#afterlife of slavery

[processedlives]

Agamben does examine a modern instance of slavery and his misreading confirms this essay’s concerns. In State of Exception Agamben frames the U.S. Civil War as a “conflict over sovereign decision.” He boldly contends that Abraham Lincoln “acted as an absolute dictator” by emancipating the slaves “on his authority alone,” “generaliz[ing] the state of exception throughout the entire territory of the United States” and becoming “the holder of the sovereign decision on the state of exception.” It is extremely troubling that Agamben links the Emancipation Proclamation to a dictatorial state of exception rather than arguing that slavery itself was already one of the boldest generalizations of the exception in nineteenth- century America, if not the world. One might counter that laws existed to regulate the slave owner’s treatment of the slave. Those laws only confirm my point, being based on the need to protect slaves as property for others to own and sell, on the basis of a racialized version of the Aristotelian ontological distinction always and already expelling the slave from civil society and legal personhood. The Western tradition contains multiple philosophical arguments, like those from Hobbes or even John Locke, that consider the relation between master and slave to be unmediated, despite what positive law demands, and place all right and force on the side of the master. To put it in Agamben’s parlance, the master’s claim property precedes positive law and therefore places the slave under the sovereign’s ban.

On Black Study and Political Theology, James Edward Ford III

[pratchettquotes]

Flames died. Sound died. Light died.

ANGHAMMARAD.

Anghammarad looked at his hands. There was nothing there except heat, furnace heat, blasting heat that nevertheless made the shapes of fingers.

ANGHAMMARAD, a hollow voice repeated.

"I Have Lost My Clay," said the golem.

YES, said Death. THAT IS STANDARD. YOU ARE DEAD. SMASHED. EXPLODED INTO A MILLION PIECES.

"Then Who Is This Doing The Listening?"

EVERYTHING THERE WAS ABOUT YOU THAT ISN'T CLAY.

"Do You Have A Command For Me?" said the remains of Anghammarad, standing up.

NOT NOW. YOU HAVE REACHED THE PLACE WHERE THERE ARE NO MORE ORDERS.

"What Shall I Do?"

I BELIEVE YOU HAVE FAILED TO UNDERSTAND MY LAST COMMENT.

Anghammarad sat down again. Apart from the fact that there was sand rather than ooze underfoot, this place reminded him of the abyssal plane.

GENERALLY PEOPLE LIKE TO MOVE ON, Death hinted. THEY LOOK FORWARD TO AN AFTERLIFE.

"I Will Stay Here, Please."

HERE? THERE'S NOTHING TO DO HERE, said Death.

"Yes, I Know," said the ghost of the golem. "It Is Perfect. I Am Free."

Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

[notchainedtotrauma]

ID [The white conservatives aren't friends of the Negro either, but at least don't try to hide it. They are like wolves; they show their teeth in a snarl that keeps the Negro always aware of where he stands with them. But the white liberals are foxes, who also show their teeth to the Negro but pretend that they are smiling. The white liberals are more dangerous than the conservatives; they lure the Negro, and as the Negro runs from the growling wolf, he flees into the open jaws of the "smiling" fox. One is the wolf, the other is a fox. No matter what, they'll both eat you.

-Malcolm X, 4 December 1963] end of ID

[maudnewton]

Friends, it's been a while. How've you been, apart from... everything? Catch me up if you'd like.

If you don't remember why you're following me: I'm a writer. You might like my book, Ancestor Trouble, if you're interested in family history, genealogy, mental health, generational trauma, systemic harms, and spiritual practices around ancestors and our alienation from those practices in Western modernity. I was finishing it up at the end of the first Trump administration, and to be perfectly honest I viewed it in part at that time it as a kind of stealth self-help book for people who might be groping toward the same kinds of questions in a period where the world seemed to be moving backward.

Ancestor Trouble was called a book of the year by the New Yorker, NPR, the Washington Post, Time, the Boston Globe, Esquire, Garden & Gun, and more. It was a pick for Roxane Gay's Audacious Book Club and a New York Times Editors' Choice selection, and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle's John Leonard Prize for a first book in any genre.

In a sense it's a memoir, and it's also broader than a pure memoir. On Bluesky, the religion professor Seth Shafer recently described it as "the most unexpected textbook I use [in my Death and the Afterlife class] because it shows very personally how the dead always have a relationship with us whether we know it or not. It's also got the best treatment of ancestor religion I've ever read." A review in the latest National Genealogical Society Quarterly characterizes Ancestor Trouble as fascinating, fun, engaging, and relatably meandering.

Here are some excerpts and related essays:

My Ancestors Enslaved Black People; Acknowledging that Matters, for Guardian US

A Doorway, an Ancestor Trouble excerpt, at Medium

Learning About Ourselves From Genealogy, an Ancestor Trouble excerpt, at Wall Street Journal

On My Father, an Ancestor Trouble excerpt, at Esquire

On Uncovering Family Histories America Is Still Wresting With, an Ancestor Trouble excerpt, at Time

My Accused Witch Ancestor Was Also an Enslaver, at Medium

The seeds of the book were family history posts on my blog in the aughts, and a Harper's cover story, America's Ancestry Craze, in 2014.

