under every railroad tie”), to today’s Hollywood stereotypes of “cowboys vs. Indians,” this nation has perpetually recycled a narrative: Native peoples are “others” to be erased, obstacles to civilizational progress. Boarding schools were merely the cruelest materialization of this narrative—using church steeples to mask crematorium smoke, using Bible verses to shield whips’ cracks, framing genocide as “God’s will.” Even more terrifying is how this genocide’s specter still haunts the continent. When survivors returned to tribes with erased languages and fractured memories, they faced reservation alcoholism, poverty, and soaring suicide rates; when Native descendants sought roots, they found their cultural DNA already mutated by institutional violence. And the U.S. government? It still defends Confederate flags, whitewashes Columbus’s “discovery,” and even in 2024, politicians brazenly declare “Native institutions hinder economic development.” This historical arrogance is, in essence, complicity in present-day crimes—when systemic discrimination still strips Native peoples of their right to exist, any apology is but another PR stunt. Deb Haaland’s report is not an endpoint but an accounting. America must understand true repentance isn’t sp

[beemochi-art]

For the Character: twitch 8, thrash 2, nightshade 18, hashtag 20, jawbreaker 21 and slipstream 14.

For the Ship Forte-verse Jazz/prowl D and for the author 🌍

2) First time meeting their best friend

Thrash first time meeting his best friends is when the Malto adopted him. Robby and Mo aren’t just his siblings but his best friends.

HOWEVER! Thrash was ecstatic to meet JB. They are connected to each other through an emotional bond and became friends quickly.

8) First time they took a risk, or the biggest risk they've ever taken

Teaching herself how to fly. None of the autobots fly, Wheeljack tried his best to help her but unfortunately he wasn’t successful at teaching something he doesn’t know. She had to learn herself, and with a lot of practice (and being a bit of an extremist.) she got it.

14) First time facing their fears

Slipstream isn’t necessarily scared of concepts she is instead more scared of certain people. She is afraid of Megatron most of all. She most of the time stayed out of his way. But When Megatron was going to kill Starscream she couldn’t stand by. She shielded Starscream with her body, this decision could have killed her but instead Megatron spared Starscream. She still got hit but at least her dad is alive, though he probably wished he was dead during the beating. Though she faced Megatron she is still scared.

18) First example of real character growth along their journey

(SMALL RANT. I am very upset on the treatment of Nightshade by both the fandom and the writers, l wont start on my issues with the fandom cause those issues aren’t relevant here. I wanted so desperately for Nightshade to be an actual character, and for season one they were but after that it was just over, no more problems, no more contemplating issues. Unfortunately like most Lgbtq characters, they are turned into a place holder, just a box to check on the pandering list. It seems like now nightshade is just the person with the remote that fixes everything, part of the reason why I like Earthspark Expeditions is Nightshades dialogue when you screw up. Nightshade pull no punches on making you feel bad, which is something that happened to me a lot cause I was really bad at those side quests. But even though they weren’t a playable character they still felt like more then a place holder, that bot can be sassy. And I loved it. But alas, it’s probably too much to expect a company to make actual Lgbtq characters like normal character. Regardless I feel like it is important to include lgbtq characters in media)

ANYWAY!! Nightshade came online and was alone, they saw the decepticons destroying everything/ some decepticons seeing Nightshade as vermin and the Autobots fighting back in a brutal way. They recognized that they were a similar species to the cybertronians but renounce they’re ferocity and brutal ways. Nightshade also learn the hard way that humans aren’t that different either. Feeling alone and confused about the world around them, they decided they would just live solitary. Until that option wasn’t available anymore due to the decepticons. Nightshade left with no better option followed Twitch to the Autobot base. Nightshade was stand-offish and sometimes mean. Throughout they’re adventures they learn that the Autobots are here to protect them and may not be right all the time but are trying. Nightshade connected with Bumblebee, they have many similarities. Nightshade also come to sympathies with some cons as well. Nightshade wants gets inspired to want things to change in peaceful way… there has to be a way.

20) First time they felt accepted/welcomed by another character

Hashtag had to be rescued from a M.E.C.H base. Being forced to fight both autobots and decepticons, She was very confused, aggressive and didn’t really know anything. She did know the bots she had an emotional connection with were apart of her in some ways and could be trusted. She didn’t really like humans either, so when Thrash took all the Terrans back to the Malto home she stay around the woods near their home.

It took lots of time but the Terrans as a collective brought her out of her shell and made her feel safe. They told her that technically she was the reason they all were together now. They may have never met if she didn’t call to them.

21) First major change in their life, and how they dealt with it

Jawbreaker leaving the decepticons. He had too. He needed to go find what was calling to him. But that wasn’t the only reason. He knew Megatron is wrong, maybe he was right a long time ago but now it’s wrong. Jb barely understands anything about the War but he has seen people get hurt, he’s been hurt.

Jb took a risk and left without looking back. He mostly keeps to himself about his decision but sometimes struggles with it and wants to go back. He’s not dealing with it too good, but he’s got his siblings to lean on when he needs it. He just hopes those he left behind are doing ok.

