#and eluding to male rape

[beirarowling]

No, JK Rowling is not a Holocaust denier

The LGBT lobby has found yet another sickening way to attack JK Rowling. Trans-activist bullies, who so often delight in sending death and rape threats to the Harry Potter author, are now suggesting she is a Holocaust denier. It should go without saying that this is an absurd and defamatory slur. It is also one that’s being increasingly employed against anyone who dares to question the trans lobby’s latest attempt to rewrite history.

Rowling was accused of Holocaust denial last week, after she wrote a post on X that doubted claims that the Nazis made trans people a specific target for genocide. This argument is part of a wider attempt by activists to place trans people at the centre of the Holocaust. But the truth is that they weren’t. At least, not in any meaningful sense.

Digging into these claims, I soon discovered that activist historians have been sewing together a patchwork story of an alleged trans ‘genocide’ that is breathtakingly misleading. In fact, their entire narrative is built on only a handful of trans victims. Crucially, most of these victims were also Jewish or homosexual.

In response to Rowling’s comments, Pink News published an article claiming that ‘the persecution of trans people by the Nazis was devastating’. The proof for this? The names of five trans victims. What Pink News fails to disclose is that three of these people actually survived the war and fortunately lived to a ripe old age. One victim – Liddy Bacroff, who was arrested as a male prostitute – did sadly die in a concentration camp. Another, Gerd R, took his own life.

Take the case of Gerd R, one of the victims mentioned by Pink News. Gerd was a married, heterosexual man who had a history of crossdressing. He was arrested multiple times for public indecency after his neighbours grew tired of finding him hiding naked in their communal bins. He was later rescued from a concentration camp by the intervention of his doctor, who pointed out that he was heterosexual. This action saved his life and he was moved to a mental institution. There, Gerd took his own life.

Gerd’s fate was tragic. But it is almost certain that he would have ended up in an asylum for this behaviour anywhere across Europe at that time. The idea that a non-Jewish, heterosexual man like Eddie Izzard would without question have been murdered when Gerd R was not is fanciful, self-serving nonsense.

Another victim, Gerd Kubbe, a woman who identified as a man, had a very close brush with the authorities. In 1938, she was arrested for wearing men’s clothes and sent to a concentration camp. But a few months later, she was released and permitted to dress as she liked and to adopt the gender-neutral name of Gerd. One ‘queer’ historian admits that ‘police at first reacted harshly but later showed surprising leniency’. Even gay transvestite Fritz Kitzing, who was repeatedly arrested for soliciting, was sent to join the army rather than killed in a concentration camp. Kitzing survived the war and ran an antique shop until the 1990s.

So far, the mixed fortunes of the handful of named trans victims suggest that it was entirely possible to be ‘trans’ and elude persecution. If you were heterosexual, considered ‘Aryan’, followed the rules on public crossdressing and avoided prostitution or public indecency, you at least had a chance of surviving the brutal regime. No such leniency was afforded to the Nazis’ key targets, like Jews or disabled people, who were ruthlessly sought out for elimination.

When trans activists describe this truth-telling as ‘Holocaust denial’, they do a disservice to all Holocaust victims – including the few trans victims who really did suffer at the hands of an evil regime for their other characteristics. We must resist this blatant rewriting of history and the trans appropriation of the Holocaust.

[fuckyeah-hetalia]

Status: Incomplete (last updated 28 December 2023)

Summary:

Serial killers Alfred and Matthew just want to elude capture and remain free to commit their ghastly crimes. The arrival of a new killer into their New York territory gets them noticed by some of the area's nastiest organizations and their comfortable life is harshly shaken.

Chapters: 14/? Words: 17,870

Creator: Delgumo

Fandoms: Hetalia: Axis Powers

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage

Categories: Multi

Relationships: America/Canada, America/Russia, Canada/Russia, America/England, Lithuania/Poland

Characters: America, Canada, Russia, England, Lithuania, Poland, Austria, Hungary, Male Hungary, Cuba, France, North Italy, South Italy, Ireland

Tags: Serial Killers, Necrophilia, Sibling Incest, Drug Use, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Rape, Assassins & Hitmen, Slurs, Unrequited Love, Bestiality, Animal Death, Organized Crime, Masturbation, Genital Piercing

[lollytruecrimeworld]

The Beast of Farley Mount

A violent predator never identified

The “Farley Mount Rapist” is an unidentified English serial rapist who has committed at least 5 sex attacks at gunpoint on women in Winchester between 1991 and 1998 that we know of. This is Hampshire’s longest-running unsolved serial rape investigation, codenamed Operation Kayak. He has now eluded capture for 30 years.

The dark, unknown perpetrator was nick-named by the press due to all of his violent attacks taking place around Farley Mount, a beauty spot with an unusual monument on a mound in the middle of the Hampshire countryside.

Farley Mount is a popular area with dog walkers and naturalists. After hours of darkness, it is now a popular ‘dogging’ site. In the 1990’s it was a popular area frequented by courting lovers and it was them that were subjected to horrendous attacks by the depraved individual, who to date has never been identified.

Unsuspecting lovers would park in the car park and be subjected to frighteningly vicious attacks by a maniac armed with a gun when they least expected it.

The evil perpetrator always struck at night under the cover of darkness, where he would target couples in cars on isolated, quiet country roads. He would begin the attacks by acting as if he intended to rob them at gunpoint, then having gained entry to a car he tied up his victims, and forced the male into the boot of the car.

He then proceeded to abduct the female in his S registered long wheel-based Land Rover drive them away and rape them before dumping them somewhere isolated.

There is no obvious preference in age groups targeted by the monster, just that he always attacked innocent courting couples. Most of them were most likely late teens to early 20s as that was the typical age for courting couples looking to enjoy some late-night passion and solitude in what they presumed to be dark isolated areas.

The monster is described as:

5ft 8 to 6 feet tall, described as taller than average. He was aged between his late 20s to 30s, medium/stocky build with short, dark brown, wavy hair. He always wore either a black ski mask or a balaclava with his hood up. He was also described as of scruffy appearance and wore either black or surgical gloves. No obvious accent was ever identified.

He had a blue/grey shoulder bag or cream satchel which contained black quarter-inch plastic ties and two-inch wide, silver masking tape along with a black Maglite torch

During the sexual attacks, he always wore a condom and always reassured victims that he just intended to rob them before launching a vile attack on the female.

Victims of the Farley Mount Rapist

Attack 1 took place on 25th January 1991

A couple, both aged 23 years old were in their car at Beech Clump car park when a masked attacker with a handgun pulled the passenger door open demanding cash.

He proceeded to tie them up using a seatbelt and plastic garden ties. He put plastic bags over both of their heads before launching a vile sexual assault on the female. When his attack was over, the victims say that their attacker removed the plastic bags from their heads and calmly strolled off into the night.

Attack 2 took place on 3rd November 1992

10 months later, a 20-year-old female and her 23-year-old married boyfriend were cuddling in a Renault in Spindle Trees car park at 10:30 pm.

They were subjected to an attack where a torch was suddenly shone through the window before the door was pulled open and a hooded man in a black ski mask with a handgun demanded money.

The couple were both forced to kneel in the back seat of their car. The 23-year-old male was tied up and forced to get into the boot of the car. His 20-year-old girlfriend was stripped from the waist down, and had masking tape wrapped around her head “like a mummy”.

The attacker carried her to his ‘Land Rover-type car, where she was assaulted and then driven around country lanes for around 45 minutes before stopping his vehicle at an empty building.

She was then carried up two flights of stairs just inside the front door of the building and taken to a room upstairs with a single bed where he then raped her twice. Whilst being raped, she recalled hearing a refrigeration unit running but couldn’t be sure whether it was in or near the building.

He then tied her up again, and took her to his vehicle, drove around for another 30 minutes before dumping her 10 miles away in a layby near the village of Cheriton.

After the monster drove off the victim managed to bang on the door of a nearby house just before 1 am and begged the 40-year-old male householder, Jim McNab for help. Jim McNab said, “the female was standing on my doorstep in a terrible state”. The boyfriend was found by police still tied up in the boot of the car.

Attack 3 on 29th November 1994

Slightly over 2 years later, a couple was in Forest View car park, when their attack started. A man knocked on their car window waving a gun and demanding money. They gave him money through a crack in the window but then he told them to open their door. The attacker snatched their car keys and the boyfriend made a rapid movement to get out of the car. The attacker fled to his vehicle and raced away.

Attack 4 happened on 22nd April 1996

17 months later two teenagers, a female aged 16 and a male aged 18, presumed to be a couple, were in Hawthorn’s car park when the attacker struck.

He was described as wearing a balaclava and had his hood pulled up over his head. He flung the car door open and shoved a gun in their faces, demanding cash.

The couple were then tied up with the female’s handbag put over the male’s head. The female was taped around the head with masking tape and marched to a nearby vehicle and driven out past Sparsholt where the attacker sexually assaulted her before dumping her by the road.

Detectives did question a 40-year-old man in regard to the attack but he was released without further action being taken.

Reports were made on 16th June 1996 of a man in the Thicket Bottom, Rowlands Castle area stripped to the waist and wearing camouflage trousers had been seen hanging around in the woods. He was never found.

Attack 5 came on 17th June 1996

A 16-year-old female was abducted and attacked whilst out for a walk with her 28-year-old boyfriend.

The attacker who was armed with a handgun and a long-bladed hunting knife passed the couple walking in the opposite direction. The attacker turned, produced his weapons and grabbed the female at gunpoint. He subjected her to a 60-minute ordeal in woods near Havant, Hampshire.

The boyfriend trailed them through the woods in the best way he could at a discreet distance but after losing sight of them he ran to a house near the woods at Thicket Bottom, Rowland’s Castle, Havant.

He was able to alert police that his girlfriend had been snatched whilst they were out for a walk and they immediately launched a search of the woodland area just north of Havant.

Armed officers searched the entire area with the assistance of a helicopter equipped with thermal imaging cameras and sniffer dogs. The young female was found in a distressed state still in the company of her attacker about an hour later. The attacker fled through the trees and managed to give the police the slip.

The female ran towards the police sobbing, it is not known if she was injured. This happened during the evening but it was still daylight. This case was considered to possibly be linked to the Farley Mount rapes.

Officers surrounded a house in Leigh Park, Havant at 3 am on the 19th of June, they raided the house and arrested a local man who was questioned at Havant police station. A police spokesperson said a gun and knife were found during a search of the house. He was later released with no further action.

Attack 6 came on 28th May 1998 — A failed attempt

A couple both aged 19 years old were in Spindle Trees car park between 10:30 pm and 11:22 pm, an attacker tried the door handle of their car. Before he could demand any cash from them, the male started the car engine and drive off, leaving the attacker standing alone.

Final possible attempted attack 2002

A man reported that he believed he and his girlfriend had been targeted by the beast at the beauty spot. He managed to scare the attacker and the attacker fled.

The intended victims heard the man drive off and decided to follow him. They witnessed him at the wheel of an S registration Series Three Land Rover with a canvas roof. A 40-year-old man was arrested later that year, but due to a lack of hard evidence, no prosecution was brought against him.

These seem to be the only recorded cases thought to be linked to the beast of Farley Mount. There were no further reported attacks, what happened to this dangerous individual? Judging by his description he would be around 60 years old now. Why did the attacks happen? More to the point how did they stop just as quickly?

I would like to dig deeper into this investigation, there has to be more to it. Where did the man get the weapons? What happened to the vehicle? Quite an unusual vehicle to be running around Hampshire, was it maybe used by a farm or country house gardener?

If you would like to discuss this case or any aspect of my work with me, I would love to hear from you. If you enjoy my work and would be willing to Buy Me A Coffee please click here.

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Email me: Lolly-truecrime@protonmail.com

or

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[adultswim2021]

NOTE: Eagle-eyed viewers might recognize this post from a couple nights ago. That’s because I fucked up and wrote up the wrong episode by mistake. So I’m reposting it as to not disgrace the continuity of my blog. Please scroll down for a brand new Ephemera Corner and a slightly larger-sized Mail Bag.

Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! #8: “Hamburger” | April 7, 2007 - 11:45PM | S01E08

A serious contender for favorite Awesome Show episode ever, a near-flawless show that is actually weirdly cohesive; almost “one thing”; like Ice Haven by Daniel Clowes or something like that.

The plot of this episode is basically that Tim & Eric haven’t turned the episode of the show in yet, and we’re watching a live feed of them trying to rush the episode to Adult Swim. This begins with a fake bumper. Not since Sealab 2021 have we been treated to the fake bumper shtick. I think. I don’t know how to check this. Sorry. The “live feed” is very obviously not actually live, because we see obvious edits and even a little bit of reversed footage of Neil Hamburger being disgusting.

Neil Hamburger! I love Neil Hamburger so much. I first got into Neil Hamburger… I forget how. I think one of the VERY VERY VERY few cool people in Redding, CA told me about him. I have two of his early albums, and a couple of DVDs of his. I have that first one where he’s not doing the voice. I got to see him live circa 2005 in San Francisco. He told a joke where he exhaustively described Ronald McDonald coming home and murdering his entire family, including his wife, his son, and his dog. Q. Why did Ronald McDonald murder his family [told in lengthy beat-by-beat detail]? A. Because he found some of the Colonel’s secret herbs and spices in his wife’s panties. A pathetic punchline, but the entire room was howling at the set-up for what felt like forever. Maybe the best comedy show I’ve ever been to?

