#on OCCASION.

[m1d-45]

judas

summary: who can be blamed for a world wide calamity? the executioner, the judge, or the jury?

word count: ~1.3k

-> warnings: mention of blood, implied death(you, but you revive after), um minor spoilers for inazuma and sumeru archon quest, as well as for kazuha lore

-> gn reader (you/yours) and unspecified traveller (no pronouns)

taglist: @samarill || @thenyxsky || @valeriele3 || @shizunxie || @boba-is-a-soup || @yuus3n || @esthelily || @turningfrogsgay || @cupandtea24 || @genshin-impacts-me || @chaoticfivesworld || @raaawwwr

< masterlist >

to see a god is a feat most strive their whole lives toward. to bear witness to one so much holier than you, to view a deity far beyond your time. mortals pray to statues and shrines, each vying for the eye of the heavens, a select few showing off their rewards in the form of a gleaming vision.

but even those with a vision cannot see the stars. true gods- the true god is a memory beholden to only a few, to those that remember the times prior to the archon war. before the creator lifted to celestia, sequestered away far from the petty meddling of people.

they’re missed. they’re always missed. the gods have a hole their gnoses are too small to fill, a deep ache that beats with their hearts, yearning for the one they called ‘home.’ it’s not unlike the feeling one gets on a clear night, looking up to the stars, knowing the world’s so vast and you are so small, unsure whether to be afraid or comforted.

so they wish their god a well recovery? do they grieve the idea that they may die before that happens? do they grab a bottle from the shelf and bear headaches without hangovers, do they sit at a worn table and drink tea nobody else remembers, do they sleep endlessly, hoping to dream instead? what does one do, when so alone? what does one do, when the stars blanket the sky and they are struck with the remembrance of their finite lives?

mortals get up from their blankets. look away, go to bed, rise the next day with the only star they know being the one that warms the stones beneath their feet. but gods don’t tire easily, and the nights are known for stretching far longer than days.

the unlucky ones die.

the cursed are given a false prophet.

“if you remember me, then i don’t care if anyone else forgets.”

the greater lord was kind. too kind. beloved. unfairly so. how strange, she wondered, fading to dust, that she did not see her god greeting her. how odd, she thought, that the closest she had come to heaven was within the moments before her death.

it’s not her fault. it never was. the eyes that watched from celestia were hard with iron and not time, cruel with choice and not purpose. so many died, so many didn’t have to, so many fell under the foot of a fraud while their true colors hid behind a mask.

“do you remember me?”

“do you?”

it wasn’t your fault either. it never was. your chosen warrior, your first picked, saved from the grips of the one who had stolen your place. so many people, so many names, so many conversations held within proxy. the earth remembered, the people rejoiced, and yet it was only your golden companion that questioned the sea.

(the waves calmed. eons old bodies finally laid to rest. the abyss itself stilled for just a moment, just long enough to stop and watch you smile, and even now occasionally lent an ear to your pride.)

how unfair, that you once laughed together but now cry alone.

to lay eyes upon the divine is one thing. to view with one’s own eyes even a fraction of true power is enough to blind the commons, and even the most ancient dragon must bow its head. but to touch? to hold, to grasp, to feel universes thrumming beneath your fingers, the power of giants hovering barely an inch away?

“we named a constellation after you.”

you had said hello. a god, a being so far beyond mortal understanding, crouching to one knee and extending a hand to a child that had fallen. you could have walked by. perhaps on another day you might’ve. but you didn’t recognize the world as your home, and she didn’t recognize you as hers, fleeing to the guards the moment she saw something a little too bright in your eyes.

it wasn’t your fault. the ground is stained with blue and that child’s hand burns with the fire found in the core of a newborn sun, hot and new far too much for someone so young to handle. a samurai will never be able to look at his sword the same way again, but you shouldn’t blame yourself for that either. his hand holds the grip as his own shakes, red eyes struggling to take in what he sees.

the human mind reacts strangely when it sees something it doesn’t understand. it fizzles, stops, the wiring going dull as it realizes its neurons are far too small to comprehend the unusual stimuli. unfortunately, this response does not lend itself to survival, and the drive to live overshadows your cries for the same.

he doesn’t like the visit that part of town anymore. he can’t look at maple leaves without remembering how they stuck to the ground, weighed down by blood. he visits a familiar grave, tucked between two sharp cliffs, lingering far past the settling of lavender melon on the ground. he kneels there for a few hours too long, wondering of all the what ifs.

it’s not his fault either. it’s nobody’s. they were given a candlelight and were told it was a star, even as they watched the wax drip. he was doing his best, and it just so happened that in the blind grasp for a handhold, he’d pushed you away. he couldn’t see. it wasn’t his fault.

“don’t blame yourself, kazuha.”

