#cosmopolitan population

[sugarmusicnews]

Vagabond Blues Show on All Jazz Radio every Thursday afternoon

Join me on my Vagabond Blues show on www.AllJazzRadio.co.za every Thursday afternoon from 4pm to 6pm (SA time). I play a broad spectrum of music in the blues genre, with a special focus on South African blues. – Brian Currin Extract from an article I wrote in February 2007 I was born in South Africa 4 days after “The Day The Music Died” according to Don McLean (you work it out!). I was born and…

[lnsfawwi]

Heroism in TFATWS

Let's establish one thing which is that the show operates in a superhero trope, which means there are good guys and bad guys, and the good guys always win. This is not to say that characters are morally clean-cut between good/bad. The Flag Smashers acted out of good intentions; Walker did want to do good things when he took over the mantle. But that doesn't mean they aren't the bad guys in the story, because a person is not only judged by their intentions but also the means and the ends of those intentions.

Sam and Bucky are the heroes in the story, they beat the bad guys (the Flag Smashers) and saved the world. That's how the story ends. That's how all the superhero stories end.

But the show isn't quite that simple, not in the sense that it deals with moral greys, no. Rather, the show really fucks up the boundaries between good/bad, right/wrong, and by extension, the heroism of the show.

Let's say Karli has some vague cosmopolitan worldview, and let's say that's better than the state system so Sam is justified to sympathize with her cause, and sam is rightfully asking the governments to be better. What's the actual, feasible way to achieve Karli's vision? Nice speeches notwithstanding, Sam isn't offering a solution. States aren't going to abandon the system that made them a state just because some hero dressed in an American flag descends from the sky and tells them to. Forced displacement and/or re-settlement happen because the population distribution is screwed, especially in Western Europe where Karli is from. Those states simply do not have the capacity, spatially and financially, to accommodate all the people while the others would be faced with devastating labour shortages. Statecraft is not just about morals, some IR scholars would even argue it's never about morals, you have to do the rationalist calculation. (also sam's speech to the politicians is so.........wrong. it sounds like a 16-year-old wanna-be socialist who spends too much time on leftist tiktok)

Here's the thing, you can agree with the political ideology or not, because it's not about whether it's right or wrong. It's about Sam being a hero who comes from a heavy political background, who represents a set of values that is meant to transcend a single country, advocating that ideology whilst being completely naive about it.

Steve embodies a similar idealism that makes him a hero, but not a leader. He's a leader because he can lead, he assesses the situation, sets a goal, and gives out tasks to achieve that goal. In the show, Sam is not demonstrating effective leadership, although not entirely his fault.

When you have the 'hero' indiscriminatorily endorsing the villain's philosophy, it doesn't mean the hero is empathetic, it means the hero is fucking bullshit. What makes a hero isn't merely stopping bad guys, it's also offering a better alternative even when the villain kinda makes sense. Superheroes are supposed to offer moral lessons through their heroism, which often takes place as they defeat evil. Without that, they're just dudes stopping fights, not heroes fighting for causes. The only moral lesson Sam offers is 'hey maybe radicalization is bad', which is completely ignored by both Karli and Zemo.

Sam's sympathy towards Karli is even more absurd. Even if he agrees with her cause, she's an unrepentant killer. 'Don't call them terrorists.' really, Sam? What would you call them? Just bc the Soviets fought the N@zis doesn't mean they were the good guys.

Furthermore, we see the contrast between her and the other flag smashers. They were invisible victims while her body was gently carried by Sam as phones and cameras were recording. In a show where they tried to make sense of racism, the stark contrast between Karli and the rest of the group happens to be mostly PoC is kinda hilarious.

The problem isn't Sam. It's the terrible horrible writing. You can't take a Watsonian take when it's so obviously a Doylist problem. The show claims to be a lot of things it got wrong is just pathetic.

What about Bucky? His arc is pretty detached from the main storyline and he basically did nothing significant in the show so I don't even know what they want to convey about his heroism. He was literally just running around punching people (not even very good at it too) while being blamed for things he wasn't responsible for. He only told Karli that killing was bad. What a novel lesson. Again, there is nothing from the good guy.

Who is the hero then?

Zemo is the true anti-hero of the show. Throughout the show, Sam and Bucky - the good guys - oppose killing in general, but their method is proven ineffectual and in the end, all Flag Smashers are killed with a majority of them killed after they were lawfully arrested. The Flag Smashers were terrorists, they were the villains, therefore narratively, this makes Zemo's end goal - killing all supersoldiers, in this case, the Flag Smashers - right. His ideology - the desire to become superhuman cannot be separated from supremacist ideas; supersoldiers cannot be allowed to exist - is positively reflected in the story. His success inevitably justifies his ideology, which stands in contrast to both Sam and Karli. I'm not saying what he did was heroic, but from a storytelling perspective, Zemo is the 'hero' who ultimately eliminated the evil in this superhero trope.

The result is that Sam, the supposed hero of the show, has done nothing. He didn't stop the bad guys, he didn't offer an effective alternative to Karli (or Zemo) practically and ideologically, while Zemo did all that. What does it say about heroism and the idealism that comes with it? That it's nice to talk about but useless when a real battle takes place? That end does justify means? Because that's not what Cap trilogy conveys.

[eightfourone]

the cultural monopoly privilege of living in a temperate climate and being able to relate to every story ever written that reflects this reality of cold snowy winters

[artifacts-and-arthropods]

2,000-Year-Old Fayum Portraits from Roman Egypt: also known as "mummy portraits," these funerary paintings were often fastened to the coffins of the people they depicted

Above: Fayum portrait of a woman from Roman-occupied Egypt, c.100-110 CE

Fayum portraiture was a popular funerary practice among the upper-class families of Roman Egypt from about 50 CE to 250 CE. Given the high mortality rates for children during this period, many of these portraits depict children and youths, but adults were often featured, too.

Above: portrait of a youth wearing a golden wreath, c.130-150 CE; the wreath and the background of the portrait are both gilded

The population of the Faiyum Delta, where most of these portraits were found, largely contained individuals with both native Egyptian/North African and Greek heritage. The Greek lineages can be traced back to the Ptolemaic period, when the Greeks gained control of Egypt and began to establish settlements throughout the region, gradually leading to a cultural diffusion between the Greek and Egyptian populations. The Romans eventually took control of Egypt in 31 CE, absorbing it into the Roman Empire and colonizing much of North Africa, but the demographics of the Faiyum Delta remained largely unchanged.

Above: portrait of a man with a mole on his nose, c.130-150 CE

Many of these Fayum portraits reflect the same blend of ethnic and cultural roots, depicting individuals with both Greek and native Egyptian heritage (a claim that is supported by both archaeological and genetic evidence). Some portraits may also depict native Egyptians who did not have any European ancestry, but had been integrated into Greco-Roman society.

Above: portrait of a bearded man, c.170-180 CE

These representations of native Egyptians provide us with unique insights into the actual demographics of Roman-occupied Egypt (and the ancient world at large). Non-European peoples are rarely included in depictions of the classical world; it's also interesting to see the blend of cultural elements that these portraits represent.

Above: portrait of a priest of Serapis, c.140-160 CE; the man in this portrait is shown wearing a fillet/crown that bears the seven-pointed star of the Greco-Egyptian god, Serapis

As this article explains:

In the 1800s and early 1900s, Western art historians didn’t know what to make of these portraits. Scholars of Roman history labeled them Egyptian. Scholars of Egyptian history labeled them Greco-Roman. These binary academic classifications failed to capture the true complexity of the ancient (or, indeed, modern) Mediterranean. In reality, Fayum portraits are a syncretic form, merging Egyptian and Greco-Roman art and funerary practices. They reflect the cosmopolitanism of both Roman and Egyptian history.

Above: portrait of a man, c.80-100 CE (left); portrait of a bearded officer, sometimes referred to as "Perseus," c.130-175 CE (right)

Above: portrait of a young woman in red, c.90-120 CE

Nearly 1,000 of these portraits are currently known to exist.