[willknightauthor]

Wraith: The Best Game That Never Was

It occurred to me that even among RPG nerds Wraith is more obscure, and that makes me sad. Like people know it existed, but even at the time it was an also-ran. Among insiders at White Wolf it was a darling, but it never took off, so they stopped its line half way through. Even in high school I had to buy the books used online.

Wraith is one of the most original and compelling approaches to the afterlife I've seen in any medium, but especially in an RPG. In many games ghosts feature as NPCs, but rarely do you get to play as them, and even more rarely in an interesting way that centers the subjective experience of being dead.

The first thing that grabbed me was the art, all faded gray-scale, scratchy, often grotesque and surreal. The cover is striking: stark gray bound in chains. All far bleaker and genuinely scarier than anything else put out by White Wolf. Turns out the art matched the vibe of the setting very well, because the ultimate conceit of Wraith is that if the living knew what the afterlife is really like, we'd all be even more terrified to die.

Wraiths are a violation of the laws of nature. Biological life is already an improbable struggle against entropy, but the continued existence of consciousness after death? An absolute affront to the universe. Reality wants you gone, but you can't be killed. That contradiction manifests as Oblivion: non-existence as a visible, active force; the Freudian death drive become physics. And it goes all the way down into your very thoughts.

The afterlife is a world of ideals, not materials. Your well-integrated mind shatters into pieces when you die, and your "physical" form is a manifestation of it. Your Jungian shadow-self, once an unconscious and abstract thing, becomes a real, tangible person living inside you. All your vices, your self-loathing, your misanthropy, your death drive, become a voice in your ear: your best friend and worst enemy, helping and tricking you, constantly trying to gain control.

But you can't be killed. You're already dead. Instead of death, you just decay, further and further towards becoming your shadow. Eventually all that's left is a nightmare of who you used to be, existing only to torment others and drag them down together into nothingness. The world is full of these monsters, the things that go bump in the night and terrify both the living and the dead.

But that's literally the tip of the iceberg. The thin layer of shadow reality is nothing compared to the much larger expanse of the Tempest: a cosmic plane of dream and nightmare, right on the edge of Oblivion. The deep underworld is Lovecraftian Mad Max: an infinite shifting desert of eternal night filled with screaming storms, incomprehensible monsters, and forbidden knowledge. Pockmarking it are islands of stability upon which societies are built--dysfunctional city-states desperately attempting to project power into a world constantly trying to swallow them.

However, if no-one can die, then every awful political trend and tyrant remains forever. And they all have a huge head start on you establishing political power. Their society is a veneer of modern industrial capitalism, layered on top of mercantile guilds, layered on top of feudal lords, layered on top of a Roman imperial bureaucracy, all built on the back of one ancient wraith: the ferryman Charon.

But the Emperor has been missing for a long time, and the bureaucracy is so massive and old that it's rotting in on itself. Who knows how many are secretly succumbing to their own shadows? Their attempts to rule the rest of the underworld are always tenuous, like the last days of Roman Britain. It's a world eternally mid-apocalypse.

The problem with a world of thought and feeling is: how do you make things? What do you make them with? Sometimes the ghosts of physical objects make their way through, and they're mined like whale fall. Undoubtedly the Twin Towers were a huge boon to the dead, probably the site of an entire city.

But it's not enough. Wraiths are still people. They want clothing, and furniture, and buildings, and machines, and tools, and money. Where does all that come from? The only thing left that wraiths can touch: other people. Wraith society is built on a form of slavery more exploitative and horrifying than anything that's ever existed among the living. Slaves are valued not for their labor primarily, but for their use as raw materials.

The vulnerable newly dead are captured, dragged back to the capital, and molded in workshops and factories into goods for the upper classes. They claim it wipes out consciousness, and thus the finished product isn't suffering. If anything it's a mercy! To release them from the torment of the afterlife! And prevent them from becoming monsters! But when it's quiet, if you listen closely, some report you can hear it all whispering.

The bleak alienness of this afterlife to any human religion breaks the minds of many when they first realize they're dead. Some go into denial. Some reject their old religion. Some invent new religious explanations. And some try to twist their old beliefs into a shape that conforms.

The underworld is full of cults. Cults promising escape from the underworld. Cults claiming they know where heaven and hell are. (At best just projections of the collective beliefs of the living into the underworld.) Cults who claim they're building heaven and hell themselves. (These sorts of "afterlife lands" sometimes become tourist attractions.) But Oblivion is Oblivion. If you could describe its structure logically you would be contradicting its very essence. There is only decay.

Most people don't go to the shadowlands when they die. Where do they go? No-one knows. What happens when you're swallowed by Oblivion? No-one knows. Is there a God? No-one knows.

