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vaokses · 4 months ago

Text

I worked the blade to make it deeper

Series Masterlist / General Masterlist

Pairing: Aegon x Rhaenyra's Daughter!Reader

Summary: Nearly two years have gone by since you left with your mother for Dragonstone, and yet your absence is as sharp as the first day. Rumors spread through King's Landing about how a Tyrell knight has captured your heart, and these rumors haunt Aegon, from the Keep to the taverns, leading him, drunk and reckless, to a brothel in the Street of Silk. Not in search of comfort, or in search of some illusion of you to keep him company through the night, but in search of something else.

Word Count: 4.4k

Warnings: 18+. Smut (slight). Prostitution. Dubious consent. Drunkenness, alcohol consumption. Voyeurism. Self-harming or self-destructive actions/thoughts. Aegon's head is not in a good place at all. Descriptions/Allusions to panic attacks. A lot of angst, just a lot of it. Hurt and no comfort. Allusions to bad BDSM practices. I write this with sub!Aegon in mind, by the way, I don't know how explicit it is in this work, but it's there, and I'm warning you in case it's not your cup of tea. If I missed any warning tags, I apologize, and please let me know.

Some AU/Setting stuff: Same universe as How long this love can hold its breath and the Pirtir series. This takes place nearly a year before the beginning of the story, around four or so months before the other Aegon PoV chapter. You don't need to read either to read this tho.

A/N: So, I couldn't get this idea out of my head. It mixes some of book!Aegon's approach to intimacy/sex because I find it really interesting. This is just a lot of angst, but his character is so fucking sad, I can't help myself. I'll write some fluff for him at some point, I promise.

Title is from "Love opened a mortal wound. In agony, I worked the blade to make it deeper." by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz.

All of this would be easier if he could just forget, Aegon gathers. If he could just forget about you, about what he lost and what he didn’t have, then everything would be easier. The quiet of the Keep wouldn’t feel so deafening, the future ahead of him would be a tad less unbearable.

And he wouldn’t be sneaking around like an idiot, eavesdropping on his mother and his grandsire’s conversation because he heard your name.

“That boy will hand the Blacks the Reach if we do not step in,” Alicent argues, voice laden with worry. “His father is old, and he hasn’t inherited his judiciousness, his restraint.”

“Lord Alisdair might still bend, once the Princess leaves Highgarden and his blood cools. Nothing makes a man as bold as a woman’s smile.”

“Her smile, or the promise of her hand?”

Aegon feels as if a weight had been dropped on his chest, and yet he does not even think about tearing himself away from here, about ceasing in his listening for any news of you. The closest he can get to you, nowadays.

“No arrangements have been made yet, and if t-…”

“My lord husband will approve if Rhaenyra asks this of him, you know this. He will wed her granddaughter to the Tyrell boy himself if it is her who asks.”

“Has she asked?”

A few beats of silence, the seconds before an executioner’s sword finds a neck.

“It is a matter of time.”

___

It is as natural as breathing, to Aegon, to escape the confines of the Red Keep by now, to evade his guards and sneak into the city.

Now he sits alone -he shrunk from his usual company, he isn’t sure even why-, nursing yet another jug of mead and chasing languidly for the welcome stupor of a stiff drink, and finds that not even here do you stop tormenting him.

“My sister was there for the tourney in Highgarden,” A woman comments, carelessly loud as she speaks to the group of people sitting with her, a table away from Aegon’s. “She said the eldest of House Redwyne gifted the Princess a mare.”

“As dragon food?” The man she sits on the lap of asks, prompting her to laugh.

“I would like a mare as a gift,” One of the girls argues, at another’s scoff arguing, “What? What is wrong with that?”

“The Princess rides Vermithor. What is a fucking horse against the second largest dragon in the world?”

The wench that is sent to refill Aegon’s drink presses against him unnecessarily, and her hand traces over his shoulders as she moves away. He feels her gaze on him, watching raptly to see if he follows her with his own gaze, if he wishes to play along.

He mislikes this, these games, playing pretend at seduction. It feels even more false than it already is, fucking a woman, if she likes pretending she wants something beyond the tenuous oblivion they can find in one another.

“You gather she’s coming here anytime soon?” The man from the other table asks, diverting his attention to them -to you- once again.

“I don’t think so. Everyone would be scurrying about in preparation. Whenever there’s something brewing up in the Keep we have more work months ahead.”

“I hear she’ll summer in Highgarden.” One of the younger girls comments.

The old woman’s laughter is shrill, grating. Gloating, almost. At least that is what it sounds like, to him.

“Of course she is. Alasdair Tyrell has returned from the Shield Islands, and victorious at that. Made them swear to her cause, apparently.”

“To Rhaenyra’s?”

“No.”

Silence follows the simple answer. Aegon motions for the wench to refill his drink, which she doesn’t do quickly enough.

“Oh,” The man breathes. Short little chuckles escape his chest, and he praises, “Clever lad, eh?”

“‘Tis quite a wedding gift, is it not?”

Aegon takes fast, perhaps hurried, gulps from the flagon, but the mead isn’t enough to drown out their voices.

“So she has agreed to it?”

“She is a young girl, and he a knight who has more than proven his devotion. He doesn’t have her hand yet, but I’d bet he has her heart.”

“So it isn’t just Vermithor she wants to ride,” The man boasts, followed by what sounds like a slap. “Ow!”

“‘Tis the future Queen you speak of, you fool.”

He should stop himself, but he doesn’t want to. Aegon turns to them and asks,

“And the future wife of Lord Tyrell, no?”

“My Prince.” One -or a few, he doesn’t really care- of them greets, and a few heads bow, but he motions their empty platitudes away.

“It is a…a joyous thing, a betrothal. And one made for love, at that,” He smiles at them, but they don’t smile back. They look at him like he’s seen hunters look at cornered beasts, they look at him as if they’re afraid of him. “We don’t see much of those nowadays, do we?”

“No, my Prince.” The older man agrees, still cautious.

He isn’t an idiot, he knows that he wasn’t…that you don’t feel for him what he does for you, that you don’t think about him as often as he thinks about you. But some part of him, foolish and perhaps more than a little masochistic, still hoped the truth might be another.

Still hoped, against hope, against reason, that you might one day return, that you might still choose him.

“A cause for celebration then, isn’t it?” He asks, standing up and swaying slightly on his feet. Their faces are guarded, careful, and though he makes his best attempt at another smile, shameless and debauched, it seems they see through it. He pushes on, “Drinks for all! On me!”

He plays along, he plays his part, for a while. The mead keeps flowing, and when it ceases, he switches to wine. Watered down and tasteless, but it washes away the ashes the memory of you leaves on his tongue.

And the loud voices and cheers of the people in the tavern drown out even his thoughts for a while, but he finds that tonight the wine does not make his thoughts any easier to bear. It seems instead to make them louder, to make the ache deep in his chest sharper, worse.

As the night goes on, his thoughts get louder and the crowd around him quieter as they return to their homes, and Aegon refuses to return to the quiet, the solitude, of the Red Keep.

___

Long ago, years ago, he would come to places such as this and ask them to be soft with him, to hold him and treat him gently, to be what he imagined you would be -what he glimpsed at, what he had, for however short a while it was-, to grant him what he supposed he might have had, were you to have stayed.

But he understood fairly quickly that it just made everything worse, that it made the absence much sharper, the emptiness gnaw at him with renewed strength; and so he started refusing them whenever they tried to offer anything gentle. They did it wrong, anyways, it just made him feel brittle and cold and alone, and he prefers the distance, and the oblivion it provides, over the hollowness that their false warmth leaves him with.

The months and then the years went by, and you never returned, not even a glimpse of you and Vermithor on the distant skies, not even a short visit with your family, not even a fucking letter; and Aegon can no longer hold on to the fantasy that you might have wanted him, that you could have loved him.

He gathers that it was for the better, that the illusion has shattered. It makes it easier, to find oblivion buried in some whore or another, to have his nights away from the Keep be the reprieve they ought to be. It makes it easier to make things quiet again, to lose himself when he can force his useless heart out of the way.

But he often trips on it. His heart, that is.

And sometimes his yearning overpowers his reason, and he finds himself searching for a shadow of you, a version of you that still wants him. Despite the ache and the absence, he still can’t bring himself to ask any of the women to pretend to care for him, to pretend to love him, anymore.

He tells himself it is enough that they look like you when the lights are dim and wine clouds his senses, that they don’t say anything when it is your name he calls out. He tells himself it is enough to have this, and that to ask for more would be to ask to be torn open.

But the absence remains, the hollowness remains, a void gnawing away at him, hungrier and hungrier the longer he indulges in foolish illusions, in tricks of the light.

At his weakest, he asks them to prove to him what he already knows to be true. That you, fantasy or real, illusion or not, do not care for him, do not love him. That you, upon knowing what he has made out of himself, aware of what they will ask him to become, have come to hate him. So he asks them to hurt him, to refuse him, to turn away from him.

He doesn’t understand why he does it, why he still chases after that when it leaves him just as empty as asking for anything else does. He doesn’t understand the part of him that finds comfort in his own ruin.

He doesn’t understand why he comes here, why he is restless as he crosses the doors into the familiar brothel, why he feels his throat close up at the sounds and scents of this place, why his chest feels tight with something between desperation and dread as he sets out to…to do what it takes to make his thoughts stop, to make himself understand that he must forget.

He finds the one he’s looking for fairly easily, long silver hair and deep red dress amidst a sea of heads of dark hair and half-naked bodies. Her back is turned to him, and the wine makes the sight resemble a familiar dream for a moment, and his breath catches.

But when he reaches her and she turns to face him, the face isn’t a familiar one, the eyes are wrong, and the smile is a mockery of yours.

He still extends a hand, wordless, to ask her to join him.

It’s almost funny, that for all he despises his ancestry, what he has inherited; in the eyes of any of the patrons of this establishment he is but another Targaryen man, looking to get it wet only with the ones that, real or no, reflect the blood of a lost world.

It is preferrable that they don’t know any better. He’d rather be his father’s son than the fool that yearns for a woman he cannot have.

Aegon isn’t sure why he’s doing this, why he has come here, why tonight the wine has made the pain only sharper, more unbearable. He isn’t sure if he’s punishing himself, for being as stupid as to allow himself to hope you’d return to him; or if he’s just resigning himself to the truth that is, forcing himself to shatter with his own hands, before his very eyes, the fantasy of what could have been.

But he wants this, he…he needs this.

“And you,” He calls out, pointing to a well-built young man with warm eyes and chestnut hair. Quite close to a knight. Quite close to a Tyrell, even. Aegon offers him a smile, wide and lecherous. It is a lie, but it is one he himself believes, and the false merriment keeps him safe. “You will join us.”

The man takes Aegon’s free hand, and he lets them lead him to a private room, of dim lights and of air heavy with incense. In the midst of the hanging curtains, the many candles, and the huge bed in the center of it all, Aegon feels for a moment as if he’s suffocating.

“What can we do for you, my Prince?” The woman asks, voice low, sultry, dripping with false sweetness.

A nauseating blend of anxiousness and dread rise within him, and though he reaches for the glass of wine on a nearby table, downing the drink in two gulps in an attempt to chase these feelings away, they linger.

Aegon watches, numbly, as the man reaches for a pitcher and refills his cup without a word. It is welcome, almost a comfort, the weight of a full glass in his hand.

“I…I want to watch,” Aegon admits, voice hoarse in what he absently hopes they confuse with lust. “The two of you. I want to watch the two of you.”

There’s a chair near the bed but far enough, aimed towards it. He has the absent thought of how many must come here not for participation but for a show, and Aegon tries clinging to that small observation, amuse himself to thoughts of what others come to do in these places; but his mind, anticipating and yet dreading what is to come, lingers on the present.

His gaze, unfocused and staring at nothing but the faint memories he wishes would leave him, cannot look at them as the man and woman undress and sit together in bed, looking at him.

He cannot look at them, and yet he feels their gazes on him. He feels as if he were the one naked, the one on display, asked to put up a show.

“My Prince?” The woman calls out, forcing his eyes to focus on her.

She awaits instruction, and he finds he can’t give it.

It is a painful reality, a mortifying truth, that he does not know how to offer softness, gentleness. Or how to receive it. Or how to witness it, even.

