#INNER Black Soul Religion

[whorediaries-09]

girl here's ur request again bc you probably lost it in the amazing algorithm of tumblr. i still do it for you, babe 🩷 sirius black x reader fic with somnophilia and choking? pretty please with a cherry on top? also, WE MIGHT JUST GET AWAY WITH THIS RELIGION'S IN YOUR LIPS EVEN IF IT'S A FALSE GOD

i didn't loose your previous request(s) my love, i was planning to post them on the valentine's week. anyways that is quite beside the point because imma write this one too. enjoyy.

streets;

pairing- sirius black x reader warning(s)- 18+ content. (let me know if i should add more) a/n- set during ootp, cause i CANNOT resist dilf sirius 😔. sorry not sorry haha.

the slut club

no final fantasy, can we end these games though? you give me energy, make me feel light weigh

it was a nefariously lustful dream. you grinded against the hard object that provided you the friction against your pussy. a sinful sleepy groan left your mouth. you could feel the hotness creep under your skin as you felt your stomach tug with the familiar coil of ecstasy. you felt yourself arch against nothing, trying to let the coil boiling inside you snap, drive you to an edge of insanity.

it the fire in your nerves felt more real than a dream. it was like a consuming blue flame. you could feel the warmth of the musk infused breathe on your neck. you could feel the rough callousness of his hands across the skin of your thighs. you could feel the cold metal of his rings slide across your hot skin, rubbing over your inner thighs. it felt too real to be a dream.

'open your pretty eyes for me love, i need to see your eyes when i make you cum,'

your eyes fluttered open, when it finally dawned upon you. you met the gray eyes you'd been dreaming about. you met the warmth of the body you'd been wanting. you met the touch you'd been dreaming about. you met the one who's name rolled off your tongue with the sweetest sin of pleasure.

'sirius?' you asked, fazed, as his fingers roamed on your clit through your underwear. he leaned closer to you, simultaneously pulling you closer, shuffling on your sheets, barring his pearly white teeth. his knees locked themselves on the either side of your waist, keeping you in place. he took out his fingers from between your thighs, sucking his digits off your arousal. that earned him a guttural moan from your mouth.

'i've heard you moan my name so many times before. when you get your pretty mind dumb with dirty thoughts and play with yourself,' he said, a glimpse of malice in his stormy gray eyes. your heart burned in anticipation. the line between your dreams and reality crashed, when he wrapped his hands around your waist, manhandling you to sit on him, your knees on the either side of his hips.

you felt his growing erection through his pants on your wet core. his well defined pectorals had intricate designs of tattoos inked upon traced thin lines of healed wounds. the thin strands of gray hair hidden between raven locks reflected under the moonlight.

heinously, he grabbed your throat, his fingers pressing lightly on your arteries. he pulled you closer, so your mouth was in line with his lips. he smiled coyly, as if mocking you.

'tell me what you want,' you whimpered as you felt him buck his hips your clothed core. hotness of euphoria lust crept under your skin. he brushed his lips with yours, increasing the force on your artery with each passing second.

'i need you to fuck me,' you whispered. the embarrassment of the situation had dissipated. it was just the bubbling covet of bliss which simmered into every inch of your body.

so when he captured your lips with his teeth, dissolving you into his very soul, devouring you while ripping apart your underwear, your head was fazed. your fingers tugged at the waistband of his pants, freeing out his cock. he pushed himself inside you, stretching you out perfectly, causing a broken moan for him to swallow. he increased the force on your throat, blocking your supply of oxygen.

he thrusted into you, blurring the lines between the real and the fake. the summer air cooled upon your hot skin, as the hair on his pelvis rubbed on your clit. you felt yourself melt with his touch as he thrusted into you. he left your lips, a string of saliva connecting your kiss bitten lips.

you chanted his name like a fucking mantra, your moans and whimpers broken by the force of his hand around your throat. the cool metal of his rings contrasted against your hot skin. you lost yourself into cloud nine, in his heaven like eyes. he was a drug, a dream an overdose of sinful heaven.

it was sweetness and danger, when you felt the coil of orgasm bubble inside you again. your mind was dizzy with the lack of oxygen. you rolled your hips, as his cock hit your sweet spot just right. the scream got caught in your throat, and you rolled your eyes. you felt your toes curl, and thighs shake as your euphoric pleasure hit you. you clenched your walls around his cock, releasing your juices on his stomach.

he pounded into you, his hand leaving your throat, as you came down from the high, your lungs savoring in the supply of air. you hid your face into the crook of his neck, sinking your teeth into the soft flesh. you heard his soft gasps and felt his cock twitch inside you. you rolled your hips, urging him to release himself inside you. he bit your shoulder, as he came, painting your insides with hot ropes of cum.

the final fantasy had melted into a reality, as you fell beside his heaving body, your thighs slick and sticky.

[writers-potion]

hey, can you do a circles of hell post like the heaven one?

The Nine Circles of Hell 😈🔥

Dante Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy is divided into 3 parts: Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso. The Inferno presents us with the popular concept of Nine Circles of Hell.

Ante-Inferno

Think of this as the Ground Lobby for Hell.

The Gates of Hell have this inscription: "Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate" (Abadon all hope, ye who enter here)

Souls who couldn't choose between good and evil reside here, tortued and chased by hornets and snakes. (Seems like indecision is also a sin, haha)

There are angels here as well who chose to be on the side of neither good and evil, and they're also tormented.

After crossing the river on the boundary for hell with Charon, you meet the first level of hell:

First Circle: Limbo

The first circle is home to the unbaptized and virtuous pagans, who simply didn't know that Christ exist.

These souls have lived morally, but failed to accept Christiantiy as a religion

No physical torture, but waves of sadness flow through the souls, lamenting the fact that they're close to Heaven but aren't in it.

Retirement community of the afterlife: Hippocrates, Aristotle, Virgil, Homer, Horace, Ovid, Socrates, Plato, Saladin

Second Circle: Lust

The wind-buffeted second circle of Hell is the final destination of the lustful and adulterous.

Souls are blown about in a violent storm, without hope of rest. They are torn in a raging storm and thrown against rocks.

Cleopatra and Helen of Troy were among its most famous residents. Francesca da Rimini and her lover Paolo.

Third Circle: Gluttony

Those who overindulge themselves are forced to lie in vile, freezing slush, guarded by Ceberus

Unable to move, they lay on the ground forever while being hurled with sweage and dirt.

Ciacco of Florence is here.

Fourth Circle: Avarice & Prodigality

This section of Hell is reserved for the money-grubbers and overly materialistic among us. Those who hoarded money come here.

The greedy battle each other, forever rolling giant boulders on each other. When they push the heavy weights, it rolls back and the process starts all over again.

Plutus guards them.

Fifth Circle: Wrath & Sulllenness

Dante tells us that the wrathful and angry souls of this circle spend eternity waging battle with each other on the banks of River of Styx.

The sullen are forced to breath below the dark waters, chocking on the black mud derived from the world above.

Fillippo Argenti is here.

───〃★ Door to Lower Hell: gate guarded by fallen angels ★〃───

Sixth Circle: Heresy

Heretics spend eternity entombed in flaming crypts in the sixth circle. Think of a graveyard with burning tombstones.

Heresy is the sin of having beliefs opposed to the Christian belief, which can be a little vague in modern times.

Florentines Farinata degil Uberti and Cavalcante de' Cavalvanti are here.

Seventh Circle: Violence

The Seventh Circle is sub-categorized into 3 smaller rings: Oter, Middle and Inner.

The outer ring is filled with blood and fire and reserved for murderers and thugs. Centaurs guard the Outer Ring, shooting criminals with arrows.

The middle ring is where, according to Dante, suicide victims go. They’re transformed into trees and fed upon by harpies.

The inner ring, a place of burning sand, is reserved for those who are violent against God and nature (blasphemers)

Eighth Circle: Fraud

Geryon, a creature symbolizing fraud, welcomes you to the eighth circle. He has a human face, a scorpion tail and giant wings.

The eighth circle is subdivided into ten trenches, where you’ll find con artists of all sorts. These trenches are called Malebolge (Evil pockets) and each contains different types of criminals who commited fraud.

Panderes and seducers, flatterers, sorcerers, false prophets, liars, thieves, people who created false money, counterfeits, impersonators, schismatics, etc. reside here.

Ninth Circle: Treachery

The final circle is a frozen wasteland occupied by history’s greatest traitors. Betrayers of are frozen in a lake of ice, and most of Satan's body is also immersed in ice.

It is divided into 4 stages: (1) Caina - traitors to family (2) Antenora - traitors to nation or politicians (3) Ptolomaea - hosts to betray theiur guests (4) Judecca - those to betray their lords/masters.

In the very center, Satan punishes the greatest betrayers of all time: Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Christ, and Brutus and Cassius who betrayed Julius Caesar.

Satan has three mouths, each of which eats a specific person: with left and right devouring Brutus and Cassius and the centre mouth devouring Judas. 

If you like my blog, buy me a coffee☕ and find me on instagram! 📸

[pastelpressmachine]

Black Mirror’s Demon 79 and the Justification of Brown Feminine Rage (warning: spoilers)

What if intrusive thoughts can be valid, and it is okay, maybe even necessary to act on them sometimes? If violence isn’t the answer, why must it so often be the question? 

Set in Northern England, 1979,  “Demon 79″ is the final episode of Black Mirror’s sixth season. It follows Nida, a meek sales assistant with a mousy appearance, who is tasked with the most complicated and important mission: to save the world by taking the lives of three human sacrifices in the days leading up to May Day.

Champions of the extended metaphor, Black Mirror employ the talents of Anjana Vasan (an Indian-born, Singaporean-raised, and U.K.-based actress) who plays Nida Huq and Paapa Essiedu (an English actor of Ghanaian descent) who plays Gaap*, the demon Nida accidentally invokes upon finding a talisman that begins this stressful mission of her. Gaap, devilishly handsome and charming, trying to earn his “wings” and be initiated into demonhood reassures the panicking Nida that she is not going mad, she is not a bad person, and the people she is encouraged to kill are vetted through his soul-reading as deserving of death.

*Gaap is considered through stories of demonology and texts related to the Testament of Solomon to be the Prince of Hell, with angels as siblings and a penchant for manipulating women and rendering them infertile. 

Gaap adjusts his form to something more comfortable for Nida by changing into a look-a-like of Bobby Farrell from the famous disco-funk German-Caribbean vocal group known as Boney M. Having the representation of a demonic entity be a Black man while allowing him to manifest into a symbol of appeal for Nida turns the inherent vilification of Black men on its head without contributing to the hypersexualization of Black bodies. Gaap is never presented as a love interest for her, but viewers do get to see them develop a snarky back-and-forth. I almost never see Black and brown leads banter like this. 

Another reason I’m glad Gaap was not portrayed as a sinful symbol of sexual desire is because Indian women already have to navigate a shame-fueled purity culture, and I wouldn’t want to see her grapple with her feelings for someone who is not only outside of her race and religion, but isn’t human. Writers avoided the idea that to love Gaap was to love something forbidden in all possible ways. And we don’t need to see Black folks depicted as not-human. The history of both American cinema and politics has acted on that dangerous perception already. 

When I saw the opening scene of Nida with her wide eyes waking up to get ready for work, I recognized the doe-like innocence in her face as the one I have been raised to emulate. She looks so much like my mother 30 years ago. Minimal makeup, modest clothes, hair neat and tied back.

Moments of Nida’s inner demons being unleashed start off as fantasies she has. She is quietly scurrying through her life as an oppressed minority in 1970′s England, where xenophobia and racism showed up everywhere, from the actions of the British Nationalists to the microaggressions Nida faces at work for simply bringing her potent biryanis to the stock room and “stinking up the place”.

Indian women are some of the least visible in politics historically and presently because we are raised to not make a fuss of things, to be quiet and reserved and let white people act how they want towards us because we are guests in their countries, even when they’ve colonized and pillaged our own. I feel Nida’s pain as she thanks the white people around her for the bare minimum (allowing her an alternative place to eat, such as the basement - where she finds the talisman that changes her life) and avoids the confrontation and rage within her, even sighing in defeat at the NF* tag that has been spray-painted on her front door. 