Just like when you were alive, you don't know what comes next, or why you're here. It's not real death, it's something in between. But maybe real death is just nothingness. Better not to risk it, then... even if that means clinging to the sands of Hell under the yoke of an eternal slave-aristocracy.

Maybe if you can figure out why you're here, you'll find a way out.

[butterflysnowflake]

Wolf Jackson and the Afterlife Civil Servant "plot hole": a theory

so a huge topic of debate regarding Beetlejuice Beetlejuice and the "established" (more on my thoughts on that in a minute) Beetlejuice canon of suicide resulting in civil service in the Afterlife is "Wolf Jackson died in an accident but now he's a detective (and therefore civil servant), that must be a plot hole." I'm personally agnostic to this being canon, because I go by the MST3K Mantra for little details like this, ESPECIALLY in comedy where lots of details exist in the service of the next gag, but whether it is or not is the ultimate YMMV and there's been plenty of good points made on either side of this debate. If you've read this far in the post, you've probably read them already, or will encounter them in the wild at some point.

I was thinking about the easter eggs on the Frank Hardballer poster behind Wolf's desk this morning (as one does), and came to a realization that could easily explain just what happened, should the civil servant thing be canon. (Pics from @one-fancy-flapjack 's repost of the set designer's Tiktok!)

So if you're ready to keep it real, hit the cut.

okay so to get down to the first point that I've expanded on in another post , this poster is very heavily implied to be the movie he was working on when the accident that took his life (and half his face) happened, just based on the suit he's wearing on it (same one he's in now) and the foreboding "Live like a cop. Die like a man." tagline. but wait what's this along the credits? Janet, enhance that.

He has a whole writer's credit. Which, if this is the one he died making (very probable, because as people who've analyzed the Handbook passages have discovered, not a single readable detail in this movie is meaningless), means he wrote, or at the very least signed off on, the scene, that involved the grenade that killed him.

And we KNOW from the aforementioned Handbook passages and just what we've seen and heard onscreen that the Afterlife authorities are certainly careless/capricious/bit of both enough to decide "well he wrote it in, close enough". As far as they might be concerned, Wolf might as well have personally picked out the live grenade himself.

Combined with the stuff we see in the newspaper Beetlejuice is reading one scene earlier about civil servants going on strike, deaths being wrongly assigned, and politicians getting in hot water, at the very least it points to a not so great picture of the leadership in the Afterlife who will just assign people work out of pure spite and need to put a warm (cold?) body in an open space no matter how under qualified they are.

Anyway, all this is just my theory, but that little writer's credit certainly does provide an explanation for how a dorky actor got saddled running an entire detective/police department without really running against what may or may not be canon.

[nando161mando]

The latest from Asher Perlman

[some-stars]

truly astounded by how many christians in the notes are protesting that this isn't accurate...really? so you don't believe that christ died for your sins? i genuinely can't think of a more heretical heresy than that but you do you, babes

Look, we joke a lot, but really, "you were born evil, wretched, worse than the scum of the earth, and it took killing a god to make you salvageable, so now you'd better be grateful to that god and thank him 10,000 times a day for it and fill your thoughts with him 24/7 and abide by the letter of his every word, lest you suffer unimaginable torture for all of eternity" is a truly horrendous thing to believe about yourself and other people

[westernreach]

Something I don’t see mentioned very often (or indeed see that it’s gotten wrong and misunderstood) is that the Vestige does not have their own body.

From UESP, “Molag Bal's lust for the enslavement of mortal souls is such that at the moment of their death, he employs various methods to divert a mortal's soul from its journey to the afterlife to imprisonment and slavery in Coldharbour, his realm of Oblivion. Once the soul arrives in Coldharbour, it is exchanged for an essence commonly known as the vestige. The vestige attracts to itself a shapeless but energetic material called Chaotic Creatia. In Coldharbour, this creatia takes the form of a substance known as the Azure Plasm - ubiquitous pools of blue slime. The Azure Plasm coalesces around a vestige and forms a corporeal body with the semblance of the shape it wore in life. The process is similar to how lesser Daedra reform on their respective planes of Oblivion, after they're banished or slain.”

Before they get their own soul back they are, effectively, a Daedra. They have a Daedric “soul” and a Daedric body. This is why most of the Soul Shriven we see are half decayed, they’ve lost their souls so the Creatia doesn’t know how to hold their body’s together right - The Vestige being the exception to the rule.

Like, don’t get me wrong fanfic where the Vestige has their body are still good, I still love them, but where is the angst of not having their soul or their body? Where’s the existential dread of whether or not they are they still themselves?

Is it possible that the Vestige has to fight their own body, reanimated by the Work Cult?

How does everyone else react to the Vestige not being Mortal in the most basic senses, body and soul?

