#Republic of Infidels

[victoriaxdecapua]

Her voice shook. “What about father?”

“He discovered the truth, just like you,” he said dully. “He was on his way here to this ship when Miryam’s agent killed him.”

“Is that why you massacred her people?”

He shrugged. “I suppose. I wanted to send a message. I thought maybe revenge would give me some kind of closure, but she wasn’t there.” 

Rachel felt the tight disgust return to her chest. “You knew she wouldn’t be. You killed them anyway. They did nothing to you, and you let Sergei have them.”

“It’s funny,” he said in that same emotionless tone, his eyes raised to the ceiling. “I spent my whole life trying to dismantle tyranny, put an end to genocide. I thought I was a good man, but really I just needed the challenge. I thought watching those Penitents die would break something in me. I wanted that. Wanted to break the thing that hurts. But those people never mattered to me. Even when I was trying to help them, people weren’t really part of my game. The only person that really matters is you. You are the only thing that hurts.”

Rachel stared at him. Her conflicted feelings of despair, love, pain and rage now alchemized, becoming a hatred so heavy inside her that it felt like molten metal filling her lungs, her stomach and her heart. She wanted to hit him again, to hurt him. To injure him, perhaps kill him, but she was rooted to the spot.

He looked at her again with that pitying look, as though sorry that she had him to bear as a burden. She backed away, then turned, reaching for the door.

“Rachel.” 

She hesitated, wanting to leave this room, to escape the scent of decay, but she turned. 

Vikram’s eyes were on her, staring eyes, his expression as serene as stone. 

“I will forgive you when this is done.”

[victoriadecapua]

Republic of Infidels Book I: The Remains - Chapter Eight - The Tender Void

“When you think about last night, try to remember that you fucked me after the world ended, not the other way around, hm?”

Rachel stared into the mirror. Ten days had passed, and already a lexicon had formed around their new reality. For those who preferred a more sanitized accounting, the Fall was rapidly becoming the most popular euphemism, though the Event was the term that Vikram and his little band of acolytes favoured, when they alluded to it at all. Before was less used. No one had attempted to polish it.

He had asked her to join them, to discuss the fate and future of their little afterworld, but she had declined, instead preferring to sit in front of her mirror and stare. She’d spend hours like this, staring at her own reflection, looking into her own eyes as she watched herself remember everything she had ever done, ever said, or that had ever been done or said in her presence. 

Memory came in waves that seemed to lash against her mind, eroding her discipline, all the more irresistible because she wanted to let it take her, let it drag her under. She wanted to be with Alec in the grassy quad, that paltry twelve minutes in which he had brushed aside her defences, put his mouth on hers, lifting her up an invisible step on to an entirely new plateau of experience. 

She wanted to tell him how unusual that was for her, to not know. To want, without having yet experienced. To feel that sexual charge, to embrace it, to know she could relinquish her hard-fought self control, because she knew Alec loved her.

But Alec Vigna was dead. Everyone was dead. Everything she’d known, and everything she’d ever experienced was simultaneously meaningless and inescapable. If she left this spot, if she left the memory of Alec, it would inundate her. Here, she had found a small refuge in the tactile recollection of his lips, his mouth, his teasing smile.

What would I want with a nice girl?

“You need to eat something.”

She blinked, realized her brother was standing over her with a plate and a mug of tea. With the interference of his presence, she came back to herself, and realized there were tears on her face. This happened all the time now, this unconscious weeping. She did it in her sleep, often waking to find her cheeks stained with salt. She knuckled them away and looked blearily at the reflection of his concerned, disapproving face. 

Heaving a sigh, he balanced the plate and sat down cross legged beside her, then put the spoon in her hand. She looked it, frowning in confusion.

Exasperated, he held the plate out to her. “Do I really have to hand feed you, Rachel?”

She took it, and to please him, loaded the spoon and nibbled at it. It was uncomplicated, just curried rice and lentils, but the taste of salt and carbohydrates woke her appetite just enough. She ate another spoonful, then another. He handed her the tea, and she sipped the fragrant liquid, feeling her throat unstick. 

She thought about the flavour, her mind naturally unpacking it, pulling out the facts she had in her nearly infinite record. China, she thought. Green tea came from China. As she thought this, the feedback loop she’d been trying so desperately to avoid by staying with the memory of Alec began, because of course there was no China, just as there was no Alec. 

Tears again. She tried to ignore them as she continued to eat, but she found she could no longer stand the taste of the tea. She put it down. Vikram did not fail to note this gesture, and his expression of concern deepened. He reached out and used his thumbs to wipe away her tears, his black eyes searching her face. She let the half empty plate slide to the floor, and stared back at him.

“Why don’t you feel it?” She wanted to know, her voice shaking as she tried not to unravel. “Vikram, I can’t do this.”

“You can,” he insisted. “You can’t give into despair. I won’t let you.”

She looked at him, wanting so badly to explain that she didn’t want to be alive, but she couldn’t do that to him. And yet, she wanted his pain. She wanted him to stop being strong, to stop seeking solutions, to admit everything they’d overcome had now rendered them obsolete. 

“We’ve gone extinct,” she whispered. 

“No. Endangered, perhaps,” he said, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Refugees are coming here. More every day. There are still cargo ships on the high seas, still provisions and goods. Maybe we are writing the merest end to human history, but at least….”

Seeing her expression made him stop. They’d had this same conversation many times, but she could see he was giving up. Resigning himself to caring for her, because he couldn’t repair her. 

“Why do you do this?” he asked, indicating the mirror. It wasn’t a judgement, she knew. He was interested in the psychic application. They had all kinds of tools for managing their condition, some of which they shared, others which were private, or not consciously applied. 

This meditation was too private, too intimate for her to describe to him. She wasn’t sure she could explain that the memory of Alec Vigna’s cock pressing against her through his trousers was the only thing keeping her from stepping off the mountainside. It was not a nourishing memory, and it created a void of exquisitely painful desire in her, but that pain was so physical that it centred her. Stopped her from thinking about China, about Oxford, about Jamal Salim, about a thousand different things erased from a world she didn’t know she had loved so much. Most dead of all, the young woman she had been, one endowed with status and power. She would never have that again, and to her shame, she mourned.

“I don’t know,” she said in answer to her brother’s curious gaze. “What do you think I should do?”

“Engage,” he said at once. “Mother is establishing an academy and Father’s shoring up the harbour. You have medical training, you could help people.”

“Help people,” she repeated. “I can’t help people with radiation sickness, Vikram. The best thing you could do for most of them is shoot them.”

He glared at her. “You know who you sound like.”

She shrugged, and turned back to the mirror. Her face was unchanged, her dark eyes blank. Vikram’s reflection watched her, and she could tell he wanted to shake her, if only to make her resist. As her eyes moved to his, she thought that she would quite like to do the same. To shake him out of his missionary delusion, to shake some tears out of him. By trying to keep her safe from his own trauma, he wanted her to lie to herself about her own. She had begun to feel lonely in his presence. She hadn’t expected him to make the mistake of thinking that leaving her alone would correct the difficulty. 

He got to his feet, then bent to her, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “You need a shower.” 

Then he was gone, slipping out the door without another word. It hurt, his frustration with her, but she knew his return in precisely six hours, when his rounds would take him back to her door, would hurt in a different way.

Silently, she rose and moved towards her en suite shower. She briefly toyed with the idea of taking her shaving razor to her wrists, but once there, her routine took over. Soon, she was washing her hair under hot water, now an unimaginable luxury for most other humans.  

She stood there under the spray, and then, on impulse, turned up the cold water. It was icy glacial runoff, and made her instantly cringe. She forced herself to stand under it, to accept the cold burn on her sensitive skin, but it was such light punishment that it didn’t take long before she was accustomed to it. 

Her mind swam through a rhythm of memory, each one like flashes of strobing light. It came in every form. Hundreds of thousands of faces, names, foods she’d eaten, tedious imprints of all the ordinary moments. Every traffic light in downtown Amsterdam flashed in her mind alongside the sound of each busker on the London Underground. Underwater, now. Under the punishing waves. Every memory that had ever given her joy was now a knife in her flesh, piercing her through so many times that she was more wound than human.

Mechanically, she dressed for sleep, pulling on her black oversized Nirvana t-shirt, but realized at once that she could not stand the idea of getting back into her bed. She needed air, needed to experience something external, something that wasn’t just the electrical impulses surfing the fine imprints in her brain. 

As she made her way down the stairs, she paused at the entrance to the common area. Vikram, along with several of the village leaders, were in deep conversation over some kind of hand-drawn map. Planning the layout for his capitol, she thought with a poisonous surge of contempt. At once, she hated herself for thinking it, and wished, as she lingered there, that he’d see her. That he’d drop it, that he’d hold her and admit defeat so she could trust him again.

He looked up at her from his discussion, and smiled his strained, sad smile. For an instant she was hopeful, but he only gave her that nod of the head that said we’ll talk later. With that gentle dismissal, he returned his attention to his vapid statecraft, leaving her bereft in a way she couldn’t have imagined Before. There it was, Before. Her brother, her protector, the one who cared for her above all things had not survived. Perhaps it was worse. Perhaps she had simply not understood him as well as she had believed.

Aimless and lonely as a phantom, she turned and walked out the arched entry, letting her bare feet take her down to the causeway. The wind rushed up the sweeping rock face, smelling of sea junk, of petrol, and even from up here, rotting corpses. Thousands of feet below, they tumbled in the surf, not visible from here, but Rachel knew that they lined the strand. Those that came ashore rarely got further than the beach. Even so, her father and the security team would soon be overwhelmed by the number of survivors. 

Her medical knowledge, even her practical experience, hardly qualified her to repair the wounds of this last, lost remnant of humanity. So far, the problem most common among the refugees appeared to be death, and she had no remedy for that. It was hard to think of a worse death than acute radiation sickness. Even if she could bring herself to try, there were no medicines, no narcotic that could alleviate the excruciating pain of cooking to death from the inside. She’d seen enough to know that a bullet in the neck would be the kindest remedy.

That thought lingered in her as she made her way along the dam, letting her hands ride the planed stone of her father’s engineering masterpiece. She still had this and all that Radhesh had created. The thought made her feel a little less heart heavy, knowing his genius was still alive, still protecting them. Then she paused, feeling the wet cool fog rolling against her skin.

As it cleared, the great ionized light that marked where the satellite had fallen became visible on the horizon. She considered it, feeling a tug of curiosity. The accepted theory was that the ARC had penetrated the earth’s crust, had forced the creation of a kind of nuclear volcano that would never stop generating radiated combustion. The eruption only built upwards, until it created a kind of geological funnel for concentrated energy, though no one would ever get close enough to verify it for themselves.