Tim & Eric call a cab, and it’s Neil Hamburger, who is announced with an extended title card during the opening. They must rush to Adult Swim headquarters to deliver their tape. But Neil is surly and uses bad manners on them. There are lots of wonderful moments between them, like when Neil calls them rapists unprompted. When they protest to being called rapists he shoots back “then don’t rape.” I literally think about this maybe once a day in traffic. If I get mad at a fellow driver and I’m feeling jocular, I’ll shout “you rapist!” in a Neil Hamburger voice. But thaaaat’s my life.

There are typical Awesome Show skits and bits, but nearly all of them fold back into the ending or set something up that happens later. Example: a promo for the Uncle Muscles Grand Championships is very funny on it’s own (Channel 5 logo in flames with the subtitle “on Five’r” is so hilarious), and it also sets up the ending of the episode.

Tim and Eric wind up caught in a traffic jam, caused by a car crash. Two men argue with each other over who caused the accident, and decide to settle it by having their little pocket monsters fight each other; one has a Tim and one has an Eric, both in red jumpsuits. They have a dance off and Tim is declared the winner (the footage of them dancing in these red jumpsuits is repurposed for the opening of Awesome show). Eric’s male owner punishes Eric by squashing him to death with his foot. Tim is allowed to climb up into his owner’s breast pocket and do an insane dance while making disgusting noises.

Then we cut to Michael Q. Schmidt and his companion (an actor that I don’t think ever recurred on the show, even though he has a great look and voice). Michael Q. is looking through his yoo-hoo stick (or “telescope” to those of you who aren’t stateside) at Tim’s dance. We soon learn through dialogue Michael Q. is dancing in the Uncle Muscles Grand Championships, and may be underprepared. Michael Q. teases that he’s got an idea, heavily implied that he’s going to use Tim’s dance. This bit of set-up completely eluded me in the first few viewings of this episode. I remember exclaiming this revelation to my friend who was watching it with me, as he often did. He too never realized this, and we had ourselves a little mitzvah over it.

Finally Tim & Eric Make it to Adult Swim headquarters (with a very fun miniature or computer-generated building or some combination of) and toss the tape inside. As it slowly makes its way into the tape machine, they lament that they forgot to rewind it. So it plays the ending of the show: the tail end of Casey and his brother performing “Chop Suey” (using footage from an old promo they shot). Uncle Muscles (Weird Al) throws to Michael Q. Schmidt, completely nude, performing “Raise My Roof”, clearly inspired by Tim’s little goblin/pocket dance. Cut to Uncle Muscles, Casey, and his Brother, all speechless. CUE CREDITS: which is inexplicably the Curb Your Enthusiasm theme. I remember crying laughing at this when it happened. I’m a casual admirer of Curb and not quite a devotee, so the fact that they were using Curb-style music cues throughout the whole episode sorta eluded me.

Another great thing worth mentioning is that Tim & Eric’s stupid little songs in this are so fun. They love to take little moments to themselves to celebrate minor accomplishments and it’s very charming. A very good idea for a kind of guy to be. When in a hurry to make a flight or other appointment I’ve been known to keep my spirits up by singing the little “we’re gonna make it” song.

There are roughly three bits in the entire show that don’t really have to do with this throughline, and they are:

A quick “Where’s my Chippy” bit, set at a claw machine being operated by a small boy. This is my favorite one of these, I think. Doug Lussenhop plays the boy and he has a Chippy-esque pube-stache. He’s so weird-looking in this. It’s… unforgettable.

A prank phone call where Tim calls a tech support company because a uke fell on his laptop and now he can’t check his sites. There’s some very funny turns of phrase in this, and the cut away from the animated call to actual camera footage of Tim performing the call is so fun. It is, dare I say it? Irresistible. Tim notes on the commentary (recorded shortly after this season was completed, if memory serves) that this is probably the final prank phone call of the series. This is a good one to go out on. These can be funny, and have funny things in them, but making them be prank phone calls is pointless, because it’s almost never really about the reaction.

A very strong, very funny Steve Brule segment where he presents his investigative report about diarrhea. He has a chart showing every day he got the runs, and really says nothing of use about the topic. When Jan and Wayne notice a different color square on one of the days that month, Steve sheepishly admits that it was his birthday. Jan and Wayne rib him for not letting them know it was his birthday and go into a spirited birthday song while steve basks in the love with a dumb little smile. The sketch ends with what’s assumed to be a stock photo that in-universe Channel 5 graphics department scrambled to find: Jan and Wayne holding a birthday cake that has Wayne’s name on it. It’s such a hilarious detail, making this maybe my favorite Awesome Show Brule bit of all time.

I’m almost certain this is my favorite episode of season one. For Goddamn sure.

EPHEMERA CORNER:

Poolside Chats with Neil Hamburger (Interview with Tim & Eric, January 15, 2007)

You remember Tom Green? Ottawa public-access host turned Canadian basic cable host turned MTV host turned filmmaker turned internet television pioneer? His online show was a nightly talk show that broadcast live out of his house, where he’d built a swanky late night set. There we some seriously wonderful and experimental moments on that show, as well as some very memorable trainwrecks. I was really into it for a short period of time, but would check in from time to time after that. Tom would have Neil Hamburger on frequently and eventually gave him his own spin-off show. The first episode, if I remember correctly, was an unmitigated disaster, with Neil breaking character several times.

This episode features Tim & Eric taking calls from racist teens. This is also the first appearance of rascals anywhere, which we’ll see next episode. Great fucking internet television. Needs to be in a museum.

MAIL BAG

Okay, to make up for the fact that by mixing up Tim & Eric episodes I’ve basically weaseled my way into *sorta* taking a night off, I’m gonna just answer every mail I have in my bag. Which may or may not result in a super-sized Mail Bag. I don’t wanna advertise that I’m doing this to the three people who are clearly my friends anonymously sending me stuff to mock me for doing a thing “for readers”, because they might go TOO nuts and make a point to send a lot to punish me.

You wrote Simpsons Night, right? Great blog, sad to see it end so abruptly because you had a fight with Disney+. Anywhoozle, how does your favorite Tim and Eric bit stack up against your favorite Simpsons bit (which I believe from reading the blog you said it was the Robotic Richard Simmons).

Thanks Nick. Anyway: That blog is not quite dead (lol Monty Python so funny... a bit UN-PC THOUGH!!!! AM I RIGHT?????). How dare you. Lotta Christmases have been happening lately so I’ve not had time to luxuriate in my various blogs. I’ll do another Simpsons soon.

I think the sad truth is that The Simpsons’ effects are waning on me, and I tend to see those great, incredible, ingenious jokes as a soothing balm. Tim & Eric are sorta the same way, but I’ve watched these episodes a fraction of the amount of time I’ve watched The Simpsons. But I’ve already begun thinking up more inane “watching the Simpsons” projects. I can’t get enough of those funny families.

I think Tim & Eric taps into a vein of humor that I ultimately prefer, which is stuff that is funny for reasons you can’t fully comprehend at first. You know what I mean? Anyway, my idea is that this time I watch the episodes by production code, but I alphabetize the production codes, so I actually start with season 10

neil hamburger must have freaked some people out in 2007

Okay: see, I already talked about the episode mix-up, otherwise I would have not used this Mail Bag on this post. If I were being truty deceitful, I would have pretended this Mail Bag came in later, and attach it to tomorrow’s post instead. Anyway: I cherish Neil Hamburger and we all should cherish him. Let’s get all his television appearances together in a bittorrent, stat!

Which Jackass parody do you like better: Tim and Eric's Dumbellz or PodcastAboutList's Prankass?

I’m assuming you left out Kenny Rogers’ Jackass because it’s too clear of a winner. Anyway, I know nothing about Prankass and am in fact a very casual fan of those guys. I’ve only heard a couple episodes of that show and watched the Jollibee video a few times. I gotta get with it. Prankass is probably much better.

You couldn't do the jokes Neil Hamburger did today

Yeah you can

What do you think of this: cheese sticks coated in italian breadcrumbs, fried until they are hot and melty on the inside, dunked into your favorite marinara or spaghetti sauce. It's an appetizer. Interested?

The idea of dipping these guys in marinara has never appealed to me. I have a weird thing against mixing tomato and cheese. Something about it seems sinful. I avoid pizza for this reason. Denny’s cheese sticks are perfect, and their chicken fingers used to be perfect, but then they changed them, and they are merely “alright”. I can’t find anything that compares.

Will we ever have another funny comedy duo like Tim and Eric again? Hayes and Sean? Those two guys who fucked off to work for Jimmy Fallon? Jeremy and Rajat? Daniels? Please don't say Daniels I hate that fucking movie.

I remember one time, Jimmy Kimmel had on a duo named like Ant and Dek, and I was like “huh, okay, who are theeeeeese guys” (getting ready to laugh because duos are tried and true) and then they get to talkin’, right, and it turns out they were just like normal-ass British television presenters that are hugely famous in England but not here, and Jimmy kept having to remind the audience that they were big stars, and they didn’t say anything funny because they weren’t really comedians at all. (not sure what my point was so...) anyway, all that stuff I said should be illegal.

[catspouse]

I use this blog mostly for wife posting, but I'd like to add that committing cunnilingus was significantly less socially acceptable than committing fellatio.

See Martial 3.81:

Quid cum femineo tibi, Baetice Galle, barathro?

Haec debet medios lambere lingua viros.

Abscisa est quare Samia tibi mentula testa,

Si tibi tam gratus, Baetice, cunnus erat?

Castrandum caput est: nam sis licet inguine Gallus,

Sacra tamen Cybeles decipis: ore vir es.

My English translation (few by real scholars are available for uh, obvious reasons — Roman invective was often left untranslated historically because of its content):

What is a woman’s pit to you, Baeticus Gallus?

That tongue of yours ought to lick cock

Then why were your nuts cut off with a Samian shard,

if for you, Baeticus, cunt's so pleasing

Castrate your head: for even though your groin’s a Gallus,

you elude Cybele’s rituals: your mouth’s a man.

The idea behind this poem is that it's a gallus's role (a gallus being one of the priests of Cybele who occupied a role between male and female in Roman society, often contentiously) to be submissive to men. But even for these people for whom it's permissable to suck dick or take it up the ass, cunnilingus was unacceptable and worthy of a whole ass invective poem. Martial wrote a few other poems where the punchline was that a woman wanted her pussy ate. He was an asshole.

I bring this up because it really highlights how misogynistic Roman sexual customs were. There's this aspect of top vs. bottom with respect to men, but women are always below that; any act that pleasures only a woman is disgusting. Being a bottom was wrong and gross because it was emasculating; it was womanly. These customs exist within the framework of misogyny.

It's also an aspect of their culture that reinforces hierarchy and power. On the end of hierarchy, it's very clear that Roman sexual customs create one — men who penetrate on top, women and men (often slaves) who are penetrated, and then people who perform oral sex below that (considered unclean — there's a Martial poem where the punchline is that a man gets orally raped instead of anally raped.) Roman society was extremely hierarchical — especially in the mid empire when Martial was writing — so obviously this bled into sexual customs. The penetration of another man, then, robs him of his power. It's why rumors of Julius Caesar's passivity or the invective of Catullus 16 (best poem to get Latin class clout btw) were so effective — it's basically robbing these men of power.

So, in the end, it is very gendered, and it's all about power. Maybe people outside of the political elite were more normal about gender (we think this may be the case about the galli given that their model Attis was popular), but I'm unfortunately not that educated about archaeology and Roman graffiti.

For further reading, I would suggest Roman Homosexuality (1996), but it's an extraordinarily graphic book that I'd advise discretion for. There was an article I read about sexual hierarchy awhile ago that I can dig up, but I don't remember the name.

been reading cicero's rant about words being given obscene meanings and i don't think i've ever seen a latin sentence that made me burst into such immediate and violent laughter before

[manwalksintobar]

Speech for an Antidraft Rally, DC, March 22, 1980  // Denise Levertov

 As our planet swings and sways into its new decade under the raped moon’s weary glance,

I’ve heard the voices of high-school kids on the bus home to the projects, of college students ( some of them female, this time ) in the swimmingpool locker room, saying,

‘If there’s a war--’ ‘If there’s a war--’ ‘I don’t want to get drafted but if there’s a war I’ll go’--’If there’s a war I’d like to fight’ ‘If there’s a war‘ I’ll get pregnant’ Bomb Tehran’--‘Bomb Moscow’ I heard them say. 

Ach! They’re the same ones, male and female, who ask, Which came first, Vietnam or Korea? What was My Lai? The same kids who think Ayatollah Khomeini’s a, quote, ‘Commie’. Who think World War Two was fought against, quote, ‘Reds’, namely Hitler and some Japs. 

No violence they’ve seen on the flickering living-room screen familiar since infancy or the movies of adolescent dates, the dark so much fuller of themselves, of each other’s presence than of history (and the history anyway twisted--not that they have a way to know that)--       the dark       vibrant with themselves, with warm breath,       half suppressed mirth, the wonder       of being alive, terrified, entranced       by sexual fragrance each gives off       among popcorn, clumsy       gestures, the weird       response of laughter when on that screen       death’s happening, Wow, unreal, and people       suffer, or dream aloud... None of that spoon-fed violence prepares them. The disgusting horror of war eludes them. They think they would die for something they call America, vague, as true dreams are not; something they call freedom, the Free World, without ever knowing what freedom means, what torture means, what relative means. They are free to spray the walls with crude assertions--numbers, pathetic names; free to disco to disagree--if they're in school-- with the professor. Great. They don’t know that’s not enough, they don’t know ass from elbow, blood from ketchup, that knowledge is kept from them, they’ve been taught to assume if there’s a war there’s also a future, they know not only nothing, in their criminally neglected imaginations, about the way war always meant not only dying but killing not only killing but seeing not only your buddy dying but your buddy in the act of killing, not nice, not only your buddy killing but the dying of those you killed yourself, not always quick, and not always soldiers. 