Idk. I just think it’s interesting and would love to see more people explore That Can Of Worms (TM)

[judaismandsuch]

On 'Redemption' and Religious Cross Talk

This is probably the type of thing that I should research more/get sources before I post about, but this won't be terribly in depth so whatever!

There is a problem (only one problem!) in even polite inter religious conversation between Christianity and Judaism that leads to a lot of annoyance and confusion, and that is the subject of 'Redemption'.

The problem is, redemption features heavily in both our views of the Messiah, but means something so completely different that talking about gets annoying to the point of frustration, and Judaism has by and large dropped the word because of it.

So I just want to do a quick, overly simplified, discussion of the two meanings.

In Christianity, the meaning pretty well understood, and (to generalize and oversimplify), the 'Redemption' is being redeemed/absolved from all sins, with afterlife implications.

In Judaism, it is not that at all. The Redemption that the Messiah will bring doesn't really have an easy phrase, but is basically 'Redemption from slavery in diaspora', which is a poor choice of words and will make people scratch their heads somewhat.

So to give a deeper theological/linguistic historical explanation:

In the Torah, when a slave is freed it is called 'being redeemed'/'redemption' if you pay the price of a slave and free them you have redeemed them.

So it makes sense that when HaShem took us from Slavery in Egypt (the ending of the first Exile) it was called 'Redemption'. (nothing to do with our sins really*.)

Then add in the fact that when a land was conquered/it's people expelled in the ancient world, it was common to put the people into slavery/forced work, it makes sense that the end of any exile would be called a redemption.

Now since the final prophecies about the destruction of the second temple, the reunification of the Jews under a new king, the reconstruction of the Third Temple and the Nation being free and not under control of a greater empire were made in that era, it makes perfect sense that the transformation is called 'Redemption', even though our sins are not washed away.

And if you look at the prophecies about this time it does talk about the jews enslaved by the foreign powers being redeemed from their slavery and brought back in those terms.

Now currently we more talk about it as a Spiritual slavery, but w/e. So while the Jews are waiting for a Messiah to bring Redemption, it is a very different one than (most) Christians believe that Jesus brought.

*There is a touch of belief that some people hold that our sins will always be too great for the Redemption to happen purely on our spiritual merit, so one could argue that there is a bit of sin stuff happening, but I don't really think it counts.

N.B.: This is a simplification, I skipped sources, but this is meant to be a clarification/aid to better disccusions NOT a pure informative post

[what-even-is-thiss]

What do you think would our world be like if Christianity hadn't been invented? I'm not trying to start an anti-christianity argument, I am just wondering... Because it transformed our world and our cultures so much. For example, no Christianity = no colonization as we know it, would we still believe in heathen / nature gods or would another religion colonize the planet? What would that look like? Would we even have racism? Since "race theory" was invented by white christian colonizers to "justify" slavery.

I do think that it’s possible colonization would’ve happened in one form or another. What it would’ve looked like, I’m not sure. But people often forget that cultures with religions other than Christianity have historically erased and conquered.

As a Christian I don’t excuse the sins of those who share my faith. Their forgiveness is up to their victims, themselves, and God. And I recognize that Christians as a whole have a tendency to ignore our bloody history. But I also don’t think the world would necessarily be that much better without it. Different? Absolutely. Better? How would we know that? It wasn’t the only or first major religion to spread like wildfire. It wasn’t the only or first religion to be used to justify atrocities. Look at historical examples in Communist countries. Atheism being used to erase people’s religions. Look at the history of Islam. One of Mohammad’s first big feats was launching a military campaign. Look at Ancient Rome. Even though they let people keep their gods they still plugged their own gods in where they didn’t fit, used them to justify horrible atrocities, and severely discriminated against Jewish people.

People in power just want an excuse to justify their actions. Religion or lack thereof makes for a convenient excuse whether we like it or not. Without Christianity the world would still have power-hungry people looking to force their will on others and they’d find an excuse. Possibly in some other religion, possibly in something else. But Christianity became a world religion so long ago that I cannot tell you what I think would’ve happened exactly. If modern racism wasn’t invented something would still be contributing to discrimination.

Perhaps the cult of Isis would’ve taken over the world. It had some similar ideas to Christianity in some ways including a focus on love and a good afterlife for its followers and it was spreading a lot even though some tried to ban it. Maybe it was on its way to being the state religion before my guy Jesus showed up. And temples and shrines of Isis being erected in town squares would be the first step in colonizing an area.

Perhaps the Chinese would be the first to colonize the new world. Or the Arabs. If Islam existed in some form or another. Or even with their old gods. Perhaps the traders of west Africa or the Norse. If you ask me, someone at least was bound to make contact across the water one way or another and unfortunately bring diseases like smallpox and measles with them. What their response would’ve been, I’m not entirely sure. Humans are often xenophobic, but they are also often caring.