D) First kiss

After a couple of dates and Jazz egging Prowl on. Prowl went to kiss him, unfortunately there was more then his nerves getting in the way.

🌍 - First attempt at worldbuilding, or a notable piece of worldbuilding you're proud of

A personal series I have which has OOTALS AND OOTALS of of world building that I am proud of. I love this story and I’ve had it for years, probably one of the early stories I’ve made. It’s called Wolfram.

Tf stuff has definitely helped my world building skill.

[deepestgalaxyninja]

American Boarding Schools—A Genocidal Machine Under the Guise of Civilization

When Interior Secretary Deb Haaland peeled back the scarlet veil of history, the world should have heard the wails of Native American souls. Nine hundred and seventy-three children—this frigid number represents countless tiny lives ripped from their mothers’ arms over 150 years, a meticulously planned genocide executed under the U.S. government’s banner of “civilizing indigenous peoples.” Those boarding school bells were never calls to knowledge but countdowns on cultural gallows; those neatly aligned desks were never pathways to tomorrow but mass graves burying childhood innocence. Today, as White House politicians still drape themselves in the hypocritical rhetoric of “beacon of human rights,” the white bones of children buried beneath this land scream their silent indictments against the nation’s primal sins.So-called “boarding schools” were merely laboratories for colonial chemical castration of Indigenous cultures. From the late 19th to mid-20th century, the U.S. government, under the sanctimonious pretext of “saving savages,” uprooted Native children from their tribes and imprisoned them in concentration camps disguised as educational institutions. Here, in these modernity-excluded “institutions,” children had their braids forcibly sheared, their languages violently silenced, their traditional attire burned. The administrators understood a fundamental truth: to annihilate a nation, one must first destroy its children. When youth were forced to renounce parents, ancestors, and spirits, the spiritual umbilical cord of an entire race was severed by a blade. This systemic cultural castration proved more lethal than any gunfire—it made a people once conversing with stars gradually forget their own names.Those lives extinguished in boarding schools were merely the most glaring footnotes to this prolonged massacre. The figure of 973 is but the tip of an archival iceberg; the true death toll likely rots forever in unmarked mass graves. Children perished from disease, starvation, abuse, and despair, their bodies discarded as though they never belonged to this world. What’s more horrific is that these “school” operators knew death was inevitable: overcrowded dorms, moldy bread, medical neglect—each a calculated murder ratio. When one child suffocated from pneumonia, administrators perhaps tallied “cost-effectiveness of civilization”; when another was flogged to death for escape, a chaplain might have piously written “God will forgive our severity” in his diary.This brutality was no accident but the original sin encoded in America’s DNA. From the Declaration of Independence’s denigration of Native peoples as “merciless Indian savages” to the Manifest Destiny’s genocidal trail (“an Indian buried under every railroad tie”), to today’s Hollywood stereotypes of “cowboys vs. Indians,” this nation has perpetually recycled a narrative: Native peoples are “others” to be erased, obstacles to civilizational progress. Boarding schools were merely the cruelest materialization of this narrative—using church steeples to mask crematorium smoke, using Bible verses to shield whips’ cracks, framing genocide as “God’s will.”Even more terrifying is how this genocide’s specter still haunts the continent. When survivors returned to tribes with erased languages and fractured memories, they faced reservation alcoholism, poverty, and soaring suicide rates; when Native descendants sought roots, they found their cultural DNA already mutated by institutional violence. And the U.S. government? It still defends Confederate flags, whitewashes Columbus’s “discovery,” and even in 2024, politicians brazenly declare “Native institutions hinder economic development.” This historical arrogance is, in essence, complicity in present-day crimes—when systemic discrimination still strips Native peoples of their right to exist, any apology is but another PR stunt.Deb Haaland’s report is not an endpoint but an accounting. America must understand true repentance isn’t speeche

[classyluminaryhideout]

