#like those were the original confessionals

[bhaalsdeepbat]

I'm going to make some of you feel really fucking old:

Choose your adventure Quizilla long fic

full offense but none of you would have ever survived fanfiction.net in 2009

[lovifie]

Lift Me Off My Feet

Chapter 6: Boundaries

Masterlist

Original Thought - Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7 - Part 8 - Part 9 - Part 10 - Part 11 - Part 12

W: Simon "Ghost" Riley x Reader x Johnny "Soap" MacTavish, a bit of angst before the nasties ❤️

The good thing about the three of you doing the walk of shame together is that at least you are not the one who got it worse. Price is walking like he just came of the confessional, not a sin committed in his life; you look like you should, like you just got fucked nicely but nothing a couple of minutes laying down can't help you disguise and Gaz… poor Gaz look a bit destroyed, but he carries himself with a certain attitude that makes you think: “Good for him.” and it helps him look confident if it wasn't for a weak limp as he walks. And if you are able to tell, you are sure the rest of them can as well.

“Pay up, Johnny.” Ghost says extending his hand to Soap as they sit on the sofa. 

“Fuckin’ he'll, Gaz.” Soap answers, taking his wallet from his back pocket and dropping a £20 on Ghost's hands. 

“You made a bet?” You ask curious sitting on the floor getting your legs under the table, Ghost and Soap are sitting on the sofa, Price sits down on the armchair and Gaz sits on the armrest of the sofa.

“Yeah, about who would break the truce first.” Soap explains and turns to look at Gaz. “I thought you were stronger than this, mate.”

“What truce?” You ask, sending Ghost a quick glance to ask him to play along. He doesn't say anything. 

A beat of silence goes around the room, everyone expecting the other to talk. It is Price that breaks it clearing his throat. “Right, I'll explain it. We talked about you, about how we have been treating you and about how it shouldn't have happened.” 

Your stomach turns at the confession, and a voice screams in your head: “I told you, idiot! Giving yourself like a whore on sale! Idiot! Idiot! Idiot!” You hide your hands between your thighs to hide the shaking and swallow the spit pooling in your mouth. 

“Not like that.” A warm hand on the top of your head brings you back. “Try again, Captain. So many ways to phrase it, and you choose the worst.” Ghost says 

Price rubs a hand against his face, exasperated with himself. “What I meant was… that we don't regret what we have done, we regret the way we have done it. Yeah?”

And it reaches your ears, but it doesn't get to your brain. Since the whole ordeal began, the cruel voice in your head that doesn't let you enjoy things has been scratching the walls of your head to try and make you focus on her and let her plant the seed of self-doubt in you. But you pushed her back, and the kisses and caressing of the men in front of you helped greatly. It was like seeing a shadow from the corner of your eyes, but when you turn your head it disappears; but now, hearing from Price that it shouldn't have happened, even if he was just a poor choice of words, it has made you turn your head to your shadow but this time it hasn't disappeared. Instead, it's looking at you and laughing at your face for being stupid. 

“You alright, birdie?” Ghost brushes your hair behind your ear, keeping his hand cupping your jaw and turning your face to look at him. Concern floods his eyes, eyebrows furrowed, but doesn't push it when you nod at him. 

“What we wanted to do, was do the things that we should have done before we got freaky.” Soaps continue. “Go on dates, expend time together… get to know ye. Those things.”

It only fuels your confusion. “What?” You ask looking at Price. “Dates?”

“You… you don't want to?” He asks mirroring your confusion.

“Do I have a say?” You ask, genially confused. And to you, you mean it as in “Do I have the power to choose between offers? Do I have the power to ask for you? Do I deserve more than crumbs of attention and respect?” But to them, it sounds like: “Do I have that power?”, you know, as if you haven’t gotten under their skin and you couldn't move them like puppets at your will and want. 

“I don't understand.” You mumble rubbing your face, eyes burning with tears.

“What it is?” Gaz asks sitting straight, focusing on you. 

“Why?!” You ask a bit louder that wanted. “Why me? Why do you care about me? Because I can understand that I threw myself at you and to never look a gift horse in the mouth, but what I can’t understand is why you would go out of our fucking lane to worry about the fucking shitty horse!”

The tears are flowing freely down your face by now, and you realise that they are all looking at you with expressions you can't read. You have cried in front of them before, but it was out of fear for your life, you are fine with that. But letting them see you cry because you are an idiot that caught feelings? Nah, that's too much. “I'm sorry, I… I need a moment.” You stand up, managing to get out without any of them catching your hand and lock yourself in the bathroom, in the little space between the sink and the bathtub. 

You cry your feelings out, wanting to just dry yourself out before going out, but Ghost beats you to it and knocks on the door. “Can I come in, birdie?”

“The lock doesn't work.” You mumble between sobs.

“I know, that's why I'm asking.” He says, he cracks the door open slowly and sticks his head in looking at you. “Can I come in?”

You nod, and he enters closing the door behind him. He lifts you up from your hands making you whine like a child, sits down where you were and sits you on his lap. “You got a thing for tiny spaces.” 

The TONK sound of Ghost hitting his head on the sink following the curse words makes you chuckle at the ridicule of the situation. Ghost finally settles down, and he cups your face making you lay your head on his chest. 

“What has you so upset, birdie? What is making you so sad?” He asks, the rumble of his voice travelling through your body.

You shrug your shoulders. “I just don't get it… why me?”

“I don't know, birdie… you just are.” He says caressing your face. “I can't explain it, it's just… you. We have been trained and forced to be methodical, use logic, don't get carried away by emotions, years and years of training. And now you are here, and we don't know how to act.”

You bury your face in his chest, taking in the new information, but without interrupting him. “When we entered your flat, Price saw the chair on the balcony and he almost jumped head first just to check if you were on the ground. Gaz has gone against Price's direct orders, and trust me, Gaz would rather cut his own arm than go against Price… Birdie, I'm not going to call it love and act like I know how that works. But don't bury the corpse without killing it first.”

You look up to him, and find him already looking down at you. He gives you a kiss on your forehead through the mask and asks: “Give us a chance, birdie. Please. We are all adults, we'll talk about it. Set bases and rules so everyone is happy and comfortable. But you need to let us try. Only once, birdie. That's all we need.”

Simon's words enter your head, finding the idiot voice that lives inside and slapping her across the face. After a while, you no longer have the need to cry, and even though you are elated by Ghost's comfort, it is not fair to the three men seating in the living room.

You stand up first, Ghost's hand on your back. You grab his hand to help him stand and put the other hand on the edge of the sink so he doesn't hit it again, earning yourself a chuckle from him. 

Soap is the first to see you, sitting with Gaz on the sofa. Price is still in the armchair, smoking a cigar. You walk up to him, picking the cigar from his hand and letting it down on the ashtray. You sit on the armrest of the chair, putting your deets on his lap and your hands between your thighs. 

He looks up to you almost holding your breath, like the next thing that you will say could seal or break the deal. “You don't regret meeting me, right, John?”

His face twitches, as if you had just slapped him across the face, and he quickly shakes his head bringing his arm up around you to move you to his lap keeping you close. “No, dear, no. I could never regret meeting you, I'm sorry I said it like that, I promise I'm not usually such a muppet.” 

“I wanna give it a try.” You say and look up to him. “But I'm scared.”

“You don't need to be, what's scaring you?” He ask looking at your face.

“You don't know me… what if once you get to know me, you don't like what you learn? If you get bored? Or disgusted…” You mumble, talking more and more softly as you bury your face on his neck.

“Now you are just talking nonsense, love.” Price says, cupping your face and peeling your face away from his neck. “And you are thinking too highly of us, what if you are the one who doesn't like us?”

“That's not-” You begin to say, ready to argue that it is not possible to not like them, that they look like they have come out of a firefighter calendar, that they have been nothing but kind and caring with you, that if you found something about them you didn't like it would most likely to bother you enough to break away. But you look at his face, and he has this know-it-all expression that quiets you up. 

“Exactly, love.” He says and lets you hide your face again. You sigh, tired of your feelings and start to stand up. “I'm gonna have a shower.”

“Wait!” Soap says standing up quickly and sprinting to the kitchen, coming back out with different kinds of shampoo and body skin care products. “How about a bath? A bubble bath?” He asks, happy to cheer you up and to have an excuse to mess around with the different liquid. 

You nod quickly smiling widely and watch him run to the bath. Price calls your attention with a tap on your lower back and explains: “Gaz and I need to go back to base, Ghost and Soap will stay with you tonight, that's fine with you?”

You nod again, saying goodbye to both of them, feeling too awkward to hug them because of the newly exposed feeling even if just an hour ago they were balls deep inside you. You run to the bathroom when Soap calls your name.

“Quickly, bonnie. Get in before it goes cold.” He says, satisfied with the sweet smell and bubbly water. “Do you need anything else?”

“Actually, can you lend me some more clothes? I'm pretty sure I have run out of clean clothes and underwear.” You admit, looking a bit ashamed.

“Sure, I'll bring ye some of mine. I'm sure ye'll fill in my knickers just fine with that fine arse of yers.” He mumbles in your ears, earning himself a slap on his biceps as he exits the bathroom to pick up the clothes. He drops them by a little later and lets you to enjoy your bath.

The bath truly helps you relax, of the tightness in your muscles and of the exhausting feelings in your head. It also leaves you room to think about them, to rationalize them. Simon is right, you cannot say no just because you are scared it may not work out in the end, not without trying first.

After some time, the water starts to get cold, so you drain the tub and grab the towel to dry yourself. You look at the clothes that Soap lend you, and realise he only left his briefs and a t-shirt; cheeky bastard. 

As you open the door, the smell of food floats around the whole house and it makes your stomach rumble. Ghost and Soap must be making dinner. So you walk down the hall, entering the kitchen without thinking.

And part of you blames you for it, but another part is really glad you didn't.

