#scholar system corruption

[hiraya-rawr]

things i learned about tighnari via his story lines: (for character study purposes!)

he's extremely sensitive to heat: he visited the desert once as a child and got a heatstroke just after a few minutes of entering the area

the reason why he visited the desert was because child tighnari found out his race came from the desert, so he asked his father to take him to his heritage

he used to wonder why other people don't have ears and tails

he also used to hug his tail while reading books as a child

the glass he wears as a necklace was a magnifying glass given to him by his mother (a paleontologist). he used it around the forest as a child but now that he's older he wears it as a reminder.

tighnari was so well-liked and demanded by everyone that cyno got suspicious of him for academic corruption and forming alliances (cyno practically stalked him)

tighnari is infamous for his long lectures when someone does sometimes stupid in the forest

but his long lectures are also a part of his belief that knowledge should be shared (and not restricted, which is why he left the akademiya)

he joined the forest watchers for the very idealistic dream of making a difference for the environment (after getting sick of arrogant scholars)

only to find out they kind of suck. so he had to work to make his dream a reality, and practically took over and built a better system

everyone calls him general watchleader behind his back but he thinks it's too high a position for him (besides, there's no such thing as a general watchleader and he believes they're trying to copy their own version of general mahamatra)

tighnari is very similar to candace in terms of hospitality; people leaving the village would find that everything they needed for the travel had already been arranged and ready

[slowd1ving]

✦ III. OH, HOW TRAGIC IS HE

'It was an accident.  “I’m sorry. Ah, shit—” Something wet splashed your cheek, followed by a fumbling hand that tried to brush it away but only succeeded in smearing the thin liquid across your face awkwardly. “Don’t— fuck, I’ll stay with you, alright?”  Fingers wrapped around your own, flesh against bone. Pulsing life alongside a silent end.  The last thing on your lips was an apology, in the form of a salty tear dripping from above.' • . * cursed prince ratio + alchemist m reader rough design for minoan fashion ratio here warnings: video game violence, death? kind of? tyranny (are we surprised), male-coded reader (or at least the in-game avatar is) wc: 11.9k

LAMENT OF OUROBOROS MASTERLIST

HONKAI STAR RAIL MASTERLIST

MASTERLIST ・゜・NAVIGATION

‘If man’s hour were to come, no one could escape it: not the brave, nor the cowardly. In the case of the city-state of Metis—referred to by romantics as the ‘Eroded Kingdom’—its collapse was widely regarded as inevitable. Frankly, as al-Ghazali pointed out in his ‘Fall of Empires’, Metis was inherently doomed to fail from its intrinsic characteristics: military hubris (relying on the susceptible and corrupt polemarch Aetos in the final decade of the kingdom’s existence); economic failure (due to the recessions Aha created and failed to mitigate); the subsequent loss of capital, and perhaps, most poignantly, its alienation of alchemists and increasingly alarming anti-heretical laws which provoked regional rebellions that soon spiralled into the so-called ‘Scholar’s March’ of 786 of the Attican Calendar, or year 352 of the Amber Age¹. 

Who could’ve predicted that the citizens could grow so united in the face of such tyranny? For years the Metisians had endured the brutal taxation, the reforms in education, and the yokes of the cult-like Elation—the catalyst could only be the mass executions and disappearances that occurred the year prior the March. Of course, scholars like Ignis the Argumentative would insist it was the sudden disappearance of capable officials that set the cataclysm into motion—but further examination by other contemporaries reproached this interpretation as there was no real policy difference between the lawmakers in terms of addressing both long- and short-term triggers that led to the fall of Old Metis, as Antiquus the Elder points out in his ‘Treatises of the Archipelago’². 

Now, a millennium later, New Metis continues to repeat its historical mistakes from a bygone age—continuing legislation to heavily restrict and outright ban certain schools of thought. For most of the New Metis citizens, this isn’t an issue; but this begs the question, when will it be a problem? Tyranny has not been redefined—it’s still hiding in New Metis today, under the smiling masks of your politicians! Wake up, New Metis!’ 

— Inana, P. (1433 2AA). Civilisation: Modeling Metis as a continuation of a failed empire. Journal Politik, 47 (3), 101-110

. 　⁺ ✦ 

Like all days, the pills were particularly hard to swallow. Chalky, bitter—a tepid medley of medicine that neither made you more energetic nor erased the hangover of the liquor still remaining in your system. It was an unfortunate cocktail: vitamins and painkillers tossed from a drugstore shelf with no regard for its expiry date but rather the price and time you were running out of. 

It was a tepid day, that day was. Humid streams of vapour clung to the asphalt as you stumbled out of the store with a plastic, rustling bag slung onto your wrist hurriedly—reusable coffee cup grasped tight in one hand, the dose of tablets clutched painstakingly in the other. It felt like a rush to work, and perhaps it was; this day was like all others, in hindsight. For others, the routine mundanity of your life might’ve been hellish; for you, however, the brimstone and fire had long faded into a tired cliché, where all the impact of your suffering trickled into a steady background hum. 

There was a sort of beauty in the aches and pains of your life—not in the pretentious way, not in the nihilistic way—but rather in the sense that one might feel a brow raise at the sight of a pattern embroidered delicately into cloth. If you were to give a less quixotic analogy, it would be the satisfaction of a computer programme doing its job: lines upon lines of code melding seamlessly into a never ending loop with no errors. 

Yes. Comfort came in the shape of these grey roads, these monochromatic buildings, and the stink of pollution on your way to your monotonous job. Comfort came in the ritualistic bread (drugstore painkillers) and wine (bitter, cheap coffee) that you partook in each morning after Friday. Comfort came in the perfunctory, solid thump of sole against pavement; the cat you’d passed by for the past month; and the worn earbuds that were slowly reaching the limits with their tinny quality and exposed wire. 

It was a painful life. It was a painless life. 

Tragedy seeped in through the sterile nitrile of your gloves. Tragedy ghosted its fingers over your polyester lab coat, and tapped on the clear plastic of your goggles. Tragedy weaved through the tired yawns as you spun on your stool and waited for the centrifuge to settle to a halt. Maybe if you crossed your fingers enough, the seconds would pass by quicker, and maybe there’d be something decent in the cafeteria. Well. It was never worth the money, but then again, there was nothing to save for. No occasions to buy nice clothes for. No particular want or need for holidays. 

No one to treat, either, not even the nice old lady in the apartment next to yours. Not anymore, at least. 

You sighed, and the matter in the Petri dish sighed with you. 

And thus, a sense of purpose continued eluding you—but so did any profound pain. This was ordinary, as an achromatic existence like this didn’t stand out in the grand machine, and you didn’t think it ever would. That was fine. That was expected. In fact, it was downright comforting that you wouldn’t particularly matter in the long run. 

(Is it truly an anodyne, like you make it seem? Where is the solace, when your teeth worry at your lips as you gaze at human connexion?)

You lied. You lied, but who would persecute you for your sin, when the sin was merely doubt about your reality?

Like all other days, it began with a healthy dosage of denial, and perhaps that is what led to the events that transpired. 

. 　⁺ ✦ 

In retrospect, it was practically expected that your tired life would beget yet another tired cliché. 

There was something completely unoriginal in the series of misfortunes that befell the proletariat salaryman (read: you). In novels, movies, and the occasional game, the most ordinary of souls stumbled across a situation that chose them. For once, someone in their weary lives had need of them; not as a pushover, nor a lackey, but someone courageous and brave who became a hero. Forums and comments oft scorned these overused plotlines—and you agreed, of course—but it was an interesting premise to think about. 

“There’s a survivor on the third floor—”

Still, no matter how intriguing the promise of escape from the mundane was, it was pointless. It wouldn’t happen. 

“Hey— can you get up? Blink if you can hear me, alright? 

The accident in the lab was almost poetic. Of course, when a protagonist encountered an explosion in their place of work, there was always an accompanying montage that indicated something was wrong. Whether it be the change in key in the background chords, or a close up of cracking machinery, the audience got some sort of closure as to why. Was it fate? Was it the cruel machinations of man? Was it just an unfortunate accident?

“We need oxygen here—he’s going into shock! Help—you—get a gurney immediately!”

But actually, there was none of that fanfare for you. Just a sluggish warmth that crawled from your limbs and back into your heart, from limbs far too cold to move. No, not cold. You simply couldn’t feel them—much like when a body part suddenly fell asleep on you. 

If you scrunched your face a bit, you could smell the acrid wisps of rubble: paint chips and stone all congealing into an antiquated scent. You couldn’t exactly see, but maybe that was for the better. 

“What’s happen—” Your tongue felt leaden in your mouth: heavy and contorted as you awkwardly sounded out your question. An explosion? A gas leak? A mine that somehow went off? There was something wet dribbling from your mouth; tasting like white hot iron, seeping past your aching lips. A hero would know. A hero would have that information playing out panel by panel while they bled out, farewells and anguish for their loved ones already melding into the fabric of existence. 

Ow. 

“Shh, don’t talk, okay? We’ll get you out of here, alright?” There weren’t any reassurances for your state. No ‘you’ll be okay’, no ‘stay with me, alright?’. You weren’t stupid. You weren’t, but it was in that moment when you wished you were—dropping out before doing your degree and doctorate, keeping far from the lab, and holding on to your life with blissful ignorance on your side. 

You opened your mouth. 

“No, you don’t need to say anything, alright?” The voice was kind, you noted drowsily. If not a little clumsy, swaddling you in a foil blanket like some overgrown child. Well. You couldn’t see it, and neither could you feel its texture, but you could feel your limbs lolling this way and that way at the movements—like some grotesque, decommissioned marionette. 

At least it didn’t hurt.  

“Thank you,” you whispered. There was nothing outrageous about your last words. Like the rest of your life, the syllables were as ordinary as they came. A quiet beginning. A quiet end. There was nobody to say goodbye to, nobody to wait for past the veil. 

It was an accident. 

“I’m sorry. Ah, shit—” Something wet splashed your cheek, followed by a fumbling hand that tried to brush it away but only succeeded in smearing the thin liquid across your face awkwardly. “Don’t— fuck, I’ll stay with you, alright?” 

Fingers wrapped around your own, flesh against bone. Pulsing life alongside a silent end. 

The last thing on your lips was an apology, in the form of a salty tear dripping from above. 

. 　⁺ ✦

“Hey, wake up.”

Death came in the gentle touch of a rolling breeze; riding on its coattails was the disembodied laughter of a child, alongside the kiss of three words that stirred your sleep-crusted lashes. Death seeped into the loamy scent of petrichor: soaked past the balmy fragrance of wildflowers and grass, against the clean soap of freshly-laundered linen. Death trailed its sepulchral fingers past the damp ground cradling your slumbering body—rustling and tugging at the jewel-toned robe draping your limbs that rose and fell with your chest. 

“How peaceful,” you murmured, and the mouthfeel of the words was as crisp as water straight from a burbling brook. Copper no longer defiled your lips, and neither did the burning heat of your dying syllables. Rather, cool air replaced the oily blood that slid across your tongue mere moments ago. 

Had you trespassed the veil warding life from death?

Peeking at the haze hanging over your head, something had clearly gone wrong with your passage to the afterlife. No, was it even an afterlife? Clumsily, like a foal stumbling on its hooves for the first time, you sat up shakily—to find your limbs sprightly and healthy, with none of the gelid quality you’d felt before you woke up. In fact, your head was clearer than ever: not a hint of any throbbing in your temples.

Even the very breeze felt different: fuller, yet decidedly more empty. 

In hindsight, it was likely shock that delayed your registration of the very obvious problem at hand. Rolling, verdant fields aside, the firmament stretching from horizon to horizon shone bright with two heavenly bodies. Were you seeing double?

“Two suns,” you muttered, squinting at the brilliant sky. Brilliant, though it wasn’t blue like you’d expected—but a more melancholy array of hues, even with the twin bodies illuminating the vast canvas. Two suns, an unfamiliar sky, and alien constellations littering it. “Where the fuck am I?”

Great. Wonderful. A new headache had presented itself, because clearly you were no longer on Earth—which now begged the question, where were you?

Or, more poignantly, who were you? 

The first law of thermodynamics proposed energy was neither created nor destroyed, simply transferred from one form to another. In turn, perhaps it was less surprising that you’d reawakened in another form—rather, the puzzling element was how this new vessel came to be. Its movements were familiar, its shape and flow of limbs, too, was an exact replica of your Earthbound form, but far less bone-weary than you had been. 

You died. This you accepted. 

You… reawoke. Passed on? Ended up in a coma? Got stuck in limbo? That was something far more difficult to fathom: flung into a world far removed from your own, it was hard to suppress the epistemic needs of a human. 

Would it have been easier, being reborn into this otherworldly place, without any memories of before your death? Was it… normal, continuing existence like this? Were there any precedents? 

What the hell was going on?

It was perhaps on a whim that you finally looked down, gazing at the lush field and your vivid clothes. Staring at the garb that adorned you, you neither recognised the cut of the material nor the rich dye that stained it—but you supposed that was par for the course when not even the sky looked familiar to you. That was expected. 

The translucent, almost glass-like window that popped up over in your line of vision was decidedly not. Immediately, your focus snapped from the delicate embroidery right on to the rolling script appearing; a series of whorls and lines that somehow resonated with your tired brain. 

“Rida mis vizenia,” you murmured as the syllables made themselves known to you, something you didn’t even need to translate manually. Your breath caught in your throat when the mechanical pronunciation loosened your fumbling tongue—like speaking your mother tongue after decades of disuse. 

You squinted at the block of text, alongside the tiny mannequin depicting what you wore. 

[Robes of Ambiguity (◼◼◼◼◼ Robes): a style of clothing popular among New Metis officials wishing to keep their exact station unknown. Neither this colourful palette nor this traditional embroidery belongs to any particular rank nor department, ◼◼ning those wishing to stay obscure typically favour these well-made garments; ◼◼◼◼◼◼   ◼◼ ◼◼◼. There’s more to the wearer than meets the eye, you know? ◼◼◼◼ limited to those of high rank, thus regular civilians also enjoy wearing these for more special occasions.]

What was this, a game? An exasperated groan left your mouth at the new possibility—furious due to that, but also the lack of any helpful information given by these garments. No clue about your identity, only that these clothes were from New Metis. New Metis. There was nothing—no sudden recognition, no extra-heavy thump of your heart, and certainly not any memories from this new body that could point you in any direction. 

The only thing that was truly helpful was the appearance of this floating, rectangular entity: two valuable clues had sprung from it, after all.

One: this interface could be the light that would guide you, providing its information was reliable. Game or not, it could very well be that this apparent saviour was some sick ploy, for whatever reason. It was a welcome sight regardless; you’d seen it countless times in various media, whether it be in novels or video games. 

Still, you eyed the screen sceptically. Who was behind it, anyway?

Two: it appeared there was still information you weren’t privy to, judging by the error marks against the azure window. Or maybe this information was never intended for you in the first place; the screen blurred and glitched like it couldn’t wait to escape your view. Like cotton candy, its shape dissolved and formed just as capriciously in the rolling breeze: melting and undulating with virtual strands of data. 

[Name: ◼◼◼◼ ◼◼◼◼◼, working currently as ◼◼◼◼◼◼. One of unknown origin, fluent in common tongue, honey tongue, and the ancient tongue of thought.]

“That’s it?” you muttered incredulously. That was your face displayed on the pixelated screen, your name that kept ebbing and flowing from existence like an evasive childhood song. Even the damn clothing you donned had a more detailed log of information—and the important part was erased from existence. 

It was the latter part that intrigued you most, unknown occupation aside. Common tongue. It felt right when describing the syllables leaving your mouth, even if you hadn’t realised you’d been talking to yourself in it for the past however many minutes. 

