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lewepstein · 2 years ago

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Fearful: Part 1

“Fearful,” a simple adjective meaning, “full of fear,” evokes in me the image of a child in need of soothing. At its core fear is a biologically based mind/body experience, a universal human emotion. It can be a useful signal that calls on us to be vigilant and prepares us to take action. But In its extremes fear can overwhelm us and of all the many psychiatric disorders, fear-based ones are the most prevalent. How we manage and handle our individual fears will influence the quality of our lives. How we collectively deal with fear may determine the fate of our planet. The unfortunate results of people being filled with fear when those fears are misunderstood, misinterpreted, misdirected or manipulated can be catastrophic.

Biologists have shown that we are hardwired to be fearful and that our fight, flight and freeze responses are things we share with other life forms. Our brains and bodies also contain structures like the amygdala that store upsetting events for the purpose of survival. One resulting problem is that the levels of cortisol and other chemicals that become activated by our nervous systems are better suited for combat than they are for sitting behind desks operating computers. This survival instinct may also explain what has been called our “negativity bias” - the tendency we have to pass over the good things that occur while easily accessing and focusing on the bad. Fear can also become “frozen” within our brains and nervous systems, which may explain why we modern humans often carry the effects of trauma throughout our entire lives.

We are also subject to a more nebulous sense of dread called “anxiety” - a vague but often intense uneasiness without an identifiable, external danger. Anxiety can take different forms in different people and our physical constitutions may predispose some more than others to its higher levels. If we additionally burden our highly reactive nervous systems with a very rapid pace of change, the daily input from social media and the twenty four hour news cycle, it is understandable that we sometimes get hijacked by our fears. Our sense of danger may even be greater than it has been for earlier generations even though we face fewer daily threats to our survival.

Understanding the biological basis of our fears and the technologies that exacerbate our anxieties may be useful but it is the fallout from our fears that makes us such a dangerous species. Both our exaggerated and unrealistic worries about things that could hurt us - but often don’t - and our attempts to gain control over the inherent uncertainties of life can do great harm to ourselves and others. There are many parts of the world in which fears about starvation and survival are very real. But in much of the rest of the world survival fears are being projected onto more benign situations. From the couples I work with who are arguing with each other during therapy sessions to the political polarizations in society that undercut practical solutions and often lead to violence, the common underlying emotional denominator is fear. Psychological anxieties having to do with feeling abandoned, annihilated, diminished, disrespected or dismissed form the core of our aggressive behaviors towards others. Fears around loss of power, prestige and status allow us to be manipulated by political parties and demagogues who present us with a zero sum game - an us versus them paradigm that keeps us divided and fighting with each other.

The most emotionally abusive husbands and fathers that I have worked with were extremely fearful men beneath their facade of anger. Attempts to control partners and children were driven by deep, underlying fears about their own adequacy along with feelings of being out of control themselves Likewise, in the social and political arena an example of fear leading to hatred and violence is the “Great Replacement Theory,” in its various guises. In this worldview of white nationalists, a plot exists by those in power to encourage non-white “others” to take over white, Christain nations. This phenomenon in which fear can morph into rage and hatred forms the core of what we call “paranoia,” the irrational projection of inner fears onto the external world. This is the dominant theme of Dylann Roof’s white nationalist manifesto which led him to massacre nine people in a bible study group at the African Episcopal Church in South Carolina in 2015: extreme fears about being under attack, in this case by dark-skinned people and a “plot” to disempower white people becoming the impetus for his own murderous attack on others.

Dylann Roof’s paranoid assault along with The El Paso massacre in 2018 may seem like the extreme behavior of fanatics but the coded and overt messages of Donald Trump and a portion of the Republican Party today are fear- based with similar tropes. Roof’s screed is not that far removed from lies about “stolen” elections, “Mexican rapists and murderers at our borders” and “pedophile” Democrats who are about to take away your guns and are conspiring to “groom” your children to be gay. In the case of Donald Trump and a segment of the Republican Party, fear has become the great motivator in rallying the masses to their side.

There is another fear that has emerged around our growing evidence- based understanding of gender: our new knowledge that it is not something that we choose but rather something that chooses us. Old assumptions and norms are being challenged by truth and lived experience - the fact that people don’t necessarily fit neatly into pre-packaged, binary sexual identities challenges the myths of both organized religion and patriarchal culture. Because of the ways these fears are being instigated and manipulated, books that include references to gayness are being banned in libraries across the United States and school board members who profess openness in this area have come under attack.

If we connect some of these dots to the world of national and international politics, the alliances between Vladmir Putin of Russia, Victor Orban of Hungary, Carlos Bolsonaro of Brazil, Marie Le Pen in France and other autocratic regimes and far right parties throughout the world, each one of them promotes fear in the form of extreme nationalism, nativism, mistrust of the feared and hated “others” - mostly immigrants - and a call to “family values,” code for diminishing the human rights won by women and the LGBTQ community. These autocrats always promise to protect us from external “dangers” but history teaches us that they will use false threats to gain power for their own purposes. Paradoxically, they are the figures to fear.

On the political left, extreme “wokeness” and the so-called “cancel culture” - intolerance towards those who do not embrace one’s views fully enough tends to produce a fear-based counter-response in those who could be potential allies. Demanding this kind of “purity” can create its own reign of terror, something that occurred during the Cultural Revolution in China in the 1960s when the Red Guards persecuted the less “woke” professional and middle classes under the banner of promoting Mao’s revolution.

The central dilemma that we face around fear is that it is both necessary and dangerous. Fear is a realistic response to a relationship in which someone is being mistreated. It can mobilize an individual to take action - to leave a toxic or abusive situation. Fear also tends to narrow our focus. It can make us myopic and reactive at precisely those times that we would benefit from examining a number of alternatives. In both our personal lives and in our political choices fear can cause us to lose sight of the big picture. Instead of encouraging nuanced thinking it can produce responses that short circuit our capacity to act wisely and in line with our deeper values.

In the social/political world It makes sense to be fearful about environmental destruction. The consequences of inaction have become existential threats to the world community. The international attacks on liberal democracy are also to be feared. They could leave us living in societies with less freedom of expression and an abridged version of the rights that we now take for granted. How to act judiciously in the face of fear - what actions to take and which ones to avoid - becomes a challenge that each generation is confronted with in some form.

There are no simple answers to the problems that arise from our being a fear-filled species. People’s day to day lives include understandable, practical concerns and fears about work, finances, health and the multiple needs of family members. When involving ourselves in national election campaigns or in local politics we are often acting in what we feel to be our individual and family’s best interests - to protect what is ours against whatever forces out there seem to be at odds with our safety and well being. One could also argue that not everyone has the luxury of looking at the “big picture.” - this being one of the rallying points of right wing populism with its attack on the “elites.” But, fear-based anger that is directed against others without a deeper understanding or analysis is actually a missile directed against ourselves. This type of knee-jerk, short-sighted politics is in fact unsustainable and is what will end up compromising our freedoms and destroying our planet.

In Fearful - Part 2, I will examine the specific ways that our relationship with fear needs to change in order to create sustainable personal relationships and political environments - how we and generations to come are being called upon to act in the face of fear to meet the unique personal and political challenges of this era.

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tbartss · 2 years ago

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hey do you have a favorite genre that you like to read? and do you have any recs within the genre?

(love your art and your blog by the way !)

Heyooo!!! Why thank you, it’s my proudest creation :’))

Oh boy tough question I love all genres equally ToT I just like a good story

I can still give you some recs, just some personal favorite across all kinds of genres:

1. The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula k. Le Guin. It is a scifi novel that I just finished and it was incredible. The thoughtfulness the prose the progression the characters. 11/10 truly did not disappoint. If you aren’t familiar with sci-fi or you haven’t read a lot of it I wouldn’t recommend it tho. It’s quite heavy in just taking things in stride, as it doesn’t stop to explain cultural aspects of the alien race we’re visiting. So if you’re not familiar with this genre I would recommend her other book the Lathe of Heaven which is a bit more urban and grounded in our reality.

2. The Color Purple by Alice Walker. This is a classic yes, but it’s honestly the best classic I’ve ever read. I read it when I was 16 and it revolutionized the way I think of identity and spirituality and I would highly recommend it to everyone who likes to read. The way Alice Walker uses language and structure to tell Celies’ story is honestly profound. I still think about it.

3. Pachinko by Min Jin Lee. This is a literary generational novel which centers around a Korean family migrating to Japan during World War II. It follows Sun Ja and her family throughout the years and really showcases the prejudice and hardships that Koreans have to endure in Japan which is still prevalent today. They have also just developed a drama adaption of it starring Lee Minho who is just a kdrama icon so I would highly recommend it.

4. Darius the Great Is Not Okay and Darius The Great Deserves Better by Adib Khorram. This novel is a YA coming of age about an Irani-American boy who suffers from depression which he may have inherited from his white dad. He goes to Iran to visit his dying grandfather and it basically goes through his journey as he struggles with his mental illness. This book made me CRY like a little bitch and I NEVER cry to books, I won’t spoil but the climax of the book had me in tears 10/10, not in a hurtful way but in a very good and cathartic way. I would also recommend the second book for the way it tackles setting boundaries and maintaining them, I thought it was a very thoughtful way of handling such a situation and I honestly can’t think of anyone who wrote it better.

5. A Life on Our Planet: My Witness Statement and a Vision For The Future by David Attenborough. This is a memoir/essay (? Ish) written by perhaps the most famous naturalist in the world in which he goes into detail how deforestation, animal endangerment and climate change has progressed since his childhood in the 40s. He goes into detail about the effects of climate change and our modern industrialization AND he also provides solutions at the end of his book, which is something I haven’t seen a lot of people put emphasis on when they talk about climate change, so it very much ends on a hopeful note and doesn’t leave you with sense of dread or despair. He also made a documentary based on this book which is available on Netflix, which I watched as well, and I thought the book dove more into detail so I would rather recommend this one.

6. Night Sky With Exit Wounds by Ocean Vuong. His first poetry collection where he talks about many things from sexuality to war to immigration and identity. I love his cadence and use of language and you can tell that he doesn’t use words lightly he is very very thoughtful of how to not only structure a sentence but how he should structure the whole poem and collection. Highly highly recommend.

And that’s it! I hope at least one of them touches your soul the way it did mine. Enjoy!

#asks #book recs #booklr #books #I read books too

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thormanick · 3 years ago

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So I read the descriptions of the Artifact, Weapon, Talent and One-Time Domains in Genshin because new weak is approaching and I am dreading my upcoming deadlines

Some conclusions I came to:

Artifact/Weapon/Talent domains’ descriptions mostly talk about stories from the past, particularly they often refer to the priests; the worshipping of a white tree; the hollow tree collecting the stories; people sharing their secrets/asking for wisdom from the tree. I particularly got interested by a phrase in one of Inazuma’s domains which said “perhaps lost causes and unforgettable loves may follow the veins of the earth and coalesce into the fruits of the court's white tree".

Mondstadt domains mostly talk about priests and the tree, or sharing knowledge with the tree, or the tree's ability to consume knowledge. I was intrigued by “Cecilia Garden” and Midsummer Courtyard/Sommernachtgarten because technically both imply a specific place for growing floral species by an ancient civilization (at any time in history Mond’s people will really like their flowers huh). I am specifically focused on the phrase “sea of white flowers” because that video narrated by Dain about Teyvat and Traveller’s journey exists. I also wonder whether Midsummer Courtyard was established after the fall of the first civilization and disappearance of Kairos bc it’s close to the Thousand Winds Temple.

Liyue domains are mostly centred around the adepti/Liyue’s overall history. Or they speak about Formulas (which I am not sure how to interpret - formula as in A Spell or formula as in mathematic/alchemical/medical formula (formula as recipe) or formula as physical (liquid?) object).

Inazuma’s domain on Talent speaks of heaven’s dome shattering ("mirrors shattered") and ocean’s level rising. /My only conclusion is that Celestia is sus./ Weapon domain speaks of "a foolish ruler who dreamed of building a high garden in honor of the white sacred tree over the primordial sands", which kinda brings it back to Mondstadt with its Midsummer Courtyard and Cecilia Garden. But the description of this domain also reminded me of that Parable from the Before Sun and Moon book collection because it speaks of the white tree and the garden and the gardener and the priest and all the rest. I think it's also interesting that such a gardening connection may be found here because Enkanomiya (which is under Snagonomiya in Inazuma region) seems to be directly connected to Mond (Thousand Winds Temple and all Kairos lore).

One-Time domains mostly speak about the characters that are prevalent in region's history/i think may be found in some in-game books or otherwise recorded lore collected throughout the game.

In conclusion,

Everyone is sus, it's all about Ley Lines, White Tree/irminsul and Kairos/Istaroth seems to be very closely connected. I now also think how the priests were worshipping the Trees (the elemental 4* crowns' lore), and Kairos is connected to the role of priest in the Parable, so yeah, they are connected somehow, the domains somehow process the knowledge of the people and condense them into helpful artifacts of various kinds???

Anyways, thank you for reading all of that, hope this was in any way interesting/helpful, see y'all later

#genshin impact lore #genshin impact #genshin impact thoughts #genshin impact theory #genshin impact dainsleif #genshin impact traveller #genshin impact inazuma #genshin impact liyue #genshin impact mondstadt #genshin impact istaroth #afinna explores teyvat #afinna’s first impressions #genshin impact domains

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pan-cakez · 3 years ago

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Finding God

Thank you for letting me write for your collab @chiwhorei! The other pieces are here

NSFW

wc: 2.2k

Tags: dark content, mentions of blood and violence (but none towards reader), dubcon, oral (m recieving), face fucking, sex in the ruins of a church, calling Gojo "God"

sorry it's kinda sucky, I haven't written smut in a while, and I was trying to get back into the swing of it

All new fics will be posted from @mxonigirimiya ❤❤

All you could see when you closed your eyes was blood. Even in deafening silence, all you could hear were screams, and the sound of flesh being torn apart. Ever since the curses came to town, you’ve never known peace, or safety. You spend every waking second alert, feeling as if something horrible may become you at any second. At night you struggled to sleep, knowing that your dreams would be plagued with the horrors of the world around you. You were starting to feel your body start to deteriorate, due to the stress. Your bones wouldn’t stop creaking, everything seemed to hurt, the dark circles under your eyes only becoming more prevalent with each passing day.