*NF stands for the National Front, a far-right, fascist political party in the United Kingdom, founded in 1967. 

I crave catharsis for Nida. And for her late mother, whom she has a photo of in her apartment. She explains after the first sacrifice that her mother was perceived as crazy, and now Nida is afraid that people will think the same of her, and this time, because of what she’s done, it will be true. I wondered if Nida’s mom was called crazy because she had stood up for herself, reported abuse or harassment that was occurring within the Indian community itself or in her own home, or tried to leave Nida’s father. None of these scenarios would make the show seem like fiction at all, at least not for many of the South Asian women trapped by the chains of patriarchal ideals. 

There are moments where I am concerned Nida is enamored by Michael Smart, a white politician giving a campaign speech outside the store she works at, as if his mere acknowledgment of her existence without visible disgust is enough to make her heart flutter. Again, I enjoy seeing a Black and brown lead in this episode, and knowing that other viewers are getting to see the many instances of white culture that exposes the racist ignorance and unfair power structures that exist in western society, workplaces, and even the homes of white folks themselves. (I was so happy for little Laura to hear of what was done to her assailant).

When it comes to stopping the world from absolute destruction in a nuclear holocaust, the heroes have never really been people who look like Nida. (It is worth noting that the head writer for this episode was Bisha K. Ali, who also is the executive writer for Disney+’s Ms. Marvel and has tackled many of the same representation issues in her work). People like her don’t have the permission to be loud, angry, or violent without consequences, no matter how justified. Meanwhile, with unchecked authority, bombs go off and innocent people die and children cower in their beds and white men get to act on their worst traits and impulses, however sinful, with little to no accountability.

Even when Nida is being violent, it is for the greater good. Because it has to be. Even female rage has to serve a purpose for others. It cannot just be hers. If she’s going to be angry, she better be trying to solve crime or save the world. 

And through this most guttural and sometimes poisonous part of being a human, Gaap sees her. Maybe it’s because he has transformed in the image of Nida’s celebrity crush or maybe it’s truly the way in which he interacts with her, Gaap sees Nida. He recognizes the type of violence she would and would not indulge in. He tells her she should feel more at ease after killing the first sacrifice, a pedophile she clobbers with a brick before he falls into a river. He continuously recognizes her hesitation, and suggests “Dutch courage”, or booze before following through with the second kill. It is inappropriate in Indian culture for women to drink, which Nida notes when she tells Gaap she doesn’t. Then he asks her if she wants to, something, from the expression on Nida’s face, it doesn’t seem like she has ever been asked. 

Upon entering a pub full of (yes, all white) men, Nida is dismissed by the (also white) female bartender who looks just as irritated by her existence as her coworker Vicky, who had reported how unfair it was that she had to smell Nida’s lunches and endure the lingering scent at work. An older (also white) bartender (who might be the owner) takes her order with the same polite and quiet discomfort of her boss, who had presented her with the basement lunch “solution” to appease Vicky. It’s subtle but the approaches in which different age groups and genders of white English folk take with engaging with Nida demonstrate the variety of ways in which people of colour experience discrimination. At its worst, it is violent hate crimes and unjust legislation that mutates into full blown genocide. At its mildest, it’s passive aggression and strained tolerance. 

It’s more apparent with the second killing (of a man named Keith who killed his wife) that Nida does have the option to be as righteous as she wants to be, which is something I really appreciated about her character. Even if she was killing to prevent the literal apocalypse, and the clock was 6 minutes from midnight -- she must follow the cadence of at least one kill a day -- the moment she has to hear Keith’s justification for what he did and his attempt at absolving himself with the statement “I’m not a bad husband, but --” she swings a hammer at his head to shut him up. She then bashes his head in repeatedly, even to the point where Gaap is wincing at the sight. If this was just about killing people to stop a bigger disaster and loss of life, she wouldn’t be losing herself in the act like she did. 

The third and final kill occurred in the next few minutes, as Keith’s roommate, witnesses her trying to exit, which presents itself as problem in allowing her to continue with the mission if she’s arrested. It’s messy because it was fast, the least premeditated, and she doesn’t know who the man is or if he’d done anything as bad as the previous two skills. Because of this, she’s much more apologetic as the man dies, later finding out from Gaap he was Keith’s brother, Chris, an “ordinary” person who would not have been one of Nida’s choices. 

But as Gaap says, “What’s done is done”. And the three lines on the talisman should have disappeared indicating that Nida has fulfilled her duty. But it still has a line remaining, so a confused Gaap dials 666 (of course) on Nida’s rotary phone to explain the issue to his superiors. He tells Nida that Keith apparently didn’t count because he’s a murderer and anyone who’s been directly responsible for the death of another human being (not counting future deaths they might be responsible for) is off limits. Chris counted because his death still occurred just before midnight. 

Nida doesn’t snap psychologically and decide she enjoys this and is going to become a serial killer, which is a direction I find common in other Black Mirror episodes, where the white and/or male character loses it and/or goes on a killing spree. She grapples once more with her initial unwillingness to participate in this because even when given the go-ahead and to have the most reason to, she enters a mental boxing ring with her instinct v. culture v. morals. From my own experience and what I have seen in my own community, outward expression of rage is never the first emotion a woman reaches for...because she can’t always afford to in the way others can. 

“My whole life, I never wished harm on anyone.” 

Gaap tells her what’s at risk for him, and he describes a fate of punishment that she says sounds like her life now. She stands, empathizing with an actual demon, and deciding to continue with the mission. Gaap also reminds her this isn’t solely for him; she possessed a darkness within her that drew her to the talisman. So, he asks her, who pissed her off?

To Possette’s Shoes they go. 

Vicky, a prime choice for the grand finale, delegates the task of attending to the young girl Laura (from earlier) and her mother to Nida. Because the little girl creeps Vicky out. Gaap informs Nida that because she killed Laura’s dad, Laura doesn’t kill herself at 28 and instead goes to therapy, becomes a mother at 29, and a grandmother at 57. It’s a comforting thought amidst the mayhem of it all. 

Michael Smart makes an appearance once more, as his father and the boss’s father, are old college friends, and Nida’s boss had promised him a suit and shoes on the house. The boss unsurprisingly selects Vicky as the sales attendant, with Gaap grumbling to himself as Nida’s eyes go from ‘excited crush’ to just crushed. Her boss then chooses to notice the boxes on the floor from when Vicky could’ve been cleaning up and hisses at Nida, “Could you pick up the bloody mess?” This prompts Gaap to suggest the boss be the next to go. 

Nida moves on to cleaning up the boxes, eavesdropping on the conversation between Michael and Vicky. When Michael says he hopes he has her vote, she says she is siding with the National Front who she believes will help rid the town of all the pesky foreigners. And then Michael Smart reveals himself to be what a lot of politicians are: covert bigots. He explains to Vicky that an explicitly xenophobic campaign would be too polarizing, so you have to elect a moderate who can win over the masses and put the evil plans in motion. (Sound familiar?) 

There is a subliminal language spoken among white supremacists, even if they smile politely at people who look like me and Nida. And this revelation that she witnesses presents an even more justifiable option for Nida’s third kill. 

She asks Gaap to give her information about Michael’s future, which he hesitantly reveals to her. Michael Smart wins the election, eventually becomes prime minister, and leads a new world order built on white supremacy. Nida decides he is the final target, but Gaap tells her he wouldn’t be the right choice because the Satanic world he comes from is a fan of his work and everyone there would want Michael to be able to facilitate the upcoming deaths that occur as a result of him first winning the election to become a member of Parliament. 

But Nida is set on him, or no one, giving Gaap the ultimatum to get on board or risk his own banishment after failing his initiation. 

Meanwhile, a police investigation occurs which leads to the bar staff identifying Nida as a “muttering Indian woman” who was at the bar the night Keith died. Len Fisher of Tipley Police arrives at Nida’s apartment, as part of routine questioning, and she invites him in, with Gaap’s suggestion to kill him. 

Fisher is the first white person to speak to her as person, too, even though he’s there on the premise of Nida being a potential suspect. Maybe this is more covert trust-building behaviour, maybe as a cop, maybe as someone generally suspicious of people of colour. He is the most mild-mannered, middle-man in the whole story. 

Fisher follows Nida who follows Smart after his speech at town hall. This is where I’m a little surprised but not displeased. The other episodes end with something sad, violent, and/or redemptive. Nida gets a bit of everything, but as with all things Black Mirror, not in the way you’d expect. In society, Nida may be reduced to a mad woman telling an insensible story, enduring the same perception people had of her mother. But society doesn’t last long, and she walks off into a kind of nuclear, fiery sunset with a new friend. 

The deadline for the sacrifices had been May Day, also known as Workers’ Day or International Workers’ Day to commemorate the struggles and gains made by workers and the labour movement. Nida, representing intersectional identities of the working class (immigrants, women, people of colour), was not listened to or believed, and the world ended because of it. Her weapon of choice had been a hammer, a tool meant for building that was used for destructive but necessary purposes. This could be a reference to the Communist party’s symbol of a hammer and sickle, which represents proletarian solidarity. The meaning of the episode, particularly its ending, captures the significance of the working class and how our world relies on them to function and last. When their efforts are stunted, their sacrifices are in vain, or they are not heard, the world ends. 

[warrioreowynofrohan]

Les Misérables 5.4 - Javert Off the Track

I have to say again how well I think the musical expresses the core of this chapter despite having far fewer lines to work with.

Book: Give up Jean Valjean, that was wrong; leave Jean Valjean free, that was wrong. In the first case, the man of authority would fall lower than the man of the galley; in the second, a convict rose higher than the law and set his foot upon it.

Musical: Damned if I live in the debt of a thief! Damned if I yield at the end of the chase!

Book: Javert felt that something horrible was penetrating his soul, admiration for a convict. Respect for a galley-slave, can that be possible? He shuddered at it, yet could not shake it off. It was useless to struggle, he was reduced to confess before his own inner tribunal the sublimity of this wretch. That was hateful.

Musical: How can I now allow this man / To hold dominion over me

Book: “This convict, this desperate man, whom I have pursued even to persecution, and who had me beneath his feet and could have avenged himself, and who ought to have done so as well for his revenge as for his security, in granting me my life, in sparing me, what has he done? His duty? No. Something more.

Musical: This desperate man who I have hunted / He gave me his life, he gave me freedom / I should have perished by his hand / It was his right

Book: But also why had he permitted this man to let him live? He had, in that barricade, the right to be killed. He should have availed himself of that right. To have called the other insurgents to hus aid against Jean Valjean, to have secured a shot by force, that would have been better. His supreme anguish was the loss of all certainty.

Musical: It was my right to die as well / Instead I live, but live in hell!

Book: acts of violence committed by pity upon austerity, respect of person, no more final condemnation, no more damnation, the possibility of a tear in the eye of the law, a mysterious justice according to God going counter to justice according to men. [Note: this is one area where I think the musical errs with Javert - it roots his inflexibility in a (rather Calvinist, for a majority Catholic nation) view of Christianity. That is not the case in the book, where Javert’s religion is the law, the state, order, and in the end that worldview breaks upon the rocks of Christianity.]

Musical: Shall his sins be forgiven? Shall his crimes be reprieved?

Book: He saw before him two roads, both equally straight; but he saw two; and that terrified him - him, who had never in his life known but one straight line.

Musical: And must I now begin to doubt? / Who never doubted all those years

Book: To be granite, and to doubt! to be the statue of penalty cast in a single piece in the mould of the law, and to suddenly percieve that you have under your breast of bronze something preposterous and disobedient which almost resembles a heart!

Musical: My heart is stone and yet it trembles!

Book: To have the unknown over his head, he was not accustomed to that…Now Javert was thrown over backward, and he was abruptly startled by this monstrous apparaition: a gulf on high…

The darkness was complete…A ceiling of cloud concealed the stars. The sky was only an ominous depth

Musical: The world I have known is lost in shadow!…I am reaching, but I fall / And the stars are black and cold / As I stare into the void / Of a world that cannot hold

Book: But how to manage to send in his resignation to God?…

Unnatural state, if ever there was one. There were only two ways to get out of it. One, to go resolutely to Jean Valjean, and to return the man if the galleys to the dungeon. The other –

Musical: I’ll escape now from that world / From the world of Jean Valjean

Book: Could that be endurable? No.

