pathologic but it's a lost 1920s german expressionist film [id under cut]
[id:
image 1: a digital drawing of a fake poster, using bright colours and rough, painterly brushstrokes. the title, 'pest' (german for 'plague'), is written at the top in spiky black text. in the foreground a man dressed as a tragedian is staring intently at the viewer, his hands raised and splayed as if in horror. in the background, the town is framed against a red sky, with the polyhedron in yellow behind.
images 2 and 3: fake casting sheets for the film, with the names of the actors and the characters they are playing above a black-and-white portrait photograph of them. all the text is in german. in english it reads:
'Pest', a film by Robert Wiene
Alfred Abel as Victor Kain
Ernst Busch as Grief
Lil Dagover as Katerina Saburova
Ernst Deutsch as the Bachelor
Carl de Vogt as Vlad the Younger
Marlene Dietrich as the Inquisitor
Willy Fritsch as Mark Immortell
Alexander Granach as Andrey and Peter Stamatin
Bernhard Goetzke as General Block
Dolly Haas as the Changeling
Ludwig Hartau as the Haruspex
Brigitte Helm as Anna Angel
Brigitte Horney as Maria Kaina
Emil Jannings as Big Vlad
Gerda Maurus as Yulia Lyuricheva
Lothar Menhert as Georgiy Kain
Asta Nielsen as Lara Ravel
Ossi Oswalda as Eva Yan
Fritz Rasp as Stanislas Rubin
Conrad Veidt as Alexander Saburov and Tragedian
Paul Wegener as Oyun
Gertrud Welcker as Aspity
image 4: four digital sketches of set designs for various locations. all are strongly influenced by expressionist imagery, using extreme angles, warped perspective, and dramatic shapes. they are labelled 'street 1' (a street lined with houses), 'street 2' (a square with a lamppost and a set of steps), 'polyhedron exterior' (the polyhedron walkway), and 'cathedral interior' (the dais at the far end of the cathedral).
image 5: four digital drawings in a black-and-white watercolour style, showing fake stills from the film. all are similarly distorted and lit by dramatic lighting. the first shows katerina's bedroom, with katerina standing in the centre of the floor. the second shows the interior of an infected house. the third shows daniil staring out of the frame in horror, one hand on his head and the other raised as if to ward something off. the fourth shows an intertitle with jagged white text reading 'the first day' against a dark background.
end id.]
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Relief (Blade x gn!reader)
@genshin-obsessed so I heard u like Blade 👀
Summary: After being cursed with immortality by the Abundance, you joined the Stellaron Hunters as a doctor. Today, your most stubborn patient finally comes to you for help.
Words: 835
Warnings: reader is implied to be shorter than Blade & can be held in his lap (but our Bladie is a strong boy so he can hold anybody uwu)
You muttered to yourself as you walked around your office, organizing your medicines and checking equipment. As the only doctor in service of the Stellaron Hunters, it was important for you to keep everything in tip-top shape in case of emergencies. Although Elio usually told you in advance if a mission would be particularly bloody, there was always the possibility he would withhold one of his predictions. You couldn’t get complacent.
Despite your regular interactions with the other Stellaron Hunters, you felt you couldn't truly connect with any of your “teammates”: Kafka was always inscrutable, Silver Wolf seemed to treat reality like a game, and Blade… Blade was the only one who you thought could understand you. You had both been cursed by the Abundance in your own ways, after all. But after he ignored your attempts at friendship for so long, you had resigned yourself to an eternity of loneliness in your empty office.
You were snapped out of your thoughts by a knock on your door. You paused for a moment. Neither Kafka nor Silver Wolf were due for an appointment, leaving only one other person…
You opened the door to see Blade standing with his arms crossed. His expression betrayed nothing of what he felt, but you could see a tension in his shoulders. He didn’t speak as you blinked up at him in surprise.
“Blade. Come in,” you said, stepping aside to let him enter.
Blade went to sit down in his usual spot, and you quickly busied yourself gathering the necessary materials to make the painkiller you devised specifically for his condition. You couldn’t mix the medicine in advance, as its effectiveness faded quickly with time, so you always kept the raw ingredients on hand.
You glanced over your shoulder at Blade. Your gaze flicked over his body as you observed him. To the untrained eye, Blade seemed fine as ever, if a little irritated, but you knew how to read him after having treated him for so long. You could tell he was holding back more pain than usual. The fact that he was here of his own volition told you all that you needed to know.