Having enough of feeling like a sitting duck, you made your way to a nearby church. All that remained of it was a few mostly intact pews, the altar, and some of the walls. The stone that made up the building was scattered around the field, some inside the ruins as well, dark stains splattered across them. Crunching accentuated every step you took but you kept moving, the idea of a curse hearing you at the back of your mind. All you could think of was the altar, the moonlight shining on it as if it were a spotlight. The table in the center of it almost looked pristine amongst the rubble, minus a couple tears on the cloth. The color was still white: pure, untouched. A giant cross loomed over you, the shadow of it reaching out behind itself.

You looked around to see a candle on each side, and moved to light them, adding to the light in this forsaken place. Kneeling before the altar, you clasp your hands and bow your head. Silence filled the air, only by your prayer, hoping that the sound of your own voice makes this whole experience less awkward, but with every word you spoke, your voice wavered, desperation dripping from your words. Your eyes were closed, holding back the tears threatening to spill at any moment.

“Hey, uh. I don’t pray much, but to any god who’s willing to listen, my village needs help. Curses are running rampant. People are dying. The elderly, children, families, are being brutalized. We’ve been abandoned, and we’re running out of hope. Please. Help us. I’ll do anything.”

“Anything?” A voice rings through the space. Your heart stops in your chest, and your blood runs cold.

“Who’s there?” You shoot up, your eyes quickly flitting around the ruins, the feeling of dread drowning your senses.

“The answer to your prayers.” A man materializes on the altar table, sitting on it with his legs crossed. An amused smile adorned his face, and his white hair looked almost silver under the moon. He snapped and the candles went out instantly. Everything in your body was screaming at you to move, to run, to scream, to do anything, but you found yourself glued to the spot, every sound you wanted to make getting stuck in your throat. “Don’t be afraid, I heard your prayers, and I’m here to help.” You should have been relieved, but despite how jovial this man seems, this feeling in your gut wouldn’t go away. Something about this man felt off, although you just couldn’t place it. “My name is Gojo, but you can call me God.”

“God?” Fear continued to consume you, and Gojo almost found it endearing. Is this how lions felt while they spotted their next meal? You were so meek, so helpless, and every word he said was like he was backing you into a corner, until you had nowhere to go.

“Yeah, God. You wanted a god to help you with your problem, and I’m going to help you, so that makes me your God.” He adjusts his blindfold, and places his hands on the table, shifting his weight on them.

“What? No! You’re just a regular sorcerer, not a god!” You see his jaw tense at that last sentence and he lets out a small cough before continuing to speak as if this was some casual conversation. He can’t let his rage consume him now, he’s so close to having you where he wants you. He’s in control of the situation, and he needs to keep it that way. As he knew all too well, the closer you are to the kill, the clearer your head should be.

“I am no ‘regular sorcerer’, I’m the best sorcerer alive, if not of all time. I’ve been called a god amongst men before, and I would like it if you called me what I am. Now, would you like me to solve your little problem for you or not?” Swallowing heavily, you nod, and he stands up, getting off the table. “Great!” In an instant he stood before you, his hand on your chin. “Now, about ‘payments’. I’ll take one now and after the job is done. Remember, you said you’ll do anything and I’m going to hold you to it.”

“What do you want, money?” He let out a boisterous laugh. He doesn’t need money, his family had tons of it. Material items in general meant nothing to him. Anyone can have those things. Cars, mansions, gold, whatever, that wasn’t what he was after. He wanted something that only a few people, if not only he could have.

“Money? That’s too simple. I want you to worship me.” You take a step back, your eyes seemingly meeting his under the blindfold.

“Worship you?” Gojo held your chin tightly as soon as the question left your lips, a grimace taking over his features.

“It isn’t that hard to understand. Devote yourself to me and I’ll save your village. Do we have a deal?” He pinched in between your cheeks puckering your lips out. Unable to speak clearly, you nodded, and he released you, clapping his hands together with his demeanor turning bright. “Good! Now, prove your devotion to me, and I’ll take care of everything.” A sickening smile took over his face, and you tried to step away, but a hand was suddenly in your hair, pulling tightly.

You thrashed around wildly, trying to get free, but it only seemed as if the more you moved the tighter his hold got. “Oh, don’t disappoint your god! You were so willing to do whatever it takes to save your village. Do you not actually care about them? Are you so selfish that you wouldn’t sacrifice yourself to save everyone?” You shake your head no, and stilled yourself. He was right. You couldn’t be selfish. Even if he killed you, as long as everyone else was safe, it was worth it. Happy with your submission, Gojo loosened his grip on your hair, and started to push you down.

“Kneel before your god.” You followed his direction, the gravel and shards of glass digging into your knees. You look up, met by Gojo towering over you and his shadow completely enveloping you. In this moment, you felt like less than an ant in his gaze. He took off his blindfold and his eyes made your entire body feel on fire, meeting his eyes for the first time. Even though it was night you could see a clear morning sky in them. Amidst the chaos surrounding you, this was the only thing that brought you calm. You felt his hand hold your face gently, smiling at you. “You’re so lucky, seeing me like this. You should be grateful.”

“Thank you.” He scoffed at your answer.

“‘Thank you’, what?” He harshly grabbed your chin, his gaze making you feel even more insignificant than you already do.

“Thank you, God.” He smiled and grazed his thumb over your bottom lip, and his gaze shifted from your eyes to your lips.

“Open wide for me.” You open wide, and Gojo slowly slides his finger into your mouth, pressing softly on your tongue. “Suck.” Closing your mouth around it, you keep staring at him as he slowly thrusts his finger in and out, keeping a simple pace. A soft groan leaves his lips, and you hear the rustling of his pants and belt. “Take it out darling. You’re already doing so well for me. Keep pleasing your god and you just might get something extra.”

“Yes my god.” He smiled, watching you with hooded eyes as you moved and pulled his cock out of his underwear. It felt like you couldn’t pull your eyes from his, even as you pawed at his boxers, pulling his cock free from its confines. Even in your peripheral, you could see how pale his cock was, almost reflecting the moonlight. A small dot of precum glistened on his petal pink tip, and his cock was almost beautiful, if it wasn’t for the man it was attached to. You plant a soft kiss on his tip, and he let out a soft hiss at the contact, softly caressing your hair.

“Take it. I know you can. Please your god.” You nod, slowly taking him into your mouth inch by inch, and taking what you couldn’t fit in your mouth into your fist. He lets out a long moan, and you start bobbing your head, stroking his cock at the same pace. “That’s it, you’re doing such a good job.” He throws his head back in pleasure, moans softly spilling from his mouth at your movements. Spit started cascading down your chin, and Gojo’s hand moved to rub it into your skin while letting out a soft chuckle. “Look at how messy you are. Don’t worry, I’ll make you into a perfect disciple for me. I’ll make you into a shining example for people to follow.”

Pain slowly started to creep across your jaw, and before long your movements started to falter. Gojo definitely noticed and yanked you off his cock, a sharp hiss escaping your mouth. A string of spit connected your mouth to his cock, and Gojo almost moaned at the sight. “I guess I can’t trust you to do this on your own, so I’ll just have to do it for you. Open wide for me.” Your mouth opened, your tongue sliding out. He smiled and tapped his cock on your tongue a couple times, strings keeping your tongue connected to it with each touch. He held your head in place before roughly thrusting into your mouth, each one hitting the back of your throat. Your gags only seemed to egg him on, tears starting to build on your waterline.

“Aw, are you gonna cry? Is this too much for you?” His voice dripped in sarcasm. A slap echoed in your ear before all you could hear was ringing in your ear, and felt warmth across your left cheek. “You need to do better if you want me to save your village. Stop disappointing your god.” You let out a soft whimper, and his thrusts became relentless, and slowly all that you could think of was his cock and getting him off. You tried to use your tongue in time with his thrusts, and he let out a soft grunt, feeling your tongue graze his shaft. Your attempts were almost cute if they weren’t so pathetic.

“That’s more like it!” He let out a soft laugh before his eyebrows started to furrow. “Keep it up and I just might grace you with my cum. Don’t fuck it up.” You try your best to nod, and bring your hand up, cupping his balls. A groan ripped itself from his throat at the contact. You could see his face becoming more flushed, soft moans spilling from his lips. Your hand started to massage him, and his pace seemed to speed up, his thrusts becoming erratic. Repeated grunts of “take it”, spilled from his lips, before he forced his cock as far down your throat. He threw his head back in pleasure, and a long whine ripped itself from his throat as you felt his cock twitch and the warmth of his cum spill down your throat. You slowly moved your tongue on him, and continued to massage his balls, coaxing the rest of his cum out the best you could. He stayed like this for a bit, panting softly, before he slowly pulled it out. Holding your mouth open, he moaned after looking inside and seeing no traces left of his cum.

“There you go. What do you say to your god?”

“Thank you god, for gracing my throat with your cum.” He ruffled your hair softly and smiled at your response. His gaze stayed on you as he redressed himself, and brushed his clothes off.

“I’ll hold up my end of the deal. I do tend to keep to my word after all. By the time you head home, they’ll be dead. I’ll see you soon my dearest disciple”

Before you could speak up, he was gone. You slowly stood up, your knees threatening to fail you. Each step back home felt like your knees were about to give out but you kept slowly making the journey back home, but before long, you made it back to your village. Rather than screams floating in the air, it was silent. Walking around, you saw dead curses littered everywhere. People were looking through their widows, and peeking their heads through their doors, but it felt as if the fear that plagued the village was fading away. The streets slowly became filled with people cheering and dancing, and the relief you felt was almost palpable.

Quietly, you made your way back to your home, every muscle in your body finally at ease. You walk into your home, and lock your door before a familiar voice rings out.

“So, how is my favorite disciple going to thank their god for saving their village?”

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cappymightwrite · 4 years ago

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So I’ve just read your meta on the TWOW Alayne I sample chapter (it’s amazing btw!) and I noticed something while reading it that I wanted to share and see if anybody else has noticed - nearly every man Alayne dances with during the feast could be taken as a reference to Jon or the Night’s Watch.

Ben Coldwater -> Snow is, obviously, cold water, and Ben is a sneaky Benjen reference

Andrew Tollett -> most likely related to Dolorous Edd Tollett, Jon’s old steward and good friend

Ser Byron the Beautiful -> GRRM has described Jon as a Byronic hero

Ser Morgarth and Ser Shadrich the Mad Mouse -> these men are more dubious, I’m not really sure of the link with Morgarth. Shadrich is a callback from Brienne’s AFFC plot though, and a sign that Sansa’s cover isn’t as secure as she and Littlefinger think it is

Ser Albar Royce - a reference to Waymar Royce, he of the many Jon parallels and Sansa’s old crush, though she finds his cousin(?) stout and dull

The Sunderlands - their family are the lords of the Three Sisters. In ADWD, Davos is told a story on Sweetsister about Ned having to sneak across the Bite during Robert’s Rebellion, to get North and call his banners. A fisherman helped him but drowned when a storm caught their boat - but his daughter got Ned safely to the Sisters. The prevailing story on the islands seems to be that he left her with a bag of silver and a bastard in her belly, whom she named after Jon Arryn

Uther Shett - I was half-convinced this guy also had a relative on the wall, because his name (insulting pun aside) seems to be a reference to Chett, the prologue POV of ASOS who had a grudge against Jon for losing him his position as one of Maester Aemon’s stewards in favour of Sam

Ser Targon the Halfwild - Jon will likely be half-wild when he comes back from the dead, but he’s already been described as ‘half a wildling’ multiple times. Also Targon = Targ-Jon?

Ser Roland and Ser Wallace Waynwood - both are described earlier in the chapter as long-faced with brown hair, which are also Stark features. Alayne thinks of them as “horsefaced”, probably an Arya reference that also calls back to her and Jon’s shared Stark look. Wallace is even the same age as Robb, and thus Jon, would be.

So though Jon wasn’t mentioned by name in the chapter, I think he was very present... not just lemoncake-wise ;)

Thank you! :D Haha for a moment there I was like...wait which meta? Had to take my mind back for a sec there because I've written quite a bit since then! But yeah, doing deep dives into certain chapters is really fun — my next one that's in the works is Jon XI in A Dance With Dragons. Great to hear you enjoyed my Winds one :)

Ooooh that is really interesting and a mighty fine catch! Definitely the vibe I got whilst reading that chapter, after having analysed Alayne II, AFFC (which chronologically precedes it), is that Jon's presence or references to him are made subtly throughout the chapter(s) — especially whenever Winterfell is alluded to because Jon is the "Snow of Wintefell", the "blood of Winterfell", etc. But also vice versa, Sansa is very much connected to Winterfell in Jon's chapters as well — "Winterfell belongs to my sister, Sansa."

But let's take a look at those names you listed below the cut! Big post ahead, so buckle up kids!

So, I hadn't noticed the significance of those names on my reading, but I can well believe what you're suggesting because it plays very much into how I interpreted the subconscious goings on of that chapter — that you have these rememberances/reminders of Winterfell and Sansa's Stark idenity at crucial moments within the chapter’s narrative pacing, especially prior to moments with Harry the Heir. Not to sound too crass, but it's sort like a marking of territory, and this is made even stronger by that goddamn phallic as hell Giant's Lance lemoncake (aka Jon's peen). It's all quite neatly buried, but when you start matching up the imagery...I mean, I guess wolves are territorial beasts, so...checks out? (George...why are you like this?)

It is interesting that we get that iconic entrance of the Giant's Lance lemoncake prior to these dance partners, i.e. a claim has been staked essentially, and it ain't from Littlefinger, which is what could be interpreted on first inspection. And let's not beat around the bush, as uncomfortable as it is (because Sansa is ONLY 13/14!!), this is a sexual claim being made owing to the phallic symbolism and the general tone of the chapter being about Alayne's betrothal/marriage:

And best of all, Lord Nestor’s cooks prepared a splendid subtlety, a lemon cake in the shape of the Giant’s Lance, twelve feet tall and adorned with an Eyrie made of sugar.

For me, Alayne thought, as they wheeled it out.

I legit just snorted re-reading this: "splendid subtlety" MY ASS! What follows is a whole lot of gift-giving, which come to think of it, in combination with this bloody big cake...well, it reads quite a bit like a wedding breakfast to me, followed by dancing, in addition to a possible nod to a Stark bridal cloak, masked by the Arryn colours:

There were gifts as well, splendid gifts. Each of the competitors received a cloak of cloth-of-silver and a lapis brooch in the shape of a pair of falcon’s wings. Fine steel daggers were given to the brothers, fathers, and friends who had come to watch them tilt. For their mothers, sisters, and ladies fair there were bolts of silk and Myrish lace.

