#are they all just as insane as that one girl who said the roman empire didn't exist??

[fortunatelychaoticphantom]

I just. My brain just fucking broke.

Israel didn't exist in biblical times!!!

Do you know who didn't exist in biblical times? JESUS! "Biblical times" is an actual fucking period in history, which corresponds to the Iron Age through the Persian period, in which Jesus was absolutely not a fucking part of! This period ended like 500 years before he was born! He lived in the the Roman fucking Period you absolute fucking moron! (and he was a fucking Jew you fucking antisemitic piece of shit, and we're not going to talk about what ELSE didn't exist in Jesus's or Biblical times, I've talked about that enough).

And just like the fucking insult.... Israel didn't exists?? The Kingdom of Israel didn't exist??? The Kingdom of Israel that is literally mentioned in both the fucking bible and extra-biblical texts??? The Kingdom of Israel that kept the southern Levant safe for decades from the Assyrian invasion and colonization through one of the greatest and most incredible coalitions in fucking history??? The Kingdom of Israel that led a multi cultured and prosperous (though quite tumultuous, ain't gonna lie) society for like three hundred years before being annihilated by Mesopotamian imperialism??? That Israel didn't exist???

Literally the only thing I see in my head right now is the Omride dynasty just looking at this post with the utmost disgust, like how fucking dare you??!?

pov: you (the poster of the original twitt and the creator of the fucking Jesus fanart it was responding to) are Shalmanseser III, literally trying to erase Levantine cultures (Jews) from history, about to get your ass whipped by the greatest coalition in history (depressed Jewish archaeologists who fucking had enough)

[storiesforallfandoms]

i don’t ever wanna see you with him ~ roman godfrey;hemlock grove

word count: 2551

request?: no

description: after he gets jealous of her best male friend, she decides to put him in his place

pairing: roman godfrey x female!reader

warnings: swearing

masterlist (one, two, three)

Roman Godfrey was spoiled and entitled. Everyone in Hemlock Grove knew that. He was the heir to the massive empire in their small town, so it wasn’t a surprise that he had a sense of entitlement. That entitlement tended to extend to his romantic relationships, too. Roman was often very possessive and jealous over his girlfriends. Most of them liked that, most of them viewed it as hot and endearing.

(Y/N) was not one of those girls.

She and Roman had met through (Y/N)’s best friend, Peter. He was enamored with her the minute he laid his eyes on her, and, secretly, (Y/N) had felt the same way. Not that she would ever tell him that. She had been warned about Roman before she met him. She wasn’t about to give into him so easily; she made him work for it - for her. And he really did put in the work until (Y/N) trusted his commitment to her and agreed to date him.

There was one issue about Roman, though, and that was his jealousy towards (Y/N) and Peter’s friendship. He thought he kept it lowkey, but both Peter and (Y/N) knew. They both knew Roman better than he thought they did. They could see when his eyes darkened whenever he looked at them. They could see his jaw tighten whenever (Y/N) laughed at something Peter said. They could see the way Roman always needed to be touching (Y/N) whenever the three of them were hanging out.

It wasn’t that Roman didn’t like Peter. When it was just the two of them, they were the best of friends. It was Peter with (Y/N) that Roman didn’t like. And that was what pissed (Y/N) off. Peter had been her friend long before he was Roman’s, and long before Roman and (Y/N) started dating. And that’s all they were - friends. There had never been any sort of romantic feelings between them, and there never would be.

That’s why (Y/N) was walking up to Peter’s trailer on her own on a sunny afternoon. He was laying in a hammock, his eyes closed as he soaked up the sun. Upon hearing her footsteps, he opened one eye and peered over at her.

“Where’s your shadow?” he asked.

(Y/N) rolled her eyes. “He’s not that attached to me.”

“He may as well be a wart on your ass, (Y/N). Especially when it comes to me.”

“He’s certainly a pain in my ass,” (Y/N) muttered. “Move over, I want some hammock.”

Peter chuckled and shuffled over slightly. (Y/N) got into the hammock, laying with her feet towards Peter’s head and her head towards his feet. The hammock swayed with the motions before it settled again.

“He doesn’t know I’m here,” (Y/N) said as her body relaxed into the swaying fabric.

“What?” Peter asked.

“Roman. I didn’t tell him I was coming.”

“Is that healthy? Like, for your relationship.”

“I didn’t lie to him or anything. He’s busy with some family shit, so I haven’t even heard from him yet today. If he were to ask, I’d tell him I’m here.”

“And then he’d show up and kick my ass.”

(Y/N) sighed and rested her head back against the hammock. “Do you think he’ll ever stop being so...”

“So Roman?” Peter finished. (Y/N) nodded. “It’s hard to tell. His entire life he’s been surrounded by enablers, or he’s been under the control of his insane mother. I think we’re the first people to treat him like an actual person and not like he owns the world. So either we could help him, or he’ll annoy us both to a point where we can’t deal with him anymore.”

The latter option was what worried (Y/N) the most. She loved Roman, other than his jealousy he was an amazing boyfriend who loved and cared for her so deeply. She didn’t want to lose him, but she knew Peter had a point about if Roman couldn’t control that jealousy. She couldn’t live the rest of her life wondering how Roman was going to react to every guy she interacted with, whether it was friends, co-workers, or just random guys she ran into on the street. And she definitely was not going to be made to choose between Roman and Peter when she had known and been friends with Peter the longest.

She didn’t say anything, but she didn’t have to. Peter knew what she was thinking. It wasn’t the first time they had this conversation.

They fell into a comfortable silence. There really didn’t need to be any conversation. This was the first time in quite some time that the two were able to spend time together and actually enjoy it. So that’s what they were doing: enjoying their time.

The enjoyment didn’t last too long, though, as they heard a car pulling up in front of Peter’s place. Peter’s mom’s car was already in the driveway, so there was only one person it could be. That suspicion was confirmed by a car door slamming and Peter rolling his eyes when he saw whoever it was approaching. (Y/N) huffed out a sigh as she prepared herself for the argument that was undoubtably coming.

“You two look comfy,” Roman commented.

“We are,” Peter responded. “Wanna join? you can lay across us.”

Roman glared at him before turning to (Y/N). “I was trying to call you. Why haven’t you been answering your phone?”

She looked down at her purse where her phone was, which she had left on the ground when she climbed into the hammock. She gestured to it. “It’s too far away for me to reach. And my phone is on vibrate, as it always is, and you know that.”

His jaw clenched. (Y/N) felt her frustration reaching its peak.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were coming here?” Roman asked.

“Well, for one, you haven’t responded to my texts at all today, so it’s not like I’ve even been talking to you today,” (Y/N) retorted. “And two, you don’t own me, Roman. I’m not required to tell you every single thing I’m doing or where I’m going.”

“You do if you’re hanging out with other guys by yourself.”

(Y/N) swung her legs over the side of the hammock and stood up so quickly that Peter nearly flipped out of it. She approached Roman with such ferocity that Roman took a step back before she reached him.

“Let me tell you one thing, Roman Godfrey: I’m done with this jealousy bullshit. I am not your property, I am your girlfriend. You do not control where I go or who I’m friends with. Especially when the person in question is my best friend who I’ve known way before I met you. This dark, entitled rich boy bullshit might work on other girls in this town, but it’s not working on me. If you want someone to put up with that, then you may as well find someone else to be your girlfriend, cause I can’t do this anymore.”

She picked up her purse and put it over her shoulder.

“Where are you going?” Roman asked as she started walking away.