With a long-winded sigh, you unfocused your gaze and it seemed the window sighed with relief too: fading out with nary a blip. If this was a game, clearly you weren’t the protagonist; no cutscene greeted you, not even an introduction to the error-laden system it seemed to have anomalously assigned you. 

Honey tongue. 

Tongue of thought. 

They were important enough to mention, important enough that they were present in your profile without regard for anything else. But in a way, the lack of expectations was nice. A simple blank resumé, waiting to develop into a ‘you’. ‘You’ weren’t assuming someone else’s identity. ‘You’ were freshly dumped anew, without the ties to burden you to an overused plot and allegiance. 

But that wasn’t a tangent to mull over at the moment. There were far more pressing matters to contend with. 

Think. You were in the vast open country, with neither food, water, nor a map. Neither horizon boasted any traces of civilisation, which made your situation slightly more dire. No landmarks. No forests. No creatures either, but the abundance of flora called for pollination, right? Unless, of course, the rules of biology and physics have all been messed up… what’s the gravitational field strength on this planet…. is this even the same universe as Earth… does this follow video game mechanics or is it its own world… what does an atom look like….

Needless to say, the post-rebirth clarity hit you hard. 

“Useless,” you muttered in common tongue—turned to a long string of foreign-yet-familiar profanity as you tried to switch back to your mother tongue. It was only after a tense concentration that the word ‘fuck’ breached your stumbling lips; though, by the reverence and relief in your voice, nobody would ever think you were letting loose imprecations in this serene landscape. 

But that begged the question: to what were you saying useless to?

As it turned out, the hand rummaging through the luxurious fabric draped across you came back barren—utterly empty as you stared at the flesh, haggard. 

There was no map, and you could forget about a compass. 

There was no sustenance. 

There wasn’t even a fly to pitifully leave your vacuous pocket. 

Instead, the pulling and tugging of these sumptuous clothes revealed elaborate lines inking your roughened skin—colours melded into labyrinthine formulae you instinctively understood. Somehow, the intricate tattoos that wove against your dermis and shimmered expectantly—just like the window that faded in and out of view capriciously—resembled the long strings of formulae you’d derived and memorised for your degree and doctorate, to the point where blood dribbled from your nose each night. Metallic letters, meaningless without the painstaking effort behind them. 

But…

Your brows furrowed. Inked upon your arms and torso, and likely extending to your very legs, were shifting chromatic designs that visually could not be the same formulae you knew. That was what anyone from Earth would say, but something in your gut told you to decipher and understand these complex designs on you—like the most delicate of embroideries on a magnificent tapestry, your body was covered in the most exquisite of patterns. 

On your wrist, the characters grew incandescent as you clumsily sounded out the tongue of thought. This was neither the familiar shape of Earth languages, nor was it the common tongue you’d grown accustomed to—but something far more ancient, something far more unconstrained. It was guttural, it was refined: it was everything in between and outside of it as you mouthed the patterns on you aloud. 

“◼◼◼◼◼◼ ◼◼◼◼.” Equivalent exchange, you finally read out—and something rose within as collateral. It was neither your soul nor your life, but a warm, pulsing energy: enough to make you drowsy with its absence. 

A prayer fluttered in the wind, just like the slow blink of your lashes as they fought to keep awake—heavy as they were from the price offered for your request. 

“Want… answers,” you slurred, unintelligible to all but the concentric circles forming beneath you and seeping into your flesh. “Humans.”

And the world whispered back, hearing your supplication. 

. 　⁺ ✦

It was with a dazed (though quite refreshed, you had to say) sort of stupor that you woke to the sound of light footsteps. Senses that had somehow been honed to a fine, sharp point now served you well as you stirred at the slightest tremors in the ground. In fact, the smallest of changes in air flow had already put you on high alert—but something was telling you to wait it out. 

People. 

Your plea had altered a predestined course. 

[Name: ◼◼◼◼ ◼◼◼◼◼, working currently as an a◼che◼◼. One of unknown origin, fluent in common tongue, honey tongue, and the ancient tongue of thought.]

A◼che◼◼.

Change was good. Change would free you from stagnancy, even if you weren’t aware of its shift. 

. 　⁺ ✦

She gave a sweeping bow: complete with the elegant curl of her hand and not a strand of fiery hair out of place. It was perfect in all its points—though you didn’t quite know why it registered as such. A perfunctory standard greeting… complete with, but not limited to, the hand gesture that typically denotes merchants or nomadic ones… The thoughts whirled incoherently alongside the fragmented cerulean window that intermittently, though no information of the woman before you appeared. 

“Himeko, of house Murata, greets thee.” She spoke with the polite dialect of common tongue—the specific intonation in her words carried a query in return for her civility: who are you? Why are you here? Behind her was a sizable procession of wagons—or at least, what you thought were wagons. Their elegant shape was utterly unlike any of the crude wooden ones you’d seen; rather, colourful cars of various forms were interlinked. Almost like a train, if a train was pulled by beasts the size of a small hut: complete with a steely carapace and long, floppy ears that were scarily like a rabbit’s. 

You swallowed. No longer could Earth be considered your point of reference. 

This was not Earth. This was not Earth, so you gave the most basic of bows back—a hand placed gently on your chest sincerely, eyes fluttering closed—and hoped she didn’t take affront. This was not Earth, thus you didn’t quite know whether the abrupt guffaw she gave at your awkward greeting was positive or not. This was not Earth, therefore her continued introduction of being a caravan master meant little to you. Navigator and caravan master of the Blazing Trail, she’d summarised, though you were distracted by the glitching window that appeared promptly in the moment she spoke. 

[Himeko Mura◼◼a. Navigator and caravan master of the Blazing Trail, a renowned nomadic force known for its astute inter- and intra-continental diplomacy. Its ◼◼◼ makes it almost like a private army, though none can ◼◼ hire it. ◼◼◼◼ ◼◼◼◼ she is utterly astute and a brilliant engineer.]

It was a name you didn’t recognise. Maybe if you looked through your games library on your old laptop, or pulled up each and every novel you’d read, maybe there’d be something similar—but at the moment, none of the information resembled anything you knew. 

The caravan master was kind, if not a little eccentric. Her kindness came in the form of a seat round the elegant burner—the two suns had long since winked past the horizon, after all, and in their place shone a lonely moon. 

It’s warm, you thought.

Her kindness also came in the round shape of a bowl of stew: handed unceremoniously into your fumbling hands by a hare-like creature who seemed all too accustomed to Miss Himeko bringing along strange things with her. The stares you received were curious, but not hostile—though one dark-haired man with frigid irises seemed to gaze at you as if saying ‘another one?’. And as unreliable as your system was, there were no introductions afforded to the other few nomads. 

“Could you tell me about New Metis?” The meat was salty and gamey as you chewed and swallowed, accompanied by the flatbread that needed no ingredients save coarse flour and a clear liquid that was likely this planet’s form of water. In fact, the bread’s unexpected soft texture distracted you enough that you almost didn’t see Miss Himeko’s eyes pause right on your clothes. 

Her blood-hued lips opened and closed, quite incredulously at that. From the cut of clearly Metisian garb, to the Metisian style of greeting, would you not have been the better authority than a nomad who flitted from place to place?

“Don’t get me wrong,” you continued in a more informal dialect, as did she after she invited you to sit with her round the small, contained fire. It flickered green in the engraved metal bowl, then a blazing azure. “I woke up and couldn’t remember anything, except my name and the name New Metis.” 

Without an ounce of shame, it was far better to simply confess your shortcomings, rather than masquerade as something you were not. 

“Better off than me,” the girl with cotton candy-pink hair sighed in solidarity. The tips of your fingers burned at the sudden acknowledgement—unused to any attention on you for prolonged lengths of time. “I didn’t remember anything after I awoke and Himeko found me, not even my name. I got called March 7th after the day I was dislodged from ice—funny how life works, huh?”

Does she make a habit of picking up amnesiacs or something? The fire crackled with your silent query. But before that, there was something in the girl’s words that gave you pause: lodged glaringly in her very name. 

March 7th. March 7th. Spoken with the common tongue accent, but undeniably the same system of dates as Earth—why? Unless this place shared ties to your former planet, it was nigh impossible for the calendar to be the exact same. 

Unless this really is a game. That would make more sense if this world was a creation of your past one; if small details were to match up with what you knew from Earth, then the evidence would no doubt point to this world being present in Earthen media. 

Nonetheless, you couldn’t take this place lightly, even if it wasn’t real. After all, there were books that took place on Earth—and that alone didn’t make the planet fictional. 

Nothing was out of the question anymore. 

“March 7th?” you muttered, half to yourself, half-probing. “What does the calendar currently look like?”

The cost of figuring out whether Earth played a part in the formation of this place was a mere question and a few scraps of your dignity. 

“Worldwide, the Amber Calendar is currently used—twelve months, three hundred and sixty five and a quarter days,” the man with those frigid eyes answered in a clipped, but not unfriendly tone. It was as if he was used to patiently explaining information to people, over and over—and for that he immediately became more useful than the stupid system windows. 

Thank you, March 8th, you replied, silently. 

“Split into twelve months? January, February and so forth?” you probed. The month names felt awkward to insert into the smooth flow of the common tongue, but there were no looks of confusion thrown your way. Well, shit. 

“Yes, that’s correct,” he affirmed quietly—gaze turning slightly less guarded in the face of what appeared to be an idiot.  “Are you sure you don’t remember anything?”

Three hundred and sixty five days and a quarter. What an oddly specific number to assign, even arbitrarily. It seemed the developers had unconsciously used Earth as a point of reference, once more. Or maybe this world used the same metric to assign ‘years’, with the exact same length of time it took to orbit the binary pair in the sky. In that case, it would truly be an amazing coincidence, would it not, that the angular frequency of orbit and the distance travelled by this new planet was exactly the same?

“How long is a day?” It was your final question, one so earnest he had to scrap the thought of you purposefully asking stupid questions. In actuality, the passion in your voice was a very final verification. 

“Twenty-four hours, with an hour being sixty minutes and a minute being sixty seconds.” Prompt and curt, in that melodious voice.  

“Thank you.” And there was a smile on your face this time, so mellow and warm that he couldn’t help but duck his head back to his bowl at your sincerity. “Looks like I won’t have to relearn as much as I thought.”

“Ah— right,” he murmured, but the crack in his voice went unnoticed by all but his dinner. That, and the countless stars dotting the ever-changing sky. 

“But New Metis still eludes me,” you sighed, dipping the spoon back into the broth. The utensil was weirder than the ones on earth—deeper and more cone-like in the centre, like a miniature ladle. It made savouring the complex flavours far easier; both piquante broth and the salty game were eagerly wolfed down by your hungry mouth.

“We’re pretty close to it now, actually, only around ten ro away.” The set of Himeko’s mouth was thoughtful as she unstoppered the carafe at her side, taking a large swig from it. Then, from an ornate tube hanging from her belt, she slid out a scroll of what appeared to be expensive parchment—revealing an intricate map of what appeared to be the side of a continent alongside a large archipelago. “New Metis is located—here, on that central island—and past the straits, the mountains on the continent signal the Borderlands. Well, it would be more accurate to say that these islands are all technically part of Metis—but the capital, New Metis, is located on the central one specifically. We’re currently on the northern isles.”

“I see.” You used the remaining carb to mop up the last of the stew in your bowl, scooping up what appeared to be aromatics—onion-equivalents, maybe?—and the last of the umami broth. “I think I’ll get more answers if I go there myself. Is there anything I should be wary of while I’m there?”

Ding! Something chimed, but you paid it no heed.

“Well, if you’re not a scholar, then regulations are a bit more lax. Uh, new legislation was passed quite recently, but it’s mostly just caution for nomads and merchants. If you’re completely new to the city—that is, if your memories of New Metis are completely gone, then the anti-heretical laws are pretty tough,” the man with inky curls rambled, causing your eyes to snap from Miss Himeko to his face in slight incredulity at his sudden talkativeness.

Ding! Ding!

“Anti-heretical?” you questioned, already feeling a headache form at the sudden onslaught of religion. “Could you expand on that?” 

Ding!

“Ah, yes,” he cleared his throat, setting his bowl down by his side with an awkward clunk. “Um, strictly speaking, they’re colloquially dubbed anti-heresy—since the legislation condemns it based on more fraudulent grounds than religious, but everyone who’s ever stepped foot in New Metis—”

Ding! You subconsciously swatted the window away as you stared right at him. 

“Dan Heng, get to the point before he falls asleep,” March 7th interrupted: looking at the man completely askance, as if asking ‘can you believe this guy?’. 

“Uh, sorry,” he said sheepishly, with a self-conscious smile. Dan Heng. Dan Heng. The name was no more familiar than any other, but it was pleasant to sound out. “They’ve banned most magical arts in the city and the wider span of islands for several centuries now, actually—”

Ding!

Irritatedly, you glanced at your hand, only to find an updated profile shining against the back of your wrist. What—you squinted, feeling a tad bit more sleepy, before the rolling script faded into focus. 

“—Heng, don’t just say magical arts without explaining what those entail.”

[Name: ◼◼◼◼ ◼◼◼◼◼, working currently as an a◼che◼◼. One of unknown origin, fluent in common tongue, honey tongue, and the ancient tongue of thought.]

But… the section in the middle was glitching particularly furiously, as though it were urgently trying to tell you something. You furrowed your brow. What? 

Ding!

“Stuff like subverting from typical paths and orthodox elements—instead gaining power through sorcery, witchcraft and—”

Ding! Ding!

[Name: ◼◼◼◼ ◼◼◼◼◼, working currently as an alchemist. One of unknown origin, fluent in common tongue, honey tongue, and the ancient tongue of thought.]

“—alchemy.” 

You paused. You stared. The headache you’d been anticipating finally had its advent. 

(Equivalent exchange.) 

“I don’t think you’ll have anything to worry about,” March 7th smiled reassuringly, but her beaming face felt more like a threat. “Do you remember what your job was?”

“I’m a sculptor,” you deadpanned, working your jaw. It was said on a whim, but who knew the wavering between an art or a chemistry doctorate would finally come in handy today? 

Ding!

[Name: ◼◼◼◼ ◼◼◼◼◼, working currently as an alchemist. One of unknown origin, fluent in common tongue, honey tongue, and the ancient tongue of thought. Although practising alchemists typically require various apparatuses to perform transmutation and practise the law of equivalent exchange, ◼◼◼◼ ◼◼◼◼◼ is a bit unique in that his body is the medium for the price instead—rather than formulae in common tongue on paper, the tattoos he’s earned in the tongue of thought are far more effective. After all, he is the only alchemist to have survived the life ‘price’.]

What… did that mean?

“Life price,” you murmured in concentration. Was that related to your death? Not only that, the sudden influx of knowledge made you dizzy. It seemed you’d go undetected as an alchemist for the foreseeable future, but what were the limits? 

“Sorry, did you say something?” Himeko glanced to her left, but you only shook your head in defeat. 

Was that what you did earlier? Summoned help by offering your energy as collateral? Was it also your life that you were offering in exchange? More importantly, what did it mean by life price? Did your meaningless death coalesce into boundless regrets? 

Your heart throbbed. 

“Here.” An elegant silver chalice nudged the delicate patterns on the back of your hands, and you startled—all with what you could only assume was a very stupid expression on your face. Dan Heng looked equally taken aback, fumbling a hurried apology on his lips in his lilting common tongue (“Ack, sorry—you just looked out of it so I thought you needed something to slake your thirst.”). A crescent smile formed briefly on your face as you stared at his honest face; far less world-weary than yours, far more eager. You accepted the goblet, running your fingers across its intricate engravings. 