Because if we compare this "cloak of cloth-of-silver" with previous descriptions of Sansa's maiden cloak, we see this obvious recurring inclusion of either silver or grey as one of the Stark colours:

Cersei Lannister ignored the question. "The cloak," she commanded, and the women brought it out: a long cloak of white velvet heavy with pearls. A fierce direwolf was embroidered upon it in silver thread. Sansa looked at it with sudden dread. "Your father's colors," said Cersei, as they fastened it about her neck with a slender silver chain.

A maiden's cloak. Sansa's hand went to her throat. She would have torn the thing away if she had dared. – ASOS, Sansa III

"[...] and when they come together for his wedding, and you come out with your long auburn hair, clad in a maiden's cloak of white and grey with a direwolf emblazoned on the back...why, every knight in the Vale will pledge his sword to win you back your birthright [...]" – AFFC, Alayne II

This is all very in keeping with the theme of the chapter, which is meeting Alayne's betrothed, Harrold Hardyng, so obviously a future marriage/alliance is very much a prevalent theme here. Furthermore, the mention of "Myrish lace" for the "ladies fair" does somewhat remind me of Alys Karstark's wedding garb:

The girl smiled in a way that reminded Jon so much of his little sister that it almost broke his heart. "Let him be scared of me." The snowflakes were melting on her cheeks, but her hair was wrapped in a swirl of lace that Satin had found somewhere, and the snow had begun to collect there, giving her a frosty crown. Her cheeks were flushed and red, and her eyes sparkled.

"Winter's lady." Jon squeezed her hand. – ADWD, Jon X

I think some other people have mentioned before how even though Jon makes a conscious comparison between Arya and Alys — "reminded Jon so much of his little sister" — the romanticised, flushed cheeked imagery very much points towards a subconsious allusion to Sansa (ETA: anyone spoken on this got a link?). With that in mind, we could see this as foreshadowing of not only Jonsa, but a Jonsa wedding, and Sansa as Queen in the North — "a frosty crown" "Winter's lady" — with Jon as her king/consort. In my current Jon chapter analysis I've been working with the idea that actually as soon as Jon starts romanticising a girl, which is notably different from just noticing someone's physical beauty (e.g. with Val), that is when the subconscious comparisons to Sansa really jump out.

But anyway! Onto those names...or rather, Jon Snow stand-ins.

Rising, [Ben Coldwater] offered Alayne his hand. “Would you honor me with this dance, my lady?”

“You’re very kind,” she said, as he led her to the floor.

He was her first partner of the evening, but far from the last. Just as Petyr had promised, the young knights flocked around her, vying for her favor. After Ben came Andrew Tollett, handsome Ser Byron, red-nosed Ser Morgarth, and Ser Shadrich the Mad Mouse. Then Ser Albar Royce, Myranda’s stout dull brother and Lord Nestor’s heir. She danced with all three Sunderlands, none of whom had webs between their fingers, though she could not vouch for their toes. Uther Shett appeared to pay her slimy compliments as he trod upon her feet, but Ser Targon the Halfwild proved to be the soul of courtesy. After that Ser Roland Waynwood swept her up and made her laugh with mocking comments about half the other knights in the hall. His uncle Wallace took a turn as well and tried to do the same, but the words would not come. Alayne finally took pity on him and began to chatter happily, to spare him the embarrassment. When the dance was done she excused herself, and went back to her place to have a drink of wine.

And there he stood, Harry the Heir himself; tall, handsome, scowling. “Lady Alayne. May I partner you in this dance?”

She considered for a moment. “No. I don’t think so.”

If I've counted that right, that's 14 men? Alright, here we go.

First up...Ben Coldwater

I think you're right that Ben Coldwater feels very much like a nod to Ben-jen Stark, who is referred to as Ben a few times I think, and Jon Snow (cold water = snow), both men of the Night's Watch. House Coldwater also traces its lineage back to the First Men, and are sworn to House Royce, who are also notably descended from the First Men, have previously married into the Stark family and still maintain close connections to the current house through Ned's fosterage in the Vale. So, through the Royces, we see another possible connection to the Starks and Jon Snow...Jon Snow who was named after Jon Arryn.

I would also add that we have Ben make this inquiry prior to his dance with Alayne:

“Are there no singers?” asked Ben Coldwater.

I don't know, maybe I'm reaching but...singers feature quite a lot in connection to Jon, for instance:

Mance Rayder, who infiltrates Winterfell disguised as a singer called Abel, an anagram of Bael, aka Bael the Bard;

Bael the Bard and the Blue Rose of Winterfell — a story told to Jon by Ygritte, which very much evokes the tale of Rhaegar and Lyanna;

Rhaegar Targaryen, Jon's real father, was a notably skilled lyre player, whose singing supposedly made Lyanna cry — "The dragon prince sang a song so sad it made the wolf maid sniffle," (ASOS, Bran II). He is also theorised to have written the song Jenny of Oldstones, possibly for the Ghost of High Heart, Jenny's friend.

Ygritte — when Jon starts to find her more attractive, when he starts to romanticise her, he observes that "sometimes she sang in a low husky voice that stirred him," (ASOS, Jon II).

Val — again, we start to see Jon begin to warm to Val, to see her in more of a romantic + typically feminine light, because of her singing to the baby Monster: "I have heard you singing to him," (ADWD, Jon VIII).

Sansa — oh, my sweet Sansa...when remembering his family, not quite in his dying moments, but a little bit prior to that, Jon thinks "Of Sansa, brushing out Lady's coat and singing to herself. You know nothing, Jon Snow," (ADWD, Jon XIII).

I think it's clear that Jon loves a good song and you know what? He'd probably be asking about the lack of singers too! One final detail perhaps worth noting is the seat of House Coldwater:

[...] the Coldwaters of Coldwater Burn [...] – TWOIAF, The Vale

Obviously, the "song of ice and fire" is not a person, but more the elemental and destructive forces of the Others and the dragons, yet nevertheless, through Jon's parentage, as well as his actions (burned hand, etc.), plus his personality to a certain extent (hot-headed then repressing emotions) you do have this duality of hot and cold, of fire and ice...Coldwater Burn? Could be something.

Ser Andrew Tollett

So, like you said, the name Tollett immediately puts us in mind of Eddison Tollett, also known as Dolorous Edd, who is like Jon, a black brother of the Night's Watch. And he is a good brother to Jon, voting for him in the election for the Lord Commander, as well as becoming his loyal steward for a time, before being sent on a mission to Long Barrow. Interestingly, Dolorous Edd, as well as the Tolletts in general, do have a bit of a Stark vibe to them...

Like a typical Stark, Dolorous Edd is described as having a "long face" (ACOK, Jon III), a face like a mule's to be exact, but also notably a horse's as well:

"[...] Me, I have the mules. Nettles claims we're kin. It's true we have the same long face, but I'm not near as stubborn [...]" – ADWD, Jon XII

He only wished he had time to kill Tollett as well. Gloomy horsefaced fool, that's what he is. – ASOS, Prologue

He is given the nickname Dolorous Edd (dolorous = mournful), and is referred to several times as being "dour" (ACOK, Jon II, Jon III, ASOS, Jon V, ADWD, Jon XII, XIII), an attribute not entirely out of place when we consider some notable Starks and their disposition, as well as their house words:

He had the Stark face if not the name: long, solemn, guarded, a face that gave nothing away. – AGOT, Tyrion II

Winter is coming. The Stark words had never sounded so grim or ominous to Jon as they did now. – AGOT, Jon VIII

I gave my maidenhood to this solemn stranger and sent him off to his war and his king and the woman who bore him his bastard, because I always did my duty. – ACOK, Catelyn VI

Ned was shorter and plainer of face, and so somber. He spoke courteously enough, but beneath the words she sensed a coolness that was all at odds with Brandon, whose mirths had been as wild as his rages [...] And after the war, at Winterfell, I had love enough for any woman, once I found the good sweet heart beneath Ned's solemn face. – ASOS, Catelyn V

So, not unlike Jon, Arya and Ned, Dolorous Edd has a "long and solemn" face (AGOT, Arya I), as well as a "dour" personality. Furthermore, even House Tollet of Grey Glen's sigil and words have Stark vibes, since according to semi-canon sources, their shield is "pily grey and black" and their words are "When all is darkest," which arguably carries the same ominous, Long Night warning of "Winter is coming". In addition to this, like the Coldwaters, the Tollets are sworn to the First Men descended Royces.

But beyond this, if we take a look at some legendary and historical Tolletts...we actually have two notable names:

Torgold Tollett — also known as Torgold the Grim, though ironically, because he was famous for riding into battle laughing, and naked from the waist up:

The songs say that Torgold knew no fear and felt no pain. Though bleeding from a score of wounds, he cut a red swathe through Lord Redfort's staunchest warriors, then took his lordship's arm off at the shoulder with a single cut. Nor was he dismayed when the sorceress Ursula Upcliff appeared upon a bloodred horse to curse him. By then he was bare-handed, having left both of his axes buried in a foe's chest, but the singers say he leapt upon the witch's horse, grasped her face between two bloody hands, and tore her head from her shoulders as she screamed for succor. – TWOIAF, The Vale

Ser Jon Tollett — In Fire & Blood, Jon Tollett is recorded as a member of King Maegor the Cruel's Kingsguard. After the king's mysterious death, his successor, King Jaeherys I, offered Maegor's surviving Kingsguard a choice between execution or taking the black. Jon Tollett chose the latter. This somewhat parallels Ned's decision to take the black, to a certain extent.

You could argue that there are more than a few similarities, or future foreshadowings, between these Tolletts and Jon Snow...

Ser Byron the Beautiful

Like you mentioned, Jon Snow has been described by GRRM as a "Byronic, romantic hero". I'm so annoyed with myself, because I had written up some good stuff on how Jon really does possess certain Byronic traits but as I was inserting a gif it ended up deleting most of what I wrote...so I'm still a bit bitter over that, but will rewrite it at some point soon. Take my word for it though, Jon Snow is 100% more of a Byronic Hero (a la Byron's own Manfred), than Sandor Clegane, for example:

GRRM: “Well who wouldn’t want to be Jon Snow — the brooding, Byronic, romantic hero whom all the girls love.” [source]

Ser Byron, as well as being described as beautiful, is also notably very gallant, the perfect knight:

"Dutiful and beautiful," said an elegant young knight whose thick blond mane cascaded down well past his shoulders. – AFFC, Alayne II

We all know that Sansa appreciates a bit of genuine courtesy, and in fact, she's taught Jon well in that regard:

"Gilly, he called me. For the gillyflower."

"That's pretty." He remembered Sansa telling him once that he should say that whenever a lady told him her name. He could not help the girl, but perhaps the courtesy would please her. – ACOK, Jon III

I think this Jon stand-in does rely mostly on Jon's connection to the Byronic Hero. So, if anyone is still a bit dubious on that (because Rochester and Heathcliff are trash), just hang in there for my eventual meta on the subject, which focuses on Lord Byron's OG Byronic Hero, rather than the later Brontë/Victorian iterations.

In fact, in terms of Jon's parentage and future romance with Sansa, there's one Byronic tale that may be a particular source of inspiration — The Bride of Abydos. This poem notably includes a romance in which half-siblings are revealed to be cousins...sound familiar?

Ser Morgarth the Merry

Another hedge knight, like Ser Byron, who is sworn into the service of Petyr Baelish. I've got to agree with you here, red-nosed Ser Morgarth's connection to Jon is quite a bit harder to decipher! I have done a little digging though, and it is possible that the Garth in Morgarth is a reference to several Garths that appear in Jon's chapters, as well as Garth Greenhand, the alleged ancestor of legendary House Stark founder...Brandon the Builder:

Garth of Oldtown

Garth of Greenaway

Garth Greyfeather

All of these Garths are rangers/members of the Night's Watch at the same time as Jon, though I think by Dance it is presumed that they are all dead, or at least missing — in fact, Garth of Greenaway kills Garth of Oldtown. Garth on Garth violence!!

Haha, oh god...I think I just got the pun...Morgarth = More Garth! More Garths the merrier! Get it?! More Garths everybody!

George, I hate you.

Ok, so that's what that is. It's literally just a dumb pun, yet it also connects Morgarth to the Night's Watch Garths, and therefore Jon.

Ser Shadrich the Mad Mouse

I think you're right that Ser Shadrich's presence connects us to Brienne's quest, as well as foreshadowing potential shit hitting the fan at the tourney of the Winged Knights. But he also notably makes some interesting remarks, both to Brienne and Sansa, which we can connect to Jon Snow's secret Targaryen heritage:

"Where?" Brienne slapped another silver stag down.

He flicked the coin back at her with his forefinger. "Someplace no stag ever found...though a dragon might." – AFFC, Brienne III

On the surface, in response to Brienne's questioning about the whereabouts of the Stark sisters, Shadrich is talking about a monetary bribe. However, beneath that explicit meaning, is an implicit reference to a stag (Joffrey) failing, where a dragon (Jon) will succeed. Others have talked about this line in more detail elsewhere, but it seems like a pretty good allusion to the foils, Joffrey (a prince who is really a bastard) and Jon (a bastard who is really a prince).

In this exact Winds chapter, however, we also see a conversation between Alayne and Shadrich, which hints at his possible plans to uncover and abduct Sansa Stark in return for a lucrative reward:

“A good melee is all a hedge knight can hope for, unless he stumbles on a bag of dragons. And that’s not likely, is it?”

This "stumbl[ing] on a bag of dragons" could also be seen as an implicit nod towards stumbling upon Jon's Targaryen heritage later in the novel, something that is more "likely" than anyone would expect. That claim might be a reach, were it not for the implication that when Shadrich talks about money, i.e. dragons...he isn't actually talking about gold coins, he's talking about Targaryens, but more than that...he's talking specifically about Jon Snow.