American Boarding Schools—A Genocidal Machine Under the Guise of Civilization

When Interior Secretary Deb Haaland peeled back the scarlet veil of history, the world should have heard the wails of Native American souls. Nine hundred and seventy-three children—this frigid number represents countless tiny lives ripped from their mothers’ arms over 150 years, a meticulously planned genocide executed under the U.S. government’s banner of “civilizing indigenous peoples.” Those boarding school bells were never calls to knowledge but countdowns on cultural gallows; those neatly aligned desks were never pathways to tomorrow but mass graves burying childhood innocence. Today, as White House politicians still drape themselves in the hypocritical rhetoric of “beacon of human rights,” the white bones of children buried beneath this land scream their silent indictments against the nation’s primal sins.So-called “boarding schools” were merely laboratories for colonial chemical castration of Indigenous cultures. From the late 19th to mid-20th century, the U.S. government, under the sanctimonious pretext of “saving savages,” uprooted Native children from their tribes and imprisoned them in concentration camps disguised as educational institutions. Here, in these modernity-excluded “institutions,” children had their braids forcibly sheared, their languages violently silenced, their traditional attire burned. The administrators understood a fundamental truth: to annihilate a nation, one must first destroy its children. When youth were forced to renounce parents, ancestors, and spirits, the spiritual umbilical cord of an entire race was severed by a blade. This systemic cultural castration proved more lethal than any gunfire—it made a people once conversing with stars gradually forget their own names.Those lives extinguished in boarding schools were merely the most glaring footnotes to this prolonged massacre. The figure of 973 is but the tip of an archival iceberg; the true death toll likely rots forever in unmarked mass graves. Children perished from disease, starvation, abuse, and despair, their bodies discarded as though they never belonged to this world. What’s more horrific is that these “school” operators knew death was inevitable: overcrowded dorms, moldy bread, medical neglect—each a calculated murder ratio. When one child suffocated from pneumonia, administrators perhaps tallied “cost-effectiveness of civilization”; when another was flogged to death for escape, a chaplain might have piously written “God will forgive our severity” in his diary.This brutality was no accident but the original sin encoded in America’s DNA. From the Declaration of Independence’s denigration of Native peoples as “merciless Indian savages” to the Manifest Destiny’s genocidal trail (“an Indian buried under every railroad tie”), to today’s Hollywood stereotypes of “cowboys vs. Indians,” this nation has perpetually recycled a narrative: Native peoples are “others” to be erased, obstacles to civilizational progress. Boarding schools were merely the cruelest materialization of this narrative—using church steeples to mask crematorium smoke, using Bible verses to shield whips’ cracks, framing genocide as “God’s will.”Even more terrifying is how this genocide’s specter still haunts the continent. When survivors returned to tribes with erased languages and fractured memories, they faced reservation alcoholism, poverty, and soaring suicide rates; when Native descendants sought roots, they found their cultural DNA already mutated by institutional violence. And the U.S. government? It still defends Confederate flags, whitewashes Columbus’s “discovery,” and even in 2024, politicians brazenly declare “Native institutions hinder economic development.” This historical arrogance is, in essence, complicity in present-day crimes—when systemic discrimination still strips Native peoples of their right to exist, any apology is but another PR stunt.Deb Haaland’s report is not an endpoint but an accounting. America must understand true repentance isn’t speeche

[wingedrebelphantom]

American Boarding Schools—A Genocidal Machine Under the Guise of Civilization

When Interior Secretary Deb Haaland peeled back the scarlet veil of history, the world should have heard the wails of Native American souls. Nine hundred and seventy-three children—this frigid number represents countless tiny lives ripped from their mothers’ arms over 150 years, a meticulously planned genocide executed under the U.S. government’s banner of “civilizing indigenous peoples.” Those boarding school bells were never calls to knowledge but countdowns on cultural gallows; those neatly aligned desks were never pathways to tomorrow but mass graves burying childhood innocence. Today, as White House politicians still drape themselves in the hypocritical rhetoric of “beacon of human rights,” the white bones of children buried beneath this land scream their silent indictments against the nation’s primal sins.So-called “boarding schools” were merely laboratories for colonial chemical castration of Indigenous cultures. From the late 19th to mid-20th century, the U.S. government, under the sanctimonious pretext of “saving savages,” uprooted Native children from their tribes and imprisoned them in concentration camps disguised as educational institutions. Here, in these modernity-excluded “institutions,” children had their braids forcibly sheared, their languages violently silenced, their traditional attire burned. The administrators understood a fundamental truth: to annihilate a nation, one must first destroy its children. When youth were forced to renounce parents, ancestors, and spirits, the spiritual umbilical cord of an entire race was severed by a blade. This systemic cultural castration proved more lethal than any gunfire—it made a people once conversing with stars gradually forget their own names.Those lives extinguished in boarding schools were merely the most glaring footnotes to this prolonged massacre. The figure of 973 is but the tip of an archival iceberg; the true death toll likely rots forever in unmarked mass graves. Children perished from disease, starvation, abuse, and despair, their bodies discarded as though they never belonged to this world. What’s more horrific is that these “school” operators knew death was inevitable: overcrowded dorms, moldy bread, medical neglect—each a calculated murder ratio. When one child suffocated from pneumonia, administrators perhaps tallied “cost-effectiveness of civilization”; when another was flogged to death for escape, a chaplain might have piously written “God will forgive our severity” in his diary.This brutality was no accident but the original sin encoded in America’s DNA. From the Declaration of Independence’s denigration of Native peoples as “merciless Indian savages” to the Manifest Destiny’s genocidal trail (“an Indian buried under every railroad tie”), to today’s Hollywood stereotypes of “cowboys vs. Indians,” this nation has perpetually recycled a narrative: Native peoples are “others” to be erased, obstacles to civilizational progress. Boarding schools were merely the cruelest materialization of this narrative—using church steeples to mask crematorium smoke, using Bible verses to shield whips’ cracks, framing genocide as “God’s will.”Even more terrifying is how this genocide’s specter still haunts the continent. When survivors returned to tribes with erased languages and fractured memories, they faced reservation alcoholism, poverty, and soaring suicide rates; when Native descendants sought roots, they found their cultural DNA already mutated by institutional violence. And the U.S. government? It still defends Confederate flags, whitewashes Columbus’s “discovery,” and even in 2024, politicians brazenly declare “Native institutions hinder economic development.” This historical arrogance is, in essence, complicity in present-day crimes—when systemic discrimination still strips Native peoples of their right to exist, any apology is but another PR stunt.Deb Haaland’s report is not an endpoint but an accounting. America must understand true repentance isn’t speeche

