#without you memoir

[jonathan-larson-archive]

This excerpt from Anthony Rapps (RENT alumni) memoir about Jonathan larson...

Gonna cry 😭

[bookwyrminspiration]

I don’t care about romance except for what Suhail “the rumors of us not being kin or married and traveling together, I couldn’t do that to you” ibn Ramiz ibn Khalis al-Aritati and Isabella “let’s get married about it then” Camherst have going on

[tornsurvivors]

The sound of the bell over the entry door every time a customer came in was almost muted to Nicole. But still audible. It was just familiar and inviting in a sense. Familiar in the way where the traumatic past of her childhood wouldn't dare interfere in her doing something she loved. It helped her forget the depths that life could reach and she learned on at a young age -- literal hell was the farthest it could reach.

But that bell? The almost muted jingle was enough for her to forget about how much she despised finding a strange comfort in holding a gun and knowing she would never miss her mark. The same gun that was locked away in a safe in her apartment ever since her escape from Kane's captivity.

This was why she's in this bakery, trying to move on with her life and leave that horrific past, along with the unwanted comfort it gave her in a gun, behind her. Greeting kind faces of various customers, from teenagers with an appetite for a snack after school to mothers trying to calm their rowdy children and the elderly who loved their tapioca and prune danishes. Each face would give her that sense of normalcy.

It's so unfortunate though... her past wasn't going to let her go that easily. She knew that as she heard the distinct tone of the most hated monster ( --a charming politician to everyone else ) on the television before she snatched the remote from the counter and switched channels. Ignoring the knowing glance from a younger employee, Ashley.

The girl knew how much Nicole hated the news, but she'd never understand why Nicole hated that specific politician. She'd never know of the burdens that would add weight after weight on her shoulders with each News broadcast. Never know of how Nicole could feel the devil's hot breath drawing closer with each passing day.

Nor would Ashley know of how her entire world and fabricated life of normalcy came to a screeching halt when the next muted jingle came. Because the girl had left for her lunch break when it happened.

Slight, just slightly, unnatural blue eyes stared back into bright green. Unusually brighter than the last she remembered seeing them before her coma.

That's when she knew she had to stop running, even as she refused to entertain the idea of joining Kristen in the fight against Aiden Kane -- more so when they caved in to the pressure of their touch-starved state and let themselves feel again.

It wasn't till much later that she decided the normal life was nothing more than another fairy tale for them.

[potterandpromises]

Random Word BPC

Day 11: Side

[dreamertrilogys]

i need it to be next semester so bad because every day i spend the next 3 hours after english class recovering from the psychological damage i experienced (being flirted with & flirting BACK). except the thing is i actually have a class with her next semester too and not only that but my other friend who i’m in love with is also in that class. explodes & dies i suppose

[quillyfied]

It should be illegal to have a lingering cold-type thing entirely based on the wild air pressure fluctuations that also feels worst at night rather than feeling consistently bad through the day too, thereby negating any possible leg to stand on for a stay at home argument.

[bargainsleuthbooks]

Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story by Bono #NewBooks #BookReview #AudiobookReview #Memoir #Autobiography

One of the greatest rock bands of all time is U2, and front man Bono opens up in a new memoir. I highly recommend the audio book! Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story by Bono #NewBooks #BookReview #AudiobookReview #Memoir #Autobiography #Bono #U2

“When I started to write this book, I was hoping to draw in detail what I’d previously only sketched in songs. The people, places, and possibilities in my life. Surrender is a word freighted with meaning for me. Growing up in Ireland in the seventies with my fists up (musically speaking), it was not a natural concept. A word I only circled until I gathered my thoughts for the book. I am still…

[lesenbyan]

There are few things worse, I think, than reading a call to action memoir that is so close to right but really should have been shelved for at least 5yrs before going to print so the author has time to learn enough to see all the false equivalencies that really hinder the point

[yoloyeahhh]

just finished a book i’ve been reading for a couple months now!!! you know what that means… time to reorganize the book hierarchy and add a new book into my “actively reading” trio B)

[jonathan-larson-archive]

This quote from Without You made me smile.