Musical: There is nowhere I can turn / There is no way to go on!

[ranahan]

Mandalorian soul(s) & Mando’a words for them

So have you noticed how Mando’a has three different words for a soul or a spirit: manda, kar’am, and runi?

Warnings for lots of speculation and headcanons about Mandalorian religion and spirituality.

What is a soul?

First of all, I want to note that cultures around the world have very different ideas of what the soul is. The Christian idea of an immortal soul that goes to heaven after the body dies is hardly the only or even the most prevalent one. Many cultures believe there are many different kinds of souls and that humans have more than one soul.

I was going to draw examples from earthly cultures and religions, but I just put about 50 posts in my drafts folder and I want to publish this before it disappears in that black hole where no information escapes from. Suffice it to say that people have really different takes on what a soul is. Seriously, look up some examples. Blow your mind a bit.

GFFA of course also has the Force, so who knows what kinds of Force traditions Mandalorians have if any, and how those would affect their views of souls and spirituality. I recently reblogged Izzy’s interesting headcanons about Mandalorians and the Force, if anyone is in need of inspiration.

*maan- ‘original’ & Manda

In the canon dictionary, this root on its own is an adjective:

maan (adj): original, first

That’s “original, first” in the sense of “genuine, true” and given the derivations, the root *maan- at least probably also carries the meaning of “inherent, intrinsic, innate”.

*maan- also appears in words like:

veman (adj): real, genuine

Probably from *vut- ‘special’ + maan. “Really original”.

ramaan (n): death (a neutral term)

Probably from *ram- ‘attack’ + maan, “the original attack(er)” or ram + an, “one who attacks all”. Could be either. I’m more partial to the latter etymology, but I’m putting ramaan here just in case.

I believe that the element *mand- that appears in lots of words like mando, manda, and their derivations, is etymologically maan-ad, which has lost an unstressed vowel. This carries the meaning of ‘first person, original person’ or as a plural, “first/original people” which is actually what a number of earthly peoples call themselves. Like that’s a very, very common etymology for the name of your own tribe.

So I reconstruct *maanad (or the same with a short vowel, *manad) as an archaic word with the meaning of “a mandalorian”. I also reconstruct it with a second meaning of “true self, innate self, inner self”, or a soul in that sense. So then…

manda (n): collective soul

…could be an archaic plural of manad-a, with a lost syllable in the middle which is a really common pattern in Mando’a. Mando’a uses plural as a way to form collective concepts, so this is “all Mandalorian souls”.

So when you have gai bal manda, “name and soul”, or kir’manir ‘to adopt, give a soul to someone’, the soul here is specifically the Mandalorian soul, a partaking of the shared identity.

Kir’manir could also be glossed as “to give an origin”, which in Mandalorian terms is exactly what you are doing when you adopt someone: you take them in as a part of your clan. For Mandalorians who don’t care about bloodlines, this is just as legitimate a tie as being born into a clan: in both cases, you become a part of the shared ancestry and heritage.

This is a headcanon, but the picture I get of Mandalorians is that anyone can be a Mandalorian (if you have mandokar, literally “Mandalorian heart”)—but no one can be a Mandalorian without a clan (it’s in the Resol’nare & and in words like kir’manir). You need to get adopted in order to convert and become a Mandalorian. You need to have a clan to hold up the basic tenets of being a mando’ad. You need to be adopted in order to share in the web of souls that make up the manda. This is a really interesting dichotomy. It makes Mandalorians kind of into an ethnic religion like Judaism, only you don’t need to be born as a Mandalorian, only be adopted as one.

In fact, I think that adopting your biological children is really common if not the norm. If you view the gai bal manda in the light of giving the child a soul and a tie-in to the manda, then gai bal manda is to Mandalorians what baptism is to Christians. You can’t go to the Christian heaven without a baptism, and you can’t reach the manda without gai bal manda. I imagine this is where the fanon of adopting dead children so they don’t have to wander eternally comes from (someone hit me with a name; who came up with that? I love it!).

But also! Mandalorians in general are not depicted as very religious. So I guess this is one belief, but it is probably not shared universally and perhaps not even widely. Maybe it’s an old belief, developed in the aftermath of the Mandalorian Wars, when the tie of the non-Taung to their adopted ancestors was still tenuous, and while they were moving away from the worship of the old gods, religious beliefs of all kinds were still rampant. And in the upheaval before they settled on a new canon, all kinds of beliefs and split-off religious sects sprung up left and right.

kar’am

kar’am (n): breath

Okay, not soul. But I believe this is “breath” in the sense of “spirit” (breath and spirit are connected words in many many many languages). Not breath in the sense of “to breathe” as in the bodily function (that’s haal).

So what kind of a spirit is this? Well, it’s made of two roots: *kar- ‘heart, core’ and *am- ‘change’. Heart for mandalorians is also the seat of knowledge and by extension, consciousness. Change is a loaded concept spiritually.

But the interpretation I want to go with is that change is also considered the true nature of the reality and natural world, and is thus connected to a lot of words that relate to nature and reality. The Aay’han dictionary has aman (n): nature, lit. “one who changes all” and I absolutely adore that. So kar’am would be a more bodily spirit, related to life force, vital force, vitality and physical states. So you could derive words like:

akaan’karam: morale, fighting spirit

to’karam: “together spirit”, the spirit of pulling together for a common cause.

ures kar’am: listless, lifeless

Alternatively, you could derive these form oya instead.

Runi

runi (n): soul (poetic only)

My best guess is that this is *run- + nominal suffix -i.

Best I can tell, there are no other words related to it in the dictionary, unless it’s related to the past prefix r’/ru’ and ruug ‘old age’, in which case the sense could be something like “the thing which has gone” as in “the soul has fled”.

So what about the definition? Traviss says “poetic only”, so which poetic sense is she referring to? English (in which the translation is given) has several:

The innate quality that makes something itself, “the soul of (something)”. I would have been tempted to go for this sense, but for me that seems like repeating *maan-. It could of course be that over the time, maan has come to mean Mandalorianness specifically, so runi has acquired this more general sense which maan had originally.

The animating principle, vital force. Already interpreted kar’am this way. And even if I scrapped that interpretation, I’d go with oya instead, not runi.

Embodiment, personification. “You are the very soul of the party.”

Psyche, “body and soul”. Does not seem very “poetic” to me?

Person. “Not a soul.”

A strong positive feeling, inspiration, passion, fervour. Hmm, in Mando’a words like that seem to be derived from oya.

A supernatural spirit.

So which sense was Traviss going for? Shab if I know.

I’ll make a part 2 with some more derived words later, but now I want to post this before going to bed.

[bbygirl-aemond]

bella i need the faith of the seven parallels with the targaryen parental figures IMMEDIATELY

…I admittedly put way too much thought into this, but I will seriously never tire of the religions themes/parallels in Stormbreak. Plus, there's about to be a ton of religious stuff happening in upcoming chapters, so it's just on my mind. So here are all seven of the parental figures of Team Black & Green, as members of the Seven!

The Father- Aemond Targaryen.

The Father Above is known for being stern, but not unnecessarily so. He has a strong sense of justice, and considers it part of his duty to enact said judgment. At the same time, he's a protector, particularly of children. Aemond is similarly very reserved and righteous, but is deeply protective of children in every possible way (physically, but also mentally and emotionally).

The Mother- Rhaenyra Targaryen.

The Mother Above is known for being very loving and merciful. She's strongly associated with families and motherhood. Rhaenyra is a kind parent who can sometimes coddle and shelter her children. She's probably the best example of a Targaryen parent who loves her children unconditionally. Despite initially being wary of motherhood, she genuinely comes to love the act of building her own family, her own little clan.

The Warrior- Daemon Targaryen.

The Warrior is a study of opposites. On the one hand, he is associated with the most violent aspects of humanity, such as bloodshed and battle. But on the other, he is also one of the most compassionate faces of the Seven. He is the one who brings peace to the souls of those slain in battle, and who comforts the grieving loved ones left behind. This suits Daemon so incredibly well; he encompasses both of these extremes perfectly. It's also very clear that he identifies himself as a protector of his family, in part specifically because of his battle prowess.

The Smith- Alicent Hightower.

The Smith is, at his core, the mender of broken things. His entire purpose is to fix, to repair, to heal. Because of this, he is associated with incredible inner strength and selflessness. Alicent spends her entire life desperately trying to solve the problems of everyone around her. She is a natural caretaker and feels personally responsible when members of her family are unhappy.

The Maid- Criston Cole.

The Maid is associated most strongly with innocence and virginity. She embodies the value of chastity, and is also connected to children and marriage. Criston is a very religious and conservative man who views everything through this lens of righteousness and purity. His downward spiral after he sleeps with Rhaenyra and his devotion to Alicent are both directly related to the violation or fulfillment of this value. He also falls very naturally into a nurturing and guiding role for Alicent's children.

The Crone- Helaena Targaryen.

The Crone is associated with unparalleled wisdom. She is the one who knows the path ahead, and guides those around her along that path. There is an element of mystery to her; the idea of forbidden or secret knowledge. Helaena, as a very powerful dragon dreamer, has access to information about the path ahead in a way that no other Targaryen does. And we see her use this knowledge to influence the directions of those around her, always trying to nudge them towards the right path.

The Stranger- Aegon Targaryen.

The Stranger is part of the Seven, but is simultaneously completely unique. Unlike the others, they have no gender, nor do they have a face. They are the outlier, and this makes them the patron saint of outcasts. They do not decide where the souls of the dead go, but they lead them to their final resting place. Aegon feels isolated from his family, as if he is the lone black sheep within the herd. He distances himself from the other members of his family, and from his Targaryen heritage. He wants to support his loved ones, but thinks it is no one's place to decide or influence another's path.

Hope this fulfilled your brainrot the way it did mine!

[anamenooneowns]

A Creepy Fanfic: The Big Dick.

A/n: This is a fanfic to indulge my inner pre-teens creepypasta phase (which was never really a phase🥀⛓️🖤🤘🏽😔) also, the woman above is not a face claim and you're a spirit entity thing. i'm obviously making up shit bc it sounds cool in my head. so yeah. enjoy.

warnings: Cursing. Death/dead people. Gore? sorta. Horrible jokes bc i think i'm hilarious. No use of y/n. Use of religion to bully another. Bullying. Sex (use condoms pls). Spanking. Name-calling (bitch and cunt). Rough sex. I think thats all... if I missed something lemme know🙂

pairing: ticci toby x you

Water was still when it was untouched. The water in Lake Black has been still since the death of that poor girl–it was so sudden, so awful–awful how everyone in that bumfuck town pretended they had nothing to do with her death. (♱) didn’t deserve it. It wasn’t her fault that her mother was sick, that her mind was broken since the terrible death of her husband, (♱)’s father. 

The witches of Black Falls is what they called her and her mother. Rolling their eyes back and pretending to spasm whenever she passed them in school hallways and in public, reciting prayers in their Religion class to ‘ward’ her away, refusing her food in line at the church when she and her mother had been hungry–starving.

But no longer. A dead girl didn’t need to eat after all, right?

Wrong. Because (♱) was hungry. Starved. Ravenous with a need to sink her teeth into the rotting meat that was this town. A stain is what it was. All heretics.

A head split the still waters of Lake Black. Jet-black hair plastered to brown skin, droplets of water clung to her hairline before rolling down, connecting and parting over and again as she continued to rise. The fog that had settled over the water billowed around her body, rising with her slowly, the currents below swirling angrily and bubbled with the white-hot, scalding, burning anger of a woman scorned. 

Eyes, white–having lost their iris and pupil–were all sclera and thin, red veins. When her pale blue lips kissed fresh air after having been lost to the bottom of Hell for so long a hiss escaped them. The water relinquished its hold on her as she continued to rise into the embrace of the moon on this beautiful night. The only companion she’s ever had her entire life.