“Thank you,” you replied warmly, taking a sip of the sweet liquid within—some saccharine nectar that had a similar tartness to cherry. “It’s delicious.”

His fingers touched yours as he settled on your other side by the flames. He’s shivering slightly, you noted—a slight trembling that was out of character on this warm night. Well, you washed down the observation with drink thoughtfully, you always did run on the hotter side. 

To business—you instead prioritised, which was to figure out what game you’d landed in exactly. 

“Um,” you turned to Dan Heng as you munched on the fresh fruit set out, juice dripping down your fingers. Its flesh was orange and tender, seeping sweet across your skin as you tore into its fragrant body. Yum. Licking your fingers clean, it was perhaps for the best that you didn’t witness the rosy flush that spread across his face. After all, you were preoccupied with the equations that now heated the inside of your mouth—squiggling formulae now taking root on your tongue, all warm and fuzzy. “Have there been any heroes lately?”

“Hmm?” he started, fingers fidgeting against his own, well-crafted robes. “You’d… uh… need to be more specific than that.”

“People we look up to? People who’ve contributed to developing their nations? People who’ve made leaps and progressions in their industries?” Himeko interjected, and the three questions made you realise that this wasn’t a two-dimensional pixelated world, but a real one. Numbskull, you criticised yourself—of course something as ambiguous as ‘hero’ was wholly open to interpretation. 

“Like…” you paused. How the fuck would you describe it? A protagonist? Someone who saved the world? This looked like an open-world RPG, so maybe— “...a travelling hero who took care of threats to the world? Alongside companions? Defeated evil entities? Was extremely well-known globally?”

Your questions were as unsure as Himeko’s face was. 

“That’s not my expertise,” she answered hesitantly. “There are quite a few who fit the description, but perhaps you’re thinking of Akivili, the late founder of the Blazing Trail?” 

Akivili. That name didn’t ring a bell either, but it couldn’t hurt to probe. “When… was the Blazing Trail established?”

“Ah… about a millennium ago,” she replied, somewhat abashed. Your brows furrowed—of course, transmigrating into a game didn’t necessarily mean you’d get into the same timeline as the hero, but a thousand years… 

“Any prophesied heroes?” you questioned desperately.

“Hold on,” Dan Heng murmured beside you thoughtfully—tapping his fingers against his knee. “There’s a more recent one that makes more sense.”

“How recent is recent?” you deadpanned. 

“Three hundred years ago, this time,” he furrowed his brows. Okay, but there was still hope if this still wasn’t the protagonist. “This ‘hero’ got rid of the Stellarons, the countless seeds of destruction from which spawned countless monsters, with his companions. Then, after his glory, he abruptly disappeared.”

It sounded like a classic conclusion—a hero returning back to their homeworld after the game reached its end. Of course, had you not died back on Earth, maybe you would have despaired more; this protagonist might’ve held the key to allowing you to go back home. But as it stood, his existence would only serve to inform you exactly where you were stuck. 

“And this hero’s name?” you prompted. A slight foreboding trickled down your spine as you waited. 

“Odysseus.”

Odysseus. Odysseus. Odysseus. It sounded unpleasantly familiar, not just because it was the name of a classical hero, but also—

“What’s the name of this planet, again?” You prayed it wasn’t so. With a head bowed in supplication, and fingers ardently crossed, you were the picture of devout want. 

“Ouroboros,” he concluded, and it was then that a tear slipped down your face. 

. 　⁺ ✦

Lament of Ouroboros. As the title suggested, the indie, open-world RPG narrated the woes of the planet and the hero come to save it—a format popular among most, if not all, adventure-themed video games. It was on a whim you downloaded it: clicking on the surprisingly well-drawn icon and quickly skimming the synopsis to escape your boring life for a bit. On forums it was well-known enough to be frequently discussed, but it didn’t have the widespread recognition to garner severe criticisms. 

With a large mug of tea and an abandoned pack of sweets, you’d booted up that game one August afternoon—worn keys clacking smoothly against your fingers as you tapped out your name. It was a nice interface, you acknowledged while erasing all traces of ‘Odysseus’. The graphics may have been the standard open world fields, but there was something charming about the two cheery suns and pretty backdrop of the sky. 

Your mouse selected the specialisation generator randomly, though you hadn’t paid attention enough to the animation apart from noting what appeared to be a sword, then a staff at one frame in particular. A warrior, and a mage, you observed in slight interest, but ultimately it didn’t matter what it picked. 

Although, neither warrior nor mage appeared as your final selection: rather, a pair of ornate scales floated into view from the tranquil lake. 

{Alchemist (S-Class) (hidden).]

“Cool,” you’d said at the time, clicking past the opening animation and into the story. Your brief fascination was just that—brief. The story was somewhat engaging, yet the plotline was saturated with tropes you’d seen time and time again in various games. A protagonist chosen to save the world, a home to return to, and companions that were pushy at best, and completely irritating at worst. 

Maybe if you hadn’t played through and seen countless media like this, the plotline might’ve been more engaging—but for your tired, exhausted mind, this clichéd game was not unlike your clichéd, boring life. 

It took the span of one afternoon for you to promptly delete Lament from your laptop, staring at the dregs of your tea in defeat. In any case, only the hero’s name and the actual title was retained in your disinterested memory: no lore, no plotline apart from what you could easily piece together based on context, and absolutely zero clue of the ending of the story. 

“Are you alright?” March 7th’s shoulder bumped yours on the large landbeast. The carapace was surprisingly comfortable to ride on, if you ignored the large tusks coming from that furry thing’s mouth, and the perpetual death stare in its red eyes. “I know it’s hard waking up and not knowing anything.”

“Yeah,” you replied quietly, resisting the urge to bash your head in. “It is hard.”

Seriously, what the hell did you do to reincarnate into this shitty RPG?

. 　⁺ ✦

“Do you think he’s grateful for the new opportunity?” In HER deft palms, the distaff continued to spin as the maiden began the conversation. Everything started with HER—the youngest, the most rash, but also the most creative. As it were, the threads SHE spun were of highest quality; mixed with the most tragic emotions and the most joyful, but humans would never appreciate the work SHE did for them. “His life was rather miserable, was it not?”

“He should be,” the matron scorned. HER own fingers unravelled the spool, pressing HER rod to measure adequate life spans fairly—for SHE was nothing if not just. “He’ll never grasp just how much probability we had to sacrifice to tamper with his string of fate.”

“You know mortals. They’re never grateful, Lachesis.” The hag’s shears didn’t hesitate to cut the string where marked—HER blinded eyes needed not to see in order to precisely locate where the matron had allotted an end. After all, THEIR habits were known to each other from the very beginning of time, when the universe was still in its cradle. 

“I was against this from the start, you hear?” Lachesis complained. SHE was the most cynical out of the three, or as SHE liked to describe: the most pragmatic. 

“Yes, yes, yet you were the one who opened up communications to find a suitable vessel for his rebirth,” the maiden scoffed. HER words were callous and sharp, but they parsed directly into the heart of the matter: the Moirai were far more soft-hearted than they appeared,

“If I hadn’t, then I would’ve missed the opportunity for Atropos to owe me a favour,” Lachesis returned, turning back to HER ruler. Those who knew HER saw the abashedness in her bowed head and clenched fists. 

“Ha. As if you weren’t also rooting for the prince still entrapped in stone,” Atropos cackled. HER gnarled hands were the only ones that paused in their duties as SHE wheezed with laughter; even as tears ran down HER wrinkled cheeks. 

“He’s paid too much already. Who else will settle the balance of fate if not us?” Lachesis rationalised, waving HER rod against the cosmos in frustration. “I do not pity mortals.”

THEY were quiet, for once. Only the sound of thread against thread, the whish of a rod, and the snip of scissors seeped into the silence. 

“This one too. He has also paid the life-price. He is entitled to lesser sacrifices to fulfil his whims,” the youngest commented for the final time, for Clotho enjoyed making the balance too. Both the beginning and end were HERS for this conversation. 

The three watched on.

. 　⁺ ✦

In accordance with your propensity to live a quiet life, there were three things you came to accept: one, it was impossible to get your old life back, not just because of your death, but Odysseus and his irritating cast were long gone; two, venturing into the city of New Metis for anything prolonged was probably the stupidest move you could do, even if your status as an alchemist wasn’t obvious at all; and three, to live a new quiet life as a sculptor, your new priority was finding a place to live. 

“Are you sure you don’t want to come with us?” the caravan master worried, golden eyes surveying you up and down. Her arms crossed over her loose white robes, sharpened nails tapping right against her skin—a dead giveaway for her thoughts that clearly questioned your capacity to fend for yourself. Honestly, you couldn’t blame her; finding someone fast asleep in the middle of nowhere was sure to cast doubt into their capability to stay safe. “There’s always open spots if you wish to travel with us.”

A quiet life. Awkwardly, you scratched the side of your neck, and the chromatic patterns on your fingers pressed warmly into your flesh. A quiet life, unlike the suffering of your past one. There was no debt to pay off this time, no shitty apartment nor landlord, and nothing to tie you to one place any longer. A quiet life, more idealistic and stable than the previous one. It was far past time to take a rest—in a peaceful paradise that you’d create.

A truly serene life. Were you to tread on the fiery path they did, you would not find the future you wanted. This you deduced not from the unreliable system, but the careful observations you’d made over the past day. 

A quiet beginning, and a quiet end. You’d accept that. Thus, you bade the woman who’d rescued you a sincere goodbye filled with well wishes. 

“Stay safe.” It was Dan Heng who spoke to you last, pressing a talisman with his cool fingers against your own, heated palm. The spherical, intricately carved bauble resembled glassy jade—a soft green just like his robes. Corded through the middle was a length of twine that formed a loop, one that you slid over your head. Coldly, it lay against the dip of your chest, peeking out from your exquisite garb and shining right against the almost-incandescent equations etched into your body. 

The immediate acceptance of his gift made him flush—as did the evident trust you held in him. “I— this contains around ten minae, or about a thousand drachma. Breaking it down further, it’s around six-thousand obols, enough to get you board and food in New Metis for around two months if you’re frugal. Here—”

His thumb pressed into a specific etching on the jade: a snake that appeared to wriggle somewhat in invitation as you stared at it. Just like that, a shadow around a handspan wide appeared in front of you, then vanished just as quickly when he pressed it once more. This close, you couldn’t help but stare wonderingly at his face as he explained how to reach in and grab the exact sum of Metisian currency, how six obols were one drachma, a hundred drachma were one mina, six hundred minae were one talent, how a loaf of bread cost only one obol and so forth. He smelled faintly of mint. 

“—and that’s how it works. You can store other objects in there as well. If you get in trouble or change your mind, go to the local bank and let them guide you to the designated vault when you show them this key; there’s a way to contact us from there…” he rambled, trailing off when you clasped his hand in yours. 

“Thank you.” Perfunctorily, you performed the appropriate gesture of profound gratefulness—a kiss on a merchant’s index knuckle for his generosity—and watched his composed face melt into a stupid little smile. 

A wolf whistle pierced the air from where a certain pink-haired nomad sat. “The rich young master’s got moves!” she cackled gleefully, and you laughed for the first time in months: so bright it was hard to imagine it came from you. 

Your own face donned a drowsy grin—offering energy as a collateral once more. There were no flowers by the docks, after all, thus the bloom in your hands seemed to have been conjured from thin air. “One last thanks, Dan Heng.” 

Thus, there was only one thing you left behind on the isle of Thasos: a flower, pinned against a robe fluttering wildly in the salty breeze. 

. 　⁺ ✦

New Metis was cold, in the same way your parents were cold—one buried and frigid, the other gone with only debts left behind. 

Objectively, the city was stunning. Ancient architecture entwined itself with more modern innovation, blending into captivating citadels that held the essence of the past and the painstaking strides towards the future. Everywhere you looked, massive structures housed scholars and extensive collections of books, while the public buildings and amphitheatres were bursting with symposia and teeming discussions. 

This really is the scholar capital, you thought. Though, as you bit into the soft sesame ring you’d purchased at the toss of an obol, it seemed… stagnant. In comparison to the warm bread in your mouth, the metropolis could not be considered friendly. 

“No wonder, if what Dan Heng said was true.” You licked the remainder of the sesame from your lips, washing them down with an orange-like sort of juice that had the rich sweetness of honey and the sharpness of carbonation. If the city truly was as restrictive as claimed, there was little surprise as to why the scholars and every other citizen seemed a bit standoffish. Though, you couldn’t deny that the students that you observed in their element seemed to be in the throes of joy (and pain) as they buried themselves in their work and studying—the quality of teaching in Metis clearly was a cut above the rest, even with the restrictions in place. “Corruption really is everywhere, huh.”

In the places of reading, the students crammed on tables with books piled as tall as them reminded you sorely of your own days of youth. Your degrees were displayed proudly in your tiny apartment, alongside a small plaque you’d bought on a whim that simply read doctor’s office. 

The sudden thought made your heart ache. Where were those certificates now? 

There was nobody you were close enough to, nobody to carefully place your belongings into a cardboard box—then stow it away in some corner of their hearts. Nobody would miss you, not even your estranged mother. 

With a sombre expression, you thumbed through the tomes on the dark shelves. Synthetic methods and reaction mechanisms. Industrial and environmental chemistry. Inorganic and organometallic molecules. How far was this a creation of another? How far had the humans here developed on their own, outside the limits of a game? 

Bitterly, you left the library and walked back out into the stifling streets: past the agora, past the bustling market stalls, past a scholar earnestly discussing philosophy with passersby. The streets were paved with achromatic stones that appeared to have centuries-worth of wear on them, yet still seemed as pristine as if they’d just been laid yesterday—thus your shoes remained clean and unscuffed, though your heart certainly wasn’t. 

You… couldn’t stay in this city. Even if you put up a front and became an artisan, even if you assimilated into New Metis with your local clothing and perfectly accented common tongue, even if you decided to take back your chemistry certification in this world too, the sheer crowds and constant reminders that this was not Earth made you sick to your stomach. 

Bile spilled over your tongue and tainted the honey-sweet remainders of your drink. 

More accurately, it was the stares you garnered with the intricate formulae marking your skin. Though you wore their garb and spoke their dialect with native fluency, there was something clearly ‘other’ about you—enough that you didn’t even bother checking into a hotel, but asked around for an estate agent instead. Master of houses, etched carefully into the marble-like stone, was a welcome sight in comparison to the looks you’d received throughout the day. They weren’t overtly hostile. They weren’t, but the inherently elitist atmosphere and cold you’d felt in this arid climate answered for you. 

Would you like to see the rooms in the synoikia near the plaza? A firm diagonal slant of your hand signalled no: the quick, but also local way of traders and merchants communicating in busy environments. How about a townhouse? In the end, you flatly asked the housemaster if there were any remote houses for sale—to which a hologram from a recording stone showed a house nestled right in the Borderlands, surrounded by forests with mountains cradling the structure. House was too modest; the architecture, like all the buildings here, was practically a work of art in itself. 

Tense location at the Borderlands… remote location… universities located on the central island and concentrated in New Metis… 

You suppressed the devilish smile on your face as you smelled a bargain. It was a triad of real estate woes: poor location, low demand, and even more poor location. 

“Four hundred drachma is the asking price,” he offered with a tentative smile—less than half the market price for a box apartment in the metropolis. After even more haggling (in between maintaining a look of disinterest), the property was sold with twelve percent shaved off the already-bargain. 

Score for the penny-pinchers.

In the end, you made one final purchase from New Metis. Two technically, bought for only one drachma and one obol. 

The first was a set of chisels and a hammer. The second was a small wooden piece of wood. It was not a plank, nor an offcut, but had the perfect size for a plaque. A new doctor’s office, to carve in with painstaking effort and calloused hands. 