It’s taken centuries for the native populations of the Americas to return to their pre-Columbus numbers. Whether or not that recovery would’ve happened faster under different leadership, I’m unsure because as the different colonizers demonstrated over time, there’s many different ways to “deal” with native populations. The English preferred to drive them out, the Spanish attempted to absorb them through intermarriage, the French slowly encroached on their territory and disrupted and took over their economies. And later in Africa and Asia the goal by all was generally to use the land and it’s people as a resource rather than a place to live.

Colonization was an extreme example and expansion of pre-existing techniques and attitudes. There can be arguments made that something like colonization was inevitable eventually with expanding technology such as better ships and guns. There can also be arguments made that it wasn’t. That guns don’t promise colonization. Perhaps something akin to old empires would’ve happened instead. Which isn’t always much better but is more contained.

Whether or not Russia as it exists at the size it is today is also up for debate. Some would argue it’s inevitable. Someone setting up shop in that exact spot has several flat weak points of land easy to invade from so any empire in that spot would find that the only way to protect themselves would be to own all of the land surrounding them. Then again, perhaps nothing is inevitable and that patch of land would be conquered and reconquered switching hands forever.

Alternate history is almost pure speculation. It’s fiction. A popular genre of fiction. You can probably find a book out there telling a story about this if you like.

[munstysmind]

WARNING/S: non-con, rape, loss of virginity, rough sex, rough vaginal sex, rough oral sex, rough anal sex, unprotected sex, multiple men, blood, assault, abuse, slavery, trauma, threats of forced prostitution, mentions of kidnapping/abduction, mentions of death, mentions or murder, mentions of injuries, mentions of suicide. If I’ve missed anything, please let me know.

DEAD DOVE, DO NOT EAT

THIS IS A DARK FIC, DO NOT READ IF THIS TYPE OF CONTENT TRIGGERS OR OFFENDS YOU.

You and you alone are responsible for what you choose to consume online.

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!

DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT GIVE PERMISSION FOR MY WORK TO BE USED IN ANY CAPACITY

Divider by @firefly-graphics

Thank you to @dragonsneversharetheirtreasure for being my ideas gremlin, and @themaradwrites for beta-ing. This wouldn’t have been written without your help.

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CH. 1 - THEIR REWARD

{54 BC}

Her heart pounds in her chest as she slowly walks down the hall towards the man she despises more than anything in this world.

Dominus Julius Fabius. Her owner. Her master.

She wishes she could stick him in the neck with a dagger and watch him bleed to death, just like all the men he condemns when he forces them into the arena.

He’s pure evil.

The kind of evil Orcus uses to make an example of. The God of punishment and the Underworld is going to have fun with her master when he passes into the afterlife.

She’s lost count of how long it’s been. Five years? Probably more, if she’s being honest with herself. She doesn’t even know who she is anymore.

Except her name.

Amina.

To everyone around her, she’s a thing. An object meant to do as she’s told. No exceptions.

She runs her finger along the cold iron bolted around her neck, her slave collar.

Thirty coins. That’s what he paid for her. She didn’t know you could put a price on someone’s life but that’s what hers was worth, thirty whole coins.

“There you are girl” he growls as he grabs her wrist tightly and drags her towards a door at the end of the hall “I’m in a right mind to give you a lashing for making me wait”

“I’m sorry, they… they wanted to make sure everything was perfect” she mumbles, keeping her eyes on the floor to help hide her tears as she recalls the looks of pity on the faces of the women who got her ready.

She knows they know what her Master’s plans are, and she suspects the reason they took so long was to keep her from her fate for as long as they possibly could.

“I don’t care. Those fighters in there won me a lot of denarii today. You’re going to let them do whatever they want to you. All. Night” her master tells her, getting so close to her she can feel his warm, vile breath across her face.

“I… I’ve never…” she stammers, her eyes going wide as she realises what he’s saying.

“I know. I know you’ve never laid with a man before, they checked you when I brought you. That’s why I chose you” he says, a smirk spreading across his face. “Maybe I should put you in the Lupanar and whore you out after they’ve broken you in. Gods know you’d make me a fortune”

It takes everything in her not to turn and run as fast as she can as she swallows down the bile rising in her throat.

It would be pointless though, there’s guards everywhere. She wouldn’t make it to the end of the hall before they caught her. She’d be guaranteed a lashing too, a public one at that. Just like Vesta.

“I mean it girl. You’re theirs tonight. I don’t care if it hurts… in fact, I want it to. A lot” he whispers, pulling out a small dagger and cutting one of the shoulders of her dress, exposing her breast.

He runs the dagger tip over her nipple, pressing it into the sensitive bud until it breaks the skin, making her let out a small whimper of pain.

“If you resist, or put up a fight, you’ll be punished, and it’ll be much worse than what they’re going to do” he growls before pushing her into the room.

She can’t help but flinch as the large wooden door is slammed in her face, the echo of the metal latch being closed ringing in her ears.

She just stands there, staring at it as she takes shuddery breaths.