[walks-the-ages]

OP deactivated, and some of the links were broken/marked unsafe by Firefox, so here's a new compilation post of Leslie Feinburg's (She/her, ze/hir) novels and essays on being transgender:

Stone Butch Blues official free source directly from Author's website:

Stone Butch Blues, backup on the webarchive:

Transgender Liberation: A movement whose time has come, on the web archive:

Transgender Warriors: Making History from Joan of Arc to Dennis Rodman, on the web archive:

Lavender and Red, PDF essay collection:

Drag King Dreams, on the web archive:

(Also, if anyone ever tells you that the protagonist of Stone Butch Blues ""ends up with a man""........ they're transmisogynistic jackass TERFs who are straight up lying)

Please also check out your local public libraries for these books and see if they carry them, to help support public libraries! If you have a library card already you can checkout Libby and Overdrive to see if your public library carries it as an ebook that you can checkout :)

EDIT: another not included on the orignal masterpost-- Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink or blue !

annnnnd in light of the web archive losing it's court case, here's a backup of both PDFs and generated epubs a friend made:

5/26/2023: hello! I am adding on yet another book of queer history, this time the autobiography of Karl Baer, a Jewish, intersex trans man who was born in 1884! Please signal boost this version, and remember to check the notes whenever this crosses your dash for any new updates :)

6/24/2023: Two links to share!

Someone made an Epub version of Memoirs of a Man's Maiden Years, which you can find Here , as a more accessible version than a pdf of a scanned book if you're like me and need larger text size for reading--

And from another post I reblogged earlier today, I discovered the existence of "TransSisters: the Journal of Transsexual Feminism", which has 10 issues from 1993-1995, and includes multiple interviews with Leslie Feinburg and other queer feminists / activists of the 90s!

Here's a link to all 10 issues of TransSisters, plus a 1996 "look back at" by one of the writers after the journal ended, you can find all 10 issues on the Internet Archive Here !

------

8/28/2023:

"Bi Any Other Name: Bisexual People Speak Out", can be found on the web archive Here, for the 25th Anniversary Edition from 2015,

and also Here, for the original 1991 version.

Each of the above can be borrowed for one hour at a time as long as a copy is available :D

This is a living post that receives sporadic updates on the original, if you are seeing this on your dash, click Here to see the latest version of the post to make sure you're reblogging the most up to date one :)

------------

October, 25th 2023:

"I began to dawdle over breakfast during shift changes, asking both waitresses questions. After weeks of inquiries, they invited me to a demonstration, outside Kleinhan's Music Hall, protesting the Israeli war against Egypt and Syria. I was particularly interested in that protest. The state of Israel had been declared shortly before my birth. In Hebrew school I was taught "Palestine was a land without peo-ple, for a people without a land." That phrase haunted me as a child. I pictured ears with no one in them, and movies projected on screens in empty theaters. When I checked a map of that region of the Middle East in my school geography textbook, it was labeled Palestine, not Israel. Yet when I asked my grandmother who the Palestinians were, she told me there were no such people. The puzzle had been solved for me in my adolescence. I developed a strong friendship with a Lebanese teenager, who explained to me that the Palestinian people had been driven off their land by Zionist settlers, like the Native peoples in the United States. I studied and thought a great deal about all she told me. From that point on I staunchly opposed Zionist ideology and the occupation of Palestine. So I wanted to go to the protest. However, I feared the demonstration, no matter how justified, would be tainted by anti-Semitism. But I was so angered by the actions of the Israeli government and military, that I went to the event to check it out for myself. That evening, I arrived at Kleinhan's before the protest began. Cops in uniforms and plainclothes surrounded the music hall. I waited impatiently for the protesters to arrive. Suddenly, all the media swarmed down the street. I ran after them. Coming over the hill was a long column of people moving toward Kleinhan's. The woman who led the march and spoke to reporters proudly told them she was Jewish! Others held signs and banners aloft that read: "Arab Land for Arab People!" and "Smash Anti-Semitism!" Now those were two slogans I could get behind! I wanted to know who these people were and where they had been all my life! Hours later I followed the group back to their headquarters. Orange banners tacked up on the walls expressed solidarity with the Attica prisoners and the Vietnamese. One banner particularly haunted me. It read: Stop the War Against Black America, which made me realize that it wasn't just distant wars that needed opposing. Yet although I worked with two members of this organization, I felt nervous that night. These people were communists, Marxists! Yet I found it easy to get into discussions with them. I met waitresses, factory workers, secretaries, and truck drivers. And I decided they were some of the most principled people I had ever met. For example, I was impressed that many of the men I spoke with talked to me about the importance of fighting the oppression of gays and lesbians, and of all women. Yet I knew they thought they were talking to a straight man" Transgender Warriors (1996) Leslie Feinberg

[potterandpromises]

Pink books

[hashtagloveloses]

The headline is pretty awful but this is one of those things that gets worse as you read it:

The 14-page petition, filed in Shelby County, Tennessee, probate court, alleges that Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy, who took Oher into their home as a high school student, never adopted him. Instead, less than three months after Oher turned 18 in 2004, the petition says, the couple tricked him into signing a document making them his conservators, which gave them legal authority to make business deals in his name.