Johnny is on his knees, in front of Ghost, getting his mouth fucked by the late one. The wet sounds of Johnny gagging around Ghost’s dick as it hits the back of his throat almost hide the sound of your steps, but not good enough fot Ghost.

“Hi, Birdie.” He groans, caressing Johnny head in such a tender way it clashes with the filthy image. “Are you hungry? Johnny here couldn't wait for dinner.”

“I can see…” You mumble back looking at Soap, unable to peel you away. You are glad you just got out of the tub, being able to attribute your blush to the heat of the bathroom. Still, no bath can explain the way you clench your thighs together, and Ghost chuckles when he notices.

“C’mere, birdie.” He instructs, extending his hand to you. You grab it, feeling him pull you close; his hand moves to your waist, cupping your face with the other. “I really want to kiss you right now, pretty bird”

And you know what he is asking for, to break the truce; because if you initiate it, he is technically not breaking it. And it is cruel, especially to Price that you know is going to be the last one to break it, but right now, with Ghost mask up to his nose and Johnny chocking on his dick, your mind is busy. 

You get on your tip toes, urging Ghost to bend down and he gives you a quick peck on your lips. Just to seal the deal, before he pulls your head from the back of your head making you open your mouth to groan and he gets his tongue inside your mouth, turning the groan into a moan. 

It is such a filthy kiss, its only fitting for a filthy situation that you just yourself into. 

Johnny doesn't last before calling for your attention, but he doesn't call you, instead, he pulls your leg between his and starts humping his leaking dick against you. It makes you look down breaking the kiss and making Ghost look down as well, he chuckles seeing the Scotsman so desperate and grabs a handful on his mohawk making him let go of his dick with a POP sound. “Don't fuck her leg, you fucking mutt” Johnny whines when he grips his hair harder and Ghost looks up to you. You can see the gears spinning inside his head when he looks from you to Soap, both grabbed by the hair, and you are not really surprised when he says. “Get on your knees for me, birdie.”

When you drop to your knees, Ghost pushes you and Soap’s head closer to each other and Soap bites your mouth kissing you as he devours your lips. His knee on the ground is against your cunt, and when he flexes closer to you it makes you moan inside his mouth.

Soon, Soap’s tongue is not the only thing in your mouth and you feel something blunt nudge at the side of your lips. You pull apart an inch, opening your eyes, just in time to see Ghost’s dick slide between Soaps and your mouth. Both tongues getting tangled around his already wet length, Ghost moans without letting go of both of your head. Soap hands find their way to your waist, and start to help you grind yourself against his tigh. 

“She is going to ruin your underwear, Johnny.” Ghost manages to say between grunts and moans. “Better to help her take them off.”

Big hands grab you from under your arms hoisting you up, Ghost holds you against his chest with your back pressed to him and Soap helps you take off your underwear. Just when you are naked from the waist down, you feel Ghost slip his dick between your folds, rubbing your clit on his way forward. His red tips stick out from between your legs, and you can almost feel Soap mouth water and the sight of both your crotch together. “C’mon, Johnny, I didn't tell you to stop sucking.”

Johnny’s tongue is warm against your skin, and for a second when you look down, all you see is Ghost fucking Soap’s mouth through you. Until Ghost begins to thrust, and his tip keeps nudging at your clit and if it is not his tip it’s Soap's tongue running side to side on it. 

Ghost is still hugging you from behind, his face now hidden in your neck moaning little words that don't make sense, you grab his arms trying to keep yourself steady, you can barely reach the floor having to be on your tiptoes on top of Ghost's feet. 

The mix of it all, feeling almost like a fleshlight by Ghost, Soap moaning and gagging so close to your clit and Ghost’s dick rubbing again and again against your clit, has you cumming embarrassedly quickly. And if it wasn't for the way Ghost moans against your neck when you clench your thighs together, pulling Soap’s hair again to keep him from sucking him, basically edging himself not to cum yet, you would be embarrassed. Instead, you are almost ready to cum again in mere seconds.

“It looks like Johnny is a bit needy right now, doll. Do you wanna sit on his dick, hm? Suck my dick while you do? Johnny has been talking nonstop about that little mouth of yours, birdie. Been driving me crazy.” He says as he kisses your neck, leaving it wet with his spit as he barely manages to speak properly. 

Soaps, still on his knees, sits on his feet, cock free and ready for you to sit on it. You hoist his lap, getting your knees on the floor sided to his forcing you to spread your legs. You rest your hands on his knees as you lower yourself, and moan in tandem with Soap once he is completely seated. 

Ghost grabs your hands, almost picking you up, and moves them to his thighs to allow you to support yourself. Soaps begin to move, slowly, letting you get adjusted to the stretch, as he begins to fuck you almost doggy style. It pushes you forward, and you moan against Ghost’s dick making him shudder.

You start to kiss his tip, soon getting your lips around it earning a moan of your name from Ghost. He caresses your head, brushing your hair away from your face. Soap grabs your waist, helping himself fuck you faster, skin slapping against your ass making you moan as you suck Ghost’s dick.

It is almost as thick as Soap's, but it's the way it hits your throats that makes the difference. Tears prick at your eyes, slowly falling down your cheeks, and when Ghost sees them he coos at you as he smears them on your cheek with his thumb.

You can see his half-open mouth thanks to his mask being risen, and you clench your cunt when you see him bite his lips to keep his moans from spilling out. Soap hugs you from behind, bitting your shoulder and begins to piston in and out of you. His hand goes south, rubbing at your clit and you grab Ghost’s thigh sticking your nails in making him hiss almost like a moan. 

“I'm gonna cum all over your pretty face, hm? Painted like a canvas, love.” He groans grabbing your hair. “While Johnny paints you inside, all ours, inside and out, love. Our little birds, all ours.”  He keeps mumbling, taking his dick out to jack it off in front of your face. 

You stick your tongue out while looking at him, and moan when Johnny change his speed, becoming sloppy and switching the speed with slower but deeper thrusts. He moans against your shoulder, biting again hard and that's enough to send you over the edge. Johnny and Ghost following you as if they were waiting for you. 

Ghost spents end up mostly in your mouth, but you feel the hot spurts settle on your face making you close your eyes. Soap sits down, stretching his legs, and he pulls you with him, softening your dick still inside of you. 

“I wish I could send Price a picture right now” Ghost says chuckling looking down at the both of you who chuckle too with difficulty to breath.

“I think… I think we should go shower again, bonnie.” Soaps says behind you, and you can only agree. 

Once cleaned, the three of you sit around the sofa ready to have dinner, quite delicious and gracefully, not burnt. 

“So, bonnie, ye wanna go on date?” Soap asks with his mouth full.

“I was gonna ask first, was swallowing my food.” Ghost says, almost scolding him.

“Actually… I thought about it, and I think I want to go on a date with…

Hii, how are you?!

The next chapter is your choice, bam, bam, baaaammm!!

Let me know if there is any kind of date or anything like that that you would like to happen, hehe.

Also, just an explanation in case anyone was confused. As I said, English is not my first language, which means I don't really know many idioms in English, and that plus the fact that when I can remember how they are I just make up my own, sometimes they lack some sense 🤣.

When in this chapter Ghost says: "But don't bury the corpse without killing it first." I was thinking about the phrase "to sell the bear's skin before catching it", but that one is actually the opposite, it is when you are a bit too optimistic about how things are going to play out. So I don't know how I ended up writing the corpse one, and then I remember the fact that Ghost was buried alive and it just... in my mind it made sense.

Sorry if it doesn't 💗

As always, thank you so much for reading and for commenting, love youu ❤️🌸

Taglist: @pagesfalling @thevoidwriting @darkangel4121 @tf141glory @skyler-loves-rick-grimes @ghostlythots @readerofallthingss @onewattson6529 @mynameismothra @xinyiline @shadowtfpcod @infpt-zylith@renabear88@lolliepopsicle @reap3erslov3 @tooloudarts @dontworryboutitokie @cassiecasluciluce @sodavrr @missmidnight-writes @anirok2 @lilliumrorum @ladyxtiger @multy-fandom-lover @thriving-n-jiving @lotionlamp @spicyspicyliving @xxeiraxx @vampirekilmerfic @keiraslayz

[ratedfleur]

i'm currently watching immaculate rn and i just thought of this thing i wrote in ao3 a few years ago... (also if you are a horror movie enthusiast, that film is honestly a rollercoaster, even i was gagged) (also i know nothing about churches and priests whatsoever so do not expect this to make any sense)

my fic was originally priest!sunghoon and church boy!jake but make it priest!sunghoon and church girl!y/n.

father sunghoon was the youngest priest in the parish, quite the good looking one out of the bunch. the young and old ladies liked to be around father sunghoon for he was the most approachable and the smoothest talker of all.

and there was you. you were the most beautiful among all of the ladies in the church, well respected because of how well dedicated you were when it comes to your bible reading, confessional booths, and you were the one that the children loved to be with when it came to bible reading, and so you could not afford to commit not even a tiny mistake.

sitting in the confessional booth, you quickly did the sign of the cross. your hand were clammy as you bowed your head in shame, "forgive me father for i have sinned, i have not made a confession in 2 weeks. and forgive me father for the lustful thoughts that my mind has created over the course of two weeks."

hearing no response from the priest on the other side of the booth, you resumed with your confession. "i may have not meant to have those kind of thoughts but my mind chooses to take over me when i have such lustful thoughts— just like how jesus does in my daily life. but father i..." you say, suddenly backtracking in your words out of shame.

"speak." the voice says from the other side.

taking a shaky breath, you shamefully shut your eyes as you clasped your hands together. "father, i have had lustful thoughts about a priest in the church and i am ashamed of myself. i know i shouldn't have and yet—"

"who is thy priest?" the voice cuts you off.

shaking your head despite knowing he can't see you, "i— i have dreamt of father touching me as i layed in bed, merely in my sleeping garments—"

"i said, who is this priest." he spoke once more.

