THE HOSPITALITY OF KNIVES.

now imagine how much worse it is for female muses of color (& especially black female muses), lesbian muses, and trans female muses or muses who are all three or more than one.

it’s okay to talk about how white female muses pretty much have it made. we should talk about that.

i just wanna see more posts priorizing female muses of color, lesbian muses, and trans female muses. i’m tired of the posts being watered down to just muses being female. whiteness gives us privilege in life & in rp, right along with het & cis privilege.

we need to address it here, too.

@venomvice said:  a slightly tipsy catarina leans against his back room, warm from the dinner wines. “what would it take for you to carry me away?” she asks, head leaning against the wall. “my legs are so tired. i feel like i’ve been standing all night––and these stupid shoes,” heels. heels that she’s not used to. but this is a dance, isn’t it? “they’re a nightmare.”

unprompted / always accepting .

for reasons pertaining to his own personal history, dimitri had chosen to forgo the spirits that night. content as he was to accompany catarina and ensure her well-being, he dared not risk what havoc his low tolerance could bring. nonetheless he was grateful that catarina obliged him whenever he felt the need to escape the crowd, the throngs of students asking him to dance for the sole reason of him being the prince.

now, in the solitude of the cathedral grounds’ shadows, he watched her gently, features softening in reaction to her plights. surely his own cheeks were flushed, not from the effects of wine, but from how frequently he was engaged in dances. a smile crossed his lips, pleasant and cordial while eyes were wide with concern. slowly did he extend his arm to her, making obvious his intention of sweeping her into his arms.

venomvice said: “i like you so much, sometimes it makes me sick.”

she meets her with silence, a furrow to her brow, and all reyna can do is stare. there’s a weight to catarina’s words, a heaviness behind them, like something more is being admitted.

“ i don’t suppose i am an easy person to like. “

reyna is hard to read most the time, carries a guarded heart as easily as one might wear the clothes on their back, and there’s too many people telling her who to be that sometimes she forgets there are moments— like in that post-training haze shared between just the two of them, an evening with catarina in the praetor office long after the scheduled hours have finished, that second of respite reyna allows herself when she sees catarina returning yet again— there are some moments she’s allowed to be herself. and catarina has caught glimpses of that, those instances where praetor falls away and only reyna, quiet and almost tender reyna, remains.

the feelings are shared, in a way. there’s a fondness that reyna can’t escape, heightened when catarina leaves and ever greater with each time she comes back to camp. and that’s the sickness that comes and goes, the constant ache of when will she be back, when will she be back. reyna wonders if that’s the type of ill catarina feels, or if it’s something different. something there is no medicine for.

The familiarity in these words stung. Spoken like a thorn was being wedged into his side, for a moment, Sandalphon was at a loss for words. He was surprised at first, not only because he was the one being told this by someone else, but because he’d heard of Catarina’s successes. Perhaps he couldn’t understand, as much as he’d thought he would. Perhaps this feeling hit differently to others in different places, different sized pieces of them broken. By no means was Sandalphon in any position to patch anyone up, but he wasn’t the sort to brush it aside either. Not when he’d said and felt these same words. He let the air hang in between them, riddled with a tension Sandalphon hadn’t felt in awhile. This was partly the reason why he chose to avoid others often—not because he didn’t care, but because he was still weighed down with his own guilt, and he couldn’t bare to carry another’s. 

After a moment, he cast his gaze downward, unable to look them in the eye. Pathetic. Might he have had someone in particular at his side, then it’d be easier to face her. Often, at times like this, he couldn’t help but feel like an empty shell still, unable to talk as easily as others did, unable to give even a little bit of advice, to be worth approaching and coming to. Sandalphon was still puzzled as to why Catarina had chosen him of all people. Maybe it was a little too hopeful, but… did she feel that sense of familiarity too? When he met her eyes again, there was a storm in them. “….I don’t want to ask why you’d feel like that.” He knows not everything it as it seems on the surface, even if the thought alone seemed impossible.  “Or why you came to me… why did you come?” —– He wasn’t intending to interrogate her, even if his tone came off a bit brash. A closer look at Sandalphon’s eyes would tell anyone he meant to be sincere.