Above: portrait of a man wearing a gilded ivy wreath, c.100-150 CE

Above: portrait of a bearded man, c.150-170 CE

Sources & More Info:

Curationist: Fayum Portraits

Harvard Art Museums: Giving the Dead their Due: an Exhibition Re-Examines Funerary Portraits from Roman Egypt

Getty Museum: APPEAR Project

Getty Museum: Faces of Roman Egypt

National Geographic: Ancient Egypt's Stunning, Lifelike Mummy Portraits

The Athens Centre: The Myth of Whiteness in Classical Sculpture

Forbes: Whitewashing Ancient Statues: Whiteness, Racism and Color in the Ancient World

[mapsontheweb]

The three great Kingdoms of Great White Shark

Recent sequencing studies show that cosmopolitan GWS is divided in three population that don’t cross breed, link incl

[sugurusdiscordmoderator]

Halo bby! <3

Do u perhaps take request? I have been thinking about husband!gojo who feels offended after wife!reader told him about how men can only ejaculate 3 times a day after after she saw it on facebook :3 So Satoru had to cum in wifey more than what she believes because the truth is better than rumours, right? 🤔

hi anon! my inbox is always open for requests (it just might take me a little to finish them lol)

Sorry I’ve been working on this for like 3 weeks lol, I am going to take a break from writing Gojo for a little after this though (:

I didn’t proof read this my apologies

MDNI

cw: smut lmao, handjob, 69, riding, missionary, doggy, daddy kink (oops), shower sex, etc.

—

You scroll through your Facebook feed, when an article from Cosmopolitan magazine pops up called “How To Make Your Man Orgasm Better”. You read through some of it, not really absorbing much until you see an actual doctor’s name listed as research for the article. I mean of course if there’s a penis doctor listed in this article it must be legit!

‘Generally, a person with a penis can orgasm no more than 3 times a day. It can become painfully overstimulating the penis after that I’m afraid. In fact over 80% of this study shows that the person with the penis could not go longer than one orgasm, and 95% could not continue after the second one. That leaves just 5% of the population able to orgasm a third time in a day. There is the possibility for an asymptote - a line that never actually reaches zero although approaching it rapidly after the number 3.’

After reading through the article you decide to scroll through the comments, reading about middle aged women’s sex lives and how their husbands are rather bad at being intimate.

But oh, you could not relate.

After all, you are married to the Satoru Gojo. As a newer married couple with no kids, the two of you fuck at least once a day, usually after work or before bed. You like to get a little more creative on weekends, with morning sex, shower sex, kitchen counter, couch (and just about any surface in the house he can bend you over he’s already fucked you on). You guys can have sex for hours, pulling multiple orgasms from you, but the most he’s ever came in a day is three! So that doctor must have been right.

Just then, your lovely husband Satoru comes home to your beautiful little house, strolling in with a smile on his face like usual. He sits his bag down and takes off his blindfold before making his way over to you and kissing the top of your head where you sit on the couch.

“Hi baby, how was your day?” he asks

“Good, I was just reading a medical article!” You giggle mischievously, getting up to join him in the kitchen with your phone in hand.

“You can read?!” He sarcastically responds, pretending to be shocked before coming up behind you to hug you. This time he kisses the side of your head near your temple, smelling your freshly done hair and you can smell the remnants of his cologne that he sprayed before leaving this morning. “What were ya reading baby?” He kindly asks, not joking this time.

“Well this doctor says guys can cum at most three times a day! And I was thinking about it and even when we stay in bed all day on the weekends having sex the maximum you’ve hit is 3 so it must be true!”

Your husband breaks out laughing, a truly angelic sound, but you’re not quite sure what he’s laughing at. He breaks your hug turning you around to face him with his hands on your shoulders.

“Oh. You actually weren’t joking.” He says reading the expression on your face.

“No babe. Here read it!” You shove your phone towards him with the article pulled up. He reads the same paragraph as above and makes a mental note of the doctors name and credentials and thinks about how he’s going to contact him once he proves this theory wrong.

“Oh, interesting babe. Since you’re so into these ‘medical’ articles you find on cosmopolitan, why don’t we test this theory for ourselves?”

You giggle and blush at his sentiment, still getting shy when initiating sex even after being together for 5 years! You close the distance between your bodies, wrapping your arms around your husbands neck and pulls him down for a kiss.

“Yes please” you whisper against his lips. Satoru deepens the kiss, taking control over you like always. He continues kissing you and backing you up until your back reaches the refrigerator. He plants kisses all over your face before moving down to your neck.

“Y’know, I think we’ll have to make me orgasm all different ways for it to count. Something about a control variable.” Satoru mumbles against your neck.

You’d protest but your pretty little head is thinking about the way his mouth is on your sensitive spot, too horny to shut him up. He pats the back of your thighs for you to jump into his grasp, and you do wrapping your legs around him like a koala. The two of you continue your passionate make out before heading to the bedroom.

Leading you to the gorgeous master bedroom satoru closes the door behind you even though nobody else is there. He begins unbuttoning his jacket and throws it on the floor followed by his undershirt and black jeans. He lays back, his stiff member pulling his boxer briefs tight as he looks over to you expectantly. You waltz closer to the bed, only wearing your matching silk tank top and short set that satoru bought multiple of and loves so much.

He bought every pastel color and loves when he can see your somehow always hardened nipples through the silky fabric. Today’s outfit was baby blue, which happened to be his favorite. Being Satoru’s housewife really isn’t so bad, he makes good money and takes care of you in every way. You just can’t help but be submissive to him when he asks you to wear certain things or cook a certain food. For this man, you threw feminism out the window, and oh how he knew that.

Satoru pulls you onto his lap, looking up at you with those stupidly beautiful eyes as he gently squeezes your hip. “Cmon princess let’s start this experiment,” he winks at you before helping you take off your tank top.

While yes, you play a submissive role in your relationship, he doesn’t always dominate you in the bedroom.

That being said, you roll off satoru so you are laying beside him, leaning to him to resume your steamy make out session.

“Mmm.. I love making out with you, we need to do this more,” he mumbles against your lips. You “mhm” in agreement before proceeding to enter your tongue into his mouth. One hand grips into his white locks while the other reaches down to rub his erection through his boxer briefs. He moans at your touch, reaching his slender arm around you and firmly grabs ahold of your ass, as if you would run away. Satoru takes over the kiss a little more, but as you’re still trying to be in control you stick your hand inside his underwear, rubbing your thumb against his slit.

You break the kiss so he can lower the underwear, before spiting on your hand to lube his shaft as your soft hand runs up and down. He shudders and rolls his eyes back, putting both of his hands behind his head, showing off his sculpted physique completed by the tufts of white hair on his armpits.

You try your best to talk dirty to your lover, being shy in bed like usual is not going to work if you want to make him cum more than 3 times.

“Such a pretty cock belonging to my pretty man”

Satoru knows he’s in for a wild ride when you start to talk seductively. It doesn’t happen often because while you’re vocal in bed… it doesn’t usually include words or full sentences. 😉

You keep eye contact with your lover while you rub your thumb in circles against his sensitive spot, on the back side of the shaft where it meets the head. He lets out a mixture of a whimper and moan while closing his eyes. You add the dripping precum to the tip of his cock will you rub him up and down just like he had shown you previously. He likes when you start towards the middle and rotate up and down, not too fast and not too slow, but not too much pressure and not too light of a touch. He openly told you before that you weren’t very good with the whole handjob concept even though you’re basically professional at everything else, and so he went into great detail, and now you can really make the man quiver.

You sit up, moving so you can use both hands, because his balls look just a little too neglected. You straddle his left leg, allowing him to feel your bare soaking pussy against him. He grunts at the new feelings, getting to be too much for him to handle.

“Baby please make me cum,” he whines as you start to grind yourself on his leg, matching the rhythm that you’re stroking his length. Your other hand gently caresses his full sack, you know he will be cumming so much tonight and you cannot wait.

“Satoru, baby, please? Cum for me?” You let out a small moan as he rubs his leg against you for some extra friction, which simply sends him over the edge. Looking into your big sweetly innocent eyes he shoots his seed all over his abs. Neither of you even look at his cock when he cums, too mesmerized by the lust contained within the eye contact.

Finally, you let go of his penis as he catches his breath with his eyes closed. You want to give him some time to recover but not too much, because it will mess up the variable data!

“My sweet, are you ready for more?” You ask innocently already devising a plan for what you’ll do to him next.

“Whatever you want princess,” he breathes out finally opening his eyes when he has caught his breath.

You try to remain confident as you shift your weight off of his leg and swing your body around.

“Can I sit on your face please baby?” You ask again sounding way too innocent for the words coming out of your mouth. Satoru lets out a moan at the unexpected question, his cock growing hard again.