Yes, not only do draft-age people mostly not know how that kind of war’s become almost a pastoral compared to new war, the kind in which they may find themselves ( while the usual pinkfaced men, smoothshaved, overfed, placed in power by the parents of those expendable young, continue to make the decisions they are programmed for) but also

they know nothing at all about radiation nothing at all about lasers nothing at all about the bombs the Pentagon sits on like some grotesque chicken caged in its nest and fed cancerous hormones, exceed and exceed and exceed Hiroshima, over and over and over, in weight                                                         in power                                                         in horror                                                         of genocide.                          When they say ‘If there’s a war, I’ll go,’ they don’t know they would be going to kill                                         themselves,                                          their mamas and papas,                                           brothers and sisters,                                             lovers. When they say, ‘If there’s a war, I’ll get pregnant,’          they don’t seem to know                                        that war would destroy that baby. When they say, ‘I’d like to fight,’                                          for quote, ‘freedom’,                                          for quote, the ‘Free World,’                                          for quote, ‘America,’-- for whatever they think they’d be fighting for,                      those children,                            those children with braces on their teeth,                                 fears in their notebooks,                                     acne on their cheeks,                                         dreams in their                                                 inarticulate hearts                  whom the powerful men at their desks                  designate as the age group suitable for registration, they don’t know they’d be fighting very briefly, very successfully, quite conclusively, for the destruction of this small lurching planet, this confused lump of rock and soil, ocean and air, on which our songs, cathedrals, gestures of faith and splendor have grown like delicate moss, and now may or may not survive the heavy footsteps of our inexcusable ignorance, the chemical sprays of our rapacious idiocy, our minds that are big enough to imagine love, imagine peace, imagine community – but may not be big enough to learn in time how to say no.                         My dear fellow-humans, friends, strangers who would be friends if there were time-- let us make time, let us unite to say NO to the drift to war, the drift to take it care of little disasters by making a big disaster and then the last disaster,                           from which no witness will rise, no seeds. Let us unite to tell all we have learned about old fashioned war's vomit and shit, about new fashioned war's abrupt end to all hope-- unite to tell what we know to the wholebodied young, unwitting victims lined up ready already like calves at the pen for slaughter; share what we know, until no more young voices talk of ‘If there's a war,’ but all say No, and again, no to the draft, and no to war, and no to the sacrifice of anyone's blood to the corporate beast that dreams it can always somehow save its own skin.                              Let our different dream, and more than dream, our acts of constructive refusal generate struggle. And love. We must dare to win not wars, but a future in which to live.  

[ao3feed-usukus]

Sunder

read it on AO3 at https://ift.tt/iwRDYJ4 by Delgumo Serial killers Alfred and Matthew just want to elude capture and remain free to commit their ghastly crimes. The arrival of a new killer into their New York territory gets them noticed by some of the area's nastiest organizations and their comfortable life is harshly shaken. Words: 4752, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English Fandoms: Hetalia: Axis Powers Rating: Explicit Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage Categories: Multi Characters: America (Hetalia), Canada (Hetalia), Russia (Hetalia), England (Hetalia), Poland (Hetalia), Lithuania (Hetalia), Austria (Hetalia), Hungary (Hetalia), Male Hungary (Hetalia), Cuba (Hetalia), France (Hetalia) Relationships: America/Canada (Hetalia), America/Russia (Hetalia), Canada/Russia (Hetalia), America/England (Hetalia), Lithuania/Poland (Hetalia) Additional Tags: Serial Killers, Necrophilia, Sibling Incest, Drug Use, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Rape, Assassins & Hitmen, Slurs, Unrequited Love, Bestiality, Animal Death, Organized Crime read it on AO3 at https://ift.tt/iwRDYJ4

[matrotas-muse-hub]

Elias Cage

*DISCLAIMER: Elias Cage is an antihero at best, broadly viewed by most as a villain. He is a wanted criminal and revolutionary who has killed dozens in his pursuit of justice. While Elias tries to avoid collateral damage, his hands are not exclusively stained with guilty blood, though he may delude himself in thinking otherwise. Roleplays involving Elias will likely include darker themes, including some potentially triggering subjects. I will always treat such subjects with caution and respect. While it should be a given, I will reiterate here that mun =/= muse, and I do not fully condone any of Elias’s actions.

CHARACTER BIO

Name: Elias Cage

Title(s): The Mad Gentleman, the Blue-Blooded Butcher, previously the Gentleman Thief, and, depending on timeline, Chief Arcano-Archaeologist

Age: 48

Languages: Common, Draconic, Sign Language, Elvish, and Dwarvish

Birthday: March 2nd

Species: Human

Gender: Male

Pronouns: He/him

Sexual Orientation: Heterosexual

Profession: Revolutionary, Chief Arcano-Archaeologist (depending on timeline)

Physical Details:

Hair: Gray

Eyes: Brown, red in some lightings

Skin: White

Height: 5'11"

Weight: 190

Tattoos / Scars: Several scars decorate his body from blade wounds, as well as a tattoo over his heart depicting a dragon’s head encircled by various runes.

Special Items: Ring from his first marriage, as well as a gem-encrused cane he uses to channel his magic.

Physical Capabilities:

Strength: Fit, but not necessarily athletic. Elias’s power comes from his magic, not his brawn.

Dexterity: Elias is quite good with his hands, and he’s been known to escape restraints before.

Hardiness: With the aid of his magic, he is quite difficult to injure. However, if he were to be caught off-guard, he’s no tougher than your average man.

Weapons: The ancient draconic magic he employs is his primary weapon, though he does occasionally bring a sword with him if his target is an especially personal one.

Mental Capabilities:

Intelligence: Elias can be considered nothing short of a genius. Not only has he eluded capture for years after killing several important nobles, he had fended off multiple would-be heroes who came for his head.

Wisdom: Elias has a very specific, pessimistic worldview. He is jaded by the truths he has uncovered, and he is not generally receptive to having his perspective challenged. He views most people like fools, and he views nearly any authority figure as a filthy animal.

Charisma: Elias is not only a revolutionary, but also a leader. He has convinced many to join his cause, uniting to expose the truth of corruption in the nobility. Many people have been swayed by his impassioned speeches, sometimes even including those who have been sent by those in power to kill him.

Supernatural Capabilities:

Draconic Magic: Elias has extensively studied the magic of the ancient dragon race, sometimes heralded as being the very creators of magic themselves(depends on setting). This magic allows him to summon spectral scales to defend his body, unleash powerful breath attacks of differing elements, manifest a dragon’s aura of fear, and occasionally summon a phantom draconic limb to deliver an overwhelming physical blow.

Illusion Magic: Elias used illusory magic quite extensively during his time as the Gentleman Thief. It allowed him to quiet his movement, hide his form, and deceive those who guarded the valuables of his various targets.

Elias Cage’s Backstory

TRIGGER WARNING / Suicide mention, rape mention

Elias Cage was a simple vintner, originally. Born of commoners, he was content to seek a job in wine as he once dreamed of being a part of high society. He was only in the business for a short time before he met Jacqueline, the love of his life and the daughter of a local vineyard owner. Infatuated, Elias courted Jacqueline, a somewhat rough but charismatic and beautiful woman who reciprocated the poor vintner’s feelings. It was only a couple years after they met that they were engaged and subsequentially married. To the happy couple, life was a dream.

Out of idle curiosity to improve his craft, Elias did some study into magic, wondering if there was a way he could use it to improve the value of the vineyard’s grapes and his own wine. He saw some progress in this, and eventually Elias’s wine caught the attention of the local nobility.

Gideon Conwell was the son of Duke Hammond Conwell, the lord of the Duchy Jacqueline and Elias lived within. After acquiring a taste for Elias’s wine, Gideon would visit Elias’s winery often, chatting with both him and his wife. The duke’s son often made comments praising Jacqueline’s ‘rustic beauty,’ comments that the couple wrote off as the type of flattering those in high society frequently used. But they were wrong.

It was a night when Elias was gone to transport goods, Jacqueline was overseeing the winery alone. Gideon visited the winery, forcing himself upon Jacqueline. When Elias eventually returned from his trip, he found his wife incredibly unwell, bruises covering her body and her eyes betraying a deep look of despair. It took a two days before she had the heart to tell Elias what happened. Elias flew into a rage, insisting that he would flay Gideon’s skin from his body for what he had done, but Jacqueline insisted that nothing could be done. Gideon was a marquis, and the son of one of the kingdom’s dukes. That kind of political power meant they could cover the incident up, even going as far as to execute the both of them for attempting to slander the name of the duke.

Elias conceded to not taking immediate action, doing what he could to be there for Jacqueline in this time. But she was never the same. She would stare into the distance for hours, and she recoiled from touch. After a few months, Elias found her hanging in their bedroom.

It was then that Elias swore he would exact vengeance, no matter the cost. Jacqueline’s prediction had been true, the duke went out of the way to cover up the incident. Elias tried to accuse Gideon of assaulting his now-dead wife, and instead of justice, Elias himself was made out to be an abuser who had caused his wife’s demise. He escaped arrest, knowing that Duke Conwell and his son would kill him if they got their hands on him.

It took years. Nobody knows exactly what he was dong or where he was in the interim, but Elias cage did make a return to society under a new guise; the Gentleman Thief. He was a burglar who employed magic and broke into noble’s homes to rob their most precious jewels and fineries. He wore a suit, spoke in well-mannered tones, and was theatric with his burglaries, becoming a bit of a hot topic in high society. Some nobles even brazenly invited the gentleman thief to steal from their estates, promising he could not surpass their defenses. He made some appearances at noble gatherings, becoming a spectacle that flattered and charmed his very targets. All until one night.

It was a ball held by Duke Hammond Conwell to celebrate his son’s birthday. The Gentleman Thief made his appearance, sneaking into the event and appearing in the middle of the ballroom floor with a sword at his side. The duke laughed at his bravado, ordering his dozens of guards to apprehend and unmask the thief who had eluded capture all these years. But when Elias spoke, the nobles realized his voice carried none of the playful banter they had come to expect of the gentleman thief. Not only that, it was a voice that the duke and his son recognized. The guards rushed towards Elias, but a magic circle appeared underneath him, the spectral form of a dragon’s head unleashing a thunderous roar that shook the very castle’s foundation. Everyone in attendance buckled in fear as Elias approached the duke, holding out a hand and forcibly teleporting his son into Elias’s grip. Elias took his vengeance, beheading his wife’s assailant and stabbing his father in the heart, slaughtering the two nobles like the animals they were.

That night, the gentleman thief addressed his audience. He declared that he would no longer simply play around and steal trinkets. They had funded his research, and he had uncovered things much more important than gems. The secrets of high society, and the corruption that lied underneath. He told the nobles to watch their own actions, lest they be next.

The Gentleman Thief disappeared that night, his bounty being increased by tenfold. In addition, the kingdom no longer referred to him by such a title. The nobles in attendance at the ball remembered the gleeful smile, the curved lips of a devil who took mad pleasure in the slaughter of the duke and his son. A madman, a madman who killed in suit and tie. The Mad Gentleman, Elias Cage.

Bonus

Elias Cage was originally a character I created for a reddit writing prompt. I later used him in a prequel short story based on another writing prompt. If you would like to read those stories, you can find the prequel [here] and the original [here]. I enjoyed writing his character those two times so I’ve decided to bring him to life again in the form of a muse here on tumblr!

[lilacmoon83]

A Darker Curse

Also on Fanfiction.net and A03

Chapter 9: A Single Drop of Blood

Regina took a deep breath and walked into the Rabbit Hole. She swallowed thickly, as she spotted him behind the bar, drying some glassware. It wasn't very busy. Only Storybrooke's regulars were out drinking this late.

"Ah...Deputy Mayor Mills, what a surprise," he said. His name was Robin in their land, but here, she knew he was known as Ethan Locke.

"Why is that?" she asked suspiciously.

"I've just never seen you in here," he reminded.

"Oh...yes, well I've been branching out recently," she responded. He smirked.

"I've noticed. What'll you have?" he asked.

"Appletini," she answered and he stared at her for a moment.

"Let me guess...you don't know what that is," she said. He smirked.

"Oh I know what it is. It's just not something I get asked to make...ever," he replied, as he started mixing her drink.

"Yes, I suppose it's an unusual request," she agreed, as he pushed the finished drink toward her and she took a sip.

"Mmm...you made it perfect," she complimented. He grinned.

"A visit and a glowing review from the soon to be Mayor. I'm moving up in the world," he joked.

"Well, I haven't won yet and some would tell me that choosing an outsider for a running mate is risky," she said. He nodded.

"Perhaps, but your friend and her little family seem like they are fitting right in and none of the voters seem to be objecting," he replied.

"Or maybe they're all sick of my mother and her tyrannical rule," she quipped.

"That too," he agreed.

"Well then...perhaps a toast to your campaign is in order," he said, as he poured a couple shots. She smirked and clinked her shot glass against his.

"To a new rule in Storybrooke," he toasted. She nodded and they did their shots.

~*~

August quietly tiptoed down the stairs in the loft. It was three in the morning and once again, insomnia had struck again. So he did what he always did when that happened and decided to do some writing. He hoped to quietly slip by David on the sofa so as not to wake him and make his way to the kitchen island. Unfortunately, the old creaking steps must have been enough to wake him and the other man jolted awake. But then August knew the reasons for David being a light sleeper had nothing to do with him and everything to do with what he had been through.