All around the world, every volcano, every fault line, any place where the earth’s crust was thin had opened, disgorging more magma, creating new volcanos, the layers of newly formed volcanic rock forcing the water level up to impossible heights. The wounds had then sealed themselves, but the original puncture remained open, filling the air currents with deadly radiation that would travel with the refugees, who would bring it here. 

She walked along the lip of the dam, no longer aimless, but not quite committed to the possibility welling up in her mind. The lights illuminated the great sweep of cement wall, their supply of electricity uninterrupted. The dam had preserved, at least for them, the ability to generate this electricity, and through some strange meteorological dogma, it could harness the high altitude snows that now only touched the very top of the dry rocky spike that was Everest. Even Vikram was unable to account for the new rules of physics of this place and she’d given up without bothering to make the effort.

This meditation took her all the way to the eastern termination of the parapet, near to the switchback approach. On the other side of the road, the short end of the Alpine Security barracks loomed, its broad pitched roof making it look like a tall, asymmetrical steel and mortar tent. The windows set in the long side were narrow, but Rachel could see the dim light glowing faintly at the edges, and there, a diffuse shadow moving across the frosted glass. 

Giving in to the impulse, she went to the plain wooden door situated at the end, and knocked once. Then, when there was no answer, she tightened her fist and cop-knocked on the hard wood until her fist throbbed. 

The first thing Rachel saw as the door opened was the barrel of an extremely large pistol pointing directly at her forehead. She wasn’t frightened, exactly, but it certainly was a new experience. The passive, cold eyed expression on the face behind it animated as Sergei recognized her.

He lowered the gun, his blonde brows coming together in surprised perplexity. “Rachel.”

She looked from the gun, to him, his damp hair, his black bathrobe, and felt a little perplexed herself. “What are you doing?”

He raised an eyebrow as he looked her over, taking in her ragged, underdressed appearance. “I should be asking you.”

She ignored his question, then fixed him with a silent, expectant stare. He moved aside for her, uncocked the pistol and set it on the kitchen table. She paused to look at the gun, eyes following its machined lines, its silver dark finish. It was a Desert Eagle .50, Israeli made. Ostentatious and showy, just like its owner. 

She’d never had reason to be in Sergei’s quarters before. Lit by two low lamps, it was a generous studio space, tented under the extremely angled ceiling. In addition to the kitchen area, there was a couch, a coffee table, and a low platform bed made with hospital corners. Beyond, she could see a bathroom door ajar, and inside that, a standing shower that was still steamed up from recent use. He’d been showering at the same time she had, she guessed, and wondered why this detail had decided to make itself important to her.

Her eyes caught something else, tucked into a corner, and she walked over to investigate. It was a two-doored gun safe with the doors open, full to bursting with small arms, assault rifles and shotguns. Most had been properly mounted in their brackets, but the floor of the safe held a pile of handguns of different makes. She almost wanted to laugh. So much death, stacked like children’s toys.

“You’ve been busy,” she murmured, half to herself. She heard him shut the door, and she could feel him watching her, struggling to place her. There was something wrong in his silence. Even without seeing his face, she could feel it. 

When she did look up, the man standing before her, watching her intensely, no longer aligned with her record of him. He hadn’t just been busy. Something about him had changed. Something that intrigued her, and because it intrigued her, it also frightened her. That fear fired a little adrenaline into her, enough to give her back some focus. 

It was also quite strange to look at him full in the face when it had been her decade-long policy to avoid acknowledging him with the privilege of her attention. His superficial playfulness was gone, revealing the hard, featureless core of him. Ten days ago, he had been an annoyance. Now he was a stranger.

“I made a few new friends out on the water,” he said finally. “Maybe you’ll meet them someday.”

“You know they’re not really friends if you make them at gunpoint.”

“What do you want?” he asked, the frown still etched between his brows. 

“Vodka,” she said, knowing he’d be well supplied. 

Letting out a breath of annoyance, he went to the freezer, pulled out an unopened bottle and held it out to her, neck first. She looked at him curiously, then nodded at it.

“In a glass. With ice, if you have it.”

He narrowed his eyes at her, but his expression softened a little around the mouth. She watched as he went through the ritual, pulling an old fashioned ice tray out of the freezer. It was surprisingly fascinating to watch as he cracked the tray to loosen the ice cubes. He could have broken it in half as easily as she might have snapped a twig, but there was something precise, almost delicate in his gestures. An animal grace to him that she hadn’t really noticed before.

He poured a measure of vodka into an old fashioned glass, added two ice cubes and looked up at her. She nodded towards the table, and went to sit down, taking the glass and pressing the cold surface to her neck. She sighed, uncaring of his presence, as the chill soaked into her skin, cooling her pulse. She took a drink and that was even better, the frigid liquor burning down her throat. 

Sergei watched her, clearly quite fascinated himself by her deviation from their traditional script. He took a pull off the bottle, then set it down on the table next to the pistol. 

“You didn’t come here just to have a drink with me, Rakhila.” 

“Don’t — ,” she began, then cut herself off. There was no point, and she was too busy living in the world of that glass, the sensual promise of the slippery ice texture, and its melting entropy. She took another sip, and decided to tell him the truth.

“I was thinking about killing myself,” she said, almost casually. “I’ve been thinking about it in one form or another every day for weeks. I suppose having a drink with you is a close second.” 

He cocked his head to the side. “And what, you think I will help you?”

“Why not?” she smiled, feeling a little of the old contempt warm in her. “You’ve helped others.” 

She almost expected him to smile back, to put on the mask he liked to wear when he was pretending to be roguish. Insulting her to her face with the suggestion that he was an incorrigible delinquent and not a brutal sadist of the first water. But he did not smile. His expression remained unchanged, his unblinking stare almost accusatory. She turned her attention to the pistol, tracing the Eagle’s rubberized handle with one finger, letting it find the contours where his fingers had recently gripped it. 

Sergei took the gun out from under her hand and stowed it beneath the head of his bed, where he’d easily be able to reach it if needed. She recharged her glass as she watched this, and drank off half, craving the lightheadedness, the feeling of being divorced from her inhibitions. 

“What has your brother told you about me?” he asked as he sat across from her. “What has he said to you that would make you think I would enjoy hurting you?”

“Nothing that would make me think you would enjoy hurting me in particular,” she said dismissively. “Nothing beyond what everyone knows.”

A thin smile played around his mouth. “What does everyone know?”

She shrugged, looked down at the contents of her glass. She could recall the different states of these ice cubes, but not the melting in between. The contemplation of this chaos slowed her mind, releasing some of the pressure cycle. She looked up into Sergei’s pale blue eyes, the irises so lacking in reflectiveness that it was difficult to see the folds in them. Each contraction of dilation would be impossible to detect, even though she knew they were happening, because she could see the widening pupils absorbing her, taking her in. 

“What does everyone know?” he repeated, wetting his lips with his tongue. “That I am a killer?” 

She looked hard at him. “Are you owning that now?” 

“What do you want to hear?”

“The truth.”

He considered her, taking another pull off the bottle. Then he shrugged, his eyes going to the safe. 

“Did you count them?”

She nodded. 

“Add nine,” he said indifferently. “From Before.”

“Before,” she sneered, dimly aware that she was being offended by the wrong thing. “Before Armageddon.”

“Why aren’t you saying this to Vikram?” he demanded, suddenly irritated. “We are not friends. Your brother understands you. Why aren’t you asking him for help?”

She couldn’t meet his eyes. The ice had melted in her glass, leaving her without the meditation. Still, she focused on it, tightening her grip in the hopes that she might shatter the leaded crystal, create a different bloodier chaos. Why had she come here? Why hadn’t she stepped off the dam?

“You are crying, Rachel.” 

As she looked up at him, she was dimly aware that he had not asked her why she was crying, merely stated the observable fact. He was born without the ability to recognize distress, and so had to go by the physical evidence. As she stared at him, stared into his aquamarine eyes, the flat edged soul behind them, she realized she had fully expected him to lay hands on her. To do intimate violence to her, as he had once attempted years ago. She had laid him out with deliberation and damage for that trespass, but now she couldn’t even feel the humiliation of knowing she would submit to his poisonous flirtation a thousand times if it meant a return to Before.

She met his eyes again. “Sergei, will you do something for me?”

He nodded, staring back at her with unblinking intensity. 

“Promise me you won’t tell me everything will be all right.”

At first he did not react, merely continued to stare at her. Then he a gave a reflexive little laugh, more surprise than amusement. Again she was struck by the change she perceived in him. He was not sobered, or tempered, but something had turned inside of him. He didn’t feel the need to mock her, to put some kind of intimidation on her, to pretend like he was in love with her. From that day to this, he had acquired an authentic confidence, and she knew with utter certainty it had everything to do with the former owners of the firearms piled in his safe. 

He shrugged. “When have I ever lied to you?”

She said nothing, absorbing the truth of this. He’d offended her in the past, attempted to touch her without her permission, but he’d never insulted her intelligence with dissembling. Frozen in this thought, she only noticed at the last moment that he was reaching for her face. He caught one of her tears on his thumb, and brought it to his mouth, licking it off his thumbnail, his eyes never leaving hers. 

Before she could appreciate this strange gesture, before she could speak any word of denial, he took her face in his hands and began to kiss her tears. Her breath caught, her body paralyzed by the tenderness an act so soft, so sweet that she could close her eyes and almost believe that she was waking from a terrible nightmare. That it was another man entirely who was gentling her, drawing the poison. 

She knew the substitution was impossible. Even with her eyes closed, even as she struggled to find some part of Alec in that brief window of memory, she discovered she could not recall him. She knew the details of his face, the lemon spiced smell of his aftershave, but only as listed facts. She could not feel them, could not make her senses experience them. The scents now filling her nose were rust, gun oil, and vodka. The hands cradling her face already had a long resume of atrocity. Sergei wasn’t kissing her tears away, but imbibing them. 

She opened her eyes to find him watching her with that glacial intensity. Alec had looked at her with greed, with desire, but the hunger in Sergei’s face surpassed her knowledge of human expression. Even when they had been teenagers, his attitude had been more teasing than threatening, a boy baiting a viper on a dare. Now his eyes glittered, scanning her face, his lips parted as he breathed in the taste of her. He was barely holding himself back, the need he had kept in check manifesting, forming the edge of an abyss. Waiting for her to step off. 

When she pressed her lips to his, it felt like falling. His kiss was restrained and probing, as though he didn’t want to scare her, to overwhelm her. Being the gentleman, letting her use her mouth to instruct him. To decide who it was she needed him to be. It was a pathetic lie, and she felt an upwelling of rage, having just extracted his promise. She didn’t want his restraint. 