In losing you, he gathers he also lost the part of him that knew of the softness of a gentle touch, that knew how not to shatter at the thought of warmth.

And now he can’t even make this…this pretender, already a poor mimicry of you, portray your warmth, the gentleness of your affection; and Aegon cannot even witness a glimpse of the warmth and the softness that you surely now give freely to that fool on the far end of the world.

It dawns on him then, that he has forgotten pieces of you, that he has lost part of you to time and to distance. And realization isn’t a weight dropped on his chest, or the ground giving in under his feet, no; realization is a slow pressure, a shrinking tunnel, an exhale that left him too late to realize he wouldn’t be able to inhale again.

He grabs for the cup with shaking fingers, grips it so tight he fears it might crack, and downs the rest of the drink. But the numbness is escaping him, slipping like sand between his fingers, and the haziness has given way to something much worse, to a quickly-beating heart and thoughts chasing themselves in circles.

And all the wine does now is make him feel as if he’s only further drowning, further losing whatever grasp he has at himself. He still drinks.

What can he tell her? That he wishes to be hurt, punished, for his weakness, for his faults? That he wishes to see what he has lost, what he never had, what he never will have?

That he wants for the thoughts to stop, for the pain to stop, and he only knows how to escape them with this, with sex; but the memory of you lingers too close, a knife wedged next to his heart, for him to even consider enduring another’s touch tonight?

He tells her the truth instead, and if instead of a command it sounds like an accusation, he does not care.

“You love him.��

It is all the instruction he can give. He does not know what love looks like, what love feels like, so even if she doesn’t either and the act is a poor one, Aegon won’t know the difference.

The man and woman fall easily into the parts they must play, pressing their bodies together and sharing a deep kiss, letting their hands explore each other slowly, with the pace of two people with all the time in the world, with the calm of those who have promised each other a lifetime. Aegon watches, and the nakedness of their bodies does not seem lewd, instead it betrays an intimacy, a warmth, that makes the void in his chest awaken with an oppressive sort of longing.

Aegon’s gaze lingers on him, on the ‘knight’. He finds he cannot look away, and it isn’t jealousy that overwhelms him, or anger; instead, all that fills his him at the sight is dread, and morbid fascination.

The man’s fingers are buried within her, his lips at her throat, and Aegon feels as if a knife were slowly embedded somewhere within his chest. With each breath, the knife digs deeper, tears further at an old wound, and yet he doesn’t look away. Instead, his breath quickens.

And he knows it’s an act, that they’re playing at sharing a love they do not know or have, but he doesn’t know it or have it either, and sitting here he only feels more alone.

But he cannot join them. Because you do not want him.

After what he isn’t sure if it is a moment or an eternity, darkened gazes flicker to him, awaiting his permission, his command, to go on, with quickened breaths. Though for a moment Aegon finds himself staring back, unmoored and uncertain, he quickly recovers and stutters a response to go on with it.

The man grunts a curse against her breasts as he enters her in one swift motion, and she sighs at the feeling, hoarse little moan rumbling past her lips as she adjusts to having him inside her.

They start moving together, and though the sight before him is an objectively alluring one, and if nothing else he should be able to focus on the sounds leaving their lips, on the sound and scent of sex filling the room, Aegon finds himself not even slightly aroused.

Then again, he didn’t expect to. He might enjoy pain sometimes, and perhaps even seek it, but seeing a mirror -however muddied, however imperfect- of the woman he loves making love to someone else is something out of a nightmare, not something he might enjoy stroking his cock to.

He didn’t think it’d hurt like this, though. He feels useless tears stinging at his eyes, and his breath hitches, because he expected it to hurt, but he didn’t think it’d torture him like this.

And yet he can’t bring himself to stop them, feels undeserving of intruding upon their -your-, however false, love. With a breathed little laugh that only further blurs the lines between the reality of two paid whores acting out what he wants and the mirages of two people on the far end of the world, the woman switches their positions, straddling him.

Unprompted, the man sits up, mouths at her neck as she aligns his cock with her cunt again. Slowly, sensually, she starts riding him.

Aegon sniffles, tries hiding a stuttered breath, and leans forward. What he means to sound like an order, like an instruction, is voiced instead as a plea,

“H-…I want you to hold him, while…while you ride him. Hold him against you.”

She does as he commands, and the sight of their embrace is enough to force Aegon to look away, flinch away from pain as sharp as a hit. He reaches for the pitcher of wine, movements hurried and jittery, and pours himself another glass, uncaring that it spills.

He gives another order, another command. One after another. He tells the man, for he is naught but a lucky fool that doesn’t even see the fortune bestowed upon him, how to touch you, how to make you feel good, how to make you his.

They lose themselves in each other, waiting for no further instruction, exchanging caresses and kisses and breathed moans as they move together, as one.

Aegon feels his composure, weak and brittle as it was already, begin to crumble. His hands grip at the armrests of the chair and tears burn at his eyes. He’s trembling, but neither of them stop, because neither of you notice, because you have each other, and he does not matter.

He shakes his head, tries thinking clearly past the daze of alcohol and grief, and reminds himself it’s them. They’re strangers, they’re pretenders. He clings to that reminder.

And yet each whispered word that they share, each shared breath, each tender touch, it feels as if it’s mocking him, taunting him with what he cannot have, what he can only watch from afar.

The effect of the wine and the tears spilling from his eyes blur the edges of his vision, making the already stifling room seem smaller, the air thicker. Each breath feels pulled from his lungs, his body at the command of someone else, because he still cannot look away.

He understands better than ever why Helaena presses her palms to her ears when the crowds get too loud. He wants nothing more than to cover his ears, close his eyes, hide himself and get away. Why is he here, why is he doing this?

He doesn’t want this, he doesn’t want to see this. He doesn’t want this to happen. And yet he can’t stop watching, why can’t he stop this?

She’s close to the edge, he can tell, and while he needs for this to be over, he cannot stand the thought of it at the same time.

It is unbearable, and he stands from that chair, not to approach them but to step away. The room spins around him, his balance fails him, his voice fails him.

She clings to him, hides her face in the knight’s neck and away from Aegon’s view. She looks like you, and she sounds like you, and he lost you he lost you he lost you.

“Tell him you love him.” The voice is his, but not really, and he hears it from far away, from somewhere beyond the panicked cadence of his breaths, from a dream in which it is your love for him that Aegon asks to hear.

You bring your knight closer to you, hand tangling in short tresses of chestnut hair. Your mouth is close to his ear, your voice a breath, a promise Aegon knows he shouldn’t be allowed to hear,

“I love you.”

You shatter, and so does Aegon.

Her cry of pleasure and the knight’s mask the horrified sob that leaves Aegon’s chest at what he has done, at what he has tainted; and in their shared ecstasy they thankfully do not see him squeeze his eyes shut and cravenly look away, face crumpled in agony.

He stumbles back onto the chair, some absent voice in the back of his mind reminding him it is unfitting of a prince to fall on the ground, that the people cannot see him on his knees.

He thought he’d be in control, that if he commanded them, if he was…

His thoughts matter not, what he expected matters not. The fantasy, painful as it was, has shattered, and the jagged pieces of it dig into him like glass.

Aegon slumps in the chair, his body exhausted and worn. He feels used, wretched, and despite the weariness consuming his very bones, his mind remains restless, agitated.

And the silence that lingers after they are done is worse, almost. He cannot bear to look at them.

“You…you can leave,” He tells them. A breath, two, and with a rush of energy he doesn’t have, Aegon stands up instead. The movement feels uneven, exaggerated, and he grabs at the back of the chair to keep himself from falling over. With his free hand, he gestures at them to stay where they are, and corrects himself, “I-I will leave. I’m…I’m the one intruding, am I not?”

They don’t laugh, so he does. Or he tries to, but what leaves him is this manic little sound, this choked sob.

He moves to leave the room, but he stumbles over his own feet, and thankfully catches himself on a nearby pillar. He needs to get out.

Everything is too much, too bright, too loud, too painful, and he cannot escape it. In his head still resonates the breathed I love you.

Why would you say that to him? He…he’s nothing, he doesn’t…

No, no. Aegon squeezes his eyes shut and reminds himself that it wasn’t you, it was her. The impostor, that…that poor mimicry of you.

And he instructed her to say that. Why did he do that?

He wanted to fill the emptiness inside him, to…to quieten it all for a few moments, he didn’t want…he didn’t want this. But the void within him grows, and it hungers, and it tears away at pieces of him, breath by breath.

He stumbles out of the pleasure house on trembling legs, but doesn’t make it far before his labored breaths become too quick, too uneven. The air that enters his lungs hurriedly, stutteringly, over and over, still isn’t enough for him to breathe.

Aegon staggers into a nearby alley, clawing desperately at the brick wall in an attempt to keep himself grounded, to keep himself from breaking, from falling.

He still does, between labored breaths and memories that taste of ash, he crumbles under the weight of his disgust and his hatred at himself, at what he does, at what he failed to do; and falls onto the cold ground.

Back against the wall of the empty alley, Aegon brings his knees to his chest, and hugs them close to himself, head bowed and eyes shut tight as he tries forgetting.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this! My askbox is always open for questions or comments, and soon I think I'll be taking requests.

I should have waited to post this (I posted the first chapter of Pirtir today) but I couldn't help myself. This was so fun to write. I find these themes really interesting, and I want to delve into them again in the future. I have some stuff planned but they're still a bit further ahead in the posting schedule.

Thank you for reading!

#aegon ii fanfic #aegon targaryen x targaryen!reader #aegon x reader #aegon targaryen x reader #aegon ii x reader #fics by me

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ckret2 · 2 months ago

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So what happens if You're Athiest? Is it like a ping pong depending on what you did? Or is it more like you choose which judicial system or oblivion. Which does that even count as a belief if you believe in oblivion???

(For context for anyone who missed it, we're talking about this headcanon post, this isn't an actual religious discussion.)

We know, for a fact, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that ghosts exist in Gravity Falls. Let's start with that. This is a universe where, all other matters of theology being up in the air, the existence of the soul and of continued existence after death is Canonically Confirmed And Real.

And so, souls & life after death being confirmably real—they continue to be real whether you believe in them or not.

We don't know much about the afterlife-afterlife in Gravity Falls beyond what little bits we get from Bill. We know he's been to hell and gotten kicked out, and he claims "heaven" is a dimension where you get everything you want. The soul contract on TINAWDC lists "heaven, hell, purgator[y?], big corner, flow state, the dream house, the reincarnation processing center, axolotl’s tank, and consequences hole" as some (but not all) possible afterlives. The Theraprism appears to be an afterlife (Bill shows up there after getting killed, leaving his corpse behind, and he'll remain there until he can reincarnate; and since it's literally located inside a mind, it might be located in the mindscape).

But, while we might not know much about afterlives: we do know afterlives exist.

In most human religions, you go to an afterlife whether you believe in it or not. Believers tend to believe that all humans go to This One Afterlife (or One Of These Available Afterlives Depending On What You Did). Most Christians don't think you can opt out of heaven/hell if you're an atheist. Buddhists don't think you're excused from participating in samsara if you don't think it's real. I doubt the ancient Egyptians believed you'd be pardoned from having your heart weighed if you told Anubis you thought he was imaginary.

You'd be hard-pressed to find afterlife beliefs where what you believe in matters to what afterlife you go to—except in cases where you're rewarded for believing the right thing and punished for believing the wrong thing.

So I am assuming that, if we're talking about a setting where afterlives are canonically real, that's how they operate:

Nobody's setting up afterlives to accommodate the beliefs of people who are wrong about whether souls & afterlives exist

you're subject to an afterlife whether you think it's real or not.

In light of all that, I don't think getting sent to a particular afterlife has to do with belief; I think it has to do with bureaucracy.

If you are born, you are probably the citizen of a country. You didn't ask to be. You didn't consent to being a citizen. But you are one anyway. The government you had no say in and don't even know exists yet decided you belong to them. If you don't agree to be their citizen, tough titties. You were born on the property they've decided is theirs, and/or they consider your parents citizens; so they consider you a citizen too. When you become an adult, they'll ask you to pay taxes to them because they're your country! You never agreed to any of this! But you were born into the system so you're participating in it whether you want to or not. Sometimes you can stop being a citizen, or become a citizen of some other country, but it's very rare, very difficult, and takes a whole lot of paperwork.

