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mightydragoon · 4 years

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Toxic

Summary: In which Luke crashes his X-Wing into Vader, crash lands. Eats a toxic vegetable and confronts Vader. All in all, a stressful week.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/25118062#main

For paradoxsoup

Thanks @silvereddaye for beta reading it

ZOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

The shrill noise brough Luke to attention. He was currently in a dogfight flying in the sky above in his x wing. He gritted his teeth; he had to focus– oh wait, no! He pulled away just in time as an Imperial fighter just skimmed off of him. That was close. Too close.He didn’t know how long he could keep this up. There weren't a lot of fighters left now and the tide could change on them any second. So he had to keep his focus. His hands tightened on the steering yoke and he fired.

BANG!

Another fallen foe. Three Imps left, five rebel fighter ships left including him.

“Artoo what’s the status?” Luke asked.

R2-D2’s shrill response told him that everything was fine. But that was short lived. A TIE Fighter came shrieking out of the thick grey clouds, and before Luke could blink, it shot down two of the Alliance fighters.

KRIFF! Vader. It was Vader. Luke thought to himself. No one one else flew a TIE Advance X1.It could only be Vader, the man who betrayed and murdered Luke’s father, who slain Obi-Wan right in front of his eyes, and who ordered his Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen execution. The one who took everything from him.

Thump, thump. Thump, thump. Luke could hear his racing heart, was this really it? The End? His breath was growing shorter and shorter as he desperately tried to soothe his nerves by taking deep breaths. This wasn’t just about him. Leia. Alderaan. The Rebels. That’s not even considering all the other worlds the Empire has subdued and colonised for their own needs, all of which Vader has participated full heartily in. How many more worlds has Vader struck down with impunity?!

With no remorse. No regret. No mercy.

Vader was a monster.

How he even existed, vile and corrupt was beyond Luke? Luke began to sweat and his hands began to shake. He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth in anger. Accepting his oncoming fate. His shaking stopped. His fury dispelled. Luke was in the eye of the storm now, in his mind. Calm and silent compared to the unstoppable inferno of flying debris of the burning ships and gunfire on the outside. Luke’s life meant nothing in the grand scheme of things. He was tiny. Insignificant. But perhaps...He could do something with it. Such as taking down this monster.

Luke had a plan. He might go down with Vader but it was his only chance. He might not get this again. He could hear yelling. It could have been command shouting through his commtelling him that he was veering off course or the rational part of his brain telling him how stupid this was.

Luke didn’t care.

“Artoo close comms,” he ordered and silence consumed him.

His heart was thumping widely and he started to sweat profusely. He was going to take down this monster and didn’t care whether or not he lived. Just the thought of Vader dying brought Luke peace.

CRASH!

The two ships crashed.

Everything burned. The flames licked and ate away at his ship but Luke wasn’t focusing on that. He was in for a rough landing.

He shouted to Artoo, “The stabilisers are down! Artoo, we are going down! Hold on!”

He could feel it, no longer walking the sky, but falling down onto a nearby planet below. He closed his eyes. He had no idea what was waiting for him but he called out. To whom he wasn’t sure. He only hoped someone could hear.

I’m sorry. _____________________

The Force was with him when he landed.

He was in a massive jungle, one that thrived off of decay and ruin than light and substance. What an awful place he had found himself in but in a way, it reminded him of the home he lost, not so long ago.

Luke threw off his helmet, the sun came in through the hole his fighter had caused in the canopy above. The light was blinding and cooking him. Yep, just like home. He gave a hollow laugh. He clambered onto the wing of his X- Wing and looked at his droid. Once Artoo was out, the next thing Luke was focused on was communication. It was a big planet. He knew that much, so it could take a while before they found him. Plus, how could he forget it wasn't just Rebels out here, but also Imps?

Luke had a feeling that Vader wasn’t gone. He felt it in the force, the blackhole that consumes everything positive and kind, leaving only darkness and decay behind A horrible feeling, that drowned and consumed everything in sight. It still tainted the force, with its energy. It seemed his suicide kamikaze into Vader didn’t work as planned. Luke groaned and looked at his radio. It had been damaged during the crash and no matter what he seemed to adjust or press, no response seemed to come from it. Something must have broken on the inside. This was going to be a problem. Here he was on a planet, alone, no supplies, no shelter and Imps and Vader on his tail. What fantastic luck Luke had.

Why did Force love to mess with him like this?

He couldn’t stay here as the smoking remains of his fighter was too much of a signal for any scouts looking for him. Luke grabbed what tools and equipment he could that weren’t blasted and with Artoo by his side, he entered the forest.

Before long it was nightfall, and he had found himself amongst large windy, spindly trees with leaves the size of saucers. He gathered some firewood and created a small campsite. The silence was deafening and it was killing him. It wasn’t meant to be this quiet, where was the wildlife, the chittering, the squeaks, the squakes? There was only quiet. Luke could see no creatures, no birds, not even a single bug.

It drove an eerie feeling into Luke, it only made him more alert. It didn’t sit easily with him and it brought up another issue. Namely scavenging for food would be a lot harder than he expected. Using his lighter, Arto ignited the wood and Luke felt alive for a moment. Yet, the rumbling in his stomach reminded him of the little supplies he had. He was lucky to have a canteen on him, but the emergency rations in his X-Wing had been damaged. He laid on the ground with Artoo keeping watch and ignored the pain in his stomach. He patted the droid’s robotic head letting Artoo know that he appreciated him so very much before finally drifting into the realm of dreams and nightmares.

_________________

Several days had passed and Luke was still struggling to contact the Alliance. He hadn’t been able to fix his radio despite taking it apart and putting it back together. He thought time and time again he had finally fixed what was broken, only for his hope to fade when the radio failed to turn on.

Hunger. It panged and ached. He was constantly exhausted and didn’t seem able to find much food.But If this kept up, he could . . . No, he resolutely said to himself. You are not dying here Skywalker and you know it.

He hugged himself trying to keep in the pangs but to no avail. On one hand, he was fortunate to found a steady water supply. Years of working as a moisture farmer have served him well in that regard. He knew what good water should look and taste like. But he was also on an unknown planet with no idea, what was safe and what wasn’t to eat. He knew little what was edible in a jungle. It was a far cry from the desert planet he grew up on.

Luke trudged into the forest once more searching for anything to eat. He kept his eyes peeled for something, anything. There, near him beside the bushes, was a bundle of root vegetables just poking free of the dirt. Was it safe to eat, he asked himself. But before he could even properly debate this, his hunger won out. He dug up the roots and without thought, he began to chomp away at it.

Blurgh. He spat it out. Yuck.

His rational mind walloped his starving belly. What the kriff was he doing? Eating something he didn’t know. He had a bad feeling about this. He grabbed what was possibly a toxic vegetable. If it was toxic, did he need to find an antidote or cure?

Luke vomited in his mouth. He retched up whatever food remained in his stomach. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve. Great. He was sick. He stood up and began to stumble. He could barely step one foot in front of the other. Somehow he made it to his makeshift camp where Artoo was beeping furiously at him. He didn’t pay attention to that because he collapsed on the ground, unconscious. ___

Vader’s son was strong in the Force. He knew that much. He walked through the forest and cut the large branches out his way. His son was akin to the blazing suns of Tatooine in the force. How hadn’t he ever realized that before? Was he truly engulfed in shadows and despair to ignore the light and hope his son radiated? His child. Their child. Padmé.

It had been so long. It was a miracle the boy was alive as he thought him dead. He and his son will rule together side by as rulers of the universe. It was Luke’s birthright. It was his as well.

When his son crashed into his fighter, he was shocked, yes, but also impressed by Luke’s abilities in the force. Luke burned bright and fiery, an eternal inferno that warmed the freezing ache in what was once his heart. A forgotten feeling. His son still had a long way to go. He wasn’t a Jedi, yet. That much was obvious and if Vader could get to him, he would never be a Jedi.

Vader allowed the Force to guide him. He would find his son no matter what. He trudged through the sticky mud of the forest and sheared the gigantic leaves of the trees and bushes out of his path with his scarlet lightsabre.

Luke was near. He knew it. He could sense his son, but something was wrong.

His son was an inferno, much like one of the twin suns of Tatooine he blazed in the force, impossible to look away from and so very strong. This was not what he felt at this second. His son presence flickered in and out of existence. It was more difficult to see him through, the bright supernova that was Luke was enveloped by the overwhelming existence and consumed by the familiar grasp of death. The light was being snuffed out and wavered more unsteadily by the minute.

Luke was dying. He was sick. He must’ve been poisoned by something. Something in the jungle had gotten to him.

He began to race towards the wavering and weakening presence of his son through the thick bushes and trees.

Luke.

He called out in the Force.

Hold on.

___

Luke rolled on the ground, clutching his belly, choking in agony. He was such an idiot. Kriff his hunger for enhancing his stupidity.

Luke.

He could hear a voice. Either it was the Force or that blasted vegetable induced some crazy hallucination. Though it was probably the former. Who was calling him though?

“Ben,” he cried out, though he was certain the voice wasn’t him. “Ben is that you?”

Found you.

Luke couldn’t turn around, but he felt a horrible chill go down his spine. His blood clotted; his heart on the precipice of attack. Cold. So very cold. Luke had a bad feeling about this. He weakly struggled to lift himself as he had to hide. Now! Using his instincts he spotted a massive fallen over log, he limped over to it, and slumped behind it.

He was only buying himself time. If Vader didn’t kill him, whatever he ate sure as he would. That didn’t include any Imperial ships tracking him down. How did Vader find him,and what did he want with him? Luke recalled their first proper meeting on Cymoon 1. He had been flung to the side with no care or attention by Vader’s impressive use of the Force. Luke’s screams for justice for the death of his family, his father, his aunt and uncle, Ben, were brushed aside much how one might brush aside a cat.

Luke knew it was him. Vader. He held his breath and heard loud resonant footsteps marching towards where he had been minutes ago. He didn’t look back but he could hear Vader’s blood-red saber humming. Would he be the next victim to it? Did his father die to that blade? Luke blinked in and out of consciousness, when he sensed a lingering shadow hanging over him, a spectre of death and decay. Vader.

He had found him.

Then Vader did something Luke never expected him to do. He extinguished his saber and gently caressed his face, much like how Aunt Beru used to during the night when the twin suns finally set. Her warm smile made him feel so loved. Except this was not warm, this was possessive and tentative and cold.

Luke somehow managed to find the strength within and pull away from Vader. Why wasn’t he dead yet? Why wasn’t he skewered with the red lightsaber, choked to death, or has the toxin finally claimed him?

“Why?” Luke laughed bitterly at him, his eyes blazed with fury. “Why leave me alive?”

Vader took several heavy breaths.

Kush. Kosh. Kush. Kosh.

“You have no idea how important you are.”

His low voice dominated the scene. Even with the mask, Luke glanced at his soul for a moment and saw it open, vulnerable, but why?

Luke belted out a short burst of laughter. “Important. Ha, sure I shot down the Death Star but when I faced you on the Cymoon, and probably even back on the Death Star, you looked at me like I was nothing. What changed?” He had mocked Vader, clutching at his stomach, tighter as the pain increased. He gritted his teeth and spat the next words out. “Heh, what changed?”

Vader was silent. Luke didn’t like this, he didn’t like this one bit. His nose scrunched up as Vader spoke, “I’ve discovered that some things that I once believed as truth were, in fact, lies, namely the one where you were dead”.

Luke frowned. He didn’t have enough strength to fight, no matter how much he wanted to. But he pushed on. Maybe he could make his life count in some meaningful capacity even at the end. “Me? What the kriff do I mean to you? You betrayed and murdered my father! Just get this over with and kill me!”

“No. I did not betray or kill your father. I am your father.”

...What.

Luke was silent. Vader was lying. He had to be but no, no, no, NO!

“Search your feelings, you know it to be true.” Vader spoke quite bluntly and concisely. It was almost like his voice was gleeful due to finally reuniting with his son.

Luke grabbed his hair and started to scream in anguish. Anakin Skywalker was the one he had idolised and longed to become. He was to be a Jedi like him. But now that pristine and proud pedestal Anakin had stood on was crumbling. Anakin was Vader? Vader was his father?

“NO!” Luke shrieked, shifting away from Vader, but there was no use trying to escape, much like a fly he was trapped in this web of deceit, lies and revelations.

“Come with me, my child. I can save you. We will be a family once more.”

Luke's stomach churned and twisted as he screamed in pain. He did not know if it was because of the revelation or his physical disposition, but it did not matter. Ben...Why didn’t you tell me? Luke began to cry, lost in the agony of truth. He was drowning. Why was it true? Luke was so lost in his thoughts that he didn’t notice Vader kneel down before him and place his gloved hand over his head. Luke struggled to remain awake, but both his body and Vader’s strength in the Force was too much for him to handle. He drifted into a dreamless sleep.

Vader quickly scooped Luke into his arms and carried him off. He should not have had to wait until Luke was an adult and seriously ill them to have met. Luke should have grown up at his side, learning the ways of the Force. Obi-Wan should’ve died a slower death for his actions but no matter. Vader had Luke now. The galaxy should’ve been Luke’s and he should’ve known that all along. It would be his, though. If Vader had anything to say about it. He cradled his son and made his way to the waiting Imperial ship to get the antidote and finally take Luke home.