“Anywhere that’s away from you!” she hissed. Over her shoulder she added, “I’ll talk to you later, Peter.”

~~~~~~

(Y/N) was home by herself that night. Her parents had gone out to some kind of function, and had asked if she wanted to tag along, but she told them to go on without her. She felt like she needed some time alone to come to terms with what had happened that day.

Peter had texted her asking if she was okay, but she hadn’t responded. She wasn’t upset with him by any means, as he didn’t even do anything wrong, but she just felt like she didn’t want to talk just yet. When she did respond, it was going to be to tell him she wanted to forget everything that had happened that day and to move on as if everything was normal, minus the fact that she and Roman were no longer together.

Roman hadn’t texted or called at all. She wasn’t sure if it hurt more that he hadn’t, or if it had hurt less.

She was sat in the living room, half paying attention to some movie that was playing on TV, when a knock came at the door. The sudden sound startled (Y/N). She wasn’t expecting anyone, and she knew her parents weren’t either as they weren’t even home. She figured it might be a door to door salesman, or someone trying to talk to her about the Lord, although it seemed too late at night for any of that. Either way, she stood from the couch and went to answer the door.

Standing there, leaning against her doorway, was Roman Godfrey.

“What are you doing here?” she asked him.

“Can I come in?” he asked in return.

“Not until you answer my question.”

“I came to talk to you.”

“You have a phone, which I know you know how to use because you were blowing mine up before you came to attack me and Peter.”

“I wanted to come talk to you in person. You’d be more likely to answer the door if you didn’t know I was coming than to answer your phone if you knew it was me calling.”

Okay, he has a point.

(Y/N) reluctantly stepped aside and gestured for Roman to come in. She closed the door behind him and led him towards the living room. She had been sat with all the lights off before Roman knocked and hadn’t realized just how dark the room had become. She switched on a small table lamp and muted the movie before sitting back in her spot on the couch.

“Your parents aren’t home?” Roman asked.

“No, they’re gone to some gala for dad’s work,” she responded. “Don’t get any funny ideas. We’re not together anymore, remember?”

Roman winced, as if her words had physically harmed him. “Yeah, I know. That’s what I came to talk about.”

He sat down next to her on the couch, but left a respectable distance between them. She appreciated that it seemed like he wasn’t trying to be too pushy towards her or anything, at least not yet.

“Go on then,” she said, waving her hand at him. “Start talking. What was so important that you had to come down from your castle to speak to the commoner?”

Roman scowled at her. “You know you’re not a commoner.”

“Compared to you and your wealth I am. But that’s not the conversation we’re having right now. Whatever it is you wanted to say, say it, and then I’ll decide whether or not I want you to leave immediately.”

Roman sighed and ran his hands through his hair. (Y/N) quickly glanced at the dark brown strands that were between his fingers. His hair was always incredibly soft. (Y/N) always loved to run her hands through his hair and seized every opportunity to do so. She had to look away just as quickly and shove down those painful memories. She couldn’t let herself break and go back to him just because of something so trivial.

“I’m sorry.”

The words shocked (Y/N) so much that she almost physically jumped when he said them. They were words she had very rarely ever heard said with such sincerity coming from Roman’s mouth. She had heard it in sarcastic mutters under his breath whenever his mother chastised him for something stupid, or said to defuse a situation that was getting a little too heated, but this wasn’t in either of those ways. This time, he actually meant it.

“Can you say that again?” (Y/N) asked.

Roman chuckled and rolled his eyes. “I said I’m sorry.”

“One more time.”

“(Y/N), I do have more to say.”

“Yeah, but this is what I want to hear.��

Roman shook his head at her, a smile threatening to break out across his face. “Look, what you said earlier, at Peter’s, you were right. You are my girlfriend, not my property. I shouldn’t have been so possessive and attempting to control your friendship with Peter. I just...every time you two are together, I’m reminded about the fact that you and Peter are close, and that you’ve been close for a very long time. I know that Peter isn’t as much of a prick as I am, some would say he’s an actual nice guy I guess. I know there’s nothing between the two of you, but there’s always been this fear in the back of my mind that maybe...maybe that could change. That you would want Peter more than you want me.”

There was hurt in his big green eyes. His confession surprised her because Roman always seemed so confident in himself. It was one of the first things she had ever heard about him, about how cocky he was.

“Why did you never tell me before?” she asked.

Roman shrugged. “I don’t know. I didn’t want to seem like a crazy, possessive boyfriend. I didn’t realize I had already been acting like that. I actually thought I was hiding it well.”

“Yeah, because showing up to Peter’s place because I didn’t answer my phone is totally not a crazy, jealous boyfriend move.”

He chuckled. “Okay, touché. That was not one of my better moments.”

“None of how you were acting was one of your better moments,” (Y/N) said. “I would’ve much preferred you to have told me how you were feeling instead of bottling them up and allowing yourself to treat your best friend like garbage whenever we were hanging out.”

Roman cringed. “I did treat Peter pretty terribly, didn’t I? God, he probably hates me.”

“You’re definitely not his favorite person right now, but I’m sure you can get back in his good graces by acting like an actual person and not like a jealous piece of shit.”

“What about your good graces?”

(Y/N) thought to herself for a moment. He had come to apologize in person. He knew the way he had acted was wrong, he actually apologized for it, and it seemed like he was willing to make a change. That’s what she wanted, wasn’t it? For him to work on the jealousy and actually change it.

“I think you can get back there,” she said. “You’ll just have to work for it again.”

“I’ll do whatever it takes.”

(Y/N) smiled. She moved closer towards him and unmuted the movie. “You can start by cuddling me and finishing this bullshit movie with me.”

He smiled back at her and put his arm around her shoulder. “I can do that. But why are we finishing the movie if it’s bullshit?”

“Because I’m invested in the bullshit.”

Roman chuckled and pulled (Y/N) towards him. She rested her head against his shoulder and he put his head on hers. He tested the waters by placing a kiss on the top of her head. (Y/N) didn’t argue. Instead, she turned her head to kiss his cheek before settling against him again.

[reiniesainyo]

IN BETWEEN. charlie bushnell x reader – 06

06 | NONSENSE previous | next | masterfile

SYNPOSIS. when a girl's co-star is good to her and now she wants it more than everything in between. (smau)

A/N. exam season in the philippines rn + prepping for a lot of compets so i can't do much but here's a little tease because i'm so so so fun btw thoughts on a dallas liu x reader???? idk yet lawl

liked by iamcharliebushnell, dallas_liu, and 387,293 others thelnarchives life lately has just been one big food trip

user1 she's so pretty it's crazy...........

user2 who's in first slide????

iamcharliebushnell why didn't you post a picture of my dumplings? thelnarchives because they're ugly, charles. so ugly. so so so so so ugly. iamcharliebushnell moragnlogoff You can't win this one bro

user3 why tf are my worlds colliding ... one piece and pjo user4 Keep scrolling you'll be shocked a bit more

user5 her life looks so fun i want to be reborn as her left ear user6 bro what

leahsavajeffries imy!!! let's hang out soon pls thelnarchives anything for you !!

dallas_liu when are you gonna post your ad for the dumpling workshop? thelnarchives trying to fix some of my clients (you and charlie) first so i got that 100% guarantee momonatanada that's unfixable

user7 ATLA AND PJO INTERACTING THIS IS MY ROMAN EMPIRE user8 it's them hanging out not just comments i' gonna faint

avantika wife! user8 AVANTIKA??????

user9 dallas liu, momona, yn, charlie, all hanging out????? user10 morgan davies too!! user11 avantika???? user12 PJO x ATLA x Mean Girls x One Piece

RAY! @ zukokinnie the fuck is happening right now... charlie, yn, dallas, momona, mogran davies, avantika hanging out? together? something is up 🗨 12 comments 🔁 99 retweets ❤️ 293 likes

user1 hear me out, new tv show ↳ user2 no because dallas was on the red carpet this week talking about exciting stuff coming up and when they asked if it was a season 2 atla, he said not quite

user3 i want to see them in a movie together but they might just be friends ↳ zukokinnie NOOOOOO but also like powerful friend group but also PROJECT PLS

user4 honestly i love these folks but they need to stare in an original series, like their careers are taking off they need original source material

user5 avantika, momona, yn in one group that's insane that's future hollywood

[blicketdabest33]

FINAL CABIN PLACEMENTS I DON'T WANT TO EDIT IT AFTER THIS

So many of y'all had so many good ideas (and since a lot of these i came up with without any real reasoning) here's my updated version that i think fits A LOT better

#1 Zeus Cabin: Jimmy, Joel Jimmy: He's a Zeus kid, but everyone somehow forgets about it. Joel: He's competitive and strong. Also, because Jimmy is his half brother through godly parent, i get to make a fun bit about him dating Lizzie. And one of his origins in Afterlife SMP was a thunderborn

#2 Hera Cabin: Scott, Impulse, Ren Scott: Scott's whole thing is loyalty. Hera is the goddess of marriage and is insanely loyal to Zeus. However, I feel like Hera should get at least one affair. So now Scott can use peacocks as weapons. Impulse: According to @dawnfire7 Impulse is known for loyalty, which i did not know. He's also known to hold grudges. Perfect Hera kid. Ren: He's apparently known for loyalty (and i didn't really like his Nike placement anyway)

#3 Poseidon Cabin: XB XB: Something about water temple guardians

#4 Demeter Cabin: Sausage, Shelby, Bdubs, Stress Sausage: This man built Sanctuary in a jungle and has flowers in his hair. He sells wood. There is no other place to put him. Shelby: Mushroom gnome, spooky mangrove witch, powerful storm witch, i need not continue. Bdubs: Moss man. Stress: SHE HAS FLOWERS

#5 Ares Cabin: Martyn, False Martyn: His planet is Mars, which is the roman version of Ares. He ended Limited Life in such a violent way, i can't help it. He was also red for the majority of Secret Life. False: I just feel like False should get to kill people more often.

#6 Athena Cabin: Grian, Pix, Owen, Xisuma Grian: This sums it up pretty well

Pix: Smart man. Archeologist and definitely a nerd. I wanna see him skipping out on training just so he can read history books. Owen: He likes to explore and discover new things in Pirates. In Rats, he's a tinkerer. In New Life, he's an explorer who wants to study hybrids. In Empires, he's a Llama who's curious about how humans work. Just a very curious character overall. Xisuma: Admin. I'm not elaborating.

#7 Apollo Cabin: Oli, Lyarrah Oli: MUSIC. MAN. Lyarrah: She writes the captions for the hermitcraft recap.

#8 Artemis Cabin: Pearl, Gem Pearl: Y'know, Artemis could've just like... had a kid, even though she took that oath. It wouldn't even have to be with a guy. Gods can change to whatever gender they want. Anyway, Pearl gets to be an Artemis kid because her symbolism is moon, she loves dogs, and will commit murder and hunt at night. Gem: Someone really wanted these girls to be sisters, and I think Gem and pearl should get to hunt at night and be fierce together. Oh, and she's got the whole deer aesthetic.

#9 Hephaestus Cabin: Doc, Mumbo, Tango, Zedaph, Fwhip, Iskall Doc: Redstone Mumbo: Redstone Tango: Redstone Zedaph: Redstone Fwhip: Redstone AND has a red scarf (don't ask me how that's relevant) Iskall: Redstone

#10 Aphrodite Cabin: Keralis, Skizz, Bigb Keralis: Okay, I don't know why, but Keralis gives me the vibes of a very charming person. His voice is nice to listen to, so imagine how useful it'd be if I gave him charm speak. Skizz: Person in the tags said he was really charming and you can't help but love him. I agree. He's here now. Bigb: Smooth talker. Someone (i think it was Scott) said in one of their videos "It's hard to kill him while he's talking". Charmspeak. Ma man, go do chaos.

#11 Hermes Cabin: Scar, Etho, Joe Scar: Trader Scar, scammer extraordinar. Etho: All i must say is Shady-E's. I get "jack-of-all-trades, master of none, often better than master of one" vibes from him. He's funny, he's mischievous, it just works. Joe: Comedy man. Excellent delivery. And, yet again, i look at this man and go "That right there is a multi-talented man with a habit for mischief."

#12 Dionysus Cabin: Joey, Beef, Cub Joey: *points at his season one empires theme* i need not say more Beef: Idk, food. I don't really have a reason. I don't know too much about Beef. Cub: Someone said Cub was really laid back, i liked this idea, he's here now. C'mon, go make ur empire.

#13 Hades Cabin: Zloy Zloy: Zombie man. He writes the Hermitcraft recaps in the dark at 2am with nothing but pure spite.

#14 Iris Cabin: Katherine Katherine: SHE. HAS. COLORS. and also I couldn't put her in Demeter cabin because Shelby is already there and i am NOT excluding Nature Wives from this au

#15 Hypnos Cabin: Wels Wels: @dingdinghq said something about sleeping during S6 and i completely agree

#16 Nemesis Cabin:

#17 Nike Cabin:

#18 Hebe Cabin: 

#19 Tyche Cabin: TFC TFC: Man goes mining and gets really lucky. That's it.

#20 Hecate Cabin: Lizzie, Cleo, Jevin Lizzie: Witchy vibes. Also, Arson. Cleo: Arson. She uses her magic for Arson. Jevin: He's a magic slime. Also, Arson. All Hecate kids love Arson.

[nikolasongsa]

psychopathic rant I did whilst I read something from whoever it was

the post dissappeared apparently because I took my fine ass time

Like thaulf said, women "are just like that", but psychiatry is not the practice of listing mere 'personality traits' as personality traits, but disorders. The way illness is described is also different

the point of psychiatry is often to use it against those undeserving of it; cut resistance, to make people mad, and sell drugs and in general just muddle things that are actually real and have empirical evidence

+ using words like "bpd" is faggot language

Read any DSM and continue to be amazed. The audacity of them to list things like genetics, IQ and retardation and use it like retards themselves

gay notes for myself mainly

"Romans 7:17 And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right, but I can’t. I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway’."

"Here are other words of this doctor who lived a century before Orwell wrote 1984. According to Heinroth, the psychiatrist

appears to the patient as helper and saviour, as a father and benefactor, as a sympathetic friend, as a friendly teacher, but also as a judge who weighs the evidence, passes judgement, and executes the sentence; at the same time seems to be the visible God to the patient…

“The biggest issue we faced during the time our daughter began to manifest problems (when she was five years old) was to convince the ‘professionals’ that she did indeed have a disease that was biologically based and not caused by alleged child abuse [or] bad parenting”

"I’m a 16 year old girl who has just gotten out of a ‘psychiatric treatment center’. I was there for over 4 months because I was diagnosed with Borderline Personality disorder and Manic Depression. Borderline Personality Disorder is the biggest f— joke I have heard of. All it is a description of an immature teenager. Haha. I am also not Manic Depressive. The psych people there somehow managed to convince everyone that I was, including my parents. (‘She has severe highs and lows. And she’s impulsive too!’) They put me on lots of medication.

Perfectly normal people are kept in treatment centers. Perfectly normal teenagers. Nobody was crazy there. Not even one person. They were just teenagers with divorced parents. Or teenagers who did a few drugs. Or teenagers who got suspended from school. Suddenly we were all Borderlines, Schizophrenics, and Manic Depressives who ‘needed’ long term hospitalization. We also ‘needed’ medication. They put us on heavy doses of anti-psychotics, mood stabilizers, antidepressants, anti-whatevers. I was the only patient who didn’t take the medication. I will never take psychiatric medication. I’ve tried it before. It does nothing except for turn me into a zombie. It dulls me out. Makes it so I can’t think straight. Everyone else took it though." 1996

"In the dawn of the 21st century the diagnoses that were used against her and her mates (‘borderlines’, ‘schizophrenics’, ‘manic depressives’) are as fraudulent as the diagnoses that the psychiatrists used in the 19th century (‘moral insanity’, ‘folie lucide’, ‘nymphomania’)."

"Psychiatrists are fond of stressing how much suffering schizophrenia causes. However, I can truthfully say being labeled a schizophrenic has caused me a hundred times as much suffering as the so-called ‘illness’ itself. Since recovering my sanity in 1961, I have spent decades struggling to gain some measure of self-understanding and self-esteem. In this regard, I never fully recovered from what psychiatry and my parents did to me until I finally realized I had never been ill in the first place."

(The same person who coined the term 'schizophrenia' coined the term 'autism')

"How, for example, can a psychiatrist validate his identity as a medical doctor without labeling others as mentally sick’, asks Modrow, ‘that is to say, without dehumanizing others and thoroughly destroying their identities?’

"Economics controls politics, so the pivotal issue is an economic one. To see what is happening, look at the textbook or manual called DSM-III, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, third edition. Translated into economic and political terms, mental disorder means undesired mental states and attitudes and behaviour […]

The criteria in the manual are very useful for controlling the population because you can bring them to bear on practically anyone if the occasion seems to demand it. Look at this: ‘Oppositional disorder’ is a very good one."

"In 1999 Professor Leonard Duhl of the University of California defined mental illness and poverty in the most perfect sense of the ideologists of the Great Confinement of the 17th century: ‘the inability to command events that affect one’s life’."

"If the philosophy of the biologicistic psychiatrists is right, all our passions, traumas and conflicts, loves and fears, are not the result of our desires in conflict with the external world, but of the swings of small polypeptides in our bodies that are transformed into despair."

"The primitive witch-doctor, who tried to understand Nature in human terms, treated objects as agents: a position known as animism. The modern witch-doctor, who tries to understand the subjectivity of man in terms of Nature, treats agents as objects: a position known as bioreductionism. Primitive man has been demystified in our scientific era. Who will demystify psychiatry doctors?"

"a mandate to strip anyone of their civil liberties […] to homogenize people who are out of line. Presented as a medical exercise, it is an undercover operation. "

"Personality disorders are diagnosed in 40–60% of psychiatric patients, rendering them the most common of all psychiatric diagnoses"

"First, concerning point (a) above, DSM-IV-TR already lists Intermittent Explosive Disorder, Antisocial Personality Disorder, Conduct Disorder, Avoidant Personality Disorder, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, and countless more poorly defined and controversial diagnostic labels, all in large part oriented at defining as mentally ill the kinds of behavior that Dr. Diamond wants to pathologize further. But no psychiatrist intent on listing yet more disorders in the DSM should be blind to the risks of overdiagnosis, given the embarrassing amount of overlap that already exists among these disorders. "

[holylulusworld]

The queen of Lebanon - Part 9 – The kingpin of Lebanon

Summary: Your father died years ago, all men in the business believed you are too weak to take over his Empire – they were wrong. Anyone trying to get into your hair will feel your wrath. What happens when a cocky mobster tries not only to steal your empire but your heart too?

Pairing: Mobster!Dean x Mobster!Reader, Cole Trenton, Jimmy ‘Cas’ Novak, Benny LaFitte, Arthur Ketch

Warnings: angst, ‘the family business’, mentions of characters death, love-hate relationship, hooking up, rivalry, betrayal, violence, mentions torture, age gap (reader is 28; Dean 32)

The queen of Lebanon Masterlist

Four years and 7 months ago, …

He’s panting heavily looking up at you with wide eyes as he can see the coldness in your Y/E/C orbs. 

“I know what you did to my mother and Michael. I know you are a killer, a monster, Winchester. You love to make a murder look like an accident so…” Smirking you point toward the fire slowly feasting at his car. “You will die like my family.”

“Y/N, this isn’t you.” Coughing John tries to free his leg cursing as the pain makes him feel dizzy. “Don’t do this…”

“You destroyed my whole life, John. You killed my whole family and any chance I had with Dean. Now your life end with the same pain my family felt back then. Have a nice life…” Laughing you run toward your car, jumping in as Cole speeds off.

A few moments later you heart the explosion end John Winchesters' life. You wish you could say your heart is healed but all you feel is a void at the place where your heart used to be…

Now…

“Artemis has fallen, just like Ares…” Pacing around Dean’s office you bite your lower lip. “Problem is, Dean…” Standing closer to the mobster you hide your face in his neck to make sure no one can hear your words.

“Gadreel didn’t know about Frank. He wasn’t around when Charlie told us about him. She never mentioned her connection to Frank before and…” Meeting Dean’s eyes you take a deep breath. “…there’s only one person knowing Ares was my most important hideout with the best security…”

“Who?” Hushing the word Dean searches your face and he can see the disappointment. “Y/N, we need to share information. Just tell me, Baby Girl.”

“I can’t…not yet.” Choking the words out you press a piece of paper into Dean’s hand, giving him a cracked smile. “I need to be sure, Dean. If he’s a traitor, he’ll die but I can’t just kill him. Gadreel still could be the rat.”

“What did Charlie say?” Pointing toward your iPad you nuzzle your nose into Dean’s neck, inhaling his scent to calm your nerves. “Y/N?”

“Charlie said all data look original, but the phone calls, the ones coming from Gadreel’s phone look odd. Charlie found some notes Frank made. He assumed it’s fake…” Dean’s features darken, and you feel the anger radiate through his body.

“What now?” Kissing your neck Dean roams your body, not wanting to miss to touch you while he has the chance to. “We need to find the rat…”

“Trap, Dean.” Whispering your plan into Dean’s ear you feel his hands wander to your ass, squeezing it hard. “Dean, not now. I’ll call Garth, make sure he’s safe. If I can’t reach him, I know Gadreel is guilty…”

“What if Garth is alright?” Falling silent you take a deep breath. “Y/N, tell me his name…” Letting go of you Dean searches your face once again.

“Just give me two hours. The plan will reveal the rat and we will punish him. If it’s Gadreel he will pay, if it’s him then…” Swallowing the lump in your throat you give Dean a cracked smile. “I will let Arthur hurt him as no one got hurt before…”

Turning around you leave Dean’s office. He’s gulping hard as he opens the piece of paper to read the note you gave him. “Be there at 2 pm…”

“Garth called you?” Cole asks once again; relieved Gadreel didn’t harm your friend. “So, Gadreel did his job and the Sheriff is safe.”

“He did, Cole. Maybe we were wrong, or Garth was not important enough to Dick Roman to blow his cover, Cole. The Sheriff doesn’t know anything about Dick Roman or his business. Garth concentrated on the Winchesters and Crowley.”

“I see.” Nodding thoughtfully Cole gives you a warm smile and you feel a pull at your heart. “That’s good. We don’t want to involve innocent people.”

“True. Still, I must meet up with Garth later. I’ll meet him at the old restaurant my father bought years ago. It’s safe, no one knows about it except for you, me and Garth.” After telling Cole, you will go without Dean you can see his mood lighten.

“Without Dean Winchester?” Smirking Cole nudges your side. “I thought you are Siamese twins lately, Y/N. Your father wouldn’t like your collaboration with the enemy.”

“I am not collaborating with Dean Winchester. We will use his resources and men to bring Dick Roman down. After that…” Shrugging you give Cole a wink. “We will take down the Winchesters next.”

“I hate this plan for sure.” Dean is grumbling as he must watch you walk toward the building with Cole by your side. “I should be with her, Sammy.”

“Dean just calm down. Y/N has a plan, okay. Garth and his family are safe. If we want to find out who the rat is, we need to trust her instinct. I know you love her, now prove you can be a partner, not just a lover.”

“Sam is right, boss. Charlie checked the messages, Gadreel’s bank account, and the calls once again and found a trace.” Benny points toward you entering the building. 

“According to the data Gadreel called Dick Roman while he was with Garth, but the Sheriff confirmed Gadreel didn’t call anyone for over ten hours. The only call he made was the one Y/N received.”

“You mean Gadreel is innocent?” Jimmy watches you nod at Cole before he follows you into the building. “Where is he then?”

“Just wait, Jimmy. Y/N is nothing but a genius…” Smirking Sam sends a message to Ketch and the others waiting for your orders. “Let’s do this…”

The building is dusty, silent and ... empty. While you walk further into the room Cole looks around, confused as Garth is nowhere to be found.

“Shouldn’t the Sheriff be here?” Cole sounds impatient and a cold shiver runs down your spine. “Y/N?”

“Why? Does this mess with your plans, brother?” Turning around you look into the barrel of Cole’s gun. While his eyes darken, and he doesn’t even try to hide his betrayal any longer you don’t even blink when he pulls the trigger.

“Did you believe I wouldn’t find out, Cole?” Aiming your gun toward his head you blink the tears away. “Did you believe Charlie and I would just swallow your bait and kill Gadreel, who survived your attack by the way.”

Cole’s eyes fill with fear as you unlock the gun. “Y/N…”

“Just tell me the reason, Cole. Tell me why you made a deal with the devil and wanted to kill me, Gadreel and all others. Explain this whole insanity to me and I’ll kill you fast.” Voice trembling you hear the others getting closer.

“Bobby…” Gasping you hear your father's name leave Cole’s lips. “He wanted to retire and leave the business to Dean Winchester.” Scoffing Cole sits onto a dusty chair, frantically moving his left hand through his hair. “He told me that you and I shall have a normal life.”

