MAP OF A GIRL' S FLESH

Stare. It’s the way to educate your eyes. Stare, pry, listen, eavesdrop. Die knowing something. You are not here long.

[ank-fan]

Silly self promo for the first AnK fanfiction of mine I managed to translate:

Death in Samarra 

Warnings: implied abusive relationship, liberal use of profanities, legends being relied badly. 

[ank-fan]

The name Iason means Healer do you think there is a meaning behind it or was just a random pick from Rieko Yoshihara?

Thank you so much for the question Anon. I love ranting speculatively about this kind of questions!

I do think there are several reasons why Yoshihara-sensei chose the name “Iason”, still I’m pretty sure that they have little to do with literal, physical healing. Iason is definitely more apt at, and keen on, breaking people rather than healing them.  It should also be noted that the name Ιάσων, if derived from the verb ἰάομαι, could also mean (figuratively): to remedy, repair, make whole (or redeem if we take into account Biblical usage). Which is, in my opinion, much more significant to the role Iason ends up playing in the novels.There also is another meaning of ἰάομαι that is: strong, powerful. Thus Iason could be named so because he is objectively very powerful, but this is a very immediate interpretation, that leaves very little room for speculation.  

Truth to be told the mythical Ιάσων (whom I will refer to as Jason for clarity) has not much to do with the medical act of healing either, his main “healing power” is about bringing the golden fleece back to Greece and thus grant a proper “burial” to Phrixus and break the curse plaguing Pelias and the city of Iolcus rather than any medical healing. Of course: the golden fleece has incredible healing abilities, but in my opinion, that is not the crux of the myth. The myth is about a purification rite, thus Jason can be perceived as a shaman of sorts leading the rite and, in that optic, his figure was used as a symbol by alchemists, but I will say more about that later in this rant. 

Keep reading

[colourful-jack]

Allow me to add the meaning of the name Iason as healer is very much important in the context Yoshihara Rieko wrote the series. As you may have heard, Ai no kusabi was published from 1986 to 1987 in the bimonthly magazine Shōsetsu June, which was basically ruled over by Kurimoto Kaoru a.k.a. Nakajima Azusa who won the Edogawa Ranpo prize in 1978 for Bokura no jidai. Virtually all works sent to the magazine were read by her and subsequently deemed worthy, or unworthy, to be published. What’s interesting here is that she had a very precise idea of what kind of work fit her conception of “tanbi” literature (that was the word chosen at that time to refer to this particular genre, in reference to anti-naturalism writers such as Tanizaki or Akutagawa): basically, the story had to be about a love “that takes on a therapeutic role that “cures” the lonely soul of an abandoned child, one of the protagonists.“ as Akiko Mizoguchi puts it (see "Male-Male Romance by and for Women in Japan: A History and the Subgenres of Yaoi”). But as you may have noticed, Ai no kusabi is not even your typical “tanbi” series. It is very much a subversive one, as it mocks many of the genre’s tropes: Riki couldn’t be further from the androgynous, long-golden-haired and starry-eyed protagonists of shōnen ai and Iason is very much the more beautiful of the two in an ethereal way, but his beauty is a frightening one, precisely because it is not human. Riki is also older than most of his novel protagonists counterparts (he is around 19 in the main timeline, when there was a clear trend to make protagonists younger at that time). Kurimoto/Nakajima was dead set on considering “tanbi” literature as “fiction”, with no tie to the real world whatsoever (even though some authors made “serious” works, discussing real social issues). But I see Ai no kusabi as being partly an answer to that statement with its masculine characters and serious tone (Riki very much faces his world’s own brand of racism and bigotry whereas Nakajima, although depicting beautiful feminine protagonists, was dead set on saying that “there was no gay people in her acquaintances and that people "didn’t want to read about real gays” [in fact she uses different words to refer to homosexual men, not all of them proper although they were largely used at that time]). The “healing” aspect is, in the series, turned into Iason and Riki gradually coming to see each other as people and not mere representatives of their classes.

[ank-fan]

Thank you for tis absolutely beautiful reblog! I must admit I am not very familiar with the editorial context of the time (I have read a few light novel, but not that many abd I am not familiar with the inner workings of this cultural panorama). Realy, thank you!

As for the last part, absolutely!  This is why I like AnK so much. I think that element is one of the cardinal plot point, which shines through especially in the last novel as we see Iason save Guy and Riki choose to go back into the collapsing building. 