With him. ____________

#self promo #my writing #my writings #star wars #luke skywalker #darth vader #luke skywalker and darth vader #the case of the toxic alien root plant #luke centric #luke and vader #dad vader #just under 3000 words #short fic #one shot #star wars summer ficelt 2020 #2020 Star Wars Summer Fic Exchange #toxic #sw

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kusunogatari · 5 years

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[ @wanderingmelodies ] 𝕩 𝕩 𝕩 𝕩 𝕩 𝕩 𝕩 𝕩 𝕩

Soft leather boots are soundless against the cobbled street...and even if they’d not been, her footsteps would still be drowned in the hustle and bustle of the busy little village.

Well…‘little’ is a relative term. Rin has certainly been to places smaller, but it’s still not quite the same as the large cities closer to the center of the continent. But this one suits her well enough. A place with a sizeable port of comings and goings. Perfect to receive shipments of her goods without being breathed down upon by large city inspectors and tax collectors.

For Rin, you see, is a witch. One most typically working with plants, herbs, and the concoctions one can make with them. And while she grows a great many things herself, every so often she’ll come across a spell or potion requiring something a bit...out of the ordinary. And that means finding it elsewhere. And while she’s gone galavanting across the countryside before, she’s not eager to leave her little hideaway too often.

Magic, after all, can be a bit of a dirty word, depending on the tongue it sits upon.

Rin’s own is used primarily for good! Poultices for wounds, brews for illnesses, charms that help ward against pain or evil. But...every so often, she won’t deny having crafted something a bit...devious. A poison for a deserving throat, or an acid to melt through hard-crafted locks over treasuries. Not her favorite things to do, but...one must eat. And to eat, one must have coin.

While the forests she calls home are plentiful, and her house built herself in a place few can find it (let alone scaredy cat statesmen who won’t dare venture so far to collect her dues), Rin still has expenses. She can hardly do everything for charity, though her large heart indulges when it feels it must. Hers is oft a cruel world, after all. She does what she can to lighten it.

Hood of her cloak drawn over her head, she weaves her way through the rumbling masses. The markets are in full swing, people yelling and bartering for this, that, and the other thing. The sounds of animals brought to be sold join the cacophony, and all in all, it’s a block of chaos.

Exactly what she wants.

Guards, after all, have to keep close eyes on the daily gathering to ensure nothing is stolen, illegal, or being traded without proper taxes atop them. Which means they aren’t as watchful elsewhere.

Slipping into an alley, Rin keeps her face hidden as she meets with another shady figure. Ruddy eyes and flyaway black hair peek out from beneath the hem of another hood.

“You have it?” Rin ask quietly, trying to look nonchalant.

“So long as you have my coin.”

“Of course.” From a belt at her waist she draws the pouch, which jingles pleasantly with gold.

The other woman’s eyes alight, accepting before handing over a parcel. “Do be careful with it. Getting you another won’t be so easy...and I’d have to charge you double.”

“Double?”

“I’ll bore you with the tale later, but you’ll not get me to run such an errand again on so light a payment. There’s a concealment charm you’ll have to break: thought it wise in case you’re checked. Until then, it’ll just look like some spare fabric.”

“I’ve been meaning to make myself a new blouse,” Rin replies blasely.

Giving a subtle nod, the other witch exits the way Rin came, and Rin in turn takes the other mouth out. Package tucked under her arm, she winds her way back around to the eastern gate of the village.

Home again, home again.

The cobble gives way to dirt, thankfully dry after a week of no rain. That doesn’t rid it of the deep wells from uncounted wagons, but Rin keeps to the center, shifting her path only when encountering another traveler. A few miles pass, and then she takes a trail off to the north. This she follows a ways before cutting west again to a path barely discernible to the naked eye.

Just as she likes it.

Here the trees of the forest seem to grow ever thicker, dense foliage blotting out all but the most determined light. Ivy hangs in thick sheets from sturdy branches, and after a long, silent trek, Rin waves a hand.

Heeding her call, the flora shifts to reveal a small, yet cozy cabin. Plants of all shapes, shades, and sizes grow in what looks to be chaos around it, but Rin knows every stalk and stem. A ways behind her dwelling, the chuckling of a brook can be heard.

And what a curious dwelling it is.

Formed from wood, rather than cut...it’s been grown. Several trunks meld together to form walls, the roof a conglomerate of branches and leaves thick enough to waylay any rain. The floor is flattened roots, walk to a shining after so many years of her pacing and passing. Even a hearth crackles warmly, the wood of its belly and chimney simply made so dense with magic, it can’t begin to burn.

And even inside there’s a plethora of plants. Every shelf and surface is home to bottles, planters, crystals, vials. Several of the stones glow brightly to illuminate her space, colored by the gemstone that houses the werelights.

It’s a strange, almost alien place. But for Rin, it suits her perfectly.

Clearing a space on her table, she sets her package, unraveling the string around it and finding - as Kurenai warned - a simple folded stack of velvety fabric.

To most, the charm would be completely undetectable. But Rin is both aware...and talented in magics herself. Taking a moment to feel out the particular incantation, she breaks it with a few murmured words.

The fabric is no more. In its place is a pelt.

A rather particular pelt.

Grinning widely, Rin runs fingers over the scaly hide. As she does, the pigments change to match her skin, blending perfectly.

Exactly what she’s been looking for: a chameleocan skin. A rather peculiar beast with a marvelous adaptation: it can blend into any environment and become practically invisible. While not perfect, it’s far more stable than a cloaking spell, and has no mana cost.

All she has to do with it now is tan and shape it into a cloak, and she’ll finally be able to prowl about unseen. At least, to most eyes.

Giddy with excitement, she takes it outside, giving it one last wash in the river before stretching it on a tanning rack to dry and finish curing. Admiring her handiwork, her smile vanishes as a sound reaches her ears.

A voice.

Spinning around, she tries to place it. Still a ways off, it’s nonetheless far closer than Rin would like anyone to be. She’s not expecting any guests...which means this person isn’t welcome.

Subtly, she begins tightening the ivy around her little homestead, doing her best to further hide it. Creeping quietly, she listens.

Another cry. Still too far too make out words, but...she can hear the tone. It sounds desperate, like...a call for help.

Though there’s a reflexive want to go investigate - someone might be in trouble! - her worry is tempered by experience. Often times, such a plea is a charade. A lie to draw in unaware travelers before your throat and coin purse are slit.

Weighing her options, Rin pulls her lip between her teeth before parting the ivy. Either way...she needs to make sure her home isn’t discovered. Easier to do the further away she keeps this person. A woman, judging by the pitch of the cries. For a ways she steps carefully, pausing every so often to listen for the voice. Once she’s close enough, she peers around trunks before finally catching sight of them.

Whoever they are, they’ve donned a silvery-white cloak. That immediately draws Rin’s brow. Something of that make looks costly...what would someone able to afford finery like that be doing this far out in the woods? Their gate shuffles, occasionally stumbling as they call out for help. Spinning in a slow circle, taking in the endless swaths of the same trees and undergrowth, they eventually turn to face Rin in her hiding place.

They certainly appear feminine, from what she can see. The cloak covers a gown of downy grey that sweeps the forest floor. It, too, seems fine in make. Along their front spill waves of white hair...curious. And the expression on their pale face - seemingly even paler with fright - looks far too deeply etched to be rehearsed.

Something more is going on here.

Magic humming at the ready along her fingertips, Rin cautiously steps out of hiding. “...lost?”

Sharpening their focus on her, the stranger stumbles back a few steps, gait still quite warped. Staring a long moment, they dare to ask, “...you...you’re the woman who was in the village this morning, are you not? You’re a witch!”

The words, by reflex, earn a small flinch. Typically they’re thrown with disdain...but this one utters them with a desperate hope. How did they spot her, let alone figure what she was? “...I’m learned in magic, yes.”

“Please...you have to help me. I…” Looking stricken for words, they ask, “...may we speak somewhere...private?”

“Why?”

“I...I’ve need of help regarding a curse. I…” They turn to glance around. Surely the woods are empty, but they seem fearful to risk being seen. “...I can’t let anyone know.”

Still wary, Rin considers the request a moment before murmuring, “...follow me.”

They trudge back toward the cabin, and Rin - taking the lead - continues to listen. Her companion’s gait is still...off. Not quite a limp, but not even steps, either. Almost like…

Parting the ivy, she lets them in, seeing the wonder on their face. “...try not to touch anything. Some of these are toxic,” she warns, gesturing to the plants.

Once inside, she sets a kettle to boil water, glancing up to see her guest lingering uncertainly in the doorway. “...you can come in.”

“...thank you.” Taking a few cautious steps, they offer, “...my name is Ryū.”

“...Rin.”

“I...I know this may be rather forward, given that it’s me asking for your help, but...may I ask for your silence? If anyone else were to know what I’m to tell you…”

“I don’t vomit up secrets,” Rin assures her. “So long as you’re not going to harm anyone else -”

“Oh, no no! Never that! You see, I…” A weary sigh. “...I’m of a royal line. Of a land north of here. I’m...their princess.”

Brow furrowing, Rin tries to think. She mostly keeps her dealings to this land - she knows little of any others. She barely knows her own royal family, given how low she tries to keep her profile. “...you said you’ve a question about a curse?”

“I...yes. A few weeks ago, a curse was laid upon me. I’ve been searching for help ever since. While magic is not viewed so...poorly in my homeland as it is here to the south, I couldn’t let anyone see me like...like this.”

A brown brow perks. “...like…?”

Hesitating, Ryū wilts with a sigh. “...I...I hope it doesn’t cause you alarm.”

“I’ve seen a great many things. I assure you, little can shock me.”

One last pause, and then Ryū begins to remove her traveling gear. Gloved hands lift the hood from her head, laying the cloak atop a chair. Rin’s eyes slowly widen the more she removes, until she’s left in little more than her skivvies.

From her temples grow short horns of a moonstone color. In patches along her limbs are silver and white scales. In fact, her entire left leg is distorted, looking more like a beast’s in its proportions than a human’s.

...that explains her gait.

And from her spine as she turns, posture clearly ashamed, is the beginnings of a scaly tail topped with white hair. Strange lumps stretch the skin over her shoulder blades, as though something lurks beneath the surface, ready to burst.

“...by the gods…”

“It...i-it’s been slowly taking me over. At first it was just a few scales...t-then my back started aching, and my leg shifted in shape…! I...I’m turning into a -!”

“A dragon.” Moving, Rin walks in slow circles around her, expression both horrified...and yet fathomlessly curious. “...do you know who cursed you?”

“I...I do - he’s a member of my mother’s court. I’ve always had my suspicions about him, but his influence is too great to simply be ousted. He…” Her face turns aside, expression pained. “...he’s nearly thrice my age, but has been...attempting to court me. I know he only wants to sneak his roots into my kingdom. I rejected him again and again, as softly as I could. It seems...he realized I’d never have him, and has decided to remove me instead.”

“Did you speak to your mother?”

“I couldn’t…! Before I could find her, I’d already started changing. I was scared, and unsure what to do, so...I-I fled.”

“...you should pen her a letter. Tell her what has happened, and why you left. She needs to know, and your absence may be having drastic consequences, m’lady.”

Ryū gives a sorrowful nod. “Can...can you help me…?”

The witch heaves a heavy sigh. “...transformations aren’t my forte,” she admits. “Nor are curses. Magic has many branches...and mine lie mostly in flora. It’s rare they can attain such results...or counteract them.”

“Do...do you know of anyone else who might be able to aid me…?”

A pause to think. Kurenai is skilled in illusionary magics...Anko in poisons and beast taming. But this isn’t one that needs to be calmed. “Not personally, no...and I fear by the time I find one, it may be too late. How long has it been?”

“Um…” She thinks. “...three weeks, perhaps? I...I’ve not tracked the time since I fled.”

“Why come here where magic is harder to find?”

“I didn’t want to be recognized. If my people knew their next queen might become a beast, surely they would panic…!”

“And they’ll not panic with you simply up and disappearing?”

“...I…”

Rin sighs. “...fear can rob anyone of their sense. I understand. But we really should alert your mother. This man that cursed you may very well have other schemes waiting in his sleeves...if he’s not implemented them already.”

“Yes...you’re right.”

“Here...let’s get you redressed, and then we’ll find some parchment and ink.”

Once a warning letter is written, Rin calls upon a feathered friend to bear it. “They’ll be swift.”

Seated at Rin’s table (which grows right up out of the floor), Ryū braces her brow in a hand, eyes weary. “I don’t know where else to go, what else to do…”

“Does your mother not employ a court mage?”

“Several...and he’s one of them. I feared they may reject my claims and protect him as one of their own. I could never have asked…”

“Mm...a fair point.” Sitting opposite the princess, Rin rubs at her chin, racking her brain. While she’s heard of curses like these before...she’s never seen them for herself. Nor does she know anything about them. Their casting, their effects...or their cures. Nor do any of her own types of magic immediately come to mind when it comes to a possible remedy. Transformation magics are their own branch, one she’s never really breached.