Ser Albar Royce

"Myranda’s stout dull brother and Lord Nestor’s heir." I think like Ser Morgarth, the physical appearance of these stand-ins doesn't always play a factor, because it would be kind of unnerving if they all had solemn long faces... So, what is important here is, like you say, the name Royce and his relation to Ser Waymar Royce, Sansa's first crush, who just happens to resemble and parallels Jon quite a bit:

She had fallen wildly in love with Ser Waymar, she remembered dimly, but that was a lifetime ago, when she was a stupid little girl. – AFFC, Alayne I

Ser Waymar Royce was the youngest son of an ancient house with too many heirs. He was a handsome youth of eighteen, grey-eyed and graceful and slender as a knife. Mounted on his huge black destrier, the knight towered above Will and Gared on their smaller garrons. He wore black leather boots, black woolen pants, black moleskin gloves, and a fine supple coat of gleaming black ringmail over layers of black wool and boiled leather. Ser Waymar had been a Sworn Brother of the Night's Watch for less than half a year, but no one could say he had not prepared for his vocation. At least insofar as his wardrobe was concerned. – AGOT, Prologue

Jon's eyes were a grey so dark they seemed almost black, but there was little they did not see. He was of an age with Robb, but they did not look alike. Jon was slender where Robb was muscular, dark where Robb was fair, graceful and quick where his half brother was strong and fast. – AGOT, Bran I

"They're not my brothers," Jon snapped. "They hate me because I'm better than they are." – AGOT, Jon III

Although, it is worth noting that the Royces, as a whole, do somewhat resemble the Starks in appearance, at least in terms of their eye colour:

Bronze Yohn Royce, the current head of House Royce of Runestone, has "slate-grey eyes" as well as a "solemn face", (AFFC, Alayne I).

Ser Robar, his second son was "comely in a rough-hewn way" (ACOK, Catelyn III), with "pale" eyes (ACOK, Catelyn IV), possibly grey like his father's.

Ser Waymar, Yohn's third son, as mentioned, was "grey-eyed" (AGOT, Prologue).

It isn't as clear whether or not their cadet branch, which Albar belongs to, tend towards grey eyes as well, though we know that Myranda has brown hair, specifically "thick chestnut curls" (AFFC, Alayne II) — typical looking Starks, like Ned, Arya, and Jon, all have brown/dark hair.

As previously mentioned, the Royces are also descended from the First Men, have kinship links to the Starks, knew Ned when he fostered in the Vale, and Bronze Yohn even "knows" Sansa Stark:

"Bronze Yohn knows me," she reminded him. "He was a guest at Winterfell when his son rode north to take the black." She had fallen wildly in love with Ser Waymar, she remembered dimly, but that was a lifetime ago, when she was a stupid little girl. "And that was not the only time. Lord Royce saw...he saw Sansa Stark again at King's Landing, during the Hand's tourney." – AFFC, Alayne I

His seamed and solemn face brought back all of Sansa's memories of his time at Winterfell. She remembered him at table, speaking quietly with her mother. She heard his voice booming off the walls when he rode back from a hunt with a buck behind his saddle. She could see him in the yard, a practice sword in hand, hammering her father to the ground and turning to defeat Ser Rodrik as well. He will know me. How could he not? She considered throwing herself at his feet to beg for his protection. He never fought for Robb, why should he fight for me? The war is finished and Winterfell is fallen. "Lord Royce," she asked timidly, "will you have a cup of wine, to take the chill off?"

Bronze Yohn had slate-grey eyes, half-hidden beneath the bushiest eyebrows she had ever seen. They crinkled when he looked down at her. "Do I know you, girl?" – AFFC, Alayne I

They also have the house words "We will remember", which somewhat evokes the recurring refrain "the north remembers" (ASOS, Catelyn, ADWD, Davos IV, ADWD, A Ghost in Winterfell, TWOW, Theon I), as well as a possible remembrance of the Long Night, similar to the Starks’ and Tolletts’ words. All in all, as well as evoking a certain Starkness (and Jon-ness), the Royces seem set up to be staunch allies of the Starks going forward.

All Three Sunderlands

Since these Sunderland brothers aren't given names, we can assume what is significant about them, in relation to Jon and Sansa, is their Sunderland name. As you noted, the Sunderlands are the reigning lords of the Three Sisters, and in Dance, through Davos' pov, we hear about Ned's time there during Robert's Rebellion:

"At the dawn of Robert's Rebellion. The Mad King had sent to the Eyrie for Stark's head, but Jon Arryn sent him back defiance. Gulltown stayed loyal to the throne, though. To get home and call his banners, Stark had to cross the mountains to the Fingers and find a fisherman to carry him across the Bite. A storm caught them on the way. The fisherman drowned, but his daughter got Stark to the Sisters before the boat went down. They say he left her with a bag of silver and a bastard in her belly. Jon Snow, she named him, after Arryn.

"Be that as it may. My father sat where I sit now when Lord Eddard came to Sisterton. Our maester urged us to send Stark's head to Aerys, to prove our loyalty. It would have meant a rich reward. The Mad King was open-handed with them as pleased him. By then we knew that Jon Arryn had taken Gulltown, though. Robert was the first man to gain the wall, and slew Marq Grafton with his own hand. 'This Baratheon is fearless,' I said. 'He fights the way a king should fight.' Our maester chuckled at me and told us that Prince Rhaegar was certain to defeat this rebel. That was when Stark said, 'In this world only winter is certain. We may lose our heads, it's true…but what if we prevail?' My father sent him on his way with his head still on his shoulders. 'If you lose,' he told Lord Eddard, 'you were never here.' " – ADWD, Davos I

This passage has one of my favourite asoiaf quotes of all time..."In this world only winter is certain. We may lose our heads, it's true...but what if we prevail?" Truly iconic. So defiantly hopeful.

But, yes, you're right that this story, and the Sunderlands, connects us to Ned, but more importantly...to Jon Snow. Really, Jon has quite a few Vale connections, all things considered, and he is named after Jon Arryn after all!

Uther Shett

Well, along with his buddy Ossifer Lipps (ass for lips), Uther Shett (utter shit) is an example of George having some pretty lowbrow fun with punny names. During their dance, Uther paid Alayne "slimy compliments as he trod upon her feet"...so not the best partner!

But from one shit to another...I think you're probably right that Uther Shett is meant to recall Chett, indeed, if we take a look at his description in Winds:

The one on her left was no more than eighteen, and skinny as a spear. His ginger-colored whiskers only partially served to disguise the angry red pimples that dotted his face.

His bad skin is somewhat comparable to Chett's boils:

Chett had a wen on his neck the size of a pigeon's egg, and a face red with boils and pimples. Perhaps that was why he always seemed so angry. – AGOT, Jon V

What is also noteworthy about Chett's prologue pov in ASOS, is that we get this linking of literal snow and Jon Snow:

Snow was falling.

He could feel tears freezing to his cheeks. It isn't fair, he wanted to scream. Snow would ruin everything he'd worked for, all his careful plans. It was a heavy fall, thick white flakes coming down all about him [...] The snow's taken it all from me...the bloody snow...

Snow had ruined him once before. Snow and his pet pig. – ASOS, Prologue

This makes any mention of snow beyond this point a bit more noteworthy, especially since Jon is referred to as "the Snow of Winterfell," (ASOS, Jon I), and we also have Sansa's famous "drifting snowflakes brushed her face as light as lover's kisses" whilst building Winterfell out of snow scene, also in ASOS, (Sansa VII). So, Chett is very important when it comes to establishing this connection.

Ser Targon the Halfwild

Targon is only mentioned once and it is in that list of dance partners. He's not connected to any particular house, all we know of him is that he is a knight and that he "proved to be the soul of courtesy." This detail is interesting because it sort goes against his "Halfwild" moniker — he is courteous in spite of his half-wildness. Likewise, Jon is also courteous, chivalrous and knightly even, in spite of the stigma attached to being a bastard:

They still think me a turncloak. That was a bitter draft to drink, but Jon could not blame them. He was a bastard, after all. Everyone knew that bastards were wanton and treacherous by nature, having been born of lust and deceit. And he had made as many enemies as friends at Castle Black...Rast, for one. Jon had once threatened to have Ghost rip his throat out unless he stopped tormenting Samwell Tarly, and Rast did not forget things like that. – ASOS, Jon VII

As mentioned in comparison to Ser Byron, Jon behaves courteously towards Gilly, calling her name "pretty", just as Sansa taught him. He also often refers to Val as "my lady" despite her being a proud woman of the Free Folk. Jon also clearly looks up to and wishes to emulate legendary knights to a certain extent, and behaving with courtesy and honour is very much part of that:

They were not little boys when they fought, but knights and mighty heroes. "I'm Prince Aemon the Dragonknight," Jon would call out, and Robb would shout back, "Well, I'm Florian the Fool." Or Robb would say, "I'm the Young Dragon," and Jon would reply, "I'm Ser Ryam Redwyne." – ASOS, Jon XII

Furthermore, Jon has this connection to the Free Folk, also known as the wildlings, having spent a fair amount of time with them:

"The wildling blood is the blood of the First Men, the same blood that flows in the veins of the Starks [...]" – ASOS, Jon I

"Some of your own Sworn Brothers would have me believe that you are half a wildling yourself. Is it true?" – ADWD, Jon IV

Mully cleared his throat. "M'lord? The wildling princess, letting her go, the men may say—"

"—that I am half a wildling myself, a turncloak who means to sell the realm to our raiders, cannibals, and giants." Jon did not need to stare into a fire to know what was being said of him. The worst part was, they were not wrong, not wholly. "Words are wind, and the wind is always blowing at the Wall. Come." – ADWD, Jon VIII

"A wildling. A filthy, murdering wildling." Cregan's hands closed into fists. The gloves that covered them were leather, lined with fur to match the cloak that hung matted and stiff from his broad shoulders. His black wool surcoat was emblazoned with the white sunburst of his house. "I see what you are, Snow. Half a wolf and half a wildling, baseborn get of a traitor and a whore. You would deliver a highborn maid to the bed of some stinking savage. Did you sample her yourself first?" He laughed. "If you mean to kill me, do it and be damned for a kinslayer. Stark and Karstark are one blood."

"My name is Snow." – ADWD, Jon X

I am not the trusting fool you take me for...nor am I half wildling, no matter what you believe. – ADWD, Jon XI

If Stark blood is also essentially wildling blood, and Jon is half Stark on his mother's side...that would make him "Halfwild" in blood as well as in spirit. And like you said, Targon feels very close to Targaryen/Targ-Jon. So this name is there solely as a hint towards Jon's true parentage — half Targaryen and half Stark. But I think you could argue that the "Halfwild" element could allude to Jon's post-resurrection state as well. I do personally like the idea of Feral Jon™.

Ser Roland & Ser Wallace Waynwood

Like the Royces, and Dolorous Edd, the Waynwoods also bear some notable Stark physical traits, as noted by Myranda in this chapter:

“The first Lady Waynwood must have been a mare, I think. How else to explain why all the Waynwood men are horse-faced? [...]"

As we know, looking horse-faced, or in Edd's case, mule-faced, indicates a rather long visage:

Arya took after their lord father. Her hair was a lusterless brown, and her face was long and solemn. Jeyne used to call her Arya Horseface, and neigh whenever she came near. – AGOT, Arya I

[Arya] even looked like Jon, with the long face and brown hair of the Starks, and nothing of their lady mother in her face or her coloring. – AGOT, Sansa I

Interestingly though, Jon is never referred to as being called horse-faced, although we know he has a long Stark face. You'd think that Chett, in the ASOS Prologue would have made that kind of dig, since he says as much about Dolorous Edd? This is why I tentatively believe that, although long-faced, Jon isn't as apparently "homely" as these Stark looking Waynwood brothers:

Ser Roland was the oldest of the three, though no more than five-and-twenty. He was taller and more muscular than Ser Wallace, but both were long-faced and lantern-jawed, with stringy brown hair and pinched noses. Horsefaced and homely, Alayne thought.

That being said, I don't think he's as "handsome" as Ser Waymar Royce, or "beautiful" like Ser Byron. But obviously, he's got something going for him because as GRRM says "all the girls love" him, and you know, he's got a good bod probably and if the Giant's Lance cake is anything to go by, as well as all Tormund's small penis jokes...um, well, maybe he's packing, I don't know! (Don't look at me like that guys...it's GRRM not me!)

But anyway! Like you said, Ser Wallace Waynwood is even of an age with Robb, and therefore also Jon:

Robb would be his age, if he were still alive, she could not help but think, but Robb died a king, and this is just a boy.

There is also a teeny bit of Stark blood, though obviously potent stuff, in the mix with those Waynwoods:

"No," Catelyn agreed. "You must name another heir, until such time as Jeyne gives you a son." She considered a moment. "Your father's father had no siblings, but his father had a sister who married a younger son of Lord Raymar Royce, of the junior branch. They had three daughters, all of whom wed Vale lordlings. A Waynwood and a Corbray, for certain. The youngest...it might have been a Templeton, but..."

"Mother." There was a sharpness in Robb's tone. "You forget. My father had four sons." – ASOS, Catelyn V

Shit — "all of whom wed Vale lordlings" — that's probably where all these Stark looking mother fudgers are coming from. So, all in all, I think there's some strong parallels.

And finally...Ser Harrold Hardyng

But let's not forget this bitch.

And there he stood, Harry the Heir himself; tall, handsome, scowling. “Lady Alayne. May I partner you in this dance?”

She considered for a moment. “No. I don’t think so.”

Prior to Harry, who notably fits into the Ashford pattern of Sansa's suitors, we have all these Jon stand-ins, or references to Jon. We can actually separate them out into their different functions, though there is some overlap with Andrew Tollett:

Those who reference Jon's Starkness/the Stark Look™:

Andrew Tollett

Albar Royce

Roland Waynwood

Wallace Waynwood

Those who reference his position/location at the Night's Watch:

Because in the Alayne chapter prior to this one, Sansa learns that Jon has been made Lord Commander:

[..] Oh, and the Night’s Watch has a boy commander, some bastard son of Eddard Stark’s.” “Jon Snow?” she blurted out, surprised. “Snow? Yes, it would be Snow, I suppose.” – AFFC, Alayne II

So, it is interesting that you then have a number of dance partners connected to members of the Watch:

Ben Coldwater

Andrew Tollett

Morgarth the Merry

Uther Shett

This could be read as foreshadowing for Sansa's future journey north, and specifically to the Wall, where she believes Jon to be.

Those who reference his true/uncertain parentage:

Byron the Beautiful

Shadrich the Mad Mouse

The Three Sunderlands

Targon the Halfwild

All these guys get a dance, but when Harry asks? He is denied. It is only after some A+ dragging by Alayne, and begging by Harry that the latter gets his dance. Yet don't be fooled into thinking this is a win for Harrold:

"Should we ever wed, you'll have to send Saffron back to her father. I’ll be all the spice you’ll want."

He grinned. "I will hold you to that promise, my lady. Until that day, may I wear your favor in the tourney?"

"You may not. It is promised to… another." She was not sure who as yet, but she knew she would find someone.

First off, we have this reminder of the betrothal, but there is a lack of certainty there — "should we wed" — and I would argue that's because...they ain't gonna. Remember all that wedding breakfast imagery, including an umcomfortably phallic lemon (wedding) cake, gift-giving and nod to a bridal cloak? Remember how that was followed by several dances with Jon stand-ins?

