🤍

The ones at school, dozens and dozens of shapes; circles, triangles, squares, and the most prized ones, the stars, in all the colours of the rainbow. I clapped my tiny hands in excitement, when the teacher gave us those for an exercise.

The ones that represented the first kind of academic validation I ever received. Smiley faces and gold stars at the top of a white paper sheet, and the pride that swelled in my chest when I showed them to my mom.

The ones she would buy me, if I’d been a very good girl, in those cheap activity books she found at the shop where she bought her cigarettes. I may have wanted her to indulge in her addiction, just so that she’d come back home with a present for me.

The big ones my dad collected when that time of the year came round, with the names and faces of footballers on them. Anticipation consumed me every time he would rip one of the packets open, and we would cheer together when we saw a stickers we didn’t already have.

The ones on bananas. I always laughed, as my clumsy little fingers grabbed them, before we were even out of the grocery stores, and I stuck them on my forehead. Labelling myself with a brand, an origin. Stealing the banana’s identity. I showed my siblings how to press that old, nasty glue to their skin, decorating themselves, and they laughed too.

I loved stickers when I was a child.

I loved their shapes. I love their pretty colours, and the millions of things they showed me. I loved their glossiness, shininess, even, for some of them, the holographic ones, the ones I liked most.

I didn’t love the frustration that scraping my nail again and again against the edge of them, trying to get them off their sheet, caused me, but it’s okay. I accepted it, because it was part of the deal.

I loved stickers when I was a child.

But in a way, I don’t think I ever showed them that I did.

I was too indecisive. I could never commit to sticking them somewhere. I never knew whether the notebook, piece of paper, or whatever eccentric place I was considering as the forever home of my beloved sticker was the perfect place.

I wanted perfection, and nothing less.

So I admired them from afar, appreciated them silently, but I didn’t let myself touch them, I didn’t let them fulfill their primary purpose, I didn’t let myself enjoy them fully.

But I swear, I loved the stickers.

those are only the examples I could think of when I wrote this, there are probably other things

That boy is suicidal or “I don’t have a death wish” my ass or RAINBOW PLS ADDRESS THIS 

“Stake through the heart?” he asked, falling back into the corner and resting an arm on a pile of skulls. “Beheading, perhaps? That only works if you keep my head separate from my body, and even then I could still walk; my body won’t stop until it finds my head.… Better go with fire, Snow, it’s the only solution.” (Carry On, Chapter 17) Baz… Baby… You know too much about how to kill a vampire. Also, talking about the boy he loves killing him, and genuinely believing that the boy he loves would kill him… not cool

“She would have killed me.

She would have faced me, what I am, and done what was right.” 

and “He will … Finish me.

Snow will do the right thing.” (Carry On, Chapter 40) He thinks of him dying as something that’s “right” TWICE, and also the whole being killed by loved ones thing… Baz you need a hug

[about the fire] “This is what I deserve” (Carry On, Chapter 60) NO IT’S NOT 

“I could hear him singing, even after I’d been walking for ten minutes. “Ashes, ashes—we all fall down.” (Carry On, Chapter 17) This one doesn’t really count, it just hurts my feelings that the part of the song Baz is singing that is highlighted is the one about ASHES. 

So in conclusion, after his LITERAL SUICIDE ATTEMPT it’s never addressed again that he has some serious suicidal tendencies. He says he doesn’t have a death wish and that’s all, it’s completely overlooked after that when CLEARLY, he HAS a death wish.

Fucked up things that seem to have impacted him the most or you think that Fiona is a better parental figure for Baz than Malcom but she isn’t really, Baz is just biased

“I know fuck-all about vampires. It’s not like I got an instruction pamphlet when I was bitten.” (Carry On, Chapter 30) A BIG part of who he is is completely unknown to him. As seen before, what he knows best about vampires is how to kill them. On top of that, even the things he thinks are true about vampires aren’t necessarily (Lamb can bite a human without killing or turning them) and he gets mixed signals (Nicodemus seems to age normally while Lamb is something like hundreds of years old and he still looks like he’s in his thirties)

