#As well as the suppressed sexuality for women in the church

[certified3nakin]

"I swore I'd never sin again"

"But my patience's running thin..."

Little rotten girl Miku doodle because the underlying religious surpressionist themes have made this song get stuck in my head

[thrashkink-coven]

Hi! I saw your post about the appropriation of religious imagery by extremest hate groups (a good post, I share your feelings of frustration) at the end you made a vague statement about the satanic temple and was wondering if you could elaborate on what happened there? They are a group I admittedly only have passing knowledge of, but what I have seen has usually been pro LGBTQ advocacy or similar things. Not that I don't believe you- I don't really interact with large institutions because they tend to become inevitably corrupt and have inherent gatekeeping, but I was wondering if you wouldn't mind explaining what exactly or which extremist propaganda they have been aligning with recently? Or is it just because they are generally anti-theistic?

(I have, in fact, been almost literally living under a rock the past few years so I apologize if the answer is something obvious, but I couldn't seem to find anything with cursory searches so thought asking someone in the community would be a better source)

I couldn’t even begin to outline all of the terrible shit the leaders and founders of The Satanic Temple have done over the years. They are a group of alt white scammers using progressive ideology and leftist sympathy to fill their pockets. They use their image to pray on young women at sex parties and employ real cult tactics to isolate and abuse them. They are a company comprised of sexual abusers, manipulators, and fascists parading the name of Satan to manipulate actual Satanists and Luciferians into giving them money, despite never showing any real respect to those philosophies or religions. We all already know they’re not theistic satanists and they don’t really worship Satan, but they also have absolutely no relationship with Satanism or Luciferian gnosis. You cannot be a Luciferian or a Satanist and be friends with Nazis. Idgaf call me a gatekeeper. They just like to use the image of Satan for publicity stunts to ruffle the feathers of a few Christians. They do not embody the Luciferian spirit or the values of Satanism.

I have a deep hatred in my soul for Douglas Mesner and how much damage he has done to the image of Luciferianism and Satanism, not to mention the real world damage they have done to abortion advocacy groups. The strategic moves of opposing institutions that oppose LGBT rights has actually given a bad name to good faith organizations who already have enough negative stigma around them. Abortion advocacy groups don’t need the narrative that they’re sacrificing babies to Satan by being supported by the Temple of Satan on top of all the backlash they already receive by Christo-fascists.

They DO NOT use the money donated for abortion advocacy to help young mothers or to fight real cases of human rights abuse, they have never actually helped a real woman obtain healthcare. The leader himself openly admitted to taking money donated to the Satanic Temple to pay his personal bills.

Asides from the plethora of real accusations of sexual assault and violence against female members of the church itself, the leader Douglas Mesner has actively supported abusers and suppressed victims from WITHIN THE CHURCH!! (kicking them out, harassing them, threatening them lawsuits etc) from obtaining justice. They have never made any actual strides in the fight towards liberation and have actively supported real fascists for years now. Douglas Mesner has advocated for eugenics and made horrible anti semitic and racist comments in the past and continues to support alt right nationalists who actively spread hateful rhetoric. The lie they promote of wanting to protect women’s and LGBT rights is a well crafted marketing scheme to give them a good image while they abuse and manipulate their own members behind the scenes.

This is a fantastic video essay that dives deep into the history of the members and their controversies:

Genuinely, from the bottom of my heart,

FUCK THE SATANIC TEMPLE

There are of course members who are great people who truly take the philosophy to heart, who have seriously fought for liberation and have sadly had their empathy hijacked. But I don’t like cops and I don’t like people who support Douglas Mesner and his band of freaks. They cannot be trusted and they have done far more harm than good. Actions speak louder than words.

[theramblingsofallen]

The Eroticism and Romance of The Case Study of Vanitas

*Spoilers ahead for the anime and manga, 3.6k words

**I apologize in advance for any grammar and spelling mistakes. English is not my native language

Fan service, a common trope in fiction, is used to sexualize situations and characters and is often irrelevant to plot and character development. Some people like it; others do not. I fall on the latter. While fan service is a neutral term, it has created a more polarizing reaction from anime and manga fans. However, this reaction is justified. From the sexualization of young girls to the romanticization of problematic relationships. It is often an unpleasant and frustrating experience to witness. However, despite my opinions, one manga/anime stood out. The Case Study of Vanitas.

The Case Study of Vanitas follows Noé Archiviste, a young vampire sent to find The Book of Vanitas by his teacher. It is a book believed to cause harm to the vampire kind. While traveling to Paris, Noé meets Vanitas, a human doctor specializing in curing cursed vampires using The Book of Vanitas. While on their quest to heal vampires, they fight against Charlatan, a supernatural being who curses vampires. On their adventures, they meet Jeanne, known as the Hellfire Witch. A former executioner turned cadet for a French noble, Luca. When Vanitas lays his eyes on Jeanne, romance blossoms between them, and the sex appeal begins.

The Monsters of the Night turned sex symbols trend began debatably with Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu. An influential book predating Bram Stoker's Dracula by twenty-five years. The romance between a human and a monster is nothing new today. However, when Carmilla was published, readers considered the story unusual. The big reason is that the main love interests are women. Not to mention how the vampiress expresses her desire for the main character, Laura. The confident and sexually liberating vampire seducing the sweet, virginal Laura caused a stir. Though not explicit by today's standards, it was still taboo. The Victorian era, where society imposed purity on young girls. Where the public oppressed their sexual desires. The belief that sex is for marriage and procreation, which still plagues our society, was prevalent in Victorian times. Sexual activity still occurred. Frequently.

According to Sebastian Gonzalez Rosario from The University of Puerto Rico, "Vampires were sexualized to strike fear into people of the taboo and sinfulness of sexual behavior, but later, this sexualization became a metaphor for repressed desires, until finally their sexualization caused them to be humanized." (Rosario, Sebastián G. The Humanization of the Vampire and the Dehumanization of the Queer Community. pg. 1). With repressed desire, both Jeanne and Vanitas fit well with that description. Vanitas suppresses the idea of opening up to people and embracing love. At first glance, Vanitas is rude, arrogant, and purposely annoying to those around him. As a child, Vanitas faced pain and abuse. He lost his parents, and the Catholic Church took him in, only for a corrupt doctor to experiment on him. The doctor dehumanized him by assigning him a number, like humans do with their cows. Later on, someone brought a new child for the corrupt doctor to use as a guinea pig. Mikhail. An abused child who was under the care of Vanitas and who never let go of Vanitas after meeting each other. Though Vanitas didn't warm up to Mikhail, he eventually cared for him. One day, when the doctor wanted to use Mikhail for an experiment, he pleaded for Vanitas to help him. To be saved from the doctor, Vanitas made a sacrifice. He asked the doctor to experiment on him rather than Mikhail. At that moment, Mikhail and Vanitas became brothers. Unfortunately, in one of these cruel experiments, the doctor injected the boys with the blood of Vanitas, The Vampire of The Blue Moon, the creator of the book of Vanitas. At some point, the original Vanitas vampire rescued both. Despite their demeanor, OG Vanitas was sympathetic to the children's suffering and adopted both boys. Everything at that point was great. However, all good things must come to an end. The injected blood of the vampire means that both boys will not live long. To save the boys, the vampire offered a deal for them. Have them become vampires. While Mikhail agreed, Vanitas harshly rejected it. He refused to lose his humanity. At some point, Vanitas killed the vampire and their parental figure and took their name. Their parental figure became cursed, and Vanitas killed them before they lost control. For a certain amount of time, Vanitas believed that Mikhail died and was left alone.

Because of his upbringing, Vanitas grew to have an unhealthy mindset toward love. His flaws, as mentioned earlier, are what he uses to distance himself from everyone. It is almost as if he is afraid to connect with someone. He is afraid people would be hurt if they got too close to him. Despite his demeanor, Vanitas is kind-hearted, dependable, and always ready to help and sacrifice himself or put himself in danger. Unfortunately, that means he suffered alone. He suppressed his desire for connection and, in a way, dehumanized himself.

Jeanne suppresses her desire to do what she wants for herself. Jeanne comes across as strict, serious, and intimidating. Jeanne was a former executioner of vampires, her kind. Something that is often forgotten about since, as the story progresses, she is kind-hearted, sensitive, and naïve. It is because it was not her choice. Her family, who adopted her, was killed during wartime. The war between humans and the original vampires that still have tension even after the war. That’s where her teacher, August Ruthven, takes her in and uses her for the benefit of the war, as an executioner. I can’t imagine what she has seen during the war. Not to mention, she had to kill her friend and sister figure, Chloé, after discovering of the existence of the Beast of Gévaudan. She never live her life, the way she wanted to. She never experienced freedom. Jeanne suppressing her desires is dehumanizing her. Even as a vampire, there is still a heart that wants to be caressed and protected after centuries-long suffering.

One anime that incorporates unnecessary and painful examples of explicit fan service is Code Geass. An action-packed, political, and dramatic show contains awkward and sudden fan service moments. A show taking place during a war, dictatorship, and colonization takes painstaking pauses to focus on teenage girls' sexuality. Code Geass incorporates nudity, suggestive posing, shower scenes, and an out-of-nowhere masturbation scene. All of which do nothing for plot and character development. Sometimes these scenes are portrayed as jokes, which makes me uncomfortable. The show had the potential to portray strong female characters, but chose every opportunity to degrade them and make them disposable. Not to mention shoving unnecessary romantic subplots into the story. Particularly with Kallen, a compassionate and loyal woman with strong morals and a highly competent soldier. The creators sexualized her and reduced her to a love interest for the main character, Lelouch. Eye candy for the audience. Shirley, a friend and classmate of both Kallen and Lelouch, whose sole purpose was to be a love interest and nothing else. She has little plot relevance. Not to mention, the official art books the animators created while the anime aired do not help in this case. It's safe to claim that Code Geass does not pass the Bechdel test with female characters such as Shirley and Kallen. Unfortunately, Code Geass is one of the more tame examples of gross exploitation of female characters.

Another anime and game franchise, Diabolik Lovers, involves vampires and is a worse example of using fan service in the “story”. The “plot”, if you are feeling generous, involves Yui, a human girl, who is the sacrificial bride of six vampire brothers by her priest father. The anime constantly subjects the main character, Yui, to sexual abuse and harassment. Even when Yui explicitly rejects and attempts to stop the boys' advancements, they still violate her boundaries and privacy. All of which are without meaningful purposes. No attempt to bring nuanced discussions concerning sex and consent nor to justify including these uncomfortable scenes. Although the “story” is not complete, it is safe to assume the anime will end with Yui marrying one of the vampire brothers or with her death. Although, there are plenty of examples of anime/manga having tasteless fan service moments from Fire Force to Sword Art Online to Soul Eater to Bungo Stray Dogs. All of which are harmful and will continue to infect their stories.

One key aspect of Vanitas’ and Jeanne’s relationship that I enjoy is how vulnerable and intimate they act around each other. They show their true colors. It shows sides of themselves that they don't want to share with others. Vampire bites and drinking blood are often metaphors for sex, and TCSOV is no exception. As Sebastian Rosario puts it, "...The bite is the signature move of the vampire, it is how they multiply, how they feed and how they kill... The bite is the most intimate and sexual encounter one can experience with a vampire, while also being a sort of dance or courtship with death." (Rosario, Sebastián G. The Humanization of the Vampire and the Dehumanization of the Queer Community. pg. 16). The bite of a vampire brings pleasure the same way sex does. It's as intimate as sex. The first bite occurred early in the story. In episode four/chapter eight, Vanitas witnessed Jeanne in a difficult position as she had not had a drink of blood for a while. She clutches her chest as the pain spreads throughout her body. Giving an almost sick appearance. The lack of blood made Jeanne fall ill. Vanitas offered his blood for her to drink. Not to help her, but more because he’s curious about what it is like to be bitten by a vampire. Also, by stating, "There's no reason". In desperate times, she accepted his offer. Once her fangs pierced into his skin, they gave in to one another’s needs. Vanitas clings on to Jeanne's dress, and she clings on to his shoulders. Feeling each other's heat as the moon shines. The mixture of pleasure and pain clouded their minds. Their soft moans, rosy cheeks, and warm blood dripped out of his neck and into her mouth. As Vanitas says softly, “This isn’t so bad after all.” As American singer-songwriter Madonna puts it, “Only the one that hurts you can make you feel better. Only the one that inflicts pain can take it away." (Madonna, and Shep Pettibone, Erotica.)