It was crude, and somewhat ugly—etched first in English, then below in the curling script of the common tongue (which was wholly unsuitable for this type of woodwork)—but looking at it made your bleeding heart ache slightly less. 

After all, it was your last piece of Earth. 

. 　⁺ ✦

Retrospectively, it would’ve been wiser to spend several nights in the city and send necessities to your new home by courier. More pragmatic, if you would—easing into your life in a new world rather than jumping headlong into it. But unfortunately, it seemed you’d become more lax as you crossed the boundaries between lives: electing instead to take the high-speed rail right across the sea and into the Borderlands, with nothing but the clothes on your back, a money dimension pocket, and a crudely made plaque. And your hammer and chisels, naturally, as well as some Metisian street food that vanished far too quickly. 

In fact, it was downright foolish to come to the Borderlands on your first day. Even the conductor stared at you in disbelief—though your clothing and your accent was purposefully as Metisian as they came—so you got the gist that it was even more fucking stupid to go as a complete newcomer. 

Borderlands, remnants of monsters from the Stellarons, highly volatile region, most travellers typically make the journey in groups, you nodded as you pieced together the rough state of the area whilst watching the sea and land speed by. Was it recklessness that endowed you with the guts to arm yourself with only a map and your wits? Were you perhaps… turning into an imbecile?

Actually, it was neither. The combination of brimming energy (from the street foods you gorged yourself on) and the updated character profile had ignited a chilling sort of passion for experimentation that was hard to extinguish, even as you crossed into this life. 

[Name: ◼◼◼◼ ◼◼◼◼◼, working currently as an alchemist. One of unknown origin, fluent in common tongue, honey tongue, and the ancient tongue of thought. Although practising alchemists typically require various apparatuses to perform transmutation and practise the law of equivalent exchange, ◼◼◼◼ ◼◼◼◼◼ is a bit unique in that his body is the medium for the price instead—rather than formulae in common tongue on paper, the tattoos he’s earned in the tongue of thought are far more effective. After all, he is the only alchemist to have survived the life ‘price’. The law of equivalent exchange for ◼◼◼◼ ◼◼◼◼◼ specifically calls for energy, in return granting a ‘wish’. The larger the desire, the more energy will be depleted; but the most efficient ‘wishes’ involve transmuting one type of energy into another. Of course, a longer incantation—a more accurate incantation—will make the conversion less burdensome as well.]

So, quite literally, as long as you stayed fed and watered, you could transfer that chemical energy into explosive kinetic energy, or imbue weapons with heat or charge with the right ‘equation’. The Borderlands were yours for lab rat exploitation, essentially. 

But the question remained—what were the limits?

And more importantly, how were the limits of these ‘wishes’ enforced?

You didn’t actually have to wait all that long to test out your abilities as an alchemist, though perhaps not in the way you’d expected. The journey to the house—with its own garden and goddamn pillars and stunning architecture—was far more uneventful than you’d anticipated (read: hoped), thus in a last ditch attempt, you decided to take matters into your own hands. 

It really wasn’t on a whim, though. Seeing the sparse rooms, as well as a profound lack of a bed to sleep on—the binary suns had begun their slumber too, after all—it was perhaps pragmatic rather than foolish that you built up the long chant in the tongue of thought. More accurate, more accurate, you sweated, tracing the length of the equations up your arms and on your chest by using the small looking-glass attached to your belt. 

“◼◼◼◼◼◼ ◼◼◼◼,” you finished the incantation, feeling warmth seep from your limbs as the payment. “Refurbish.”

It wasn’t the wisest move, not at all. But who could blame you, when the materialised gauzy fabrics against stone walls, as well as the jewel-hued rugs, looked so darn nice? 

Well, before you collapsed, of course—with a dopey grin on your face nonetheless. Those two things were all you could appreciate before you got totally knocked out. 

Thus, the limits were deduced to be large-scale summonings, enforced by a good night's sleep—noted cheerfully by the alchemist who peeled his face off a brand new ornate rug in the morning, rather than the bed he’d sacrificed his consciousness for. 

. 　⁺ ✦

When you unstuck yourself off the fastidiously complex rug (skin imprinted with its thread patterns, since you slept corpse-like in a single position), you almost didn’t recognise the once sparse house. To be more accurate, the intricate tapestries and glitzy trinkets, vases and decorations were familiar to what you pictured; but placed in conjunction with the stone walls, delicately carved pillars, and spacious, airy rooms took them to a completely new level. 

The wish was thorough, you had to admit. With your feel pattering against the almost-glassy, colourful tiles, you took in the area where you woke up: the kitchen. Dried bundles of herbs hung from copper-hued rafters, perfuming the air with aromatic fragrances and balsamic scents. Past sage cupboards were conjured utensils that gleamed with a disused sort of enthusiasm that made your brows raise. I didn’t even think of these, you noted, flinging open the cupboards by the elegant cooker to reveal stacks upon stacks of charming ceramics and everything else you might possibly need to exist in the kitchen. Even the icebox, a large storeroom imbued with enchantments above its doorway (the Metisian equivalent of a modern refrigerator) was packed with meats and vegetables that looked visually dissimilar to Earth’s, but were somehow familiar to your mind. 

It raised a question—if you ate food you conjured, would it not just be an endless loop of energy?

More importantly, would you even need the money still stored in the jade bead around your neck?

On the other side of the open-plan ground floor was the living area, strewn with various oddities and memorabilia. Two bookshelves stood proudly in a rich walnut colour, creaking under the weight of various books you’d skimmed in those reading-places back in the city. There were also titles you’d never come across before, but were sure to read on the plushy couches strewn with soft, patterned blankets and jewel-toned cushions. It was cosier than anything you might’ve desired, especially with the dim amber lamps perched on the dark-stained low table and the vibrant, low-hanging mosaic ceiling lights that looked like delicate baubles dropping from the heavens. 

You ignored the stairs that spiralled to the top floor—to where there were a few rooms still detailed on the floor plan—since they were likely to contain the same levels of decoration both the kitchen and salon had. Rather, you tiptoed through the sunny corridor leading to the eastern part of the sprawling home: gauzy, rich-hued curtains brushing lightly past your skin. There, past the stunning mahogany door was a bright, vast studio—complete with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the extensive gardens and the distant mountains, as well as all the tools you could possibly need for sculpting, alongside the hammer and chisels you’d purchased just yesterday. 

For a while you simply stared at the scenic landscape—nothing you’d ever seen on Earth, not when every day consisted of grey asphalt and ash-coloured buildings. There was a damn pond in your backyard, with a delicately wrought table and chair set at the edge. Had you imagined this too?

In any case, it was in a slight daze that you finally checked out the rooms upstairs; two guest rooms with large beds, desks and wardrobes; a large bathroom with picturesque views of the distant horizon and forests, as well as a massive tub; and finally, your room. 

How did you know it was your room? 

It looked lived in. Just like downstairs, a massive bookshelf lined the wall adjacent to the large windows: gauzy curtains fluttered over the tomes and let in the cool, fresh breeze. A large rug decorated the panels on the floor and slipped beneath your bed: a massive, round thing that looked like a jewel-bright, appetising cloud to simply dive into. And past the bed, an imposing armoire was stuffed to its seams in outfits both similar to the ones you were wearing (intricate, soft garments with detailed embroidery and vibrant palettes) as well as simpler, yet extraordinarily well-crafted, garments. 

In essence, you were set for life. This space was an ideal, permanent vacation home: even if it were in no-man’s territory, with monsters sullying its landscape. You intended to sequester yourself until you died once more—with a book laid on your chest, a mug of tea still on the table, and a fat bee bumbling past as you closed your eyes in peaceful, eternal slumber. That was the ignorant bliss you would afford yourself: the you who got a break in this idyllic game after you passed on. 

Perhaps this form of living would’ve been considered lamentable back on Earth. You, with the laurels of being a doctor in your profession, now spent the afternoon languidly draped over a soft couch simply reading. There were no samples to analyse, no reports to check, no research to work on. In fact, it was only a week later that you finally ventured out the sprawling gardens and into the forests. It wasn’t to check out the academic fruits of the bustling metropolis, nor was it to analyse the chemical makeup of the soil and flora—the most you’d done for that was conjuring some compost to make your new vegetable garden more acidic. 

No, setting out into the forest was more to idly take inspiration from these pulchritudinous sights, and maybe fight a few monsters to learn how real combat worked in this open-world, combat-based RPG. 

Maybe you’d get lucky and find some clay to practise sculpting before you found stone to work on. It was a forgiving medium, after all—soft and supple under your hands, rather than cold and flawless. Any mistakes could be worked away, any blunders would fade in the face of the cool, wet earth, and if you polished your rusty skills, you could make it into a job—it was a solid cover to disguise your use of alchemy. 

As the grass with no apparent paths was trodden on (for the first time in perhaps decades), the loamy scent of petrichor and foliage quickly filled your senses; it was so tranquil, in fact, that your hold on your metal pail grew more absent-minded as you swept a large stick this way and that to brush longer plants aside. If you unfurled the slightly-outdated map you’d paid a sesame ring for, there was… a river nearby, right? 

You squinted at the parchment, still unheeding of the warnings you’d received about this forest. With a full belly and over twelve hours of sleep, there was a dormant energy that was somewhat overshadowed by a bumbling drowsiness: only dispelling when you heard the sound of running water. 

Clay—your eyes lit up like beacons, and the formulae on your body seemed to glow as you rolled the sleeves of your loose cream shirt up, as well as the soft material of your navy trousers. It was casual, to the point of being somewhat scandalous—nothing like the classy drapes of fabric that constituted every day in New Metis.

Well, you thought with a smug sort of vehemence. This is the Borderlands. Thus, there was an unseemly sort of flippancy to your gait as you trod in the direction of what you hoped was the river, pail and stick in hand as your shield and sword. 

It was, perhaps, far too easy to find the softer clay deposits on the bank of the river; prying into the earth above to reveal the slick medium beneath and depositing it into your bucket. In fact, life had been going so smoothly in the past few days that you were lulled into a sense of false security. 

Had you forgotten how your life was prior to your death?

You’d gotten complacent as you dusted yourself off—shirt and pants plastered with a gorgeous mauve, though you paid it little mind. It would be hell to clean out, unless you simply dubbed these the ‘work clothes’. In any case, your biggest worry currently was the staining of your conjured clothes—a far cry from the life and death you’d experienced. 

It couldn’t simply be attributed to accustomising yourself to mundanity—no, maybe you were a bit of a reckless idiot as you strolled along the banks, sunning yourself with the binary stars in the heavens. There was not a care in the world as you closed your eyes to the Borderlands in favour of merely existing. Listening to the clear sounds of water cascading over riverstones. Feeling the clean breeze wash over your bare forearms and wet legs. Tasting the powdery, thick scent of clay after practically burying your face in it as you dug the mauve medium up. 

But like all good things, they eventually had to end. 

You weren’t foolish enough to keep turning a blind eye when you sensed danger. 

The leaves stirred. The waters vacillated—equilibrium was no longer an option. The forest, like a stricken pulse, seemed to constrict around you; the very wind took shallow breaths against your skin. 

Please, the Borderlands seemed to whisper. Get out while you can. 

Your stick tapped a rhythm against the soft mud—partly passively sinking, partly actively getting dragged into what was quickly becoming quicksand. 

For a brief moment, everything stilled—before you heard rapidly approaching footsteps coming right your way. Mentally, you began the long chant… tongue of thought for strengthening…. equation for charge… Coulomb’s law…. 

From the water too, came a sudden rush of volume flung to the skies—though the fleeting steps reached you first. A flash of blond. Your eyes met widened, almost-neon coloured irises. The stench of blood, too, filled the banks—before he crashed right into you, barrelling you against the rough bark of a tree whilst desperately clasping a hand over your mouth. 

“Niedra; ćhiho tu, albo ka arakhel,” he breathed, panic so thick in each syllable that you could only stare. It wasn’t the common tongue, but you instinctively got the message from his hushed cadence. No, wait. 

Don’t panic, the words had ghosted over your dampened flesh. Quiet, or it’ll find us. 

In a language so smooth that it sounded like song, like an intricate tapestry woven from gossamer, he’d conveyed to you panic, fear, and a camaraderie so primal that this partnership was instinctual. 

“Don’t speak, and hold your breath,” he then urgently translated into common tongue, when you merely looked at him, unblinking. “The Borderlands are very dangerous.”

The sudden switch allowed you to figure out why exactly you could parse together the clear meaning in his silvery syllables. 

“Xatarav,” you murmured. ‘I understand’, for it was not in a language you didn’t know. The language that had not seen use—the tongue of honey—had finally encountered one of its own. 

But the surprise in his face—the questions imbibed on insatiable lips—went unnoticed by you, for ‘it’ had finally found you. 

Water splashed against the tree where the two of you were pressed against—soaking into the bark, and seeping cold into the fabric of your shirt. You couldn’t see ‘it’ from your position, but you could see the behemoth reflected in those captivating eyes—towering in his sclera as the leviathan uncoiled from the depths of the now-raging river. It shook its mane out—webbed tendrils fanning out angrily as it swung its massive head this way and that. 

A frigid sort of fear washed over you, leeching any sort of warmth that had remained in your limbs. 

Well over forty-metres high, it was only its poor eyesight that prevented it from slithering round this tree and snapping the two of you up in its deadly snapping jaws—reminding you acutely of the thrumming iron that pumped deep in your veins, and just how easy it was to spill. 

You were painfully aware of the fact your only emergency ally was covered in gashes and wounds, bleeding into the already-purple mess of your clothes. His breathing was unsteady and his pulse was arrhythmic, but his eyes bore into yours with an intensity that seemed to ask ‘what will you do?’.

Would you run? Would you sling his arm over your shoulders and somehow evade the lightning-quick serpent? Would you leave him behind? 

Your grip tightened around the stick—interrupted equations leaving it with a slight prickly sensation, rather than the full extent of charge. He noticed the muscles of your arm clench in response to your urgent grasp, and he frantically slanted his hand diagonally in an abject ‘no’.

“Na ka umire,” you muttered, making sure he understood exactly what you were saying in his mother tongue. ‘I won’t die.’

And you wouldn’t. 

Not today, not tomorrow. 

You wouldn’t die in vain a second time. 

. 　⁺ ✦

[psychotrenny]

On a more serious note, the Islamic Revolutions of the 19th Century West Sudan (region) are interesting because they provide a relatively early example of holistic ideologically-motivated revolution that follows a deliberate plan of societal renovation. This contrasts with the many less directional revolutions that sought to solve very specific issues or merely change the individuals/associations who held power in society without changing the social structures themselves.

Like the backbone of these Islamic revolutionary movements derived from the West Sudanese intelligentsia and associated strata. Usman dan Fodio, Seku Amadu and Al-ḥājj 'Umar were all prominent scholars with close ties to the regional Islamic mercantile community, while much of their initial following derived from their students and the relatives of students. These movements also had very clear ideas of how they wanted to restructure society both socially and economically. While rallying against the specific misdeeds of local rulers (abuses of power, unfair taxation), each of reformers also had their sights set higher than the replacement of bad individuals with good ones.