I assume that a Generic Non-Denominational Multi-Afterlife setting works the same way. You may be able to choose which afterlife you go to, if you meet whatever criteria there are for transferring to that afterlife; but one way or another, you're going to an afterlife. If you don't choose one, one's chosen for you. You can't opt out of being in the system just because you don't believe it's real.

#whoht t #ask #gravity falls #headcanons

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pannaginip · 7 months ago

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Baby Hero was born with congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH), a condition that affects the production of hormones in his body. Having CAH makes Hero intersex, and the type of CAH he has requires lifetime medication.

The couple is also able to secure some financial help from the Department of Social Welfare and Development. But explaining her son’s condition to the personnel handling her requests is always a pain, as they often don’t understand what CAH is.

The plight of the intersex community rarely comes into the national spotlight. But one time it did was when the Supreme Court (SC) sided with Jeff Cagandahan in a 2008 landmark ruling that paved the way for the community’s rights.

In 2003, at a regional trial court (RTC) in Laguna, Jeff filed for changes in his birth certificate, namely the change of his name from “Jennifer” to “Jeff,” and his gender from “female” to “male.”

The RTC sided with Jeff, though the Office of the Solicitor General tried to reverse the decision. In the end, the SC upheld it, saying that Jeff let nature take its course in allowing his body to reveal male characteristics. He was allowed to change his name and gender in his birth registry.

“Respondent is the one who has to live with his intersex anatomy. To him belongs the human right to the pursuit of happiness and of health. Thus, to him should belong the primordial choice of what courses of action to take along the path of his sexual development and maturation,” the decision read, penned by the late former associate justice Leonardo Quisumbing.

Jeff later on co-founded Intersex Philippines, and currently serves as a co-chair of Intersex Asia. Intersex Philippines has over 200 members.

Though it’s been more than a decade since Jeff’s legal victory, the lack of public awareness about intersex people and their concerns generally remained in the Philippines, even among medical professionals.

For instance, while there are plenty of endocrinologists across the Philippine health system, Jeff said that it is difficult to find “intersex-friendly” endocrinologists, who do not push intersex people to undergo procedures to conform with the sex they were assigned at birth.

Access to medicine remains the biggest challenge for intersex people in the Philippines, according to Jeff. Based on their group’s research, just one specialty compounding pharmacy, Apotheca, produces the medicines that most in their community need. It’s Metro Manila-based, which makes it even harder for those in the provinces to access them.

Jeff constantly receives reports of children with life-threatening intersex variations who succumb to their condition, as their parents were unable to acquire the medications that could have kept them alive.

According to Intersex Philippines, some intersex children undergo irreversible, unnecessary surgeries and treatment without their consent. Some also experience emotional harm from this treatment.

In November 2023, Bataan 1st District Representative Geraldine Roman filed the Cagandahan Bill in Congress, which seeks to make what Jeff achieved more accessible to intersex Filipinos.

While Republic Act No. 9048, enacted in 2001, allows Filipinos to correct clerical and typographical errors in their civil registry offices without judicial orders, the bill said that this does not “explicitly address the unique circumstances of intersex individuals.” Having their legal documents amended to align with their identities would acknowledge an intersex person’s right to self-determination, it said.

2024 Apr. 6

#sogiesc equality #philippines #gender discrimination #cost of living

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maa-pix · 2 months ago

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Guns don't protect our free speech. Our free speech is protected by the consent of the governed laid out through the Constitution. It's not based on the threat of violence, it's based on elections, organizing referendums, a judicial system.

Our social contract offers many, many avenues to remedy these issues and allows sides to be heard and adjudicated. Guns, from what I can tell, seem to mostly protect the speech of the people holding the gun. It's a tool of intimidation […] and one that I think is actually being irresponsibly and recklessly invoked because some people in [Trump’s] crowd thought they might have been shadowbanned by Facebook.

I mean, for God's sake, [Trump rallied for a second time] in Butler Pennsylvania! The whole reason [he returned] there is because some fucking asshole with an AR-15 tried to permanently litigate his vision of this country's free speech. […]

The whole point of a society is guns don't decide it. I would prefer at this moment not to trade in a government that offers me many remedies for my concerns, legitimate or illegitimate, for a situation where my rights are determined by how many militia members agree with me. The country ain't perfect and there's a lot of issues we don't agree on: choice, immigration, shrinkflation of snack chips, the unholy marriage of penguins and hippos. But honestly dude, a country that can adjudicate these complicated issues through a sometimes frustrating, overly-bureaucratic, constitutional system of checks and balances and peaceful transfer of power is the only kind of country that I want the children of Pesto and Moo Deng to grow up in.

—Jon Stewart, on The Daily Show, October 7, 2024

youtube

#jon stewart #the daily show #free speech #gun control #democracy #Pesto #Moo Deng #trump #election 2024

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loving-n0t-heyting · 1 year ago

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saw a bunch of libertarians citing the recent and from what i can tell very awful case of indi gregory, a small child with a rare mitochondrial illness taken off nhs life support whose parents were denied the right to transfer her to an italian hospital that agreed to see to her medical needs. which was ofc trotted out as an illustration of the evils of statist health care, death panels, etc

the obvious retort here ofc is that the main effect of privatising healthcare on cases like these is to multiply them, but what particularly interested me was the judge who issued that ruling, robert roger peel. turns out peel is currently the lead judge of the uk's financial remedies court (for determining financial disputes between divorced or separated couples), and has published an interesting couple of articles on his (very positive) assessment of the court. a lot of his focus is trained on time/cost minimising, settlement:trial ratio maximising measures for the court to implement or that the court has implemented, including (from the 2nd one)

the extensive use of "private fdr's," a sort of privatised dispute resolution in place of the court itself, in which an ex-couple hires a "private fdr judge" (could be a solicitor, barrister or retired judge) to rule on their case without recourse to the actual judicial system. ("So too the widespread use of Private FDRs. Judges need little persuasion to permit parties to attend a Private FDR and return to court thereafter for, as the case may be, a mention hearing to endorse the consent order, or a directions hearing to timetable to trial. The use of Private FDRs has in turn relieved pressure on the courts.")

the use of single lawyers simultaneously representing both members of the former couple, explicitly in order to undermine the costly adversarial nature of the legal proceedings. ("The Single Lawyer Model, for example, has attracted much interest. The aim is to enable parties to engage jointly one lawyer whose instructions are to gather the relevant facts and disclosure, and make a considered recommendation. The advantages are two-fold: (1) it ordinarily takes place at a very early stage of proceedings, or even before issue; and (2) the joint instruction of a single lawyer removes the parties from the adversarial world of separately instructed legal representation.")

the liberal awarding of costs orders, seemingly as a punitive and deterrent measure, to litigating parties the judge deems to be litigating unreasonably or insufficiently flexibly ("Similarly, I have repeated the mantra that judges should not be afraid to make costs orders where justified, particularly if one or other party does not litigate reasonably, and/or does not make reasonable open offers. [...] I appreciate that it is more difficult to do so when the assets are barely enough to meet needs, but even in those cases a judge is entitled to consider whether to make a costs award, however modest, to mark the court’s displeasure at the litigation conduct of the miscreant party.")

summary judgements in a majority of trial cases, without hearing of any oral testimony ("In an article I did last year for the Financial Remedies Journal, I said this: ‘It has sometimes seemed to me that many cases could be fairly disposed of with no oral evidence.’ My point was that as part of a drive for efficiency, cases could be swiftly dispatched without oral testimony where the factual and financial landscape is reasonably clear, and it would not be proportionate to explore relatively minor factual issues in the witness box. I suspect that will be the majority of cases")

in short, while this is definitely not an area where i have domain knowledge, my first impression is that the judge responsible directly for this decision is sort of a miserly ghoul happy to undermine the rights of individual brits in the service of shrinking and cost-cutting that portion of the govt over which he exercises authority. (to his credit he does at least declare the lack of public funding for legal representation to be "iniquitous", tho ofc that bit is out of his hands.) many such cases!

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youwillfindilluminating · 2 years ago

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Roy x Jamie x Keeley and Roy x Jamie Fic Recs

On one of my Jamie meta posts, @mangoofthesea asked me to drop some recs. You don’t have to ask me twice - I love making fic rec posts!

So here we have a list of all my favorite Ted Lasso fics, as of 4/21/2023. There are many more great fics out there, but these are the ones I loved enough to download the PDFs (always a good practice!).

~*~

Roy x Jamie x Keeley:

The Care and Keeping of Jamie Tartt: http://archiveofourown.org/works/33828712 An OT3 get-together, of sorts. Roy and Keeley take Jamie back to their place after the Man City episode in season 2. Lots of h/c.

honey, I’m honed: http://archiveofourown.org/works/39291306 OT3 getting together and figuring things out. Includes insecure Jamie and emotional h/c. There’s a part 2 to this wherein Jamie has really bad hayfever and it’s 100% h/c and oooo boy, that’s so up my alley you have no idea.

feel your heart taking root in your body: http://archiveofourown.org/works/36861922 Established OT3. Jamie’s dad has surgery and Jamie has to go help him for a couple days before the at-home nurses get arranged. There’s no way in hell Roy is letting him go by himself. So much protective!Roy and emotional h/c it’ll blow your mind. And even more h/c when they get back home and Keeley can join in.

~*~

Roy x Jamie:

and you know you don’t have to go: http://archiveofourown.org/works/35473468 Roy takes Jamie home post Man City (season 2). This is just a great Man City episode fic that hits all the beats it’s supposed to hit. It remains in-character and realistic while still letting these boys be soft.

Flinch: http://archiveofourown.org/works/46399873 God, I fucking love this one. It’s like the author says: an attempt to compress a Jamie Tartt manifesto down to 10k. Set during season 3. Includes several mentions of Jamie’s father’s abuse. Definitely deals with issues of Jamie attaching all of his value to his body’s ability to perform (in football, etc.).

Blowing in the Wind: http://archiveofourown.org/works/46631650 Set during 3x06. Windmill sex! That night, they stumble upon an Airbnb inside a windmill, and stay the night. Discussions of intimacy ensue. This is really, really sweet. It’s tough to get these boys to talk about their feelings (especially Roy) and still have them stay in character, and jedusaur does it beautifully.

say something true: http://archiveofourown.org/works/46540315 Jamie has a praise kink. Set during season 3. HOT.

A More Judicious Prick: http://archiveofourown.org/works/46241506 Set during season 3. Some D/s elements. "Roy, everything that kid has ever done was to get your attention." I really love this one. Jedusaur hits the nail on the head every fucking time.

Kind But Extremely Firm: http://archiveofourown.org/works/46230289 Another Jamie-has-a-praise-kink fic. It’s Roy x Jamie, but definitely has elements of Roy x Jamie x Keeley.

He tries to joke. “Do you need me to tell you that you’re a good boy?” The problem is, Roy’s tone and general demeanor don’t lend themselves well to joking.

“That’d be nice, coach,” Jamie says. He sounds breathless.

if you want something: http://archiveofourown.org/works/38995776 A spanking fic that hits just right (pun intended). Do you know how hard it is to find an amazing spanking fic? DO YOU??

"It helped. When you said all that stuff about how I fucked up but I had to let it go, it fucking... worked, all right? I was stuck on it and you got me unstuck, and now I'm stuck again, and I just. Wanted you to do it again."

just do it: http://archiveofourown.org/works/40282233 Consensual Non-Consent, Kink Negotiation, Safewords. Mind the tags! This is just uhhhh very much my thing, so I had to include it. Some silliness with the safeword selection at the very end.

Player On Loan: http://archiveofourown.org/works/40139490 This one is very much What It Says On The Tin. Objectification, Sharing, Safeword Use. Basically, Keeley and Jamie are dating, but Jamie likes to be “loaned out” to Roy as a sex object. There is negotiation beforehand, and everything is consensual! This one might not be everyone’s thing, but it’s handled so well, and it hasn’t left my brain for weeks. It was written well before season 3, but it definitely deals with themes of Jamie seeing his body as social currency/used to please others, etc.