"Michael Oher discovered this lie to his chagrin and embarrassment in February of 2023, when he learned that the Conservatorship to which he consented on the basis that doing so would make him a member of the Tuohy family, in fact provided him no familial relationship with the Tuohys."

Oher was a rising high school senior when he signed the conservatorship papers, and he has written that the Tuohys told him that there was essentially no difference between adoption and conservatorship. "They explained to me that it means pretty much the exact same thing as 'adoptive parents,' but that the laws were just written in a way that took my age into account," Oher wrote in his 2011 best-selling memoir "I Beat the Odds."

But there are some important legal distinctions. If Oher had been adopted by the Tuohys, he would have been a legal member of their family, and he would have retained power to handle his own financial affairs. Under the conservatorship, Oher surrendered that authority to the Tuohys, even though he was a legal adult with no known physical or psychological disabilities.

While the [movie] deal allowed the Tuohys to profit from the film, the petition alleges, a separate 2007 contract purportedly signed by Oher appears to "give away" to 20th Century Fox Studios the life rights to his story "without any payment whatsoever." The filing says Oher has no recollection of signing that contract, and even if he did, no one explained its implications to him.

The [movie] deal lists all four Tuohy family members as having the same representative at Creative Artists Agency, the petition says. But Oher's agent, who would receive movie contract and payment notices, is listed as Debra Branan, a close family friend of the Tuohys and the same lawyer who filed the 2004 conservatorship petition, the petition alleges. Branan did not return a call to her law office on Monday.

"Mike's relationship with the Tuohy family started to decline when he discovered that he was portrayed in the movie as unintelligent," Stranch said. "Their relationship continued to deteriorate as he learned that he was the only member of the family not receiving royalty checks from the movie, and it was permanently fractured when he realized he wasn't adopted and a part of the family."

For years, Oher has chafed at how "The Blind Side" depicted him, saying it hurt his football career and clouded how people view him. He has said that based on the film, some NFL decision-makers assumed he was mentally slow or lacked leadership skills.

"People look at me, and they take things away from me because of a movie," Oher told ESPN in 2015. "They don't really see the skills and the kind of player I am."

"Beyond the details of the deal, the politics, and the money behind the book and movie, it was the principle of the choices some people made that cut me the deepest."

[atsuwumus]

zayne fluff that’s all i ask for !!!!!

-🎬

" 𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐀𝐑𝐄 𝐘𝐎𝐔 doing?" A heavy sigh tumbles from Zayne's lips before he pinches the bridge of his nose, nudging his glasses up in the process. "Don't think I haven't noticed you inching closer to me in the last ten minutes."

You give him your best impression of an innocent smile, but it does nothing to sway him and only prompts him to gaze at you over the rim of his glasses. He thumbs the edge of the book he's currently engrossed in, another medical book with terminology you wouldn't dare to try and pronounce, before releasing a heavy sigh.

"What is it?"

You scoot closer to him. "Why don't you ever take off your glasses?"

It's clear that your question catches him off guard, he shifts in his seat before setting the book aside. "That's not quite true, I take them off when I shower, when I sleep. There are also times throughout the day-"

"I meant around me."

Zayne falls quiet after your interruption and it's only then when he realizes he's been thumbing at the edge of the glasses and the frame of them. Your hand had wrapped itself around his much larger palm, ignoring the slight chill of his skin meeting yours. When his gaze flickers to yours there's question behind it, but also a reserved, tender softness that he only ever allows himself to reveal to you and no one else.

You hover, wait, take one slow breath after the other as your eyes search his, taking in the haziness behind them. It's almost comical — how you're able to reduce such a icy king to nothing but a puddle of warmth between your palms.

Tenderly you nudge the tip of the glasses off his nose, taking them by the rim and ever so slowly sliding them off your face. He blinks a few times as dark hair falls across his eyes, tickling thick lashes as he takes you in. How you ended up in his lap is beyond him, but that's the last of his worries, especially when you're drinking him in like he's the last thing on earth you're gonna get to witness.

"I..." The syllable lingers on your tongue as you tilt your head, squinting your eyes a little as your eyes dance across his features, taking in the slight bump of his nose bridge, his cupids bow, the slight downturn of his lips before they snap back up to his eyes. "I think you look handsome like this. Without the glasses."

Zayne brings a palm up to his jaw, rubbing it back and forth. "You do?"

You nod. "Don't I compliment you enough?" you tease, your smile only growing when you notice how he ducks his head away. His name tumbles from your lips in a feather light exhale which prompts him to turn his face back towards you.

Your expression softens into something far more delicate than before as you nudge closer. You hear him exhale, feel the slight tremble of his breath as you come to rest your forehead against his before he closes his eyes.