"Sorry...I was hoping not to wake you," he apologized.

"It's okay...I'm kind of a light sleeper," he mentioned.

"Yeah...I'm a bit of an insomniac myself. Mom is always fretting about me not getting enough sleep," he replied, as he opened the book he was working on.

"Wow...did you do all these?" David asked, as he looked at the illustrations in amazement.

"Oh yeah...it's kind of something I work on for Henry on the side. It's fairy tales...but not really the versions that most people know," August answered.

"You're writing your own fairy tales?" David asked with interest. He nodded.

"I am...you want to take a look?" August asked.

"Uh yeah...I'd love to," David replied, as he stared at the illustration of Snow White in a glass coffin and Prince Charming arriving to awaken her. August watched his face and saw how incredibly enamored he was with the picture.

"Snow White...but a bit of a different version than most know. It's Henry's favorite...and Emma's but she'll never admit it," August said, as he flipped the pages back to the beginning.

"You should read it," he offered and David did so with eagerness.

~*~

Cora smirked, as the man she was waiting for met her in the alleyway.

"Good...you're here," she said.

"Yes, Madam Mayor," the portly man, wearing a red stocking cap, replied.

"I have a job for you to carry out and it can't be linked back to me," she stated.

"Of course…" he agreed.

"You will be paid well and if you're caught, you'll take the fall, is that clear?" she asked.

"The fall?" he asked with trepidation.

"Yes...because I can promise you that if you rat me out that it will be the last thing you ever do. I have people that stomp out rats that betray me. But if all goes well, I get what I want and you get rich. Do we have a deal?" she questioned.

"What's the job?" he questioned.

"You're going to start a fire at Mr. Gold's house...with him still in it," she stated. The man's face became a mask of disbelief and horror.

"You...want me to attack Mr. Gold?! That's suicide!" he exclaimed.

"And I can promise you a way out of town with enough money to set you for whatever new life you find if you complete the job," Cora said, with a smirk, as she opened a case. The man's eyes widened, as he saw that it was full of cash and his greed easily overwhelmed the risk of what she was asking him to do.

"Just set the fire and that's it?" he questioned. She nodded curtly.

"Yes...and then you're in the wind. Not even Mr. Gold can find you, for this is enough money to disappear forever," she tempted. He nodded.

"When do you want it done?" he asked. She smirked.

"Now…" Cora replied. The man gulped and then nodded nervously.

"The money will be stashed behind the town welcome sign. You can pick it up on your way out," she told him, as he ventured off to carry out the job.

~*~

August had gone back to bed, leaving David to read and he was enthralled by August's work. All the stories were different than the versions he knew, but seemed so familiar, which didn't make much sense. After some time, he heard someone coming down the stairs from the loft and saw that it was Emma with the baby.

"Oh hey…" she said, a bit surprised that he was awake.

"Hi...sorry, I can't sleep so I'm reading some of August's book," David replied. She smiled.

"That's fine, I was just going to wake my Mom. There's a bit of an emergency and Graham needs my help," she explained.

"I...I can watch him," David offered and she paused for a moment.

"Unless you're not comfortable with that, which I totally would understand," he added. But she smiled.

"No...you're great with him and he seems to love you. But only if you don't mind," she replied.

"Not at all," David said, as Henry went easily to him and Emma watched her father's face light up at the baby. She felt her heart ache, knowing that his time with her as a baby had been stolen. But she was happy that her son would have him in her life. And she knew what kind of man her father was, thanks to all her mother's stories. She knew the moment his memories were restored that he would love her more than she would ever be able to comprehend.

"Thanks...I appreciate it," she said.

"Don't mention it. It's my pleasure," David replied, as she grabbed her keys and headed out. David cradled the baby boy in the crook of his arm and then looked at the book.

"Would you like a story, buddy?" he cooed, as he moved onto the couch and resumed reading the story about Snow White and Prince Charming.

~*~

To say that Emma was surprised when she arrived at the address that Graham had texted to find it in flames was an understatement. Mostly because the house was more like a mansion and she knew it belonged to Mr. Gold. Immediately, she doubted this was an accidental fire. With all the positive moves they had made in loosening Cora's stranglehold on the town, she had expected her to do something bold. And this was definitely bold. Taking Gold out was risky, but would be a huge pay off for her if she could succeed. She quickly ran up to Graham and observed the firemen trying to put the fire out. But no one had gone in yet and they all looked very ill-prepared. That didn't surprise her, for they probably had never had even one fire in town. With that, she removed her red leather jacket and took a deep breath, as she prepared to go in.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Graham asked.

"If we wait on these guys, Mr. Gold is a dead man," Emma replied, as she ran into the house. Her mother was going to kill her.

~*~

Flashback

David rattled the bars and struggled with the lock. Snow had taught him a little about picking them, but he suspected that the damn thing was enchanted so he couldn't pick it. But it didn't stop him from trying. He had a really bad feeling that the woman he loved was in danger and he knew what Leopold and Cora had planned for him. They wanted to hurt Snow and killing him would do so. He also knew what her sick, creepy father wanted and the thought of him terrorizing her made him both livid and scared for her. Suddenly, his bad feeling was realized, as he felt something odd in his heart. He almost doubled over in pain and somehow knew what it meant. Not many would ever experience a connection like he and Snow had, but their love was so true that he didn't doubt for a second that he was feeling her phantom pains. His face went ashen, as his guts twisted in pain.

"Snow…" he uttered, as the pain dulled and slipped away, just like she did. His eyes widened and he rattled the bars desperately.

"SNOW! What have you done to her?! What have you done?!" he screamed at the top of his lungs. It was only moments later that King Leopold entered the dungeon hallway with a cold stare resting on him.

"What did you do to her, you son of a bitch?!" he spat angrily.

"You are only tiring yourself making such racket, but if that is how you'd like to spend your last few hours alive...then so be it," Leopold stated.

"Answer my question, you sick bastard...what did you do to her?!" he roared.

"Save your theatrics...I have done nothing. She, in her insanity and desperation, has done this to herself," Leopold said.

"What the hell are you talking about?" David demanded to know.

"She couldn't bare the news of your execution and it drove her mad enough that we have received word that she put herself under a sleeping curse," Leopold said, as he glared at the handsome young man that had taken his daughter away from him. David's eyes widened in horror, but then somehow, he knew why she had done it. She had done it to take herself out of the equation and he knew she was hoping he would get free, for he was the only one that could break that curse.

"You did this to her," Leopold claimed.

"I did this? We love each other...and you're the one doing this to us! You're the one trying to keep us apart!" David spat.

"You are not worthy of my daughter, shepherd. You may have masqueraded as a Prince quite well, but you are still a low born peasant that ruined her," Leopold growled.

"I may be a low born shepherd, but you're just a sick man that wants to do things to his daughter that no father should ever do," David growled back.

"You know nothing of royal bloodlines. Snow is pure...I can't have her tainted with low born blood. You've sullied her enough as it is...thankfully no bastard child came of it," Leopold hissed.

"You're a sick, twisted old man...royal bloodlines or not. A father that wants to do to his child what you want to do to Snow is evil...and I won't let you hurt her," David promised. Leopold smirked.

"You won't be around...your execution will commence at dusk," he said smugly, as he walked away.

"You know I'm the only one that can wake her! Only true love's kiss will break the curse and you know that I'm the only one that can give her that, as much as it pains you," David reasoned.

"Then my daughter will sleep eternally, for I will never allow her to be with you," Leopold said, as he walked away.

"I want him dead when we get back. The Queen and I are going to find my wayward daughter," Leopold told the guard.

David waited quietly for quite some time and thought about a strategy to escape. He had to get to Snow, but he knew the chances of him doing so without help were slim at best.

"I'll find you Snow...I don't know how yet, but I'll find you," he promised

"That's going to be a little hard to do without your head attached," one of the guards said snidely, as they unlocked his cell and dragged him out. He took the opportunity and despite his shackled hands, he disposed of them almost effortlessly. He ran through the corridor and turned the corner to find another Black Knight in his path. He looked the other way and found another behind him. The one behind him used a bow and arrow. He ducked away, but the arrow was not aimed for him and killed the other Black Knight. He looked back at his helper in surprise, as the man removed his helmet.

"Who the hell are you?" David questioned.

"A friend. Snow is in a precarious place and her fate rests on you," the Huntsman told him, as he unlocked his shackles and gave him a satchel.

"Go...these are provisions and there's a horse waiting once I get you out," he continued.

"Why are you helping us?" David questioned.

"Because she once helped me. Go," he urged, as David mounted the horse and set off into the forest.

~*~

Emma coughed, as she practically carried Gold out of his burning house and helped him onto the gurney. He was immediately put on oxygen and their eyes met.

"This was no accident, was it?" she questioned.

"We need to get him to the hospital, Deputy. Your questions will have to wait," the paramedic told her, as Gold was loaded into the ambulance. Emma sighed and looked up to find Regina arriving.

"Hey…" she said.

"She did it...she went after Gold. She's getting desperate," Regina muttered.

"Yeah...now I just have to prove it," Emma replied. The other woman snorted.

"Even if you do, you'll never link it back to her. My mother rarely does her own dirty work these days," Regina said.

"The fact that Gold survived is bad news for her though. He will not let this go," she added.

"Yeah...that's what I don't get. I mean, this is a really bold move. Why come after Gold? I mean, as much as it scares me, I'd expect her to go after my parents," Emma said.

"She still will...but you're right, this was a really risky move. There must be something she needs from him or that he has for her to take this kind of risk," Regina replied.

"She obviously wanted him dead, but I know that she knew there was a good chance that he'd survive," she surmised.

"Yeah...can you go with him to the hospital and keep an eye on him until I get there? I want to poke around here. I doubt there's any evidence left behind, but you never know," Emma replied.

"Sure," Regina agreed.

"Oh...and you call my Mom and tell her what's going on?" she asked.

"What and tell her that her daughter just ran into a burning house? Yeah, no thanks," Regina replied.

"Please?" Emma begged and then pouted her lip.

"Oh please...that's pathetic. Not happening...I'm not getting yelled at on your behalf," Regina refuted.

"Come on...you're supposed to be my Aunt, right?" Emma whined. Regina rolled her eyes.

"Oh fine, but you owe me," Regina said, as she followed the ambulance to the hospital, while Emma looked around and Graham filled out the report. She went around back and found the back door had been pried open.

"Definitely a break in," she called to Graham.

"Damn...now we just have to figure out who is either dumb enough or brave enough to try to kill Mr. Gold," he said.

"Or whose greedy. Money can make some brave enough to risk it," she replied.

"You think someone was hired to kill Gold?" Graham questioned.

"Oh, I'd bet money on it," Emma replied.

"The problem is proving who I know it is," she added, as she continued to poke around for clues

~*~

Snow awoke that morning and checked her phone. It was early and she peered out from the curtain. And the sight she saw on the sofa melted her heart. David was fast asleep with baby David on his chest and the book. She put a hand to her heart and sniffed, as her emotions got the better of her. This should have been him with Emma, but Cora has stolen that from them. She went to the kitchen and it was the smell of brewing coffee that eventually roused him.

"Good morning," she said, smiling at him and he noticed the baby began to stir.

"Morning…you're probably wondering about this," he said.

"My guess is that Emma got called into work and you offered to watch him," she surmised.

"Uh yeah...I was up and couldn't sleep. She seemed okay with it," he replied.

"She should be...you're wonderful with him," she complimented.

"He likes being read to and to be honest, I enjoyed it a lot. August is a wonderful writer," he complimented. Snow smiled.

"He is," she agreed, as she sat down beside him and they quietly watched the baby sleep for a bit, while the coffee brewed. Soon, the baby was awake and they enjoyed coffee together, after they changed and fed him. About that time, Snow's cell phone rang and she answered.

"Hey Regina…" she answered.

"Hi...I'm sure you figured out by now that Emma got called in," Regina said.

"Yeah...David and I watching little David," she replied.

"She got called in, because there was a fire at Mr. Gold's house. And no, I don't think it was an accident," Regina told her.

"Oh my God...is he okay?" she questioned.

"Yeah...they have him on oxygen, but other than mild smoke inhalation, he's unharmed. Emma got him out in time," Regina explained.

"What do you mean Emma got him out?" Snow asked sharply.

"He was in danger and she went in after him. What? Are you really surprised that your daughter inherited her father's foolhardy courage?" Regina quipped. Snow sighed.

"Is Emma okay?" she asked.

"She's fine. She's still at his house investigating. But I thought you'd want to know. Emma and I agree that this wasn't an accident and if my mother is bold enough to go after Gold...then she's either desperate or needs something from him badly enough that she was willing to take the risk," Regina stated.

"I agree...we'll be right there," Snow said, as she hung up the phone.

"What's going on?" David asked.

"Apparently there was a fire at Mr. Gold's," she told him. His eyes widened.

"Is he okay?" David asked.

"Regina says he is, but I think we should go check on him. Emma thinks it was arson," Snow replied.

"Wow...there's only one person I can think of that's brave enough to go after Mr. Gold," he mentioned. She nodded.

"That's definitely one thing we're all agreeing on," she said, as she bundled the baby up, grabbed his diaper bag, and they left for the hospital.

Cora smirked, as Sidney entered her office.

"Did you get it?" she questioned.

"Bribing the paramedic with that wad of cash was easy enough," Sidney reported, as he handed her the vial with a drop of blood in it. Cora took it and pulled a sheet off an object. It was a globe on an axis, but it was completely blank.

"Excellent. Now...let's find you, Baelfire…" she cooed, as she poured the drop of blood on the white surface of the globe, with an eager smirk.