“Please, fuck yes, please let me make you feel good,” Satoru begs, grabbing your legs to help you get adjusted.

“No baby, I want to face the other way.”

“Oh,” Satoru breathes out, knowing what is coming next.

You get adjusted, your warm soaking cunt hovering over your husbands mouth, thinking about how long it has been since you’ve done this position, surely it won’t take him long to reach peak number 2.

Satoru wastes no time diving in like a starved man. That is the thing about your husband, is he loves pleasuring you almost more than he likes being pleasured himself. Seeing and hearing and feeling you feel good drives him crazy, being the reason he loves sixty-nine so much.

Pulling out all the stops tonight you lean down, licking a strip down Satoru’s abdomen, the exact line where all of his previous cum was. You lick from the bottom of his pecs down the whole way until you reach the base of his dick, proceeding to lick a stripe up and wrap your lips around his tip.

“Oh my fucking god baby that was the hottest thing ever”

Now he really starts eating you out with a passion, tongue circling your clit before plunging in your hole. You attempt to match the bobbing of your mouth on his cock but he simply goes too fast. You come off his cock to let out a guttural moan of his name, which only eggs him on further.

“I’m - I’m not going to last long - ahhha - if you keep that up S’toruuu”

“Mhmmm,” he hums against your clit, knowing how good the vibrations feel for you.

You close your eyes before going back down on his cock, feeling him twitch as you messily tongue his tip.

“-m sensitive hmm” a muffled Satoru says but you don’t care. Using your previously covered in cum hand, you run up and down his shaft while moving down to suck on his balls. This sends toe curling electricity through his body, and he reaches his arm around your thigh so he can access your tight hole with his thumb. Sucking and licking while you feel his thick thumb being sucked into you. Being as turned on as you were, a first orgasm is almost instantly ripped from you, catching both of you off guard but you moan against Satoru’s balls. The combination of feeling you convulse against his thumb plus the sensitive state of his dick in your hand sends Satoru over the edge, but he at least gets to give you a warning.

“Cummin for ya again baby please take it all,” he says barely coherent being so overtaken by pleasure. You attach your lips back to his tip and finish sucking him off until you feel cum stop coming out. You try to get off of him as gracefully as you can, moving to lay down for a minute to give you both some air. You look at the lower half of his face as he licks his lips, and you hold out your tongue showing him you swallowed all of it.

“Cmere pretty girl,” he murmurs, wrapping his right arm around your shoulders and pulling your sweaty bodies close.

“Don’t get too comfortable my baby were only half done, at least,” you smile up at him and watch as he realizes you really weren’t kidding earlier.

Once you’ve recovered from your orgasm, you crawl back on top of Satoru, but this time straddling his pelvis, his semi-hard cock under you. He still looks a little out of breath, but you’re going to do all the work so he doesn’t need to worry right?

You grind your soft wet folds against his growing erection, “can I have it in my sweet pussy this time baby?” You ask doing your best to give him puppy eyes. His eyes roll to the back of his head, humping his hips up a little to give more friction.

“You can have anything you want Princess, you’re being such a vocal good girl t’night,” he sounds out of breath, whiney, and desperate as he watches you reach your hand down to line him up with you. You smile as you playfully rub his tip on your clit.

His hands cover his face, “please. Please stop teasing me, please baby,”

Without further notice you slip him inside, slippery from the previous orgasm Satoru ripped from you.

“Fuckfuckfuckfuck,” he whispers before a porn like moan courses through him, “y/n I’m so sensitive, I don’t think I can do it!”

You slowly ride and grind up and down his shaft, one hand on his chest to support you, the other rubbing at your clit. “Please, daddy… for me?” You emphasize that word, knowing being called that drives your husband crazy.

Satoru’s large skinny hands find the squishy sides of your hips and he squeezes hard. Not that he meant to, but there will definitely be 10 small oval bruises on your ass and hips tomorrow.

“Say it again…” he moans.

“Say what again?” You smile innocently, batting your eyelashes. With that he lifts one hand off your hip and lashes out a spank on your ass check, making your tight hole clench down on him more.

“You know what I meant.” God, something just slightly feral comes out of Gojo when you play so innocent but also act so seductive for him, especially when he hears that word from your lips.

“Daddy, I need two more orgasms from you, please?” You whine as you find a particularly good spot that his cock is rubbing inside you. It’s like your words revived Satoru’s stamina, firmly grabbing your hips again before helping you lift off and on him at almost inhuman speed. Each thrust goes so deep in you, you think you feel it in your stomach. A few more hard thrusts and he is pulling you off of him, and pushing you straight back so your back is on the bed now. He hovers above you, reclaiming his dominance, before pushing back into you with both legs dangling off his shoulders. You know he is holding out as long as he can, but he’s going to want you to cum first so he can feel you clench around his cock and push him over the edge. He leans down kissing your lips, forehead, and cheek before whispering seductively, “such a good girlll,” while emphasizing the last two words with two particularly rough thrusts. He continues his praises inbetween licks and sucks on your neck

“You looked so pretty on top princess but I just had to have my way with you,” before he leans down to suck which will surely leave a hickey. When he comes back up for air he breathlessly groans,

“And you just taste so good and your throat knows my cock so well!” You think he may be slightly going insane and wonder if orgasm numbers 3 and 4 are necessary. Moaning with him, he knows you love his dirty talk because he can feel you squeeze his cock without trying.

Satoru fucks into you with relentless speed, causing your chest to bounce up and down, and all you can do is grip onto his shoulders and let your toes curl from pleasure.

“Mmm, daddy, g’na cum for you,” you barely breathe out, getting closer to the edge as your back arches off the bed. At this he puts your legs together and pushes them back towards you, knowing exactly how to hit your favorite spot in this position.

“Come on princess, cum for daddy, that’s it,” he groans, temporarily forgetting about his overstimulated cock while being so focused on your eyes rolled back and mouth hanging open in pleasure. Just a few more thrusts and he has you squeezing his dick so tight, he knows he won’t last much longer. Your orgasm hits you, not even able to control the beautiful sounds coming out of your mouth, face red, tears threatening to spill from pure bliss. Satoru slowed his pace to let you finish your orgasm before pounding into you harder than before

“Sa-tor-u” his name comes out of your mouth broken up not being able to catch your breath.

“I-I’m gonna - toru!” Being fucking into overstimulation has made you squirt all over Satoru’s cock and lower abdomen, which puts him over the edge, two more hard thrusts before he pauses, spilling his third load of the evening into your throbbing cunt.

His breathing heavy, sweat making his usually fluffy white hair stick to his forehead and his whole body seems to be glowing from the shine of sweat covering him. God you feel so bad for him but also do you really? As he’s said before “your pussy is heaven” so like it’s not really bad that you’re giving it to him…

“Let’s get you in the shower hun,” you whisper next to his ear, having plans for how you can get at least one more orgasm out of him. Still huffing, he gets up and his glorious skinny body looks so beautiful you feel yourself getting horny again. At least you weren’t as tired as your husband!

You set out 3 fluffy clean towels from the linen closet and turn the shower on a good temperature. Satoru has his arms wrapped around you from behind as you both wait for the water to warm up. “I love you,” he says, kissing the top of your head.

“Love you too, Toru” you smile up at him, turning around in his grasp. You kiss him sensually slowly at first, on your tippy toes gently rubbing your fingers along his cheek and neck. You deepen the kiss, knowing exactly how your husband loves it. He reaches down, each hand grabbing each ass cheek and squeezing before giving you a light spank, causing you to giggle.

“Naughty girl, still haven’t had enough?” He asks down to you. Without responding you gently wrap your had around him and pull him into your beautiful giant shower. The water is perfectly hot , making your eyes roll back in relaxation. You pull Satoru under the water taking care of him first. He turns into your big baby, leaning down to let you shampoo his hair and wash his body. When you get to clean his pelvis area you gently lather his soft penis with soap. He whimpers just from you touching it, but you have to clean it! Next you fondle his balls, massaging the soap in. His erection slowly starts to grow again and you know orgasm number 4 won’t be too far away.

“My turn,” you say looking up at him and turning around so you ass rubs up against his hardening member.

Satoru pumps a generous amount of your fancy smelling body wash onto your pink loofa, his frontside still pressed up against your backside. His long arms maneuver around your smaller frame, using all his energy to make sure he washes you in every hard to reach spot, only detaching himself when he had to wash your back and ass. He ignores the boner that impossibly came back after cumming 3 times already, and thought you didn’t notice.