“What’s wrong with having a normal life? That’s what I wanted.” Screaming the words, you ram your fist into Cole’s face. “What did you do…?”

“I tried to talk to Bobby, tried to make him see I am the man to take over his Empire, but he was adamant and promised me a better life.” Voice cracking Cole looks up at you.

“I…I called Dick and told him I will help him taking over Dean’s Empire if he helps me getting my foster fathers…”

“You…it was you…” Pressing one hand over your mouth you step back as Dean and the others enter the building. “It was you killing my parents?”

“No…no! I just thought Dick would scare Bobby a bit, put pressure on him to give his Empire to me. I didn’t know he would kill him or Jody, I swear.”

While you lower the gun, shaking your head you close your eyes. Tears threaten to burst free, but you swallow your pain, not showing weakness once again.

“Why Cole? Was all you had not enough? Daddy loved you like his son, Cole…he loved you…” Choking on your words you fire the magazine into the wall behind Cole.

“He loved me…sure.” Scoffing Cole glares at you. “But there was not enough respect to let me take over his Empire. I swear I didn’t want him to die, but what’s done is done.”

“Still, after Dick killed my parents you gave him information.” Tossing your gun onto the table you run one hand down your face. “Why did he wait that long to strike?”

“Dick believed I would take over Bobby’s Empire, would open Lebanon to him but with you taking over, he had to wait for a chance. There was still John Winchester and Crowley.” Huffing you close your eyes.

“I helped him by taking John down, I guess. What about Crowley? Is he dead too?” Looking at Cole your features darken as he refuses to answer. “You will answer all our questions.” 

“Boss? What about Gadreel?” Jimmy tries to find a way to help you, but he can see the hurting all over your face. 

“Gadreel is alive. Not that Cole didn’t try to kill our friend.” Sniffling you ball your hands into fists to hit Cole one last time.

“Ketch, he’s all yours.” Meeting Arthur’s eyes you nod at him. “No holding back. Cole is fair game from now on. He’s not my brother any longer.” Grabbing your gun, you walk out of the building.

“Y/N…Sweetheart…” Dean runs after you, watching you fall to your knees in front of his car. “Baby Girl, just let me…”

“I made it easier for him, Dean.” Laughing hysterically, you look up at Dean. “I killed John and opened the door for Dick Roman a bit. I stopped the war only to bring the apocalypse. What shall we do now?”

“First, I’ll bring you home and then we will tell anyone to prepare for a worst-case scenario. Dick Roman is out there and he already killed too many of us. Gadreel is on his way back. I asked two of my men to make sure he’s safe.”

“I can’t believe Cole betrayed me, Dean. How could my brother do this to dad? He took him in after no one else wanted that bastard.” Getting up you straighten your back, looking into Dean’s eyes you swallow your pride.

“Y/N let me…” Holding out your hand you smirk as Dean looks at you, blinking a few times.

“If you still want a bond between Singer and Winchester, here’s your chance. I’ll do it, for dad and Jody. I will marry the kingpin of Lebanon to make sure everyone knows we stand united…”

“Hmmm…I’d like to make sure your cute ass is mine, but you don’t have to marry me to make sure we will stand united, Sweetheart.” 

“Winchester, if you want to be the kingpin of Lebanon, shake my hand. This is how it’s done for ages. We form a bond and unite our Empires.” Shaking your hand Dean licks his lips, a dirty grin all over his face. 

“I like the way you do business for sure, Baby Girl. You and I united means that no one will be able to stop us. I love you…”

“Don’t get cocky, Winchester. This is business, nothing else…” Turning on your heels you smirk as Dean follows you, muttering under his breath. “Come one, we have a traitor to torture and a wedding to plan…”

The queen of Lebanon

@alyssaforever2671, @xcastielbabyangelface, @bitchwhytho, @rosiehayes

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[combat-wombatus]

uHm if you do these and if you want to do it I’d love a bnha matchup <3?

• my name is Aubri, I’m bi but prefer MHA boys tbh. I go by she/her, too.

• I’m a very Gryffindor person. (Sorry if you don’t know Harry Potter - 😖)

• I’m a June cancer, and I have ADHD and anxiety. My anxiety can be literally crippling somedays, but it’s gotten better overtime.

• I’m a bit of a class clown and usually just a clown 🤡 but that’s irrelevant. My teachers all hate me but like school-wise I do well so we have a love and mostly hate relationship 🤧

• I’m usually the ‘entertaining’ friend, in elementary the popular kids would invite me to play games with them because, “you’re funny” and it was like the biggest achievement ever 😭👍🏻 then they’d ignore me but that’s another therapy session

• I’m usually made fun of by people for being ‘weird’ and ‘insane’. Like all through elementary everyone thought I’d be a criminal when I grew up JUST BECAUSE I HAD UNDIAGNOSED ADHD - I hate it here 😐🦶🏻

• I’ve always been super into crime stories/true crime (where my anxiety comes from, I’m always worried about a pesky serial killer just killing me. It’s usually being kidnapped tho lmao) so I knew and still know like all these murder facts and sometimes I’d just randomly be like;

“Hey did you know it takes 12 hours and 2 days to dissolve a body in acid?”

or

“If you bury a dead deer over a dead body you buried deep in the ground, when police dogs sniff it and people dig they’ll just think it was the deer and won’t dig any farther.”

• So maybe people had a reason to be scared of me and think I’ll be a criminal someday, i dunno.

• I love love love reading and writing, and also debating. The things I’ve wanted to be when I grow up are basically: Dog shelter worker, actress, FBI agent, politician, and a writer. But usually I just want to do something that makes a positive impact on people. Like i wanted to be an FBI agent to solve crimes for people. I wanted to be a politican so I could actually help a lot of people. The entertainment industry also seemed like a way to make people happy. Idk, but then I decided I couldn’t be a politican at 10 because they were all corrupt and to be one I would have to be too. 😫🤌🏻 we love some good childhood angst

• the only subjects I’ve ever excelled at are ELA and Social Studies aka History, and Math I can’t do to save my life. ELA comes easy for me and I usually don’t have to work that hard and/or get too stressed over it. But I always get the meanest teachers for some reason. For example, one time I did my final essay for like 30% of my grade in 30 minutes the day it was due and I got an A+ 🦟🦗🦟🦗

• Uhhh id describe myself as a pretty loyal friend, I’m a ride or die type of girl. A story from my childhood that summarizes it pretty well is when I was in 2nd grade my friend wet her pants and she didn’t want to go to the nurse for it alone so I peed my pants so I could go with her and she wouldn’t have to be alone. Like, you know, a professional problem solver

• and I have genuinely attacked people for fucking with my friends but don’t snitch pls 🕳🏃‍♀️💨

• But also just anyone, people at my school tend to come to me with their problems for me to either help solve them by reasoning, or just to confront the other person like the bad bleep I am 😈😈

• I also have a huge daydreaming problem, it’s literally maladaptive daydreaming. So paired with my ADHD I don’t get shit done like ever.

• I have really high empathy levels I guess, like I always say hi to everyone I see on the street, especially if they look sad 😔 I’ve done it ever since I was a little kiddo.

• My fashion sense is very much a preppy/alt style. I wear those ripped tights and fishnets, I also have the MOST BIZARRE JEWELRY- like who allowed me to buy the gummy worm glittery earrings, hmmm???????? and those Mary Janes???????

• But I love crew necks and pleated skirts so I always obide by the National “hoes dont get cold” policy 🇺🇸😫🦅

• I wanna move somewhere someday, I don’t want to stay in America for very long

• I can speak Latin, French, and my native language which is English.

• My music taste varies, but my all-time favorite artists who all of their music they’ve ever put out has been my favorites are, Billie Eilish, Melanie Martinez, and Conan Gray.

• I no-joke have a sign in my front yard that says;

In ✍️ this ✍️ house we ✍️ don’t ✍️ worship Jesus ✍️ but instead ✍️ Melanie ✍️ Martinez

• My favorite shows are MHA (duh), The Promised Neverland, and Malcolm in The Middle.

• and I’m not going to tell you what I prefer in a partner, because that ruins the fun 😤

• but I will say I cannot be friends with someone who doesn’t really make me laugh. Like I’m used to doing most of the talking in convos but if you’re just boring I’m sorry it’s nothing personal but no thanks 😐✌🏻

• About my physical appearance, I have fluffy n curly brown hair, but when it’s in the sunlight it looks sort of brown but golden yk?? It’s shoulder length :) I have bleach blonde streaks in the front. I like wearing eyeliner most days, too. I’m pretty average size/ on the skinnier side. Kinda high key inscure abt my body bc I got flat shamed in elementary EVEN THOUGH I HAVE TIDDIES NOW- whatever 😤🙄. I also have crystal type blue eyes, and I do have fairly big eyes. But, like, not weirdly big. A good big. My cheekbones are ALWAYS PRESENT so sometimes I get called a Tim Burton character but it’s cool ig ☠️☠️ oh and I’m kinda short. I’m 5’3, even though my doctor said I’d be 5’7. I feel like I was either tricked by the doctor or someone just stole my destined height while I was asleep. It’s probably cause I didn’t keep an eye out for Selener 👁 😔😔

• I’m a definite night owl, like all of my energy comes at night which really sucks cuz I can’t do much since everyone else is asleep.

• My love language is touch starved so I’ve never figured it out ✌🏻😗🔫

• but I am an attention whore so idk 😏

• I’m a huge introvert with social anxiety. It isn’t as bad as it used to be cuz I used to not be able to like go to restaurants but now I’m much better.

• I’m a huge history person, mostly like sad history LMFAO. Uh but a lot of my hyperfixations have been on history. Some examples are The Roman Empire, Julius Caesar himself, Anne Frank, The Titanic, the Black Plauge, Helen Keller, Marie Curie, Slavery in the US, Joan of Arc, and just a lot more. I always love talking about these things if someone would let me ramble to them but no one ever does 😖 it also got to a point where for all these subjects I’d go to the library and try to find a book on them but usually I’d either have already read it or I’d read it and know all the information.

• I’m super into Greek Mythology, I have 7 books filled with the stories, I’m going to Greece maybe this summer to see it’s history, and named my hamster Aphrodite but we call her Aphie. I also will talk about this forever and ever if you let me.

• My favorite color is yellow, my favorite food is literally nothing I never have an appetite, my favorite planet is Saturn, favorite song is Tag Your It by Melanie Martinez atm but it changes like everyday.

• Music is a huge safe-space for me if I’m feeling down or having a panic attack. It calms me down n is overall my coping mechanism 💃🏻💃🏻

• Biggest fear is spiders, even looking at one gives me a panic attack and I cannot sleep at all for that night, adding to my insomniac ass 🧎🏻‍♂️🏌️‍♀️

• I’m mature for my age, I don’t exactly like hanging around kids my age and I get along better with older crowds.

• i don’t like conventional dates, (I PROMISE IM NOT TRYING TO SOUND ‘QUIRKY’ AHAHA) I kind of like having a best-friend type partner more so dates that aren’t as romantic as like the movies or a fancy restaurant suite me better. My dream date is playing Monopoly on my bedroom floor 🦧

• Also I hate getting gifts. End of story. If someone gets me a gift like awe that’s nice but never again, I’d prefer to get you one. Especially in a romantic partner 😐 i keep a journal of my friends’ interests and hobbies so I can get them the perfect gifts for their bdays and Christmas’s. Been doing this ever since 4th grade.

• Though I don’t have much actual experience with relationships🧍🏻‍♀️

• I’m a huge believer in ‘family isn’t blood, it’s who you make it’ because I have a pretty shitty family life and my childhood has been trash. My friends are my family to me.

• Also if my friends don’t like my romantic partner ✨ GOODBYE ✨. Sorry girlie, bros before hoes 🦨💨

I was going to put more but I’m so so sorry for how LONG AND COMPLICATED THIS IS- idk if this is a autobiography or a matchup at this point 🤦‍♀️ don’t feel pressured to do this and if matchups aren’t open IM SO SO SORRY LMAO uh yeah ilysm 🦎🎂🧃

OMG ASLDFKJHASLKDJH

🥺 i’m so sorry bby but matchups are closed ;-; my 100 follower event was over while ago (i guess i should’ve specified that in the asks i answered LKSAJHFLKJAHDS SORRY IT’S MY BAD) but you sound so cool?? i had a lot of the same hyperfixations interests (heLLO helen keller was badass AF and the roman empire was messed up but still v cool, anne frank was awesome too) i also may or may not have wanted to be a politician when i was younger alskdjfhalkdhj but now i’m just 🧍🏻‍♀️ lost and anyways you’re amazing >.< love u lots and don’t forget to drink water and eat a lil something hehe :p 

[m00nslippers]

Actor!Jason AU Roman losing his shit because he wants Red Hood but he also wants Peters, then rumors of Hood and Peters are dating now he doesn’t know if he should have one of them killed or he should take both of them 😂 So now he sends Slade out to find out if Hood & Peters are truly dating, but Slade already knows Peters and Hood are the same (lol because Deathstroke) and Slade’s a closet Peters fan so he casually stalks Peters with the excuse it’s his “job” Roman still has no clue and yeah

Okay, the thing about Roman is, he’s a surprisingly busy guy. He’s running a company, a criminal empire, stalking Gotham elite’s social scene every night, and everyone knows if you want something done right you’ve got to do it yourself. The only other person he trusts to be competent is David Li, so Roman is usually all up micromanaging people, like “Where’s the drug shipment? What are Sionis Steel’s profit margins? Why have you not fucking killed any of those bats yet?” Someone doesn’t perform, he gets someone new to replace them. He’s in the work smarter not harder business, he’s not like these psycho rogues with stupid plots to get Batman’s attention, for him it’s all about the money, honey.

This being said, Roman doesn’t exactly have a lot of time to watch movies. He goes to the opera a few times a year to keep up appearances and because he’s old school Italian, so he appreciates it as an artform, but general action movies? Naw, not worth his time, he’s got better shit to do.

So when Jason Peters, some nobody-actor from Crime Alley got some attention for talking shit and calling Roman out for some kind of Gotham Celebrity Death Match charity idea, Roman is just like, who the hell is this guy? He’s got no clue.

Cue all of his False Facers piping up like, “Oh my god, Jason Peters called you out, boss!” and “He’s amazing! He’s the real deal!” and “What I wouldn’t pay to be punched by Jason Peters...” and “Jason Peters is a real Gotham homeboy.” They go on and on until Roman has to threaten to toss a few off his building if they don’t shut up. Apparently this kid is popular or something? All the Gotham thugs just love him and they love his movie. So as much as Roman doesn’t generally stoop to humoring his men, he figures it’s research into his enemy and the media keeps bothering him about this guy so he might as well see what he’s dealing with, decide whether to ignore this moron or send him a message he won’t soon forget.

So one night he turns the burners on his fireplace down low, pours some wine and turns on the ol’ On Demand and sits down to watch Gotham-Something-Hot-Something-Action-whatever, generic action movie title, he’s already forgotten. Roman has seen pictures of the man on the news before so he recognizes Peters right away when he comes on screen only a few minutes in. Peters is the lead, apparently recruited right off the Gotham streets? It’s like a Cinderella story, ridiculous.

For the early few scenes Peters doesn’t do much but stand around in a suit behind the stereotypical Carmine and Falcone stand-ins, looking menacing and intimidating. Roman just doesn’t get it. Sure, he’s definitely attractive even by Hollywood standards, and he really sells the implacable silence thing but it’s nothing some buff guy off the street can’t do, which may just be all Jason Peters is.

And then the first action scene happens, with Peters character walking into a warehouse meet full his Boss’s rival’s goons with nothing but an impeccable suit, a knife, an automatic rifle and a handgun and Roman is floored. Holy crap, Peters did all these stunts himself? He hasn’t seen such insanity since the last time he was in the unfortunate position of one of the bats trying to storm his penthouse and he couldn’t exactly appreciate it when he was trying to get to his safe room. This guy had real athletic ability and probably real skill to pull off this stuff. He could see how it would appeal to the basal idiots Roman employed who were easily distracted by flash. Peters believably delivers the impression of a one-man wrecking crew you would not want to be on the wrong side of.

But the movie has only just begun. Directly after the fight scene, Peters’ character reports to his bosses and then returns to his own apartment which is a crappy, rundown place in Crime Alley, and he’s stripping off his tie, shrugging off his suit jacket, and sees...blood spatter, still on his hand. And Peters goes into the bathroom and starts washing it off, motions getting jerky and frantic, eyes getting wide, breathing harsh and then he’s punching the mirror, shattering it to pieces and slicing his knuckles open and the man staggers back into the bathroom wall and slides down, tears running down his face. He reaches into his pocket and unfolds a picture of a girl and Peters speaks his first words of the film. He’s apologizing to his sister, he took this horrible awful job to give her a good life, to get them out of Crime Ally, but she got gunned down in the street before he could get them out and now he’s stuck, he’s stuck doing this shit and he’s good at it but he hates it. Every word on Peters’ mouth is pure Gotham City street syllables you can’t fake, and it all seems to come from a place of dark reality. You can hear the desperation and depression, see how broken and hollow he is. And Roman...he feels a thing.

And that is a big deal. Roman is a borderline sociopath--okay maybe he’s a full on sociopath--he lacks empathy, sob stories mean nothing to him. Yet another reason he doesn’t watch movies, it’s just all such unbelievable schlock. His whole life Roman grew up with a fake mother and a fake father surrounded by fake people faking everything. People pretend they’re civil and good in public, but they are all selfish inside, just looking out for themselves, they are all just like him, so Roman feels no remorse killing people, taking from them, cheating them, forcing them--if they had his power, they would do the same thing. Roman doesn’t feel things for other people.

But Jason Peters made him feel something in that scene.

Roman watches the rest of the movie in a daze. The lead actress comes in and usually Roman would be eyeing her up but he’s only got eyes for Peters. Fuck the love story, he’s just here for Peters, the plot is superfluous, Jason Peters is the only thing that matters in this movie. He sells every word, every emotion, sometimes the script seems to let him down a bit but he’s so good he manages to get the feeling across anyway. Roman is captivated.

By the time the ending credits roll, Roman has purchased the movie and is restarting it as he texts David Li to set up something with this guy post haste. A party, a charity auction, one of that Wayne bimbo’s galas, whatever, doesn’t matter, he needs an excuse to meet this guy. To see if he’s real.

So Li gets him into some kind of charity luncheon for underprivileged kids, and he manages to get himself at Peters’ table. He switches the name plates when no one is looking so he’s right next to the guy and he arrives, fashionably late, but with a big check for the charity. The guy looks just like his character, that’s real at least, not movie magic. Roman tries to engage Peters and after a few minutes of talking with the guy, pretending to be the charismatic business persona he adopts in public as Jason goes off about his Gotham Celebrity MMA Tournament idea--which Roman is really warming to if only because it would give him an excuse to gut-punch Cobblepot in public without ruining his reputation--and Roman gets this odd sense of Deja Vu. Peters feels so familiar, and Roman tells himself its because he just watched the man in a movie. It’s the speech patterns or something, sure.

And now Roman is starting to wonder if he could actually get this silly fight thing off the ground because if he went in, he would not only get to beat the snot out of Cobblepot in public but he’d have an excuse to get close to Peters. So they keep discussing it during the luncheon and finally Roman asks Peters, “So this is for charity or somethin'? What kind of money are you thinking to pull in with this fiasco?”

Peters’ smirks and said, “I was thinkin’ fifty million.”

Roman just scoffs, “Fifty million? What, are you trying to budget a movie? I thought you just did one of those.”

And then Peters goes still for a moment that lasts too long before he gives a stiff chuckle and says, “Naw, affordable housing for the Narrows, Park Ave and Bowery neighborhoods.”

And Roman doesn’t realize it then, but after he’s given Peters his business card, one with his actual personal number written on the back, he’s waiting for his driver to pull his car around and realizes shit. He knows exactly why Peters is so familiar.

Jason Peters is the fucking Red Hood.

[irinasgarden]

🍓Perfection // Na Jaemin🍓

Pairing: Na Jaemin x Fem!Athlete!Reader

Genre: Angst, fluff

Warning: anorexia, self-hatred, meanspo, profanities.

A/N: I went through a whole period of mental health issues, leading to eating disorder (Anorexia). But I was stopped before it could affect my health too much. Thanks to our Lord❤ AND REMEMBER, YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL.

Number of words: 1.87k

After arriving to Korea, you noticed something about you that you never did back in (Your/Country).

You were fat compared to other girls.

You wondered how they were this thin, they were as skinny as a paper sheet. At first, you thought that you were never going to get a boyfriend there but yet, there he was, Na Jaemin.

His wide grin and his twinkling eyes when he came to you to walk you home after school made your heart flutter and your stomach back flip. "Hey" he kissed your forehead and placed his hand on your arm. "Oh you've been working on your muscles! It's less squishy than before!" Jaemin pointed out. "Ah y-yeah! Coach asked me to lose some fat to be sharper in my techniques" you explained, the older boy nodded.

It was the reason why you started loosing weight, at first. There was no danger in it since you were keeping muscles and you weren't skipping any meal. You were, in fact, healthier. But it wasn't enough.

You were still so heavy compared to the girls at your school, who seemed as light as a feather. To your eyes, you didn't have the fairy look that you desired so dearly. Because that was the closest thing to perfection, and you wanted to be perfect for him.

But to Jaemin, you were the most gorgeous creature he had ever seen. Your innocent face was enough to make him go insane ; your every movement seemed so graceful to his eyes. The few pictures of you post-training he had on his phone were the ones he cherished the most because you were literally shining on them (even though Donghyuk pointed out it was just sweat). Your soft eyes and cute smile made his heart melt like chocolate. Your baby cheeks, he adored them, squeezed and cupped by his hands. They were even cuter when they were covered by a deep pinkish shade of red (lmao what?).

To Jaemin, you were the perfection itself. He reminded you that, every single day. And yet, you did that.

"I'm not hungry, thank you" you declined his offer to go to the small cafe near the school to eat a piece of cinnamon and apple cake. "You're sure? Your hands are trembling" he said as he observed them. "I drank a bit too much of coffee. Don't worry" you reassured him, Jaemin wondered how could you drink too much coffee during a school day but quickly brushed it off and walked you home.

You waved at him before entering your house, you let your bag fall on the wooden floor and walked up to your room. You threw yourself on your bed and stared at the ceiling, hearing your stomach grumble every now and then. You were hungry, very hungry. Your hands were shaking uncontrollably and you felt light headed. You took your phone and started searching for 'meanspos' to read to stop you from binging.

'Listen up, fat ass, you ain’t gonna have the perfect and desirable body I’m fucking working for if you keep on eating. So starve. No one will love you if you’re like this, ugly piggy. Just look at you. FUCKING LOOK AT YOU, YOU DISGUSTING BITCH. Can’t you see the amount of fat you have under your skin? Yeah, you see it? That’s right, it’s fucking horrible. All of this because you have 0 self-control, fat pig. Don’t fucking eat. -ANA’

You sat up and saw your reflection your mirror. You wanted to vomit, you looked disgusting. You stood up and walked to it, and piece by piece, you removed your clothes until you were in your underwears.

‘How can you even think that he loves you for real? Your body is a jiggling ball of fat. He’s just making fun of you, and if you still are sure that he loves you then you’re lying to yourself, ugly piggy’

You thought that Ana was always right.

So you started to avoid Jaemin.

You loved him, of course, but you were too ashamed by yourself and the fact that Ana said he didn’t love you back to actually face him.

You stopped answering his calls and his texts, you stopped going to the cafeteria during lunch time, you threw to the trash can all his sticky notes that asked if you could meet him somewhere, you refused to open your door when he visited you.

During the meantime, you starved yourself. You wanted to look beautiful for him so he could finally love you. You eventually stopped training because you weren’t able to keep up with your team mates. Your sport was way too intense for your body that had become so skinny and weak. But you still thought that you should lose weight    -no, Ana told you to lose weight, so you listened to her.

Your parents? They didn’t even notice. They were too focused on their careers and themselves to worry about their daughter who was in total distress.

Jaemin, oh poor boy, was confused and saddened by your behaviour. He was sure it was his fault. You refused to talk to him. Why? The more he forced himself into your life, the more you pushed him away for no reason. He didn’t understand, he had tried to be the best boyfriend ever, but it seemed like he had failed. But he still tried. Not ready to give up on you (never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down, never gonna run around and hurt yOoOoOoOuUuUuUuU).