She wrapped her arms around him and invaded his mouth with her tongue. With a sound somewhere between a groan and a purr, he gave it back with equal force, pulling her to his hard chest, calloused hands holding her face, tilting her head back so that he could deepen the kiss. His dark little chuckle when she gasped for breath was another new sound, just as his hands were new, as was the closeness of his face, the thousands of new details now overwriting the psychic pain with raw physical sensation. 

She tugged open the neck of his robe, heard him give a strangled groan as she put her mouth on his flushed throat. Her hand moved down over his staggered abdominal muscles, seeking to go further. He grasped her wrist, stopping her hand from going lower.

“Don’t be greedy,” 

She glared at him. “Why not?”

He grinned, and put his hands on her waist, walking her backwards until the edge of the bed caught her, and she fell back. Then his mouth was hot on hers again, his hands sliding up under her shirt, pulling it up over her head. His hands found her bare skin, thumbs sliding over her ribs, his mouth on her ear again. 

“Because it’s my turn.”

He pushed her back, taking his time as he placed kisses on her body, moving down at a leisurely pace. She gasped as he slid teeth and tongue over her breast, pausing only a moment before moving lower over her belly to the plain black panties that spanned her hips. Even aware of what he was about to do, it still surprised her when he bent his head between her legs, pulled aside the fabric barrier with one finger and began to kiss her.

Rachel could not make herself understand or analyze the sensation of his tongue going inside of her, the sounds he made as though feasting on something delicious. She could only feel. Tension streaked down her legs, making her toes curl. Breathlessly, she arched back, only to find the upward surging arousal interrupted as he lifted his head, eyes bright, mouth flushed, a wide wolfish grin on his face. He licked his lips, clearly aware she wanted to inquire the reason he had stopped. He said nothing, but laughter was written all over his face. Triumph.

He leaned in, pressing his mouth against her ear. “You are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.”

Ignoring this, she reached up and caught the belt on his robe, then hesitated, suddenly stymied by her inexperience. She didn’t want the charged, liquid feeling to end. Now that limitations were meaningless, she found she was strangely enticed by the possibility of intimacy with him. Sergei would not require emotional complexity from the exchange, wouldn’t even demur if she continued to hate him. But she had never done this before, and she knew she could safely assume his experience to be considerable. And for someone who was so disconnected from the subtlety of human emotions, he had shown himself to be incredibly well tuned to hers, because he seemed to know what was holding her back. 

The familiar vicious grin spread across his face, and he took his time as he shrugged off the bathrobe. “Have you been saving yourself for me, Rakhila?”

“Fuck you,” she whispered, so fogged by lust that she couldn’t put force behind the words. 

His smile softened. He took her hands and pulled them to his chest, wanting her to touch him, to experience his body. Having watched him create himself over the years, Rachel could not deny that she had wanted to know the sensation of his hard flesh, his creased lines. To add his physique to her anatomical database by studying him with her fingertips. He closed his eyes, lips parting as he savoured her hands on him, soaking in her touch. Then he bent down and kissed her with a perfect softness that was both erotic and almost obscene. 

He pressed his mouth against her ear. “Hold on to me.” 

She wrapped her arms around his neck. He braced one hand at the small of her back and rolled, inverting their position so that she now straddled him. He was completely naked beneath her. Slowly, with one hand, she reached down, and his eyes closed as she encircled him with her fingers. His lips parted with an intake of breath, becoming more shallow as she familiarized herself with him, evaluating how he would fit, and how it would feel. 

She wasn’t sexually unaware of herself, so part of it was familiar, the solidness of him, the thickening feeling in her belly. It was the fact of him. Sergei. His massive shoulders collapsing inward, his chin tilting back, eyelids fluttering. He let out a low moan as she rolled her hips forward, feeling him move with her, move into her as he let her discover herself. Her whole body was aware of the power she had over him, intoxicating as anything she had experienced. She wondered if she hadn’t always marked him as prey. Something she could always take if she wanted it. 

He sat up, pulling her into his lap, kissing her mouth, her throat, using his hips to drive up into her. She gripped his hair as she learned him by touch, whispering words of surrender in some voiceless, tactile language he understood perfectly. His arms went around her, her world turning upside down, and then she was on her back, her whole body wrapped around him. Crying out, crying his name, begging him shamelessly for more speed, more force. He laughed at her, mocking her aspirations, the idea that she could tolerate even half his strength. She didn’t comprehend. She didn’t care. 

As he held her down, went deep into her, she felt like she was entering a sweat lodge trance. Nothing but skin, and heat, his mouth, his grip on her wrists, the relentless articulation of his core and his hips as he showed her in full tactile detail the difference between store bought and the genuine article. His stamina seemed endless, his adoring words bleeding together in her mind as he spoke them against her skin like an invocation — dorogaya, beautiful one, how could you make me wait so long, you fucking bitch...

Rachel let his words bypass her mind, now saturated with thought-numbing endorphins that spiked with each orgasm he patiently, efficiently fucked into her. Each time he would slow as she gripped him inside, as she shuddered, his eyes on her face as though keen to examine his work. She saw him through a heat haze, felt the entire solidness of him, the width of his hips between her thighs, the length of him inside of her. The crystalline clarity of his blue eyes, so strange and beautiful this close, drinking her in. So greedy for the sight of her. 

Her fingertips slid over his sweat glossed back, each muscle flexing hard as he used all of them to reach into her, to get as close to her as he could. His words had long ceased to make any sense to her, and she was losing track of time. Hours, days, it didn’t matter. Finally she collapsed in a sweating, panting fever of exhaustion. Oblivion enfolded her, taking her intoxicated consciousness away from her living flesh into the perfect void. 

She woke suddenly, sore from friction, from exertion, at first unaware she’d actually been asleep. She could not reach back to a defining moment when the sex had stopped and unconsciousness had taken hold. Blinking in the dark, she sat up. Every place Sergei had touched her was its own little flame, and he had touched her everywhere, so the collective effect was a throbbing burn. She wondered if this kind of sex hangover was normal, or if it was just a result of his need to overachieve. 

She turned to look, and found him sitting upright against the headboard, eyes watching her through the dark as though it did not impair his vision at all. She could just perceive the twitch in the corner of his mouth, the cockeyed smile now forming. 

“What time is it?” she asked, suddenly keen to be outside of this room, and away from him.

“Early,” he said unhelpfully. 

“Did you watch me all night?”

He shrugged. “I don’t sleep much.”

“And you didn’t… ” she resisted the urge to touch her inner thigh, to investigate for any trace of his genetic material.

“I don’t,” he said, all frankness. “Not when I want it to be good.” 

Before she had too much time to think about that implication, he rose, made his way to the refrigerator. She turned her face away from the light as he opened it, but then felt the cold bottle of water as he put it in her hands. She drank down half of it in one gulp, then forced herself to sip slowly, not to guzzle the rest. 

She felt his lips on the back of her neck, his hands linking around her waist. “They’re going to come looking for you.”

“Not here, they’re not,” she said, pressing the still cold bottle against her cheek. 

One hand moved up to squeeze her breast. “Good.” 

She allowed him a moment to nuzzle and grope her before finally shrugging him off, and moving to the edge of his bed, peering through the slowly receding darkness.

“What are you doing?”

“Looking for my shirt,” she said, scanning the floor for the dark garment.

“Come back to bed,” he suggested. “Or do you have plans for today?

A frisson of irritation ran through her. “Just because —“

“Just because.” he mocked. “Why, was I not good?”

She turned and glared at him. “You know, as a physical object, you are not without certain appeal, but then you open your fucking mouth… “ 

He put a finger on her lips, but it was his smile that stopped her. That same smile, wide, full of laughter, so very strange on his normally indifferent features. Now she’d never think of it without her body remembering the feel of him. 

“I’m glad,” he murmured. “That are you are feeling better.”

He wasn’t wrong. The coarse, abrasive texture of her thoughts had smoothed, and she was back the old familiar contempt. Her desire to punch him was the most normal thing she had felt for weeks. 

She spotted the shirt and fished it off the carpet, dropping it over her head and pulling her long black hair out behind her. The addition of both their sweat had made it frizz, and she was anxious to get back to her own suite where she could shower, well out of his reach. 

He rose from the bed, his tall, broad muscle-bound frame still fully naked, his skin covered with the inflamed streaks she’d made with her fingernails. He stretched ostentatiously, and subsided into a self-aware slouch, eyes on her. “You didn’t answer my question, Rakhila.”

“Will you fuck off?” she snapped. “What do you want, a medal? Yes, it was good. I’m going now.”

“I hope so,” he said seriously. “Last night was the best night of my life.”

“Well done.”

She went to the door, pulled the handle, tugged it open, but he grabbed the door edge in one hand and held it in place, not allowing her to open it further.

“Get out of my way,” she snapped.

Sergei released the door with an open handed fine gesture, letting it swing inwards. Then slid a hand into her hair and used his body to press her back against the door frame. His mouth came down on hers before she could speak, and for an instant her recent experience of him took over, and she felt herself opening, melting —

Just as abruptly, he released her, giving her a little push like he didn’t want her any more. Then he nodded to the pre-dawn murk, sending a jolt fear through her — but there was no one there. Her eyes moved over the slowly lightening approach, the pathway, the dam’s great parapet. It was totally deserted, but he’d made his point. 

“Look at me,” he said coldly, something dark and entitled in his expression, a soft rage that eclipsed his former playfulness. 

Rachel raised her chin as she gave him the full measure of her disdain, even though they both knew her power to dismiss him was gone forever. 

“When you think about last night, try to remember that you fucked me after the world ended, not the other way around, hm?”

Before she could bite back, or insult him, or remind him that she couldn’t forget if she wanted to, Sergei nudged the door closed with his foot and left her standing alone, with no good explanation, on his threshold. 

Glancing around once more, her body shaking from muscle fatigue, she headed towards the dam. Halfway across, she paused for an instant on the parapet and looked out at the broken horizon, the burning nuclear fire visible thousands of miles away, a white needle piercing the sky. 

It made her feel a little ill, the realization that her first experience of sexual intercourse had been with a man who clearly considered this horrifying vista a fair exchange for the privilege. It frightened her, but it also made her realize she could still be afraid. She thought of the pistols in his safe. She could still feel his hands, his mouth. 

She turned her back on the anemic dawn, and hurried to make it back to the monastery while it was still dark. The same rocks hurt her bare feet, but she didn’t slow down, wanting to put as much distance as possible between herself and what she was beginning to suspect might be the worst mistake she had ever made.

