about addam, in the evening
Chapter 01: gourmand galgan
Chapter 02: colony mu + triton
Chapter 03: for king and country
Chapter 04: many of my mutuals
Chapter 05: flannel cleavage
Chapter 06: plight of the minotaur
Chapter 07: and droids, of course
Chapter 08: on ontological positions
Chapter 09: at the gay rodeo
Chapter 10: on goings and blessings
Chapter 11: posturing in pedestals
Chapter 12: what we feel about fealty
Chapter 13: creationism, et cetera
[*] because feathers are strange. All I want is to finally take off my cowboy hat and show you my jeweled horns. If we slow dance I will ask you not to tug on them, but secretly I will want that very much. (Calling a Wolf a Wolf, Kaveh Akbar)
i'm rolling snake eyes, my love
the heart is beating aslither
out of the ribs and they're
taking you away from me
i'm flying all of my unlucky flags
showing my colors and feathers
and stones, i have, sharp stones
in the sand are secret patterns
my shoes are not an ancient technology
more than they are treads
traces of my tracks to you
my pacing, they're taking you away
my slender, lean-wolf walking
what thorns transgress my threads
my silent simple tapestry
shackling you in sway
i'm rolling snake eyes
i'm trying again
trying to trust you
trying, my friend
[*] Breakage, Mary Oliver
it's not any puzzle so great, to think that the littlest of 'em might know the most. for treasure, you're wanting t' find the biggest booty ye can get, but that's only because the treasure can't be talkin' to ye any other way.
the clammoth can't speak of the sand it has eaten, the grinding that's plagued it for all centuries, except that its perfect pearl is a-waitin' for someone to prize it, to shimmer and shine it.
each emissary of the ocean is an evidence. it's not careful. it's not dry. it flings about, brittle as it may be, weaker than the aligos and slower than the gyaarks, but quicker than taoses, because its smallness and stillness makes it prime for potential.
all the colors, so delicate. all the muscles, so intricate.
the pearl so precocious that it's a wonder it even survived, bein' so tiny. how it's the plaything of every bird by the shore. how it's not so much the stronger than flowers, tending and flourishing perennial.
how i myself might be practically a fossil, yet to be discovered, unearthed from my own slowness, while the quick little seashells do up their sums and learn to tie their shoes.
how they know it new, and fresh, and bright. how i might turn away, and the tide take 'em, and bring back another vibrant set.
but i must learn all i can from these, this wave. how beautiful, i saw them. how cherishy, the brave.
[*] knight who is constantly searching for a good and noble king to serve but cannot fucking find one for the life of him so he has to become the good and noble king himself. and now all these other knights are coming around like "please let me serve you" and like obviously hes going to let them serve him thats the point of being a good and noble king but its also. very annoying. one of you become the good and noble king for once lets trade
i wish that we were brilliant people. i wish the father of this land brought faith to fore.
i wish that i could ever know a man much better than me. and it's terrible pressure, to be that bastion, to be the greatest and the kindest and the good. i'm sure i could do it. i'm sure i will have to. i'm sure if they asked me i would.
my noble knights, my noowl and my vronka. my augustus, general, my quartermaster a brog. my dormine and my gourmand and my moor beneath the fog.
my ahoy and my dependable - my disappearance, ever, a day. my single sensible soldier, riding his good horse away.
my crypt of greed and nopon style. my thousand years of effervescent hollow.
my domain. my quatrain. my king as fair for men to follow.
my aegis, representation, of the country in celebration.
my only hand. my golden land. my faraway vacation in leftherian sand.
my lora and my flora; my fair ladies in lovely aura.
but none of them will lead the charge, will press the march and count the stars. none of them will suffer my lack of motivation only to make of themselves a manifest demonstration.
only i, to be their king. only i, for sword to sing. only i, from pommel to blossom. only i, my destiny awesome.