He feels one gentle kiss being placed right on his cupids bow. Then another on his nose. Kiss by kiss you decorate his faces with remnants of your lips, imprinting them on his skin as a memoir of your unspoken promise.

He relishes in the feeling, tucks it away somewhere deep in the roots of his heart, never to be forgotten. He allows this to go on for a few more moments before he caves, leaning forward to capture your lips with his. There's a smile on his own when he feels you melting into him, winding a strong arm around your waist to reel you in closer.

"I could get use to these compliments of yours," he murmurs against your lips.

You grin against his mouth, murmuring a soft, "Yeah?"

"Yeah..." he sighs. "Even more so if this is your method of giving them to me."

[earthtooz]

x : THE JOKER AND THE QUEEN :*+ﾟ

in which: you are the best thing to ever to childe, but what will happen when you find out the truth about his profession?

warnings: 4k wc, fluff to angst, ambiguous ending huehue, childe is a whipped loser in love, set in canon, reader has undescribed trauma with fatui (ooo), reader is not referred to with pronouns or a gender but there is a mention of 'queen' (it's up to you how you see it), mentions of violence, childe being referred to as 'ajax', argument, both reader and childe cry, aether and paimon appearance!

a/n: this one might hurt. apologies. (girl u know i want ur love...)

The sun is radiant gold when Childe walks down his peaceful, routine path, away from the bustling commerce centre and towards a peculiar place that he’s called home in Liyue. There are still a million tasks yet to be completed, but for now, his feet take him to the solitude that waits for him at the end of day. 

When Childe arrives at the manor that is his residence in this foreign city, there’s a lifeless kind of calm, the rustling of leaves and flowing stream are the only things to welcome him, but he knows better. Doesn’t need to confirm it when his feet naturally take him upstairs, winding through corridors and towards the balcony that overlooks the horizon. 

The view is very picturesque, overlooking the grandiose Liyue mountains that are decorated with incomparable flora and fauna, but you are there, and he can’t bring himself to look anywhere else. 

You are the best reprieve for his tiring days, and although he will be returning to the Northland Bank to try and solve some of his troubles, the majority of them can be quelled by your presence alone. 

“My darling,” the words slip past his lips without any trouble, and the relief he feels when you turn around and smile at him is insurmountable. Suddenly his hardships dissipate, his lungs are cleared, and his limbs don’t feel as heavy anymore (he can’t think of many people who grin up at him like you do. He hopes you never stop smiling at him like that).

Still, he walks to stand in front of you, and collapses to the floor, resting on his knees by your feet like a faithful jester to his queen. His armour drops and Childe becomes nothing but a man in love before you because there is nothing more human than loving someone more than yourself. 

“Why so exhausted, Ajax?” You ask. 

“The days are bothersome, my love,” he murmurs quietly, slightly muffled, but he then turns his head to look up at you, arms now hugging your calves. “But coming home to you make them infinitely better.” 

“Any good home will bring you comfort,” you deflect, but your words reminds him of a distant, golden memory back in Snezhnaya. The unforgiving, snowy plains had always been his home, the frost that clung to dead tree branches, and the footsteps that he and his siblings left behind in the blankets would were memories of easier times, but here, sitting by you with a chin on your knees, is a memoir of his favourite home. 

The sensation of your hand running through his orange locks take him out of his daydreams, and he melts right into your touch, blood-stained hands completely and wholly attached to you. He commits you to memory, savours the feeling of your warmth against his so he can feel it even whilst he’s away from you. 

Can a home be a person?

He dares to close his eyes. Here, he is safe. Here, he can rest peacefully.

“How was your day?” Asks Childe, stimulating pointless conversation so that he could talk to you and hear your voice that will power him through the tedious night to come.

You begin to talk about the things you had to do today, about the customers you had to deal with, about the errands you still need to run, and all the pressing orders you needed to attend to- hearing it all places an aching weight on his chest. If Childe could have things his way, you wouldn’t need to work at all. You would live life peacefully by his side, without a day of stress as you roam around Liyue Harbour or anywhere else you would want to go, with him holding your arm (would you return to Snezhnaya with him?). 

Alas, life is not so easy nor carefree, but you make it significantly better.

“How pretty is the sunset,” you comment. “Look.” 

He almost doesn’t want to, doesn’t want to put any space between the two of you because looking at the sunset means turning around to face the rays that warm his back, but it’s you who asked him, so Childe turns around and observes the gorgeous blend of colours. He then decides that it’s nothing compared to your beauty.

“Yes, yes, splendid,” the orange-haired agrees, promptly turning back around to look up at you, with a sickening amount of love evident in his eyes. 

“You didn’t even look properly.”

“I’m looking at something much more important right now.”