During their first date, Jeanne gets tempted to drink the blood of a child who scraped their knee nearby. Jeanne got to safety in a secluded building with Vanitas before anyone got injured. Vanitas confronts Jeanne with a question that has bugged him since he met her. Is she a curse-bearer, or is she addicted to drinking blood? However, she hesitated. It is almost as if she is forced to be silent as she becomes out of breath and her hand grips her throat. Instead, he offered his blood to her to feed her craving. However, instead of focusing on the physical aspect of the blood-sucking scene, there is an emotional element added. During the blood-sucking scene, Jeanne begins crying during the act. She expresses that she fears losing herself and hurting the ones she loves. Afraid that this "illness" could corrupt her and take control of her. Killing her loved ones is what she fears the most. He comforts her. "If that time comes, I’ll kill you. I promise… I’ll kill you. I love you. I’m the one who’ll make your wishes come true. It has to be me. So, Jeanne… there’s nothing to worry about.” (Episode eleven, "Promises.") In his twisted way, this is how he shows his love. This is his confession. He will be the one to save her from destruction. He will make the ultimate sacrifice to save herself. To which a tearful Jeanne agreed. He shall take her life if needed. She finds comfort in his words. However, it makes sense. In a way, Jeanne seeks an escape from everything. From her illness, her responsibility, and her isolation. It is where I fell in love with their love.

We all like to be taken care of, to be treasured. But by a vampire? Yes, to me at least. Monsters are representations of what the public fears at the time. For example, vampires are often represented as diseases nobody knew how to treat and death. However, despite their representation, people are still loving these monsters. A film that reminds me of this phenomenon is The Shape of Water, directed by Guillermo Del Toro. In the film, we follow Elisa, a woman who works as a janitor at a secret government facility and happens to be mute. One day at work, Elisa finds a humanoid amphibian who is treated horribly by scientists in their laboratory. So, she decides to meet him in secret and forms a friendship, and later on, a romantic relationship. Though I understand why someone may not like this dynamic, I find it sweet. The idea of a creature who is dangerous and can harm you, yet is neither and rather sweet towards you sets my heart aflame. Not to mention, oftentimes monsters are interpreted as minority groups, and seeing characters that are an oppressed minority group feeling comforted, loved, and protected around these monster characters makes me feel seen and loved. Especially since I am a part of a minority group. The possibility of love is still there for people like me. A place where you can finally find a connection in a world that seems like it hates you, you find love with someone you can relate to and feel happy.

A similar scene happens in episode fourteen/chapter twenty-seven, after losing a battle against The Beast of Gévaudan. A dangerous mystical creature whom Jeanne used to fight against but never killed. Jeanne finds Vanitas injured because of taking a hit for Jeanne. Despite his protest and insistence that Jeanne leaves him behind, she refuses and takes him to an empty cabin with her. Unfortunately, with the uncontrollable shivering and flustered, reddened cheeks, Vanitas became ill. So, how does Jeanne take care of Vanitas? She suggested they disrobe and cuddle in front of the chimney. It makes sense since the snow has soaked both of their clothes. Plus, the story takes place in the late eighteen hundreds. Vanitas, usually one to flirt and tease, was shocked and flustered by her suggestion. But he obliged. As they snuggled in front of the chimney, a warm blanket wrapped around them, Vanitas developed a fever. Jeanne quickly gets water for him to drink. Vanitas stubbornly refuses to drink the water. With Jeanne wanting to slaughter the beast and Vanitas wanting to save it, he encourages her to leave him behind. He insists that she should focus on her goal rather than nursing him back to health. Jeanne, being equally stubborn, refuses. Without thinking clearly, she came up with a plan to make him drink water. A good old mouth-to-mouth.

There could’ve been other ways to have him drink water, yet she chose the mouth-to-mouth method. Interesting. Especially since Vanitas is usually the one being the “dominant” and flirty one. An interesting twist, though. This event reveals a lot about them. One, Vanitas was willing to sacrifice his well-being for Jeanne to achieve her goal. He never asked for her help. Second, Jeanne, despite having a different goal regarding the beast and who has slaughtered hundreds and thousands of vampires, is not a cold and heartless person. He saved her life, so she will save his. They do care for one another.

Another aspect I appreciate about their relationship is it is never explicit. There are no actual sex scenes, no nudity, no groping scenes, non-con content, and no hyper-fixation on Jeanne's body. As I mentioned with Code Geass and Diabolik Lovers, both shove fan service, which is unnecessary and downright uncomfortable to watch. All of which are absent in The Case Study of Vanitas. I appreciate how the story does its best to restrain itself from showing explicit sexual content. I hope this continues as the mangaka continues to write her story. However, I wish the mangaka had not included those elements in TCSOV.

One of the most powerful scenes in the anime/manga is when Vanitas is confronted with his feelings towards Jeanne. After Vanitas helps save Jeanne's long-lost friend's life, she thanks him with a kiss on his cheek. A small affectionate gesture that had an impact on Vanitas’ psyche. Especially when she turned around and blessed him with a beautiful smile. Vanitas realized he fell for her. Something that he was afraid would happen. As in the next episode/the next chapter, when Noé finds Vanitas feeling “sick”, Noé seeks medical help. However, when describing his symptoms, none of them aligned with an actual illness. As Vanitas describes his symptoms, “…My face has always flushed and my heart feels like it’s trapped in a vice. It’s been beating out of control”. (Episode twenty, "The Incurable Disease.") To him, it is a curse. Jeanne put a curse on him. Later on, he bumped into Roland, a vampire executioner for the Catholic Church, where Vanitas was taken as a child. Vanitas nervously asked Roland for romance advice without revealing who he was smitten with. After describing Jeanne in his unique, poetic manner, Roland concluded that Vanitas was in love with Jeanne. The revelation made Vanitas revolted and heartbroken. In his words, “How could it be possible to love a person like me?” (Episode twenty, "The Incurable Disease.") It was all a game for him until it became too real. This is keeping the theme of Vanitas’ self-hatred and his idea that he doesn’t deserve love.

Meanwhile, a similar scene occurs, where Jeanne realizes her feelings for Vanitas are genuine love. In the same episode (Episode twenty, "The Incurable Disease."), Jeanne was with her master, Luca, to tell him the events that happened when fighting the beast. During the conversation, she mentions that she couldn’t stop thinking about Vanitas. The more she talked about him, the faster her heart beat. Afterward, she realizes that she is in love with him. Interestingly, she mentions that she’s afraid that the next time she meets him, she will want to consummate their relationship. Despite Luca's and her friend, Dominique's insistence that her feelings for Vanitas are not genuine and that Vanitas isn’t worth loving, Jeanne insists. She loves him. In her eyes, he’s a good person, she loves him. Her first step is to doing what she wants without worrying about pleasing others or being useful to others. However, despite her love, she wouldn’t want a relationship with Vanitas because she believes Vanitas wouldn’t pursue someone who is attracted to him. He likes a chase. In episode six ("Love"), Noé asks Vanitas why he likes Jeanne. He explained that he likes how strong, kind, and beautiful she is. He added that he is not attracted to someone who would love him. Though this is about to change soon, I can feel it.

Unfortunately, Vanitas and Jeanne do contain problematic elements in their relationship. After their first fight in episode three/chapter four, where Vanitas defeated Jeanne, he forces a kiss on her in front of several people, including Jeanne's master. Jeanne did not process the kiss and had no opportunity to stop him. An ugly start to their romance. It is unclear whether it is for comedy or to use the trope of love at first sight. Regardless, it is only the beginning. Jeanne and Vanitas have a relationship based on an unofficial contract where Jeanne can only drink Vanitas' blood in exchange for his silence. He will not reveal Jeanne’s medical condition to her master. Nor will he mention the mark that Jeanne accidentally placed on Vanitas’ neck during their first bite. Wanting to avoid conflict and worry from her master, she begrudgingly agrees to the agreement. Twisted as it appears, Vanitas disguises this as blackmail. In the end, this blackmail also benefits Jeanne. In a world where people are afraid of vampires and where Jeanne has a medical condition, Vanitas will always offer her his blood. She can always rely on him for a quick fix. We can also claim that the cabin scene is non-consensual, since Vanitas had a high fever and Jeanne took advantage of him. He did not get the chance to consent to the kiss. Though, even then, it was to nurse him back to health. Regardless, I was disappointed that the creator included these elements in their relationship. But it has gotten better over time. I believe the emotional aspects override the problematic elements of their relationship. Not to mention, there will be more opportunities to explore their love.

Despite the questionable aspects of their relationship, the eroticism and romance between the main characters of TCSOV bring nuanced discussions. It is not a perfect representation of a healthy sexual relationship, but it is heading in the right direction. And it works well for both characters. I believe it will be a tragic and passionate romance to remember fondly for years to come. Similar to that of Romeo and Juliet or Beauty and the Beast. At least, I have high hopes for them.

In conclusion, I love vampires. Where can I find one nearby? There’s no real point to this post. I just like to ramble after all.

———————————————————————

Citations:

Madonna, and Shep Pettibone. "Erotica." Erotica, 29 Sept. 1992.

Rosario, Sebastián G. The Humanization of the Vampire and the Dehumanization of the Queer Community. 2021. University of Puerto Rico, MA thesis.

[tidal123]

In both Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, the temples of the Goddess Aphrodite(Venus) were said to receive sponsorships from both courtesans and the public and there were many. This means sex work was not only legal but also blessed. And yet, sex is viewed as a horribly bad thing by the later western patriachy. One must wonder if there exists some logical connections between the two almost opposite states.

It is power at play isn’t it? Sure, high status courtesans, along with lower end ones, must have existed throughout history everywhere, and those courtesans surely have their own personal influences, but perhaps, very seldomly were they actually Represented and even had a claim to be blessed by the divine like in the temples for Aphrodite. Which suggests the possibility of independent collective political-economical existence of the sex workers at the time, like a trade union but instead under the name of temples to divinity. Which, come to think of it, probably played a part in the dark age’s vehement, systematic attempt to eliminate both women and men’s body and sexual autonomy. Through both frigid religious rules and waves of abhorrent violence against women. A majorly powerful patriarchy perhaps had never felt as threatened by those sex workers at the time of the patriarchy’s conception, as Christianity’s development from the time and culture of the Ancient Greeks, where the Greek gods and goddesses’s following still had much influence. The misogyny in Christian religious rules started right after Jesus was persecuted, it prescribed roles for women to be quiet and submissive. Those early Christian patriarchs definitely experienced women followers asking for their own power in their own churches. They could totally also have seen the sphere of influence of Aphrodite’s temple, as well as other female priests of the ‘pagans’ goddesses. Fearful of male authority being challenged, they subsequently tried particularly hard to put down women and any form of female path to economic and political independence, reducing them to exist only within the confines of households and serve as a vehicle for child-bearing.

Alone that line, they also attempted to destroy male alliance to women’s freedom, by stamping down their inherent desires and real self-expressions and assigning them an unattainable “superiority” standard in exchange. This “superiority” is also turned around to tame women by putting them on pedestals of fake perfection, be it morality, modesty, innocence, etc. Either way, it’s all ways of control.

There is no doubt sex workers will continue to exist, as human nature still exist. It’s impossible to really ban something so basic, and the rich and the powerful will of course have their ways to get sex as a service, no matter if it is considered legal or not. The only difference when sex is too stigmatized to be considered real work, is that those who don’t have power further lose their ‘say’ over it. It in effect seeks to remove a path to economic freedom, suppress political representation, and deny the complete right to body autonomy, and that affects everyone. Which, I suspect is exactly what the patriarchy was after at the start: not really to eliminate sex work, but to destroy people’s will, so as to keep women(and men and non-confirm) in their place.

[gatheringbones]

["Sometimes a Lesbian couple will spend time learning how to come simultaneously, an exercise in controlling physical impulses that is also particularly valued in heterosexual lovemaking. Or a couple may be so close that they feel each other's sensations.

For women from families in which women's sexual expression has been denied or forcibly suppressed by church, state, and/or patriarchal ideas of ownership, the first sexual steps of Lesbianism may be very difficult to take and fraught with terror and excitement. As a teenager, I had rather cleverly learned to masturbate from reading the Kinsey Report while babysitting for a progressive family. However, I could not relax enough to come in front of my lovers until I was twenty years old. I literally ordered myself to relax with someone so I could do it. The lover I chose for the occasion was a woman I barely knew, older than myself. We were fully dressed and sitting in daylight in a parked car. She had her hand in my pants. She was patient and persistent and gentle and knew what she was doing. In that instant, she was a witch. After I came in her arms, with my face pressed against her cheek, I was released from my prohibition and could come with other women. I did not have any further sex with my teacher, though I suffered guilt pangs at having used her for such a thoroughly physical purpose. But it was the lack of emotional entanglement that gave me the freedom to let go and not worry so much about my partner's reactions so I could have complete feelings on my own.