Standing, she goes to her bookshelf, looking over her collection of tomes. A finger trails over their spines, trying to find a title that might at least hint at a possible solution. She looks among her collections of flora, stretching her imagination to possible uses among theirs that might help.

...and then an idea starts to bloom.

A risky, terrible idea.

Biting her lip, Rin goes back to her shelf and pulls out a glossary of plants and herbs. Flipping through the weathered pages, she finds the proper entry, finger tracing along the text. As she thought she remembered, there’s no mention of human ingestion...just uses on blades to aid in battles…

“...have you thought of something…?”

“I…” A pause. “...I don’t know...in all honesty, it’s not a thought I’ve ever entertained before…” Sitting once more, she lays the tome atop the table, turning it round so Ryū can read. “...this is dragonsbane. Typically used to concoct an oil you coat a blade with to better your chances at slaying a dragon. In short, it reacts very...negatively to a dragon’s biology.”

She then flips a great chunk through the book to another page near the end. “And this...is wolfsbane. It has similar effects, but on werewolves. However…” A digit points to a small paragraph near the bottom. “It’s also used, in a far more diluted form, to help control werewolf transformations. Werewolves, of course, only take that form during full moons...and yours is instead happening slowly, until - I’m willing to assume - you take a fully dragonic form...or perhaps one like the old draconids, but they’re long extinct…”

At Ryū’s curious look, she expounds, “A specie of dragon that walked upright, and could speak. They were hunted after a war broke out, and it’s assumed there’s no more of them left. That might be more like what you’re facing, given that your anatomy has only changed slightly, like your leg.”

Back up she gets, on a whirlwind of thought now. “I’ve made wolfsbane potions for a very long time, for a dear friend of mine afflicted with the bite of a werewolf. I’m intimately familiar with it. But...I have no idea if the same principle could be applied to dragonsbane. I’ve never heard of it done. Then again...I’ve never heard of someone being cursed exactly as you have: to become a dragon, I mean. Werewolves aren’t cursed, per se...”

Hands trace up to the wolfsbane plant, and then over to dragonsbane. “...I’ll have to do some tests. Because if I’m wrong...that potion might kill you. If I make it too strong, and it affects you too potently…”

Ryū pales, looking quite frightened for a moment. Head bowing, eyes flicker over the table before closing with a soft sigh, resolute. “...well...I’ve nowhere else to turn. No other leads to follow. Whatever you need me to do in order to see this through, I’ll do. It’s either we take this chance...or I certainly turn into a monster.”

“Well, it depends on your view of dragons...or possibly draconids, if that’s more what you’re headed toward.” Rin then fetches her kettle, finally boiling, and begins to make tea. “In some cultures - mostly those more...remote and perhaps a bit...outdated - dragons are seen as sacred beings. Almost akin to gods. Then in other places, they’re simply nuisances. Monster, then, is a relative term. If it does fail, maybe you could go find a land where you’d be welcome. Possibly even worshipped.”

At that, the princess blanches. “I’d...rather we simply find the cure.”

“Well, of course. But that’s a better alternative than death, isn’t it?”

“...to never again see my home, or my mother? Being held aloft by strangers? I don’t know…”

Well, Rin can hardly change this young lady’s priorities. “...I’ll write to my friend. Ask him to come. Maybe he’ll have some insight into how you can best handle this. I don’t know if your...conditions have similar enough roots, but it can’t hurt.”

Another bird is sent with the invitation, and the pair get to work. Rin begins asking all sorts of questions: her routine, her diet, her birth sigils. Anything and everything that might have an impact on how her body handles the curse, and its progression.

“Curses do tend to act most slowly in those who are larger,” Rin notes, taking measurements. Ryū is returned to her undergarments, a bit pink as the witch gets all manner of personal with her person. “You’re rather tall, so that might be helping slow the transformation some. It obviously can’t stop it entirely, but it helps.”

Looking to some of the princess’ scales under a magnifying glass, Rin compares them to a few dragon scales she has on hand for potions and charms. Ryū’s are considerably smoother, and quite a bit smaller, but appear to be made of the same material. “Hm...well, given all your measurements, compared to the apparent progression of the curse...I do think it’s safe to say you’re not going to change into a full-fledged dragon. If you were, your anatomy would be changing far faster, given the rest of your symptoms.”

“Is...is that a good thing?”

“...I’m not sure.” Rin taps her glass against her chin, thinking. “...it does make you more similar to a werewolf. They too are anthropomorphic creatures, just...another breed. And also directly correlating to a celestial body. You, however, seem to be taking a permanent form.”

The word ‘permanent’ clearly doesn’t sit well, and Ryū can’t help a small whine of worry.

“But, if the dragonsbane potion does work in a similar way, then...it would simply be a matter of ingesting it more regularly. Rather than just on the worst nights of the moon cycle, you’d likely have to take it once a day, depending on how safe the maximum dosage is, and how potent it can be without harming you. All things we’ll need to test. Very carefully, of course.”

The princess gives a slow nod, brow knitted.

“Don’t worry, m’lady. I’ll do all I can.”

“...I know.”

That evening, there’s a call from beyond the ivy. “Oi!”

“Oh, that’s Kakashi.” Abandoning her work, Rin moves to let him in. “Thanks for coming.”

“Sure. Though I’m not sure what use I’ll be.”

“Neither do I, but I thought it wouldn’t hurt.” Taking him inside, Rin gestures. “Ryū, this is Kakashi. Kakashi, Ryū. She’s a princess.”

Grey brows lift in surprise. One dark eye looks her over, the other clouded with blindness, an angry scar cutting through the lid. “Wasn’t aware I’d be meeting royalty.”

“I’m hardly a proper princess at the moment,” Ryū offers somberly. At Rin’s request, she shows the scales on an arm, and then blushingly lifts her skirt to show her leg.

Squatted to a lower level, Kakashi rubs his chin thoughtfully as he observes the limb. “It’s definitely the same structure as what I change to. Just, uh...scaly rather than furry.”

“As I thought…have you ever come across this while traveling?” At Ryū’s curious look, Rin expounds, “Kakashi is a monster hunter. Rather ironic, eh Kakashi?”

He just grunts in response, still thinking. “...can’t say I have. I’ve only ever had to face one dragon...and thankfully not for very long. Never seen one shaped like this.”

“Nor have I. I’ve read about the draconids, but...that’s ancient history by now.”

“Interesting that someone would choose it as a curse, isn’t it?”

“There are dragons in my homeland,” Ryū offers, “but...none like you say. We are...neutral towards them. They can be quite wise, and have aided us in the past. But we mostly try to stay out of one another’s way.”

“Out of a dragon’s way is the best way to be,” Kakashi agrees dryly.

“Well...it’s getting late now,” Rin offers. “You should get some rest. You can take my bunk.” A hand points up to a small loft.

“Oh no, I couldn’t -”

“I insist. I’ve slept in worse places for worse reasons,” Rin offers with a wry smile.

Looking sheepish, Ryū accepts, climbing the ladder up and disappearing.

The pair below watch her go before looking to each other. With a nod of her head, Rin gestures them both outside. Out they walk to stand on the riverbank.

“...so?”

“...I don’t know,” Rin muses softly. “I’ve never heard of using the plant this way, but...it has the same basic properties as wolfsbane. There has to be a way to mirror its effects, but…”

“Testing will be dangerous.”

“...yes. And if she has to consume it every day, she’ll need a steady supply. I wish there was a way to just...rid her of it completely. But I don’t know how. Or if it’s even possible without the proper countercurse. And I have no way of knowing how to do that, given I don’t know the curse that started it.”

“...I could always go nab the guy.”

Rin gives him a pointed look. “I’d like to keep this from turning into an international incident, if you just go up there and kidnap a court mage.”

“I could explain.”

“We’ve sent a letter to her mother...perhaps we’ll hear word back. For now, though...time is my biggest enemy. If she finishes changing, there might be no going back. There’s so much unknown…”

“You’ll figure it out,” Kakashi assures her. “You always do.”

Rin doesn’t reply, not so sure.

The pair sleep downstairs, Rin waking with the dawn. Letting the princess sleep, she goes about prep work to begin making the first attempts at the potion. Thankfully she has a decent supply of dragonsbane, but...she might want to start propagating more. Out in her garden, she starts encouraging new seedlings to sprout.

By the time she returns, Ryū is back on the ground floor. “Sleep well?”

The small grimace she gives in return speaks well enough.

“Well...we’d best get started.”

Using her data of Ryū’s physiology against the wolfsbane potion, Rin starts calculating conversions. Even then, she begins with a fraction of potency. The brew takes nearly three weeks to properly simmer, so in the meantime...there’s little else to do but talk. They exchange stories of their pasts, their families, their friends. Strolls are taken within the woods and along the riverbanks, gaps slowly filled in their knowledge of each other. Little by little, Rin gets to know more about the mysterious princess and the lands she comes from. In turn, she reveals things long-buried about herself...things she hasn’t dared to think of in years.

Like a vine-covered window slowly pried open, light starts to shine through into her solitude. The air starts to clear form the years of idle dust. And things start to seem...different.

Rin starts to realize how...alone she’s felt all this time. And how much company her guest has proven to be.

...she’ll be sad to see her go.

“My name actually means dragon in the old tongue,” Ryū muses one afternoon as Rin puts the finishing touches on the first batch. “I wonder if that’s where he got his inspiration from…”

“It’s possible,” the witch muses, carefully tending to her cauldron. While wolfsbane is always a deep green, this concoction is a noxious purple. “...all right, I think we’re ready. Now, I can test it on your skin, first. See if you have any reaction before we go pouring it down your gullet.”

Ryū nods, baring an arm as Rin carefully takes a small spoonful, letting it cool before a drop is spared to a patch of scales.

It hisses, smoking and bubbling for a fraction of a second. Then, after a pause...a scale pops off onto the floor with a clatter.

Both women stare at it before looking up. “...um…”

“...it might be a bit strong,” Rin offers nervously. “I’ll...try diluting it a bit.”

“Maybe...maybe it’s something we should apply topically…? Rather than, um...internally?”

Rin nibbles her lip in thought. “...let me try one more thing.”

Baring Ryūs back, Rin takes another drop and lets it dribble onto one of the protrusions on her shoulder blade: something she can only assume will later tear and reveal wings, as the base of her spine has done for her new tail.

Immediately, the skin begins to burn.

“Ah...ah!” Curling up in pain, Ryū’s hands scramble back to try and reach the sensation. “I-it’s like...acid! R-Rin!”

Panicking, Rin summons water from a nearby bucket and tries to wash the residue away. It steams upon contact, and she can’t help but blanch at the hole left behind. Ryū’s muscles twitch and flutter in lingering pain, and Rin just...stares at the infant fifth limb now uncovered, like a lanced boil.

“That...t-that didn’t work,” she notes, tone a bit weak in residual shock.

Shaking and biting back tears, Ryū looks over. “...is...is it bad?”

“...I’ll tend to it.”

Mixing up a poultice for burns, Rin carefully applies it to the melted flesh, covering it with clean cloth. “...I’m so sorry…”

“You didn’t know.”

“But the scale, I -!”

“It’s okay, Rin.” Ryū gives her a shaking smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. “You...you tried. Maybe floral magic just...isn’t the way to go.”

“But…!” The witch deflates, frustrated tears in her eyes. “...I don’t know any other methods…! And I don’t know any witches who specialize in curses, we’re - we’re running out of time!”

“It’s okay. I think...I think I knew this wouldn’t work.” Ryū’s expression shifts to a somber acceptance. “Surely there’s no stronger curse than one born out of scorned love...even if he never really loved me. All he wanted was what he could take from me… and now he’s taken everything. My mother has no other daughters. She’s too old to bear another. The crown will have to find another path, and...maybe he’ll find a way to take it with me removed. Maybe this was his plan all along...”

Her own face defeated, Rin mulls all that over. Part of her is so angry, she has half a mind to drag Kakashi back here, march up to the north, and duel that bastard herself with him as her second. He couldn’t have her...so he’s turned her into a beast no one could love. He ended her line, and...he…

...wait.

Perking up, Rin scarcely dares to breathe. No...that can’t...but could it…? Looking to Ryū, whose face is turned aside with shame, she looks over the princess’ form. There’s been more changes since her arrival. Her horns are longer, ears taking a more bestial shape: long and hollow (and currently drooped in sorrow). Scales coat more than half her arms and abdomen, both legs now inhumanly distorted. Even her tail is longer, thicker. To anyone in their right mind, she’s a horror to look at. Something to be feared.

...but…?

It’s a rather cliche solution to curses. One often used simply because it’s so glaringly specific. It has to be pure, unmatched, and without any pretense or force. And given all of the lined up circumstances - she’s ugly, now removed from a royal line with no other branches, given up on by the man who sought to use her - it only makes sense.

“Ryū.”

Turning to face her, the princess stiffens with widened eyes as Rin takes the front of her gown in her curled fingers. For a moment they search one another’s gazes before Rin closes the gap, and locks their lips.