Instead of merely removing the morally corrupt and religiously syncretic rulers, the reformers strove to expunging all pagan elements from broader society while establishing a stronger education system to more permanently spread and maintain orthodox Islam within their territories. And instead of merely lowering the taxes as new rulers they changed the basis that taxation laws were founded on; employing Maliki school Sharia instead of going entirely off the whims of worldly rulers. There were institutional changes to the very nature of Statehood in the region too. States were no longer ruled by kings who were divine personages themselves; they were replaced by Amirs who functionally first among equals with the other governing scholars. This meant that many formerly powerful institutions were either rendered impotent (Palace Slave officials) or eliminated altogether (the office of Queen mother/sister). Like through their study of Islamic literature and analysis of the societies they lived in, these scholars came up with a plan to change their societies and to one extent or another put it into action. The changes the wrought went far far deeper than the names of the rulings families

Mind you it's important not to exaggerate the extent of these changes. They may have deliberately altered the nature and mechanisms of culture and politics, but the mode of production did not receive similar treatment. There were certainly economic changes in the region throughout the 19th century but these were driven more by international trade relations than any domestic political programmes*; a decline in demand for slaves and increase in demand for the agricultural products from the region (Kola Nuts, Peanuts, Palm Oil etc.) meant a region wide decrease in the export of slave as more of them were retained locally for employment in agriculture. However this was a process that occurred throughout West Africa rather than being confined to the Islamic Sudan; it was not a result of deliberate effort by Islamic Reformists. These were revolutions of the Superstructure, not the Base. To put it in European terms they had much more in common with the Liberal revolutions of the 18th century than the Communist ones of the 20th.

Still the fact that there was any kind of genuine ideological program at all, complete with its share of well known thinkers and an entire library of relevant literature, certainly makes it more recognisable to the modern revolutionary than many of the other civil wars and succession disputes given such a title. Even ignoring how important this process was for the West Sudan specifically, it's a very interesting slice of history that more people should be at least aware of. This post was largely based on volume 6 of the UNESCO General History of Africa (mainly chapters 21-3) and I'd highly recommend reading the whole thing if you're curious. At bare minimum it should be remembered that this sort of history is not unique to Europe

*I've definitely read a paper (which I cannot for the life of me find in my notes so if anyone knows something relevant it would be greatly appreciated) that suggests these processes aided the Islamic Reformers as many of the Pagan/Syncretic rulers relied mostly on slave raiding and sale while the more orthodox Islamic communities were already more involved in plantation production. However I've seen nothing to suggest this was a direct influence on or result of Islamic Reformist politics and a similar process occurred in the Pagan kingdoms to the South and East too

[nacrelysis]

sometimes i do just think about sumeru archon quest...i can't remember any in genshin lore where so many characters played such a huge role in the storyline and so cleanly. and how well-built the power structures/institutions are.

screams and bashes my head against the wall...the way sumeru is literally structured upon the pursuit of knowledge and wisdom but it's become a bastardized theocracy because of the akademiya sages.

the way it's literally a council of conservatives who hate the idea of moving forward with 'lesser lord' kusanali because that would actually require them to relinquish power to their god. the way they corrupt rukkhadevata's name for their own purposes because, well, she doesn't exist anymore, does she? she can't object to what they do in her name, can she? the way they intentionally pit the common people against each other and frame academia as a competition and make the entire population dependent on a network instead of their own thought so that every new generation is either burning themselves out or throwing away their identity...as long as they aren't questioning what the sages want to accomplish.

but, like. the archon quest. the traveler pops back between sumeru city and the desert because it's crucial to the development of this sociopolitical commentary. we get to see the exploitation of the desert region first-hand.

and the supporting cast is so so good. cyno, general mahamatra, and al-haitham, the akademiya scribe, give up the prestige of their titles in favor of doing the right thing: freeing nahida. dehya and candace/kandake are fighting for recognition and proper treatment of their people (dehya's character teaser literally focusing on how she uses her mercenary money to fund education for orphans and children in the desert!!) and a life free of exploitation from people claiming themselves to be "scholars." nilou tying up her mini-arc in the archon quest about how the akademiya suppresses creative liberty and the arts in order to maintain their hierarchy, nilou being the face of the resistance, nilou using her art as a method of protest and being crucial to the rescue of nahida!!

and hoyo writers tying up the socio-political commentary after the main conflict is over...nahida working with the akademiya and deshret worshippers to reconcile the prejudices and systemic oppression of the desert villages! eremites and candace and dehya and even npcs like setaria (who plays a major part in introducing the whole deshret-rukkhadevata conflict) being a part of the resolution! random notion but i really liked setaria and i'm so glad she chose to resign from the akademiya because it wasn't staying true to her moral principles in order to help improve education in her desert home ;-;

every character plays a part and i love it. i was rooting for them so hard and i was so close to crying when nahida finally got to step outside for the first time in 500 years. like !!! sumeru's archon quest got you so attached to the characters in such a little amount of time...i'm big-eyed about it all...

(also al-haitham organizing the coup so he wouldn't have to have more responsibilities in the akademiya, only to be named acting grand sage because his coup literally deposed every other possible candidate, was really funny)

[finisnihil]

Hi I finished 2.2’s quest FINALLY and man I really love Sunday's character so much. Spoilers for 2.2 ahead:

He grew up in an environment where he saw people get exploited by other for their own means. Hell in the confessional he sits in for you see how isolated he is in the Family outside of the Dreammaster and his sister, with that one Pepeshi merchant threatening him with pulling support if he didn't do what the merchant wanted. Sunday’s relationship with Penacony is like that analogy of living in a house that’s on fire for so long you don’t understand what it’s like to free of the blaze.

Everything he's tried to do to alleviate the suffering of those around him has been in vain in the end. Penacony is basically all he's know his whole life, unlike Robin, so much so that it's become a cage. HE'S the bird that tries to fly only to crash and die, so he’s stuck. The Dreammaster has taught him the cage is a good thing because in this cage, you’ll be taken care of by Ena in exchange for your autonomy. Autonomy is a fair price to pay for safety, right?

He truly does have good intentions, the intention of wanting to protect people who can’t protect themselves, but the way he goes about it is fundamentally corrupted because his view of the world is corrupted by the Family from the start. The Dreammaster calls him a little scholar when he’s a child and a child when he’s an adult. Sunday and Robin are nothing but a means to an end for the Dreammaster and Sunday knows it, so much so that he’s willing to sacrifice himself so Robin doesn’t have to take on this burden. He will always be the bird who takes on the burden of the cage so that his sister can enjoy flying free, especially if he can make it so that that freedom wont end with a hunter shooting her down. His life is ultimately worthless to him, only a tool to trade for Robin’s happiness.

In the end, he’s crashing to his death after he was too weak to fly freely, so Robin falls with him and hugs him because now it’s her turn to protect him, to help him fly so he doesn’t crash like the dove from their childhood. She is strong and he is weak but she will protect him because this world isn’t just a system of survival of the fittest and Penacony can be heal without the protection of a cage.

Honestly his entire arc feels like a spiritual journey of rediscovery, the beliefs he was raised with making him miserable and it leading to him breaking away from the institution that raised him, becoming disillusioned and finding his own relationship with a higher power through the love and support of those who actually care about him. I really do hope Sunday gets redeemed because so much of his mindset came from being raised in an unhealthy environment on top of being isolated from anyone else who could’ve helped him get out of it. Robin won’t let him fall like the morning star; she’s finally got her brother back.

[pattern-recognition]

In the mass protest decade, street explosions created revolutionary situations, often on accident. But a protest is very poorly equipped to take advantage of a revolutionary situation, and that particular kind of protest is especially bad at it. If you believe that you can forge a better society, if you are willing to run the risk of trying, then you should enter the vacuum yourself. But a diffuse group of individuals who come out to the streets for very different reasons cannot simply take power themselves, at least not as an entire diffuse group of individuals. Once someone goes in there and takes power in the name of the masses, you are talking about a type of vanguard—a particular ideological project, and a minority of people who dare to try to represent the rest of the population. In some of the more utopian strains of anti-authoritarian thought, the riot is supposed to become the new society, but this has not worked out so far.11 Perhaps it might, someday, but it would probably not work very well in the actually existing Global South, which is surrounded by so many foreign actors that might be sucked very quickly into an apparent power vacuum by the possibility of easy profit and plunder.

If some new group boldly steps into the vacuum, manages to stay there, and transforms society, then that’s a revolution. But if you find your political system broadly acceptable, or you don’t think you can replace it with something better, then the thing to do is to negotiate. That is called reform. You can use your power on the streets to extract concessions, if you play it right. But once more, this necessarily entails representation.

It was not just Mayara and Haddad who overlapped in their answers to my question. I heard it very often—it came in different forms, but I heard it more than any other response. I think Hossam Bahgat put it best, or at least, the most directly.

“Organize. Create an organized movement. And don’t be afraid of representation,” he said without hesitation, in his office in Giza, as his world fell apart around him. “We thought representation was elitism, but actually it is the essence of democracy.” I heard answers like this over and over, confirming research compiled by scholars. As early as 1975, William Gamson found that movements succeed more often when they deploy hierarchical forms of organization. In a wide-ranging 2022 study, Mark Beissinger found that loose uprisings of the Maidan type tend to increase inequality and ethnic tensions, while they do not consolidate democracy or end corruption.

“After Maidan, I decided I do not believe in self-organization,” said Artem Tidva, the young leftist who brought a red European Union flag to the square, as we grabbed a bite to eat in central Kyiv in the summer of 2021. “I used to be more anarchist. Back then everyone wanted to do an assembly; whenever there was a protest, always an assembly. But I think any revolution with no organized labor party will just give more power to economic elites, who are already very well-organized.” Unlike some of his former comrades, Artem never gave up on the Ukrainian uprising and stayed active in the post-Maidan political scene, working to push for center-left, anti-racist alternatives in the context of the new political order. But in Ukraine, it seemed clear that the uprising had benefited the groups that had already formed coherent, disciplined organizations before the uprising began, and we had seen more evidence of that earlier in the day.

“I definitely don’t have the same views on these things as I did before 2013,” said Lucas “Vegetable” Monteiro. He still believes that a better society must be born out of this one, not just created after some revolution seizes state power. But he now thinks that the Movimento Passe Livre turned the principles of horizontalism, autonomy, and prefiguration “into a dogma, into a kind of religion, and we could not turn them into real political practice. Instead, they became a kind of identity. And we ended up quickly crashing into barriers that we ourselves had created.” The MPL still exists, but no one who was in the group in 2013 is still a member. Looking back on 2019 in Hong Kong, Theo told me, “[It] was very fun to see the China building defaced, I had a lot of fun on the streets, but the decentralized nature of the movement meant that there was no room for discussion about how it should work, or how a coherent strategy could be developed.”

Not everyone I met came out of the decade adopting positions in favor of formal structures, in support of “verticalism” and hierarchy, insisting that representation matters. Mayara, for example, remains mostly true to the ideals she adopted as a young punk. But everyone moved in the same direction. I spent years doing interviews, and not one person told me that they had become more horizontalist, or more anarchist, or more in favor of spontaneity and structurelessness. Some people stayed in the same place. But everyone that changed their views on the question of organization moved closer to classically “Leninist” ones.

Bevins, Vincent. If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Iam not usually one to offer diagnoses of people I’ve never met, but it does seem like the pundit class of the American media is suffering from severe memory loss. Because they’re doing exactly what they did in the 2016 presidential race – providing wildly asymmetrical and inflammatory coverage of the one candidate running against Donald J Trump.

They have become a stampeding herd producing an avalanche of stories suggesting Biden is unfit, will lose and should go away, at a point in the campaign in which replacing him would likely be somewhere between extremely difficult and utterly catastrophic. They do this while ignoring something every scholar and critic of journalism knows well and every journalist should. As Nikole Hannah-Jones put it: “As media we consistently proclaim that we are just reporting the news when in fact we are driving it. What we cover, how we cover it, determines often what Americans think is important and how they perceive these issues yet we keep pretending it’s not so.” They are not reporting that he is a loser; they are making him one.

According to one journalist’s tally, the New York Times has run 192 stories on the subject since the debate, including 50 editorials and 142 news stories. The Washington Post, which has also gone for saturation coverage, published a resignation speech they wrote for him. Not to be outdone, the New Yorker’s editor-in-chief declared that Biden not going away “would be an act not only of self-delusion but of national endangerment” and had a staff writer suggest that Democrats should use the never-before-deployed 25th amendment.

Since this would have to be led by Vice-President Kamala Harris, it would be a sort of insider coup. And so it goes with what appears to be a journalistic competition to outdo each other in the aggressiveness of the attacks and the unreality of the proposals. It’s a dogpile and a panic, and there is no one more unable to understand their own emotional life, biases and motives than people who are utterly convinced of their own ironclad rationality and objectivity, AKA most of these pundits.

Speaking of coups, we’ve had a couple of late, which perhaps merit attention as we consider who is unfit to hold office. This time around, Trump is not just a celebrity with a lot of sexual assault allegations, bankruptcies and loopily malicious statements, as he was in 2016. He’s a convicted criminal who orchestrated a coup attempt to steal an election both through backroom corruption and public lies and through a violent attack on Congress. The extremist US supreme court justices he selected during his last presidential term themselves staged a coup this very Monday, overthrowing the US constitution itself and the principle that no one is above the law to make presidents into kings, just after legalizing bribery of officials, and dismantling the regulatory state by throwing out the Chevron deference.

Trump’s own former staffers are part of the Heritage Foundation’s team planning to implement Project 25 if he wins, which would finish off our system of government with yet another coup. “We are in the process of the second American revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be,” said the foundation’s president the other day. This alarms me. So does the behavior of the US mainstream media, which seems more concerned with sabotaging the only thing standing between us and this third coup.

“Why aren’t we talking about Trump’s fascism?” demands the headline of Jeet Heer’s piece in the Nation, to which the answer might be a piece by the Nation’s own editor-in-chief titled “Biden’s patriotic duty” that proposes his duty is to get lost. Sometimes I wonder if all this coverage is because the media knows how to cover a normal problem like a sub-par candidate; they don’t know how to cover something as abnormal and unprecedented as the end of the republic. So for the most part they don’t.

Biden is old. He was one kind of appalling in the 27 June debate, listless and sometimes stumbling and muddling his words. But Trump was another kind of appalling, in that almost everything he said was an outrageous lie and some of it was a threat. I get that writing about the monstrosity that is Trump faces the problem that it’s not news; he’s been a monster spouting lurid nonsense all his life (but his political crimes are recent, and his free-associating public soliloquies on sharks, batteries, toilets, water flow and Hannibal Lector, among other topics, are genuinely demented). He’s a racist, a fascist and a rapist (according to a civil-court verdict).

We are deciding whether this nation has a future as a more-or-less democratic republic this November, and on that rides the fate of the earth when it comes to acting on climate change. If the US falters at this decisive moment in the climate crisis, it will drag down everyone else’s efforts. Under Trump, it will. But the shocking supreme court decisions this summer and the looming threat of authoritarianism have gotten little ink and air, compared to the hue and cry about Biden’s competence.

Few seem to remember that Biden’s age and his verbal gaffes were an issue in the 2020 campaign. Biden is a lifelong stutterer, and the effort to keep his words on track means that he operates under an extra burden with every unscripted answer he gives, particularly under pressure (though he had a long, easygoing conversation with Howard Stern a couple of months ago, in which he discusses his stuttering at about the 1:13 mark).

Some speech pathologists have suggested he may (not does, just may) have a disorder that sometimes accompanies stuttering, called cluttering, which is not an intellectual deficiency but a sometimes hectic and disorderly translation of thoughts into words. In recent months, actual gerontologists have said in print that Biden appears to have normal signs of aging, not signs of dementia. Nevertheless, the amateur armchair diagnosticians have been out in packs, and their confidence in their ability to diagnose from watching TV is itself an alarming delusion. I am not giving Biden a clean bill of health; I’m saying that I don’t have a basis to render a verdict (and neither do the august editors of large publications).