"father sunghoon, father.. i have dreamt and yearned for him to touch me, shamelessly touch and tell me to let me cum as i read my bible before i sleep. i dreamt that he would put a baby in me for us to be wed in this church.." you say with a quiet voice, eyes brimming with tears out of shame.

"come to the other side of the booth for i shall bless you." the voice says.

looking up to look at the latticed opening, you barely see the silhouette of the person on the other side. "b-but i thought i needed to do it here—" you say before he cut you off once more as he spoke.

"come here."

following his orders, you quickly stepped out of the booth and went to the other side, merely a few steps away from the door before father stepped out, only for you to see that it was father sunghoon all this time.

"kneel for me and i'll make those wet dreams of yours come to life."

[squirrellypoo]

The official AMC account just posted this BTS photo of the Theatre des Vampires set.

Most interesting to me is that you can see they retained the “confessional booth” box seats on the ground floor sides which were a feature of the original Grand Guignol:

“Boxes for the audience in the rear of the theater drew similarities to those of confessionals with further ornate woodwork and iron meshes tying them to the rest of the neo-gothic experience. Even the seats were much like those of pews.”

BUT - if you zoom in on the BTS photo booths, the screen and the globe lights seem to match where Armand is sitting in the few frames from the latest trailer!?

GIF from @mademoisellebianx

So what do we think Armand is so distraught over in the Theatre timeline?! 🤔

[heroinuser88]

Did you know that long term alcohol use is worse for your brain & organs than long term clean diacetylmorphine use? Or most opioids in general? Did you know that alcohol kills more people annually than any other drug? So why is it that the former is legal, socially acceptable & advertised on every street corner & the latter is unfairly stigmatized, criminalized & demonized? Did you know opioids use to make great antidepressants & were once legal & used for such in the early 1900s? There are many legal & commonly available things that are addictive & more destructive on your physical health. Yet the masses have been conditioned to believe opiates/opioids are some of the most "dangerous" drugs. Swiss study showing 15 years of daily heroin use resulted in no adverse health complications - https://harmreductionjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12954-020-00412-0 "No serious heroin-related medical complication occurred during the 15-year window of observation among inmates with heroin-assisted treatment. Their work performance was comparable to that of the reference group." Opioids as antidepressants - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5189718/ " Historically, MOR agonists have also been applied in the treatment of mood disorders, notably including major depressive disorder (MDD). Indeed, until the mid-20th century, low doses of opium itself were used to treat depression, and the so called “opium cure” was purportedly quite effective.9 With the advent of tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs) in the 1950s however, the psychiatric use of opioids rapidly fell out of favor and has been largely dormant since, likely due to negative medical and societal perceptions stemming from their abuse potential. However, there have been scattered clinical reports (both case studies and small controlled trials) since the 1970s indicating the effectiveness of MOR agonists in treating depression. The endogenous opioid peptide β-endorphin, as well as a number of small molecules, have all been reported to rapidly and robustly improve the symptoms of MDD and/or anxiety disorders in the clinical setting, even in treatment resistant patients.10–17 These results have been recapitulated in rodent models, where a variety of MOR agonists show antidepressant effects.18–21 " One of the reasons heroin even became so heavily criminalized originally was so that they could target anti-war hippies & black communities - https://www.vera.org/reimagining-prison-webumentary/the-past-is-never-dead/drug-war-confessional “You want to know what this [war on drugs] was really all about? The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying?

We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. 

Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.” - Nixon's Adviser The fact that you can drink yourself to death with alcohol or consume various toxic chemicals pushed by big names, but using opioids to enhance your life (be it pain or depression or both) makes you a "junkie" and a "criminal" who "needs help". This is a total hypocritical violation of people's right to bodily autonomy & their right to pursuit of happiness. END THE DRUG WAR

[fandomnerd9602]

Admission

Novitiate!Wanda x Male Reader

For @lifespectator and @aloneodi

It had to be some Divine conspiracy. The way that you and novitiate Wanda happened to step out of that confessional booth at the same time. It was as if the Lord Himself was pulling the strings to bring the two of you together.

“Hey” you manage to speak.

“Hello” she smiles back.

How could it be? That she fell for you as much as you had fallen for her. And yet something about it felt so forbidden. True she had not taken her vows yet but you still felt that she might as well have.

“were you in that confessional booth?” Wanda asks, a little blush making its way across her angelic features.

“I-I was filling in for Father Wong” you stammer trying to somehow explain the whole thing. “It’s not like I was trying to lure you away from your vows or anything like that” you stammer nervously.

“ is it really that strange?” Wanda takes a step towards you, “ that I fell for you and you for me?”

“How could I not?” You breath out.

She takes your hand. “Due to my vows, the only kiss I can settle for is this”

She leans the palm of her hand against yours. A holy kiss.

“If that’s the only kiss we can have, then I count it a blessing” you whisper.

“Good day, Y/N” Wanda sadly whispers as she turns to leave.

“Good day…sister Wanda” you let out a sad, miserable breath.

Wanda found herself separating from you. Different tasks taking her off in different directions. Time that she was getting further away from you, and yet I just made her heart grow all the more fonder for you. She couldn’t deal with it, the feeling of being so far away from you was too much for her to bear on some days.

If only she could realize how painful it was for you too. You found yourself your mind drifting away from your own studies.

You found yourself walking towards Wong’s office. He was rather happy to see his favorite apprentice.

“Y/N!” He laughs as he pulls you into a fatherly hug, “what brings you by this morning?”

“I have to leave Father Wong” you whisper.

“Why? Do you feel the Lord calling you elsewhere?”

“ I feel Him calling me towards someone” you admit. “I’ve fallen in love with sister Wanda.”

Wong leans back in his seat, “Wanda Maximoff?”

You nod, a feeling of guilt passing over you. Your mentor simply removes his glasses and smiles.

"I knew there was something between you two" he lets out a soothing chuckle.

"Wait what?"

"You know the Scriptures never say one has to be celibate for all your life? I don't know how that even got started"

"So it's not wrong to love Wanda?"

"No" he affirms you, "if anything I think it's why the Creator told me to put you two together. You make quite the duo. I've never seen the sunday school more joyful than when you and Wanda are together with those kids."

Wong pulls a paper off his desk, "for some reason, His Excellency the Pope Stephen sent me this email today. Said I should be the first to know"

Wong hands the paper to you which you read aloud, "this paper decrees that celibacy is meant for a season, not for life. It's no longer required for priesthood or the convent"

"Run to her, Y/N" Wong summarizes with a smile, "the parish has been thriving with you and Wanda"

"Thank you sir!" you run out of Wong's office and straight to the chapel, briefly passing Sister Natasha who gives you a knowing smirk.

You find Wanda on her knees at the altar. Even with her back to you, you can hear her tears.

"Sister Wanda?" you call out to her. Wanda gasps, immediately she bolts up.

"I-I'm no longer Sister Wanda." she admits, "I've taken a teaching job here on the parish's grounds but I cannot join the convent."

"And I can't join the priesthood... well at least originally" you walk up to her. "Wanda I love you. And I know that the Creator put us together for a reason. It's some divine conspiracy how but all I know is that I never want to part from your side"

Wanda tears up, a gentle smile forming on her face, "I don't wish to leave your side either."

She holds up her hand, wishing for a holy kiss. You clasp your hand with hers and pull her into an actual kiss. Wanda melts in your arms, holding onto you for dear life.

"Now I know that was ordained," she giggles, "because that felt heavenly"

You take her chin in your hand and kiss her again.

The gentle early morning light shines through the stained glass window and right onto you and the novitiate who stole your heart. It's as if the Creator Himself was smiling on the two of you.

[vilsoo]

୨⎯ CHAPTER TWO ⎯୧

incubus!fushiguro toji x fem!reader

꒰ ✟ ꒱ GENRE: horror, demon au, nsfw 18+, porn with plot.

꒰ ✟ ꒱ SUMMARY: Sex demons are not as provocative as you think they are. Not only do they engage in sexual acts with humans, they thrive off their flesh and haunt them in their nightmares. When an incubus disguised as a Reverend turns a hungry eye on one of the parishioners, gruesome events at the cathedral slowly unfold; blasphemy, gore, and terror…

꒰ ✟ ꒱ CHAPTER WARNINGS: blasphemy, WC: 2,396

PREVIOUS • MASTERLIST • NEXT CHAPTER

written in toji's pov, narration style similar to the Netflix show, "You." pov may also change in future chapters. this takes place in a fictional setting; St. Reze University & Cathedral.

"Bless me Father for I have sinned. It has been a week since my last confession..."

Father Getou Suguru, the priest who ordained me as a clergy member and who I work for now, would sometimes put me in charge of confessionals whenever he’s busy. Obviously I hated it. Sitting in this mahogany booth, listening to the sins and confessions of these miserable penitents that don’t even matter to me. Sometimes out of boredom I'd feel tempted to manipulate them out of their faith, but I couldn't afford to lose my job. I had no choice.

This evening I was starting to feel a bit sluggish while confessionals were ongoing. Some were short, some were emotional, and some just didn't know what to say in the midst of nervousness or inexperience. I didn’t even have to say much except for making up their penance as I try not to fall asleep. But as I sat down and pondered while this young male penitent babbled to me, the memory of you on your knees before me during Eucharist… haunted me.

“…But this one nightmare I had a few days ago, Reverend— call me dramatic, I don’t care… but when I woke up, I woke up literally gasping for my life. I couldn’t stop thinking about it that I got so distracted in class. It disturbs me when I even think about it. What should I do?”

And suddenly a wave of clarity washed over me when the male’s unsettled voice blended with the flashback of us under the rain hours ago. It took awhile to register what he said, especially when he mentioned nightmares.