[lifblogs]

Like a Dream I Can't Escape

Sam Appreciation Week: Day Three - Sam and Trauma @prelawsam @suncaptor

tw for rape mention, torture mention, hallucinations, and ptsd

Sam was lying down in bed when it happened, which didn’t make sense to him. It wasn’t as if anyone could fit on the bed with him. He was on a crappy motel room bed, trying to get some sleep before leaving tomorrow and heading for Maine. And then it felt like someone laid down next to him, right against him. A male body. One that was very familiar.

Sam started, sitting up, and looking about frantically in the dark. Dean was asleep on his stomach in the next bed over, and other than him, there was no one else there.

Then why had Sam felt…?

Sometimes he would get flashbacks, could feel his torture as if it was happening to him then and there, but this was different. New.

He rubbed idly at his palm, and laid back down.

In seconds there was a hand around his throat, another on his hip.

It’s not real, it’s not real.

Sam squeezed his eyes shut, wishing it away.

His heart was pounding, climbing up into his throat, and he felt like he could barely breathe. Breath whispered against his ear, then lips, then teeth nipped and tugged.

He held his breath against a scream.

The hand on his throat loosened, traveling down, down…

Sam threw back the covers and got out of bed, nearly tripping in his haste.

He turned, putting his back against the wall. His hands were splayed out, palms feeling the cool wood of the walls.

His bed was empty.

No one was there.

Not willing to try going back to the bed, Sam grabbed the pillow and blanket and laid down on the rug.

It was a long time before sleep came to him.

---

“Hey, dude, what are you doing on the floor?” Dean asked.

Sam realized it was morning now, light streaming through the windows. Usually he was up before Dean, but he was exhausted from his long night. Sleep had eluded him for a while because he’d lay there, waiting, waiting… And nothing happened. Just him. All alone.

Sam squinted against the light, and rolled over onto his back. “Uh, must’ve fell out of bed.”

Dean’s brows lowered, his lips pursed. He knew Sam was lying, which, anyone would. It was a rather weak lie.

“Okay… Uh, get up, we’re moving.”

Sam leapt at the opportunity to start getting ready for the day, needing something to do, needing an excuse to not talk to his brother.

After he was done brushing his teeth what had happened last night caught up with him, and he had to grip the sink with both hands lest he fall over.

“What the hell,” he murmured.

Was it a hallucination? He hadn’t hallucinated in years, and nothing like that. He’d always been able to see… him. Now it was just touch.

Sam swallowed, suddenly sickened.

Oh god. Was he going crazy again? What was wrong with him? And would it happen again?

Long minutes passed before Sam was able to pull himself together. Thankfully Dean didn’t comment on it. They packed up, headed out to breakfast (Sam barely ate), and then they were on the road.

---

Another night, another motel room.

Sam’s eyes were heavy with exhaustion, but instead of going to the bed he took up a seat on one of the rickety chairs at the little round table by the window.

Dean was heading out for some drinks, and he invited Sam to tag along, but Sam refused. He didn’t want to know what he might start seeing or feeling if he put alcohol in himself that night.

Sam tried to focus on research, taking note of what books he’d need to get from the library the next day.

Night had blanketed the town for hours by the time Dean came back, staggering, and slurring his words. He didn’t even undress before collapsing onto his bed.

Sam almost envied him.

A yawn cracked his jaws, and he leaned forward with his head in his hand. He really needed sleep.

Warily, he eyed his bed like it was his latest enemy.

Maybe…

No, he wasn’t going to risk a repeat of the night before.

Giving in, Sam got ready for bed, and then he put the pillow on the hard floor, and pulled the blanket down on top of him.

---

More than once Sam woke covered in sweat, body tense, breathing heavy.

Nightmares.

He wasn’t sure if he was happy that he couldn’t remember them or not. He was still left with the feel of them, left with the sense that he was in danger, and that something out there in the dark was going to get him. Of course it was going to get him, because it already had. Time and time again.

He gave up on sleep near four in the morning, and went to take a shower, hoping to wash away his nightmares.

---

Sam spent the whole day feeling like there was a weight inside his chest. Every little thing had him jumping, even if Dean raised his voice just a little to ask a question. And then the flashbacks came. The world around him wasn’t his reality anymore. The Cage was. There was fire, needles, ice cold hands, screaming, knives, the heavy clank of chains, Lucifer’s red eyes, a body inside him…

The memories all flashed through his mind quickly, not making much sense, not appearing in any order that he could tell.

He jumped when he realized Dean was snapping his fingers in front of his face.

“Sam, you good?”

Sam forced himself to take a deep breath, and he ignored the Devil in his head. “Yeah, yeah. Just tired. Sorry, what were you saying?”

---

That night Sam was tired and sore enough to try lying in bed. For a few seconds he was almost relieved as he sunk into the mattress, closing his eyes. Hopefully sleep would come to him quickly.

There was a hand on his chest, thighs in between his own. Another hand—

Sam gasped, opening his eyes, expecting to see Lucifer above him, on him.

There was no one there. Dean was getting his pajamas out, giving Sam an odd look.

“Sammy, I’m getting worried about you.”

Sam opened his mouth to respond, but then it felt like lips were forcefully pressed against his. Then that mouth was roaming, biting at his jaw.

Sickened, terrified, he rolled out of bed.

Immediately, the sensations were gone.

“Sam?”

Dean rushed to his side, put a hand on his shoulder.

“Sam, what’s going on? Are you okay?”

Not wanting to be touched at the moment, his skin crawling, Sam shrugged out of his grasp. Without much thought he found himself crawling away. He felt trapped, exhausted. He was so frustrated he could cry.

“Just leave me alone,” Sam mumbled, not sure he even had the bravery to put strength behind those words.

Dean sat on Sam’s bed, and Sam watched, wide-eyed, waiting.

Nothing happened to Dean.

Of course nothing’s happening to him. He wasn’t with—

“Sam. If there’s something I can do to help…”

“You can’t.”

“Come on, talk to me.”

Sam barked a hoarse laugh. “You actually want to talk?”

Dean shrugged. “I mean, sure, why not.”

Sam sat against the wall, and hung his head. “Look, I’ve been through a lot, and… and I guess it’s just catching up with me.”

“You gonna be okay?”

“Don’t I have to be?”

For a second, Dean looked around, as if worried that someone would be listening in on their conversation. He leaned forward and then in a quiet voice asked, “You’re not seeing him again, are you?”

“I… I don’t know.”

“How do you not know?”

“Fine, I’m not seeing him, but something’s wrong with me, Dean! I can’t even lie in bed. I’m tired, and I just want it to stop.”

Dean leaned back, hands nervously rubbing at his thighs.

“If you want I can get you some pills—” he began to offer.

“No,” Sam snapped.

Dean got up, shrugging. “Oh well, your loss. Just… try to get some sleep.”

“Funny.”

“Look, what do you need me to do?” Dean snapped.

Sam answered, “That’s the problem. There’s nothing you can do. There’s nothing I can do! I guess I’m just… crazy.”

“Sam—”

“Don’t tell me I’m not crazy because you don’t know what this is like.”

“I’ve had my fair share of crap, and what it does to you—that doesn’t make you crazy. It makes you human. There’s only so much we can take, and I gotta admit, I probably couldn’t handle half the stuff you went through.

“Sam, you still being here, still fighting. That’s a win. Look, I don’t get whatever new symptoms you’re having, but I’ve seen you get through worse. You can do it again. Trust me.”

Sam rested his head against the wall with a thump. “I’m just so tired,” he admitted.

So, so tired.

Dean looked like he wanted to say more, but this wasn’t a problem he knew how to fix. If Sam got a cut, sure, he could clean it, stitch it up, throw a bandage over it, tell him to ice it, and give him some pain pills. That he knew how to handle. But the hurts inside… He’d never been very good with those.

Defeated, it was a long while before Sam started to get ready for bed. And then once again, he curled up on the floor.

The floor didn’t save him this time.

Lucifer was inside of him.

Sam spent the night holding back tears and screams until he eventually drifted off from pure exhaustion.

That’s where the nightmares found him.

[crazy-lazy-elder-sims]

Vent about my days in fashion major and how horribly i was treated by my professors because i wasnt super girly and happy all the time.

Woke up today with the memory of my trying to explain to my fashion professors my idea for my final project that unisex clothes and patterns are much more sustainable for the environment and for the fashion industry and they should be introduced to the market where i live in north Africa only to be immediately met with them loudly whispering to each other in a disgusted tone that they knew i wasnt "normal" aka androgynous or non binary or not really a woman (they meant trans)

and that they knew that there was somthing wrong with me fr9m tge first year of university cause i didn't fully try to look and act and think 100% feminine (i was born female) and how they knew that i was "diffrent" and that i would try to force my disgusting differences on them through my projects...

The plot twist was at that point to everyone around me i was fully straight and 100% identified as a cis woman and i never even eluded to idea that i was non binary.

what they were seeing was my depressed self not dressing well or taking care of my looks or brushing my hair and they just assumed i was trying to be a boy . They are the most disgusting people i have met to date tbh.

Ofc i ended up going forward with my idea and presented it as my final project and i got an okayish grade with side looks from everyone because they trash talked me to everyone, because how dare i suggest men and women dress in the same clothes even thou i clearly showed in my photo shoots that the same piece od clothes looked diffrent on the two bodies because it was the body type that shaped the clothes in this collection in particular and gave them an identity not the other way around and that non of this is the point its that ITS SUSTAINABLE AND ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY AND CAN STOP FAST FASHION AND MICRO TRENDS and greatly minimize the pollution from the fashion industry but no they all just pushed that to the side and assumed i was trans 👁👄👁

Now i always had a very complicated relationship with my gender as i have always considered myself pretty androgynous but i never expressed this out loud or in the way of dressing and never came out as its dangerous where i live so i really tried to ignore all that and just focus on my projects and my ideas but they (the fucking professor) couldn't get past that and they actively hid me and my projects away and gave me less time to present and when the time came for brands and companies from the outside to come in and view our projects and maybe give us a chance to work with them if they like the concept my professors steered them away from me and told them i was one of the not creative students and that they dont think am gonna continue in this field or add value to the brands just to bad mouth me and steer them away so they (in thier heads)save thier image from being tarnished by a potentially LGBTQIA+ person.

The second plot twist and the bigger one is the guy they ended up pushing so hard that he became a famous designer and became a famous contestant on the arabic fashion runway show that was watched by millions he was gay but also was outed last year for asking nudes from models that are minors trying to hookup with model minors and sexual assault on male AND female models and threaning to end careers of young models if they refused to hookup with him aka rape.

And i got completely turned off from fashion design for 3 years after paying all the money i saved up for collage to study properly and i became unable to deal with society abd people like this here and just hid away in my room for 3 years being completely depressed and contemplating suicide not even beeing able to hand sew a single hole shut in my clothes because i have a breakdown and remeber how i was treated.

This week am starting to get the itch to design again and i want to make somthing but i just don't know how the fuck am i gonna manage when 1. Its pretty expensive and i barely have money 2. I am genuinely scared.

Yeah just a genral vent and stuff nothing to see here lol

[adventures-in-a-world-of-fiction]

Practicalities of Censorship

Every so often I see a thread cross my dashboard arguing about censorship with relation to AO3 - in particular people claiming that AO3 is bad because it allows basically any story regardless of content, that people are bad for supporting it, or that AO3 should implement some method by which problematic fics get taken down. These complaints are usually met with explanations around the history or AO3, why it was implemented the way it was, and why thinking that AO3 is fine the way it is does not equal being a pedophile. I want to tackle this from another angle - practicality.

Let's assume for the sake of this post that the people making these arguments are correct and that there are some things which shouldn't be allowed on AO3 (or an an alternative fic platform set up to be a better version of AO3 without all the bad stuff - I'll mostly be taking about "fixing" AO3 in this post but the same problems would apply to setting up a new and "safer" fic site). There are a lot of arguments against censorship to do with quality of works produced and whether this results is less good art when people are scared to produce things that might get banned, or whether there is artistic merit to works that display despicable actions. Let's just imagine for the moment that the whole argument is settled and the "let's purify AO3 for the sake of the children" crowd are correct. What would need to happen next? This isn't something I've seen addressed in these posts.

There are a lot of problems with censorship. Skipping over the ethical discussion of whether censorship is good or bad and in what circumstances it should be accepted, let's focus on two practical aspects: deciding what should and shouldn't be banned, and how you would implement such a ban. Let's start with problem one: where do you draw the line?

Let's assume we have some scale of rating from absolutely sickeningly awful deserving of destruction to perfectly clean and innocent with not the slightest thing wrong with it. Somewhere between these two endpoints is a line and everything to one side of it is bad and should be banned/blocked/deleted from AO3, etc. Everything on the other side of the line is fine and should be left available for people to read. Some things may seem easy to define. Fic A is incest porn, where a child is graphically raped in a way that's cleanly meant to titillate rather than horrify and the abuse is glorified and justified in text, and it's full of poor writing, spelling and grammar mistakes, and has no artistic merit as a work (how you judge artistic merit would need a few thousand words to explore as a subject on its own right). Let's stick that on the bad side of the line since that's the sort of thing that people on Tumblr are crying out to be banned. Fic B is a fluff fic where a character makes another character soup because they're feeling ill and they watch movies together. Nothing remotely sexual, just two adult characters being sweet to each other. So we'll put that on the good side of the line, right?