He opts to hang the loofa back up and uses his hands to sensually rub the soap in, starting with your tits, although they needed no extra attention. Your nipples have always been sensitive in the best way, so when he starts rubbing them you can’t help but feel your core heat up again.

“Spread your legs hun,” he whispers, barely able to hear it over the running water. You do as satoru tells you, and he runs his hands down from your chest to your folds, making sure the area is soapy and clean. Your eyes close, leaning your head back against his chest while he massages your slightly tender pussy.

You take this opportunity to reach behind you, grabbing your husbands hardened shaft, and lining it up with your slick cunt.

“Baby…” he groans, voice laced with concern.

“Shhh, it’s okay I’m going to take care of you,” you answer back and with that, push yourself back onto his cock. You both moan in unison at the connection, like a melody between the differences in your voices. You can tell Satoru is tired by his rather lazy thrusts, so you hold onto the shower wall in front of you, fucking yourself back onto him. He is back there whining and groaning uncontrollably, being such a trooper for letting you do this experiment on him.

He puts his hand over yours on the wall, while snaking his other around your waist and under you to rub at your swollen clit. Immediately when he touches it you gasp, not realizing just how sensitive it was from this evening’s fun.

“-hmygod, don’t squeeze me like that,” Satoru whimpers, you turn your head to the side to see his eyes squeezed shut, a blush covering his whole face and chest, and his abs flexing over and over.

Seeing your hot husband so worked up is just the ammunition you needed to finish this last round. You ask him to sit on the little stone bench you have in the shower, which the two of you don’t utilize enough. He sits and you turn around, reverse cowgirl, and bounce up and down with as much energy as you can.

You didn’t even realize how loud your own moans had gotten, his hands on your waist, with yours resting on his knees.

“Please Satoru, let go for me, cum for me please,” you babble and moan with your head empty. Satoru is completely pussy drunk and fucked out in a way you’ve never seen him before.

“Love you ‘Toru,” you moan out as you reach your last peak and the combination of words and friction send him over the edge. He nearly convulses, gripping your hips to the point it actually kind of hurts. No moans, whimpers, or grunts can even come out of his mouth at this point, his jaw is just slack and eyes pressed shut.

You still on his lap, he leans forward and presses his head against your shoulder, and you think you may have made him pass out.

“Babe, cmn, let’s get you out of the shower.” You stand up turning around to see your husband in all his glory, looking half dead on the shower bench with his cock softened and red. You give him and yourself one more rinse over to get the last rounds residue off and turn the water off. You help Satoru stand, although nearly a head above your height, he wraps his arms around your shoulders and lets you guide him out. You wrap his fluffy extra large towel around him and he slowly grabs the edges, just standing there letting water drip off and making no attempt to dry himself. You wrap your hair in a towel, and quickly dry your body off, tired yes, but not nearly as worn out as your husband.

You look over to him, head thrown back, holding onto the towel. You decide to pamper him for the rest of the evening, drying him off, putting his usual hair product in for him, helping him put on a clean pair of boxer briefs and crawl into bed. It’s not even 8 pm and the sun is just starting to set, you giggle but he hasn’t eaten dinner since being home from work. For christs sake he hasn’t had dessert either. He rolls onto his side scrolling through his phone as you get yourself dressed and brush through your hair.

You kiss his forehead and he tiredly smiles up at you. “Thank you babe,” you whisper, “you helped me prove that article wrong.”

His eyes roll jokingly, “well thanks to your damn article I don’t think my dick is going to work for a few days, so who’s loss is it really?”

You ignore his question, “do you want takeout babe? Are you hungry?”

“Can I just have ice cream..?” He squints up at you like a kid asking their parent to have dessert without finishing their vegetables.

“I guess..” it’s your turn to roll your eyes at him, “stay here I know how you like it.” That brings a smile to his face, snuggling into your cozy bed.

You leave the room to head to the kitchen and Satoru goes back on his phone. He googles the doctors name from the article that he noted to himself earlier and finds the email address.

Dear Doctor Yeager,

Please note that my partner and I experimented after reading your article, and I would like to inform you I am an outlier, and finished four times before nearly passing out. If you would like to do any tests on me please let me know.

- world famous Satoru Gojo

he pushes the send button as you walk back in with his ice cream.

[spiderine]

I just want to tell you a story about my family, a lost photograph, and a lost child.

I think a lot of a photo I lost many years ago. It's a simple photo of my mom and my Aunt (we'll call her "Benni") as small children, standing next to each other. Aunt Benni is holding a handbag.

When my mom showed me the photo, she said, "Benni was always hanging on to that handbag. She wouldn't go anywhere without it."

So. Once upon a time, at the end of the 19th century, a family was driven out of Kyiv, so they went to one place they knew they could find acceptance: Vienna, a very cosmopolitan city with a large Jewish population. The family found a home, became successful and they lived happily ever after for a generation or so.

Specifically, until 1938.

Yeah. So.

To make a very long and horrific story very short so we can focus on that photo, "fortunately" (in an appalling, heart-rending way) there was something called the Kindertransport. England managed to smuggle 10,000 Jewish children out of the occupied lands and get them to England.

Yes, Benni was one of them. She was three years old. Like many of those children, her entire family was consequently slaughtered and forever wiped from the face of the earth. Unlike many of those children, she had an address to go to. Hundreds of kind, heroic strangers arranged for Benni to cross an entire ocean to find her family's distant cousins who lived in Brooklyn, where she was raised as my mom's sister.

Aunt Benni died decades ago. We Jews say, "may their memory be for a blessing." And it is. Decades later, on another continent, in another millenium, her descendents are thriving. You better believe more than one is named Benni.

Y'know what? Fuck this fake name shit. Her name was Barbara Victor (z'l), and she survived. Her family was not wiped from the face of the earth because she lived, and so did her children and children's children.

But she always, always carried a bag with her essentials, even at the age of six. Because she knew in her bones that one day she would have to run again.

thanks for listening.

[blueiscoool]

Missing Pieces of 6th-Century Byzantine Bucket Finally Found at Sutton Hoo

While working at the Anglo-Saxon site of Sutton Hoo in England, archaeologists found the missing pieces of a 1,500-year-old copper bucket imported from Turkey. The bucket, which is at least a century older than the famed ship burial, may provide a window into how people lived in early medieval times.

A team of archaeologists, conservators and volunteers from Time Team, the U.K.'s National Trust and FAS Heritage discovered the metal fragments in late June during excavation and metal-detecting work at Sutton Hoo.

Sutton Hoo is best known for its magnificent seventh-century ship burial, whose 1939 discovery was featured in the 2021 movie "The Dig." But the burial was just one part of a complex of 18 separate burial mounds found near Suffolk in southeastern England, many of which contained jewelry and coins. Evidence of imported goods — including an Egyptian bowl, Eastern Mediterranean silverware and a Middle Eastern petroleum product called bitumen — has also been discovered at Sutton Hoo.

But the copper-alloy bucket, known as the Bromeswell Bucket, predates the ship burial by at least a century. The fragmented bucket, which was found in 1986, depicts a North African hunting scene featuring lions and a dog. It was likely produced in the sixth century in Antioch, Turkey, which was then part of the Byzantine Empire. An inscription in Greek on the bucket reads, "Use this in good health, Master Count, for many happy years," suggesting that it may have been a diplomatic gift.

The artifacts uncovered last month were decorated with figures similar to those on the original find. So the team employed X-ray fluorescence (XRF) — which is used to determine which elements are present in an object and to create a unique elemental "fingerprint" of the artifact — to confirm that the newly recovered fragments are indeed part of the sixth-century Bromeswell Bucket.

"Thanks to closer inspection, we now believe that the bucket had been previously damaged and then repaired," Angus Wainwright, a regional archaeologist in the East of England for the National Trust, said in a statement. "In-depth analysis of the metals suggests it might even have been soldered back together."

Although East Anglia has been occupied since at least 3000 B.C., when Sutton Hoo was in use as a cemetery in the sixth and seventh centuries, the area was relatively densely populated and part of a busy trade network. The Sutton Hoo treasures represent diverse objects, including pagan and Christian artifacts, brought there from all over Europe and the Middle East. The ship burial and cosmopolitan nature of Sutton Hoo may even link it to the Old English epic poem Beowulf, which includes tales of gift-bestowing kings from far-flung lands and was composed around the same time.