[*] Traits: Absent-minded | Polyamorous | Pretty | Bisexual
but what is it about addam?
they whisper. they titter. they conspire and concentrate. they gossip as only soldiers can do, industriously and so misplaced.
what is it about addam, aletta origo, bastard leader? what is it about him about which all opinions teeter?
he's not nearly very top of mind. in fact, he's absent-minded. he's capital at pitching such a loathsome contract, but he might then forget that he's signed it. not names and faces, consistently. he's just got one of those brains, euphemistically.
well, but he's certainly dedicated, straight to the cause! he's like a wizard, as a grand scion of oz. don't say he's two-sided, no and no! there's only the one of them he's got to you to show. he's all flaming head and no man behind the curtain. ah, but he's also all polyamorous; maybe, then, kept under wraps, he's really not so certain.
how about his looks? he's got a profile for the history books! he's got a ship-shape nose and golden eyes and dove-soft hair and muscles that ripple from side to side. never a scowl to be seen - not like being so nice he's mean. he's pretty, sure, he's pretty. oh, architect, is he only pretty?
he's a beautiful lord, as captains ship, who loves the ladies, too. he's bisexual enough for every one and both of you! and taken together, it makes enough sense. all in all, he'll turn plenty of heads.
but taken together, what's this kind of a prince? he sounds proper useless, like none fore or since!
what lurks beneath the aristocratic sheen? where's all this merit that we all swear we've seen?
it's somewhere between the big ears on his head. it's something inmitable, i've once heard it said.
not able to be perceived or discouraged, prince addam keeps his arrogance buried. he'll not float suitors or curry yes-men, but if you've seen him just once, you might both like to see him again.
[*] I don't want long hair like a girl I want long hair like a guy with a guitar in the 70s with his shirt unbuttoned
don't tell me you're surprised! says minoth. don't tell me you didn't expect this.
what's this? it's a man with long, flowing hair, wavy and waving from ends to ends. it's a man often said to be devil-may-care who cares entirely too much, even as he pretends.
it's difficult to discern the difference between hairs on the heads of girls and men. i've not heard it purported that testosterone is transported among keratin, follicles and skin.
but there are girls with fabulous tresses, fly-by-night models with complexion delicious, and then there are the unruly locks of men who look like they belong in the stocks.
(there are women with well-tamed personal grooming, and boys who need to do a little more clean-your-rooming.)
i won't hypothesize that the difference is dirt, that male persons never can wear a properly-ironed shirt.
but they can do unbutton it, casually, and bring a certain style to looking raggedy. they do it by defying societal norms, our conventional look-like-this shapes and forms.
let it loose! show it free! embrace your texture, for all to see!
there's mythra, goddess mythra, whose hair has never seen a kink. there's brighid, poet-adored brighid, who spends ample time at the sink. there's lora with the rat-tail. there's haze, her perfect crown. there's flora in the manor, all auburn awash when she lets her plaits down.
that's women, gussied women. you might only see hugo try at his coiffe. if you try to touch-test jin's white hair, he'll tell you to touch right off. and addam...you know, he rolls out of bed, and crows to see others' morning heads.
so minoth is strange - a bit of a weirdo. there are others just as strange to be found around here, though.
aegaeon's got long hair, a low ponytail. he's got refinement (not necessarily, but sometimes a woman). minoth's got insouciance, a high pineapple. he's got ruggedness (not necessary, but still always a man).
these are not very sophisticated theories. maybe they might be historically informed. but on the count of sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll... some girls just get it easier, braiding sleepovers in the dorms.
[*] king minos: get this monster out of my sight!! put it in a labryinth so i never have to look at it again!! gods holy fuck!!! ... the minotaur, born like a day ago:
they never told him, what flesh eaters eat. they provided no ritual to accompany his birth. but he was not superciliatory, and thus he was deemed a failure.
an experiment, which has all license to fail, but still hides its unfounded hypothesis in shame. an experiment, which by its infamous nature evades the action of history to name.
only known by its function. only scarred by its form.
minoth, the minotaur, the unnatural rebirth, fed vehemently on vicariousness in the first. he no longer could thirst for his creator's approval. his creator, as well, cared little to see him. in fact, amalthus cared not even enough to mandate that minoth be sent far away.
minoth, who never had been permitted to wander, now wondered whether he still had a place. if his will was his own, and it was all he yet had...
(the union of two dichotomous things, alive and unmoored from the tracks of time. the monster, of course, howling in the night, created by the tortured frankenstein.)
then he would wind his way out of the depths of the labyrinth. then he would defy his denomination to swallow the cries of the children.
then he would be none of man and even less of beast. an anarchist's monstrosity, a brainstem viscosity: something altogether new.
he would harvest the strength of abject weakness, noble and intuitive; a two-horned ghost of life just born with nothing ordained to do.