Few seem to remember that Biden’s age and his verbal gaffes were an issue in the 2020 campaign

Although the Biden administration seems to have run extremely well for three and a half years, with a strong cabinet, few scandals and little turnover, a thriving economy and some major legislative accomplishments, the narrative the punditocracy has created suggest we should ignore this record and decide on the basis of the 90-minute debate and reference to newly surfaced swarms of anonymous sources that Biden is incompetent. Quite a lot of them have been running magical-realism fantasy-football scenarios in which it is fun and easy to swap in your favorite substitute candidate. The reality is that it is hard and quite likely to be a terrible mess. Nevertheless, this pretense is supposed to mean that telling a presidential candidate in mid-campaign to get lost is fine.

The main argument against Biden is not that he can’t govern – that would be hard to make given that he seems to have done so for the past years – but that he can’t win the election. But candidates do not win elections by themselves. Elections are won, to state the obvious, by how the electorate turns out and votes. The electorate votes based on how they understand the situation and evaluate the candidates. That is, of course, in large part shaped by the media, as Hannah-Jones points out, and the media is right now campaigning hard for a Democratic party loss. The other term for that is a Republican victory. Few things have terrified and horrified me the way this does.

Rebecca Solnit is a Guardian US columnist. She is the author of Orwell’s Roses and co-editor with Thelma Young Lutunatabua of the climate anthology Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility

[brokehorrorfan]

Barbarella will be released on 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray on November 28 via Arrow Video. Tula Lotay designed the new cover art for the 1968 science fiction cult classic; the original poster is on the reverse side.

Roger Vadim (Into the Night) directs from a script he co-wrote with Terry Southern (Dr. Strangelove, Easy Rider), based on the French comic series by Jean-Claude Forest. Jane Fonda stars with John Phillip Law, Marcel Marceau, David Hemmings, and Ugo Tognazzi.

The limited edition set comes with a booklet featuring new writing on the film by Anne Billson, Paul Gravett, Véronique Bergen, and Elizabeth Castaldo Lundén along with select archival material, a double-sided poster, and six double-sided postcards.

Barbarella has been newly restored in 4K from the original negative in Dolby Vision (HDR10 compatible) with original lossless mono audio and remixed Dolby Atmos surround.

Special features for the two-disc set are listed below, where you can also see more of the packaging and contents.

Disc 1 - 4K UHD:

Audio commentary by film critic Tim Lucas

Alternative opening and closing credits

Isolated score

Disc 2 - Blu-ray:

Barbarella appreciation by film critic Glenn Kenny

Barbarella Forever - making-of featurette by Paul Joyce

Love - 2-hour discussion on the impact and legacy of Barbarella by film historians Tim Lucas & Steve Bissette

Interview with film fashion scholar Elizabeth Castaldo Lundén on Jacques Fonteray’s costume designs

Interview with camera operator Roberto Girometti

Interview with Ricky Tognazzi on his father, Barbarella actor Ugo Tognazzi

Interview with stuntman/body double Fabio Testi

Video essay by Eugenio Ercolani on producer Dino De Laurentiis

Trailer

TV and radio spots

Image gallery

Additional contents:

Booklet featuring new writing on the film by Anne Billson, Paul Gravett, Véronique Bergen, and Elizabeth Castaldo Lundén, plus select archival material

Double-sided fold-out poster with new art by Tula Lotay and original artwork

6 double-sided postcards

It is the year 40,000AD. When evil scientist Durand Durand (Milo O’Shea) creates a deadly weapon with the potential to cause mass devastation, the President of Earth dispatches Barbarella (Jane Fonda) to hunt him down. Crash-landing in an icy wilderness somewhere within the Tau Ceti planetary system, Barbarella is rescued by Mark Hand (Ugo Tognazzi) and guided by the blind angel Pygar (John Phillip Law) to Durand’s lair in Sogo, a city of corruption and debauchery, where an encounter with the Great Tyrant Black Queen (Anita Pallenberg) and her minions throws her mission into jeopardy.

Pre-order Barbarella.

[illwilledomen]

If you don't mind me asking, do illagers have any form of religion like villagers? Or do they just worship/follow whoever's in charge

They worship themselves. Okay, well, that’s sort of partly figurative, partly literal. Let me explain:

On paper they worship the same three deities as their agrarian cousins do, Spirit/Foresight, Harvest/Action and Prosperity/Knowledge (I had a three God system for villagers before I found out about legends, so I’ve kind of folded their three gods into mine, so they’re the same guys, just different expressions of them). They have similar sacred animals as well, like cats and hens, which express traits of Spirit and Harvest respectively.

The major difference between illager religion and villager religion are these key traits:

- Obviously, illagers do not have the oath of pacifism that villagers follow. They have some of the cultural rituals that stem from the villager’s oath of pacifism, such as hand-hiding and shaving of the head, but it hasn’t retained the same theological background.

- Illagers LOVE magic… Well, magic that they practice. If anyone they don’t like is up to some sorcery, they get pissed off. They think it’s a gods-given gift to illagerkind alone. Meanwhile, villagers are very antsy about magic. There’s only a few branches that they allow, and there’s only a few jobs that can pursue them. This results in illagers progressing their technology at the expense of others, ethics and themselves, while villagers remain technologically stagnant and refuse to experiment.

- Illagers idolize their image. Their own civilization is a god in itself, considered to be the child of the three hosts respective qualities. This is why they really like putting their faces on everything — why make up a flag and go through the trouble of reproducing it, when you can use the most recognizable symbol of all, stuck on the bodies of your people: The visage!!

While villager legends (as per minecraft legends) lament over how illagers are the result of the corruption of war, turning the humble villager into something monstrous in soul and action, the illagers see things differently. They viewed the three hosts giving them the power of weaponry/war as a hopeful event, not an ominous one. Instead of blind, feeble cattle (which is how they view villagers) they were now powerful and clever. In villager myth, illagers chose to leave to follow a path of destruction, but in illager myth, the illagers were forcibly cast out by the villagers, rejected for their new ideas, thus becoming martyrs in a way — cast out scholars and heroes, forced to wander into the treacherous wilds by their cowardly kin, banding together with their wits and strength to make the Glorious Empire (and a massive persecution/superiority complex)

[saturniasxenos]

Cyber / Virtual ID Pack

Inside this pack, you will find: Pronouns, Titles, Names, and Genders that relate to Virtuality, Cybernetic, Robots, and anything alike!

This features a LOOOONG list of pronouns and dystopian-ish names!

Pronouns:

Cy/Cyb/Cyber/Cybers/Cyberself

Vir/Virt/Virtual/Virtuals/Virtualself

Ne/Net/Network/Networks/Networkself

Ne/Net/Nets/Nets/Netself

In/Inter/Internet/Internets/Internetself

Co/Comp/Computer/Computers/Computerself

In/Inpu/Input/Inputs/Inputself

Ou/Out/Output/Outputs/Outputself

Vi/Viru/Virus/Viruses/Virusself

Anti/Antivir/Antivirus/Antiviruses/Antivirusself

Er/Erro/Error/Errors/Errorself

Sys/Syste/System/Systems/Systemself

Pro/Proce/Processor/Processors/Processorself

Di/Digi/Digital/Digitals/Digitalself

Do/Down/Download/Downloads/Downloadself

Up/Uplo/Upload/Uploads/Uploadself

Cor/Corru/Corrupt/Corrupts/Corruptself

Mal/Malwa/Malware/Malwares/Malwareself

Se/Secur/Security/Securitys/Securityself

Cry/Crypt/Crypto/Cryptos/Cryptoself

We/Web/Webs/Webs/Webself

Web/Webs/Website/Websites/Websiteself

Fu/Futu/Future/Futures/Futureself

Ro/Rob/Robot/Robots/Robotself

Rob/Robo/Robotic/Robotics/Roboticself

By/Byt/Byte/Bytes/Byteself

Fi/Fil/File/Files/Fileself

Ra/Ram/Rams/Rams/Ramself

Scr/Scre/Screen/Screens/Screenself

Te/Tech/Techs/Techs/Techself

Te/Tech/Techno/Technos/Technoself

Tec/Techno/Technology/Technologys/Technologyself

Ma/Mach/Machine/Machines/Machineself

Wi/Wir/Wire/Wires/Wireself

Na/Nan/Nano/Nanos/Nanoself

Da/Dat/Data/Datas/Dataself

Plu/Plug/Plugs/Plugs/Plugself

Ele/Elect/Electric/Electrics/Electricself

Ke/Key/Keys/Keys/Keyself

Pa/Pass/Password/Passwords/Passwordself

Ter/Term/Terminal/Terminals/Terminalself

Cy/Cybo/Cyborg/Cyborgs/Cyborgself

Ty/Typ/Type/Types/Typeself

Fi/Firm/Firmware/Firmwares/Firmwareself

Ha/Hard/Hardware/Hardwares/Hardwareself

So/Soft/Software/Softwares/Softwareself

Ha/Hack/Hacks/Hacks/Hackself

Ha/Hack/Hacker/Hackers/Hackerself

Si/Sig/Signal/Signals/Signalself

Clo/Clou/Cloud/Clouds/Cloudself

On/Onli/Online/Onlines/Onlineself

In/Insta/Install/Installs/Installself

Co/Cod/Code/Codes/Codeself

Ad/Admi/Admin/Admins/Adminself

Gra/Graph/Graphic/Graphs/Graphself

Sy/Syn/Synth/Synths/Synthself

Phi/Phis/Phish/Phishs/Phishself

Phi/Phish/Phishing/Phishings/Phishingself

Do/Dox/Doxs/Doxs/Doxself

Si/Sit/Site/Sites/Siteself

Bo/Bot/Bots/Bots/Botself

Pho/Phon/Phone/Phones/Phoneself

Key/Keyboa/Keyboard/Keyboards/Keyboardself

Mo/Mou/Mouse/Mouses/Mouseself

Chi/Chip/Chips/Chips/Chipself

Moth/Mother/Motherboard/Motherboards/Motherboardself

Co/Com/Compute/Computes/Computeself

Pi/Pira/Piracy/Piracys/Piracyself

En/Encry/Encrypt/Encrypts/Encryptself

PDA/PDAs

CPU/CPUs

URL/URLs

404/404s

📱/📱's

💻/💻's

⌨️/⌨️'s

🖥/🖥's

🖱/🖱's

💿/💿's

🎙/🎙's

Titles:

The Cyborg

(X) Whos Wired

Made of Nanotech

(X) Who Uses Nanotech

Scholar of Machines

The Cyber Security

(X) Who Has Cyber Wings

Connected Online

Offline

Unable to Connect

The Administrator

Synthesizer

The Hacker

Nanohacker

The Antivirus

Reconnecting...

ERROR: Unable to Connect

ERROR 404

ERROR: Malware Detected

Names:

Since names don't usually have "techy" meanings, I picked one's that sounded the most cybernetic, cyberpunkish, dystopian, virtualish, etc!

Fem: Althea, Ameris, Astoria, Arcadia, Astra, Beretta, Cyra, Crystal, Crosselle, Eve, Io, Jinx, Kit, Lilith, Meridian, Morrian, Nebula, Nova, Neve, Noxia, North, Octavia, Odette, Odile, Prota, Pistol, Rey, Rue, Rain, Raine, Stormy, Seraphina, Sona, Skye, Thundra, Tempest, Vega, Viva, Vinette, Venus, Xenia, Xya, Xena, Xiomara, Xenara, Xanthe, Zephyria, Zyla, Zadie, Zia,

Masc: Alaric, Aksel, Arden, Antares, Apollo, Ace, Asher, Cole, Cyrus, Code, Draven, Drift, Ender, Flynn, Hawk, Isaac, Jericho, Kip, Kai, Koios, Knox, Nox, Neo, Nero, Octavian, Orionis, Oghma, Paine, Rocket, Ray, Rai, Silas, Slader, Sebastian, Seth, Seraphim, Thalax, Theo, Thatch, Vox, Vector, Wyatt, Xyon, Xane, Xylan, Xerxes, Xayden, Xavier, Xander, Zander, Zayden, Zenith, Zev, Zale, Zane, Zaire, Zeke,

Neu: Andras, Axe, Axiom, Alloy, Allele, Ash, Arrow, Beetle, Chrom, Corvus, Dakota, Dell, Eos, Echo, Eden, Fox, Ghost, Glöckner, Hydrae, Ion, Jesper, Jett, Kursk, Lesath, Locklyn, Lyrae, Maddox, Nemo, Orca, Onyx, Oxygen, Panther, Rikko, Robin, Rune, Scorpion, Scorpius, Saturn, Sparrow, Sonar, Tore, Tauri, Techne, Techno, Ursae, Vesper, Volt, West, Wolf, Xen, Xenon, Zephyr, Zodiac, Zenon, Zeru, Zero, Zen

Genders:

Futuracityc: A gender related to futuristic cities

Futurafashic: A gender related to futuristic fashion

Futurahousic: A gender related to futuristic houses

Digigender: A digital gender. Rangeable from any digital thing or file; virus, malware, .txt, .mp3, antivirus, trojan, email, etc.

Cybergender: A gender or form of gender expression where ones gender or expression is deeply tied into Cyberpunk lore, culture, fashion or media.

CYBERWEAPONIC - a gender that feels like a digital or robotic weapon. this gender may also have ties to sentient AI used as a weapon, but not necessarily.

BIOAMOROBOTIC - a gender connected to being a robot who loves humanity and the world and finds joy all around them!

RobAnatomic - a gender under the anatomic system(link) related to robots, anatomy, robotic anatomy, the anatomy of robots, robots made to teach/study anatomy, anatomy based/related robots of some kind, the anatomy/biology of someone or something being robotic, having robotic anatomy, being a robot with an interest in anatomy and more.

Robogender - for people who’s gender identity aligns with machines/robots/androids/mechs/AIs.

Cyborwebic - a gender related to webcore, evil scientist aesthetics, artificial beings such as androids/cyborgs etc, turtleneck sweaters and old computer monitors

AI flag - this can be used for nonhuman, otherkin, gender, delusion.

Gendervirtual / Genderdigital - a gendersystem in which your gender is related to virtual ) digital themes and x , such as being a virtual ) digital x , a x who loves virtual ) digital themes , a virtual ) digital being who loves x themes , etc.

[apenitentialprayer]

is judaism more similar to christianity or to islam

Well, this is one of those questions that won't have a clear, indisputable answer.

For example, Judaism and Islam are both alike in that they are anti-Incarnational, anti-Trinitarian faiths. They are both more similar to each other than Christianity in that they affirm the absolute Oneness of the transcendental God. (As a historical footnote, this may be why when faced with forced conversion, there are more high-profile cases of Jewish people picking martyrdom over conversion in Christian lands than in Islamic ones).

If we look at Scripture, on the other hand, Christians and Jews are much more similar. While they disagree on the interpretation of their shared texts, up to 77.4% of Christian Scripture (depending on your flavor of Christian) is also Jewish. This is strikingly different from Islam, which has its own canonical Scripture and a very ambivalent relationship with Judeo-Christian texts. Historically speaking, some Islamic scholars have been amenable to using Jewish and Christian material to better understand their own Scripture. Others have been very cautious about the so-called Isra'iliyyat, narratives from other Abrahamic traditions, seeing them as corrupt.

Judaism and Islam are also more similar in that they both focus on orthopraxy more than orthodoxy. Gershom Scholem, a leading scholar in the academic study of Kabbalah, once said that Kabbalah is the closest thing to a theology that Judaism has. At the end of the day, though, Jewish individuals have a lot of freedom in terms of what can be believed. Islam likewise has a few articles of faith, but that's also less importance. What separates different Jewish groups is more religious practice, and what separates Muslim schools of religiosity is more jurisprudence, than what separates Christians.

Or consider the doctrine of the imago Dei, which is very important to Christianity and Judaism, but is either non-existent or only occasionally acknowledged in Islam, depending on your flavor of Islam. Whereas Judaism and Christianity both affirm a likeness to God in human beings, which explains their unique status in His creation, Muslims are much more likely to emphasize God's inability to be compared to anything.