~~~

You were searching for a book for your history class in the town’s library. Since the morning, you were feeling weak but you tried to ignore it. Your legs felt a bit like jelly and you were light headed.

It was 7PM and all you had eaten that day was an apple.

“Where is this shit..?” you mumbled angrily, not finding what you were searching for. Your eyes roamed over the book shelves until you finally found the desired book.

“History of the Roman Empire” you read, you tried to get it but realised you were too short.

You jumped and tiptoed but in vain. It was way too high for you.

You started feeling weaker and weaker, your breath was short and your head was spinning. Everything was blurry, you tried to stay up so you placed your hand on the shelves to support yourself. You groaned and tried to walk out of the library for some fresh air, but you stumbled at every step you took.

“Y/N! Are you okay?” you heard a masculine voice call, you looked up and saw a figure running towards you.

Then, everything went dark.

~~~

Ana was proud of you. You were even more skinny than the girls at your school! Congratualtions! But then, those ugly tubes started feeding you while you were asleep and Ana didn’t like that. She wanted you to at least look good in your grave, beautifully skinny. But this boy shattered all her plans. She didn’t like him either.

Your cold hands were held tightly in Jaemin’s warm ones. His head was resting on your side, his eyes were staring up at your thinned face. He was asked multiple times to leave but after seeing him in this condition  -his eyes were red and puffy due to crying, he had almost black eye circles, he teared up everytime he was asked to leave, he spent hours on his knees next to you, holding your hand and talking to you, he looked pathetic-   the nurses felt bad and let him stay.

“Listen up, Jaemin -I never thought I’d say this but- I’m worried for you. All you do is sitting here and waiting. You’ve been missing school for five days straight! I think you shou-” “I don’t care, Donghyuk.” the younger boy cutted, making him scoff in annoyance. “It isn’t healthy for you! You barely eat and sleep! Go at least get some fresh air! It’s not going to kill you! You need to also get some rest-” “No, no. I have to stay here, she needs me...” He shook his head. “She doesn’t need you. If she dies then she dies, death doesn’t worry if you’re there or not, Jaemin.” Donghyuk said, knwing that his words were hurtful but his friend needed to hear the truth once for all. “Why are you saying this?! You know she’s not going to...she’s not going to die!” Jaemin protested. “I thought you would have noticed after the amount of time you’ve been staring at her! She dying! Just look!” He yelled as he pointed at you. The younger boy looked at his friend with teary eyes. “D-Don’t ever say this again.” He whispered, his grip on your hand unconsciously tightening. “Stop lying to yourself. You know I’m right” Donghyuk stared down at him. “No! You’re not and you neve will!” he turned his head back to you, “He’s lying... I know you’ll wake up soon” he murmured. “You look pathetic. Just look at yourself! Your eyebags are almost black, you’re dirty, when was the last time you even showered! You’re hair is so messy! Jaemin, just face the truth! I know you’re sad but you have to get over it!”

“A-Ah... What is- What is happening?” Your quiet voice asked.

You were laying on a bed, Jaemin right infront of you was sitting on the floor and Donghyuk was standing by the door, a few feets away from your boyfriend who just started crying.

“She woke up! She woke up! I told you she would!” He shouted happily as tears streamed down his rosy cheeks. Haechan was pushed away by the door when a few nurses enterred the room in a hurry. “Please, could you go out? We need to do a few tests.” One of them asked, the two boys nodded and exited the room. They sat down on the hallway’s clean floor.

~~~

“Mr. Na? You can come in” One of the nurses said as she peeked her head out from the room, Jaemin nodded and walked in.

There you were, smiling weakly at him. “Be gentle, she’s still very fragile” She smiled softly before leaving you two alone.

“Hello there” you murmured, he started tearing up, again. He sat on the floor next to your bed. “Don’t cry, I’m okay now” you said as you cupped his cheek with your hand, wiping his tears with your thumb. “But you weren’t and you’re still not fully alright... Why did you do this? I was so worried...” he whispered, you sighed, remembering everything that had happened. “I wanted to be beautiful for you...” you explained, he felt guilty. “But-But you’re already beautiful... No need to do this... Please, promise me you won’t do it again...” “I promise...” “I love you, Y/N. I’ll always do”

                                                   ~FIN~ (donc voilà mdr je voulais mettre un p’tit truc en français pour les autres fans de NCT francophones)

[thebrokenblackman]

The Nubian,the Colonizer,the Rastafari, and the “mixed”  women caught in between.

Yesterday I awoke at 4:00 am to make salaah. After doing so I decided to check twitter. When I did I learned that the grandson of the romanticized British monarchy and the son of late Princess Dianna, Prince Harry, was getting married. Nearly half of the black women in my timeline were genuinely emotionally invested into the wedding as if it was their own. I saw hundreds of supportive tweets for a “Black” woman marrying the European prince. This bothered me, but this is also the reaction I would have expected knowing that abundance of the Nubian people here in America have been successfully white-washed and have now began the process of perpetuating self-hatred so deep that they don’t notice they hate themselves.So, I just stated my general opinion of disapproval of black people supporting this, retweeted others with similar views, and engaged in a few healthy philosophical debates. In my mind the issue of black people celebrating this marriage was something that I knew was too far embedded in us for my opinion to change anyones thought. So, I didn’t plan to make this blog nor even talk about the subject any more. That is until my girlfriend,who is bi-racial, came home from a day at the Chicago’s Art Institute with her best-friend. She does not identify with black people nor our struggles. She like Meghan Merkel, identifies as mixed due to what I sum up to a lack awareness,but I respect her decision to take her image and “being” into her own hands even if it is at the expense of empathy for half of her that is oppressed historically by the other half. She like many mixed women have have taken the power back from society by defining and promoting self-image and individualism. This is something you must applaud, but even this accomplishment is not without its flaws. The major issue with in my standpoint is by defining yourself as individual you remove yourself from a community. In doing so, like my girlfriend the bi-racial woman who identifies as mixed becomes desensitized to the pain of the people she came from.She makes decisions based on what is best for her and her pleasure as oppose to what is best for either of her racial denominations.

With that being said, she decided to make small talk with me about the wedding even though she knows my politics are afrocentric and marxist. She looked through pictures of the wedding with a glimmer in her eye and clearly the royal wedding incited something within her. She was so happy for Harry to be getting married, how beautiful the features of the ceremony was, and how Meghan was making history being a black woman in the Royal Family. I just listened. When it was finally time for me to talk I said, “Baby, she doesn’t Identify as black”. She Argued that Meghan Merkel did identify as black, but after research she simply said “O” and became rather quiet. Her quietness was not from being proven wrong, but from realization- Realization that Meghan Merkel was just like herself.  In order to avoid argument that could be harmful to our relationship I avoided going into the complexities of the psychological mind state of the mixed dutchess and how it effects the Afrikan diaspora and just simply said, “ She- wether she identifies as “Black” or not is marrying into a White Supremacist Family who still colonizes the afrikan continent and exploits afrikan people. They won’t even give us (Ethiopian) the artifacts they stole 150 years ago through imperialism back ( https://bit.ly/2GzQ1us). The point is they have way too much of my people’s blood on their hands to care about the wedding and If Meghan Identified as “Black” it would be worse because she is selling us out. That’s like you marrying the grand wizard of the KKK.” As, I have come to expect of my girl she just ignored what I was saying and continued to scroll through the pictures of the wedding in complete flattery. Even as disheartening of an experience as this was. I treated my girl just like the women of twitter. I had the same expectations for them both,so it did not bother me nor did it inspire me to write this blog. 

What inspired me and filled me with uncontrollable emotions somewhere in between pity and disdain was what happened a hour or so later. While I was sitting in the family room my girl and her two friends-one whom is white and one whom my girl says identifies as mixed - began to speak of the royal wedding. Her white friend said, “I just don’t understand people. You just can’t be happy for someone?”. I felt my blood pressure rise. What was the knock out for me was when from the corner of my eye I saw my girl point at me (she says they had changed the conversation in sign language but if so the timing was awfully quick and awfully bad timing) in what was supposed to be humor ,but was not funny to me. I got up and removed myself from the environment which had become toxic to me by ONE STATEMENT, One rhetorical question. “You just can’t be happy for someone?”. What was probably so simple to her hit my mind with the depth of the Atlantic ocean.  It was complex. It was puzzling. But most of all it was inadvertently racist. These few words totally dismissed the concerns, thoughts, pain, and history of a whole people.

The lack of empathy for the concerns of my people who don’t support the wedding was angering. I can understand why you would be happy or why others would be happy, but you cant understand why some may not? Well allow me to explain to the white women, black women, and mixed women alike who share these sentiments. To do so I must give a brief history lesson;

The relationship between the Afrikan continent specifically Ethiopia and Britain is Infamous. It  is not one of free trade, glorious alliance, and equality. It is lopsided like a teeter-toter with a fat white kid on one side and an anorexic black kid on the other. This relationship is one of a virus or plague that sweeps through a land causing complete famine and leaving nothing but air and space. Worst of all it has been glamorized and romanticized as “just” due to what the europeans of latter day called “civilizing” or what they call today “humanitarianism/anthropology” . Since the 1600s when William the Orange took the british throne from James II after their so called “Glorious Revolution”Britain has been invading Afrika as an Imperial power pushing a supremacist agenda and believing that a white God has Ordained them to do so.By 1690 the British were the leading slave traders passing the Dutch. Britain went on to seize the land and resources of Gambia,Sierra Leone,Gold Coast/Togoland,Nigeria, Tanganyika, Angol-Egyptian-Sudan,Zanzibar,South Africa, Kenya, Uganda,Somilia land, and Zimbabwe by brute force.They had come raping our women, cutting off the penises of our men, cutting the tongues of both so that they wouldn’t speak tribal language, taking our drums, and pushing their christianity on us.

In 1867 Emperor Tewodros Of Ethiopia had written Queen Elizabeth in search of alliance, but in her arrogance and totally disregard for Afrikan Royalty and holy lineage she didn’t respond. Not until His Majesty Ras Tafari Aka Haile Selassie took the throne did an Africa Nation ,a sovereign one at that, have an alliance with Britain. Or at least what they thought to be an Alliance. When Benito Mussolini ,prior to the world war, invaded Ethiopia with intention of (in his own words) “Conquering a backwards people” and “Building a new Roman empire” H.I.M. Selassie I went to Britain for military aid against the fascist leader. They gave nothing more than a cold shoulder. They would not dare help an afrikan nation fight a white nation. Oh No! Haile Selassie then went to the french colony of Somoliland in exile. Surely Mussolini and Italy were to conquer Ethiopia. Not until Mussolini and Hitler started invading parts of Africa that Europeans “owned” and european countries themselves did Britain apply pressure to Mussolini which allowed his majesty to come back to Ethiopia and retake his throne. 

On September 9, 2017 his Great-grandson tied the knot with a “Bi-racial” Harvard grad named Ariana Austin whom he met while he was attending The Mecca aka Howard. The Royalty’s wedding received minimal media coverage which is a shame because this is real royalty. A royalty indigenous to the land it rules not one who took their land and keeps it by mass murder and oppression. Ariana is a rare type of mixed woman, the best type of mixed woman who let’s the world know she is mixed and appreciates both cultures she comes from ,but identifies as black because she knows what features dominate her DNA, how society classifies her, and most importantly that one half of her ancestry has put the other half through genocide. So when it comes to how to identify herself she takes the side of the oppressed rather than the tyrannical. She didn’t know her husband was royalty until after they had been together for multiple years,so this means she had embraced the black man whole-heartedly already and was willing to commit herself to one long time. She understands that the mixed black woman is nothing more than a light skinned BLACK WOMAN. She does not differentiate herself from her fellow lighter skinned sisters as if her struggle is somehow different. Black women were not so quick to embrace this royalty but have whole heartedly embraced Meghan. But why is that....

Meghan is who they want to be. She has the best of the all the worlds to them. She can be black when it is enjoyable & profitable to be and mixed when she wants to avoid the negatives that comes with being black. She is married to a white man also and not just any white man an insanely rich and influential white man. This is the deepest fantasy of the majority of our sisters whom suffer from subconscious self-hate. The American Society has propagated Anti-Afrikan imagery to the black woman since she has arrived on on the shores in ball and chain. From the Mammie (Above) in the reconstruction era to the White Washing of our historical figures (Sheba,Nefertiri,Etc) to The Barbie doll to the idolization of the Kardashians. This vigorous agenda to make the black woman and girl think their natural features are ugly and Marilyn Monroe and Kim K are beautiful has done its job effectively. If you do not believe me click this link (https://bit.ly/2bxEGAH ) and prepare to be amazed. Do you think this programmed Afrikan hate disappears with age? No, It merely gets masked with excuses like “I do it for myself” or “I just want to look pretty” that contradict the message of Self-love they are intending to get across. Meghan may or not hate herself. Who knows? Mixed Women like here may or may not hate themselves. Who knows? But, these were not the women on social media showing support in the mass for Meghan. It was the BLACK women. The same black woman who have through outcry brought to the forefront the depths of colorism and society’s perception of beauty that holds the WHITE WOMAN above all. The repressed black women is now eager to claim any and everyone as one of her own that has achieved status in the White world. Like Meghan- even if she herself says “Don’t call me black”.

Once again this is as I expected because America is good at what it does, which is oppressing Afrikan being. Sad enough no matter how hard the european attempts to wipe our existence and/or being off the face of the map they have not. There were Black women/men speaking in protest to this wedding! But why? Because of you all! You all have attached Meghan to the black community when we don’t want her nor does she wants to be apart of such. In addition to that she is joining a monarchy who has gained its power off the blood of all things black. This is possibly the most racist family on earth and she has married into it.She has not taken it over nor infiltrated it. She has joined it. Is this who we want our daughters to idolize? To aspire to be? A woman who put the history of her blood aside to get a spot in the bed and a seat at the table with the white man? She stands as a symbol that is recognized by the Black Nationalist Diaspora as a “FUCK YOU” to both us and our ancestors. The Imperial conglomerate that is The Royal Family is still today very much white supremacist. Apart from Prince Harry dressing as a nazi for halloween while one of his friends was a Klansman and the other was in Black Face like an old Mickey Rooney Movie, out of Britain’s Unemployment Rate Blacks make up 45%, Black men are nearly three times more likely to be arrested than white men, and black children three times more likely to be excluded from school. With that being said Britain is also still colonizing and exploiting over 37 sub-saharan Afrikan countries through high interest loans and mining companies. 

So i ask you “why should we just be happy?”. If you got raped and later in life you found out your rapist was getting married or better yet getting married to you family member would you be happy? Harry’s Crimson hairs reminds us of the Asante and Xhosa blood spilled in the Afrikan grasslands.The wrinkles on his father’s Face look like the waves of the oceans that our people were thrown in from the Slave ships. Meghan is nothing but a light-skinned Omarosa. To you that wedding symbolized integrationist-based accomplishment ,but to the awoken, the 5%, the hoteps, the pan-afrikans, the vanguard that wedding was just another step further away from the  New-Afrikan civilization we’ve dedicated our mind, body, and souls to.

We understand there are black people who the european has made incapable of thinking like us. We understand that europeans will not think like us. We accept this. And we need you to accept that we can not think like you because to do so would be to discard all that is important to us just to applaud two people making a public spectacle of a ceremony that is supposed to be sacred. So instead of asking us “Why we just cant be happy” ask yourself “Why cant I understand why they aren’t happy?”. 

With Love for the Sake of Allah (swt)

-Hakeem Ture.

[shmosnet2]

Top 10 Craziest Things Scientists Used to Believe

Top 10 Craziest Things Scientists Used to Believe

Throughout history scientists have expressed crazy theories and, more often than not, they turn out to be exactly that – crazy ideas without any logic or scientific evidence to back them up. But that didn’t stop them being used for hundreds of years before someone told them to stop. While it’s easy to look down on some of these scientific theories and wonder just what the hell they were thinking, hopefully our future generations won’t have the same sentiment when they look back at our breakthroughs and endeavours. 10. Homunculus/Preformationism

Hartsoeker /public domain In its simplest form, this is the sperm version of Russian Dolls. Inside a man is sperm which looks like a tiny man, and inside him is a smaller sperm man, and so on and so forth. This theory didn’t just apply to humans but to every living thing, including vegetation. To take it one step further, scientists believed that because all of us were packed into the first load of sperm, all men had existed since the dawn of the universe in the first man, Adam, niftily explaining why we were all born with sin. However, being a spermist didn’t stop just there. It also seemed logical (at least to fellow scientist Paracelsus) that if you were to place human sperm inside a horse womb and feed it blood, you could develop your own tiny-man without the need of a woman. As all features of a baby were believed to come from the father and the mother provided just the womb, it seemed perfectly reasonable that a homunculus would mature in around 40 weeks. 9. Vulcan

Lith. of E. Jones & G.W. Newman – Library of Congress Keen astronomers will note that the planet Mercury has a different orbit to how it should behave under classical mathematical predictions. As a result, a theory circulated that there had to be a planet between the Sun and Mercury, named Vulcan, which was altering its orbit. Being so close to our shining star where the sky is never dark also explained why it was so hard to see. This wasn’t as far fetched as it might seem because it was believed that the solar system ended at Saturn. Uranus was suddenly discovered, opening up the possibility of more planets. This was proven true when Uranus’ orbit suggested an even bigger planet further out there and clever minds were able to perfectly predict the whereabouts and discovery of Neptune. However, when Einstein published his theory of relativity in 1915, it handily explained all the differences observed in Mercury’s orbit and meant that Vulcan was no longer needed. You might think this discovery would put all questions about Vulcan to rest, but this wasn’t the case. Amateur astronomers still claimed to have ‘found’ Vulcan up to the 1970s, until interest in this planet eventually seemed to fade away. The idea of Vulcan lives on thanks to the efforts of Star Trek writers who created a certain pointy-eared member of the Enterprise who hailed from a planet with the same name. 8. Alchemy

For centuries alchemists tried to create the Philosopher’s Stone – a legendary substance which was believed to contain the elixir of life as well as the ability to transform base metals into noble metals (for example the changing of lead into gold). Scientists dedicated their entire lives to the discovery of this fabled rock. Albertus Magnus even claimed he saw the transformation of rock into gold and legend believed that he possessed the stone, although the evidence of this discovery of immortality is somewhat sketchy due to his untimely death. Now debunked as nothing more than a myth, the seemingly magical properties of the Philosopher’s Stone consumed the minds of some of history’s most prolific scientists. Even Isaac Newton spent more of his time as an alchemist than he did into his physics research, which he treated as no more than a hobby. The study of alchemy did contribute in some ways to modern science, but we can’t help but wonder what else Newton may have advanced had he spent less time on this pseudoscience. However, alchemy shouldn’t be completely mocked. It is entirely possible to create gold from almost thin air. All we need to make this happen is a Large Hadron Collider to smash atoms together with incredible power, generating microscopic amounts of gold. The energy used may far, far outweigh the worth of gold produced, but no one said we had to be practical. 7. Humorism