The woman in the moon. Her daddy would make up stories about it. How she had been cast away into the stars for bringing darkness…darkness associated with anything bad. Yet, she was so warm right now. Anything would be considered warm compared to (♱)’s cold body. Undead.

She was going to eat this fucking town. And everyone in it, alive. 

Drenched, scuffed sneakers dragged along the asphalt of the street. (♱)’s only goal was to reach the only person here who mattered: her mommy. Each step she took in line with a house on the block set it ablaze, screaming long having made its symphony in the night as they all burned alive. Skin shrinking and fat rendering–it was all so delicious. Her body absorbed it like she was eating, the wounds of her body fading as she gained more… ‘life’ into her.

And when she reached that house, the door opening for her before she could touch it, the sight ran flashbacks through her mind when she was still alive. Out of the mudroom, the stairs to your left in the hallway, up the stairs, the first door to your right was her mother’s room. The door creaked open and there her mommy lay. (♱) neared her and laid on the bed, wrapping her wet, slimy arms around her before weeping softly. 

Because her mother was dead. A pill bottle in her hands, and her body cold, but smiling. To think she was ready to leave this place and be with her husband and daughter again, but (♱)’s soul knew where it belonged, and after tonight–it was destined to one place only.

“You shouldn’t be alive.”

Silence.

“I… know,” (♱) croaked. “But I am.”

“So you are,” they affirmed. “You’re gonna stir a lot of shit, but, you don’t know the rules yet so The Operator is letting you off the hook, but you need to come with me. Come with us, and learn.”

“If-if I don’t?”

Something cold pressed against her throat. It was sharp. “You die here, and your soul is sent straight to Hell where it belongs.”

(♱) didn’t care that the blade has sliced into her neck a bit. “I don’t believe in Hell. I don’t think I ever did.”

“All the more reason to come with us then. None of us believe in it much either,” they moved the sharp blade. 

She sat up slowly and looked at them. It was a man. He had shaggy brown hair, light brown eyes, and skin as pale as the moon. Looking back at her mother, she leaned down and kissed her on the cheek before standing. “Okay,” she agreed.

A black tar-like substance webbed across the ceiling of the room before lighting up, fire licking away at the interior of the once warm home. It was the end of her old life, and the start of another.

“Y’know, I hate when you do this shit,” Toby grumbled. “It ain’t playin’ fair.”

“Playing fair? That’s for losers, baby,” (♱)’s voice echoed like a purr in his mind, the exact way she’d voice her words if she was in fucking front of him and not hiding.

“Callin’ me a loser, little girl?” he huffed, cutting down the greenery blocking his way.

His eyes flitted around the clearing as he looked for (♱). Ever since she joined them and fell into step quickly with the whole undead thing and learning the extent of her abilities-and them falling in love yada, yada, ya-she was the prettiest damn nuisance he’s ever experienced in his life.

Her laughter echoed from the crows above on the gnarled trees. He growled and huffed out a deep breath from his nose-

“Are you?” A boline knife shaved a bit of his five o’clock shadow. (♱) tilted her head at Toby and smiled, black lips parting to reveal pearly whites at her man. “Loser,” she whispered.

Toby chuckled and pulled his goggles up to rest on his head, brown eyes slicing over to her from the corner of his eye. “Alright, mama… you got me. Training over.”

He turned to her and pulled down his mask, revealing his own smile. A vicious scar ran jaggedly from the left corner of his mouth into a permanent sneer. A half-glasgow as (♱) would tease, a running joke after she had said it to hurt him during a particularly nasty argument. The skin there was taut and deformed, the flesh puckered and a whitish-pink, healed but forever marred. With his skin ripped and pulled back, teeth–which were slightly yellower on this side but just as straight as the rest of the teeth in his mouth–were on permanent display.

(♱) leaned up on the balls of her feet and pecked his lips. “What’s my reward?”

Toby raised an eyebrow and snorted. “You’re jokin’, right? This is part of the job description, sweetness.”

“So? Don’t I deserve a.. I dunno, a fuckin’ blowjob or something?” (♱) huffed. 

Toby’s eyes widened. “Babe, what the fuck are you-”

“Look, after how I just fucked you in the ass with that win, I’d say I have a pretty-” (♱) squealed as Toby picked her up and threw her over his broad shoulder-“big dick!”

“Big dick, huh? I’m gonna show you a big dick, little girl, always runnin’ that fuckin’ mouth,” he smacked her ass sharply and then her thigh.

Toby walked toward their cabin, passing Tim and Jeff–Jeff whistling at the sliver of the bottom of (♱)’s ass on display from her ridden-up shorts because, of course–cursing a “Fuck!” when Toby cracked him on the back of the head with the stick of his axe. “You may not be able to close your eyes you lidless fuck, but watch it unless you want me to pluck them out for (♱) to use in her witchy shit.”

(♱)  giggled, kicking her legs lazily and waving at the two other men. “Bye, Tim! Fuck you, Jeff.”

In their cabin, which was in a more secluded section of The Operator’s woods, Toby kicked the door open and shut it behind them. “So fuckin’ cocky and thinkin’ you can talk to me however, babe-” he dumped her onto the bed and (♱) giggled, biting her lip as she rolled onto her belly, Toby grabbing her throat and lifting her head to force her into an arch. His eyes looked into her own, seemingly sightless without an iris or pupil, but he knew she could see.

“Then what’re you gonna do about it?” she hissed.

His permanent sneer stretched.

(♱) bobbed her head with a voracious need for the mouth-ripping burn of swallowing down Toby’s dick, a thick oozing string of saliva filled with bubbles and mixed with pre-cum drooling onto her chest and the bed. (♱) was still on her belly on their bed while he stood up above her, a big and pale tatted hand clamped around her neck, rough fingertips digging into the joint connecting her skull and jaw to force her mouth open. Her clothes were sliced off with her own weapon, courtesy of her boyfriend, the bastard.

Those gorgeous white eyes, not as soulless as one would think, looked up at him.

And then there was the rough scrape of enamel against flesh. “Fucking- oh, you litte cunt,” he hooked his fingers over her bottom teeth and pulled her jaw down as far as he could before pistoning his hips forward. A wet gurgle came from her throat as (♱)’s gag reflex was triggered, her nose buried into his pubic hair where the pungent smell of sweat from training had become stale. (♱) gagged and choked, tears rolling down her brown cheeks as her nose burned, strings of saliva connecting her lips to his shaft with each thrust of his strong hips.

And she loved it. God, hearts would be fucking floating around in her pupils if she had any.

“God- you’re fucking disgusting,” Toby laughed dryly. “Bet that pretty pussy is all wet just from suckin’ cock, right, mama?”

(♱) moaned around his length and he finally pulled out of her mouth, smirking as she panted-and also because she let his cock rest against the fold between her cheekbone and nose. “Huh? What was that?” he asked.

“I said… I-I alr..already told you I have a big dick,” (♱) panted with the most impish fucking smile.

Toby let his head fall, shoulders rising and falling in short intervals. He was laughing. “Alright, bitch-” he grabbed a handful of thick curls and (♱) whimpered as he pulled her up to her knees and then used both hands, tucking them between the back of her thighs and calves to pull her forward, making her bounce onto her back. With the wind knocked out of her, Toby was already pushing his turgid cock into her, the pierced head of his length breaching her first, cold and shocking.

(♱)’s hands pressed against his lower abdomen and he snatched her wrists together in one hand and held them in front of him as he fucked her, smirking as the sight of her back arching away from the bed and her hips canting forward, making a bridge. “T-Toby, oh my… fuck!” she whined, breathily. “Sho… big,” she slurred.

“Nah, that doesn’t sound like what I was just hearin’ sweetness. Fuckin’ say it. Who has a big dick again?”

“Y-you-”

He leaned down to her face, head turned so his warm breaths were spread over her ear and neck. “I can’t. Fucking. Hear you,” he snarled.

“You, baby- on…only you!” (♱) wailed.

“Good girl,” Toby licked up the side of her neck, her sweat making his salivary glands sting. He let go of her wrists and she immediately wrapped her arms around his neck, whining and pursing her lips which he responded to. His lips pressed against hers, tongues sliding against each other as they kissed, suckling and smacking. He pulled away the ripped side of his mouth making divots where the puckered flesh connected to normal skin, he was smiling. “Yeah, there we go… can’t even get a word out.”

(♱)’s eyes were lidded, the muscles of her neck loose as her head fell back onto the mattress. Just babbling quietly, legs crooked at the knee and splayed open, cradling his body between them. Her cunt gripped him tightly, small spurts of cream coating his cock in a thin sheen as he buried himself inside of her warmth over and again. “T-Toby,” she whined.

“Shh, I know, mama–m’gonna take you there,” he panted. His thumb strummed over her clit, his hips stuttering every time she clenched too tight around him, jaw falling open so his ragged breaths could fall from his lips. His free hand wrapped around her throat and she bit her lip and he could tell she was looking at him, straight into his eyes.

It felt like electricity crackling through her nervous system, each shock waking her up but the lack of proper oxygen flow making her dizzy and hazy.

Toby’s balls, heavy and tight–churning with cum–pulled upward, the seam of his sac making the separation of each ball prominent. (♱) sucked in a sharp breath through her teeth that developed into a groan as she was right there. Right… there!

White-hot heat coiled and burst in (♱)’s belly, lava overflowing and extending through her body as her toes curled and her muscles contracted and trembled. Toby pressed her thighs against her chest, her pussy squeezing around him so tight that it forced him out of her, her squirt sluicing over him while he humped himself to completion between the chubby folds of her sweet cunt. His cockhead dipped between her pressed together thighs until it was jumping and twitching, thick ribbons of cum streaming over her plump lips, dripping down her brown skin.

He sighed, grabbing his shaft and running it up and down the seam of her pussy until she whined. “Alright, alright, m’done,” he chuckled.

“R-remind… remind me to p-piss you off-” she lifted her head and smirked at him- “more often.” Toby leaned down on the bed, the muscles of his back shifting and rippling. “Sweetness, you can piss me off as much as you want as long as you remember one thing at the end of the day: I’m the one with the big dick in this relationship.”

[feminismisstillahatemovement]

We are living through a great showdown between hysteria and reason. On one side stand the adherents to the cult of transgenderism, hawking their hocus pocus about gendered souls and self-authentication through castration. On the other side stand those of us who know that biology is real, and that every cell in the human body is sexed, and that a man is as likely to become a woman as that chalice of wine is to become the blood of Christ during Mass (apologies, Catholics).

You’ll never guess which side some New Atheists are taking in this clash between delusion and truth. The crazy side. The side that says a bloke with a beard and balls can literally be a lesbian. Which is infinitely more cranky than the idea that a bloke with a beard and balls can literally be the Son of God. How did rationalist bros, those secularists on steroids, those Dawkins acolytes whose hobby for years was to make fun of the faithful, become devotees of such a strange, post-truth sect?

One by one, atheists are falling at the altar of trans. This week a Twitterfeed called The New Atheists slammed Richard Dawkins for becoming a TERF. Dawkins is a rarity in the new rationalist ranks: he thinks people with penises are men, not women, just as bread is bread, not the body of Christ. He is ‘utterly confused’, decreed his angry apostates. Biology ‘isn’t black and white, it’s a full spectrum of colour just like a rainbow’, they said. This hippyish belief that humans can pick their sex from a multicoloured smorgasbord is entirely an article of faith, of course, not science. Behold rationalism’s turncoats.

We’ve witnessed Neil deGrasse Tyson, America’s best-known scientist, bow to the creed of gender-as-feeling. In a TikTok video he said ‘XX/XY chromosomes are insufficient’ when it comes to reading someone’s sex, because what people feel matters along with their biology. So someone might feel mostly female one day but ‘80 per cent male’ the next, which means they’ll ‘remove the make-up’ and ‘wear a muscle shirt’. Sir, that’s cross-dressing; it does nothing to refute the truth of chromosomes, which absolutely do tell us what sex a person is. As destransitioner Chloe Cole said to Tyson, you’re ‘confusing basic human biology with cosmetics’.