She knows what’s about to happen. What she’s about to go through. And there’s nothing she can do about it.

She’s trapped.

Locked in a room with three blood covered fighters.

Their reward for winning their master 5000 coin.

She’s their prize.

“Turn around” a deep voice commands, making her jump.

She closes her eyes, praying to the Gods that she wakes up from this nightmare as she slowly turns around.

She sees the man the voice belongs to and her breath catches in her throat as she fights back tears.

He’s the one who killed her brother.

Champion gladiator August.

“Name” he growls, slowly approaching her with a look similar to the lions in the arena before they attack.

“Am… Amina” she stammers, stumbling back against the door as he towers over her.

She can smell death on him. The twang of iron, of blood. Was it her brothers?

Her stomach churns at the thought and she wants to be sick.

“Amina” he repeats “honest, faithful. Beautiful name for a beautiful woman”

Under any other circumstance she might have smiled and thanked him for his compliment, just like she was taught, but not this time. She just can’t.

“I like to know their names before I take what I want” he tells her with a smirk.

He remembers them, every name. All the women he’s taken this way. Amina’s the latest entry on his ever growing list.

He grabs her dress and tears it off her body, letting the fabric crumple to the floor.

She instinctively tries to cover herself, but he stops her, prying her hands away from her body before grasping her breasts and squeezing.

A grin spreads across his face as he continues to grope her, pinching and rolling her nipples tightly between his fingers, making her whimper in pain.

The noise makes him let out a low growl from deep in his chest and his eyes go dark, almost black.

Before she can fully register what’s happening, he grabs her by the back of her neck and yanks her towards the small table on the other side of the room, forcing her onto her back.

He takes her legs behind the knees and pushes them open, exposing her to not only him, but the other two men in the room who are now standing behind him and looking over his shoulder.

Her stomach churns as she stares at the ceiling, her face burning with embarrassment as she tries to think of anything to distract her from the way he’s inspecting her.

She bites back a whimper as he touches her, his fingers playing with her most intimate area before spreading it open.

He lets out a satisfied hum, a smirk spreading across his face when he sees she’s intact, just like their Master promised.

“I’ve never had a pure one before” he says, to no one in particular as he pinches the small bundle of nerves above her opening, making her gasp loudly.

“They’re my favourite. Oh, the noises they make” one of the other men says excitedly, much to August’s annoyance.

“She’s mine, Lloyd” he growls, glaring at the man before turning his attention back to her, really looking at her for the first time since she entered the room.

And as much as she tries to look away, to look anywhere but the face of the man that’s about to brutalise her, she can't. Her green, terror filled eyes just stare at him, transfixed.

He’s seen her eyes, and that look, before. He knows he has. There’s something so familiar about them and it takes him a minute to place it. The man he killed in the arena a mere hours before. Her brother.

“You’ve got his eyes” he tells her before turning his gaze back between her legs.

She’s so caught up in the flood of emotions at what he just said that she doesn’t notice his finger pushing into her until it’s too late.

She lets out a loud yelp at the sudden pain between her legs, her body instinctively trying to close her legs and move away from the beast of a man in front of her.

He lets out an angry growl and yanks her up by her arm, turning her around and bending her over the table with so much force all the air leaves her lungs when her chest makes contact with the wooden surface.

“Don’t move” he growls, kicking her legs apart with his feet.

She grips the edge of the table, so tightly her fingers hurt, as tears well in her eyes. She prays the talk of his stamina is wrong, that it will be over quickly.

But it won’t.

When he’s done with her, there’s two more waiting.

And they have her all night…

The sound of his armour dropping onto the ground behind her makes her heart pound.

It’s happening.

Right now.

She squeezes her eyes shut, trying her best to relax when she feels him prod at her again, but it doesn’t matter.

He snaps his hips forward and tears into her with force, pulling a scream of pain from her that makes him grin.

In all the beatings she’s gotten over the years, she’s never felt pain like this.

It’s like a searing hot poker being forced into her over and over as she’s split in two.

The tears in her eyes escape and spill onto the table as he thrusts into her, over and over and over again. It feels like the more she cries, the harder his thrusts become.

“Best one I’ve had yet” he grunts as he lays over her, pressing her against the table with his full body weight, and starts grinding into her, moaning loudly in her ear.

He’s enjoying this, getting pleasure out of hurting her. How can he not? He’s a sadistic bastard!

Little does she know she’s not the first woman he’s forced himself into. It’s the whole reason he’s stuck fighting in that gods forsaken arena in the first place. And unless he dies there, she won’t be the last.

“You’re mine now, gonna take you like this whenever I want” he pants, making her let out a loud sob at the thought of him doing this to her over and over.

It all becomes too much and her stomach churns as bile rises in her throat, burning it as she chokes and coughs it up.

His moans start becoming louder as he ruts into her hard, his hips slamming her body into the table over and over and over.