Humorism is a theory which postulates that the human body is made up of four humors; black bile, yellow bile, phlegm and blood. When there is an imbalance, we become ill or suffer from disabilities if they are not treated with haste. The most well known form of humorism is bloodletting, primarily due to physicians believing blood was often the most imbalanced of all humors. As the name suggests, this is the removal of blood to cure or prevent illness, most often by leeches. When it came to how much blood had to be removed, they often waited until the patient fainted as this was a sign that their humors were in balance (and the leeches well fed). It was accepted that almost everything ranging from acne and indigestion to cancer and insanity could be cured due to the imbalance of blood. George Washington had close to 4 litres of blood removed via leeches to cure a sore throat. It didn’t help much as he died several hours later. Humorism was the standard care of practice in Ancient Greece, and it was slowly adopted by the Roman Empire before making its way to Islamic doctors. Whilst this may seem like a very outdated form of medicine, the astounding truth is that this was the primary form of care until the 19th Century when modern medicine began to disprove its usefulness. Granted, there are a few rare cases where bloodletting is a recognised form of treatment (such as high blood pressure), but let’s not go reaching for the leeches just yet. 6. Tobacco

Tobacco has long been used throughout history as a form of trade or to seal a deal through the smoking of a peace pipe. Although one would think that inhaling smoke was a not a good thing, this idea wasn’t accepted by mainstream public until the mid 60s, and it only gathered real steam almost two decades later. With the backing of famous adverts like “’more doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette!”, physicians would often prescribe the use of tobacco to cure a variety of ailments such as asthma and as aides in weight loss. Perhaps one of the most bizarre health claims of cigarettes was the advisement which claimed pregnant women should smoke as they would give birth to smaller babies. Whilst a smaller size may help in childbirth, in hindsight we now know the pain of a wide birth canal far outweighs the negative effects of smoking during pregnancy. Although it was known that cigarette smoking did cause some problems such as throat irritation, it was stated that this only affected some people, usually those of a sensitive disposition. Instead of not recommending smoking at all, doctors were instead advising to use a different version of cigarettes (such as Lucky Strikes) which were marketed as less irritating to tender throats. Add this together with tobacco enemas and tobacco toothpaste and you might just wonder what health professionals were really smoking back then. 5. Radiation is good for you

It’s hard to believe there was once a time when scientists believed radiation was actually good for you, yet this was true during the early 20th century. As a direct result of this misguided belief, there were many popular radioactive products that were actively marketed as being good for the health, even curing such ailments as arthritis and rheumatism. These ranged from ingesting radioactive water, brushing your teeth with radioactive toothpaste thought to make your teeth shine and sparkle, to even lying down in uranium rich sand to sooth those annoying aches and pains. This practice continued well into the 1950s, with perhaps the most famous case being the Radium Girls. These factory workers were challenged with the task of painting watch dials with radioactive paint to make them glow in the dark. They didn’t just stop there; they would often paint their nails and teeth for fun. As we would now expect, many died or suffered from anemia or necrosis of the jaw, commonly known as radium jaw. One of the outspoken supporters of the safety of radiation was Nobel Prize winner Marie Curie. With her refusal to accept the dangers of radiation, Curie suffered from many chronic illnesses including near blindness induced by cataracts. Due to years of storing test-tubes wherever she felt, often in her coat pocket or desk drawer, her notebooks (and even cookbook) have such high levels of radiation they are considered too dangerous to handle and are stored in lead lined boxes. Nowadays it’s probably for the best that we stick to radiation free glow sticks for our glow-in-the-dark needs. 4. Mercury as a laxative

Despite being insanely toxic and requiring special handling, mercury was once used by scientists in a variety of very different ways. In the early 20th century mercury was often administered regularly as a laxative and dewormer for children as well as being used as an active ingredient in teething powders for young infants. Additionally, traditional medicine saw it being used for all conditions ranging from constipation and toothaches to depression and child-bearing. One of its most famous medical applications is the use of mercury in treating syphilis, which actually does help fight the disease. This is because one of the side effects of being dosed by mercury is a high fever, which syphilis is highly sensitive to. However, mercury poisoning also has the added bonus of frequently causing insanity and death, not dissimilar to the disease it was often used to treat. So before you crack open the thermometer as a home remedy, maybe seek a professional’s opinion first. 3. World Ice Theory (Welteislehre) In 1984 Hanns Horbiger proposed a concept in which all substances in the cosmos came from ice. Ice moons, ice planets and everything ice in between. Unlike most scientists on this list who were perhaps lacking in evidence to disprove them otherwise, Hanns came to this theory with no research, but through a vision. His dream immediately discredited Newton’s Law of Gravity (according to Hans at least). He worked with amateur astronomers to flesh out his theory before happily publishing his ideas. According to the theory, the solar system began when two stars collided. The impact of this caused fragments of the smaller, wetter star to be blasted out into space where it froze into giant blocks of ice; forming what we now know as the Milky Way as well as a bunch of other solar systems. The planets were formed when large chunks of ice collided with each other whilst the smaller blocks are what we know as meteors. When these collide with the Earth, they produce hailstorms. As suspected, academics paid little attention at first to his theory. Nevertheless, a segment of the general public actually began supporting his ideas in such strength that societies were founded, pamphlets were handed out and even a newspaper was published. Strangely enough, it began to spread into politics. Adolf Hitler was a firm believer and even adopted this theory as the Nazi Party’s official cosmological belief. After the end of World War II, this theory pretty much lost any support it once had. But be warned, there is still a small cult of followers out there, trying to melt away all scientific evidence which could leave their beliefs out in the cold. 2. Germ Theory

We all know the importance of washing our hands before preparing food, and we know that this simple task is also very important when it comes to performing surgery. This wasn’t always the case. Once upon a time the common belief amongst doctors and surgeons was that a gentleman’s hands were always clean, thus did not need to be washed. As you can probably guess, mortality rate was quite high. Ignaz Semmelweis, a Hungarian physician, noticed that when it came to birthing, two hospitals had very different death rates. The hospital for the poor, and therefore staffed by midwives, had far fewer cases of puerperal fever than the hospital staffed by the best doctors around. This seemed completely against common sense as the physicians were presumed to better trained than the midwives. He noticed that the physicians were doing autopsies on women who had died during childbirth with puerperal fever and then heading over to the operating room to deliver babies. Semmelweis concluded that the doctors were somehow poisoning the women, and at first he believed it was due to some sort of toxic chemical (we now know as germs). He concluded that the best way to prevent this was by washing the ‘toxin’ off. His theory paid off and mortality rates in the hospitals dropped to nearly the same rate (and also proved the midwives were just as effective as delivering babies as the doctors!). Although this should have made him into a well published scientist, his career didn’t quite go as planned. His ideas were rejected by the medical community when he could offer no acceptable evidence or explanation, and they weren’t excited to be told their hands were in need of a cleaning. His eventual breakdown had him committed into an insane asylum for the remainder of his life. 1. Lost Lands

Lost lands were believed to be continents, islands and regions which supposedly existed during the prehistoric era. It was thought that they had disappeared due to either a huge devastating geological event or because of the rising water level of the Ice Age. Although this now seems like the stuff of legend comparable to the fabled lost city of Atlantis, up until the late 1950s this was the central belief of scientists. When faced with similar fossils which had appeared thousands of miles across oceans, the easiest way to solve the reason for this distance was to draw a sunken bridge between the appropriate land masses on a map. At least six of these bridges were accepted as fact, all of which have since became obsolete and disproved. Alfred Wegener was among the first to observe how the different land masses of the Earth seemed to fit together like giant puzzle pieces, giving birth to the theory of Continental Drift. Whilst he attracted few supporters, his ideas were largely met with criticism and skepticism due to the top geologists being resistant to change and his lack of reason as to why the land masses had moved. The missing evidence he needed was tectonic plates. Like all good discoveries, these were found largely by accident. With the new invention of sonar, submarines during World War II spent a huge amount of time scouring the ocean depths, clearly showing the many plate boundaries. Although Wegener didn’t live long enough to see his theory became widely accepted, we’re sure he’d consider all their disagreements as water under the bridge by now.

https://ift.tt/2qvLBmG . Foreign Articles November 23, 2019 at 06:41PM

[roadswim-collective]

Three Times He Lied To Me  Lie 1.

I was twenty three when I met him. I was back at home, living with my mother, after three years in halls of residence. Here's a list of the places you'd be most likely to see me during the year I was twenty three:

on a train

in a library

at a railway station

in a corridor

at my tutor's office

in my bedroom.

I had literally no social life, unless you count going to the shop for tobacco. My best friend was my I, Claudius box set. On Friday nights when my mother was out with the girls from darts, I'd drink Prosecco in the bath. Sometimes I'd do that on Saturday nights too.

I did go other places sometimes. If the weather was nice you might see me in a castle. Caerphilly was my favourite. Or I might be at a Roman site like Caerleon. And now and again you might see me out of breath at the top of a hill somewhere looking at the remains of an Iron Age fort. I was always alone on these excursions. I'd end the day pretty much as I'd started it, lying in my bed, in my old bedroom, probably watching Gladiator.

I was halfway through a master's in history with archaeology, a two-year course, and I was completely broke. Amazingly I'd got a First in my degree, and my tutor recommended me for post-grad. It was all a bit overwhelming. I was the first in my family to go to uni, you see. Well, my father was accepted at some art college back in the day but he didn't finish the course, he dropped out. Other than that, though, I was the first to go on to higher education. It was quite a big deal at the time. Nerve-wracking. I more or less expected to crash and burn.

Everyone else seemed so confident, so talky, and loud. So English, I was about to say. But that's not fair. I just hadn't met many people like that back then, middle class people. A lot of them hardly bothered going to lectures and they were always incredibly insulting about the tutors. They were always on the piss too. Now me, for the first two years I just kept my head down and my mouth shut. I worked as hard as I possibly could, hoping to keep up. I read literally everything. When a lecturer praised my work, I'd carry that around with me for days like a little glow of fire to ward off the doubts.

Not that I was some kind of nun. My main indulgences were:

thin little roll ups in liquorice papers smoked on the library steps, about one every half hour

a bottle of vodka in my bottom drawer for winding down at the end of a long essay

the occasional lump of cheap hash to see me through the holidays

a boy from Norfolk with nice dark eyes, though that was more trouble than it was worth.

By the final year, though, I knew I was heading for at least a 2:1, possibly even a First. There didn't seem so many of the loud talky ones around by then. There were a lot of drop outs. On the one hand that made it hard, because the spotlight began to shine on me a bit more. I couldn't just hide in the back of the seminars anymore, I was invited to contribute. On the other hand, those little glows of praise from my lecturers had grown into a proper fire, burning day and night. And I started to see them as human, my tutors, not as untouchable gods or whatever but as people who were obsessed by the past, by trying to dig it up and see it as it was, just like me. It was hard to believe I'd made it to the end of the three years. And now they were encouraging me to take it further, to do an MA.

I mean, it was way beyond what I'd expected. That last year was just wonderful, I loved it.

The day I graduated, my mother cried and my brother puked. We were all in the union bar, toasting each other. I can drink my brother under the table, and I did that day. Uncle Lloyd was there too, wearing a blue suit that I won't forget too soon, putting away the cheap beer and chatting a bit too much to girls. My father hadn't turned up. He'd promised he would, but that's my father. I can't believe I really expected him to be there. Maybe I didn't, I can't quite remember now.

So anyway, yes. That was, nice, to be doing so well. And now I got to spend the next couple of years digging around in sub-Roman Britain, a time I'd been mildly obsessed with since I heard the stories of Saint David and Saint Dyfrig in RE at school. I always saw it as this mysterious realm full of saints and kings and warlords and clashing cosmologies, and all of it hidden in layers and layers of myth and dirt. It was like digging up a real life epic, it was kind of  a dream come true for me.

On the other hand, after three years as a student I was completely broke, massively in debt, and I hadn't made any friends. And now I was back at home, with my mother, in my old bedroom, commuting to Cardiff from Aberdare, an hour each way on the train, to do my studying. I was making a tiny bit of money working part-time in college libraries at different campuses all over the place, Merthyr, Treforest, all over. I read my Mary Beard books over lunch, and on station platforms in all weathers I listened to podcasts.

My mind was usually far off in the mist, tracing trade routes of lost empires, digging through dead cities, reading old epitaphs. I was starting to feel a bit sort of nothing about everything, or everything modern, everyday life, here and now. I'd even stopped watching reality TV. The only things I watched now were documentaries. Well, and Derren Brown, I loved his stuff.

Everyone I'd known, my uni friends, had all sort of evaporated. The same thing had happened when I left school, or whenever I changed jobs. It was happening again now. Helen and Julie, Rupinder, Jay, Alex and Steve, Danny, my sort of ex, they'd almost faded out, just a year after we all graduated and I promised to stay in touch. None of my friendships were ever strong enough to survive the transition, everyone just floated away. I couldn't say why.

I was happy enough though, don't get me wrong, I enjoyed my own company. To be honest, I couldn't really imagine looking round a historical site with someone else. Having to talk to them, listen to them, instead of just looking at the stuff. Or standing on an iron age site, a hill fort, looking down into the valley, no sound, only the wind whispering and the birds calling – and just because someone else is there you've got to ruin it all with small talk. I tried to see it in more positive terms but I failed to convince myself. I just couldn't imagine it. Very often, I paid for the audio guide tour, with the headphones.

Anyway, there was this librarian I was sort of obsessed with. His name was Will and he was twenty nine. He worked at the humanities library at Cardiff Uni. I did some shifts there, he was sort of my line manager, one of them anyway. He was slim and tall with thick hair and he talked a lot. The women all loved him. He was funny though not quite as funny as he thought. Well, they never are, are they? But he wore tight jeans and brown boots and they suited him, oh my god they suited him. His eyes were green and twinkly, his grin was cheeky. I didn't think he fancied me but I knew for sure that he knew I fancied him.

I sometimes got flustered when we were chatting in a corridor. I was full of pent-up lust. There were moments when literally all I wanted out of life was for Will to turn up at my door late one night and fuck me senseless. Preferably a Friday night, when my mother was out with the darts girls and I was all wet and alluring from my Prosecco bath.

Anyway it was no good, he had a girlfriend. Cerys. They lived together. No kids though. So there was always the chance they'd split up. I tried to gauge the likelihood. It seemed a pretty stormy relationship. He made lots of bad jokes about him and Cerys rowing all the time, her insane jealousy.

He turned up to work one day with his wrist in a splint. When we asked him about it, he said this: "A woman in a bar came up to ask where the toilets were, and the missus didn't like it so she broke my wrist, just as a friendly warning." It turned out later he was joking and he'd actually fallen over drunk. Everyone laughed. But the next day when we were getting cans from the machine Will confided to me that the reason he'd fallen was because Cerys pushed him over some bins on the way back from the pub. "We shouldn't drink together, me and her," he told me. "Only one of us should be drunk at a time. Or it goes bad."

So it all seemed quite volatile. Sometimes he looked miserable. There were phone calls from Cerys that sent him scuttling outside, scowling. He made lots of jokes about how unreasonable she was, how she flew into a rage, shouted and screamed. In dark moments I imagined that what he was leaving out from all these stories for the sake of decency was all the amazing, passionate, hot sex they were having when they weren't rowing. She probably shouted and screamed all the way through that too. Lucky bitch. I didn't have enough experience to make that assumption, really, but it crept up on me sometimes as a slightly depressing certainty.

All this drama seemed very distant from my own life. It was like watching I, Claudius, all that passion, the lust and the violence, Brian Blessed. And there was me, alone in my teenage bed at night, my hand wandering down, trying to visualise the exact lift and curvature of beautiful Will's tight bum. I was wondering if it was finally time I invested in a vibrator.

So then they did split up, Will and Cerys. It wasn't the first time but she'd gone back to Llanelli or Ammanford or wherever she was from, and apparently she'd never done that before. Will seemed pretty upset and he got a lot of sympathy at work, which he obviously enjoyed. I'd say the percentage male/female split at the humanities library was about 30/70 to the girls. Some of the men seemed a bit uncomfortable with this, with being out-numbered, but others blatantly loved being surrounded by women. Will was one of those.

He started going out for drinks after work. We'd all go, a big pack of us. Yes, me too. This sort of party gang developed. Friday nights mostly and usually around Cathays, in the Woodville or the Pen and Wig. There was boozing and there was bad behaviour. I got caught up in it a bit. I'm not really into that kind of thing, in general. I'm useless at small talk, it's just embarrassing, so I drink too much to compensate, and I talk a load of crap, wear myself out, and have to spend the next fortnight in bed. But it's funny how a change in just one colleague's relationship status can act as a catalyst on the pent up frustrations of the whole office.

And of course I always had to catch the last train back home. That was at ten to eleven so I was leaving early, baling out while the night was still young. They were all staying out, Will and everyone, they were going on somewhere else. And I'd be on the train, half-cut but not quite pissed, with all the sweaty bellowing valley boys, nodding-waking-dribbling all the way back to cold dark Aberdare.

There was nothing left for me at home really. The girls who'd stayed there were on their second or third kids. We had nothing in common now. All the boys were messing about with the same old things as before, cars and sports and booze, just with jowls now and already balding. Thinking about it, I don't suppose I had much in common with anyone in the first place.

So I started staying the night now and again with my new friend Abby who was doing a PhD and lived in Roath. Not every weekend, just if it was going to be a big night, someone's birthday or whatever excuse came up. I was quite good at drinking, still am, and I'd always be among the last standing. It was me who had to get Abby into a taxi and find her door key and let us in and, more than once, hold her hair back while she was sick. And when it came down to the last handful at the very end, Will was always there too. Will and me, Abby, Hannah, Chris, a few others. There until the bitter end. None of us had anything much to go home to really.

So one Friday night we ended up in this over-priced cocktail bar on City Road, six or seven of us I think, probably about 1am. Abby and I happened to be sitting opposite Will, the three of us leaning in close over a tiny glossy circle of table to be heard above the music. He was on great form that night, Will. He listened to the latest installment of Abby's catastrophic love life with great interest and had a lot to say about it all. He told Abby that none of it was her fault and she deserved much better. He said, "Look at me, after all this Cerys stuff – I'm bruised, sure, I'm bruised to holy fuck, but I'm not bleeding." I'd almost say he was cosying up her to her but I didn't get that feeling, it read more like a supportive friend thing. Also, I noticed that he was addressing quite a few of his comments on love and heartbreak and so on directly at me. As in, right into my eyes. So of course I began to feel ridiculously excited and kept insisting on more drinks all round.

When men try and chat you up, it's almost always boring, and forced, and makes you cringe. I mean, I suppose I'm partly to blame because I'm just no good at small talk. And chatting up is usually just a subset of small talk, really. You're not usually talking about anything in particular, there's nothing to cling on to, and it's all crappy, you're just wafting these threadbare festoons at each other in desperation. So I tend to just sort of clam up and that's the effect most blokes' efforts have on me, their intended target. Not Will. He was good.