We’ve seen Matt Dillahunty, a leading American atheist, promote the mystic cry that there’s a difference between ‘what your chromosomes are’ and your ‘gender identity’. ‘Transwomen are women’, he piously declares, perhaps keen to prove that while he might be fond of bashing the old religions, he has not one cross or blasphemous word to say about the new religion. Well, no one wants to be excommunicated from polite society.

Stephen Fry is another godless lover of science who appears to have converted to the trans belief. Phillip Pullman, Stewart Lee and others who were once noisy cheerleaders for rationalism are likewise strikingly reserved on this new ideology, this devotional movement which, among other things, invites young women to submit themselves to bodily mortification in order that they might transubstantiate into ‘men’. Seems like something a rationalist should question.

Then there’s Humanists UK. Even Britain’s most influential God-free organisation has thrown its lot in with the Flat Earthism of the post-sex ideology. It entreated the British government not to change the definition of sex in the Equality Act to mean ‘biological sex’. Why? Because some people have a mysterious inner gender – soul? – which apparently counts for more than their biological sex when it comes to the question of which social spaces they should be allowed to enter. Forget biology, forget science; make feeling king. Some women resigned from Humanists UK over what they viewed as its abandonment of ‘compassionate, scientific [and] rational’ principles in favour of the unreality of gender subjectivity.

Witness the treachery of the atheists. Yesterday’s warriors for rationalism are now footsoldiers of postmodern delirium. The religion-bashers who came to prominence in the 2000s now pray to the gods of gender correctness, whether from fear of cancellation or because they really have had a Damascene conversion to the idea that feelings override reality; that scientific truth must sometimes play second fiddle to our flattering of the self-esteem of men who say they’re women, women who say they’re men, and presumably mere mortals who claim to be God. After all, if Dave with his dick and five o’clock shadow can literally be a woman, why shouldn’t Gary be the Second Coming? Subjectivity rules, no?

The rationalist bluster of the New Atheists was all sound and fury, it seems. The minute a real struggle over reason exploded into public life, they vacated the battlefield or joined the other side, crying ‘transwomen are women!’ as they went to signal their fidelity to the new faith. It’s easy to bash the old religions, especially Christianity. Newspaper columns, invites to literary festivals and conference halls full of the fawning godless middle class awaited those who said: ‘Jesus walking on water? As if!’ The consequences of deviating from the trans ideology are far more severe. Columns are taken away, invites evaporate, the middle classes will gather to scorn not cheer. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that some public atheists value their reputations more than rationalism.

What makes their desertion of reason even more galling is that they’ve done it in response to a neo-religion that really is harming the young. Fundamentalist Christians might try to convert gay kids out of their homosexuality, but this new religion mutilates them out of it, by transing young lesbians into ‘boys’ and gay lads into ‘girls’. Faith schools might promote zany miracle stories to their pupils, but this new cult imbues kids with far more disorientating beliefs about 72 genders and girldick and lesbians with penises. The old religions frown on blasphemy, and so does this new one, with its treatment of any ‘denier’ of its theological criteria as a social leper. Especially if the ‘denier’ is a woman: yes, this religion also hates uppity women. And yet it is at this moment, with all this unfolding, that some rationalists take a break from rationalism. It is moral cowardice in the garb of social justice.

Others go further than to criticise the complicity of some New Atheists with modern unreason. They say these godless agitators are to blame for the new madness. In chasing God from society, in further weakening the church, they ‘created a void that a new, dangerous ideology [has] filled’, says Tim Stanley at the Daily Telegraph. Kill God, get trans. Which means that even Dawkins, TERF-ish as he is, is partly culpable for the lunacy he now laments.

I think there’s something in this. But the problem is not that the New Atheists made a ‘void’ that others rushed to fill. It’s that they actively helped to foster the very hyper-atomisation that underpins an ideology like transgenderism. With their promotion of the post-God and post-humanist belief that human beings are nothing more than genetic machines, bundles of DNA in a pitiless world without meaning, the New Atheists contributed to our era’s great, tragic retreat of the individual from the social world into the self. From the external world of connection and engagement into the diminished universe of genetic determinism, bodily transformation and jealous cultivation of one’s own narcissistic virtue.

So, yes, there is a line from Dawkins to trans. Dawkins’ contribution to elite thinking was colossal, especially with his 1976 book, The Selfish Gene. He made evolutionary biology mainstream, the idea that we humans are not as special as we thought. Our universe has ‘no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference’, he once wrote: ‘DNA neither cares nor knows. DNA just is. And we dance to its music.’ Dance to its music. The most striking thing about Dawkins and other neo-Darwinists was not their atheism, said the great moral philosopher Mary Midgley, but their ‘fatalism’. In The Solitary Self, her stinging critique of the new evolutionists, Midgley rebuked Dawkins for his depiction of ‘helpless humans enslaved by a callous-like fate-figure’. Only his fatalistic view was more deadening than that of Ancient scribes, she wrote, because this time the ‘cosmic bully’ controlling our fate is not a ‘pagan deity’ but ‘a chemical, DNA, a part of our own cells’. ‘Like other organisms’, she lamented, we’re seen as ‘lumbering robots ruled by [biology]’.

The Dawkins view grew in influence in the 1980s and 1990s. It was given expression in the soulless technocracy of the New Atheism. It merged with other atomising trends of our time – the decline of social institutions, the rise of a culture of fear, and, yes, the withering of religion – to exacerbate a view of the individual as utterly alone, a genetic creature more than a social one, ruled not by reason but by instructions sent by our DNA. ‘Biological Thatcherism’, Midgley called it.

And here’s the thing: if we are our biology, and that alone, doesn’t it make sense that individuals who want to change themselves would feel the need to change their biology? If we dance to the music of our DNA, doesn’t it follow that people who want to become something else, something different, will have the urge to change the music of their DNA? In short, there is a link, surely, between the post-1970s reduction of the human being to mere genetics and this new millennium’s fad for trying, however forlornly, to alter oneself at the level of genetics. Taking hormones, cutting bits off, removing testes, removing ovaries, injecting, mutilating, pursuing a ceaseless, pitiless war against one’s very biological essence. That the trans movement, and identitarianism more broadly, treats the body as the sole site of change should not be surprising in our era of biological Thatcherism where there is no society, no morality, no good, no evil – just bodies, stardust made flesh, all following genetic impulses. There is a close relationship between the modern ideologies of atomisation and the fruitless infernal war the young now wage on their own bodies, on their DNA prisons we’re all told we inhabit.

Perhaps Dawkins is the grandfather of transgenderism. I jest. But I do think we need to wriggle free from this clash between biological determinism on one side and self-destructive biological ‘liberation’ on the other. Biology is real, but it does not control us. You cannot change your sex but you can change your circumstances. That, however, requires that we go beyond both the biological Thatcherism of the new sciences and the neoliberal self-regard of identity politics and rediscover our place in a world of other people and other ideas. We’re social creatures, not ‘lumbering robots’ to be controlled or, worse, carved up and replaced with new parts.

------------------------------------

Brendan O’Neill is spiked’s chief political writer and host of the spiked podcast, The Brendan O’Neill Show. Subscribe to the podcast here. His new book – A Heretic’s Manifesto: Essays on the Unsayable – is available to order on Amazon UK and Amazon US now.

[mealvaan]

Lend an Ear

Under the banner of Garlemald, the Decurion would commit all manner of atrocities. It was here in the privacy of his bedroom that he indulged in his most shameful act, one that he could no longer justify as a sacrifice for the greater good.

There were curtains, he made sure of it; he penned with an inconsistent hand and still hid behind his mother's name. He found it made his heart all the easier to bear.

As a final precaution, he made sure to always start his letters with a lie.

Dear Gale,

Thank you for the garments. My little sister greatly appreciates them. We've not much to our name, and it's nice for her to have something for special occasions.

He indulged his quill in another dip. He couldn't even imagine what a sister of his would look like, or if he even had one. It was difficult to conjure the image of himself fresh-faced, inkblots in place of features. The lies died short and he moved onto the next paragraph.

Advice from Garlean political philosophy: If your negotiators show you what they want, you'll find out what they need. Not many people understand what they need, truly. You could apply this to your suitors. If you're able to glean why they want you in their words, you can glean what there is to offer in lieu of your hand. This way, it's also not as if you're giving something back. They remain ingratiated to you because unlike marriage, a favor is not a two-way street.

Alternatively, there is always the option of your more embarrassing suitors suffering an unfortunate 'accident'. In a hypothetical, of course.

He wondered what Gale Amante looked like to earn the admiration that they did. It was difficult to glean an attractive Ishgardian in his mind; those he'd met struck an unflattering silhouette in bulky chainmail uniform and square helms, making it all the easier to knock their heads around. Perhaps under the helms there were pretty faces. Unfortunately, no face was pretty in the throes of war, nor with glassy, dead eyes. The real star they lived in was not a romantic frame of reference.

He imagined Gale penning this letter. Perhaps girlishly, kicking their feet towards the ceiling and smiling puckered. Hiding his letters in their bedside drawer or under their pillow, then retrieving them moments later just to read them again. It was an indulgent, fluttering thought, one that he knew to plague only the hearts of schoolgirls.

Forgive me. Killing has become such a recurring thread in our lives that it's become part of my comical lexicon. I trust you understand that I'm not truly suggesting it.

Though, sometimes the sinless acts of man become their own kind of violence. We often speak ill of the common traumas: those wrought in red, black and blue. However, I find the trauma of social expectation to be far more permeable, and profess far more damage to the soul.

What of the systematic trauma we impose on our Viera young, that they must conform to a path of solitude for characteristics only developed epochs into their lives? What of the trauma of religion, where one's life is considered only valuable when it suits the mold of a particular philosophy's law? Do these not also kill in a way more permeable than the mercy of death? Have they not killed historically?

A deep breath wracked through him to stay his shaking hand. This was hedonism, and as monastic as he acted, he knew it well. A terrible pall took hold of him as he scribbled.

In the face of this suppression, is killing truly the worst that man can commit? Amid the trauma of societal ills, the imposition of a false truth in the name of culture, violence is the most direct translation of our inner will to worldly form. Death may be our only way to overcome these impositions. Certainly, the change of the guard is inevitable, but to tie the pace of change to the slow roll of the generation is wilful ignorance.

Philosophy aside, it feels good, cathartic, an instrument of closure, does it not? To impose your will? Make a tangible mark upon the world where words fail to?

It was as if at the end of the sentence he came to. This letter could not be sent. It was more akin to a diary entry or a confessional. He couldn't burden his mark with thoughts he wouldn't even express under his own name.

Yet as his eyes met the nearby candle, he couldn't bring the letter to bear. He had to send it. He had to understand if anyone felt the way he did. If Gale understood him as they had time and time again.

He buffered the missive with what he thought was a lie.

I am still saddened to see so many fall to the Empire, though.

And he signed it.

Sincerely yours,

Nerva aan La'phir

And he sealed it.

[optikes]

mother

1 'artist' unknown Venus of Willendorf (c28000-25000BCE) limestone  http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/nude-woman-venus-of-willendorf.html

2 artist unknown snake goddess, Minoan Civilization, Crete (c1600 BCE)

3 artists unknown Empress Theodora, mosaic in church of San Vitale, Ravenna, Italy (6th Century)  http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/byzantine-justinian.html

4 Ana Mendieta (1948-85) Cuba/ USA Silueta   search at http://www.moca.org

5 Piero della Francesca (1415-92) Madonna of Mercy, detail (c1460) oil and tempera on panel

6 poster from Mehboob Khan's 1957 film Mother India http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNFPjvT5PJM   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzJHnADcpa8

7 Cindy Sherman Untitled (1989) 

8 Maïmouna Patrizia Guerresi () As a photographer, sculptor, and installation artist, ‘Maïmouna’ Patrizia Guerresi reveals unique and authentic sensibilities in her narration of the beauty and subtleties of racial diversity and multiculturalism. Over an established career, she has developed her own symbolism, which combines cosmological and ancestral traditions belonging to various European, African, and Asian cultures. Her personal commitment to Baifall Sufism has led her to produce an aesthetic that is able to bridge time, space and civilisations, as well as figuration and abstraction.