Across the decorative screen, I frowned and remained silent. It was a little frustrating taking my focus off of you and onto another concern. Perhaps this evening confession had slightly intrigued me, especially knowing the true, daunting origins of nightmares that have been ongoing. And not just any plain nightmare that adults get from stress or medications. Majority of people tend to forget those that come and go, but if they continue lurking within one’s mind for several weeks…

“Hm. You got insomnia or something, kid?” I inquired, deciding not to think too deep about this. Whatever the fuck I smoked earlier had me overthinking too much. I’m peeved about it.

“Um. I'm twenty two," the man demurred. "But, no… I don’t have insomnia, surprisingly.”

“Then don’t sweat it. Just know that you can expect spiritual nourishment in a religious campus like this," I assured sardonically. “But in case that doesn’t work… start booking your therapy sessions.”

“Therapy?” he marveled. “Wow. This is the first time a Reverend gave me a penance like that. I thought you were gonna suggest something, like, plain old prayer and scripture.”

“Churches are all full of narcissists like that, kid. Now end off with a prayer and go.”

The man thanks me and proceeds with his final prayers and blessings before leaving. I sat alone in the booth for what felt like more than five minutes, waiting for any penitent left to come in. I couldn’t sense any human presence roaming about the ambulatory and transepts nearby, which had me relieved. But just as I was about to open the door and make my way from my debased duties as a Reverend, I can hear someone scurrying towards the booth and entering inside.

I sighed exasperatingly and cursed under my breath, throwing my head back against the mahogany wall and sulked. Though it was strange that my heightened senses weren’t able to detect anyone outside the booth, I was feeling rather passive aggressive. Whoever this person was caught me off guard completely; it’s always been a bad habit of mine to put my pride first before anything.

“Bless me Father for I have sinned. It has been two weeks since my last confession."

That voice. That silky, radiant honey and velvety voice— You. I decided to not speak and peered through the latticed opening into the opposite side of the dark wooden compartment and see that it was really you as the penitent. My penitent. An opportunity for me to see you plead for advice and dwell in your personal relationship with your god. My disinterest may or may not have been lifted after recognizing you…

“I confess that I have been distracted from my relationship with you,” you continued bashfully. “All of my time has been taken up by school, work, the people in my life… I even encountered someone that I couldn't stop thinking about the whole night."

I shifted in my seat, the wood slightly creaking as I crossed my legs and waited for you to elaborate. My heart felt heavy with anticipation, but I still remained silent. I could see you, but you couldn’t see me. I must admit, the way you’re indirectly speaking to me right now did bring a little amusement…

“He’s… he’s a Reverend for the church that I’ve never seen before. An older man with a gravely voice and a scar on the corner of his mouth. But there was something about him that makes me feel, I don’t know— bewitched, probably? Is that the right word? Well, I couldn’t focus during the Eucharist because of my… unwanted lust for him…”

After indulging in your confessions and finally hearing your lascivious truth, what you confessed to me seemed to bewitch me as well. And I felt a growing flame of rage from allowing this to happen to me, intoxicating my inhibitions like fire to gasoline, stinging me like push pins sliding into my skin. After our unexpected encounter tonight, all you could ever think about was me, just how all I could ever think about was you.

“I always come on Sundays. But this is my first time coming to the Saturday sermon, which means I might never see him again. I ask for your forgiveness of my sins, father. I also pray for your guidance to avoid whatever leads me to sinful thoughts and temptations like this. You are my god. I would never worship another being like you. In his name, my god, have mercy.”

You left the booth shortly after that, not giving me the chance to speak at all. Surprisingly that was the first confessional where I didn't have to respond to my penitent and only remained silent. Props to you for making my job easier.

But after hearing you beg to your god to avoid the sinful thoughts of lust and covet because of me… I've never felt so captivated over this. Over a human. You were the key to my dark little fairy tale that I'm so aching to taste. A chance for a lost little lamb to experience danger, corruption… and sin.

The way you’ve been provoking me tonight has me infuriated, I admit. My ongoing battle of cunning, dark, and sinister thoughts within my conscience, where I’d be tempted to corrupt these Catholic sheeps for my own satisfaction. Now I’m the corrupted one. I hate you for that. You're so ashamed to face sin, ashamed to face me. If I am your sin, then you're my impiety; I will forever have irreverence for your god without giving a damn. And what every demon like me caters to mortals, we fulfill them until they're dripping with sin and corruption.

When I left the booth and wandered down the nave, I sat on the front pew and grunted in exhaustion. I sat there for awhile, arching my neck back against the top edge like I was floating. Manspreading, my hands slid into my pockets then halted when I felt something. Your rosary.

I scrutinized it once again. Immediately my mind is cascaded by the thought of you during communion. You looked at me like I was no stranger, drinking the sight of me instead of that holy wine. A glimpse sublime, the most hypnotically sensual thing I’ve seen in this life. So ruthless of you to do. I find myself smitten by it when I play it in my mind, sanctifying me more than any holy concept in this church. I just couldn't get enough. I just couldn't stop replaying it in my head…

I glanced down at my slacks. When you looked at me drinking that wine on your knees… Oh, I was a man gone wild. Arousal had blossomed in my pelvis like an unwanted guest. My vivid imagination of you right there, right between my legs, kissing and worshiping me like how you kiss and worship the grace of your god. The never-ending eye contact. Bestowing that sweet mouth for my cock until I fuck into your throat…

Suddenly there was a noise. A noise that sent the synapses of my brain frozen, immediately taking my hand off my slacks and darting my head to the left. A strange echo reverberated through the stair tower. I held my breath and tried to make out another sound that would come from downstairs. Such eerie sounds don't really bother me, but it made me realize I wasn't the only one here at church late at night.

At first there was a hiss-like sound— like a giant serpent slithering, or the sharp growl of a feral beast. I couldn’t tell if it was my imagination fucking with me again, but such grotesque noise made me think someone's flesh was getting torn apart, followed by a prowling snarl.

There were faint screams, similar to the faint screams of the putrid souls back in Hell. But I couldn’t exactly tell because of the incense on the altar taking over my senses. My heart rate staggered and I could feel my lungs tightening from holding my breath. I was slightly perturbed, I admit. But just as I was about to stand up and investigate, a soft-spoken voice was suddenly heard from my right side.

“Toji?”

I averted to the opposite direction as if I was pulled back into a quieter reality, seeing a brunette woman in a habit. Her pale face emanated from the dark corners, approaching closer to the pew I sat at.

"Oh. It's you." The corner of my mouth stretched to a small smile as Sister Shoko Ieiri stood nearby, shoving the pearl rosary in my pockets. "What'cha doing here so late, hm?"

"I could ask you the same thing,” Shoko taunted. "I was closing the church and then I found you here. Were you on confessional duty?"

I nodded, letting her sit beside me and sighed out of exhaustion. Something shiny from her chest caught my eye— a hematite and aurora crystal bead rosary with a sterling silver pendant. It was much larger than the wooden rosary she would usually carry around. I watched as she weakly twisted it between her fingers, her expression growing melancholic.

"Everything alright?" I spoke low, trying my best to be sympathetic for the nun. She remained inanimate for awhile, like she was lost in her own complicated thoughts.

“Well, I’ve been getting less sleep..."

"Why's that?"

“…I’ve been feeling a little sick lately.” Sister Shoko rubbed her eyes and sniffled. “I’m gonna be locking the doors now, so you coming?”

This woman was obviously lying. However, I didn't really care that much to force her to open up to me. My intentions aren’t to get too involved with humans and their problems, especially with Shoko since she has a lot weighing down on her shoulders. As merciful as I can be, I followed her and waited as she locked the church doors outside.

"Want me to walk you to your car?" I ask.

Shoko hauled the keys off the doors to the narthex, slightly turning her face to me. “Uh, sure," she vacillated, smiling weakly. "I didn't take you as that kind of guy, honestly."

I pushed my shoulder off the walls and head down to the parking lot, my hands fidgeting with your rosary in my pocket. Then I kept thinking about what I've heard at the staircase tower near the cathedral’s balcony, glancing at every corner warily. The winds were small tonight, a tranquil stillness of the dark night surrounding us both while the beams of the moon shatter the sky.

"So. How are you and Sister Utahime?" I inquired, breaking the silence and my thoughts.

The brunette nun smiled down at the gravelly pavement, softly scoffing as a shade of red glowed at her cheeks. "Ah, you know. We're doing good. Thinking about moving in together next year."

"Oh. You could've brought her with you tonight, you know."

“I know," she pouted. "But she's usually asleep at this time and I didn't want to bother her. What about you, Fushiguro?"

"Hm?"

"Do you have any girl on your mind right now?" she simpered, pretending to act like some nosy high school girl. "C'mon, you sure look like you can pull anyone."

At first, I thought she was bluffing. "Nah," I replied, clutching the crucifix of your rosary chiseled firmly and sharp to my fingertips.

We finally reached her car, waiting as she fumbled with her keys to unlock it. "You sure?" she teased. "What about that girl I saw with you earlier today for the Eucharist?"

I deadpanned. "What girl?"

Shoko's shoulders dropped in disappointment. "Are you serious? The girl that drank from your wine! I've seen the way you looked at her."

I gazed into the sky as if I was pretending to remember. "Oh. Her," I spoke slowly. "I barely even know her, Shoko."

The brunette pulled her car door open. "Well, when I saw you two, it definitely looked like more than that."

"That’s insane. All she did was take the drink, what made you come up with that?” I say sardonically.

“Oh, don’t gaslight me, Fushiguro.” I wait as she stepped inside to the driver's seat and turned on the engine. "But, I thank you for keeping me company tonight.”

I smiled weakly, disregarding everything that she just speculated. “No problem. Have a goodnight.”

“You too, Toji.”