Abby was talking to Hannah so now Will and I were just looking at each other over our tiny table. He grinned and beckoned me to lean in closer, so I did, and he said, "I'd like to try something out on you, if you don't mind." So I raised my eyebrows at him and said Um, okay..? To which Will did a mischievous little chuckle and told me it was a kind of personality test, and I said A test? O-kaaaay... "Don't be worried though", he said, "it's not serious, it's just a bit of buggering about, of no diagnostic value," so I said, Well that's a relief and he chuckled again.

And he was wearing this really nice aftershave and I could see the hairs on his chest poking over the top of his shirt. Plus I was half-cut. Plus it had been a bloody long while since I'd even been near a bloke. So you can imagine, can't you?

Will's idea turned out to be quite good. Basically, you've heard that thing – if you could have as your superpower either being able to fly or being able to make yourself invisible, which would you choose? Those crappy questions you get on Facebook that are meant to reveal some essential truth about your personality based on a seemingly throwaway choice you make. Well, Will said he hated it because it was an obvious fix, a swizz, the superpowers thing, because all the traits associated with flying were really good ones – success, confidence, flying high, reaching for the sky, freedom, the great beyond. And then you had invisibility, said Will, which was the choice of creeps. Think of the kinds of things being invisible would allow you, would invite you to do. It's nothing very noble, is it, Will said. It's sneaking around, it's hiding, not being upfront and honest. It's peeping toms, he said, it's sneaks and spies and saboteurs, it's eavesdroppers and shoplifters and pickpockets. Invisibility appeals to the voyeur, to the nosey parker and the perv. So it wasn't really much of a choice, he said, in fact it was a complete fix and he'd thought of his own, much better alternative.

I was laughing at all this, by the way, and reaching across to maul his arm from time to time. This was a good deal better than your average chat up, I was thinking, and even if it wasn't a chat up I was having fun with a silly man on a Friday night and and he was making me laugh so just go with it, just enjoy yourself for god's sake.

"Okay," says Will, "here's the thing. Some old fella down the road from you, mad professor type, he's built a time machine. It's in his garden shed and he's invited you to have a go."

"So this old man is trying to get me to go into his garden shed with him?" I say. "I don't think I believe he's got a time machine in there, to be honest. I think he might have other reasons."

"Fair point," says Will. "Make it your grandfather then. Someone you trust."

"How about my grandmother?"

Will says, "What's the matter, you don't trust your grandfather?"

"Very funny," I say. "Well, yes I did trust my grandfather and he did make things in his shed, but he's not alive now so..."

"Oh shit. Sorry," he says. "I haven't got any grandparents left, as of last month. Ah well, life's a shit, your grandmother it is then. Okay, so you go into the shed, there's the time machine, and your lovely old Nana is inviting you to be the first to have a go on it."

"First?"

"Yup. First ever trip, the maiden voyage. And she wants it to be you, her favourite grand-daughter."

"Her only grand-daughter, " I tell him. "So, I'm like a sort of guinea pig? My Nan wants me as a guinea pig?"

"Yeah, I suppose so," Will says. "But in a very loving way."

I did one of my stupid big honking snorting laughs all over him at this point. By now, fed up with shouting over the music, Will had come round the table and we were pretty much squeezed together. He seemed to enjoy it, this muffled explosion of me. We were laughing at my laugh. I called it my walrus call, he said it was a great, unashamed, life-affirming laugh, he said it was one of the great laughs. What a bloody charmer, eh? I was seriously starting to wonder if I'd be spending the night at Will's instead of holding Abby's hair as she puked. I was starting to feel pretty damn good about myself, doing all the sexy banter, all the flirty-flirty stuff. I'm a bit slow on the uptake sometimes, I don't always read the signals. This, though, with Will, this Friday night, I felt bloody fantastic about everything.

"Alright, forget about your Nan and the shed and everything," Will said. "You've just got hold of this time machine somehow, okay? But you can only use it once, I mean for one return trip. There and back, then that's it. So the question is – where would you choose to go, the future or the past?" Then he frowned. "Actually this might not work so well on you because you're an archaeology student, not a normal person."

Anyway, to speed things up a bit, that question of Will's led to a conversation between us that went on until we all got chucked out of the place at about two and then continued in the taxi heading for Abby's house. I told Will I'd choose to visit the past, of course, either to sub-Roman Britain to see what it was really like, or all the way back to the start, before agriculture, to when we were still nomads. We talked about that for a while, the distant past, then Will said if he had the one-trip time machine he'd definitely choose the future, no question at all. At least two thousand years, he said, either that or a few million, because he wanted to see how it all panned out. 

So then we talked about that for a while, the far future. It was all quite slurry and rambly and drunken, of course, but it just kept going, and we got on to what all this might for our respective personalities, and about the state of the world in general, whether things were getting better or worse, whether there was any hope for the human race and all that. 

And then, suddenly it seemed, we were outside Abby's house and she was getting out of the taxi, stumbling on her doorstep, trying to find her key, fiddling it into the lock, waving goodnight, and falling into her hallway, while I was staying in the taxi with Will, who was in the middle of saying that there never was a golden age, it was just a fantasy, there was never a time when everything was in harmony and everyone was happy, but that there could possibly be one at some point to come if we didn't blow ourselves up or make ourselves extinct through climate change, and also there was Paul the spotty Australian IT boy who was fast asleep and snoring and had to be shoved really hard to wake him and get him out at his place in Riverside while we went on to Will's flat, quite a nice one in Llandaf North.

And then, suddenly it seemed, it was a year a later and we were on holiday in Rome. It was my first ever visit and it was amazing, overwhelming, beautiful, and Will and I were celebrating the anniversary of that night when we got together, and we were walking around having what was basically a continuation of the same conversation that we'd started then, in that over-priced cocktail bar in Roath.

It was an odd match really, Will and I. We were different in lots and lots and lots of ways. We hardly agreed on anything. And at first, I think we were both kind of fascinated by how different we were, despite having quite a lot in common. Here are some of the things we had in common:

smallish working class valleys hometowns, Aberdare and Glynneath

stopped feeling that we fit in to our respective hometowns at around the same age, 14

each had an older brother who got married and moved away, his to England, mine to Monmouthshire, which amounts to the same thing

divorced parents, both our dads had left home, both of us were under 10 at the time, and neither of us really saw much of our fathers

both went to Welsh school but hadn't really kept up the language since

first in our family to get a degree, Will having achieved a 2:2 in psychology

we'd both been members of the Green Party at some point, although neither of us was now

similarly miserable teenage years, greasy depressions spent in cocoons of totemic books, music, films, art, clothes, comedy, metaphysics, magic, comics, etc, evolving into a dense and intricate personal para-reality to which the everyday world of bus stops and dog shit was merely a laughable and mundane annexe.

It felt as though we'd started off in roughly the same place but had headed in different directions. We kept coming back to the past/future thing, it was like some structuring principle we used in thinking about our differences. Here are some of differences we noticed:

Favourite films - me: Agora, with Rachel Weisz as Hypatia, Elizabeth, with Cate Blanchett, Mel Gibson's Mayan epic Apocalypto, and yes Gladiator. Will liked Bladerunner, Alien, Star Wars, the first Matrix, The Fifth Element, and Guardians of the Galaxy

Books/authors – On holidays from my study reading I liked Sarah Waters and Hilary Mantel. One of my favourites was Alan Garner, ever since I read The Owl Service when I was thirteen. As a kid I read and loved all of Tolkien to the point where it affected my dreams and I saw epic battles on my walk to school, raging in the morning clouds that cling to the scarp of Maerdy mountain. Will had never read any Tolkien but had an impressive number of multi-part space operas under his belt, his favourite being Iain M. Banks' Culture novels. He could quote huge chunks of Douglas Adams and he also loved William Gibson...or was it William Burroughs? One or the other anyway. He mostly read non-fiction now, a lot of pop science, Freakonomics, Malcolm Gladwell, Dawkins.

Music – I listened to Fairport Convention and Nina Simone. Will listened to German minimal techno

The state of the world today – we both agreed that everything was in a right mess, massive poverty, total exploitation, greed, capitalism, eco collapse, extinction event imminent, all caused by us. Not just Will and me. Humans. Where we differed was where we looked for possible solutions. It was the time machine again – he went forward, I went back. Will felt there was no way to fix all the things wrong with the world by going back, it was too late. Humans had caused damage to the world by being too clever – fossil fuels, international tourism etc – but it was only humans therefore who could fix it all, by being even more clever. He looked to a post-market utopia in which we've abolished scarcity, outgrown the lizard brain, conquered evil and greed with intelligence, and built a new world based on a new understanding. We'd first heal our planet with our incredible new machines, and then we'd move out beyond Earth in creative, peaceful waves, slowly evolving into children of the stars. I exaggerate, but only a bit. And me, I still do the same now, I dig back to older societies and pre-modern ways of life, tribal ways and folk narratives, non-profit motives, sustainability, to structures of feeling abandoned on the road to modernity, old medicines for our modern sickness. Will was never very open to any of this stuff. His closing flourish was always something about whatever the old days might have had going for them, it was basically a kind of blissful ignorance, hardly to be envied, and besides, no-one – not even you! - would genuinely want to live in any era of human history before reliable anaesthetics were invented.

As I say, we hardly agreed on anything. But in the early days that was part of what made it fun. We used to debate things a lot in the early days, it was what we did. And whatever we were talking about, at some level you could sense that same old past/present thing, his time machine thing. It really seemed to me he'd hit on something essential about his approach to life and mine, and the differences between them.

So we were in a cafe opposite the Colosseum having coffee, sat right in the bay window, watching the street life. I tried to order two double espressos but I messed up my pronunciation and the waiter brought us singles. Will beckoned the guy back over, and the waiter smiled and said, in English, "You want milk?" Will gave him half a grin, shook his head, and said, "Nessun latte – doppio – prego," and they both laughed, the waiter nodding and whisking off our tray. Then Will turned back to me and grinned his bloody adorable grin. I was thinking we might have this coffee then maybe pop back to the hotel room for an hour or so.

"Milk indeed," he said. "He must have taken us for a couple of weak ass English milk weeds."

I laughed.

"You know what you should do, Will? You should be a writer. You should write something."

"Ha, what?" he said. "I don't think so. I haven't got anything to say."

"You've always got something to say, you idiot."

"Well, yeah, but it's all bullshit really, when you come down to it."

"Well, yeah, but that needn't matter. Look at some of the crap that that sells."

"Mmm, Da Vinci Code, Fifty Shades, Jeremy Clarkson, fair point," he said. "But, no, no, I really don't think there's anything in my particular brand of bullshit that would sell."

"I don't know," I said. "What about your time machine? I'd say you could definitely make something out of that. It's good. It gets you thinking."

"Do you reckon?"

"I do, yes, I think you could make that into something, a story, something funny and clever," I said, "like you."

And he leaned across the table and kissed me. A big kiss, right there in the bay window, with everyone going by. When I opened my eyes again he was smiling at me, his eyes were so warm, he was so handsome, and golden autumnal Rome was glowing away behind him. I felt so good, so happy, more than happy. It was all so much more than I'd expected. I whispered a suggestion to him and, after our espressos, we popped back to the hotel for an hour.

Will often said he'd like to write but he never did. And the thing is, he already had a story about that time machine, an actual story with a beginning, a middle, and a funny but very bleak punchline. I couldn't see why he didn't write it up. Can we just skip just for a minute back to that first night I spent with Will, at his flat in Llandaf North? So it's stupid o'clock in the morning, we're both at the point where you drink yourselves sober, and we're out on his brown bolted balcony. I'm squinting at

glimpses of the Millennium Stadium and the BT building through the trees. A mile and half away, the city centre. The rain is falling but the air is warm and smells sweet. We're still not quite sure if we're going to do it. Will had a text from his ex earlier – at three in the morning! - and it sort of made the atmosphere between us a bit weird. So now we're on the balcony, talking. I remember telling him that all his Bladerunners and his Aliens and his cyberpunk whatever, all these futures he was into were all horrible. Mostly these were all dystopias. It was satire. The future in most of these things he loved was some crazy exaggerated version of today's world, with all our problems pushed to the limit. I remember him grinning as I pressed the point.  Well, he said, realistically, and whatever I'd prefer, it's probably more likely we'll fuck it all up and ruin the world. Realistically speaking, he said. That's funny, I told him, you love the future but you don't even believe in it really. Your best guess is it's going to be even worse than today.

And then he told me this story. There's this couple, he said, and she's like you, she loves the past. And he loves the future. And one day this time machine really does turn up, but you can only take one ride each in it. Just one return trip because human minds can only deal with the experience once in a lifetime, any more and you burn out your brain. So she goes first, heads into the past, and comes back a few seconds later in a state of deep depression and disillusionment. Then he has a go, into the future, and comes back a few seconds, depressed and disillusioned. They conclude from their experiences that the present is as good as it gets and enter into a suicide pact. As for living, they say, our spambots can do that for us. But then he remembers that he's already visited both their graves in the far future and the dates on their headstones made it clear they were going to live for several more decades so they don't bother and just split up. She later married a quantity surveyor and bought a big house near Chepstow, and he drank himself to death.  

So it was a funny little story with a bleak punchline. I kept telling him to write it up but he never did. I couldn't understand because he kept saying he wanted to write. I mean, I thought it would be a good little exercise to get him started. After all, he had the whole thing there, he just had to write it up. But he didn't write it. He didn't write anything. If he did, I never saw it.

This morning I looked through my bedroom window and the sky was turning a lighter and lighter blue as the sun came up over the motorway. Everything around was beginning to glow. By the time I got to work the clouds had come, colours went grey, and at lunchtime it started raining. It was pouring down as I drove home at five. I sat in a traffic jam on Cathedral Road, blowing the heaters to clear the windscreen, getting hot and prickly, opening the window and getting splashed, and thinking, well, how quickly it came and went, that early sun, and what a long time ago it seemed now.

There's a Welsh saying, Nid yn y bore mae canmol diwrnod teg. A rough translation would be something like, Morning is not the time to praise a fine day. In other words, it's very unwise to call it a nice day when it's still early and it might well piss down later. I love that. It's one of the cliches about the Welsh, that we're very pessimistic. All down to the rain, or the diet, or being conquered, or the Miners Strike. I can't speak for anyone else though, Welsh or otherwise. You might call it pessimism, fair enough - I just call it realism.

I've just got back from a conference in Rome. The paper I gave looked at some of the connections between Macsen Wledig of the Mabinogion and the real life Roman emperor Magnus Maximus. It was beautiful, of course, as it always is in the autumn, golden, and glowing. I walked down by the Tiber where all the plane trees had turned orange and were dropping their leaves into the river. Being the maudlin bitch I am, I made a point of walking pretty much the exact route I walked with Will, eleven years ago now, from the Circus to the Colosseum and up to the Capitoline Hill. It was dark by the time I got to the top and my legs were aching. I leaned on a railing, looking down at the spotlit Forum, and I thought about Will, and I thought about my father, who died six months ago next Tuesday, and I felt like crying to be honest. But I didn't, partly because it would have been pathetic and made me feel worse, but mainly because these anti-depressants I'm on seem to dry up my tear ducts. I get the trigger to cry but nothing comes. Probably for the best.

When I get home from these things I'm always exhausted. Even a short trip with no paper to give leaves me completely worn out. I know what it is. It's not the work, that's nothing. It's not even giving the paper, I've long since built my public speaking armour, I can climb into it whenever I need to. No, it's all the other stuff. The chatting and socialising. Relaxing, kicking back. Networking. All that side of it. I'm useless at it. Wears me out. Never been any good at that stuff.

So I tend to get home, lock myself in my house, set the phone to messages, and basically not talk to anyone for, well, for as long as I can get away with. Which is usually about 48 hours, then I go back to work. I always make sure to book time off for exactly this purpose. I call it my decompression period. If I don't get it, if I have to go straight back to work, I go a bit mad. Noticably so. Incredibly irritable, interspersed with moments of mild hysteria. To be fair to my colleagues, they're used to it by now, they've adapted, it's become 'a thing', an amusing thing everyone knows about me, Anna. Academia is a perfect trap for eccentrics. Everyone has their quirks, but actual, diagnosable personality disorders are no more or less common than in any other vocation.

I haven't really changed. Not really.

During decompression I can't even read anything. All my books stay on their shelves. I turn instead to the internet. Last night I watched a whole series of a forgotten ITV sitcom from the 80s called Me and My Girl, starring Richard O'Sullivan as a widower bringing up his now teenage daughter Sam, played by Emma Ridley. Don't ask me why, it's not very good. And this morning I looked up Will's Facebook. Don't ask me why. He's got his profile set to public so I can have a good look at all his family holidays, his wife's birthday, their anniversaries, their kids growing up. Not that I envy her, I can just imagine all the crap she has to put up with. She probably doesn't even know the half of it. She looks more and more hopeless in the pictures, to be quite honest, and a bit thinner every time. This – looking at Will's Facebook – this is no good. I realise that and I hardly ever do it. Why would I, really? I found out all about Will a long time ago, and that's why we're not together now. The main feeling I get when I think of how close I came to ending up with him is relief. I look around my cosy house and I think, wow, close escape. But when I'm in this state, post-conference, I end up doing it, peeking into Will's life, I don't know why.

I wondered if Will ever did rouse himself to write anything. If he ever made something of his time machine thing. By the look of his Facebook, he hadn't, he was still at the humanities library, head of department. When I was full of his family pictures I just sorted of drifted through various Google searches, all pretty desultory. I suppose I was vaguely wondering if anyone else had come up with a similar idea anywhere in the world. Turned out, someone had. My drifting led to a review of a book of short stories, called Minimum City, including one which sounded remarkably similar to Will's time machine story. It was just a synopsis really but it was enough to make me look up the short story collection and its author. It was an American author, a man, quite a big name but I'd never heard of him. Contemporary set fiction still isn't really my thing. From reading the Amazon reviews and all the rest of it, this is what I learned about Minimum City:

It was made up of 28 stories

They were all very short, some only a paragraph long

It was a very slim book, with big type and wide margins

All the stories were set in the modern world

They all tended to have some kind of twist / sting in the tail

The tone was cynical, darkly funny, etc etc

It didn't sound like my kind of thing but I could imagine Will enjoying it, at least Will as he was when I knew him, I can't speak for now obviously. I found the story. It had first been published in an online literature journal before being collected in the Minimum City collection. Its title was The Return Trip. It was very short. A couple come into possession of a time machine. All the rest follows exactly as in the story Will told me on the balcony of his flat in The Crescent at about four in the morning, twelve years ago. Right down to the spambots line. 

I'd already checked publication dates. The Return Trip by this American author whose name eludes me now was first published in an online magazine called Young Boasthard's four years and eight months before Will told me the story. It was collected in Minimum City and published by Harper Collins six months before Will told me that story and passed it off as his own, on the balcony of his flat.