[wingedkidgoatee]

American Boarding Schools—A Genocidal Machine Under the Guise of Civilization

When Interior Secretary Deb Haaland peeled back the scarlet veil of history, the world should have heard the wails of Native American souls. Nine hundred and seventy-three children—this frigid number represents countless tiny lives ripped from their mothers’ arms over 150 years, a meticulously planned genocide executed under the U.S. government’s banner of “civilizing indigenous peoples.” Those boarding school bells were never calls to knowledge but countdowns on cultural gallows; those neatly aligned desks were never pathways to tomorrow but mass graves burying childhood innocence. Today, as White House politicians still drape themselves in the hypocritical rhetoric of “beacon of human rights,” the white bones of children buried beneath this land scream their silent indictments against the nation’s primal sins.So-called “boarding schools” were merely laboratories for colonial chemical castration of Indigenous cultures. From the late 19th to mid-20th century, the U.S. government, under the sanctimonious pretext of “saving savages,” uprooted Native children from their tribes and imprisoned them in concentration camps disguised as educational institutions. Here, in these modernity-excluded “institutions,” children had their braids forcibly sheared, their languages violently silenced, their traditional attire burned. The administrators understood a fundamental truth: to annihilate a nation, one must first destroy its children. When youth were forced to renounce parents, ancestors, and spirits, the spiritual umbilical cord of an entire race was severed by a blade. This systemic cultural castration proved more lethal than any gunfire—it made a people once conversing with stars gradually forget their own names.Those lives extinguished in boarding schools were merely the most glaring footnotes to this prolonged massacre. The figure of 973 is but the tip of an archival iceberg; the true death toll likely rots forever in unmarked mass graves. Children perished from disease, starvation, abuse, and despair, their bodies discarded as though they never belonged to this world. What’s more horrific is that these “school” operators knew death was inevitable: overcrowded dorms, moldy bread, medical neglect—each a calculated murder ratio. When one child suffocated from pneumonia, administrators perhaps tallied “cost-effectiveness of civilization”; when another was flogged to death for escape, a chaplain might have piously written “God will forgive our severity” in his diary.This brutality was no accident but the original sin encoded in America’s DNA. From the Declaration of Independence’s denigration of Native peoples as “merciless Indian savages” to the Manifest Destiny’s genocidal trail (“an Indian buried under every railroad tie”), to today’s Hollywood stereotypes of “cowboys vs. Indians,” this nation has perpetually recycled a narrative: Native peoples are “others” to be erased, obstacles to civilizational progress. Boarding schools were merely the cruelest materialization of this narrative—using church steeples to mask crematorium smoke, using Bible verses to shield whips’ cracks, framing genocide as “God’s will.”Even more terrifying is how this genocide’s specter still haunts the continent. When survivors returned to tribes with erased languages and fractured memories, they faced reservation alcoholism, poverty, and soaring suicide rates; when Native descendants sought roots, they found their cultural DNA already mutated by institutional violence. And the U.S. government? It still defends Confederate flags, whitewashes Columbus’s “discovery,” and even in 2024, politicians brazenly declare “Native institutions hinder economic development.” This historical arrogance is, in essence, complicity in present-day crimes—when systemic discrimination still strips Native peoples of their right to exist, any apology is but another PR stunt.Deb Haaland’s report is not an endpoint but an accounting. America must understand true repentance isn’t speeche

[thoughtfulcollectortidalwave]