"[...] It is promised to… another."

Oh, I wonder who that could be? Honestly...GRRM has very clearly, for those who care to really look, stated someone else's claim here, and it ain't Harry's. In fact, it is the very same person who also evokes Valarr Targaryen in the Ashford pattern.

...it's our boi, Jon Snow.

“Jon Snow?” she blurted out, surprised.

“Snow? Yes, it would be Snow, I suppose.” – AFFC, Alayne II

You "suppose", Myranda? Honey, I'm certain.

#jonsa #jon x sansa #cappy's thoughts #Alayne I Winds #i'm actually so chuffed with myself on the morgarth = more garth #thanks for this ask!#jonsa supremacy honestly

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bangtancentricsblog · 3 years ago

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black white and grey

❍ pairing: jeon jungkook x reader

❍ verse: red and white

❍ word count: 1k +

warnings/disclosures: angst maybe? I’m not entirely sure but I don’t think it’s too bad if I’m being honest,

〚prev • next〛

Jungkook is distracted, mind running rampant with thoughts he can't quite grasp. The most prevalent of them all is you, and the looming sense of dread that's attached itself to him like a parasite. He feels like he's been living in a shell of himself and the perfect life he had before this; before this feeling, and before you'd started pulling away is slowly slipping through his fingers like sand. His muddled thoughts have brought him to Yoongi’s on his rare day off from the tattoo parlor, he hopes Yoongi can help him find reason.

Yoongi is lucky, he thinks as he eyes the baby cradled to Yoongi's shoulder cheeks round and fat as she stares back at Jungkook. This is Yoongi’s second child with his soulmate, something he finds oddly endearing because Yoongi had adapted to the role of father easily. He takes hold of the little hand she stretches in his direction, similar doe eyes crinkling up the way that babies often do, with a smile that is all gums and too much drool. Yoongi wordlessly hands her over watching with sleep glazed eyes as she easily snuggles into Jungkook's shoulder. Jungkook bounces the baby in his arms, stepping around Yoongi to take a seat at the table.

"So what's on your mind kid?

"Why do you think there's something on my mind?"

"Because it's before ten on your day off and you're here, holding my daughter as she drools all over your shirt." Yoongi drawls voice low and a bit scratchy before taking a sip of his coffee. His eyes seem clearer now, sunlight filtering in through the cracks in the blinds and Jungkook takes a moment to admire the way Yoongi's eyes shine. He feels his lips tug up, heart feeling warmed and reminded of why he'd come to Yoongi in the first place.

"There’s this girl at work I don’t mean anyone we work with either, some client I guess, I'm not sure, she’s, yknow, I don't know...”

"Uh huh.”

“She makes me uncomfortable, like she comes in but never gets anything done and anytime ____, or any of the girls approach her she shys away and leaves but she always comes back.”

“Maybe she hasn't decided what she wants done?”

“No, I thought that too but the others say she doesn't come around unless me and ____ work together.”

“You don’t think this girl is trying to steal ____ from you do you?” Yoongi asks with a laugh, taking his daughter from Jungkook.

“That hadn't crossed my mind but I don't think so.”

“So then why does she make you uncomfortable?” Jungkook isn't sure if he really wants to tell Yoongi, but it’s a strange feeling to him. Especially when all he feels when that girl is around is dread, a queasiness that twists up his insides and makes his palms sweat. He feels the words settle on the tip of his tongue tasting like acid, the kind that lingers no matter how you try to wash it away. His eyes have widened significantly glossing over with the tears that pool at his lash line, when he catches Yoongi's stare.

"How did you know that Bunny was your soulmate?" He asks instead, watching the way Yoongi's brow furrows lips falling into a pout.

"It was a feeling, something about her just felt right. It was like a fire, slow to spark but blazed bright and was quick to burn."

"Do you believe in soul bonds?"

"Like the red string? Yeah I guess, it’s never been proven but I believe to an extent, why?” Jungkook averts his gaze, rubbing his itchy palms on jeans to try and calm his nerves.

“I think I saw one.” He whispers, voice cracking the slightest, it’s so low yoongi has to lean in to hear it but he’s shocked either way.

“You saw a soul bond, there’s no way Jungkook you can only see your-” Yoongi stops mid sentence, eyes wide as he gapes at Jungkook. A sudden realization crawls it’s way to the forefront of Yoongi’s mind, one that makes his breath hitch and his heart ache just the slightest.

“____’s not your soulmate.” He breathes watching the way Jungkook crumbles, it’s rare for the younger to look so crestfallen. His cheeks no longer hold that honey glow, and it’s now that Yoongi can really see the way it weighs on him. It’s crushing the life out of him the same way you had once breathed it into him, except this one works faster, stealing not only his life but all the warmth too. The Jungkook in front of him is merely a husk of the man he used to be, and he wonders how he hasn’t noticed before.

“Does ____ know?” He asks now, too afraid to say anything else but it seems Yoongi has stepped on a landmine. Jungkook’s tears finally fall, staining his cheeks and reminding Yoongi of just how youthful he is. Jungkook’s heart is easy to hurt, but it’s the love he feels that truly hurts him. It tears him apart and Yoongi has seen too many people break his friends heart, too many times has someone left him broken and bleeding with shards too small to glue back together. That is until you came along, a heart just as broken with pieces jagged enough they fit perfectly with Jungkook’s. He belonged to you just as much as you belonged to him and no one could convince Yoongi otherwise.

He’d watched two broken people nurse a dying heart until it could beat on it’s own, no longer two people but one soul. It was just a feeling, a tiny little tingle that starts in your finger tips and slowly crawls it's way to your chest then bursts, setting your body aflame until it feels right. And you and Jungkook felt right, not only to him but to all your friends. He feels his heart break further at the gentle way Jungkook sobs and he thinks not everything could be so black and white in a world filled with so much grey.

a/n: I haven’t really written/posted in a bit so I’m a little nervous considering most of this is new content and like maybe 10% is salvage from an old draft. I’m not even sure if anyone still remembers the original piece that goes with this? Um yeah that’s all I hope you enjoy and tagging my wife @boymeetsweevil because I want you to suffer 😈😘

#jeon jungkook x reader #emm writes #an emm writes production #emms jungkook content #genre: angst (?)#alternative universe: soulmate #mine writings #fic verse: raw #usersuhdays

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mystery-skulls-ghost · 3 years ago

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cracks knuckles

please welcome the Duskmarch dorm.

Founded on the determination and will of the Grand Marshal, Duskmarch is a... relatively obscure and bleak dorm. Its members are usually ones that keep to themselves and focus on their passion (which is mostly art in all its forms.) The only people they interact with are with each other and a few other people, but they're generally not sociable with the general public. They have some traditions, but the most prevalent ones are the events held every 22nd of each month, March 22nd being the most grandiose. Their purpose is celebrating the memories of its members past and present. And some other stuff, but we'll get to that eventually. Think a mix of Heartslabyul + Ignihyde. The current dorm leader is Emil A. Carcino while the vice dorm leader is Vice Abriss.

Dorm Location:

The general area is a monochromatic ghost town in the mountains that seems to be literally stuck in time, as in all surrounding fauna and wildlife are in suspended motion. The weather is always overcast. The only things that move are incorporeal ashes falling from the sky like snowflakes and a proper day and night cycle. At night, the sky clears up to show the stars above.

The dorm quarters are located in a mansion right in the center of town. The architecture seems to be similar to the one from the Ramshackle dorm. It's reserved for the dorm leader and the vice dorm leader. All other members reside in the other abandoned buildings. How do they get to choose which building? As a great man once said: "It's free real estate." As long as it's theirs, they can do whatever they want with them. For example: Xander's building is entirely covered with colorful spray paint art.

Members:

Emil A. Carcino

Twisted from: The Black Parade

Dorm: Duskmarch, Dorm Head

Year: 2nd

Birthday: October 23rd (Scorpio)

Pronouns: He/Him

Relationship Status: Taken by that edgelord below

Age: 17

Height: 176cm

Dominant Hand: Right

Birthplace: Rose Kingdom

Club: Board Game Club

Favorite Subject: History

Likes: Vice, skeletons, sounds with a good beat to them, celebrations

Dislikes: Killjoys (lol), clowns, babies

Flaws: Too easygoing, he's gonna let one minor thing slide and that escalates into some major problems

Favorite Food: Adobo

Disliked Food: Anything with cinnamon

Special Skill: Perfect pitch

The mysterious, dreamy, charismatic head of Duskmarch, Emil is a very lax kind of guy. He may not look it, but he's very passionate about the arts. Can't you tell by the parties the dorm holds every 22nd of each month? Aside from that, he doesn't seem to be fazed by anything, not even jumpscares or existential dread. Emil's the kind of guy to live in the now rather than dwelling on past regrets. He's wiser than he looks.

Unique Magic:

"Carry On"

Allows Emil to view a singular, specific memory of a target. The catch being:

He can only view them as a dream. He can't see them immediately, he needs to take a little nap.

You know how dreams are. Weird, vague, trippy, and all associated synonyms. They also take the form of musicals!

Emil's gonna have to interpret them by himself.

Relationships:

Vice - Dormmate. Boyfriend. He really is in deep, cutesy love with him. Could this not be just a high school first love thing?

Xander - Dormmate. Much needed lighting in this place! He admires Xander's feistiness. Fun to tease.

Azul - Clubmate. Always enjoys a round of Brabble with Azul. Their scores against each other are a perfect tie.

Idia - Clubmate. Appreciates Idia from afar. Every time Emil tries to get to know him, he's conveniently not there.

Riddle - Next door neighbors. Emil doesn't really know Riddle that much, but his mom does.

Tiny Tidbits:

Emil smells like a hint of vanilla.

His fondest memory is of a parade; so when he found out that Duskmarch held monthly parades, he was overjoyed.

He dyed his hair white to match the previous dorm leaders.

Emil's art is entirely in black and white. He says it's more "aesthetically pleasing" that way.

If he were sorted into a canon dorm, he'd be sorted in Heartslabyul.

Vice Abriss

Twisted from: Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge

Dorm: Duskmarch, Vice (haha) Dorm Head

Year: 2nd

Birthday: June 8th (Gemini)

Pronouns: He/Him

Relationship Status: Taken by that boy above

Age: 17

Height: 187cm

Dominant Hand: Left

Birthplace: Isle of Lamentation

Club: Film Studies

Favorite Subject: Poison Making

Likes: Emil, poetry, the color red (a specific shade being "Pitchfork Red")

Dislikes: Anyone getting TOO close to Emil, fish, Xander

Flaws: being a fucking dick

Favorite Food: Cinnamon rolls

Disliked Food: Big Bean Burritos

Special Skill: A very attentive eye for detail

The vice dorm head of Duskmarch. A heart attack in black hair dye. Vice is a very strict man. He's serious about everything he does. Does he even have any emotions besides quiet, seething anger? That all seems to go away when he's with Emil, so that's one thing. Although, please don't interrupt his alone time...

Unique Magic:

"Starless Eyes"

Makes Vice invisible. He can't do it for more than 3 minutes, because it'll take some serious damage on him, both physically and mentally. How, exactly? His clothes may disintegrate, his flesh might also disintegrate, he'll become slightly more unhinged, etc. etc.

Relationships:

Emil - Dorm head. Boyfriend. Truly, madly, deeply in love with Emil. Nothing comes in between Vice and him. Literally nothing. Because he'll destroy whatever gets in the way.

Xander - Dormmate. An annoyance. Vice barely tolerates Xander.

Vil - Clubmate. Surprisingly on good terms. Vice does double work, both behind the scenes and onscreen. Vil's picky perfectionism strives him to do more.

Tiny Tidbits:

Vice's art is very abstract. Abstract as in they look like a madman's scribbles on a wall as his sanity slowly deteriorates. They always have some splotch of red somewhere.

He would definitely kill a man if anything were to happen to Emil.

Has a fear of heights. This is why his worst subjects are everything that involves broom flying.

If he were sorted into a canon dorm, he'd be sorted into Pomefiore.

Xander Ammonitra

Twisted from: Danger Days/Party Poison

Dorm: Duskmarch

Year: 1st

Birthday: November 22nd (Scorpio)

Pronouns: He/Him

Relationship Status: Single

Age: 16

Height: 180cm

Dominant Hand: Right

Birthplace: Davane

Club: Track and Field Club

Favorite Subject: Practical Magic

Likes: Street art, parkour, cartoony shenanigans, monkeys

Dislikes: Authority, drab colors, sterilized entertainment

Flaws: Loud, obnoxious, dirty mouthed [BLEEP]

Favorite Food: Deep-dish meat pizza

Disliked Food: Canned Marshmallows

Special Skill: Really good hearing

An extremely loud kind of guy. How did a boy like Xander even get into the dark, monochromatic aesthetic of Duskmarch? He expresses himself with bold colors, graffiti, confetti, and anything colorful (both literally and verbally.) He doesn't take kindly to strict rules. Despite the rowdy personality, he's kind of a dork. As things should be.

Unique Magic:

"Make Some Noise"

Lets Xander turn random objects into (non-lethal) bombs of various effects. It's a lot lamer than it sounds.

Relationships:

Emil - Dorm head. Appreciates Emil's "anything goes" mentality. Xander does get huffy over his moments of teasing.

Vice - Dormmate. Shares the same feeling of antipathy towards Vice. Xander's willing to go through slapstick shenanigans just to fuck with him.

Deuce - Clubmate. Sometimes flings snarky negative quips towards Deuce. Not the very best of friends.

Jack - Clubmate. Legitimately thinks that Jack is cool. Xander doesn't really give his usual temperament towards him.

Jude - No relation. He's seen Jude around right before they were both enrolled into NRC. Xander sees him as an idol, him standing up to the city of bullshit that is Davane.

Tiny Tidbits:

Xander has a potted Mars flytrap among his mess of a room. Did he steal it from the campus? Maybe.

He WILL find a way to vandalize every seemingly impossible to reach places with a cartoon monkey. He gets bored sometimes.

His birthday happens to be on the 22nd of November! That means he's in charge of the parade of that month. Expect an extravagant eyeblinding event.

Xander is an appreciator of anything involving wheels. Mostly rollerskates. His cowboy boots may or may not be heelys.

If he were sorted into a canon dorm, he'd be sorted into Scarabia.