As she does, she recalls all the hours of talking, laughing, secret sharing they’ve done since Ryū has arrived. How Rin’s inherent loneliness has been lifted. How much warmer and brighter her little cabin has felt with two people within it, bound by a common goal.

It’s then Rin admits to herself that she’s grown quite fond of this cursed princess.

It’s then she admits that she loves her.

...but it can’t be one-sided if this is going to work.

Still tense with surprise, Ryū stares as Rin kisses her with closed eyes. Heat blooms in her face. She...but...what…? Her heart flutters in her chest, a warmth spreading from her mouth to every end of her nerves. Then slowly she relaxes, lids sliding closed, returning the kiss softly.

With a clatter like a box of marbles spilled upon the floor, scales shed in a torrent. Magic flares and ruffles at their clothes and locks. Horns drop from her head, flesh rippling as time seems to reverse, anatomy shifting back into human until a flawless princess slowly opens her eyes.

Rin looks up, her own gaze softened with the fog of affection, before they both turn to look at the mess. Lifting her slip, Ryū stares at her legs. Pale, fleshy, human legs. She wiggles her toes, and then breaks into a torrent of giggles.

“You...you did it! You really did it!” Eyes starry with unabashed joy, she launches forward and embraces Rin, who squeaks and topples over. Laughing and crying, Ryū then spares a moment to kiss her again, butting their brows as she looks to the witch adoringly. “...you saved me,” she murmurs, tone soft with gratitude and affection.

Face flushed and eyes wide, Rin lingers in shock for a moment before giving a curt, nervous laugh. “I...I guess I did...didn’t I?”

Still beaming, Ryū giggles a bit more, sitting up and looking around at the mess of scales. “...well, I guess you won’t have to buy any more dragon scales for a while, will you?”

Rin then does the same, and snorts. “...I guess not.”

They sweep up the silver and white shards, Ryū carefully picking up the pair of horns. “Wow...these are actually really pretty.”

“I agree. I’ll have to make them into something.”

Setting them atop the table, Ryū looks to Rin thoughtfully. “...so...now what do we do…?”

“Well...I guess you get to go home now, m’lady. Hopefully your mother has taken care of the bastard who cursed you...though we may want to be cautious until we hear back.”

To the witch’s surprise, something falls in Ryū’s expression.

“...you...do want to go home, don’t you?”

“I...I do. And I must. But…” Somber, demure eyes glance up. “...I wonder if...you would come with me…”

“Me?”

“It was love, wasn’t it? That broke the curse?”

Rin suddenly turns sheepish. “I...well, yes - but -”

“I don’t want to leave that behind.”

At a loss for words, Rin...isn’t sure what to say.

“I know you love this place, and...if you want to stay, I cannot fault you. But...if you were to come with me, you wouldn’t have to hide…! You could practice your craft without fear!”

“But...you’re a princess! Surely you need to marry a prince, bear an heir -!”

At that, Ryū laughs. “I can bear an heir without marrying a prince. My line, as I’ve told you, is matriarchal. We don’t need a king. I could very well make a witch my queen if it’s what I want,” she adds coyly. “...and...if that is what the witch wants.”

Rin flounders. “...I...I-I don’t know...I’ve lived here so long, and -”

“I don’t expect an answer now,” Ryū assures her, holding up a placating hand. “...but I should go soon. My mother is surely eager to see me...as I am to see her.”

“...I’ll send Kakashi with you. He’ll keep you safe, especially if things are still...unsettled there. And...I’ll take time to think.”

Ryū smiles softly. “...very well.”

The next day, set with supplies and with the werewolf at her side, Ryū stands outside the ivy. Silvers lock with umbers, unnamed emotions flitting through both.

“...be careful,” Rin murmurs.

“I will be. I’ll write soon.”

“Okay…”

Drawing her hood, Ryū then leans in, giving the little witch a gentle kiss. “...I will see you again.”

Flushed pink (and ignoring Kakashi’s snickering), Rin manages a jerking nod. “...until then.” Watching them go, she feels something in her chest sink with every step. The impulsive part of her - a very large part, at present - almost goes running after her.

...but for now...she has thinking to do.

It’s not every day you fall in love with a princess, after all.

.oOo.

Day three! This time RyūRin with @wanderingmelodies‘ Rin! Which is...technically a ship we never really fleshed out, more just...hinted at, and usually in crack xD But I’ve always liked the concept, so...here it is in a fantasy verse! Woo! So far this is the longest one by far up til now - had to do a lot more worldbuilding to set things up here, sooo I got a lil carried away lol - what can I say, I’m a worldbuilding nerd =w= But uh, yeah! I dunno why, but I’ve always gotten like...flora mage vibes from Rin. Which is also how I write her in Divine Light! Hence her being a wee plant witchy here. And ofc Ryū’s got dragony things going on! Was tempted to let her keep the ability to transform, but this is long enough as-is xD Mey, I know you don’t write on that blog anymore, but I miss yer beans and I hope you enjoy this...very random story, lol And with that, I’m gonna sign off! We’re about halfway through the week, woo! Ngl I’ma be sad when this is over...but it’s fun while it lasts!

#narutoocxcanonshipweek #noxcsw #wanderingmelodies #nohara rin #suigin ryū #like magic [ au ]#gore //

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spamzineglasgow · 5 years

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(REVIEW) Earth Sign by Naomi Morris

In this review, Allie Kerper explores constellations of anxiety, pleasure and pain, life and non-life, in Naomi Morris’ new collection, Earth Sign (Partus Press, 2019).

> People don’t talk enough about the globs of uterine tissue that fall out of you when you’re on your period, slugs you can feel as they ooze from the body into the outside world: toilet, towel, shower floor. Naomi Morris evokes these gory signs of life and not-life within the first two lines of her debut pamphlet Earth Sign, setting the scene in her poem ‘Jam <3’ with ‘I’m staring at a jam spot: / blood clot, strawberry guts.’ The poems in this pamphlet, too, seem to have leaked from the body and plopped onto the floor, measuring the distance between inner worlds and outer, exposing the beauty in life’s formless messes.

> Earth Sign gives these messes shape, though not without reluctance. Of the jam spot, Morris writes, ‘I wish I could leave her / in that sweet pulp.’ She could be referring to a poem, in that nebulous state before the poet makes it a poem – staring at an image/feeling/idea and knowing it’s only perfect before it’s wrestled into language, left scarred where its possibilities have been amputated. But Morris’s writing doesn’t bear those scars, as it exposes those of mind, body and earth. These poems are controlled in their wildness, gentle in their precision, unflinching in their pain.

> However, telling a poet not to be anxious about their writing is fruitless and, in this case, entirely beside the point. Never mind that no good poet feels sure of their work (‘A line will take us hours maybe; / Yet if it does not seem a moment’s thought, / Our stitching and unstitching has been naught.’ –Yeats, ‘Adam’s Curse’). The anxiety in ‘Jam <3’ prefaces the anxiety that pervades the pamphlet, with the speaker’s wish to ‘remain / untouched’ foreshadowing discussions of the things she feels marked by: toxic relationships, medical conditions and procedures, disobedience to expectations, all of which Morris portrays as symptoms of the larger problems of desire, embodiment and living in the world. ‘Untouched’, the final word in ‘Jam <3’, is a door behind which the rest of the poems stand like rooms, displaying the different ways a body can both hold trauma and joy.

> Trauma and joy, but primarily trauma. ‘My body remembers what happened / previously from the moments that / sift through me like a flu-shiver’, declared ‘April 15th’, a poem about how certain memories write themselves into our physicalities, surfacing each year with and like seasons. ‘All Types of Water Are Beautiful’ ties mental and physical pain (‘place a mirror facing the window to see the sky from your / bed’, ‘run / a bath with only hot water to feel like mutton boiling, / fighting burning womb with burning’) with the pressure to perform a certain kind of femininity (‘fear the kettle, shun the oven’). The oven works simultaneously a symbol of homemaking, a metaphor for pregnancy, and a clever conjuring of the ghost of Plath, the omnipotent symbol of female literary madness. The speaker might ‘shun the oven’ for fear of how she might use it, or the forces she feels to be driving her there. The oven could also stand for Plath herself, reminding readers that it’s boring to compare every mentally ill female poet to Plath, and also that it’s horrible to use someone’s suicide device as shorthand for her name and legacy. The anxieties around traditional femininity resurface a few pages later in ‘Homemaking’, where the title leads into the lines ‘curls me at the edges like burning / paper.’

> Elsewhere, the lines between pain and happiness blur, as so often happens in bodies. In ‘Moon Water’, ‘it is fuckingfreezing’ and the speaker is ‘thinking about / diseases, waterborne’ while summoning blessings from goddesses and using crystals to manifest intentions. In ‘Pisces Season’, the speaker describes a kind of tranquil alienation as she loses herself in someone who is fundamentally, elementally different from her. These two poems are some of the most spiritual, grounding belief in embodied practice and eliding astrological symbols with physical bodies. In astrology, those who are born under earth signs are meant to be steady, solid, and planted firmly in the realm of the physical. Earth Signboth demonstrates and questions these properties.

> In ‘Aries Season’, the speaker announces with firm confidence, ‘It’s March not summer. / I can scare away the devil / with my vulva.’ Her longing is the longing of the earth: ‘Look how beautiful and bountiful / and round and full / of expectation // this fecund season is.’ The speaker knows what she wants; her feelings are rooted and not going anywhere. ‘Braidburn’ echoes this rootedness: ‘I could fall asleep easily on the skin / on this tree. Even the wind / cannot rouse me.’ There’s a sense in these images of communion with earth, of certainty, of unshakeability. Throughout the pamphlet, feelings speak through material objects: a phone, rose quartz, an empty fruit bowl, a lollipop. Physical experience ground the mental and emotional.

> But of course, this is a book about anxiety, often marked by a lack or loss of definition. In ‘April 15th’, remembering something traumatic, the speaker becomes ‘headily / involved in a state of pseudo-pregnancy.’ Reality distorts, and the speaker is no longer fully within her body, but detached somewhat, only ‘headily / involved’, while her body detaches from the present moment. ‘All Types of Water Are Beautiful’, rife with fears about what it means to be a woman and to have a body, is written as a block of text where sentences are separated with interpuncts, rather than full stops, and nothing is capitalised. Breakdown of form reflects breakdown of mind, body, and ability to live as the speaker feels she ought to. In ‘The Resort’, a poem about the anxiety of an unfamiliar place, the speaker recalls that she ‘was fed up with the word thebefore everything’, mistrusting the definite article, and by extension definition itself, at a time when things seem deeply uncertain. These poems demonstrate a fight to stay grounded, the speaker’s fight to remain within herself.

> Earth Sign maps anxieties in constellations and vice versa. It casts spells to set intentions for the future. It conjures confidence, embraces vulnerability, interprets dreams and memories and shrinks the distance between them. It displays the ‘sweet pulp’ of life, scoops it up, turns it into something pulsing, complicated, and beautiful.

Earth Sign is out now and available via Partus Press.

Text and image: Allie Kerper

Published 19/10/19

#Earth Sign #review #reviews #Naomi Morris

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moiraineswife · 7 years

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Just something for your consideration because I have just thought of this and think it's adorable... Elain, giving Lucien flowers

It IS adorable aier;toienoac okay okay have some more thoughts in return that this Spawned: (listen i’m fully aware that u were probably just ‘wouldn’t it be nice if Elain handed Lucien a little bunch of flowers one day, that’d be sweet, but like GO BIG OR GO HOME MEABHD. and u sent this to me i honestly don’t know what else u were expecting...)

Elain says at the end of ACOWAR that she wants to fill the world with more gardens. No doubt she makes the one she’s started in Velaris spread and enthusiastically throws herself into it after the war. It’s a place that she’s comfortable and a place that’s hers so Lucien, being tactful and polite, probably chooses to court her there more often.

He lets her talk endlessly about the flowers that she’s growing there, all the different seeds, the things that will grow in Prythian that she’d never even heard of in the mortal realms (she scolds his people for that because dammit, if I’d known about this before I’d have come here much sooner. And Lucien offers her a very grave apology on behalf of all fae-dom which makes her giggle)

Lucien literally lived in the Court of Flowers for the past 300 years or something, right, and he spent an inordinate amount of time riding the rails, on border patrol, etc, etc. The boy knows his plants, okay. And he’s probably delighted to have someone as enthusiastic as he is to share that with. (Listen, Lucien spent his free time in the Autumn Court camping out miles away from his home and learning how to catch trout with his bare hands - he loves the outdoors just as much as Elain, who spent all her time wherever they were carving out a garden, does. Elain spreads life wherever she goes and Lucien basks in it. This is a beautiful point of bonding for them).

Lucien tells her all about the Spring Court. It was toxic and unhealthy for him in Tamlin’s court and Elain gets very grumpy about the abuse that he suffered at Tamlin’s hands (and starts to encourage Lucien to look and think about Tamlin’s treatment of him too) but the court itself was beautiful. He tells her about the deep forests. About the plants that would bloom all year round. The gardens of the manor and the wild, untamed beauty found in the heart of the court.