Part 2 of the rec list is here

Part 3 is here

#roy x jamie #royjamie #roy x jamie x keeley #roy x keeley x jamie #ted lasso ot3 #ted lasso #fic recs #jamie tartt #roy kent #keeley jones

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kinghe · 9 months ago

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Mariner's Rinds 3.6k words | Wriothesley/Neuvillette tags: sexual content, dubious consent, dom/sub undertones

Happy birthday to my dearest @denimecho, my sweet cheese. My good time boy. This is fic based on his beautiful Wriollette artwork.

The Fortress of Meriopode: the imposing stronghold in abyssal drink, a long-standing and lone custodian. The principle of such a being meant protection for those of the outside world or a cautionary tale. Thus, the wonders of the institution were unknown to the general public and untouched by the hand of the judicial court. Insofar as it involved the affairs of the underground, it was Wriothesley’s domain. Except the Iudex stood at the threshold of his office, looking as discrepant in all his glory as he always did.

“Well,” Wriothesley said with raised brow, “this is a surprise.”

"Hello," Neuvillette stepped forward like a haze, slow and uninterrupted.

“Hello?" Wriothesley smiled, clearly pleased, "make no mistake, I welcome you with open arms, I just can't help but notice there was no prior notice of your arrival.” He set his teacup down, “aren’t you usually very proper with such things?”

He slots his fingers in the space between Neuvillette’s neck and jaw, cold like ice, smooth like leather, and watches the way his head tilts back against Wriothesley’s shoulder in consequence. Silence. It makes the roaring in his ears sound like discomforted static and his own breathing, laboured, rolls out in sharp intervals.

He feels Neuvillette’s heartbeat, slow, stilted, irregular, through the membrane of his own.

“I apologise. My arrival was sudden, even to me." Neuvillette said, his voice at once cutting and balming, “I do recognise the disruption my presence here may entail. My stay won't be long.” Not a single hair out of place. Noble, and immaculate.

“Nonsense. My doors are always open to you. As a matter of fact, I feel as though I’m always asking you to stay, only to meet with your insistent departures. Please,” he gestured to the seat by his desk. “Really though, this is quite peculiar. Have you come to chide me?”

“I cannot imagine what for.”

The quiet stretched and Wriothesley replied with a mildly amused, “neither can I.”

"...In truth, my duties required me nearby, though matters were resolved quite… efficiently, to say the least. I daresay my presence was not needed.”

“Ah, the reconstitution meetings, is it? You had to oversee that?”

Neuvillette nodded.

“The council is ruthless.” Wriothesley chuckled despite himself. By natural inclination, Neuvillette remained the highest authority of Fontaine but the nobility would always be the first to bow to it and simultaneously undermine it.

“If I had known the gravity of their cases, I would have scheduled our times accordingly. I’m not suggesting their concerns should be disregarded, however I believe Imena to be capable on her lonesome for the time being.” He paused, as though reliving the brunt of insipid chatter, but whatever bitterness Wriothesley was searching for showed no trace. “Nevertheless, I had a great deal of time on my hands, and since my visit to Qiaoying Village, I confess I’ve made a habit of, as one would say, ‘loitering.’ As of late.”

“Oh?”

So the observer has abdicated.

“Before I knew it,” Neuvillette added, “I found myself here.”

Neuvillette’s eyes are hidden behind grey tresses but Wriothesley imagines the slits dilating, darkening. Then he imagines hardly anything. The column of Neuvillette’s neck is submerged by a faint red, giving the appearance of having drunk too much liquor. It's a hard catch in the dark yet drastic on Neuvillette's flesh; he finds it brings him down to physicality, and further into Wriothesley's handling.

He grabs Neuvillette’s wrists, holds them up and the colour travels to his ears. Wriothesley traces it with fervour.

“Aha, how quaint. I imagine it is nothing short of a spectacle for the folk to see you out and about.”

Neuvillette looked hesitant, but Wriothesley was patient. “Regardless, I wished to ask: does your invitation for tea have an expiration date?”

“Course not, Monsieur Neuvillette.” The smile on Wriothesley’s face was unreserved, stretching easy on his face. “Way ahead of you.”

The room is warm, warm - his steel ice office has never been so humid. Neuvillette’s skin is jumping under his touch, pulling him in: teasing him out.

The tea he poured was a hearty homage to Neuvillette’s new ventures. Liyue’s specialty was herbal and demure, best suited for night, just as one was on his last ream of paperwork. Wriothesley watched with no obstacle as the mug pressed red into Neuvillette’s white palms.

“I am not disrupting your duties, am I?”

“No no, you came at the perfect time. ” Wriothesley waved, “what is this I’m hearing about loitering?”

“Well, it is still quite rare that I do. My duties occupy me for the majority of the day, and I have a sense that my workload will double in the near future. However,” Neuvillette said, a semblance of a frown twisting the corner of his lips, “it has come to my attention that it may prove worthwhile.”

“And what are your findings?”

“That remains to be seen, I’m afraid.” The corners of his eyes and lips rounded, becoming softer, more malleable. Those features were best blessed under the night sky, and Wriothesley’s office was kept dim for a reason.

He is clinically, accurately precise when he wants to be, but finds that its never what he wants, with Neuvillette. He can’t help but shove him into book cases, bend him over desks, pin him against limestone. Now, to the thrum of frenzy, his palm splayed on the small of Neuvillette’s back forces an arch too bowed to be painless.

For a brief moment, the intensity of his own stare was not known to him and when he came to, he almost startled. He considered winding up the gramophone but stopped himself; Neuvillette at his most serene was in the quiet.

“It’s a good look on you.” He said, voice ahead of mind.

“Do you think so?”

Wriothesley cast his eyes away and to the far corner of his office, on a cabinet closest to the doors. It was crowned by a legal codex. He jerked his thumb in the direction of it.

“How else would this trophy of mine get to me?”

Neuvillette took a long sip of his tea, staring at the structure with bemusement. “Is it wise to have it on display like this?”

“Absolutely,” Wriothesley said, “not.” He flashed the Iudex a smile. “Its home is in the storage room, as promised. I just like taking it out sometimes.”

“That is peculiar. For what reason?”

“Of course, it reminds me…

His hunger feels like it will never be quelled. It’s been there since his creation, merely dormant. Suppressed. Deactivated. A sigh escapes Neuvillette, quiet and like a song, and Wriothesley reconsiders.

“…of my appreciation of you. Our connection if you will,”

Some part of him knows his touch is audacious, that he's treating Neuvillette too lightly, as if he were an object. As if he were a thing Wriothesley owns. But his hands are made to be on Neuvillette’s body, and he grips his shoulder, his hip, and Neuvillette stills under it. Neuvillette stays where Wriothesley puts him.

“-and the code that I must dutifully live by.”

Wriothesley clenches his jaw, a bead of sweat rolling down his temple as he reminds himself: be gentle, be gentle. He shapes his consciousness back into its automated material and concentrates, until he doesn’t, and then he does what he likes. He grips Neuvillette’s hardened thigh, the tips of his fingers tracing the thin skin of the inside.

Neuvillette stared.

“And, of course, I had to have Clorinde bear witness to my earnings.”

Neuvillette gave a slow nod. “I hope it satisfied her expectations.”

“Oh, she was very impressed by the craftsmanship.” Wriothesley rose from his seat, and moved towards the slab of stone. He picked it up with tenderness, stroked a thumb over the engraving with a fond eye. “In fact, I, myself, have started to segue into a great fondness for the arts. Finally, a fitting citizen of this country, no?”

“I highly doubt it deserves this calibre of praise." Neuvillette disagreed. "Please remember, it was conceived merely in jest.”

“Even your jokes are pristine, then.”

“I do not know what to say to that.”

Wriothesley chuckled.

Once more, he reassessed the situation; Neuvillette, Chief Justice of Fontaine, sitting in his office, finally having some tea. He would appreciate the absurdity of it all if the man himself weren’t such a distracting contrast amongst his belongings. Timeless and stoic, unbound by teacups and velvet settees.

“Now, Monsieur Neuvillette,” Wriothesley crossed his arms, lax against his chair. “I must say, I do not hate engaging in pleasantries with you. However, it also stands that I have not yet known you to involve yourself and it makes me uneasy on how to proceed.”

“I... apologise. You are right; I was, and am, unfamiliar to the need. This a first attempt of sorts.”

“You’ve been doing a lot of those recently. Oh, let me refill that. ‘Scuse me.”

Neuvillette reached out for the pot but Wriothesley, steeled by reflex, grabbed his wrist before he could intervene. Not unkindly. A beat, and Neuvillette’s arm went lax in Wriothesley's hold, and he grabbed the pot himself. The kettle on his worktable was the only household appliance in his office, filling the office with a muted hum.

Neuvillette is sturdy, solid and damp, and letting out a breath as a strong grip claws the meat of his breast. The curve of Neuvillette’s neck lies bare as his hair slips before his shoulders, and his steady exhales become the symphony of the evening.

Neuvillette holds himself up where Wriothesley places him, always. Idle where Wriothesley mouths at the mound of his neck and shoulder, going easily when shoved. Wriothesley pushes in and there’s a solid thump of a fist, green veins protruding from Neuvillette's pale forearms.

He pulls him closer, pushes him back. He guides the ancient entity forward so his forearms presses into book spines as Wriothesley violates him again and again.

Wriothesley places a grip on the back of Neuvillette’s neck, perhaps to tame if he thrashes, but he is still, so still. A monument that stands solid through the passage of time, purely and painfully ornamental.

Neuvillette eventually said, “it seems to have become a curiosity of mine.”

“Very well, then.” Wriothesley smiled and switched the kettle on, “take the reins.”

Neuvillette’s lips worked around words that were silent, and then stopped moving altogether.

The articulation of those lips had been embedded in Wriothesley’s wiring the moment they delivered his verdict. When he spoke, motion was minimum, the cadence of his voice a soft imprint against ego: at once, nullifying and devastating. But if Neuvillette was careless, then call Wriothesley naive. The entity’s biggest crimes were his scarcity and fortitude.

“The process of reconstruction has posed significant challenges.” Neuvillette said after pause. The same low timbre from twenty years ago. “As you know, the termination of the Oratrice means the ease of this transition is my priority. I would like to know where you stand in all of this.”

Wriothesley laughed, “Ah, it has become work-related again. But that’s okay. I won’t be surprised when the shock dissipates and we find ourselves swamped down here too. People have already started to notice the state we’re in. You’ve read my reports, haven’t you? We are at the cusp of an interim.”

“I indeed have. It provided great clarification.”

Neuvillette's warmth all around him, a suffocation and a vice that promises to sever but Wriothesley yanks the tail of his coat out of the way and kicks his legs apart. And then takes him again. Raises him higher, higher, until Neuvillette is searching for better purchase. A grunt leaves his throat, thrust out with how hard Wriothesley’s muscles flex and then strain, and further ripples through his skin.

“And I’ve read your proposal. I stand by it.”

“I am grateful to hear that,” Neuvillette said, though the corner of his lips creased. “Fontaine has never been without an Archon. It seems I’ve misunderstood the effects of such a phenomenon.”

“This is not really a commonplace thing, though...”

“That much is irrefutable. As it stands, I have been faced with a series of novelties I may not be equipped to deal with.”

“You’re worried?”

“I would only like to enact what is best for Fontaine,” Neuvillette explained, and Wriothesley was once again reminded of a sorrowful form of a man barred of its features, staring down at him from a high throne. “It is not my capability per se, but my status that may destabilise the prospect of moderation. I am not asking for reassurance, rather, it is in that line of thinking that calls for perspectives outside of my own.”

Wriothesley hummed, pouring the tea with mechanical tenderness. “So that’s what this is about. You’ve seen the movement, haven’t you?” I thought I took care of that.

“It would be arrogant to assume there would not be any to resent my state of being.”

“Sure,” Wriothesley said, “If you ask me, it’ll be some time before it becomes an issue. Any semblance of visibility or violence right now is scoured by the loss of Focalors, and those who carry these sentiments lack the manpower and the influence. Trust me on this.”

Neuvillette spent a long time digging into his irises. Then he placed his tea back on the table. “I see now that it was reckless of me to have left.”

“You, reckless? Why, that’s not in your dictionary,” Wriothesley’s grim smile was concealed by his teacup, but Neuvillette caught onto details far faster than formalities anyway. “I actually think it best to lay low just as you are. Have a full-blown holiday, even. No one is better suited for this than you.”