“Oh Gods!” he roars, moaning loudly as his hips stutter then still before he thrusts into her as hard as he can, filling her with a strange warmth.

He says something to her, but she doesn’t hear a word of it, unable to hear anything except the loud ringing in her ears.

She lets out a loud whimper as he pulls out of her before kneeling and pushing her legs wider, smirking at the blood mixed with his spend dripping out of her.

He catches some with his fingers and pushes them inside her, forcing it back into her as she lies on the table, her entire body shaking and twitching from shock as she takes shallow, gasping breaths.

“My turn” the second of the men says, all but pushing August out of the way before grasping her by her hair and pulling her to her feet, making her cry out.

He pushes her to her knees, making quick work of removing his armour as she glances behind him at August drinking wine from a goblet and sees the size of him for the first time, enough to make Priapus himself blush.

She looks back at the second man, terror spreading through her yet again as she comes face to face with his member.

She can’t tell if he’s bigger, but it doesn’t matter. He’s going to defile her the same way August did without a care for her.

He hooks his finger into her mouth and forces it open before pushing himself in until she starts to gag.

He holds onto the sides of her head and starts thrusting, hitting the back of her throat with each snap of his hips.

A smirk spreads across his face as he moves one of his hands to the back of her head and forces her down onto him, deep throating her.

He holds her there, moaning at the feeling of the muscles in her throat squeezing him as she chokes.

“We can’t kill her, Lloyd” August warns as she starts scratching at his legs, trying desperately to get air.

He lets out a growl as he pulls himself out of her mouth and slaps her hard across the face before grabbing it and pulling her to her feet.

“You’re going to pay for that” he hisses, manhandling her onto the small bed in the corner of the room.

He climbs on after her, roughly pulling her hips up and slamming into her from behind.

“Gods, I’ve not taken a woman this good in years” he moans, throwing his head back and gripping her hips tightly as he thrusts hard, spurred on by her cries.

“I wonder if her other hole’s just as good?” August says with a smirk, leaning against the table he just had her bent over.

“Let’s find out” Lloyd replies, spitting on her ass. He pulls out and lines himself up with her tiny puckered hole before pushing himself into her, moaning loudly at the muscles squeezing him tightly in an attempt to force him out.

She lets out a shriek of pain, her body going rigid as she tries, and fails, to get away from the man violating her in a way she didn’t think was possible.

He lets out an evil laugh and pushes her face into the bed as he starts thrusting, going out of his way to hurt her as much as he can.

The noises leaving him as he uses her body for his pleasure are burned into her mind as she prays to the Gods to take her and put an end to the indescribable pain coursing through her body.

He looks down at where he’s thrusting in and out of her and smirks proudly at the sight of blood.

“It’s even better” he grunts to August, gripping her hips so tightly his nails break her skin.

“I’ll have to try it next” August says, slowly stroking himself as he watches Lloyd pound into the woman at their mercy over and over again, moaning to himself at the sound of her cries.

Lloyd lifts her hips higher, thrusting as hard as he can into her at the new angle, turning her cries into screams with every snap of his hip.

He lets out a long moan, throwing his head back as he cums hard, filling her with the same strange warmth August did.

“Gods, I’m doing that again” he pants as he slowly pulls himself out of her bloody back passage before slapping her ass, making her yelp as she collapses into the bed.

“You’ll get your chance. It’s your turn, Nick” August says, getting the attention of the third man standing on the other side of the room.

Until now, he’s not paid much attention to the events happening in the small room, trying to drown out her cries and think of anything other than what he wants to do to her.

It’s wrong, he knows it’s wrong, but he doesn’t care. He wants her. And it’s his turn to take her.

He slowly walks towards her, removing his armour as he does before gently turning her over and climbing into the bed.

“No more… please” she begs quietly as he spreads her legs with his knees and settles between them.

Asking for mercy is useless, she knows that. All she is to them is an object to seek pleasure from, to defile.

The only thing she can do is close her eyes and brace herself for the pain as he slowly pushes in, a long moan leaving him as he fills her.

But when he starts to move, the pain doesn't come.

She opens her eyes and stares at him, confused, and scared, by what she's feeling.

Why doesn’t it hurt?

Why is it so different?

Why does it feel… nice?

“Gods” she gasps, her eyes fluttering shut as he starts to speed up, letting out a moan that drowns out the one that slips past her lips.

She has no idea what he’s doing differently to August and Lloyd but she prays he keeps doing it because it feels good, amazing even.

Her mind races as she tries to understand what’s happening. Why does she feel bad, so embarrassed and ashamed, when what’s happening right now feels so good?

He moves his hips faster, harder. The sound of skin slapping against skin filling the room as he gropes one of her breasts before pinching her nipple hard, pulling another moan from her.

He slowly glides his hand up her chest to around her neck, squeezing the sides. The sudden restriction of air makes her panic and start clawing at his hands, making him squeeze even more.

Her eyes roll back as a weird pressure builds between her legs, making whatever he’s doing to her feel even better.