At that time, 1960, for most women I knew, who were mostly white and lower middle class, sex was a source of embarrassment and various degrees of dissatisfaction if not outright pain and rape by boyfriends and husbands. Some of my high school friends seemed to be enjoying sex, but since straight women were told to fake orgasm it was difficult to know for certain what women were really experiencing. Sex with your clothes on and in the dark was still a prevalent mode.

We Lesbians, despised and negated though we were, had the advantage of not being watched, and we were sexually daring. Some of us had orgasms and taught others about it. Some made love in daylight, were "promiscuous," and did other lascivious things. But I don't think we looked at each other's vulvas openly— or our own. It would remain for the sexual revolution of the sixties and the development of independent women's groups taking gynecological childbirth and abortion functions into their own hands and developing self-help groups and clinics before Lesbian poet Olga Brous could begin a poem, in 1976, with these lines:

With the clear plastics speculum, transparent and when inserted, pink like the convex carapace of a prawn, flashlight in hand, I guide you inside the small cathedral of my cunt… — Olga Broumas

But if in the late 1950s my experience among lower-middle class, white Lesbians in a small western town was about how to crawl out of the pit of frigidity (into the Well of Loneliness— infinitely preferable), less sexually suppressed, more sophisticated, urban, and urbane Lesbians had quite another story to tell as this fruity and passionate passage, set in New York City, from Black poet, writer, and professor Audre Lorde's Zami shows.

There were green plantains which we half peeled and then planted, fruit-deep, in each other's bodies until the petals of skin lay like tendrils of broad green fire upon the curly darkness between our upspread thighs. There were ripe red finger bananas, stubby and sweet, with which I parted your lips gently to insert the peeled fruit into your grape-purple flower. After I held you, I lay between your brown legs, slowly playing my tongue through your familiar forests, slowly licking and swallowing as the deep undulations and tidal motions of your strong body slowly mashed the ripe banana into a beige cream that mixed with the juices of your electric flesh. Then our bodies met again, each surface touched with each other's flame from the from the tips of our curled toes to our tongues, and locked into our own wild rhythms we rode each other across the thundering space."]

judy grahn, from another mother tongue: gay words, gay worlds, 1984

[allthingsarmin]

fratboy/stoner armin!! in love with how you write asshole! armin ❤

Thank you for your request! I feel I didn’t do a good job with this one, so I will probably go back later and rewrite it. (And I really appreciate your feedback <3 I hope this dose of asshole!armin will satisfy your needs haha)~

MINORS DNI! Ft. NSFW TOPICS (weed, one mention of vomit, and sex (groping, drunk noncon), mentions of religion, one mention of sexaul assault).

Fem!Reader, FemBodied!Reader

ᵔᴥᵔ Fratboy!armin who dresses like a gentleman - wearing white shorts and a white button-up collared shirt under a cerulean sweater that compliments his mesmerizing blue eyes as well as a dainty silver watch on his left wrist and always comes to class with a freshly shaven face and cologne that is just a little too “manly” for him - but acts like a complete hooligan, making inappropriate jokes in class, pranking innocent passersby on campus, and getting black-out drunk at frat parties every Friday night.

ᵔᴥᵔ Fratboy!armin who looks so poised and has such a refined posture, having enough manners (like holding the door open) to swoon enough girls but is such a menace when it comes to anything serious… like being harshly shushed in the library because he was being too loud or skipping finals to go on a spontaneous road trip with his frat buddies then sending an email to his professor saying he was sick, even printing out a fake doctor’s note, or pranking the sorority across the street by TPing their house or even how he can’t seem to care less when the police ruthlessly question him because there have been so many reports of sexual assault done by his frat friends.

ᵔᴥᵔ Fratboy!armin who thinks he is so smart because he’s a business major and genuinely believes he is better than everyone else because he gets out of class to go to all these events even though he is undoubtedly one of the most irresponsible and reckless people on campus… having unprotected sex with countless unfortunate women who have fallen for his false compliments, throwing parties that become too big for him to handle - so loud the police become involved, so messy with red cups littering the floor and vomit being found in every trashcan in the house - and failing nearly every class he’s in because “it’s too easy for me, my advisor put me in the wrong class, and the teacher is an old hag.”

ᵔᴥᵔ Fratboy!armin whose backpack is filled with anything but college textbooks and notebooks, like a chewed pencil, three packs of condoms, some headphones, and an energy drink.

ᵔᴥᵔ Fratboy!armin who swears he’s being a good boy when his rich parents who are on their abroad trip ask him how he’s doing over the phone but is actually spending most of his weekly allowance buying weed and smoking it with his frat buddies, who often gets into intense fights with them because he “knows he had two ounces left, but now he only has one,” and who shows up to class high the few times he does actually decide to go - eyes red, a constant small smirk, can’t stop rambling about useless things.

ᵔᴥᵔ Fratboy!armin who walks together with his big group of frat friends, taking up large amounts of room on the sidewalk and in restaurants, cat-calling girls they think look fuckable and loudly mocking those who look prude.

ᵔᴥᵔ Fratboy!armin who has a main Instagram where he looks so well-mannered, posting pictures with his family or his frat buddies when they go on a trip together but also has a secret Instagram where he posts thirst traps, follows barely clothed women, and stalks accounts of girls who go the same college as him, even DMing the men at your college to see if they have your nudes.

ᵔᴥᵔ Fratboy!armin who knows how handsome he is, who knows how easy it is to make your knees weak and your heart flutter when he looks at you from across the campus soccer field with such intent, biting his lip, maliciously smiling because yet another girl has fallen for his seemingly innocent aura as you excitedly wave at him.

ᵔᴥᵔ Fratboy!armin who revels in the fact that he can convince you to do anything. When he’s whining so pathetically in the driver’s seat and pressuring you to just hit the blunt one time while he locks you in his car that’s parked on the far end of the campus parking lot. And you, so submissive and selfless sitting in the passenger seat, not wanting to disappoint him because his frown harshly tugs at your heart, take a hit, choking on the fumes and heart pounding at the unfamiliarity as a warm buzz sets in.

ᵔᴥᵔ Fratboy!armin who pressures you to skip class with him so that you both can go to the campus cafeteria and buy an unholy amount of cookies and chips because he’s high and he’s hungry… and now you know why his bedsheets at the frat house reek of weed and why his crusty floor is littered with food wrappers.

ᵔᴥᵔ Fratboy!armin who so easily persuaded you to play those type of sexually suggestive games at the weekend frat party where everyone is drunk, breath seething with vodka, and sweatily rubbing up against each other, so horny for a release, and so desperate to feel something besides the headache from the loud music… who you somehow wind up in the closet with, his right arm holding you close against his body as his left hand slithers into your panties and forces itself into your cunt because he wanted you to play ‘seven minutes in heaven.’

ᵔᴥᵔ Fratboy!armin who promises that there’s nothing to be afraid of because he’s ‘secretly a sweetheart’ but calls you his “bitch” and pats his thigh, signaling that he wants you to come sit in his lap so that he can feel you up in front of his friends at the frat party when drinking cheap, shitty beer.

ᵔᴥᵔ Fratboy!armin who swears he won’t bite but gets you so drunk at parties that you can’t even tell him no when he takes you upstairs, locks the door, and practically forces his hard, throbbing cock into you while holding you into a mating press, covering your mouth to suppress your cries as his tongue trails your jawline and neck.

ᵔᴥᵔ Fratboy!armin who prays before every dinner, keeps a bible in the lowest drawer of his nightstand, and goes to church promptly at 10am every Sunday with his frat buddies despite being hungover. Sitting in the front pews, he listens intently to the preacher, letting the word of God spill into his heart even though he was rigorously fisting his cock the night before to your pictures on Instagram, cumming four times but his balls still swollen and cock still desperate for your messy cunt, having to hold back his needy whimpers each time his slender fingers brisk past his sensitive tip as he imagines your warm, wet tongue licking off the pre-cum.

ᵔᴥᵔ Fratboy!armin who invites you to a Sunday lunch with his frat. Of course, he looks so polished: a clean, white button-up with a baby blue sweater hanging around his shoulders and a pair of new Sperrys. When you show him what you’re wearing, he tells you that you could do better as he convinces you to wear something a little low-cut but not too much because he doesn’t want his frat buddies to think he’s dating a slut.

ᵔᴥᵔ Fratboy!armin whose friends look at you like starving dogs when you both finally get to the restaurant, never including you in the conversation except for when they comment on your body and how irresistible it is.

ᵔᴥᵔ Fratboy!armin who doesn’t defend you and instead soaks up all of this appraisal.

“Yeah, she’s a good toy to play with,” he proudly smiles while gripping your thigh in his strong, pale hands.

ᵔᴥᵔ Fratboy!armin who makes you order a small salad and only allows you to drink water because “you need to watch your figure.”

ᵔᴥᵔ Fratboy!armin who’s the perfect predator, the perfect manipulator. He can do whatever he wants without ever getting caught, howling at the fact that you try to tell advisors or teachers how Armin violated and manipulated you, but they just never believe you. “You’re talking about Armin? Armin Arlert? He would never do anything like that,” they chuckle… because everyone knows Armin’s an angel; he’s part of the frat, so that makes him a good boy, right?

ᵔᴥᵔ Fratboy!armin who you can’t possibly ever escape from because he’s done such a good job at manipulating you to be his little slutty girlfriend, his heaven-like appearance making it impossible for others to believe what a devil he is, isolating you as he convinced all of your friends that you’re just some cock-hungry whore.

ᵔᴥᵔ Fratboy!armin who has done such a good job at defiling you, successfully taking your virginity and eagerly pressuring you to do things for him, letting him so easily enter your sloppy cunt as he takes in the sight of your tender breasts, contorted face, and bright red hand imprints on your thighs.

ᵔᴥᵔ Fratboy!armin who despite all the manipulation and sexist comments, you don’t want to leave because he smells so sweet thanks to all the treats he eats; because his arm muscles look so good when he plays golf with his rude friends; because he makes your high from weed more fun as you two cuddle and talk about nonsense; because he is able to bury your shy side and awaken your submissive side as he slowly degrades the human being in you and raises a filthy slut whose pussy he makes so wet, so needy, and so pathetically sloppy.

[dwellordream]

“…There is a real belief on behalf of a not insignificant subset of society that the medieval Church was a shadowy organisation dedicated solely to suppressing knowledge and scientific advancement. This is not true.

The Church was in all actuality the medieval period’s largest benefactor of scholars of all stripes. Initially, in the early medieval period much learning was focused in monastaries in particular. Because monks took a vow to eschew idleness, they were always looking for new ways to work for the greater glory of God, or whatever. Sometimes this took the form of doing manual labour to feed themselves, but as monasteries such as Cluny rose to prominence they did more and more work in libraries as well.

Monks copied and embellished manuscripts and kept impressive libraries. Sometimes this work took place inside what we call “scriptoria” where more than one scribe is working at a time. They saw themselves as charged with transmitting knowledge. A lot of that knowledge was, of course, pagan, because they were extremely into classical thinkers. They were also reading this work of course, and writing their own commentaries on it. Many of them took the medical texts and used them to set up hospitals within their monasteries, as we have talked about before.

Lest you think this is all one big sausage fest, women were also very much about that book life within nunneries. They also had their own scriptoria and were busy scribbling away, reading, writing, and thinking. If you wanted a life where you strove for new scholarly heights, odds were that in the early medieval period you did that inside a monastery on nunnery.

As the medieval period moved on, scholarship eventually moved out of the cloister and into cities when the medieval university was established. The first degree awarding institution to call itself a university was the University of Bologna established around 1088, though teaching had been going on there previously and students had been going to Bologna from at least the late tenth century. Second was the University of Paris, which was established in 1150. Again teaching had been happening there from much earlier, and at least 1045.

Medieval universities weren’t like universities now, in that they didn’t have established campuses or anything like that. They were, more or less, a loose affiliation of scholars who would provide lessons to interested students. The University of Paris, for example, described itself as “a guild of teachers and scholars” (universitas magistrorum et scholarium).