His other hand plants over Neuvillette’s stomach as he forces the man back against him, the muscles tensing hard under his palm, and a shaky inhale wanes as soon as it starts. Neuvillette’s hands find Wriothesley’s wrists; all else is insufficient in holding him up. Neuvillette is — cold and tight and addictive.

He peels back layer by layer, smoothing hands over skin, until he finds him raw and pink and ripened.

“Why do you say that?”

“The people here have grown accustomed to its idols. They are used to performance and machinations. I’m assuming you don’t intend to pick up where Miss Furina left off?”

Neuvillette blinked. “Of course not.”

“I hope I'm not overstepping my bounds with this, however you, as a public figure, are not defined by archaic concepts such as ‘justice,’” Wriothesley jerked his chin, “but duty. In you, people see the vision already, and they will see that things will not be returning to the status quo. In fact, your transparency is what the nation needs right now, so give them that as you are.” He paused, and shrugged, “or don’t. They’ve already had their sweethearts.”

“I see your point, Your Grace.” Neuvillette murmured, chin in hand. “I… will not pretend to comprehend the dynamics of human relations. Despite my efforts to understand, each time I feel I’ve gained insight, a new facet eludes me." He looked troubled. "I’d initially hoped to salvage this with contributions. Gifts. Though it appears that those around me have emphasized the significance of my departure, instead. Needless to say, your advice has been highly valuable."

His palms drag heavy over Neuvillette’s hips to the back of a firm, thick thigh. He can feel Neuvillette brace himself when he forces his leg up in a firm hold, and the closeness presses him deeper inside. He’s a machine running on the fumes of Neuvillette’s wreckage. He’s a nexus of unstable energy contained by the wet clasp of Neuvillette, who remains untainted by mortal devices.

The thick expanse of a shoulder so regal, so close to him, and Wriothesley sinks his teeth into it as his vision spots.

“You do better than you think.” Wriothesley said with a small smirk, “and you’ll have to tell me more about Liyue some time.”

“Very well.” Neuvillette said. “I’ll have a detailed review for you at a later date. Perhaps I’ll squeeze in another visit before we next meet.”

"You do that." Wriothesley hummed, scratching the side of his head, “still, though. To think a day would come where the overworld and the underworld would find a middle ground.”

The tendency to believe punishment started in Meriopode will never stop being a point of focus for him. It was as deeply amusing as Neuvillette's antics. There was a short pause where Neuvillette studied his face.

“Oh, don’t mind me,” Wriothesley smiled. He grabbed Neuvillette’s cup, refilling it. “Up there resembles down here with each passing day, is all I’m saying.”

The wrinkles that appeared when Neuvillette furrowed his brow were also decorative, an adaptation of warm blood. His scrutiny never failed to thrill Wriothesley because it reduced the entity into somewhat of a reflection, laying the groundwork to be scrutinised in the same manner. Here, it wouldn’t surprise him had Neuvillette taken his leave, appeased with their exchange. Instead, Neuvillette followed him.

“No more performances, I believe, is what you mean?”

“Everything is a performance,” Wriothesley said, offering Neuvillette’s teacup when the man leaned in close. He let the cold air stagnate around him, hindered only by Neuvillette’s breath. Except you. He let go of the cup. Neuvillette lingered, fingers secured around it.

He watched Neuvillette indulge himself in another sip, exhaling, and the sound sliced the silence into thick slivers. It encased the room like fog, like condensation, and Wriothesley’s palms tingled and his throat went dry.

Wriothesley forces parts of himself deep inside him. They shudder in unison, Wriothesley gasping, chasing for breath. He folds Neuvillette over, draping over him like second skin with his forehead pressed against the damp back of a strong, noble shoulder.

“It’s good,” Neuvillette murmured, and the world started spinning again.

It rushes into a geyser of a memory; nails against skin, the pulse of his throat, the feeling like hurtling liberation and abandonment, before Neuvillette can button himself back up and wash it away. A phantom of the fragment of solidity Wriothesley can mould him into, when he was under his hands.

“Now that is a compliment indeed, coming from you.”

“Please. Your discernment in matters of tea far surpasses mine. When you brew it…” Neuvillette trailed off, perhaps scanning Wriothesley in his entirety. It was always a breathless thing to have the Iudex’s full attention. “When you are the one brewing it, I have complete confidence in its quality.”

“Is that a fact?” Wriothesley said, pleased as day.

"Do you know me as one to lie?”

“Point taken. Have you lied once in the past millennium?”

“I must have, statistically, but put on the spot like that, it is a challenge to recall.”

“Doesn’t count." He pointed out, "omission doesn’t count, either. Oh, and that was a rhetorical question, by the way.”

“I… see. In that case,” Neuvillette cast him an unreadable look, “the amount of lies you’ve told is sufficient for both our lifetimes.”

"Why, Iudex Neuvillette!" Wriothesley grasped his own chest. “You’re really getting the hang of things, aren’t you?”

The gentle clink of fine china, the notes of Neuvillette’s quiet tones, the submergence of a glass bottle under the sea. The tea was starting to grow cold. The better part of an hour he had kept the Chief Justice locked in his hollow underwater. A free spirit made tangible, like picking up water with the sole equipment of one’s hands. The sentiment settled into his palms and fingers like a desperate ache.

“This was pleasant, Duke Wriothesley. You have my thanks in accommodating me tonight.” Neuvillette folded his hands atop his knee. “As a token of my appreciation, please allow for our next meeting to be in my office. Though I do not hold a candle to your tea-making, it would be my honour to prepare the refreshments."

“Well, if you insist! Perhaps I shall.”

He waits for Neuvillette to say something. Anything.

The doors were too loud when they screeched open. Wriothesley had half a mind to fix that later. “Our next tea party aside, might one hope for your presence more often down here, considering the circumstances?”

Neuvillette fixed his eyes on him. “That may be a likelier thing. Nevertheless, this was an unusual deviation that I do not foresee becoming a regular occurrence. My responsibilities remain unchanged.”

“Unchanged,” Wriothesley echoed, pausing. “That’s an interesting word to use in this climate of events. To think you may inspire unrest among the people here; would you not consider my own appearances to yield the same result? This place is my foundation, but this does not mean anything to new faces.”

He said quietly, "Wriothesley."

And there were a lot of new faces, though the number was not privy to Neuvillette. Wriothesley’s eyes were intent, and he took care not to slip a bit of himself outside, “it is the next chapter, dear Iudex. I am but an authority, just like you.”

Neuvillette’s face remained unchanged, though a long sigh escaped silently through the nose. His fingers twitched, imperceptible if Wriothesley was not so attuned to his movements. “Yes, I… you are not wrong. I will take it into consideration." And then short and swift, "I bid you goodnight.”

Nothing. Everything.

The door swung closed with an echo that resonated deep within his chambers. Wriothesley settled back in his seat, his fingers coiling together as he rested his chin.

Neuvillette leaves in silence, his pristine coat flowing behind him.

#genshin impact #wriothesley #neuvillette #wriolette #wriollette #rated mature #Denimecho birthday drop

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justinspoliticalcorner · 4 months ago

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Radley Balko at The Watch:

Here’s a sentence I never imagined I’d need to write: It would be a bad idea for the U.S. to go to war with Mexico. And yet here we are. The thing about a candidate as historically dangerous, impulsive, and incompetent as Trump is that he routinely proposes stuff so off the wall that it would tank virtually any other campaign. But because of this, some of his nuttier ideas are overshadowed by everything else he does. In a previous post, I looked at one of these under-the-radar ideas — Trump’s catastrophic promise to deny federal funding to any school that requires kids to be vaccinated. Today, we’ll look at another — the Trump/Republican vow to bomb or invade Mexico. Trump has repeatedly threatened that, if elected again, he will bomb drug cartels and fentanyl manufacturing facilities in Mexico. He has also proposed sending assassination teams or special forces units into the country. He vowed to take these actions with or without the consent of the Mexican government. The Mexican government has been pretty clear about where it stands on this: They would not consent. So let’s be clear about what Trump is proposing: He’s proposing an invasion of Mexico. Which means he’s a proposing a war with Mexico.

Trump’s history with this threat suggests we should take it more seriously than the typical bluster he spouts during one of his campaign rally monoglogues. Rolling Stone reported last year that even then he had already asked his advisors to assemble a “battle plan” to enact shortly after he’s elected. He also reiterated his promise in an interview he and running mate JD Vance did with Fox News last month (Vance is also all for it). The origin of the war with Mexico idea dates back to the end of Trump’s first term, when, in response to rising fentanyl overdoses, he attempted to designate drug cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations, despite the fact that they don’t fit any reasonable definition of a terrorist. He apparently thought this would allow him to bomb the cartels as if they were ISIS cells. It turns out that it isn’t that simple. You can’t simply call people “terrorists” and immediately start bombing the countries where said “terrorists” are operating without first consulting with the leaders of those countries. Mexico’s president promptly and resoundingly dismissed the idea. This apparently irked Trump enough to take the position he advocates today: Just bomb them, anyway.

[...] Destructive, counterproductive policy that treats foreign lives as disposable has long been the hallmark of U.S. overseas drug interdiction. We’ve funded the extra-judicial execution of drug offenders in Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines. We partnered with South American governments to shoot down suspect drug running planes without regard to the possible loss of innocent life — that is, until the policy claimed the lives of a U.S. missionary and her daughter. In Panama, the CIA (specifically, George H.W. Bush) propped up and facilitated the drug-running operation of brutal dictator Manuel Noriega. When Noriega was no longer useful for fighting communism, the U.S. then indicted him for said drug running, then (specifically, George H.W. Bush) invaded and bombed his country. We killed hundreds of Panamanian citizens in the process.

As for Mexico itself, in the mid-2000s the U.S. incentivized the country’s government to enlist its own military in the drug war. That policy toppled some cartels, but also spawned destabilizing turf wars and violence as rival factions vied to replace them. The winners then and the military have since been fighting for nearly two decades. The death toll is now approaching half a million people. When asked about the carnage, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton basically said in 2011 that tens of thousands of dead Mexicans was a price the U.S. was willing to pay to keep harmful drugs away from Americans. (It did not keep illicit drugs away from Americans.) The arguably most destructive U.S. overseas anti-drug program was Plan Colombia, Bill Clinton’s drug eradication program that poisoned farmland, fostered rampant corruption, and pushed that country into a civil war that has killed tens of thousands of people. This too did not keep illicit drugs away from Americans.

[...]

It will backfire

Even drug cartels have a code. They go out of their way to avoid harming U.S. law enforcement, and they don’t target U.S. citizens. When underlings have violated this code, or when U.S. citizens have suffered collateral harm, the cartels have bent over backwards to make amends. The last thing they want is to bring the full force and weight of the U.S. government upon themselves. This of course doesn’t excuse the times drug violence has harmed American citizens. We should naturally seek justice in those cases. But while what Trump is proposing won’t end the illicit drug trade, it will create an existential threat to the current cartels. It will back them into a corner. Cartels avoid U.S. casualties because they want to remain in operation. If they know the United States is sending its military to kill them, there’s no incentive to adhere to the code. They’re likely to lash out — against U.S. law enforcement, U.S. citizens, possibly U.S. politicians.

[...]

Mexico isn’t our enemy

Depending on how you measure it, Mexico is either our first, second, or third biggest trade partner. Any military action taken without consent of the Mexican government would bring most of that trade to a screeching halt. That risks about $855 billion in annual commerce. It would threaten millions of jobs, particularly in California, Texas, Louisiana, and the industrial Midwest. When Trump threatened to completely shut down the border during his first term, economists warned it would result in a shortage the goods from Mexico, including computers, cars and car parts, gas, chemicals, and produce (goodbye avocados!). Mexico is also a big consumer for U.S. agriculture. So corn, soybeans, poultry, pork, and dairy farmers would also take a hit. We’d also see major interruptions in supply chains that flow through Mexico. When the Border Patrol shut down just one official crossing in San Diego for just a few hours in 2019, businesses in that city lost $5.3 million. All of this economic damage would come in addition to the calamitous economic effects of Trump’s other disastrous campaign promises, like across-the-board tariffs and mass deportations.

Radley Balko perfectly describes why going to war with Mexico is a reckless and costly idea.