[eugenedebs1920]

Trump may be the pinnacle of avoiding accountability. Hence the name Teflon Don. He has convinced a large swath of Americans he is a victim. A victim of unwarranted indictments, smear campaigns, violations of his 1st amendment rights. He has convinced nearly half the nation that these assaults against him are politically motivated & that it is the Biden administration, of the Democrats who are perpetuating these acts towards him, conveniently leaving out his role in any of it.

If you were to listen to Trump speak with no, or little knowledge of his past, his presidency, or events that occurred towards the end of his presidency and beyond, you would think he was martyr, unjustly persecuted by a oppressive and cruel regime. This couldn’t be further from the truth.

Democrats had no hand in his inability to accept the results of the 2020 presidential election. They did not force him to create a fake electors scheme, they did not force him to continuously lie & fan the flames of anger in his followers, they did not make him incite an insurrection on the capitol to stop the certification of a constitutionally mandated procedure, they did not make him take state secrets, war plans, nuclear secrets, & classified information after he knew his presidency was over, they did not make him refuse to return those documents when asked to by the FBI. Dems did not make Trump pay off a porn star he had sex with by committing business fraud through his lawyer to hide the infidelity from the American voters. There was no push by Democrats to make Trump sexually assault E. Jean Carroll, then habitually defame her in the worlds loudest bully pulpit. Democrats did not force the Trump foundation, a charity in which they defrauded their donors and recipients. There was no forcing the Trump organization to over inflate their assets & under inflate their gains & commit tax fraud. Democrats had no part in these crimes. It was Trump and Trump alone who partook in this criminality.

Regardless of what the Supreme Court says, a core principle of our Constitutional Republic is the notion that NO one is above the law. That all must, & will, be held accountable for their actions in a court of law. This includes congressmen, the wealthy, senators, the poor, and the president of the United States.

Trump can play the victim. He can whine and lie constantly (and he does). He can pretend he is an innocent target to a powerful entity that is coming after him without merit and by no fault of his own.

This is a complete distortion. Trump committed these crimes, & unlike his claims of a rigged election, there is evidence to back it up, proof that he engaged in this lawlessness.

Trump thinks the American people are dumb. That we can’t see what is in front of our face. That we can be manipulated by a two but conman but, wee see through his deception. We see through the lies. We are not as ignorant as he thinks we are.

There will come a day when Trump must answer for the crimes he engaged in. Until then he will cry & blame others for his misdeeds. It will not negate his guilt. A time will come. Let’s hope it’s soon so America can begin to heal from the assault committed against her.

[victoriadecapua]

y'all are always complaining about how gay rep has to be perfect and unproblematic like speak for yourself i personally love it when they try to murder each other

[sitp-recs]

Hello! Not sure if you'll respond but I thought I'd ask about it anyway.

Would you happen to know of any fics with a very complex characterization of Draco and Harry with a bit of gut wrenching situations? Preferably older D&H after the war. I'm even open to tragedy, even cheating(?) and just something that is out of the ordinary. I know I'm shit at explaining this but, I'm just like, craving a fic that has adult problems, where one/both of them are at a moment of life where things are complex. Maybe H left D a while ago and married someone else, and then after a few years he sees him again and is just lost in a haze of "what if I hadn’t?" or "what to do with myself now?" because getting back with him isn’t easy? I'm sorry for this weird messy ask but you are the first person who came to my mind who I thought could help me out? Sorry for rambling so much! It's definitely alright if you can't find anything like this of course! Have a great day!

What an interesting ask, anon! I’m a bit picky with gut-wrenching themes but I do love myself a thought-provoking, mature fic. It’s about the implications and complications amirite 🤌🏼 this list is a personal take so I’m not sure it is what you’re looking for, but here are some fics that came to mind when I read your ask. Pls mind the tags before jumping in. I’d be very curious to see what my followers rec too!

Kissed by Pie (M, 12k)

Draco Malfoy was attacked by a rogue Dementor on the night of his Azkaban release. He self-exiled to Muggle London and opened a late-night chocolate shop called Kissed.

Poor Unfortunate Souls by DoubleApple (E, 19k)

Draco is a potioneer. Harry is trying to save his sex-challenged marriage. Everything is a mess, but at least there's an octopus in the lobby.

Unfinished Business by cupiscent (E, 20k)

Ten years after the War ends, Harry and Draco still haven't got their act together. But maybe it's not too late.

Stain of Silence by brummell (E, 28k)

After the war, Draco serves out his sentence in Harry Potter's house.

He Who Must Not Be Normal by lettered (E, 41k)

Potter has fame and fortune and posh clothes and all he wants is a simple life. Draco has a flat and a cat and a steady job and all he wants is a complicated life. Which makes you think this story has something exciting like body-swapping, but it doesn’t.

On One's Knees by pir8fancier (E, 34k)

The war is over and to the victors go the spoils. If you are triggered by infidelity, this is not the fic for you.

REVOLVEVLOVER by firethesound, zeitgeistic (E, 46k)

The work Harry does is justifiable. It’s justice. He works for his country, and his country is a republic—the magical side, anyway. It’s not laudable work, it’s not work he’s proud of, but it’s necessary work. Harry has always taken the necessary jobs that no one else has the stomach for. It’s just that he’s never deciphered a kill sheet and seen Draco Malfoy’s name on it.

Nightingale by michi_thekiller (NC-17, 60k)

God loved the birds and invented trees. Man loved the birds and invented cages. -Jacques Deval

Super Rich Kids by trishjames (E, 81k)

Draco Malfoy has become disillusioned by the glitz and glamour of the scandalous lives of the Post-Second Wizarding War Pureblood Elite. Enter: one existential crisis, one group of thieving cynical friends, and several terrible, terrible decisions.

Merlin Works in Mysterious Ways by lordhellebore (M, 82k)

When Harry is forced to form a Blood Bond with Draco Malfoy under threat of death, he thinks his future will consist of a cold home and sexual frustration. But when a group of left-over Death Eaters decides to stir trouble, their lives change completely – and it takes them both some years to figure out whether it’s for better or for worse.

Danse Russe by Frayach (E, 140k)

True Love. Soul Mates. They're just words until put to the test. Harry and Draco have a bond that was forged in the hell of the post-war years and pulled them both back from an abyss of nihilism and self-destruction. Nothing can break it, or so they believed. But True Love can demand sacrifices too great to bear and deeds too terrible to justify.

Plus 2 fics I haven’t read but can vouch for the authors as I’m very familiar with their work:

Unhook the Stars by jad (E, 70k)

Seventy-thousand words of pornographic discourse between two boys-turned-men that still haven't learned how to communicate like normal people – with words.

Freedom to be by Quicksilvermaid (E, 170k)

Harry Potter is the Boy Who Lived. 12 years after the war, he's become the Boy Who Lived For Everyone Else. He has the perfect wife. The perfect house. The perfect job. The perfect friends. Only nothing feels perfect.

[skellymom]

"Vagabonds" Chapter 13 "Precious Cargo"

Ongoing fanfic Hunter x Reader/Fem Reader/OC

Hunter meets a smuggler Nomaadi Star Woman with a powerful force sensitive teen who changes the trajectory of CF-99's lives...as they ALL try to escape from The Empire together.

ᴛʜɪꜱ ꜰɪᴄ ᴄᴏɴᴛᴀɪɴꜱ ɴꜱꜰᴡ ᴄᴏɴᴛᴇɴᴛ. ɪꜰ ʏᴏᴜ ᴀʀᴇ ɴᴏᴛ 18+ ᴅɴɪ

To read Chapter 12:

https://www.tumblr.com/skellymom/747902380483526656/vagabonds-chapter-12?source=share

Word Count: 1.7K

Background: Hunter contemplates his relationship choices.

Mad comes clean about what EXACTLY transpired during her last job on Ord Mantell.

I was SUPPOSED to have this part of the series done by May. But, got serious writer's block. Sorry so late. THIS is the shoe that needed to drop plot-wise.

To help with any confusion: Mad's Clone trans sister (non bio) is named "SHE" (mentioned in Chapter #9 "In The Beginning") and her name is capitalized to prevent any confusion of what character is being spoken of.

Warning: Swearing, flirting, brief discussion of female reproduction/menopause.

(Credit: Cool moving star dividers by @4ngelic-wh1spers )

Recap:

Hunter laid on his bunk sifting through the events that transpired since he met Mad. 

The throbbing pain between his legs, burning scratch on his face...the deep bite mark that FINALLY stopped bleeding. 

His heart ached a bit too. Pain, love, lust, yearning, uncertainty...so much...felt like it would explode. 

Cid’s words bounced around his head...paining him that she was possibly RIGHT. It was the ONLY accurate intel Cid had ever given him. 

“Ya looking for a world of hurt, Bandana?  “Cause that’s all you’re gonna get with that one.” 

"Precious Cargo"

She wasn’t the first woman Hunter had...but the first that stayed around longer than a few days. That was a record for him... 

Not due to infidelity or any other reason. It was only due to the war. No time to date. Heck, no time for hobbies, other jobs...or A job. He was property. Owned and controlled. The trajectory of his life beyond his own control. Not just him, either. A planet’s worth of enslaved men posing as blaster fodder. 

He was just a clone. What did he know about women. Dating, sexual relations, or reproduction were NEVER taught on Kamino. It was expressly forbidden among the Kaminoan's...the Republic as well. Hunter was lucky enough with his looks, hair, body to be pursued by MANY women to have learned about these things. However, how their minds worked and long-term relationships...that was another thing altogether.  

But no matter how he doubted, there was still a feeling of euphoria and happiness like he had never felt before. These feelings happened around Mad only. She was brave, vibrant, resourceful, protective... These things excited him. 

Is this what love feels like? 

Well...no lie...some considerable lust in there too.  

I’m sure Mad would agree with me... 

Hunter inhaled sharply, then chuckled... 

Maker...What did I get myself into? 

Mad finally awoke from the darkness. She lay there feeling weak. A heaviness in her abdomen...again??? 

She glanced down to see Tiggy outstretched and laying over her abdomen. The puppy looked much larger than she remembered. Tig was starting to lose her puppy fat, and her limbs seemed longer. She stretched out and yawned. Her puppy tail wagging and whipping the blanket. 

Mad tried to move, but both arms were strapped to the bunk. One of which had an IV line and fluids. She was also hooked up to a urinary catheter. Mad could feel the line between her legs. 

How long have I been out??? 

A few days. Love’s hand caressed Mad’s head. She looked up at them, levitating near the front of the bunk. You had me worried. 