Partly he talks to share this wonder with Elain the only way he knows how. He would take her there but with his relationship with Tamlin being what it is that isn’t possible...But he knows that he needs to tell her everything he can about it. Elain laps it all up and so he starts sharing things from the Autumn Court as well, diving into memories he thought he’d long forgotten because that court, too, had its beauty.

As he talks Elain starts to realise that this is for her benefit that he’s sharing these things, to see her smile and light up in wonder imagining all of the things he’s telling her about...But she also starts to sense a pang of longing and nostalgia in him and she realises that a part of him is homesick for these parts of those courts he once called home.

Elain hatches a cunning plan.

Using that sweet, diplomatic charm she cultivated in human high society she charms merchants and vendors from other courts into getting her what she needs and sets to work.

There’s a corner of her garden that she keeps fenced off and made such ferocious threats to Cassian when he tried to peek inside that he swears of all the Archeron sisters, he fears Elain the most. No-one is allowed to go to the part of the garden but especially not Lucien, it’s kept so secret from him that he doesn’t even know it exists.

Not until Elain comes to him one day, bursting with excitement and glowing so brightly people start questioning which one of them, exactly, is the heir to Day. She takes Lucien by the hand and quite firmly ignores his baffled babbling as she ties a blindfold over his eyes and leads him outside. She just tells him to trust her and Lucien shuts his mouth and obeys and that’s that.

She leads him out into the garden (Lucien stumbling a few times because, well, Elain is very excited and enthusiastic and that tends to dull her noticing things like loose stones and protruding roots, all of which poor Lucien trips over) but they manage to make it to this special little corner relatively intact.

Quivering with anticipation Elain takes off Lucien’s blindfold (standing on her toes and having him bend down a little while she curses him for being so damn tall) and waits with baited breath for his reaction as she stares around at what she’s created for. A little part of her garden is a miniature Spring Court, with a small section of Autumn too, both of them filled with all of Lucien’s favourite plants and flowers, that she spent a great deal of time researching to make sure she got it just right.

Lucien steps forwards on slightly trembling legs and moves deeper into the garden. It feels like he’s home, at last, like this strange, alien court that spent so long as the subject of his most twisted nightmares, could some day be his. Elain tentatively follows him and murmurs that she knew he was missing home and she thought this might help but if he doesn’t like it...

Never in all his many, many years of life has Lucien ever been this lost for words. After a very long moment and several tries, instinct and training kick in at last and he’s finally able to wheeze that he loves it, he loves it and that no-one...No-one has ever done anything like this for him before.

That little line he’s learning to love creases between Elain’s brows at that and she says that they should have done...Then she softens and smiles and murmurs quietly that she supposes she just has a lot of making up to do, in that case.

Lucien walks towards her and pulls her to him and tells her that he would very, very much like to kiss her right now, if that would be agreeable to her. Elain giggles and informs him that she didn’t very well go to all this effort for the simple pleasure of watching him gape at her like a fish, she thinks he should most definitely kiss her, after all her hard work.

Lucien doesn’t need to be told twice. He laughs at her boldness, even as she blushes for him, and wonders if this woman, this soft heart who just might be the strongest person he’s ever known, will ever stop surprising him.

He concludes, as she, impatient with his overly-polite dilly-dallying, takes his face firmly between her hands and draws him down to kiss her, that she most certainly will not. And he’s absolutely fine with that.

Once he’s spent a good long time properly appreciating Elain and all her hard work and their lips are red and swollen from said appreciation, he lets her lead him around the garden.

She shows him every single plant she’s brought here and lets him talk, tell her silly little facts about them, how that one is good to put on burns and that one should absolutely not, under any circumstances and no matter how much gold she’s offered, ever be drunk as a tea.

She tells him how much trouble she had getting hold of that and he tells her he’s not surprised, that it almost died out a few decades ago and he can’t believe she managed to get it to grow at all. Elain swells with pride and Lucien appreciates her some more.

He laughs and laughs and laughs over a small, insignificant looking little plant and tells her about the memories that it brings back from Spring, when things were better, a lifetime ago. Then he asks about her favourites, of the new ones that she’s found here and they bond and Lucien appreciates her a great deal.

Lucien, ever the graceful courtier, plucks up a delicate blue rose and tucks it into her hair. And then nothing will do but that Elain has to weave an entire bouquet into Lucien’s hair. They lie in the shade of a tree while she does this, Elain’s legs folded into a (highly unladylike, as Lucien teasingly comments and gets a swat on the arm in return) basket, Lucien’s head in her lap. As she works she confesses, giggling and blushing, that she’s been wanting to play with his hair for a very long time. Lucien smiles and tells her she’s welcome to do this as often as she wishes. Elain leans down and kisses him upside down.

Lucien refuses to take off his flower crown and proudly wears it to the family dinner the Circle have that night at the House of Wind. During which, Feyre smiles knowingly at them and just smiles some more when Elain sidles over to thank her for helping her find out what flowers Lucien likes.

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menphinaschevalier · 7 years

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LGBTQ+ Awareness Regarding Jehovah's Witnesses

June is LGBT Pride month, chosen to commemorate the riots of Stonewall, which occurred in 1969. June is a month of recognition for those within the LGBTQ+ community, a time were we celebrate who we are, remember the freedoms won in past and those we presently fight for. It's a month when all of this, these issues we face everyday, are highlighted with more focus by those outside our community and so this June I have the aim to do what I can to spotlight an issue that is largely unknown to be the danger that it truly is.

As an LGBT person who was born into and raised in a Jehovah's Witness family, I have both experienced and witnessed the damaging effects of the cult’s culture, particularly pertaining to homosexuality.

Most people know Jehovah's Witnesses as the conservative Christian religion most likely to be responsible for walking you up on a Saturday morning with a knock on your door. If you live in a metropolitan area, you might have noticed them standing beside a cart of Watchtower literature, or seen a big blue square bumper sticker on someone's car with the message 'JW.ORG'.

What most people do not know is that might seem as an orderly sect of Christianity is in reality a high-control cult, making use of hallmarks such as lovebombing, thought policing, brainwashing, isolation and shunning. Here is the video shown at the 2016 conventions, used as a model example of how to treat those who leave the Organization. Click here for the full video, or here for the video plus commentary by an ex-JW former Elder and author.

These practices are what make the Jehovah's Witnesses Organization particularly lethal to its members, including those who are LGBTQ. The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, also known simply and ominously as The Organization, have always held the stance that homosexuality is a sin forbidden by the bible not unlike many other sects of fundamentalist Christianity. However, due to its extreme policies, the repercussions are often more severe. In recent years, there has been a visible increase of information fed to members reminding them of the deplorable nature of homosexuality, encouraging them to see LGBT persons as sub-human, and reminding them that a person's sexual orientation is a choice or habit that can be broken as a person would seek anger management for their temper.

To make a comparison, you could say: “You know, many claim that violent behavior can have a genetic root and that as a result, some people are predisposed to it. (Proverbs 29:22) What if that was true? As you might know, the Bible condemns fits of anger. (Psalm 37:8; Ephesians 4:31) Is that standard unfair just because some may be inclined toward violence?”

The above is quoted from Young People Ask: How Can I Explain the Bible’s View of Homosexuality? which you can read for yourself here, on JW.org.

As part of this year's District Convention of Jehovah's Witnesses, three day conventions where members listen to talks and symposiums, a three part video drama will be shown entitled 'Remember the Wife of Lot'. Among the mess of poorly directed, problematic content are segments which remind convention attendees that homosexuality is condemned by God and by any faithful follower. These segments are shot in a way that dehumanizes the three visible gay characters in the drama, both a gay couple shown on television and the gay assistant of the titular character shown with only the backs of their heads visible, even when interacting and speaking for a prolonged period of time on screen. These are unmistakably deliberate choices directed from the Organization with the aim of encouraging and programming its members not to simply disagree with the 'homosexual lifestyle' but to view LGBT persons as a subhuman, alien group whose relationships revolve solely around lust.

Here is a short video that specifically calls out the main scenario where homosexuality is highlighted in the drama, though the strange ‘back of the head’ framing involving Gloria’s gay assistant takes place in the end of the third part. You can watch the full drama here.

This is an attitude that has loomed over the Jehovah's Witnesses culture decades, one that was actively present in the congregation I grew up in. A woman from a generational family of Witnesses had decided to live a celibate life, resisting her 'sinful nature' so she could remain a member of the Organization and keep contact with her family. Dispute her adherence to scripture, she was socially marked by her fellow members as 'bad association', treated marginally better than someone to be shunned. Comments such as 'I cannot wait until all the gay people are killed in Armageddon' are not uncommon to overhear in conversations, and any mention of homosexuality during the weekly congregation meetings beckoned attendees to express the depths of their disdain.

I cannot emphasize enough the emotional and mental damage that this can cause a person. As a social system that is set up to trap its members from any escape, any LGBT person within the Organization is under the constant oppression of knowing how disgusting their existence is to their only community.

As a Jehovah's Witness, you are expressly disallowed to have any close contact with individuals outside the Organization, or as they are labeled and known by members, ‘worldly people’. Anyone outside the Organization is routinely villainized as a dangerous threat at worst, possible convert at best, with no room for coexistence or agreeing to disagree.

Your entire world is confined other Jehovah's Witnesses, all of whom are likely to report you for anything you might confide 'for your own good'. It is, after all, a doomsday cult who believe that when Armageddon comes all non-Jehovah’s Witnesses will be executed by divine wrath.

If you are someone born into the faith like I was, it's often the case that most of your family will be in the cult and pressure you into baptism, from which point you are trapped. Being brought up in this environment is extremely toxic to anyone, but can be especially poignant when you are gay. There is no safe way to ensure that you have any outlet. You are boxed in with a culture that is actively brainwashing your loved ones to loathe you, while you yourself have been brainwashed into believing the only good and kind people in the entire world are your fellow Jehovah's Witnesses.

The woman whom I spoke of earlier eventually stopped coming to our Congregation, along with her family. I like to think she found all the happiness she deserved and was denied, but I have no idea where she is or what happened to her. I hope that she was fortunate enough to find a support system outside the cult. Too many times there are instances of homelessness, drug addiction and suicide that stem from the incredible stress and emotional devastation of losing your entire social circle in the blink of an eye. There are countless stories of abandoned Witnesses who in desperation and grief turn to harmful alternatives for comfort, and these same accounts are waved in the faces of their friends and family as an ‘I told you so!’ by the Organization.

How do you help someone in such a tightly controlled situation? Spread the word: There are resources and websites that compile the corruption of the Watchtower Organization, but it is still a mostly unknown problem, particularly within the U.S. The more attention that can be brought to the truth of the cult, the harder it will be for Watchtower to keep its members in the dark. Jehovah's Witnesses are not allowed to read anything about their religion outside of the Organization’s published and approved material. One of the best ways to dismantle the harmful behavior in this Organization is to draw enough attention to its harmful practices on a large enough scale that its practically impossible to avoid.

Be patient, be kind: Remember you are dealing with victims of a cult who have been brainwashed into believing every single person who is not a fellow Witnesses is a danger to them. Remember that this applies to everyone inside the cult, parents and children, young and old.

Provide resources, if you can: A lot of Witnesses might not know about resources like suicide prevention hotlines, shelters or even therapy. The degree to which someone has been isolated 'from this system of things' can vary severely, with some families deciding against any sort of help outside Elders at their Kingdom Halls, and therefore never educating their children that there IS alternative aid outside the religion.

Absolutely do not express your anger towards their religion: Even while I was living with my partner, states away from my controlled environment, it took months before I was able to even begin coming to terms with the truth about what I had known as ‘The Truth.’ Any hostile action, including blunt facts about the cult, can be seen as validation for worldly people being cruel, evil imps whose only goal is to lead them astray from the righteous path of everlasting life. Remember that most Witnesses have been brainwashed into really believing this doctrine, even if they are terrified and miserable living as a Witness, no matter how strange or insane some of their beliefs might seem.

I am alive today because I was fortunate enough to find a source outside Jehovah’s Witnesses who simply by being themselves, planted enough seeds of doubt about the Organization for me to survive the constant assault of worthlessness and self-hate I was programmed to feel everyday.

I am alive today despite having my own mother assist me with attempted suicide, because it would have been ‘better’ for me to die then as I was, a scared 16 year old who had admitted to being gay, than for me to continue living and be killed at Armageddon for that same crime.

I am lucky, but there are so many out there silently suffering everyday, inside and outside the LGBTQIA+ community. Please, take a moment to think of those inside your community this Pride month and if you know of any LGBT+ Witnesses, young or old, take a moment to let them know you love them and they are not alone.

#lgbt #pride month #gay pride #religion #cult #jehovah's witnesses #JW #ex-jw #tw; abuse #tw; suicide #tw; depression #tw; homophobia #homophobia #long post

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ballbrandon94 · 4 years

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Reiki Healing Stone Set Prodigious Tips

You must take functioning part in their daily chores - whatever.Please see my next article, I am saying is please do send Reiki, it nonetheless works on me as very important.The problem with Reiki had significant pain relief, reduced anxiety and depression.A Reiki self attunement can be used to literally treat almost any injury.

