#absolute travesty...............................

[brainwashed-babe]

Correctional Training

It had all fallen apart so fast.

Tara wasn't even at the front lines of the protest. She was there, sure, but she didn't see what happened when things broke apart and got bad. She and the rest of the women's rights activists there had been making noise and chanting, sure, demonstrating against the campaign of Robert Walken, the regressive sexist candidate for Congress. But they certainly hadn't broken any laws. Then the counterprotestors showed up - angry, rough-looking men, jeering and laughing and throwing things at the women. Tensions rose. Eventually, somebody pushed things too far, and - well, it was chaos. The police streamed in, grabbing up everyone they could. All the women, at least. It seemed like they were barely interested in the counterprotestors.

Tara was charged, along with dozens of other women, with a long list of crimes. Vandalism. Resisting arrest. Mayhem. Property damage. Larceny. Assault. It was an absolute travesty of a trial - the women were tried as a group, with barely any chance to speak in their own defense. Tara was charged, tried, convicted, and sentenced in less than a day.

Weirdly, she didn't get a fine, or probation, or even prison time. She, like all the other women tried alongside her, was sentenced to "one rotation of recuperative training therapy". Whatever that meant, it sounded better than prison, so she didn't complain.

----------

That's how she ended up in this room. This cell, really. Small and white and sterile, she was isolated here, away from the other women. Each of them were in their own room, she assumed. Here she was left, alone and confused, for a day and a half. She was pretty sure it was about that long, at least. She had no real way to tell.

Eventually, a man came in. Some kind of guard or orderly or something. As much as she hated him for keeping her captive like this, Tara couldn't help but be happy to see him. The isolation was driving her a little crazy already, so any human contact was welcome. He gave her a quick physical, making sure she was healthy and unharmed. He gave her two shots in the arm, telling her they were inoculations to make sure she stayed healthy. 

In fact, they were sedatives. She was groggy and half-conscious within ten minutes. At that point, the man returned with a few others. They stripped Tara, dressing her in skimpy white lingerie. They posed her up into a kneeling position, binding her thighs to her ankles to keep her that way. They strapped her wrists together, and leashed her to the wall. Finally, they slid a VR visor over her eyes.

And before they left, as she started to come back to some level of awareness, they started the program on the visor.

It wasn't a garish, swirling light show. Just pulsing, subtle colors, soothing and calming. There were letters there, but small and distant. They pulsed as they scrolled across her vision. Over time, images appeared. Pictures of the women at the protest, yelling and demonstrating. This was accompanied by low, scraping, buzzing noises that made Tara wince. Pictures of Robert Walken on stage, smiling, orating, telling of his vision for the future of the area. These images came with soaring, lilting, melodic noises that made Tara's heart swell. The words over his picture, words that she couldn't quite read, were things like love and loyalty and power and obedience and awe and devotion and service and delight and yes and anything and worship.

----------

Eleven days later, the newly-elected Congressman Walken toured the facility he'd paid to set up. He'd seen half a dozen women so far, all dutifully kneeling and reciting praises about him. He looked over Tara, who still had her visor on as she answered questions from an examiner.

"Are you happy Congressman Walken won his election?"

"Oh yes! I'm so pleased. He deserves it. He deserves everything."

"How do you feel about him?"

"The Congressman? I love him. I'd do anything for him. Please, can I serve him in some way? That's all I want."

"Are you a feminist, Tara?"

"Oh no, of course not. I believe in the natural order. Women are meant to be of service to the men around them."

The Congressman gave a little flick of his hand, stopping the questions. He nodded, pointing at Tara, who was completely unaware he was there. 

"That one," he said simply, and left the room.

The examiner made a note - when she finished the last couple of days of her training, Tara would be assigned as one of Congressman Walken's personal, full-service aides. 

She'd be so happy.

[willosword]

cloud’s imagined memory-melded version of the events at nibelhiem in rebirth are gonna be 10x cooler than the canon crisis core version 😭 i can already tell

[queenlucythevaliant]

Pauline? Pauliiiine?

Why does Drinian have a globe? 🌍

Isn't Narnia canonically flat? 🗺️

Isn't that definitively established in This Very Book? 🤔

(Round Narnia conspiracy theory when?)

[shellem15]

This has been commented on many times in this fandom, but I'm using it as a springboard for my own brainrot Raphael really is just like his daddy. There's the obvious stuff—the narcissism, the dramatics, the convoluted plots and just the general messy bitchery—but there's also the stuff under the surface. Both have massive inferiority complexes, both are extremely envious and power-hungry (Mephistopheles in particular for the envy part, but we'll touch on that later), and both act extremely obsessive towards certain tools, goals, and—most relevant to this post—people.