I’m awake now. You look good for someone who vaporized a Venator. 

Love smugly smiled, then the concerned expression came back. You look BETTER for a person who was unresponsive. 

Sil? Omega? Hunter? 

They’re fine.  

Why am I in restraints??? 

Love looked gravely at Mad 

Oh no... 

Yeah, the dreams came back. 

Was that it?  

Love seemed reluctant to say any more. They didn’t need to as Hunter quietly entered the room. 

“Mad?” He whispered 

She immediately noticed the large bandage at the crook of his neck and the deep scratches on his face. 

“Did I...do that?” she asked quietly. 

He nodded as he sat down on the bunk beside her. 

“Oh Hunter...” Mad was clearly feeling shame and embarrassment. 

“You were delirious at the time...” He started undoing the restraints while giving her a reassuring smile. “The Mad I know wasn’t in control.” 

“This hasn’t happened...for quite a few years.” 

Concern creased Hunter’s brow. He was silent...waiting for Mad to answer if she felt safe enough to.  

Tiggy wimpered quietly and snuggled up next to Hunter. He put his arm around her. 

“My ORIGINAL family were experimental subjects for the Kaminoan’s.” 

Hunter was horrified. He also vaguely remembered strange things happening to him as a very young clone, his brothers too...possibly Omega had as well. 

“What? I thought you’re Nomaadi??” 

“I am. And the Nomaadi are my family now...but I HAD a biological mother and father that were not of The Star People...” 

“Had?” 

“All that I remember about them is fuzzy. I was VERY young when Maami and Paapi Daal took me in. A clone squad smuggled me out of the facility...along with a young defective clone. It’s been a LONG time since I’ve acted out in a fugue state...” 

Hunter was shocked. He had NEVER heard of this. 

“Only saw clones on Kamino. We clones were the only test subjects in the laboratories.” 

The Kaminoan’s have more than one facility on several planets. Love interjected. 

Hunter shifted unexpectedly. He forgot Love was able to speak to him through the Force. He wondered if it had to do with his enhanced senses.  

Mad caught Hunter’s expression. “...you can hear Love through the Force, can’t you?” 

He nodded. 

“So can Omega. Other than Sil and Tiggy, nobody else can. It’s a Force Bond...it’s SUPPOSED to be rare.” 

“Wait...you escaped with ANOTHER defective clone???” Hunter shook his head. 

Auntie SHE! Best Auntie EVER...well, next to mom... Love smoothed Mad’s hair back lovingly. 

Love and Hunter gazed at each other and smiled. Tiggy wagged her tail exuberantly. 

“I have SO MANY questions...” Hunter’s mind going in a million directions. 

“We’re pleased to see you awake.” Tech entered bringing Wrecker, Echo, Sil, and Omega with him. Tiggy excitedly ran to the end of the bed and launched herself at Echo. 

“NO!” Echo ducked behind Wrecker. 

Wrecker caught the pup in midair and hugged her to him. “Echo’s still gun-shy. You’re a scary widdle puppy dog!”  

Tiggy then begged to see Omega. Wrecker handed the puppy to her. Tiggy licked Omega’s face into a sloppy mess. The sound of her laughter lightened Hunter’s mood considerably 

Hunter glanced back at Mad. “What exactly happened during that job on Ord Mantell?” 

Mad’s eyes widened. It didn’t occur to her until now. The dreams were also stirred up from her visiting Dr. Zebba and the violence afterward. Everyone in the room stared expectantly at Mad. 

She and this botched job had thrust everyone aboard into this current situation. 

Sil showed us what was in the cooler. And the shot he gave you. Love Force Spoke and signed in Basic. I thought you were supposed to bring back two people with some cargo? 

“The parameters of the job changed at the last minute.” Mad sighed. 

Everyone in the room glanced at each other. 

Hunter needed answers. “WHAT changed?” 

Mad inhaled deeply. “There were supposed to be a courier for the cargo and a clone bodyguard that I was to pick up and take with us on the Beldame. According to my contact, they ‘didn’t make it’” 

Wrecker couldn’t help himself, wringing his large hands. “Ohh...they’re probably dead.” 

Echo shushed Wrecker. 

“Ok?” Hunter probed. 

Mad had a captive audience. 

“So...a doctor paid me extra to carry the cargo.” 

“...Ok? Where is it? You came back with a cooler of...Tech, help me out.” 

Tech adjusted his goggles “You are currently in possession of a cooler filled with hormone stim syringes. Even with my intellect I fail to see any correlation to this being any type of valuable cargo.” 

“Oh...I have the cargo.” Mad calmly stated. 

“Well...where?” Echo couldn’t contain himself.  

“Inside me.” Then Mad started to weakly giggle. 

Tech perked up. Hunter could smell his brain burning...putting together the pieces. 

“Mad...out with it.” Hunter demanded. He was starting to worry again. 

Mad took another deep breath. “You know the Jedi had the best healthcare that any citizen in the galaxy could receive. Preventative care, health screenings, yearly blood tests and full body examinations. Of course, they were scanned for any disease. Sometimes biological samples are taken to test for ‘health' "reasons... 

...some of that tissue was preserved and saved. Especially reproductive material. SOMEONE somewhere realized that it might be best to not dispose of it...” 

Tech interjected. “Then Order 66 occurred, the Jedi Genocide, and the Kaminoan medical facilities were shut down...” 

Mad finished his sentence. “And I took a job to help smuggle some of the remaining Jedi reproductive material to a safe location. Away from the Empire to a place that will extract it and put it back into storage for possible future use.” 

Everyone was in shock. Except for Tech. He was EXTREMELY interested. 

“My educated guess is that you are carrying ovuum. And that is why that cooler contains hormone syringes. Without that hormone, your body would menstruate and eject the ovuum out of the body. But, in your case...with the recent stress and being of...a certain age...you have lost some of the ovuum already...” 

“Tech...a certain age? Really???” Hunter snapped back and turned around to see Omega’s reaction to the conversation. She was seriously engrossed. 

“Well" Tech pushed his goggles up the bridge of his nose. "Technically she IS past childbearing age and menopausal...” 

“WOAH!” Wrecker shouted, covering Omega’s ears. 

“TOO MUCH INFORMATION!” Echo followed. 

Mad, Love, and Sil laughed at them. 

Hunter spun back around to stare “WHAT???” 

Sil answered in a string of Nomaadi slang. He laughed along with Love and Mad. 

“They are making fun of us.” Tech interpreted and side-eyed his brothers. “Specifically, Echo and Wrecker.” Then shot Sil a look. “Called us Naif’s.” 

“Ah, you know some of our language, eh?" Sil smiled proudly.  

“What’s a Naif?” Wrecker asked. 

Love signed Newbie, naive...you act so silly about body stuff. 

“The Nomaadi learn very early about biology, sex, reproduction, and how our bodies work. Male, female, intersex, fluidsexual, all of our people speak freely about it with ease and no shame.” Mad explained. “Just like eating, sleeping, thinking, feeling...it’s just part of life.” 

“Kamino didn’t really prepare us. Combat was our specialty.” Hunter defended. 

“And yet YOU’RE pretty KNOWLEDGEABLE there Hunky.” Mad winked. 

Hunter flushed deep red. 

“And Tech over there is NO Naif!” Sil and Love erupted into laughter 

Omega looked up at Wrecker pulling his hands from her ears. “I CAN hear everything they’re saying.” 

Echo interrupted “Wait...THAT’S what all of those credits are from?”  

“Yes, with more upon delivery of the ovuum. We are going to be financially set for a while.” Mad nodded to Tech. “I have coordinates to where the extraction point is. I’m supposed to be there within 7 rotations.” 

“Less than that, you’ve been unconscious for over 2 rotations.” Tech corrected Mad “We need that intel to get you safely there.” 

“Wait!” Hunter was wary “How do we KNOW this place is safe? What about any medical risks?” 

“The Empire’s gotta be looking for ALL of us.” Echo added. “The Marauder as well as The Beldame was being targeted.” 

“Hunter, Echo and I can do some digging on our comm channels. However, before we do, I should remove both of your catheter’s.” Tech pointed toward Mad. 

“Everyone out.” Mad motioned with her hand.  

“WHAAT? Thought you were ok about ‘Body Stuff’” Wrecker sassed Mad. 

Echo shook his head, ushering Omega, Sil, and Love out of the room. 

“You REALLY wanna see Tech pull a urinary catheter out of my bladder, big boy?” Mad sassed back. 

Wrecker visibly shuddered. She got him. “Oof...no.” He left the room. 

Hunter grabbed Mad’s hand and squeezed.  

Would he and his siblings have been happier on Ord Mantell still running jobs for Cid?  

No. THIS is where WE need to be right now! 

It was an uncertain journey so far, but Hunter was willing to see it through. 

PLEASE like, comment, and/or REBLOG!

To read Chapter 14 "In Confidence"

https://www.tumblr.com/skellymom/757579231979077632/vagabonds-chapter-14-in-confidence?source=share

[victoriadecapua]

Shameless, shameless little reference from the second book.

In this rendering it's actually Irish reunification around the 2030s that triggers a civil war, but the principle is the same. I had fun with the short geopolitical window before the Fall and ended up crafting a scenario that unfortunately keeps rhyming with current events.

Throwing Lucretia and Edward together was a fun little way to keep that corner of the world alive, since they are the last two people from the British Isles. She's a (rather nasty) terrorist, and he's a bluff SAS campaigner, so neither of them are the lie-down-with-paper-bags-over-their-heads types. Being privy to intelligence briefs on high level targets, he knows a fair bit about her, and being whimsical and smitten (his first girl, no less) can't resist.

What actually triggers Northern Island to withdraw from the UK? Well, probably something just as daft as transphobia. I hope they were pleased with themselves for the remaining few years Britain and most of the continental world had left to exist.

--

“I want to make love to you, Lucretia,” he said almost casually, as though he was asking her to coffee. “But I want to know something about you first. So be honest with me.” 

She sat up, stretched, her face a little sore from laughing so much. She brought her knees together against her chest, and crossed her arms over them, giving a little shrug. “Not much to tell. Ma was a seamstress, and she taught me how to make clothes. We ran a shop in Dublin.”

“That explains your lovely frock,” he said, admiring her now unbuttoned shirt dress. “When did you get involved with the rebellion?”

Lucretia bit her lip, unsure of why she was withholding the information, except that even now with the British Isles miles under the sea, it still made her nervous. Not because of her affiliations, but because the nature of her work was not something most sane men were willing to overlook. She realized she was starting to like this one, and she didn’t want him to know who she’d been.

“Come on, love,” he prompted. “I’m not going to report you, am I?”