And I started laughing and laughing, until I had to put my bowl down in case I got milky cornflakes over my t-shirt.

[marlaalcott]

I'm going to make a post about OCD.

Let's start with some very very basic background story on my OCD. I have struggled with this illness for a long time. I can trace it back to as early as age 9/10. I have no recollection whether it existed beforehand, but even as a child I could recognize that I was doing things that didn't feel "normal" without rationalized/logical explanation. I felt overwhelming compulsions to carry out the actions.

In retrospect, the earliest symptoms that I can recall aligned with the period of my life that my brother was in a near fatal car accident (that's a whole other emotional post in itself). Irregular thoughts and actions for sure started at that point.

I don't know precisely what age this began, or if it existed before said car accident, but I also remember having hoarding tendencies for useless inanimate objects. I shared a bedroom with my brother, and in it we had these 2 dressers that were stacked on top of each other (we didn't have a lot of space). The open area/gap that existed between the dressers became a storage place for me. I used to put a lot of stuff in there. Most of it was useless crap. For example: I remember saving wrappers from Spice Girl bubblegum and lollipops.

There was also a time in my early teens that I used to save transit tickets. I legit was able to pick up any given transfer, look at the time and date, and remember exactly where I went and who I was with. They held sentiment and served as keepsakes.

Fast forward through my mid teenage years. I seemed to have fought off my illness for the most part during this period. By the time I met my life partner in my late teens, he described my outwardly strange actions as nothing more than "quirks". Yes. He agreed that some of the stuff I did seemed strange, but not outright crazy.

In my early 20's I had a full on OCD crash. The illness litterally consumed my entire existence. The 2 people who were closest to me watched and stood by as my sanity crumbled like the Roman Empire. I was lost. I was a shell of myself. It was rock bottom at that point in my life. My own personal hell. Something I would never wish on anyone. I strongly believe this was also the catalyst for the demise of my romantic relationship. My illness drove away the one person I loved more than anyone or anything in the world. And that fucking sucks. (More on that another day!).

Anyways. Let's fast forward to the present. I have tried my best to keep it under wraps the best that I can since way back then. It comes and goes varying severity, but luckily it hasn't been anything nearly as bad as back then. I battle it every waking moment of my existence.

Now let's speed up to the past few days. An incident took place Monday night/into Tuesday, that I'm not OK with. I entered into it willingly. Nothing "wrong" happened per se, but fuck if I felt anything but wrong afterwards. Here's some more back story to my current life and the situation at hand. I have spent the past year and a half living in denial of my still existent love for my ex. He broke up with me last May, and we have had nothing short of a rocky road since. We are 2 puzzle pieces that no longer fit together (there will be numerous posts on the topic of my heartache in the future). Not too long after we split, I had a sexual encounter that I consider non consensual. I refuse to classify it as r*pe due to the intense ramifications of that definition, but what took place was certainly not OK. To say the least. (Side note, that guy is a douchebag). I didn't handle the aftermath of that incident well. I made an effort to seek the help that I needed, but it fell through due to horrible management who denied my request to go to hospital emergency (because y'know. My 4 hour shift in a part time retail environment was the most important thing in the world!). Ugh.

Time carried on, and I fought through each passing day with mounting hurt and emotional trauma that stemmed from the devastation of the loss of a marriage (essentially), and then the non consensual scenario. Somehow I've made it through the last year running from all of this fuckery.

Yesterday a snippet of the buried trauma came creeping back in. I turned to 4 of my close friends for consoling. It was needed. I gained 4 different insights to try and put the situation into perspective. At the end of the day the most important questions were "Why do I feel guilty?" "Why do I have so much anxiety?" "Why do I feel "icky/dirty"?" The shitty thing is that I couldn't answer any of these questions with any amount of definitive clarity.

I have learned a few things though: I am NOT ready for sexual relations with any new human beings. As it turns out, I value sex as more of a sacred and spiritual connectiveness act than I previously thought I did. My heart and body still metaphorically belong to someone else (even though in reality they are MINE). I also believe that I need to be in love and part of an established relationship before I can consider engaging in any sexual acts. I need a foundation.

I didn't get any sleep Monday night. (Half an hour in and out consciousness if I'm lucky). But fuck if my OCD didn't kick my ass. My primary struggles are "contamination" oriented, coupled with magical thinking (I'll make a separate post with a more in depth definition of magical thinking). When those 2 are combined, you get me as a result! And God damn it is hell on earth.

Here's what happened. And I don't expect anyone to understand any of this (unless you have OCD as well).

I came home and headed straight into my room (as I usually do) to remove my boots and socks. My dogs came to greet me and tried to give me kisses, but I denied said kisses because I didn't want "oral sex germs" on my babies. I headed into the shower, got out, and then continued to commence my usual after shower routine. Here's where shit started to hit the fan. I grabbed a cotton pad and sprayed my toner onto it to wipe my face, and BAM. Magical thinking contamination OCD brain kicked in! I thought to myself "I haven't brushed my teeth yet. The inside of my mouth is still contaminated. What if the cotton pad spread those still existent germs onto my clean face?". I tried to ignore my irrational concerns and carried on. I applied moisturizer and the rest of my face products, put hair product in my hair, deodorant on the pits, I peed, then I exited the bathroom and got dressed. When I was done all that I acquired my toothbrush and brought it back into the bathroom to brush my teeth. When I finished brushing, I broke down. I used hand soap to rewash my entire face, but I couldn't shake the feelings that my face was contaminated. So back into the shower I went! 2 showers. 2 FUCKING SHOWERS. FML. And when I got out the second time, I had a hard time believing that I even brushed my teeth to begin with (yay magical thinking brain for being able to convince myself of untruths!). I got through it all and went out to see a friend, but when I got home my anxiety was still fucked and I felt unsafe in my bed.

I got lots of MUCH NEEDED sleep, but I still felt "scared" of my bedding when I woke up. That fear did not diminish with the sleep. Remember how I said I took off my boots when I got home? Yeah. My "dirty" clothes touched my bedding. *Gasp*

I was supposed to see a couple of close friends today, but she had to cancel. So I succumbed to my OCD! I full spiraled. Like I did years ago. I legitimately felt my brain unraveling into that same insanity. I recognized this place. I have been there before. And my biggest fear is falling right off the rails again.

After I was cancelled on, I didn't know what to do with myself or my day. I was also emotionally worked up and anxious, because I had just looked at my exes Facebook page (this is a form of self harm for me. Seeing his public flirtations with his new love interest, is more than I can handle at this time in my life). So into the wash half of my bedding goes! And then I hopped back into the shower, sat down, and cried under the running hot water while asking higher powers to help me. All in all I have rewashed bedding that was already cleaned not even a week ago along with some clothing (clothing that included what I wore into the hotel Monday night), and showered twice. Totally unnecessary, but fuck. At least I feel calmer.

I think my OCD is coming back into play as a control mechanism. My ex is building a new life for himself along with a new partner, and it's my mind's way of easing itself. Everything is falling apart (hopefully to eventually come back together), and my illness is resurfacing in attempts to regain some kind of power. (I'm scared of my toothbrush btw).

I believe suppressed feelings of my non consensual sexual encounter from last year also resurfaced yesterday. Disclaimer: This incident was with someone I know and trust. It wasn't "wrong", but it felt wrong for me. I am NOT someone who can do the whole NSA/FWB thing. I learned about myself!

The guy I was with even made a few comments along the way of being concerned about my fragility. Turns out, he was right! I guess he knows aspects of myself better than I even do. :(

Today was a huge OCD failure. I NEED a psychiatrist referral. I don't want to go back to my dark place.

[beingstubbornlyme]

In order to save the republic, @realdonaldtrump must succeed.

Yes, Donald Trump, the improbably 45th president is the Republic's final hope, and yes, I feel like Princess Leia as she flawlessly executed her iconic line, "This is our most desperate hour. Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You're my only hope." Now, before all you never trump jackasses, NTJ's, start losing your shit, rolling your eyes & pounding the keyboard to refute my claim, can you at least calm the $@#% down & read the rest of the post? 

[muttering] Dumbasses.

I am not placing President Trump on a pedestal, claiming he's a god or anything of the sort. He's the 45th flawed man who has been leader of our stumbling nation. I say stumbling because we still have the chance to be great again, but we're close to stumbling off of a cliff. Unfortunately, this isn't gonna be one of those falls that we love to watch on repeat, pausing only to stop the pain of laughing so hard. No, this fall from power will be in the Roman Empire, British Empire & countless other "unstoppable, globally dominant" empires that fell & never regained a fraction of their once glory type of fall.

The reason is a three syllable, very simple, powerful, once you lose it, it's damn near impossible to get back, reason: con-fi-dence. Right now, the American public's confidence in our republic is at an alarming low, and for MANY damn good reasons. 

Insane levels of debt, and not because the government doesn't take in enough money in taxes and fees; corruption in every level of government; political figures getting away with obvious crimes because they are connected to other political figures; politicians writing laws that only apply to us peons (eg. #Obamacare being the most egregious example, but there are many); politicians that lie straight to our faces and do not even fear the consequences because their big money buddies ensure they will get re-elected and there are enough stupid voters to ensure they're right; there are two parties, but it's now clear that they are really just ONE party; surveillance has gotten out of control; nearly ALL of the major industries we deal with are monopolies, crushing any innovation and TRUE competition; our military is being overrun with liberal, globalist, politicians who are willing to let certain officials run their social construct experiments on the last respected, trusted institution Americans know of; public officials and government workers feel, and act, more like masters than OUR servants; whenever we hear "comprehensive" we KNOW we're about to be screwed; the mainstream media colludes with one party to push propaganda instead of report the facts, and on and on and on it goes. This list could go on for at least another paragraph, but you get the point ... shit is a mess.

All of these things are the reason candidate Donald Trump and all of his missteps won, and honestly, was the best choice, BY FAR. If you were objective, it wasn't even close. Trump was the ONLY candidate who bonded with the people, listened to their complaints, talked directly and authentically, was entertaining (yes, that DOES matter, even though NJT's act like it has NEVER mattered! They're so annoying.), gave voice to the people's biggest concerns (jobs, immigration & the direction of our beloved country) and most importantly, called out the power establishment, not only in America, but globally. I mean c'mon, how many times did the guy rail against "China!", said in his most unique way? How many times did he call out big business, DC lobbyist, the Bush family, & their dynasty that has left some pretty awful scars, lil Marco, lyin' Ted, low energy Jeb, mccain (sorry, but I will NOT capitalize his name! He does NOT deserve that respect, not even after serving in the military! He has been that despicable as a politician!) and allll their lil buddies? All. The. Damn. Time. If Trump was campaigning, he was bitch slappin' these fools, and with good cause! They are coconspirators in this crime against the republic, enriching themselves at OUR expense. These fools act so damn smart, yet their record of failure makes the Cleveland Brown's look like a well run, successful football team. So what in the hell have they done to feel so confidant about? I'll tell you what: they have been able to get away with lying to us & becoming millionaires in the process.

We were fed up, and along came someone unafraid to give voice to that frustration with name recognition AND a long career of success. You could not have scripted a more perfect candidate, contrary to the "educated" chuckleheads in DC & NY. (Don't get me started on these DUMBASSES!! That is a whole article in and of itself.)  So this perfectly timed candidate was able to capture people's last bit of hope and let of an exasperated "FI-NALLY!" This candidate gave them hope that someone would go to DC and give them back THEIR government, fight these "swamp creatures", clean up the cess pool, get the checkbook into order, hire competent people, keep your promises, call out the fools trying to screw us and get rid of the shit left by the previous tenant, obama. 

This is why Trump voters are so loyal. This is why it's so important that President Trump not break his core promises. So far, he has been great on keeping his promises, but there is some very concerning whispering coming out regarding amnesty, and no wall, as of late. This would not only break his tough stance on illegal immigration, but also a promise made so often, and so exciting, that I think I saw a girl with a "Build that wall!" tramp stamp tattoo. Americans want a damn border wall on the southern border, PERIOD.

If Trump were to break this promise, the last bit of trust and faith would be lost. Imagine cheating on your partner, being busted multiple times and them giving you ONE MORE chance to get your shit together, and you blow it .. again. There is no chance you're gonna stay together, and there is also a good chance they're gonna stop dating for a long time. The disappointment, betrayal, loss of hope and pain the voters would feel if President Trump decides to join the swamp would destroy the full faith and credit of our government, something necessary to govern effectively. If trust is broken, people will not feel bad about lying on their taxes, paying employees under the table, voting turnout goes down, things get worse, the votrs mood responds to things getting worse, which makes things worse, ... see the spiral downward ... and at what point do things reach a dangerous tipping point? Let's hope America never gets close to finding out. 

The mood of the country, and the optimism, has picked up with the victory of Donald Trump. No one can deny that. No one can deny that the mood and faith of the public is also very important to any successful, lasting, stable government, so even if you're not a Trump voter, you should be rooting for him to succeed, because if he doesn't, your guy, or your party, will be left with a bigger pile of shit, and there won't be anything for them to steal. So, if it is even for simply selfish reasons, everyone should be rooting for President Trump to Make America Great Again.

[amugeona382]