You shy away at your lover’s blatancy, pushing his face to the side to break his gaze. “Such unabashed flattery, do you have no shame?”

“None! None at all!”

You sigh, a smile creeping at the corners of your lips, timidity teasing Childe as he aches to see more. Reaching for your hands, he intertwines his around them, feeling light as he basks in the softness of your touch that starkly contrast the roughness of his hardened palms. 

His gentle action causes your bracelets to jingle, pure gold and the finest gems of Liyue tinkering quietly against each other. They are gifts from him, he knows because he only buys the best for you. 

“Will you be staying tonight?” You ask. 

His gaze sadly falls to the ground as a regretful, ‘no, I won’t be’ slips past his lips. Tonight, instead of being in your company and resting beside you under the gentle beams of the moonlight, his dedicated Fatui subordinates will be with him instead. The blood on his hands will accumulate and pool by his feet as outstanding debts and scores will be settled, signed with fear and horror as the silence of Liyue sees an unspeakable monster. 

Then, the monster will come crawling to you, fatigued and dirtied with an unrestrained desire to be by your side for as long as time will allow. 

“That’s a shame,” you mutter and Childe winces at the disappointment in your tone. “You work too hard, you know?” 

“It’s just what I need to do,” murmurs the orange-haired, “wish I could spend more time with you, though.”

“It’s alright, as long as I get to see you, I’m happy.” 

He rests his cheek on your knee once more, eyes drooping close. Frighteningly quick, the fatigue he feels from all of his laborious duties catch up to him, latching onto him like a parasite. A nap wouldn’t hurt, 

Nothing can take you away from him, not without a fight. He will bear his teeth, slash his swords until the blades dull, until his bow snaps in half, and until all that’s left of him is a pulp that lies helplessly on the floor, the love pouring from his wounds. Childe only hopes that his last moments are spent in your embrace.

But what will become of this warrior when you’re his opponent? What if you are the one he fights against- what then?

When you wake up one, unassuming morning, you wake up alone. No Ajax to accompany you, the only indication that he was here being the breakfast he had prepared for you that sat atop the counter top. The warmth of the meal lingers, meaning that he must not have left that long ago, and you have to wonder how he knows you so well to guarantee that breakfast is still warm by the time you come down. 

Retrieving a book from the main entrance’s bookshelf, you catch a glimpse of a large box sitting on the entrance table. There is a note beside it, addressed to ‘Traveller’ and signed with ‘Childe’- the name Ajax has supposedly taken up whilst here in Liyue; a merchant name of sorts, he claims. 

You mentally note to listen extra carefully for any knocks at the door, but for now, the promise of a day of relaxation and no work relieves you. Being swamped up in all of your duties meant that you kept forgetting to tell Ajax that you were free for the day, but perhaps you’ll surprise him with a filling and hearty dinner. Work didn’t seem to be all that easy for him either, so you’re sure he’d appreciate the gesture. 

What you weren’t prepared for, however, was discovering a secret that your lover had been hiding from you all this time- in the form of two travellers. 

The anticipated knock on the door came near noon, and two voices from the other side are muffled by the heavy material of the entrance. “Childe said no one would be home, why would you knock?” A high-pitched voice berates.

“Because manners, Paimon!” A male voice retaliates, “even if no one was home, it’s nice to make sure. We shouldn’t barge in without warning.”

“Can you unlock the door yet? Paimon’s dying to know what inside looks like! This property looks so expensive, can you even how much Mora this place is worth! I bet the inside is even-”

The conversation is cut short when you open the door with a soft click, pulling it open slightly. What you’re greeted by, however, is a blond boy with a floating companion, who both wear similar expressions of shock.

“Uh, hello!” You greet with a small smile, feeling slightly awkward.

“Hello, is this Childe’s residence?” The floating one- who you assume is Paimon, asks. 

“You’re at the right place.”

“But he told us no one would be home today!”

“He would be right normally, but I have the day off work. Are you two travellers?”

“Yeah, we are! And who are you?” 

“My name’s Y/n, I’m Childe’s significant other.”

“Childe has a lover?” Paimon’s eyes widen even more if that was even possible. To be honest, this whole scenario was incredibly entertaining. “Since when!”

“We’ve been together for a while. Has he never mentioned me?”

“No! I didn’t even think he could have one with his line of work-”

“-Uhm, we’re kind of in a hurry, I apologise for cutting the conversation,” the blond boy apologises, giving his companion a look before glancing back at you, friendly smile and shining eyes to match his innocent demeanour. “We’re here to pick up something.”

“Ah yes, I did see it. It is rather big, though, could I trouble the two of you to help me bring it out?” You ask, feeling rather embarrassed to bother your guests, but you don’t feel confident to carry the package alone. 