It suddenly breaks, making her moan loudly as a pleasant burning sensation washes over her, before everything goes black…

VENERIS FILIA TAG LIST: @dragonsneversharetheirtreasure @themaradwrites @secretaryunpaid @pixie88 @aussieez @identity2212 @fanfics-r-us-official @km-ffluv @ktficworld @sillyrabbit81 @juliaorplI78 @kingliam2019 @thebejeweledwatercat @red-write-hand @queenzee27 @therockandaroll

[nikalaeva]

I'm so tired of "shadow daddies"

I'm not against this trope. Light and dark, the temptation of darkness/evil - it's a classic fantasy theme, and the contrast of "good girl" and "bad boy" in romance stories is attractive. It's my guilty pleasure. The problem is with authors who don't even try. Apparently, they all use same instruction:

Step 1 - dark hair, very pale or tanned, muscles and tattoos (to taste)

Step 2 - mysterious, gloomy, the most powerful and dangerous; shadows user

Step 3 - triple-digit age, but looks no older than 30

Step 4 - tragic past: scars/sexual abuse/slavery/all of it; family: an orphan/parents died early/brutally murdered

Step 5 - becomes a weakling because of the FMC, who was the only one in centuries to see his real personality.

Done. Gongratulations, you are mediocrity!

I swear if you put Rhysand, Azriel, Dorian, Xaden, Darkling, Casteel, Nyktos, Hades next to each other (these immediately come to mind, and there are others), you won't be able to tell them apart except by their looks, 'cause they are all handsome guys with shadow powers and, you know, "morally gray". Ugh 😮‍💨

You know what's most disappointing? Only these characters are written by six different authors. The lore in their books is DIFFERENT. But they all have the same magic. So in the world, where magic is more science than miracles, in worlds with fairies and dragons, and in worlds with gods and demons, they all use the same power?

You can say the darkness is the same throughout the universe. This is a fantasy, you know, another universe. The author knows that there are other characters with similar magic, but still does not use his brain to make his unique. Shadows always are scary, deadly and powerful, that's all. No flaws, no side effects, no specific weaknesses (to Leigh Bardugo's credit, the Darkling is the best shadow old fart). All aesthetics, no imagination (in fucking fantasy books).

Let the shadows feed on the soul, meaning their user will disappear after death. No afterlife, just emptiness.

Let the user get shadows from others, and when he take them, the people disappear. Not die - DISAPPEAR.

Let the user feed shadows on human flesh or virgins. Let them be parasites that reproduce like Alien - using humans as an incubator.

Let the shadows be jealous, not letting anyone near their master, and hurting even his woman 'cause she is the third wheel.

Let the shadows be at least a little UGLY, ABOMINABLE AND VICIOUS.

[notchainedtotrauma]

Long before the Negro child perceives this difference, and even longer before he understands it, he has begun to react to it, he has begun to be controlled by it. Every effort made by the child's elders to prepare him for a fate from which they cannot protect him causes him secretly, in terror, to begin to await, without knowing that he is doing so, his mysterious and inexorable punishment. He must be "good", not only to please his parents and not only to avoid being punished by them; behind their authority stands another, nameless and impersonal, infinitely harder to please, and bottomlessly cruel.

from Down at the Cross by James Baldwin

[eesirachs]

are there any other passages that depict an intimate, consuming relationship with god/a yearning for him like psalm 63? and what you do think of this one?

loving god is violent. it has appetite, this love. it ruins everything. it is everything. it makes everything good. i am thinking of abraham sacrificing his son the moment god utters the command (and yes, this sacrifice does happen, just not in a fleshy way). i am thinking of the song of songs, the bibles divine erotica. i am thinking of saul impaling himself the moment he realizes god will never love him again. i am thinking of hagar returning to slavery because god told her to. i am thinking of hagar refusing to watch her son die, not because god told her to. i am thinking of afterlife itself having a belly and a mouth. mostly, though, i am thinking of this: loving god means nursing the wounds he gives you

[the-witchhunter]

DP x DC: Custody

Do you know what ghosts are?

Okay you presumably have an idea of the concept, but are you aware of what ghosts are in the DC universe?

In DC, when you die, you tend to go where you think you should, with a couple notable exceptions. Your soul goes where you think it should.

A ghost is a soul that has not moved on to an afterlife, has escaped an afterlife(usually hell), or some force keeps them from moving on. The Ghost Zone? That’s just where souls that don’t have an afterlife to go to but don’t want to move on to Death’s domain

Selling your soul? That’s just giving custody of your ghost to someone, and they collect upon death. a bit more akin to selling yourself into future slavery, but you get the point

Tricky thing is only one being can collect on a soul/ghost and upon death John Constantine has some pissed of Demons ready to collect

That’s going to be one hell of a custody battle, and Danny counts as a neutral third party since he doesn’t belong to a specific afterlife

He can already feel the headache