You took a breath, then walked over to him. The medicine you made would work in time, but you could provide him with a more immediate source of relief. Gently, you reached out and pressed a hand to his chest.
He stiffened at the contact but didn't push you away. You closed your eyes and poured your energy into him, letting it wash over him and dull his pain. You focused until you felt Blade’s breathing grow more even and his muscles relax.
You felt lightheaded as you pulled back. The process had taken much longer than you anticipated and had cost much more of your energy as well.
You tried to step away toward the counter, not wanting to linger too long in Blade’s personal space, but a wave of dizziness hit you and you stumbled. Before you could hit the floor, Blade caught you in his arms.
“What did you do?” he asked, panic bleeding into his voice.
You knew you would recover in time—the Abundance’s curse would not let you go so easily—but the pain was still nearly unbearable. Your breathing was shallow and your vision blurry. Blade adjusted his grip on you and pulled you into his lap. His arms shook slightly as he held you.
“I’m sorry… I just wanted to help…” Your voice was weak and shaky as you spoke. “It… it'll pass… I'll be okay…”
Though you said this, you were still on the verge of tears. You were not like Blade—you hadn’t spent an eternity in combat and had yet to become numb to the pain of pushing your body to the limit. What he bore with a straight face was agony for you. You tried to hold back a whimper.
Blade tightened his grip around you.
“Why?” he asked.
“I… just wanted to give you some relief…” you said. You pinched your eyes shut to try to block out the pain. “Did… did it work, at least?”
Blade was silent for a while. Then, he pulled you closer, letting your head rest against his chest as his breath fanned over your face.
“…Yes,” he said. “Don’t do it again.”
“…Sorry…” You breathed out, letting your eyes fall shut. After what you had done, you were completely exhausted, and Blade's embrace was so warm… You fell asleep to the steady rhythm of his heart, for once free of worries as Blade held you close.
The next day, Kafka would enter your office only to see Blade glaring at her to stay silent. You were still slumbering in his arms. He had stayed in that same position all night, not caring about the fatigue in his muscles nor the ache that came with it. Kafka smiled knowingly, holding back her teasing words—if only for now—as she closed the door, leaving Blade alone with you.
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Respectfully: yes, of course being sex-positive is incredibly important, but you know what's equally important? Being sex-positive without being fucking aphobic. It's not a herculean task at all; I see aspec and allo people alike who are absolutely able to do both successfully. But it does require a bare minimum amount of critical thinking.
You can defend kink at pride without saying or implying that sex is what makes us human, or that sex is a requisite for the "true" queer experience. You can talk about the indescribable value of gay bars without accusing anyone who isn't interested in them of being either a prude, creepy and antisocial, or a "boring virgin." You can stop arguing that any given queer person or group of queer people you dislike (perhaps even within reason) would be more progressive and less reactionary if they had more sex (and yes, this is a real take I've had to see on this website).
You can, and urgently, should stop pretending that sex negativity as a cultural force is caused by ace people — instead of you know, caused by cultural conservativism and cultural Christianity. And on the flip side, you can stop with that thing where you act sex-positive until you see an aroallo person wanting to have sex without a romantic (closed, nuclear) relationship — and suddenly, throwing all sex positivity out the window as you decide that they're a freak and a manipulator and evil incarnate. (Yes, you need to be kinder to even the cisgender heterosexual aromantic men. That particular discourse encapsulates the feedback loop between arophobia and radfem-lite beliefs, by the way, which is another thing the queer community here is horrible at avoiding in its rhetoric.)
So: sex positivity includes aro-spec allosexuals, who need it for precisely the above reason — because alloromantics demonize them otherwise. And sex positivity includes ace-specs who need it just to talk about their experiences, without getting called inappropriate for merely acknowledging sex out loud, let alone their own relationship with sexual desire.
(Have you already forgotten one of the biggest aphobe talking points in 2016? That aces acknowledging their identity in any capacity were "oversharing," and making people "uncomfortable" — and god forbid you ever mentioned asexuality to a minor?)
At its core, sex positivity includes accepting people can have morally neutral relationships with sex that you wouldn't personally want — and maybe even ones that might make you uncomfortable. And so much of this website seems perfectly able to understand this — or at least, preach this — until the second an ace or aro person shows up.
You're not allowed to exclude us from this movement. You're not allowed to twist this movement's intent to put us down. Kill this new wave aphobia in 2023 or so help me. We're not letting this community do this again.
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