“No trouble at all,” he reassures.

“We can come in, right?” Paimon asks, voice lilting up an octave as mirth shines in her eyes.

“Yes, yes, no need to take off your shoes.” You open the door wider for the two, the floating one flying in first, immediately marvelling at the interior, admiration tangible whilst the blond is a little more reserved, thanking you first before coming in.

What an intriguing pair.

“My name is Aether, and that’s Paimon. I just realised we hadn’t introduced ourselves.” 

“It’s lovely to meet the two of you. Do you do business with Childe often?” Your tongue almost strains at the mention of his business name, but if your boyfriend had appearances to keep, then you needed to try to uphold it too.

Paimon flies over to Aether, joining the conversation. “You could say that. Sometimes he causes more trouble than it’s worth!” 

“That sounds like him,” you huff, an affectionate smile appearing on your face. “The package is right here, but like I said, it seems quite heavy.”

“Allow me,” Aether volunteers, stepping forward to carry the box by himself. He stumbles a little due to the weight, and you hold your hands out just in case.

“Are you sure you don’t need any help?”

The blond merely huffs before shifting the box to one arm. “No need, we’re troubling you enough already.”

“I see. I apologise, if I had known what time you were coming I would have brewed some tea for you two, Liyue has a very fine selection,” you say, fiddling with your thumbs. 

“Aww! Paimon would have loved to try some!”

“Thank you for the offer, I would have liked to try some too, but we are short for time,” Aether explains.

“Then just wait here, I’ll fetch a bag for you to keep on your travels.”

You leave the entrance room before either of them have the chance to reject your offer, and you’re back almost immediately. A new batch you ordered just came in yesterday, so it did not take long for you to try and figure out which one you would like to gift Childe’s… ‘client’. 

“Here,” you hand it to Paimon, who hugs the bag closely to her body. “Travellers need to be at their top shape, right? Hopefully this is something that will rejuvenate you on your journey.”

“This is too kind,” Aether begins, “thank you. We’ll make sure to great care of it.”

“It’s fine! Anyone that is associated with Childe are welcomed here, so long as they’re a nice person that is,” you laugh.

“You can bet we’re the nicest of the bunch!” Paimon exclaims. “I doubt he meets many nice people being a Fatui Harbinger and all!”

A… what? 

Sensing the sudden shift in your mood, Aether’s eyes widen and he tugs at the leg of his companion. “Uh, it was nice meeting you Y/n! Paimon and I will be off now, thank you for the package and tea!” The last statement is nothing but a blend of words toppled over each other as the two practically hurry out of the estate, door slamming behind them in their rush. 

Their abrupt leave didn’t impact you much though, because what did Paimon mean when she said ‘Fatui Harbinger’? Was… Ajax hiding something from you? Or is he Childe? What is the use for a merchant name, anyways? Businessmen don’t usually have identities to keep, but how dire could it be in his industry? After all, second names are only used when wanting to protect yourself from harm, to keep people from knowing who they truly were… a code name for… an organisation like the Fatui to identify them by.

You feel sick, and your hand weakly snakes up to cover your mouth, the other gripping the edge of the table for some sense of stability in your crumbling world. 

Memories come flooding back like a tidal wave, drowning you in the heaviness of the thoughts that clasp around your ankle like anchors. It’s hard to push them away, to ease your mind from the nauseating images that still haunt you to this day: the desperation of your family, the cries, the helpless feeling of being a mere pawn in the game of the Fatui. 

(It hurts to think that you never escaped. After finally surviving through years of hardship, you’ve returned right into the hands of those who caused it, and the thought reminds you of how defeatable you always will be. 

Ajax- Childe, has likely caused devastation similar to the one that wrecked your village years ago. He has blood on his hands, the same ones that have held you tightly against him and stroked your hair. You have kissed his lips- ones that command horrendous acts for others to see through. You love his heart, the same one that probably froze over in Snezhnaya years ago.

You are with someone who has inflicted pain and suffering onto others, and will continue to do so for years to come. But worst of all, you are with a liar, who now makes you question what is and isn’t true.)

Childe returns home at sunset, the rattling of his keys against wood causing fear to crawl down your spine. 

“I’m home!” His cheery voice calls from the front door, and to his surprise, you are sitting on one of the more uncomfortable couches that is merely for decor rather than functionality. “My love, why are you sitting there? There are far more comfortable seats for you-”

“Welcome home, Childe.” 

He pauses in his steps and feels the world stop momentarily. “Darling? What’s with the name?” The Harbinger tries to laugh, but really, you’re scaring him. Very much so. “Come on, you know you don’t need to call me that. Here, I brought back some food that I thought you would enjoy from-” 

“When were you going to tell me?” You’re standing now, slowly stepping towards him as your clothes flow with your every movement. Childe has no time to admire though, not when you and this swirling premonition in his gut is frightening him. 