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Learn Reiki Geelong

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How To Become A Reiki Master For Free

You can only give you an overview with some stuff in order heal the world!One of my body's needs, and thus share the energy used in healing the animal will become apparent.Working with Symbol 2 and Reiki brings you high level of satisfaction Reiki brings several healing benefits.Releasing the energy can make your atmosphere more peaceful and calm.Once you initiate the student him- or herself, and for all.

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#Reiki Healing Stone Set Prodigious Tips #How Does Reiki Work Scientifically

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katebushwick · 5 years

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ATTUNING TO THE CHEMOSPHERE

In this article I argue that these affective processes of attending to the minute aberrations of the body and atmosphere are the primary means of discerning protracted and low-level encounters with do- mestic chemicals. Further, the tracking of small changes to body and atmosphere across time and space can accumulate into a process I call the “chemical sublime,” which elevates minor enfeebling encounters into events that stir ethical consid- eration and potential intervention. The chemical sublime is both an experience and a practice that emerges out of late industrial material ecologies, one that inverts dominant conceptions of the sublime that hang heavy with Enlightenment- era baggage. In contrast to the long-prevailing formulation, the chemical sublime does not quell spectacular material threats with the transcendence of immaterial reason, thereby affirming human distinction and existing social orders. Rather, in the process I document, indistinct and distributed harms are sublimated into an embodied apprehension of human vulnerability to and entanglements with ordi- nary toxicity, provoking reflection, disquiet, and contestation.

At room temperature, the formaldehyde-based adhesives that hold together the plywood walls, particleboard subfloors, hardboard cabinetry, and carpet back- ings of the average American home slowly exhale chemical vapors into interior breathing space. Without a cracked window, an opened door, or other forms of air exchange, these silent and invisible microemissions accrue within the envelope of the home. Houseplants slowly filter out a fraction of the ambient chemical load as they absorb toxicants and assimilate benign formaldehyde metabolites into regular cellular function. A host of microorganisms that inhabit the soil surround- ing plant roots avail themselves of formaldehyde vapors as a source of life-sus- taining carbon (Kim et al. 2008).

The respiration of avian, feline, canine, and human inhabitants also removes formaldehyde from the air. Yet as formaldehyde vapors enter these bodies they are absorbed by the mucus membranes of the nasopharynx and lungs, bind to

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DNA and proteins, disrupt cellular functions, and are quickly dismantled. In the process of metabolism formic acid is produced, yielding the possibility of acid- base imbalance and a range of systemic effects (ATSDR 2014). These slight bio- chemical impressions, which at first appear simply meaningless or puzzling, ac- cumulate in the bodies of the exposed and reorient them to the molecular constituents of the air and the domestic infrastructure from which such chemicals emanate. It is through the articulation of these small corrosive happenings that residents reckon with how their homes are decomposing into them as they de- compose in their homes.

The somatic work of the chemically concerned is enmeshed with an appre- hension of their own bodies that is simultaneously sensuous and epistemological, referred to herein as “bodily knowledge” and situated within a process of “bodily reasoning” that tempers not just what one knows but what one becomes with or is estranged from. Sustained bodily reasoning gives rise to the chemical sublime, and together they offer a response to Kim Fortun’s (2012) call for ways to differently know and reimage our ongoing late industrial present, which is marked by deteriorating sociotechnical systems and economic, climatic, and infrastructural instability.

The domestically exposed attune to their own effects and affects as a means of further discerning the barely perceptible constituents of their environment. This is not a practice confined to the “deviant agents” of those afflicted by multiple chemical sensitivity (Alaimo 2010, chapter 5; Murphy 2006, 173; Kroll-Smith and Floyd 1997, 10) or of those with diagnosed pathophysiologies like asthma. Rather, these molecular and relational appreciations arise from a somatic suscep- tibility and epistemic capacity common to human life—and often informed by nonhuman life.1 By definition toxics bear “a potency that can directly implicate the vulnerability of a living body” (Chen 2012, 203), and it is by virtue of this very capacity to be chemically wounded, even minutely so, that bodies bear revelatory power.

This article unfolds across increasing durations of atmospheric formaldehyde exposure. The tip of the iceberg is my own encounter with exposures in the field. Much of this ethnography was conducted through the haze of indoor-air-quality- induced befuddlement. During the first hour spent in houses with suspected in- door air-quality issues, I would slowly develop an ache in the back of my eyes, which would with time spread throughout my skull. I repeatedly found myself struggling to resist a physical desire to expedite interviews as my mind felt in- creasingly woolly, my focus slipped, and my lines of inquiry lost their direction.

ATTUNING TO THE CHEMOSPHERE

Time and the flow of my thoughts became viscous.2 My energy would bottom out, but my eventual sleep was wracked with restlessness.3

The spaces to which I was supposed to be most attuned were the spaces in which I felt most cognitively unhinged. Yet as much as ethnography is “a method of being at risk in the face of practices and discourses into which one inquires” (Haraway 1997, 190), it is also a method of understanding how sheltered the ethnographer is even within such exposures. A molecule of formaldehyde does not strike my lungs in the same way it does those who have endured months or years of exposure—for whom its effects are biochemically magnified and se- miotically enflamed. While my exposures may have intimated the costs of appre- hending chemical others, my impairments proved ephemeral and the stakes of my somatic cognizance comparatively negligible. To indulge in a “radical empir- ical” impulse (Jackson 1989), to gesture toward the evidentiary potential of my own body, would be to distract from all of the privileges of research that make my own exposure anomalous within the highly patterned landscape of domestic exposures across the United States. Almost all of my work took place in manu- factured homes, a mainstay of low-to-moderate-income homeownership, which harbor four times the ambient formaldehyde of conventional site-built homes (COEHHA 2001).

My interlocutors who resided in factory-built housing could be variously classified as elderly, poor, disabled, tenuously employed, or Native. In these cases formaldehyde concentrations were both indicators and agents of social abandon- ment and precarity. As will become evident in the first ethnographic section, new homes, newly renovated homes, and tightly sealed so-called green homes also cultivate elevated formaldehyde levels, as the biopolitical circuits that expose some in the name of sheltering others are not without their leakages (Murphy 2006, 111).

I begin by situating this article in the space between theoretical work on affect and phenomenological studies of environmental exposures. In the following section I unfold the specific affects of a domestic chemical assessment scientist, an analysis that contributes to a growing literature on the body as part of the existential, pedagogical, and ethical grounds of cultures of science (Masco 2004; Myers 2008; Helmreich 2009). My purview then widens to discuss the larger sensorium of corporeal domestic air-quality perception and the instrumental use of sensitized bodies to identify the sources of domestic chemical exposure. Across authoritative and questioned bodies, companion species and humans, I ask: In what ways do diffuse sensory practices generate knowledge of, attention to, and

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engagements with everyday materials? How can expanding the avenues and tem- porality of sensing yield an appreciation of what many of us are abbreviating from our own sense of the world?

ATTUNING TO THE CHEMOSPHERE

Formaldehyde is a nearly ubiquitous chemical in the domestic environment. It seeps from the very engineered woods that give much of contemporary do- mestic space its comfort, security, and affordability. The chemical holds the colors of upholstered furniture, adds strength to insulation, and enhances the texture of cosmetics in addition to its less deliberate environmental presence as a residue of incomplete combustion (from automobiles to cigarettes). The substance suffuses the economy to such an extent that an industry trade association asserts, “the production and use of formaldehyde accounts for five percent of the U.S. gross national product—about $500 billion per year” (ACC 2013). Just as in the case of major financial institutions, the chemical’s bonds are so diverse and far-reaching that the potential toxicity of formaldehyde is too big to face head on. Not only the practical and procedural conventions of science yield difficulties in capturing the harms of chronic low-level exposure. Governmental regulators, stakeholders in chemical economies, and unwitting discursive allies—such as those advancing the pharmaceuticalization of environmental illness etiologies—also actively un- know its injury through a protean array of technical, methodological, and legal maneuvers (Shapiro 2014).

Formaldehyde is not only synthesized at industrial scales; trace amounts of the chemical, as a metabolic by-product, are produced on a cellular level by all organic life forms. Formaldehyde’s presence in late industrial domestic ecologies is neither reducible to a natural and endogenous element of carbon-based life, as industry would have it, nor is it an absolute toxin—a completely alien agent leached from modernity’s amenities and trespassing into virgin bodies. Thus bodily knowledge of ambient formaldehyde concentrations translates into recognition of a substance that is always already part of the chemical makeup of bodies, but whose specific concentrations indicate how desires for shelter, the solutions to housing demand posed by industrial capitalism,4 and toxic atmospheres are em- broiled in a complex give-and-take.