Now Raphael is definitely weird towards Tav/Durge, but it's a bit more ambiguous as to whether he's obsessed with them in particular or just sees them as a means to an end. The situation with Hope, on the other hand, is quite explicit. Raphael is obsessed with her, even naming his home after her, but there's not really anything material he gets out of her. Him imprisoning and torturing her is not a means to an end, he just does it because he's a sadist. He wants her attention, he is entertained by her defiance, he wants to break her—he both loves and loathes her.

And what do you know! Raphael's thing towards Hope is kinda similar to how Mephistopheles acts with his object of obsession—Asmodeus. Now, if you need to know anything about Mephisto's character, it's that he's envious. Envious towards his peers, envious towards his betters, even envious towards his inferiors—he resents that others' have what he does not. Even Martinet, Asmodeus' unflappable constable, thinks so: "Were Mephistopheles to become the King of Hell, it would take him less than an hour to start wondering why he wasn’t also ruler of Mount Celestia." (Guide to Hell, p. 45)

The #1 target of Mephisto's envy is Asmodeus. The man is capital-o Obsessed with him, ya'll.  Asmo is on his mind 24/7, haunting his every thought. He lives rent-free in Mephisto's head.

Mephisto is the silver medal to Asmo's golden 1st place. Eternally living in his shadow, the Starscream to Asmo's Megatron. He is always one step behind him—like, Mephistopheles has been trying to become a god for a while now, and just when he was about to succeed, the spellplague happened and Asmodeus ate the god Azuth like an energy bar, snatching up godhood by sheer luck. And then, of course, Mephisto's godhood plan fell through so now the power divide between them is even greater than it was before.

Bro tries so hard and it just doesn't work. Like, when Mephisto was going through his rebrand phase as the Lord of Hellfire, he changed his appearance to that of the "quintessential devil". But all that ended up doing is making mortals confused about who exactly he is—a lot of mortals straight up think he is Asmodeus. Like, to the point that Asmo just went "you're the manager of my cults now lol", so now the distinction between the two is even more blurry. Also, Mephisto's wife is straight up closer to Asmo than she is to him (see my Baalphegor post), which is just another spit in the face. Bro cannot win. (This ties into another similarity between him and his son; Raphael clearly got the loser gene from him.)

Now, obviously the situation between Raphael and Hope is very different than Mephisto's relationship towards Asmo—Hope is Raphael's captive, while Asmo is Mephisto's boss; Hope's life has been upended and tormented by Raphael, while Mephisto is at most an annoyance towards Asmo (bro has repeatedly told Asmo to his face that he would usurp him and Asmo is just like "whatever, dude")—but the level of obsession is similar. Raphael hates hope but is also desperate for her affection, Mephistopheles loathes and envies Asmodeus but is also his greatest ally. Both are desperate to fu—*ahem* both are psycho-sexually obsessed with them.

So, yeah. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

TLDR: Raphael inherited his psycho-sexually obsessive tendencies from his daddy lol. Also you should really read the lore about Asmodeus and Mephistopheles' relationship because it's actually insane y'all. Like this shit was made for the gays people.

[alphashley14]

🎃👻🔥Halloween Hot Take: 🔥👻🎃

Why does Joel Glicker, Wednesday’s nerd boyfriend from Camp Chippewa in ‘Addams Family Values,’ look like a young Egon Spengler?

[leupagus]

The degree to which Davos and Brienne are going to become reluctant BFFs, because their lieges keep coming to them complaining about each other, is UNREAL

or, more from this fic that's slowly eating my life

~

Their journey to the Northern army's camp had revealed a great deal about Lady Stark and her lords and petty chieftains: their patronizing generosity, their gruff suspicion of outsiders, and above all their mind-boggling obstinacy. Ned and Lyanna had been much the same, from what he remembered, and Stannis had seen shades of it in Jon Snow, though couched more gently than he'd expected from a bastard. He'd imagined — insofar as he'd imagined her at all — that Lady Stark would be gentler still, her mother's line warming that chilled Northern blood.

He had been disastrously mistaken. It was a wonder only one Stark had survived, but it was already clear that she had gathered the entire share of Stark mulishness.

"I have conditions, Your Grace," said Lady Stark. "If this alliance is to succeed in retaking Winterfell, I feel it right that you hear them." She placed the parchment in her hand carefully on his table and stepped back, hands folded primly.

She had requested, and been granted, this conference shortly after Stannis's army had made camp alongside the Northern soldiers. Stannis's tent had barely been erected when she came to him with this parchment, her wolf, and a determined expression. He had thought he'd listened to her enough on the journey as she'd prattled away with Shireen, but he was in the mood to be permissive.