“I don’t think my father ever would have mentioned it, even if he’d caught me draining the maid [...] Though he’d much prefer to catch me disrobing the maid.… (Definitely more disappointed in my queerness than my undeadness.)” (Carry On, Chapter 40) Malcolm’s complete lack of acknowledgement of Baz’s vampirism + Baz thinking that his sexuality is even a bigger deal to his father than his vampirism. He has those two things that are both parts of his identity that he didn’t choose and that are both considered to be something bad by his father, that CAN’T be easy and it definitely caused him a lot of shame and self-hatred. We have the point of view of 18-year-old Baz, I’m not sure he would be nearly as okay with his sexuality as he is if we were in the head of the Baz who just came out/thinks of coming out to his father

“My father never acknowledges that I’m a vampire—besides my flammability—and I know he’ll never send me away because of it.

But my mother?

She would have killed me.

She would have faced me, what I am, and done what was right.” (Carry On, Chapter 40) Once again, Malcolm’s complete lack of acknowledgement of Baz’s vampirism + the fact that Baz thinks his mother would have KILLED HIM if she knew he was a vampire. 

“He swings his wand and practically howls, spraying fire all around us. “This is what my mother would want for me, you idiot. [...] “My mother died killing vampires,” he says. “And when they bit her, she killed herself. It’s the last thing she did. If she knew what I am … She would never have let me live.” (Carry On, Chapter 60) Natasha wanting him dead because of his vampirism is something that’s mentioned again after chapter 40, here in chapter 60, which shows that 1) the opinion his mother would have of him really matters to him 2) he believes this opinion would have been VERY negative 3) he doesn’t even CONSIDER the option that his mother might have loved him enough to accept that he had been turned

“My father still isn’t ready to admit I have a boyfriend, and it would be too exhausting, living in a place where I have to pretend I’m not a vampire or hopelessly queer.” (Carry On, Epilogue) Malcolm please stop ignoring most of who your son is I’m begging you

I also wanted to say a few words about Fiona because I feel like in general we (as in, the fandom) really see Malcolm’s bad behavior towards Baz but not Fiona’s, while she’s also far from perfect. She saved him from the Numpties, that’s a good thing, that’s what we see, but look : “She berated me all the way home, and all the way back to Watford. She made me sit in the back seat of her MG. (A ’67. Glorious.) “The front seat is for people who’ve never been kidnapped by bloody numpties. Jesus Christ, Baz.” 

The front seat thing is a joke now but when you really think about it and when you focus on that whole paragraph and not just Fiona’s words, this is the situation that is presented : Baz just spent 6 WEEKS locked in a coffin, starved, not knowing what would happen to him, and instead of, I don’t know, TRYING TO COMFORT HIM, his aunt “berates” him, as if he was the one to blame in this situation. Jesus Christ, Fiona, give the boy a hug and ask him if he’s okay instead. 

And then there’s this : “Then the Coven made her a vampire hunter” (Carry On, Epilogue) That part would have fit better in the 3rd category but since I’m talking about Fiona let’s put it here. SHE LITERALLY KILLS VAMPIRES AS A JOB. I love Fiona but it makes me so angry whenever I think about it. I don’t know, I feel like a NORMAL PERSON wouldn’t become a VAMPIRE HUNTER when their nephew IS A VAMPIRE. That must fuck Baz up so bad that she does that, even if he doesn’t even realize it himself, and I hate that the impact of Fiona killing vampires for a living on Baz isn’t tackled at all.