In Paris there were four faculties: Arts, Medicine, Law, and Theology. Everyone had to attend the Arts school first where they would be asked to learn the trivium, which was comprised of rhetoric, logic, and grammar. Basically that meant all undergrads spent their time learning to argue, which is how the whole Abelard thing comes about. Then if they wanted more they could go do medicine, law, or theology. Theology was considered the really crazy good stuff, as medieval theologians were sorta held up in the way we worship astrophysicists like Neil de Grasse Tyson (ugh) or Stephen Hawking now. But if you wanna be a dick and super modern about it and think that nothing is more important than science, you will note that medicine is there and actively pursued.

So what, what does all of this have to do with the Church not being suppressive? Well literally everyone, both scholars and students in a medieval university was a member of the clergy. That’s right. Are you a Christian and you wanna learn about medicine? Well you need to take holy orders first. So every single scientific advancement that came out of a medieval university (and there were plenty) was made by a man of the cloth.

The quick among you might have spotted that the thing about unis is that they were just for dudes though, and that is lamentably true. Women weren’t able to take the same orders as men, which means they were excluded from university training. Plenty of them got tutored if they were rich. (See poor Heloise who just had Abelard, like, do himself at her.) Otherwise there was plenty of sweet stuff going on in nunneries still and always, as the visionary natural biologist Hildegard of Bingen can attest. Monasteries were also still producing good stuff as Thomas Aquinas would be happy to let you know from the comfort of his Dominican order.

Given that all of this is the case, it’s hard to square that circle of “the Church is intentionally suppressing knowledge!” with the fact that everyone actively working on acquiring and furthering knowledge was a member of it and all. The Church was a welcoming home to scholars because it was a place where you got the time needed to contemplate subjects for a long time. If you have your corporeal needs taken care of, then you can go on to think about stuff. The Church offered that.

Having said all of this, there were, of course, plenty of Jewish and Muslim scholars at work in medieval Europe as well. The thriving Jewish communities of the medieval period had their own complex theological discussions about the Talmud, and produced their own truly delightful sexual and scientific theory that I will never tire of reading.

I’ve also talked at length about how Islamic medical advances were very much taken on board by medieval Christians in Europe. The fact that the Christians in holy orders beavering away at the medical faculties of universities across Europe were very much looking to a Muslim guy called Ibn Sinna for medical knowledge makes it hard to see the Church as an oppressive hater of all things non-Catholic. I’m just saying.

What else is at play here? Meh, society writ large. A lot of us in the English as a first language speaking world, and in northern Europe more generally have been raised in a Protestant context even if we ourselves are not Protestant. The thing about that is Protestants, famously, is that they are not huge fans of the Church. Big news, I know. In the Early Modern period this could get kinda wild, with things like the Great Fire of London being blamed on a nefarious “Papish plot”, for example, becoming a nice early example of a conspiracy theory. (That conspiracy theory was still written in Latin at the based of The Monument built to commemorate the fire until 1830 when the Catholics were officially emancipated in Britain. LOL.)

When the whole Enlightenment thing went down, generalised distrust of Catholics was then later compounded by the fact that “serious” thinkers aka Voltaire’s ridiculously basic self began to categorise the accumulation of knowledge specifically in opposition to religious thought. This is the old “Age of Reason” which we currently allegedly reside in, versus the “Age of Faith” idea. The Church as an overarching institution from the age of faith was therefore thought of as necessarily regressive, and it became assumed that it has always been actively attempting to thwart advantage for vaguely sinister reasons that are never fully articulated.

…Now, plenty of people were killed for witchcraft because they were doing medicine. The witch trials were a very real thing, and you know when and where they happened? In the modern period, and usually with a greater regularity in Protestant places. Witchcraft trials peak in general from about 1560-1630 which is the modern period. The most famous trials with the biggest kill count took place in Trier, Fulda, Basque, Wurtzburg, Bamberg, North Berwick, Torsåker and Salem. You know what was going on in most of the places? The Reformation. Witch trials sort of reflected various confessions of Christianity’s ability to effectively protect their flocks from evil. Did Catholics kill “witches” oh you bet your sweet ass they did. So did Protestants, and it was all fucking ugly.

What is important to note is that in countries where Catholicism was static witch trials were largely unheard of. Ireland, the Iberian Peninsula, and Italy, for example, just didn’t go in for them even though they were theoretically in the clutches of a nefarious Church bent on destroying all medical knowledge or something.

Now, none of this is to excuse the multifarious sins of the institutional Church over the years. In many ways my entire career as a medieval historian is a product of the fact that I was frustrated with the Church after 16 years of Catholic school. If you had to go to a High School named after the prosecutor in the Galileo trial, you might also end up devoting yourself to picking intricate theological fights with the Church, OK? (Yes, this is my origin story.)

And that brings us to the crux of the matter: if you make up a bunch of stuff that the Church did not do it makes it harder to critique them of the manifold things they actually did do and are doing right fucking now. We need to be critiquing the Magdalene Laundries; the international cover up of pedophile priests; signing an actual concordant with Nazi Germany; the regressive attitudes towards abortion and contraception that happen still, now, and endanger the lives of countless women. All of this is real, and calls for the strongest possible condemnation.”

- Eleanor Janega, “JFC, calm down about the medieval Church.”

[idylls-of-the-divine-romance]

Now that I'm finished with that, let's get started.

Now [my response] regarding the things of which you wrote to me:

The earlier chapters were dedicated to addressing problems reported by the household (or just "people" in the Greek, I believe) of a woman named Chloe. She was a trusted and influential leader, or at least it's assumed she was as Paul spent the first 6 chapters addressing things she and her family/people wrote to him about. Mostly I just think it's important to not she is only one of many, MANY important women in early church history.

The Corinthians had written to Paul, asking him several questions relating to Christian life and problems in the Church. In particular these were instructions on Christian marriage, freedoms and public worship. The first addressed (and probably, by implication, the first asked) was the issue of Christian marriage and whether it was good or not to be married.

It is good for a man not to touch a woman [or: "not to marry", "not to have sexual relations with a woman", "to live in celibacy"]. Nevertheless, because there is so much sexual immorality [i.e. prostitutions], each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband.

Context: First I feel like I should point out that in Greece (and to some degree Rome) there was this extreme separation between the spiritual and the physical and that neither affected the other. A separation that still persists in Christianity (thx to Platonic Greek and Puritan influence) to this day and is distinctly not scriptural. But that's another blog post. The point is there were two groups in Corinth:

One group was hedonistic, claiming that sin only had to do with the physical body, and that believers could sin in their physical bodies without it having an affect on their spirtual lives (remember the prostitutes. And the man that slept with his step mom. Yeah. That happened. 1 Cor. 5:1. And the Church acted liked this was all fine!!!!). This misconception was corrected in chapter 6:12-20.

The other group believed that all things spiritual are good and all things physical are bad (hey look! It's 19th century Victorian purity culture. Huh. You're older than I thought, aren't you?). They claimed that in order to be a truly spiritual a person has to suppress every physical desire (Wow. Paleo-puritans? Paleo-victorians?). Proponents of this view that celibacy is the only proper lifestyle.

Now, on the surface, this does look like Paul is agreeing with the second extremist group; saying that everyone should remain unmarried but only because people lack self discipline, they should get married. It is better to remain develop a permanent relationship with a wife or husband then to lapse into sexual sin.

This is a very negative portrayal of marriage. Which is in direct conflict with the entire Song of Songs, where sex and marriage are seen as gifts from God. So what's up with that? And even worse worse, Man and Woman (Adam and Chava/Eve) are married back in Genesis! And Woman was created not because of Man's sexual desire (or yes because but that gets into the theology and philosophy of love which is very interesting and might come up later) but rather as his ezer (typically translated "helper" better translated "partner" or even "deliverer". Seriously, be careful with yalls translations).

So spouses exist to complete and better the other. Man was literally cut in half to create Woman. And all men are born from Woman. So clearly, men and women need each other in the Tanakh. And not only that but their union is holy. So what the heck is Paul talking about. Well, let's keep reading, shall we?

(One Note: there is a doctor, translator and linguists who believes that the "It is proper for a man to live in celibacy" is best attributed to the letter from the Corinthians. So this was their question and not Paul's response. That said, that's only one, admittedly pretty iffy, translation. Most translations say otherwise and his is pretty sectarian. So I use it as a reference and as commentary, but not as Gospel. Stupid pun intended.)

A husband has the marital responsibility of fulfilling the sexual needs of his wife, and likewise a wife to her husband.

Okay so this does not answer our question (is marriage only for the weak). It does say however, married couples should not deprive each other of sex for no reason. Simple. In fact the next couple of verses will be about marital responsibilities.

The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.

*GASP* PAUL IS DEFENDING MARITAL R*PE! OH MY DIOS! THE HORROR!!!1!!

Well... at least his feminist about it *shrugs*

Now I'm being sarcastic and am creating a caricature, but some of you may be saying, "Well, Kaleb, that's what those verses say. Aren't we supposed to take the bible literally???" Op literally said "he [meaning Paul] defends marital rape". Yeah so about that... it's literally (ha) not possible to take the scriptures 100% literally. But imma reserve that for part 4 cause this is getting long lol

For the sake of not filling up op's activity, I'll post my response here. I'm responding to this post here. And boyyyyyyyyyy is there a lot to unpack there. That said (in case op reads this) I would like first and foremost to thank you for being (moderately) reasonable and respectful. Even tho you did overgeneralize quite a bit (which is a logical fallacy) and make a few assumptions, you didn't shout expletives or call me a "cultist p*do" so I'll thank you for that.

Two more things before I start:

Never. Read. A. Bible. Verse. You take something out of context and you can justify any thing. The Scriptures (because I think "Bible" is a misleading term) are literature and have intense literary design. You can't read things out of context. If you read the Iliad out of context you could think it's about numerous things: how Helen's a s**t (even tho Homer never says that), how stealing women from the men who've enslaved them is wrong (yikes), how we should all burn down cities, how war is dangerous, how war is good, how glory is the best, how Achilles is the worst, how Achilles is the best, how being a real man means killing people in a fit or grief and rage. But the Iliad is actually about the destructive power of rage. Which you only know if you read it correctly. Same with the Scriptures.

It's Ancient Jewish Meditation Literature. And you need to know what those 4 words means because otherwise you will be reading the bible entirely wrong. It's Ancient (i.e. written FOR us but not TO us). It's Jewish (written in Hebrew or by Aramaic/Greek writers thinking in Hebrew; written in a distinctive Near Eastern Style). It's for Meditation (from a word meaning "too mutter". You are to meditate or mutter under your breath the Scriptures day and night for a lifetime). And it's literature (it's art. Divinely inspired art. But art nonetheless. There is an overarching narrative, symbolic key, theme and goal).

(EDIT: Somehow I forgot this last one). Everything EVERYTHING connects BACK to the first 3 chapters of Genesis and FORWARD to the Messiah.

Now. Let's begin.

[feministdialogues]

<Midori side>

It's been a while, but I thought that the theory of bad Christianity was strange, so I'll write this.

・First, western leftists blame Christianity for everything, but pre-Christian Druids were more cruel with sacrificial rituals. At least ending the sacrificial custom is a compliment to Christianity.

・There are many other more cruel religions and customs, such as the Inca sacrificial rituals, the African genital mutilation practice, the Islamic whip punishment, and so on. Christianity has female, black, LGBT priests, no other religion has such people. I can’t understand the meaning of hating so much.

・The Pope has acknowledged sexual abuse in the church, and movies have been made. On the other hand, the Japanese government has been denying the comfort women issue for more than 70 years and has continued to visit Yasukuni. It's like the German Chancellor keeps visiting the tombs of Nazi officers. The level is different, right?

・ There was a white rose resistance movement that fought against the Nazis with Christianity, and the local church was also protesting. Even only it is unbelievable things.

・Japanese Buddhism also cooperated in the war, but there was no temple protesting fascism. Since Buddhist monks are originally authoritarian, protesters are said to have been cracked down in the temple.

・ The Nazis of the National Socialist Workers' Party were left-wingers in the first place, and the eugenic thought comes from the theory of evolution, which was the most advanced science at the time (although it is twisted).

・ The nature is a harsh world where it is natural to be eaten if it is weak. If we deny god and moral, it will be applied to the human world. And people will take it granted for that the weaker is being bullied and the strong man to behave violently and become a savage world. Even so, if we want to live like a human being with good and evil view, we need an artificial structure such as a god to judge and morality.