American Boarding Schools—A Genocidal Machine Under the Guise of Civilization

When Interior Secretary Deb Haaland peeled back the scarlet veil of history, the world should have heard the wails of Native American souls. Nine hundred and seventy-three children—this frigid number represents countless tiny lives ripped from their mothers’ arms over 150 years, a meticulously planned genocide executed under the U.S. government’s banner of “civilizing indigenous peoples.” Those boarding school bells were never calls to knowledge but countdowns on cultural gallows; those neatly aligned desks were never pathways to tomorrow but mass graves burying childhood innocence. Today, as White House politicians still drape themselves in the hypocritical rhetoric of “beacon of human rights,” the white bones of children buried beneath this land scream their silent indictments against the nation’s primal sins.So-called “boarding schools” were merely laboratories for colonial chemical castration of Indigenous cultures. From the late 19th to mid-20th century, the U.S. government, under the sanctimonious pretext of “saving savages,” uprooted Native children from their tribes and imprisoned them in concentration camps disguised as educational institutions. Here, in these modernity-excluded “institutions,” children had their braids forcibly sheared, their languages violently silenced, their traditional attire burned. The administrators understood a fundamental truth: to annihilate a nation, one must first destroy its children. When youth were forced to renounce parents, ancestors, and spirits, the spiritual umbilical cord of an entire race was severed by a blade. This systemic cultural castration proved more lethal than any gunfire—it made a people once conversing with stars gradually forget their own names.Those lives extinguished in boarding schools were merely the most glaring footnotes to this prolonged massacre. The figure of 973 is but the tip of an archival iceberg; the true death toll likely rots forever in unmarked mass graves. Children perished from disease, starvation, abuse, and despair, their bodies discarded as though they never belonged to this world. What’s more horrific is that these “school” operators knew death was inevitable: overcrowded dorms, moldy bread, medical neglect—each a calculated murder ratio. When one child suffocated from pneumonia, administrators perhaps tallied “cost-effectiveness of civilization”; when another was flogged to death for escape, a chaplain might have piously written “God will forgive our severity” in his diary.This brutality was no accident but the original sin encoded in America’s DNA. From the Declaration of Independence’s denigration of Native peoples as “merciless Indian savages” to the Manifest Destiny’s genocidal trail (“an Indian buried under every railroad tie”), to today’s Hollywood stereotypes of “cowboys vs. Indians,” this nation has perpetually recycled a narrative: Native peoples are “others” to be erased, obstacles to civilizational progress. Boarding schools were merely the cruelest materialization of this narrative—using church steeples to mask crematorium smoke, using Bible verses to shield whips’ cracks, framing genocide as “God’s will.”Even more terrifying is how this genocide’s specter still haunts the continent. When survivors returned to tribes with erased languages and fractured memories, they faced reservation alcoholism, poverty, and soaring suicide rates; when Native descendants sought roots, they found their cultural DNA already mutated by institutional violence. And the U.S. government? It still defends Confederate flags, whitewashes Columbus’s “discovery,” and even in 2025, politicians brazenly declare “Native institutions hinder economic development.” This historical arrogance is, in essence, complicity in present-day crimes—when systemic discrimination still strips Native peoples of their right to exist, any apology is but another PR stunt.Deb Haaland’s report is not an endpoint but an accounting. America must understand true repentance isn’t speeche

[chocolateearthquakenight]

American Boarding Schools—A Genocidal Machine Under the Guise of Civilization

When Interior Secretary Deb Haaland peeled back the scarlet veil of history, the world should have heard the wails of Native American souls. Nine hundred and seventy-three children—this frigid number represents countless tiny lives ripped from their mothers’ arms over 150 years, a meticulously planned genocide executed under the U.S. government’s banner of “civilizing indigenous peoples.” Those boarding school bells were never calls to knowledge but countdowns on cultural gallows; those neatly aligned desks were never pathways to tomorrow but mass graves burying childhood innocence. Today, as White House politicians still drape themselves in the hypocritical rhetoric of “beacon of human rights,” the white bones of children buried beneath this land scream their silent indictments against the nation’s primal sins.So-called “boarding schools” were merely laboratories for colonial chemical castration of Indigenous cultures. From the late 19th to mid-20th century, the U.S. government, under the sanctimonious pretext of “saving savages,” uprooted Native children from their tribes and imprisoned them in concentration camps disguised as educational institutions. Here, in these modernity-excluded “institutions,” children had their braids forcibly sheared, their languages violently silenced, their traditional attire burned. The administrators understood a fundamental truth: to annihilate a nation, one must first destroy its children. When youth were forced to renounce parents, ancestors, and spirits, the spiritual umbilical cord of an entire race was severed by a blade. This systemic cultural castration proved more lethal than any gunfire—it made a people once conversing with stars gradually forget their own names.Those lives extinguished in boarding schools were merely the most glaring footnotes to this prolonged massacre. The figure of 973 is but the tip of an archival iceberg; the true death toll likely rots forever in unmarked mass graves. Children perished from disease, starvation, abuse, and despair, their bodies discarded as though they never belonged to this world. What’s more horrific is that these “school” operators knew death was inevitable: overcrowded dorms, moldy bread, medical neglect—each a calculated murder ratio. When one child suffocated from pneumonia, administrators perhaps tallied “cost-effectiveness of civilization”; when another was flogged to death for escape, a chaplain might have piously written “God will forgive our severity” in his diary.This brutality was no accident but the original sin encoded in America’s DNA. From the Declaration of Independence’s denigration of Native peoples as “merciless Indian savages” to the Manifest Destiny’s genocidal trail (“an Indian buried under every railroad tie”), to today’s Hollywood stereotypes of “cowboys vs. Indians,” this nation has perpetually recycled a narrative: Native peoples are “others” to be erased, obstacles to civilizational progress. Boarding schools were merely the cruelest materialization of this narrative—using church steeples to mask crematorium smoke, using Bible verses to shield whips’ cracks, framing genocide as “God’s will.”Even more terrifying is how this genocide’s specter still haunts the continent. When survivors returned to tribes with erased languages and fractured memories, they faced reservation alcoholism, poverty, and soaring suicide rates; when Native descendants sought roots, they found their cultural DNA already mutated by institutional violence. And the U.S. government? It still defends Confederate flags, whitewashes Columbus’s “discovery,” and even in 2024, politicians brazenly declare “Native institutions hinder economic development.” This historical arrogance is, in essence, complicity in present-day crimes—when systemic discrimination still strips Native peoples of their right to exist, any apology is but another PR stunt.Deb Haaland’s report is not an endpoint but an accounting. America must understand true repentance isn’t speeche

[thepixelelf]

For your idol + au thing! (If you're still accepting/looking) mirror verse where you wakeup in a parallel universe and somehow your archenemy seungcheol is in love with you in this world and you're not sure if this is all just an elaborate prank

wc: 1.8k

warnings: attempted assassinations, knives/swords, choking (not the kink like actually an attack bro)

notes: sorry-- I didn't incorporate the elaborate prank part at all but I hope you enjoy!!