"It's hoped that this two-year research project will help us learn more about the wider landscape at Sutton Hoo and the everyday lives of the people that lived there," Wainwright said. "So, this find is a great step on that journey."

By Kristina Killgrove.

[whencyclopedia]

Roman Daily Life

From the early days of the Roman Republic through the volatile reigns of such ignoble emperors as Caligula, Nero, and Commodus, the Roman Empire continued to expand, stretching its borders to encompass the entire Mediterranean Sea as well as expanding northward to Gaul and Britain. History records the exploits of the heroes as well as the tirades of the emperors. Despite the sometimes shameful deeds of the imperial office, the empire was built on the backs of its citizens - the unsung people who lived a relatively quiet existence, and who are often ignored by history. Rome was a cosmopolitan city with Greeks, Syrians, Jews, North Africans, Spaniards, Gauls, and Britons, and like any society, the average Roman citizen awoke each morning, labored, relaxed, and ate, and while his or her daily life could often be hectic, he or she would always survive.

Population Movement

Outside the cities, in the towns and on the small farms, people lived a much simpler life - dependent almost entirely on their own labor. The daily life of the average city dweller, however, was a lot different and most often routine. The urban areas of the empire - whether it was Rome, Pompeii, Antioch, or Carthage - were magnets to many people who left smaller towns and farms seeking a better way of life. However, the unfulfilled promise of jobs forced countless people to live in the poorer parts of the city. The jobs they sought were often not there, resulting in an epidemic of homeless inhabitants. The work that was available to these new émigrés, however, was difficult to obtain. Slaves performed almost all of the menial jobs as well as many of the professions such as teachers, doctors, surgeons, and architects. Most of the freedmen worked at various trades, for example, as bakers, fishmongers, or carpenters. Occasionally, poor women would serve the affluent as hairdressers, midwives, or dressmakers.

Continue reading...

[brf-rumortrackinganon]

If you could arrange the BRF visits anywhere across the world (not only the Commonwealth nations), who would you choose for where?

And what would be your strategic/historical reasons for the choices?

I'm not going to pick who, as I think they all do a great job on their visits/tours. Certain people do get more attention than others, but that doesn't negate the work they do.

As for where: off the beaten path in flyover land.

They go to a lot of the same places and the same types of places. That's why I admire Sophie's work; she goes to new countries, so things are a little different for her. But in addition to the same places, they also go to the same types of places; the same big metropolitan and cosmopolitan cities with maybe a village or two thrown in if they're on the way.

I would spice it up. Go to different cities than the usual ones or make their itinerary exclusively in little villages and towns.

I'll use the US as an example (because, well, that's what I know very well). When the royals come for a US visit, they primarily go to Washington DC, the Northeast corridor (NYC, Boston, Philly), and California. Sometimes they've ventured out - Harry's been to Chicago; The Queen has been to Texas, Kentucky, and Detroit; and William's been to Tennessee (albeit for a personal trip) - but mostly they stay amongst the coastal elite.

But the US is huge. There are tons of places for them to visit in the US that will let them accomplish the same itineraries but perhaps with a little more impact because they're visiting places that don't see that kind of high-profile traffic. For instance:

I'd take them to a HBCU football game. It'd be the culture shock of their lives but imagine how much good it'd do for children who want to study in the US but don't think they'd fit in because of the color of their skin.

I'd take them to the Civil Rights trail through Atlanta or in Selma and to a plantation. They've often cited Dr. King and his work when they do history timelines (especially the 1966 march), but I want them to understand why Dr. King is important and what his legacy - and the legacy of everyone in the 1960s who fought for civil rights - actually is because sometimes I feel they don't quite understand what his value is and means.

I'd take them to the American prairie to show them America's indigenous population. Everywhere else they go in the world, they have engagements with indigenous peoples, but not in the US. Why? American native history is important. It's just as powerful and beautiful and important to understand. (And personally, if they can acknowledge British influence on American slave trade, they can also acknowledge British influence on colonialism and the oppression of the American indigenous people.)

I'd take them to Alaska so they could see the effects of melting glaciers. I'd take them to the southwest so they can see the effects of drying wells and lost water. I'd take them to the shorelines and the rural coasts so they can see what will be lost in rising seas.

I'd take them to some of our little-known national parks because they're just as important to our ecosystem as the famous ones are.

I'd take them to rural Appalachia. It's one of the poorest areas in the U.S. with some of the lowest education rates and highest addiction rates; their charities would thrive under the boost of attention that someone like Kate would bring. Not to mention the Appalachian Mountains and the Scottish Highlands belong to the same mountain range so being able to showcase the biodiversity of Appalachia as compared to the Scottish Highlands, and they're still discovering new species in Appalachia to this day.

But most importantly of all, for a royal tour/visit in the US, I'd take them for a ride on a school bus because apparently (according to my tiktok fyp) no one believes the yellow school bus really exists but maybe getting William and Kate on a school bus and taking them for a ride will make everyone realize that no, it's not a Hollywood creation.

And there are places like this in every country that the tourists and the politicians don't go to because we don't know they exist because ambassadors like the BRF aren't interested in going to those places - maybe it's because they're not as accessible. Maybe those places lack the infrastructure to support a royal tour. Maybe the BRF don't think "flyover country" is glamorous. Royal tours aren't glamorous because of the places they go - they're glamorous because of the people who go on these trips. And don't we all deserve a little bit of shine and glamor, and not just our coastal elite or our society centers?

[notwiselybuttoowell]

In 2014, the Guardian asked me to nominate my hero of the year. To some people’s surprise, I chose Russell Brand. I loved the way he energised young people who had been alienated from politics. I claimed, perhaps hyperbolically, he was “the best thing that has happened to the left in years” (in my defence, there wasn’t, at the time, much competition).

Today, I can scarcely believe it’s the same man. I’ve watched 50 of his recent videos, with growing incredulity. He appears to have switched from challenging injustice to conjuring phantoms. If, as I suspect it might, politics takes a very dark turn in the next few years, it will be partly as a result of people like Brand.

It’s hard to decide which is most dispiriting: the stupidity of some of the theories he recites, or the lack of originality. He repeatedly says he’s not a conspiracy theorist, but, to me, he certainly sounds like one.

In 2014, he was bursting with new ideas and creative ways of presenting them. Today, he wastes his talent on tired and discredited tales: endless iterations of the alleged evils of the World Economic Forum founder, Klaus Schwab, the Great Reset, Bill Gates, Nancy Pelosi, the former US chief medical adviser, Anthony Fauci, Covid vaccines, medical data, the World Health Organization, Pfizer, smart cities and “the globalist masterplan”.

His videos appear to promote “natural immunity” ahead of vaccines, and for a while pushed ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine as treatments for Covid (they aren’t).

He championed the “Freedom Convoy” that occupied Ottawa, which apparently stood proudly against the “tyranny” of Justin Trudeau’s policies. He hawks Graham Hancock’s widely debunked claims about ancient monuments.

A wildly popular clip from one of his videos about the Dutch nitrate crisis offers a classic conspiracy theory mashup: a tangle of claims that may be true in other contexts, random accusations, scapegoating and resonances with some old and very ugly tropes. He claims that “this whole fertiliser situation is a scam”. The real objective is “to bankrupt the farmers so their land can be grabbed”. This “shows you how the Great Reset operates”, using “globalist” regulations to throw farmers off their land. He claims it’s “connected to the land grab of Bill Gates” and the “corruption of companies like Monsanto”.

In reality, the Dutch government was forced to act by a legal ruling, as levels of nitrate pollution, largely from livestock farms, break European law. Its attempts to curb this pollution have nothing to do with the World Economic Forum and its vacuous rhetoric about a “Great Reset”. Or with Bill Gates. Or with Monsanto, which hasn’t existed since 2018 when it was bought by Bayer. So why mention them? Perhaps because these terms have become potent click triggers.

Brand is repeating claims first made by far-right conspiracists, who have piled into this issue, claiming that the nitrate crisis is a pretext to seize land from farmers, in whom, they claim, true Dutch identity is vested, and hand it to asylum seekers and other immigrants. It’s a version of the “great replacement” conspiracy theory, itself a reworking of the Nazis’ blood and soil tropes about protecting the “rooted” and “authentic” people – in whom “racial purity” and “true” German identity was vested – from “cosmopolitan” and “alien” forces (ie Jews). Brand may not realise this, as the language has changed a little – “cosmopolitans” have become “globalists”, “aliens” have become “immigrants” – but the themes have not.