・It is said that human rights thought was created by sharing the sacredness of the Christian god with individuals. Animism and Buddhism, which see animals and humans equally, could not give birth to human rights ideas. Because following question arises, “When animals are killed and eaten, why only humans have the right not to be done so?”

・ Japan was animism, but during the war, the Emperor Monotheism was instantly created to unite the people.

・ Isn't religion just used for power and war?

・ In a communist nation that has thoroughly suppressed religion, individual political leaders are worshiped and are no different from religion.

・ Communism also affirmed rape for the liberation of sex, and was as bad as or worse than capitalist nations such as hunger exports, Holodomor, sedation, and genocide, whole victims are estimated about sixty hundred people… And the disparity is generally larger than that of capitalist nations.

・ The left wing blames conservatives for revisionism, but claims that the Nazis are right wing, does not take responsibility for communism, then the left wing is also revisionism.

・ Japan is the lowest in the world giving index, despite leftist thought is known but not accepted well. The Japanese elite is very cold to the weak and the donation amount is small, but the philanthropic spirit is rooted in the Western elite and the donation amount is high.

・ What is the difference? Leftist thought don’t have efficiency well. Isn't it only possible to say that it is a difference in religious spirit that has taken root since ancient times?

・ Shinto also has a "穢れ" idea that makes the victim "dirty" when an incident occurs, and Buddhism also has a strong self-responsibility theory and does not engage in philanthropic activities, so it is a more fierce market fundamentalism than Protestantism.

・ If you look at the deduction method, there are many negatives about Christianity, and Buddhism may be easy to evaluate, but if you look at the point addition method, it is a great achievement to spread Christian humanitarianism and philanthropy.

・ Which is better, a group that has done a lot of bad things but also left a lot of good things, or a group that may have had few bad things but has hardly done good things? I think the former is better for living in the future, Anyone who are always criticizing and does nothing will not save anyone.

・Christian philanthropy is certainly inherited in the Western world, and Westerners also benefit from it. I think it is dishonest to blame Christianity for everything. That’s just the escape from responsibility.

・ The reason why Japanese people like the United States despite the atomic bombing is that their governance was much better than their own government. The actual victim may be looking at things calmly and not resenting the perpetrator. They just want help.

・ I think the western leftists have become too dogmatic these days. They even prioritize ideology over the opinions of the actual weak and even blame them for not following it. I felt so painful when I was attacked personally as I said opposite to the ideology in that group. they were very cold to the voice requesting a help… It's natural to lose people’s support.

・ There was an article about a black man who supported Trump. He said he was in favor of Trump's plan to get black people to work.

・ I think most of real weak people want actual support measures rather than criticizing, anti-discrimination and anti-capitalism. If whites willing to help colored people, I want them to respect the opinions of actual weak and imagine their situations and think about what they can do.

[bonktime]

Weather The Storm

Chapter 2: Hand Over Fist

Ezra (Prospect) x f!reader (no y/n) 1861 Lighthouse au 

Rated: E (just the whole story)

Previous // Masterlist // Next

Art by the incredible @honestly-shite​ I’m so blown away 🥰💘

Summary: Ezra settles into life in the north but he can’t seem to wrap his head around the keeper. As they dance around each other a clash with another local brings some truths into the light.

Warnings: Language, violence, a boat load of sexual tension, a bunch of victorian sexism, angst, fluff, hurt/comfort? (smut will come)

Note: Written in the 3rd person so i guess you could read as oc? but I never name or describe her, except being short. I had loads of fun writing this! Loads of descriptions of the weather because that’s who I am and also touching. Next chapter will probably be a little late but please forgive me!

Wordcount: 3630

~~~~~~~~~

The wind was like nothing else. Four days at sea and Ezra was fairly sure it was making him deaf. It roared and screamed through the wood of the boat like he's never heard. Rattling anything loose and merging with the groans of the beams and the waves into a great cacophony of noise.

There was a knack to sailing in winds so strong, one he was very glad he'd got the hang of previously else he would probably have been tossed overboard that first morning. Even so the violent movement of the ship beneath him had been a surprise. Any time he put anything down he had to keep a close eye or it would end up on the other side of the room. It made sleep exceedingly difficult when being tossed out of the hammock was a possibility, so he was lucky to get a couple of hours between shifts.

The work was hard and one particularly malicious seagull had made off with a biscuit he had been about to take a bite out of, combined with the lack of sleep and the rolling waves, it had made him irritable at best down right foul at worst. Still, the rest of the crew were likable and only jibed in a good humoured way at the newcomer. And, whenever the bite of the cold got too much, he had a new memory to warm him up. Even so as they came into port on that forth morning, he was picturing that warm bed and the flickering firelight. 

On the walk back along the sea something caught his eye. He stopped to pick it up.

 ⧫⧫⧫

Ezra arrived just as the keeper was leaving the lighthouse. She saw him crossing the causeway, as the sun peeked over the horizon, turning the sky every colour from deep blue to the brightest pink. He waved at her as she waited for him to approach, unable to help but admire her. Dressed in blue, she contrasted against the sky and its reflection in the water. She positively shone. As he got close, he smiled.

"It would appear I was wilfully incorrect about something"

"About what?" She cocked her head at him

"There is colour here. But to witness it you must have patience. "

He took a step closer. holding out his hand "I discovered this on my meander back to your charming abode, I believe you would appreciate it." In her hand he gently placed a chunk of sea glass, worn soft by the sands but still bright deep blue. He stayed close as she held it up to let the sun shine through. She could smell the sea on him, salty and something else. Looking up at him she wondered why he had been so thoughtful. "It's beautiful, thank you" he smiled at her, eyes creasing warmly.

 ⧫⧫⧫

A week passed and they talked in the mornings but their days never seemed to line up so they could only see each other for meals. Ezra spent his evenings in the living room, reading by the fire whenever he was home, and his mornings wandering the coast to distract himself from the woman in the water. 

Once on his walk he met the other keeper. The man had looked exhausted as if he was carrying a weight on his shoulders. He didn't say much, just to give his thanks to the other keeper and then he'd hurried away.

Further down the shoreline he liked to watch the market get set up. Watch the women waiting for the fishing boats to get in, preparing to gut and fillet and sell. He chatted to them sometimes, offering a hand carrying out the tables if they needed it. One girl always gave him a cup of tea after, laughing at his jokes and smiling. She was pretty and definitely would have caught his eye before. But now? He was friendly enough, and polite, but just couldn't work out why he was so uninterested. It wasn't like him. She made a nice friend though, and it was pleasant to get to know someone apart from the keeper even if he wasn't staying too long. And even if he didn't know the keeper all that well.

Ezra mentioned a woman he met at the fishery to the keeper. As much as she knew and liked her, it stung in a way the keeper couldn't quite identify. She was kind and soft and pretty and just the opposite of her. All of her hard edges and bitterness and isolation. But she didn't have any good cause or right to feel envious. Still, she thanked him for the warning, should she come across them together at least she wouldn’t be surprised.

 ⧫⧫⧫

There was another week of only seeing each other in the wee hours before both Ezra and the keeper had a shared day off.

He offered to come with her into town and help carry things. Mostly he just wanted her to show him around which she knew but she agreed anyway.

The sun showed itself as they walked together warming their skin. He watched the keeper raise her head to bask in it, smiling as she tried to explain what she needed from town with him interrupting after every item to ask questions.

She was glowing and it was starting to affect Ezra. Her skirt was pinned up a little above her ankles so it didn't dip in the sand and she'd forgone her usual headscarf and shawl to enjoy the sun. She had laughed at him as they'd left, at all his layers, called him a southern pansy. He'd grinned "Not everyone is so accustomed to this frigid weather. The cold bites those who it has not made an acquaintance with. Not unlike a wary dog."

"If you stayed a few winters here and swam in the North Sea you'd end up as hardy as any of us I reckon" he'd just smirked.

 ⧫⧫⧫

The keeper decided Ezra spoke just the way he did just to confuse people. Every time she’d asked him what a word meant he had grinned, but he did explain without condescension. He had spent nearly an hour chatting away to the grocer when she’d gone to the butcher and the baker. Upon asking, it turned out he had been trying to find a fruit he was fond of, but all the frills in his speech had led to a debate between the owners about what he had meant which he had then stayed quiet during just for enjoyment. When she had gone back to find him he was grinning ear to ear as the two men bickered. She had suppressed a laugh and sorted it out quickly before they had gotten even more irked by the outsider. Ezra had seen the laugh in her eyes though.

The final stop was the bookshop. A small place, stacked floor to ceiling and owned by the keeper’s oldest friend. She was sitting outside in the sun and jumped up wrapping the keeper in a warm hug. 

"Lass you work too fucking hard. I haven't seen hide nor hair of you in Christ knows how long!" 

She grinned; the first time Ezra had seen it. He should make her grin more.

"Aye I'm starting to agree, how're the bairns at this rate they'll have grown a foot before I can see them again. Oh, shit sorry.” She gestured to him “This is my lodger Ezra, Ezra this is Amelia."

He wonders vaguely if everyone the keeper knows can give looks that pierce the soul. He gives the shopkeeper a nod and her face breaks into a smile. As they headed into the shop, clouds began to gather overhead.

"Come on pet, I've got something new I just know you'll love."

The shop seemed ready to burst at the seams. Ezra paroused but couldn’t stop himself listening into their conversation.

“How have you been, really? I worry about you all alone up there.” Amelia asked her eyes full of concern. Ezra subtly rounded a bookshelf so he wouldn’t seem nosey.

“I… Well I’ve been worse like. Every day is easier and I’m not alone at the moment as you’ve seen.”

“You seem to collect sailors, you.”

The keeper laughed “I just like the company! And I like being alone the rest of the time as you well know.”