“the tide does not stop rising when asked. neither does the guilt.”

it wasn’t his fault.

you try to remind yourself of this, at times. so does he. the two of you lie awake at inane hours of night, searching the sky for an answer.

what happened? what went wrong? was it me? was it anyone?

celestia looks down with eyes of fake steel, looking between you and the empty throne behind them. they’d finally caved, thrown the one they puppeted for the vishaps to dissect and the hillichurls to pull apart, but now worried. they’d certainly be punished if it was known they’d allowed this to happen… was it their fault, perhaps?

eyes sought out others, the council known as ‘heaven’ lost for what to do. their eyes joined yours, as yours joined kazuha’s, all tilted up and beginning to turn glassy.

the universe is so big, each star their own system, and it’s so hard to feel like any more than sand when it’s displayed so clearly. maybe it was kazuha’s fault, for not recognizing the light you shed as that of the sun. maybe it was celestia’s, for continuing to entertain an impossible fantasy. maybe it was the earth’s, for guiding you where it thought was safe, maybe maybe maybe. it doesn’t matter. did it ever? your heart burns with grief—love—as you go to bed, sheltered within a hilichurl camp. kazuha stays up too late, punishing himself with the fog of sleepiness that lasts a little too long the next day. celestia doesn’t feel guilt, for when did it ever, but the next day is unproductive, something strange taking place of the air there.

maybe it was nobody’s fault. maybe the world was disjointed, unfamiliar with your presence, stuttering for a moment as it collected itself once more. maybe in that moment of confusion, of flickering light and a burnt out flame, tragedy had struck like lightning. the universe was illuminated, bathed in the gleam of your power, able to see what it couldn’t in darkness.

it wouldn’t happen again, but that didn’t stop it from hurting. scars still ached when it rained, and the skies were weeping as it realized what had occurred in shadow.

[dduane]

A brief moment of rationality from the bird place.

[rivetgoth]

It's honestly crazy that discussion around testosterone HRT skews so much towards the beginning stages of it (to the point that you have dozens of guys thinking their transition is "failed" if they don't pass by like a year in lol) and what the initial changes of the first couple of months to years look like, like the classic laundry list of those early basic changes like bottom growth, voice drop, etc, when IMO literally none of that compares remotely to the depth and intensity of the long term total masculinization you start to experience like 3-5+ years in.

[kesopan]

warmth in the cold

[nomohmoss]

meet the archons

better quality

[flussoperpetuo]

I have to rant a little about what's happening at the Olympics because I'm feeling ashamed as an Italian and angry as a queer person. For those who don't know, there is an Algerian athlete competing in women's boxing named Imane Khelif, who just today had a match against her Italian competitor Angela Carini. Khelif is a cisgender woman who allegedly* naturally produces more testosterone than the average. She was previously disqualified from the IBA World Boxing Championships for failing an unspecified medical test but was cleared by the IOC to compete in the Olympics (side note, the IBA is currently unrecognised by the IOC for internal governance issues and ties to the Russian government). Fast forward to today, Carini decides to withdraw from the match after only 40-odd seconds because Khelif hit her on the nose and apparently it hurt too much. Unsurprisingly Khelif has become the target of a massive shitstorm, including the press mistakenly calling her transgender (which she isn't) and many people, including members of the Italian government and the elongated muskrat himself, spreading misinformation and disgusting transphobic and racist rhetoric. It was so bad that even the Algerian government intervened, and pictures of Khelif as a young girl have been publicly released. I know that the participation of trans people in sport is a thorny conversation, but this whole shitshow isn't helping anyone and the facts are just being weaponised to attack intersex and trans people by the same far-righters who don't give a rat's dick about actual women's rights. So I'm sad about Carini's loss because she's my compatriot, sure, but I'm even angrier at both those people who use Khelif, an innocent athlete who has all the right to compete against other women, as the target for their campaigns of hatred, and those who don't bother finding proper information and remain content in their prejudices.

* edited the post slightly because there is no official confirmation that Khelif is intersex, nor that she has higher testosterone levels for medical or physiological reasons, and she never failed a testosterone test that we know of.

[lokorum]

jon needs a door and i need a fucking break from this weather uhhh

music from the..floor?? ♪┏(・o･)┛♪

[rockband2]

always putting this guy in situations.

[cryptocism]

"just as I did, in 1983."

you'd never know my favourite parts of the show are the fucked up insane bits when my first instinct is to draw the cheesiest thing imaginable

[thevagaries]

Edited to add this does appear to be shopped, but the transphobia to fascism pipe line is a well known one.

[terracottakore]

etho's completely normal and sane desktop setup.

[ahyuggg]

origami 🌃

I care him,,,🫶🏼

[chloesimaginationthings]

Matpat will always be welcomed into the FNAF universe

[desolationlesbian]

The butch lesbian/trans man "funky printed button down" stereotype is true but you must understand that the men's section of so many clothing stores is a bleak and miserable place. Clothing manufacturers are simply convinced that no one who wears men's clothes wants anything besides the most boring outfits possible. Often stripes are the most exciting it gets. If you want to wear clothing designed for men but happen to like "color" and "joy" in your life then often the funky printed button down or the hawaiian shirt are simply your only options, especially off the clearance rack.

[classycookiexo]

[rakiah]

All would have ended at the Book 3 _(:3 」∠)_