headbanger.ru SnoWhite Interview

To tell you the truth, I didn’t really believe that this interview would ever materialize. The promoters of SnoWhite’s gig in Moscow suggested meeting the band after the show, but I had serious doubts that after spending 1.5 hours on stage the guys would still be able to do the talking. Moreover, it’s easy to guess that, of the five band members, I was more interested in guitarist Sir Christus (being as unbiased as I am, I am still a journalist and share a professional interest in notorious characters) – but this person never seemed talkative to me, and I wasn’t sure I would able to establish contact. But I must tell you that all my concerns turned out in vain. Maybe, I benefited from the nice welcome the band received from Russian girls, and the “high-spirited” watermelon, which we all tried together in the dressing room. Anyway, singer Julius Maximus and the above-mentioned Sir Christus, whom the band nominated as spokesmen, were very friendly, open and ready to share their thoughts about just anything in the world. It’s nice when you don’t have to “pull” words from your conversation partners, but on the contrary, they are eager to tell you what they want to be disclosed. In such cases, you can only take the list of questions aside and look what comes out of the conversation … Are you big fans of the fairytale about Snow White? Julius: It’s a good fairytale, but it doesn’t combine with this band at all. Christus: And it has nothing to do with drugs… Julius: Many people say that it’s because of drugs. You know, “snow white” is cocaine. But it’s not about drugs… Everyone is trying to make a new start. It’s like a clean table. So SnoWhite resembles purity. Christus: You clean your table and start again… We are innocent like first snow. And you “start again” with a little bit of a different name. Why are you “General” now? Christus: I have to get a higher status. But I guess “Julius Maximus” is supposed to have the highest status with such a name… What do you mean by calling yourself that name? Julius: That’s my real name. My real name is Jussi Julius Maximus – so it’s my second name. And my surname is Kyyhkynen and that means “dove” – not “pigeon”, but “dove”, the white one. Julius Caesar Maximus was a great leader of Roman Empire… So you should be proud of that kind of name. Julius: Of course I am. As far as I know, you’re gonna record your first album in February… Julius: Yes, we don’t know the date yet but soon enough. Christus: We’ll try to have something for the next spring. And we have to do a lot of gigs then. This is just a “warming-up”. Julius: We are in baby shoes. We’ve been doing this just for a year and a half, so… Christus: We are so young, you know… (laughs) Oh yes, “young” and “innocent” – I remember it. (everybody laughs) Do you have a name for your first album so far? Julius: No, not yet. And even if we had we wouldn’t tell you that. Oh, it’s a great secret, isn’t it? Julius: Yeah! And who’s writing the songs for it? Julius: I write all the lyrics and we write music together. Christus: Everybody makes… (chooses a word) riffs. The whole band does it. Julius: The whole band is composing the songs. Christus: Some songs are by Purtsi (bass player). And we have two songs written by me. Julius: It all started with Purtsi and Dino (drummer) and their songs. They gave me their demo, and I liked it, and then I made a few songs. That’s how we started. We have many Purtsi’s and Dino’s songs, and there’re two songs written by me… But they’re all together. And Christus was the last one to join the band. How did it happen? Julius: Raffe was the one who did it. He was our first guitar player, and we told him that he can choose the guitar player he wants to play with. And he chose Christus, so here we are. Christus: You know, Dino proposed it to me a little bit earlier, and I was a bit interested in this band. But when at first I listened to those demos, I thought that’s fucking bullshit. That’s the thing that happens all the time. When we play and you hear our music for the first time it’s… (uses the body language to express something like “crap”) But if you listen to it for the second time, you understand exactly what’s going on. Before you joined SnoWhite you were playing in Black Jesus. Do you still have this project? Christus (shakes his head): No. No? Why? Christus: Because… I don’t wanna talk about it. Ok, then SnoWhite is the only one, isn’t it? Christus: Yeah… And you tried to play with your brother (Matthau Mikojan), but there was something wrong with this project too… That’s strange. Isn’t it easier to work with your family member? Christus: That’s the problem - that we are brothers. We don’t go together. That’s too hard. Just a terrible idea – me and Matti… Julius: No-o-o! They can’t be on stage together. They’re too close. Christus: There will be too much fighting, you know. Christus, you know, I have to ask you about Negative… You left a successful band and now you have to play in small clubs and built you carrier again. Isn’t it a disappointing step back? Christus: Yeah, but this is just like “my band”, you know – what I’ve always been wishing for. Here the guys don’t say “that’s bullshit, don’t play it”. Actually, Jonne (Aaron, Negative singer) didn’t like anything I tried to propose. SnoWhite is a kind of band where I have my own space. I have a chance to do what I want to do. For 8 years, when I was in Negative, I was writing songs. 4 000 songs are ready… (smiles) But in Negative I couldn’t perform any of them. It’s Jonne’s band. And this is that kind of band… Julius: This is OUR band. We are all equal. Julius, aren’t you and other guys upset by the fact that all these girls come to see Christus? I don’t say that they don’t like your band, but… Julius: Yeah, I know what you mean. Yes, sometimes it’s… Of course he’s more popular. But it will never be like “SnoWhite featuring Sir Christus” – never!  It will be just SnoWhite. Christus: It will end some day – all this bullshit about “ex-Negative”. That’s gonna change. Julius: Actually that’s a benefit that we just have to accept. You know, if he hadn’t been there, the hall tonight would have been empty. No one knows us, but everybody knows him, so they know us now. And after a couple of years there’ll be no more Sir Christus, there will be SnoWhite, where he plays. Aren’t you afraid that he will leave you like he’s left his previous bands? Julius: No. He has so much work to do here now… Christus: I had a reason to leave Negative, but I have no reason to leave this band. This is what I’ve been looking for all my life. I can do my own songs now. I don’t wanna play someone else’s anymore. When you say “my own songs” does it mean that you write only music or do you write some lyrics too? Julius: No, that’s my department. But you said that all of you are equal in this band – so why not? I mean, isn’t it a kind of contradiction: we are all equal, but it’s only me and no one else writing lyrics here? Julius: Well, if somebody makes good lyrics, then I’ll accept it, of course. But it was like that so far: guys play, I sing, I write the lyrics, I do the melodies for the lyrics – and that’s been good so far. But everybody can do everything. Like our last song in this gig (“Opium”) – it was totally me, I’ve written this song in something like 2001 with acoustic guitar at my home. So it’s really my song, but, of course, the arrangements have been made. That song was acoustic and now it’s electric. So the guys have made it sound like this and, you know, it works. By the way, Christus, one more question about your “Negative” period - what did you do to your “Pink Lady” (pink guitar with the inscription “Sir Christus” on the fretboard)? How could you have got rid of it? It seemed to be a part of you… Christus: Pink Lady? (seems confused) A-a-ah! It’s in “Elimäki”, some kind of restaurant or rock-club… It’s under glass there and people can see it like in museum… Ok, it’s part of history now, I see… This evening you were singing one song on stage – “Lost In America” (Alice Cooper cover). Don’t you think about singing something else in this band? Julius: No, that’s just that one. Julius, but he’s done it so many years ago – don’t you want to “change repertoire”? Julius: Yes, he has done it, but he couldn’t sing it on stage, when he was in Negative. Christus: Jonne doesn’t like someone else singing… Julius: And here if Christus wants to do it – then why not? Christus: I have a little bit more glorious voice than Jonne… (laughs) Julius, if you write all the lyrics for this band, the next question goes to you. What do you sing about? I mean, what do you feel you should definitely sing about? What are the main themes for your lyrics? Julius: Well, at this moment my lyrics are not happy. This is my personal thing, but I’ve been through hell. And I’ve been writing about that. It was, you know, a bad ex-girlfriend, a fucking crazy one. And in one song I kill her – I mean, I was thinking that I wanna kill her. Of course, figuratively speaking – I’m a kind man, I will never kill anybody, I wouldn’t kill a fly, but that’s my expression for that girl. You know, “die bitch”. Cause she was fucking insane. If your lyrics are that personal, how does it feel to sing them on stage, recalling it all over and over again? Julius: I try to stand behind my words – as much as I can. It’s like acting, you know. You have to get the song – if it’s a rough song, you go rough, if it’s a song with slow emotions, you go slow. Just like acting. I see… Didn’t you hurt yourself by your falling on stage tonight? It was a bit shocking… Julius: (laughs) Even if I would have dropped on the floor with my head first, I wouldn’t have cared. I can stand pain a lot. In my life there’s been a lot of pain. Nice to hear that you’re ok - but still you caused some damage in the club. Do you often break things around you on stage? You seem to be very expressive, so maybe you have some passion for destruction while performing. Julius: No-o-o… But sometimes I would like to smash everything in pieces, so I don’t know – we’ll see. I’d like to break a drum set and two guitars, but I can’t afford it. I’m poor. We don’t make money on this. Well, but you have some other advantages. You know, traveling, performing in different cities, seeing people… Julius: Yeah, that’s fucking cool! Only getting out of Tampere, where we live in Finland, is fucking cool. Just leave everything behind and go on the road. And now we’re in Moscow and that’s fucking awesome. I’ve never been in Russia and now I love it! Everybody I’ve met here is just great. They’re so nice. Are there any countries you’d love to go to? Julius: I’d love to go around the world. Christus: This one, Russia! It’s the best one, and China is the second one. Julius: If I had to name one place, not considering Russia, because we are here now, but it may be Brazil. Christus: In Finland it’s so fucking boring… It’s all because of the EU – all these crazy rules… Julius: People are not that nice in Finland. Everybody wants to see how fucked up we are. They think we’re drunkards even if we’re sober. We don’t have any drug problems and still we are “junkies”. They consider us to be junkies. Christus: Yeah! If Finland would be involved in some war, I wouldn’t be there… Julius: Oh no, I wouldn’t defend it. Not very patriotic, I should say! Julius: Oh! (laughs) Of course it’s not like that. Still it’s our fatherland. Christus: (says something in Finnish) Julius: He says “Finland can suck the flood out of my ass”. That was Christus, not me. I’m patriotic, you know. Christus: It’s so fucking hard to live there, because the people are too normal there. Wherever I go out of my house everybody’s staring at me. Now it’s autumn and you should put on something brown. Nobody understands you there. In Russia it’s absolutely different. Oh, Russia seems to inspire you a lot… Christus: I love it! Julius: Love it too! It’s my first time here and everything is awesome. Good people, good food… Everything! And it’s not in the European Union, so you can smoke anywhere and so on… Do you mean that here in Russia we have no rules? Christus: No ill rules… Julius: Not so strict as in Finland. In Finland you go to an amusement park, which is outside, and there are only those fucking parking places where you can smoke. Even if it’s outside! What the fuck?! Christus: And you can’t smoke on stage in Finland. It’s not allowed. Julius: I can say I like this country more than my fatherland. And I always tell the truth – even when I lie. Christus: Don’t wanna talk about Finland anymore. I hate it. Then come and live here. I think your fan girls will be extremely happy about it. By the way, what do you think about all this “fan love”? Do you enjoy it? Christus: Yeah-yeah… Of course. Without your audience you’ve got nothing to do. Well, tonight you were quite attentive to your audience. You’ve spent so much time signing tickets and what not, making photos, talking to fans… Christus: Well, when you travel so far away you may be not able to waste your “precious time”. But this is not that kind of gig. We had to keep our fans glad. They should remember us when they leave the club. Julius: And I’d like to say one more thing about Russia. Finnish railways are like that - no cigarettes, no alcohol and so on. And then you get into this train called “Tolstoy”, which goes to Russia – and you can smoke, you can drink, you have good restaurant… Christus: (sings) Somebody’s opening the door… Julius: Yeah! It’s like a different world when you step into that train. You’re still in Finland, but when you get into that train, you’re already in Russia. Maybe you should go on tour all over Russia? Julius: Yeah, we’d love to go to St. Petersburg… Well, I mean not big cities but also some smaller towns… Julius: Yeah, “Pribaltica”, Belarus, Estonia… Hmm, Belarus and Estonia are not Russia… Julius: Yeah-yeah, but we should go there too. And Ukraine… Christus: If we could make a deal with any club in Russia we would come and play there. We’d love to play in different places in Russia. And what about money? You say you don’t get much from your playing in clubs… How can you manage? Christus: (sighs) Money… Well, some days you get paid for your job. But we don’t need money anyway… We have cigarettes and beer and we’re working and performing. That’s the point. (smiles wickedly) And actually we have money. (At this point I finally manage to explain to the guys that it’s time to wrap up the conversation, as the guys have been making obvious signs to me for about 10 minutes already. Then Christus takes the Dictaphone away from me, brings it closer to his mouth and pronounces the following message) Christus: Ye-a-ah! This is Christus from SnoWhite, peace and… shame for yourself. Julius: This is Julius from SnoWhite. Rock like fuck! (I get up and intend to get out of the dressing room, but I’m suddenly approached by drummer Dino, who says blatantly that I just have to talk to him too) Dino: I’m a drummer. What would you like to ask me? Well, I can ask you, what’s so special about this band that makes you do the drums for it? Dino: Well, basically this band started from me and Purtsi. We collected all these people around us. Christus and Raffe and Jussi are not the founding members of the band. But when we found out that Christus had left Negative we started collecting people around us. First of all we needed lead singer. If you look at Jussi Kyyhkynen you’ll see that he’s perfect. He has sloppy eyes and a good sound and sometimes a big stomach… What do you people like to see? If you take pictures of Jussi Kyyhkynen in a period of one month or three months, you can see what’s happening… He’s a “real life” rock star. He’s not a picture image. And it’s all real: all sweat and scars and pimples… That’s what it’s all about. We’re ugly ourselves, but the goal is to get girls… And guys as well. You have to have something to give for the guys. I think we have… If you come and bring your boyfriend with you, he may think “they’re faggots” – but then he will be surprised. He’ll go like: “What’s happening here? These guys can play”. Of course we can play. That’s it. And the girls should get horny. If they don’t, it means we failed. That’s rock-n-roll, it’s all about this! Ok, you say you and Purtsi were the ones who started the whole thing. Why have you decided to start this project? Was there any kind of “turning point”? Dino: The turning point was when Christus became available. He’s a magician, he’s so good. He’s the best guitar player I’ve seen for a long time – and I’ve seen a lot. So you think that without him it wouldn’t have happened? Dino: No, it would had happened, but in some different ways. Having Chris in our band opens some boards, of course. But it brings you the whole load of Negative publicity… You know, the yelling about drug problems and stuff. Everyone’s afraid of signing us. But we’re the loveliest guys – we love to play with each other, and everyone has his own challenges. But we love to play with each other and we have songs. SnoWhite on the Internet: http://www.myspace.com/sw1923 Special thanks to Oksana (RM Records) for arranging this interview Interview by Ksenia Artamonova Photos by Olga “Omena” Dendymarchenko September 19, 2009 © HeadBanger.ru

[samuelrodgersfutureworks-blog]

Story of Khutulun

http://www.badassoftheweek.com/index.cgi?id=822456431891

In the swirling, blood-soaked melee of a 13th-century battle against the Mongol Empire, it wasn’t all that weird to gaze into the ranks of the most overpoweringly-dominant land army ever fielded in human history and notice that, hey, check it out, a couple of the warriors currently massacring all my friends actually happen to be women.   At a time when most of the world’s female population would have just been happy to have the legal right to tell their husbands to stop hitting them, Mongol women were some of the most socially, politically, and militarily badass chicks anywhere on Earth.  They ran cities while the men fought on campaigns, built public works, helped manage the largest land empire of all time, had seats in the Kurulurai (basically Mongol Congress), and even occasionally fought in battle, a detail that was particularly scandalous and unacceptable to writers from Europe, the Middle East, China, and basically any other country that got the fucking piss stomped out of them by the Mongol Horde.

But while it wasn’t particularly bizarre to notice that one or two of the enemy archers may have had a pair of boobs, it was significantly more unsettling to encounter the warrior princess Khutulun on the field of combat.  Because while most warrior women of the Mongol Empire may have been expert snipers, firing their composite bows with deadly precision while riding a horse at a full gallop, Khutulun preferred a significantly more direct approach:  She would charge out at the head of her warriors, ride straight up to the biggest enemy officer she could find, grab that asshole off his horse with a one-armed choke slam, slap him in a fucking half nelson, and drag him back to the Khan while he screamed and pleaded for his men to save him.  Once that fucker was ripped from the battlefield and firmly in the Khan’s custody, Khutulun would go back to her primary combat duty – commanding a regiment of Mongol heavy cavalry.

This is the tale of Genghis Khan’s great-great-granddaughter.

Khutulun never met Genghis, and by the time she was born most of the great Mongol Conquests had already stomped nuts all the way from Beijing to Baghdad, cleaving a bloody smear across the map that ended up becoming the largest contiguous land empire in the history of humanity.  Her father was a Khan named Khaidu, and he ruled a fief of land near the Tian Shan Mountains, which is in the realm of present-day Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan (or however the hell you spell that), and northern China.  Khaidu was from the line of Great Khan Ogodei, who was Genghis’ third son, and Khaidu was basically the last of the old-school badass, “let’s ride our horses over this guy’s ballsack in front of his entire family and then throw all of his compost garbage into a recycling bin” Mongol barbarian motherfuckers who shanked faces first and didn’t want to be asked questions by anyone besides a fast food cashier or his favorite bartender.  As a good Mongol Prince, he constantly asked himself one of the most important questions any man can ever ask himself:  What Would Genghis Do?

The #WWGD lifestyle netted Khaidu tons of land, plunder, death, destruction and mayhem, and it also led to him having fucking 15 children – all of them boys, except for his youngest.  He named his lone daughter Khutulun, meaning either “Bright Moon” or “All White” depending on how you want to translate it, and then proceeded to give her the exact same badass Mongol warrior training he gave to her fourteen older brothers – how to ride a horse, shoot a bow, kill someone with a sword, wrestle, punch, tie knots, milk a yak, build fires, drink blood, sleep in a yurt, and mean-mug motherfuckers who are stupid enough to step to you.

The Princess of the Bright Moon was pretty over-the-top badass at everything she attempted, but out of all the bone-crushing military pursuits she excelled at, she was the most successful when it came to straight-up wrestling.  Having fourteen older brothers is probably a gigantic pain in the genitals, and you can be damn sure that Khutulun learned how to fight pretty early on, but this woman was so hardcore that no man or woman on earth could beat her in a straight up bare-knuckled throwdown.  It didn’t matter how tough you thought you were – this princess was going to hip-toss your dumb ass through a plate glass window onto a campfire and then everyone was going to laugh at you for getting your balls kicked off by a girl.

Now, I should mention that wrestling is the national sport of Mongolia – they fucking love that shit there.  Of the Olympic medals won by Mongolia, over half of them are won in wrestling events.  These are big, tough people who love to fight, and and Mongolian wrestling is intense:

This is literally just two grown men kicking the crap out of each other.  There are no rules in Mongolian wrestling – anything goes.  Bare knuckles, little padding, and there are no weight classes or any of that lame handicapping bullshit.  It’s just two big angry motherfuckers wailing on each other until someone falls down.  Once a guy hits the ground, he’s out.    Thing Greco-Roman wrestling meets Rocky IV.

From a very early age, Khutulun made a name for herself as being completely unbeatable at an ultra-violent sport that involves white-knuckle fucking hand-to-hand combat with a big angry man twice your size.  She was basically Ronda Rousey meets Ann “The Wall” Veal, and every man who stepped into the ring with her found himself getting flipped for real and eating a face-full of dirt.  Mongols loved placing bets on these fights, and the Princess was making a killing by powerbombing fools who underestimated her badass cred.

Once Khutulun reached a certain age, it became time for her to get married off to a nice boy with a killer smile, tons of cash, and an excellent track record of slaughtering the Khan’s enemies on the battlefield.  Khutulun’s dad and mom were pretty desperate for her to get married, because marriage in the middle ages was a good way to link your family in to another powerful family, but Khutulun was a warrior and would only stand to be with a man who was worthy of her badassitude.  In a very Atalanta conversation, she told her folks, “Ok, sure, I’ll get married, but only to a man who can beat me in a wrestling match”.

The Princess was rich, powerful, cool as hell, and apparently very beautiful, and it didn’t take Dad too long to find a bunch of guys willing to throw down for love.  One by one, they found themselves hurtling through the air as she snapped bones and swept legs and basically demolished any wimp idiot who thought he was man enough for her.  After all the good suitors were done, Khutulun issued a general challenge – she’d accept a challenge from any man, but if you lost you had to give her ten horses (a couple conflicting sources say the entry fee was a hundred horses, but think about how many damn horses that is!).  Everyone from foreign Princes to local blacksmiths saw an opportunity to marry into the family of Genghis Fuckin’ Khan, and they came from all around to face her.

When Marco Polo met Khutulun in 1280, she claimed to have a pasture with ten thousand horses.  She was still single.

Pioneering travel book writers Rashid al-Dun, Ibn Bhattuta, and Marco Polo all met Khutulun, and when Marco Polo was there he talks about one foreign prince who arrived at the court of Khan Khaidu looking for the hand of the princess.  This guy was tall, handsome, and successful, and he bet the insane sum of one thousand horses on the match.  Khutulun accepted.  That night, the Prince found the Princess alone, and pleaded with her to throw the fight – please, let me win this one, and I will be so good to you forever.

She looked at him and, according to Polo, said she “would never let herself be vanquished if she could help it,” but that “if, indeed, he could get the better of her then she would gladly be his wife.”  Then she walked away.

They had the match the next day in the Grand Hall of the Khan’s palace.  People from throughout the city and the surrounding villages came to watch.

“The damsel threw him right valiantly on the palace pavement.  And when he found himself thus thrown, and her standing over him, great indeed was his shame and discomfiture.”

Around this time, a Mongol Civil War broke out between Khan Khaidu and his cousin Kublai Khan, who was the ruler of Yuan Dynasty China.  Despite being massively outnumbered and outgunned, Khaidu resented his cousin for going soft, giving up the old Mongol traditions like arm-cleaving and head-popping so that he could become some Buddhist hippie that was into lame things like sleeping on gold-embroidered silks surrounded by sexy naked ladies while consuming delicious food and expensive wine.   The two argued, bickered, then went to war, and Khutulun was brought along to help command the Mongol Heavy Cavalry on the battlefield.  Again, according to Marco Polo, “Not a knight in all his train played such feats of arms as she did.  Sometimes she would quit her father’s side and make a dash at the army of the enemy, and seize some man thereout, as deftly as a hawk pounces on a bird, and carry him to her father.”

Makes sense to me.  If she could hip-check a guy to the turf on level ground, imagine what she could do if she got the drop of you in a live-fire combat situation.

Despite torching some border towns, defeating main line Chinese infantry in battle, and face-shanking Mongol warriors on the field of war, the fighting between the cousins proved indecisive, and really the only thing that came out of it was that the Mongol Empire started to shatter into smaller kingdoms that didn’t wield nearly the same power as Genghis once had.

Khutulun did eventually get married, although not to a guy that beat her in battle.  Instead, she chose her husband – a “lively, tall, good-looking man” named Abtakul who was from a few towns over.  Abtakul was an elite soldier who had been hired by Kublai Khan to kill Khutulun’s dad, but the Khan’s guards caught this guy, threw him in jail, and sentenced him to death by beheading.  Well Abtakul’s mom was so upset her son was going to die that she threw herself at the Khan’s feet and begged that she be killed in her son’s place.  The Khan said “Ok, fine, whatever, as long as someone is decapitated that’s fine with me”, but then Abtakul stepped forward and said “fuck that, no way am I letting my mom die on my behalf.  I will face this like a man”.  The Khan was so impressed with this family that he immediately released Abtakul from jail and hired him to be an officer in the Khan’s army.  Abtakul fought in the war, was wounded in combat, and while he was recuperating in the hospital he met the Princess, who fell in love with him immediately or some shit.  Anyway, that’s the story, and it’s a big deal because medieval women typically weren’t lucky enough to choose who they got to marry.

Khutulun’s father died in 1301, and right before he died he appointed Khutulun to succeed him as the new Khan (technically the female version of a khan is called a Katun).  She declined, because she had fourteen older brothers who were all pretty fucking upset that they’d been passed over for the chiefdom, and instead she made a deal with one of her brothers – I’ll back you in your claim to be Khan, if you’ll let me command your army on the battlefield.

Much like her dad, she didn’t have time for palace life – she wanted combat, like a true badass.

Khutulun did end up taking over as General once her brother became Khan, but she wasn’t commander for very long.  After just five years as the Clan’s military commander, she died, passing away violently at the age of 45.  The sources are unclear whether she fell in battle or was assassinated, but I’d argue both methods are equally badass.