“Oh aye the company. Nothing to do with,” Amelia lowered her voice “I divn’t nah… the roguishly good looks? You always loved a bit of trouble, dafty that you are”

“Hey! He just rents the room, we’re… friends I guess.” Ezra wished he could see her to gage how she really felt.

“Sure you pet.”

 ⧫⧫⧫

20 minutes later they left, a copy of Great Expectations wrapped carefully in tissue paper and stowed at the bottom of her bag, surrounded so it would stay dry should it rain. As they stepped out a woman seized the keeper's arm, she was accompanied by the vicar and glaring viciously. The keeper swallowed and introduced Ezra, he saw how uncomfortable she was, how her mood had changed since just minutes before.

"The ever elusive keeper shows herself yet again" the vicar speaks, face impassive, "I thought you might have died since you don't attend church, perhaps you'd met god's reckoning after… being so loose with your commitments." 

Ezra watches her jaw clench "I have told you before, when I work the night, I cannot attend in the morning."

The other women smirked "Work the night is one way of putting it." She eyed Ezra.

The vicar sighed "It is disappointing you disobey god's will. Your father should have married you off while he had the chance. Then your husband would keep you in line. If he could see you now, he'd be so ashamed"

Ezra froze but before he could react, he saw the rage pass over her face, fiery and passionate. She couldn't help it, she saw red, couldn't stop herself. She punched the vicar square on the nose.

The other woman shrieked. "What is wrong with you? You've hurt him!" Indeed, blood did start to drip out of his nose but he straightened himself up and grabbed the keepers arm pulling her close and raising his fist to strike.

"You're nothing but a worthless little whore. It's no wonder your sailor left as soon as you-" he was cut off by Ezra's fist, catching his jaw and sending him sprawling.

"I will not abide you speaking to the lady in this manner." He shook out his hand, and stepped over him, bending to seize his hair and pressing his blade to his neck "And to strike her?" He scowled down at the man who was opening and shutting his mouth like a fish. "What is that mantra you holy men spout? Turn the other cheek." The keeper's jaw dropped, she had known Ezra was rough around the edges but to strike a man of God, to threaten him, for her?

Against the incoming storm, it was as if he'd grown. Become huge and monstrous and brutal in a way she hadn't seen, a glimpse of what lay beneath all his beautiful words and pleasant disposition. It moved something in the keeper, something dangerous. Not many people would far defend her, let alone in such a way. 

Lightning flashed overhead forking down to meet the sea, in the light she could see the hard glint in his eye, the one he'd worn when they'd first met, even as he smiled. This was a man who had done far worse and all she could feel was grateful. It squeezed around her heart.

"I suspected as much. You must have forgotten yourself for a moment." Ezra stood and pulled the vicar to his feet, squeezing his arm harshly still baring that viscous grin as he pulled him close and murmured "I'd truly hate for you to suffer another grievous lapse in judgement, who knows what may become of you."

The keeper looked at the other woman "Judge not lest ye be judged? You had better pray for forgiveness.” She stepped forwards shoulders back as thunder rumbled around them “There's a storm coming and your husband works the water. I'd hate for the lord to compel me to make an error." The woman gasped at her a cold glare. Ezra looked at the keeper as she straightened out her dress. He could have laughed at her nonchalance, it gave him pause, how he saw her quiet power. She would make quite the foe. She gave Ezra a nod and he took her arm as they walked away.

He can feel how tense she was through her arm, despite her calm demeanour panic and anxiety were coming off her in waves. They walked back along the beach in silence as the heavens opened, pouring rain down around them. Ezra frowned to himself, perhaps with all the flitting around he had forgotten how to behave. Had lost some of himself, every old sin chipping away at his humanity was taking its toll. He'd come here for some fucking quiet, why did he always find trouble, or make it? Perhaps those years… he wasn't good. Punching a priest though? The keeper was a menace.

Half way he stopped turning her to look at him.

"Why didn't you tell me you were married?" she looked away from him at the waves. White horses were being blown, throwing spray up into the air.

"I never was. He left before we could."

The rain beating down made it hard to look up at him, it dripped into her eyes and ran down her face like tears. The rain and thunder were near deafening as he looked at her face, saw the pain and the other emotion, the one he can't identify.

"What happened?" He nearly has to shout to be heard over the storm and the waves. Reaching for her, taking her hand and feeling the calluses on her fingers.

"What always happens! I fell in love, and I thought he did too. But after, after we. He did what sailors always do." she threw off his hand and stepped back, the sea lapping at her ankles.

"What is it sailors always do? I do not appreciate you painting us all with such broad strokes." Now he's shouting, a bit out of frustration but mostly to be heard as the wind begins to howl, merging sea spray and rain until the only thing he could see was her.

"He sailed away!" She was suddenly very grateful for the rain; he couldn't see the tears that had rolled down her face. He frowned at her a deep furrow in his brow. "And so, he's right! I am a whore and probably everything else too." She looked wild, wind whipping her skirt to and fro. She glared at him, daring him to judge her. "I was relieved! I didn't want to marry him, he wanted to leave and I didn't. I enjoyed what we did!" She pressed her palm to her forehead. No idea how he would react. "He could’ve said goodbye" she whispered it, let the crash of the waves muffle the sound.

To her surprise he tugged her hand away from her face, looking into her eyes, jaw set, rain plastering his hair to his head.

"Let's go home."

Keeping her hand gently clasped in his he led her along the beach to the island.

 ⧫⧫⧫

Both of them were soaked to the bone by the time they had re-entered the cottage. Ezra could feel the keepers hand trembling in his.

"Go change out of that wet garb, I'll light the blaze in the living room and set the water to boil"

She nodded and entered her room as he did his own. He quickly pulled off his wet clothes and tugged on a fresh shirt surprised to hear her call out to him.

"Ezra, can you help me?"

He entered her room slowly, still only in his long shirt, taking it in. The bed was wide enough for two and had as many blankets as his own, there was a small wardrobe and a chest and a stack of books on a bedside table. On top of which he saw the glass he'd given her, not yet added to the chime in the window.

She was in her corset and chemise, back to him, dripping onto the rag-rug on the floor.

"I can't seem to," she was reaching behind herself. "With it wet and my damn swollen knuckles I can't loosen the tie. Please, can you help?"

He swallowed thickly as she looked back at him then away. Gently he reached for her, big hands and nimble fingers beginning to loosen the knot. "I'll take a look at that hand if you would allow me, check you haven't done any tangible damage." She nodded.

As he finished, he couldn't help brushing his fingers across the bare skin of her shoulder. It was soft and warm under his cold fingers. She stiffened slightly and turned to him, looking up at his face. His frown remained but that steely glint was gone, giving way to wide sad eyes. She looked at his hands, big, strong and bruised. She took one in her own, inspecting the cut across his knuckles.

"You needn't hurt yourself in defence of me, I shouldn't have hit him." She gently rubbed her thumb over the swelling to check her hadn't dislocated anything and tried to ignore how he tensed.

"I could not abide his hurting you, not with his words and certainly not with his fist" he turned her hand mirroring her gesture to feel her knuckles, they were swollen but nothing felt out of place. He kept a hold of her hand as he looked back up at her face.

She looked into his eyes, deep and dark enough to fall into. They stared back into hers without hesitation. She held his hand for just a moment longer before letting go. As she did, he turned and left, closing the door gently behind him.

He didn't give her the chance to thank him.

 ⧫⧫⧫

When she had dressed and headed down stairs, Ezra was pouring tea, he looked up. She was still dishevelled and shivering a little.

"Come on, let's get warmed up"

He led her through to the living room and sat her down on the rug in front of the fire handing her a cup of tea. Sitting down across from her he spoke, his legs brushed hers as he stretched out but he didn’t move away.

"What I cannot apprehend is why you don't want to depart this glacial place. You are not treated compassionately and there are locations all over with preferable climates."

She gave a small smile. "Because I like it here, it isn't perfect but I have my friends and my work and my home and where would I go? How well do you think the world would treat a woman like me?"

He shrugged, "People may surprise you. They have me on many occasions. I even astonish myself sometimes"

"Or they'll behave exactly as they always do. People are predictable like that." She sighed and sipped her tea. The warmth of the fire finally took an effect. "It seems we are at an imbalance. You know plenty about me, although not because I wanted you to. How about you tell me where you got that accent?"

He grinned. "I suppose I can reveal a little information. If only for the sake of equality."

So, he told her. Told her about his home, his mother, about when she passed. How he had to work to survive and found that he didn't get seasick. He picked up words and dialect wherever he went, combining them with his own until he wasn't sure what he used to sound like. She had laughed at him upon learning he wasn't a strong swimmer. 

"I can't believe you haven't been thrown overboard and drowned yet! You're unbelievably lucky!" He'd loved the sound.

He missed out a lot of the more unsavoury details of the work he’d done but the whitewashed version was honest enough. How going back to where he grew up still hurt, he had only visited once. Instead, he travelled, worked, and enjoyed himself.

"I don't know. You said I must be lonely here but you, you travel alone. You can't make good friends, you've no home to return to." She watched his face. "It seems you're far more alone than I am"

His brow furrowed "We can agree to disagree on that."

"And I still don't understand why you're here. Why aren't you somewhere warm?"

He shrugged and avoided the question, "If I wasn't, I would not have had the astounding pleasure of meeting you."

She frowned at how he ignored her question, but brushed it off.

The rain was finally beginning to ease as Ezra dozed off. Sitting on the floor slumped against the chair by the fire. He looked peaceful, no shadows playing behind his eyes, so she didn't wake him. Instead as the sun dipped, she laid a blanket over him and went to light the light.

The winds had made for a tense shift. Always keeping a weather eye on the sea for ships that might have got into trouble but eventually the sun rose and she stopped the clockwork and went back to the cottage.

Ezra had already left to get to The Mistress and she was surprised at the slight sting that they hadn't got to say goodbye. Next time she'll wake him.

She was even more surprised by how much she missed his company.