This question also ignores how Islam and Christianity are more similar to each other than they are to Judaism. Along some similarities, both are evangelical religions, seeking converts and at least in theory aiming for a world where everyone belongs to their respective religions. Both emphasize the afterlife much more than Judaism does. And while both Islam and Christianity get inculturated into specific ethnic groups, neither are ethno-religions to the extent that Judaism is (One definition of Judaism? "The -ism of the Jewish people").

One concept that really emphasizes how complex the answer to this question is? Take a look at how all three tackle this question of the Messiah. Christians and Muslims both affirm Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah, while Jews do not. Jews and Muslims both view the Messiah as an establisher of an eschatological kingdom, albeit of a worldly kind; Christians focus on the eschatological aspect, and affirm that in some sense the Kingdom of Heaven is already at hand. Both Christians and Jews heavily associate the Messiah with Israel and the House of David, whereas Muslims do not. And in Islam, the Messiah isn't the sole or even most prominent champion of the cause for God — that would be the Mahdi.

Keep in mind that even with these cautious generalities, you will find contradictions to what I am saying. Each of these religious systems are incredibly diverse, and you may find other resonances and dissonances depending on which particular groups you are comparing.

[skunts-own-truth]

Trying to think of what I should add to my little Burning Wheel fantasy setting that I’ll be using as my house-game with the wife and roommate. Here’s some concepts that are set in stone for it:

Feudal society with knights and kings and shit, on a misty and dangerous set of 15 large islands with a whole lot of tiny rocky islands around them. Lot of small kingdoms, with two large kingdoms that are currently at war with each other over a shared familial claim over the other’s realm.

The islands are a closed system with no one really getting in or out, a storm has surrounded them for generations. The outside world is hardly considered by anyone other than scholars and wizards, some claim there isn’t a realm outside the misty islands.

Orcs are not a natural species, but are folks affected by a particularly nasty curse. Anyone consumed by hatred that comes in contact with the curse can become an orc, with elves being the easiest to corrupt due to how deep elf emotions run.

Population of the islands is pretty well mixed, with humans being only 20% of the folk around with Roden (Skaven) being another 20%, and elves, dwarves, orcs, dark elves, and trolls making up everything else.

Elves are often the royalty and nobility of the various kingdoms, but there are some human, roden, dwarf, and orc royalty out there too.

Mercenaries are kinda like rockstars. Tales get told of their exploits, and the more deeds under their belt the more a kingdom is willing to pay for their services- with most kingdoms saving their actual warriors for wars, mercenaries are used often for dealing with monsters and petty disputes between lords.

There was a great and terrible dark lord a while back, but he’s long dead. The army of monsters, orcs, and demons he once commanded is now scattered with some old generals attempting to rally them and destroy the dark throne under their own banner.

Necromancy is very illegal, given that Death himself wanders the land and frowns on people trying to break the cycle of life and death.

No guns or black powder weapons just yet.

Lesser curses charged with intense emotion cause unique instances of suffering and horror. The Orc curse is a powerful one, a curse that spreads and lasts indefinitely, but a singular curse that turns a man into a giant centipede with bloated human fingers for legs- that’s a unique lesser curse.

There are many forms of magic, and a lot of mixed feelings towards it. There is a magic college in one of the larger kingdom, but hedge witches and wizards are the more common practitioners, with some unique forms of magic cropping up as individuals uncover different ways to manipulate reality.

The party consists of a grave digger who spent so much time with the dead he began to hear the whispers of dead gods and now worships them as their priest, and a necromancer who was born gifted and studied at the college of magic before breaking off and hiding as a street performer to travel and steal forbidden tomes. They have formed a little mercenary band, the two of them and a big dumb goon NPC who joined in with the promise of coin.

I have the first adventure pretty much written, but I think the setting needs just that extra push to really make it bloom.

[charyou-tree]

Unfriendly reminder that CNN was recently bought out by rightwing billionaire John Malone, a board member of the far-right "libertarian think tank" called the Cato Institute, where he rubs elbows with other evil bastards like the Koch brothers.

From their wikipedia page:

Cato scholars have consistently called for the privatization of many government services and institutions,[77] including NASA,[78] Social Security,[79] the United States Postal Service,[80] the Transportation Security Administration,[81] public schooling, public transportation systems,[82][83] and public broadcasting.[84] The institute opposes minimum wage laws, saying that they violate the freedom of contract and thus private property rights, and increase unemployment.[85][86] The institute is opposed to expanding overtime regulations, arguing that it will benefit some employees in the short term, while costing jobs or lowering wages of others, and have no meaningful long-term impact.[87][88] It opposes child labor prohibitions,[89][90][91] opposes public sector unions, and supports right-to-work laws.[92][93] It opposes universal health care, arguing that it is harmful to patients and an intrusion onto individual liberty.[94][95] It is against affirmative action.[96] It has also called for total abolition of the welfare state, and has argued that it should be replaced with reduced business regulations to create more jobs, and argues that private charities are fully capable of replacing it.[97][98] Cato has also opposed antitrust laws.[99][100] Cato is an opponent of campaign finance reform, arguing that government is the ultimate form of potential corruption and that such laws undermine democracy by undermining competitive elections. Cato also supports the repeal of the Federal Election Campaign Act.[101][102]

They're for pretty much every horrible far-right policy there is. This man is a board member of the organization that was created for billionaire oligarchs to funnel money into bribing politicians and spreading propaganda to influence public opinion on regulations to try and make this vision of America a reality.

One of the best lies by Fox News that everyone swallowed uncritically is the idea that everyone else is "The Liberal Media".

CNN should be regarded as a fascist propaganda outlet for the indefinite future.

[asma-al-husna]

Allah calls Himself Al-Baari’ — The Originator, The Maker, The Evolver— on three ocassions in the Quran. He is the One who creates form out of nothing. Al-Baari’ creates with no model or similarity and evolves that which is in perfect proportion and harmony without any fault!

The Originator, The Producer, The Inventor

Baari’ comes from the root baa-raa-hamza which points to three main meanings. The first main meaning is to create and to form out of nothing and the second is to evolve, using pre-existing matter. The third main meaning is to be individual and free and clear from another, and from fault and blemish.

This root appears 31 times in the Quran in 10 derived forms. Examples of these forms are tabarra’a (“will disown”), baraa’atun (“is an exemption”), baree’un (“free”), and al-bariyyati (“(of) the creatures”).

Linguistically, scholars mentioned two concepts related to the root ba-ra-‘a: bari’a, which means to be free from or distant from something and baree’a, which means creation. In the context of Allah ‘azza wajal Al-Baari’means He is the Creator, the Originator, the Inventor who distinguished all creatures from each other by their detailed characteristics!

Al-Baari’ Himself says: He is Allah , the Creator, the Inventor, the Fashioner; to Him belong the best names [Quran, 59:24] and . . . That is best for [all of] you in the sight of your Creator. [Quran, 2:54

The fly in the Quran
Allah al-Baari’ makes a parable: O mankind! Here is an example for your understanding, so listen to it carefully. Those deities whom you call besides Allah, cannot create a single fly, even if they all combined their forces, rather, if a fly snatches away anything from them they cannot even get it back; how feebleminded are the suppliants and how powerless are those whom they supplicate! [Quran, 22:73]
Allah ‘azza wa jall revealed specific knowledge to the Prophet salalaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, for example in the field of science, and the believers must be certain this is truth. In this ayah Allah al-Baari’ is challenging anybody, including modern-day scientists, to make a fly and they are not able to. A fly is a complete living being with a tiny yet comprehensive flight management, guidance, and surveillance system without turbines or propellers— a marvellous nano-technological design.

How Can You Live by This Name?

1. Have firm confidence in al-Baari’.
Let this divine attribute of Allah ‘azza wa jall restore your confidence in times when modern science tries to divert you away from belief in a Creator. A Bedouin who lived in the desert and who expressed it most eloquently, when he was asked, How do you know your Lord? He said: If you see the camel dung you know that a camel has passed this way, and if you see a footstep you know that a person has passed this way, so the heaven with its stars and the earth with its mountain passes and the oceans with their high waves all point to the existence of the All-Hearing, All-Seeing. Let this inspire you in yaqeen (certainty) and faith.

2. Disassociate yourself from the bad.
Distance yourself (baraa’a) from the haraam and those who do bad, are corrupt, or cause mischief. But don’t stop there, distance yourself from bad first, then enjoin good and forbid evil. As a believer you should always be pro-active and strive for ehsaan (excellence) in whatever you do in society. Al-Baari’ said: Let there arise out of you a group of people inviting to all that is good (Islâm), enjoining Al-Ma’rûf (i.e. Islâmic Monotheism and all that Islam orders one to do) and forbidding Al-Munkar (polytheism and disbelief and all that Islam has forbidden). And it is they who are the successful. [Quran, 3:104].

3. Know that everything besides Him is created.
The Messenger of Allah salallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam said: There is no obedience to the creation, in disobedience to the Creator. Obedience is only in what is good. [al-Bukharee] Be very honest with yourself and look at how many occasions in your life you’ve actually tried to please the creation instead of pleasing al-Baari’. Then renew your intention (niyaa) to strive for the pleasure of Him only.

4. Ponder the creation of al-Baari’.
Look at the morning or evening sun, at tiny insects, flies, plants, and flowers. Study science and do so with the intention of pondering His creation. Also seek cure in the places Al-Baari’ revealed to His Prophet, for example by studying the book: Medicine of the Prophet by Ibn Qayyim al Jawziyah.

5. Spread the message.
Use your knowledge of this powerful name to give da’wah to those who do not believe in their Creator. Ayah 73 in Surah al-Hajj is an amazing example for you to use! The Messenger of Allah salallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam said to ‘Ali radiyallahu ‘anhu: If Allah guides a person through you, it is better for you than all that is on the earth. [Al-Bukharee, Muslim] Let this motivate you to daily carry out an act of dawah, from showing good manners to conveying even one ayah, as the smallest deeds can be part of Allah’s guidance of someone to Islam.

O Allah, Al-Baari’,we know that You create and form from nothing. Make us confident in our belief in You as the Originator of everything and let us worship you alone; guide us to obey You, distance ourselves from bad, enjoin good, and forbid evil. Help us ponder Your creations and appreciate Your power and greatness and give thanks to You, and maks us of those who carry the da’wah of Your Oneness to others in the best way, ameen!

And Allah knows best.

[warsofasoiaf]

I've been looking into the concept of meritocracy. Imperial China used examinations to choose scholar-bureaucrats who ran the government. However, is there a meritocratic way of choosing those who make laws (legislators)?

Meritocracy is a difficult concept to wrangle, because how do you define merit? What makes a good legislator? What are the traits you look for? Any system that is built to assess this is vulnerable to gaming, corruption, and the fact that there are typically too many applicants to conduct thorough vetting. Imperial China used the imperial assessments and examination, but there were still plenty of officials in the bureaucracy who were appointed for nepotism or bribed their examiners to flub their test scores.

Then you have the problem that even the most knowledgeable might not be the best suited to create laws. The ability to create good legislature is almost meaningless if the baseline knowledge used to inform those policies is wrong; you'll write a law that at best is completely inapplicable and at worst actively harmful due to mistakes in comprehension. This is the opposite of a problem of technocratic governance (where experts have no idea how to legislate) by having legislators with no expertise.

So unfortunately, there is no good way to do so, at least as far as I know.

Thanks for the question, Anon.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

[queen-dahlia]

𝐆𝐢𝐥𝐛𝐞𝐫𝐭 𝐯𝐨𝐧 𝐎𝐛𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐢𝐚𝐧

𝗠𝗮𝗶𝗻 𝗥𝗼𝘂𝘁𝗲 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗽𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝟭

I know, I'm so late to start posting Gil's main route, but I'm still trying to make some time to translate the story

Please don't @ me at Gilbert's "Fufu" here, I just can't stand his "Heehee" in EN server and I know I'm not the only one

Note: Translation is not 100% accurate. Expect grammatical errors.

// : alternate translation | ⫘⫘ : flashback

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

Once upon a time in Rhodolite, the country of roses and art, there was a strange encounter that seemed like a prank from the gods.

Black-haired boy: "--Hey, why are people in power so corrupt in every generation?"

The boy sits on a barrel in the back alley and closes a thick book on his lap that is too thick to match his slender body.

A specialized book on the history of a continent spelled out in an ancient language should be difficult for even scholars to comprehend.

The boy understands everything that is in the book as easily as if he were reading a picture book.

He asks the blond boy sitting on the ground.

The blond-haired, blue-eyed boy with an atmosphere of maturity that is hardly appropriate for his age did not stop reading.

Black-haired boy: "They say continental history is the history of the aristocracy, but there are no good people in it."

Black-haired boy: "Those who killed their own people to gain the throne; those who deceived other nations to expand their territory; and those who turned a blind eye to the suffering of their people."

Black-haired boy: "With a long history, there should be a benevolent and kind monarch who is equal to everyone."

Black-haired boy: "... No. I wonder if those people will go down in history."

Blonde-haired boy: "It's a given."

Blonde-haired boy: "In today's status-based society, a monarch who claims to love and be equal would be the first to be eliminated."   //   "In today's society, where the class system has become common sense, a monarch who advocates love and equality would be the first to be eliminated."

Blonde-haired boy: "Once in power, one cannot relinquish it again. If there is even the slightest disadvantage, they will close their eyes."

Blonde-haired boy: "They don't care about the pain of others. That is human nature."

Black-haired boy: "Hmm. I doubt that."

The black-haired boy puts his dangling feet on the ground and smiles as brightly as the sun shining down the alley.

Black-haired boy: "I think humans are inherently good creatures."

Black-haired boy: "It's the world that makes us greedy, not people."

Blonde-haired boy: "According to your theory, there are no real bad people in the world."

Black-haired boy: "Yes, because the essence of human nature is love."

The boy with black hair: "The corrupt monarchs who spun history could have been kinder to others if the world had been different."

Blonde-haired boy: "... You say things that you tend to dream about, don't you?"

Black-haired boy: "I'm just a child, it doesn't matter."

Black-haired boy: "I love people."

The blonde boy looked up from his book and couldn't help but snicker.

The red eye of the black-haired boy were full of compassion and tenderness.

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

It has been several days since the princes of the three countries requested an extended stay for headache-inducing reasons.

After careful consultations with Sariel and other princes,

Rhodolite decided to welcome the guests of honor––

Leon: "—So, as I have said many times, the stay of the princes of each country for the four-country talks has been decided."

At a regular meeting where princes belonging to the domestic political faction and major officials gathered,

Once the agenda was settled, the matter was brought up with Leon, the leader of the faction.

Leon: "His Majesty the King has given his approval. The decision will not be reversed."

Leon's dignified voice silences the frustrated domestic bureaucrats.

(I had expected this, but there still seems to be a lot of backlash.)

Bureaucrat: "...I am not convinced. Benitoite as an ally and Jade as a neutral country would be fine."

Bureaucrat: "But why do you accept that Obsidian!?"

Bureaucrat: "Their betrayal of the past has remained unsolved to this day."   //   "Their former treachery remains unchanged to this day."

Bureaucrat: "There must be some sinister plan behind this stay... It is too dangerous."

Leon: "I know. We have not forgotten the "Bloodstained Rose Day" of 10 years ago."

("Bloodstained Rose Day"... I've only heard rumors.)

Ten years ago, Rhodolite was invaded by Obsidian.

The princes went to war and stopped them at the border, and I, who lived in the royal capital, only heard rumors,

The sudden invasion, which could be described as a bolt from the blue, has left a huge scar on the Rose Country.

That is the reason why the overwhelming majority of people are not comfortable with the stay of the Obsidian Imperial family.