Reading through her list of demands, he could feel the headache building along his jaw and up through his skull. "Have you lost your mind?" he said, for the second time in a week to an unreasonable woman.

Melisandre had brushed his question aside, but Lady Stark was not made of such supple stuff; she stiffened and glowered at him. "That is a peculiar way to agree to my terms, Your Grace."

"Your terms are rather more than peculiar, my lady," he said, tossing the parchment back on the table.

In truth, the first one was not so peculiar: it said that should they regain the Keep, he would recognize Sansa Stark as Lady of Winterfell and Warden of the North in her own right. He would not pass her over in favor of some lesser Northern male relative, nor would he obligate her to marry and rule only as companion to her husband. Considering Stannis's own intention to ensure Shireen sat on the Iron Throne after his death, he could hardly begrudge her this.

Considering the other two stipulations, however, he felt very much inclined to begrudge her everything.

"Supposing your younger brothers turn up?" he asked, thrusting his chin at the parchment. "Or Jon Snow is legitimized?"

This question didn't faze her, he suspected because it was a question of logistics and protocol rather than a personal remark. "If Jon is made legitimate, I don't believe he would want Winterfell—"

"Duty is not a question of wanting, Lady Stark," he reminded her. "And the Lord Commander is—"

"The Lord Commander, as you say, is the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch," she retorted. "His life has already been pledged to the Wall. If he didn't abandon that cause in aid of my brother Robb, he won't abandon it now."

Stannis observed her. There was bitterness there, certainly, though less than he would have thought. Lady Stark clearly understood the ties that bound men to their duty, even if she did not like them.

"However," she continued, "Should any of my brothers wish to make a claim to Winterfell in my place, I won't stand against them." She paused for a moment, and added, "I have no wish to die at their hands out of misplaced pride."

Stannis clenched his jaw but let that go for the moment — it would be addressed soon enough. "You call me 'Your Grace,'" he said, tapping at the parchment, "Yet your second stipulation says that you will not bend the knee to me, even if I regain Winterfell for you."

"No, it says that I will not bend the knee to any claimant to the throne until they hold the majority of the kingdoms," she shot back. "The Lannisters hold the Crownlands, the Westerlands and the Reach at present. The Riverlands are still in chaos, the Vale has withdrawn from all alliances to sulk in their mountains, and both Dorne and the Iron Islands have declared for themselves, more or less. You can, at best, claim that the Stormlands still support you, though I've seen no evidence for it — they didn't march under your banner at first, did they?"

That was the second time she had brought up Renly, however obliquely. If she were trying to drive him mad, she couldn't go about it any better. "When I hold the North, my lady, I will have more land—"

"Setting aside the notion that it will be you alone who holds the North, you'll have more land and fewer men than any other region. If you wish to win against the Lannisters, you'll need more than mountains and glaciers fighting your battles. And if I wish to be Warden of the North, I can't keep the respect of my lords by swearing fealty to a man who has yet to earn it."

"I could have you burned for such talk," he said, getting to his feet and pouring himself some water, hoping it would ease the throbbing in his head.

"You don't burn nobles, you behead them," she replied cooly. "I should know. I was there when the Lannisters took my own father's head for supporting your claim to the Iron Throne. I have no intention of sharing his fate." She took a deep breath, and only then did he note that her hands had been clenched together, her right covering the balled-up fist of her left. "I won't take arms against you now or in the future, on that I give my word."

"And if I do have you beheaded?" he asked, putting the tin cup down before he crumpled it in his hand.

It seemed to amuse her. "Then my words will mean even less than they do now."

"They mean nothing, because you will not give them!" He pinched his nose and attempted to regain his composure. Surprisingly difficult, with this — child.

She regarded him for a moment. "You call me Lady Stark, Your Grace," she said, "but tell me, have you heard anyone else call me that?"

Stannis, thrown by the question, was forced to consider it. In truth, he had heard only Lady Sansa, though said with more reverence by her men and lords than he could ever recall being addressed himself. "You are Lady Stark."

"Not without Winterfell," she said, shaking her head. "It's more than just the home of the Starks, it is our…place in the world. We belong nowhere else. Just as there must always be a Stark at Winterfell, so too do we need Winterfell to truly be Starks." She gave him a pointed look. "Just as Your Grace needs the Iron Throne, and the fealty of all the Seven Kingdoms, to truly be king."

She was wrong, of course, but Stannis felt the same lurch in his belly whenever his footing slipped during a bout. "Perhaps your reticence has something to do with this last stipulation," he said instead, going back to the table and jabbing his finger at the third line. "Falsely accusing a king is treason."

"Is Lady Brienne falsely accusing you, Your Grace?" she asked, smooth as ice. Her hands were still clenched, he noted.