She sighed, summoning up the cover that went over her cover. “Ma was the true believer. I helped her with sewing messages and documents up in clothes, and I carried supplies for… ”

“Car bombing,” Edward finished for her. “Bad tactic. Fastest ways to get coppers driving tanks.”

She stared at him, irritated he’d jumped so many of her narrative pieces, arriving far closer to the truth than she wanted him to. The again, he’d casually confessed to murdering two people who had helped him, not to mention approached her after she’d half-blinded someone, so maybe he needed to understand his peril a little better. 

“They were already in tanks.” She looked at him deadpan, just to see his reaction. “We’d get them at home.”

He smirked. “I thought you said you weren’t a true believer.”

She said nothing, only gazed down at her feet, then back at him again, hoping this was enough and that he’d go back to kissing her. That he wouldn’t ask her for more detail. She didn’t want him thinking about her that way, not when they were just becoming comfortable with each other.

“Acts of terror aside,” he said with a smile. “What did you do for fun?”

“Parties. Drugs. Most of the Fás Ard kids were just punks who liked the excitement. A lot of sex, a lot of raves. I was just thinking about getting my life together and going to college somewhere on the continent.”

“What did you want to study?”

She remained quiet for a long moment as she tried to resurrect her memory of that other person and what she’d wanted. “Art. Maybe sculpture, textiles. Try a bit of everything.”

“Hmm,” he said, as though contemplating a problem. Then he reached out and touched her face, his eyes searching hers in a way that perplexed her. Then he relaxed his attitude, and withdrew his hand.

“You’re some kind of some kind of…” she tried to think of something innocuous, seeing if he’d commit to the lie. “Gunsmith?”

“Among other things,” he said, also clearly a little reluctant to give her an account of himself, which only made her want to know more. She knew it was hypocrisy but she didn’t care. 

“What other things? Come on, you asked me.”

He reached out and toyed with another one of her buttons, pulling on it, threatening to unsnap it. “Mechanic, machinist, all around craftsman.”

“And a killer,” she observed mildly. “That wasn’t the first time, was it? The men who helped you build this place.”

His hazel eyes flicked to hers and now they were dark, as though deterring her scrutiny. His mouth was thin, almost a smile, but not quite. He gave the slightest inclination of his head.

She rose abruptly and went over to his workbench, she could feel him shifting behind her, annoyed, but he didn’t try to stop her. She looked down at his current projects, and was interested to see the number of weapons, and the variation. There were knives, bludgeons, incendiaries, things even she didn’t have a name for. Rifles and pistols, mounted on a peg board. He had a handgun separated into its parts, apparently for the purpose of studying its make, because the jury-rigged 3D printer nearby was set to print out one of the pieces. 

She could feel his presence behind her, not close, but hovering at the edge of the screen that separated the sleeping area, his eyes on her. Without care for his work, she shoved aside the disassembled gun and the various other instruments of death, then turned, and lifted herself easily on to the bench. 

“Here,” she said, unbuttoning the dress further, letting it hang open over her breasts. “I want you to make love to me here.” 

He went to her, slid his hands over her thighs, pushing the dress up, his mouth coming down on hers, then halting when she put her fingers over it. He looked at her, brow cocked, about to speak. 

“First tell me the truth,” she said. “Who you were Before?”

He lowered his eyes and took a deep breath, fingers tightening in the hem of her dress, then met her gaze. 

“I was a sapper — an engineer — and a weapons specialist in the British Special Air Service,” he said quietly. “A soldier, in other words.”

“And were you…”

“North America,” he said. “Exclusively.” 

He gave her a slight smile, and she understood at once that discussing this occupation hurt him, because it was something he had loved. It also increased her suspicion that she was less of a stranger to him than he was letting on, but there would be time to discuss that later. 

Hello Mr. Gaiman,

I know you must be busy, but since you were born in the UK i would like your opinion, if we can expect Scottish independence due to the british government blocking the scottish transrights bill.

Since that happened yesterday the internet is making it seem that that is the final straw for many scots and they will again attempt to declare independence.

Thoughts? I really would like to know your opinion.

Have a jolly-good day

If it isn't that it will be something else. Sooner or later Scotland will declare independence, and mostly I hope that isn't followed by whoever's in charge of the government in England trying to send in the tanks.

[oldgayjew]

The 2 biggest lies ...

(1) Our Democracy ...

(2) Religion of Peace Islam ...

These have been accepted and repeated as if they were facts ...

(1) America is a Constitutional Representative Republic ... it was never intended to be a Democracy and it isn't ...

(2) Islam orders it's followers to deceive and slay any and all infidels ... non-believers ... if you're not Muslim you should die ...

Unless America understands these fundamental facts we are going to fall like so many other nations ... by ignorance and the sword ...

[victoriadecapua]

Excerpt - Republic of Infidels Pt 2

(c) me

“You’re awake.”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“You’re usually gone before morning.”

“Father and Vikram went down to work on the reservoir. Mother’s speaking to the others about organizing a school or something.”

“She would want you with her.”

“I don’t care.” She lay back, stared at the strangely angled ceiling, an alpine innovation her father had given to most of the buildings in the Taaj.

“But you still don’t want to be alone.”

She had the grace to meet his eyes. Sergei’s expression was impassive, but there was warmth in the way he reached for her, pushing her hair back over her ear. It was not a sexual gesture. He was beginning to learn these non-transactional expressions, something Rachel found oddly comforting, but also gave her a strange sense of trepidation. His presence had a narcotic effect on her anxieties, which made it difficult to worry about the increasing addictiveness of him. It frightened her that she might need him.

He rose from beside her, and went to his kitchen area, opening up a cabinet and pulling out a cellophane-wrapped box of Russian Caravan, and a small, dented silver urn, which he proceeded to fill from the sink’s heated water spigot. It was a little strange, seeing him do something so ordinary as brew tea, but there was also something traditional in his technique. For all his disconnection from nationalist sentiment, he was a Russian, no more immune from this rite than any other. 

Her eyes moved over the lines of his muscled back, the narrowing of his waist, the red half moon marks where her nails had gone into him. She liked the grace and symmetry of him. She liked looking at him when he wasn’t looking at her. He couldn’t know it, but there was something so utterly different about each of her other interactions with him over the years. He was more hers when he wasn’t trying, when he was simply in and of himself. She shivered as she realized how close she’d come to wondering about the future. 

When he returned to bed, she was fully alert, sitting up with her forearms across her knees. He handed her one mug, and set his own on the bedside table. She felt his eyes on her as she blew on the tea, then took a small sip.

“My mother used to make this for me,” she said quietly. “She and father used to bicker over it, giving us caffeine when we were young, but she won. 

“I know,” Sergei said. “I remember. That was the first time I heard her call you “Rakhila.” 

She was about to say don’t call me that, but there was something so solemn in his expression, so attuned to her, that the desire to rebuke him or punish him for using the diminutive waned. It wasn’t important as it once had been. Nothing was. 

She took another sip of tea, and then, unbidden, the emotion surged up in her, coming out in a small, choked sob. She clutched the mug, holding it close to her chest, until finally he worked it out of her grip, and slid his hard arms around her. 

“I’m sorry,” she sniffed, believing for an instant that she was speaking to someone who understood regret. 

He was being so careful with her, and she couldn’t understand why. The night before he’d reduced her to incoherent begging, and had laughed at her in her defeat. Now powerful hands moved over her shoulders, applying gentle pressure, pressing his mouth to her temple. After a moment she could no longer stand his kindness, and went to push him away, but he seemed to understand, and his hands turned greedy. 

“You don’t have to hide it from me,” he told her as he palmed her breast.“I don’t matter, so what difference does it make?”

She wasn’t sure how to respond to this. She wanted to tell him that yes, he mattered, that she wasn’t just using him, but she knew how he would respond. He’d chastise her for lying, then take what he could get. 

When Rachel woke, she felt immediately that something was wrong, though she couldn’t for the life of her place what it might be. Still dizzy, she staggered out of bed, looking around the luxurious cabin for a fact to orient her. By the light, she could tell that it was late morning, but she could not assess how long she’d been unconscious, whether an entire day or more had passed. 

Her clothes she spotted hanging over the chair in front of a neat little dressing table built into the wall, and something else. A 9mm pistol, evidently missing its magazine and beside that a compact little tactical knife in carbon black. She frowned, unsure if their significance, then assumed that it belonged to Odessa or one of her people. Perhaps they were some kind of gift, to help her protect herself when they returned to the Cradle.

She dressed, then made her way to the cabin door, still a little unsteady, but stabilizing slowly as she felt her blood pump through her, warming her up. It was sunny outside, as it always was down at this elevation, and she was grateful for the warmth as she stepped out into the lounge area that was situated behind the steerage. 

There Odessa, queenly and sedate, sat on one of the well appointed couches, and across from her, one of her girls — Chayya, a former favourite of Sergei’s, or so the rumour went. She too seemed relaxed, her Indian complexion nearly the same tone as Rachel’s, and she could see how she might have appealed to him, however superficially. 

“Little dove,” Odessa said kindly, patting the space next to her. “Are you feeling better?”

“I am, thank you,” Rachel said. “Still a little dizzy.”

“Perhaps you should return to bed, my dear. Your man would never forgive me if anything happened to you.”

Rachel frowned. “Have you already contacted him?”

Odessa’s smile was indulgent. “The transmission has been sent.”

Rachel took a deep breath of cool air, and felt steadiness gradually returning to her. “I can’t tell you what it means to me. That’s twice you’ve saved my life.”

At some invisible signal from her mistress, Chayya, who had been watching her with mild interest, rose and went to the helm. Odessa folded her fingers together, watching Rachel intently.

“She’s been Sergei’s “you” for nearly a year. In the last few weeks, he has a new companion.”

Rachel leaned out to try and catch sight of the harbour but there was too much black hull in the way. She turned to Odessa. “Less danger for her now, surely.”

Her host nodded thoughtfully. “This is true. But now it is more difficult to track his movements.”

“I’m going to kill him,” Rachel said flatly. “After that his movements will cease to be of any importance.” 

Odessa considered her, and there was something inscrutable in the woman’s face. Then she put her hands together, as though prompting her to action. “I admire your spirit, Rakhila. But we will arrive soon, and you must be out of sight.”

Having bowed to the instruction, Rachel made her way back to the stateroom. Her dizziness and fatigue had abated thanks to the fresh air, but now she was restless, anxious to arrive, to see Delaware. She’d had only a little time to fully appreciate how difficult being separated from him had been, but now that physical ache that started behind her sternum had returned, combined with the unbearable anticipation.