But the problem comes in deciding where that dividing line should be and what should be done about the things that sit close to the line. You could come up with some simple rules. Let's say, "Everything involving underage incest is on the bad side of the line." Seems straight-forward. But what if you have a story dealing with someone's recovery from incest and CSA? The story has a character who was abused in the past and the narrative deals with them getting therapy and overcoming their trauma. None of the abuse is shown in the text of the story, it all happens off-screen as it were, and the story sends a message that incest and CSA are bad but offers hope to former victims. Surely that story would belong on the good side of the line? So maybe we amend the rule to, "Everything involving graphic incest is on the bad side of the line." That would let us keep the story about overcoming the trauma on the good side but block anything that uses incest as porn. But is consenting incest between grown adults treated the same as abusive incest?

And what if you get a story that's more about the trauma but that has a handful of flashbacks about the rape that would count as graphic. These flashbacks are meant to be horrifying not sexually exciting. Would that be okay? Is it the intent of the scene that matters? But in that case, what happens if the author writes a scene that's intended to be horrifying but a reader interprets it as arousing? Would it be okay if the author includes a disclaimer in the notes saying that this is a terrible thing and shouldn't be done in real life? Is it the intensity of the scenes shown directly in the story? In which case, where do you draw the line between something described explicitly and something merely eluded to? Is it the precise terms used? Which terms? Or how many times those terms are use? Is a subtle allusion to an event okay? In which case, what happens with a slightly less subtle allusion?

The stories that are far away from the line are easy to place, but the ones close to it become a challenge. Any attempt to define straight-forward rules starts to fall apart quickly and you get to the point where you have to argue on a case-by-case basis for each story, which would involve a massive amount of time invested to check each of these stories and decide whether or not they're allowed. Once again the practicalities of "how would you enforce something like this?" rear their ugly head but that's a question we'll address later.

We also have the problem that where I might draw the line between the bad and the good might be different from where you would draw the line, and would be different from where someone else would draw the line. Let's go back to Fic B as described above, our perfectly innocent fluff story. I might think that's perfectly acceptable, but if those two characters are both the same gender, there will be some homophobic people who will say that it's wrong and corrupting innocents because it sends the message that homosexual relationships are good. Or even if the characters are different genders, some highly religious people might think it sends a bad message if those characters are unmarried and living together in a relationship, even if nothing explicit happens within the story. Or what if the characters are married but it's an interracial marriage? A KKK member might say that sends a bad message. Different people have a different idea of what counts as bad content.

In the real world, there have been cases of books that address racism being banned because they use the n word. Harry Potter has been banned by religious groups. According to the website www.banned-books.org.uk a sweet children's book about two penguins hatching an egg was banned by a lot of schools and libraries in the US because the two penguins are both male - even though this story was actually based on a true story. The book Black Beauty, about the experiences of a horse, was banned during the Apartheid in South Africa simply for including the word "black" in the title. If you look at that site, a lot of books have been banned for a lot of different reasons and a lot of good literature has ended up caught up in the censorship usually because religious groups objected to in on moral grounds.

You could say "don't let the bigots and racists be in charge of the censorship," but historically, when censorship has come into play in the past, the people who tend to end up the worst for it are minorities. LGBTQ+ groups and people of colour tend to get censored more than straight, white men. Stories about their experiences often deal with problematic issues and therefore they get banned. The groups that generally end up making decisions about what is and isn't okay tend to be the groups that have the most power to begin with, and the end result is silencing of minority voices. This is one reason I'm very wary of anything to do with censorship, because the people who usually end up the worse for it are those who most need their voices heard.

But let's imagine all of these problems are magically overcome and we come up with a perfectly clear set of rules about what counts as good and bad fic and the dividing line is agreed by good, rational people who aren't remotely bigoted and who are able to define the criteria for what should be banned in a way that will only ever block the harmful stuff.

We still have to deal with the practicalities of enforcement we set aside earlier. We've built our perfect set of rules to define good and bad fics and now we want to put them into practice to ban any of the awful stuff. How would you go about doing it?

We could try and get machine filters to do censorship by looking for keywords and particular tags or using more complex algorithms to judge what a piece of content is about, but this ends up with chaos like Tumblr auto-flagging a lot of perfectly clean content, or YouTube blocking videos that just happened to be by/about LGBTQ+ people. Any software based implementation would struggle because someone talking about a thing as a problem contains the same words as someone glorifying that thing, and machines tend not to be great at picking up tone. You would get a massive amount of errors with things being falsely flagged as bad and things being falsely let through despite breaking the rules.

And people would be sneaky. Someone wanting to include their graphic story wouldn't tag it as for over 18s because tagging something as for over 18s would get it banned, so they would tag it as something else. The terms "lemon" and "lime" used to describe fics by older members of fandoms started from exactly this sort of thing. Websites decided to not allow adult content so people continued to post adult content but they used the citrus scale for tagging it so people would still be able to find it. Which works when people know the terms to look for or avoid, but which doesn't work for people not in the know. Is a "lemon" or a "lime" fic more explicit? Do you know what a fic being tagged as "grapefruit" would mean? By their nature, these tags are coded, which is not great for clarity.

Any sort of system that just blanket bans key words or tags would result in people just not using those keywords and tags but posting the stuff anyway. It would actually make the situation worse because there would still be incest porn and the like, only now it wouldn't be tagged. As it stands on AO3, people use the tagging system very well and people who don't want to see the incest porn can do things like exclude that tag from searches, or just not open fics they see that have the tag. If there were rules in place to not allow anything with that tag, then people would stop using the tag, which would actually mean more people would see incest porn they didn't want to because it would no longer be tagged properly, or it would be tagged using code words which only mean something to the inside group. It would be much harder to avoid the things you don't like.

So let's say we don't let a computer decide what's breaking the rules. Let's say there is a system by which readers can flag a fic as being inappropriate to get it banned. Human beings get to decide, but what's the threshold? Does a thing get banned as soon as someone reports it? Or does it need to be flagged by multiple people to be banned? In which case fics written in tiny fandoms might slip through the cracks because not enough people are reading it to them flag it. This is also open for exploitation. Someone who takes a dislike to a particular person might encourage others to flag their fics as inappropriate, regardless of whether or not they are. Someone might create fake accounts or log in anonymously over proxies to spam a fic with flags.

And even if no one acts maliciously to abuse the system, not everyone will be careful about checking the precise and perfect rules defined to mark the difference between acceptable and unacceptable work. People will flag things incorrectly, based on their own viewpoints of what should or shouldn't be allowed, which we've already said is a problem because everyone will draw the line in different places based on their own beliefs.

So what's the alternative to a community-driven method for managing content? You could have specific people whose job it is to go through content and decide whether it adheres to the rules. Maybe a computer system or community flagging could funnel fics into a review channel where human beings check every one carefully. These people would understand the rules and be certain to always judge fics accurately according to the magically perfect rules defined earlier, which are guaranteed to only ever block bad fics but never block a good fic.

So problem solved, right? We have our perfect rules perfectly implemented.

Except where humans are employed to check whether content is acceptable or not, it involves a large number of people checking through basically the worst content out there. Some social networking sites do this sort of thing now and it can be hugely traumatising for people who do that work. It's not good for them mentally to have to be exposed over and over to the worst content being put up online. There tends to be a high turnover in those jobs because they burn out fast, and that's where people are being paid for this stuff.

A site like AO3 relies on volunteers so it would require a large number of people to volunteer to look at the darkest most gruesome content and decide if it breaks the rules or not. Either you have people who hate those sort of fics doing this out of a sense of duty to maintain the purity of the content, in which case they will probably struggle with having to read a load of stuff they really, really don't enjoy. Or you will have people volunteer because they really like those fics and this is the way for them to read them. And that probably defeats the point of doing this, because it means that the people who would be seeking out those stories anyway would be the ones reading them to see if they break the rules.

There are a lot of problems with censorship, both ethically and practically. Even if you are fully on the side of censorship from a moral standpoint, you have to address the practical concerns if you want to propose an implementation.

As it stands, I think the current system works. There is stuff on AO3 that I would not in a million years want to read, but I don't have to. AO3 is brilliant for its tagging system and I can look at the tags and nope past fics that are full of my personal squicks or that I think endorse something terrible. Readers can exclude tags they want nothing to do with or just not click on ones that include elements you dislike. You can curate your own experience, which actually works with the whole idea of everyone drawing a line in a different place. You and I will have different stories we want to avoid, and we can both choose to avoid them based on author's tagging for them, rather than some other person decreeing what is acceptable for either of us to see.

If you still think that AO3 should be blocking or banning certain content, have a think about how this would work in reality. Because when ideas like that are implemented in the real world, all manner of problems happen.

I think the fact that this post is still a couple of thousand words long with me skipping over several parts of the debate is a sign that this is not a simple problem that can be easily fixed.

[vicky-14563]

Feminism in art

How are the women depicted

•Passive submissive

•Not making decisions

•Pale

•Mary cause of the blue

•Women are crying and helping

•Men are very active

•Women sitting crying

•Withdrawn

•Not making contribution

•Women not taking part in the narrative

Naked or nude. Not nude is a beautiful way, she’s a beautiful women, idealised, no lumpy bits. Men are all taller than her.

The fact that there are so many points on how women are depicted shows how women are represented in the art world compared to men. I am very passionate about this topic as I feel the feminist art movement should have more publicity and representation.

Artists that feature the “male gaze”.

MALE GAZE - “a fake representation and objectification of women is made, usually from a heterosexual perspective known as “the male gaze”, which is a disparate power between men and a gazed-upon women,  the attitude towards women and  the way the female body is exhibited not only displays male dominance throughout the centuries in general but also in the art world; this has created an industry that enables women to be wrongly depicted and the feminist art movement continues to challenge this immense issue, as it is still ongoing”- Vicky Iddon.                                                                                           

John collier lilith. 1897

���Red hair - fiery

•Fenfetile

•Empowered

•Not gonna take anything from anyone

•Highly sexualised

•Threatening

•Seen as very powerful

•Could be see as evil

•She was the women made before eve - Jewish

•Snake represents temptation but in this carnation represents passion and sexual desire.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1868

•Mirror represents beauty looking at itself

•Long red hair

•White roses? Innocents, purity

•She’s threatening men with her power

•Irresistible

•Capture, castrations if they fell for Lilith

•Jesus knocking one the door

•Mirror painting

•Painting of a women being a man mistress

•Conscience has just been awakens

•Dressed informally

•Hair flowing

•Not wearing a wedding ring

•Clock indicated the passing of time

•Cat and mad have a similar gaze, the familiar of the man

•Glove discarded - represents the women what will happen to her

•Wool - represent the Webb she is in

•Most popular painting

•How it’s looking at women

•Women is controlled

Not only did men depict women throught their artwork but women throughout time have depicted themselves, as a way of having overall control and pointing out how a women is seen, Women didn’t have access to things that males did.

Second wave feminism

This was a way of women saying they wanted controls of their sexuality, imagine and who looks at them.

Carolee schneemann

Stood naked on a table, painted body with mud, then slowly extracted a paper scroll from her vagina and read from the scroll (from a film she had started making about women) 4 documented phots of the performance. Put on them, urine, beetroot. To create stains.

•Her work is provocative

•Filmed herself having sex

•Challenged modernism

•Was her body and she could do what she wanted

•Very in your face work

I have done my own personal research in this artist, as I found her method of art fascinating, it was totally new in the 1960s and completely separated her from anyone else.

Intersectionality

Coloured people had no power. 1970s. And we’re largely discriminated against. These are some female artists who challenged this

Emma Amos

African America artist in the 70s

Sandy and her husband - periphery of society, racial discrimination, iconographical reading!

Ana mendieta

does a males beard give me the same feeling as a man, the power?

Sofonisba anguissola

Massive success as a painter

Did what she wanted, lived her life on her own terms.

The chess game 1555 - depicted? They look happy, suggests intelligence. Men would usually play chess. Women of intellect, engaged in something that rigorous, mother in the back looking in pride.

In another painting she did she depicted herself as an artist even though a male is in the painting holding the paint brush, she is larger than him, presenting herself as more importance (1558)

Sonia Boyce 1986

Pastel on paper

Looks at memory and the dynamic of space and for you to be drawn into the piece

Examining her part of the identity of the family who is black and British. How she is holding them up, strong arms? Shows she feels like she can do it.

Wearing a deep red dress eluding to the expression of the painting and the English rose how she must be part of the stereotype.

Greek mythology? Represent Atlas , emotional weight, holding her family, feels very connected to her family but also distant due to the distance.

Lastly, women are still completely oversexualised in modern day! Especially in adverts.

Adverts:

•Mustang car 1967 - women all like pink?

Women are always sexualised in male perfume adverts and are lower then the men and looks submissive however in the women’s perfume the women is higher than the man, she’s more powerful and in control.

•Tom Ford - the women is fully naked, could be seen as funny, the female nipple is covered even though she is completely naked.

•American apparel - Done ironically even though they are technically offensive, always sexualising women. Publicity.

Power dynamic - women are men’s possessions. All about the male gaze.

•Calvin kleins jeans advert - women surrounded by topless men, looks like a gang rape... feels hostile, the colour red represents danger.

In conclusion, there is so much when it comes to feminism in the art world that needs to be considered, and so many artists from the 19th century to now. Women have taken power over themselves however it’s very clear that they are still being depicted just not as clearly in modern day.

[kimminstudying]

Case Study - 001

Warning: GRAPHIC CONTENT

Note: I chose to do this one first because for my Forensic Science class we had to investigate a case of our choice, write and report, and do a powerpoint for it and this was basically my final project for the class. Enjoy!