“Tell you what?” The pit in his stomach already knows.

“Must you act a fool?”

“To what?” He continues because it’s his first instinct to lie. “Darling, please tell me what is troubling you.”

“Please don’t play dumb, I just need the truth, especially now out of all times, are you really a…” you plead, voice trailing off as you hold yourself back from shattering. “You’re not who I think you are, are you?”

“Why do you sound so sad? What happened?” He whispers, beginning to feel the back of his eyes burn as tears invade his eyes.

“A-are you really with the Fatui? A Harbinger, too?” The words fall from your mouth like anvils and suddenly the title that brought him pride and honour through the years dulls. His eyes widen, and the gulp of his throat is all you need to know. 

“I love you,” large, blistered hands desperately reach for you, aching to hold you still because he’s terrified. What if you slip through his fingers and run? What if you go somewhere he can’t follow? “I love you-”

“Just give me the truth, Ajax. I practically know, I just need to hear it from you,” you choke. The call of his name causes him to cave, a hesitant ‘yes’ slipping past his lips, crushing you with the weight of the truth. You cry first and like dominoes, his tears follow.

“Don’t cry,” he hiccups through his own sobs, hands locking around your wrists like bracelets. “I hate it when you cry.”

“Childe-”

“It’s Ajax to you,” the Harbinger pleads, grip tightening in desperation.

“I don’t know what you are to me anymore!” You retaliate, “this whole time, you’ve been lying to me when you know about what happened. I’ve told you everything, and you still decide to keep this from me!” You stumble away from him with more force than necessary, bumping into a table nearby and causing the vase that adorns it to drop. A shrill crack echoes through the room, and instantaneously, he rushes to your aid, asking if you’re hurt as pieces of fina china lay on the floor, water pooling around his feet. 

Mixed in the puddle, are the anxieties and worries that come fumbling out of his mouth. He then pretends like it doesn’t break his heart when you scramble away from him. 

“Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” You ask, voice strained and quiet. 

“If I had told you, would you have stayed, or would you have ran away?”

Your silence chokes him, filling up his airways with lead as he nervously awaits your answer. “I don’t know, but I wouldn’t have stayed.”

Childe’s expression glistens with sadness, so crystal clear that it makes his eyes gleam like diamonds deep from the Chasm. “I see.”

“-But I would have appreciated it hearing from you than someone else.”

“Then how did you found out?” He demands, forcing his tone to be soft. 

“If I tell you you’ll go and hurt them,” you murmur. “I don’t want that to happen.” 

With one look at you, it’s clear that you think Childe will hurt you too with the way you cower from him, as if he could ever lay a finger on you or even point a blade in your direction, but the vision hanging on his hip feels heavier than ever. It’s a haunting reminder of who he is, and what he is capable of. 

You feel miles away, how on Teyvat is he going to pull you back?

“Who are you really?”

“I’m yours-”

“-I’m not in the mood for your flirtatious quips,” you snap, hugging yourself. 

“But it’s true, I love you, Y/n, don’t you know?”

“No, no I don’t. I don’t know what else you’re lying about.”

“Oh come on,” he exasperatedly exclaims, “we’ve been together for so long, the day we met you met the real me, as Ajax, not Childe of the 11th Fatui Harbingers. What’s the big deal? Just because I follow the Tsaritsa doesn’t mean I’m not the same Ajax you know, Y/n, please.”

“It’s not only that you’re apart of the Fatui, Ajax- the world is grey, there are things I will never understand. I’m upset because you lied. Like you said, we’ve been together for so long, yet I’m only finding out about this now, so what else don’t I know?” Your voice breaks.

He takes a step forward, but you only take one back, maintaining the distance even though the Snezhnaya native wants nothing more than to just hold you, to secure his place by your side because what can he do without you? 

“What else are you keeping from me? What can I trust about you anymore? You say your real name is Ajax, but how can I know that?” 

Seeing you so upset, so glum, so devoid of the light that makes you you causes his heart to cease, his throat to dry, and sheer terror to flood through him. 

Childe’s seen the face of death, multiple times before, yet he’s never been this scared in his whole life. He’s losing you, he can feel it, but what can he do about it? What can he say that could possibly bring you back? (What good is a jester without the throne he was sworn to entertain? You can’t desert him, he will perform a thousand tricks if it enamours you into staying, will sacrifice more of himself to you if it means you will remain here, safe and sound in his arms.)