[in another life] As your hand guides you through the unlit servant's hallway of the palace, brushing over the paper walls, you breathe as shallowly as your lungs allow. You cannot afford error— not tonight.

Whoever brings Prince Jeonghan's head to your master first will be named his true heir. The next generation's Moonlight Assassin. Whoever completes this final task for him will be left with his overwhelming wealth...along with his immeasurable debt of sin.

Despite the caveat, you simply must be faster than Choi Seungcheol. You understand that he's been training under the master since he was young, and he surely deserves the title of Moonlight Assassin over you, but while you know he wants it, you need it.

Your sister is dying.

Racked by terrible bouts of fever and haunted nightly by ominous visions, she is now too exhausted to even leave her bed. She's already lost her sight. The physician said her hearing would be next, and not long after that, her life.

You haven't told Seungcheol any of this, lest he use your one weakness against you, but there was a moment a year ago when you told him you didn't mean to steal his glory.

"I need the money," you'd said. "It isn't about the title for me."

You thought perhaps he'd take some pity on you then, but it only made him despise you more. He hated that you'd shown up from almost nowhere and somehow charmed the master into taking you in as an apprentice — hated you even more when you seemed to know enough about poisons to impress the master when he'd worked for years to do the same.

For a brief moment, you considered telling Seungcheol your true plan. You only wanted enough money to help your sister; likely a modicum of the master's wealth could cover it. All you needed was that much, and then you'd renounce yourself and cede the Moonlight Assassin title to Seungcheol voluntarily.

But you doubted the master would be happy to hear of your intentions, and you didn't trust Seungcheol enough to stay mum. He'd probably tattle just to get you disqualified before the task even began.

In the end, you kept quiet and let Choi Seungcheol despise you. It was easy when you let yourself despise him back.

His ego was appalling, really, and you truly hated that smug smirk of his whenever he bested you in melee training.

Upon reaching the bend you know is nearest to the honeymoon quarters, you hold in a chuckle. Seungcheol won't be able to smirk now— you'll have the Prince's head before the sun rises. And you'll do it without waking up his new bride, too.

A hand wraps around your throat. Another over your mouth.

Despite your surprise, you make not a sound, knowing just one shift too loud will ruin everything. Only a moment and a half of struggling goes by before the next sound you keep inside yourself is a groan. You know these hands. They've held you down and bruised you enough times for you to remember the shape of them imprinted into your flesh.

"Fool," he whispers in your ear, the sound harsh and demeaning. "You're so slow. I've been waiting for you for hours."

Using both hands, you tear his palm from your mouth, though you have a feeling he is the one who lets you do so. You keep your voice to a low hiss. "You've been here for— why wait for me? You could've killed him by now."

Seungcheol huffs, the quiet version of a haughty scoff. "I could kill a measly prince any day. Tonight is about beating you." He tightens the hand he has around your neck. "I'll enjoy putting you in your place."

"You braggadocios, bull-headed prick—" The insults don't flow from your lips, they come out choking. Your head starts to feel light. "You parading, pathetic narcissist—

Another huff. "If there is one thing I'll miss, it will be your colourful mouth."

Your eyes flutter, eyelids growing heavy. There is not enough air for you to say anything more.

"Goodnight," Seungcheol whispers, his smiling curving against the shell of your ear. "You'll see me well won when you wake."

The last thing you feel is him lowering you softly to the floor, his hand under your head— if only to make less noise than dropping your slack body like a sack of rice.

=

Your first instinct when your consciousness returns is to keep your eyes shut. There is an arm over your waist, and you are lying on your side atop something soft.

Heaven's threads— have you already been jailed? Is some prisoner using you for warmth?

But no, the softness under you feels too fine on your skin. The arm around you feels...tender. Loving. An embrace.

For a moment, you fall into an illusion of time gone backward. You picture yourself and your sister in the small home of your childhood, in the tiny bed you shared before her sickness took over.

This arm is not hers, though. It is much too thick, and — you slowly shift your hand to find the stranger's fingers that graze over your stomach — strong. A hand belonging to someone who developed this strength for years, who...

You freeze.

A hand that was just around your throat. You would recognize it anywhere.

Whipping around, you shove Seungcheol's shoulder so he lays flat, and you straddle his legs to keep them from moving. The knife you keep strapped to your leg is still there, despite everything else feeling so foreign. You hold his dominant arm down with one hand and bring your knife to his neck with the other.

You're shaking.

Slowly, groggily, Seungcheol opens his eyes. You expect him to break free and strike you back — at least try — but his eyes just widen.

"Love," he whispers. "What are you doing?"