The human body is seen as the nucleus and temple of the soul, a place that houses a delicate, higher awareness; the very conduit for encompassing natural and cosmic forces. More about mysticism than any singular religion, her work is visionary in that it restores those elusive qualities of sacredness and unity in our frequently dehumanising and fragmented contemporary visual world. Her classic iconographic style explores the universality of human experience and reclaims the often hidden nurturing powers of feminine energy. Presented as a kind of free flowing epic, the viewer is left to read the significance of her imagery and quietly meditate on its potential to personally engage with its audience. As if her figures were speaking directly to each one of us.

From her earliest experiments with the physicality and archetypal imprinting of the psyche, through to her latest, evermore metaphoric ‘inner constellations’, Maïmouna insists on a cross-cultural discourse and an expansion of the boundaries that normally dictate our individual attitudes. She invites us to see further and to look deeper – past skin colour, preconceptions, and ethnic landscapes – into the wider paradigm of inclusion. She leads us through apparently simple notions of dimensionality into the exquisite, mystical and fragile complexities of life from within. Rosa Maria Falvo,writer and curator, www.chobimela.org

Perspective on the relationship between women and society, with particular reference to those countries in which the role of women is most marginalized. For over twenty years Guerresi’s work has been about empowering women and bringing together individuals and cultures in an appreciation for a context of shared humanity, beyond borders – psychological, cultural, and political. She uses recurrent metaphors such as milk, light, the hijab, trees, and contrasting white on black to create awareness of the vital unifying qualities of the feminine archetype and its special healing potential. Guerresi’s art is uniquely authentic. Her work is inspired by personal experience and cultural contexts that reference universal myths, the sacred realm, and the female condition, all of which are seen as vital expressions of the human form: an essentially spiritual and mystic body. Through photographs and videos of silent, austere, veiled women in domestic scenes and individual poses, her work functions as both metaphor and provocation. Guerresi’s images are delicate narratives with fluid sequencing, as well as rational analyses: women dressed in white, enveloped in chadors, fixed within their own tradition and isolated from and by it in the contemporary world. Her Fatimah image suggests the woman as Mother- Earth supporting us in the original energy cycle of Space-Universe-Infinity. www.maimounaguerresi.com

9  The Cholmondeley Ladies  (c1600-10)  oil paint on wood 886 x 1723 mm       British School 17th century   (1600‑1699)

search @ www.tate.org.uk

[battleangel]

Third Eye Realizations

🧿Abolitionist

🧿Liberation

🧿Justice

🧿Climate Change

🧿Protecting the Earth & the environment

🧿Socialism

🧿Community

🧿Banding together

🧿Pooling our resources

🧿End child hunger & poverty

🧿Eradicate homelessness

🧿Universal medical care

🧿Universal college & coding education

🧿Bodily Autonomy + Womens Rights

🧿Kemet

🧿Ancient Egypt

🧿Isis

🧿Decolonizing the mind

🧿End paternalism + patriarchy

🧿Toxic masculinity

🧿End corporate America

🧿Restoring communities not policing crime

🧿Legalize marijuana & psychedlics

🧿End prison sentences for non-violent crimes (exception financial manipulation where people & families lose life savings like securities fraud)

🧿End school to prison pipeline

🧿End criminalization of normal childhood behavior of black & brown boys in elementary school that leads to juvenille halls, early prison records & sets them up for a life of crime for something they should be getting detention for

🧿End overmedicalization of black women by psychiatry & disgusting abuse of power through misdiagnoses, forcible drugging & forced hospitalizations

🧿Remove Protestant work ethic from public consciousness

🧿Strengthen unions & labor laws

🧿Stop prioritizing profits over people

🧿End preventable deaths from starvation, homelessness & curable illnesses and diseases by providing a universal living (not "minimum") wage, affordable housing & medical care so people stop dying needlessly in the "richest country in the world"

🧿Remove organized religions influence from laws, education systems, public sphere & culture at large as it has caused hatred, homophobia, transphobia, misogyny, racism, persecution, genocide, unjust laws, oppression, suppression, indoctrination, brainwashing, forced baptisms, trauma, upheld patriarchy & paternalism, reinforced bullshit feminine ideals, subjugation of women & their forced submission to the "head of the household", dogma, blind faith, zealotry, corruption, grift, theft, "tithes & offerings", sex abuse, emotional abuse, psychological coercion, child abuse, hypocrisies and wars.

🧿Societal realization that feminine doesnt equal women, masculine doesnt equal men, anyone can wear makeup, heels, dresses, business suits, tuxedos, grow facial hair, not shave their legs, have acrylic nails, etc. and it has nothing to do with genitalia, sex or assigned gender at birth and everything to do with Spirit (as the Native Americans know with 2 Spirit), energy and how Source has divinely chosen to manifest itself in each individual soul and that expression of Source is as unique and individual as our fingerprints and if that expression is through gender affirming transitions, surgery, medical care, facial feminization surgery, changes in physical appearance, hormones, drugs then that is how that persons soul has chosen to express themselves in this temporal, corporeal, temporary and physical plane of existence -- the soul, our energy, Source, the divine is what truly matters and noone should question anyone elses unique soul expression which can be expressed and communicated in literally millions of different ways, through body art, body modifications, tattoos, piercings, hair adornments, permanent makeup, the list is literally endless and gender identity expression and gender affirming care is just one of these millions of ways and should not be demonized, hated, feared or legislated against.

🧿Opioids like fentanyl, percoset, oxycontin, etc. are dangerous, harmful and addictive. Millions are addicted and millions have lost their lives for no reason other than to enrich pharmaceutical companies. We can be healed with plants and herbs and we can be healed with our selves and our own inner healing power. We dont need these synthetic, unnatural, harmful & deadlydrugs. They should be made illegal.

🧿Cancer is nothing but a cottage industry and a money making tool -- with all the trillions and trillions donated and decades upon decades of research, where is the cure? Same with arthritis, lupus and other autoimmune diseases. Prescription drugs exist to make pharmaceutical companies richer, thats it.

🧿Satan was made up for Christianity, which is a bastardized & stolen form of kemet, Mary is a bastardized Isis & Jesus is a bastardized & fake ass Horus. There is no hell, hell is never mentioned once in the Old Testament, it was made up later for the New Testament to control and enslave. We are in hell, thats literally where we are now, what else do you call millions of children dying every year of starvation, from homelessness, from completely preventable & curable diseases when Apple is a trillion dollar company? What do you call the Earth dying because of profit and greed and capitalism? What do you call pointless wars over inside government jobs? What do you call genocide, systems of oppression, police killing unarmed Black men with absolute impunity, prison industrial complex, military industrial complex, school to prison pipeline, corporate amerikkka working people to death into literal early graves, money being valued over living human beings with unique souls, forests being destroyed, colonialism, colonizers, government experimentation, MK Ultra, minders, greys, the Bohemian Grove...youre in hell literally now.

🧿Decolonize your mind, heal yourself, commune with nature, unplug and disconnect, exit the rat race, stop treating yourself as a machine when you are a beautiful soul, stop overworking, stop hustling, stop overeating, stop overdrinking -- ethanol is a poisonous depressant, so how do you "drink to have a good time"?, stop overspending, stop overconsuming, stop retail "therapy", tap into yourself, tap into your soul, stop endlessly scrolling and tapping your phone, tap into Source, we are all infinite beings and they treat you like you are an inconsequential cog to be replaced -- if you die today, your job will replace you tomorrow i was a corporate recruiter and saw it happen more than once, listen to ocean waves, float weightlessly in a dark pool, stop listening to 24/7 news, stop being 24/7, youre not 24/7, you have a natural circadian rhythym, replenish your depleted melatonin levels, they treat you like a 5 below knock off when you are expansive & divine, stop killing yourself to make a CEO that doesnt know who tf you are and his shareholders richer they will brush your ass out the door this fall with the estimated 2 million more people being laid off, stop making yourself a number, stop being a statistic, stop being plastic, stop playing their game, be an individual, be yourSELF, know the Self, know Self, know thy Self, cant run away from Self forever, look inside because thats where all the answers are and thats the only place they dont want you to look so you google it but baybee what did people do before google, stop shortening your attention span, you are more than a Tik Tok, read a book, fight the power, fight the machine, take a slow leisurely walk to nowhere to do nothing, stop existing and curating your entire existence for social consumption on social media, you are not a thing to be consumed, you were wonderfully made by Source, you are Source, realize who you are and open your eyes...🧿

[reap-the-game]

FFXIV LFRP – Gia Gabriella

Be sure to read the bunny’s rules and detailed about too! I rp in multi-para/novella style on Tumblr and on Discord and you might be able to talk me into in-game meetups on NA data centers.

This is a sideblog to avaritia-ffxiv.

THE BASICS

Name: Gia Gabriella

Age: Rough equivalent to mid-twenties

Nameday: 6th Sun of the 3rd Umbral Moon

Race: Viera, Rava

Gender: Male(ish)

Sexuality: Pan

Marital Status: Shipped

Server: Gilgamesh, Aether DC

PHYSICAL APPEARANCE

Hair: Black with red highlights, lengthy

Eyes: Red

Height: 175 cm

Build: Average in practically every way

Distinguishing Marks: Long scar crossing his right eye, black markings at the inner and outer corners of his eyes.

Common Accessories: Often wears a mask of some sort.

PERSONAL

Profession: Adventurer, an escort in a pinch

Hobbies: Archery, knitting and crocheting, drawing, singing, running

Languages: Speaks common with an accent

Birthplace: Golmore Jungle

Residence: Eorzea

Religion: Nothing anymore

Patron Deity: Will claim Rhalgr, the Destroyer

Fears: His past finding him again, becoming physically or mentally crippled, getting close to others, losing his freedom, heights and small spaces, beetles of any kind

RELATIONSHIPS

Spouse: None

Children: None

Parents: Ada Falshki (mother). Father’s exact identity unknown to him.

Siblings: None from his mother, probably some from his father, but doesn’t know for certain

Other relatives: Some, none of particular importance

Pets: None

TRAITS

Extroverted / In Between / Introverted

Disorganized / In Between / Organized

Close Minded / In Between / Open Minded

Calm / In Between / Anxious

Disagreeable / In Between / Agreeable

Cautious / In Between / Reckless

Patient / In Between /  Impatient

Outspoken / In Between / Reserved

Leader / In Between / Follower

Empathetic / In Between / Apathetic

Optimistic / In Between / Pessimistic

Traditional / In Between / Modern

Hard-working / In Between / Lazy

Cultured / In Between / Uncultured

Loyal / In Between / Disloyal

Faithful / In Between / Unfaithful

HABITS

Smoking Habit: None

Drugs: Mild ones recreationally, but rarely

Alcohol: Rarely

CHARACTER HOOKS

Wanderer’s Life for Me: He rarely stays long in one place. While one side-effect of that is that he can incredibly hard to get a hold of when you want to, it does also mean that he covers enough distance on the regular to be found practically anywhere within Eorzea. So, no matter where you’re at, you might just meet him.

Sheer Apathy: Are you in trouble? Don’t expect him to step in. Are you making trouble? He might hang around to observe. How would you react in either role? What manner of trouble was it? Really, you could be torching a village and he still wouldn’t make a move to stop you.

Garlean Antipathy: Forever caught in indecision between staying as far away from Garleans as he possibly can and butchering any Garlean he comes across, Gia’s feelings towards the Empire aren’t exactly warm, to say the least. He wouldn’t wish to admit to his fear, but it tends to be obvious anyway. Expect the unpredictable and oft violent reactions of a cornered animal.

Of the Jungle: Although Golmore Jungle is long behind him, he does at times, perhaps even often, yearn for those simpler days. Are you a fellow Viera, Rava even, that would bring a piece of that old home with you?

Voidbound: Reaper by trade, his soul is tied to the Void through his Avatar. Are you someone who knows of the condition? Share it, even? You’d pique his curiosity instantaneously; he hasn’t met a great many Reapers in his time.