So in conclusion, Baz thinks that is father is disappointed in him for existing, basically, he thinks that his mother would have wanted him dead AND KILLED HIM for what he is, and then there’s Fiona

Other fucked up things that are just barely mentioned or RAINBOW PLS ADDRESS THIS part 2

“He slipped a flask out of his jacket and took a swig. I didn’t know that he’d been drinking” (Carry On, Chapter 17) Baz was drinking. Was it a one time thing? Did Simon somehow catch him the ONE time he got drunk in the Catacombs? If it was not the first time he went there and got drunk, did he have a problem with alcohol in fifth year? I NEED ANSWERS 

-all the times he blushed because of something damen did or said

-when he put all the bedding on the floor in front of the fire at Mellos

-when he told Damen he could call him by his given name

-“Look, I’ve learned a new trick”

-“When you make love to me like that i can’t think”

-when he brought Damen an apricot -IMAGINE LAURENT STOPPING ON HIS WAY TO FUCKING ESCAPING TO PICK UP AN APRICOT TO GIVE IT TO DAMEN, HE’S SO SOFT

-“I’m not here to— I’m just here”

-“I miss our conversation”

-“You remind me of him. He was the best man I have ever known”

-when he had The Fall of Inachtos played because it’s one of Damen’s favorite

-the morning in bed after their first time

-the entirety of that last scene, after he killed Kastor

-when he was “watching the road” (and basically the entirety of the Summer Palace)

‘You mean, will I come back to your bed for the little time we have left?’

‘I mean that we hold the centre. We hold everything from Acquitart to Sicyon. Can we not call it a kingdom and rule it together?” (Kings Rising, Chapter 12

“And the centre. We both hold the centre,’ said Laurent. And then: ‘It was one kingdom, once.’

Laurent wasn’t looking at him when he said it, and it was a long moment before he lifted his eyes to Damen’s waiting ones, and Damen’s breath caught at what he saw there, the odd shyness of it, as though Laurent was asking instead of answering.

‘Yes,’ said Damen, feeling light-headed at the question.” (Kings Rising, Chapter 19)

“Should I be glad you aren’t cornering a trade empire?’ said Lamen.

‘We’ll make another kind of empire,’ said the Prince.” (The Adventures of Charls, the Veretian Cloth Merchant)

I can’t get over this—

“I want you to know,’ said Damen, carefully, ‘that I haven’t done anything to encourage the idea that I—that you and I—’

‘If I thought you had, I’d have had you tied to a post and flogged until your front matched your back.”

“This doesn’t suit me,’ he said, meaning that it didn’t suit him to wear them.

‘No. It doesn’t. You look like one of us,”

(at the brothel) “Laurent raised his fist and applied it to the door. Then he turned to Damen. ‘I assume that’s right? I have no idea how one usually proceeds. This is your arena, not mine.”

“Then Laurent rose and made his way around the table, sitting himself beside Damen, close as a lover.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Verisimilitude,’ said Laurent. The earring winked at him. ‘I’m glad I brought you along. I wasn’t expecting to have to tear things out of walls. Do you visit brothels often?’

‘No,’ said Damen.

‘Not brothels. Camp followers?’ said Laurent. And then: ‘Slaves.’ And then, after the satisfaction of a pause: ‘Akielos, the garden of delights. So you enjoy slavery in others. Just not in yourself.”

“Have I said something to offend you? I didn’t mean—’

‘No. A plausible, benign and uncomplicated theory. Trust you to come up with it.”

“But I am Prince of Acquitart, as well as Prince of Vere, and the laws of Acquitart don’t require me to be twenty one to inherit. It’s mine. There’s nothing my uncle can do to take it,’ said Laurent. And then he said, ‘I suppose he could invade.’ And then: ‘His men could wrestle Arnoul in the stairwell.”

“Damen was watching Kashel as she made her way back to him from the dais. He could hear the sound of drums from the other campfire, a low, constant thrumming.

‘Is this—are you ordering me to do this?’

‘Do you need orders?’ said Laurent. ‘I can direct you, if you lack proficiency.”

“An Akielon has no place in the company of men. Your Highness will understand.’

‘Is my slave making you nervous?’ said Laurent. ‘I can understand that. It takes a man to handle him.”

“The Prince is light in his manner,’ said Councillor Guion, with his eyes on Damen, ‘and does not seem to like to blame Akielos for any wrongdoing.’

‘I don’t blame insects for buzzing when someone kicks their hive over,’ said Laurent.”

“It’s not like you to give up the reins,’ Damen couldn’t help saying.

‘Well, I can’t see the way over your shoulders.’

‘We could try some other arrangement.’

‘You’re right: it should be me in front and you carrying the horse.”