The span of these crimes was from 1983-1985 and the victims were lured to a bunker in the woods through ads that were posted of stolen goods. If the respondents were male, they were beaten, robbed from, and then shot often within a day of their capture. Female respondents were tied up, tortured, forced into submission, then raped. They would be shot and killed after their “services were no longer needed.”  Families or couples that were brought to the bunker had the same outcomes.

Charles Ng (pronounced as ing) was born Christmas Eve of 1960 in Hong Kong. Ng was a compulsive Kleptomaniac as a child and he was sent to several boarding schools in both China and London. He was granted a student visa in 1978 to study in the U.S and his parents hoped a new life in another country would set their son straight. Briefly attending the College of Notre Dame, Ng dropped out after one semester to join the Marines. 

To do so, Ng lied about his birthplace in order to keep his criminal record a secret. He was caught stealing guns, explosives, and other weaponry before being sentenced to 18 months in Leavenworth prison after his dishonorable discharge from the U.S Marines. 

Leonard Lake was born on October 29, 1945, in San Francisco. His parents separated when he was six years old, leaving him and his siblings in the care of his grandparents. 

Growing up, Lake was described as very cunning but sinister as he would collect mice and other small animals to dissolve them in acidic chemicals. He developed a pornography addiction during this time and Lake would force his sisters into taking sexual photos of themselves or performing sexual acts in exchange for protection from their abusive brother Dom. This incestual behavior was encouraged by Lake’s grandmother. 

Lake attended the University of San Jose State but also dropped out after a single semester. He also joined the Marines in 1965 when he was 19 years old and served two tours as a radar operator during Vietnam. He received a medical diagnosis of Schizoid Personality Disorder, an uncommon condition in which people avoid social activities and consistently shy away from interaction with others and also have a limited range of emotional expression, which caused him to be medically discharged in 1971. 

After his diagnosis, he received psychotherapy treatments and joined a hippie commune afterward. At the commune, Lake was directing and starring in adult films that involved bondage and/or sadomasochism. He met his first wife at the commune but the marriage didn’t last long when she discovered Lake’s film industry and after he kept insisting that she star in said films.

Lake was remarried to Claralyn “Cricket” Balazs in 1981 after Lake was imprisoned in 1980 for car theft, she was the “woman of his dreams” as she willingly complied to his sexual interests. It is suspected that Cricket had some knowledge of her husband’s behavior and that she assisted in the luring of Ng and Lake’s victims. 

She once admitted in a police interview that Lake would often bring in children or various ages and genders and that she wondered what it would feel like to do stuff to them. 

The bunker in the woods where the crimes took place also belonged to Balazs.

Lake had believed a nuclear holocaust was near and needed sex slaves to repopulate the earth. When he met Ng he passed this plan on to the susceptible, younger male. As chronicled in a series of video diaries, Ng and Lake are caught on tape raping, beating, and killing their victims along with their own personal monologues. 

There was also a typed journal with a list of Lake’s Rules for his behavior and treatment to his victims. They had more of a mentor-mentee relationship; Ng was the Sheep and Lake was the Shepard. Ng had always had such ideas but he was too shy of a man to commit to his urges by himself. 

The Victims (Confirmed):

Harvey Dubs

Deborah Dubs

Sean Dubs (infant)

Lonnie Bond Sr. (Lake’s Neighbor)

Brenda O’Connor (Bond’s Wife)

Lonnie Bond Jr. (infant)

Clifford Peranteau

Jeffrey Gerald

Michael Carroll

Kathleen Allen (boyfriend was Ng’s cellmate)

Robin Scott Stapley

Both men are suspected of being responsible for the disappearances of up to 25 people. The women were kept in the bunker for at least a few days or up to a week before they were shot and killed after they were tortured and raped repeatedly while their family watched and then got shot right in front of her eyes. The men were used for financial gain, although they and the children were not the main priority of Ng and Lake. Men and children were killed within the same day as their abduction.

Lake’s Possible Victim’s

Charles Gunnar: Military friend of Lake’s. Lake’s best man in both of his weddings. Went missing during ‘83-’85 and Lake was using Gunnar’s ID at one point in time. His remains were discovered at the ranch in September of 1992.

Donald “Dom” Lake: Leonard Lake’s younger brother. The one he used as a threat during his childhood in order to get sexual favors from his sisters in exchange for protection. Vanished in 1983 and was presumed dead. His remains were also found on the ranch in September 1992.

Paul Cosner: Police found out that the real Robin Stapley was missing for several weeks at the time of Lake’s arrest and that Lake’s car belonged to Paul Cosner, 39, who had also been missing for eight months in November 1984. 2001: a San Francisco judge found Ng and Lake responsible for the murder of Paul Cosner, a missing auto trader who was presumed dead.

Donald Giulietti: The FBI estimates their kidnapping and killing spree started within a month of their reunion. In July 1984, Donald Giuletti, a San Francisco disc jockey, and his roommate, Richard Carrazza, were shot by an Asian man who broke into their apartment and robbed them. 

Giulietti died in the attack but Carrazza survived and would later identify Charles Ng as his attacker. The pistol used in the attack was found at the Wilseyville site.

Lake and Ng got caught when they went to the store to buy a new vise on June 2, 1985. The store owner was immediately suspicious since Lake used Stapely’s ID; Stapely was 26 but Lake looked far from it. Ng couldn’t control his instincts and tried to steal from the store only to have the owner catch Ng in the act. The police were called but Ng fled from the scene, leaving Lake behind to go into hiding.

Lake stayed behind in an attempt to pay for the goods in order to elude arrest. In his car, police found a .22 revolver with an illegally equipped silencer, which is why they were allowed to arrest him at that moment. Since Ng was nowhere to be found, police investigated the bunker.

Police discovered the bodies of 11 people and 45 pounds of unidentifiable bones, caches of weapons and explosives, personals from the victims such as clothes and forms of ID, and the videotape diaries. 

Ng escaped to Canada but got caught shoplifting at another store. Only this time, he panicked and drew a gun, which led to one of the officers getting shot in the hand. He was charged with robbery, attempted robbery, possession of a firearm, and attempted murder in Canada; Ng did his time there for the crimes committed there before being turned over to American authorities. 

In questioning, Lake told the police about Ng, where the bunker was located and gave a hint about what their master plan was. He asked the officer for a cup of water and a pen with paper. While the officer went to fetch the water, Lake wrote his suicide note. He used the water to swallow two cyanide pills that he had sewn into his coat collar. Police thought Lake was going to put his confession in writing when he asked them for pen and paper so they happily complied. 

Lake was rushed to the hospital and fell into a coma, survived on life support for four days before he died on June 6, 1985.

The trial was overly complicated because of Ng’s lie about his nationality and the fact that Ng would often fire lawyers, change the location of the trial, and attempt to defend himself in order to buy himself time and hopefully avoid a trial. Eventually, he faced trial for the first time in 1991.

The final trial took place in 1999 and it lasted for eight months. The jury deliberated for about two weeks until Ng was found guilty for the murder of six men, three women, and two baby boys. He was sentenced to death after he and Lake were caught and was sent to San Quentin. While no sentencing date is set, Ng is appealing his conviction to this day.

Side Notes:

Ng’s Military Cellmate said in a television interview that Ng professed to hating some ethnic groups and homosexuals so much that he killed a gay man by burning him alive.

“The Collector” by John Fowles is a novel about a lonely young man who works as a clerk in a city hall and collects butterflies in his spare time. 

The man becomes obsessed with a female art student and instead of coming up to her he watches her from a distance because it appears that he is socially underdeveloped. 

He then kidnaps the woman after moving into an isolated lodge and adds her to his collection of preserved beauties. He promises not to hurt her, only to shower her with his spoils. 

He is convinced that she would learn to love him over time, but she becomes ill and dies. 

Lake is said to have been obsessed with this novel. 

Kenneth Ng, Charles Ng’s father, blames himself for his son’s role in the killing spree on the physical abuse he did to his son during his childhood.

He testified in court that during that time, there was almost no line between discipline and child abuse. He meant to bring up his son in a narrow and straight path, which sometimes meant tethering him and whipping him with a stick. 

"I tried to bring him up right. Unfortunately, I used the wrong way. I thought this was normal. But now I know how wrong I am." 

Mr. Ng wanted his son to be sentenced to life in prison instead of to death, “I do hope I still have him in jail, instead of dead," he said.

Relatives of the victims said they were not swayed by the testimony, but expressed sympathy for Kenneth Ng. 

It was reported that Ng held his head down for the testimony and cried silently as his father spoke. 

~brianna

[torreygazette]

Precarious Love : The Costs of Agency in Regency Literature

“Women are supposed to be very calm generally, but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer.” - Jane Eyre

For many women, the definition of personal power includes the ability to maintain autonomy and ownership over their life choices, their physicality, and their personal boundaries. Unlike centuries of women before us, we are legally capable of supporting ourselves in essentially any way we choose. First World women are no longer obligated to be dependent on the men in their lives for identity or security, a shift that has adjusted and balanced out the deep vulnerability and hazards inherent in being a woman.

Many of us take this level of agency for granted and read classic literature through this lens. We swoon over romances and love stories while forgetting that, for authors such as Jane Austen or the Brontë sisters, romance actually came second to economic and physical survival. The female protagonists of their novels are not just concerned about love but must gamble on their prospects of security and safety while navigating an unmistakable power imbalance, tipped distinctly in favor of the men. Classic literature written by women and about women often details the struggle to maintain personal autonomy in a world where women are entirely dependent on the good graces of men. These stories make an impact because their protagonists are portrayed fighting for their own dignity while having to navigate their survival through one of the only “respectable” avenues open to them — marriage.

Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice touches on the risk of poverty the Bennet sisters face should they remain unmarried. That tension heightens the shock of Elizabeth’s turning down Darcy’s initial proposal. Darcy feels little need to accommodate Elizabeth’s own wants or desires because he instinctively knows she has very little choice in how her life plays out should she remain single. When she does reject him, she does so knowing her vulnerability to the whims of the generosity from extended family has increased exponentially. What Austen does not detail, however, is what those risks include. Her stories remain comfortably in upper society, and her women have the leeway to assert themselves without putting themselves too far in the way of direct harm.

Charlotte Brontë is different. Everyone who loves gothic romance knows the plot of Jane Eyre - feisty governess falls for brooding hero, sparks fly, tragic secret is revealed, despair sets in, followed by eventual reconciliation. What can easily slip through the cracks, however, is the precarious position Jane finds herself in as soon as that tragic secret is revealed. Jane Eyre stands next to Austen’s Elizabeth in her conviction that she matters, that her self respect is worthy; she lays claim to the right to be treated in accordance to that worth. But unlike Elizabeth, she is a working girl with no known living relatives, with limited life experience, no resources, and living in a house shared with her employer and former fiancé—a man whose past is littered with mistresses he discarded as soon as they no longer pleased him. When Elizabeth, as a decently high-status woman of reputation, initially turns Darcy down, she risks genteel poverty. When Jane, a lower class unknown, rejects the idea of bigamy or becoming Rochester’s mistress, she finds herself threatened with rape.

This is, I believe, the actual crux of the novel. When Darcy is confronted by Elizabeth’s self-respect, he is jolted into seeing her as a true equal and begins to adjust accordingly. In contrast, Brontë establishes this equality for Jane early on. Although Rochester has a history of pettiness, emotional manipulation, and self-absorption, Jane’s commitment to her own value, humanity and self-worth has already forced him to view her as his intellectual equal. By the climax of the novel, Jane has already resisted his efforts to reshape her into the colorful angel of his dreams, and, in a world where women were expected to acquiesce to their husbands without question, has insisted upon remaining herself even as his fiancee. “I will not be your English Celine Varens…. I will furnish my own wardrobe…and you shall give me nothing but your regard: and if I give you mine in return, that debt will be quit.” With his previous mistresses, Rochester amused himself with living distractions. With Jane, Rochester grows to love and respect an actual, fellow human being.

But unlike Elizabeth’s ability to hold her head high and send Darcy on his way, intellectual equality with Rochester does not change the fact that Jane is a lower class governess with few rights, something Rochester is keenly aware of. One of the most famous quotes of Jane Eyre, “I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself…. there I plant my foot,” is Jane’s internal response to Rochester’s attempts to blame and manipulate Jane into taking responsibility for his potential self-destruction should she persist in refusing his offers. Seeing her resolve nearly sends Rochester over the edge:

“Never,” said he, as he ground his teeth, “never was anything at once so frail and so indomitable…. I could bend her with my finger and thumb, and what good would it do if I bent, if I uptore, if I crushed her?.... Whatever I do to its cage, I cannot get at it…. If I tear, if I rend the slight prison, my outrage will only let the captive loose. Conqueror I might be of the house, but the inmate would escape to heaven before I could call myself possessor of its clay dwelling place. And it is you, spirit - with will and energy, and virtue and purity - that I want, not alone your brittle frame… seized against your will you will elude the grasp like an essence.”

No one would have come to Jane’s rescue had Rochester decided to take revenge for his disappointment. He knew it and Jane knew it. But Rochester also knows that although Jane is physically powerless, he cannot escape the fact she is far more than something to be used and tossed aside. He has seen her as an independent individual, and, because he has seen her deep humanity, he cannot go back. He lets her go, unharmed.