OUT OF CHARACTER

Mun is located in Northern Europe.

Discord is available if we’re planning to rp together.

As a general rule there’s nothing I'm entirely unwilling to write, but let’s discuss everything and make sure we’re on the same page. I’m also cognizant of in-character consequences and might refuse to rp something as a result. However, I am particularly open for dark content with Gia, so if you have any ideas, do share.

Open-ish to ERP with the disclaimer it’s an IC dead-end. I also won’t rp it only for the sake of rping it. Not particularly open to shipping because Gia already has an OTP and I struggle to see him with anyone else.

I mostly write in a single timeline, but I’m not completely opposed to AUs.

[thirtecnth]

(Hamish Linklater) THE PROPHET. Please welcome FATHER JACOB KARRAS (HE/HIM) to Huntsville, WV. They are a 46-year-old RESIDENT who lives in TOWN. You may see them around working as a PRIEST AT HUNTSVILLE CHAPEL. Poor unfortunate soul. We’ll see if they survive.

( *tw - religious trauma, pregnancy mention )

GENERAL

FULL NAME: Jacob Arthur Karras NICKNAMES: Jake, Father Jacob, Mr. Karras AGE: 45 years old DATE OF BIRTH: May 30th SEXUALITY: Straight Questioning STATUS: Gatherer

APPEARANCE

HEIGHT: 6′ 4″ HAIR: Black EYE COLOR: Brown

BACKGROUND

HOMETOWN: Huntsville, West Virginia INCOME STATUS: Lower Class FATHER: Damien Karras (deceased) MOTHER: Greta Karras (deceased) SIBLINGS: N/A SIGNIFICANT OTHER: N/A HOBBIES: Hiking, Gardening, Reading, Running, Wine, Carpentry

TRAITS

[+] Empathetic, Passionate, Protective [-] Withdrawn, Dishonest, Martyr

STORY POINTS

Jacob had a relatively normal childhood for someone in such a religious household. His parents were rather strict, but they tried their best-- it just took them being gone for him to realize it.

He grew up alongside Cabell McCay as childhood friends, someone of a different religion than his own, but gave him a better appreciation for others. They have remained good friends since.

On a seemingly random day, he was hit by a car while riding his bike to school and fell over the hood. His bike was done for, though he was left with only scratches... It was from that moment on that he believed he had a true calling from God.

As he became a teenager, he understood what it would take to become a priest, (or rather what he would have to give up), but he had a grand passion for God. He would do what it took to serve and made a commitment to remain pure.

It was all so easy until he fell in love with one of his childhood friends. He knew he could never have her, he had made a commitment to God and she had made a commitment to her boyfriend, but the last night he was in town before leaving for his education-- Things happened.

When he returned years later, he was almost heartbroken to find that the girl he loved so dearly was not only married now, but that she had a child... A child of the age of 8... Strange.

She said the child wasn't his and he chose never to speak of it. But that didn't mean he didn't have nightmares about how he believed the child looked more and more like him every day.

Regardless, he continued with his teachings and prepared lessons to prep for an eventual spot as the successor of the church... But then the storm happened.

Jacob was one of the first to offer the place of worship as a place to take refuge. He accepted all people and would be damned if anyone was left without a place to stay in this situation, but he was entirely lost on how to lead the church when such an unprecedented evil was afoot.

It took a very quick conversation between the two of them left to conclude that Absinthe should lead everyone over him. He was far more qualified in Jacob's opinion and with that, he would assist and help preach.

In the beginning, attendance was lower than it ever had been-- but he didn't take it personally. His faith had been tested as well when his parents had been torn to pieces in their own home. They had just refused to use any other symbol outside their door but the cross.

He came to the conclusion that God was finally punishing the town for their sins. Taking the good with him on the way out in the form of a rapture. That was why the cross hadn't protected his parents. Because the monsters must've been some kind of rapture angels.

This opinion changed in private discussions with Absinthe and inner thought. When new life kept occurring in Huntsville, he figured it could be the opposite... That these truly were creatures sent from Hell and they were there to help protect the people of Huntsville.

In the years since, Jacob has become a much more progressive priest. He was already very accepting of everyone, but he has very much settled into the belief that they were living in unprecedented times-- that called for kindness, acceptance, and understanding.

Today, Jacob still helps the needy and is one of the first to welcome new visitors with information. He offers guidance to those who seek it and never judges those who reject his faith. He would still throw himself at the danger before he allowed anyone to be in pain... Jacob only wishes he could get them all out.

WANTED CONNECTIONS

1. The One that Got Away: She might still go to the church, she might not. Either way, the connection might still be there beneath all the tension of their situation... If not, she might just miss the friendship they once had.

2. The Child: They would be around 27 at this point. Do they know the truth? Is there even a truth to find out? And what of their connection at all... They might try to see Jacob or be curious about him because of the pictures of her mother and him that the older woman had tried to hide away.

3. Childhood Friends: He's been in town for quite some time. It wouldn't be surprising that he had some friends still around! He always tried to be a friendly face to others.

4. Lost Souls: Maybe he sees them regularly to discuss addictions or immoral behavior... Or maybe they've just been discussing these things for years. Whatever the situation, he's there to listen. Even if they're not religious.

5. Gossips: He's annoyed by them and all their news around town. Pretending they "know the truth" doesn't mean anything to him. He's never lied in his life... And even if he had, they shouldn't know about it.

…More to come, I’m sure!

[palaceofimperium]

2

After the discussion in Arch’s office, Abriella and Arch had made their way to each of the ladies’ rooms in no particular order.  They wanted to speak with each one about their individual concerns and make sure that any worries were answered fully and there was nothing that was held back because of not wanting others to hear about it.  Some were on board immediately, while others were more reticent to accept the idea without some additional information and thought.  Both Abriell and Arch were understanding of this, after all the women had all been through some traumatic events and some hesitancy to trust others was to be expected after all.

It had taken a few days for everyone to agree and get their things together. Arch and Brie had taken the time to make preparations, talk to others, and ensure that not one detail was missed.Not more than a week, but there had been changes for all of them, and none of them good. Broken hearts, broken minds, broken souls, leading to shattered lives. What they were being offered was a chance to mend all of that and shape something new that could be more beautiful than what they had experienced before.  There would be new people who could help them, guide them to new adventures and experiences that were beyond some of what they had.

After everyone had agreed and all of the preparations had been completed, all of the women assembled in the main foyer of the Sanctuary in New Orleans along with Arch and a couple of the other younger Nephilim who were going to go down into Imperium to train with Brie’s personal Royal Guard.  They were just coming into their majority and wanted to learn some of the techniques that her Guard used when in battle.  The skirmishes with the Princes’ forces were increasing and the elder Nephilim didn’t always have time to do training in between battles, so Brie often took younger Nephilim warriors to Imperium or had some of her guard and soldiers visit Sanctuaries around the globe to assist in training.  It was helping to bolster the fighting ability of all of the Nephilim forces.  The world had certainly changed since the Horsemen had been called and Hell had been revamped, although humanity knew none of it.  That was probably for the better, with the upheaval that would have happened in the major religions, chaos would have ensued.  Like Tommy Lee Jones said in “Men In Black” - “A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it.”  Sometimes all other beings just avoid telling them things for the betterment of all creation.

It had been decided that on that day, breakfast would be had in Imperium as a group.  To help them become acclimated to life in Imperium, each of the ladies would be assigned their “guide” from Abriella’s inner circle.  Someone that would help them also in overcoming the issues that had first led them to ask for refuge in the Sanctuaries they had started out in before coming to Chicago.  There had been a lot of care taken in choosing those guides, discussions with both Cruz, her father, and her grandfather, Div.  Now she felt assured that her choices were for the best.  As Brie looked at all of them, it seemed surreal that only a few years prior that it had been in that very Sanctuary that she had found her own destiny when it had been revealed her true nature and that Cruz was her brother.  She had gained friends, family, safety and a true home.  Now she was hoping to give that same sense of peace and belonging to her friends that she loved dearly.

Once everyone was ready, Brie traced them to the throne room in the Palace of Imperium.  Palace staff would take their baggage to their quarters, all of which were located in a wing that Cruz had created the previous week after they had finished all the plans for what preparations would be needed for their arrival and stay within the Palace and the realm itself.  Housed within that wing would be the women, the Horsemen, and all of the inner circle.  Originally they had considered only placing the guides and the women there, but Brie feared they would feel isolated and/or shunned being away from everyone else.  As the Palace was almost a living and breathing entity to itself, if there was a desire for any of them to have accommodations that were more secluded it could always be accomplished at any time.  Not to mention that there were empty rooms in unused hallways for a variety of reasons that could be made ready in just a few moments. There were also cottages in various locations around the realm that they could go to if they so desired to get away from the commotion that could sometimes happen when residing in the Palace itself.

As they traced in, Yael took Phaedra’s hand and squeezed it tight. Even though she wanted to be there and have this new start on life, she was dealing with the ever present threat of being overwhelmed by fear and anxiety born of what she had been through in preceding centuries due to her treatment by Gabriel. Abriella, Anna, Gail, and Phaedra had all assured her that there was nothing to worry about at all and Arch had discussed with her at length about all the security measure that were in place due to not only her being there, but also the ongoing wars with the Princes, but she still warred with an anxiety that lay within her breast and threatened to rise up and strangle her with little warning.  Her past haunted her in a way that she could not put to words to explain to anyone, least of all those she loved.  She could feel the calm that Brie was trying to imbue her with, and it was a comfort like she had not known since she had been assigned to the Angelic Legion under Gabriel.  She could only hope that comfort would not fail and that in this new realm that provided the ultimate safety, she would be able to find peace and vanquish the ghosts of her past.

Other than Yael, the other women seemed cautious but markedly more relaxed.  Even with all that Abriella was able to do to try to calm Yael using her empathetic powers, the Nephilim still seemed about ready to have a panic attack at any moment.  It had Abriella second guessing who she had chosen for her.  There had been discussions on what to do if it did not work out, and her brother and Arch both had ideas that seemed promising in that respect..  Hopefully it would not come to that, but no one said any of the males she lived with and around were known for being always overly easy to get along with at first meeting, except for Deacon.  And Deacon did happen to be one of those who were going to be helping Yael, so there was at last that reassurance

“Follow me, ladies and Arch, the chefs are excited to have new victims to unleash their culinary creations upon.  I promise you that you will neither leave hungry nor disappointed in the food ”  Brie gave them a bright smile as she gestured towards a set of gilded double doors along one wall, and led them into the massive and elegant formal dining room.  The room had a wall that was all windows looking out into a courtyard with a flower garden and fountain.  In the middle of the room, centered under a cut crystal chandelier, was a massive dark wood table that was ornately carved. On it were place settings for everyone who would be joining them. Where each of the ladies were to sit were cream colored name cards with gold embossing and Abriella’s flowing script with their names.  Although there were plenty of staff within the Palace, Abriella wanted her own touches on things and so she and her friends had done most of the work for that morning  themselves. In the end they were all like a big family so it meant a lot for them to do it personally rather than assign someone else to.  Those personal touches made it more special. 

As the women took their places they saw that Cruz was already at the head of the table and welcomed them all with a surprisingly warm smile.  All of the women already knew him from when he has been around Abriella when they had visites and were friendly; and he understood why they each had  chosen to relocate to Imperium.  As closed off as he could be, he remembered how it had been for Abriella when she had first gone to the Sanctuary in Chicago.  In the coming days they would need support and friendship, he would be there to offer both.  He also wanted to help the women to feel as comfortable and secure in Imperium as one could given the current situation with the Princes, Gabriel, and Abbadon.  Few challenged Cruz, and fewer Abriella, so their combined hope was for nothing but Peace

[cyarskaren52]

Power to the people

GOTTA GIVE US WHAT WE NEED: THE 25 DOPEST POLITICAL RAP SONGS

By Stereo Williams

Published Wed, March 23, 2022 at 10:00 PM EDT

Hip-Hop has always been political. 

From the organization of community jams in the Bronx to the topicality of songs like "The Message" and "Problems Of the World," Hip-Hop's soul is forever tied to the kind of commentary that sprung from the streets.