~~~~~~~~

Glossary

Hand over fist: Going forth rapidly in an endeavour, comes from ‘hand over hand’ when climbing the rigging.

Bairns: Kids, affectionate

Divn’t nah: Don’t know, couldn’t not include this

Dafty: fool, idiot, affectionate

~~~~~~~~

Taglist

Ezra

@fandom-blackhole

WTS

@something-tofightfor

Because I crave validation

@danniburgh

[nicolewoo]

Yo, Jamie!!! It’s almost done.

Pairing: King Roman Reigns X Female reader

Warnings: None

My average day was a controlled chaos. Everyone wanted an audience with the king, and I had to know what issues were pressing, which nobles I could and couldn’t talk to, and a million other details. All of these things weighed on me daily. Now, with my mother and the church pressing me to take a bride, I’d reached a breaking point.

 After I had yelled at a servant for no reason, Charles the Lord of Sussex and my most trusted advisor and friend, suggested we take a few hours to go riding this morning. He’d been right, too. A few hours away from the castle and the nobles was exactly what I needed.

 We’d tried to slip out before the sun rose so we could avoid anyone, but as we prepared to leave the grounds, the Captain of the Guard saw us. Christopher was a tall lanky man with almost no hair anymore and an unfortunate habit of rubbing his face when he was nervous. Now, as he insisted that the king should not ride un-escorted, his hand brushed over his face repeatedly.

 “Your highness, we have hundreds of nobles arriving this week. I’m afraid there will be more thieves in the forest. I’ve got plenty of guards on the road, but if you’ll be avoiding the road,” he eyed me suspiciously, knowing I never stayed on the road, “I insist you take a couple of guards.”

I begrudgingly agreed but told the guards to stay far back from us unless we encountered other people.

Charles and I enjoyed a very peaceful ride, stopping once for a cleansing swim in a river and to eat some bread and cheese Charles packed. “My friend, you’ve done me a great service today.” I said as I lounged shirtless on a patch of grass soaking in the sun.

 Charles cocked his head a bit as if surprised to hear a compliment. “It’s my pleasure, sire. You needed a break.”

 “I guess we should head back.” I admitted as I stood and finished getting dressed. Charles finished a minute before me and packed up the rest of the food. Once mounted on my horse, I hesitated to leave. “I wish I could do this every day, like we did when we were kids.”

 Charles smiled at me. “You were never destined to a life of leisure, Your Highness. God chose you to be a wise and fair king who is building a greater country and a greater world.” He whistled to the guards I’d forgotten were even with us, and they mounted their horses to follow us. “Besides, you’d be miserable if you lived a quiet, boring life.” We both laughed.

 Finding a slow trot, Charles and I continued talking, mostly about Charles’s sexual conquests. As a young, unmarried titled man, he had his choice of lovers in the court, and none of them ever kept his attention for more than a few months. Knowing I’d be married off one day in a probable political move, I’d chosen to be much less adventurous. I’d enjoyed the affections of a couple of women, but I never knew if it was because they liked me or the idea of becoming a queen. Now that I was king, I was too busy, too stressed, too careful. I noticed the ladies at court. There were a couple of fetching noble women, but none that sparked anything even close to passion.

 I knew it was time to marry. I wanted to get married, but for love. Instead, women from around the world were invading my castle, and I was to meet every single one of them in a week-long quest to find a wife. Not only would my attendance be necessary at every meal and every social occasion, I was to meet each potential candidate in person and in private (with a chaperone), a task I was dreading. Meeting after meeting of women throwing themselves at my feet trying to become the next queen.

 “Are you ok, highness?” Charles’s voice broke me out of my worry.

 “Just thinking about this week.” I admitted to him.

 Charles thought for a moment before talking. “I envy you. You’ll have your choice of women. If I were you, I’d bed whichever ones I wanted. You could have a wife and mistress by the end of the week.”

 Of course, he was excited about the prospect of more women at court. “My friend, I believe you’re going to bed many of them this week.” I chuckled.

 Charles laughed with me, “Not until Your Royal Highness has ruled them out as your future queen.”

 “Well then, I’ve finally found the worth of being a king. I don’t have to accept your discarded women.” I stopped my horse at a river so both of us could drink. Charles pulled up besides us and jumped off his horse too.

 Charles’s laugh rang out over the forest. “Would that be so bad?”

 “Your prowess is well known, and I’ve seen ladies after you’ve spent an evening with them. I’d be afraid I’d disappoint.” I said.

 Charles smiled shyly. “Sire, you know whomever you choose must be pure.”

 I laughed now, “Are there any pure women anymore?”

 “On my oath sire, I’ve tried to ensure there are no virgins in this country. That’s why we are importing new virgins from other countries to meet you.” Charles teased before becoming serious. “I have a great feeling about this week, sire. I honestly think you’ll meet a fetching young bride from some exotic country that needs an alliance with us and you’ll find some measure of joy in your marriage.”

 “An alliance?” I looked down in disappointment and patted my mare on the neck reassuringly. “I’m afraid that’s all my marriage will be about.”

 “I’m telling you sire,” Charles said as he bent low to fill his water skin, “I believe you will find someone who will give you a cordial marriage.”

 “Cordial? I guess love is too much to hope for.” I hopped back on my horse.

 Charles mounted his horse too and we began a slow trot through the woods. “That’s what the mistress is for.” I knew he was jesting, but the seriousness of the whole situation fell on me again as we rode.

 Why was I forbidden to marry for love? Why was I born to be king? “Let’s speak of other things. Our ride was supposed to distract me.”

  Charles was always quick to raise my spirits. “The delegation from the Arabian Peninsula is bringing you a dozen stallions when they arrive. It’s said their horses are the best.”

At my happy expression he continued. “As soon as they arrive, I’ll let you know. Maybe you can find a few free moments to go see them.”

That sounded great. “Thank you. Not just for letting me know when the horses arrive. Thank you  for today. I needed this.” Charles gave me a respectful nod as his answer. I inhaled the forest air, trying to etch the memory of it into my mind to carry me through this busy week.

“Care to race, Your Highness?” Charles challenged. I didn’t answer but tapped my horse’s side to gallop full speed. I heard Charle’s call of “Not fair.” As I took the lead. He caught up quickly and we raced for a long while.

Realizing I was only hastening my journey back to the castle and my royal obligations, I slowed us down again and we rode in silence for a few short minutes before we heard the ping of metal hitting metal.

“Let the guards go first” Charles suggested.

Metal on metal usually meant swords, so I agreed. I motioned to the guards, and they rode ahead of us for a minute. As we neared the top of a hill, one of the guards motioned that it was safe. I looked ahead and saw a carriage with a wheel off on the King’s Road. “Let’s go help.” I said to the guards.

Peter, a thin young guard with messy hair and a patchy beard answered. “Your Highness, I can take care of this.” He motioned to the younger guard next to him. “William can protect you on the way to the castle if you’d like.”

In that carriage was surely one of my potential brides coming to the castle to meet with me. Yes, I wanted to escape, but maybe I could sneak a peek. If she was fetching, it could go a long way to easing my fears. If she was unattractive, at least I’d be prepared for my meeting with her. I trotted closer to the guard and took in the whole scene in front of me.

Not only had the wheel fallen off; it was stuck under the now emptied carriage. The ladies in waiting and an elderly man I assumed was the driver were seated on a blanket off to the side while what seemed to be the lady of the carriage tried to lift the vehicle.

She’d managed to get a small log on a rock and was trying to pry the carriage up using her body weight. It wasn’t working, but from where I was standing, I got a full view of a truly amazing bottom swaying with her efforts. I was so amused, I pondered not offering her help just to see how she’d do.

 Just as I was about to speak, she defiantly stuck her chin out and looked around my guards locking her eyes on me. “Must I ask for assistance or will it be offered?” She spit the words out like weapons.

 She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen, despite the dirt all over her and hair falling out of it’s restrains and trailing down her neck. Her dress was beautiful despite the oil and dirt covering it. It was wrecked though.  

 She dabbed at some sweat on her forehead with a ragged piece of cloth and ended up smearing dirt on her face.

 Charles leaned forward a bit, “It will do you well to watch your tone in front of...”

 I interrupted, “The Lord of Sussex.” I had stolen Charles’s title, and he gaped after me in confusion. I shot him a look that convinced him to keep quiet.

 She seemed more contrite now. “My apologies, My Lord.” She curtsied a bit.

 I smiled down at her. “Think nothing of it.” I looked at Charles now. “Mister Brandon, Shall we assist this damsel in distress?”

 Charles smiled. “Yes your Lordship.” We dismounted and handed the reigns of our horses to the elderly driver.

 We made short work of lifting and replacing the wheel. After a quick survey of the road, the guards found a missing bolt. With that in place, the carriage would be fine.  

 “Why have I not seen you in court?” I asked as I held the carriage still While Charles and the guards.

 She exhaled haughtily “I’m afraid I’m not very welcome at court, nor do I care to go to court.”

 I lifted my brow “And why is that my lady?” I tried to suppress a laugh. She was so direct, so plain-spoken, unlike most of the women at court. Court could probably do well to have some women with backbones like her. It would at least make court more interesting.

  “I have an unfortunate habit of telling the truth.” I laughed hnow. Seeing that I was genuinely amused, Charles relaxed and laughed too.

 “Well now, telling the truth is a virtue, even at court.” I smiled as Charles chuckled under his breath.

 “My Lord, I’ve seen many things in court, but virtue isn’t one of them.”

I leveled her with my gaze. “Are you saying The King lacks virtue?”

 I caught a brief glimpse of annoyance in her voice.  “I said nothing of the kind!”

 “Are you saying the courtiers are without virtue?” I asked.

She blanched when she realized that as a Lord, I could be a regular at the palace. “My apologies My Lord. No. I simply meant that matters of piety are not a priority to all who attend the court.”

 I glanced over at Charles who was laughing under his breath at her stubbornness.” This is a fun game and one I didn’t want to end just yet.

 “Well, gentle lady, would 2 non-virtuous gentlemen of The King’s Court offer their assistance to a lady in distress?” I asked as I gestured to her now repaired carriage.

 “I tell you truly, sirs, that many in His Magesty’s Court would not assist, but to serve their own purposes.”

 I walked a step closer to her in a show of power, but instead of looking away, she stared me straight in the eye defiantly. “And what, pray tell, do I have to gain from helping you today?”

 “My Lord, I didn’t mean any offence to you or your friend.” She nodded to our party. “You have indeed done me a great favor today.”

 Was she finally breaking? “And what have I asked in return?”

 She smiled now. She was breathtaking when she smiled.

 @mindofasagitarius   @lclb13 @serenityfiretrash @lustyromantic @reigns-5sos @bigpsychicbagelauthor @omg-im-such-a-masochist @marlananicole @wickedsunfire

[comrade-meow]

“Kill all Terfs”. “Shoot a Terf today”. “All terfs deserve to be shot in the head”. “Would you kindly suck on my womanly dick – preferably choke on it”. “Terfs can choke on my Girl Dick”. (These misogynists love the idea of women, especially lesbians, being forced to suck their dicks and preferably choke). “All terfs need to cease existing. All of them. Gone. Wipe them from the Earth. They are a plague to be purged”. “I’m not into mass murder but I’ll commit terf genocide if I have to, tbh”. “What if someone traced the ip of that emily person and went and killed her because i’d do that but I’m a bit far”. “That’s the only thing terfs deserve. being doxxed and killed”. “I wanna direct a snuff film where multiple TERFS get shot in the head but don’t die, they just suffer in agony”. “Murder Germaine Greer”. “Hope someone slits Germaine Greer’s saggy fucking throat”. “Rad fems and terfs make me extra stabby”. And on and on and on it goes relentlessly.

These are documented by the hundreds and hundreds at sites such as ‘Terf is a Slur’ and ‘Peak Trans’.

Not exactly the language of a liberation movement.

This violent misogyny, however, is all fine and dandy with a large section of the left. Especially males.

Who would have guessed that the left involves quite so many men who have a massive chip on their shoulder against women and women’s rights and advances in society and have finally found a way of letting out their previously suppressed inner violent misogynist, albeit vicariously through going along with this vile material? Where they can look woke – pro-trans – instead of obviously looking like the vicious misogynists they clearly are?

Not hard to see where people like “Comrade Delta” and co. come from then. (Comrade Delta was a central leader of the British SWP, their national secretary no less, who sexually assaulted and raped female members and who was protected by other leaders.) The British SWP, not surprisingly, has massively drunk of the trans ideology kool-aid.

And look at the International Socialist Organisation in the United States. ISO was the largest organisation on the US left for several decades, before imploding earlier this year. ISO drank massively from the trans ideology kool-aid and was viciously hostile to gender-critical leftists. And, yes, of course, it also turned out to have been harbouring violent misogynists.

Indeed, it was the discovery that members of its central leadership had been acting rather like the Catholic hierarchy – in this case harbouring and protecting men assaulting women, while the Church hierarchy protected priests who raped kids and nuns who bashed kids – that brought ISO down like a pack of cards in a puff of wind. (American ISO is the group that NZ ISO linked to in the States and whose postmodernist identity politics they have recycled in relation to women’s rights.)

But it’s not just a man thing. There are also lots of “third-wave feminists” – you know, the ones who have benefited massively from the struggles waged by second-wave feminists and leftists but who have nothing but contempt for the very people who fought and partly won those huge battles.

It’s third-wave feminists who dismiss the women’s liberation activists of the late 1960s and early 1970s who actually got struggles for the right to abortion, equal pay and opportunities in the professions and workplaces in general, off the ground, along with progressive trade unionists and left-wing groups. Third-wave feminists haven’t really done much fighting for women – their ‘feminism’ often seems to be more about molly-coddling super-entitled males who can’t grow up and cope as adults, especially men who claim to be women and want to gate-crash women’s sport, women’s changing rooms, women’s toilets, women’s prisons, women’s health resources, and even the definition of what a woman is.

When I was young you had to have empathy with oppressed people to be leftwing. You didn’t pretend to be them, just empathised and solidarised with them. But, apparently not now, according to the new left. Indeed, it positively helps to be violently misogynist and also dismissive of the people who went before and won you so much. And if they complain, pretend to be them and claim they are oppressing you.

In acting like ungrateful spoilt brats, a chunk of younger leftists mimic the capitalists who have contempt for the workers whose labour-power provides their profits. British gender-critical transexual Miranda Yardley has, not surprisingly, called this layer of youthful faux radicals “the pampered offspring of neoliberalism”.

The people who write the vile stuff in these tweets actually believe they are on “the right side of history”, another of their bizarre ideas repeated by a bunch of people, mainly men, on the left. Sorry lads, but violent misogyny will never put you on the right side of history – rather, it puts you well and truly in the cesspit of history.”

[atknz]

* miguel bernardeau , cismale + he/him | you know santiago atkins, right? they’re twenty-four, and they’ve lived in irving for, like, two months? well, their spotify wrapped says they listened to i wanna get better by bleachers like, a million times this year, which makes sense ‘cause they’ve got that whole   (   golden cross necklace squeezed between his fingers to suppress anger, a worn out book of mormon hidden beneath his nightstand, a tired smile    &    weary laugh echoed down the halls  )    thing going on. i just checked and their birthday is JUNE 25TH    so they’re a cancer, which is unsurprising, all things considered.