#Donald Trump #Immigration #US/Mexico Relations #US/Mexico Border #Mexico #2024 Presidential Election #Plan Colombia #Bill Clinton #Fentanyl #Opioid Crisis #Opioids

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ereardon · 1 year ago

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Bradley Bradshaw masterlist

Kiss me, it's a mystery, let's figure it out together.

*All of my fics are 18+. Please do not repost my work without consent or steal my work. Reblogs and comments give me life so please do interact if you'd like!

✤: Fluff

❂: Angst

❀: Smut

Full-length series:

❀❂✤ Come Back — Bradley x OC [Maggie Brooms] – Complete

Eight years ago, Bradley Bradshaw was just a college boyfriend who broke your heart. Now, he’s back in your life after a coincidental reunion, and he’s adamant about starting up a friendship. Will it be possible to be just friends with Bradley, or is he inevitably going to end up ruining everything you’ve spent the better part of a decade rebuilding?

❀❂✤ That Summer — Bradley x Reader – Complete

One night during the summer you turned eighteen, you woke up to a surprise. Your father, a retired Navy Admiral, had posted bail for the son of a former colleague who was now orphaned and had gotten himself mixed up with the law. Instead of letting him get lost in the judicial system, your father signed himself up as Bradley Bradshaw’s guardian to prevent him from going to juvie. You were explicitly told to stay away from the boy in the attic room. But as the summer went on, you and Bradley struck up an unlikely friendship that turned into a forbidden relationship. Bradley tipped your world upside down, challenging everything you had once thought you knew. How could the two of you think it would end any differently than it did when your father called the cops the night he found the two of you in bed together?

❀❂✤ Golden Hour — Bradley x Bob x OC [Dr. Olive James]

Willow, Georgia. Barely even a town, just a speck on a map that you tried to wipe off, mistaking it for a crumb. You’re the outsider: a fancy New York doctor, fresh out of a failed engagement, with zero primary care experience. You’re also the new town doctor, taking over for a recent retiree who was beloved. His son, Bob Floyd, is the other physician at the practice, and takes an immediate dislike to you. But you were looking for a fresh start, and Willow doesn’t seem all that bad if you can get past the fact that there's only one restaurant in town. It helps that you've caught the eye of Bradley Bradshaw, the town attorney, despite the fact that you vowed to take a break from dating. How long until you start to make friends in a town where social circles have been set in stone since elementary school? And what will it take to make Bob Floyd see you’re not as bad as he wants to believe you are?

Miniseries:

❀❂✤ His Best Friend's Wedding — Bradley x Reader – Complete

Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw has been your best friend for a decade. He’s also your fiancé’s best man. So when he shows up at your hotel room the night before your wedding, it’s just because he’s your friend, right?

The Stranger — Bradley x Bob x OC

Bradley Bradshaw left an impression — after finding him naked and passed out after a night of drinking in your front yard, he’s anxious to never see you again in his life and relive the embarrassment. But there’s something about him you just can’t let go. He’s a project, and you hate to admit you love a fixer upper. Bradley is hesitant to let you in, but you’re persistent. Is he making a massive mistake?

One shots:

❂ Too Far Gone — Bradley x Reader – Complete

Your life changed forever the moment you fell for Bradley Bradshaw. But his life wasn’t an easy one to fit into. He had more baggage than lost and found at JFK airport. You were always one for a fixer upper. Bradley could be your ultimate passion project. But was he too far gone for you to save him?

❂ Darkness — Bradley x Reader – Complete

Darkness surrounds your life with Bradley. But every time he pulls away, you pull him back in. It's your job to save him from the darkness.

#bradley bradshaw fic #bradley bradshaw smut #bradley rooster bradshaw #bradley rooster x reader #rooster fanfic #rooster top gun #rooster imagine #top gun imagine #top gun fanfiction #top gun x reader #bradley bradshaw x y/n #bradley bradshaw x reader #bradley bradshaw x oc

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molsno · 2 years ago

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what I've experienced and observed as an asexual trans lesbian is that engaging with certain kinks can be unhealthy and harmful, but it doesn't necessarily have to be.

by and large, most of the people who have "unhealthy" kinks are victims. that is to say, their kink originates from a place of trauma. someone who's experienced sexual abuse in the past, for example, may very well have internalized the idea that they deserved what happened to them. and because escaping that traumatic mindset is incredibly difficult, they may find themselves having sexual fantasies about being abused again long after the danger they were in ceases; to them, it can feel like being sexually abused means they're fulfilling what they believe to be their only purpose. these fantasies can be deeply damaging to a person's self worth, not just because they're blind to their own inherent value as a person, but because they're denying themself any form of sexual agency. they may very well seek out relationships in which they're abused once again. and that is unambiguously harmful! I've certainly seen several people that this has happened to, and it's an incredibly demoralizing and heartbreaking situation to observe and an even more miserable one to be in.

however, that isn't a universal experience. for some people, engaging with their kink with someone can actually be a source of empowerment. let's continue with the previous example. if, instead of seeking out a relationship in which they're sexually abused, they decide to engage in their fantasies with someone who genuinely recognizes their sexual autonomy - someone who they can honestly talk to about their experience, who respects their boundaries, and who communicates with them to establish safeguards to ensure that their consent is never violated - then they may well find a feeling of power over the situation that they didn't have before.

that isn't guaranteed to happen; for some trauma victims, their pain may be too great to replicate, even in a state of significantly reduced danger. some people may try to and discover that it is affecting them in an unhealthy way and stop. and that's okay! their sexual autonomy deserves to be respected. however, others who do engage with it may come out of the experience with a newfound recognition and acceptance of said autonomy. if they know they have the power to make the experience stop any time they feel uncomfortable, they may come to realize and truly believe that they didn't deserve what happened to them, and that they don't have to tolerate anyone who disrespects their boundaries in the future.

it's perfectly fine to not want to see someone's engagement with a particular kink. it can be upsetting for those who have been personally affected by it to witness recreations of it. luckily, in online spaces, there's an easy solution to this problem: you can avoid it by unfollowing or even blocking anyone who posts about it.

I find it troubling that so many people are averse to this idea - particularly because of the way they direct their anger toward trans women. it is a regular occurrence on this website and in fact most online spaces for someone to accuse a trans women (or multiple) of having an "inherently harmful" kink. often, these accusations are made with little to no context or even proof, if they're not simply fabricated outright (which they frequently are). accusing trans women of being sexual predators is one of the oldest forms of transmisogynistic violence you can commit, which is why I find it infuriating that this is such a common tactic in purportedly transfem-supportive communities.

perhaps you might be thinking that engaging in harmful kinks contributes to their normalization. I find this idea laughable, because sexual abuse is already normalized in society - it's baked into its very foundation, in fact. marriage, the nuclear family, christianity, police, the judicial system, and just about everything else was designed to give cishet white men absolute unchecked sexual power over women and children. and while some small advances have been made to chip away at this authority, by and large, these men are still free to perpetrate sexual abuse without facing any consequences.

minorities, on the other hand, have always been and continue to be violently punished for even being accused of sexual abuse. for example, there's a very long history of white women falsely accusing black men of rape with the express purpose of getting them lynched. still today, black people are viewed as hypersexual predators who pose a danger to white women and children for doing things as insignificant and nonsexual as wearing a revealing outfit. trans women are in a very similar position, with our mere existence being nothing more than a fetish to a significant number of tme people. it's no surprise, then, that accusations of sexual predation against us largely focus on the non-normative ways in which we often have sex.

what this inequality often looks like in practice is that cis men are free to browse the step-sister category on pornhub to their heart's content, whereas a trans woman who might, potentially, call her girlfriend her "sister" as a means of recovering from a form of sexual abuse she faced in the past is stalked online by people who believe her to be a physical danger to others, who will then publicize all of the details they can find about her private sex life with the intention of isolating her from what is likely the only community and support network she has. this should be obvious, but a trans woman without any community to accept her is significantly more likely to attempt to commit suicide, making this form of social outcasting a form of violence.

so the question then is, why does this happen? because let's be honest, it's not really about "removing predators from our communities", as much as people like to claim it is. if that were the case, then it wouldn't happen so disproportionately to trans women; the demographics of people accused would be more representative of their actual proportions. the real reason this happens is specifically because of transmisogyny. tme people, even those who are outwardly supportive, harbor internal conceptions of trans women based on stereotypes of us being sexual predators, and they react to our every action with undue scrutiny and vigilance. and because they hold the privilege of being transmisogyny-exempt, they can exert power over us in a way that they can't do to cishet white men by exiling us, knowing full well that they'll be believed by other tme people, even if they have no evidence of actual harm being done.

and that's the metric by which we should actually be judging the validity of claims of sexual predation - whether or not someone was actually harmed. if no one has genuinely been harmed, what good does it do to isolate someone from the only community they may have? that in itself is obviously harmful to the person being exiled, so the question to ask before utilizing it is: will doing so actually prevent more harm from being done unto others?

trans women as a whole are a deeply traumatized demographic. I can almost certainly list off more trans women I personally know who have been raped than who haven't. we are victims, in the vast majority of cases. despite that, we live under a veil of transmisogyny that constantly calls us dangerous degenerate freaks. as a result, some trans women develop coping methods you may find unpalatable. I'm not a very kinky person myself, and a result of me being ace is that a lot of even the most basic and common sexual acts are physically repulsive to me. because of that, I feel uncomfortable when I see people engage in certain kinds of sex and kinks, even if they're fellow trans women. you know what I do in these cases? I just don't follow them. I mind my own business and move on. it's really that easy.

arguing that nobody can engage in certain trauma-based kinks because it can harm them is short-sighted at best and actively dangerous at worst. how can you claim to be a feminist who supports bodily and sexual autonomy and be opposed to people having consensual sex you don't like? it's the same conservative rhetoric that aims to suppress women for taking control of their own sexual desires. it's one step removed from telling trans people not to get bottom surgery because they'll regret it. if you truly believe that people have the right to do what they want with their bodies, you're going to have to accept that some people will do things that personally make you uncomfortable, and you're going to have to acknowledge the fact that just because they make you uncomfortable, that doesn't mean they're harming anyone. just mind your own business. it's seriously not hard.

#I've finally had enough I'm done playing nice and tiptoeing around the blue whale in the room #I'm almost certainly gonna lose followers for this but I don't really care anymore #if after reading this you're still a reactionary who chooses to paint trans women as degenerate perverts just get out #txt #transmisogyny #my writing

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dailyanarchistposts · 7 months ago

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Introduction. The hypothesis of a God

Before entering upon the subject-matter of these new memoirs, I must explain an hypothesis which will undoubtedly seem strange, but in the absence of which it is impossible for me to proceed intelligibly: I mean the hypothesis of a God.

To suppose God, it will be said, is to deny him. Why do you not affirm him?

Is it my fault if belief in Divinity has become a suspected opinion; if the bare suspicion of a Supreme Being is already noted as evidence of a weak mind; and if, of all philosophical Utopias, this is the only one which the world no longer tolerates? Is it my fault if hypocrisy and imbecility everywhere hide behind this holy formula?

Let a public teacher suppose the existence, in the universe, of an unknown force governing suns and atoms, and keeping the whole machine in motion. With him this supposition, wholly gratuitous, is perfectly natural; it is received, encouraged: witness attraction — an hypothesis which will never be verified, and which, nevertheless, is the glory of its originator. But when, to explain the course of human events, I suppose, with all imaginable caution, the intervention of a God, I am sure to shock scientific gravity and offend critical ears: to so wonderful an extent has our piety discredited Providence, so many tricks have been played by means of this dogma or fiction by charlatans of every stamp! I have seen the theists of my time, and blasphemy has played over my lips; I have studied the belief of the people, — this people that Brydaine called the best friend of God, — and have shuddered at the negation which was about to escape me. Tormented by conflicting feelings, I appealed to reason; and it is reason which, amid so many dogmatic contradictions, now forces the hypothesis upon me. A priori dogmatism, applying itself to God, has proved fruitless: who knows whither the hypothesis, in its turn, will lead us?

I will explain therefore how, studying in the silence of my heart, and far from every human consideration, the mystery of social revolutions, God, the great unknown, has become for me an hypothesis, — I mean a necessary dialectical tool.