On and drearily on he goes. He manages to confuse the World Health Organization’s call for better pandemic surveillance (by which it means the tracking of infectious diseases) with coercive surveillance of the population, creating “centralised systems of control where you are ultimately a serf”.

Some of his many rants about Bill Gates are illustrated with an image of the man wearing a multicoloured lapel badge, helpfully circled in red. This speaks to another widespread conspiracy theory: those who wear this badge are members of a secret organisation conspiring to control the world (so secret they stick it on their jackets). In reality, it shows support for the UN sustainable development goals.

Such claims are not just wrong. They are wearyingly, boringly wrong. But, to judge by the figures (he has more than 6 million subscribers on YouTube), the audience loves them.

Some of his theories, such as his recent obsession with UFOs, are innocuous enough. Others have potential to do great harm. There’s the risk to the people scapegoated, such as Fauci, Schwab and Pelosi: subjects of conspiracy theories often become targets of violence. There are the risks misleading claims present to public health. And bizarre stories about shadowy “elites” protect real elites from scrutiny and challenge.

While I’m not suggesting this is his purpose, it’s a tactic used deliberately by powerful people to disarm those who might otherwise hold them to account. Donald Trump’s former chief strategist, Steve Bannon, had a term for it: “flood the zone with shit”. As Naomi Klein has shown, the Great Reset conspiracy theory was conceived by a staffer at the Heartland Institute, a US lobby group that has promoted climate denial and other billionaire-friendly positions. It’s a bastardisation of her shock doctrine hypothesis, distracting people from the malfeasance of those with real power.

[y-rhywbeth2]

I am pondering the possibility of a wizard of thay oc, so do you have any interesting facts about them that probably didn’t make it into the wikia? (Especially anything pertaining to Bane worship 👉🏼👈🏼 sorry not sorry)

EDIT: Shit, I read in a rush and missed the 'Thay' part. I'll get back to you when I have time.

For generic wizard things for anybody who needs generic wizard shit, since I already typed it:

Random Torilian wizard things, that may or may not be interesting, mostly off the top of my head:

Like sorcerers, psionic classes, and bards, wizards have the ability to wield magic because of innate ability. On Toril the ability to wield arcane magic is called having 'The Gift.'

You generally get a heads-up you've got it, even if you don't realise it at the time, by Mystra manifesting in your dreams during the deities' usual ad-space airtime between your regular dreams.

You probably needed to seek out another wizard to teach you how to actually use it though, who will possibly be part of some official organisation or possibly a secret unofficial one, and the responsibilities owed by apprentice to master and vice versa will usually be agreed upon via formal legally binding contract. Universities are common in Lantan and Halruaa, but outside of Silverymoon (the most prestigious), and small ones in Waterdeep, Sembia, Chessenta, the Vilhon Reach, Impiltur and Tethyr, formal schools for magic aren't available. Evermeet has a university, but unless you're an elf, a harper or a half-elf with a well connected elven parent that's not an option. Also necromancy is forbidden in that case.

Wizards, as occultists and those with education and power available only to a select few are prone to be, are also very haughty, paranoid bastards who don't like to share their toys. The Church of Azuth and the Church of Mystra tend to have to prod/whack them with metaphorical sticks to make them function as a viable academic community.

'The trade of magic or lore will always take place very gingerly, in one of two ways: private deals between members (kept secret even from other members), and formal deals (known to other members and regulated by intricate, written guild rules that have been tested and refined and complained about and refined again for decades or longer). Because of suspicion and paranoia, private deals are rare without a master-apprentice relationship being involved, or some kind of agreement that involves hostages or collateral or third-party scrutinizers.'

Your apprenticeship will mostly involve chores, your teacher may be an asshole, and they are likely to hide things from you or keep your education incomplete. In light of this, followers of Azuth and Mystra redistribute lore and spells all over the place, hiding them in places where apprentices and people who are barred from learning may find them. They also have to play mediator when mages do exchange lore and spells and stuff, because mages don't trust each other to deal fairly.

Self-taught mages are called hedge-wizards.

Illusionists have their own secret language; ruathlek.

Mages usually have their own mage sigils, unique to themselves, which serve as signatures and turn up in some spells (explosive runes, for example).

There are mage fairs; if there's a big enough population of spellcasters in a region then the mages will gather and do their annual socialising, contract writing, squabbling and etc. Duelling, markets for magical items, and competitions are also held. (Sorcerers attending will be looked down upon).

Outside of cosmopolitan areas like Baldur's Gate and Waterdeep, or nations like Calimshan and Halruaa, being a mage is going to make people at least a bit wary of you in a negative way. Also depending on where you are (Cormyr, Amn) you might need a license to practice magic. Or else.)

Robes (as opposed to something like the regular tunic and trousers worn by everyone else) are not mandatory unless they're some kind of uniform, and wearing them may earn you an eyeroll - especially in the Dales. Familiars are not actually that common.

Pretty much all arcane spellcasters make offerings to Mystra, regardless of who else they worship and whether they personally care for her faith or not; She's the Weave; you use the Weave; pay your taxes, just in case. Likewise a mage is liable to pray to the other gods who are involved with knowledge and magic when certain aspects come up. Off the top of my head: Azuth (patron of wizards), Savras (divination), Selûne (more divination; particularly popular with female diviners) Leira (illusion), Velsharoon (necromancy), Myrkul (more necromancy), Oghma (knowledge). You want to use your arcane power and knowledge to control the world around you and rule? You're also going to worship Bane, most likely. Other deities may be involved if you're not human.

A wizard on Toril can expect the Church of Mystra to be on their back about wielding magic sensibly, using it sparingly, not hording it and trying to keep knowledge and use of the magic from being widely available to the average joe*, and not scaring the normies by being an idiot/evil bastard with it. * That doesn't mean teaching every irresponsible twelve year old fireball, or giving a horrified crowd a detailed explanation of black necromancy. Demonstrate how it can be useful and non-destructive to them. But, while Mystrans will probably make Mystra's judgements sound more severe then they actually are to try and make you behave, you can ignore them; Mystra will only cut you off from the Weave when you do really stupid shit that threatens mass destruction. Think Karsus-tier.

Wizard-related things regarding Bane:

It's already on my blog that wizards make up a chunk of Bane's clergy, originally forming the reformist faction after Fzoul reinterpreted the doctrine to mean 'support wannabe tyrants and spread Bane's power through them instead of doing it directly yourself,' decided the High Imperceptor and the orthodoxy were corrupt and fucked off to make the Zhentarim a Banite faction - enter Manshoon, Toril's resident evil wizard posterboys and all around problem for centuries. There are still wizards who want to be tyrants, playing up the evil advisor stereotype and such.

Banite wizards are usually more loyal to the power and aid Bane can offer than the deity himself (Manshoon is described as 'cleaving' to Mystra and offering Bane lip service; the arcane clergy largely ditched Bane for Cyric when the first god died, while the clerics usually stuck with Bane; etc).

We've had groups like the Zhent reformers and the Brotherhood of the Blackhand, who enjoyed stealing and hoarding political power and magical artefacts and such. You can probably get yourself initiated into an evil wizard community that sacrifices babies to Bane every tenday as an apprentice. The contract will be stupidly long and full of clauses in the standard lawful evil fashion, and the chores will suck though.

Obviously Bane appeals to your standard hubristic evil mage who wants power and to control the flow of knowledge and horde magic to keep themself in power. Bane's standard avatar is a wizard, so he's very into that aspect of it | Examples: Cleric 36/Fighter 35/Mage 30/Thief 10 (2e) vs Fighter 15/Blackguard 10/Cleric 10/Wizard 10/Rogue 20 (3e).

Bane has his own liches, but Baneliches were clerics so not really applicable.

[mariacallous]

When you think of Eastern European Jewish cuisine, which words come to mind? Light? Healthy? Plant based? Probably not. Heavy, homey and meat-centric are more like it. 

Fania Lewando died during the Holocaust, but had she been given the full length of her years, Ashkenazi Jewish cuisine may have taken a turn to the vegetarian side and we might all be eating vegetarian kishke and spinach cutlets in place of brisket.