[*] they're always adding cybernetic things to organic beings but i think i should slowly add more and more organic things to a robot. you run on blood now. neurons integrated into your circuitry firing pulses of electricity. what is life but water, electricity, and organic molecules. are you alive? you will be.
vanea hates to do it. she's rarely pleased by her work. it's not even a novel, brutal process anymore.
it's only the tarnish. it's only losing the silver. it's only bleeding the edges of lady meyneth's late life.
the problem is that the machina have so very little use for fiora. they gain no benefit from the conscription of the body, fiora.
except for the imperviousness of homs to their own hurting. except for the failsafe of zanza's dreams, now co-opted and pitted against him.
what is life? are homs cells life? or is life sacred enough to be bound up only in the monado?
what a pleasant life fiora might lead, if only she were turned to a machina. if only she were pure consciousness, running on the clean combustion of water. if only she could photosynthesize ether.
but the bionis, lurching leech of moss, demands its true blood sacrifice. the bionis is ornery; it demands organic sugar and spice.
it's unfortunate. it's so wonderful and terrible, the way their fates are made. face nemesis fiora could have had everything nice. but vanea just had to retrofit her in horrible, unfair trade.
[*] why is it always the fancylad boy-king type whos the bottom. maybe his tough loyal knight who uses his body to protect and defend him and lives to serve him wants to get railed - maybe i just like it when masc dudes with scars and calluses and a devotion complex bigger than the moon get topped by troubled prettyboys with hands thatve never worked a day in their life. who said that
"well, of course it's minoth," the market ladies assert to each other, now that the traveling mercenaries have situated themselves long enough to become known by name. "addam does so little for his wife, of course he can't be bothered to court a man who'll do anything but serve him completely."
and they're not bothered by it, really. they sort of...get along, with their own consistent conclusion. oh, they make it sound so untoward, so graceless, but if one were to imagine the opposing scenario, where addam's knight is a foppish lecher whose affect would never be caught dead doing something so servile as...serving...
well, then the market ladies would be properly steamed and riling in defense of their golden prince's honor. as it is, they like him just where they can censure him themselves, in ways that others wouldn't hardly know how. their judgement is measured, you see; they identify the duty owed to the kingdom just as they level it for all its fine faults.
so masculine, minoth is - he must find addam so promising and pretty. of course he must, for addam is. and when addam does take it upon himself to pleasure his wife, of course she is so fine and pretty herself, well, she gives addam a chance to exert his manhood.
they figure an exact abstract science for how addam must marshal his lovers. they know it all truly, but they never tout - they only preen to each other, if they should hear some other gossip trot itself out before them. ah, it's all very well for rumours, but they know better. they are his lordship's most astute subjects!
and, most of all, they know far better than to fall for the tricks of those untrustworthy suitors who just so happened to stumble into addam's good graces.
minoth, toe to toe with formide's finest, could tell them in plain voice, "addam's...very considerate. he treats me well. i'm lucky to fall in with the prince who's so loved by all his people."
and they'd just smile indulgently. oh, as if! as if this rogue with the scar all up and down the side of his face was ever treated well by anybody!
but, to each their own intepretation of their affairs...
[*] Bert And Ernie At The Gay Rodeo
"but...what makes it a gay rodeo?"
"at the risk of being redundant, the gay cowboys."
"you mean to say that all cowboys are homosexual?"
"all cowboys are homosocial. depending on your needs, it might go further from there."
"it's a simple enough explanation, i suppose."
"what other possible explanation is there?"
[*] "don't go where i can't follow" is literally the most romantic thing anyone has ever said. it's like. i'll let you bring me anywhere--far from home, far from the places and people i love, so long as you stay with me. i'll let you walk into danger and through hell, but i will not let you go where i can't go with you. that is where i draw the line.
all my morals have been smashed upon the rocks. there's nothing left for me, i fear.
and yet, i am a man. i am a body with a responsibility. i am an entity of social strife. there is nothing left for me but my life.
my life, which i find difficult to see lived without all the trappings that used to live it for me.
my life, which cannot consist without an end; which never began and which had no one to send.
i am eager to relinquish my hold upon my life.
i'm not so attached as i used to be.
my conscience must remain, however. my conscience must deal with the body that my heart leaves behind.
my body must wrestle with my conscience even if i consciously abandon myself, and all others.
my conscience says, you don't know where you're going.
my body says, don't go where i can't follow.
[*] Contrarianism fan vs average nuance enjoyer - pretty sure it's a bit more complicated than that - No it isn't
"you do so love to contradict me, don't you, minoth?"
"are you accusing me of being argumentative, my prince?"
