j.d. mcclatchy “the dialogue of desire and guilt” // anaïs nin “the diary of anaïs nin, vol 1: 1931-1934” // carmen maria machado “in the dream house” // margaret atwood “the robber bride” // chris kraus “aliens & anorexia” // hala alyan “i’m not speaking first, the twenty-ninth year” // kazuo ishiguro “when we were orphans” // haruki murakami “norwegian wood”
fun fact about this painting, the subject is a disabled woman named Anna Christina Olson who could not walk with her legs. she liked to get around the Olson family property by crawling, and did so quite a lot - it was her preferred mode of travel actually, since she hated using a chair. She is not helpless in this painting, and the field was part of her home - a place she would go regularly, not an insurmountable obstacle. the mortifying ordeal of being known is part and parcel of the comfort of love and that's not at all something to fear or revile. that's part of your home.
𓂃₊𖤓 GENSHIN IMPACT . . . THAT DANCING CIRCLE EMBODIED EVERYTHING ABOUT THE UNIVERSE ☼.⋆｡ life has always been the end, while it is wisdom that shall be the means
▍ note: this verse is focused on my personal interpretation and worldbuilding, found in traevaler and yuanshn, which are canon-divergent in some areas.
the story is the same: abbas al-asim marries, in a celebration with more pomp and circumstance than sumeru has ever been witness to in its long existence. it’s an auspicious arrangement; nafeesa farid is all a man could ask for in a bride. she is a beauty with no equal, a worthy bride for a powerful merchant family. her line is that of renowned scholars—akademiya professors, viziers. her father was the general mahamatra before he renounced his position. she, herself, is a terrifyingly wise woman, as famous as she was controversial amongst her fellow rtawahists for her theories.
that was why i married your mother, abbas tells his son. any woman could have charmed her way into his heart with wealth and beauty and cleverness. only nafeesa farid could have turned her red eyes to the star-mottled skies, bared her teeth in laughter that was as cruel as it was sonorous, and asked if he wanted her to find his death amongst the stars.
kalim does not learn to find death in the stars, though it is his constant companion. he is the prized jewel of the asim family, and abbas and nafeesa shower their only son in more gifts than one child will ever have use for. nafeesa teaches him to read the constellations and find his way home, to know the stars by their names and their stories and the shapes they make across the night sky. his father teaches him how to haggle, how to charm, how to smile at a room of people and leave them wondering who was the master and who the puppet. they give him evergreen gardens; mechanical companions that serve tea and play chess with him; cedarwood music boxes with troupes of tiny dancers. every year that he turns older is met with ecstatic celebration. any other child would have grown spoiled and conceited amongst such wealth, but kalim only turns sweeter with time, always one to smile at the servants who serve him and ask them of their wellbeing, always one to give thanks and blessings to his parents for raising him, always one to offer his food and clothing and toys to the less fortunate.
in truth, it’s not wealth, but love that he deeply desires. the comfort of knowing he is earnestly cared for. an adoration no material comforts can ever hope to replicate. he hides his worries behind his cheerful nature. after all, isn’t all he’s given proof that he is in his parents’ hearts? and if not, the fact that they keep giving him things must mean that they are trying their best.
it is this sweetness, perhaps, that makes the asims forget: not everyone is as kind as their beloved son.
he’s still too young to fully grasp the weight of such cruelty when one of his father’s business partners declares him an obstacle. such a pampered boy could never be a good leader. if only abbas turned his attention to his business, to his fellow merchants, instead of the foolish notion of training a child to take his place. it’s a pity, but what is to be done about it? there’s nothing for it, no choice. the boy has to go.
for a time, it becomes common throughout teyvat for children to just... disappear. they slip out of bed to play at night, they run away from their tutors to explore the streets, they’re lured away with promises of candy and gifts. the next day, their families search high and low for them, calling their names out until their voices grow hoarse. a merchant’s son, an aristocrat’s daughter, the child of a baker, an actress’s only son, a wealthy family’s heir. they’re mourned by their loved ones, but not long after, people stop asking after them. it’s a tragic, but inevitable occurrence. what else is to be done, except accept it, and hope their soul can find rest?