“Laurent said, ‘You have me as an enemy for that. You are not going to enjoy the experience.’

Aimeric said, ‘You go to bed with Akielons. You let them fuck you.’

‘Like you let Jord fuck you?’ said Laurent. ‘Except that you really let him fuck you. Did your father tell you to do that, or was it your own inspired addition?’

‘I don’t betray my family. I’m not like you,’ said Aimeric. ‘You hate your uncle. You had unnatural feelings for your brother.’

‘At thirteen?’ From his frigid blue eyes to the tips of his polished boots, Laurent could not have looked less capable of feelings for anyone. ‘Apparently I was even more precocious than you.”

“That your selfish nature has led you to treason does not surprise me, but how could you betray your uncle’s trust, after the kindness that he has lavished on you?’

‘Uncle’s immoderate kindness,’ said Laurent. ‘I promise you, it was easy.”

“To get inside Ravenel? My dear Enguerran, I’m afraid you are quite mistaken.’

Laurent’s gaze travelled over Enguerran again, his blue eyes cold.

‘I don’t need you,’ said Laurent. ‘I just need your clothes.”

“Laurent swept him with a long, gleaming look.

‘If you didn’t fit Enguerran’s shoulderpiece, I was going to suggest you try the panoply off his horse.”

“He said, ‘What will you do next?’

‘Bathe,’ answered Laurent, in a tone that said he knew perfectly well what Damen had meant, ‘and change into something that’s not made of metal. You should do the same. I had the servants lay out some clothing for you that befits your new station. Very Veretian, you’ll hate it. I have something else for you as well.”

(to Jord) “Here to warn me about the dangers of making command decisions in bed?’ Laurent said.

[...]

‘He knows well enough he should go.’

‘While we compare notes on spreading for the enemy?’ said Laurent.”

“To regroup. My father would never turn his back on his family. Not like you. Spreading for your brother isn’t the same thing as family loyalty.’ Aimeric’s breathing was shallow.

‘That reminds me,’ said Laurent.

He stood, the goblet hanging casually from his fingertips. He regarded Aimeric a moment. Then he changed his grip on the goblet, lifted it, and brought it with calm brutality in a backhanded blow across Aimeric’s face.

Aimeric cried out. The blow snapped his head to one side, as the heavy gold impacted on his cheekbone with a sick, solid sound. [...]

‘Keep your mouth off my brother,’ said Laurent.”

“Stop this,’ said Jord. ‘He’s just a boy. He’s just a boy, he’s not old enough for this, he’s scared. He thinks you’re going to wreck his family.’

[...]

‘I am going to wreck his family,’ said Laurent. ‘But it’s not his family he’s fighting for.”

“I bet you were easy. A few compliments, a little attention, and you gave him all the naive pleasures of a country virgin in his bed. He would have found it diverting. At first. What else is there to do in Fortaine?”

“So says the King.’

There was silence in the courtyard. No one spoke.

‘But there is no King,’ said Laurent, ‘in Vere.’ His voice carried too.”

“My uncle has killed his catamite,’ said Laurent. ‘As a message to us. And what is the message?’ His voice carried.

‘That his favour cannot be trusted? That even the boys in his bed see how false is his claim to the throne? Or that his hold on power is so flimsy that he fears the words of a bought child whore?

[...]

‘And if you want a personal message,’ said Laurent, ‘You can tell my uncle boykiller that he can cut the head off every child from here to the capital. It won’t make him into a king, it will simply mean he has no one left to fuck.”

“He was more than that. You thought of him as—’

‘A brother?’ said Laurent. ‘But I do not have terribly good luck with those.”

“Did you know about this?’

‘Know?’ said Laurent. ‘Everyone knows. I was glad. I just wish I could have seen it happen. I wish I could have seen Damianos when Kastor’s hire-swords came for him. I would have laughed in his face. His father got exactly what he deserved, to die like the animal he was, and there was nothing any of them could do to stop it happening. Then again,’ said Laurent, ‘maybe if Theomedes had kept his cock in his wife instead of sticking it in his mistress—’