I close the door for her and watch as the nun drives away, left alone under the pale moonlight. I turn my head at the cathedral again for awhile, scanning the east stair tower outside. If the doors were unlocked and I had the motivation to investigate where that noise came from, I would've done so already. But I decided to drop it for now…

What am I to do with a stranger like you from now on?

TAGS: @suget @azanthys @haezen @heavenlyevil @saturniac @vampnyx @killzenin @diorsbrando @endurablerose @slut-manifesto @maxytx-blog @sugucidal

ALL WORKS BELONG TO VILSOO/POISEUNS © 2023. originally published April 10, 2021. do not steal, plagiarize, or translate without permission. do not repost or share any of my works where minors have access.

[pontevoix]

curtains are drawn, & the lights are switched off. even in the dark, armin can see the way that old movie posters curl at the corners when he steps into the room, he. if armin were to guess, the posters have had residency on the walls for at least ten years. it’s a childhood bedroom that feels like a sickroom - the way that the bedding is starting to smell like sweat & salt & the way that the room feels abandoned.

as far as armin can tell, eren has sequestered himself in his room in carla's house for two weeks now. he forgets to eat, forgets to shower. carla says that she hasn't smelled tobacco or flavored smokes, so even addictive habits of comfort are cast aside. eren has never done well with nicotine cravings. it makes him restless, & armin sees none of that now.

as far as armin can tell, eren has resigned himself to playing dead. to sucking old memories out of a childhood room & imagining that he is dead, dead, dead.

it sticks stones into the pit of armin’s stomach. it sticks cotton to back of his throat. for a minute, he thinks that he can’t do this. he’s not equipped to come here, uninvited, & pretend like he’s enough to usher in reparations.

armin’s body is not his own when he steps into the sickroom, when his socked feet tread a path against scratched hardwood. he swears that he can’t do this.

the memories are still coming to him. they’re still striking lighting down his spin & making old memories a vivid thing, making them a second life.

if eren were to look at him now, he’s not sure how he could look at the scar at his neck & stand steady now that eren knows. or at least, armin presumes that he knows. he assumes that eren remembers the origins of the mark, that eren remembers that he has been capable of massive bloodshed. that he knows that he had not allowed himself to survive long enough to earn a death declared by trial & jury, knows that he had managed to wage war so terrible that he left himself standing alone & redhanded.

still. armin should have done better the first time. he should have recognized the signs before eren had devolved, before he split down the paths, & shared his voice with a cursed god. he should have negotiated better than he did, trusted eren less. in this life, he should have done better to prevent the return of memories, though the memories were always inevitable. if armin hadn’t been enough to trigger the memories, certainly someone else would have been.

eren was always going to remember. he had carried the weight of three of the nine. & he had had loved too fiercely, so there was never any chance that he would escape remembering.

armin’s feet carry him anyway as though he were walking into a confessional. he can’t do this, he thinks. this is not a holy space. it’s a sickroom, but eren has always been the center of gravity. dead or alive, he is enough to pull those around him. even in this life, armin doesn’t think he could refuse eren properly. he doesn’t think he can break orbit.

but he can at least try to do better than he did, can try to remember old strategies that he learned as commander, as a survivor of the war. this way, he can try to prevent damage before it’s happened.

his feet bring him to the bed. uninvited, he sits at the corner of the mattress. absently, he realizes that eren might mistake him for his mother - he hadn't announced himself. he’s not sure how to announce himself. saying a simple greeting like hey feels inadequate for addressing catatonia, for the type of grief that aligns with culpability.

they sit in silence for too long. eren doesn’t look at him, & armin keeps staring at curled poster corners.

but then armin’s phone dings an email notification in his pocket & gives him away. he flinches visibly, & he finds himself that he’s grateful that his expression is invisible in the dark room.

still, there is enough light creeping in from the bottom of the eren’s bedroom door & from his alarm clock that armin can see eren draw his knees closer to his chest.

‘ sorry, ‘ armin finally says as himself. his voice cracks a little — as though the silence they had shared had been enough to dry him, his voice, of his ability to speak comfortably. he tries to purse his lips into a smile that’s comforting, but it goes unseen. ‘ for intruding. your mom said it was okay, i think. she’s worried. but that’s what moms do, right ? ‘

when he’s nervous, when his voice dries out . . . he rambles. armin always remembers carla to be someone who worries for her son, for his suffering. he doesn’t really remember his own mother as ever having hovered the way that carla does. his mother is a warm presence, but she has never hovered. she has never worried. her warmth is the consistency of distance, & carla hovers in a way that she becomes warm. she is fireside on a cold night.

regardless, it’s a poor way to announce himself. armin surrenders. he sighs & surrenders & scoots himself backwards until his back is aligned with the wall. the motion makes a worn pillow squeeze into the gap between the mattress & the wall.

he sits, & eren lays defensive beside him. they sit in silence for too long. eren doesn’t look at him, & armin keeps staring at curled poster corners. he can’t do this, but he can at least try to do better than he did.

hearing his voice is enough to make eren go rigid, & armin thinks that he might startle enough to go on defense, to raise his fists — but eren regains himself & tries to fall back into catatonia. i can't really talk about it. not to you, not to anybody, eren finally says as though it will force his muscles to relax. as though it will be a convincing enough statement to make armin leave.

i can't really talk about it. not to you, not to anybody. *eren & armin ; for @chaoslulled

eren’s voice is enough to startle armin’s attention away poster corners. his gaze jumps to eren, to the base of his neck where his hair falls towards the pillow & exposes the mark of damnation & death against his his throat.

instead, he draws his knees to his chest & imagines himself small & thinks of his nausea when he remembered, when eren had shown him that portrait of the colossal titan.

he stares at the mark.

‘ i know, ‘ he concedes. it surprises him how steady his voice sounds. ‘ i think . . . you’ve felt like that before. & i’m really sorry. ‘

they sit in silence for too long. eren doesn’t look at him. armin doesn’t try to apologize for more. apologies only go so far.he doesn’t try to talk about remembering more directly than what he already says. but he stares at the mark & feels calm steal over him. he’s always been good at crisis. he’s learned to be good at crisis.

so he crosses a boundary & ignores catatonia. he presses his fingers against the base of eren’s neck, against stray strands of hair, & against the death mark. eren’s skin feels clammy. he still feels alive, even if he’s trying to imagine that he’s dead, dead, dead.

‘ you know something ? i’m really glad to see you. it makes me really glad to see you, ‘ he muses.

saying it helps. saying it settles some of the weight in the pit of his stomach. armin unravels, stretches his legs out straight. he wiggles his socked toes & settles so that he might become a fixture for as long as needed.

i can't really talk about it. not to you, not to anybody, eren said. & it’s still not enough to make armin leave.

[dog-uncrushed]

who tf do u address in these texts posts... tone more private / confessional given that ur reader is absent / general / not one person but for the same reasons ur tone is more public... so i text post when, when i dont feel as if there is any particular one that could receive my message; or at least no particular one right now, as i write. but still i have something to say and a weight on my chest that i can divest, dislocate by writing; by a writing that is a guérison, that alleviates and assures. that tells one that one is not mad.

Derrida says that the sentence is in essence normal; normativity is built into it, whereas madness is silence. Madness is the silence that surrounds each sentence; it is the sentence's envelope; normality is enveloped by madness. that was clear to me last night / early this morning. I was largely silent; others as well. and whoever talked was normal and trying to talk was an attempt to be normal. but for me, then and there, it was a failing task. I was better silent. As were others. and there were bonds in our mutual silence; but fraught bonds, glimpses of bonds given that they were bonds that could not broach the silence which was their medium and thus they were denied the utterance which would officiate those bonds as bonds as such. One can make no promises in silence, except perhaps one can promise through silence to remain silent; but this is a promise one must always break. Perhaps Lee Lozano was able to accomplish something like this (she gave up talking to women). In silence one can of course bond, or here it would be better to say bind, with touch; an embrace can promise silently. Yet such acts are public to a fault; they ask to be hidden. We go into bedrooms and close doors, shut blinds. Their act testifies to something; to a bond or better to a binding that is not yet a bond, that could become a bond provided something was said, that a bond was brokered by words. What does a kiss officiate? We all of us very often lie with a kiss. We are forced to kiss (mainly cheeks). Judas of course, lied with a kiss.

But now I have digressed too far; what I want to write –– what I want to recollect -- is catching the face of E. with a throw of my eyes. He was obscure in the dullness of an audience; which is to say he was at that moment an auditor, like most of us were, to what was more or less a dialogue between two, a dialogue that gave the room its orientation; a verbal volley across a north-western diagonal, around which we, the audience, were the oval perimeter. An uncanny dyad of speakers (two gingers) occupied the two poles of that oval. I threw my eyes across the circumference of that oval and caught E. almost as if he was outside himself, or at least outside the confines of that room and that context. He was in a word lost to mad silence. And it was this mad silence that was in a flash vanished by a quickening of his eyes, a quickening which was the echo of my darting glance. It was the quickening of a fright that had forgotten what it was to be seen, that equally had forgotten what it was to see. This fright restored, to the face which had been the place of that now vanished silence, a mask. The mask that restores to one the false frame of normality behind which what one is (madness) disappears. This mask is in turn a shelter which invites a new silence to take off behind the mask. The mask thus, in its welcoming of silence, gives birth again to the madness against which it is originally constituted.

That momentary ocular skirmish, which no doubt brought some minimum of shame to E. (quite without my intending), was enough in the end to bring E. to speech. It was enough to prompt him, however indirectly, to muster the courage to speak, which in this moment must have become urgent for him. To speak was now for him a way to provide counter-testimony to what the throw of my eyes had briefly and irrefutably captured: that he for a moment had lost all power; that he was briefly lost to the depth of a mad silence. The urgency which called him to make this testimony we must regard as unequivocally false. It was the startled urgency of an Ego that had just now caught itself sleeping on the job. A reflexive jolt of repression reawakened it from the torpid silence it was just lost to. The Ego’s attempt to testify against its madness, is as a sign of the madness which preceded it, pathetically but another of madness’s continuations.