Lewando is not a household name. In fact, she would have been lost to history had it not been for an unlikely turn of events. Thanks to a serendipitous find, her 1937 work, “The Vilna Vegetarian Cookbook” (“Vegetarish-Dietisher Kokhbukh”in Yiddish), was saved from oblivion and introduced to the 21st century.

Vilna in the 1930s, where Lewando and her husband Lazar made their home, was a cosmopolitan city with a large Jewish population. Today, it is the capital of Lithuania but it was then part of Poland. Lewando opened a vegetarian eatery called The Vegetarian Dietetic Restaurant on the edge of the city’s Jewish quarter. It was a popular spot among both Jews and non-Jews, as well as luminaries of the Yiddish-speaking world. (Even renowned artist Marc Chagall signed the restaurant’s guest book.)

Lewando was a staunch believer in the health benefits of vegetarianism and devoted her professional life to promoting these beliefs. She wrote: “It has long been established by the highest medical authorities that food made from fruit and vegetables is far healthier and more suitable for the human organism than food made from meat.” Plus, she wrote, vegetarianism satisfies the Jewish precept of not killing living creatures. 

We know little about her life other than she was born Fania Fiszlewicz in the late 1880s to a Jewish family in northern Poland. She married Lazar Lewando, an egg merchant from what is today Belarus and they eventually made their way to Vilna. They did not have children. 

Lewando, to quote Jeffrey Yoskowitz, author of “The Gefilte Manifesto” was “a woman who challenged convention;” a successful entrepreneur, which was a rarity among women of the time. She supervised a kosher vegetarian kitchen on an ocean liner that traveled between Poland and the United States, and gave classes on nutrition to Jewish women in her culinary school. 

“The Vilna Vegetarian Cookbook” was sold in Europe and the U.S. in Lewando’s day, but most of the copies were lost or destroyed during the Second World War. In 1995, a couple found a copy of the cookbook at a second-hand book fair in England. They understood the importance of a pre-war, Yiddish-language, vegetarian cookbook written by a woman, so purchased it and sent it to the YIVO Institute’s offices in New York. There, it joined the millions of books, periodicals and photos in YIVO’s archives. 

It was discovered again by two women who visited YIVO and were captivated by the book’s contents and colorful artwork. They had it translated from Yiddish to English so it could be enjoyed by a wider audience.

Like many Ashkenazi cooks, salt was Lewando’s spice, butter her flavor and dill her herb. The book is filled with dishes you’d expect: kugels and blintzes and latkes; borscht and many ways to use cabbage. There’s imitation gefilte fish and kishke made from vegetables, breadcrumbs, eggs and butter. Her cholent (a slow-cooked Sabbath stew) recipes are meat-free, including one made with prune, apple, potatoes and butter that is a cross between a stew and a tzimmes.

There are also some surprises.

Did you know it was possible to access tomatoes, eggplants, asparagus, lemons, cranberries, olive oil, Jerusalem artichokes, blueberries and candied orange peel in pre-war Vilna? There’s a French influence, too, such as recipes for mayonnaise Provencal and iles flottante, a meringue-based dessert, and a salad of marinated cornichons with marinated mushrooms. 

“It’s hard to know who the target audience was for this cookbook,” said Eve Jochnowitz, its English-language translator. “We know from contemporary memoirs that people in Vilna did not have access to these amazing amounts of butter, cream and eggs,” she said. “Lewando was writing from a somewhat privileged and bourgeois position.” While many of these recipes may have been aspirational given the poverty of the Jews at the time, the cookbook demonstrates that it was possible to obtain these ingredients in Vilna, should one have the resources to do so. 

While the cookbook is filled with expensive ingredients, there is also, said Jochnowitz, “a great attention to husbanding one’s resources. She was ahead of her time in the zero-waste movement.” Lewando admonishes her readers to waste nothing. Use the cooking water in which you cooked your vegetables for soup stock. Use the vegetables from the soup stock in other dishes. “Throw nothing out,” she writes in the cookbook’s opening essay. “Everything can be made into food.” Including the liquid from fresh vegetables; Lewando instructed her readers on the art of vitamin drinks and juices, with recipes for Vitamin-Rich Beet Juice and Vitamin-Rich Carrot Juice. “This was very heroic of her,” said Jochnowitz. “There were no juice machines! You make the juice by grating the vegetables and then squeezing the juice out by hand.”

Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, a Jewish scholar and Jewish cookbook collector, describes Lewando as “witty.” “She is showing us,” she said, “that once you eliminate meat and fish, you still have an enormous range of foods you can prepare.” Lewando is about “being creative, imaginative and innovative both with traditional dishes and with what she is introducing that is remote from the traditional repertoire.” She does that in unexpected ways. Her milchig (dairy) matzah balls, for example, have an elegance and lightness to them. She instructs the reader to make a meringue with egg whites, fold in the yolks, then combine with matzah meal, melted butter and hot water. Her sauerkraut salad includes porcini mushrooms. One of her kugels combines cauliflower, apples, sliced almonds and candied orange peel.

There is much that, through contemporary eyes, is missing in “The Vilna Vegetarian Cookbook.” The recipes do not give step-by-step instructions; rather you will find general directions. Heating instructions are vague, ranging from a “not-too-hot-oven” to a “warm oven” to a “hot oven.” Lewando assumes the reader’s familiarity with the kitchen that today’s cookbook writer would not. 

Lewando and her husband were listed in the 1941 census of the Vilna Ghetto but not in the census of 1942. It is believed that they both died or were killed while attempting to escape. “She really was a visionary,” said Jochnowitz. “It is an unbearable tragedy that she did not live to see the future that she predicted and helped to bring about.”But in cooking her recipes, said Yoskowitz, as dated and incomplete as some of them may be, the conversation between then and now continues.

[inatungulates]

Eastern North Pacific long-beaked common dolphin Delphinus bairdii bairdii

Observed by chezasaurus, CC BY-NC

A note ...or, brief essay on common dolphin taxonomy

The common dolphin Delphinus delphis sensu lato has a near-cosmopolitan distribution, and considerable variability exists across the globe. Multiple species of common dolphin have been named, but in general there has only been one species recognized. In 1994, a study of common dolphins focused predominantly on the Eastern North Pacific found that the global offshore short-beaked common dolphin Delphinus delphis sensu stricto is different from the long-beaked common dolphin Delphinus capensis found in disjunct coastal areas around the world. The extremely-long-beaked and usually rather-dull-patterned Indo-Pacific common dolphin Delphinus tropicalis occupied a position as either a third species or a distinctive regional form of long-beaked common dolphin.

More detailed genetic studies in the 2010s did not uphold the short-beaked v. long-beaked dichotomy, however. A more complex evolutionary story is revealed by genetics, indicating that the long-beaked morphology developed repeatedly and independently in distinct coastal areas; thus, classification of all the world's long-beaked common dolphins as Delphinus capensis is erroneous as they do not all relate to one another to the exclusion of short-beaked common dolphins. Once again, all common dolphins were a single species.

Not all marine mammalogists were satisfied with solution of recognizing a single polymorphic species with a cosmopolitan distribution, particularly with the regard to the rather well-studied long-beaked common dolphins found on the Pacific coast of the US and Mexico. Despite overlapping geographically with short-beaked common dolphins, these long-beaked dolphins are distinguishable by external appearance, skull characters, mitochondrial DNA, and - to at least some degree - ecology and life history. In addition to the long beak, the broad, dark stripe running from gape to anus along the lower sides of these dolphins and often darkening the side of the face (as seen above) is one of the most recognizable characters. In 2024, a redescription of these dolphins considered them a separate species, the Eastern Pacific long-beaked common dolphin Delphinus bairdii. That paper notes that the Eastern Pacific long-beaked common dolphins off South America, with a >2500km gap from their northern counterparts, may warrant separation as a distinct subspecies. Another genetic study published in 2024 suggests that long-beaked common dolphins in the Western North Pacific may also belong to this species. That is the course followed on this blog - while the exact nature of these dolphins is in need of further study, recognizing such disjunct forms as at least separate subspecies is essentially the standard in other cetacean species.