                       tw for .    religion, religious trauma, repressed gay ness, suicide 

TLDR: dumb but kind jesus lover who doesn’t know being bisexual exists.  IF YOU WANT TO SIMPLY SKIP TO CONNECTIONS AND PERSONALITY, FEEL FREE TO DO SO!!

insp.  jason from bare: a pop opera, shelby from the wilds.

santiago was born to marina ruiz in 1996.  a low-income waitress from madrid, spain. his father is unknown. one day, when marina was at work, she served a group of young men who described themselves as members of the church of latter day saints (mormons), they were american men sent to madrid to carry out their mission of bringing as many people as possible to jesus christ. they were nice, tipped well, and invited her to church.   feeling down on herself, marina figured there was no harm in doing so and her life was completely changed when she became a full fledge member of the LDS church.  santiago, two at the time, had no choice but to follow in her footsteps.    

life for the two wasn’t bad afterward. marina met a man, Beck Atkins, who quickly became a father figure for santiago. the two fell in love, got married merely five months into their relationship, popped out about four more kids (in which she legally changed santiago’s last name to atkins so that it wouldn’t be obvious he was from a different relationship) and, when santiago turned seventeen, the family of seven set their sights on SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH - beck’s hometown.

santiago was in utah for a year before starting his very own mission. he branded a name tag that said ELDER ATKINS, suited up and was shipped to north carolina with a companion, elder brett, as the two went door-to-door in an attempt to save the lives of residence in NC and bring them closer to jesus christ.  between all of the door slams, threats to get off the lawn, and being made fun of, the two always wore a smile and shared a laugh. as thick as thieves is how people would describe santiago and elder brett - which is known to happen when you’re with each other 24/7 and sharing bunk beds.

                            “ one thing led to another and soon i would discover:                               i was having really strange feelings for steve (elder brett) ”

hi if u guessed that bi-repressed santiago would soon fall head over heels for his companion, you’re abso-fucking-lutely right.  however it wasn’t unrequited, the kiss behind the church van four months into their mission taught him that, but santiago was a coward. as much as elder brett was prepared to stand before the church and declare his love - santiago was certain it was a phase, he’s liked girls before, he’s just confused. besides, the scripture, he thought, was very, very  clear.   so they hid it for another year and eight months.

SUICIDE TRIGGER WARNING:        long story short: in a para i’ll get into some day, elder brett had had enough of the secrets, the lying to his family and lying to himself about who he was, at the end of their mission he told santiago he wanted to come out - with or without him - and santiago freaked. he knew it wouldn’t take long for the church to put two-and-two together, and had some extremely harsh words to say to his boyfriend about the decision. about how he was only bored, there were no girls on the trip, he didn’t actually love him, no one could actually love him.     but santiago didn’t know that elder brett was dealing with other demons and, essentially, that came as a last straw for the him. he just remembers a stream of tears pouring from his eyes on his way back to salt lake, the crush of a hug from his mother and father as they apologized for what happened to his friend.    ( in which his dad so lovingly added that elder brett may not make it to the celestial kingdom after ruining god’s plan by ending his life too soon.  )      END TRIGGER WARNING

he stayed at home for a few more years, until remembering a place in NC called irving that he and elder brett felt was quaint and cute, deciding to move there officially in late may. 

BRIEF PERSONALITY  AND  HEAD CANONS.

kind, almost to a fault. he truly is full of love, light, and care. he’s constantly wearing a smile on his face, loves to give hugs and advice and wants the best for everyone.  HE WILL GIVE YOU A HUG UNANNOUNCED

kind of an idiot who is shit at context clues, always finds it strange when people are mean. has never touched a drop of alcohol and doesn’t swear. catch him saying “frick” religiously

jesus christ is his best friend.

has a dark side with an insane amount of anger issues ever since he was a kid. it’s one of the reasons his mother thought the church worked so well because they taught him how to suppress that emotion and... smile instead of feeling it.     which obviously isn’t good, as he could have a tendency to black out and realize he’d completely smashed his tv to bits or punched a hole in the wall.

he’s not 100% sure of his sexuality. he knows he’s into guys so he basically decided that must mean he’s gay but is extremely confused because he also finds himself having crushes on women.  someone sit him down and tell him that bisexuality / pansexuality exists bc he’s HARMED

                                      CONNECTIONS 

he was on his mission in / around irving two years ago ,  2019 - knocking on every door and asking if he and his companion can share the story of jesus christ with them... so pls give me a connect of someone who either entertained the idea, slammed the door in his face or threatened him to get off their lawn.

bad influence. he never touched a drop of alcohol, doesn’t cuss, doesn’t even drink coffee. pls he’s so boring

bible study friends lmao

A FRIEND WHO HE CLUNG TO!! their personality doesn’t matter but it’d be hella cute if they were usually irritated by santiago and he had no idea. he’s like haha ur so funny when ur mean i love u <3

BASICALLY ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING 

TBA IM SO TIRED

[oberlincollegelibraries]

Weekend Edition: Welcome Back

Welcome, Class of 2025! And welcome back to of our returning Obies! For those of you new to the Oberlin College Libraries’ (OCL) blog, you might be wondering what ‘Weekend Edition’ is. Well, Weekend Edition is OCL’s book recommendation series that is posted each weekend during the academic year. We will normally highlight books that have recently been added to OCL’s collection, but there will also be occasions when we recommend older resources, based on a particular theme. 

So what are we highlighting this week? For those of you who have had the Oberlin pandemic experience, you will be happy to hear that today we are showcasing four real, physical books found on our real, physical New Books Shelf*. That’s right! No proxy server, no scheduling pick up times, no requesting scans.... Just real books that you can check out or browse in the library! And these are only a few of the books on display. 

*The New Books Shelf can be found in the Academic Commons of the Mary Church Terrell Main Library. 

Spark: How Genius Ignites, from Child Prodigies to Late Boomers by Claudia Kalb "A look at genius, through portraits of 12 iconic figures in fields ranging from music to medicine, to explore what leads certain people to reach their creative heights early in life, whereas others don't uncover their potential until their later years"-- Provided by publisher

The Woman in the Purple Skirt: A Novel by Natsuko Imamura; translated from the Japanese by Lucy North "A bestselling, prizewinning novel of obsession and psychological intrigue about two enigmatic unmarried women, one of whom manipulates the other from afar, by one of Japan's most acclaimed young writers"-- Provided by publisher “ Almost every day, the Woman in the Purple Skirt buys a single cream bun and goes to the park, where she sits on a bench to eat it as the local children taunt her. She is observed at all times by the undetected narrator, the Woman in the Yellow Cardigan. From a distance the Woman in the Purple Skirt looks like a schoolgirl, but there are age spots on her face, and her hair is dry and stiff. Like the Woman in the Yellow Cardigan, she is single, she lives in a small, run-down apartment, and she is short on money. The Woman in the Yellow Cardigan lures her to a job where she herself works, as a hotel housekeeper; soon the Woman in the Purple Skirt is having an affair with the boss. Unfortunately, no one knows or cares about the Woman in the Yellow Cardigan. That's the difference between her and the Woman in the Purple Skirt.”--Goodreads.com Women and Other Monsters: Building a New Mythology by Jess Zimmerman "This essay collection uses female monsters from Greek mythology to explore traits that women are taught to suppress, and encourage readers to embrace them instead"-- Provided by publisher The folklore that has shaped our dominant culture teems with frightening female creatures. In stories chiefly written by men, women who step out of bounds-- angry or greedy or ambitious, overtly sexual or not sexy enough-- are unnatural, monstrous. Through fresh analysis of eleven female monsters, including Medusa, the Harpies, the Furies, and the Sphinx, Zimmerman takes us on an illuminating feminist journey through mythology. She guides readers to reexamine their relationships with traits like hunger, anger, ugliness, and ambition, teaching readers to embrace a new image of the female hero. Monsters get to be complete, unrestrained, and larger than life. -- adapted from jacket

Motion Studies by Jena Osman Contains three essay-poems that begin as meditations on 19th century science. From chronophotography to algorithmic surveillance, from phrenology to fMRI brain scans, from Victorian specimen collections to the bleached bones of the Great Barrier Reef, each poem in this collection explores technologies of knowing each other within its contextual era.

[doubleca5t]

Hey!! Re: the gay guy married to a woman post, would you happen to remember the video title that you mentioned in the tags? My initial reaction was to clown on him like everyone else but now I’m genuinely interested since this is apparently A Thing

ok so the video was about a different person, specifically Jackie Hill Perry and her book Gay Girl Good God. Basically there are some folks out there in the world of evangelical christianity (and apparently the LDS church as well because that’s what the guy in the first post was) who openly acknowledge that they’re gay, but choose to suppress their urges and marry someone of the opposite sex anyway to preserve their relationship with god.

The book in question is basically this woman talking about her experience foregoing being gay so she could stay christian and it’s supposed to be this inspiring story about how she resisted her urges to “sin” because just just loves god so much but like... it inadvertently makes a very strong case against exactly what she’s doing. Because just by her word choice and the way she talks about dating women vs. marrying the man she’s with now, pretending not to be gay for Jesus sounds like the most depressing, miserable, soul-sucking experience on the planet. Like I honestly feel really bad for her because it seems like she’s basically been manipulated into the situation she’s in now and yet she’s out here giving talks about how this was actually such a great thing for her and how it saved her soul.

If you wanna hear this discussed in depth you can check out Rachel Oates’ three part series on the book, but be warned: this shit gets very dark (cw sexual abuse), very depressing, and if you’re LGBT and grew up around evangelicals, this is probably going to bring back a lot of very bad memories for you.

[quakerjoe]

Face it. The DNC and the Party just aren’t that into you, boo.

We’ve reached critical mass and have crossed the threshold of dereliction of duty with a flying leap here.

Let’s move past the whole Tara Reade accusation in regard to whether or not her claims are true or not. We’re beyond that now. The media has been doing the job of the Democrats, investigating and applying DUE PROCESS that the goddamn DEMOCRATS should have been doing!

THIS IS THE FUCKING ISSUE AT HAND NOW.

Pelosi threw due process out the window. The DNC won’t touch it. They OPENLY COVERED FOR A POTENTIAL RAPIST AND SEXUAL PREDATOR exactly the way the GOP turns a constant blind eye to them like they’re the Catholic church.

THIS IS THE FUCKING ISSUE AT HAND NOW!

All the butt-buddies claiming to be the ‘people’s party’, the common person’s representatives, the ones for civil rights and all that horseshit that they don’t bother with anymore... All of the people backing Joe Biden have tipped their hand, slapped you ALL in the FACE with the fact that they DO NOT CARE whether Joe Biden is a fucking rapist or not. Period. End of story. They’re officially no better than the GOP. They’ve cemented their positions of apathy and neglect. They are NOT interested in vetting their candidates, and come the elections, trump is going to end up kicking biden’s ass because these assclowns don’t get that not enough people are going to be enthused enough to vote for that old fuckwit.

For those of us with some memory or at least the interest in looking up Biden’s track record while in government, we already KNOW he WAY WORSE than HRC and in fact should have been thrown the fuck out of the Dem. party. He’s a fucking GOP operative working from behind ‘enemy lines’, destroying the party for the GOP and all to eager to do their bidding and the bidding of his Wall St. masters.

JOE BIDEN IS NOT THAT INTO YOU. Once you vote for him, he has literally NO USE for YOU. Neither do the corporate/establishment Democrats. They’re GOP agents for all their worth. The upper crust of the party doesn’t give a shit about YOU.

Look at Superdelegates for instance. They’re there to ensure that the DNC can decide who gets the nomination to run for POTUS, not YOU, the voter.

That aside, it’s LITERALLY in the DNC by-laws that regardless of the voter’s choice, they are NOT OBLIGED to front the person with the most delegates. If they don’t LIKE who we vote for, fuck you then; they’ll decide anyway. If they’re lucky, the voters will pick who the DNC WANTS, maintaining the illusion that your vote counts.

The DNC works closely with corporate media outlets, both of whom serve the rich and powerful people and corporations. THEY decide who gets press coverage and who doesn’t. Why do you think Sanders got so little in 2016? 2020? Ever?

The ONE PERSON that the Democratic Establishment LOATHES more than Donald Trump is: {bing!} You guessed it! Senator Bernie Sanders. While they’re pushing for elections during a pandemic and not delaying them or moving to get it done by mail, how much coverage did Biden get? Sanders?

Voting for Biden gives the Democratic party consent for them to keep doing what they want, your feelings and thoughts be damned. It’s consensual, political RAPE. While not remotely as traumatizing & painful as sexual rape, this is still another kind of rape. It’s staying in an abusive relationship where we’re constantly being starved, beaten, overworked, underpaid, having our lives and safety put at risk and still agreeing to it day after day, year after year and the Dems KEEP repeating the process!

It’s time to put TERM LIMITS into play.

It’s time to get rid of the Electoral College.

It’s time to be aggressively active against voter suppression.

It’s time to aggressively active against gerrymandering.

It’s time to vote these old, white, male assholes OUT of ALL branches of government. Women too!

Pelosi has only demonstrated that women are no better in the political arena than men; congratulations. Stacy Abrams has show us all that women are just as eager to turn a blind eye and be a rape apologist when it will advance her own career. She’s a traitor to women and the Black Community. Liz Warren, claiming to be Progressive, threw her alleged friend and colleague under the bus, both in 2016 but not backing him early on in the race that she herself declined to enter but also in 2020! She should have dropped out earlier and backed Sanders but instead looked after her OWN ass and her OWN career and subsequently backed Biden, even AFTER the rape allegations which the party ignored and tried to gloss over and cover up (after screaming for justice with the Kavenaugh hearings). Liz is in it for Liz, NOT YOU.

We’re far, far overdue for RADICAL change here, but if you BOTHER doing your research, you’ll find that the radical changes have already BEEN made and they dragged us WAY FAR to the “right”. By comparison of decades past, Sanders would have been called a ‘centrist’ for fuck sake.

Do your research. Don’t vote for Biden. Skip a vote for POTUS altogether if you must. It’s time to tell these cock-thistles in the DNC that we’re tired of them fronting whatever shit-guzzling shill they feel like, DEVOID OF VETTING, year after year, just because in their eyes, they’re boy will always be “better than the GOPer”. They squeeze us by the balls and force us to vote for shit and even when we step in line and don’t make a fuss and play along- THEY STILL DELIVER NOTHING. They CAVE under GOP pressure and we get NOTHING.

All the “HOPE” we were supposed to have under Obama ended up being a “Make a wish list for Santa” line of bullshit. Even when he got his start and the Dems had the brief powerplay by having control of the House and the Senate, they pissed away the time and LOST LOADS of seats in Congress, essentially handing ALL the power on the Hill to Mitch McConnell. Well done.

Stop. Giving. The. DNC. Constant. Consent. To. Fuck. You. Over!