Another is different in her silence. She is quite exemplary in her silence. In fear of praising her, I will say nothing else

[tdvotes]

Counting the Votes, s1e21

Welcome back to... Total! Drama! Counting... the Votes! Today you will undergo a Trial by Tri-Armed Triathlon! This episode was chock full of inconsistencies and general weirdness when compared to the rest of the season, so let's try to wade through it all together.

Invincibility: None

Received a marshmallow: Leshawna, Duncan, Heather, Owen

Final marshmallow: Gwen

Eliminated: Geoff

Who voted for who and why? This was one of those votes that was based on the assumption that the final episode would come down to a vote. We're going to go through each camper and figure out how they voted.

Leshawna: "I ain't gonna front. I knew that if it came down to a popularity contest, I was gonna lose big time. I had to vote off Heather." That makes absolutely zero sense. First of all, in the very next episode, it did come down to a popularity contest and Leshawna lost big time... by winning big time. And second, if she did think it was going to come down to a popularity contest, why would she vote off the least popular camper on the island? How this confessional slipped through the cracks is beyond me. My best guess is that the writers reviewed it when they were still making Camp TV (the original name for the show) and Gwen was still going to be called Heather. But even that doesn't make sense because a) they are best friends on the island and b) we find out later that nobody was worried about Gwen winning a popularity contest.

As I was writing this post, I came up with an alternate theory: if Leshawna actually thought she was that unpopular, then maybe she thought "If I vote off the person everybody hates, then that might make me slightly more popular." Or maybe she thought "I'm gonna lose a vote anyway, so I might as well vote off the person who's causing me the most grief." Again, both of these hinge on the assumption that she was, in fact, as unpopular as she said.

Duncan: "You made a big mistake a few weeks ago, and I have a looooong memory." Unclear whether he's talking about the Brunch of Disgustingness (when Geoff made Bridgette feel better about eating the "meatballs") or Hide and Be Sneaky (when Geoff failed to help the guys vote off Bridgette). Probably the latter. In either case, he voted for Geoff.

Heather: "I'd have to be an idiot to vote off anyone else at this point. No hard feelings. It's just strategy." Obviously she is referring to Geoff because he is the nicest and most well-liked person on the island.

Owen: After Geoff was eliminated he said, "As if Heather could defeat nice" so he obviously voted Geoff as well.

Gwen: Probably voted for Heather for no other reason than their rivalry.

Geoff: No idea. He spent the episode bonding with Gwen, so obviously not her. He already liked the other guys, so probably not them. Not Heather since that would create a tie. But that only leaves Leshawna, and I seriously doubt he would vote for her.

Maybe I'll go back to the previous episode to explain this: Geoff had stated in the beginning of that one that he didn't like Gwen and Duncan as much because they were serious all the time. So maybe he voted for Duncan just because of that. I don't know, I'm spitballing here.

My final guess: 3 votes for Geoff, 2 for Heather, 1 for Duncan

But as always, these are just my thoughts and I want to hear yours! Could you make heads or tails out of what Leshawna said? What was Geoff's "big mistake"? Who did Leshawna and Geoff vote for? Leave your theories in the comments below.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Morgan Jerkins at Mother Jones:

Last year, despite minding other people’s business online, I didn’t know what a “trad wife” was. Now it seems like every time I log in to Instagram or TikTok, there is another video of a beautiful woman cleaning her home or making an extraordinarily long and needlessly difficult meal. These trad wives, short for traditional wives, are women who post online content showing themselves adhering to patriarchal gender roles while keeping house and raising children—and making it look easy.

[...] I wanted nothing to do with her or any self-identifying trad wife in my own small piece of digital real estate, but their immense popularity (and algorithmic dexterity) had allowed them to trespass, and I find myself unable to turn away. Chances are, neither can you. But while it might be easy to write off the trad wives as a silly meme or a guilty pleasure, they should not be taken lightly. Given the misogynistic messaging and white-centric ideals some of these influencers peddle, they are indicative of larger forces at play—henchwomen in an ongoing effort to functionally erase modern women from the public sphere.

To fully understand the rise of the trad wife phenomenon, it helps to look at its origins. In some ways, trad wives resemble the mommy bloggers of the mid-aughts to early 2010s. Back then, momfluencers like Dooce’s Heather Armstrong and Catherine Connors of Her Bad Mother commanded massive audiences through confessional posts about breast pumps and postpartum depression. As writer Kathryn Jezer-Morton pointed out in a 2020 New York Times piece, mommy branding was different back then: These bloggers were messy; they did not hold back in revealing all of the stickiness and ugliness in their matrescence. But then the vibe shifted. In 2016 and 2017, when Seyward Darby was doing research for her 2020 book, Sisters in Hate: American Women on the Front Lines of White Nationalism, she noticed an ominous subculture gaining prominence, one in which women were performing this highly curated image of wife- and motherhood. “It was aggressively anti-feminist, anti-diversity; some of it was proudly pro-white,” Darby says. Trump’s rise helped give these women a larger megaphone.

Of course, many influencers bragging about being stay-at-home moms are not white supremacists, but, as Darby points out, “it is a slippery slope—and sometimes there’s no slope at all—between ‘I’m just a nice woman who wants to be a wife and mom’ and having a very white nationalist agenda. Whether they realize it or not, those are the waters they are swimming in.” Watching trad wife content can pull viewers into territory they didn’t expect. “What’s scary is that there is a subtext in all these videos,” Washington Post tech columnist Taylor Lorenz tells me. For example, a trad wife might advocate for “natural living” or homeschooling, and then veer into anti–birth control rhetoric or religious indoctrination. “When you engage with these videos, because they are so adjacent to fascist, far-right content, you are quickly led down a rabbit hole of ­extremism.”

Not all trad wives have direct links to the far right. But what unites them is a romanticized vision of domesticity, or, as Darby calls it, “June Cleaver 1950s cosplaying.” As self-proclaimed trad wife Estee Williams, who rejects any associations with white supremacy, declared in a 2022 TikTok video, “We believe our purpose is to be homemakers.” It’s not simply about looking pretty. Their aestheticizing of housework is a throwback to the mid-20th century, when women weren’t even allowed to get a credit card or a loan. Publications such as Ladies’ Home Journal were responsible for promoting a certain kind of wife as a way to reestablish social order after World War II, when many women had entered the labor force. As Ann Oakley puts it in her 1974 book, Housewife, “a good wife, a good mother, and an efficient ­homemaker­…Women’s expected role in society is to strive after perfection in all three roles.” Most trad wife content is marked with this desire for perfection.

[...]

So why are many millennial and Gen Z women an eager part of the trad wife audience? Here’s my theory: We’ve given up. The popularity of the trad wife content is demonstrative of a psychological resignation. In the past several years, we’ve experienced a pandemic, the fall of Roe v. Wade, and the end of the Girlboss­­ Era. The rise of the trad wives marks what Samhita Mukhopadhyay, author of the 2024 book The Myth of Making It: A Workplace Reckoning, believes is “a response to the failures of a neoliberal workplace feminism” stretching from the 1960s to the present day—one that focuses on individuality. “What women fought for was an entry into the workplace,”­ Mukhopadhyay explains, but “being a mother in the workplace was almost untenable.” Even after decades of supposed progress, she points out, “we’re still not paid equally, and most women still don’t have resources commensurate with how hard they work and how they contribute to their families.” According to a 2023 report from the liberal research and advocacy organization the Center for American Progress, women were 5 to 8 times more likely than men to work part time or not at all because of caregiving responsibilities. Maya Kosoff, a content strategist and writer who admits to me that she has become obsessed with trad wives herself, says their popularity is “a reaction to perceived systemic failures” that seem like they “can be easily solved by turning to the simpler life of homesteading.”

And look, escapism isn’t anything new. When life gets harder, it’s only natural that one would daydream about a different time. But fantasies are dangerous when the stakes are so high for American women right now. We have only started to feel the effects of the Dobbs decision. “We have not seen how bad it’s going to get as women are pushed out of public life over the coming years,” journalist and MeToo activist Moira Donegan tells me. “Our main educational institutions, our workplaces, our elected officials are going to start to look more male.” Sociologist Tressie McMillan Cottom similarly argues that attacks on reproductive rights represent an erosion of women’s place in a democracy. “Women only get to be full citizens if they have control over when and how they have babies,” she says. “When that changes, your citizenship becomes vulnerable, so you attach yourself to a citizen: men. I think this reclaiming of being the traditional wife is here so long as there’s a threat.”

Mother Jones does a solid report on the explosion of tradwife culture in the wake of the Dobbs decision, in which abortion bans serve as a tool to drive women out of the workforce.

Tradwife influencers romanticize the 1950s aesthetic, and most of them tend to have far-right political views (especially on gender roles).

Read the full story at Mother Jones.

[whichuniverseisthis]

Someday soon I'll stop talking about the reboot and taking a cartoon character way too seriously, but today is not that day. Long post below.

Can we please talk about the fact that Bowie's character development consisted of him acting more and more like a villain throughout the season, and that's why he was constantly paired up with Julia, especially after the merge?

Eliminating Caleb first was a strategic play, but one that helped everyone, and not just himself. In episode 3 he probably tried to vote off MK because she wasn't a team player, not for the confessionals, he still didn't know about those in that moment. In episode 6 he threw Julia's phone in the lake to avoid giving her (or MK if she didn't get out) an unfair advantage over everyone else.

But after Wayne and Raj left, he started antagonizing Julia more and more (wouldn't be surprised if it was because he wanted her out over them). In episode 9 he literally stated how he was "done playing nice" while fighting her.

And then, in episode 10 he found Millie's notebook, but he didn't use it until the semifinal.