The days of two globally-distributed common dolphin species are behind us, but what of the other long-beaked common dolphins besides those of the Eastern Pacific? The recent paper revalidating Delphinus bairdii suggests, as others have, that the long-beaked forms remaining at present in Delphinus delphis likely warrant taxonomic distinction. The evidence suggests to me each long-beaked form of common dolphin is probably best regarded as its own independent species, separate from the global short-beaked common dolphin. As tempting as it is to make this the course followed on this blog, I think I shall have to split the difference for now, given that there is evidence that some long-beaked populations are not reciprocally monophyletic with regards to sympatric short-beaks. The lack of complete genetic isolation from short-beaked common dolphins is not necessarily an indicator that specific distinction is unwarranted, but could indicate recent and ongoing speciation, possibly in response to geologically-recent climatic upheavals related to Pleistocene glacial cycles (...plus dolphins are not shy about hybridization). Though I believe further study will probably bear out recognition of additional common dolphin species besides D. delphis sensu stricto and D. bairdii, for now I will be listing other long-beaked common dolphins on this blog as Delphinus "delphis" to indicate their questionable taxonomic assignment.

Recall that the inatungulates blog is NOT a definitive source for taxonomy, and while I base my (generally splittery) taxonomic opinions on information and proposals that are in the literature, I am not beholden to any single source on taxonomy and the opinions here should not be treated as authoritative; hopefully, however, I will prompt an appreciation for (the sometimes-overlooked minutiae of?) ungulate diversity, and send curious readers to investigate the literature to form their own opinions from the available data.

Ref:

Becker, MA, KR Murphy, FI Archer, TA Jefferson, LW Keith-Diagne, CW Potter, MF Urrutia-Osorio, I Ndong, and MR McGowen. 2024. Common dolphin (Delphinus delphis) mitochondrial genomes from Senegal reveal geographic structure across the North Atlantic but provide no support for a global long-beaked clade. Marine Mammal Science e13144.

Cunha, HA, RL de Castro, ER Secchi, EA Crespo, J Lailson-Brito, AF Azevedo, C Lazoski, and AM Solé-Cava. 2015. Molecular and morphological differentiation of common dolphins (Delphinus sp.) in the southwestern Atlantic: Testing the two species hypothesis in sympatry.

Heyning, JE, and WF Perrin. 1994. Evidence for two species of common dolphins (genus Delphinus) from the eastern North Pacific. Contributions in Science 442:1-35.

Jefferson, TA, and K Van Waerebeck. 2002. The taxonomic status of the nominal dolphin species Delphinus tropicalis Van Bree, 1971. Marine Mammal Science 18(4):787-818.

Jefferson, TA, FI Archer, and KM Robertson. 2024. The long-beaked common dolphin of the eastern Pacific Ocean: Taxonomic status and redescription of Delphinus bairdii. Marine Mammal Science e13133.

Segura-García, I, JP Gallo, S Chivers, R Díaz-Gamboa, and AR Hoelzel. 2016. Post-glacial habitat release and incipient speciation in the genus Delphinus. Heredity 117:400-407.

[hijackalx]

BG3 COMPANIONS AND THE SKYRIM RACES THEY’D CHOOSE

KARLACH: ORSIMER

The people of the Wrothgarian and Dragontail Mountains, Orcish smiths are prized for their craftsmanship. Orc troops in Heavy Armor are among the finest in the Empire, and are fearsome when using their Berserker Rage. Orcs have consistently held a standard as a race as some of Tamriel's greatest warriors and smiths.

SHADOWHEART: ALTMER

Also known as "Altmer" in their homeland of Summerset Isle, the high elves are the most strongly gifted in the arcane arts of all the races. They can call upon their Highborn power to regenerate Magicka quickly. As a race, they are extremely proud of their Aldmeri heritage, and make a concerted effort to maintain their genetic lineage. Their name translates from the Aldmeri language as High Ones or Cultured Ones.

ASTARION: KHAJIIT

Hailing from the province of Elsweyr, they are intelligent, quick, and agile. They make excellent thieves due to their natural stealthiness. All Khajiit can see in the dark at will and have unarmed claw attacks. The Khajiit have feline appearance and sly accent common to Cathay, however their type is not specified. Most Khajiit in Skyrim speak in third person.

GALE: BRETON

Bretons are a race of both human and elven ancestry. They populate the province of High Rock. They are excellent mages with high magic resistance, but have few other distinctive features. They are considered an intelligent race in Tamriel, known for a proficiency in abstract thinking, a possible reason for their adeptness in the magical arts.

WYLL: ARGONIAN

This reptilian race, well-suited for the treacherous swamps of their Black Marsh homeland, has developed a natural resistance to diseases and the ability to breathe underwater. They can call upon the Histskin to regenerate health very quickly. Enigmatic and intelligent, the Argonians are experts at guerrilla warfare.

LAE’ZEL: IMPERIAL

Imperials are some of the most well-educated, wealthy and well-spoken of the races in Tamriel and the natives of the cosmopolitan province of Cyrodiil. Imperials are also known for their discipline and training of their citizen armies. Because of this, the Imperials have dominated Tamriel for more than 2,000 years.

[literary-illuminati]

2024 Book Review #36 – Life Does Not Allow Us To Meet by He Xi

I read this basically entirely because it got a hugo nomination, and assuredly would never have tried it otherwise – I literally wouldn’t even have heard of it, let alone be able to get my hands on a (digital) copy. So I went into this with frustratingly little context. Overall I’d call it an interesting read if not necessarily a loveable one.

The story follows a trio of explorers being sent to the colony of Caspian Sea, decades after the previous attempt to check on its progress was lost in a freak FTL accident. The planet, seeded with a population of genetically engineered ‘pioneers’ - humans modified to thrive in its environment - needs to be graded for suitability, and the colonists introduced to advanced technology and welcomed into humanity. Unsurprisingly, things do not go according to plan – the last mission’s destruction wasn’t as reported by the lone survivor, and the population has strayed increasingly far from the plan the Constitution of Earth demands.

Its heritage is of course entirely different, but the story was just incredibly reminiscent of old Golden Age American sci fi to me. The reason is some combination of style and content, I think. It’s overwhelmingly a novella of dialogue and exposition – pages at a time are dedicated to one character explaining a principle of the story’s science or technology to another. With the exception of the very final reveal, the whole plot is dialogue explaining the laws which the story is an expression of or decisions that they had already made – ‘action’ in any sense is in very short supply (despite the genocide). Reminded me of reading my dad’s ratty old paperbacks in the basement as a kid. Oddly nostalgic reading experience.

Prose-wise the story does come across as slightly stilted? Or maybe distant is the better word. Characters emote and have strong reactions, but in nearly every case it felt a bit tell-not-show. I’m not sure how much of that is from the original and how much is an artifact of translation (such is life for the tragically monolingual). While I mean, I’m fairly certain the translation could have been more graceful in places (I simply do not believe that referring to the original colony ship as Big Ship as a proper noun reads the same in English as whatever the original Mandarin was), but beyond that.

Speaking of being in translation – this is a story that made me desperately wish I was more properly familiar with the Chinese SF scene. If only because my initial reaction to it is that it’s obviously in conversation with the whole Three Body Problem series, but also those are literally the only two works of Chinese science fiction I’ve read so I really have no knowledge at all of the wider context they’re both swimming within.

Regardless, Life’s presentation of alien life absolutely does rhyme with Three Body’s, right down to the same examples of historical genocides being used to make the point. The xenophobia is presented as policy rather than an actual law of history, but it feels like a very intentional reference (and the story clearly considers it at least plausible if not necessarily self-evident). Which is what drives the central moral drama of the story – that despite the most careful possible genetic engineering, stellar radiation has left the pioneers of Caspian Sea incapable of reproducing with earth-born humans, and so made them functionally a different species. And thus, by the constitution of earth, axiomatically a potential threat to the survival of humanity that must be exterminated out of hand.

Going from Children of Memory (a series motivated in large part by wonder and joy at the idea of truly nonhuman intelligence, and possessed of ironclad faith in the potential of cosmopolitan, liberal societies to integrate wildly disparate parts) to this was something of a shock.

The book’s vision of humanity is kind of interesting, honestly. Subspecies modified to thrive on different planets, but capable of interbreeding to ensure some level of biological solidarity or shared destiny or something. Not making drastic changes to the appearance, even if it means awkwardly hiding gills under arm pits or not even trying to colonize worlds that would require exuding a thick mucus layer, basically explicitly to make sure that everyone will still find each other fuckable. Fascinatingly shallow, almost?

Anyways yes, interesting ideas and central drama, let down some by prose and execution. Very Asimov.