#twisted wonderland #twst #twst oc #twisted wonderland oc #twisted wonderland fandorm #twst fandorm #fandorm #oc bullshit #any additions are always appreciated #sleepy time now zzz

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somethingusefulfromflorida · 4 years ago

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The best way to honor HP Lovecraft's memory is to reject his racism and pessimistic worldview by writing uplifting stories that frame the unfatholable cosmos in a more hopeful manner.

Wilbur Whateley is like Quasimodo, the Iron Giant, Hellboy; he didn't ask to be born, he doesn't want to be evil, he doesn't want to bring about the end of the world, he just wants to live a normal life. His "brother" isn't some cosmic horror to be defeated, but a lonely creature to be understood; nature vs nurture, it all depends on how you're raised. Lavinia Whateley is abused by her father and just wants to make a better life for her sons!

The Old Ones don't want to destroy the Earth; they don't particularly care about it, it is beneath them the same way that bugs and molds and bacteria are beneath us. But just because something is beneath you doesn't mean you can't treasure it. Let us have a Cthulhu that thinks humanity is neat with our glowing cities and geometric cropland visible from space. If you would put a spider in a cup and take it outside, Cthulhu would spare humanity for the same reason.

The Innsmouth fish people are no longer an allegory for the dangers of miscegenation, but of xenophobia. Instead of representing whites mixing with outsiders, they represent the systemic racism of the isolated rural communities so prevalent in the Massachusetts countryside. If you don't expand your horizons, if you don't learn about the outside world and start seeing the world from other points of view, you devolve into insular partisans who are convinced of their own superiority over the people they avoid. Innsmouth is what you get when "old blood" European elites try to stave off social progress.

Erich Zann uses music to communicate with a lonely presence from another world, like the aliens from Close Encounters.

The colour out of space is harnessed for clean energy.

Nihilism isn't fun to read. The real world is dreadful enough, we don't need to be reminded of it in fiction. Yes, we know the universe is cold and unfeeling, but instead of letting it drive us to madness, we can embrace it and make meaning out of what finite existence we are given! Nothing we do matters in the grand scheme of things, but we don't experience the world on the level of the grand scheme, we are small, so we should look at the smallness which we can comprehend. That smallness something we CAN influence; our decisions have purpose on the small scale in which we live our lives, so we should treasure that. There's no point worrying about that which is beyond our control or understanding; the best we can hope for is trying to make the small world we and our loved ones live in a little less dreadful with everything we do.

The unknown should not be feared, but celebrated. The unknown is not necessarily unknowable. The unknown is potential. The unknown is a new frontier. The unknown is fresh and novel and hopeful.

All of Lovecraft's writings are in the public domain, so we are free to do with them whatever we see fit. I need optimism in my life right now, so I think I'm gonna start here.

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mandoalorian · 4 years ago

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Sugar and Spice [Maxwell Lord x Reader] - Chapter 4

Summary: When you are evicted from your apartment by your toxic ex boyfriend and have no place to go, who do you turn to? Alone in the city as the countdown to Christmas begins, you find yourself applying for a job as the assistant of the world’s biggest entrepreneur; Maxwell Lord. Little do you know, he has other intentions for you. No doubt about it, this Christmas will truly be like no other.

Word count: 4k

Warnings: Eventual smut, mentions of a previous verbally abusive relationship, typical 80s misogyny (but very little of it), mentions of food and drink, alcohol consumption. This is a sugardaddy x sugarbaby fic soooo… a daddy k!nk too oops.

But in this chapter - SMUT (finally lol), spanking, protected p in v (no condom but female reader is protected), discussion of bondage and use of toys etc. A little bit of angst amongst the general Christmas fluffiness.

Author’s note: Oh my god finally chapter 4 is out. This is where it starts getting exciting guys! As always I hope you enjoy. PS- some of you might have seen I’m doing a December Writing Challenge. I still have a few spots for requests open so if you’re interested just click HERE, read the rules and submit a request!

MASTERLIST | SUBMIT REQUESTS

PREVIOUS - CHAPTER FOUR - NEXT

You considered the date had gone well. You and Maxwell exchanged pleasantries and learned a lot about each other. Well, he learned a lot about you. All you learned about Maxwell was that he was extremely closed off from the world. Despite being an ego-centric businessman, every time you asked him a question about his private life, he'd change the subject in the charming manner of a politician. You yearned to learn more about him. You wished he could just give you a little crumb of his childhood or even his adolescence. But nothing.

Despite this, the journey back to his penthouse was intimate, with every touch and brush against skin creating a fire in your stomach. When you stepped into his luxury apartment that looked over the whole city, you had no idea what to expect. You were in awe. "Your home is beautiful." you smiled as Maxwell padded over to his minibar and poured out two more glasses of champagne. He loosened his tie and took off his suit jacket, throwing it on the sofa.

There was something about the way he rolled up his sleeves, exposing the golden skin of his strong forearms. You loved seeing him in this light. Not pristine, not perfect. Just human. A little tired and a little tipsy.

"Oh, this isn't my home," Maxwell replied and you shot him a confused look. "My house in the suburbs of DC, this is just a place I own in the city for when work gets busy. Easier to commute this way." Of course Maxwell Lord had more than one place of residence.

"I imagine your home is like a palace." You expressed with a grin, before taking a sip of the champagne. It tasted a lot more expensive than the one you had drunk earlier at the restaurant, but you weren't really surprised. You swiped your tongue over your lower lips, savouring the sweet liquid, and Maxwell felt his cock twitch in his suit pants. Trying to ignore how much your simple actions turned him on, he opened his mouth.

"What's your home like?" Maxwell asked curiously, and you scrunched up your nose.

Did you tell him about the tiny boxed up apartment you were getting evicted from? Did you tell him about your awful ex boyfriend turned landlord who was just so dreadful to you? You shrugged. "It's okay." you told him, but it came out as a defeated sigh. Nevertheless, Maxwell chose not to question it. You figured he probably didn't even care that much anyway.

"Follow me." he told you, placing his half drunk glass on one of the marble countertops and walking through the dining room and down a hallway. For a penthouse, it sure had plenty of rooms.

At the end of the hallway, there was a door that stood tall, isolated from all the other doors. On the wall, you noticed that there was a silver keypad of sorts. Maxwell tapped four numbers and the door unlocked for him. You felt nervous as you wondered what was in the room ahead. To your surprise, it was simply just a large dimly lit room with a long table and about a dozen chairs positioned around it. No art on the walls, no elaborate statues. Not like the rest of his apartment, or even his office at work.

“You could do with a Christmas tree in here,” you said. “Maybe some string lights and a singing dancing snowman toy.”

“A singing dancing snowman toy?” Maxwell raised an eyebrow and you nodded, unfazed. With every second Maxwell spent with you, he felt his admiration grow tenfold. He had truly never met anyone like you before. Everyone Maxwell Lord had met was either terrified of him, or had questionable intentions. You, however, seemed pure of heart. You didn’t care who he was or what people said about him. Sure, deep down, you were aware, but at the end of the day - this was just a job you needed. That didn’t stop you from wondering what it would be like if it was more than just a job. “This is where I have my meetings.” he informed you, snapping you out of your thoughts. “Take a seat.”

Cautiously, you found yourself scoping around the table as Maxwell collected a stack of papers from a cabinet. You had opted to sit at the head of the table, finding yourself comfortable in the large leather seat. Maxwell couldn’t help but smile to himself when he saw you sitting there, in his seat. Whilst he would normally tell any other person to abruptly move, he simply kept his mouth shut, sliding into the seat next to you. He separated the papers in two piles and placed one before you and one before himself.

“Why did you take me into your meeting room?” You asked, pushing your glass of champagne to one side and examining the papers. “Oh, it’s a contract.”

“Yeah, it’s uhm,” Maxwell cleared his throat. “Legalities and stuff. I just want to go through it with you so we can make sure we’re both understanding of what your employment entails, before this arrangement proceeds. Open to page six.” You did as you were told and found the start of the terms and conditions.”Read.” He commanded.

This was what you had been waiting for as, until now, you had been unsure where exactly you stood in this. Sure, you were aware of the traditional meaning of a sugar daddy/sugar baby relationship but Maxwell Lord had subverted all your expectations so far. There was no way to assume what his intentions with you would be.

You straightened your posture and followed the words on the paper with your index finger. “Upon signing this contract, I, party B, agree to the proposals made by party A, Maxwell Lord the fourth. There’s four of you?” You raised an eyebrow but Maxwell didn’t answer, instead, gesturing his hand in a way that could only mean for you to resume. “Section 1a; bondage.” The word came out as a croak in your chest. The first point he had made was bondage? You felt your cheeks warm up and Maxwell’s eyes burned into you intently. “Subject consents to tying up and being tied up by the other party.”

“Is that okay?” Maxwell asked.

You took a moment, trying to comprehend what was going on and what situation you had found yourself in. You were just now learning that one of the wealthiest men on the planet wanted to tie you up and be tied up by you. You looked up at him and sighed, exasperatedly. “Yes.” you told him and Maxwell smiled, turning the page. You followed his action.

“Section 1b; sex toys.” And there was that lump in your throat again. Strangely, you didn’t feel nervous, despite the circumstances. Maxwell Lord created a warm and safe environment. “Subject consents to the use of dildos, vibrators, butt-plugs…” The list went on and on. After taking another beat to contemplate what was being asked of you, you signed the papers. There was something about the discussion of all of this that created an enhanced sexual tension in the room. You squeezed your thighs together, trying to annoy the prevalent feeling of your panties as they dampened. “Maxwell?”

“Hm?” He hummed. You noticed his hair was a little disheveled and his pupils had dilated too, although you told yourself that might have just been from sitting in the dimly lit room. Little did you know, he had been palming his growing cock underneath the table. Seeing you sitting in his chair, at the table where he conducts his meetings, was such a turn on. If he could have it his way, he’d wish to bend you over the table and fuck you from behind. But this was more important.

You fidgeted with your fingers a little and bit your lip. “All of this stuff is quite new to me… I mean, I’m not exactly- I don’t really know-”

Maxwell placed a comforting hand on your shoulder. “It’s okay. Anything you need to make this process easier, just let me know.” He assured you and you nodded your head. For a moment, the softness in his voice made you feel like you had known him forever. Like he was the closest person to you. That you could trust him. But damn, his gentle demeanor didn’t stop you from craving him. This was so unfair. Upon every instance that you spent time with Maxwell Lord, you wanted him to pin you against a surface and leave a trail of kisses down your body.

After getting through eight pages of terms and conditions relating to the intercourse side of the arrangement, you found yourself almost at the end of the contract. “Section 12a; public appearances.”

Maxwell nodded his head. “Maybe it’s better if I explain this part to you myself.” Maxwell told you and you nodded your head. “As you might know I have quite the reputation to uphold. Now, I’m not sure how long this arrangement between us will last but I have one last public appearance scheduled this year. It’s a Christmas gala at the White House. I’d like you to come with me.”

“As a date?” Your eyes widened and you felt butterflies swarm in your stomach at the prospect. It was that feeling you just couldn’t escape. You didn’t understand it, but part of you yearned for it so bad.

“No.” Maxwell replied sharply, and you shuffled around in your seat uncomfortably. The butterflies died.

“Oh.” You looked away from him feeling embarrassed for even asking.

“No one can know about us and our arrangement. I’m only initiating this contract to get my hellish mother off my back.” Maxwell admitted.

“So I’m just an excuse to get your mother to stop pestering you?” You frowned, feeling genuine hurt.

“Everyone in my life is simply a tool to accelerate my own success.”

There it was. This was the Maxwell Lord you read about in the tabloids. Selfish, inconsiderate, greedy and egotistical. You felt slightly disheartened, like his comment had ruined your whole night. At the restaurant, he was nice and caring, and with every gentle touch, you had felt an overwhelming excitement. But this was cold off him. Silence filled the room as Maxwell watched you intently, waiting for you to say something. It was like he didn’t even realise the consequences of his own words. You sighed, skim reading the rest of the contract and quickly signing your name on every page without further discussion, before pushing the papers back to him and standing up.

“Whatever.” you shrugged, downing the last of your champagne in one gulp.

“So you agree to everything?” Maxwell quizzed. “I’ve never had a business deal go so well.” He grinned. Right - because that’s all you were to him. A business deal.

“Mhm,” you muttered, leaving the room. Perplexed, Maxwell chased after you.

“You’re leaving already? I was going to invite you to stay the night.” He shot you one of those charming smiles you saw on the infomercials and you felt your stomach twist.

“I’m good.” You snarled, about to open his front door when he placed his hand over yours.

“The gala is this Saturday. I will see you there, yes?”

You wanted to be strong and pull your hand out of his and leave his penthouse with your head held high. But instead, you bit your lip and turned around to face him. There were only inches between you two. You could smell the champagne in his breath, and the musky fragrance he wore as he looked down at you. You placed both of your hands on his chest, not breaking eye contact once, and slid them down to his belt.

Maxwell felt his precum drip down his erection just from your mere touch. He cursed himself for not wearing underwear, hoping his seed hadn’t stained his tailored pants and revealed his arousal to you.

“I am not a business deal, Mr Lord,” you whispered seductively, fluttering your eyebrows and loosening his belt. “I see how you treat your assistants. Fuck them in your office and don’t even give them a tissue to clean themselves up with. You make them leave your office without a second to comb through their hair or reapply their lipstick. You will not treat me like that. I want you to remember that my commitment to this is a favour to you. You need me, and so you will treat me with respect. Do you understand?”

Maxwell gulped, hard. He wasn’t used to talking to him like that. But you were right; he did need you, more than he cared to admit. “Yes.” he told you, and you curled your lips into a smirk before unbuckling his belt and tossing it to the floor.

“Good.” you replied, raising an eyebrow. “Now, Mr Lord, I want you to take me back into that conference room and bend me over the table.”

He raised his hand, big and warm just how you remembered, and cupped your cheek, his thumb swiping across the high of your cheek bones. He tucked a little bit of hair behind your ear. “Oh sweet girl, you think you can take me?” he taunted, his eyes darker than you had ever seen before.

You lowered your hand down to his bulge and palmed him through his tailored pants, excitement filling you when a whimper escaped his lips. “Gonna have to find out sooner or later.” you goad with an urgent need to quell the aching heat in between your thighs.

You and Maxwell spent a moment, gazing into each other's eyes, thinking about what was about to happen. You were glad you had finally gained the courage to not only speak up for yourself, but also initiate the sex. You wanted him to know that you were not prepared to just be one of his meaningless fucktoys. Maxwell knew from the very beginning you would be different to the other girls, different to his assistants. He took your hand and pulled you down the hallway and back into the conference room.