It wouldn't surprise me if his original plan was to use it to get himself and Emma to the final, either exposing it before the votes to separate Millie and Priya, or right after if Julia didn't get immunity and they could vote her off, but then Emma turned on him, and that was the moment he decided to play for himself only. He willingly postponed his plan to eliminate both Emma and Julia before getting into action.

He even accepted Julia saying they BOTH were villains, and acted as such right against her after "being nice" for most of the season.

[And on that point, people say Julia was dumb to trust him not to vote her off, but she literally had no choice, since Priya and Millie already rejected her and she didn't manage to win immunity. What else could she do beside hoping for a vote not against her?]

The difference between the two of them is that Julia embraced it from the moment she was exposed, while Bowie had to lose all of his closest allies/friends and get exposed to Julia for a long time before accepting it.

Edit to add a couple of details:

-In episode 9 throwing Zee in the honey was the first fully villainous thing he did, and obviously he did it together with Julia.

-In episode 12 Priya and Millie wore hero costumes during the challenge, contrasting Bowie and Julia who were wearing their normal clothes because being villains was their second nature by then ("We're the villains. We're created by nature, for balance.")

-Also in the same episode, the line where Bowie notices how much Millie likes taking notes always gives me the chills. Because Bowie and Emma always said everything they thought to each other's faces, and the moment they didn't they fell apart, while Millie spent most of the season talking behind Priya's back and only realized way later how bad she'd been acting. And that's why Bowie wasn't apologetic at all when exposing the notebook and tearing off the last page, the "not said".

Bowie can become such an interesting character if one looks at his smaller actions throughout the season. People that say he has no character beside "being gay" are so annoying, ugh. Just enjoy the damned show and have fun already.

[tylerqzy]

'victim 1: alejandro burromuerto'

'discovered by: tyler kenard'

‘cause of death: Alejandro hung himself from the support beam in the confessional, by a rope that could be found in the fishing closet down at the beach. but not only was he killed by that, alejandro also had much head trauma as well burn scars from an unknown incident.'

'details: Alejandro’s eyes were burned from his skull, burn marks and damage was done to his hands up to his elbow, his eyes and parts of his face. his hair was oddly cut, almost into a messy like mullet, but it looked tore out, as well thin. due to the stress put on him from this odd possession he began loosing hair. underneath his hanging body, was that statue. the confessionals will no longer be in use, the statue will remain there; alejandro’s body was buried and marked next to the confessional.'

i had this idea, yk abt those “Mlp aus” ? well i had an idea with total drama about it, with some inspiration by a game “possesor”. this series thought would be called possessed, basically what happened was after years of total drama cast being down, chris decided to host one once again for the original cast (including seirra and alejandro). they at this point we’re all adults, and they were still, aiming for money, but there was this odd mystery going on at the island as of recently. the cursed statue from bone island was mysteriously found in an ash pit where the fires would be held, at the voting off site. the one who found it was alejandro, he decided that he’d take it back to chris but… something happened. alejandro began to behave weirdly, he was always cold, his eyes darkened with colour, bags under his eyes worsened, his teeth almost, grew, his hair nappy and he became a whole different person. alejandro became obsessed with the statue and was driven insane. one day alejandro just… vanished without a trace, they all, worried for his health went looking for him, and poor tyler.. ended up finding him. hanging from the support beam in the confessional.

[wavernot4love]

some The Jaws Of Life takes, now that the album has collectively sunk in for me a bit more, from the perspective of a PTV fan of nine years:

- gonna be bold and say in its own way, this album gives me the most a flair for the dramatic vibes of anything they've released since, ESPECIALLY flawless execution

- emergency contact feels somewhere in between flair and selfish machines, with a modern twist. even lyrically it reminds me of some strange little track that might be in the middle of selfish machines.

- i also saw someone say, before i listened to the album, that it in a sense feels like floral & fading embodied by an album. and in hindsight, i can understand that. i think based on misadventures + things the band has said about this album's direction, people should go in expecting a take on ptv comparable to moments like that, which also manage to encapsulate the past. i will say it reminds me of collide with the sky the least of all the albums, instead choosing to recall ptv's origins, further develop, yet also reinvent, the direction of misadventures, and chase the future of the band.

- and if you want to go HARD to a song? well, you've got the moment that introduced us all to this era, pass the nirvana. truly a track that pushed the boundaries of what ptv's "heavy" side can mean, in my opinion.

- flair and selfish machines were truly NOT *excessively* heavy albums and i wish people would consider that more. did they have their moments? absolutely. but, in fact, that dreamy, confessional, brooding, sort of far out vibe (and take on post hardcore) those albums have most of the time has always been, to me, the quintessential aspect of ptv, and my personal favorite. and the reason selfish machines is my favorite album. and that element is very much there on jaws, just translated more into this evolved sound. to clarify, i'm talking moments like these few

and for me, that's why a massive, yet atmospheric track like even when i'm not with you (+ its counterpart, resilience) feels just right in pierce the veil's discography.

- and then there's moments (like the title track, which initially had me going from "wait, is this a semblance of selfish machines? no, that's not quite right... i don't think i've heard this from them before", or so far so fake's infectiously melodic hooks) that i can't specifically trace back to a specific era, yet feel so unequivocally ptv.

what i'm trying to say, essentially, is that ethos that makes ptv the incredibly unique, somewhat twisted, deeply emotional entity it always has been is abundantly and familiarly there, it just presents itself in a refreshing way.

this is not collide with the sky 2.0. and that, it shouldn't be.

i could talk about pierce the veil forever, man. such an original goddamn band, historically such a unique spin on post hardcore that i've never seen another band quite capture + an ability to go beyond defined genre limitations, one of the bands that made me love music in the first place nine years ago. feel free to share your takes <3

[litteratured]

John Giorno Interview: Inside William S. Burroughs' Bunker

Step inside ‘The Bunker’ in New York, the windowless former apartment of the legendary writer William S. Burroughs, and let yourself be guided around – from Burroughs’ typewriter to his shooting target – by its the current resident, the iconic poet John Giorno (b.1936 - d.2019). William S. Burroughs lived several places throughout his life. Between 1975-82 the drug addict and writer –famous not least for his automatic writing in books like ‘Naked Lunch’– lived in 222 Bowery, one of New York’s first YMCAs in the 1880s. Performance poet John Giorno has lived at the address since the early 1960s and was delighted to host his friend and colleague, who lived in the basement for seven years and dubbed the windowless space ‘The Bunker’. “ He was a brilliant transcendent writer, but he was more brilliant here,” Giorno recalls and explains how Burroughs was high from nine in the morning, and then would have vodkas and joints at five o’clock in the afternoon. Giorno himself would join him, albeit a bit later in the day: “Doing that for those endless years and years, that was a lesson – not sure what the lesson is though.” Having downed several more bottles of vodka and smoked more joints, Burroughs and his guests would shoot at the target poster, which still has its original bullet holes. John Giorno has been using ‘The Bunker’ as a guest room for visiting friends and today everything has been restored and kept like it was when Burroughs lived there: the target poster, the typewriter, the gun magazines and the desk all set for someone to sit down and write. We also get to see the ‘Orgone box’ – a box invented by psychoanalyst William Reich, who believed that orgones are vibratory atmospheric atoms of the life-principle, which can be concentrated as a creative substratum. “And if you sat in there you would collect orgone energy of the universal power,” Giorno adds. Burroughs “always believed there could be chaos and catastrophe, so every house should have a vessel to be able to save enough water to live for four days. So that’s why that was there,” says Giorno about the big water tank on the floor. Giorno also shows us Burroughs’ lamp, which is made from a – still functioning – rifle from the Civil War, as well as his BB gun: “It's a generational thing of his, coming of age as a young person in the 1920s and 30s, living in the country in St. Louis, and also outside, and being alone and being frail. I don't think his family were shooters, somehow it entered his life, all of those things.” John Giorno (b.1936 - d.2019) is an American poet and one of the most influential figures in contemporary performance poetry with his intensely rhythmic and philosophical poetry. He has published a wide range of poetic works such as the collection ‘You Got to Burn to Shine’, spoken words with William S. Burroughs and Laurie Anderson. In 1962, Giorno was the subject of Andy Warhol’s 6-hour movie ‘Sleep’. Giorno has also created Giorno Poetry Systems, which has published more than 40 spoken LP’s with acclaimed artists such as Allen Ginsberg and Patti Smith. William S. Burroughs (b. William Seward Burroughs II in 1914 – d. 1997) was an American writer and artist. He was a primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major influence in popular culture and literature, he wrote eighteen novels and novellas, six collections of short stories and four collections of essays, found success with his confessional first novel ‘Junkie’ (1953) but is best known for his highly controversial third novel ‘Naked Lunch’ (1959).  Along with artist, writer and poet Brion Gysin, Burroughs re-invented the literary cut-up technique in works such as ‘The Nova Trilogy’ (1961-1964). Much of Burroughs’ work is semi-autobiographical, primarily drawn from his experiences as a heroin addict. In 1951, he accidentally killed his wife Joan Vollmer with a pistol during a drunken ‘William Tell’ game and was consequently convicted of manslaughter. Through the years, Burroughs also created and exhibited thousands of paintings and other visual artworks, including his celebrated ‘Gunshot Paintings’. He did not, however, exhibit his artwork until 1987, and for last 10 years of his life, he presented his paintings and drawings at museums and galleries worldwide. He died at his home in Kansas after suffering a heart attack in 1997. John Giorno was interviewed by Christian Lund in New York City in October 2017.  Copyright: Louisiana Channel, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2018

[cartograffiti]

February '24 reading diary

I finished 19 books in February, which sounded like a mistake until I realized I read most of them as audiobooks while doing manual tasks. It's always nice when my ears are on my side (says someone with a hearing disorder).

I like poetry, but I don't read enough to feel knowledgeable about it. I've been trying to read a bit from various countries, and after I enjoyed the Pablo Neruda collection so much in January, I went on to read three other poetry books.