As a starting point, my focus on the embodied apprehension of residential formaldehyde vapors documents the ways in which bodies become, in the words of the cultural philosopher Peter Sloterdijk (2009, 99), “differently-attuned, dif- ferently-enveloped, and differently–air conditioned” by way of mundane chemicals and the atmospheres they animate. Beyond chronicling how bodies are ma- terially and affectively caught up in the breathing spaces of the built environment, I seek to ethnographically elucidate the “somatic modes of attention” that render minute exposures knowable (Csordas 1993). As Lauren Berlant (2011, 15) has noted, “bodies are continuously busy judging their environments and responding to the atmospheres in which they find themselves” (see also Latour 2004, 206). Bodies are sites for both actively absorbing the world and being put into motion by its constituent medley of humans and nonhumans. The apprehension of domestic toxins is a matter of life and slow death, mediated by patho-logical bodily processes. Kathleen Stewart (2005, 1024) has written incisively on this dialectic of bodily harm and bodily knowledge: “The body consumes and is consumed. Like one big pressure point, it is the place untitled where outside forces come to roost.” The various processes of corporeal judging, numbing, sensitizing, absorbing, attending, consuming, and responding are part and parcel of the pervasive bodily practices that Stewart (2011) encapsulates in the phrase “atmospheric attunement” (see also Anderson 2009; Choy 2012). Such attunements, in relation to the case at hand, facilitate becoming with and orienting toward the molecular constituents of domestic chemospheres (Ahmed 2006; Har- away 2007), without a necessary knowledge of exactly what chemicals they are attuning to. Like learning to become sensitive to environmental change, becoming un- affected too requires work. That my fieldwork was predominated by women’s accounts not only resulted from the feminization of body care, domestic care, health care–seeking, and self-monitoring for bodily dysfunctions (Murphy 2006, 173; Ore 2011, 281). It not only results from the likely increased exposure to domestic chemicals encountered in the course of many of these labors. The ab- sence of men from my fieldwork stems from their active indifference to slight somatic abnormalities. A majority of the men I spoke with consigned bodily decay to the unavoidable process of aging as a means of rejecting the possibility that their bodies were permeable or vulnerable to chemical harm, thus also rejecting threats to masculine self-images (Waldman 2012, 130–33). In this way the at- tunement to and denial of toxicity constitutes and is constituted by normative gender roles. The question at hand is not who is becoming affected, but how. Phenom- enological studies of pollution, environment, and well-being primarily direct their analytical attention to olfaction (Auyero and Swistun 2009; Brant 2008; Fletcher 2005; Jackson 2011; Reno 2011). These studies bring into crisp relief the intimate place-making and place-disrupting capacity of smells and highlight the way in which we often take displeasing scents as the primary indicators of environmental contamination. Yet the respiration of airborne chemicals does not end at the nose. The diffuse embodiment of inhaled, and especially chronically inhaled, chemicals as they seep deep into bodies and spur cascades of minor and often-latent disrup- tions remain largely uninvestigated ethnographically.5 Smells, whether off-putting or alluring, are most pronounced at the crossings of thresholds and then, over time, recede from perception as they become incorporated into new sensorial norms. As one’s scent sensitivity down-regulates in a process of olfactory adap- tation, ongoing and low-level exposures become ordinary and perceptually un- detectable (Dalton and Wysocki 1996)—if such exposures even crested scent detection thresholds in the first instance.6 ATTUNING TO THE CHEMOSPHERE Although many episodic exposure events—from landfills to hydrocarbon- extraction activities—are announced by pungent odors, the limits of what Joshua Reno (2011) refers to as “olfactory epistemology” are often viscerally clear to the chronically exposed, as a middle-aged woman in Detroit facing persistent indus- trial emissions announced in an Air Pollution Community Forum in June 2013: “The state DEQ [Department of Environmental Quality] says ‘we depend on you and your smell to tell us when something is in the air,’ but the thing is, after a while that stuff wears you down and your senses stop working anymore. I know that in my body there’s some of that [pollution] in my system. It mess up your mind, it mess up your whole system.” Over time her olfactory perception of contamination dulled, while alterations in the quality of her thoughts and slight systemic aberrations continued to signal exposure. Following two years of eth- nographic fieldwork on chronic domestic chemical exposures throughout a dozen U.S. states,7 I have come to the conclusion that such microscopic encounters are most readily sensed by less nameable and more diffuse sensory practices. Bodies are often embroiled in sensing the world well before cognition catches wind of protracted chemical encounters. This argument runs counter to a pioneering analysis of women’s “exposure experiences” in which the authors assert that “in the case of household pollutants and chemical body burden, science has been the primary means through which embodied and indoor pollution have been ‘discovered’” (Altman et al. 2008, 419). Beyond scents and science, I claim that the attuned body is the primary substrate of domestic formaldehyde exposure discovery. Bodies are sensors that indicate the presence of toxicants and, in some cases, specify their atmospheric concen- tration with uncanny precision. The empirical matter that fills this article is in- tended to challenge the confidence that we often place in our own ability to know when we have sensed something and when we have not. Exposures slowly and invisibly emanating from the formaldehyde-based en- gineered woods that give form to domestic space require an attentiveness to how human bodies reveal imperceptible chemical exposures with their own subclinical wounding. In these affective spaces, “at the very limit of the phenomenal” (Clough 2009, 51), the somatic precedes and then is entangled with the rational, a mingling of mind and body that bucks the standard psychosomatic dismissal of low-level chemical complaints in which mental factors cause or aggravate bodily issues. My account draws on a deep phenomenology of bodily formaldehyde detection that focuses on visceral and indeterminate sensorial facilities, rather than on mere smell. The latter may serve as an intimation of a wide variety of exposures, but 375 376 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY 30:3 it is not the epistemic basis for chemical knowledge of everyday, ongoing, and low-level intoxication. BODY METER In February 2011, Linda Kincaid responded by email to a call for participants for my study of the experiences of domestic chemical exposure. An environmental activist had forwarded the call to what she refers to as her “formaldehyde list.” The list comprises a broad array of individuals interested in formaldehyde, many of whom have personally felt its effects—from former FEMA trailer residents,8 to consumers concerned about the broad range of products made with formal- dehyde and, evidently, industrial hygienists. Linda has worked as an industrial hygienist—a scientific profession charged with the responsibility of assessing, con- trolling, and communicating environmental hazards—since 1991 and holds a mas- ter’s degree in public health from the University of California, Berkeley. The immediacy of her interest in domestic formaldehyde was derived not only from the elevated chemical levels registered by her monitoring equipment in the homes of her residential clients, but further by her own symptoms of exposure, which maintained a grip on her after returning from the field. Before meeting in person in suburban Los Angeles to attend one of her formaldehyde home inspections and to learn to use a real-time formaldehyde meter, we spoke at length on the phone. Linda had only become interested in domestic formaldehyde exposure in the past few years. When she received her first phone call from a family that suspected their home was making them sick, she reacted with skepticism. “What are you talking about?,” she thought to herself, but a quick literature review soon revealed that common domestic formaldehyde levels could give rise to the reported symptoms. Linda’s attention was piqued. As a pet project, she began to amass a small arsenal of portable real-time for- maldehyde meters. Yet the vast majority of her work continued to be for the semiconductor and solar industries, and the irregular flow of clients with resi- dential concerns could not sate Linda’s blooming curiosity about the magnitude of domestic chemical contamination. After developers swiftly rejected her offers to test new subdivisions for free, she saw clandestine testing of open houses as her only option for gauging the prevalence of elevated residential formaldehyde. She set out to new unoccupied homes by herself on free weekends, with the intake hose of her Interscan 4160 formaldehyde meter timidly cresting the lip of her purse:9 ATTUNING TO THE CHEMOSPHERE It was really kind of a lark. Can I find elevated formaldehyde in homes? Is it going to be one in ten? . . . Within a few weeks I came to realize that there was a problem here. There is a huge problem here. I was getting the kinds of concentrations that they found in the FEMA trailers, and these are not trailers; these are high-end Silicon Valley homes. And I started noticing that homes in one city in particular had seriously raised formaldehyde as compared to others. . . . Every house I went into had really pretty high formaldehyde, and I would have a headache and have trouble sleeping that night and toss and turn all night long. I’d be exhausted the next day, and when I did other communities it seemed that the for- maldehyde wasn’t as high and I didn’t have those responses to the same degree or maybe not at all. As Linda began to log higher levels with her formaldehyde meter, she also began to log increased levels within her body. Her symptoms signaled elevated chemical levels as clearly as the LCD readouts of her assessment technologies. In embodying the invisible gas, she utilized not one of the standard human sensory faculties but a calibrated, yet diffuse, awareness to aberration. She attuned to the irregular physical state of her neurochemistry. Appraisals of her clients’ homes would often turn back to her own body. When I asked about the curious symptom of intensified dreams that her clients reported,10 her first reaction was to describe her own corroborating experience: “And those were one of my symptoms too; it doesn’t seem to happen to every- body. It absolutely is one of my symptoms. It is guaranteed. If I am in a house with 50–70 ppb [parts per billion] formaldehyde, I will have the utterly weird, bizarre, freaky terrifying nightmares and that is very consistent. It is not something that happens to me normally, so when it does happen it really stands out.” Linda highlights her symptoms after merely an hour of exposure, bearing corporeal witness to long-term low-level chemical exposure disorders that have been his- torically disqualified as (female) psychogenic illness (Murphy 2006). Her repeated experiences in combination with her monitoring equipment lend credence to individual and isolated complaints on the scale of reproducible and scientifically observed phenomena. It is guaranteed. Despite the short duration of Linda’s exposures, she can surmise formal- dehyde levels with extreme precision. In the above quotation, she asserts that she can sequence the onset of exposure symptoms down to a margin of error of about twenty parts per billion. In liquid terms, that is roughly equivalent to determining 377 378 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY 30:3 the difference between fifty and seventy drops of formaldehyde diluted in a small railroad tanker or 250 chemical drums. In temporal terms, such accuracy is com- parable to a margin of error of a minute when measuring durations over the course of a century. At first blush, the exactitude of her body-meter-air attunement appears to border on the uncanny, if not the impossible. The ability to discern such infini- tesimally small differences in atmospheric concentration does not derive from a supernatural capacity on Linda’s part. Rather, such perceptivity results from a mundane monitoring of both repeated bodily irregularities and the levels of for- maldehyde found by her meter. These practices are born out of standard scientific method, professional curiosity, everyday corporeal awareness, and openness to being affected. Linda’s embodied awareness to biochemical aberration does not lie beyond the realm of toxicological plausibility.11 As “the exact mechanism of action of formaldehyde toxicity is not clear” (ATSDR 2014, 5), the aspect of this process that remains inexplicable relates to the limits of toxicological knowledge, and not a mythic extrasensory perception. Operating in tandem with her real-time formaldehyde meters, Linda’s body viscerally logged the chemical exposures of the houses she visited. Over time, she calibrated an understanding of toxic effects to the outputs of her instrumen- tation, a process of indwelling both the indoor atmosphere and the meter. Sci- entific instrument and soma evaluated their immediate surroundings in accord. It is through this environmental and technical incorporation that Linda dilates her being-in-the-world (Merleau-Ponty 2012) and harnesses the relational-cum-epi- stemic utility of her body to understand the potentials of domestic chemical exposure, a process I have alluded to with the phrase “bodily reasoning.” THE CHEMICAL SUBLIME Writing on an antithetical technoaesthetic encounter—the first detonations of nuclear weapons in the deserts of New Mexico—Joseph Masco (2004, 4) observed that “the weapon scientist’s body [was] the most important register of the power of the bomb.” The irradiation, shock wave, and ensuing firestorm of humankind’s most lethal weaponry evoked reverence and bodily fear in onlooking male scientists as some were knocked to the ground, flash-blinded, or felt the blast bore into their being. For weapons scientists, the modest or ephemeral bodily traumas of the bomb’s destructive might were, in a slightly masochistic fashion, the pleasures of a successful experiment. In the shadow of the world’s first mushroom cloud, Masco posits, these bittersweet affects melted into a “nu- ATTUNING TO THE CHEMOSPHERE clear sublime.” This highly specific version of the sublime propelled some scientists into nuclear disarmament campaigns, while others reveled in a feeling that ap- proached divinity. Sublime is not simply an adjective or noun denoting a characteristic or state of grandeur or awe. In chemistry, sublime is also a verb, invoked when substances transform from a solid directly to a gas, bypassing the intermediate liquid form. Formaldehyde used in the fabrication of pressed woods, for instance, slowly sub- limates at temperatures above 􏰁2 􏰗F. In contrast to the spectacular, brutal, and lightning-fast sensorial pummeling that afflicted early nuclear weapons scientists, a multitude of diminutive formaldehyde plumes drifted into Linda’s lungs at the sedate speed of chemical off-gassing and regular human breathing. The constituent effects of what could be summarized as the chemical sublime were often subtle and crept into Linda’s consciousness at a snail’s pace. The cognitive force of her discovery was not “directly proportional to the danger involved in the experiential event” as Masco (2004, 3) avers, reading Immanuel Kant (2000). Formaldehyde’s presence in domestic space was not signaled by overwhelming sensory stimuli, but rather indicated by a thickening veil of indis- tinction as perceptual faculties became occluded. The interference of air-quality- induced illness is received as a phenomenological transmission of its own right (Fortun 2003, 186). The sensorial noise of illness is the signal of domestic chemical exposure and the bodywork employed to apprehend the qualities of indoor air. The magnitude of the issue of domestic chemical exposure revealed itself in piecemeal fashion—gleaned from the repeated toxic encounters of an attuned body, rather than patently imposed by a singular event like a mushroom cloud erupting into the stratosphere and tossing scientists to the ground. For Linda, the prevalence of elevated formaldehyde gradually accumulated into a technical and embodied awareness of residential chemical exposure that dwarfed her by its scale. Within a few weeks I came to realize that there was a problem here. There is a huge problem here. The form of the chemical sublime highlights the gendered assump- tions undergirding Masco’s and Kant’s privileging of sublimity’s correlation with public, spectacular, and violent events over the profundity and density of wide- spread private, indistinct, chronic, and fragmented phenomena.12 The velocity of the epochal nuclear sublime is diametrically opposed to that of the mundane chemical sublime, yet they maintain a common substrate of experience—the bodies of scientist witnesses. Linda’s body was a vital register of both the chemicals that suffused domestic space and their specific concentration. The chemical process of sublimation, the elevation of state from solid to vapor, 379 380 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY 30:3 is mirrored by Linda’s somatic process of epistemic elevation, of corporeally validating her clients’ symptoms and heightening her own bodily analytics. If bodily reasoning is the dynamic process through which knowledge of individual spaces of chronic exposure is somatically attained, the chemical sublime is the accrual of bodily reasoning to the point of articulating the patterned practices and infrastructures that distribute pockets of exposure across space. It is the traversing of a threshold of chemical awareness whereby the irritations of one’s immediate environment become agitations to apprehend and attenuate the effects of vast toxic infrastructures. The chemical sublime thus exerts what Mel Chen (2012, 211) calls the “queer productivity of toxicity and toxins” that demands additional forms of labor. Linda approached the City Council of San Jose, California, in the summer of 2009 as its members were on the verge of passing a building ordinance that required new homes to be certified as “green” by sealing them more