(I don't know the details, I'll have to look it up properly this time.)

Leon: "But now a country that has never been open to any kind of diplomacy has come to the forefront."   //   But now a country that has never responded to any diplomacy has come out into the public."

Leon: "We believe it is worthy of allowing them to stay."

Bureaucrat: "But..."

Leon: "Besides, if anything goes wrong, me and Chevalier will take responsibility."

Leon: "You have your thoughts, but swallow them for now."

The silence in the drawing room was so heavy that even the slightest noise would have been unacceptable.

Bureaucrat: "Then at least..."

The bureaucrat, who seemed to have retracted his fangs, turned to me, who was in the last seat.

Bureaucrat: "Tell me why that woman is here."

All eyes were on me, and I felt as if I had been dragged to the center of the stage.

(I knew you would say something like that.)

Many of the bureaucrats here do not know that I am Belle.

A mysterious young lady who appeared out of nowhere one day and stayed at the court to study...

In addition, she was escorted by the Prince of Obsidian at the goodwill party and even danced with him.

(The stares are hurting me... I guess they suspect I'm on Obsidian's side.)

Jin: "Emma is just a victim. Right?"

Emma: "Yes. I was asked to show the way by Prince Gilbert, and I was forced into the party hall."

Emma: "I have never met him before, nor am I familiar with him, and I'm still confused."

(I wish it had been a dream.)

Bureaucrat: "I don't think that the "Trampling Beast" would escort a woman there for no reason at all."

Bureaucrat: "Excuse me, but even if she has no idea who he is, it's still a good idea to be vigilant."   //   "Excuse me, but even if you have no idea who he is, there's no reason not to be wary."

Licht: "The alliance has deemed it okay."

Licht: "Why else would you need a reason?"

Yves: "Your concern is understandable, though."

Yves: "But there is nothing suspicious about Emma. That much is certain."

(The princes will cover for me, but I'm sure none of them actually get it.)

(I was allowed to attend the regular meeting to get more insight as Belle, but I shouldn't have come.)

Luke: "Ah, it's a really bad atmosphere."

As if to cut the tension that had been building up, a languid voice rings out.

Luke, who had been observing the domestic faction meeting as "part of the new prince's education," was sitting next to me.

He sighed dismissively at the bureaucrat, who raised his eyebrows in disapproval.

Luke: "I don't care."

Luke: "Do you know anything about the "Trampling Beast"?"

Bureaucrat: "Of course, no one knows its notoriety."   //   "Of course, everyone knows how notorious he is."

Bureaucrat: "The "World Disaster" that has ruled numerous countries through the use of force and rewritten the map of the continent at an extraordinary pace."

Bureaucrat: "He has never lost a battle, and as an Ever-Victorious Marshal, he is a man to watch, a figure of great importance that the entire continent is on the lookout for."   //   "He is a man to watch, a man who has never been defeated on the battlefield, a man who is always on the radar of the entire continent as an Ever-Victorious General."

Bureaucrat: "A cold-blooded, arrogant, and evil imperial family that tramples on so many things that it deserves the name of the Trampling Beast—"

Luke: "All that stuff is just gossip. You don't know who they really are, do you?"

Luke: "Maybe he just fell in love with Emma at first sight."

(No, that will never happen.)

The bureaucrats could not hide their "what the hell is he talking about?" faces.

Leon: "Pfft... haha! It's possible, isn't it?"

Jin: "Emma is beautiful. No wonder the Trampling Beast has fallen in love with her."

Luke: "Right? That's why it's not Emma's fault. Stop blaming her."

Luke gets up from his seat and grabs my hand.

Luke: "Let's go. Staying here will only suffocate you."

Luke: "Skip out with me."

(I'm not sure I'd skip it...)

(... But my presence is making the atmosphere worse, so I'll take Luke's kindness for now.)

Emma: "Prince Leon, may I leave the meeting?"

Leon: "Yeah. …Luke, don't tell Sariel about this."

Luke: "Oh. Leave Emma to me."

(How did this happen?)

══════════════════

Luke led me by the hand, and we arrived at the rose garden.

The tension finally dissolves as I am welcomed by a sweet fragrance that comforts my wounded heart.

Luke: "It's a nice change of pace here, isn't it?"

Emma: "Thank you, Luke. I'm sorry. It was my fault."

Luke: "Why are you apologizing? You didn't do anything wrong."

A large hand patted me on the head, and my tense cheeks relaxed.

(Thank God Luke was there. I would have cried otherwise.)

Luke: "If you have a problem, you can always talk to me, okay? I'll take care of it, even if you're dealing with the big bad guys."

A dependable smile is like a panacea, taking away the pain in my heart.

It was then that I felt relieved that I was not alone in this situation.

???: "Well, that's very encouraging."

(. . . . .)

My heart jumps as if to gouge out the pain that is about to subside.

A voice came from somewhere, and the sound of a cane tapping on the cobblestones turned the beautiful rose garden into a nightmare.

Luke: "...Gilbert."

Mercilessly, Luke's mutterings bring reality to the surface.

I turned my head and saw a black figure among the petals blown up by the wind.

Gilbert: "Hello. Are you in the middle of a secret rendezvous?"

Luke: "Ah. If you know, then don't interrupt us."

Gilbert: "I don't want to. I'm lonely, so count me in."

Luke: "... The nerve of this man."

(... Luke doesn't change his attitude at all, even with Prince Gilbert.)

Even if the other person is the Trampling Beast, I follow that figure of calmness and hide my agitation...

But Prince Gilbert laughed, as if he knew everything.

Gilbert: "You look unhappy, little rabbit."

Gilbert: "By the looks of it, did someone mistreat you?"

Emma: "... No."

Gilbert: "I hate lies."

I felt a gruesome pressure on my spine, making my blood run cold.

No matter how calm I tried to appear, my instincts seemed to sense fear, and I pulled a face.

(It was the same when we first met. There was no need for me to feel so "scared".)

Luke: "If anyone mistreated her, it was you."

Luke takes one step forward to protect me.

Luke: "You're a terror in your very existence. Don't scare Emma."

Gilbert: "Well, that's unreasonable. I haven't done anything terrible 'yet'."

Emma: "Not yet. Yeah, right."

Gilbert: "... Fufu."

Prince Gilbert only smiled meaningfully but did not deny it.

Gilbert: "I don't like you to be scared of me."

Gilbert: "I'd like to be friends with you, Little Rabbit, and... It seems we need to get to know each other as soon as possible."

Gilbert: "一一That's it."

Prince Gilbert, who clapped his hands deliberately, ignored Luke and approached me.

Gilbert: "I haven't thanked you yet for showing me the way."

Gilbert: "Now, shall we go out together?"

Emma: "Go outside?"

Gilbert: "Yes, of course. Just the two of us, alone, with no interruptions."

(... I have to agree with this.)

The infamous prince, the Trampling Beast, and the disaster of the world,

It is hard to believe that such a notorious prince would want to go out simply because he wanted to "get along" with a lady like me.

(He's probably trying to figure out who I am.)

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

Gilbert: "I'm interested in you."

Gilbert: "—So this time let’s have a nice and long chat, 'Belle'?"

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

(Prince Gilbert suspected that I am Belle.)

(Maybe he's planning to go and shake things up.)

Luke: "What the hell were you thinking?"

Gilbert: "All I can think about is getting to know the little rabbit better."

Gilbert: "If you give me such frightened eyes every time—"   //   "Every time you look at me with such frightened eyes—"

Gilbert: "It makes me sad and makes me want to kill you, doesn't it?"

At first, I didn't understand what he said.

Prince Gilbert, who was out of character, looked like a good young man and made me wonder if I had misheard him.

(No, I'm not running away.)

(He just flat out threatened me.)

The fear that came late was powerful enough to cower my heart.

Luke: "You..."

Gilbert: "Luke, can you use a reasonable excuse to mislead the people around you? We'll be back in time for dinner."

Luke: "Why should I be a part of your schemes?"

Gilbert: "It's not a bad thing. It's a job."

Gilbert: "Luke is part of the foreign policy faction, isn't he? You have to keep the guest of honor happy... Right?"

Luke: ". . . . . ."

Gilbert: "And that goes for you too, the self-proclaimed daughter of Rhodolite."

Gilbert: "If you offend me, I will destroy your country, okay?"

(It sounds like a joke, but Prince Gilbert is the one who can really do it.)

Emma: "Okay, I'll go."

Gilbert: ". . . . ."

Emma: "... Why are you surprised?"

Gilbert: "No, I thought you'd put up more of a fight."

Gilbert: "I see. So you're not too upset."

Emma: "Oh, no! Because your threats didn't sound like a joke—"

Gilbert: "Ahaha, I'm so happy. Once that's decided, let's get going."

(I may have been hasty.)

I was at a loss, and Prince Gilbert grabbed my hand.

(... It's cold...)

The body temperature felt through the gloves was so cold that it was hard to believe it was human, and my fingers trembled.

Luke: "Gilbert!"

Gilbert: "Don't worry, I won't do anything terrible."

Gilbert: "You know better than anyone that I don't lie."

Luke: ". . . . ."

(... What do you mean?)

Luke scratches the back of his head and sighs.

Luke: "Emma, if you really don't like it, I'll beat this guy to the ground."

Emma: "... No, I appreciate your concern."

Emma: "It is true that Prince Gilbert is a guest of honor, and it is my duty to entertain him without rudeness."

Emma: "Prince Luke, please inform Sir Sariel for me."

(I can't go against this now.)

Luke reluctantly agrees when I ask him to do so in a manner befitting a young lady.

Gilbert: "I'm glad I didn't get turned down.... Shall we go then?"

(Somehow, we'll just have to get through this in peace and quiet一)

══════════════════

(一Or so I thought...)

We boarded the carriage prepared by Prince Gilbert, and the place where we were brought to was already a gate of hell.

(Why ....)

(... Why are so many escape routes blocked?)

It was still a naive notion that I was "suspected" of being Belle.

Without hesitation, Prince Gilbert led me to my original place of work.

(What Prince Gilbert has is not "doubt" but "certainty".)

Gilbert: "I've reserved the whole place for us today. Shall we go in?"

Prince Gilbert opens the door and forces me halfway into the bookstore.

I was sure that Sariel would have arranged for another clerk to come to the bookstore in my absence, 

But as he said, the bookstore was empty.

(How in the world did you set this up?)

(It was not a coincidence that we met at the rose garden, was it...?)

(No, that's not possible. I don't think even Prince Gilbert could calculate the whole situation.)

(But what if... What if the current situation was all created by Prince Gilbert's calculations?)

A different emotion from instinctive fear engulfs my heart.

A cold hand was placed on my shoulder, and I was forcibly brought in front of the bookshelf.

Gilbert: "I know you like books. You can relax here as much as you want, okay?"

Gilbert: "No more stares from the court. It is the only place where you can return to your true self."

Emma: ". . . . . ."

Gilbert: "You look so pale. Aren't you happy?"

Emma: "...How did you know I like books?"

Gilbert: "Secret."

Emma: "Then this bookstore..."

Gilbert: "It's also a secret."

Emma: ". . . . . ."

Gilbert: "Just so you know... I'm an information-gathering hobbyist."

Gilbert: "When I don't know something, I want to know it by any possible means."

Prince Gilbert smiles happily and brings his face to my ear from behind.

Gilbert: "Is there something you're guilty of, Belle?"

Emma: "...I am not Belle."

Gilbert: "I told you before. I hate lies."

Emma: ". . . . . ."

The fangs of the beast are already set against me.

I had to somehow cover it up, but my mind was so blank that it was pathetic.

Gilbert: "Oh, is this the book you've been into lately?"

As if to push me, Prince Gilbert pulls out a black book from the bookshelf and puts it in my hand.

The black cover of the book with gold lettering was, as Prince Gilbert said, the book I had been reading recently.

(How much does this man know about me?)

(... Where did the information come from?)

Emma: "Please tell me your purpose."

I finally squeeze out my voice, mustering up the strength in my heart that is about to fail me.

Emma: "What do you want from me?"

Gilbert: "I don't mean to threaten you, that's terrible. As I said before, I just want to get along with you—"

Gilbert: "In other words, I want to be your friend."

Emma: "... Friend?"

Gilbert: "Yep, my friend."

Gilbert: "It's that simple, isn't it?"

(No way.)

It is difficult for me to read through Prince Gilbert's intentions before replying.

(I just know that we should not be friends.)

Emma: "I cannot be your friend, Prince Gilbert."

Gilbert: "Fufu... You don't seem to get it."

Prince Gilbert holds my hand as he breathes in my ear.

He held my cheek with his cane as the black book fell loudly to the floor—

Gilbert: "You have two choices: be my friend or be forced to be my friend."

Emma: "Nn—!"

The pain in my neck causes my voice to leak out.

(Did he just... bite me?)

The cold, soft touch and the pain that falls gradually on the skin leaves a poison-like touch on my racing heart.

Gilbert: "Well... if you won't be my friend, I might as well make Belle disappear."

Gilbert: "If the king's selection goes back to square one, it might buy me enough time to lead an army to invade."

Emma: ". . . . . ."

Gilbert: "I'm going to ask you one more time. I want to be friends with you."

(This is not the way it's supposed to be.)

All in the palm of Prince Gilbert's hand.

"Be a friend or be made to be a friend." There is only one real choice presented to me.

Emma: "Why do you want to go through all this trouble to be friends with me?"

Gilbert: "Good question."

Every time Prince Gilbert smiles, his breath caresses my neck.

Rather than embarrassment, unfathomable fear prevailed.

Gilbert: "You have the most beautiful heart in all of Rhodolite."

Gilbert: "There are different criteria for evaluating a beautiful heart..."

Gilbert: "Let's define beauty in your case as "having more love for others than for yourself."

(You don't know anything about me...)

(... I'm afraid to say anything.)

(He knows everything.)

Gilbert: "But you know what I think? No matter how beautiful your heart is, the essence of a person is "false love"."   //   "But I think, no matter how beautiful the heart is, the essence of a person is false love."

Gilbert: "Piling up ugly lies and acting as if there is love. When, in fact, there is no such thing."

Gilbert: "Even your beautiful heart is only a trick."

Gilbert: "If you stay in a place like the court, where your greed is exposed, you will eventually fall."

Gilbert: "I'd like to be able to see them up close and personal."

Gilbert: "I was curious to see how the most beautiful heart in all of Rhodolite would turn out."

Gilbert: "So, my friend. Isn't being your friend the fastest way to be close to you?"

(... I may not understand even 10% of what Prince Gilbert is saying.)

Rather than trying to gain my understanding, I feel that Prince Gilbert is just being carefree,

As if he is just putting his thoughts out there for the time being.

(But then again, "friend" doesn't seem to mean anything good.)

Emma: "I don't know about a beautiful heart or ugly lies..."

Emma: "I will remain who I am, no matter what."   //   "I will always be me, no matter what."

Emma: "I doubt I can live up to Prince Gilbert's expectations."

Gilbert: "Heh, that'll be fun."

Emma: "...!?"

He bites my skin again, and my face contorts.

There was more pain than before, and a muffled scream escaped my lips.   //   There was more pain than before, and I let out an inaudible scream.

Emma: "Don't bite me!"

Gilbert: "Did it hurt? Sorry."

Gilbert: "I like to leave a mark on my favorite. I mean, it's proof that you're my friend."

(I don't need this kind of proof.)

I shake off Prince Gilbert's hand and turn around to meet his blood-red eye.

His lips were smiling but his eyes were not, and I couldn't help but turn my gaze away from him.

(... He's like a real beast.)

(Earlier, Prince Gilbert described me as having a "strong feeling of love" for others.)

(I don't think I can love this prince.)