Unable to help herself, she slipped out into the narrow hallway, wondering if Odessa’s radio was somewhere nearby. Feeling a little guilty, she stuck her nose in the doorway of the nearby room, this one narrow and intended to house two twin beds. Instead, it had been converted into a radio room of no little sophistication. Odessa parked on several important micro frequencies, Rachel knew, and needed a considerable amount of hardware to power that operation. Not every radio could access these narrow bands of the spectrum, which made them incredibly valuable for clandestine communication.

Rationalizing that she had been told to stay out of sight, not in the stateroom, Rachel bent down to examine the frequencies. She assumed that the message would have gone out on one of these, to be relayed to Delaware by the mouth of a trusted courier, which would have been traditional among those who could coordinate such communication, but that didn’t appear to be the case. 

A message sent on a parked frequency was difficult to detect without a tuner that could register it, but the tuner installed just above the console showed no indication of activity on any of the micro frequencies.

Instead, the machine showed a broadcast signature, bouncing from the three towers that her father had installed in the heights, now entering every radio console and handheld as a string of audio Morse Code. Most people of enough means to own a radio were fluent in Morse, but Odessa had taken special care to add an additional linguistic marker: she had coded the message in Russian. She didn’t intend it for Delaware at all. 

Rachel’s body acted before her mind could quite catch up to the betrayal. She stood up at once. She thought of the pistol in the stateroom, wondered if she could get there in time before she was noticed. Then, at once contradicting herself, she turned back to the radio, ready to send out her own broadcast, to warn the Americans.

But it was too late. Chayya was there at the door, smiling benignly at her. Rachel cast around for an excuse, to come up with a reason for her being there, but the pistol in the girl’s elegantly manicured hand belied any possible argument. 

“Back to the other room,” she said calmly, not bothering to raise the weapon. “I’m going to lock you in.”

With a deep sigh of frustration, Rachel allowed herself to be marched back into the stateroom. Odessa was waiting there for her, an expression of infinite patience on her face as she sat on the corner of the bed. 

“Edward,” Rachel said at once as it came to her. “How long…?”

“He came to me over a month ago,” Odessa said gently. “Made certain promises, if I would do him certain favours, and so far he has been as good as his word.” 

“And Vikram,” Rachel said with disgust, mostly for her own gullibility. “You all made it look very good.”

“It was my mistake, helping you to begin with,” Odessa said as she rose, and the contempt was now audible in her voice. “I should have given you to Sergei and let the two of you fight it out. Your captain would have been in less danger without you, and my boy would still be alive.” She went to the dresser where the weapons had been left, and held up the gun, showing the missing magazine. “You have one in the chamber. Use it well, Rakhila.”

They locked the door with the wireless security system. It was a standard door, not reinforced, but she knew she’d have no chance of breaking it down with the available options. She ranged around, looking for a way out, but the long plate glass windows were thick and impenetrable.

Then, out of the corner of her eye she caught sight of a narrow vent fitted about chest height into the bulkhead. She could tell by the recent discolouration around the metal edge that it had been moved, the screws just slightly stripped. As she moved closer to it, she could see that something had been positioned behind it, taped to the back of the galvanized shaft wall.

As she bent down to look at it, a tiny red LED flared into life, making it difficult to see the thing to which it was attached, but not so difficult that Rachel didn’t immediately understand what it was. Four neat identical packs of plastic explosive taped together with workmanlike skill, were wired to a sleek little detonator. The LED affixed to it began to flash, at first a sluggish pace, but quickly accelerating. 

Instinctively, Rachel backtracked, ready to throw herself behind the bed, but the moment she retreated, the light’s blinking began to slow, until it ceased altogether. Tentatively, her entire body humming with anxiety, she reached out with one hand in the direction of the wall. Her guess was at once confirmed as, triggered by her proximity, the light winked at her, as though sharing an inside joke. Edward’s work, complete with his sardonic little autograph. 

So that was to be her punishment if she failed to do as Odessa had ordained. She wondered if the old lady had any notion how inexperienced she still was with firearms. But she also had the knife. If she could keep the struggle on the near side of the bed, she might just prevail. 

The throaty roar of a motorcycle met her ears, its rumbling voice as distinctive to her as genetic code. In her mind she could see it, that silver black beast polished to a mirror shine, waiting at Mikhail Vetrov’s thigh like an obedient hound. His eighteen-year-old son’s present for completing his juvenile prison term, shipped especially from the factory, and brought in by helicopter.  

The sound came closer, bouncing off the hull of the ship and rattling the very air, increasing all the time as it drew nearer. Sergei had gotten the message. 

Rachel set the 9mm on the floor by her feet where it would be easy to reach, and adjusted her grip on the knife, saying a little prayer to it, to its razor edge, its biting point. She was ready as she’d ever get, and if she failed, well. Being blown apart still wasn’t the worst of her options.

[hbfmguy2]

To Russia With Love, Part 18

Olena returned with the coil of rope quickly. With practiced ease, the Ukrainian woman tied up first Hosseini and then his bodyguard one by one. “Agh!” cried the goon as he was bound. “Infidel, shameless whore, you are breaking my arm!” Olena pressed her knee hard into the small of her prisoner’s back to enable her to pull the knots tight. The man’s bound wrists were forced high up his back as she tied him, eliciting another cry of anguish and pain.

Meanwhile Hosseini glared at Kateryna, who was still covering him with her hand gun. “I demand to speak to the Iranian consul!” he hissed. The woman smiled at him sweetly. “I’m sorry but the Republic of Ukraine no longer has diplomatic relations with your sorry little Islamic Republic!” she beamed. Hosseini looked flabbergasted. “Ukraine! What is this?” he demanded. Kateryna stared back at the fuming man evenly. “Once you, your men and Borisov are safely secured,” she replied, “we will ensure your drone shipment at Kabinka has an unfortunate malfunction.” Hosseini’s eyes darkened. “Bitch!” he flung at her.

“Glory to Ukraine.” replied Kateryna.

To be continued.

[kostantina]

HWS Holy Roman Empire Aesthetic Mood Board

For most of its existence it was simply ‘the Empire’. The words Holy, Roman and Empire were only combined as Sacrum Romanum Imperium in June 1180, and though used more frequently from 1254, they never appeared consistently in official documents.

The holy element was integral to the Empire’s primary purpose in providing a stable political order for all Christians and defending them against heretics and infidels. To this end, the emperor should act as chief advocate, or guardian, of the pope, who was the head of a single, universal Christian church. Since this was considered a divine mission, entrusted by God, it opened the possibility that the emperor and Empire were themselves sacred. Like the Roman and imperial elements, the holy character of the Empire was rooted in the later, Christian phase of the ancient Roman empire, rather than the pagan past of the first Caesars or the earlier Roman republic.

- Peter H. Wilson, Heart of Europe: A History of the Holy Roman Empire - Page 19

[thegreatimpersonator]

Oooh I have more things to add to the old label theory if you enjoyed that one. You know how she said Scooter wanted her to sign an ironclad NDA where she'd never be able to talk about him in a negative way in the future? And how annoyed she was at that even being a possibility? I 100% believe she was so annoyed because she's already had to sign one before, and it happened when she ended the contract with Big Machine. She's never said a single negative thing about the label or Borchetta. You could argue that her talking about him during the masters sale is talking bad, but it could also be argued that she's just stating facts too. But she'd be toeing the line. However, just like Colleen Ballinger (I HAD TO MAKE THIS JOKE SORRY NOT SORRY), she figured out she could put it in a song. Mask it as turmoil in a romantic relationship and she's good to go.

My examples of this include (long list ahead, also I'm not including songs pre-Lover because I've seen that to be a bit controversial with fans and I don't want you catching any heat for me):

Miss Americana and the Heartbreak Prince (I don't wanna fight vibes but also "Voted most likely to run away with you" vs "You say I abandoned the ship but I was going down with it"

Death by a Thousand Cuts ("Why am I still writing pages?" the story ended with the contract ending aka "paper-thin plans" and even her explanation of the song being about a slow and painful death of a relationship fits this theme)

I could argue Cornelia Street is about signing with Republic but I know it's a touchy one with fans leaving flowers and candles at the apartment there (I'm sorry but those fans are too much for me)

the 1 obviously, and the part in cardigan about being young and people thinking you know nothing, and in the last great american dinasty, you know how she says the dog was painted green, but in real life it was the cat? I think that's a nod to this specific storyline in her song in the sense, yes, all these things did happen, but I'm gonna make you think it was my lover (dog) not my business partner (cat).

exile, my tears ricochet, the "you were never mine" and "you weren't mine to lose" in august can also be about her masters, hoax, gold rush could be about that offer she got from Big Machine, where she'd have to record a new album for each one they sign over to her. She almost thought yes, but it could never be and "everybody wants you" sounds like there were a ton of people wanting to buy the label. The obviously we have tolerate it, happiness, closure, and it's time to go (I want to add here that the 15 million tears line is likely about her dad because be made $15 million from her masters being sold because he owned a small percentage of the label).

On to Midnights, I'm staring with Midnight Rain and then we have Question. I know it's an odd choice but it makes sense when you think about it - people could have been making fun of her for signing to a brand new label back in the day, thinking it wouldn't go anywhere, but she turned out to be the meteor strike for that label, which left everyone clapping. "Do you wish you could still touch her" aka "Do you wish you could still make bank off her art, especially now that she's bigger than ever?" which leads me right to Bejeweled and "the shoes I gave you as a present"and then Labyrinth is about singing to Republic. High Infidelity especially with "At the house lonely, good money, I'd pay if you'd just know me, seemed like the right thing at the time" with The Prophecy in perspective. I'd say the "give me back my girlhood" line fits this narrative too, because "the wound won't close". Hits Different as the wound is still bleeding, as is in You're Losing Me.

OH THIS IS SO GOOD I love love love this interpretation!!!

[jedi-order-apologist]

The Buried Truth is Your Favorite Lie

Dooku tries and fails to leave the past behind. Written for Fandom Empire Powerball 2023. Prompt: Candle

Dooku kept a selection of particular documents in hardcopy in one of his private studies, far beyond the reach of even an accomplished slicer. These documents were best kept out of sight until an ally began to waver, and required a bit more...persuasion, preferably of the kind they were unaware Dooku had access to.

Ventress called it blackmail. Dooku found the term crude, and preferred to think of it as insurance. Nevertheless, he found himself in need of it from time to time, when a subtler touch than the usual threats were required.