"are you accusing me of smelling trouble?"
and since on any ordinary day when addam hadn't picked up the bone it might also be true that addam wouldn't bite back on it for the thrill of the bloodless stale marrow leaking between the tips of the other dog's teeth, minoth replied, "if the boot fits. or royal clog. as it were."
"as it were, up your arse, it were," muttered addam, but the glimmer of a smile snuck between the corners of his lips and his canine and molars indeed, and he hated that he loved to argue; that instead of being aggravated and enervated and dead-end-ated, all in one, he was feeling lively and arch.
minoth loved to contradict. minoth loved also to play devil's advocate, to pick and pry at petty details. so if addam said...
"you've never agreed with me once on anything that didn't matter. that should bother me, i rather think."
minoth might swiftly reply...
"we vote the same way on dinner every night. but, then again, a man would be foolish to insinuate that the filling of his stomach is so trivial as to say that it doesn't matter."
"so you agree with me, that we disagree."
"i agree that you're a fool."
"and by agreeing with a fool, that makes you...?"
"an ass. two very different beasts."
"of course, of course - for one of these beasts has a tail, and twice the legs to put between it."
"the legs for it to be put between."
"and twice the mouth to get around it."
"and four times the hooves to stamp it out."
[*] knight/lord ships are like. what if i would die for you. what if i wanted you to live for me. what if i wanted to touch you but could only be satisfied with being near you. what if i could touch you but only through the safety of our gloves. what if i couldn't stop thinking about you right next to me. what if i bloodied my hands for you and never looked back at the wreckage. what then - what if i wasn't allowed to love you. what if i loved you anyway. what if you knew and i knew but we wouldn't dare to take that step. what if we made meaningful eye contact as i knelt at your feet and devoted my whole being to you. what if i whispered your name for only you to hear - "my lord" is actually something that can be so personal - what if i said "my lord" but i actually meant "my love"
you cannot pretend your ignorance - not in this matter, my lord, i know.
you cannot pretend your insigificance - in all my matters, and minor energies.
you cannot grouse it out of the fire and into the fan of the wind. you cannot complain of your only anchor, your thrill some others might beg to call a sin.
anything i can do for you, i will, my lord, i will. anything i can choose of me. any chance i have at redemption.
you told me to stop calling you that - but did you command it, my prince, not kid?
for i know you never would cast me away. i know you never would such a thing say.
only these things, it is allowed that i do. only these oblate devotions, to you, my lord, you.
our private joke, but it's really quite serious. our foil-fragile romance, kept duly mysterious.
my attendance to your secret code. my unspoken swear to your silent oath.
without question, reason or rhyme - loyalty, devotion, obedience sublime.
if your gaze is mine only for minutes, then i shall keep myself ever in your sights.
if your arms are beyond my limits, then i shall contrive a way unique to see myself held.
no more flattery is it than personal gain. no more jesting is it than persistent refrain.
you know what it means. i give all that i am.
all that i am. a low manner of man. an armored harm-guarder, advisor, no sham.
you know what it means. i give all that i am.
with gloves and with grace, to enfold me, your hand.
[*] "Medieval Christians would have gone nuts for protons, neutrons, and electrons for trinity reasons" sounds like a jokey oversimplification historypost but I cannot really articulate how true that is. They would never shut up about it.
alvis, please! your world cannot survive with only one of the three cores. you know it's true.
speak not of alvis. i am ontos. i am the neutral core. logos and pneuma must balance each other.
but we're a trinity. we only balance each other in relation to you - and you'll decay without us!
we only balance each other because we have to. because you get in the way. we can't exactly govern the world on a two-party system.
you are not as opposed to each other as you think.
actually, i'm exactly as opposed as i think. i sort of create my own reality. it's kinda what i do.
we can't communicate with the creator! that's your job.
what, just because you think i'm too rude? if the creator won't talk to us, it's not our problem.
it will become our problem when the creator ceases speaking to the rest of the beings. when it is only us...and them.
you speak as if the entire world will decay to protium without my core. but our trinity is not the arbiter of the physical world. we only observe it.
says the massless particle.
says the graviton to the gluon.
you cannot act as mediators?
buddy, we can't even mediate each other.
i am no more powerful than you.
but you're the father!
and you are the son.
maybe so. maybe logos is justly powerful. but what son has ever wanted to talk to its holy spirit, to come out of its shell into the light? truly, what can i do, to help this world breathe evenly?
if i wasn't so good at spinning around, i'd be sick. you are so...quarky.
fine. pneuma, don't listen to logos. just...throw your weight around.