kalim’s parents do not accept it. they look for him everywhere, through the whole of sumeru and the neighboring regions. they call in favors, they hire mercenaries, they pay whatever price they must. they search and search and search and search, but it’s of no use. it is as if the earth has opened its mouth and swallowed him up, leaving nothing behind.
it’s almost a year later that their son returns to them. kalim arrives at their door haggard, hair permanently bleached of all its color, a vision held in his trembling grip. and yet, he still smiles when he sees them. he’s a miracle child, one of the few who has come back. but it’s apparent that the boy who has returned is not the one who left. kalim still wears his smile like a mask, and beneath its surface lies a sadness his parents cannot seem to soothe, no matter what they try. he refuses to speak about where he went, or how he got back. his kindness seems less sincere, more a desperate bid to please. they try to return to the life they had before. kalim continues his education, even taking astronomy lessons with his mother at her behest. abbas and nafeesa watch their son intently, fearing the day that he will disappear once more, and this time, he won’t come back home. kalim tries his best to be the child they want. he laughs and dances and entertains everyone around him, using his hydro vision to dazzle his audience. it’s not enough to satisfy his parents, though, who still grieve for the child they lost. and kalim can’t help but feel like he’s failing them, somehow. that maybe the boy they want is someone different, someone better, and kalim, as he is, will never be able to make up for the son they truly deserved.
sometimes he finds himself staring off into the distance, or sitting alone, lost in thought. something has changed, and there is a restless energy in his chest that he can’t put a name to. it calls to him when he brushes his fingers across the surface of the water, when he lies down on the grass and presses his ear to the ground. the distant hum of a melody that sounds both familiar and strange. an ancient heartbeat thrumming beneath his skin.
when kalim was younger, nafeesa would sit him on her lap and tell him about the nature of things in teyvat: the gods, the aranara, the seven elements. the ley lines, carrying with them the flow of elemental energy that connects the world. great veins that flowed underneath the earth. and, though their connection had grown faint and difficult to sense, the ley lines still sang, and their voices were the most beautiful, soothing music a person could hear.
listen, his mother would whisper. the world is always speaking, and so too, is the earth. she has much to say, and you need only listen.
so he listened. when his parents were away, or the nights when he couldn’t sleep, kalim would lie outside and close his eyes, and focus on the faint call of the ley lines beneath his home, pulsing and thrumming with an energy all their own. when he was pushed into the akademiya and he went without protest, hoping to please his father, he heard the ley lines called out to him from within the earth. and when he left the akademiya, his blood singing and his heart in his throat as he ran to the forest watchers in hopes that they would believe his claims that a withering zone was expanding across the forest much quicker than anyone had predicted, the ley lines seemed to laugh and cry in joyous triumph, and sing him a song so loud and sweet, he could still hear it in his ears when he finally came home.
presently, kalim has abandoned his studies and joined the varana—tighnari hopes to eventually convince him to go back—using his connection to the ley lines in their research. he refuses to explain how he seems so aware of the state of the forest and the earth around them, no matter how many times they ask him, and has comfortably settled into his role as the group’s oddball. at least, until dottore arrives in sumeru.
☼.⋆｡ VERSE NOTES
kalim was kidnapped by the fatui as a young child and subjected to similar experiments like the ones collei would go through years later. he's now connected to teyvat's ley lines and can sense elemental energy clearly.. should anything serious ever happen to the ley lines, kalim will also suffer. he hopes to stop the effects of the withering long enough to find a way to break the connection.
in possession of a hydro catalyst. moderately skilled in hydromancy beyond his vision, and uses it as a tool when he wants to read the stars.
he says he's forgotten or surpressed the events of his captivity, but he actually remembers every detail with absolute clarity. as a totally unrelated point, kalim learned how to manage a fatui skirmisher's rifle.
during his first run in the akademiya ( sort of, kind of, not quite but by parents ) kalim belonged to amurta, at his father's gentle insistence, and to his mother's dismay. when he returns years later in hopes that it will help his research, he joins spantamad instead.
kalim refuses the call to adveture for as long as he can, leaving jamil to have his main character moment with the traveler. once dottore rears his head in sumeru, he joins in.
gets along well with his fellow vanara, but isn't really close with them. that changes once he meets cyno, who informally introduces him to tighnari and collei. kalim and collei develop an odd bond as survivors of dottore's experiments.
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