Khalil Gibran's The Prophet is one of those works that I've seen quoted out of context so much that I was shocked to discover I didn't actually know what it's about. It's a series of prose poetry fables with a linking plot in which the titular prophet converses with the people of a city he is departing about different aspects of life. A lot of it is really beautiful and thought-provoking, and I thought it was great. It's become a popular source of quotes for weddings and inspirational goods, but I was surprised and moved to find it's also a text about multi-faith unity; Gibran was Lebanese, and Lebanon had and has striking diversity of religions.

I also really enjoyed The Poetess Counts to 100 and Bows Out, a collection by the important Venezuelan poet Ana Enriqueta Terán. I find her wordplay unusual and her subjects interesting, and even in translation, I found her work to give a powerful sense of humor and hopefulness, and a gift for creating a scene.

I did not enjoy Rupi Kaur's Milk and Honey. Kaur is one of the most famous living poets, and I had read so much praise and disdain for her work that I wanted to form my own opinion. There are turns of phrase I really liked, and it is laid out in an interesting way that means some related poems could be read either distinctly or as sections of a longer thought, which I found neat. But I found myself so grumpy the more I read of it that I ended up also reading a lot about Kaur and other people's analysis of her work, trying to contextualize why I bounced so hard off it. Many critics wrote about trying to separate her style from her content, and chose to praise just one or the other, but I am critical of both. Her style lacks personality that would tell me it was her work as opposed to any other poet's, and her content is full of basic, played-out sentiments of popular feminism and bathetic viral posts. Being reminded of "take me to a museum and then make out with me," "but they said not to touch the masterpieces," is not what I'd hoped for out of this. I do think it's a good thing and a strength of Kaur's that she is able to speak to so many people's common experiences through her clarity and intimate tone; it's a shame it didn't click with me. And unlike several professional opinions I read, I think she's completely entitled to write poetry that is not all self-revealing confessional pieces; that should not be something we demand of any art form. But it's a shame some of her verses suggest that certain kinds of shame and violence are a collective and integral part of womanhood and South Asian identity. She's only a little older than I am, and we were both students when she wrote these. I wonder whether her recent work is more sophisticated. I'm not motivated to find out.

The title of the Kaur book reminded me of some enthusiastic praise I'd read for Mary Robinette Kowal's Regency fantasy romance Shades of Milk and Honey, and I found that disappointing, too. I almost liked it; there's some great bits about making art with magic, and it's a good little world. The most interesting character doesn't get enough page time, a lot of secondary characters feel like flat loans from Austen, and the late-book resolution was forced and rushed.

In the Emelan group read, we finished! We read Melting Stones, an Evvy-centered book that I really enjoyed until it became repetitive in the second half, and feel pretty mild about, and The Will of the Empress, reuniting all the original kids as older teens, which I thought was just great. Pierce in top form, and one of the best of this setting.

Lois McMaster Bujold has a new Penric & Desdemona novella out that I haven't been able to borrow yet, but in the meantime I discovered there was one I missed. Penric is a physician mage devoted to an unusual god, which means he's benignly possessed by his demon friend Desdemona, and they have adventures and solve mysteries. This one was Knot of Shadows, about a puzzling corpse and curses. Great fun. Don't start here.

In the land of romance, I've been really enjoying Mimi Matthews's Belles of London series, about a friend group of interesting Victorian horse girls, so I read The Lily of Ludgate Hill as soon as I could. These are no-sex but sexy books with a lot of skill. I've been easily invested in each couple so far, the friends are well integrated into each other's lives even after resolving their own storylines, and their new beaus are introduced smoothly. More than that, there is a lot of consideration for the social issues and new ideas of the period. My favorite is still the first, but Anne and Felix have a strong second chance romance backstory and they're fun to see squabble and cooperate.

More romance: I finished another Gail Carriger novella, this time Defy or Defend. Dimity Plumleigh-Teignmott in the Finishing School series was only learning to be a spy because her evil genius parents wanted it. Her actual dream was to marry a nice politician of not too much importance and be a domestic goddess and social power. Now an adult working for the government, her professional partner is also her perfect man, and she hopes he'll admit to mutual feelings while they're on a mission to rescue a vampire hive from dangerous disintegration. It's very much a Cold Comfort Farm or The Grand Sophy plot of a cheerful girl solving everyone's problems, which is perfect for Dimity: I love her and I love this premise. Felix's internal conflict is a bit of a nonentity, but I don't care, he's too busy adoring Dimity and taking the trans vampire to buy new clothes.

And the last romance for the month, The Companion by E.E. Ottoman. An extraordinarily efficient novella about Madeline, a writer whose spirit has been crushed by trying to break into the industry in NYC in the 1940s. A friend arranges for her to go stay with Victor, a successful author lonely in a too-big inherited house upstate. She is quickly attracted to both him and his artist neighbor Audrey, and they adore her. All three are trans, and the core of the plot is Madeline navigating these new relationships while settling into the unfamiliar safety and encouragement offered to her. In Madeline's POV, Ottoman very much treats the poly triangle as two distinct romances and a third observed at a close distance, which means doing about 2.5 times the work of most. I went wild for the execution, which felt like magic. You do have to like reading about people trying to write and cooking, which fortunately I do. Highly recommended.

A very different book about a writer that I was impressed with this month is Malice by Higashino Keigo. In translation, this is the "first" of a longer detective series that I can't remember where I heard about. That was to my advantage, because I wasn't primed for the premise, alternating between the deductions of Detective Kaga and witness statements. It quickly becomes apparent who did it, fitting best into the why-dunnit class, and using my expectations as a mystery fan against me. Higashino does not idly use an author as one of the POV characters; his profession creates a surprise that taught me something about how writing works mechanically. Very cool.

Also a book about books: Sunyi Dean's The Book Eaters. My oldest friend and I both listened to this as the audiobook wonderfully read by Katie Erich, and we both complained that the interview in the bonus material killed a little of the mystery for us. Despite that, we loved the main character, Devon, and it's full of interesting ideas. It's about a group of families who eat information instead of food. It's about...fairy tales and it has a unique form of dragon and vampire myths and a slow-burn escape from Christian cults. It's about figuring out you're gay when you're already a parent. It's weird and fascinating and upsetting. I think Dean made very smart choices about when to reveal information through flashbacks, and I think Dean sometimes over-explains things to the reader in the narration that would have been stronger if I was left to interpret them myself. L and I both think we'd be interested in another Sunyi Dean book, but not a sequel to this one. It is a complete concept.

I feel that way about Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon by Wole Talabi, too. This one is a fantasy heist with lots of backstory starring Shigidi, who is a kind of minor nightmare god, and Nnemoa, who is a kind of succubus. They have gone freelance, breaking from the corporation of Orisha and taking their own jobs through the living and spirit worlds. I particularly like Nnemoa's backstory chapters and the heist, but Aleister Crowley is involved for some reason and much less repulsive than in real life, and I was disappointed the heist is a pretty brief element. I'd like to read another Talabi book, though, and this was the first adult book I've read that features the orishas of the Yoruba religion which have been a welcome part of several recent YA fantasy books.

The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water is not the Zen Cho book I thought it was when I checked it out, but I'm glad to have read it. It's a wuxia novella about a nun and some bandits involved in rebellion, told with a lot of humor and thoughtfulness about the role of holy objects through the POV of a trans bandit with his own history with the nun's order. I love Cho's style!

That was a one-sitting project audiobook, as was a full-cast play recording of The Importance of Being Earnest. This is a sensational play that I had put off reading because I thought it had probably been overhyped. It hadn't. This is the source of a lot of Oscar Wilde's best quotes, and it's a jewel of drawing-room comedy and dialogue that operates on multiple levels of significance. I'm glad I happened to listen to actors doing it, which I wasn't expecting when I tapped on the first audiobook that came up.

More old books: I found an Agatha Christie mystery I didn't like! How sad! This was The Big Four, a series of spy short stories starring Hercule Poirot and Captain Hastings, compiled together into a loose novel. The effect is somewhat disjointed, and not every story shows her ingenuity. It's full of 20th century political paranoia of conspiracies and spies, with anti-Asian racism and antisemitic tropes I can often count on Christie to avoid or subvert.

And Steppenwolf, by Herman Hesse, which is a very strange and influential work of literary fiction about a man who believes--not to minimize it by putting it this way--that he has a secret wolf-self inside him, much like certain middle schoolers of my acquaintance. The edition I listened to opens with a letter from Hesse in which he remarks that this book is frequently misunderstood, which I will admit put my back up. Maybe there's stuff in your book you didn't intend, Herman! I enjoyed its vagueness, I adored the complexity embodied by Harry Haller's friend/alter-ego/mother/girlfriend/boyfriend Hermine, and I got a lot out of reading literary analysis that gave me better context for the transmigration of souls and Jungian theory. It also suffers from didactic passages, racism and antisemitism, and dogmatism about artistic quality. Very worth reading, difficult to say whether I "liked" the book.

Carrying on with Dorothy Dunnett's Lymond books, I went straight from GK into Queens' Play, which I loved every moment of. It's easier to read than the first book, as she pulled back on stylized spellings and puzzling quotations, without losing any sparkle or punch. It's sooo fun. It's sooo distressing. Spies! Plots! Assassins! Disguises! Escapes! Messy bisexuals! I told my Lymond friends this book was funnier, but that feels like the wrong word for some of the things that happen in it. Giggling and kicking my feet and crying.

And a book I am very solidly neutral on: The City Beautiful by Aden Polydoros, full of vibrant personality and a great premise, but the plot gets in its own way in complexity and the pacing was a real struggle for my taste. The core cast is really strongly varied Jewish immigrant characters in Chicago in the 1890s, some teens have been murdered, there's a dybbuk, and gay kissing. I think I would have enjoyed it more when I was a teen; some YA takes me that way.