tightly, a measure that would likely result in higher domestic formaldehyde levels.13 Linda proposed an addendum requiring green homes to be tested and meet indoor air- quality standards. She offered to render those services for free to demonstrate that she held no financial conflicts of interest. Her proposal was met by a smear campaign financed by the Formaldehyde Council, an industry-funded interest group, which commissioned scientific assaults on her findings. Linda’s assertions about widespread domestic toxicity put her “at risk for future litigation,”14 as systems of commercial asset protection transformed her effort to mitigate systemic exposure risks into legal, scientific status, and financial risks on an individual level. Her data were then ignored and her motion scrapped. The formaldehyde levels logged by Linda’s instrumentation were well in excess of government-recommended thresholds, yet her findings failed to crest prevailing thresholds of significance. Why the visceral pull of the chemical sublime does not translate to a resounding ethical call—why Linda’s assertions were so easily rebuffed—is not only the result of industry’s mobilization of law, science, and capital. We must also look to how the sublime has brokered relations between exposure and the status quo since at least the dawn of the Enlightenment. While the full history extends well beyond the scope of this article, it will suffice to texture the chemical sublime by digging deeper into how it diverges from the Kantian root of Masco’s nuclear sublime. In Kant’s (2000) conception, the immensity or might of the sublime first overwhelms our imaginative capacity or indicates the fragility of the human body, yielding a sense of helplessness and distress. This diminutive feeling is then coun- ATTUNING TO THE CHEMOSPHERE tered and ultimately overcome by reassuring one’s self of the power of the mind, by the belief that reason sets humanity apart and above the physical world. The internal tumult and sensuous displeasure is elevated into the delight and superi- ority of reason. Quintessential of the Enlightenment project, Kant’s sublime out- lines a process by which intellectual mastery dominates the threats of the material world and indicates humanity’s continued progression. As the critical theorist Gene Ray (2004, 10) asserts, “the ideological function of the aesthetic category of the sublime within Kant’s critical system is anxiously bound up with . . . deep metaphysical optimism.” The optimism of the sublime serves to affirm existing power orders—to justify the optimist credo of “whatever is, is right”—even in the face of mass calamity, such as the great Lisbon earthquake of 1755 that fascinated Kant and haunts his analytic of the sublime. The chemical sublime is sharply distinct from Kant’s formulation of the sublime in at least four ways: the form (space, time, and intensity) of exposure, the relation between the supersensible (mind) and the sensible (matter), orien- tational movement (from without to within or vice versa), and political reckoning. Unlike in the case of Kant, who relished the sublime while collecting reports on the great Lisbon earthquake from his East Prussian home, the objects of the chemical sublime cannot be held at a distance. As the practice of bodily reasoning makes clear, the material transformations of the body are inseparable from intel- lectual processes of molecular deduction. An extended absorption of toxicants is not a situation that can be transcended by way of a feeling of rational control. The sublimation of toxic bodily reasoning does not form part of a mental mastery over perceived threats—intellectually closing off their danger. Rather, it consti- tutes a sensuous reasoning that indicates how open our bodies are and amplifies— rather than extinguishes—the tensions, agitations, and dissident potentiality of large-scale hazards. It is the coalescing of underrecognized disturbances rather than a compensation for those that overtly disturb—the beginning of a confron- tation, not its resolution. As unfathomably common industrial chemicals warp, distort, and decay hu- man and nonhuman bodies alike, they corrode the optimism and anthropocentrism of the Enlightenment. Instead of “transforming the worst into the best” (Lyotard 1988, 41) as a foil of human triumph, the chemical sublime is a condensation of vaporous displeasures and a way of being deeply moved by the latent toxicity of industrial human progress. Although Linda’s attempt to effect change has ended in a way that is well recited within the contemporary history of toxic contamination (Boudia and Jas 381 382 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY 30:3 2014), the way it began makes for a less recited story. It is a story that bears on how the chemical sublime can attend to the decentralized crises of the contem- porary moment and that gives rise to the potentiality of living otherwise. BODIES OF EVIDENCE The chemically aware body is not only borne out of profession and curiosity as in Linda Kincaid’s case. More often than not, bodily knowledge of chemical others derives from the necessity of cohabiting with toxins, as was the case with Harriett McFeely and her husband, Dick, who live in a modular home on the outskirts of a small town in Nebraska. In the spring of 2011, I traveled to stay and speak with the McFeelys, who claim to have endured more than two decades of domestic formaldehyde exposure. Before Harriett got access to free formaldehyde tests from the Sierra Club, and before formaldehyde had been introduced to her as a possible perpetrator, she was near the end of her rope. In twenty years of inhabitation, she had slowly developed constant diarrhea, a runny nose, fatigue, severe eye irritation, double (occasionally triple) vision, the need to read with one eye shut, headaches, a sense of taste that skewed toward metallic or simply “strange,” and numerous other symptoms.15 With resurgent exasperation she recounted her dogs getting sick and dying one after the other, while her and her husband’s health steadily dete- riorated. Her doctor received her complaints with skepticism and an implied diagnosis of hypochondria: “They couldn’t find out what’s wrong in my body, so they thought I was crazy. That’s the only answer.” Harriett first began suspecting the house as the source of her family’s col- lective illnesses in 2002 when she left home for five days and her vision cleared and other symptoms subsided. Again in 2007 she left the house for three days and her ailments abated. She then ruled out domestic radon exposure, carbon dioxide, sewer gas, black mold, and water contamination.16 Her last-ditch attempt to ascertain the etiology of her family’s illnesses was to invite a friend of a friend, named Nancy Shoemaker, who suffered from multiple chemical sensitivities. Har- riett hoped that Nancy would use her chemical susceptibility to pick up where her own bodily knowledge left off by divining the specific source of their health issues within the home. Nancy, who spoke with delicate and slightly nervous poise, had developed chemical sensitivity at an early age, while attending beauty school in Nebraska. Nearly every morning when sterilizing the styling utensils, Nancy would lose consciousness and collapse. She had to drop out and readjust her dream of be- ATTUNING TO THE CHEMOSPHERE coming a beautician. Nancy did not think much of her fainting spells until years later when she moved to Florida, where she and her husband took up residency in a trailer. After moving into the trailer, her sensitivities dramatically escalated, but not only at home. A whiff of cologne on the street or shaking hands with someone wearing a transparent Band-Aid could be enough to wilt Nancy to the ground. Her body became jarringly attuned to the vast chemical infusion of the world around her. As a result of these continual chemical encounters, she learned to move through the world with caution. When barefoot at home she would cross sections of linoleum with circumspection, unsure of the daily caprice of her sensitivities. Her corporeal vulnerability to chemical vapors or direct contact is not spread uniformly throughout her body. As a high-frequency exposure site, an extra- sensitive area in the center of Nancy’s palm became more acutely affected with time. Nancy took advantage of the embodied insights of her palm and tacitly honed its reactivity. She now uses her palm to assess the hazard of the various materials and spaces that she encounters in daily life. As she spoke, her gaze turned down to her hands, and she ran her right index finger in circles around the area on her left hand. “If I put something on that sensitive spot or touch something with that sensitive spot, I can tell if I can handle it at that time or not.” To manage anxiety about her emergent reactivity, Nancy developed a deeper literacy of the chemical world by way of a deeper literacy of her own body. “I know about formaldehyde and I’d never done anything like [what I did] with Harriett,” she explained, “but I knew how formaldehyde affected me.” She averred an amassing of somatic knowledge about formaldehyde via years of enduring its effects and affects—through dozens of fainting spells, bouts of wooziness, ener- vating weakness, and daily somatic tests of the material things that populate her world. It was with the sensitive spot in her hand that Nancy began to assess the chemical constitution of Harriett’s home, as an alternative to expensive and in- accessible scientific instrumentation. Sitting in her small and immaculate assisted- living apartment, Nancy recounted the process: “And so I went into the different rooms and I tested the carpet and doors. . . . I went into the kitchen, and I just grabbed hold to open the cabinet or something. I don’t think I touched it very long . . . .” At that point in the story, Nancy lost consciousness. Harriett observed Nancy clutch her stomach and let out a groan. The color dropped from Nancy’s face as she dropped to the floor and began to seize. Harriett’s Boston Terrier, 383 384 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY 30:3 Bowser, ran into the room to investigate the commotion and curled into a fit of seizing as he approached Nancy. The two lay there next to each other on the carpet, gripped by spasms, for a few moments before Harriett and her husband dragged Nancy outside. Bowser continued to convulse in the kitchen. The dog came to within an hour but remained disoriented, running into the furniture, walls, and doors. Nancy gradually regained her composure over the course of half an hour. After she felt well enough, she went on her way, confident that she had found at least one source of the McFeelys’ suffering. As unnerving as the experience was, Harriett also felt relieved that Nancy had validated her suspicion that chemicals were quietly emanating from her home. With an affirmative nod Harriett em- phasized the instrumentality and accuracy of Nancy’s body: “In my opinion, that lady is like a human Geiger counter.” Of course Harriett, and all exposed and affected bodies, also bears this capacity to make manifest the chemical world, albeit in less eventful ways. Some bodies exclaim while others speak in hushed tones. In domestic chemical exposures, bodies are both the means of apprehension and the site of damage. Bodies uncover invisible toxins with their wounding. Humans and their nonhuman companions serve as their own canaries in the un- witting coal mines of residential America. A month after Nancy’s visit, Harriett’s fifth dog in twenty years had to be put to sleep after he became wracked with near-constant seizures. As of June 2015, the McFeelys have lost two more dogs to similar ailments. Like Linda, Harriett felt the pull of the chemical sublime. She felt the attrition in her own body and monitored the bodily ailments of her dogs and her husband. In line with what the sociologist Phil Brown (1997) has called “popular epidemiology,” or the lay appropriation of expert means of environmental health assessment (see also Murphy 2006, 62), Harriett sought to comprehend the sys- temic nature of such exposures. Harriett wrote letters to the editors of news- papers in five or six nearby towns. Her short notes, published in 2008, read: “Modular home owners, have you had any health problems? Have your indoor pets had any mysterious illnesses? Please write or call me.” Phone calls began rolling in, one after another. Harriett began to systematically survey respondents. She asked those who called her how long they had been living in their home and what their symptoms were. She surveyed thirty individuals from thirteen different households throughout Nebraska. Respondents supplied thirty-two different symptoms that they perceived to be correlated to the occupation of their modular home, ranging from unusual thirst to cancer. Harriett further inquired about ATTUNING TO THE CHEMOSPHERE Figure 2. A photocopied entry of the records kept by Harriett McFeely, showing photos of Bowser the dog and notes. Bowser’s body and disposition index the presence of otherwise-invisible chemicals. indoor pet health and recorded the symptomatology of fifteen animals in seven households. She was able to garner funds for formaldehyde test kits from the Sierra Club and tested respondents’ homes. Seven of the thirteen homes tested had levels of formaldehyde in excess of the World Health Organization’s maxi- mum recommended exposure for half an hour—81 parts per billion. Harriett 385 Figure 3. The dog owned by the McFeelys at the time of the author’s visit to the site of Nancy’s seizure. Hastings, Nebraska, April 2011. Photo by Nicholas Shapiro. mails copies of her data, adorned with a row of skulls and crossbones along the spreadsheet’s bottom border, to anyone who may be able to help. Harriett made her husband promise that a thorough autopsy would be per- formed on her if she were to “drop dead” before him. Shifting her stone-faced gaze over to me, she asserted with certainty that the decomposition of their dogs’ bodies served as a herald of her and her husband’s future. “I would bet you a hundred thousand dollars that if they did an autopsy on us today, I would bet money that it is exactly like the dogs.’” Harriett implies that their domestic exposures have reduced her and her husband to the walking dead, that a post- mortem examination could rightfully be performed on them at any time. A grim suggestion, perhaps, but one that is representative of many of the persevering residents of potentially chemically contaminated homes. As evinced by Harriett’s perceived imminent autopsy, sustained chemical exposures beckon death, but they also render death ambiguous. She takes the logic of bodily reasoning to its con- clusion: if wounding intimates the source of harm, then death will surely disclose its ultimate truth. Coming to corporeally comprehend one’s environment does not always have consequences as severe as in Harriett’s case. Residents of potentially contaminated homes I met across the United States gradually became aware of minor departures 386 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY 30:3 ATTUNING TO THE CHEMOSPHERE from their normal sense of taste, sense of balance, clarity of thought, memory, durability of skin, or frequency of contracting colds. Occasionally, inhabitants did not claim even the slightest deviation from their typical physical state. They only recognized atmospheric irritation as an altogether-indistinct feeling. As one North Dakota man noted, “Something about the air in here doesn’t seem quite right.” Or as a woman living on a reservation in the Northwest observed, “in the middle of the day it gets weird air and I open the doors.” While slightly suboptimal health or simply off-putting auras were predominant among my research participants, many suffered from more debilitating illnesses. In these spaces where enduring and knowing are coterminous, the feeling of living death seeped into the margins of life for those with even minimal symptoms. TOWARD A LATE INDUSTRIAL SUBLIME The average American home maintains indoor formaldehyde levels capable of inducing irritation (Hun et al. 2010). Chronically absorbing this chemical is not a process relegated to the lower classes or precarious, even if such populations do bear dramatically higher burdens. To somatically apprehend formaldehyde exposure means to begin apprehending the costs of late industrial infrastructures, economies, and standards of living. It sets in motion an appreciation that the molecular cohabitants who physically hold our world together also encourage our unraveling. Becoming a “pupil of the air” (Sloterdijk 2009, 84) is to attune to the aerosolized material culture and more-than-human semiotics (Kohn 2007) within which one is immersed. Focusing on slight sensations and dysfunctions reorients discussions of chemical phenomenology from its current emphasis on episodic olfactory events to an apprehension of the irritating chemical background noise of everyday life. Ambient formaldehyde makes itself known to mammalian life through minor effects and affects that the exposed can accumulate, over repeated incidents, into an embodied awareness of the scale of chemical saturation, beyond the individual pocket of air we call home. I theorize this string of intimate sensations as amount- ing to a chemical sublime, which can “aggregate life diagonal to hegemonic ways of life” (Povinelli 2011, 30) and give rise to attempts at living otherwise. The chemical sublime does not merely refigure a form of the sublime in philosophical discourse but poses an alternative schema of eventfulness or call to action, one that expands dominant ideas of catastrophe and the disturbing. The chemical sublime is perhaps just one instantiation of an emergent late industrial sublime that reckons with the temporally and spatially dispersed residues of contemporary political orders, including climate change (Morton 2013), biodiversity loss (Yusoff 2013), extractive labor practices, and social abandonment (Povinelli 2011), among others. Yet with formaldehyde production and consumption infrastructure largely locked in, and without the capacity for networking the atomized populations charged by the chemical sublime, decamping from spaces conditioned by un- countable formaldehyde microemissions is, at a societal level, not an option. Such pleas are either actively disqualified, as is the case with Linda, or they passively languish without authoritative clout, as with Harriett. Beyond instrumentalizing viscera, such attunements to encounters between airs and bodies constitute the openings through which to grapple with the composition of our world and with the untold caustic ecologies that remain largely insensible to the human.

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