In the late 1980s, the political Hip-Hop of artists like Public Enemy and Boogie Down Productions served to reawaken the Black consciousness in mainstream American culture. The rise of Public Enemy announced a new generation of post-civil rights era Black voices, born of economic disenfranchisement and politicized policing of the Reagan era. That ethos has run throughout rap music and Hip-Hop culture in the decades since, and some of the greatest political songs of the past 35 years have come from Hip-Hop artists. 

So here are the 25 Dopest political rap songs. 

And yeah--you're probably thinking "Waitaminute, if this is supposed to be the TWENTY-FIVE Dopest Political Rap Songs, why are there TWENTY-SIX listed?"

Because we can do what the fuck we want. Fight the power. 

#26

"AH YEAH" - KRS-ONE

One of the most incendiary tracks in a catalog that's about as unapologetic as it gets, KRS delivers this firebomb on his classic sophomore solo album, calling out white supremacy and racism on one of his most bombastic anthems.

#25

"REAGAN" - KILLER MIKE

Dissecting Iran Contra and the influx of drugs into America's inner cities in the 1980s, Mike blasts the 40th President of the United States, explaining how his administration's policies ripped apart Black communities and the effects would ripple out for generations. 

#24

"12 PROBLEMS" - RAPSODY

Over Don Cannon and Cubeatz's production, the rhymer out of North Carolina delivers social commentary in the age of Black Lives Matter and Donald Trump; focusing her personal frustrations at police brutality, the prison industrial complex, and the War on Drugs. 

#23

"STOP THE VIOLENCE" - BOOGIE DOWN PRODUCTIONS

The song that kicked off KRS-One’s Stop the Violence campaign, promoting peace and harmony in the hip-hop community. The campaign was kicked off after a fan was shot and killed outside of a Boogie Down Productions and Public Enemy show. The track encourages listeners to change the narrative of hip-hop and street culture by putting an end to the violence, staying true to KRS-One’s ethos of positivity and black empowerment. 

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#22

"NATURE OF THE THREAT" - RAS KASS

Ras Kass delivers an Afrocentric telling of history via this notorious track from his debut album, "Soul On Ice." Quibbles about accuracy persist, as the Cali emcee establishes himself as a wordsmith of the top order, breaking down everything from religion to war. A song that undoubtedly has sparked countless stoned in debates in HBCU dorm rooms across America. 

#21

"BURN HOLLYWOOD BURN" - PUBLIC ENEMY FEAT. ICE CUBE, BIG DADDY KANE

Chuck, Kane and Cube take aim and fire at Tinseltown and its depiction of Black people. Endorsing Black filmmakers like Spike Lee while bodyslamming Oscar fodder like "Driving Miss Daisy," it was the perfect middle finger to the way the big screen has exploited Blackness. 

#20

"REVOLUTION" - ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT

The Atlanta-based collective was one of the hottest acts in music when they were tapped to deliver this track for the soundtrack to Spike Lee's "Malcolm X." The song became an anthem. 

#19

"B.I.B.L.E." - GZA W/KILLAH PRIEST

Essentially a showcase for Priest placed at the end of GZA's epic "Liquid Swords" albums, it finds Priest kicking knowledge of self and celebrating how wisdom has helped reach an elevated spiritual place as a man as he picks apart Christianity. 

#18

"MOSH" - EMINEM

Em's most famously topical track is him squaring off against George W. Bush and the much-ballyhooed "War On Terror" of the early 2000s. The slow burn of the production gives Em plenty of space to air out his feelings on Dubya's legacy. 

#17

"I WANNA KILL SAM" - ICE CUBE

Cube has no shortage of topical tracks but one of his most incendiary is this assault on the American military. Delivered with the specter of Operation: Desert Storm and "Be All You Can Be" ads, Cube criticizes the exploitative way the U.S. military recruits in the hood. 

#16

"SHAKIYLA" - POOR RIGHTEOUS TEACHERS

The Five Percenter-influenced Jersey crew tackled a number of hard-hitting issues, from black economic empowerment to religion, in their underrated catalog. Here, Wise Intelligent, Culture Freedom and Father Shaheed address misogyny, street harassment and disrespect of the Black woman. 

#15

"A SONG FOR ASSATA" - COMMON FEAT. CEE-LO

Sure, the song from his critically-acclaimed 2000 album "Like Water For Chocolate" was very on the nose and maybe a little book report-ish but you can’t really diss a song that gives a history lesson about the activist hero, Assata Shakur.

#14

"WICKED" - ICE CUBE

The smoke of the L.A. riots was still fresh in everyone's minds when Cube dropped this incendiary single from 1992s "The Predator." Cube makes it clear where he stands on things: "April 21st was power to the people. And we might just see a sequel."

#13

"LIVE AT THE O.M.N.I." - GOODIE MOB

The Good Die Mostly Over Bullshit. The ATL foursome get raw and real about Black power on this, another gem from their debut album, "Soul Food," “...O.M.N.I.” is Goodie doing what they do best, dissecting racist systems with perceptiveness and relatability.

#12

"MATHEMATICS" - MOS DEF

The BK spitter earned his reputation as one of the illest emcees of all time. On this classic from his flawless debut album "Black On Both Sides," Yasiin Bey breaks down the math for those who ain't wise to it. 

#11

"DANCE WITH THE DEVIL" - IMMORTAL TECHNIQUE

On his most infamous song, the lyrical assassin delivers a harrowing story rap; one that serves as a metaphorical dissection for the degradation of society's morals and the embrace of evil. 

#10

"FIRE & EARTH" - X-CLAN

Brother J, Professor X and the crew may have delivered their most radio-friendly single, but X-Clan still doesn't flinch in their takedown of Eurocentricity, white supremacy, and even self-proclaimed "humanist" KRS-One. 

#9

"THE DEVIL MADE ME DO IT" - PARIS

His Bay Area bonafides are evident, as Paris has been dubbed "The Black Panther of Hip-Hop" for a reason. The most famous is probably this classic single, a song so political incendiary that it got the fiery rapper banned from Black Entertainment Television. 

#8

"THE BLACKER THE BERRY" - KENDRICK LAMAR

An anthem for the Black Lives Matter era, K. Dot explodes on this standout track from his critically-acclaimed classic "To Pimp A Butterfly." His focused fire is aimed at the police and at the systemic racism in which Western society was forged. As he also goes off on gangs and crime, the Compton product reminds everyone that he's all-too-human and conflicted, as well. 

#7

"HOLLER IF YA HEAR ME" - 2PAC

Recorded following the 1992 L.A. riots, you can hear Pac’s rage on this banger from his second album, 1993’s "Strictly From My N.I.G.G.A.Z" when he raps: “To my brothers on the block better stay strapped, black/And accept no substitutes/I bring truth to the youth tear the roof off the whole school/Oh no, I won't turn the other cheek/In case ya can't see, that's why we burned the other week..."

#6

"CELL THERAPY" - GOODIE MOB

The lead single from their debut album, "Soul Food," “Cell Therapy” served as a blaring marker for Goodie’s arrival. Organized Noize’s distinctive, muddy and sinister production was on full display here, as was the grimy, keenly observant lyricism that Goodie Mob became known for. That piano line is beyond iconic.

#5

"LADIES FIRST" - QUEEN LATIFAH FEAT. MONIE LOVE

From Day One, Queen Latifah has addressed misogyny in Hip-Hop. On this standout single from her classic debut "All Hail The Queen," the Jersey star (and U.K. transplant Monie) makes it plain that history proves that Black women are to be respected and honored. 

#4

"SOUND OF DA POLICE" - KRS-ONE

Unfortunately, this track is just as relevant today as it was the day of the release decades ago. In this song KRS One addresses police brutality toward the black community, linking the days of slavery to the way police acts in these modern times. Comparing overseers to police officers, everyone should be scared of the sounds of the police.

#3

"HIP-HOP" - DEAD PREZ

stic.man and m1 opened the new millennium with this anthem that reminded everyone what Hip-Hop's heart is supposed to be. Delivered at the height of the rap game's flossiest era, it was a manifesto for maintaining integrity in the face of superficial shine.

#2

"F*CK THE POLICE" - N.W.A.

They didn't try to soften it. They didn't try to smooth it out. Eazy, Dre, Ren, Yella and Ice Cube just went there. Before Rodney King. Before "Boyz N the Hood." Before the world had seen a peek at life in South Central L.A., N.W.A. delivered a look at the hood and the reality of police brutality. Their most famous song, this classic cop diss notoriously made the World's Most Dangerous Group a target for the F.B.I.

#1

"FIGHT THE POWER" - PUBLIC ENEMY

It's the epitome of Hip-Hop's focused anger. The theme song for Spike Lee's classic "Do The Right Thing," Chuck D and Flavor Flav's epic single crystallized a generation's righteous rage and became the quintessential anthem for rap's political ethos. The opening salvo, the iconic music video, the infamous Elvis Presley body slam--it all contributes to what would ultimately become regarded as one of the greatest songs of all time.

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[rosallora]

S3E4 Passing Through Gethsemane

I predicted this was a chess game before it was a chess game and personally I am very proud of myself.

Kosh is komin’ home! Welcome home Kosh.

Also the monks live here now! They’re giving out little figurines and people LOVE little figurines. I hope the monks make a biergarden and shit if they’re going to live here. And do like, Cool Monk Things (tm) instead of just being BORING monks.

Kosh’s suit is sounding better! That’s good, and also consistent with what I was thinking in the moments that we saw him before.

Lyta is back! She went to Vorlon space... FOR REAL. And the Vorlon Homeworld FOR REAL FOR REAL! Lyta is like a special little attache for Kosh now! The way she talks about him, it’s kind of like Kosh is like her supernatural werewolf boyfriend and honestly I love that for her. She’s living her best life.

The Monks are smart businessmen! This black rose that the monk found feels like a threat to me. Or... it’s TUXEDO MASK!

Death walks among you

Rather threatening message! Too bad it’s gone now!

I love that Londo tried to threaten Lyta with the psi corps, and Lyta was like “I will rip your fucking brains out”. KILL LYTA! KILL!

Learning about the Minbari way of religious philosophy is super intriguing. And I appreciate that Delenn doesn’t just stop at giving, but wants to learn about the human practices and religions in turn. And the Garden of Gesthemane is an interesting story, and a really moving one, honestly. The strength to stay. I’d like to think that the monks (esp Brother Edward!) and the Minbari have weekly meetings about faith.

Brother Edward went through death of personality! That’s my theory. That’s why he’s seeing this stuff, why he’s doing all this. The black rose was his calling card. He was a truly unhinged person!!! I’m glad that he is talking to Brother Theo.. but I’m worried about what’s going to happen to Edward. He seems like he’s been enjoying his new monk life, but... oh man. Oh man.

Note: ALL BUT CONFIRMED by Brother Theo. Oh... this is bad.

The slight changes in character and the ACTING on this guy... this is really awesome. He’s KILLING it in this role. And he’s doing a wonderful job portraying the inner turmoil and grief and panic that he must be feeling.

I’m wondering how the Garden will come back in this regard. The sins were forgotten... but the soul remembers.... that’s so interesting... you can’t pay penance, perhaps, for what you don’t know. For what you forget. The idea that this is not enough justice... it’s so intense. And that SHOT... with Edward CRYING.... that’s such an amazing image. And I want the best for him. I want him to be okay. And I don’t want him to die.

I really hope that we can come out of this with a better SENSE of justice. This is all very... over the top punitive. Sick and twisted. Bringing Lyta in as a kind of brute force crowbar is NOT good either. I don’t like that going around the law is being shown as a “good” thing.

He DID have the courage to stay at the garden. That’s... an interesting wrap-around. I really don’t want him to die, though. I want him to live through this. I want him to be able to recover, and grow, and be a better person. I don’t want him to simply die. Maybe this will inspire something in Garibaldi (and perhaps Sheridan?) though. I want them to be... less punitive. Less militaristic.

Forgiveness is a HARD THING, sure. But something to strive for, always.

The prison to monk pipeline..........