It was with this in mind that he entered one evening. He had sensed the wavering loyalties of a particular Separatist senator recently – a coward, who had been more and more anxious about Republic victories as of late, and no doubt thought he still had a chance to get on the “winning” side. But the fact that he was a coward was useful, especially when Dooku possessed evidence of some of the Senator’s rather unsavory indiscretions – embezzlement, mostly, and some infidelity. Petty things, really, but such petty things could hold great sway over small minded beings. Dooku was certain they could reach an understanding.

There were, of course, many documents there, on datapads and flimsi alike, but with a slight gesture, he pressed the Force into bringing the file he needed directly into his grasp. But as the file flew from the depths of those shelves, it knocked into something that rolled off the shelf and fell to the ground. Dooku glanced at it as he grasped the needed documents.

He did not flinch. He was stronger than that. There was no reason to flinch over a mere candle.

CONTINUED ON AO3

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Marci A Hamilton: The new House speaker, Mike Johnson, knows how he will rule: according to his Bible. When asked on Fox News how he would make public policy, he replied: “Well, go pick up a Bible off your shelf and read it. That’s my worldview.” But it’s taking time for the full significance of that statement to sink in. Johnson is in fact a believer in scriptural originalism, the view that the Bible is the truth and the sole legitimate source for public policy. He was most candid about this in 2016, when he declared: “You know, we don’t live in a democracy” but a “biblical” republic. Chalk up his elevation to the speakership as the greatest victory so far within Congress for the religious right in its holy war to turn the US government into a theocracy. Since his fellow Republicans made him their leader, numerous articles have reported Johnson’s religiously motivated, far-right views on abortion, same-sex marriage and LGBTQ+ rights. But that barely scratches the surface. Johnson was a senior lawyer for the extremist Alliance Defending Fund (later the Alliance Defending Freedom) from 2002 to 2010. This is the organization responsible for orchestrating the 303 Creative v Elenis legal arguments to obtain a ruling from the supreme court permitting a wedding website designer to refuse to do business with gay couples. It also played a significant role in annulling Roe v Wade.

The ADF has always been opposed to privacy rights, abortion and birth control. Now Roe is gone, the group is laying the groundwork to end protection for birth control. Those who thought Roe would never be overruled should understand that the reasoning in Dobbs v Jackson is not tailored to abortion. Dobbs was explicitly written to be the legal fortress from which the right will launch their attacks against other fundamental rights their extremist Christian beliefs reject. They are passionate about rolling back the right to contraception, the right to same-sex marriage and the right to sexual privacy between consenting adults. Johnson’s inerrant biblical truth leads him to reject science. Johnson was a “young earth creationist”, holding that a literal reading of Genesis means that the earth is only a few thousand years old and humans walked alongside dinosaurs. He has been the attorney for and partner in Kentucky’s Creation Museum and Ark amusement park, which present these beliefs as scientific fact, a familiar sleight of hand where the end (garnering more believers) justifies the means (lying about science). For them, the end always justifies the means. That’s why they don’t even blink when non-believers suffer for their dogma.

Setting aside all of these wildly extreme, religiously motivated policy preferences, there is a more insidious threat to America in Johnson’s embrace of scriptural originalism: his belief that subjective interpretation of the Bible provides the master plan for governance. Religious truth is neither rational nor susceptible to reasoned debate. For Johnson, who sees a Manichean world divided between the saved who are going to heaven and the unsaved going to hell, there is no middle ground. Constitutional politics withers and is replaced with a battle of the faithful against the infidels. Sound familiar? Maybe in Tehran or Kabul or Riyadh. But in America? When rulers insist the law should be driven by a particular religious viewpoint, they are systematizing their beliefs and imposing a theocracy. We have thousands of religious sects in the US and there is no religious majority, but we now have a politically fervent conservative religious movement of Christian nationalists intent on shaping policy to match their understanding of God and theirs alone. The Republicans who elected Johnson speaker, by a unanimous vote, have aligned themselves with total political rule by an intolerant religious sect.

[The Guardian]

[bijoumikhawal]

In the case of the Catalan and Spanish pilgrims, one cannot fully understand their life stories or their commentaries throughout the pilgrimage without considering the centrality of Catholicism to the regime of General Francisco Franco (1939–1975). During the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) almost all Catholic bishops supported the nationalists in their crusade against what they identified as the “republican Antichrist” and considered the fight against the “diabolic” socialists, communists, and anarchists as a modern reconquest of the infidels. For Catalans, the situation was particularly difficult: they lost the relative autonomy they had obtained during the Second Republic (1931–1939) and saw their linguistic and cultural identity denied. As Felicia, a Catalan Goddess Wood pilgrim, pointed out, during the Franco era it was difficult for many Catalans to identify with Catholicism because it meant being part of an institution that had chosen the side of the oppressor. So when Catalan women spoke of the Catholic Church as the persecutor of innocent people they did not only refer to medieval witches or heretic groups, but also to the victims of the Spanish civil war. The military terms used by pilgrims (see for instance Estrella in chapter 3 in this volume) to refer to the Catholic Church’s attitude might well derive from this association. Almost all Spanish pilgrims went to convent schools, and as Estrella’s story shows, even younger pilgrims born toward the end of the dictatorial regime had still to struggle with the remaining Catholic vestiges.

Pg 48, Looking for Mary Magdalene by Anna Fedele

[x-heesy]

In the fucking name of g0d thousands years of terror 🖕🏽

𝗥𝗜𝗦𝗘𝗥𝗘𝗕𝗘𝗟𝗥𝗘𝗦𝗜𝗦𝗧 👻 🏴‍☠️

Victor Shivert "Inquisition" 1900 😭

Victor Schivert (1863–1926?) was a Romanian painter and illustrator known for genre subjects and portraits.

Schivert painted illustrations of the Thirty Years War. One of his paintings, Kriegsbeute, was reported stolen in 2005 from Bohemia (Czech Republic).

His father was the painter Albert Gustav Schivert (1826–1881).

𝗚𝗜𝗩𝗘 𝗣𝗜𝗦𝗦 𝝠 𝗖𝗛𝝠𝗡𝗖𝗘 / 𝗞𝗜𝗟𝗟 𝝠𝗟𝗟 𝗣𝝝𝗟𝗜𝗧𝗜𝗖𝝠𝗡𝗦 /𝗠𝗙 𝗣𝗘𝝠𝗖𝗘 / 𝗗𝝝𝗡’𝗧 𝗕𝗘 𝗦 𝗗𝗜𝗖𝗞 /𝗜𝗠𝝠𝗟𝗥𝗘𝝠𝗗𝗬𝝠𝗚𝝠𝗜𝗡𝗦𝗧𝗧𝗛𝗘𝗡𝗘𝗫𝗧𝗪𝝠𝗥 / 𝗙𝗟𝗨𝗙𝗙 𝗬𝝝𝗨, 𝗬𝝝𝗨 𝗙𝗟𝗨𝗙𝗙𝗜𝗡 𝗙𝗟𝗨𝗙𝗙 / 𝗣𝗨𝗡𝗞𝗦𝝠𝗥𝗘𝗡𝗧𝗗𝗘𝝠𝗗 /𝗟𝝝𝗩𝗘 & 𝗟𝗘𝗧 𝗟𝝝𝗩𝗘 / 𝗟𝗜𝗩𝗘 & 𝗟𝗘𝗧 𝗟𝗜𝗩𝗘 / @darksilenceinsuburbiareloaded 😭 𝗧𝗛𝗘𝗟𝗜𝗧𝗧𝗟𝗘𝗧𝗛𝗜𝗡𝗚𝗦𝝠𝗥𝗘𝗧𝗛𝗘𝗕𝗜𝗚𝗧𝗛𝗜𝗡𝗚𝗦 / 𝗞𝗘𝗘𝗣 𝗜𝗧 𝗦𝗜𝗠𝗣𝗟𝗘 / 𝗞𝗘𝗘𝗣 𝗜𝗧 𝗥𝗘𝝠𝗟 / ​𝗡𝝝 𝗚𝝝𝗗𝗦 𝗡𝝝 𝗠𝝠𝗦𝗧𝗘𝗥𝗦 / 𝗜𝗧’𝗦 𝝠 𝗧𝗥𝝠𝗣 / 𝗕𝗥𝗘𝝠𝗞 𝗙𝗥𝗘𝗘 / 𝗩𝗘𝗧𝝝 / 𝗘𝗘𝗞 𝗣𝗘𝝝𝗣𝗟𝗘 / 𝗤𝗨𝗘𝗦𝗧𝗜𝝝𝗡 𝗘𝗩𝗘𝗥𝗬𝗧𝗛𝗜𝗡𝗚 // 𝗖𝗛𝝝𝝝𝗦𝗘 𝗪𝗜𝗦𝗘𝗟𝗬 / 𝗪𝗘𝗜𝗥𝗗 𝗜𝗦 𝝠 𝗖𝝝𝗠𝗣𝗟𝗜𝗠𝗘𝗡𝗧 / 𝗪𝗛𝝝 𝗪𝝠𝗧𝗖𝗛 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗪𝝠𝗧𝗖𝗛𝗘𝗥𝗦!? /𝗥𝗘𝗟𝗜𝗚𝗜𝝝𝗡𝗜𝗦𝝠𝗠𝗘𝗡𝗧𝝠𝗟𝗜𝗟𝗟𝗡𝗘𝗦𝗦 / 𝗦𝗠𝝠𝗦𝗛𝗣𝝠𝗧𝗥𝗜𝝠𝗥𝗖𝗛𝗬 / 𝗘𝗡𝗘𝗥𝗚𝗬𝗦𝗨𝗖𝗞𝗘𝗥𝗭 𝗡𝝝𝗧 𝗪𝗘𝗟(𝗟) 𝗖𝗨𝗠

#classicart #classicalart #classicpainting #classicalpaintings #zeitgenössischekunst #traditionalart

I h8 u, sun of a beach 🖕🏽🖕🏽🖕🏽🖕🏽

Now you've got something to die for

Now you've got something to die for

Infidel

Imperial

Lust for blood, a blind crusade

Apocalyptic, we count the days

Bombs to set the people free

Blood to feed the dollar tree

Flags for coffins on the screen

Oil for the machine

Army of liberation

Gunpoint indoctrination

The fires of sedition

Fulfill the prophecy

Now you've got something to die for

Now you've got something to die for

Send the children to the fire

Sons and daughters stack the pyre

Stoke the flame of the empire

Live to lie another day

Face of hypocrisy

Raping democracy

Apocalyptic

We count the days

Oh

We'll never get out of this hole

Until we've dug our own grave

And drug the rest down with us

The burning home of the brave

Burn

Now you've got something to die for

Now you've got something to die

For

Now You've Got Something to Die For by Lamb of God