You are the reason he returns home everyday, to make sure that you are healthy, happy, and most importantly, that you haven’t left him without a word. If he had to, he would have killed for you, fought anyone and everyone until all that remained of him was the warrior heart that beat for you. But he could have never preempted this, nothing could have ever prepared for him to be the reason that you were leaving.

“I need some space,” you murmur, “to think this all through. Give me some time.”

“What? No,” murmurs the orange-haired. “No, no, no, we can talk about this, right?” 

“Talking won’t do anything, I need time alone.”

The idea of being away from you causes Childe to almost sink to his knees and succumb to the bones in his body that ache to beg at your feet to stay. The cry of your name is weak, but so very desperate as he looks at you through a blurry vision.  

You’re walking towards the front door, each step you take is another one away from him, away from the paradise that he’s been gifted. There are many ways he can stop you right now, his options are far from limited and although they are physical, they are all very effective, but he surrenders instead. Drops his weapons as he lets you go.

“How long?” Is all that Childe asks.

“I don’t know,” you murmur, hand reaching for the door knob. 

“No more than two weeks, please.” Childe doesn’t know if he can handle being away from you for even a day, let alone fourteen. 

“I’ll try.” 

“I’ll search all of Teyvat if that’s what it takes to bring you home,” he affirms, clearing through sobs just to get the words out. He doesn’t back down without a fight, that’s just who he is, so his next words are etched with certainty and clarity, hoping to pierce your defences with arrows of undying devotion. “That’s a promise.”

“I know.” 

You shut the door behind you.

© EARTHTOOZ 2023, do not steal, translate, repost my fics and do not recommend my fics onto any other site.

apologies if there is incorrect lore + if anyone is mischaracterised LOL i have only been playing genshin for like a month.

@fallenssun for u :>

[clonerightsagenda]

May I ask what the 'no sex in space' rant is? Zero G sounds like fun :<

The space sex rant is my passion. Possibly because I have no emotional investment in the act so when it gets broken down into weird biology and mechanics by the cruel forces of physics, I find it kind of fascinating.

Sticking this below the cut because it will get long. My primary source is Packing for Mars by Mary Roach, but A City on Mars gets into the same issues. Yes, at least two books have entire chapters devoted to the space sex problem.

Note that this is all assuming microgravity. Many of the problems go away if you have artificial gravity, which we haven't cracked yet beyond building centrifuges. Your Star Trek fanfics are safe. So without further ado, and in no particular order, reasons why you probably shouldn't have sex in zero gravity and it probably wouldn't be that fun if you did:

The infamous 'no boners in space'. Since we're evolved to live in gravity, our bodies compensate for it by putting more effort into getting fluids above our heart. In microgravity, that's unnecessary, so you end up with fluid shift - more fluids, including blood, in the upper body. Your total blood volume also goes down. This would make an erection more difficult, and in fact most astronauts interviewed for whom this would be relevant claimed they didn't get any. The outlier here is Mike Mullane, but having read his memoir, he is the kind of guy who would lie about that. Now, as I touched on while despairingly liveblogging Barrayar, that does not prevent you from having a good time. However less blood flow would presumably mean less sensation in general for anyone below the belt. Or if you stimulated too much blood flow, with the lower total blood volume, perhaps that 'got dizzy because I got horny' joke will actually come true.

In microgravity, body heat and CO2 don't disperse the same way they do in regular atmosphere. Astronauts have to make sure they sleep in well-ventilated areas and are also trained on symptoms of CO2 poisoning. If multiple people are in an area exerting themselves, that buildup will happen faster and would need to be taken into account. It would be super embarrassing to suffocate crammed into a closet for some hanky panky.

The laws of motion are not your friend here. I've seen videos of astronauts pushing themselves across the room with a strand of hair. If you're trying to hold onto someone, you'd either want a relatively small space (maybe not a great idea, see point 2) or hold on really well. One astronaut Mary Roach interviewed suggested duct tape. Perhaps fuzzy handcuffs are critical here. Still you're going to need to put a lot of thought into every move you make.

Space is gross. :( Right now astronauts just wipe themselves down with clothes and dry shampoo. "Skin flakes" is a serious problem. Also we're still not entirely sure why, but astronauts develop awful body odor. According to Mary Roach again, while armpits are famous as a BO source, apparently the crotch is as well, it's just that those regions are typically further from our nose. So idk if anyone's going to want to get that close and personal with anyone else while they're up there. Then again I'm sure people have hooked up in grosser situations.

I'm probably forgetting some tidbits since I just woke up, but in summary, zero gravity sex would need to be carefully choreographed, require some equipment (fan, fasteners), and probably wouldn't even be as enjoyable as its Earthnorm counterpart. It's a good thing that's not what anyone's up there for.