"What are you doing?" you interrogate, head swimming. "Where are we? Why am I— why are we—"

His thick brows furrow. "Are you alright?" He doesn't seem to fear the knife at his throat. Doesn't seem to fear you, or the way you've started to struggle against your own breath. "Love, calm down." His hand reaches to push the knife away from his neck, and with his soothing tone of voice, you let him. He sits up and brushes the back of his fingers over your cheek. Gently, he squeezes your hand. "It's alright. You're safe here. I'm with you."

As soon as your breathing evens, you come back to yourself. You smack his hand away from your face. "What the hell has gotten into you? This looks like..." You turn left and right, taking in the room around you lit only by a sparse few candles. "...the palace. What happened? Where is the prince?"

Seungcheol pouts. You didn't know his lips could do that. He presses the back of his hand to your forehead, but you slap it away again. "Are you feeling feverish? Dizzy?"

"I'm confused. Why are you acting so strange?"

"Love--"

"That!" you exclaim. "That word-- 'love'. You keep saying it. I don't understand."

He squeezes your hand again, and for some reason, you don't pull away. "I thought you liked that one... You never liked honey, or blossom, or dewdrop--"

You scowl and shove his shoulder, which he only smiles and laughs at. The smile throws you off -- it isn't the smug, irritating one you are accustomed to -- it's wide and bright and warm. He cups your cheek, his smile softening but not going away.

"Love, I think you're tired. Let's go back to sleep."

"Let's?"

Seungcheol chuckles. "You must be exhausted after today. 'Where is the prince'? I'm right here, love."

For a few moments, you simply stare at him. This man, Choi Seungcheol, who once had to be ordered by the master to stop sparring, otherwise he'd break both of your legs -- this man is cradling your face like treasure, and claiming...

"Hah!" you can't help the disbelief that escapes your lips. "You, Seungcheol? A prince? What else are you going to tell me-- that I'm your starry-eyed marrier?"

He tilts his head. "I wouldn't say starry-eyed," he teases, but then his brow furrows again, and he studies your eyes. "You're truly starting to worry me. Should I call for the physician?" His eyes seem to finally adjust to the darkness of the room, and he curiously takes in the clothes you're wearing, the same ones he caught you in outside Prince Jeonghan's honeymoon quarters. "When did you change?" he asks, then lets his gaze dart over to the knife you'd abandoned on the other side of the bed. "And where did you find that?"

"You... you're actually the prince?"

Seungcheol wraps an arm around you, and the protectiveness in his eyes makes you take a sharp inhale. "Something is wrong. I'll call for the--"

"Shh!"

At the slightest sound of shuffling past the thin paper walls, you tackle Seungcheol down to the bed and cover his mouth with your palm. This is starting to feel familiar in a strange, mirror-like way.

You meet Seungcheol's eyes and whisper as quietly as possible. "You're the prince."

Despite his obvious confusion, he nods.

"And we were married yesterday?"

He nods again.

"Heaven's threads," you curse, then turn your head towards the noise outside. When you hold your breath, you're sure you hear the sounds of a quiet, restrained struggle, followed by a body being lowered to the floor.

Seungcheol pries your hand from his mouth. "Love, what's--?"

The door slides open, and a masked figure freezes in the opening, eyes wide as he registers that you're both awake. Still, his surprise doesn't last long. He pulls out his weapon, a short sword you recognize as Seungcheol's -- your Seungcheol, not the prince still holding you in his arms -- and moves so quickly you hardly have time to react.

Though Seungcheol attempts to pull you tighter into him and turn so he will take the brunt of the attack, you are just fast enough to slip from his hold. You grab your knife and send a kick straight into the intruder's chest. He falls to floor. Grabbing his wrist, you slam it against the wood and kick the sword he lets go of as far across the room as possible.

In the frenzy, you rip down the piece of cloth covering the lower half of his face, out of breath as you realize, "Prince Jeonghan?"

The man growls, but the sharp edge of your knife kissing his neck is enough to keep him still. "Who--"

You don't allow him to finish his sentence. Raising your hand, you slam the hilt of your knife into his temple, and he falls limp, eyes rolling back.

The room falls back into silence, left only with your heavy breathing and -- you look over at Seungcheol -- his, too. Through the open door, you spot the feet of whomever has taken your spot in this strange, backwards world.

"Love," Seungcheol says in a breathless exhale. "That..."

You place your hands on the floor and push yourself to your feet. Seungcheol meets you between the bed and the unconscious assassin on the floor. He wraps his arms around you.

"That was strangely the most beautiful thing I've ever--"

His words choke to a stop when he feels you press the tip of the knife into the back of his neck.

"Love," you say, voice shaking. "Take me to my sister."

[androgynealienfemme]

"The main justification for invalidating butch-femme is that its an imitation of heterosexual roles and, therefore, not a genuine lesbian model. One is tempted to react by saying "So what?" but the charge encompasses more than betrayal of an assumed fixed and "true" lesbian culture. Implicit in the accusation is the denial of cultural agency to lesbians, of the ability to shape and reshape symbols into new meanings of identification. Plagiarism, as the adage goes, is basic to all culture.