You waited for him to undress himself, but instead, he simply rolled his sleeves back up to his elbows and unbuttoned the first few buttons of white shirt. He pulled your black dress over your ass, groaning when he saw the lacy black thong you were hiding underneath. “Bend over.” he growled, moving one of the chairs out of the way so you could do as you were told.

Wanting to give him a little show, you jiggled your ass a little, teasing him. He brought his hand down to your ass and spanked you hard, the rings on his fingers scraping against your soft skin and leaving red marks. “Oh daddy,” you pouted. “You don’t like that?” you asked with a fake innocence dripping from your tongue. You knew damn well he liked it, judging from the way he was palming himself through his pants.

“Take off your panties.” Maxwell growled as he quickly worked at his zipper. To your surprise, he didn’t get undressed at all. Instead he brought out his hard cock and began to stroke his length. You turned around, and leaned your back against the table, admiring his manhood. You went to get down on your knees, desperate for a taste of the precum that was already dripping down his length. “What are you doing?” Maxwell hissed, bringing you back to your feet and turning you back around, pressing you against the table. “You wanted me to fuck you, right?”

“Just wanted a little taste of you first, daddy.” you moaned as he spread your legs apart and positioned himself at your entrance.

“Think you can get away with being a tease?” He hissed when he felt your wetness, as he dragged his cock up and down your folds. “Think you can tease daddy? You can suck my cock when I tell you too. Understand?” He smacked your ass again, earning a yelp from you.

“Yes, I understand.” You whimpered.

“Good girl,” he cooed in your ear, sending chills down your spine. “Looked so pretty tonight in that fucking dress. Look even prettier like this, bent over my desk, just for me.”

He slowly eased his tip inside of you, his large hands finding your waist as he steadied you in place. “More.” you begged as he held himself in the same position for a few minutes. He tsked, before pushing his whole length inside of you in one swift thrust. You let out a cry as he stretched you out, the feeling of euphoric bliss washing over you. Maxwell was about to lose it completely. The way your walls clamped around his cock, almost milking him without the slightest movement. You felt so delicious around him. He didn’t want to move. He wanted to stay seated in you forever. “More!” you cry out again, desperately needing him to move.

“What do you say?” he chastised.

“Please daddy.” you murmured. You couldn’t see, for facing the other direction, but Maxwell had a wicked smile on his face. He loved to be in control. This is exactly what he had wanted since he met you. What he thought about when he called you from his office, what he thought about when he showered and before he slept. And now it was finally happening.

“Fuck, so tight,” you felt the grumble in Maxwell’s chest as he bottomed out of you before thrusting back in. You let out another whine, pressing your cheek against the cool oak of the table. He began to build up a rhythm as he slammed harshly into you. With every thrust, the obscene noises of his balls slapping against your pussy fill the room, along with the wet sounds from your arousal. The grunts and gasps coming from him only make you even wetter as he bends over you, his hands coming over your still clothed breasts and squeezing them. “Nngh, feel so good. I won't last.” he tells you, biting down on your shoulder. “Are you close?”

You hummed a quiet “yes” as his rhythm sped up, hitting your sweet spot with every thrust. It wasn’t long before you felt your walls begin to flutter, and the moment you felt his cock twitch inside you, you came undone, your cunt clenching around him.

“Are you safe?” he gasped, bits of his dark blonde hair falling out of place as sweat laced his forehead.

“Yes Max,” you squealed. “Cum inside me.”

And with those three words, Maxwell spilled his seed inside of you with just a few sloppy but erratic thrusts. You curled your hands into a fist as your orgasm drove through you. For a few seconds, you could hear nothing but Maxwell’s panting as he slowly pulled out of you. You moaned at the lost feeling of fullness but before you could turn back around, he had already tucked his softening cock back into his pants and zipped himself up. Shakily, you pulled away from the table and turned to face him, your eyes still glazed from your orgasm. You wanted to kiss him… but the man hadn’t even taken his clothes off to fuck you. You couldn’t understand why.

You leaned into Maxwell’s chest, slowly unbuttoning the rest of his shirt when he stopped you, pulling his hands away from you. “C’mon baby girl,” he whispered, his voice hoarse and rough. “Let’s get you cleaned up.” He swung his arm around your waist, just like when he walked you to the restaurant and made sure you wouldn’t slip on the ice, and slowly walked you to a bedroom.

He sat you down on the king sized bed and immediately you laid back as he sauntered off into the en-suite bathroom. The sheets were white, and of the softest linen you had ever felt. It was like you just sunk into the mattress, and you wouldn’t have it any other way. You felt yourself drifting off into a sleep as you wondered why Maxwell didn’t take off his clothes or even let you take off his shirt. You thought that, perhaps you were reading too much into it, and there would always be next time. This was only the beginning of your endevour with him.

You stirred when you felt the coolness of a washcloth rub softly against the inside of your thigh as Maxwell cleaned up his cum that had been dripping out of you. “I don’t think I’ll be able to walk tomorrow,” you mumbled and Maxwell let out a small chuckle before deciding he was finished and discarding the washcloth. “Can I stay here tonight?” you yawned tiredly, stretching out your arms.

“Of course.” Maxwell replied. “Make yourself comfortable.”

“Mmm, can you tuck me into bed?” You beckoned him further.

Maxwell stood there, watching you and contemplating your words. Never in his life had he tucked a woman into bed. It was rare he even gave them aftercare after sex, but your words earlier had resonated with him. You were different, and so he’d treat you differently. Besides, he could never deny you. He pulled on the duvet and you clambered underneath it. Then he pulled the blanket back over your body. You hummed happily. “Comfortable?” he asked.

“Yes,” you smiled. “Max, one last thing,” you called.

“Yes?” his fingers were already on the light switch.

“Won’t you sleep with me tonight? I mean- come next to me. And we can cuddle.”

“I don’t cuddle,” he sighed. “Besides, I have my own bed.”

“This isn’t your bed?” you questioned.

“No, this is a guest room.” he replied matter of factly. “You’ll be okay. I’m just three doors down if you need anything. Sleep tight.” he said before turning off the light and quietly closing the door.

“Goodnight Max.” you whispered before falling asleep.

Taglist: if you want to be added let me know! (if your name is crossed out it means I can’t tag you)

December Magic: @kiwi-the-first @100layersofdaddyissues @mrschiltoncat @honeymandos @thisisthe-wayson @this-cat-is-dea @blonde2bomshell

Permanent: @goth-topic @supernaturalgirl @phoenixhalliwell @ah-callie @luvzoria @stardust-galaxies @wickedfrsgrl @nerdypinupcrystal

#maxwell lord #maxwell lord x reader #pedro pascal #pedro pascal x reader #pedro pascal smut #maxwell lord smut #max lord #max lord x reader #max lord smut

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oh2e · 4 years ago

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I love seeing the different trends in fanfic in different fandoms.

For example, MCR/bandom is off the shits entirely. Lots of high school AUs but you really can’t predict what you’re going to find next at all.

White Collar has a lot of slave fics and Batman crossovers which I honestly do not understand. Why do you all keep hurting Neal? The poor soul.

With Chuck expect Bryce Larkin and Neal Caffrey to both be mentioned, either as the same person, twins or simply lookalikes.

Justified isn’t big on AUs but there’s a fair few post apocalyptic ones out there. Mostly it’s just ‘yeah Raylan and Boyd are in love’ or ‘we have taken this character who deserved more screen time and given him a nice boyfriend’. Or maybe those are just the ones I enjoyed the most. (Dear people writing Tim as straight - he’s gay okay? G A Y.)

Penny Dreadful scares me. There are too many straight™ fans. Also the prevalence of incest that isn’t actually incest. That too. But I did find some nice sweet ones there too. Not many AUs but lots of fix-it fics. (*sobs*)

The Witcher and/or Geralt x Jaskier has pretty much everything. It’s got torture, it’s got smut, it’s got sex magic, it’s got fluff, it’s got polyamory, it’s got slave fics, it’s got the modern AUs. You name it. Fantastic fandom.

Sense8 doesn’t have much tbh but maybe that’s because we were given all the gay and found family in canon so there’s not as much outrage and so a lot of fluffy fics instead. All the top relationship tags are canon. We love to see it.

Atlantis I don’t dabble in much because I don’t ship Jason and Pythagoras which is the biggest ship, and after a bit Icarus/Pythagoras can get a bit much. Some fantastic triangle jokes though, lads keep ‘em coming.

Lot of fluff in Good Omens and many happily married for decades fics which are good for the soul. Love the additions of Polari in some of those fics - gay auntie Aziraphale is my jam. Speaking of Good Omens - there are some fantastic crossover fics with Black Books. [clenches fist] it’s the bookshop owner who hates customers and selling books.

Stranger Things, now I can’t speak for the whole fandom but the Steve/Nancy/Jonathan corner of ao3 has a large selection of getting together fics which are always enjoyable but sadly do get a bit boring if you’re on a binge (until next time when you’re looking for more of exactly what you’ve been reading but different).

#my own post #the witcher #justified #fanfiction #archive of our own #good omens #MCR #bandom #white collar #chuck #penny dreadful #sense8 #Atlantis #black books #stranger things #bbc atlantis #fx justified #nbc chuck

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nothingtoseeherejajaja · 4 years ago

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decolonizing

I hated school growing up. I didn’t understand at first why I dreaded going every day to learn because I genuinely loved learning. I just really hated what I was learning. It wasn’t until I got into high school and college that I started slightly enjoying school a bit more. Don’t get me wrong, I still hate all the exams and papers but I’ve come to learn it’s because of the lack of connection to the stuff I was learning about. There was a lack of representation of Black and Brown individuals in my education. I knew all about the great things White people did but never of Black and Brown people (other than Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks). And if there were mentions of great things white people did, it wasn’t until high school that I learned the reality of the repercussions of their actions. People like Christopher Colombus, Abraham Lincoln, and other romanticized white men, were praised for “achievements” that ultimately hurt people of color and continue to be celebrated. And this for me is such a huge problem. People of color have been forced to celebrate, assimilate with and acknowledge their oppressors. It was in high school and college that I first learned about how Colombus raped and killed indigenous peoples as well as him not actually “discovering” the Americas. Someone discovering something and someone colonizing someone else’s property, are two completely different things. Educators don’t really realize the importance of this historical moment because it affects all aspects of our lives today. The effects of colonialism, racism, and capitalism all are demonstrated in this very example and still are prevalent within our society today. These effects are instilled in the way we as a country go about situations, the way we treat people, the way we view people and so many other aspects. Students of color are disconnected from their cultural identities and practices because of the indoctrination and assimilation forced upon them. I never saw any mention of my cultural background unless it was from the U.S perspective and learning about mainstream news. But never were you shown the ugly sides of history, especially when U.S was in the wrong. I wasn’t aware of southern U.S. belonging to Mexico before the imperialist acts that the U.S. participated in. And this all comes down to the fact that our perception of others, our world and ourselves are distorted. Its all a means of controlling the way we as people of color, assert ourselves and identities out into the world. As a queer woman of color, it has been difficult to see the lack of representation of the success people of color have achieved. From revolutions to protests to creating children books with Black an Brown girls and boys, people of color have gone out their way to voice their realities and struggles. But if the educational system doesnt make the effort to supply students of color with those opportunities, how will they succeed?

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gateauxes · 3 years ago

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the war on gender terror

At this point in my life, the presence of mostly-white liberal feminism is inescapable. While I'm excited to see more people taking baby steps to a radical analysis, largely I am frustrated. On the other hand, involuntary exposure to popular feminism is the reason why I'm noticing a trend in it. Here's my report from where I'm standing: the liberal feminists don't know it, but reactionaries are trying to scare them.

Reactionary feminist projects begin the same way as any other reactionary project - concern trolling liberals over topics at arms' length from the main goals of exclusion and domination. With regard to reactionary feminists the progression of topics are well-known: women's sports & 'human trafficking', then domestic violence shelters & kinky porn, then policing gender-segregated bathrooms, defunding trans healthcare, and opposing sex work of any kind. I've been watching a pessimistic thread emerge in liberal feminist (and radical!) circles which I believe has been pushed into place by reactionary feminists. This bio-pessimism places women into a perpetual state of victimhood that can never truly end due to the essential rapacious nature of men. If this seems like the same shit the second-wave lesbian separatists were peddling, that's because it is. What I want to question is how today's essentialist pessimism differs from its initial appearance.

RADFEMS ARE OBSESSED WITH DICK

Reactionary feminists have not dispensed with a religious-conservative perspective on the power of the penis - and by extension they imagine women identically to how the rest of the right views women. The penis, apparently, is the mechanism by which rape becomes possible. Therefore, any engagement with a person with a penis is a grave risk. Vulnerability is a mistake if you might be dealing with a rapist. The MeToo movement activated an enormous public forum about how incredibly prevalent the violence is, but I now see it used as a tool for re-framing this prevalence as a biological reality. (MeToo, even without being used as a tool, was ineffective at acknowledging that violence is perpetrated by all sorts of people). An explosion of survivors talking openly about violence as an unacceptable status quo has been infiltrated by reactionary feminists who whisper that this is the fate of all women, always. The new bio-law absorbs the third wave's progress in acknowledging diversity of experience - right up to the point where it would be forced to note that sexual nature, like categories of racially-dictated nature, is a myth.

This pessimism rooted in the power of the penis is hypervigilance beyond a realistic assessment of risk. (I also blame true crime podcasts and the media in general) This is not the careful awareness of one's surroundings which comes naturally to many of us. What I'm describing is avoiding going out at all, because of statistics on sexual violence which may not even reflect the risks in the neighbourhood. This, for instance, is purchasing and insuring a vehicle for the express purpose of avoiding public transit. I frequently notice that popular discussion of domestic violence neglects to mention the disproportion of violence toward people with disabilities, asserting that all of us have identical risk. Ultimately, this is the justification for a culture of exclusion as the only recourse to the ever-present threat of men. The fortress must be defended, and the enemy could be anywhere.

BUT HOW ARE WE SUPPOSED TO GET LAID?

I do not want love or children, so my interest in sex is purely recreational. I have been told this is not in line with my female nature - I stand before you deviant and happy. However, anyone attracted to men must grapple with the contradiction of desire and very real risks. I support caution, and even precaution. My concern is with a bio-law that requires a baseline of suspicion if one is to survive, the assumption that one is always a moment away from violence. To be explicit, how am I supposed to have fun when I am letting the enemy penetrate my figurative fortress?