Once Jane and Rochester are reunited at the end of the novel, Jane has inherited enough wealth that she now has the ability to walk away from any situation she pleases without personal cost. Should she marry now, it will be entirely her own decision. She is no longer dependent on a husband or a deeply vulnerable governess position to support herself and can choose to live her life as she pleases. In this context, Rochester confesses that he absolutely did intend to rape her. “I did wrong: I would have sullied my innocent flower - breathed guilt on its purity.” He repents, she forgives, and, knowing she is now secure in both herself and in his genuine respect, she steps into his life as his wife. It is doubtful that Elizabeth shared cultural power with Darcy outside of the confines of their home, but Rochesters’s new blindness spares him the cultural shame that would have otherwise followed his sharing control and power with Jane. Brontë writes their story in a way that makes shared power in marriage palatable to an unfamiliar audience, and, potentially, eventually accepted as normal.

Jane Eyre is widely regarded as a masterpiece, showcasing female agency in a world where such things were relatively unknown, but often we find the happiness and satisfaction of the story in the triumphant, “Reader, I married him.” But this is not what Brontë is actually going for. The marriage plot was a commonly relatable, easily digestible storyline; Jane’s fierce independence throughout was not.

Changing cultural narratives takes years of careful work, framed in non-threatening ways, in subversive methods, easily misunderstood or overlooked. Brontë worked to change the culture in the only way she could: introducing a new concept into a known narrative, marriage, using a high-risk scenario, vulnerable governess and powerful master where abuse was essentially expected, and shifted that story instead into a marriage of intellectual equals. Brontë introduced England to a quietly subversive notion—women are human and deserve the same respect and regard as their male counterparts. Jane’s refusal to compromise exposed her to severe risk and harm, something well known to Brontë’s female peers, but also granted her something most could only dream about: a marriage of mutual regard, respect, and shared power. What a concept.

[snowman-aesthetic]

When we project all our anxieties about feminine sexual power onto real, marginalised women, we become a nation of Michael Cleary’s, shrieking about the harm done to us by “deceivers”, unable to see that the real threat is us - the people holding the lit match, pouring grease on the flames.

‘Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarchy, and the Fear of Female Power’ - Sady Doyle

Male sexual access to women is the bedrock of patriarchy. Unless cisgender men can get cisgender women to sleep with them, they cannot get them pregnant; unless they can guarantee those women are monogamous, they cannot be sure that the resulting children are theirs. Every story we tell about sexuality, every bit of dirtiness or shame we attach to it, is aimed at reinforcing that basic power dynamic: Men must be free to sleep with women, and women must not be free to sleep with men. Or with other women, or with anyone, except for the one lucky fellow who’s purchased the right to impregnate her. (This, admittedly, puts a very sinister spin on engagement ring commercials: a diamond is forever.) Female sexuality can exist only with male permission, in answer to male need, and in fact, female desire is so inherently subversive that it’s best to just pretend it doesn’t exist. 

‘Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarchy, and the Fear of Female Power’ - Sady Doyle

Even sexually available, straight, cisgender women - home-wreckers and temptresses, sex workers and secretaries, girls who go wild and girls who cry rape - invite hatred and disgust. They’re free agents, women whose sexuality has not yet been put under a husband’s control and which still therefore carries the power to subvert or overthrow the established system. 

The contempt and condescension polite society pours onto its sluts and spinsters disguises the primal emotion at the root of all misogyny: fear. And that fear is visited every day on women, who pay with their lives for having sexualities that elude patriarchal control. 

‘Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarchy, and the Fear of Female Power’ - Sady Doyle

For every imaginary femme fatale using her sexuality as a weapon of male destruction, there is a real woman who’s been raped by a boyfriend or groped by her boss; for every heartless mermaid drowning her lover or deceptive siren luring him to crash on the rocks, there is a woman whose life has been stalled or limited or ended by a man. It’s easy to think you’ll be the mermaid; to identify with the fairy bride, who can forbid men to touch her or look at her, and forget the human wife, brutalised and tortured and burned for showing a forbidden glimmer of autonomy. But we are all more likely to be the rule than the exception. We are all more likely to be dead sluts than Final Girls.

‘Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarchy, and the Fear of Female Power’ - Sady Doyle

Stories about deceptive, frightening, all-powerful female sexuality were created to justify male violence. They cannot provide us with an escape from it. Genuine sexual freedom and power, for women, is as unimaginable as the surface of another planet. Maybe our descendants will set foot there. But we may never see its sunlight or breathe its air. Yes, there is a primal, feral, alien power in female sexuality before society arises to contain and control it. But that feral quality rarely survives for long. It is beaten out of us, or starved out, or simply hidden away so we can be the kind of women the world tells us are worth loving. For many of us, sexual freedom is only a stop on the way to our final destination: the great domestication, the marriage that is meant to be our happy ending and instead turns out to be our end.

‘Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarchy, and the Fear of Female Power’ - Sady Doyle

This turned out to be one of the worst decisions Scott ever made, and this was a man whose decision-making skills had already led him to infidelity, faked Eiffel Tower parties, and murder. 

- - - - - - 

Women who obsess over stories about killer husbands aren’t indulging in tabloid sensationalism or thinking in complicated psychosexual metaphors. They are, literally, worried that their husbands are going to kill them - and those fears are not irrational.

“Our trust in men is as unearned as it is unreciprocated - yet it’s expected,” writes feminist Chelsea G. Summers. “And this is where true crime’s real value lies: Unlike love songs, unlike rom-coms, and unlike romance novels, true crime has no interest in telling us to trust men. Unlike politicians or bosses, it doesn’t seek to gaslight women.” 

‘Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarchy, and the Fear of Female Power’ - Sady Doyle

That war is long and bloody, and there is no chance of a ceasefire any time soon. If we had no way to talk about it, we might die of the silence alone.

‘Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarchy, and the Fear of Female Power’ - Sady Doyle

Girls and young women wolfed down Gothic novels, which provided a rare public forum through which women could discuss the day-to-day dangers they faced. No other genre was so focused on the evil men do to the women inter lives. The Gothic turned everyday family life inside out to produce anxiety nightmares of unnatural and illegitimate reproduction, child abuse, sexual perversion, and - most importantly - untrustworthy, violent husbands. 

‘Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarchy, and the Fear of Female Power’ - Sady Doyle

Women are indoctrinated from birth to overlook or forgive men’s bad behaviour, especially when it comes to relationships.

‘Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarchy, and the Fear of Female Power’ - Sady Doyle

Its heroines exist in perpetual relation to male brutality, attempting to form meaningful relationships within it or around it or in spite of it.

‘Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarchy, and the Fear of Female Power’ - Sady Doyle

Browning “refused to travel without the toy bears he had had since childhood, whom he fondly called ‘the Boys’.” 

Conservatives may weep and wail at our modern age of premarital cohabitation, but at least a contemporary woman has less chance of learning something like this after the wedding.

‘Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarchy, and the Fear of Female Power’ - Sady Doyle

...but realistically, in a society without easy divorces or pride parades, there was not much for unhappily married couples to do but sleep with other people.

‘Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarchy, and the Fear of Female Power’ - Sady Doyle

...where even the happiest marriage is a nightmare of cruelty and thwarted female needs.

‘Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarchy, and the Fear of Female Power’ - Sady Doyle

“’That’s right, my dear,’ I’d tell her, ‘no-one will put upon you. You were born into this world to take what you could out of it,’ and she did, she didn’t care, she wasn’t afraid.”

Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier

The sea takes its dragons back in the end. Rebecca’s unrepentant sexuality - far too big for her marriage, for any one man, for any one gender, for the world - renders her a malevolent, almost supernatural force. She could never truly be anyone’s wife. She had to be killed, lest she profane the very concept of marriage.

“It’s people like me who have careers who really have bitched up the old relationship between men and women,” du Maurier wrote to her unrequited love, Ellen Doubleday. “Women out to be soft and gentle and dependant. Disembodied spirits like myself are all wrong.” 

‘Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarchy, and the Fear of Female Power’ - Sady Doyle

...there is real power in her declaration that “I shall live as I please ... and the whole world won’t stop me.” 

------

When we look at the woman who does behave like a good wife - the second Mrs. de Winter, soft and gentle and dependant, drab and mousy and victimised, clinging to her husband and making excuses for him while he describes how he, literally, got away with murder - we’re forced to wonder if wifeliness is really such a wonderful thing after all. 

‘Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarchy, and the Fear of Female Power’ - Sady Doyle

We are not supposed to be worrying about these problems. We live in the post-housewife age, the age when marriage is less an institution than a perpetual camping trip with your favourite pal; same-sex marriage is the law of the land, cohabitation and living single are both valid options, no-fault divorce is available in all fifty states, and heterosexual marriage, if you do it at all, is supposed to be fun, This is the golden age of commitment, where everyone takes out the trash and the honeymoon lasts forever. 

You wish. Despite the ever-sounding Klaxons of progress, the numbers just don’t add up. 

‘Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarchy, and the Fear of Female Power’ - Sady Doyle

The increased presence of women in the workplace seems to have only aggravated men’s need for domestic control. 

‘Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarchy, and the Fear of Female Power’ - Sady Doyle

Though it is no longer possible for contemporary women to be submissive, housebound Victorian brides, we are still expected to think like them. The financial and political realities of the twenty-first century are being tacked on to the gender roles and expectations of previous ages, leaving women struggling to accomplish contemporary goals while embodying Victorian ideals.

‘Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarchy, and the Fear of Female Power’ - Sady Doyle

We’re told marriage will make us good, or make us happy, or (given the constant contempt poured on spinsters) that marriage is an accomplishment, like getting into a good college, and we’ll be losers if we don’t qualify.

‘Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarchy, and the Fear of Female Power’ - Sady Doyle

Yet study after study shows that women simply don’t like being married to men - no matter how we romanticise or idealise the institution from the outside, no matter how lonely or insecure we may feel about not being picked, once we’re in, we’re banging on the walls demanding to be let out again.

‘Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarchy, and the Fear of Female Power’ - Sady Doyle

One 2017 study survey by the National Health Service found that women were unhappier than men all their lives, and especially unhappy in the prime marriage and child-rearing decades of their thirties, forties, and fifties - but that female happiness saw a sharp uptick once the women reached their mid-eighties, because by then, their husbands were dead.

‘Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarchy, and the Fear of Female Power’ - Sady Doyle

“Just as God has been pronounced dead quite often but has a sneaky way of resurrecting himself,” wrote second-wave feminist Shulamith Firestone, “so everyone debunks marriage but ends up married.”

------

Our attitudes have shifted, our expectations have shifted, but the institution itself remains largely unchanged. It would be crazy not to feel some frustration.

‘Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarchy, and the Fear of Female Power’ - Sady Doyle

He was not smart. He was not kind. He was not exceptional in anything but the sheer depth of his selfishness. Yet Laci Peterson had jumped through a thousand hoops to please him.

‘Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarchy, and the Fear of Female Power’ - Sady Doyle

She had died trying to measure up to a man who was beneath her. 

---------

Of course women hated Scott. He was the living proof that they’d been sold a phony bill of goods, that the game of heterosexuality was not worth the candle. Not only was marriage not a ticket to happiness or fulfilment, it wasn’t even any safer than our other options: Laci could do everything right, or “right”, and still wind up a collection of half-rotten body parts floating around a bay.

‘Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarchy, and the Fear of Female Power’ - Sady Doyle

There’s a kind of justice in seeing these “good”, victimised girls come back to us in fiction as inconvenient, frightening, monstrous women.

‘Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarchy, and the Fear of Female Power’ - Sady Doyle

...as if all those thrown-away girls in the water were speaking to us, delivering their own eulogies. 

‘Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarchy, and the Fear of Female Power’ - Sady Doyle

“Nick must be taught a lesson ... He’s never been taught a lesson! He glides through life with that charming-Nicky grin, his beloved-child entitlement, his fibs and shirking, his shortcomings and selfishness, and no one calls him on anything. I think this experience will make him a better person. Or at least a sorrier one. Fucker.”

Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn

If you’ve been through enough, the difference between making a man better and making him sorrier can be tough to figure out. In fact, it may not matter.

‘Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarchy, and the Fear of Female Power’ - Sady Doyle

That kind of rage bubbles underneath the surface of many “normal” marriages, and behind the smiles of many seemingly happy women. 

‘Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarchy, and the Fear of Female Power’ - Sady Doyle

[It] gave women a way to vent their daily indignities and unspeakable anger safely and without consequence; let us have our wedding cake and poison it, too; it was an opportunity to save the wife and punish her husband for killing her at the same time.

‘Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarchy, and the Fear of Female Power’ - Sady Doyle

There’s more than one way to kill your wife. Beyond the spectacular violence of shootings and stranglings and wives thrown in rivers, there is the daily, grinding violence of subservience and loss of self - which, like those more visible attacks, is a built-in part of the system. To this day, women are expected to give up more of themselves in marriage than men are; to change our names, change our goals, to give up our homes or careers or autonomy or our very identities. Like the protagonist of Rebecca, we are still expected to be “Mrs. [Whoever]” and no one else. The stories contemporary women tell about marriage are documents of a fractured consciousness; torn between the complicated, thinking people they are and the wives they’re supposed to be, between the marriages they have and the capital-M Marriage that is still the cultural ideal. At the points where autonomy and personhood bump up against the edges of wifeliness, monsters arise. 

‘Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarchy, and the Fear of Female Power’ - Sady Doyle

But those monsters are only reflections of a deeper powerlessness, impractical revenge fantasies against a system too huge and old and powerful for even the most monstrous woman to defeat. Despite all the work we’ve done to reform it, the bones of marriage are not romantic. As originally intended, a wife is just a woman who’s been brought under male control, and marriage is just the process by which men make wives out of women; an institution built, like Bluebeard’s bloody chamber, to make girls disappear.

‘Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarchy, and the Fear of Female Power’ - Sady Doyle

She is, now and forever, “the wife”. She has disappeared into the man who killed her, so completely that sheen longer has her own name.

‘Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarchy, and the Fear of Female Power’ - Sady Doyle