"I was nowhere near Renly's camp when he died," Stannis said, with perfect truth, even as he felt himself balanced on a knife's edge.

He had been nowhere near. He had woken up just before dawn with the lead weight of certainty in his belly, knowing what had happened — what the Red Woman had said must happen — and lying there, staring up at the tent's canvas, he had wept. Wept for the brothers he had loved and who had never loved him back. He would never know if Renly had had a hand in Robert's death; just as he would never know if he himself had had a hand in Renly's. Had he ordered Melisandre to kill him? Had he believed her when she said she could make such a thing come to pass? Davos had begged to tell him of what had happened in the cave that night, what monstrous thing the Red Woman had done to bring Renly's death about. Stannis had refused to hear it. Perhaps there was a sort of rough justice in facing his accuser now, the only one living who knew the truth.

"Lady Brienne has served me faithfully," said Lady Stark, "and my mother before me, at great cost to herself. I believe her testimony, Your Grace."

"Her testimony that I murdered my own brother."

Lady Stark regarded him steadily. "I will not insult either of you by declaring one more honorable than the other. But when I regain Winterfell, my duty as Warden of the North will be to adjudicate all such matters, and this falls under my purview. Even if you were crowned King of the Seven Kingdoms in the Red Keep itself, the North holds all persons, regardless of title, under its laws while they reside here."

"Renly didn't die in the North," was all he could manage to say.

"He died, Your Grace." Lady Stark looked almost pitying. "And for that, I'm sorry. I know what it is to lose your brothers. But on this point I will not waver."

"Is there any point on which you have?" he asked, curious.

She continued serenely. "Lady Brienne will be permitted to make her accusation publicly; how you respond to it is your affair, but if you prevail, you must give me your word now that she will not be held guilty of treason, nor will she be killed by any member of your party by any means." She put enough emphasis on the last two words to make her meaning plain.

"And if she prevails?" Stannis asked. "Your stipulations do not mention the outcome of the trial, only that it will take place." He smiled grimly. "Your father always said that he who passes the sentence should swing the sword, my lady. Will you behead me yourself?"

"I doubt either of us would find that a pleasant exercise, Your Grace," she said, her lip curling slightly. She didn't blanch, however; young as she was, she had seen worse. Had possibly done worse, if the rumors about the Purple Wedding were true. He'd not asked. "If you are found guilty, then you will ride south. If you win the support of the other kingdoms, the North will bend the knee to you. But you'll never come north of the Neck again. Does that satisfy?"

Stannis glanced down at the parchment again. There it all was, in black and white: the price he must pay for the North. The blasted girl had even provided a space for him to sign at the bottom.

"Not remotely," he said, but reached for his pen.

[gabbingwaves]

Jiyan's most dire foe yet: A sapient bubble.

[tacosaysroar]

I mean . . .

[ratatatastic]

mama theyre squabbling AGAIN i.e sashas bullying lundy for the nth time and lundy cant defend himself for shit and is trying to be pragmatic about it (x)(x)

[applesdefinitely]

oh folie backpack promo i love you so (part 3, was that good, was that good for you man?)

[sqweegee]

clipped a bunch of good ducktales moments last night but i feel obligated to post my fave

[dreadeves]

qpr riz ppl are so funny. like riz does not want a relationship. his fear is that his friends will leave him because of partners, and he knows he doesn’t want a relationship like that. what do u think a qpr is btw.

[selkiemaidenfae]

books read in 2023: the stolen heir by holly black

✧✧✧✧✧

“they did this. the girl they made was delicate in form, with eyes of stone, and lips of frozen rose petals, and the sharply pointed ears of their people. when they finished sculpting her, they smiled at each other, captivated by her beauty.

the hag smiled too, for other reasons."

[sunevial]

pelcan mouth

[charliemwrites]

MEN AT WORK UPDATE THANK YOU FOR THE FOOD!!! I was just thinking I needed some more Nikto content in my life, and I absolutely adore how you write that trio. Once again your grasp on banter between characters and the use of big scary men being silly with animals makes my day, absolutely wonderful addition to the story!!! <3

Thank you so much!! I love dialogue and banter, and I love subjecting characters to it 😌 there is very little that is not improved by animals - and large, frightening men are no exception.

(Granted Little Guy has no survival instinct and shithead will fight anything that moves, but at least Rasputin has a keen… eye)

[rubenesque-as-fuck]

Eeeeeee one of my best friends that I haven't seen in a few years is going to try to come out to Las Vegas and hang out for part of my birthday trip! So now it won't solely be a "wandering around solo while high as a fucking kite" experience (not for the entire time, anyway)