If I follow the God-idea through its successive transformations, I find that this idea is preeminently social: I mean by this that it is much more a collective act of faith than an individual conception. Now, how and under what circumstances is this act of faith produced? This point it is important to determine.

From the moral and intellectual point of view, society, or the collective man, is especially distinguished from the individual by spontaneity of action, — in other words, instinct. While the individual obeys, or imagines he obeys, only those motives of which he is fully conscious, and upon which he can at will decline or consent to act; while, in a word, he thinks himself free, and all the freer when he knows that he is possessed of keener reasoning faculties and larger information, — society is governed by impulses which, at first blush, exhibit no deliberation and design, but which gradually seem to be directed by a superior power, existing outside of society, and pushing it with irresistible might toward an unknown goal. The establishment of monarchies and republics, caste-distinctions, judicial institutions, etc., are so many manifestations of this social spontaneity, to note the effects of which is much easier than to point out its principle and show its cause. The whole effort, even of those who, following Bossuet, Vico, Herder, Hegel, have applied themselves to the philosophy of history, has been hitherto to establish the presence of a providential destiny presiding over all the movements of man. And I observe, in this connection, that society never fails to evoke its genius previous to action: as if it wished the powers above to ordain what its own spontaneity has already resolved on. Lots, oracles, sacrifices, popular acclamation, public prayers, are the commonest forms of these tardy deliberations of society.

This mysterious faculty, wholly intuitive, and, so to speak, super-social, scarcely or not at all perceptible in persons, but which hovers over humanity like an inspiring genius, is the primordial fact of all psychology.

Now, unlike other species of animals, which, like him, are governed at the same time by individual desires and collective impulses, man has the privilege of perceiving and designating to his own mind the instinct or fatum which leads him; we shall see later that he has also the power of foreseeing and even influencing its decrees. And the first act of man, filled and carried away with enthusiasm (of the divine breath), is to adore the invisible Providence on which he feels that he depends, and which he calls GOD, — that is, Life, Being, Spirit, or, simpler still, Me; for all these words, in the ancient tongues, are synonyms and homophones.

“I am Me,” God said to Abraham, “and I covenant with Thee.”.... And to Moses: “I am the Being. Thou shalt say unto the children of Israel, ‘The Being hath sent me unto you.’” These two words, the Being and Me, have in the original language — the most religious that men have ever spoken — the same characteristic. [1] Elsewhere, when Ie-hovah, acting as law-giver through the instrumentality of Moses, attests his eternity and swears by his own essence, he uses, as a form of oath, I; or else, with redoubled force, I, the Being. Thus the God of the Hebrews is the most personal and wilful of all the gods, and none express better than he the intuition of humanity.

God appeared to man, then, as a me, as a pure and permanent essence, placing himself before him as a monarch before his servant, and expressing himself now through the mouth of poets, legislators, and soothsayers, musa, nomos, numen; now through the popular voice, vox populi vox Dei. This may serve, among other things, to explain the existence of true and false oracles; why individuals secluded from birth do not attain of themselves to the idea of God, while they eagerly grasp it as soon as it is presented to them by the collective mind; why, finally, stationary races, like the Chinese, end by losing it. [2] In the first place, as to oracles, it is clear that all their accuracy depends upon the universal conscience which inspires them; and, as to the idea of God, it is easily seen why isolation and statu quo are alike fatal to it. On the one hand, absence of communication keeps the mind absorbed in animal self-contemplation; on the other, absence of motion, gradually changing social life into mechanical routine, finally eliminates the idea of will and providence. Strange fact! religion, which perishes through progress, perishes also through quiescence.

Notice further that, in attributing to the vague and (so to speak) objectified consciousness of a universal reason the first revelation of Divinity, we assume absolutely nothing concerning even the reality or non-reality of God. In fact, admitting that God is nothing more than collective instinct or universal reason, we have still to learn what this universal reason is in itself. For, as we shall show directly, universal reason is not given in individual reason, in other words, the knowledge of social laws, or the theory of collective ideas, though deduced from the fundamental concepts of pure reason, is nevertheless wholly empirical, and never would have been discovered a priori by means of deduction, induction, or synthesis. Whence it follows that universal reason, which we regard as the origin of these laws; universal reason, which exists, reasons, labors, in a separate sphere and as a reality distinct from pure reason, just as the planetary system, though created according to the laws of mathematics, is a reality distinct from mathematics, whose existence could not have been deduced from mathematics alone: it follows, I say, that universal reason is, in modern languages, exactly what the ancients called God. The name is changed: what do we know of the thing?

Let us now trace the evolution of the Divine idea.

The Supreme Being once posited by a primary mystical judgment, man immediately generalizes the subject by another mysticism, — analogy. God, so to speak, is as yet but a point: directly he shall fill the world.

As, in sensing his social me, man saluted his Author, so, in finding evidence of design and intention in animals, plants, springs, meteors, and the whole universe, he attributes to each special object, and then to the whole, a soul, spirit, or genius presiding over it; pursuing this inductive process of apotheosis from the highest summit of Nature, which is society, down to the humblest forms of life, to inanimate and inorganic matter. From his collective me, taken as the superior pole of creation, to the last atom of matter, man extends, then, the idea of God, — that is, the idea of personality and intelligence, — just as God himself extended heaven, as the book of Genesis tells us; that is, created space and time, the conditions of all things.

Thus, without a God or master-builder, the universe and man would not exist: such is the social profession of faith. But also without man God would not be thought, or — to clear the interval — God would be nothing. If humanity needs an author, God and the gods equally need a revealer; theogony, the history of heaven, hell, and their inhabitants, — those dreams of the human mind, — is the counterpart of the universe, which certain philosophers have called in return the dream of God. And how magnificent this theological creation, the work of society! The creation of the demiourgos was obliterated; what we call the Omnipotent was conquered; and for centuries the enchanted imagination of mortals was turned away from the spectacle of Nature by the contemplation of Olympian marvels.

Let us descend from this fanciful region: pitiless reason knocks at the door; her terrible questions demand a reply.

“What is God?” she asks; “where is he? what is his extent? what are his wishes? what his powers? what his promises?” — and here, in the light of analysis, all the divinities of heaven, earth, and hell are reduced to an incorporeal, insensible, immovable, incomprehensible, undefinable I-know-not-what; in short, to a negation of all the attributes of existence. In fact, whether man attributes to each object a special spirit or genius, or conceives the universe as governed by a single power, he in either case but SUPPOSES an unconditioned, that is, an impossible, entity, that he may deduce therefrom an explanation of such phenomena as he deems inconceivable on any other hypothesis. The mystery of God and reason! In order to render the object of his idolatry more and more rational, the believer despoils him successively of all the qualities which would make him real; and, after marvellous displays of logic and genius, the attributes of the Being par excellence are found to be the same as those of nihility. This evolution is inevitable and fatal: atheism is at the bottom of all theodicy.

Let us try to understand this progress.

God, creator of all things, is himself no sooner created by the conscience, — in other words, no sooner have we lifted God from the idea of the social me to the idea of the cosmic me, — than immediately our reflection begins to demolish him under the pretext of perfecting him. To perfect the idea of God, to purify the theological dogma, was the second hallucination of the human race.

The spirit of analysis, that untiring Satan who continually questions and denies, must sooner or later look for proof of religious dogmas. Now, whether the philosopher determine the idea of God, or declare it indeterminable; whether he approach it with his reason, or retreat from it, — I say that this idea receives a blow; and, as it is impossible for speculation to halt, the idea of God must at last disappear. Then the atheistic movement is the second act of the theologic drama; and this second act follows from the first, as effect from cause. “The heavens declare the glory of God,” says the Psalmist. Let us add, And their testimony dethrones him.

Indeed, in proportion as man observes phenomena, he thinks that he perceives, between Nature and God, intermediaries; such as relations of number, form, and succession; organic laws, evolutions, analogies, — forming an unmistakable series of manifestations which invariably produce or give rise to each other. He even observes that, in the development of this society of which he is a part, private wills and associative deliberations have some influence; and he says to himself that the Great Spirit does not act upon the world directly and by himself, or arbitrarily and at the dictation of a capricious will, but mediately, by perceptible means or organs, and by virtue of laws. And, retracing in his mind the chain of effects andcauses, he places clear at the extremity, as a balance, God.

A poet has said, —

Par dela tous les cieux, le Dieu des cieux reside.

Thus, at the first step in the theory, the Supreme Being is reduced to the function of a motive power, a mainspring, a corner-stone, or, if a still more trivial comparison may be allowed me, a constitutional sovereign, reigning but not governing, swearing to obey the law and appointing ministers to execute it. But, under the influence of the mirage which fascinates him, the theist sees, in this ridiculous system, only a new proof of the sublimity of his idol; who, in his opinion, uses his creatures as instruments of his power, and causes the wisdom of human beings to redound to his glory.

Soon, not content with limiting the power of the Eternal, man, increasingly deicidal in his tendencies, insists on sharing it.

If I am a spirit, a sentient me giving voice to ideas, continues the theist, I consequently am a part of absolute existence; I am free, creative, immortal, equal with God. Cogito, ergo sum, — I think, therefore I am immortal, that is the corollary, the translation of Ego sum qui sum: philosophy is in accord with the Bible. The existence of God and the immortality of the soul are posited by the conscience in the same judgment: there, man speaks in the name of the universe, to whose bosom he transports his me; here, he speaks in his own name, without perceiving that, in this going and coming, he only repeats himself.

The immortality of the soul, a true division of divinity, which, at the time of its first promulgation, arriving after a long interval, seemed a heresy to those faithful to the old dogma, has been none the less considered the complement of divine majesty, necessarily postulated by eternal goodness and justice. Unless the soul is immortal, God is incomprehensible, say the theists; resembling in this the political theorists who regard sovereign representation and perpetual tenure of office as essential conditions of monarchy. But the inconsistency of the ideas is as glaring as the parity of the doctrines is exact: consequently the dogma of immortality soon became the stumbling-block of philosophical theologians, who, ever since the days of Pythagoras and Orpheus, have been making futile attempts to harmonize divine attributes with human liberty, and reason with faith. A subject of triumph for the impious!.... But the illusion could not yield so soon: the dogma of immortality, for the very reason that it was a limitation of the uncreated Being, was a step in advance. Now, though the human mind deceives itself by a partial acquisition of the truth, it never retreats, and this perseverance in progress is proof of its infallibility. Of this we shall soon see fresh evidence.

In making himself like God, man made God like himself: this correlation, which for many centuries had been execrated, was the secret spring which determined the new myth. In the days of the patriarchs God made an alliance with man; now, to strengthen the compact, God is to become a man. He will take on our flesh, our form, our passions, our joys, and our sorrows; will be born of woman, and die as we do. Then, after this humiliation of the infinite, man will still pretend that he has elevated the ideal of his God in making, by a logical conversion, him whom he had always called creator, a saviour, a redeemer. Humanity does not yet say, I am God: such a usurpation would shock its piety; it says, God is in me, IMMANUEL, nobiscum Deus. And, at the moment when philosophy with pride, and universal conscience with fright, shouted with unanimous voice, The gods are departing! excedere deos! a period of eighteen centuries of fervent adoration and superhuman faith was inaugurated.

But the fatal end approaches. The royalty which suffers itself to be limited will end by the rule of demagogues; the divinity which is defined dissolves in a pandemonium. Christolatry is the last term of this long evolution of human thought. The angels, saints, and virgins reign in heaven with God, says the catechism; and demons and reprobates live in the hells of eternal punishment. Ultramundane society has its left and its right: it is time for the equation to be completed; for this mystical hierarchy to descend upon earth and appear in its real character.

When Milton represents the first woman admiring herself in a fountain, and lovingly extending her arms toward her own image as if to embrace it, he paints, feature for feature, the human race. — This God whom you worship, O man! this God whom you have made good, just, omnipotent, omniscient, immortal, and holy, is yourself: this ideal of perfection is your image, purified in the shining mirror of your conscience. God, Nature, and man are three aspects of one and the same being; man is God himself arriving at self-consciousness through a thousand evolutions. In Jesus Christ man recognized himself as God; and Christianity is in reality the religion of God-man. There is no other God than he who in the beginning said, ME; there is no other God than THEE.

Such are the last conclusions of philosophy, which dies in unveiling religion’s mystery and its own.