[dovegraveyard]

Drawtober day 10, 2025

[iliothermia]

stupid cupid

[beggars-opera]

18th century fashion: red

Green | Yellow

[cookbookbutch]

[ao3commentoftheday]

slow burn mutual pining but the burn is emotional and the fic is pwp. they smut it up while both wanting more and thinking the other one wants to be friends with benefits. having only this much of them is torture but not having them at all would be worse. each of them dreads the day their lover falls in love with someone else. both of them are so surprised to learn they've both been in love with the other the whole time

[ao3commentoftheday]

congratulations to pining while fucking and all of the other additional tags that have just been canonized* by the tag wrangling team 🎉

*canonized means that these tags are now auto-completing in searches and forms and that you can filter for them (or filter them out) when browsing the Archive

[iliothermia]

There's flowers to be pollinated 🌼🐝

[ifishouldvanish]

Thinking about Olrox being someone who runs because he does not believe himself to be capable of saving himself or the people he cares about—be that his late lover, Mizrak, or his own people.

How much does Olrox blame himself for his late lover's death? For not being able to protect him?

Thinking about what it might mean for Olrox that the first thing Alucard says to him after so many years is, "not the first time you saved my life."

Like likely the only other living person who knows who Olrox truly is—this mythical dhampir who has committed himself to protecting humanity from the forces of night—telling him, "you saved my life then, and you saved my life now." Alucard reminding him that despite everything he has lost, he is still a man who is capable of protecting the people he cares about???

Do you get what I am saying???

[cookbookbutch]

Do you ever just notice one too many vague parallels and go insane

[natandacat]

Thinking about how Édouard was first born free, and then reborn enslaved... and how he dedicated both lives to liberation. As a free man, he used his position to help others join the saint domingue maroon community and resist the french white supremacist colonizers. As an enslaved night creature, he chose to stay among enslaved french revolutionaries, to guide them towards liberation with his heart and experience.

He says that when he sings, he touches souls, and that's the core of it all: in every struggle, strength is built through solidarity, love, resolve to not just free yourself but your people too.

That he uses the haitian liberation song Grenadye a laso is such a good piece of writing too imo. The full chant goes as follow:

Grenadiers a l'assaut!

Sa Ki Mouri Zafè a Yo.

Nan Pwen Mamam.

Nan Pwen Papa.

Sa Ki Mouri, Zafè a Yo!

Grenadiers A l'assaut!

It was sung during the haitian revolution in resistance to french colonization (as an aside, not just against the monarchy, but also most notably during an assault led by napoleon -as the show tells us explicitly, white people will not be the one to bring liberetion to black people, far from it; the french revolution will simply end up reproducing white supremacy).

What I love about it is that it reframes the accusations of violence and cruelty directed at liberation fighters. "Those who die, not our problem, no moms, no dads, those who die, who cares!" It's not the fault of the colonized that the colonizer chose to enact such oppression that the only way out is to kill them! It's the colonizer that loses its humanity by participating in colonization and slavery; the colonized do not lose their humanity by fighting for their freedom.

Édouard never lost his humanity, even when the alliance between the white church (the abbott) and white nobility (erzebet) sought to strip his soul away and turn his body into the ultimately exploitable subject. His humanity cannot be stripped away, just as Annette's humanity never was. As Olrox, who carries the wounds of colonization himself, says: a truly extraordinary thing has happened here -proof that no matter what the enslavers say (and the abbott as a forgemaster is very much a chattle enslaver), humanity can never be stripped away, no one can be "created to obey". And his humanity certainly isn't stripped away when he participates in armed struggle, in saint domingue and in france! On the contrary, Édouard's struggle for freedom IS what makes him human! His love for his peers is what makes him human, his curiosity and love for life is what makes him human! His songs bring light to darkness! Sa ki mouri zafè ayo!!!

[mekhartist]

i wanted to make modern olrox and i turned him into a tumblr sexyman

also just in case people think i traced the hand, no dont worry i just mimicked it from his official reference sheet

[what-a-bastard]

I love shipping characters as exes, like yeah no they're not endgame, they could never be endgame, but they've absolutely fucked nasty and changed who each other are as people and at least one of them got their heart broken

[juliettecousin]

MEDIEVAL GIRLFRIENDS INKTOBER DAY 01 - Shadowfang Blade | DAY 02- Lunar scars

I'm doing a Medieval Girlfriends' themed inktober !! I'm basing it on those Cursed Relics' prompts !

[nonbinary-eddie]

Castlevania nocturne really said music is an act of rebellion. Love is an act of rebellion. Staying alive is an act of rebellion. Also that vampires are really hot but that's unrelated.

[lescarnetsdehaku]

Melting 🩷

[heavenslittlemachine-deactivate]

ive been developing this new sex technique called "Memories of Autumn" in which the giving partner lightly touches the tip of their middle finger to the receiving partner's penile frenulum or clitoris while imagining one branch of a felled white oak tree, buried under layers of volcanic ash, fossilizing undisturbed over the course of 14 million years. the giving partner embodies "silica binds to cellulose" and the receiving partner embodies "organic matter decomposes." if u do it right, it should trigger a mutual orgasm that enables both partners to locate themselves in the myriad intersecting wheels of the universe-body with perfect clarity for 1/3 of a second before collapse.