I think this is why kink is such a problem for reactionary feminists. The only way to make the horror of sleeping with the enemy worse is to find that some people like to confront, satirize, and role play the power dynamic. To choose recreational pain or literal bondage flies in the face of the notion that a woman’s lot is to be in constant pain, and to tolerate penetration as a miserable necessity. The reactionary feminist must sleep with one eye open, aware that her biology has already sealed her fate, and mitigate vulnerability by excluding the threat, since she can’t defend herself (biologically speaking). This is why trans women can’t stay at the domestic violence shelter, this is why you should worry for your life if your boyfriend watches kinky porn. As with vanilla dating, there are true risks - and reasonable precautions. But kink is about play with vulnerability - there is no room for play under the martial law of bio-pessimism. By hijacking post-MeToo popular feminism, reactionaries can reinsert the bone-chilling suggestion that it’s all rape, all the time. All the men want kinky sex, because it’s the closest they can come to hurting women the way they secretly wish to. According to this logic, the only way to safely navigate the risk is constant surveillance of men, the self, and any woman who could be a traitor. He’d better not be watching kinky porn, you’d better not be watching kinky porn, and the women in the kinky porn are either hapless victims or remorseless collaborators. Once we have arrived at this point, it’s obvious why the next step is a crusade against any pornography, and a mission to ensure that kink is understood as something men want and women tolerate.

How can reactionary feminists get this done? By linking the prevalence of trauma with the increased visibility of alternative sexuality & gender, from kink-at-pride to polyamory to transcending assigned gender. They ask, do you feel uncomfortable when you see all this change? We’ve all been traumatized - who do these people think they are, flaunting a lifestyle that feels wrong to feminists like you? You should trust your gut, they urge. Perform a little more vigilance to be sure you’re safe. If you find yourself unable to open a dating app or sit next to a man on the bus without feeling deep dread and revulsion, that’s vigilance, and realistic given the state of things. Any - and most - men mean women harm.

REDPILLS AND RADFEMS BELIEVE THE SAME SHIT

Incels hate women, reactionary feminists love a certain kind of woman. This distinction is relevant, especially since incels pose a physical threat to women in general whereas reactionary feminists only attack trans people, black athletes, sex workers, the wrong kind of queers, kinksters, child athletes... Despite their own active hostility toward many types of women, reactionary feminists hold up incels/redpillers/the far right as evidence of the threat that all women live under. There is no doubt that women face misogynist and antifeminist violence. Reactionary feminists are are far from the only ones highlighting this. What’s worth investigating are the given reasons that a target is vulnerable, and what should be done to mitigate risk in the future. In these, an incel and a reactionary feminist are in perfect harmony. Instead of a realistic assessment of risk at an individual level, or an assessment of group dynamics that allowed a survivor-victim to fall through the cracks, both parties will insist that all women are simply unsafe at all times. This notion suits a reactionary feminist’s goal of closed-rank suspicion, and an incel’s dream of terrified submission. This perspective neglects to really ask why things turned out the way they did, because that’s not the point. Whether women are innately inferior or innately vulnerable, we must travel in flocks if we want to survive. The reactionary feminist offers herself as the shepherd, having assured the flock that the enemy is close at hand. Women cannot, of course, be a pack of wolves. Members of a wolf pack work cooperatively but diverge at will.

THE WAR ON GENDER TERROR

The cumulative effect of this mindset and focus is a miserable hypervigilance, which is further hostile to any who are not miserable and vigilant. We know this scrutiny well from living inside a war on terror, which resulted in a vast expansion of state power to exclude, surveil, and punish. Because they have not abandoned their desire to dominate, reactionary feminists would like to do the same along the lines of gender law. Exclusion requires a concrete set of criteria by which a person can be marked acceptable or unacceptable, and there is trouble when a person shifts between the two. Whether you’re an immigration agent or an officer of the gender police, you’ve got to demonize those who shift, and shifting itself. Special attention should be paid to possible ulterior motives. At the overt end, this looks like the myth of the predatory trans woman and the slavery-complicit sex worker. However, these will not be widely accepted until the audience is made nervous by less ridiculous threats with a basis in reality. Sex trafficking is real, and pickup artists really do share tips online about how to pick up, manipulate, and coerce women. However, alarmist chain-mail suggesting that ‘gang members’ are stealing women off the street via box trucks does not reflect reality, but rather supposes that the threat could be any construction worker or labourer with a truck. Given the way people of colour are disproportionately represented in blue-collar work, the implications of this racially-biased hypervigilance should be obvious. The rapid dissemination of information (true or false) online is useful when stoking fear of ulterior motives. Genuine desire to spread a message that could save another woman fuels the sharing of partially-true and emotionally charged statements. Given the existence of incel and pickup artist subcultures, it seems believable that most men could have consumed advice on how to covertly film during sex, or remove a condom without being noticed. Whether that is true or not is irrelevant - the thing to do is be cautious. No matter how they seem, anyone could be concealing their motives. It begins to make sense to suspect a male social worker, or police bathrooms. Furthermore, failure to agree to this assessment of risk is evidence of insufficient solidarity with the rest of the female sex. Solidarity is imperative, given the horrors made visible by feminists who just want to protect women. Inaction could suggest complicity, and asking for a source on a claim is indicative that one does not believe victims. An avalanche of scorn awaits those who ask questions out of turn. the terror cannot end until the defenses are fortified and the infiltrators exposed. As footage of atrocities is replayed during news coverage of foreign occupations, the danger inherent in womanhood must be grimly acknowledged when we consider stepping out into the world.

WHAT IS MY POINT?

Reactionary feminists cling to the second-wave notion of sex and gender as stable categories by which most oppression can be measured. For reactionary feminist strategies to be accepted by a popular feminism informed by intersectionality, popular feminists must at least partially believe in the inherent vulnerability of women or the base instincts of men. While this sentiment was more readily at hand during the second wave of feminism, third wave feminism resists homogenizing by sex, race, or class. While white liberal/popular feminism has an embarrassing tendency to acknowledge intersectionality only out of politeness and/or use it as a cudgel, even performative acknowledgement is a ward against overt essentialist dogma. For this reason, reactionary feminists must harness movements like MeToo, incel attacks, and further misconstrue actual misogynist violence to encourage hypervigilance against terror. The war on gender terror perverts the desire to confront diverse facets of misogyny into the pursuit of covert internal threats. The war compels commitment to defending the home front. A feeling of perpetual vulnerability is the perfect environment for the proliferation of exclusionary strategy. We must feel our goodness and our weakness to the core. Fully enjoying relationships with men, sexual diversity, and private moments of peace are collateral in pursuit of remaining ever-vigilant.

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waterrunstogether · 4 years ago

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Rites of Passage in the Fifth World

I’ve been thinking lately about the absence of real rites of passage in modern “western culture”. A rite of passage is a sort of ritualized event (that may or may not be endorsed/organized by a community) in which a person is believed to exit from one stage of life and enter the next, usually from childhood to adulthood. Other than the humiliation of high school proms/frat hazing, or getting your driver’s license, or turning 21 and getting shitfaced, my culture in the United States has little to offer in the way of true rites of passage.

The result is a population of confused, somewhat disillusioned children driving around and going to work or university and pretending to be adults while hopelessly stuck in the liminal space between youth and adulthood.

~ 20 year old me pretending to know what’s going on ~

I have thought about quinceañeras and baptisms, religious rites of passage commonly practiced still, but considering the traumatic experience that my parents’ organized religion was for me, I don’t believe now that my baptism was a helpful event facilitating my transition into maturity. I think it was a blindingly painful event whose toxicity I needed to overcome in what I now believe was the true rite of passage.

I first dropped acid when I was traveling in Bulgaria. My partner was in her hometown across the country and I was visiting Plovdiv with a friend. We had just finished traveling the world, or at least Eurasia, meeting new faces and trying new things and taking wild risks in Thailand and Turkey and India and Malaysia, to name a few. I had also just escaped the cult I was born and raised in which had hammered into me from birth that my sexual and romantic orientation was an abomination, as a woman I was to obey men, God loved me and wanted me to fear him (that is to say, love = fear), the leaders of the church were to be obeyed and respected all the time (even if they were obviously wrong) and so on and so forth. It was an insane transition between being trapped in these religious handcuffs and learning that I could break free all along. In fact, I carried so much self hatred and internalized homophobia with me into my supposed new life that I didn’t know what to do with myself. Despite being outwardly happier than I had ever been before with a wonderful partner and community who truly loved and supported me for who I was, inwardly I was constantly on the verge of a mental breakdown due to all of the conflicting thoughts and beliefs I was carrying and creating within myself.

The experience of that first trip was an interesting one. Every step of the way my body seemed to pull me towards the letting go of all of the toxicity that was so thick and had built up like plaque in the arteries of my energetic being--yet, I remained me throughout the trip, at the end feeling somewhat empowered but not yet finished with the transformation.

A few months later I took psilocybin, AKA magic mushrooms, with my little brother on a rainy Summer day in D.C. The whole come up of the trip was talking to trees and observing the movements of leaves, running my fingers over the moss growing on the exposed, knotty roots of tree in front of our house. But at the end of the trip, something changed. Once again my body requested, begged me, to let go of the still-prevalent toxicity inside of me. My health was in rough shape, mentally and physically, and my body knew the culprit. But once more I felt I couldn’t let go just yet, it would be too much for me, I wasn’t ready. So I spent the entire come down and then some, maybe four hours, weeping uncontrollably on the basement floor.

The second time I dropped acid was yesterday, with my partner, here in Berlin. It changed everything.

During the come up I was taken aback by how strong the effect it had on me was. My partner, bless her heart, had taken a larger dose than me, yet felt no effect the entire time. Her tolerance has always been naturally higher than mine for every kind of intoxicating substance, and LSD was no exception.

As time went on I came to realize that her high tolerance was incredibly fortunate for me and my trip. The initial come up was amusing, as flashes of white light began to fill up my eyes, closed and open; but very quickly I began to get paranoid, strange little thoughts about being set up and targeted running through my mind as my sense of self slowly began to dissipate, just nonsense that the ego conjures up to protect itself. But my partner’s calming reassurances that she loved me and that I was safe effectively calmed me down.

Once I began to enjoy the ride up, holding a half of a pomegranate and appreciating its beauty, touching a slice of orange and loving how soft it felt in my hands, admiring the fractals of color creating all kinds of geometric shapes on the walls and snow outside the window, I became comfortable with my loss of identity. At some point I realized that I didn’t even know my name, and I didn’t care, because it was irrelevant. All that was relevant was experience.

Imagine experiencing and interacting with the world around you without the barrier of the thing that we are so used to that it’s difficult to think of it as a barrier at all: your concept of self. Ideas about names and races and gender and desire and anger and malice and hatred just made absolutely no sense whatsoever. In this state, all that made sense was goodness and beauty and love. All that I understood was harmony and mutually beneficial behavior. My preconceived notions about who I was and what that meant were being shattered and shredded before my very eyes, exposed for what they were: nonsense.

Once I plateaued and began to slowly come down after about four or five hours I was able to contemplate what these things meant, what they would mean for me going forward. I went into the bathroom around hour 7 and decided that it was time to look into the mirror.

Many people will tell you not to look into the mirror during an acid trip, that it’ll give you the dreaded “bad trip” and you’ll have a shit time. I completely disagree. If you are like me and need to come to terms with yourself through the wonderful, horrific, beautiful, terrifying experience that is an “ego death”, I’m afraid that you’ll have no choice but to look into the mirror at some point.

So, I stared myself down in the mirror and admitted what I couldn’t admit for so long, due to being taught that I was essentially evil since the day I was born. I’d called myself a sinner, wicked, worthless, ugly, an abomination and just about every other mean word in the evangelical dictionary. But as I stood there looking at my body in the mirror, egoless and impartial, I said, “You have done and thought some cruel things to yourself for some time now. But you know what? You are a kind person. You are a wonderful person. You treat people with respect and love, you treat everyone you’ve ever met with so much empathy, so much caring. You love the truth, you love to be generous, you love to be a good friend. You must begin to treat yourself the same way. I know you’ve had so much hatred in your heart contaminating your energy for so long, but that is enough. That is enough. No more. I am a kind person. I am a kind person. I love you. Remember that night so long ago? Beneath the stars, where they submerged you in the baptismal water and tried to destroy you, saying these sacred waters would wash all your sins away, along with your fragile, meaningless identity? Well, they simply added more to your ego, a darker side. You built up so much negativity for so long. Well, look at you now. Your identity, all of the ideas and concepts that you’ve built up around who you really are to protect you from the hurt of Life, it’s all gone. Now you’re going to baptize yourself again. You’ll be truly reborn, this time dedicated not to destroying yourself for the sake of a religion, but dedicated to renewing and becoming and becoming and becoming.” As I looking into the mirror my silhouette became filled in with the velvet black of the night sky, full of bright stars.

I turned on the water and was baptized once again, by my own hands.

When I returned to the room I felt happier than I had ever felt in my life, light as air, free. I told several people about how much I love them and described my love for them in detail, not as this thing that’s an extension of my own ego, but my love for them was a little bit of energy that I had the honor of holding in me, in this body, and sharing between us for a time, for the wonderful events that we call our lives. I could actually see love. I understood that I was not all of the concepts I’ve built around myself, but an expression of energy in this space and time, connected to every other expression of energy in all of history, from the beginning and until the end. My matter, my body, was simply a vehicle for the energy, and would be recycled into new vehicles after I die. My energy would be transferred into new vehicles as well. That’s what we perceive as death: just a simple transfer of energy and recycling of matter. My ego would not live on, thankfully. My consciousness as conflated with ego would cease to exist with me. But the underlying animating force behind all things in the universe, the true source of consciousness, would never be destroyed or created, simply recycled again and again and again and again. Becoming and becoming and becoming and becoming.

The hilarious and bizarre world of reality is hilarious and bizarre. It’s so beautiful and mystical and wonderful and honestly, nothing I write here could ever explain how I experienced being alive in that sixteen hour trip. Words don’t convey it, words can’t convey it. Reality is visceral, experiential, impartial and impossible to quantify in something as crude as human language.

All I know is that, today, I am a fundamentally changed person. I’d feared ego death for so long, feared that it would be too much, too painful. And it was so, so painful--but it was so worth it. I am happy and proud to exist, grateful for everything I have accomplished and can accomplish in this miraculous, tiny little vessel during this ephemeral event that is my life. I can’t wait to wake up tomorrow if tomorrow exists, and unleash all of my love on everyone who’ll have it. Love is the energy that unites us with our own bodies and the entire world around us. How lucky and strange it is to be anything at all.

May you have a peaceful day. The universe smiles upon you.

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