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pen-inks · 5 months ago

Text

Pen inks shows you all their poems⁉️

Open hands he bestow

The king, yet humble, with his crown

How eyes so holy, wry and frown

Is that the harp? Is it now?

Aye- listen to he who cry

The blood of the morose

Fills the sky

None shall come to thee if not for lie

Busy hand at the harp

And none shall heed to thee; If not what is last—

And tremble do my shudder dry—

The hands, down, thrown

If he, dear dove, dare not fly.

If not the cross,

Whom is the stallion of dawn,

If not what is past?

If not Mortes, death upon me, the last?

And shall useless choir sing low,

The blood of the harp, our lungs; Hark!

Ah! And the image of he

Does the wings of salvation

Feather upon me?

And thou shall not pluck a single from the plume

Aye, cry Hark!

Doom, Ires, whom?

Brutal and barrage

Crawl, rage, bawl!

Spines of the sun stab us gone

Blood of harp; note long.

Ah, I rest here.

And his voice to me

“Come back, come back!”

And my harp, heed at last,

“No,” I say, “The ripping of mast.”

The eyes they grimace

The lip, it foam.

The words they rave

Fist, curl;

Hand of stone.

And into my bosum;

Into my heart,

Into the harp, where busy hand start

Where holy feathers; they fall and fly

And sinner I, sinner I die.

NEXT POEM

He perch on throne thine wrath

He relinquish in memory hath

And would thou tremble at that

He say

“Thou shall shutter at the glass”

Tyrant restraint of thy mind

Estne in my judicious eye

Caedes! Alas! Removed my heart, did he see

Beat, bruising, moral flee

O’ woe of thee!

And upon the dreary throne

Rex de la pallid, horrid light shone!

I do not do as he so!

He who marionette the throne;

tremble the trees

And glass shutter and shriek

“Thou will not come” he so believed—

Ah, and wondrous plague!

Oblique arrival, goth and vague

Of wine in pax would drift away

And in the inferno of the past

Luctus! Shutter glass!

In crimson blood dare he lay

In stone, and blade of heart

Shriek they:

“He shatter Glass! He shudder free!”

He lay there as wrath of me

And yet, behind those glazed eyes

Glare and less

And mind portrait me as best

A horrid brutus!

And Mortes say up at me

“Sallow morose, sin of thee!—

Lie here the body, forgiveness plea”

Whom is the impetus of ires!

But the likeness of me!

NEXT POEM

I’ve always been fond of your embrace

Your crystal eyes, how they rest in your face

Your mouth so soft with its distinct taste

It makes me wonder if you feel the same

Every night I fantasize,

With the moon in its sigh

You approaching me at my door

“Hello friend” and not more

But we look and we share

Something we want there

Something we know in our hearts.

Very much.

And maybe to be entertained, my heart is beating in vain

and I wish you would pull me apart

so that this hideous beating was to stop

and even if they never know

a phallic symbol is always thrown,

We love so closely,

I feel at home

And even with our depart

How I want you to pluck me apart

like the feathers on my tongue

What is my lungs but a sack of filth? May your holding grasp choke them until my blood runs cold

until my eyes roll back

until you are told

But how can you stop, if I am dead?

You mustn’t, no shouldnt,

There’s all this blood to be shed.

My wings are twisted and crooked,

and God laughs in my pain.

My bones they poke out

the ivory in the gaze

I am nothing but wine and meat

A sinner unsaved

Feast upon me!

I consent to your game!

Maggot like do!

I cry and sob, but it’s none to you.

They slither, my insides, like mulberry snakes

and your teeth, so white, will be colored the same

I wrestle and choke and bleed and cry

I beg for you to let me die

But to make my whines cease,

You break my jaw, expose my teeth

With all this sickness and blood and gore

Out jumps my heart, beating and sore

Beating.

The hideous beating.

It’s all in my jaw

So cold and broken,

and to never be thaw

A face of winter

White and blank

I turn plum,

My mouth agape

But in the end, with all this agony,

the price of your love

it kills me

You grab my face

“I love you most”

And to your lips

So sweet

So raw

I simply…

And that is all.

And when I am dead

as you suckle my lung

all fall out, the feathers on my tongue

NEXT POEM

Mist was in the air

I looked up above

It tickled on my face

Feather of the dove

I asked it to rain

But with a refuse to pour

“You ask me so rudely! Frozen to your core!”

I ask it again, I once more implore

“Please do rain”

“I refuse to pour!”

“Snow, you must!”

“Mist I be!”

I looked out, and abounded

Oh forgetful me!

Ghosted was the memory, right under my toes

And once I had realized

I was unknown

I needed the rain

I pleaded once more

And with a lethargic sigh,

It started to pour

Right onto my head

Right into my mind

Wash away the dust, the dirt, the grime

Listen to me, listen as I speak

I reveal such a secret, one I shall not keep

I was simply asking

Begging, implore

Heartache, throbbing,

Coughing so sore

And for only a while

Did the rain dare to pour

And when I was washed

And the sun washed on shore,

I sheepishly smiled,

And begged no more

NEXT POEM

The Wolf of Massachusetts

There was a certain wind

That laid so high

A scent so faint

Like the tear in my eye

I tell you this tale

With much discrete

I tell you so softly

Heed me as I speak

I lived up North

A healthy man

A wealth to be respected

known among the land

And I walked upright

On my Jersey boots

On tether a dog

With an acute snoot

And as I make my way with the rifle

I pinprick the sound

It was ever so trifle

So faint

So dainty

I tensed my loose

And thereupon my track

Was The Brute of Massachute

I am a keen man

And I knew the land so well

I could decipher a noise

With no prevail

And I crept so sneakily

I caressed the ground

I did so quietly

As not to rustle abound

The pelt was of cloud

Like storm above

A transgression of lambs

With a tail that hung

Between his haunches

I could see

An animal painted crimson

Torn by he

As the hunter I am, as I was before

To return to town, my snoot implored

But to refuse such pelage

No, I’d never wanted more

But no! I was foolish!

The beast was the shrewd!

He snapped suddenly

For what could I do?

The monster growled

The largest in Massachute

I stepped back meekly

Who could save me, oh who?

And with each step,

I tell you as he do,

He grew more robust

He grew and grew!

Horns of the ram!

Bust of the hen!

I thought I was to never hunt again!

It growled like a cat!

It hissed too!

So helpless was I,

For what could I do?

I fired a shot, I fired two

But it was futile

Who could help me, who?

Fruitless, per se

While whimper from I

My snoot, a bay

And I, so clearly

Remember the day

The Brute of Massachusetts

Came to my dismay

The horns like lamb

Ivory in day

But the shade of brute

Choked the sun away

My snoot it dashed

And I was at last,

Met with no companion on my side

No where to seek refuge and hide

And I remember last

Among the blurry past

The creature’s crimson eyes

The kind no fauna has ever hast

Now if you fancy me

Don’t fancy me mad!

The scarlet is bore into my skull

You may look when you’re mourning and sad

I claim so big! It is in my mind

The hunger that lay so darkly upon those eyes

It had the teeth of daggers

It had the fangs of knives

It had a heart of frozen time!

The saliva… it dripped so slow

It hung in glass

And hung in a row

And came upon me!

The wretched brute!

And pounced upon me, The Creature of Massachute!

But I, a hunter as before

A hunter until death

A hunter till sore

I knew that if I was to go

Then glory it may be!

The creature’s wit was no match for me

Logic? I could

But instinct?

Not I.

But in such time, I was as vigilant as flies

And stared up the beast, into its’ very eye

And with a swing of the rifle and an audible wack

Fell down the Massachute

To aid him no pack

And up he arose

And vaulted on me!

His teeth gnashed!

I clambered

I cried!

But so stubborn, the hunter I

Slipping out of the grasp,

And with my Jersey boot,

I kicked down the beast

The brute of Massachute

And I stomped it down

And grabbed my rifle too!

And with a BOOM! I CLAIMED VICTORY ON THE MASSACHUTE!

You fancy me crazy

You fancy me mad!

But around my neck

Horns of ram

Lay so subordinately

Around my pipe

In the fire, it gleams,

The intrinsic stripes

No goat I’ve ever seen

Has the pelt I claimed as a lad

And I conclude the story I have

I tell you my truth, with arrogance and glad

That the Wolf of Massachusetts was slaughtered at last.

NEXT POEM

Upon the window

I look on the candle

And the fire that dances upon it

the riches of past

I dis-lawfully grasp

So very egotistic

A creative mind

inside I

I think of that before me

I peer at the flame

And make a game

Of fantastic phony

If the flame were a woman

so slim in her frame

a dancer of fire

A dancer of fame

and upon her dress there lick different shapes

As she convulses in grotesque ways

in her stomach, it is dense

Brighter and bolder than the rest

She shed not a tear to flow away

No,but I am not that way

I ask her a question

"The weight on my heart?"

She replies with only a strut and a hop

And upon her sea of rays,

she gracefully grande plie

And I look at the time on my watch

one of the many who line up on my haunch

"And for what must I sore?"

The ballet turns phoenix

abolishing the core

Feathers abound and astray

But no reply for the things I dismay

I ask her again

answer I implore

"The weight on my heart?"

But she says no more

My face grows hot

I red when fall is to stay

I beg her to give it away

But she dances gracefully

And I cry painfully

"The weight on my heart?"

I ask once more

no reply for I

I am no more

I snuff out the candle with a lick of my finger

And the remaining wax falls so slowly

as if to linger

to remind me that of my murder upon her

Was my own guilt of the reminder

NEXT POEM

A bunch of words

Spewed on a page

Are not so wise at long

You say a thing

About love and gain

And you leave it out to thaw

You break it every other word

For a

sentence

you

can just

say

Call yourself an artist

Yet you do this all day

If you call yourself a poet

And follow that simple law

It's just a phrase

For the gaze

And not a poem at all

NEXT POEM

Balls balls wiener balls

And upon the sultry crimson

That lay before I

He came to me to speak

Softly, his whispers rising high

"Dear, I fear

You are not near

The one I do seek

And if you wish

To accomplish this

Then you take order from me"

And for the stumble tumble wry

And upon the whimpering quake

The hand of he

Struck upon me

My heart pulled to ache

"Think of heaven and sky above, think of what's at stake

Think of glittering glamorous groves

And fluffy Angel cake

Think of what I want for me

And what I deserve

And if you were smart

The striking of art

You'd have the nerve"

And dear me my lie crystal skies

Across the darken cove

Would I stagger

As he went madder

I fell below

A blade of good man and mind

A blade of wonderful sheek

The price to pay

A horrid game

A slash upon my cheek

Blood trickle down my face,

Among the softened scars

Like tiger flesh

Or a random guess

Among the looking stars

Hand grip around my pipe

Busy as if rope

And pull and choke

My will broke

And gasp for the floor

Starry glittering freedom

Handsome wonderful things

I want to see

Beyond the sea

Beyond the rushing lake

Pry my hands

wry my face

Wrinkled, pitiful, cry

But he say, address my name

With a voice not mumble nor meek

"Fine the seek I dare shall find

Find it with your eye

And then we will see

Another week

The true man who should die"

NEXT POEM

"My dear friend left me

On Tuesday cold and drew

With a bottle of water

And a dollar for stew

A flute in his baggage

His voice not ravish

But rather silk and skin

With butter flat

And a tip of hat

Off his trip began

And off my dear friend go,

Luck in his gait

To distant lands

Beyond man

Beyond the glittering lake

Discreetly intangible,

Choke dear me on light

Would it be unfashionable

To reach the night

Ah, and what wonders does glee provide me

If not certainty

If not insanity?

Would it be that I would dare clamber upon

The hearty seed

And shoot into the sky?

Across the bridge

Graze the ridge

With my sugarcane eye

And there my imaginary mind go

beyond the quivering snake,

And beyond the venom of wolves howling

And stinging of fate

No, it seems, beyond the bend

Beyond the mulberry grove

Where blood and shatter and nothing of matter send

Things I know

Beyond my dearest mindset

God foresaken me

And watch my friend and dear holy men

Curse at the sky for me

So I stare at a page

And sleep in my cage

And know that I am free

I act like my quick feathered life

Has much before me"

THATS ALL

@cecilthecowardly

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