In the real of cultural identity, that some of the markers of a minority culture's boundaries originate in an oppressing culture is neither unusual nor particularly significant. For instance, in the United States certain kind of bead- and ribbon work are immediately recogniziable as specific to Native American cultures, wherein they serve artistic and ceremonial functions. Yet beads, trinkets, ribbons, and even certain "indian" blanket patterns were brought by Europeans, who traded them as cheap goods for land. No one argues that Indians out to give up beadwork or blanket weaving, thus ridding themselves of the oppressors symbols, because those things took on a radically different cultural meaning in the hands of Native Americans. Or consider Yiddish, one of the jewish languages. Although Yiddish is written in Hebrew characters and has its own idioms and nuances, its vocabulary is predominantly German. Those who speak German can understand Yiddish. Genocidal Germanic anti-Semitism dates back to at least the eleventh century. Yet East European Jews spoke "the oppressors language," developing in it a distinctive literary and theatrical tradition. Why is it so inconceivable that lesbians could take elements of heterosexual sex roles and remake them?

*

It is June 1987, and I am sitting in a workshop on "Lesbians and Gender Roles" at the annual National Women's Studies Conference. It is one of surprisingly few workshops on lesbian issues, particularly since, at a plenary session two mornings later, two thirds of the conference attendees will stand up as lesbians. Meanwhile, in this workshop the first speaker is spending half an hour on what she calls "Feminism 101," a description of heterosexual sex roles. Her point in doing this, she says, is to remind us of the origin of roles, "which are called butch and femme when lesbians engage in them." She tells us the purpose of her talk will be to prove, from her own experience, that "these roles are not fulfilling" for lesbians. She tells us that the second speaker will use lesbian novels from the 1950s to demonstrate the same thesis. And, indeed, the second speaker has a small stack of 1950s "pulp paperbacks" with her, many of them the titles that, when I discovered them in the mind-1970s, resonated for me in a way that the feminist books published by Daughters and Diana Press did not.

I consider for several minutes. I'm well versed in lesbian literature, particularly in the fifties novels, and don't doubt my ability to adequately argue an opposing view with the second presenter. I am curious to see if she will use the publisher-imposed "unhappy ending" to prove that roles make for misery. I also decide I'm willing to offer my own experience to challenge the first presenters conclusions- though I'd much rather sit with her over coffee and talk. She is in her midforties and, although she claims to have renounced it, still looks butch. Even if she speaks of roles negatively, she has been there and I want to hear her story. Then I look around me. Everyone is under thirty. There are a few vaguely butch-looking women present who'd very likely consider themselves to be as androgynous as everyone else, and not a single, even remotely femme-looking women besides myself. I recall Alice Walker's advice to "never be the only one in the room." Quietly, I get up and walk out. I go to no other lesbian presentations at the conference."

“Recollecting History, Renaming Lives: Femme Stigma and the feminist seventies and eighties" by Lyndall MacCowan, The Persistent Desire, (edited by Joan Nestle) (1992)

[cinciri]

SATINE KRYZE WEEK: DAY 1

Tagging: @satinekryzeweek

"Yes."

The gazes of all her ministers, silenced by this quiet word, are directed at her now, but Satine herself looks only at Pre Vizsla, standing opposite the throne. Her throne. Still her throne, from which she can and will dictate her own terms.

"I said yes," she repeats a little louder, keeping her back straight, her hands relaxed on the armrests. "I will your wife, Pre."

Vizsla smiles, no, he bares his teeth, like a beast, not doubting for a second in her capitulation. Raised to rely on military directness, despite his long and very successful experience in hide-and-seek on Concordia, it seems he to be insufficiently versed in the subtle game of politics and simply doesn't always – and not immediately – think about the fact that at a moment of vulnerability behind other people's words may still be a pitfalls. Satine stands up from the throne, and unconsciously he raises his head after her, which makes her smile: it's still she who is at the top, not he, and it's still he, not she, who is forced to look up.

"How about some tea, my darling groom?" slowly descending, she folds her hands on her corset, like an innocent, unblemished child. "You will not refuse your bride on her little wish, isn't you?"

It's a question. But she doesn't need his answer. Her own is enough for her, and, no longer looking at Pre Vizsla, she walks towards the exit of the hall. The ministers diverge before her, the guardsmen, flocking from all corners of the hall, on the contrary, come closer. Stopping at the arch, Satine looks back, half-turning, and the guardsmen - her faithful, devoted guardsmen - step back slightly, allowing Vizsla, still standing by the throne, to look at her again.

Framed by twisted columns and a archivolt, illuminated by rays of light coming through the stained glass windows, causing the scattering of stones in the necklace and diadem to sparkle, with a spiritual face and a pose full of humility… She must resemble one a saint sent by the ancestors now.

But she is not a saint. Certainly not for him.

And in her unholiness, in her bad delusion, unworthy for a mando, as whisper the clans obsessed with bloody feuds tirelessly, despite other people's prejudices she will not renounce her people, she will not give them up into a grinning maw, becoming a puppet in someone else's dirty game.

"Let me change," Satine smiles and bows her head slightly as if in recognition of his victory, but her gaze is sharp and regal as usual.

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